Old Boys, Girls and Teachers Guestbook

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Welcome to the Guestbook
Feel free to add messages relating to the site and the school. The only rules are: real names only, no personal attacks and no unrelated messages (inappropriate messages may be edited/withdrawn without warning).

It would be appreciated if you gave an email address, where you now live and said when you were at the school, but you don't have to.

Plase note that if you click on an email address below you will need to replace ~DOT~ with . and ~AT~ with @ in your email program. The Guestbook presents these this way to avoid email address harvesters collecting your email addresses from the page. I know it's a pain, but it's very much better than the alternative.

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There are 500 messages in the guestbook
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Viewing messages 321 to 330

Mike Todd

Do you have Speech Day programmes from 1960, 1965 or 1950-1956? If you do, or know anyone who has copies, please get in touch.

These are incredibly valuable resources for identifying who is in the school photos, but also for other historical information.

The school's log suggests that there may not have been Speech Days between 1951 and 1955, but there should definitely be ones for February 1956, November 1960 & November 1965.

Tue 12-Jan-2016 15:30

Mike Todd

Thanks for all the best wishes of the season and for the kind comments about the site.

To everyone here-gathered and families, a very happy and successful 2016.

Work on the site continues, and a few more photos (from 1967) will be added later this evening, with many more to come in 2016. There are still around 300 from the school's archive to be processed and uploaded!!

Thu 31-Dec-2015 20:05

Bruce Graham

As it is New Year's Eve and as i Missed out on the Christmas greetings may I (as a fairly regular "regular") wish everybody a very happy, peaceful (if only) and healthy 2016.

Mike, your efforts have given a lot of people a lot of pleasure. Long may it continue.

And "lang may your lum reek" as the Scots have it. Some of the older correspondents will remember the traditional celebrations on hogmanay when the festivities seemed to go on all night after the ships in the river sounded their foghorns at midnight.

Thu 31-Dec-2015 17:39 - Ruskington, Lincolnshire

Alex Patterson, 46 - 51 | alexpatterson~AT~videotron~DOT~ca

Hello Mike and all the regular readers, (and some irregulars),
It’s 11:20 pm, Christmas Eve and I’m writing this from my daughters home in Georgian Bay, Ontario. It’s +11 C, no snow forecast, another record breaking day and we’re all getting ready for the annual mayhem festival tomorrow. We’ve had some great news on the health front and we’ll all be celebrating for the whole family.
We wish you, Mike and all who read this, all health and happiness throughout the Christmas holidays and more for the coming year. Thanks again for all your efforts over the years and maybe 2016 will see us having a beer in Rothbury.
Lang may yer rum leak!!
Alex Patterson

PS
Mike. It’s now Christmas Day in Georgian Bay. I did start this last night before I went to bed and thought I’d sent it, but being the Luddite that I am, didn’t realise I wasn’t connected to the internet. But my digital granddaughter managed to connect me so here we go again...Merry Christmas everyone,
Regards,
Alex

Fri 25-Dec-2015 17:26 - Georgian Bay ONTARIO

Neale Backhouse | nealebackh~AT~gmail~DOT~com

Hi Mike
Here we are again about to wrap up another year. I hope we can all keep this up for a good while longer. If that is the case, then we have to thank you for your ongoing attention to the site, your constant efforts to polish and improve the product. I'm sure we all appreciate your dedication. Speaking of dedication, I recently read an autobiography by Paul Allen, the co- founder of Microsoft, titled "Idea Man" (good chance you have read it) in which he describes his early collaboration with Bill Gates,to come up with a marketable operating system for personal computers.They worked feverishly to stay ahead of the competition, putting in long hours of effort. He recalls Bill being so tired that he would fall asleep at his work station,his head slumped forward over the keyboard. After some time Bill would awake with a start and continue typing exactly where he had left off. All that hard work certainly paid off. Bill eventually became the richest man in the world and Paul, at last report,is good for about eighteen billion dollars. Maybe you should go public with our Guestbook, Mike, there might be the odd million or two to be made somewhere.
In the meantime, I wish you and all my fellow devotees of the site, a very Happy Christmas and Health and Prosperity in the New Year.
And for those of us looking forward to our 81st year, I'm reminded of the elderly chap who was asked, what it was like growing old, to which he replied, "Well, when I consider the alternative, It's fabulous!!"

Thu 17-Dec-2015 23:22 - Victoria BC, CANADA

George Connett | georgejamesconnett~AT~googlemail~DOT~com

Has anyone out there by chance have a photograph of form 1I 1957/8, Mr Ibbotson was the form master as well as being one of the Maths teachers. This is the only form that I do not have a photographof and I would very much appreciate if someone does have, they could share their copy. Thank you in hope and anticipation.

Sat 5-Dec-2015 11:59 - Central Gdns SouthShields

From Mike T: Unfortunately, 1957 is one of the years missing from the school's collection. Let's hope someone else has a copy.

Eric Moyse | eric~DOT~moyse~AT~sky~DOT~com

Thanks, Mike for your hard work in assembling the information about former pupils who died in the two World Wars. Of particular interest to me was the reference to my mother’s brother, John Abrahamson, whom I remember as being the first name on the “Pro Patria Mori” roll of honour in the main corridor at school. Your account contained much information new to me, which may also be of interest to my cousins Graham Abrahamson, Brian Burrough and Ken Holman who attended the school at the same time as me.

Sun 29-Nov-2015 12:17 - Reading, Berkshire

From Mike T: Thanks, Eric. I'm concentrating on getting more form photos up online at the moment, but I'll be getting back to the mini-biographies some time in the new year.

Bruce Graham | bsgraham~AT~btinternet~DOT~com

Mike

I was fascinated to read about the "other school" and to see the overlap between the development of the SS Boys High School and an independent "Grammar" School.

I always thought that the Victorian establishment was very protective of the rights to open and run educational establishments but perhaps it was easier than we believed.

My great grandfather became the Master (or Beadle) of the Darlington Workhouse in the 1870's with, apparently, limited experience but a lot of contacts. What a different world!!

Fri 23-Oct-2015 19:07 - Ruskington Lincolnshire

From Mike T: You'd be surprised, Bruce. By around 1860 SS had a number of private, church, company and charity schools (some were established back in the 18th century). Some were founded as a result of a bequest, others as private businesses. However, quite a few lasted only as long as their founders.

Ed. Forster | r2edforster~AT~live~DOT~ca

Pleased to see that the guest book is still alive. Tempest fugit!! I'll be 90 in 4mths.My sister who was at the girls High school is now 92 & going strong.

Wed 9-Sep-2015 22:40 - PEI Canada

Mike Todd

As you may have seen on the front page, I'm in the process of preparing a section on the site which will include a searchable index of all boy at the school from 1885 to 1975. It will include links to additional information (including school photos), but with information covered by privacy laws redacted.

As part of this, I'm also changing the "Famous Old Boys" section to "Notable Old Boys", and their entries in the index will be flagged, with mini-biographies as far as I can research and write them.

I know I've been a bit fussy about who to include in the Famous Old Boys list (mainly due to limitations of space), but the new approach should allow many more Old Boys to be honoured.

So I'm now open to more suggestions, and if you know of any Old Boy who achieved great, or even just good, things, please let me know via the CONTACT ME link at the bottom of the page.

I'm hoping that the new database will go online in the next month or so (it should have gone online this week, but a significant problem that prevented it working on iPads has meant a software re-write).

Mike

Fri 4-Sep-2015 22:21

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