TOM Johns must have put something in the Hagley Farm School swimming pool water when he helped build it in the 1950s, because his family keeps going back there, generation after generation.
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Mr Johns and his two brothers, Kevin and George, were the first in the Johns family to complete their schooling at Hagley.
Grade six student Alex Johns, 12, is about to end that family tradition, after following in the footsteps of his dad Richard and pop Tom.
Tom, who owns a farm at Hagley with Richard, said he and his brothers had been three of 14 boarding students at Hagley Farm School.
They become boarders after losing their parents and becoming Legacy boys.
The brothers were known as the "cottage boys" in those days, as they lived in the school's cottages.
The school had one cottage when Tom started in 1951. A second cottage, to accommodate 14 more boys, was added in his later years there.
Both cottages remain on the school grounds today.
Tom said it was different when he was at school between 1951 and 1956 to what it was like today.
"Being cottage boys, we used to get up at 6.30am and do an hour's work," Tom said.
"We would do things like get the vegetables ready for the lunches, set the fires in the cottages and the rooms, go down and help milk the cows, go see the chooks and go clean the vegetable gardens.
"Everyone used to have meals in the hall back then, because all the food was produced on the farm.
"We used to go in there for mid-day lunch.
"There would have been 10 tables of 10 people and the school girls would cook the meals."
Tom said in the 1950s the students could stay at the school until grade 9.
He said there were fewer school buildings then, with only two classrooms.
During his time as a cottage boy, Tom also helped build the school's swimming pool, the old gym and the tennis courts, all of which exist still.
"I learnt to drive an old Chevy ute while we were building the swimming pool," Tom said.
"We used to drive down into the swimming pool, get a load of dirt out, chuck it somewhere and go back down in there again."
Tom said he bought a property at Hagley after finishing school, which was the reason his sons, Richard and Murray, also went there.
By the time Richard started school in 1976, boarding students no longer stayed at Hagley and the children didn't have to milk cows or get vegetables any more. That was the farm manager's responsibility, as it is today.
Richard said there was a class for every grade by the time he attended and the school was a lot more modernised.
As for Alex, he has seen the school get a new gymnasium - something pushed for by former principal Peter Kearney.
The gym Richard had to use was the same one Tom had helped build.
And despite not getting to feed the animals or milk the cows every day like his pop did, Alex said his favourite thing about the school was that it was a farm.
"Not many schools have that," he said.
"It's pretty special".
Richard said the family would always be part of the school, even without having children enrolled.
"We've all had something to do with it over the years," he said.
"Dad's brother George worked here as the groundsman and his wife Faye was in the office for years.
"My brother Murray's wife, Christine, worked here as a teacher for years and she works in the Environment Centre now.
"Murray even managed the farm for a couple of years and is still on the board to keep the farm going.
"So, even if we haven't had kids here as students, we're always doing something here.
"It's a great school."
● Hagley was without a school before 1855.
● The first school started operating in 1855 at the village’s Presbyterian Church. An Examiner newspaper report from October 3, 1936, stated: ‘‘As the school was held in the church, services such as marriages caused breaks in the school timetable–breaks that were appreciated by the scholars.’’
● The school was built on its current site in 1865, after Tasmania’s first state-born premier, Sir Richard Dry, donated two acres of land for it. Sir Richard Dry also paid the lion’s share to build the old school house and residence.
● In the 1930s, Hagley became an area school.
● There was an idea to make the school part of the Fairbridge System, where orphans would be brought over to board and live on Hagley Farm and learn to be farmers. However, Hagley historian Jenny Walters said the war disrupted the plans as it was not safe to bring children to the farm. ‘‘It ended up being Tasmanians who had lost their fathers in the war, with a few international orphans that were sponsored by various people,’’ Mrs Walters said. Sponsored orphans came from England, Holland, Scotland, Thailand, Greece and Wales.
● The school was known as Hagley State School until 1936. It has since been called Hagley Farm School.
● This weekend, the school is celebrating is 160th year of operation and the 150th year of operating on its current site.
● The original classroom is still at Hagley Farm School and visited regularly by school groups.
● More than 150,000 Tasmanians are estimated to have visited the Hagley Farm School and Environment Centre for various camps since 1979.
