School that Nan built

COCKATOO legend Nancy ‘Nan’ Hawley does not see why hills residents would want to read about her story. She is too modest.
But the 90-year-old’s tale so far is one that needs to be told.
Born one of 10 kids in a small town near Mildura, Mrs Hawley has gone on to play a key role in the shape of hills education – helping to form Emerald Secondary College.
But the events of Ash Wednesday almost meant that contribution was never felt.
“I always wanted to be a doctor but one day when I was at school they brought the lists out for teaching and I came home and said to Mum ‘I’m going to be a teacher’,” Mrs Hawley said.
“I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it ever since.”
She moved to Melbourne after World War II – stepping out of her comfort zone and searching for ways to refine her craft.
By the late ’60s, she had relocated to Cockatoo.
She was drawn to the familiar country lifestyle in a setting much closer to the city.
And after stints as principal of Heathmont and Boronia West primary schools, she took up a position much nearer to home – Emerald Primary School.
“I finished there in 1984,” she said.
“I was supposed to be principal from 1980 to 1985, but after having my heart attack in ’84 I was put on long-service leave.”
But it was one day in 1983 that still looms large in Mrs Hawley’s time in the hills – Ash Wednesday.
“(Authorities) told everyone: ‘If you’re being evacuated, go to Emerald’,” she said.
“But where the heck were they going to go?
Someone suggested the football ground.
“But surrounded by pine trees? I thought ‘no’.”
Mrs Hawley got in her car and “flew” into Emerald – intending to drop the primary school keys off with then teacher, and now Ranges Ward councillor Graeme Legge.
Ash Wednesday had not caught local emergency services off-guard. They had planned for it.
Mrs Hawley responded to an invitation by the shire council for local residents to be briefed on their ‘in case of bushfire’ plans.
Emerald Primary – and its hall – was seen as a prime location for a refuge.
But Mrs Hawley never made it home.
“I had all the Upper Beaconsfield people at the school – people from their own homes, and nursing homes,” she said.
“They were all crowded at the clearing around Elephant Rock and rushed into Emerald.
Mrs Hawley said local mums and dads were “outstanding” in keeping their kids calm in the moment of crisis.
“The way everyone banded together was wonderful,” she said.
Mrs Hawley described local community spirit as one of the hills’ real strengths.
“People here stick together like glue, just like the (McBride Street kindergarten) situation down here.
“Communities have a habit of doing that.
“Something crops up and it doesn’t matter who it is or where they are, they stick together and that’s it. That’s just life and they go on.”
But Mrs Hawley had to keep her head, too.
“When you start one of these things, the first thing you do is have a table at the door and nobody gets past that table without telling you who they are – their name, address and all their information,” she said.
“You must know who is there.”
While she was working tirelessly at the primary school with the Red Cross and other community members, looking after those huddled inside, Mrs Hawley lost her own home as Baker Street in Cockatoo burned.
Some of her friends feared the worst.
“They kept ringing Ferntree Gully Tech – which is where you had to send all the names of (sheltered) local people.
“My committee was in my office at the school putting the phone calls through.
In charge of the lists at Emerald Primary, Mrs Hawley wrote her own name first.
“But every time my friend called Ferntree Gully, they’d say Jan Hawley,” she said.
“Eventually he said: ‘This Jan Hawley, where does she live?”
“They said ‘Baker Street, Cockatoo’.”
“He said well it isn’t Jan, it’s Nan!”
“He came and saw me and told me I’d lost my home.
“It certainly wasn’t easy.”
Mrs Hawley did not think about rebuilding. She barely had time, having already scheduled three months’ long service leave in Europe. She left five weeks after Ash Wednesday.
“People over there had all heard about the fire and to have somebody on the (tour) bus with them that had heard of it was very strange,” she laughed.
Mrs Hawley praised the hills’ recovery effort in the months following the fire.
“(Cockatoo residents) got caravans,” she said.
“Down by the bowling club we had toilets and showers – great lines of them.
“They filled the area up with caravans and after my trip I stayed in there until my house was rebuilt.”
She moved back on to her Baker Street property in Christmas Eve, still in 1983.
But it was her role in the formation of Emerald Secondary College a year or so before Ash Wednesday that Mrs Hawley considers her proudest achievement.
“I’d been living in Cockatoo since 1969,” she said.
“I knew that the buses were running in the morning from Gembrook, Cockatoo, Emerald, and Selby down to Ferntree Gully to take the kids to high school.
“Can you imagine the time they’d have to leave in the morning?
“Can you imagine the time they got home? Then they’d have to do their homework.
So, Mrs Hawley put the feelers out. She spoke to some of the parents of her Emerald Primary students who were about to enter high school.
“I knew there was 15 acres just sitting there (on Belgrave Road),” she said.
“So, we started writing letters to politicians (asking for a high school.
“They weren’t taking any notice whatsoever but you can understand they wouldn’t know the area, they wouldn’t know the position the kids were in.”
Mrs Hawley and the parents went in to Spring Street to speak face-to-face with state politicians – urging them to listen.
“A parliamentary member told us to go in and sit and catch the minister as he came out.
“We did, but they sat all day. In telling him face to face what was going on, it started to move. Gradually we got more, and more, and more.”
After more than two-and-a-half years of lobbying, Emerald Secondary College was a reality and Hawley House was named in Mrs Hawley’s honour.
“The community was thrilled but I think they were all a bit stunned,” she said.
“There should have always been one there.
“Instead, Oakleigh Technical School used the land as a nursery for its horticulture classes.
“We tucked it back over the hill so we didn’t get the noise of the traffic,” Mrs Hawley laughed.
“We didn’t know they’d put a great big theatre right at the front.
“That wasn’t in our plan!
Mrs Hawley still has two peach trees and an apple tree from the site on her half-acre Cockatoo property.
“I feel like I’ve really accomplished something with the high school – like I’ve left my own stamp.”