Constructed in 1940, A Block was built to serve as the infants’ wing of Bowen State School. The initial stage saw the construction of the three southern classrooms, nestled between two external staircases, which remain a feature of the building today.
During World War II, the area around A Block was adapted for civil defence. Two parallel sets of air raid trenches were dug at the northern end of the building — in the vicinity of what is now the northern extension of A Block, the school driveway, and the western end of G Block. These trenches were part of a national effort to prepare schoolchildren for possible attack, and Bowen was no exception.
Students were instructed to bring a potato sack from home, cut and fashioned into a hood that could be worn over their heads during drills. To protect their teeth and jaws, a ‘U-shaped’ rubber piece, cut from the wall of an old tyre, was placed in the mouth and secured with a string around the neck. A hole was drilled into the rubber to allow for easier breathing. These simple but effective tools reflected the resourcefulness of wartime communities.
Former student Frank Steen recalled in an interview that the trenches were often full of frogs and spiders, and that one spirited classmate tossed his potato sack into the air, where it landed on the roof of the stove alcoves on F Block. It remained there for days, to the owner’s great frustration, until the wind finally blew it down. As Frank wryly noted — “It’s nice to see students haven’t changed all that much over the years.”
In response to growing enrolments, two additional classrooms were added to the northern end of A Block in 1956, followed by a final classroom extension in 1958. Around this time, the original timber balustrades along the verandas were removed and replaced with bag racks, making them more practical for the busy infants’ classrooms they served.