My Account
By Judy Waters, Warkworth & District Museum
In January, 1930, Richard Scobie was appointed to teach at Lower Matakana (Sandspit) school. More than 50 years later he recorded some of his memories. His first impression of his new charge was one of isolation. Mail day was once a week and the only access from the north was by a swing bridge which was not always in the best of repair.
Each morning, he rowed the children of several families to school. If the tide was high they were delivered close to the classroom but a low tide meant a walk along the beach. His greatest fear was that some keen fisherman would borrow his boat and he would be left with no way of returning his pupils to their homes.
Having sole charge of the school presented many challenges with the most pressing being an infestation of fleas. On a certain Friday, the children were instructed to bring buckets and brushes to school. The morning was occupied clearing rubbish from under the building and then a mixture of saltwater dip was used to flood the floor. Buckets of the mixture were thrown underneath as well and then it was left over the weekend.
When the front porch collapsed the bigger boys were put to work fashioning new piles from manuka. The floor was lifted with long levers one side at a time and the new blocks fitted into place to last many a day. As the first winter approached, Mr Scobie told the children he knew of a chemical soot remover called Imp that would clean the brick chimney. After several failed attempts and a fresh supply of Imps, there was a rushing sound and, amid squeals of delight, the accumulated soot of ages fell down putting out the fire, filling the room with a dark cloud and spreading all over the floor. The surroundings of the school provided an ideal setting to extend lessons outdoors and, as well as physical exercise, encouragement was given to observe the bird life. The recordings made by the children of species and numbers were later passed on to ornithologists studying the migration of native birds from Little Barrier.
In 1936, the road finally came to Lower Matakana and the school was closed. Mr Jones conveyed the children by bus to Warkworth school. He was appointed educational officer at the Auckland War Memorial Museum and for many years was in charge of arranging visits to the museum by school classes from city and country schools. As a child of the 1940s, I know how memorable those visits were.
As for the school building, it still stands and remains one of the few of that era to survive. Its age is uncertain but it is known to have been moved to the site in the 1870s when formal schooling in the area commenced.
Researched from Recollections of Richard Scobie 1930-32. Papers Past
