Text: John McGregor
Images: Heathfield High School, speedwayandroadracehistory.com
In the mid to late 1950s, students in Crafers, Stirling, Aldgate and surrounding areas who wanted to study at secondary level at a public school, had one of several options.
These were: travel by train to Unley High or Goodwood Boys Tech, or travel on a city-bound bus to Urrbrae or Adelaide High, or travel by government supplied buses to either Mt Barker High or Oakbank Area School.
My parents decided that I should go to Mt Barker, and this entailed first catching a Choat’s bus to Aldgate (for 1 shilling a week) and then the free Johnson’s bus which started from Mylor and wound its way through Aldgate, Bridgewater, Verdun and Hahndorf.
From the mid 1950s the move to have a more local secondary school gathered momentum, and it was also a political issue. The Premier, Tom Playford, favoured a site somewhere in the Piccadilly area, which was in his electorate, Gumeracha, whereas most of the catchment was in the electorate of Onkaparinga, represented by Mr. H Shannon. A committee comprising representatives from local Primary Schools was set up, and it came up with a recommendation that land at Heathfield be used.
The inevitable for and against arguments were trotted out, and a public meeting was held in the Aldgate hall. The main argument put forward for not using the site proposed was that part of it had been turned into a stock car racing track and would easily lend itself to conversion at a later date to a large football stadium complete with grandstands and car parking. That area is now where the High School oval is.
The Heathfield site was accepted, the school constructed and opened with its first students, year 8s, in 1963. The obvious effect of this was to take the pressure off Mt Barker and Oakbank .
[The author, John McGregor, taught there for 10 years, 1982 to 1991]
Do you have memories of Heathfield High School as a student, parent or teacher, or as a local resident or do you know more about the Skyline Speedway? Contact us at mldhsgateways@mtloftyhistoricalsociety.org.au or drop into the History Centre at the Coventry Library, 63 Mount Barker Road, Stirling.
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