School bands

Evil Scarecrow

I usually start discussions here on the blog and move them later to Facebook. However for various reasons the latest hot topic started over on the Boston Grammar School Alumni Facebook group.

There had been a short conversation about the recent report in the Boston Standard that a study showed Boston to one of the least musical places in the country. It's the usual journalistic simplification so I would suggest at least having a cursory read of the original report before blowing your top.

That discussion prompted me to act on something I had been considering for a long time: to start articles on school bands on the OBA Wiki. You will now already find quite a large and growing selection of bands linked from the Bands Category page of the Wiki, with more being added all the time.

If you have any information about school bands past or present, whether organised by the school (like the BGS Jazz Band), formed by students of the school, or made up mainly of former students of BGS, then please set up an account on the Wiki and start editing. The Wiki uses the Media Wiki framework, just the same as used by Wikipedia, so if you've ever edited Wikipedia you already know pretty much what to do.

If you really can't see yourself editing the Wiki, then please send the information you have to me: webmaster@bostonian.org.uk but it will probably take longer to appear.

Wiki news

Wiki tidy up - check your account

As I have said before, the OBA Wiki suffers from the creation of a lot of bogus accounts. I have always tried to keep on top of accounts which actually post irrelevant content to the wiki but that has left a lot of accounts which are never going to be used.

For some time I have been trying to get a tool working to automatically delete a lot of these remaining bogus accounts. The mechanism I've decided to adopt deletes only accounts that have made no edits and that are over three months old for accounts with a confirmed email address or one month old for accounts without a confirmed email address. The tool has already made one pass and has made a vast reduction in the number of accounts.

This process brings with it the risk of deleting a small number of valid accounts, so if you had an account on the wiki and had not made any edits, then your account may have been deleted. If this is the case, I am very sorry, you would be very welcome to create another account and you should be able to use the same name - let me know if you have any difficulty.

For those recreating their accounts and anyone creating a new account there is a simple procedure which will ensure your account will not be deleted either automatically or manually by me:

• Create a new account on the wiki
• You should receive an email asking you to confirm your email address. Please do this within one month.
• Within three months of creating your account make some edits. At least place some information in your personal page which explains your connection with Boston Grammar School.

To access your personal page, log in to the wiki, and click on your username which you will find near the top right of any page.

Houses

The most recent additions to the OBA wiki are articles on the houses of Boston Grammar School and the people after whom they are named:

• Gannock - William Gannock - Red
• Laughton - John Laughton - Yellow
• Muston - Robert of Muston - Blue
• Parry - Thomas Parry - Green

Your help with filling out these or any other articles on the wiki would be gratefully appreciated. For example, there is still quite a lot to be done adding detail of the political career of Thomas Parry. So far I have rather lazily grabbed some of the detail from his Wikipedia entry.

What can the OBA website do for you?

There are four parts to the Old Bostonian Association web site. As a current or former student or member of staff of Boston Grammar School you can benefit from any of them whether you are a member of the Old Bostonian Association or not - though it's great if you are a member, and if you're not, we'd love you to join.

(Article updated 13 January 2017)

1 - Old Bostonian Blog

Well, you're here. You've already found the Old Bostonian Blog. You can also find it from the menu on the main site. We post all sorts of stuff here: news, obituaries, weddings, gossip. You can comment on any of the posts and if you have an idea for a post then let us know at webmaster@bostonian.org.uk.

When a new post is added to the blog, a link goes up on both Google+ and on Facebook so it gets published to quite a wide audience. As of 13 January 2017 the Facebook group "Boston Grammar School Alumni" has 838 members!

1981 senior prize-winners

It's been a while since I added an article to the OBA Wiki. I won't bore you with the details of why: partly me feeling not too great, and partly having the sad job of publicising lots of deaths. Anyway, I'm kicking off the wiki again with a photograph of the Boston Grammar School senior prize-winners of 1981. I've named some of them, mainly my own school colleagues, but there are still quite a few left to be named if you feel up to the challenge.

If you've got anything to add on this article or anywhere on the wiki, I encourage you to set up a user account for yourself, roll up your sleeves and get to work on it. You can't do anything seriously wrong - if I see you've accidentally wrecked a page I can restore it, so don't worry that you haven't edited a wiki before.

If you don't feel confident enough to get your hands dirty then just send me an email with the details you would like to add, and I'll apply them as soon as I can.

William Edward Cox

William Edward Cox

There have been a number of Boston Grammar School students who have gone on to teach at their old school. One of those was William Edward Cox, who was a student 1921-1929, winning the Parry Gold Medal in his final year. He was a member of staff from 1950 to  his retirement in 1971.

William Edward Cox is the subject of the latest new article on the OBA Wiki.

From the top of my head, others who have been both students and staff at Boston Grammar School include Michael Maltby and Steve Neal.

Cyril Herbert George Bland

There are times when it's quite obvious when something is going to be interesting to people and there are times when you get personal satisfaction from something but you're not sure whether anyone else will be at all interested. This is one of the latter times and I apologise if you aren't interested.

Sussex county cricket team of 1897

For quite a while I have known about Cyril Herbert George Bland and I've found out various things about him along the way. Most notably, he could be the only first class cricketer to come out of Boston Grammar School (contact me if you know different). He played for Sussex in the 1890s and early years of the 20th century.

The more I found out about him, the more I wondered what he looked like, beyond David Frith's description  in his book Silence of the Heart: Cricket Suicides as "Personable, wirily built and with ears that stuck out". Finally, today I found a photograph of the 1897 Sussex county cricket team which included Cyril.

As you will guess from the title of David Frith's book, Cyril Bland committed suicide, drowning himself at Cowbridge, Boston in 1950.

The photograph is shown here. I have also included the list of people on it in the OBA Wiki entry for Cyril Herbert George Bland.

New notables on the wiki

John Cridland speaking
at the 2011 OBA Annual Dinner

There are two new articles on the OBA Wiki today. They are about two old boys who have gone on to very different careers.

• John Cridland is the current Director General of the CBI. He was one of two guest speakers at the 2011 Old Bostonian Association Annual Dinner and was also the guest at the 2012 Boston Grammar School Prize Giving. He is often in the news, making statements on behalf of the CBI.



Danny Butterfied

• Danny Butterfield is a professional footballer who has played for Grimsby Town, Crystal Palace, Charlton Athletic and Southampton. There is speculation that he is on the move from Southampton in the current transfer window. If there is any news it will appear on the Old Bostonian Association website. 

Football

Simon Garner

Mike Pinner

Danny Butterfield

I have a wide range range of interests and some knowledge in a lot of areas, but we all have to have our limitations. One thing that doesn't interest me much at all, and therefore an area I know relatively little about (certainly compared to many of the people around me) is football.

Barry Spikings

Barry Spikings at the 2000
Old Bostonian Association Annual Dinner
where he was special guest

The latest new entry in the OBA Wiki is for Barry Spikings, one of our most famous old boys. Barry has been a Hollywood Producer since the 1970s and has had top jobs in several film companies. In 1978 his film, "The Deer Hunter" won the Academy Award for Best Picture.

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

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!

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.

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.

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.