Conversations

Lots of conversations over dinner tonight in Common Room for a group of OHs of many different generations asked to contribute to the sequicentennial book.

Hopefully from the reminiscences will come some anecdotes for what looks as if it will be a hansom and entertaining volume.

It's late so no more now, but here is a picture.

Streets Called Haileybury 8

This Haileybury Road is in Orpington, Kent.

Streets round about are named for Charterhouse, Abingdon, Malvern, Stowe, Eton and Repton, and also for Sandhurst, and Magdalene

Annexed

Many former inhabitants of Albans will remember the Annex, which we blokes always believed to have been the morgue when Albans was the San. A couple of years ago the Council were shown round and I was amazed by the incredibly narrow first floor passageway which linked the two sides of the building.

The middle of the Annex - and the narrow passage - has now been demolished and the whole thing is going to be linked to the main building to provide for a resident House Tutor. As term began it was still a building site.

If you once lived in the Annex you may or may not recognise the place now.

Is this the best view in the school?

Some older OHs will remember the third verse of the Vivat! (It is like the National Anthem - even those who know the first verse seldom remember the second or third).

And sweet was then the victor's crown,

Vivat Haileyburia!

But friendship's joy struck deeper down,

Vivat Haileyburia!

And though our distant feet may roam

Our hearts will ne'er forget the home

The dear old school beneath the dome

Vivat Haileyburia!

The one is not new this term No 1 son, who has moved into a room looking out from Lawrence over the Quad, with a fine view of the 'school beneath the dome.'

Is this the best view in the school?

Speech Day at This Time of Year?

The Master has to give six speeches on the Induction Day as he speaks to new pupils entering the Lower School, the Removes and the VIth, and separately, to their parents. It was like Speech Day in another respect as well - it poured with rain in the afternoon. Having one to join LS and one to go into the Removes we were flitting from one end of the school to the other. (Though we only went to one of the speeches!)

Parents of new Removes have lunch in Big School

In the speech we heard, the Master spoke of how the new pupils may well find themselves forging life long friendships and associations. The day is largely put together by the Haileybury Parents Association, whose reps put in a vast amount of work; but the Haileybury Society's role is to help to foster those life long links for those who have moved on.