CORRESPONDENCE

Thank you again for sending in your letters and emails throughout the year. If you have a story or note you’d like to share with the OH community, send your correspondence for future issues to editor@harrowschool.org.uk. Correspondence may be edited.

DEAR EDITORS, 1972 FA Cup Centenary Final

On 6 May 1972, Leeds United beat Arsenal 1-0 at Wembley Stadium in front of a crowd of 100,000 to win the FA Cup. The occasion marked the 100th anniversary of the inception of the FA Challenge Cup, the brainchild of Charles Alcock (Druries 18553 ) whose idea was based on the Harrow School Cock House competition. The match was preceded by a parade around the hallowed turf depicting 100 years of Cup Finals with each FA Cup-winning club represented. No club existing in 1972 was more closely associated with Wanderers, the first winners in 1872, than the OHAFC, who were invited by the Football Association to represent this famous club, which was founded in 1859 and dissolved in 1887. Four OHs had played for the Wanderers in that first Cup Final triumph at Kennington Oval, London – C W Alcock (Druries 18553), M P Betts (The Head Master's 1862 2), W P Crake (West Acre 18663), and R C Welch (Home Boarder 1864) – before a crowd of 2,000 on a pitch devoid of crossbars, goal nets, centre circle and free kicks. As Wanderers were the first winners, naturally their OH representatives led the 1972 parade ahead of the Old Etonians seen waiting in the wings in the photo below as the fourth name on the Cup after Oxford University and Royal Engineers. Five-time winners Wanderers were represented by five OHs – Fred Woolley (West Acre 19573), Chris Holt (Elmfield 19612), David Buik (Elmfield 19573), Garth Bearman (Moretons 19602) and James Cox (The Grove 19592) – as symbols of each year Wanderers had won the Cup.

Fred Woolley (West Acre 19573)

DEAR HARROW ASSOCIATION, I recently visited HRH Prince Hassan bin Talal when in Amman, Jordan. This picture was taken in the Palace Garden. We hada most interesting and entertaining talk together. I just thought you may like to include it in Follow Up! magazine.

Best wishes, Joe Barclay (Elmfield 19593)

HRH Prince Hassan bin Talal (The Park 19603) with contemporary Joe Barclay (Elmfield 19593) in Jordan.

DEAR EDITORS,

You may be interested to see this photograph of George Gibson Richardson Jr (The Head Master’s 1856 1 ) taken at The Photographic Society on 28 April 1856, shortly after he went to Harrow under Dr Vaughan (1845 to 59). He was the eldest of the six sons of my great-great-grandfather George Gibson Richardson Sr, who all went to Harrow in The Head Master’s between 1856 and 1871.

In 1867, George Gibson Richardson gave to Harrow School an oil painting entitled Black Monday, by William Redmore Bigg R.A.

Simon Tosswill (West Acre 1949 3 )

DEAR EDITORS, Friendships for a lifetime

It is now sixty-four years since four new boys joined the other five hundred faces when they entered Bradbys during 1959, on the first day of term experiencing the hubbub of all the other boys arriving who were bigger, stronger, more confident and appeared to know all the arcane rules. We were surrounded by Giants of Old.

Each of us came with our own personal issues, fears and anxieties; it was natural to come together for comfort and reassurance more than anything else. Back then, Harrow was a robust culture where you were expected to deal with your own problems in silence. Trusted friends were essential in the process of coping. The concepts of stress and counselling had yet to be invented. The group developed a strategy of whenever a relative took us out to the Hill the other three had to come too: a fourfold dividend return on our investment and shades of things to come.

Moving further into the early teenage years, it was time to develop a character that would allow you to be part of the House and School life, while beginning the Harrow School process of becoming the complete man. After three years, responsibility and accountability appeared and the need to create a mature personality with lasting values for the wider life to be. Friends soon tell you the honest truth and you always need that to progress. Also, they are genuinely pleased for your successes, a vital trait in friends to satisfy the need for praise in all of us.

Then the heady days of the final Sixth Form year with more trust, total personal freedom, and an example to set. Great days to remember, with our group at its relaxed best and making a mark as we fully matured, with the wider life to be ahead.

Now on to the chaos of the final day at Harrow, with the wild regret of the last goodbye as we all scattered to become new boys again at universities and colleges. But, this time, we were mature, confident and robust enough to face the real world’s tribulations, and yet we still remained in contact as old, valued friends.

Parties, events, Founder’s Day, Songs and the faded glories of Lord’s kept the links going: we were so pleased to hear the schoolboy chants of ‘We have beaten Eton’ for the last time at the ground.

The group expanded as girlfriends then wives appeared, with family gatherings to attend. Now we were confident that, if disaster occurred, help was only a phone call away, that vital insurance policy which was always there but never used.

As we moved into the more mature years, with successes behind us, and we were now experiencing the ultimate delight of grandchildren who will take our beliefs and values far into the future. The friendship of a lifetime had carried us through it all and we still meet regularly as content old friends sixty years on as last Follow Up!

Have we lived up to the Giants of Old? Of course we have, each and every one of us!

Forty and fifty and sixty years on.

DEAR EDITORS,

Visit to the Hill

I live in Australia and have done for many years. As luck would have it, I managed to choose the warmest and most beautiful summer to come home for an extended holiday with one of my three daughters and a group of her friends. One of her friends is a teacher of physical education at a large private school in Sydney. When she heard that I was lucky enough to have been educated at Harrow School she asked if I could arrange a tour. Shama from the HA office could not have been kinder in providing us with Director William Landale (The Grove 19783) armed with a large bunch of keys to show our group around. It is nearly 60 years since I started my time in The Grove, a long time in the life of a school – 12 school generations. My visit showed me just how much the School has, on one hand, moved confidently and purposefully to offer incrementally more to the lucky pupils who attend it. The facilities added over the decades are a tribute to careful and well-thought-out forward planning. The plans for the future are no less bold and exciting. The visit also showed me how well the beautiful old buildings and new additions have blended seamlessly to maintain the character of a world-leading educational establishment. I am absolutely sure that the current pupils will carry forward all the best traditions that us old boys fondly remember.

James Heaton (The Grove 1963 3)