In September we published articles detailing the early life and school memories of Ron Swan, who attended the School 1936-1941. Ron's family have now provided a further and final instalment bringing us up to date with Ron, likely our oldest living Old Bordenian.
On 11 November, the School held an Assembly to mark Remembrance Day and in particular Old Bordenians who served and died fighting for their country in conflicts since 1914. There was no OBA Remembrance Sunday ceremony this year due to Covid restrictions.
A video of the School proceedings can be found here:
It is with sadness that we report the death of Ray Hill at the end of September 2020. He died peacefully at home in Minster.
Unfortunately, the OBA's Remembrance Service has been cancelled this year because of Covid19. However, by kind permission of the Headmaster, the OBA will be represented at the School's Remembrance Service on Wednesday, 11 November by committee members Neil Hancock and Mick Pack, who will lay a wreath on behalf of the OBA.
The 2020 AGM of the Association was held online on Thursday 24th September. The papers and minutes are available for members.
We recently published some pre-war memories of Ron Swan (1936-41) and we now publish the next phase of his time at the School, which includes evacuation to Pengam in South Wales. We are grateful, once more, for Ron for sharing these.
OB Norman Wigg has previously provided a personal history of the Battle of Britain over Kent. Now he has penned a further article on his wider memories of a Kentish schoolboy during WW2.
The Sittingbourne Heritage Museum has produced an excellent video about the School's boys who died in the First World War. We are grateful to Ann Sefton from the Museum for sharing this with us.
Geoff Rousell is looking to bring together Old Bordenians who joined the School in 1971 for a reunion at the 2021 OBA Annual Dinner.
After several months of closure and the summer break, the School is preparing for a new School year which will be like no other.
Sittingbourne Heritage Museum has put together a video, available on YouTube, detailing a brief history of the building that was the original site of the School on College Road. Previous news article has highlighted the likelihood of the site, which later became an Adult Education Centre, being redeveloped as a residential site.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwAq1E97RG8
Paul Dawkins has sent a rogues gallery of photos from his final year at the School - 1970/71, including for the record, a shot of that year's prefects.
Brigadier Ernest Goode, CBE who attended BGS in the early 1920s had a long military career. He was commissioned into the Royal Army Service Corps and soon after seconded for duty with the Sudan Defence Force, 1935-43. Following this wartime service he was appointed aide-de-camp to The Queen, 1959-62.
If you want to hear more about his time in the Sudan, a recording of his experiences in the Sudan is available on the Imperial War Museum's website:
https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/80004261