Sandra Elizabeth Lowery
(married name: Winder)
By Judy Gillett Ferguson
Sandra Winder was born on May 4th 1947 at the London Hospital, Whitechapel Road, not far from her parents' home at 96 Clifton Road, Clapton in east London, England. Her mother, Fay, was of mixed English and émigré Jewish descent whose forebears had come to London from the Ukraine at the beginning of the 20th century. Her father, Stanley's family, came from Cumberland in the Lake District in the north of England. Stanley and Fay met in a London underground train ("tube") station during a bombing raid in World War 2. They were married in London just after the War.
The family lived in a house in Clapton in the Borough of Hackney. It was a two and a half storey 19th century terrace house with bedrooms on the middle floor landing. The house had a small, narrow back garden with an outside toilet. Sandra remembers a row of servants' bells attached to the wall in the hallway from the days when a Victorian family lived there. Stanley had a potting shed in the garden and grew dahlias. She also remembers having a pet tortoise at that time.
Her father had seen active service in the Royal Navy during the War and had been on board the HMS Hood when it was blown up at sea. He had also been a POW in Changi when Singapore was under Japanese occupation and worked on the notorious Burma Railroad suffering terrible privations, from which he took a long time to recover. As a result of his wartime experiences he was awarded many medals including the Burma Star, presented to him by Lord Louis Mountbatten. The family only discovered these after his death.
Sandra is the eldest of two daughters. Her sister Cherilynn, Cherry for short, was born three and a half years after Sandra. Both girls attended Rushmore Road Primary School. Sandra went there at four and a half. She enjoyed public speaking, reading from the Bible at assemblies or getting up to recite Wordsworth's poem, "The Daffodils" and many others. One Christmas she was given the part of Mary in the school Nativity play.
On Sunday's Sandra remembers her father often taking her for walks and rides on the underground to visit the British Museum, the Natural History and Victoria and Albert Museums, the Monument to the Great Fire of London in Spitalfields, the Whispering Gallery in St Paul's, Petticoat Lane Market, the Tower of London and the wonderful train turntable at Liverpool Street Station, where great steam locomotives were turned around. He worked for the British Railways as a boilermaker and they could therefore obtain travel concessions.
Sandra remembers the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth in June 1953. Clifton road held a street party - as did so many - with bunting and street decorations. Each little girl was given a Coronation doll and Sandra still has hers! Her father spent two very cold drizzly days sleeping on the procession route in order to catch a glimpse of the Queen's Coach. He came home very cold and damp but was thrilled to have seen it. She also remembers the “Battle of Britain" anniversary and the death of King George VI in 1952 as both being very sombre occasions.
In 1957, when she was 10 years old, she sat for the 11 Plus examination to go to secondary school and achieved high enough marks to win a place at the prestigious John Howard Grammar School for Girls, beginning there at the age of ten and a half. The school had approximately 400 girls with 200 places allocated to Church of England students and 200 to Jewish girls_ Sandra was in the Church of England group because her father was an Anglican. At grammar school Sandra got used to wearing a uniform and the new form of discipline. The school's motto was Possunt quia posse videntur, a line from Virgil which translates as You can because you think you can and, one suspects, Sandra has been following that motto ever since!
She learnt French and German and became a member of the school's famous Oratorio Choir which sang in Saint Matthew's Passion at Easter in London's famous Festival Hall in 1960. She also played tennis and netball, enjoyed swimming and entering General Knowledge quizzes spending many hours of her school holidays swotting up on General Knowledge, which enabled her to win many prizes! She read and studied Jane Eyre, Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, A Midsummer Night's Dream and Twelfth Night and George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan which she saw performed at the Old Vic Theatre in London.
Sandra's father's health had suffered during the War and, like so many men at that time, he smoked heavily. The family decided to immigrate to Australia to give his health a chance. They sailed on the SS Arcadia in 1961 travelling via the Suez Canal and arriving at Outer Harbour, Port Adelaide on September 16th, 1961. Sandra was fourteen. They first lived in temporary accommodation at the migrant hostel in Elder Park, on the site of what is now the Festival Centre. They were only there for a couple of weeks before moving to Elizabeth Vale where her parents purchased a Housing Trust home.
Sandra first attended Salisbury High School where she was put into an Intermediate class (Year 10). She was only there a few weeks before transferring to the brand new, very academic, Elizabeth High School to finish Year 9. She spent the next three years at EHS where, as a conscientious student, she achieved excellent results in the Intermediate, Leaving and Leaving Honours examinations. She especially excelled in English, French and History, winning prizes for the latter subject. She also enjoyed Chemistry but was traumatised by the attitude towards girls of a very sexist male Chemistry teacher in Leaving Honours. In her Leaving year she won a Commonwealth Bursary but gave it up to become a bonded Teaching Scholar with the Education Department instead. On Saturdays Sandra would ride her bike to play tennis for the school at various courts in Elizabeth and Salisbury. She was also in the school's swimming team and was elected a Prefect and a House Captain.
Sandra's father worked at Weapons Research Establishment in Salisbury and her mother did part-time nursing. Her mother was homesick for a while after they came to Australia but soon got over it. Her father became a Councillor and then an Alderman on the Elizabeth Town Council
From 1965 to 1969 Sandra read English, French and History at the University of Adelaide and attended Adelaide Teachers College. She completed a Bachelor of Arts Honours degree (English) and a Diploma of Education. During her time at University she was involved in the anti Vietnam War movement, took part in Moratorium marches and joined the Campaign for Peace in Vietnam. She won a scholarship to live at Saint Anne's residential women's college for three years but only stayed there for one as she found many of the other residents rather elitist. They belonged mainly to an "Old Girls° private school network that actively excluded her and a few other scholarship girls from Broken Hill. The college maintained a private school culture and had close ties with the men's college of Saint Mark's. However, it was at one of the college's “High teas" that she was fortunate to hear Lady Florey (Sir Howard Florey's wife) speak.
So Sandra went back to live at home and travelled to University by train each day. At this time she enjoyed dressmaking and made many of her own clothes. At the end of 1968 she also went on a long voyage on the cargo passenger boat the SS Aramac to the main ports of Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines and China (nobody was allowed off in the Chinese ports because it was at the height of the Cultural Revolution). She recalls the small, pre-World War 2 boat being caught in a terrifying typhoon in the South China Sea. There were no stabilisers and everyone had to sit in the centre of the vessel in the small library for 5 hours while the hurricane raged. One minute all that could be seen out of the portholes was sky, the next minute it was the black sea.
Sandra graduated from University at the end of 1969 and at the beginning of 1970 she was appointed to teach at Elizabeth High School - her old school! It was the fastest growing high school in the state and had over 2000 students at that time. There were two staffrooms - one for senior staff and one for junior staff. She remembers how smoke filled the senior staff room was on the rare occasions when she entered it. She taught at this school for four years then, her bond with the Education Department fulfilled, she was successfully assessed for the role of Senior Mistress and was transferred to Salisbury North High School for seven months before winning an overseas "French Assistante Scholarship" to teach and undertake post graduate study in Bordeaux, France.
This was in 1974 and she did a short course at the Sorbonne in Paris before going to Bordeaux. There Sandra taught English conversation classes at the Lycee Camille Jullian for 12 one hour sessions per week to our equivalent of Year 11's and 12's. The Lycee had over 3000 students There were many school holidays spread across the year which gave Sandra the opportunity to travel all over France and into Spain, Morocco, Italy and the U.K. to visit her extended family. As she was only teaching part-time she also studied for a Diploma in Audio Visual Language teaching at the University of Bordeaux Trois (3) at Talence. This immersion in French life left a lasting impression on her and she particularly recalls the student friends she made from France, Spain and Lebanon, the many visits to art museums, chateaux, the vineyards around Bordeaux and her membership of Cinema clubs with their lively discussions after each film with top French directors including Louis Malle and Claude Chabrol.
On her return to Australia she was appointed to Elizabeth West High School as English and Foreign Languages Senior. It was here that she met charismatic South African émigré Vern Hoffman, the other English Senior at the school. While there Sandra planned and supervised two overseas study tours to Noumea for her French students and for students from other local schools. To raise funds to help the students pay for their fares she organised and prepared two magnificent French banquets for parents and friends. These were held in the Home Economics building at the school. One of these raised $800 in one night, which, for that time, was quite an effort! Some of the students from these years still keep in touch with her. Sandra taught at this school for nine and a half years - until 1984.
In 1979 Sandra's father died aged 59. He bequeathed to her a love of history, literature, the arts and a curiosity for learning.
In 1983 Sandra took up artistic figure roller skating when she joined the Modbury Roller Skating Club. Over the next decade she became State Masters Champion in Figures and competed in a number of State and National Championships. She took lessons from 6.30 am to 7.30am twice a week and then went to work. She was also a State and National artistic roller skating judge for several years.
She met her future husband, Brian in 1976. He had also come to Australia with his family in 1961. In 1976 she moved to a house in Lyndoch Road, Gawler East and Brian moved there in 1977.
Sandra won the position of Deputy Principal at The Heights CPC-12 School at Modbury at the end of 1984. She was one of the first women school leaders in South Australia to be selected on merit rather than being drafted from the old "Promotion List', which heavily discriminated against women. She commenced work at The Heights in 1985 and had various roles including Head of the Middle School and Head of the Senior School. She really enjoyed it there and taught some of the first "all girls" English classes in mixed schools. She remained there for eight and a half years. Part way through her time at this school, in 1988, Sandra was seconded to be the Education Department's Senior Project Officer for the Women and Management Plan for the Northern Area. This entailed visiting many schools - primary and secondary - to talk to women teachers considering leadership positions and speaking to groups. The aim was to redress the balance between men and women in promotion positions and to encourage women to plan their careers and consider promotion -to take up opportunities.
In October 1991 Sandra and Brian were married on the croquet lawn in the exquisite gardens of historic Cummins House at Novar Gardens and in 1993 moved into their present home in Moore Street, in the Church Hill area of Gawler.
Part way through the second term in 1992 Sandra was encouraged to apply for the Acting Principalship at Clare High School, a school experiencing some serious staff and community morale problems. This school was 100kms from Gawler and Sandra took on the job, opting to live in the town during the week and coming home for weekends. She successfully rehabilitated the school's self-esteem and external image and its internal conflicts by working with the many supportive parents, students and teachers.
She returned to The Heights in Term 1 1993 and then won the Principal position at Gawler High School where she started in April of that year. Sandra applied, and was reappointed, to the position after 5 years (1998) and then again for another 5 years in 2002. She retired from Gawler High at the end of 2007 as the longest serving Principal in the school's 100 year history and its first ever female Principal. She made some remarkable changes and improvements to the school during her time there - a new focus on teaching and learning, innovation in teaching practice using cutting edge opportunities for all students and a high priority placed on student voice and leadership. The building programme she oversaw included obtaining funding for a complete upgrade of the Science laboratories and Technology facilities and for brand new Arts and Home Economics buildings. She also oversaw the school's major focus on sustaining the environment including the establishment of the Gawler High School Wetlands project.
In July 1999 Sandra's mother died aged 81.
In 2007 she was made a Life Member of the South Australian Secondary Principal's Association for her services to education. In the same year she was also recognised by the Gawler Branch of Zonta with the 2007 Academic Woman of Achievement Award.
In her last year at Gawler High, she was delighted to lead the year long celebration of the School's Centenary and to write its history, during a long service leave break. She meticulously researched what old scholars had said about their school through its magazines as well as other publications, including one hundred years of Gawler Bunyip newspapers. The book is entitled This is Who We Are, Gawler High School 1907- 2007. It was published by the Bunyip Press and launched by the well-known journalist, children's writer and proud old scholar, Max Fatchen.
Sandra is dedicated to her sister Cherry and brother-in-law Tony's extended family - her nieces and nephew and their children.
In 2008 Sandra and Brian spent one month touring China. On her return the Corporation of the Town of Gawler held a public reception to honour her tremendous achievement and dedication to improving opportunities for the young people of the district. She was also recognised in the book Footprints, a book about Gawler's Significant Identities, published by the Town of Gawler. This book was written in recognition of 150 years of local government in the town and was launched in time for the 2008 Australia Day celebrations.
She established the Gawler High School Foundation before she retired and is its Public Officer and a Board member. This Foundation creates opportunities for the School to attract and retain the continuing interests and financial support of a supportive group of old scholars, parents, staff and friends of the school. It assists with scholarships, endowments and educational projects, the acquisition of educational resources and ongoing improvements to facilities.
In 2008 she was selected to undertake the rigorous year long training course to enable her to become a volunteer Gallery Guide at the Art Gallery of South Australia. She enjoys taking public tours of its superb collection and working with children for the Gallery's weekend Eye Spy Club. She believes passionately in the importance of education in the arts for all children, adolescents and members of the public in general and is keen to expand their appreciation in this area, especially Australian art and particularly Aboriginal art. She looks forward to continuing her volunteer work at the Gallery for many years to come.
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