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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only rules are: real names only, no personal attacks and no unrelated messages (inappropriate messages may be edited/withdrawn without warning).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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Neale Backhouse '46- '51. | nealebackh~AT~gmail~DOT~com

Hi Mike,
Our elder statesman, Ed Forster, is to be congratulated on the arrival of his 17th great grandchild. I knew you grew masses of potatoes on PEI, Ed, but I didn't realise that they had such a progenitive effect. You mention that you are of the entry of 1937. Two years later saw the evacuation of 147 boys from the school to Appleby (as noted in Mike's excellent historical account of those days). Were you one of them Ed? I see there is a Forster on the list of 3rd form (first year) pupils but I would have thought that 1939 would find you in the lower 4th.

Tue 21-Feb-2012 22:40 - Victoria BC, Canada

Ed. Forster | ed~DOT~forster~AT~live~DOT~com

Re. Alex & the entry class of '46.
I'm of the entry class '37, My son has his first grandson, making me now a great grand dad of 17.

Mon 13-Feb-2012 13:25 - A caad PEI Canada

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

Further to the information I passed on in my message of 3rd December concerning Professor David Phillips, readers may wish to know that in the New Year's Honours list David was awarded a CBE. This was an "upgrade" from the OBE he earned about 10 years ago while at Imperial College.

Sat 4-Feb-2012 14:33 - Ruskington, Lincolnshire

Alex Patterson | alexpatterson~AT~videotron~DOT~ca

Hello Mike,
"Another year older and deeper in debt'...well, half of that is true and the other half seems that way. We're in Toronto babysitting last year's surprise baby, while this year's surprise baby is coming home any day now. My daughter's company have never had anyone having two babies on one maternity leave! I was wondering how many grandchildren the entry class of '46 has and how many are closely related. The genealogical paradox comes to mind.
Anyhow enough rambling and I hope that all enjoy their Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanza festivities and that you Mike and all the contributors have a Happy and Healthy New Year,
Regards from a balmy (+4 C) and dry Toronto,

Alex Patterson

Sun 25-Dec-2011 01:54 - Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Neale Backhouse '46- '51. | neale70~AT~shaw~DOT~ca

Compliments of the season Mike and thanks once more, as another year slips by, for providing us with this link to our past and present friends, wrinkled and not so wrinkled. Remember to eat those salads. A Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year to all!

Fri 23-Dec-2011 02:34 - Victoria BC, Canada

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

Alan

You're quite correct. I should have said Lincoln Rd.

Where on earth Talbot Rd came from I have no idea. Just put it down to the wearing out of the brain cells!!

Tue 6-Dec-2011 16:30 - Ruskington, Lincolnshire

Alan Whittaker(53-59) | alan~AT~whittaker4000~DOT~fsnet~DOT~co~DOT~uk

Hi Bruce,
I've been puzzling over your siting of Talbot Rd on the Marsden Estates which were built after The War to the North and East of Harton Schools.Talbot Rd is located between Stanhope Rd and Harton Lane and I seem to remember the houses were mainly pre-War.
I remember well the competition to be in the "top section" at Harton Juniors and to be top of the class was very special;although in my time the top boy
became a miner at Whitburn when he left school!Quite a difference in career pattern to your friend!
I was never in the top section(top of the second top was the most I achieved);However, unlike your friend, I was able to sit the 11+ at age 10 and started at the High School two weeks after my 11th birthday

Tue 6-Dec-2011 16:03 - Somerset

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

An anecdote concerning one of our school's Famous Old Boys.

Every day the Daily Telegraph publishes a short list of notable people whose birthday it is. Included in the list today (3rd December) is Professor David Phillips who was at the school from 1951 to 1958. He is 72 today.

David's family was allocated one of the new council houses on the Marsden Estates (Talbot Rd to be precise)in 1948 if I remember correctly. His father was a Master Mariner who had been a prisoner of war for several years and was then employed as a River Tyne Pilot. He joined me in the A class of our year at Harton Junior School having been quite correctly judged to have the ability to go one year ahead of his age group. He was extremely intelligent and he and I tussled over ownership of the top two desks in the classroom - people of my vintage will understand what that means. However, in those days rules were rules and the Education Authorities refused to allow him to sit the 11-plus with the rest of us in the year as his birthday is in December and he was only 10-plus at the time of the exams. So poor David had to languish at Harton for a further year in the 4th form before he could sail through the tests and come to the High School (as it then was).

Later we were both members of the same Scout Troop attached to St John's Presbyterian church behind the Town Hall. We shared a number of camps and even completed our First Class Hike together in the wilds of Co Durham.

After school he went to Birmingham University and eventually copmpleted a PhD in Photochemistry, a subject on which he is a recognised world authority. After research appointments in both the USSR and California he went on to eventually become Professor of Chemistry at Imperial College, London. He is currently President of the Society of Chemistry.

Sat 3-Dec-2011 13:25 - Ruskington, Lincolnshire

d thompson | davta60~AT~blueyonder~DOT~co~DOT~uk

re ties surely mens ties slope one way womens the other,reason some boys have stripes one way is that they were wearing their sister's ties-no doubt this happened at girls' grammar as well.

Tue 15-Nov-2011 16:10 - still in shields

Derek Mason | derek~DOT~mason~AT~foodstandards~DOT~gov~DOT~uk

Re- the sloping of stripes on the School Tie. Our family reckon it was to do with where it was bought as only Woods and the Co-op sold the uniforms one sloped to the the left the other to the right. Just a thought from a sunny Atherstone 16C.

Tue 15-Nov-2011 10:44 - England

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