The big school was actually a small school, and it was linked to the bigger school that was physically smaller, but big in reputation. Let me explain this "big school" label. In "Macedonian colloquialism" the big school is the secondary school as compared to the primary school (the small school). So I was enrolled to go to the big school (a secondary school) by the name of Richmond Technical School which was linked to the Senior Richmond Technical School (the motor mechanics apprentice school), which was smaller in size and in student numbers. So in Macedonian colloquialism I went to the big school.

Dad and mum were happy for me to go to a big school, as they didn't have the opportunity to go to a big school themselves because of the wars in Europe. Mum and dad's contemporaries didn't have the opportunity to go to a big school either. I was happy to go to a technical school, where I would learn how things worked and how to make things. And my primary school teacher, who by now was wearing a different coloured tartan skirt, was also happy because I had taken her advice in going to a technical school.

She advised me to go to a technical school one day after she saw one of my drawings, and because of that she decided that I was good with my hands. One day I drew a Christmas scene on her classroom's blackboard which she left there for the last three months of the school year because she thought it was so good. It was at this time that I heard her speak for the first time and she said to me:

"You should go to Richmond Technical School, because you are good with your hands."

It wasn't her advice that made me go to the technical school. I wanted to go there in order to learn how things work and to make things. It seems that everyone was happy for me to go to the big school.

But I had a slight suspicion about a rumour that I heard about the tech school. A rumour that might be true and I was anxious about how I was going to face it all by myself on my first day at school. The rumour was that the new students to the technical school were initiated by having their heads dunked in the school's toilet bowls by the big boys. Fortunately, and coincidently for me, prior to going to Richmond Tech I had an experience that trained me and prepared me on how to defend myself and how to cope against first-day school initiations.

One day when I was crossing the side street on my way to the local milk bar I came across a boy in the middle of that street. He was carrying a bottle of milk. Milk came in glass bottles then and the bottles were capped with a thin foil of aluminium. This particular boy was dressed in a brand-new cowboy suit. He wore his cowboy hat swung behind his head, he was wearing a small jacket with fringe leather trimmings, chaps over his trousers, and looking all the way down towards his feet I could see that he wore cowboy boots with stirrups fixed onto them. One could not miss the shiny silver plastic pistols in their holsters strapped around his waist. His left hand was hovering over the pistol grip while the right hand was holding the bottle of milk. He looked like a character straight out of the Bonanza television series. He could have easily been mistaken for Little Joe Cartright.

Two thoughts came to my mind. One thought was who in Richmond could afford to buy such an expensive looking outfit for a young boy. The second thought was how easily young children are influenced by what they see on television, and are willing to re-enact what they see. In retrospect I was wrong about the first thought. I now know that Richmond and other inner-city suburbs, like Clifton Hill and particularly Carlton, were developing into wealthy, separate cosmopolitan pockets of Melbourne. These suburbs were inhabited by people from different places of the world who had useful skills, abilities and social standings. And some of them had large wallets full of money. There was a great diversity of residents in Richmond who ranged from the disadvantaged and the downtrodden migrants like our family, who were living in workingmen's cottages such as those in Kent Street, to the well-to-do businessmen living on Richmond Hill who were rubbing shoulders with yet a higher class of people living just across Hoddle Street in East Melbourne. So, yes, there were people who could afford to buy "Little Joe" his fancy outfit.

But "Little Joe" behaved in a nasty way that day on that side street. As we crossed paths half way into the street, he dropped his bottle of milk which instantly broke and splashed the milk onto his shiny cowboy boots. He accused me of smashing his bottle and without waiting for an explanation from me, he started swinging those eager little hands of his at me. I placed my outstretched hand on top of his head and stopped him from advancing towards me, and thus I avoided every swing that he directed at me. Meanwhile my uncle Vangel, who lived diagonally across the road and who was home early from work that day, saw the altercation and shouted in Macedonian:

"Abre oodreo naza." ("Come on, hit him back.")

"But he hasn't hit me yet, uncle," I replied.

After uncle's menacing call the altercation ceased and "Little Joe" walked away without crying over his spilled milk.

Now I was ready to go to my new big school and see what I could learn in the school yard. I entered the school ground through the wrong entrance, "the apprentices" entrance. This was a risky move where the apprentices who were fully grown adults would tease the junior kids to tears. I was almost disappointed that there was no confrontation. I reached the junior tech's school yard where my friend Socrates and four other kids from North Richmond Primary School were standing around and were waiting for something weird or something unexpected to happen to them. Nothing happened, in fact nothing bad happened for the next three years. Richmond Technical School seemed to be a very docile place.

The school was a reflection of Richmond itself; it was docile for most of the time. But every now and then that pent-up and self-contained tension would burst into a verbal and at times into a physical release of anger.

Kent Street and the surrounding streets of this inner-city workingman's suburb were inhabited by a mixture of people. Some of low socioeconomic backgrounds, others with dysfunctional families and some war-traumatized men, a few misplaced aristocrats and all from many different ethnic backgrounds.

Richmond Technical school was the most appropriate school for this varied suburb that had its specific challenges. The school was offering academic and vocational opportunities for the children of the residents of this varied community. And it was staffed by capable, enthusiastic and interesting teachers. I felt at home at Richmond Tech. In no time at all a close-knit group of boys from different ethnic backgrounds was formed. Olie from Macedonia, Socrates from Greece, Mario from Italy, Carlos from Spain, Carmelo from Italy, Karl from Germany, Vasyl from Ukraine and of course some other children with English backgrounds. We studied together, we played together and we made things together. Making things and learning will be covered in another chapter, so now let's go back to the schoolyard antics where every now and then the odd skirmish would take place.

One day during my year 10, in the middle of the school yard, one of the Ditty tween brothers approached me. Slightly behind him, stood a large figure in the shape of a boy that overshadowed Ditty. Ditty was looking at me with his chin raised and turned slightly towards me. Ditty uttered the words from the corner of his twisted mouth.

"Are you looking for a fight, mate?"

This was reminiscent of how Squizzy Taylor would have extorted money from his victims in his crime territories, which included Richmond, during the 1930s. For a period of several years Squizzy Taylor terrorized Richmond in a similar way that Al Capone terrorised Chicago. You may care to look up the history of Squizzy Taylor.

I knew the answer to Ditty's question and it was "You and what army?"

Well, he did have an army, an army of five Ditties in the shape of that body guard behind him. So I didn't answer him, and that left him puzzled. I don't think Ditty meant any malice; it was his way of asking for acceptance amongst his peers. The Ditty incident was one example of how troubled kids sorted out their problems. Kids had personal problems and they didn't know how to cope with them in the school environment. And this was one way how they released some of their pent-up tension.

Another unrelated but deeply concerning incident was when a boy stabbed Mr Miller, the history teacher, with a knife. The teacher was not injured, as the knife didn't penetrate his jacket. This was yet another release of pent-up tension by a student who couldn't cope with the school's demands and didn't like history.

Mr Miller was an innocent victim of the stabbing incident, he was at the wrong place at the wrong time. It takes a brave person to teach history in a boys-only technical school. But next year, two adventurous and brave young ladies chose to teach social studies and history at the staunch boys-only school. This will be covered in greater detail later.

Learning takes place outside the school yard as well as outside school hours. The next story illustrates this and it includes a car and an Italian mother dispensing grappa instead of red wine. And Ditty makes a surprise appearance again. This story takes place one Saturday afternoon, a non-school day, in Buckingham Street, so it was outside the school yard and outside school hours.

It was late Saturday afternoon. I was in year 11 by now and I was old enough to drive a car. A car that I had bought with the money I had earned from various jobs that I had before school, after school and on Saturday mornings. One Saturday afternoon my 16 year old brother was behind the wheel of my Volkswagen Beetle and I was teaching him to drive it. We were at an intersection, when unexpectedly a police car drove in front of us and the policemen saw us; two teenagers in a Beetle. I saw the police car make a U turn and I told my brother to drive across the intersection, to pull over to the left side of the street and there we would switch seating positions in the car. The policemen caught us in the process of swapping the driving position.

"Okay you two, who was driving the car?" asked one of the officers.
I mumbled something and then the policeman handed me a piece of paper and he spoke. "The judge will sort this out."

We were summoned to appear at the Magistrates Courts, in Bridge Road Richmond, on a given date and a specific time, as stated on the piece of paper that the policeman handed to me.

I didn't want to lose my driver's licence for several reasons, including using my trusted Beetle to search, locate and return absconding students back to the school. My science teacher, who was also the prefect master, asked me If I could drive him in my car around the narrow streets of Richmond looking for absconding students at lunch time. His car wasn't suitable as it was a large American car (Pontiac something...) and it couldn't manoeuvre around the narrow lanes of Richmond.

The reason some students absconded school was because a lot of children of migrant parents were at an awkward age when they arrived in Australia. They were too old to enrol into a primary school and ill-prepared to enter a secondary school. They found it extremely difficult to learn the English language, as well as to study the curriculum. They obeyed their parent's demands by going to school in the morning and returning home in the afternoon. Those that couldn't last the whole day at school would escape and loiter around the streets and return to their homes in the afternoon. This explains why some migrant baby boomers did not complete their secondary education and consequently very few went on to tertiary studies. Indeed, an awkward time. The prefect master and I were searching the streets for those students.

To save my driver's licence and hopefully to escape with a warning instead of a fine, my brother and I decided to face the judge with humility. Additionally, we would plead ignorance of the Australian road rules. We were advised to dress in suits with white shirts and a tie and to address the judge by the title of "Your Honour". We turned up at the Magistrates Courts dressed like penguins and during all that time I was mentally repeating the title "Your Honour, Your Honour" in my mind. This was a new phrase for me and I was hoping that I would not confuse it with the title of "Your Majesty". I had seen that title on the portrait of the Queen of England that we had hung in our lounge room of our house. Yes, I was a proud British subject after being naturalised. I hung a framed picture of the Queen of England in our lounge room. The framed picture read "Our Majesty the Queen of England".

The courtroom was busy on the day of our hearing. There was an interesting case before our hearing and I listened to it from start to finish. A lady from an Italian background pleaded guilty to selling grappa (distilled alcoholic drink) on a Sunday in her café in Swan Street, Richmond. Selling alcohol on Sundays was illegal and she knew that, otherwise she wouldn't have been serving the two plain-clothed policemen grappa in tea cups. Well, she was guilty, there was no doubt about it. The judge asked her if she wanted to say something in her defence.

Well, an emotional plea for mercy came out of her quivering lips, accompanied with lots of hand-waving. "Mr judge, I am a poor lady, I have four bambinos to feed, I work all week in my café to buy food for my family!"

The judge took the hook, line and half of the sinker. He handed the café owner a small fine. "Since you have a large family to feed, I will fine you only $300 and I will give you three months to pay the fine," said the judge.

The self-labelled "poor lady" was delighted with the lenient sentence. She pulled out a bundle of green notes from her cleavage and with a jovial voice shouted "I pay now."

The judge raised his weary eyes over his drooping glasses, and I could tell from the look on his face that he realised that he made a wrong judgement. He imposed a lenient sentence.

Our case was next and I realised now that the judge wouldn't fall for a plea of ignorance, after that Italian lady's crocodile tears. The judge stated our names and our address and asked me If that was correct.

I answered with the phrase "Yes, your Majesty."

Oh no, the wrong title came out of my mouth. I could see a slight smile forming at one corner of the Judge's mouth and then his whole face lit up and he relaxed for a moment. I could tell from his facial expression that he thought we were innocent as newly-born babies.

I went on... and explained to the judge, "his Majesty", that we were new arrivals to Australia. And that we didn't have cars in our village and that there were no road laws in our village, and so on. So, instead of us pleading ignorance, the judge told us that we were ignorant of the Australian road rules. He gave us fatherly advice and told us that when people arrive in a new country they should learn the country's laws first. We were thrilled with the outcome, but the two policemen who booked us were not. They will appear again for their revenge in another chapter where I will explain why I was counting cars that passed in front of our house. By the way, dressing up as penguins did the trick.

On the way out of the court room I saw Ditty lined up in the queue waiting for his court case.

"What are you doing here Ditty?" I asked.

He said that he was on a rape charge. I wondered what the judge would make of that. That day would have been an emotional roller coaster for "his Majesty".

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