10 of the 1994 leavers are planning to come to Dinner along with 5 of the 1991 leavers. If you are a 1991 or 1994 leaver, would you like to join them? If you are not, would you like to arrange for a party of your year group to come?

For your interest if you like statistics, 78 magazines were posted to overseas addresses, Australia and the U.S.A. being the most popular. We have no OW member in Russia or China or South America, but some in U.A.E. and Japan, and relatively few in E.E.C. Countries. Does this tell us anything? In addition 1509 magazines were posted to addresses in Britain, 61 of these being new members.

We have regained contact with a lot of members, who have gone "missing" mainly because OWs have looked at the section on this site where there is a list of "missing members" and have given us a contact address. Now that our list has been updated, please click here and see if you can put us in touch with any on the list. We would be very grateful if you could do that. Recently an OW emailed me to give me the email address of a "missing" OW, who was sailing across the Atlantic. I emailed him and within 24 hours I had received an email from mid-Atlantic to say what his permanent address was!!

We have also updated the section giving information and contact addresses for individual OWs, and also the section on OWs abroad. If you have sent in information about yourself recently and it is not there, please contact me. If you would like to give information about yourself so that other OWs can contact you, please send it in to ianrclarkuk@yahoo.co.uk. At the moment about 625 OWs have their details recorded here. Do encourage your OW friends to send in their details.

Since watching with glee the series on Channel 4 last autumn, I've been looking for photos of Andrew MacTavish.  He was unrecognisable and I hope only playing at the part of the shouting "Boss". I hope Andrew is well.  I noticed he was missing from some of the filming last summer.

He used to be very pleasant when he first came to RGS in about 1966.  The 1964 Speech day (my last) photos were of the last parade at which ER Tucker was headmaster. Andrew MacTavish was the officer in charge of the parade and I looked after the Guard of Honour behind him.  ERT died while we were at camp on Summer Camp on Dartmoor in 1964. His graveside flowers tell of how well known and popular he was in High Wycombe. We found the news of his death stunning.  I think his funeral was held while we were still way - I seem to remember the CO "Moan" Pattinson went to represent us. I also have a photo of his grave soon after covered in flowers. I must have gone to see it, as I couldn't get to the funeral.

One memory of Andrew sticks in my mind still.  He was member of the local TA (Ox & Bucks Light Infantry I think).  Andrew arranged for a group of us to go on a weekend away with them to Salisbury Plain, where we witnessed an exercise involving the notable 25-pounder field gun being fired.  He took us to the "observation point" overlooking the target area - in between the guns, some miles behind us and the targets.  While we were there a smoke shell landed nearby - by mistake in loading the shell with the wrong amount of charge (these were hand loaded bags of gunpowder of different powers) we presumed!  Had it been a high explosive shell Andrew and the rest of us may have not been here to tell the tale! I found the CCF great fun, especially the Easter and Summer camps, when we spent time away from home playing at being soldiers.  I ended up with the quite untrue reputation of keeping my sergeant's strips on even when in my pyjamas.

I still remember the adaptation of the morning reveille bugle call being sung to the words "Hubie, Hubie, get out of bed, Hubie, Hubie, Hubie get out of bed". Try it, it fits well, but it also hurts when your real middle name is Hubert!  The photos of camp life include one of the "hard" warrant officers Shackel, Janes, Thompson (an old boy) and myself sitting outside our tent.  Bill Harrison, with the tea mug, was our Quarter Master Sergeant - a great character and good cook too. The photo of the pipers, Jock Gibb and MJ Holgate was also printed in the Wycombiensian that Autumn.  ER Tucker had me down as "Staff Officer" material on my last school report.  I went to see round Sandhurst with some others from the CCF but was so horrified by the potential for getting wet and cold I left the honour to braver souls.  I opted for the soft life of TV production.  The long Dartmoor expeditions live on though.  All my family enjoy a long hike and I often get soaked to the skin rigging lights in the pouring rain for local events in Ealing.

From about 1960 to 1964 the stage-lighting team was led by Mr "Alpha" Leggett of the Physics department.  (He was well known for sneezing a lot - if he got to more than 6 we were allowed to count them out loud!)  I say led, but he in fact left us to our own devices only showing his presence when we either tried to do something unsafe or probably in my case spent too much time playing at preparing lighting for productions.  "We" consisted of Robin Wilson, Pete Farmer, Taffy Davis and myself.  In the old hall the controls were stuck up one side of the stage with only a tiny hole through which we could see the stage.  The wing space was small but large enough that when during our production of "Yeomen of the Guard" one of us was allowed to fire a blank 303 round in one of the CCF rifles as the effect of an harquebus shot required in the first Act - Just consider a pupil being allowed to do that these days!  The lighting was very primitive by today's standards - we were very proud when we took delivery of two brand new Strand fresnel spots.  They were the only lamps we took with us when the new Queens Hall was opened and we had all new kit to play with.   The photo shows some of the team performing a lighting change.  This either involved many hands or the use of a long piece of wood to enable several dimmers to be pushed up or down at once.  We just push buttons these days and the whole rig moves! The first opera we performed in the Queen's Hall was Ruddigore.  I probably had a small hand in the lighting but the photo shows me being transformed from a smooth skinned youth into Sir Ruthven Murgatroyd by Tim Newling who also produced the show.  We had the school radio and sound equipment up in the lighting gallery.  I can remember hearing the news of President John Kennedy's assassination on it.  

I've got another photo of Mr "Polly" Flinders applying make up to my face for what I guess was my last G&S performance - a production of Ruddigore.  This was the first one to take place in Queen's Hall.  I remember making "Jack" Dawes - head of music - organist of Wycombe Parish Church - a special conductor's baton to use during the blackout needed in the second act while the portraits were being revealed.  Out of small beginnings … I'm still in the profession of lighting design.  Reference to www.adlight.co.uk will reveal some photos!  I later discovered that my wife (who went to the High School) had been to the show - she had come to hear Clifford Hughes play the timps - they knew one another from their journeys into Wycombe along the West Wycombe Road.  Clifford's loss was my gain.  Susan & I met at Leicester University the following year!

I must stop rambling...

Cheers

Andrew Dixon 1958 to 1964 please reply to adixon@iee.org.

I am impressed by the RGS website, and am wondering if the enclosed bits and pieces may help to swell its "treasures" even further.

I have very fond memories of the school under E RTucker, from whom in 1936 I received six of his best cane swipes on the seat for cheating during a Geography quiz on homework set by Sam Morgan. "Boy" says Sam, "go and see the Headmaster. It’s a nice, cold day, so I expect it will sting a bit."

On another occasion I recall, again circa 1936, ERT caned 30 or 40 Beaconsfield boys, who were reported to him for smoking on the train. After two announcements at assembly on two consecutive days, and nobody owned up to the misdemeanour, the whole contingent was whacked. I can’t think that anyone suffered in later life because of the incident, but a lesson was learned.

The OTC uniform looks a little like World War 1 and it felt like it, but we all got on with it and enjoyed ourselves. Sissy (C.E.C. Eastman) was our Captain, and I think did a good job. I still have my Cert A signed by him after the exams in Feb 1940.

I still have my school reports from 3LB up to the 6h Form, and chuckle at many of them.

The school photo from 1936 is a bit battered, but if considered worthy, might well add to the store of nostalgia to the relatively few of us who were at the RGS before World War 2. (Editor: as the photo was too large to publish here, it has been given to the school archivist John Mitchell, who welcomes all such photographs from OB’s).

Boxing Finals in the Wycombe Town Hall show me 2^nd from the left in the front row. My opponent on that occasion was Pocock who sits second from the right on the front row. Modesty forbids that I tell you that I beat him! Sissy Eastman and Pat Pattinson were in charge. I could never fathom Pat Pattinson (P.E.) who would spend ages swinging his golf clubs on the big P.T. mats outside the gym. As a fanatical golfer now, I should have paid a little more attention then, as he went on to be a County Player- well above my class. However as Chairman of the RAF Golfing Society, I am sure that I have had every bit as much from the game as he did.

Have just noticed that in the inscription of the Boxing photo the N in "Finals" is written backwards. Another thought appears. The person back row left is, I think, Mr Aitchison, a fine figure of a man (a P.E. Instructor) and a particularly good friend of Mervyn Davies. He was killed very shortly after the war started.

I’ve rambled on, so I think that I’ll wrap up and go to the post with the letter, and then do 30 minutes chipping practice on the lawn.

Yours very sincerely,

Ray Piercey (1935-1940)

Philip Barker (1974-1980)has very kindly sent in an article on the Olympic Games and the RGS. Here it is:

The Olympic games have no doubt served as an inspiration for many RGS sportsmen, but few walking through the quad would realize that the Olympic flag once flew above the school .

The year was 1948 and in a week’s time the London Olympics were to be opened by the King at Wembley. These were the austerity games organized at very short notice and because Rowing and other water sports were to be held at Henley the competitors were billeted in and around High Wycombe. It was decided that the Olympic flag, (five interlocking rings to symbolize the unity of the five continents) should fly above the RGS.

There was one obvious candidate to perform the ceremony, J.E "Ted" Woodward, later to become the school's first Rugby International, but at the time the outstanding athlete in the school. He'd just competed at the English Schools Athletics Championships at Bath where he won the 100yds in 10.6. Such speed would serve him well in four years time when he made his international debut for England

A week before he received instructions from the Town clerk Philip Beecroft in a formal letter, very formal.

"Dear Woodward" it began

"At the close of the entertainment, you will raise the Olympic flag and afterwards the company will be entertained to tea. I think it would be rather nice if you were to be in your sports gear, that is to say white shirt and flannels"

The Mayor Councillor Geoffrey Baker and Alderman Alfred Gibbs and their guest made a whistle stop tour to others schools before arriving at the RGS where Councillor Baker addressed the gathering. The Bucks Free Press notes as follows:

The main speech came from J.Eaton Griffiths of the organising Committee.

In the words of one of the bemused and burly Canadians Athletes, the Olympic competitors are "just tickled... these characters think of everything". A local organizing committee included Old Wycombiensian DR Whitney and Secretary Mr E Owen was made RGS Commandant!

Ted Woodward never competed at the Olympics for Great Britain, but in the Olympic year of 1952 he began a distinguished International Rugby career for England. Another RGS athlete Martin Gillingham later astounded the pundits by winning the 1984 AAAs title at 400m Hurdles. He went to the Los Angeles Olympics.

Headmaster’s Report

January 2004

Dear Old Wycombiensian