The Eighth Annual Tower Reunion
2010
 This
was the 8th Annual Tower Reunion (even if they were
not given that name for the first few years). This was one was an
Upgrade Edition. The reunion in 2009 had shown that our
previous venue was becoming tired and in need of a lot of money
spending on it and was probably putting some people off coming, as
the numbers attending were down a little. We also needed a bit of a
“re-brand”. So, having announced my “retirement” last year to
let someone else have a go after organising 7 reunions, Peter
Austen volunteered to find a new venue and run the event,
provided I was happy to keep on doing the “admin”. Well, that
will work!
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See who was at the reunion |
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This year’s reunion was held at the Cordwainer in
The Ridings, right in the centre of town. It ticked all of the
boxes for being able to supply food when people wanted it, had a
good range of drinks, space for us, and of course being a
Weatherspoons, is good value for money. They had set aside the
upstairs bar for us, and although the customers from the downstairs
bar needed to come through to use the toilets, they had marked off
the area for us and signed it well, so the venue worked very well.
Having been rebuilt only last year, it was smart and clean, and the
staff were very friendly and helpful. They looked after us
very well.
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The
Cordwainer - this year's venue |
This year’s reunion attracted a number of "reunion-virgins",
which is always good to see, with 12 people attending for the first
time. As well as the newcomers, there were lots of people who
come every year and have been to every one so far. They
obviously find it good to meet up and see how the last 12 months has
treated us all.
Once again the 1963 group was the biggest, even though there were
a few regulars missing, but we were pleased to see a first-timer -
Maria Verstraaten. The 1971 group has now taken
over as the second largest and had a very healthy number of people this
year, with the 1970'ers just behind. You can see who was there by clicking on the button
above to see the full list of names. There is a chart showing
the spread of years that people attended.
 One
of the nicest things to see was an influx of former pupils from the
early days of the school. Peter Marks came along
for the first time. He is now 77 and started at the
school in 1946. He had printed out the 1947 school photo from
the website and had identified a lot of names on it. These
will be added to the website soon. He also had a lot of
stories to tell from those early days. Also there was his
younger brother Michael, who had started one year
later. The number of people coming along from the pre-Tower
days is growing year by year and is good to see.
 David
Baker was at the reunion once again. He first came in
2006 and really enjoys coming to this event. He always arrives
at the start and stays all the way through, which is great as there
are many people who like to talk to him, and he is kept busy
throughout the whole day. Also there from the staff this year
was Tad Newton. It was not his first visit, and we were very
pleased to see him at the reunion once again.
 The
format of the reunion was little changed. It was just a great
opportunity to meet up with old friends. Some people might
think that the only topics of conversation are about the old school
days, but while there is a little of that, there are many other
things that people are interested in, and the noise level remains
high throughout.
 Peter
carried on the tradition of saying a few words around 2 to
2:30, which just helps to make it a bit of an event. Having
welcomed everybody, thanked a few people, he pointed out some places
to go to, for those that wanted to carry on afterwards.
It is always a good guide to how much people have enjoyed it to
look at how many people are left towards the end of the day, and
again this year there were quite a lot. Then a large group
went on afterwards to another pub and then a restaurant to continue
for the whole evening. I think next year, I must stay
overnight in Northampton and join them!
 As
always some people brought me some material for the website, but
this year Alan Shipman had just found in his attic a
large box of photos. He was the official school photographer
and all of these photos were taken in 1962. There were some
very interesting pictures. These will get scanned and placed
on the website over the next few weeks. The eagle-eyed among
you will have spotted that the top photo was of a very popular
prefect, who left in 1963 having been thrown in the pond on his last
day!
We would all like to give Peter Austen a big vote of thanks for
organising this year’s reunion and finding the new venue. He
has already said that he will do it next year, so please keep the
Saturdays in the first half of November clear for next year’s
reunion.
 I
was very happy with Peter taking over, as this year, I
could leave all the work during the day to him, and was able to
enjoy the day much more, as I had little work to do!! Great.
Having printed off the lists of names first thing in the morning, I
had a last minute thought and printed the name labels just before
dashing out to drive to the reunion. In my rush, I put the
label blanks in
the printer the wrong way up, and so we had to use blank labels this
year. Mind you, it was fun for 5 minutes watching the first
arrivals trying to unpeel the labels from the printed side!! It took
ages to realise they were printed on the wrong side.
I would also like to thank everyone for their contributions in
the collection box. Peter mentioned it in his
speech, and as people arrived, and then Mary Evans
went around and squeezed a little more from people into the
collection box. The collection is to cover any reunion costs
but most of it goes to cover
the cost of running this website. It has been running now for
almost 8 years and each year there are the costs of hosting fees,
communication charges and so on, and so the collection helps to
offset those costs. This year the collection raised £111.58, so
thank you very much indeed. That will pay for much of the
running costs for another year. The collection makes it much
easier for me to keep running the website.
 Of
course, there was one thing that this new venue lacked. The
old venue provided an extra service, which we men appreciated.
When you went into the Gents, there was always the same large puddle
on the floor under the sinks. You got to wash your shoes and
your hands at the same time. This new venue, with its smart,
clean toilets, does not do that! Ah well, you can’t have
everything.
I and many others will be looking forward to next year’s annual
get-together in November 2011.
The photo gallery below has room for plenty
more photos. Please send me yours as soon as possible. If you are
sending a large number of photos, then send them to the e-mail
address from the link just below, to avoid problems with e-mail size limits on the Trinity server. [mail]
Photo Gallery
Click on the thumbnails to change the larger image.
Slide the bar to move the thumbnails along.
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