Every year around this time my former school, Whitgift, has a day for former pupils to come back and have a bit of a reunion. I never went since the day was rather sports orientated and just did not appeal (I do occasionally attend Old Boy dinners, for example last year).
Apparently lots of other former pupils felt the same way since attendance declined every year, dropping to just 35 in 2006. They did not even run a day last year but this year completely revamped the occasion.
The format was that people (Old Boys and partners) turned up at 10:00 for coffee in Big School. We chatted to several people including a sixth-former from Slovakia whose English was superb, needless to say.
We then had a briefing from the Second Master, containing amazing statistics about the school nowadays. The school's academic results put it in the Top Ten in the country according to the latest list in The Times. The boys now have 35 sports to choose from, with recent pupils reaching international status in Rugby and Crystal Palace standard in soccer. The Arts side is similarly diverse and high quality. Boys travel from Essex and Brighton to attend. Most incredibly of all, there are 50 different languages spoken at the pupils' homes.
We then split into groups of ten, each group being shown round the school by a senior boy. Our group was led by a boy called Tucker who, on describing how he was a fourth generation pupil, was delighted to discover that one of our group had known his grandfather.
After a delicious lunch, including rather tasty spotted dick (if that is not an oxymoron), we had a wander round on our own before returning to the library to hear a presentation from an Old Boy who had been on the front line in Helmand Province in Afghanistan. It was a welcome change to hear an account directly without having to worry what media manipulation had been applied. He denied, for example, having had any shortages of essential supplied or items such as boots, ammunition, or loo paper. He did complain that the 45 degree heat meant that the chocolate in the rations was not in a consumable state.
After a cup of tea we called it a day, agreeing that it had been quite an eye-opening experience.
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