The 2004 Trinity "High" General Reunion

This was a general reunion for anyone who attended the Technical High School, Trinity High School or Trinity Grammar School.

It was not meant to be for any specific year or class, but an opportunity for anyone who attended the school to catch up with old friends.

This was a simple reunion, with no speeches, no raffles, no quizzes, no games.  Below are pictures taken at the reunion and a write up of the event.  If you have some more photos, then please send them to me  [mail].

I would like to get a caption under each photo, so when sending in new photos, please give me some suitable caption material, and if you can think of a good caption for the pictures not captioned below, then please send it to me.  [mail]

John Ingham wrote this article about the reunion.  If you would like to add some stories to it, then e-mail me.

Having a short stroll around the town centre - for perhaps the first time in twenty-odd years just before the reunion, I was amazed to see how many of the buildings that I recalled being banks are now bars and licensed premises.  And the 'Rat & Parrot' was no different.  The same counters are now serving beer, wine & spirits that I once used to pay over my meagre pocket money in my early Trinity days and later on my equally meagre wages for a days work in a town centre shop (£1 or 2/6d an hour less 6p for employees stamp!!).  How times change?

The upstairs bar, minus draft beers, must have been the offices for the manager and other senior members of staff, given the superb views of the Guildhall, although someone said that at least part of the floor had been the manager's flat. The Guildhall is a building I can only recall going into to register a death and have never really looked at and appreciated it before.  Although the company was superb, so was the opportunity to admire the windows, stonework and sculptures; it seems I wasn't the only one judging by the number of people who took photos of the façade.

And so to the reunion itself which began, for me, by bumping into my old train-spotting mate Pete Chillingsworth buying the first drink of the day.  Now, no comments about anoraks, since 

(a) they weren't invented in the very early 60's, 

(b) train-spotting must have been almost the most popular hobby of the day, girls included     and 

(c) that term had not been applied to such 'boring' pursuits in those days. 

As we went upstairs there was already a fair crowd there with Ian Dow ensuring we all had on our name tags to distinguish us all.  I'd forgotten mine too, but had used my walk around town to locate an office supplier and bought one; should have guessed Ian would be prepared with computer labels and pens! (Except the labels wouldn't come off the backing sheet, I had had them too long - Ian)

Already the 1970's crowd outnumbered the early 1960's crowd and gradually two groups emerged in discrete areas of the room.  I have to apologise for not having spoken to too many of the 1970's crowd - didn't they look so young? - and when I did I also forgot names or didn't write them down.

Talk soon turned to past events at school as well as past teachers and inevitably even some of the younger one recalled the major event of the end of term 1965 - Goodbyee.  Although this was the theme tune for last years Class of 63 Reunion, people were still talking about it at this one.  Janet Facer is trying to get all the facts together about that incident for an item she will use at School Speech Day in a few weeks time, and hubby John Anderton and a few others were trying to place events in order.  Ian Dow remembers being told not to play the usual end of assembly music on the ancient reel-to-reel tape recorder, and I recall plots and plans being made during the Iolanthe production.  But it is the sight of Buzzer Howard red-faced and embarrassed that we all recall.  John also remembers the bra on the flag-pole stunt that was enacted earlier in the day - oh what imaginations we had in those days!

Talk amongst others went to school trips and holidays, especially to Switzerland and Germany in 1963.  One of the guys remembers what a brilliant holiday he had - told off for drinking and being caught 'in flagrante delicte' so no wonder I said I wouldn't use his name.  Another memory was of a broken bed when too many crowded in for an early morning unofficial party; oh what wonderful holidays we had too!

Apparently we were all presented with a copy of a Gideon's Bible on our last day at Trinity - something I don't recall at all, but Judith Merriman provided the evidence.  She still has hers and the autographs of classmates and teachers she collected on that last day of school.

John Anderton recalled the run of bad luck he had with form teachers, among them Mr Waller and 'Crutch' Chater.  Neither of us could recall Mr Waller ever having a nickname but we did remember how easy it was to stall the start and often the whole of a lesson.  All you had to do was get him talking on a topic such as the War, trains, model making amongst some of them and before you knew it the lesson was at least half over.  John's pet hates were prefects (especially a certain RF) who he felt were worse than the teachers.  We weren't, were we?

There was one strange omission to the afternoon - not once did I hear the name Gunner Wright mentioned.  It may have been my poor timing in joining conversations, but have we finally exorcised our memories of the old geyser?  I heard far more about the (somewhat) more likeable staff such as Gary Grimshaw and his attempts some years ago of establishing a reunion.  Chris Timms recalls he attended a reunion of the class of 1960 at the Queen Eleanor Pub some years ago.  Others recalled those who organised school holidays such as Mr Major and Harry Hartwell.  Even John Anderton shared my memory of the martinet-like Nobby Clarke being a 'good guy' once you & he got to know each other.

Late arrivals on the day were Dennis and Jill Rooke (Jill Dyer at school).  Their excuse for being so late was that they had become grandparents for the first time.  Dennis was so excited he could hardly stop talking at break-neck speed. Congratulations to them on their new arrival, and hope that the new baby will bring them as much joy in the future as it clearly was on Saturday.  (Dennis has recently retired and has promised his help in finding more material for the website.  Perhaps we can persuade him to spill some of the beans from his days as a member of staff!)

For me, the afternoon was another precious chance to talk about old times, shared experiences and to catch up with old friends.  Not so many came after all and it felt like there were two quite distinct groups, although there were actually quite a few people from the years in-between.  

There was not enough people from these middle years, but then many of those that came from the two large groups had been sucked in by a lot of hard work put into the two big reunions held last year, and had come again to see their old friends. This reunion was certainly much better than no reunion at all, but it would have been nice to have had more people from all of the years.  Here's hoping there might be a few more people in future and hopefully some way of mixing everyone together.  Any ideas out there folks?

       Looking forward to the next one  -  John I

[Who was on the list of people coming]

Pamela Dunkley (now Stevens) writes:

I was in the group of 1971 and there was four of us at the reunion.  I had got myself all geared up to meet my old school chums from 33 years ago and had just about got my head around that concept when up walks Allan Page!  Allan is my cousin, and we had not seen each other for 42 years.  There had been some family problem all those years ago which I was too young to understand and so we lost contact. I didn't even know he had been a pupil at Trinity so that made it even more of a surprise.