I promised an old school buddy last weekend that I was going to write a reflective piece on the good, the bad, and the ugly, based on my memories of the Square. I declared this after a particularly arduous bike ride and was clearly fatigued at the time.

True to form, I then went on to promise this column to a former teacher of mine, fellow staffers at the Addy and, worst of all, an old boyfriend.

Not any old boyfriend. My first ever boyfriend. Fellow GSHS students of the late 70s will know to whom I refer. Ours was the Mills and Boon romance that blossomed on the asphalt of the infamous school quadrangle. For 14 months we “went together’’. We held hands, kissed, canoodled and occasionally posted soppy love letters into each other’s locker. (He was a sensitive new age guy before we knew that SNAGs were things you cooked on a barbie). He lived in town and I was out the ‘Flat and, at the height of our relationship, he would dink me home from school.

Sometimes, if he had footy practice, he would delegate this responsibility to one of his mates. We were in love . . . until I kissed another boy (probably one of the designated cyclists) . . . and I was, quite rightly, dumped.

Well, that’s how I remember it. Unfortunately, my first ever boyfriend (MFEB) remembers much, much more. In fact, he remembers names, dates, places, just about everything . . . not just about us, but about the students and teachers. Perhaps this is because he’s stayed in touch with many of his mates from school, while I took off from Bendigo 22 years ago and never looked back - until now.

MFEB was really sweet about taking my call and being interrogated about our glory days, and started out by reminding me that we had not seen each other since 1986. (God, what did I look like in 1986, was my first thought? Then, oh God, what do I look like now?).

To bring me up to speed, he sent me his business profile, which included a picture. A very impressive resume. He’s done extremely well for himself (knew he would).

The accompanying picture was meant to shock me, I think, but it didn’t. He’s as bald as a badger (knew this too). He had a receding hairline at 15, with a mullet to boot. It was the 70s after all.

I had a spiral perm in my final (Form 4) year (Forms 5 and 6 had started migrating to Bendigo High in 1978). They were all the rage back then. From memory it cost mum a bomb, but it was soooooo worth it. Fitting in at high school was as important, sometimes more so, than striving for academic excellence.

This is where things get a bit tricky. After consulting with MFEB, other male and female students and teachers of this era, I’ve discovered to my shock that my recollections of what went on in the Square schoolyard don’t exactly tally with theirs. But hey, this is my column, so we’re going with my version, with a little creative input from them. From what I remember, the girls travelled in small packs. Which clique you belonged to depended on one of five key performance indicators: physical characteristics, personality traits, academic skill, sporting prowess, and social status.

Good looking girls always hung out together and were predominantly blonde. (Olivia Newton-John types.)

Outspoken, confident chicks were a bit more welcoming to new members, particularly incoming students. Shy girls were left to their own devices in the library.

Nerdy, brainy types were in the library too, but they knew how to play chess and stuff.

Sporty swots ran around together and were always up for a game of netball or volleyball at lunch time

Middle class kids were defined by their perfectly fitting clean uniforms, tied-back hair and good teeth. Poorer kids were often out of uniform and carried their school books in shopping bags. They were tough and scary. On reflection, maybe it was their home lives that were really scary.

I wanted to be a good looking girl but as a brunette I didn’t stand a chance, and although bleaching was a popular option, my mother would have none of that. Surprisingly, I was pretty confident (on the outside), but I was also a member of the school netball and swim teams and used to run a bit.

As far as English was concerned, I was an A student (OK, so now I’m bragging). When I told my teacher at the time that I wanted to become a hairdresser, he was gobsmacked.

He telephoned Mum, and the rest is history.

What really interested me was the tough girls, smoking in the dunnies, piercing each other’s ears and carving tattoos into their ankles with a compass.

The journo in me now, would love to know why. The boys had their own packs, although they were less rigid. On most days, one or more of these packs would circle the good looking girls, trying to cut one from the herd, as my cousin would say.

It was the extracurricular activities at the Square that are most fondly remembered by the boys, particularly those lucky enough to entice a willing participant down to the bottom oval.

Here, I understand, teenage boys and girls raging with hormones were able to swap notes on biology.

Boys will be boys. They kicked the footy, played cricket and generally filled their recesses and lunch times congregating around the canteen or oval gently pushing, shoving and backslapping one another over silly jokes. (Billy Connelly wannabes.)

Of course there was the odd rumble over chicks, footy results, or food. Nothing too serious, just letting off steam, or so they tell me.

They’d chuck mates out the window when a teacher wasn’t looking, take bets on how long it would take to make a certain female teacher cry, and spit paper missiles through a pen at unsuspecting classmates. It was harmless stuff, really, and we laughed a lot. Grander mischief making extended to jamming one male teacher’s Morris Minor between a couple of steel posts.

We roller-skated and danced to Saturday Night Fever at the school disco. We cheated on the cross country course and passed notes in exams. And we laughed.

In summer, the quadrangle was like a French promenade and in winter we’d huddle under the tin shelter near the canteen or verandas

Many of us forty-something foodies would turn up our noses (and stomachs) at Twisties and chips in a warm, buttered white bread roll washed down with a chocky Big M. Now the memories are flooding back. The bottle green uniforms were unflattering on so many levels. The boys disagree.

The teachers were young, incredibly enthusiastic, and probably well aware of the antics on the bottom oval.

We were all so innocent in the mid-70s and blissfully ignorant of the big, wide world waiting for us

For four short years, life on top of the mullock heap in Golden Square was unrool.

We laughed a lot. I hope you’re laughing too.

- SUSAN MASTERS is the news editor at The Advertiser.