It was “The Year of the Flood”. Not a biblical calamity, but a flood of learning, freedom of expression and creativity. Of nurturing and shaping young minds.

And the flood was Miss Leonie Flood, first-year teacher, Room 5, Palmerston North Intermediate Normal School, 1963.

“We didn’t understand at the time but she was remarkably inspirational,” said retired Tauranga businessman Roger Craw, who was one of that class of 1963.

“We adored her. We just wanted to be around her all the time.” To the extent they willingly went to school during school holidays. Room 5 was where they wanted to be. And Miss Flood was who they wanted to be with.

“Honestly, they were the most beautiful kids imaginable,” said Leonie, then Miss Flood, now Mrs Sweeney. Then a raw 19-year-old teachers’ college student teacher, now 82 and all misty-eyed at the memory.

“It’s hard holding back my tears.”

Leonie Sweeney – nee Miss Flood, Room 5 teacher of 1963 – with past student, retired Tauranga businessman Roger Craw. Photo / Supplied

Now, 62 years later, here they were, all together again, at an impromptu get-together, organised on the hop when word it was learned Miss Flood was coming to town.

If they’d held a roll call, 13 of the 29 pupils in Room 5 would have answered “present” at the get-together last month.

Arty, crafty

Including Craw. And they were sharing the love, the respect and the gratitude for the impact Miss Flood had on little lives.

“I will always remember the influence she had on me,” reflects Craw. “And I will be grateful.”

It might be expected a class reunion would be all tittle-tattle about who liked who, playground indiscretions, who beat up on who, successes and failures.

Not in this case. It was celebrating a greenhorn teacher charged with giving 29 creative kids a different sort of start – indulging their passions, doing what they were good at, doing what they liked best, rather than what the education system deemed best for everyone.

“Traditionally classes were composed of children of a similar IQ,” said Leonie. “For some reason this class was grouped according to individual talents and interests.”

Miss Flood’s Room 5 class photo from 1963. Photo / Supplied

Arty, crafty, creative kids being shepherded by a singing teacher with a love of words and drama. It was “a match made in heaven”, Leonie told The Weekend Sun from her lifestyle home in the rainforest half an hour outside Sydney.

Ka-plunking

Craw believes everything happens for a reason: “In retrospect, it made sense considering what we have done with our lives.”

Because Room 5 proved a hothouse for future architects, designers, sculptors and musicians. Craw himself was a successful designer and businessman. And now a steampunk sculptor and owner of more ukuleles than a Hawaiian beach party. He lives next door to this reporter. I hear him ka-plunking. And I have marvelled at his artwork. Room 5 and Miss Flood served him well.

The Room 5 year started with a flourish. Everyone took their grotty desks into the schoolyard and spent the day sanding them clean of ink spatters. That wasn’t on the syllabus in the classroom next door. They were grinding through a stodgy staple diet of three Rs – reading, writing and ‘rithmetic.

Painting the world

Room 5 was unorthodox – when the inspectors called one day, the 11-year-olds were wielding long swords and acting out Shakespeare. Perhaps Prince Hal versus Hotspur? They read their prizewinning poetry on a local radio station, and they produced three winners in a national competition to encourage entry to architecture.

That, understandably, created some envy and resentment – there were teachers who couldn’t abide the alternative education, the special treatment going down in Room 5.

When Miss Flood decided the classroom was drab, all the kids went back to school during the holidays to help her paint a world map on the back wall. “We just wanted to be there with her.”

She also let them ride their bikes up and down the corridor. There were different rules. “Which was just great.”

The Four Notes of 1963: From left, Robert Wilson, Stewart Harris, Wiira Te Kooro and Roger Craw. Photo / Supplied

When Craw saw Miss Flood at the reunion, he didn’t quite know what to do. “So I just asked her for a hug.” She said yes. And she giggled. The mutual regard, the esteem and appreciation had endured. And there’s good reason.

Famous at school

“Because she wasn’t so much a teacher. She was more one of us,” said Craw.

And came the day they enchanted Miss Flood with their song. Four 11-year-olds, voices sweet and pure.

“We were having a class sing-along, Miss Flood on ukulele, and she seemed to have an ear out,” said Craw. Later she would pull four of the young voices aside and suggest they form a band. Roger, Robert Wilson, Stuart Harris and Wiira Te Kooro became The Four Notes – their signature song Puff – that magic dragon who lived coastal “ … and frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honah Lee”.

Peter, Paul and Mary’s original made it to number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100, while The Four Notes’ cover made them famous at the Palmerston North Intermediate Normal School assembly.

“We must have been okay because we got asked back,” said Craw. They even became big-ish beyond the school gate when they won a talent quest at the local A&P show.

Then four of “the most beautiful kids imaginable” were invited to sing when Miss Flood became Mrs Sweeney. “She just wanted us to be at her wedding.”

It was a bit overwhelming. “None of us were Catholic. But it was a big Catholic wedding in a big Catholic church. Felt a bit odd.” And The Four Notes got to sing at the after-match function. They probably dusted off Puff again.

Last hurrah

As they did for their emotion-charged last hurrah recently in Tauranga, the reunion gig, 62 years after Room 5. Then they signed off. Perhaps forever this time.

“On reflection the reunion was amazing, quite surreal … beautiful,” said Craw, now sitting in the sun on his deck in Bureta. A lip quivers, and eyes are wiped dry. “I am quite emotional. You can’t buy those moments.”

Miss Flood is bewildered. “I had no idea what we did that year would affect their lives so significantly.” She said all you can do is “teach kids what you know. And they just mopped it up. Like sponges”. Miss Flood the enabler.

The class probably didn’t really appreciate Room 5 until they moved back into mainstream learning the next year. “That didn’t go quite as well,” Craw said with a laugh.