Mrs Enid Gibson (nee Davis)

Enid left school in 1934. She was the Gold Medallist in that year, equivalent to the Dux of the year.
(An image of her Gold Medal appears on the left of this page).

Enid turned 92 in June 2012 and her daughter Gayle Gibson is the current Head Teacher Mathematics at Canterbury Girls High.

The following interview was conducted by phone by Jennifer Khan ( as a Year 10 student at Canterbury Girls)

How did you get to school?
I lived in Wiley Park and at the time there was no Wiley Park station where I lived, so I had to walk about a mile to get to Lakemba station and then I caught a train to Canterbury then walked from Canterbury station to school.

What do you remember about the Uniform at school?
We had no actual uniform at school but had to wear Navy Blue and we also had to carry suit cases to school instead of back packs that we have nowadays.

What do you remember about school; the subjects, friends, teachers, years at school etc?
At the time the school was a Domestic Girls High School, so we learnt how to work around the house, other than our normal subjects like Maths, Science and English. So other than the usual subjects, I studied short hand typing, cooking and sewing. I went through 3 years at school and at the age of 14 I left to start work because my parents couldn’t afford to go on with the payments for my education. The boy’s school was right near the girl’s school and was just divided by a gate to keep the girls away from the boys.  I remember a teacher whose name was Ms Huey; she was a very tall biology teacher and nearly all the students were afraid of her. I had friends but I guess I wasn’t so popular and no one really knew me, maybe because I was a quiet student.

What was the society like at the time?
During this decade it was the Depression Era and my father was out of work for 4 years due to an injury, it was a struggle and men were lined up for metres waiting for work and most women didn’t work during those days due to society’s expectations.

Enid Davis - as a young girl	Enid Gibson (Davis) - on her 90th Birthday