Best Shooting Ever?

Mr Massey worked at Haileybury for a couple of years on a scheme from the University of Virginia. He was a House Tutor in Highfield so I knew him a bit. Rooting around on the web I found this video. He is very good at basketball!

(For older OHs this is all going on in the Sports Hall on the end of XX Acre)




For those who feel this is a rugby term (correct) here is a clip of a Junior House rugby final on Terrace. It says 'unfinished,' which it is - the annoying music goes on for some time after all the Rugby has finished. I should turn the sound off if I were you!

HYT

The Haileybury Youth Trust is the successor to the Haileybury Club in Stepney.

Russell Matcham (HM of Kipling) is the link at Haileybury for the HYT, and writes:

Trev helps HYT

The work in KIZIGO, the second beneficiary of our 'One Village at a Time' project, was completed on time and in budget. I hope you agree the results are impressive. Increasing numbers of poor Ugandans have their lives improved by HYT, with Haileyburians and Ugandans working in partnership. There are now dozens of young HYT-trained Ugandans who have construction skills that will improve both opportunity and prospects. HYT's work is sustainable and life-enhancing for Ugandans; life-enriching for Haileyburians.

The third of our 'One Villages', Namaganda, lies deep in the Ugandan bush. Even by Ugandan standards it is very poor indeed. Although its school buildings were condemned as unsafe some years ago, children are still taught here. Namaganda really is off the beaten track but its people are determined to help themselves out of the poverty trap into which they were born.

With your wonderful support, HYT will transform this impoverished village, its schools and the lives of its people.

Children aged 7 at Kizigo primary school in the new school room

Russell has also forwarded news of Sam Edwards, a current gap year student whose work has been highly commended, describing him as 'a wonderful ambassador for his old school and the [Haileybury] Society'

You can donate to the HYT here:

www.justgiving.com/hyt

Or use one of the methods described here.

Harvest

In my new peripatetic life going from one church to another and not having a specific parish of my own, I have missed any Harvest Festival this year. So singing "We plough the fields and scatter," in Chapel tonight at the new pupils' chapel service was a joy, where in previous years I might have thought 'Oh no, not again!'

I was playing proud father as No3 son shared reading the prayers, and also proud President as the other Lower School reader is also the child of an OH, the daughter of Andrew Hine (Tr 1979), who was an exact contemporary of mine. I don't think I had seen Andrew since we left Haileybury in 1984 until he greeted me in the meleé of parents dropping their children on the first day of term. One of the extraordinary things about my year as President and just being around Haileybury again, has been to meet people again after a lifetime.

Trevelyan c1987

Sandy Rich (Tr 84) sent me this picture of the Trevelyan Dormitory in about 1987.

Sandy wrote: I rarely reminisce with OH's and thought you might also be interested in another picture from Mark Draisley's "Public School Photographs" - which you blogged about on July 7 2010. I've not been able to decipher exactly who is who (especially those in the distance) but I'm pretty sure the main people in the foreground are as follows:-

Rupert Edmundson (extreme left in black tee-shirt in compart), Victor Manning? (walking up house), Piers Chapman? (doing up Green Flash), Sandy Rich [me] (doing up tie in compart), Paul Dansie (head only visible), James Nodder (leaning on compart wall).

I remember Mark Draisley spending a week-or-so at Haileybury towards the end of a summer term. I think that I was in the Vths so it may have been 1987. I recognise so many faces from his images but only recall about 1/2 the names now!

Haileybury and Hogwarts 3

Having given the background in the preceding posts, what follows is the text of a letter I wrote one mad afternoon and sent to JK Rowling care of her publishers. I posted it and waited…

I used a stamp, not an owl

In your Comic Relief book about the History of Quidditch, one of the teams (from Canada) is the Haileybury Hammers. (p43)

Haileybury Ontario was named after his old school (Haileybury, near Hertford) by its founder, Charles Cobbold Farr in 1889, and has as its coat of arms the bearings of Haileybury College. This features three winged hearts (from the school motto, which Farr also transferred to the town: Sursum Corda).

Of course winged hearts look like Golden Snitches. It struck me that if ever you have cause to describe the colours and robes of the Haileybury Hammers it might lend authenticity to know about the winged hearts, and also that the local hockey team plays in a red strip because the house colours of Farr's boarding House were red. [Trevelyan]

If you don't just bin this letter as the foolishness of a fan, you can follow up the details in Imogen Thomas, Haileybury 1806 - 1987 pp 42 - 43 ISBN 0 9512393 0 9

Haileybury and Hogwarts 2

I said there was more to the link between Haileybury and Hogwarts and there is.

When CC Farr founded Haileybury on the shores of lake Temiskaming he named the newspaper The Haileyburian and took the motto 'Sursum Corda.' For some reason the town seems to translate this 'be of good courage.'

Originally the Town's logo was the familiar Hearts and Wings, and Imogen Thomas tells us that the hockey team played in Black and Red for Trevelyan.

The strip for Rowling's imaginary Haileybury Hammers Quidditch Team is not described. The similarity between a winged heart and Golden Snitch is noteworthy.

Now I am aware that by now those who have not read Harry Potter may be utterly lost, so here is an explanation of Quidditch. (You may need to skip the advert.)  Keep the similarity between the snitch and the winged heart in mind, and I will post some more on this another day to draw all these strands together.

Lift Up Your Hearts

At the Albans Trev and Lawrence dinner last Saturday I was asked to say grace. In these days of self service (which have made the food so much better) formal grace in Hall is a rarity. We were sitting down to a meal served to the tables so grace was said. 

As a CP I remember trying on the first occasion I said grace to inject meaning into the prayer with disastrous results. The duty Master - who was one if the chaplains - told me in future just to get it over with, which I duly did. "All on one breath!" was the rule. 

So last Saturday night I duly said grace all in one breath as of old. Someone asked me if I shouldn't gave given it more meaning...

There is a view in church circles that one should try and reduce ones own influence on a text by striving to remove too much meaning from the reading of a text. But even in a sung liturgy some of the inflexion of the celebrant will come through. While a reading should not be a performance, I don't think reading in a monotone helps understanding. Most churches have a better acoustic and a more forgiving audience than Hall at lunchtime, and since the Holy Spirit allows our voices to carry the Word of the Lord, He also gives grace that it may be heard. Despite our voices - or because of them. 

Bleep…Bleep…Bleep

Did you know that London bus drivers are not allowed to reverse their buses? If they get into a jam they can either go forward or just stop until the specially trained driver comes from the depot.

This may sound mad, but almost 25% of "vehicle at work fatalities" come as a result of reversing manoeuvres. This figure is from an article in 'Baltic Briefing,' the Journal of the Baltic Exchange, on Chris Hanson-Abbott (Tr 1947) who was responsible for discovering and marketing the bleepers which signal that a lorry is reversing. You can read the article here.

Hanson-Abbott was on a business trip to Japan in 1976 and heard a lorry bleeping as it reversed. He tracked down the inventor to a small factory in the countryside and bought 50 units to market in the UK. The rest is history. His firm, Brigade Electronics, now sells much more than simple reversing bleepers.

I wonder if they invented the hideous things they have on the recycling collecting trucks in the London Borough of Haringey, which have recorded voice saying "Danger! Vehicle reversing!" over and over again.

Streets Called Haileybury

This is not exactly a street called Haileybury, so much as a road through Haileybury - Ontario. Highway 11 is a major route through Ontario, and runs through the town founded in 1889 by Charles Cobbold Farr, (Tr 1864) which is now part or a municipality called Temiskaming.

Highway 11 in Downtown Haileybury

Here is a video of the journey along the road made by a biker.


Highway 11B through Latchford, Cobalt, Haileybury and New Liskeard from MCC CMC on Vimeo.

Season's Greetings

Season's Greetings is a play by Sir Alan Ayckbourn (Tr 1952) which is on at the National Theatre this Christmas. It has been well reviewed, including by Quentin Letts (Ha 1976).

Two writers of different kinds both schooled by the same English department, and possibly both taught by Jack Thomas (staff 1954) - who famously, and possibly apocryphally, said that Ayckbourn would never amount to much if he tried a career in writing. Ayckbourn cut the original form for Season's Greetings from three acts in three hours by a third, and Lett's review is an example of journalistic brevity. The suburban characters


use intrinsically English expressions, enjoying nothing better than discussing power tools, preferably in the wife-free zone of a shed or pub.

"Great set" say Quentin Letts

When Neville is asked if there is any ginger wine in the house, he doesn’t just say, ‘yes’. He says, truculently, that ‘we are awash’ in the stuff. …

David Troughton’s Uncle Harvey has the gait and neck tweaks of a former chief pety officer. 


Brevity is a virtue in a preacher as well - but one more difficult to attain than it seems. I think it was Churchill who once wrote  I am sorry to have written you a long letter. I did not have time to write a short one."

Lift Up Your Hearts

Playing Rugby on Saturday afternoons and public school sport generally is an assertion of a theological principle. For the Greeks - especially after Plato - the body is merely the prison of the soul. Jews and Christians understand body and soul to be united in forming the whole person. The doctrine of the Incarnation, that God became Man, that the Word became Flesh, is the most audacious assertion of this. Resurrection therefore involves the body. Not in a resuscitation such as the ancient Egyptians hoped for by preserving the remains, but a glorification, in which the vigour of youth, the wisdom of age, the innocence of childhood, the strength of adulthood, the power of health and the vulnerability of the infant and the infirm are all brought together at last so that, no longer spread out in time, I can be whole and complete.

Thomas Arnold, the great reforming Headmaster of Rugby, understood this and set out to educate and train not merely the minds, but also the bodies of the children in his care. So organized school sport was born. Haileybury's first Master, AG Butler, had worked with Arnold and was a friend of his, and Haileybury always asserted this outworking of the doctrine of the Incarnation - that schools should play sport.

In a paper read to the Anglo - Catholic Congress of 1927, Neville Coghill (Tr 1913), later to put Chaucer into fine modern English, quoted William Blake in an arresting line:

"The Body is that part of the soul which is perceived through the five senses."

Letters from the Front

Charles Bagott-Jewitt (Tr 78) e-mails from the National Memorial Arboretum, of which he is Chief Executive, about the commemorative stamps which have been issued this Remembrancetide featuring the memorials at the Arboretum. Sales will support the Arboretum appeal.

Don't forget that we are planning a gathering for members - past and present - of the armed forces, those who were in the CCF and anyone else who would like to come at the Arboretum on Saturday 7th May.  A coach (or two?) will go from Haileybury or come under your own steam. The plan at present is to have a short service followed by a buffet lunch and time to mingle and explore the Arboretum. Book the date!

VJ Day

Menu Card for the 1945 OH Dinner at Changi

The sixty fifth anniversary of the end of the war in the Far East us being marked today with what may be the last formal reunions of the so - called "Forgotten Army." Andrew Hambing in his Haileybury in Two World Wars records that William Marley (LeBas 1924) was a liaison officer with General McArthur and was present on the USS Missouri when the surrender was signed. As the POWs began to be able to send news and to return home harrowing stories came to light. There were also some lighter memories. In the midst of the suffering in the notorious Changi Goal Haileyburians from Hertfordshire and from Australia has saved and scraped together rations to hold dinners of the Haileybury Society. Imogen Thomas gives the details in her Haileybury 1806 - 1987. On 21st March 1943 Privates RWL McCall (M 1928), ADA Mosley (he seems not to be in the Haileybury Register) and AS Cassells (Ha 1929), Sgt RH Wade (Ha 1918) had dined on salt fish, rice, bananas and tea. On 18th August 1945 Maj FAH Magee (L 1917) , Capt JC De La Mare (M 1921), Maj J Radford (Tr 1921) and LT Cdr VCF Clark (M 1922) of England, dined with Lt JW Huddlestone and LT WE Smith of Haileybury Australia. Hambling tells us they dined on native beans and dripping. Of these McCall, Wade, Magee, De La Mare, Radford and Clark survived the war. Cassels died at Kuching PoW camp Borneo in July 1945.

Changi by Ronald Searle who was a prisoner there

The Evolution of Dormitories 4

The movement over the last twenty years has been to smaller and smaller dormitories for younger pupils and to bed sits for the more senior. The pattern has been to have a 'dormitory' for Removes and Middles and study bedrooms for Vths and above. When the school became co-educational the new Bartle Frere and Edmonstone were set up in this way. Colvin and Melvill meanwhile were equipped with single rooms throughout. Hailey has a dormitory (the old Upper) but the Lower was divided into rooms for four girls each. This is similar to what was done in Allenby when the conversion was made. That pattern has recently been replicated in Trevelyan and Thomason where the Removes and Middles live and work in rooms of four. (Four is a pastorally good number as it reduces the chances of a two on one division happening in a room.)

Meanwhile the new Lower School boys' accommodation in Highfield is in Dormitories of eight.  The Lower School girls' dormitory is in Alban's and while it has great character it is not as swish as the boys' rooms.

Many of the boys' houses have clever bunks in a "T" shape where the top bunk is at right angles to the bottom one and supported at either end by wardrobes.

IB

At the beginning of things at Haileybury, before there were even Houses, there were the 'Reds' and the 'Blues'. Their colours still survive in the rugby shirts of Trevelyan and Lawrence. One was the Modern Side, learning Science and Mathematics; the other was the Classical Side, focussing on the disciplines of the ancient languages and history.

The history of academics has been of the diversification of the curriculum. Even as late as the time I was at school it was unusual for anyone to mix arts and sciences at A Level. I was one who bridged that gap a little bit as I took Maths alongside English, RS and History.

At the turn of the 21st century Haileybury was in the vanguard of English schools to offer International Baccalaureate courses to the VI form. The IB, which has been available since 1999 extends pupils over a range of subjects chosen from six groups. In addition there is a course on the Theory of Knowledge, an extended essay and a programme of 'Creativity, Action and Service' to encourage the application of knowledge.

By designating three subjects as 'Higher Level' there is scope for the intensive study which is the attraction of A Level but without the exclusivity that this can bring at a relatively young age.

There is a very clear explanation of the mechanics of learning six subjects and how IB works on the Haileybury website here.

This year has seen excellent results from the IB cohort. The IB offers a points based scoring system, out of 45. The full details are here, but congratulations to all those who did so well.

Spare a thought for the A Level students who face the long wait for their results next month.

The Evolution of Dormitories 3

The first signs of a move away from the long dormitories and back to something more like the privacy enjoyed by the Guvnor's of the East India College came with he conversion of the Sanatorium into Alban's for girls in 1973.

This is from the Haileybury Prospectus of 1983. How much more comfortable Albans seems than Trevelyan!

Note the heroic attempt to make the 'relative individuality' of the compart comparable!

What's in a Name?

One of the lines that has to appear in the Policies that every school now has to have is the statement 'every child has the right to be called by the name he or she chooses.' Many of my contemporaries called me Norman at school because a bloke in the Vth thought that I looked like Norman Wisdom. it was quite a decision when after five years of answering to 'Luke' at home and 'Miller' (at least before entering the LVIth) to adults at school, I had to decide what I wanted new friends at University to call me. Most of my contemporaries seem to have done what I did and drop their school nicknames on leaving.

There were two Millers (we are not related) in Hailey in my year and so I had the privilege - as I thought it - of having initials after my name: Miller LJ. My spies in Lower School tell me that despite the universal use of Christian names, and even of nicknames (provided chosen by the child and not imposed) some of the young (at least the males of the species) still call one another by their Surnames. This raises for brothers the age old problem of having the same name. Nicknames and epithets come into play, but they sometimes resort to Mega and Minor (mixing Greek and Latin in a way that would once have attracted considerable opprobrium).

At first 'Major' and 'Minor' was the official way of distinguishing between brothers at Haileybury. One was Miller MA or Miller MI. The business of having initials came in around 1928 with the advent of two sets of brothers named Serjeant to Thomason (FRM 1923.3 and J 1924.3) and a pair named Minor to Trevelyan (R 1925.1 and B 1927.1). It was felt Sergeant Major and Minor Minor was just all too much to manage.

The younger Minor in fact became a Major, so in the end he was Major Minor. Sadly he was killed in action in the Middle East in 1942.