H for History

If you gather a gaggle of collegians together, it is pretty likely that the conversation will eventually turn to Year 9 Camp. Senior School exit surveys from the first two decades would similarly attest the activity has had a huge impact on the students who attended. And when interviewing and asking collegians about salient memories, I just sit back and wait to hear the blitz of stories of bivvies, blizzards, bombies, bush romance, cooking disasters, crammed packs, geographical embarrassment, lighting fires in the rain, poor aim, powdered milk, high-rise ropes courses, scroggan snacks, singing songs, sleeping on top of spiders, ‘tasty’ TVP (textured vegetable protein), underwater caves, upturned rafts, many days  of walking, witchetty grubs, wilderness wonder and near misses with snakes, snowballs and stinging nettles.

Readers may be surprised to learn that the first Year 9 Camp in 1985 was held in and around the Jindabyne Recreation Centre and Sawpit Creek and included archery, ballroom dancing, canoeing, golf, windsurfing, orienteering and even sailing. Yasmin Swifte, who was in 9RB at the time, recalls how “we managed to devour countless quantities of rice bubbles; to survive (almost) sleepless nights filled with action-packed sultana fights, apple-pie sleeping bags and bad jokes; to learn the Pride of Erin and Strip the Willow, along with Midnight Oil and a great ghetto blaster; to trying our hands at archery, golf and a variety of other sports. The more daring of us also survived a midnight swim.” (The writer is pleased that Midnight Oil was part of the camp program well before his arrival.)

In 1986 things began in earnest when Outward Bound took over organisation of the camp at Richard Wardman’s suggestion. Richard had been an instructor with OB since he was 16 years of age. As he recalls, “After doing a standard OB course at the end of school in 1973, I started instructing on adult OB courses, school courses and holiday courses. This was during my uni vacations. I stopped instructing in 1978 when I started teaching at Cranbrook School. A year later I took over coordination of their expansive program of camps in Years 7 to 10. This continued until I moved to Radford.” Richard notes that at this time future Radford staff members Sue and James Hassall were working for OB. “They helped to develop both the routes but also the tempo and pace of the activities.”

So it was that Radford College, in partnership with OB, introduced all future participants to their outdoor education philosophies inspired by Kurt Hahn and a motto, adapted from Tennyson, that encouraged all “To Strive, To Serve and Not to Yield.” According to former instructor James Neill, Hahn had a passion “to create schools and youth movements which sought to address the failings of youth in modern society. It was also the passion which Hahn brought to Lawrence Holt’s problem with poor survival rates of young merchant navy seamen of the Blue Funnel Shipping Line when cast into the sea in lifeboats.” This notion that modern youth would similarly flail and struggle when thrown into the whirlpools of modern life, saw Outward Bound create controlled challenges for them to learn to overcome in safe, outdoor settings, all in order to give them a better chance when “lost at sea” as older teens and adults.

As Outdoor Educationalist Bloomfield prophetically protested around this pre-risk assessment time, “This is an age when it is possible to live a long, safe and uneventful life by avoiding risks, where a multitude of government handouts and restrictions cast a lacklustre soporific blanket of mediocrity over the youth of today as they sit glued to the telly in their suburban torpor.” So, with cap – or more accurately wide-brimmed hats and/or balaclavas – in hand, Radford students set out to the Snowy Mountains/Tantangara region to cast off our soporific blankets of mediocrity, replacing them with a sheet of plastic and sleeping bags tough enough to warm bodies and souls in alpine conditions.

In October 1986, 169 students and nine staff headed out for the first of exactly thirty Year 9 Camps with the Outward Bound organisation. The trip had many highlights. As “Magpie”, a participating student eloquently relayed, one of them was caving: “The entrance to Cooleman Cave involved a long, flat traverse. This was followed by a sequence of fairyland chambers, with brilliant stalactites and glistening crystal pools. I could not believe where our instructor had disappeared at one stage. I followed, after a bit of squeezing, and found myself in the intricate maze of the Wombatery. A chink of daylight appeared ahead and we soon found ourselves out in warm sunshine. Some ‘thoughtful’ person had positioned Cave Creek right near the cave exit, because we all tumbled longingly into the water to wash off the mud which covered us.”

Staff member Helen Rasmussen still has endearing (and possibly enduring) memories of “just how wonderful her kids were” on Year 9 Camp, especially how thoughtful they were in saving her when she was “swept away in the river” and proceeded downstream without the aid of a flotation device. She praises to this day some of the boys in 9HR who may well have struggled in the classroom but did not in any way when their tutor teacher needed help post ordeal: “They carried my pack. They were just gorgeous. And they benefitted so much from that camp because they were the ones who proved so useful in the eyes of kids who looked down on them. That was very interesting. They thrived in the outdoors.”

Principal Jock Mackinnon made it clear that he considered attendance on camp an integral part of being at Radford College. In his 1987 Principal’s Report he remarked: “This camp was important in the lives of the students involved (and it will be an important part of the Year 9 students’ programme in the future). This is because the aims and the outcomes are in line with the overall aims of our total educational programme – that is to bring out in students more than they realise they have in them, until they are challenged and encouraged to stretch their powers. One of the joys of many of the students (and perhaps staff too?) was to realise that they had survived – but our aim as educators was to be concerned that students should not merely survive the challenges they were impelled to experience, but that they should emerge strengthened in every way – intellectually, physically, morally and spiritually.”

Past Year 9 Camp Coordinator Peter Dodd reinforces the claim that staff were similarly extended and inspired by attending the camps. When I informed him that I was writing this article he replied, “You should include the life changes that the camp brought about for some staff.” He highlights a bushwalking group of intrepid female staff of the 90s, who became avid bushwalkers and adventurous as a result. “It was really the camp that got many into the extensive trips that they eventually took on.”

Over the ensuing three decades, Year 9 Camp mythology grew. It was as if everybody who attended had a tall story about their own experience in the mountains, reservoirs, rivers and soggy plains near Kosciuszko. Then in 2009, Year 9 Camp moved from the Snowy Mountains region to Snowy River National Park near Buchan in East Gippsland, Victoria. While the experience became a little milder and less extreme, this did not stop amazing and spirited adventures, hands-on learning, unlikely camaraderie, terrific teamwork and massive personal growth from occurring while bushwalking and rafting down the Snowy River across nine days.

Another major reboot occurred in 2017, with the Outdoor Education Group taking over the abseiling ropes and re-pointing the canoes. Year 9 now found themselves on a four-night camp in the Morton National Park in the Kangaroo Valley (with another longer experience awaiting them a year later when in Year 10 Camp). “It was a back-to-basics journey to build character and truly connect with the real world,” explained Lizzy Pugh from OEG. “Days were spent bushwalking, cycling, abseiling and canoeing, with students camping in tents and carrying all their gear in backpacks.”

2018 saw a new batch of Year 9s build on this experience. As current Year 9 and 10 Outdoor Education Coordinator, Sam Lonsdale explains, “Outdoor Education at Radford has changed and grown a lot in the last 30 years. This has included changes to expedition locations, sequencing of programs and duration of time spent away. The five-day Year 9 program in the Kangaroo Valley is now a step in the sequence toward the final adventure for Year 10 students.” In 2018, Year 10 students were asked to choose an eight-day expedition which could include kayaking, canoeing, rock climbing and bushwalking in National Parks in New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania.

I asked Sam how the modern student is coping without screens when canoeing across the glistening surfaces of rivers. “Our young people are connected to their device and each other for a significant part of the daily cycle. To walk away from this for an extended period of time and be ‘disconnected’ is a very valuable experience.”  After my supportive cheering died down she added, “This contributes towards developing the resilience of individuals through real and immediate feedback provided when living and travelling in the bush with others. Interestingly this notion of disconnect is often commented on by students throughout their Outdoor Education expedition as they realise how well they cope without their device.”

Whatever the stories, myths and legends that are weaved around the “Year 9 Camp” experience, the common thread appears to be a greater self-awareness and an enhanced understanding of the need to work as a small community. From the many days without washing that occur, the mind and heart can be truly cleansed while in the great outdoors, and many parents have commented to me over the decades about how their children have returned with a real appreciation for many things they had been taking for granted: their families, friends, homes, education, electricity and lifestyle, to name a few, as well as mundane things such as a tap, a flushing toilet and a fully-stocked pantry.

As Sam Lonsdale attests, “Nowadays so many of us can reflect back on our own camp experiences at school and we want our own children to have these same challenging experiences and build shared memories with their peers. We recognise that whilst it is not always easy or comfortable, the learning from these experiences and the highlights from activities, mountain tops or activities always shines through.”

Year 9 Camp played a hugely unforgettable part in so many Radfordian lives. Former student and Board member Mark Whitby (Class of 2000) wants his daughters to not miss out on certain aspects of Year 9 Camp he valued: “The ability to try something you might not want to choose. And the ability to build friendships broader than just your cliques – because you don’t actually know how amazing people really are. Since leaving school I find myself regularly wishing I had made more of an effort talking to and getting to know people. The more opportunities to put students out of their comfort zones is hugely important.”” As Steph Morison (Class of 2006) also recently shared with me, “The age we were at when we were on Year 9 Camp was ideal. Spending time, making decisions, cooking, being physically challenged and having fun with 20 people not necessarily in your tutor or house group gave us a sense of achievement in the end. Certain people came back with a new confidence, myself included.”

And in the parting words of Steph Trinh and Niamh Martin, who attended the last Outward Bound Camp in 2015 (with Sam Lonsdale as their accompanying teacher): “We could never have imagined the mountains we would climb, the rapids we would three-sixty and the incredible memories we would make. We will never forget the jokes we made, the people who picked us up after we fell, the amazing team spirit. This camp was a mix of unforgettable experiences and we will always remember our team, our leaders and our time spent around the Snowy River.”

Past Year 9 Camp Coordinators have included: Sally Cameron, Sasha Campbell, Rebecca Cashmere, Patrick Craddock, Peter Dodd, George Huitker, Sam Lonsdale, Dylan Mordike, Kim Stonham, Richard Wardman.