Isolation is isolation, no matter where it is. State School Teachers are prepared to go anywhere. As young folk they leave their families, their comfortable homes, their girl-friends and boy-friends, their favoured sporting and cultural opportunities and the general conveniences to which they have become accustomed. They then spend a period of time on staff in some unfamiliar small town where they mostly fend for themselves and adjust to local circumstances, to be followed by service in a small bush one-teacher school where they are completely on their own. Completely!
One can feel isolated within fifty kilometres of a town or city, but many Queensland Teachers serve in places where no other Public Servant or health or care-worker ever resides. They are truly isolated places, but there are children there who need help and care. Given these circumstances, some Teachers have been known to adjust the weekly time-table to get away early from such places for week-end respite and recreation elsewhere. Who can blame them? To describe service in the outback Ray parodied a duet sung by Fred Astaire and Judy Garland in the 1948 Irving Berlin musical “Easter Parade”.
DUET: IN FROM THE HINTERLAND
[Tune: "We're a Couple of Swells"]
We’re a couple of chumps
From out beyond Black Stump;
(a) I teach at Cactus Corner
(b) And I teach at The Camel’s Hump.
We’re a couple of blokes
Whose schools were pigs in pokes,
But our accommodation
Proved the sourest of all the jokes.
To call them living QUARTERS makes us squirm:
SIXTEENTHS would be a more expressive term.
We would watch “Bellbird” avidly but we haven’t got TV,
Though we have accessories from the likes of which you’re free -
We’ve got ants in our underwear, we’ve got tadpoles in our tea;
So we’re in from the Hinterland,
Yes, we’re in from the Hinterland for a spree!
We’re a couple of fools
Who copped one-teacher schools,
They sent us out past Woop-Woop
Loaded up on a pair of mules.
We’re a couple of chaps
Removed from luxury’s lap,
Far out where drinking water
Doesn’t gush from an endless tap.
It’s not so comfy living in a tent -
Especially paying Departmental rent!
We’d relax every Saturday but there isn’t any pub,
We can tell you the witchetty is an overrated grub,
We’d use Lifebuoy religiously but we haven’t got a tub,
So we’re in from the Hinterland,
Yes, we’re in from the Hinterland,
And we’re in from the Hinterland for a scrub!
We’re a couple of guys
Who finally got wise:
A spot of western service
Really opens your baby eyes.
We’re a couple of lads
Returning to city pads,
Where we can get the article
They show in bikini ads.
To come to town we’ve travelled all the day -
And if the Boss finds out, he’ll dock our pay.
We went west for experience ‘cos we hoped to get ahead,
But we want more experience of another kind instead;
We’ve had nocturnal visitors but a snake’s no good in bed,
So we’re in from the Hinterland,
Yes, we’re in from the Hinterland,
And we’re in from the Hinterland till we’re wed!
