In the days when we were young, the church was the center of family life and entertainment for people living in many rural communities.

Many denominations were to be found in the Upper Clarence, among them the Methodists were renowned for their enthusiasm for “Pleasant Sunday Afternoons” and Sunday school picnics.

One warm spring Saturday, the local Methodists had organized a combined Sunday School picnic and invited Methodist children from other villages to spend a joyous day on a property that was also used as a gulf course on the outskirts of Tabulum.

The sandy paddock had plenty of trees for the children to climb and a small shed where the food could be prepared. The children were told not to wander to far from the shed and most played happily under the casual watch of a small group of mothers.

Norma and Rosie were every Sunday School teacher’s nightmare, best friends, inseparable and as naughty as any eight year olds could be. They were on the hunt for adventure, they decided not to go near the river but to look at this game called gulf and see how they could adapt it.

The eighteen holes that made up the gulf course were spread around gentle grassy slopes and trees of varying sizes, easy enough for the girls to get around the entire course without being seen.

Norma and Rosie discovered that the purpose of these men was to chase a little ball across the paddock and roll it down a little pipe situated in a circle of sand placed at various points around the paddock.

“We’ll hide the holes,” the girls decided, so they carefully filled up each of the pipes with sand and smoothed over the top to hide each hole.
A group of very annoyed golfers approached the little shed where the children had gathered for lunch; it was then that the absence of the two girls was noticed.

The Sunday School teachers assured the golfers that the culprits would be punished and the damaged repaired as soon as the girls were rounded up.

Norma and Rosie arrived at the shed for lunch to be greeted be angry mothers and even more angry teachers, they were made stand in a corner while the other children enjoyed their lunch, then sent our to undo their mornings work.

“Go out with repentance in your harts, and pray for forgiveness, then undo your wickedness and make things better that they were before you sinned” the girls were told.

Norma and Rosie went from hole to hole around the gulf course removing the sand from the pipes, right down to their armpits.