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.

Getting Started

There is a story of a new young Master arriving to teach at Haileybury sometime in the early part of the last century. He went into breakfast and took his place at the junior end of the vast Common Room table. The man next to him lowered his paper and growled: "Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, I say 'Good morning' to you; Tuesdays Thursdays and Saturdays, you say 'Good morning' to me. Sundays, nobody speaks." Haileybury is so different these days: Masters are Teachers; Haileyburians are as likely to be girls as boys; there is even a move, fiercely resisted by the youngest pupils - who nowadays are just 11 - to call the San the "Health Centre."

The Haileybury Society links the generations. Those who like me are old enough to have children at the school are linked with generations who remember all too well the days when Masters had rules about morning greetings and through the Society we are linked with some who have only just arrived in Lower School - and maybe brothers and sisters yet to arrive. It is a great thing to be part of.

When I was asked if I would be willing to become President Elect of the Haileybury Society my ghast was flabbered. I resolved that if I was to take it on I would like to try and bring a couple things to the role. One is this blog. Reunions and events can be reported pretty much immediately. I have also been gathering anecdotes about the school and OHs in the hope that some of them might be of interest to the Haileybury community. Overall it would be splendid to try to link the generations through the thing which unites us all - the shared link with the place a now largely un-sung song calls "The fine old school beneath the dome."