Welcome Solway Past Students & Other Interested parties

Welcome to the Solway State School & Solway Primary School, past students website. The site is designed & maintained by me but you will find that I refer to "us & we" all the time, that's because there are many, many people who have contributed to building this up with pictures, information & support. Particular credit goes to Roger Tyshing (class of 71) for his work in both organising reunions and providing resources on our years at Solway & Michael Sainsbery (class of 71) for his organisational & detective skills in locating our past schoolfriends. - Ian Gardener (class of 71)

Our main aim is acquiring and freely distributing class photos and facilitating reunions and get-togethers. We've also put together a bit about the schools history, interesting links & any other interesting nostalgia we come across.

Note the menu to your left. If you are viewing this page with a fully standards-compliant browser, the menu will move with you as you scroll down the page. If you are using a non-compliant browser (i.e. Internet Explorer 6 or earlier), it will remain stationary.

Introduction

In 2006 Roger provided me with copies of our Solway class photos, replacing mine that had been lost years before. They gave me so much enjoyment that I wanted to share them with anyone else who didn't have them and so, the web page was born. After a school reunion we decided to expand the page to a site for all past Solway students, particularly those who went to school there in the 60's.

We respect everyone's privacy and will not pass on or publish contact details without your permission. We can keep your details totally private and only contact you to advise you of reunions or messages waiting for you in the forums, we can forward emails from people wanting to contact you without them ever seeing your contact details or we can publish contact info for you, whatever you find appropriate. You can also use the message forums and again, you can choose to have your email address displayed there or, keep your email hidden & our system will automatically notify you when someone replies to a message you have left. You then have the choice of contacting the person directly if their email is shown, or just communicating in the forums without your private details ever being known.

What does class of xxxx mean? It is a method of defining groups of students only and is also more of a guide than a rule. Example: I was in the class of 1971, that means I completed the highest year at this school (grade 6 in this case) in the year 1971. The class of 71 includes all those people that were ever in the same class/year as me even if they stayed down a year & finsihed after me or skipped a year, finishing before me. It would also include kids who only went to the school for a couple of years or transferred to another school before grade 6. It's just a way of identifying groups of students who shared friends & experiences.

What about Surnames? To keep things simple and so you can recognise them, we identify all people with the names you knew them by at school. Where someone prefers a different variation to their first name now, we include the original version in brackets. We do not show married names for the ladies - this avoids confusion and helps to protect privacy. Name variations can be discussed in the forums area.

News

No current news,

Solway History

The Education Department acquired land on the edge of the Ashburton Forest in 1929, and opened Darling East Primary School there in 1950. In 1956 it was renamed Solway State School and many of us still affectionally refer to it as the SSS. In 1970/1971 the name was again changed to Solway Primary School - in class photos prior to 1971 you can see the old name and from 1971 on, the new name is used. Click here to see the detailed history, which is being added to as time goes on.

You Can Help

We are always looking for new school related photos, better copies of those we do have, information on school related events, reunions, get-togethers, interesting facts or information and above all we are always trying to locate past students for the years we are working on so that we can let them know when reunions etc are organised or when someone's looking for them. Please click here to contact us if you can help.

The reunion organizers for the class of 1971 are still looking for the following people to notify them of future events and/or send them photos of the last reunion. If you know any of these people, please ask them to log on to this website and send us a message or contact Roger Tyshing. They are looking for: Marion Bullen, Christine Collins, Rona Gibbs, Ray Gordon (teacher), Michael Harvey, Alison Kavenagh, Andrew Kerr, Margaret Klein, Gary Ryan, Angela Sinclair, Beverley Smith (teacher), Lawrence Steadman, Brenda Syme & Joanne Weeks.

Staff of 1968

Top Row: Ron White (librarian), Peter Allen (Grade 3), Mr Ruddock, Mrs Feibig, Bert Hosking (Grade 6).
2nd Row: Miss White, Mrs Spain, Mr Holden (principal), Mrs Findlay, Mrs Lambert, unknown.

Class of 1971

Please use the back button of your browser to return here or, hit the home tab to get back to our main page. Please note that photo galleries & schoolfriends forums will open in new windows to assist you with navigation. Click here to visit the Class of 1971 web page.

Class of 1973

Solway Links

Official Solway Primary School Website

Obituaries & Other Notices

It's a difficult subject but none of us are getting any younger (don't you hate that) and already a few of our classmates are no longer with us. We've had a couple of requests & have agreed to post a notice of anyone passing away, of which we become aware. Click on the "Notices" heading to see these & other notices including births, reunions, etc. Please let us know if you have some information that belongs in the notices area.

Disclaimer

This is not an official site of Solway Primary School & is not affiliated with the school in any way. Views, opinions & comments expressed on this site are in no way endorsed nor even monitored by either Solway Primary School or the Victorian Education Department. This is a private site run by a private individual for the enjoyment & information of past students. Although the past students area contains no adult content, we do not recommend viweing by people under 18 years of age simply because the content will not be relevant. Access to the schoolfriends forums is restricted to persons 15 years and over as they may contain mild adult references.