Underneath The Flight Path: A swoop of Seagulls

Although their colours were described in the first issue of the relaunched school magazine The Seagull in 1962, the rugby league socks were not.

Socks in TRHS school colours worn for the last time in 1975.
A new black and green colour scheme was introduced in the following year.

The Seagull was launched in 1957 by the Tweed Heads Intermediate High School. The cover echoes the design work of the Art Teacher, Gordon Drummond Story (sometimes Storey), for the school badge.

Image used as the front cover of the Seagull from 1957 until 1965.
It was then replaced by various renditions of a seagull and student art until 2015.

The design was explained in the November 1962 issue as "the Seagull with wings outspread against a sky-blue background above the white-capped waves rolling shorewards. A Fish portrayed the valley's most important and profitable industry, which today still plays a big part in the lives of the community."

A few years later, to cope with a growing community, a new site at South Tweed Heads was chosen for a larger secondary school. The newly renamed Tweed River High School was opened in October 1961, but The Seagull was not published in that year. Rather, a commemorative programme was published.[1] The magazine resumed the following year.

It is possible to read all published issues of Seagull in Trove. Searching for the name of someone who attended either High School, or just using the word seagull with a year in the Magazines and Newsletters tab, makes a good starting point.

It is also possible to see the delightful range of covers as the magazine was taken over by the School's artists.

Despite best efforts to effect a virtual representation of the whole series, there is a strange separation of Seagulls, wrought by a traditional interpretation of what constitutes a collection. Issues held by the National Library are viewable at https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-3140364009 and issues loaned are viewable at https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-3283749708. It is necessary to peruse both to see all covers. Nevertheless, their co-location exemplifies the power of Trove to provide seamless access to a physically separated set of issues.

Acknowledgements

The author is grateful to the Tweed River High School's Library, the Tweed Regional Museum, and the Tweed Heads Historical Society for providing the "missing" copies of The Seagull to be digitised and included in Trove in perpetuity.

Footnote

[1] the 1961 programme in full (click on each image to read the details)