BETWEEN FOUR JUNCTIONS

Hannah Drake

Ina (’35-’39): Speech at Old Bristolians’ Dinner, 2050

WHEN I RECEIVED the invitation to speak at a winter gathering of the Old Bristolians, I was excited but a bit daunted – in all my time at the school, I think I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve actually stood in this Great Hall. Even so, I feel such a sense of nostalgia and homecoming by being here, and as I look around this room I am reminded of the power of being part of the BGS community.

My time before BGS was not particularly happy. I grew up on Northmoor Green and have vivid memories of the flooding getting worse by the year. Finally – thankfully – my family and I were relocated to the new flood villages north of Awkley, where I saw the BGS monorail in all its glory for the very first time.

When I joined the school, I was a part of that generation of BGS students who rarely – if ever – came to the Clifton campus. Instead, we pioneered the hub system: moving between entire boroughs of the city for integrated learning, mixing with other schools to share inspirational teaching and get hands on experience.

The school’s commitment to community partnerships often meant spending mornings dismantling, fixing and rebuilding the outdated solar panels in Upper Knowle, or afternoons transforming the burgeoning Failand allotments. I never knew I would be so proud of successfully growing a marrow!

We would follow our teachers like ducklings onto ferries between our Modern Language classes in St Phillips, to Drama classes at the old Bristol Hippodrome. Even though we were scattered across the city, it gave us the most intense sense of place, and belonging. And as someone whose earliest years were disrupted and full of fear, I cannot thank the school enough for that.

The foundation of a BGS education has always helped to create students who are curious, excited, well rounded and of good character. In the 30s things felt so uncertain: the climate well and truly fell apart, and the countries of the former UK finally split into their independent nations. But against this backdrop BGS provided that all too rare thing: hope. The idea that we can be better than we are today, and that we should embrace others, not build up walls and shut the world away.

I left BGS with a sense of direction. A sense of purpose. And a sense of responsibility. Our cohort were the guinea pigs and it could so easily have failed, but I applaud the bravery, the vision and the tenacity of the school in moving beyond these Great walls and embedding fully into the city we love so much.