Kevin Mountain 1952

Fifty years on and local historian, Kevin Mountain still has the school case he took to his shorthand classes at Midland Technical School. Inside the case are pages of shorthand exercises from the Pitman's Shorthand Instruction book, neatly written in a Pioneer Scholar’s pad. At the bottom of the case, a lead pencil and a now very brittle rubber, plus a Midland Technical School receipt for the registration fee of 10 shillings which had to be shown to the instructor on entering class.

As a junior clerk at the Midland Railway Workshops, Kevin attended night school once a week. He wasn’t alone. There were about 500 railway apprentices at that time attending technical school to learn a whole range of trades. Some of the trades such as car and wagon building have since disappeared like the workshops, which were once considered the biggest in the Southern Hemisphere.

Kevin remained at the workshops until they closed in 1994, firstly as a record keeper and then as a time-keeper, responsible for completing wages timesheets. Today he provides a link with the past writing articles for local papers and responding to all sorts of queries. Recently he was able to help someone track down the train that their deceased grandfather was transported on from Meekatharra to Gingin.

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