New Wiki Articles (29 December 2012)

Pitcher Cup Winners 1973

I have created a few new articles in the OBA wiki today. There's no particular theme to them.

• Pitcher Cup Winners 1973
• Trip to Russia 1966
• Air Raid Shelters
• Speech Day 1959
• Debating Society

Merry Cave - Obituary

Francis Merry Cave (known as Merry) died on 21 August 2012 aged 96.

He was born in Essex on 16 September 1915 and moved to Boston when he was a few months old. He initially attended St Thomas’ School, moving to Park Board School in order to take the scholarship exam. He achieved the second highest score in the county and was awarded a scholarship for free grammar school education at Boston Grammar School. At BGS he passed all his exams with "good" or "credit" marks but he was more interested in sport than study and played football and cricket for the school and later for the old boys.

1939 Panoramic

A section of the 1939 photograph

Over the last two or three days I've been adding the panoramic photograph of all the students at Boston Grammar School in 1939 to the Wiki. This joins the 1962 panoramic photograph. I have a few more of these to do - they take a while to convert from the old OBA web site format to the wiki though nowhere near as long as it will take to set up the two or three I have that have never been on the web before!

Letter from the President

For this blog entry, I will hand over to Peter Sharman, President of the Old Bostonian Association. This formed part of his "Letter from the President" in the recent copy of The Old Bostonian magazine. The news that Peter describes has its negative side but please bear with it; it's not all doom and gloom, and we really could do with your ideas. It's easy to leave a comment below this post, or any other on the blog where you can think of something the Old Bostonian Association could do for you, or something you could do for it!

The last year has not been an easy one for the Old Bostonian Association. The Social sub-committee have worked exceptionally hard but with very little support from Members. We held a highly successful Charity Ball last year raising over £3000, which was equally shared between School Funds and St Barnabas Hospice. We then embarked on arranging a follow up this year and were very confident of having another sell out. Unfortunately this was not the case and after selling only around 85 tickets we reluctantly had to call it off thus depriving The School and this year’s charity, Linkage Community Trust, of valuable funds. An outing to the Shakespeare Theatre at Stamford and a Tour of the Wolds were also cancelled for similar reasons. The Social sub-committee have now decided there is very little point in trying to arrange further events and have resigned en-masse although they have all, thankfully, agreed to stay on the main Committee. We do realise that many of you would like to show your support but for either health, geographical or other reasons find it impossible. Perhaps you, the Members, have some ideas on how we can best take the Association forward. It does seem increasingly difficult to attract new members. I personally think this may be due to Social Media. It is now so easy to keep in touch through Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc. Peter Sharman, President of the Old Bostonian Association

It is worth mentioning that this does not affect the OBA Annual Dinner, OBA v BGS Snooker or OBA v BGS Quiz, which have all been successful events in the past and will continue to be held. See the OBA Diary for more details.

Prize Giving - Part 2

John Cridland CBE,
Director General of the CBI,
who awarded prizes at the 2012 prize giving

I attended the Boston Grammar School prize giving today at the Centenary Methodist Church.

Unfortunately I didn't get to hear the BGS Jazz Band, which played before the event started, but various musicians from the school accompanied Christmas carols and played a number of musical interludes which punctuated proceedings.

The main BGS news was that the school will become Boston Grammar School Selective Academy on 1 January 2013. This will mean the end of the Boston Grammar Schools Federation, although an umbrella governing body will still exist for matters where the two schools can usefully coordinate - Boston High School will also become an academy on the same date.

Gangnam Style - Boston Grammar School Staff

Boston Grammar School staff do a Gangnam Style video for Christmas. Would they have done this "in your day"?

Craig White

Craig White

I am sure I can speak for the Old Bostonian Association (I rarely dare to) in sending condolences to the family and friends of former Boston Grammar School student, Craig White, who died last Wednesday in Pilgrim Hospital. The cause of Craig's death was originally thought to be meningitis but an inquest held on 21st December revealed that he was suffering from Tuberculosis when he died.

Craig was studying at the University of Lincoln and hoping to become a sports journalist.

Buildings

Big School or Library

I've been adding some more articles to the OBA Wiki. This time I started off with some photos I took of school buildings in the 1990s.

Prize Giving

I've accepted an invitation to attend the school prize giving at the Centenary Methodist Church on 21st December. Don't worry, I'm not making a special journey; I was going to be in town anyway, as I was last year. It's not a bad event with some music, and this year's guest is John Cridland, Director General of the CBI. If you're also there, then do say "hello".

What are your memories of prize givings / speech days past? How many prizes did you receive? What famous person's hand did you get to shake? Maybe you were the special guest? Of course, I'l post a report from the prize giving after the event.

1991 Athletics

Boston Grammar School Sixth Form Sports Day 1991

When I set up the OBA Wiki project I intended to post at least one article a day. That was a resolution that was bound to be broken occasionally, and so it has been. It has been a few days since I posted a new article, but then in that time I set up this blog, so I can forgive myself.

I like the medium of a Wiki. Not only can many people contribute (and you are welcome to contribute to it) but you can get lost and when you start off intending to contribute an article on one subject, you can end up writing something on a totally different subject, or contributing small corrections or updates to many different articles. Whatever you do, it's all good, it's all progress.

The Old Bostonian

I heard today that the next issue of "The Old Bostonian" magazine is being printed, so for those who are members of the Old Bostonian Association, you should be receiving your copy shortly (unless you've opted for the electronic version).

If you aren't a member of the Old Bostonian Association and you have been a student or staff member at Boston Grammar School, then read about it and contact the membership secretary for details of how to join.

Richard O Smith bargain book

To quote the Boston Standard:

Former Boston Grammar School student Richard O. Smith has written a tome entitled Britain’s Most Eccentric Sports... 

Richard, who grew up in Freiston, started his writing career as Freiston and Butterwick correspondent for The Standard, before setting up the Boston United Fanzine From Behind Your Fences.

He was named as National Football Writer of the Year as a result of his work on this, which led him to work with The Independent and When Saturday Comes. 

He later started writing for The Now Show - a news quiz on Radio Four presented by Hugh Dennis and Richard Punt.

Sudden activity on Facebook

Yesterday I found an advert on a web site selling collectables for a BGS CCF (Combined Cadet Force) shoulder badge. Given that I hadn't yet set up this blog, I posted the link on the Facebook group asking for positive identification. I got that but a subsequent post of form 3A when I was in it caught the interest of a couple of my old school colleagues and my mobile phone was buzzing every couple of minutes with notifications of activity on my post.

Well, I had to have a look and see what was happening, didn't I? We ended up having quite a reminiscence session, and a couple of others eventually joined in. I like to see this sort of activity, I just need to work out now how I can generate more of it. That's what this blog is about really. See you next time I've got something to say!

Old Bostonian Association web site

The main Old Bostonian Association web site is the place to find out about the Old Bostonian Association and events it puts on for you. There are also news feeds on Boston Grammar School and particular old boys. If you know about anything that's happening that doesn't find it's way on the web site, drop me a line or post a comment here, complete with a web link to the story if possible.

The OBA Wiki Project is the place to find "historical" information about everything connected with Boston Grammar School from 1555 to the present. You can even create yourself an account there and start contributing. The Community Portal can give you some ideas of how you might be able to start helping right away.

First post

At last a real bit of interactivity for the Old Bostonian Association web presence.

This blog doesn't replace the Old Bostonian Association web site, in fact it can be considered to be an extension to it. From time to time I'll post news here of what's happening on the web site so by following what happens here on an RSS reader or by email (see the right hand side of this page), you can quickly see what's happening on the main web site.

I'll also post anything I think of that might be of interest to you ex-BGS folks and I'll look forward to reading your comments on what I write. Hopefully we can get some lively discussion going.

There are already other forums for discussion on BGS topics. There are several BGS-related groups on Facebook, including Boston Grammar School Alumni. There's also the Boston Grammar School Alumni group on LinkedIn. And let's not forget the original BGS List on Yahoo!Groups. If you know of any more, why not add a comment below?