We began with the unveiling of the Junior School Mosaic
in the Tuesday afternoon before going to the Centenary Concert in the Queen
Elizabeth Hall on the South Bank; and we finished with the OE Girls’ Dinner,
celebrating 30 years of girls being in the Sixth Form. Certainly it was a week
to remember.
The Mosaic in the
Junior School was designed in Workshops for the boys, around the ideas of what
has happened over the past 100 years both at school and in British history;
using the River Thames as the central focus on which to hang other images of
the famous sites of London completed the overall collage. Under the direction
of local designer Tamara Froud and Mrs Wrafter, the boys were then instructed
in how to attach the tesserae onto a gauze for attaching to the terracotta wall
leading down the staircase inside the school into the playground. The overall
effect is absolutely stunning, with images of W G Grace, Eric Liddell, George
Band and Mervyn Peake clearly recognisable on the inside section; as you move
outside the building into the playground, the school’s Plane Tree is
accompanied by the symbols of an Eltham Junior School education, with sports,
music, chess and fencing all being singled out. It is a most worthy celebration
of the last 100 years and one of which the boys should be proud. Let’s hope it
stays in place for the next 100!
I shall run out of
superlatives remembering the Centenary Concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall! It
truly was great celebration of the music-making at the school: with over 120
pupils taking part in Ensembles as varied as the Consort Choir and The Jazz
Orchestra. Everyone was at their best, and I was delighted for Mr Alastair Tighe,
our Director of Music, and his other staff (especially Mrs Laura Oldfield and
Mr Norman Levy) that everything went so well. From the first drum beats of
Ives’ Fanfare for the Common Man,
through to the last chord of Parry’s Blest
Pair of Sirens, there was a genuine feeling of joy at the quality of music
being performed. And what an audience! – over 700 seats occupied by parents,
friends, grandparents, OEs and their parents – full of admiration for the
orchestras and choirs, and clearly enjoying the evening’s entertainment. It was
great to see so many old friends, including Tim Johnson, who had been Director
of Music for over eight years, all of whom had come back especially for this evening.
Finally, the week concluded
with a gathering over thirty OE Girls with about ten staff to recall the years
of co-educational Sixth Form at Eltham College. Perhaps there was a certain
irony that it was a girls-only event – since we should be stressing the
importance of co-education, but I think that all present had a thoroughly
enjoyable evening. It was also difficult to identify correctly why what we were
celebrating since the first girl to attend the school (Anne Edwards, then
Ricketts) left in 1975 – but she only studied one A level at Eltham while
still at Farrington’s for her other A levels.
But who’s counting? I really enjoyed catching up with those OEs who had arrived
in my early years, but I sensed that the older former students enjoyed going
down memory lane just as much. They even enjoyed trying to find themselves and
their friends on the whole school photographs!
P J Henderson
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