Recently my friend digitised the 1997 video of our school orchestra tour of outback New South Wales. Titled ‘On the Verge of the Outback’, it’s styled as a fly-on-the-wall documentary and was made by the school chaplain. We don’t know why, but I’m glad he did because it’s the only footage I have from that time and it definitely made Music Camp more memorable.

I hadn’t watched the video for at least 20 years but it was exactly as I remembered: An excruciatingly drawn-out, plotless dirge. It’s nearly three hours of teenagers standing around waiting, then playing music that sounds like it’s recorded underwater.

In summary I found ‘On the Verge of the Outback’ fascinating, hilarious and almost achingly sad. 5 stars.

I am hardly in it. I played second clarinet and was extremely quiet and awkward. Rewatching the video, I kept laughing when I was briefly in shot because I appeared so miserable or terrified. I called my partner over to show him how ridiculous I was.

Over the past 25 years, I’ve made a lot of hay out of making fun of and criticising myself. I’ve read my school diaries on stage for laughs and based characters in books on things I’ve done that I’m ashamed of. It’s been cathartic and gives me an illusion of being an improved version of my earlier self. But I’ll probably always think past-Penny was a bit of a duffer.

On the same day I rediscovered ‘On the Verge of the Outback’, I showed an 8-year-old a video of herself dancing when she was in prep. To me, it was cute, but she didn’t want to look. ‘I’m so embarrassed’, she said. ‘I can’t believe I thought I was a good dancer.’

She was being harsh to her younger self and I felt sad. I wished she could look at that little girl and say, ‘I really loved dancing then’.

In that spirit, and against my natural inclination, I’m going to say some nice things about my Year 10 self based on my rewatching of ‘On the Verge of the Outback’.

I said above I looked miserable in most of the shots. But actually I spent a lot of the trip pissing myself laughing in the background. There were some very funny people on that Music Camp. I recognised funny when I saw it, and I did not hold back in showing it.

I hope I still do this. Not from me the cool ironic smile and sideways glance. If I think you’ve said something really funny, you’ll get an actual round of applause.

I was not a gifted clarinetist and playing in front of other people was excruciatingly difficult because I was so shy. One of my most cringe-worthy memories is being asked to play alone at orchestra rehearsals and then simply not making a sound.

I was incompetent but I stayed in the orchestra because I wanted to be a part of it. Maybe I should have found another hobby, but in fairness there weren’t that many avenues to participate in the arts, so I took one that was available.

When I watched myself playing in the orchestra, I wondered if I was pretending (cos I did that quite a lot) but who cares. I was there, I tried and I learned a lot.

This sounds mean. To be clear, I don’t think anyone peaked in high school. We all learned more and did more after that Music Camp. I had a lot to look forward to.

I really enjoyed Music Camp.

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