The Meliorian

The website is updated each Sunday night, usually after the monitor has had tea! See : -

LATEST ADDITION UPDATE PAGE

The website is written in notepad and mainly by my rather clumsy typing. If you should find any errors on any page please feel free to let me know so I may change them and keep up the high standard fitting of ‘your’ old school. Simply e-mail with the error and the last part of the page address (e.g. this would be meliorian0702.htm). The same applies to any dead or non functioning links. The website contains approx. 1400 pages.

Sadly not everyone who uses the Internet is of sound mind and there are individuals out there who get pleasure from damaging equipment and systems of others.

There have been instances where e-mails purorting to have come from site members have been sent. These have not originated from the named sender, but from a malicious source

Viruses are generally sent as an attachment to an e-mail. If you are not expecting an e-mail with an attactchment it may be better not to open it until further enquiries have been made.

Under no circumstances will an e-mail be sent from: -

There has also been a rash of good intentioned e-mails advising recipients to delete non virus bearing genuine.

There are some REUNIONS being arranged by various years. It is a thankless task trying to track down people from 25+ years ago so if your year group is holding a reunion please support your organiser in any way you can. Every scrap of information about your old classmates gives another clue in towards making sure that everyone is invited

If you have any items for the website please e-mail with details. If you wish to submit a magazine article you can simply send it as an e-mail, but please provide the date of the magazine, the title and the authors details.

Photographs may be sent as attactchments but only one photograph per e-mail please. Please try to name as many of those depicted as possible.

The 1968 starters have held the latest get together in Mid May. It gave three people who had not previously attended any event, the chance to meet up with long lost pals. An evening was spent in The Washington followed by three hours in Flares Blackpools 70's (funky Disco). A few phone calls and e-mails gave 18 people a really fun filled evening. It really is that easy!

Since May two '68 boys met up in Australia and two '68 girls met up in Spain.

Peter Barton has written :-

I believe 2004 will be BGS's centenary year. I assume the School is well aware of this. Do you know if there are any plans to celebrate the event which might involve the Old Boys?

I have some thoughts about trying to organise a Reunion of some sort to coincide with the centenary. I was at the School from 1951 to 1959 and naturally my interest is focused on my contemporaries, many of whom I have rediscovered through the Meliora web site.

Because I live in Canada it would be well nigh impossible for me to be the prime organiser of a Reunion so I would need to find someone locally who would be prepared to take it on, and I am not confident I can do that. If the School is planning something though that we could piggy back on that might be the answer.

If it turns out the School has no plans I think the idea should be put to them in the strongest possible terms. I feel confident that an event or indeed a series of events held during 2004/5 could be used to generate funds to add to or upgrade School facilities. This is an opportunity which by its very nature will seldom occur.

I assume that if you do not know what the School's thinking is on this subject you will be able to redirect this e-mail to someone who does. I know 2004 sounds a long way off but, with former pupils spread around the world, if something is to be done it is not too early to be thinking about it.

Peter Barton

Monitor adds:-

The Meliora website is an unofficial channel. I have forwarded this e-mail on to one of my School Contacts, who has replied that the anniversary may in fact be in 2006. This topic should be of interest to evryone on the website as the anniversary relate to all the schools. Should anyone be interested in picking up the Reunion Guantlet Peter can be contacted via the 1951 e-mail list.

Johnny Johnson who taught at Collegiate Girls School and moved to the mixed school in 1971 asks if there are any model railway enthusiasts in the websites membership? John can be contacted via the staff e-mail list.

Tony Thompson a 1950 starter wrote recently regrading the ATC squadron at BGS.:-

It occurred to me that some people on the school list may have been members of the above ATC Squadron which was run by BGS I think the number was 190.
This may jog a few memories, though I can't think of any names at the moment.
I qualified as a glider pilot whilst with Squadron at the age of 16 one of the youngest in the country at that time

The monitor has recently added an ATC report to the magazine article index. If you have any memories of the Squadron please e-mail and share them with the website.

I am very grateful to Tricia Allitt and Peter Barton who became the websites first two sponsors. The website can be sponsored for one month at a time and the ‘honour’ of being listed as the websites sponsor is listed at the bottom of nearly every one of the sites 1200 pages. If you would like to be a future sponsor please let me know and I will send you details. The website is currently sponsored by the starters of 1966 who donated surplus funds from the 1966 Reunion.

MELSEQ an earlier manifestation of MELIORA has now passed quietly away into internet history. The address that had been used as a forwarding address to www.meliora.co.uk ceased in January.

There is nothing more annoying than discovering a ‘dead’ e-mail address and deleting it from the website only for the owner to be ‘born again’ a few weeks later. This is a real annoyance a the website is written in notepad and all changes have to be performed and uploaded manually. Therefore if you change your address for any reason please let me know ASAP in order that your entry may be simply amended rather than deleted and recreated. The current problem is members migrating to broadband access and failing to inform me.

If you have any comments ideas or suggestions for this website please let me know. If you have any information you wish to share with members of your year list please submit it and I will forward it on

The website is allowed to grow freely, like weeds!. I exercise very little editorial control or guidance.
Since the last e-dition three people have ound the website simply through being named on others photographs.

To this end each starting year can be viewed as an individual website and will thrive or fail dependant on the members of that year. The supply of articles or photographs nearly all come from individuals not from any official archive. One feature that everyone could assist in though is the submission of names for your year list of pupils. These lists again are from the personal memories of website members. One major benefit of these lists is that anyone who is unaware of the websites existence will have a better chance of stumbling across it if they are on a list. This occurs when the natural curiosity to see what happens when an individuals name and home town are entered into one of the major search engines. To test this type in your name and Blackpool into www.google.co.uk . This opportunity to find your long lost pal is only there if they are listed somewhere on the website!