One of the most unpleasant surprises I had on arrival at Fairbridge was the reality of the trainee scheme – effectively a program of hard labour. Most boys and girls were forced to leave school at fifteen so they could work on a rotating roster of jobs around the farm for the next two years. Although they took on the full-time workload of an adult, they were given only a shilling or two a week in pocket money. The farm of about six hundred and fifty hectares was about two kilometres wide and ran for five and a half kilometres south from the Mitchell Highway and Molong Creek, which formed its northern border. Fairbridge was largely self-sufficient, thanks to its sheep farming, grain growing, vegetable garden and orchard, dairy with about fifty milking cows, piggery, poultry farm that produced up to 200 eggs a day, and slaughterhouse, where up to two dozen sheep a week were killed. All the work was undertaken by the children and only a handful of adult farm supervisors. However, most boys left Fairbridge qualified only to be farm labourers, and the girls to be domestic servants.
