Many have expressed their appreciation for my work on this blog and the Facebook page in charting the history of the school and bringing people together again (virtually) after 40 years or so and some have asked how it all got started. I can only take credit for so much of it, so i thought i'd give a little history of how it all came about - or as far as i can relate it.....
by Trev Teasdel
OLD BOYS ASSOCIATION
Long before the internet, while I was still at the City of Coventry Boarding School in the 60's and in fact long before, there has been an 'Old Boys Association'. Led in the 60's by, i think, the top man - Martin Hawthorne, who was Headboy in my first year - 62 - 63 and who returned as a PE teacher in the early 70's. The Old Boy's Association met periodically in Coventry to share memories, catch up, share photos and press cuttings and who knows what else. Annually they would arrange sports matches at the school between the Old Boys and the staff - usually cricket or Rugby and below is a photo of Martin Hawthorn presenting headmaster George Parker with a portfolio of photos and cuttings collected by the Association, some time in the late 60's. Many of the photos and cuttings are probably on this blog and will be either in the Coventry Archives or the Pioneer centre's portfolio.
The Old Boys Association continued right up until the internet age. I think the last one was organised in Coventry c2001. Michael Billings (who was at the school in the late 50's) and Graham Baker (who was at the school early to mid 60's) were instrumental in organising the Old Boys Association at that stage. We have, via Michael Billings, some press cuttings from the last Old Boys Reunion in Coventry - re-posted below.
I can't give a proper history of the Old Boys Association but if anyone has a handle on it, I'd be happy to post such a history. Below are some cuttings that are already posted on this blog about the last reunions in Coventry c 2000 / 01
Michael Billings - with beard and glasses.
The Original Old Boys Association in the 1950's
This is the 3rd Old Boys Meeting in Coventry at Queen Victoria Road. It's interesting to note the name Dennis Whiteley, as I've recently posted a press article from 2000 with a picture of Dennis who was at Wyre Farm Camp school at the beginning in 1940, when he was only 13. He went on - as illustrated above, to become secretary of the Old Boys Association after he left the camp. I've re-posted the article here to illustrate this -
PARENTS / TEACHERS ASSOCIATION
From c1960, the Parents / Teachers Association also formed as a forum for discussing issues pertinent to the welfare of the boys at the school and organising fund raising events to raise money for equipment that the school couldn't afford eg the may have been stalls on the playground during Visiting day, dances, raffles etc. i think there may have been associations with the Old Boys Association and an interest in the development of the school over the years. In the mid 60's my own parents put a lot of energy into the parents / teachers Association. My mother did some secretarial work - I remember her typing up lists of pupils and their addresses so they could mail out parents with notices of meetings / events and (I think) a newsletter. My father, according George Parker in my report, had a lot of 'drive' on the committee which he thought at the time, that i could do with - well i think this blog (and other work I've done) is clear evidence of that coming out of me after i left school. Two of the pupils lists for 1964 and 1966 that my mother typed up are now on this blog in the top menu and on the facebook page in the notes. A lot of parents got involved and made valuable contributions over the years and in 1961, there is a report in the school magazine The Boarder on the work of the earliest parent / teachers association which is posted on this blog Here
Sports day July 1962 with Head Mr Rowlands and Mr Chinn (Director of Education in Coventry), supported by the Parents Teacher Association.
Eric and Margery Teasdel - my parents as they were in the 60's
on the Parents Teachers Association.
THE BOARDER
The Boarder was a duplicated annual school magazine operating between 1958 and 1961 and although it was for current information and a review of the academic year in terms of sports, activities and contained features and creative writing - it did publish retrospective articles and potted histories. It's the equivalent (for the time) of a current blog although they only published annually. Now of course it provides a hugely insightful historic resource and thanks to Michael Billings and Paul Williamson, we have two copies on this blog - check the index. 1958 and 1960 / 1961. If anyone has copies issues 2 and 3 - please let us know! We've got some great information from these magazines. It's a great pity therefore that the magazines didn't continue beyond 1961 - it would have been a huge resource and i would have loved to have been involved. The pupils wrote most of the material under the editorship of English teacher extraordinaire (in the best possible sense!) Colin Partridge and some of the other teachers of the time.
Boarder Issue 1 1958
Boarder Issue 4 1961
Most of the articles are on the blog - see the Index.
FRIENDS REUNITED - Enter the Digital Age
I joined Friends Reunited c 2006 (I think) after my friend Ann requested me to join and filled in details about the schools and colleges I attended. Friends Reunited seemed to be the first internet connection between former pupils. Both school names were represented - Wyre Farm and City of Coventry. Many former pupils were signed up for it and you could search via dates you were at the school to find people. Some had provided a photo and profile information and some had even posted photographs, many of which are now on this blog. However it was pretty static - not much interaction and messages often were answered. however it was a start. Most people abandoned Friends when Facebook cranked up c 2008 / 9. I made my first contribution to what has become this digital school archive on Friends - uploading a number of photographs. The pages are still there and there has been been some interaction - but not much! Still it launched the school into the digital age!
TOPIX FORUM
In July 2006 Irving Holloway started a Topix thread with these words
"Hi i am looking for some old school mates from city of Coventry Boarding School in Cleobury Mortimer (shropshire). I was there 1972-1975 ,in Blunt House (JB 37), I still live in Germany,hope to hear from you all soon Irvine Holloway contact:Smirvman@aol.com "
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| Irvine Holloway |
I didn't contribute to this forum until after i started this blog, although i had visited it often to catch up with new comments. I began to contribute mainly to sign post people to the new blog. It's still often the first port of call for people still finding this blog and has played a brave role although clearly the original objective was for Irvine to find his own estranges school mates but it did the biz for the rest of us. Good initiative Irvine. Key people got involved with this forum including - Keith Ison and Rosemary Webb-Rehill in 2008.
FACEBOOK
November 28th 2008 John Brown sounded the Facebook bell. Many of the blogs like My Space and Vox were loosing their social networks to this new kid on the block called Facebook. It was on its way to become the giant it now is. I had already joined Facebook the month before and could see the potential for building on the Topix forum as you could add photos and notes and the networking and search was good although Facebook in 2008 was only just getting going. This is what John Brown said on Topix -
"Face Book is the way ahead gents...I discovered this site through a face book link."
CITY OF COVENTRY BOARDING SCHOOL - FACEBOOK PAGE
Indeed there were two Facebook pages (as now) at an early stage of Facebook. I had joined both and uploaded some photos. The more buoyant one at the time was City of Coventry Boarding School
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| Nigel Tuckey |
Up until 2011 this page was definitely the most lively with quite a few photos being posted and some limited conversations. However, until 2011, neither this page or I Survived Wyre Farm Camp School were anywhere near as lively as they became. Every few months there might be some new photos, an odd comment here and there but it was good that they were there.
I SURVIVED WYRE FARM CAMP SCHOOL - FACEBOOK PAGE
A lot of people seem to think I started this page and although I may have started one had there not been 2 of
them already, it was in fact started in 2008 by Mike Godwin (Pictured below). It originally had less people and less posts than the other one. The situation changed first when Rosemary Webb-Rehill joined in with an idea that her brother had about there being a similar camp school in Yorkshire. I did some research and found a picture - that discussion led to fuller posts later on, on this blog about the history of the National Camps Corporations and indeed there were over 30 identical schools built. However the real change came in 2011 when Facebook upgrade it's community pages. Mike Godwin responded to the upgrade and messaged everyone on the page, telling them that there was now more scope for adding pics etc. The Coventry Boarding school page didn't upgrade until much later. This message stimulated Michael Billings (who had been involved in the Old Boys Association) to ask a bunch of interesting questions - Did anybody remember Mawley Hall, Castle Toot and many more. Rosemary responded to the Mawley Hall question, telling us it had associations with Napoleon's son and King Henry V111. I researched that further and uncovered a lot of interesting material and Rose brought Sarah and Aileen in and others like Paul Starling joined in and suddenly the I Survived Wyre Farm Camp page took off intensely with new people joining, research and discussion and many photos being blogged. Instead of postings being periodic, they were now daily. This page became the most lively with those from the 70's preferring the City of Coventry page. At some point Mike Godwin appointed myself and rose as Admins and dropped out. Michael Breslin was added in as an admin and between us we've kept it running. I think the involvement of the ladies of the school Rosemary, Sarah and Aileen have made a huge contribution to the discussion in so many ways than it would have been with just us lads.
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| Mike Godwin |
CITY OF COVENTRY BOARDING SCHOOL - BLOGSPOT
With all this intense discussion and blogging going on in 2011, things were bound to get confused on
Facebook. It was and is a great and immediate way for us to communicate but it was hard newcomers to catch up with posts being pushed down and discussion being split between different threads. We needed the research on, say Mawley Hall, to be presented in a more coherent way. The idea for the blog was born.
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| Trev Teasdel in his 5th form Suit |
By the time this school blog was established, I'd had 7 years experience of setting up blogs charting the history of things I'd been involved with over the years - a huge archive of the Coventry Music Scene - I had run a Coventry music magazine and venue in the 70's and a huge archive of material and had taught Creative Writing and had organised a range of literary events in the Tees Valley - including magazines, literary festivals, writers groups and performance venues and made a film about them for BBC 2 Open Space.
All of the sites had brought people (who now lived all over the world) back together through the internet sites and many new projects took off from them. All though this site needs updating http://trevteasdelcreative.blogspot.co.uk/ it gives you an idea of the range. Many of the early blogs have been deleted owing to various blog systems closing and having to try and re do them elsewhere - oh well - but the experience came in handy.
My experience began in 2005. I was co-running the Writers Cafe (a multi-media spoken word and music venue at the ARC (Stockton Arts Centre) and a European funding group from the University of Teesside (where i had studied) were offering to help community groups and organisations to build their own website without tears! Now you didn't have to be versed in programming languages like Html or Php - they introduced us to CMS systems (Content Management Systems). Sounds complicated right - but it makes it all relatively simple to build websites without knowing the mark-up languages. Now it's even easier - some sites let you drag and drop whole sections of a website. That made it possible for me to create these sites easily. This blogspot took me 10 mins to set up and choose the look of it for example!!
I originally thought 20 posts would cover all the material we had generated on Facebook plus some posts which I had researched. that would be it - done and dusted! However it's 2013 and its still being added to and we've had over 60,000 page views and we've sourced literally hundreds of photos covering the school from the 1939 to how it is now, huge amounts of memories and booklets and papers and research in just over 2 years!! Who would have thought! We have a much better idea of the history and development of the school than anybody has previously had. Much learning and reconnecting has gone. The blog works in tandem with the Facebook pages - facebook being where we chat and the blog which forms the archive.
Where do we go from here? - I'm hoping to create a new blog and E book charting the history of the school over its 40 year existence. Much of the material is one here but it needs a linear history, showing its development from an idea to an evacuation camp to a secondary boarding school to an activity centre. meanwhile keep the photos and information coming in. The team work and the friendship (after all these years) has been amazing and I for one have learned so much.
Trev Teasdel 2013
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