The School Magazine

This page was last changed on 20 January 2002

No 37 - March 1941 No 49 - April 1953 No 53 - December 1956 Battle of Britain

Magazine Cover - March, 1911 No.2

The School Magazines were produced in a fairly consistent format for just over half a century, from 1910 until 1961. After that date various magazines were produced but the format varied considerably.

As well as news about the school, they contained reports of school visits, including some overseas trips, even to Nazi Germany, and many contained advertisements, for local shops and services and also for jobs or careers. Looked at from now, the start of the 21st century, they can be seen as valuable documents of the social history of the earlier part of the 20th century, especially when they show just what it was like to be at school during two World Wars. As time goes by, they are also likely to become increasingly valuable for people researching their Family History.

We'd managed to collect quite a few of the old School Magazines, from various sources, but when we visited the Library at the "new school" at Sussex Way, we were delighted to find they had an almost complete run, with 47 of the total of 58 we believe were issued. Also, we found we already had copies of 2 of the 11 missing from their archive.

When the Magazines were brought out for us, they were crammed into three rather dirty old boxes, having been undisturbed in a cupboard somewhere probably for many years. Eight of the issues missing from their archives were consecutive, from No. 27 December, 1930 to No. 34 December, 1937, and it is possible that they are at the School somewhere, perhaps in another dirty old box in another cupboard.

The other three that are missing from the School's collection are the following:

No. 1 - probably December, 1910
No. 3 - probably July, 1911
No. 47 - April 1951

We know that No. 1 went to the "new school" at Sussex Way, because extracts were reproduced in the December, 1960 Jubilee Issue.

With that information, we've been able to compile a list of suspects.

The Editors of that issue were Anne Dell and J H Aupers and the Committee consisted of M J G Earle, C R Amery, Branwen Davies, R G Clark, Susanne Raves and G T Boon.

The Secretary was Joyce Boon, now Joyce Leedham, who can be seen on the Website in the Photo Album for the last Reunion, as can Fran Weil (née Emsden) and Maureen Worrall (née Trueman), both of whom contributed an article to that issue of the Magazine.

If any of them - or anyone else - knows where Issue No. 1 got to (did anyone hang onto it as a souvenir?) then please let us know, so that we can make a copy!

(I have to admit that I borrowed the original "ADDRESS LISTS. SCHOOL YEAR 1951 - 1952" to enable to make contacts for an Old Scholars Party in about July 1953 and I still haven't got round to returning that!)

We don't know why No's 3 or 47 should be missing but we're OK for No. 47, as it was during my own time and I still have my own copy; also, we have been lent a copy of No. 32, for December, 1935, the Silver Jubilee Number, by Margaret Hume, whose late father, Ken Willmer, was at the School at that time and who herself taught Spanish at the "new school" at Sussex Way during the 1980's.

We would, of course, be very interested to hear of the whereabouts of any of the remaining 9 missing issues.

We have been experimenting with digitising some pages from one of the Magazines - the December 1960 Jubilee Issue - with the intention of making them all available on the Website but the sizes of the resultant files are much too big, at least with the present stage of the technology available to us.

We believe, however, that it would be possible for us to make them available on CD, ideally in a searchable form; it would, however, be a very time-consuming process to do it properly and might well take us into the 22nd century.

We'll keep you posted but don't hold your breath and, in the meantime, we'll continue to put individual articles or features from the Magazine onto the site.

APPENDIX

When it first started, which was when the school moved into its new building in Fox Lane, in September 1910, there were three issues every year, one each term, and this continued until the issue dated March 1915. Incidentally, the issue for the December 1914 term, which should have been No. 13, was numbered 12, possibly an error or perhaps to avoid the unlucky number - it didn't work, though, and the First World War, which England had entered on 4th August 1914, wasn't over by the Christmas as many people had expected.

From then on the Magazine continued on an annual basis, although, most likely because of the War, there was no issue after March 1917 until July 1920.

The next issue after that was dated December, 1921 and the Magazine continued annually, with a December dateline, until 1938, but the Second World War started on 3rd September 1939 and there was no Magazine for December 1939.

In spite of the War, though, the Magazine was delayed for only a couple of months, the next issue being dated February 1940, and it continued from then every year until the final issue, as far as we are aware, dated December 1961, although the month of publication steadily slipped back, first to February, then March, April, May and finally December.

There were, however, a few anomalies.

We've seen two copies of No. 39, dated March, 1943, neither of which has a cover, so that was probably a wartime economy, although we'd be quite interested to hear from anyone else who has a copy of that issue, whether or not it has a cover.

The issue numbered 41 should have been dated March 1945 but a printer's error actually gave the date as March, 1935!

There were two issues with the year "1955" on the cover, No. 51, dated December, 1954, and also No. 52, dated December, 1955.

The issues for December 1958 and December 1959 were both given the number 55: therefore, although the last issue was numbered 57, there had actually been 58 during the 51 years from December 1910 to December 1961.

The penultimate issue, numbered 56, was a special Jubilee Issue with gold lettering on a glossy white cover, celebrating the 50 years from 1910 to 1960 and including reprints of some of the articles from the very first issue.