I had done quite well at that school and I had passed the QC [qualifying certificate] so well that I got a seat at Fort Street and my parents wouldn’t hear of it because I would’ve had to have boarded. I mean you couldn’t possibly go every day to Fort Street from Avalon. In those days you’d never have got there in time. My brother offered to put me up because he was living in Balmain.  And my mother wouldn’t let me go… and so there was all this controversy about where I would go. In the end I was sent to Manly Domestic Science which was not a proper high school anyway. But anyhow I did two years there and then I had to leave school altogether. I didn’t want to learn cooking. I could cook anyway… I could cook quite well. Dad used to reckon I made the best pastry… cooking was the last thing I wanted to learn and it was compulsory. But I had just started to learn to type and was whisked away…