Old Boys, Girls and Teachers Guestbook

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Welcome to the Guestbook
Feel free to add messages relating to the site and the school. The only rules are: real names only, no personal attacks and no unrelated messages (inappropriate messages may be edited/withdrawn without warning).

It would be appreciated if you gave an email address, where you now live and said when you were at the school, but you don't have to.

Plase note that if you click on an email address below you will need to replace ~DOT~ with . and ~AT~ with @ in your email program. The Guestbook presents these this way to avoid email address harvesters collecting your email addresses from the page. I know it's a pain, but it's very much better than the alternative.

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There are 502 messages in the guestbook
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Viewing messages 271 to 280

Bruce Graham | bsgraham~AT~btinternet~DOT~com

Couldn't agree more.

I am reminded of the meaning of the word "education" from the Latin "to lead out of". I think that was what we got all those years ago.

Thu 15-Apr-2021 21:16 - ruskington lincolnshie

Neale Backhouse | nealebackh~AT~gmail~DOT~com

Thanks Robin for your Reference to Professor Gray on the Marketisation of Education.The curriculum at the High School in the forties was well rounded and, I felt, had our best interests at heart . I certainly didn't feel that we were being marketised. Of course Professor Gray has the present state of affairs in education in mind. Also on Utube Professor Noam Chomsky, in an interesting talk on the Purpose of Education, parallels Professor Gray's line of thinking. I particularly like his remark, that a student should not be concerned about what a course covers but on what he discovers.
Cheers, Neale.

Sat 3-Apr-2021 01:58 - Victoria BC

Robin Leslie | robin~DOT~leslie~AT~yahoo~DOT~com

John Gray Emeritus Professor of philosophy at oxford recently gave a very enlightening article on YouTube on the marketisation of Education and he mentioned that he had been to the Grammar School(SSHS)

Thu 11-Feb-2021 12:51

Neale Backhouse | nealebackh~AT~gmail~DOT~com

Thanks Eric for your kind thoughts. Glad to hear that Doreen and yourself are keeping well in these hazardous times.
Liz and I are doing OK too, and managing to avoid any run-ins with the pesky virus. I must say that here on Vancouver Island we have been more fortunate than other parts of the country, when it comes to overall case numbers snd fatalities. We have also avoided any of the lockdowns, which the Provinces of Quebec and Ontario have experienced. They really have had a rough time. You in the Uk,of course, know exactly what having a rough time really means. We have followed your situation with alarm. Let's hope that the arrival of the several vaccines which are becoming available will mark the beginning of the end of this scourge.
I must not end without a continuing thank you note to Mike, who provides us with this link to our old school and classmates. Thank you, Mike, we really appreciate it. Stay safe everyone. Neale.

Tue 19-Jan-2021 04:04 - Victoria BC

Eric Moyse 1947 to 1953 | eric~DOT~moyse~AT~sky~DOT~com

Happy New Year to Mike and all contributors, especially Neale and Alex. Doreen and I are alive and well and living by the Thames. I have just caught up with emails back to this time last year when we were discussing the possiblity of a reunion . Let's hope it is possible this year.
Stay safe
Eric

Sat 16-Jan-2021 10:52 - Reading Berkshire

Robin Leslie | robin~DOT~leslie~AT~yahoo~DOT~com

Hello Bruce and a belated HAPPY NEW YEAR to you and all OBs of the High School for Boys. Thank you for the information about Billy Edgar, my parents knew his parents though I did not know that his father was Headmaster of Stanhope Road School. I know that you were in St. Peters Church Harton choir. Do you remember Ronnie Kemp, Wentworth Driver and Geoffrey Hilcoat? St. Peters was a very lively church in the 1940-50s with a lot of marriages between young people involved in the various activities there. The vicar was Henry Robertson who had a son Peter who went on to Durham School and Sybil. A curate arrived at St. Peters just before I left the choir in 1953, Rev Cole or Holy Coley as we called him, he married Joan White another choir member.
The choirmaster was a Mr. Davidson who started choir practice with a tuning fork.Keep in touch Bruce it would be good to hear from you, keep safe and well.

Fri 15-Jan-2021 12:02 - Surrey

Bruce Graham | bsgraham~AT~btinternet~DOT~com

Robin

Your wishes for the festive season and New Year are reciprocated.

Ian McDougall and Billy Edgar were both in my form throughout my time at the school. Ian's father was at the time head of the Chemistry Department; Ian went on to Liverpool University and had a career in the nuclear fuels industry. I don't know what happened to Billy Edgar but I do recall that his father was Headmaster at Stanhope Road school.

Sat 19-Dec-2020 15:20 - ruskington lincolnshie

Robin Leslie | robin~DOT~leslie~AT~yahoo~DOT~com

I knew both Ian McDougal and Billie Edgar at the High School between 1952-54
I also knew Ian Murray the criketer whose father taught at the High School and Ronnie Kemp the amateur operatic singer. Living in Surrey now but there are so many false values down here it's a very different world. I hope you all have a VERY HAPPY CHRISTMAS AND A BRIGHT AND HOPEFUL NEW YEAR.

Tue 15-Dec-2020 21:01 - Cobham Surrey

Bruce Graham | bsgraham~AT~btinternet~DOT~com

Mike

I'm fascinated to know that There is a South Shields Boulevard in Oklahoma.

Some time ago I suggested that it would be good to know that today's students were being taught something of the heritage of their town.

On reflection, I don't remember my generation in the 1950s being taught much about our local history.

Plus ca change.

Sun 18-Oct-2020 15:48 - ruskington lincolnshie

Mike Todd | old~DOT~boys~AT~boyshighschool~DOT~co~DOT~uk

Thanks, Alex – I appreciate the concern, although I’m puzzled why the various emails didn’t get through. I don’t have any filtering at all on my various (actually 20!!) email addresses. But sometimes I do miss emails I’m afraid (although I check them many times a day).

I’ve never knew whether “John Rex” was a real name, a stage name or a nickname, or someone just drew that page and signed it “John Rex”, knowing that my Grandfather knew who it was.

But “John Rex” wasn’t unknown as a proper name [a curious aside: there is a John Rex school in Oklahoma, and it is on South Shields Boulevard]. Access to online archives is now a lot better than when I put that together (some 15+ years ago), but I still haven’t managed to identify him.

According to family lore, there is a second autograph album which ended up with my dad’s older brother. Supposedly it had the more well-known names, including Chaplin, Houdini, and Wilson Kepple and Betty. I wish I knew where it was today.

As you say, S Tyneside is something of a hotspot – in fact the whole of the NE is in a bad way. I really don’t think people understand the serious potential of this virus.

In that autograph album is a cutting from a newspaper c1968, and it has a highlighted paragraph: Someone has said that evil entered the world when the first man began to talk about 'my' and 'mine'. It seems to be true that selfishness is at the root of most of our troubles, national as well as personal.

I hope everyone stays safe through these difficult times.

Sun 11-Oct-2020 11:42 - Rothbury

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