Newsletter - September 2018

[Rogernoble]

White Star Newsletter
September 2018 

Dear All.
We are now at 102 members (30 June - 103) having sadly lost Simon Hunt recently.

The search
As you can see from the figures we seem to be hitting a bit of a brick wall on the search. There still seemed to be a number of old Hillsiders in the Godalming area. If any of you know of any people that have escaped the net please put me in touch.

The lunch at the Inn on the Lake on 16th June.
Thirty-six old Hillsiders and their wives met up on 16th June at the Inn on the Lake in Godalming for the first reunion since an event at the same location in November 1989. Everybody seems to have agreed that it was a very enjoyable get together. The overwhelming wish seemed to be that the event should be repeated in two years time.  For those of you wanting to identify the main people behind the plan to get this project off the ground they are Robin Whicker (in the suit behind Harvey White and his guide dog Sunny), Jack Fuller to Robin’s right (in the light jacket), David Rangeley to Jack’s right, Martin Koranka (at the very back behind myself), Andrew Harvey to Martin’s right and myself seated at the front next to Harvey.Also in attendance were Des Adeley, John and Charles Ainsworth, Malcolm Brown, George Cook, Jeremy Drakesford, Chris and Helga Frost, Mike Goodridge, Richard Harvey, Simon Hocombe, Tamsin Koronka, Tim Lee, Jim McClure, Jon Morton Smith, Linda Noble, Lawrence Oakden, Richard Prendergast, Marcia Rangeley, Jonny and Josie Reed, Alan Spalding, Nick Swan, Geoff Walker, Simon Watson, Harvey White, Michael and Janet Yalden and Peter and Wendy Yates.

The Website
For you all 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. 

White Star MagazinesMartin 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.

 Where is all this going in the future?
The lunch at the Inn on the Lake was deemed a great success and it was agreed to have another function in two year’s time. Jack Fuller is also talking of getting a golf team together. 

 Hillside Culinary delights
One of the problems for a hungry lad was arranging the odd feast and I remember trying, not very successfully, to heat up a can of baked beans on a candle at our camp on the top field. It was a part of our education which was not without benefit. There is an interesting report in the White Star old boys news from our intrepid submariner Richard Compton-Hall MBE on his first command on a midget submarine “The five compose the crew. They are completely inter-changeable apart from the captain. He, however, makes up for that by doing all the cooking – in a carpenter’s paint pot. No one is allowed to criticise the captain’s cooking. This is known as discipline”. Clearly someone who squeezed every penny from his parents’ investment in his education!

 Literary Corner
The Sowreys – Air Commodore Graham Pitchfork.
A comment in the September 1955 White Star magazine old boys news had caught my attention “W R Sowrey is a test pilot for Vickers Armstrong. We imagine that he is largely responsible for the new road signs on the London Road near Wisley which have received national fame “sudden aircraft noise””. I looked at the internet but found only confusion as there seemed to be so many Sowreys that I could not piece everything together.On 1 April 2018 I spotted an article in the Sunday Telegraph entitled “The family that shaped the RAF” which gave a brief history of this extraordinary family. Soon after Andrew Harvey spotted Air Commodore Graham Pitchfork book on the Sowreys. The tale starts in the First World War with the three brothers who were in at the start of the RAF. They became aces and were heavily involved in working out how to shoot down the Zeppelins which were beginning to plague the country with their bombing raids.Our heroes went on to become senior figures in the RAF and the next generation became aces in the Second World War. The older generation were directing successful operations in North Africa to see off the Italians. They all seem to be technical wizards and developed many advances in things like night flights.  The tale takes you all round the world and deals with troubles like Mesopotamia outside the main wars. Air Commodore Sir Freddie Sowrey is still alive in his 90s having flown just about anything that took off from an airfield as well as being a notable motor racing driver. It is a history of a truly extraordinary family.Our interest centres on Robin (known at Hillside as Bill) Sowrey who is fondly remembered by Robin Whicker and Nikolai Tolstoy. He is described in the book.By a strange coincidence his time in Hong Kong coincided with mine. I knew many of the people at the Hong Kong Aircraft Engineering Company, where he worked, from sailing and may well have met him at some stage.Anyway an intriguing story of an extraordinary family and well worth the read.

 Pictures.
Thanks go to Hugh Scudder for some pictures of Tiger Redman and Nigel Coates but further contributions would be gratefully received.

Pal’s corner
Jonathan Botting is continuing to evade us. We are pretty sure he is living in Bristol.Jack Fuller has now located ten of the 1963 hockey team, but he is still anxious to locate Jonathan (?) Weale to get the full team. Can anyone help?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