Newsletter - December 2017

[Rogernoble]

White Star Newsletter - December 2017
 Dear All
 First of all I wish you all a belated happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year. It is incredible to think a year ago the Hillside Old Boys Association was a few of us messing around on the British Genealogy web site, seemingly making no significant progress.We are now up to 70 members (30 September - 37) so I would like to welcome all the new members. The website is obviously up and running and in future the White Star newsletter will be issued on a quarterly basis. This should enable new members to catch up with up with what has been going on. On the members list you will find details are sketchy on some people. Where you entry is incomplete please let me have the missing details.

The search.
I have been back on the search for more old boys aided by Andrew Harvey, Robin Whicker and Nikolai Tolstoy.Andrew’s and my basic search facilities are the Companies House directors’ information, 192.com and the family history search engines. If we have their Hillside leaving date we can guess people’s ages and Christian names narrow the search considerably. Another major source is leads from other Hillsiders. I would appreciate it if you could look down the wanted list and let me know anything you can add on names, locations or anything else you think might help Andrew and I in our searches.A significant component of the “wanted” list was something supplied by Jack Fuller, which I now appreciate originated from the White Star magazine. If you look at a magazine you will find in the early pages the names of the joiners and leavers and in the case of the latter the school to which they went. At the end there is an old boys’ news section from which comments like “don at Cambridge” no doubt came. When I accessed the magazines I had hoped to fill in the missing information on leave dates and subsequent schools. The reason for the gaps became apparent when I realised that the magazine started in 1952 and I presume that those people with no leave dates are from the early years.Obviously one of the principal reasons for the project is to catch up with old friends. Richard Butler and David Rangeley recently had lunch although they did then discover that they had both belonged to the same luncheon club for the last couple of years and had not made the connection. There was also a dinner for the African Chapter in Jo’burg between Stephen Ashforth and Jon Foster- Pedley.  The pictures below are the before and after.  

SAs.jpg

 The Website.
For you all but especially the new members a reminder of the website access:http://hillsideschool.org.uk/site/index.php?page=news&type=view&id=andrewhs-blog%2Fhistory-1951-1969Martin has put an enormous effort into creating the web site so I would urge you to support him by signing on if you have not already done so. For all you struggling recycled teenagers like myself who want to add something the process is: Having registered and logged inGo to near to the top right hand corner of the opening page and you will see a little figure. Click on that.Then click on “my profile”.Then click on my “blog post”, fill in the title and your wording and then click the post button.The number of blogs continues to grow. In recent months a number of interesting additions have been made to the web site with Andrew Harvey tracing Tiger Redman’s life, Andrew  recalling the winter of 1962/3 and my attempt to relate the story of the unbeaten hockey and football teams of 1960 although this quickly changed to an examination of RHRW’s extraordinary teaching methods. Robin and Andrew are getting something together for us on RHRW’s life. If you have not already done so I would urge to sign in on the web site.

White Star Magazine
Robin has lent us a complete bound set of the White Star magazine to Martin who has successfully digitised them and they can be accessed through:http://hillsideschool.org.uk/site/index.php?page=catalogues&type=category&id=links-home%2Fwhite-star-digitised&keep_catalogue_links_root=6Martin is to be congratulated on what has been an enormous and sometimes frustrating project. It all makes fascinating reading after all these years.

 The refectory tables and benches.
I had always imagined that I had my meals at some very ancient tables but I can now reveal their full history after some chance remarks by Nick Swan. They were built by Robert Thompson, the famous mice man and indeed have the obligatory mouse carving. They were built in the 1930s. They were then owned by Crownpits School before being acquired by RHRW when Hillside was moved to Godalming. When Hillside closed in 1969 they were sold to Aldro School in Shackleford where Nick was a teacher for 31 years and he is still involved there today. They continue to do sterling service! There is more on this on the web site.

 Where is all this going?
We have been giving further thought to a get together. Although RHRW’s birthday on 10th March clearly is very appropriate I suspect many of us could do without travelling back afterwards in the dark. We have therefore decided to go for Saturday 16th June 2018 with a lunch at the Inn on the Lake in Godalming. To bring a dose of civilisation we are inviting wives and partners. I have made a booking for drinks at 12 noon followed by lunch at 1pm. Please could you let me know if you hope to come and whether you will be accompanied by a guest? This will enable me to get a rough idea of numbers. I will then confirm final numbers, menus etc nearer the time.

Hillside Culinary delights
Sausage Pie – David Rangeley has brought up the subject of sausage pie. Neither of us can remember whether it had a top or a bottom (or both) of pastry. If someone has a better memory I will try and get a recipe.

Pal’s corner.
The first month’s success has not been repeated so David Hurford – David is still anxious to contact Martin Kendall.Jonathan Botting – Andrew Harvey has located an address in Bristol which I have written to but no success so far.This is a regular feature for those looking for old friends so please let me know if there is anyone you would particularly like to trace.

Roger Noble