Comfy!

You are supposed to call it 'The Health Centre,' but as we all know it is the San. The modern San is pretty much unchanged from when I was at school - even the fading school photos in the waiting area are the same. I rather like that! Of course we all know that Albans was originally the San, and that is a much nicer building (if you happen to like Victorian red brick, which I do) than the low flat roofed modern San built onto the side of Highfield.

That building is still there, but it has now been improved by being obscured. For ages it has been clear that the Lower School girls' boarding facilities were not up to it, and an extension has been built onto the side of Highfield to provide dormitories, a common room and a Tutor's flat. The new building wraps round the San and hides it from view.

The result is a first for Haileybury: a House with accommodation - suitably segregated - for boys and girls. I gather that when the school went fully coeducational it was decided that separate Houses would be necessary. That has always seemed to me a shame. Maybe the new Highfield points the way to a more thorough integration of boys and girls in one school.