As many of you may know, Ken Sears (who died last autumn) was very closely involved with St. George's Memorial Church at Ypres ; he was a Friend of St George's, edited their monthly magazine and led many annual pilgrimages there. As a tribute to him and because we felt it was a worthy thing to do anyway, the Association has arranged for the erection of a brass plaque in the Church commemorating those Old Bordenians who were killed in WW1.
This year celebrates (!?) 40 years since the class of 1968 - 1975 left the school. I have been sent a picture of the prefects of that final year; this is reproduced below. I note that, to comply with the ruling at the time on the length of hair being above the collar, hairstyles grew high and wide!!
As promised in my last article, here are photos from this year's Annual Reunion Dinner, held on 7 March 2015.
A total of 54 Old Bordenians gathered for the Association’s annual dinner on Saturday 7 March at UK Paper Clubhouse in Sittingbourne.
Update - a report on the Annual Dinner will be updated shortly. Watch this space!
When I took on the task of launching a new website in 2008, one of the first series of articles that was published that year was an account of the move of the school from its original premises to its current location in 1929, produced by the late John Macrae, a stalwart of the school and the Association. When we moved the website to be hosted alongside the School website, this article, one of the most popular in the first couple of years of the original website, became unavailable to visitors to the site. I felt this needed to be rectified and have therefore reproduced the article below - I hope you enjoy it.
We have produced an easily accessible and printable copy of all the articles posted on the website over the past year, similar to the Maroon publication, which was discontinued in 2009. It includes all material suitable for printed format from January 2014 to December 2014 (OK - one was very early January 2015!!). To access the digest, click this link: Website Digest 2014
David Palmer
OBA Website
The son of Old Bordenian John Doran has provided us with a couple of photographs of Borden Grammar School evacuees that were sent to Lewis School, Pengam in the Rhymney Valley in South Wales in 1940. Unlike most of the others, John's family decided to stay in S Wales when the rest returned.
The Annual Old Bordenian Association remembrance gathering was held at the School at 11a.m. on Saturday 8th November, to commemorate the 99 Old Bordenians who were killed on active service during the two World Wars and in other conflicts. It was attended by a number of Old Bordenians, including Denis Jarrett, one of the founders of this event; by Anne Whitehead, daughter of Able Seaman Harry Bruce Hartridge, Royal Navy; and by Kathy Gambell and family, relatives of George Alfred King, Merchant Navy. We were also pleased to welcome three pupils from the School : Anthony Brinkman (School Captain), Tom Chapman (Vice-Captain) and prefect Lois Wakefield.
This year we are changing the way that we notify Old Boys about the Dinner:-
1. Emails will be sent to all OBA members where we hold your email address.
2. Letters will only be sent to those Old Boys, who are members of the OBA, who have attended the last two dinners.
3. A Dinner Letter is available to download on this website.
In the past an invitation letter has been sent to all OBA members but taking into account that the majority do not attend the Dinner, this has been a considerable cost to the Association which will now be saved.
Our aim for future Dinners is to switch across to electronic notification as quickly as we are able.
Peter Lusted
To download the letter: Dinnerletter2015.pdf
Every individual is unique, but some are uniquer than others! And Ken Sears, who died on 9th November 2014, was certainly one of those.
Born in Sheerness, he lived in the same house in Winstanley Road all his life. After attending the Broadway Primary School, he went to Borden until he was 18 and thence to Lincoln College, Oxford, where he graduated in Modern History. He spent a further year in Government Studies at Mansfield College before being employed initially by Coventry Council and then by the City and Guilds Institute, where he worked as an Education Officer for the rest of his careeer. So much for the bare facts. What made Ken so remarkable, however, was his huge range of interests and 'extramural' activities, of which three in particular stand out.
We regret to announce the passing away of Ken Sears on 9 November 2014. Ken was a long standing member of the OBA committee and will be sadly missed. More details of Ken's life and contribution to the Old Boys will be added shortly.
The funeral took place on Thursday 20th November 2014 at 2-30pm at Hope Street Church, Sheerness.
Looking back 25 years, it transpires that our guest speaker at the 2015 Dinner, Dennis Fowle, contributed an article to the Maroon that year. With apologies to Dennis if he planned to use this article as the draft for his speech!!