The Journal of The Old Chelmsfordians Association.
Memorial Sports Field, Lawford Lane, Roxwell Road, Chelmsford, Essex. CM1 2NS
Phone: 01245 420442 : Website:
Secretary and Newsletter Editor: George Heseltine : 01245 265962 :
ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING NOVEMBER 25TH 2013
In keeping with tradition the Annual General Meeting was poorly attended but afforded those present the opportunity to thank the officers and committee for their continuing endeavours during the year; to confirm Terry Allen as the incoming President from the Dinner on March 29th and to invite David Kitchiner to follow him as President in 2015. In the last issue Baz Bowerman paid tribute to ‘Kitch’ for his work within the cricket section as ‘someone who has selflessly devoted his time for the good of the club’ and this sentiment regarding the Association as a whole was echoed by all those at the AGM.
Members of the much lauded (but oft maligned) Friday gang of volunteers were also fittingly acknowledged with Bernie Oram, Callum McLean, Lloyd Hardy and Frank Easton being appointed Vice Presidents of the Association. In a loosely related offering from previous times the Secretary gave his annual report:-
“According to a Guardian article written in 2005 there is an auld axiom beloved of burnt-out English teachers, glamour-impoverished fantasists and a million other drudges seeking to transcend their lives of quiet desperation that ‘Everyone has a novel inside them’.
With this in mind and after a morning tree felling with the Friday Gang last week I mused, whilst riding my bike home afterwards, on how I might pen my opening lines were I to embark on releasing that novel from within my inner being and came up with the following for starters:-
‘The earth had moved for us so we rested, breathless and exhausted, after our exertions;the peace of a cold but dry, sun-kissed November morning had been shattered by the crashing to the ground of the now broken willow that had stood tall and proud for so many years offering shade and a green, verdant backdrop to the tennis courts, its tentacular branches of sun-dappled leaves weeping and sweeping down to the chattering waters of the fast flowing babbling brook below’.
I had by now reached the ‘Cyclists Dismount’ sign in the High Street and in attempting to dodge the PCSOs rather lost the further plot to this story but recalled that some years back I had come up with a ‘Novel’ approach to presenting my annual report and, with time pressing and the December newsletter to write as well, decided to revisit this.
As mentioned, having spent last Friday morning fetching ropes and wedges and fuel for the various chainsaws being used to make safe the said, sad willow I was reminded of my school day English Literature lessons, more specifically the works of L.P. Hartley and quite appropriately for my morning’s labours as the ‘Gofer’, his novel The Go Between, written in 1953. It is interesting to note that Hartley was born in 1895, the very year that the Association was established, and then went on to write The Sixth Heaven in 1946 at the same time that our members were formulating plans for a sports-ground at Lawford Lane to be just that - as a memorial to those from the School who had died during the two world wars.
Although the Club is now far more open regarding membership there were suggestions in the past that we were considered by some to be somewhat elitist for the pleasure the OCA took in having its membership drawn from our local Grammar School. The works of Jane Austen sprang to mind at this suggestion of Pride and Prejudice and it is good that a little Persuasion has now encouraged those loathe to join us for this reason to come to their Sense and Sensibility and to realise that all we are interested in is to provide excellent social facilities for our members and a ground on which to play their sport befitting such a Mans Field/Park. As Thomas Hardy may have reflected there can be no greater pleasure, apart perhaps from watching football on a dank midwinter’s afternoon, than following a game of cricket on a sunny summer’s dayFar from the Madding Crowd from Under the Greenwood Tree. Somerset Maugham would add to this that even if the match, balanced on The Razor’s Edge,was halted for Rain one could always retire to the Clubhouse for Cakes and Ale. E. M Forster suggested that The Longest Journey was that for a batsman to and from the wicket when bowled first ball from the infamous Howard’s End from Where Angels Fear to Tread knowing the whole spectacle had been witnessed by the vast crowd from A Room with a View within the clubhouse on the boundary. However we should not play down our own self esteem nor forget, as Oscar Wilde extolled, The Importance of Being Earnest. It was ‘Vita’ Sackville-West who impressed upon us that Land is our Heritage and on which All Passion Spent in the groundwork, be it for football or cricket, would be more than rewarded by the quality of the playing surfaces during the following season.
The current affairs of the club continue to be admirably administered by the existing committees whose monthly deliberations are more than reflected in the writings of William Shakespeare. Whilst discussions at times storm to The Tempestlike proportions it can also resemble The Comedy of Errors with talk occasionally akin to Much Ado about Nothing. Normally it does end As You Like It and for me as Secretary A Midsummer Night’s Dreamis that any discussion should conclude Alls Well that Ends Well. John Milton got it similarly right by turning Paradise Lost into Paradise Regained.
I sense mumblings from the floor of ‘What the Dickens…’ so will in John Galsworthy’s words come to the End of the Chapter.
What the Dickens?....what the Dickens indeed! His influence can be seen throughout the Club, be it reflected in our newsletters, our modern day equivalent of The Pickwick Papers or our evergreen members at their monthly coffee mornings with the clubhouse resembling The Old Curios (i) T (y) Shop. I, like so many other long serving members, regard the Club as a whole as Our Mutual Friend, a place for sport and for social gathering with an unrivalled warmth and friendship which should be paramount during the festive period approaching. The decorated clubhouse will certainly be no Bleak House as we enjoy firstly A Christmas Carolbefore celebrating right through to a Shakespearian Twelfth Night. Our other big function, when young and old alike come together to celebrate, is the Annual Dinner, arranged as would have George Eliot, in Middlemarch and when,at the end of the evening, wecome togetherwithMichelle Magorian to say Goodnight Mr Tom to our Headmaster. In the past we may have known Hard Times but with the efforts of all serving on our committees and those organising, preparing and playing for the various sports sections we can look forward to the future with Great Expectations.
Let us hope that in seeking theBrave New World as countenanced by Aldous Huxley in 1931we experience no more of Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind In the Willows which could lead to more of our magnificent trees being Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell and our Friday Gang having to again reach those Emily Bronte like Wuthering Heights to perform their arboreal husbandry”.
CHRISTMAS DRAW SUNDAY DECEMBER 8th 2013
We are indebted to all who again supported the Christmas Draw which having giving back £1000.00 in main prizes still raised a further £1165 for our funds.Thank You.
The first prize of a £500.00 ‘travel voucher’ was won by John Aldridge, (A0073) with £250.00 going to Steve Little, (B2333), £150.00 to James Hasler, (B1157) and £100.00 to Hilary Beach, (D0464). Other ‘bottle’ prizes went to Jon Alston, A0207, Sandra Roulston,C1280, John Kelly,B1920, Reg Richardson,C1083, S. Roberts, C0728, and Gary Miller, B2833.
The main prizes all seemed well received and members at the club were delighted when John Aldridge called in on a Sunday lunchtime over Christmas to share a little of his good fortune at the bar, Steve Little was equally delighted that his £250 will help towards an already booked May holiday when he and his wife are visiting the Normandy gardens and D-Day beaches. Chris and Hilary Beach, having returned to the clubhouse after the draw had taken place,took some convincing that the ‘wags at the bar’ weren’t pulling their legs in telling them of their win and we were particularly pleased to hear from James Haslerfrom Wellingborough,“I had given up believing in Father Christmas but now I realise that he passes through Lawford Lane from time to time!” James, at 88, suggested that he was now only fit from the neck up so wasn’t sure if he would spend the money on travel but was sure the family could help him out in spending it - “I’m not entirely moribund yet!”
NOT ONLY PAUL PRITCHARD….
The Annual Dinner will be held at the Lawford Lane Clubhouse on Saturday March 29th at which the guest speaker will be Paul Pritchard, the former EssexCounty cricketer. Paul also played football for the OCs alongside our resident President, Andy Cook, so it will be a welcome return for him. Tickets will be available shortly but meanwhile all enquiries should be made to George Heseltine.
....BUT ALSO THE TOUR DE FRANCE….TO VISIT LAWFORD LANE
Stage 3 of the 2014 Tour de France cycle race on Monday July 7th is from Cambridge to Central London and will pass through Uttlesford and Braintree Districts before entering Chelmsford to the north of Howe Street, passing through Great Waltham and urban west Chelmsford before passing the gates of the Clubhouse at Lawford Lane before departing via Roxwell on route to Epping and Central London.
Information briefing meetings for interested parties are being held with the City Council and more information on how we will celebrate this event will be given in our next Newsletter - meanwhile please book the date!
THE HEADMASTER, TOM SHERRINGTON, WRITES
We’ve enjoyed a very positive start to the term, riding high in the performance tables once again. The BBC and Telegraph placed KEGS 5th in the country for A levels and 6th for GCSEs; the only school to be in the top six on both measures. Exam results are obviously just part of the picture when we measure the success of the school but it is always helpful to deliver success on this scale; not least because it allows us to carry on doing the things we feel give our students an excellent all-round education without too much interference. We’ve also had an excellent year with entrance to Oxford and Cambridge with 25 students receiving offers. Interestingly we’ve had more for Oxford (16) than Cambridge (9) which is quite unusual. The Art Block construction is well underway with the steel frame in place and the brick work taking shape. Despite the relentless rain we are confident that the building will be finished on time. We are hoping that Grayson Perry, a former KEGS student and recent CBE recipient, will be able to open the building in the autumn but that is still to be confirmed. The rain is playing havoc with our playing fields and sports fixtures; we had a sizeable swimming pool on Friday on West Field. I hope that we can return to normal before long. You may have picked up on the announcement that KEGS Governors are discussing the proposal to form a multi-academy trust that would allow us to sponsor MelbournePark and Kings Road primary schools and, possibly to bid to open a new primary school on the vacant Maltese Road site adjacent to the school. There are many considerations but the main motivation to take this step would be to provide a means for all three schools to collaborate in serving the local community, raising aspirations and improving the quality of education. We’re holding a parents’ forum on March 12th where some of the issues will be discussed. I hope to see many of you at the OC’s Dinner in March when we will be joined by Deputy Head and Head of Sixth Form, Helen Wiltshire.
KEGS SCHOOL NEWSPAPERS
Peter Crisp, (1945-1950), , has responded to the School Newspapers article|:-
“Dear Editor,I read with interest the contribution from Paul Herrington regarding hishistory of school newspapers. I was amazed to note that there was no referenceto the Form 3A Bi-weekly Newsheet that appeared for at least three editions in 1948!Obviously at this date the few remaining copies are extremely valuable and do notallow reproduction in an acceptable quality but the following is a copy of page one,edition one for your information”. (Thank you Peter - Paul’s contribution was headed ‘School Newspapers in the 1950s’ which is possibly why there was no reference to your 1948 news-sheet!! How desktop publishing has advanced over the last sixty years though - advertisements have also gained an ‘e’, copies of photos can be developed and enlarged at home, Google provides on line library facilities, privatisation of the postal services may see the end of philatelyas we know it and walking sticks are a must - be they made of, or by, Grim Wood! - Ed)
WERE YOU HE……IN A LONDON CAFE?
We had a call from Selwyn Wheeler(1940-1947) saying he had recently been in a cafe in London wearing, as always, his OCA blazer when he was approached by a 'younger' man suggesting that Selwyn, like he, must obviouslyhave gone to KEGS in Chelmsford. Pleasantries were exchanged along with the ‘younger’ man’s name which Selwyn dutifully wrote down on his newspaper - which he then absentmindedly discarded!!.Selwyn recalled the stranger was a contemporary of Kevin Menhinick and John and Paul Swinney and lived in the Stowmarket area and was hoping for help in remembering the name. We proffered a few possibilities from the 1965-1972 era, none of whom rang a bell with Selwyn, who subsequently thought our member might have been a drum major in the Corps of Drums or a senior officer in the CCF with a surname beginning with ‘W’. If you are he we would love to hear from you to both resolve our own intrigue and put Selwyn’s mind at rest that the lost name was nothing other than a self professed 'senile old man'moment.
FROM OUR POST BAG
Brian Goodey, (1952-1960),,has responded to the articles in our last issue:-
“Semi-Retired academics do have a drive to write – note Paul Herrington and John Baker in the last edition – so I had better join in the chase.
I have to admit that many of my contemporaries’ memories are far better than my own, and I do rely on the Newsletter to remind me of worlds which I have never, thus far, recalled. In the last issue there were terse descriptions of Ron Stedman, the epitome of the geographer/sportsman and of Hylton, the idiosyncratic French teacher. The latter is firmly embedded in my mind as he caught me reading the Melody Maker underneath the desk. Retribution followed, but so did the suggestion that we form a Jazz Club. This record society thrived for a while and its peak event is fixed very clearly in my mind.
As was my wont on Saturdays, I was at Dobell’s Jazz record store in Charing Cross Road (long since departed), thumbing through priceless 2nd hand discs (which still load the attic). In the past I had spotted such as Chicago tenor player Bud Freeman and John Bastable of the Ken Colyer Band, but this day, here, was Bruce Turner, the alto sax player with Humphrey Lyttelton’s Band. Turner’s appearance in Humph’s Band at BirminghamTown Hall had occasioned the suggestion that ‘the dirty bopper should go home’, akin to the shock which greeted Dylan’s electrification. Turner was a very British …. and eccentric musician who linked the prevailing traditional jazz with the moderns (whose smoky discs were spun at a club in the Chelmsford Friend’s Meeting House). I asked Bruce Turner if he would talk at our Jazz Club and he duly appeared and spun a range of modern jazz – Lee Konitz sticks in my mind – to the surprise of a large audience. Does any reader remember the event? Around the same time there was also a KEGS skiffle group, replete with tea chest bass, which entertained (inside) at a school fete.
Jazz was initially an enthusiasm to be shared quietly in front rooms – of my year Sid Goldman, who lived very near the school was a clarinettist whose turntable took a pounding from our 78s, likewise a gentleman named Radford who lived near Admiral’s Park, and especially Geoff Liggett, with whom I shared the traditional jazz interest until he died a few years ago.
My first live Chelmsford ‘jazz’ experience was creeping round the tent flaps of an evening dance by Harry Gold’s Pieces of Eight in the late 1950’s when Kenny Ball led his band, until hauled home by my father but there were to be many more, locally at the lamented Corn Exchange and then in the ballroom above the Odeon where a weekly parade of the pop heroes of the ‘trad’ boom performed. Earlier, and with my father,Reg, I saw Chris Barber with skiffle arrayed by Dickie Bishop and Johnny Duncan, at the Regent. My father had played drums before the war and his record collection – deep in Ellington – started the enthusiasm.