A LITTLE girl with pig tails leant her stomach on the pipe fence flanking the Lucindale Area School oval and doing a somersault, started twirling around and around.
When she grew up, she wanted to be a princess.
Others skipped, played hopscotch or blissfully swung along the monkey bars.
They wanted to be nurses, teachers, dancers and stuff.
But importantly, they were all going to be friends forever.
It was the mid-1960s when little bottles of milk, often warm and sometimes curdled, were given to us each recess time.
Nearly all of the girls had something in common with Mr Squiggle, Barbie (the doll), the Morris Mini Minor and Sigrid Thornton.
1959 was their birth year.
Despite the years turning into decades, the bond between them remained.
On a house boat four years ago, four of those girls – Lindy Wurfel, Fiona Smith, Merri Lemke and Julie Rowntree got together with a bottle of wine, or two, or a few more.
As night rolled into the following day, they had decided to muster up their classmates for a joint 60th birthday celebration.
By April 2017, a private group titled 60th Birthday Cruise popped up on social media.
“Hi girls, I have created a group for our cruise,” Lindy wrote, soon adding a couple of special people who wanted to tag along.
Sadly, some classmates could not go.
As the months flicked by, the excitement grew – and so did fun-loving Fiona’s imagination, encouraged by friend Fran.
Fiona had found 14 red and white striped shirts with black sequined angel fish on the front, as well as captain’s hats and glasses for us each to wear.
She also obtained bling – necklaces and rings featuring coins from 1959 – plus one from 1960.
By March 2018, a cruise to the South Pacific was booked, departing Sydney on September 6, 2019.
So, while Lucindale was at the pointy end of preparing for Triple J’s One Night Stand, 14 of us stood dressed in our Where’s Wally outfits, plus bling, at the overseas terminal on Circular Quay in Sydney.
Lindy had organised almost everything, sometimes with help from Merri, Julie and Elizabeth Golding.
Fiona even ensured we each had a Mr Squiggle $2 coin made into a pendant.
Just like 55 years ago, Heather Pitt and Michelle Hannan were our constant entertainment and comedians.
A stream of people seemed to think we must be famous and kept lining up to have their photographs taken with us.
On board the ship, the high seas soon rolled the vessel up and down – with the ups getting higher and the downs getting lower.
For those like me who love rough seas, it could not be better.
But sadly, many on board, including a couple of our fun-loving ladies, became very sick.
Sea-sickness soon took its toll on the ship’s plumbing system and we’ll leave it at that.
By day three, we reached New Caledonia and were able to explore its capital, Noumea and the odd French bakery.
The following day, a much- anticipated visit to Mare Island was suddenly aborted.
More rough weather quickly caused a headache for the captain, the sick and injured.
Visits to other islands were also axed.
A second medical emergency soon had the ship turning around and returning to Noumea.
However, it was also a “white-night” and our fun-loving Fiona pulled from her luggage 14 tinsel halos for us to wear with our white outfits.
More people lined up for photographs with us, while others were so sick they thought they’d reached 14 angels in heaven.
Meanwhile, the captain’s headache became a migraine.
A third medical emergency aborted an island sight-seeing tour and the ship was suddenly sailing towards Brisbane, gearing up for a helicopter transfer.
But luckily, the patient stabilised and the helicopter remained on stand-by.
Lots of passengers grizzled, groaned, whinged and moaned.
Yet the captain kept us safe, regardless of the emergency and regardless of the weather.
Our group of 14 Wallies who morphed into angels rolls on.
As we enjoy being 60, we celebrate a friendship spanning 55 years that makes our good times great and bad times, easier.
We will not mention most of us now have the ‘flu.
