For us, one of the last generations to be educated at BGS before it became a comprehensive school, and who remember very well the School’s celebration of its 50th anniversary in 1956, the failure to mark the centenary is sad, but not surprising. 2006 is significant for us for a couple of other reasons. It marks 50 years since 1951 starters sat their “O’ Levels, and was a parting of the ways between those who left the School at that point and went into employment or more vocational training, and those who went on to the 6th Form, ‘A’ Levels and, in many cases, Universities. And, finally, in 2006 most of us have recently retired or are about to retire, another major crossroads in our lives. For all these reasons, it seemed peculiarly appropriate to try to organise a Reunion this year.
We started trying to locate our former school friends two years ago. The Meliora web site gave us a fast start, and I was frequently surprised by how many people I found through “Googling” their names. Often when we found one person, we were able to get leads to one or more others. We ended up with 87 people at the Reunion. This was made up of 51 ‘Old Boys’, 32 ‘Partners’ and 4 Guests. A high percentage of people we contacted came. Only a few expressed no interest, and a few more were prevented form coming by other commitments or health problems. I conclude from this that if we had managed to contact all the Starters from all 3 years we would have had to hire the Tower Ballroom!
The Reunion was a spectacular success, judging from the comments of those who attended. It took the form of a buffet supper at North Shore Golf Club. We had the advantages of a completely private facility and the informality of the Buffet Supper meant people could circulate easily, move from table to table and group to group with relative ease. I strongly recommend this format for a large Reunion because it allows people to mingle with and talk to lots of people. Kudos to Duke Hall who planned the evening.
One of the downsides of a large Reunion is that the time flashes by. You realise with a shock that 5 hours have gone by, and you have so much you wanted to say to so many people that you did not have time to do. But I knew this would be the case. The arithmetic is pretty clear; 50 ‘Old Boys’ and 300 minutes = 6 minutes each on average. So what I did was arrange to meet a small group of my close friends for lunch on June 23rd, and I was invited to lunch with another small group on the 24th. These lunches were “the icing on the cake” as one of my friends said. I know that others also met with close friends before or after the main event. Again, if others are going to take part in similar events I recommend that you consider doing this. It will add enormously to what you get out of it.
Enjoyable as the event on June 23 was, I really believe the main value of Reunions is to re-connect people, once great friends, who had not seen each other sometimes since their schooldays, in our case almost 50 years ago. Already, I have had great satisfaction learning that people who were at the Reunion on June 23 are planning to meet up again, and in a couple of cases they already have. In my own case, I left the Blackpool area when I was 19 (my parents moved then when I was at University) and I have lived in Canada for the last 22 years. Consequently, I had not seen any of the people at the Reunion since 1960. To my delight, though, it was as if I had last seen them yesterday, and it bore out what has often been said: the friends you make at school are typically deeper and more enduring than those you make in later life.
An important ingredient in the Reunion was the presence of Joe and Margaret Grindrod. Joe’s connection with the School goes back more than 70 years; he was a pupil there in the Thirties before returning to teach at the School after the War. He came with some memorabilia from our time at the School, and demonstrated a prodigious memory. He even remembered my taking part in a Junior School Dramatic Society production which I had completely forgotten. And how wonderful it was to see the pleasure it gave him when people expressed appreciation of his teaching to him. He really is the School’s Mr. Chips. So thank you, Joe and Margaret for gracing us with your presence.
Helping to organise the Reunion was very rewarding. It gave me a great deal of personal satisfaction. Time very well spent. To anybody else thinking about organising one, I say give it a go. I am sure you won’t regret it.
Peter Barton, Toronto, July 2006
The 1950 Starters E-Mail Directory ----- The 1950 Starters Index