Marion Matthews

Arriving in the once flourishing community of Meringur in 1949 to teach, I was aware that both the colour of the earth and of the sky, ironically mirrored my own richly lustered, auburn hair and my clear blue eyes. Meringur was a surprise posting. Before graduating from Teachers College, I completed one year of student teaching placement at a school in the leafy Melbourne suburb of Thornbury. A city girl through and through, the vastness and isolation of my new environment didn’t faze me. It was all part of doing what I’d always wanted to do; to teach. My journey to Meringur consisted of a train ride via the clattering, hard-seated red carriages of the passenger service that began from Melbourne in 1903, stopping for lunch at the 1850’s goldfield’s city of Ballarat. A steaming slice of steak and kidney pie, although delicious, was much too hot that day, of forty- degree heat. It was here that I met the other woman teacher who joined us on her way to Meringur. Soon we were traversing the harsh, Mallee landscape. Many hours later the train pulled into the railway station, established in 1920 at Red Cliffs. This WW1 soldier settlement town was about 8 miles from the bustling city of Mildura dubbed the Oasis of the Desert.