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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only rules are: real names only, no personal attacks and no unrelated messages (inappropriate messages may be edited/withdrawn without warning).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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Viewing messages 1 to 10

Alex Patterson, VUA 1946 - 1951 | ad1935ap~AT~gmail~DOT~com

Hello Mike
I’ve mentioned Billy Connolly now in my last couple of FEmails (F ormer or Ex-students emails) and when I was reading last night”s chapters of his autobiography, I came across the following passage, regarding swimming lessons while in school and I quote Billy Connolly here,

“My friends and I had a disgusting grooming routine. There was a Brylcream machine in the changing room. You put a penny in, and when you heard a tap, you’d push the button and it went, PFFFT !! A blob of Brylcream shot into your hand (‘A little dab’ll do ya’ was the Brylcream radio jingle) and you’d rub it straight onto your hair. But we never had any money so we used to clamp our mouths around the metal spout and suck the Brylcream out of the hole”
GROSS!!

Neale commented on me being a Brylcream Boy (anyone in the RAF) This is a quote from the response that I sent to our Guestbook, on 1 April 2022,

“Furthermore, I was a Brylcream Boy since my days in High School. You may remember going to Derby Street Baths where on the way out after a swim, there was a Brylcream dispenser, that emitted a great dollop of Brylcream for a penny (or maybe it was a threepenny bit) but when one applied the complete dollop we all ended up going back to school looking like Rudolph Valentino, while eating our pork fat dip from the butcher shop in Derby Street.”

For those of you young’ns who may be reading this but not responding, Rudolph Valentino was an highly successful actor in silent movies who played the romantic leading man with a Latin look about him. He was considered very handsome and always had his hair plastered down with some sort of concrete glue. It never moved even in his fight scenes.

So it seemed to be a commonplace item in swimming baths, and obviously not limited to Derby Street Baths. Mike, do you know if there is a Brylcream dispenser in the current school’s pool?
Regards,
Alex

Wed 12-Feb-2025 05:19 - North York, Ontario, Canada

Alex Patterson, VUA 1946 - 1951 | ad1935ap~AT~gmail~DOT~com

Hello Mike,
In keeping with my New Year's resolution of at least one letter a month to the GB, here's this month's version. As I mentioned in my earlier letter (Re: Alan Myers), that I found Myers reminded me of Billy Connolly. In a remarkable coincidence, I went down to the library in my retirement home to do a bit of browsing. It's a great library, very comfortable with easy chairs, nice fire and several tables. The process is such that any new donations are placed in a big wicker hamper and the person who looks after the library eventually places them in their correct alphabetical order by surname. I say this because when I arrived they were placed by first initial of the forename!! I pop in every day on my way to the dining room and see what's new in the basket. This week to my surprise one of the new donations was "Windswept and Interesting" by Billy Connolly. It had obviously never been opened, so I borrowed it and have been reading it in bed at night, but can only manage about two chapters before I drift into oblivion. I've twice wakened in the middle of the night with the book in my hands and a stiff neck. I rarely laugh out loud when I read, but have done a few times this week. I know he's not to everyone's taste, but he is to mine.
We're free from COVID again, but I'm keeping my mask on for the time being. One of my daughters bought me two masks for Christmas, one with a photo of the Herd Groyne and the other of a Lowery painting. They draw a lot of attention; most people here in Toronto wear the typical blue masks, but I've quite a collection of non-blues.
Anyhow this winter has been kind to us in North York, we've had very little snow and it's a beautiful clear blue sky, still cold (windchill -12C) but better than warmer with snow. Take good care of yourselves and write something soon.
Best wishes,
Alex

Fri 7-Feb-2025 20:25 - North York, Ontario, Canada

Neale Backhouse. | neale1447~AT~gmail~DOT~com

Hi Mike,
Wow, Alex is up and running at a blitzkreig pace, akin to the German Panzers leap frogging over France in 1940.
(I happen to be reading about that event at the moment).
His reference to Alan Myers brings back a memory from years ago, when Alan graced the pages of our Guestbook.The details are unclear but I remember at the time feeling that we were in the company of a rare intellect. Unfortunately Alan's entry fell victim to some pruning of the accumulated messages at that time. I vaguely remember Alan being a jovial and controversial member of the 6th form. But that's as far as it goes.

With respect to Alex's "bumph"dilemma, I always thought was short for "bumfluff, which must bring me to the end of this piece.

Cheers, Neale.

Mon 27-Jan-2025 22:08 - Victoria BC

Alex Patterson, VUA 1946 - 1951 | ad1935ap~AT~gmail~DOT~com

Hello Mike et al,
Yet another missive from me. “Bumph” I can hear you saying it Mike, “Even more bumph from Patterson !“ One of my grand-children, a nine year old boy, was reading my latest entry to the GB, when he asked, “What’s ‘bumph’ Grandpa, it sounds rude?” I was about to assure him it wasn’t rude but I had never really thought about its derivation. I had imagined it was Sanskrit, some other Middle Eastern or Indian language. So I took the scholarly escape route and said, “Let’s Google it.”
So he did and this is what emerged; source Google.
________________________________________
___________________________________________
Nou
n: bumph
useless or tedious printed information or documents."most of his mail was just bumph, bills, and Christmas cards”
/bʌmf/ (also bumf) [uncountable] (British English, informal) written information, especially advertisements, official documents, forms, etc., that seem boring or unnecessary.
Bumfodder : Toilet Paper, also Bumph, long-winded overwritten statements, articles and forms.
_______________________________________________
______________________________________

So I guess I am “Hoist with my own petard”, ‘cause that’s the sort of stuff I write. Can’t help it, won’t change it and the kids love reading about SSGTSFB because it seems to be a springboard for my schoolboy memories. My stories of school days seem to be borrowed from ‘Just Willam’, a bit of ‘Malory Towers’ and ‘Hogwarts’, but the young’ns seem to like them, even if some of the events are exaggerated.
Cheers from a beautifully sunny day at 0 C (wind chill -11 C) in North York.
C’mon lads drop a line to the GB or I may be obliged to supply even more Bumph,
Aaaaaaaaarabest,
Alex

Mon 27-Jan-2025 19:08 - North York, Ontario, Canada

Alex Patterson, VUA 1946 - 1951 | ad1935ap~AT~gmail~DOT~com

Hello again Mike,
Over the past few days, I’ve spent a few hours reading all the letters in the Guestbook and they represent the lattermost 12-ish years of input. I’ve already printed off the first 40 or so pages that are currently available.
A couple of years ago my daughter, Katherine, decided to write a potted history of the family. I am an amateur genealogist and have been quite lucky in researching our two families with the help of my other two daughters, Laura and Barbara. During and since the onset of COVID, Katherine decided to interview us all, recording events in our lives, capturing as much as we knew about our parents, grandparents and great grandparents. I’ve had a great deal of help through the Ancestry DNA project and were surprised to find that Marjorie and I are both related to the same ‘umpteenth cousin so many times removed’ in Australia. We share a long deceased ancestor.
Katherine has transcribed about 200 pages of recorded interviews of members of the family and has at least an equal amount of subsequent recordings and notes to be added, plus about 250 associated photographs. Barbara has volunteered to proof read and edit it, when Katherine has finished. She has also photocopied my existing school reports, our various homes in England, U.S.A. and Canada plus photos of the school, school tie and the school (lifeboat) badge, one of two that I bought from Woods in Ocean Road before I left school. Sorry to see that Woods is no longer there. It is now the Club Del-Mar !!
Mike, the reason for all the preceding bumph is to ask couple of favours, the subjects of which both concern the school. The first is regarding the first ten years of the Guestbook. My eldest granddaughter has loved reading the current edition and when I told her that somewhere there was another 10 years of input from other students, like Ed from PEI, who will be about 104 if his clogs are unpopped, she asked me to print her a copy. She was dismayed to find that it isn’t on the site anymore She and her Mum would like to include it in our family history book and so would I.
FAVOUR 1
Is there any way that you could provide me with access to those first ten years of emails from the Guestbook in order for me to print them for inclusion in the subject family history book.
FAVOUR 2
Does the name ‘Alan Myers’ ring a bell with you? In my two recent changes of address I have had boxes of ‘stuff’ (shades of George Carlin) stored in my neighbouring daughter’s house. She brought them to me recently to sort through and see what I wanted to keep. In one of the boxes, there was a package of about 50 printed pages of essays entitled MYERS WORLD, stapled into sets of about 5 pages. They are numbered 1 through 10 except for the missing Set 9. For the life of me Mike, I can’t remember how, when, where or from whom I got them. I have a feeling that Neale was involved.
A bit of googling disclosed that Myers was a former pupil at SSGTSFB, a couple of years (circa 1944) ahead of me, but I can’t remember him, nor can I find him in any of the school photos. Furthermore it turns out that he became an internationally recognized translator of Russian literature. In addition to that I that find that his Myers World essays are hilarious as were other similar articles highlighting artistic, intellectual, sporting, geographic, popular persona, architectural attributes found in the North East of England. I haven’t yet come across these latter articles that must have been lost in our many moves. He writes akin to Billy Connolly in that rambling ‘stream of consciousness’ manner, one topic sliding seamlessly into another.
What information do you have about him? If you have any of these essays, I would like to insert the missing Set 9, and if you could direct me to any other writings, I’d appreciate it, but if there are any they seem to be unpublished. So thanks Mike, keep well, I’m in the middle of a COVID outbreak at my retirement home, but so far avoiding it.
Regards
Alex Patterson

Sun 26-Jan-2025 01:15 - North York, Ontario, Canada

Alex Patterson, VUA 1946 - 1951 | ad1935ap~AT~gmail~DOT~com

Dear Mike, Neale, Bruce, Eric the two Alans and all the hundreds of regular and irregular readers and contributors,
Let me be the latest to wish you all a Happy and Healthy New Year. I have an excuse for being late with my NY Greetings. At the time I normally try to do this letter, I was sitting on a plane in Moncton, New Brunswick on New Year’s Eve waiting for my 7.00 PM take off, back to Toronto. I was travelling with my eldest daughter, Katherine, who normally flies ‘Business Class” with her job and as a Christmas gift to me, got us both seats in BC. What a difference to ‘steerage” class !! I had legroom, lie down room, newspaper room, china plates, wine glasses etc., etc. All in all, a much better experience than my last flight four or five years ago. If I ever fly again I’m determined it will be BC in AD.
Our destination in Moncton was my granddaughter’s home the suburb of Dieppe, where she (Kaitlin) and her husband (Julien) he’s a Ph.D sociologist, work from home with one day a week at the office in town. She’s a Ph.D epidemiologist, dealing at the moment with a stomach flu outbreak at Guelph University with 200 students affected. She’s also the mother of my three great-grandchildren, Ben, Ellie and Henri, who speak only French. Thank goodness for Ma Goudie and Doc. Skilling for persevering with me to enable me to communicate with the children and Kaitlin’s in-laws, I must admit it was a bit of an exercise !!
The holiday was a real treat for me, the first Christmas in more than 70 years without Marjorie, who died in June. It was cathartic and really made an improvement to my mind set. It was the sort of week she would have loved…5 dinner parties in 7 days with two lobster parties!! I didn’t know it was a tradition in the Maritimes. There were forty of us at the second “Yuletide Lobster”party, many of whom had attended the previous party the night before.
Flying back on New Year’s Eve got us back in time to see the New Year in with my two other daughters in Toronto, where we quietly welcomed 2025. I made a silent resolution to write every month to the “Guestbook” I made it silently in case I forget one month. So please bear with me and allow me to criticize those who don’t write.
One last thing: I watched ‘Coronation Street’ last night and it was the best one I’ve seen for a long time. It was the episode where Gail Platt leaves the program!! Thank goodness for that, she’s been in for 108 years (roughly) and has never convinced me that she’s an actress. A couple I talked to at the retirement home today were bereft. !!
So I leave you all with these thoughts, May you enjoy 2025 better than last year, may you and yours be blessed with good health, well enough to keep on writing to Mike and the rest of us, and say a prayer for Canada.
Best Wishes and Lang May Your Rum Leek (Deliberate spoonerism) from -12C
North York to +3 South Shields.
Alex

Thu 16-Jan-2025 02:56 - North York, Ontario, Canada

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

Glad to hear of the surviving contributors.
It would be lovely to have some input from the younger generation but I suspect that is unlikely.

No input from our friend on PEI for a long time.

Take care while you can.

Enjoy 2025

Sat 11-Jan-2025 20:22 - ruskington lincolnshie

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

Yes, another quarter century - I'm coming up to 20 years since I retired, and those years have flown by.

And yes - it's been quiet (although it gets read four or five times a week).

Rothbury's charm has diminished, even in the 18 years I've lived here. Self-interest and money have changed its face - so many new houses being built in the time I've been here.

I wish you and yours, and also all Old Boys and visitors a very Happy New Year.

Tue 31-Dec-2024 10:17 - Rothbury, Northumberland

Neale Backhouse | neale1447~AT~gmail~DOT~com

Ye Gods,Mike, another quarter century and heading towards my 90th birthday in June (Alex leads the way in February).So thankfull that I can still wish you a Happy New Year, and will continue to do so as long as I am reasonably coherent. Still,must be glad to be able to contribute the occasional ditty to the Guestbook, although it's certainly been quiet on the western front this year.

I do hope that Rothbury retains the charm that I recall from many years ago. Victoria is approaching gridlock with so many newcomers driving so many cars from their so many condominiums. It's called progress I suppose. Hey, life's great!!
Best wishes to all in 2025.

Mon 30-Dec-2024 22:20 - Victoria BC

Bryan Cooper | brayncc~AT~gmail~DOT~com

This is an explanation if Sanddancer from another site. It makes far more sense to me than the usual ones of Muslims praying on the beach!
“The strange thing is that originally calling someone a sanddancer was likely to cause a fight. Sanddancers were the guys that coud get across the river mouth at low water springs. These guys could guide your wagons across saving you the 2/3 days it took to go through Newcastle. Unfortunately the amounts demanded were at times exorbitant so that sanddancers were considered money grabbing chancers.”

Tue 23-Jul-2024 09:31 - Old Colwyn

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