Haileybury and Hogwarts

JK Rowling is to launch a new Harry Potter Website, Pottermore. In it she will make available the full text of her books and also unpublished material. There is a Haileybury link.

Aficionados of the oeuvre may remember that alongside the main novels Rowling published two small books in aid of comic relief in 2001. One of these was called 'Quidditch Through the Ages' and is supposed to be a book from the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry library all about Quidditch, the game Rowling's characters play.

For those who are unfamiliar with the books, Quidditch is a cross between lacrosse, rugby and hockey and is played while flying on a broomstick.

The Haileybury link comes in the list of international teams. On page 43, there is a mention of the Haileybury Hammers, a Quidditch team from Canada, clearly from the town founded by Charles Cobbold Farr (Tr 1864) in Ontario.

There is more to this - for another post.

Strawberries

It was Sydney Smith who asked What is real piety? What is true attachment to the church? How are fine feelings best evinced? The answer is plain - by sending strawberries to a clergyman. The joke is enhanced by comparing the remark to James 1:27

My mother has a story about strawberries. Roy Sinker (BF 1922) was Archdeacon of Stow in the diocese of Lincoln when he and his wife came to the clergy wives' meeting which Mother was hosting. She was nursing me and when I yelled for a feed she was ushered away by the Archdeacon's wife, who also took her strawberries away with the remark that they are no good for the baby's milk.

In reparation I almost always had strawberries on my birthday. When I was 18 my parents brought strawberries and cream up to school and we ate them in my study. I am not sure if I will get any strawberries tomorrow, but of course that is not the point - I ought to send some to Mother.

They Built a Road Down to this Place 2

What a contrast life can be. This afternoon I was in Tottenham and took this picture of the other end of Ermine Street as it makes its way to Hertford Heath.

This morning was the 300th anniversary of S Paul's Cathedral. I am there for about half a second 23 seconds in. What a difference a few miles and a few hours can make.

Lift Up Your Hearts

The General Committee met on Wednesday and the Council (for three hours!) on Thursday, so I have had a Haileybury week.

Tomorrow is Trinity Sunday. The following quotes are from John Burnaby's (BFr 1905) The Belief of Christendom (London 1959).

To acknowledge with the creed that our Lord is of one substance with the Father, is to acknowledged that what God gave in the giving of His Son was himself - and that nothing less than God's giving of Himself could bring into this world of change, sin and death, the power of His own endless life.

The Spirit does not suppress or replace the individuality of the man in whom His presence is shown. His power is active in the measure in which the chosen individual responds to His promptings. Only in the Elect One who appears in the fullness of time, only in Jesus, is the Spirit present "without measure", because the response is full and absolute. In this one Man, God and man through the Spirit are completely one.


The doctrine of the Trinity is no superfluous piece of theologizing, but an expression of what is most fundamental in the revelation of God in Christ. If love means a personal relationship, and if love is the very being of God, we cannot think  of God as existing in unrelated loneliness, realizing Himself only in His acts of creation and redemption. The glory of the Love of God is a glory that belongs to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy spirit: as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end.

Broken Bough

At Haileybury last week I saw that the Lightning Oak had shed a bough. I thought at the time that I should get onto the Bursar to suggest that the timber was made into coasters and so on, but then I didn't and now it has all been cleared.

Can you spot the hole?

Annexed

First of all, apologies for the long gap in posting. All I can do is plead pressure of other commitments. There is a meeting of the General Committee tomorrow and of the Council on Friday, so I have a Haileybury week, but posting has been light.

On Saturday I went was at school watching number one son and his team being thrashed in a cricket match on Hailey Field. I went up to Highfield to collect number two and took these pictures of the Alban's Annex. Or rather, of where the annex was.

A new boarding block for the Lower School girls is being built on what was the (new) San carpark and the annex is being converted to provide for a House Tutor's flat and to link the building with Alban's.

I gather that the annex was the place to live in the VI in Alban's. Mythology said that it was the morgue of the old San.

Last year as a member of Council we went on a tour to inspect the annex. There was an incredibly narrow corridor along the top floor of the part now demolished in the middle. 

Motto?

I have had an email from Peter Fowkes (H 1957), Father of Chris (H 1987) and Pen (H & Alb 1988) and uncle of George (H 1982) asking whether Thomason has a House Motto.

He writes

I looked up the blog trying to find Thomason’s motto; Helen Tranter [Director of Development] provided me with Edmonstone’s (Nil nisi bonum) – odd as it usually applied to the dead (de mortuis) - but no one can provide Thomason – not even Bob Eastwood (Th 1957) who is coming to a reunion (which is why I want the motto). Can you help?

 

In similar vein, does Hailey have a new and more ladylike motto? Quid fortius leone (what is braver than a lion?) was fine when we were a bunch of thugs;  we won the boxing cup almost every year between about 1956 and 1962, partly by entering 9/10^th of the House, and Cock House rugger I think four times between 1954 and 1961, though we drew with Allenby after extra time in 1961.

 

I do have one other claim – the XXX in 1961 not only won all its matches, but did not have its line crossed. I wonder if any other side can match that! Again we were more a bunch of thugs than skilled players – our impressively large outsides came right up at every lineout – if we won the ball I, as scrum half, kicked it further up the line or gave it to the fly-half to do the same. The rules did not prevent this gaining ground in those days. If the other side won the ball our outsides tackled them very hard, so they knocked on and we had the scrum – which we almost certainly won as our pack weighed a ton!

 

I wasn’t the second best fly half – the younger Sibcy (E 1958) was – but Basil Edwards (bless him) (Staff 1955 - 1972) wanted a thug who could kick with both feet.  Sibcy was a very elegant boxer; I don’t know how good his chin was as he was almost impossible to hit – I never succeeded! As to kicking with both feet, “Killer” Cook insisted we practice with the “wrong” foot, which improved the “right” foot as well. As a former All Black we respected his opinion; his walking stick on the field was much respected too!

 

Imogen Thomas says in Haileybury 1806 - 1987 that the badges were adopted in 1868 to identify teams on the football field. She says that the origin of all the badges is not known, and Thomason is among those. It appears without a motto. Neither Lawrence nor Highfield have a motto.