Objects of Substance- Itinerary of the Tour of the North

second Young Queenslanders’ Tour. A Tourist Bureau official travelled with them to supervise arrangements and assist in caring for the safety, comfort, and enjoyment of the pupils. This was the first expedition undertaken by Grammar girls and, on Monday 1 July, they left Brisbane for the tour of North Queensland on the excitingly named Townsville mail train.

Group visiting Gordonvale Sugar Mill

The three Girls Grammar staff were Misses Marjorie Fielding, Mary Alexis Macmillan, and Doris Kennedy. Both Doris and Mary Alexis were past students, and both had long teaching careers at the School, retiring together in 1965. Life might have turned out quite differently for Mary Alexis. Like many young women during the war years, her fiancé John Fryer (whom the University of Queensland’s Fryer Library is named after) returned from the Front wounded, but sadly died before they were married.