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Haileyburiana is a miscellany of things I got up to as President of the Haileybury Society in 2010 - 2011 and random musings on things to do with Haileybury. Whether you are an OH, a current pupil or parent, a teacher or other friend of the school I hope you will find something interesting here. The blog is no longer regularly updated, but there may still be occasional posts.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Master

The answer to yesterday's question was that there is only one Master - the rest are Beaks. Today however, there is one Master and the rest are Teachers. Beak is no longer used. I discovered this a couple of years ago when I used the term in a sermon and was quietly told afterwards by the chaplain that I was showing myself to be deeply out of touch at just the point at which I thought I was being relevant. Another example of the decline of slang in the modern school world about which I have blogged in the past.




Part of it may be that the staff is now, as is to be expected in a coeducational school, about half women, and maybe Beak seems a bit masculine. When we were in the process of appointing the new Master, there was some discussion in the interview panel about what Council would call the post should the successful candidate be a woman. It was pointed out that Cambridge Professor Sandra Dawson was until recently 'Master' of my other alma mater, Sidney Sussex, and that the name need not necessarily change.


Gerald Wilson, who gave me the question about Master(s) writes: "just after Christmas I reviewed a book on Amazon about the post-war aircraft industry.  Before doing so, I perused the other reviews and saw one from someone who recalled a lesson at school where everyone's attention was drawn from the "beak" droning on about Caesar's Gallic Wars to watch the latest fighter jet passing the window.  I e-mailed him to enquire whether by any chance he had been to Haileybury and it turned out he was in my house, Melvill, a year after I left."



Tuesday, March 22, 2011

New Guv's Test again

I gather from the General Secretary that there has been some interest in the New Guv's Test to the extent that someone has been in touch to ask for a copy. Sadly there is no such thing extant, and possibly there never was as it seems to have been a Haileybury institution differently administered in each House.
Haileybury Masters by RB Payton (Hi 1922):
HB Dawes; WR Lloyd; CW Adams; RF Atherton

Some people have said that their recollection is that the test was administered by the Head of House or a Prefect. I am pretty sure we went to the House Master. The questions would have been different in different places as well I guess.

In an email, Gerald Wilson (M 1962) remembered that there were some straightforward factual questions in the New Guv's test "like where is the KBM block, where was the White City (just destroyed at that point in time) and which study block was which."

He has another of the more tricky ones which I had forgotten or did not know:

How many Masters are there at Haileybury?

Answer tomorrow.