Room 23 Queenspark School Blog

At the end of Term 2, the 5/6 syndicate went to the Ferrymead 100 year ago place. We had to dress up like maids and slaves-  Room 23 totally looked old fashioned. Some of us were nervous for the school house rotation because when we arrived at the set, we heard whips/canes banging down on the desks. We learnt about Land Girls and Manpower, but you'll have to read our Information Report for more details. Room 23 visited the housework rotation next. She was a nice lady. She said, "Have you guys just been to the school house? You look a bit nervous!" Enjoy!

War Life in New Zealand 100 Years Ago.

It was hard to live 100 years ago when the men were away at war.  People’s lives changed forever.

While the men were away at war the women had to run the homes. One of the daily chores was to wash the clothes in soapy clean water and scrub the clothes against a scrub board and a soap cage. Afterwards, they would wring the water out and put it through the mangle. After that, they would hang the washing on the prop washing  line to dry. When the clothes were dry they needed to be ironed with a hot stone iron that had been sitting on a hot stove for a few hours. The heavy irons were heaved onto the ironing board, and the woman would pull the iron across the clothing  so that all the wrinkles would disappear, and lastly the woman would fold all the washing up and put it away.

There were a lot more chores than just the washing eg:bandage rolling,cooking, making beds, cleaning the fire cooker out, cleaning the top of the stove, vacuuming with an old fashion vacuum, dusting the pictures and sweeping the leaves from the path.

During the war the roles of women changed.  Woman started doing the men's jobs. While all the men were away at war there was nobody to work the land or do the farming so girls were taught new jobs.The girls of the land army looked after animals, ploughed the fields. They dug up potatoes and they dug for 48hrs a week in the winter and dug for 50hrs a week in the summer. In order to grow more food. The government set up the land girls army on June in year 1939. All help was needed on the farms.

   

During the war, a lot of food was sent to the soldiers so in NZ there was limited supplies of lots of things like butter, sugar, eggs, flour, meat, clothing and petrol. The government decided to ration the food so it wouldn’t run out of stock. They would have to have a coupon book and take a coupon to the grocery store and people would only get a certain allocation of food.  If you wanted more you or something else you would have to wait or make it yourself.  You could get coupons from friends, but they would have to go without.  So some people traded coupons.

Life at school was different to the present day. The equipment like pens was different.  They had quill pens and ink and slate boards and chalk.  The male teachers had to go to war so only older men could be teachers and women had to be teachers.  They were in short supply so they had to cram lots of kids into the same classroom.  Children would have half a field for girls and half a field for boys.  They play pretend war games.  The children had to practise air raid drills and dig out trenches.  Some children would copy soldiers and smoke! In classrooms, they had hoses to bite on in case a bomb went off.  This would stop their teeth from breaking.

Life during the war was very difficult and challenging.

By Daniel K, Anneliese, Ryan and Holly