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DIALOGUE Issue #5 2020
The Headmaster’s Address On the occasion of the virtual senior prize-giving, Wednesday 8 July 2020.
Looking back over the 2019-20 school year is like reviewing two completely different worlds. In September 2019 things were normal, and the words Corona, pandemic, R-number and furlough were not a part of our lexicon; of late, they are all we have heard about. We have finished the school year in a very different world, the world of lockdown. Extraordinary things have been forced upon us recently, but extraordinary things have happened at the RGS in response. So maybe that adjective is even more appropriate at this time than usual. You will, perhaps, be the judges of that at the end of this address.
T
hank you for joining us for our Virtual Prizegiving, an event which, like many others, has been adapted as a result of the restrictions placed upon us at this unprecedented time. In spite of those restrictions, I am delighted to be standing before you even if it is only on a screen. When I told my wife that my Prizegiving address was to be via video she thought that was a very good idea because, unlike my usual address in Holy Trinity Church, my audience have the opportunity this year to switch off if I became boring or long-winded. I hope to be neither. It has been an extraordinary year at the RGS. In a speech such as this, I would normally use that adjective to express the wonderful events and achievements of the School. This year has been extraordinary, but for all the wrong reasons and I am not sure it is the appropriate term to use for what we have all, collectively, been through over these past four months.
When I reviewed the events of the first two terms in preparation for this address it was with a huge sense of nostalgia for the things we used to be able to do. The usual events by which we mark our progress through the school year were still occurring during the first two terms. Our Commemoration Service, the Carol Service, concerts, plays such as The Tempest and Nicholas Nickleby, sports fixtures, trips abroad. We took them for granted – I don’t think that we will in the future. One of the good things about lockdown is that it has reminded us all of the importance of joining together for
community events. Having led numerous online assemblies recently, I will never again forget how important it is for the School to meet together as a body. We may be cramped, we may be hot, some of us may be sitting on the floor, but that time for the School to join together is priceless. There have been so many highlights of the first two terms that it is almost invidious to single out a few, but I would like to select some which deserve special mention. The shooting team’s success during the summer was remarkable. The RGS team won the much-coveted Ashburton Shield and their score combined with that of the Old Guildfordian veterans’ team was sufficient to also win the Lucas Trophy. At the first assembly in September I was presented with the largest trophy I have ever received, in the form of the Ashburton Shield, and the most expensive, in the form of the £35,000 sterling silver Lucas trophy. Unsurprisingly, it had to be returned to Bisley straight after the assembly. The HMC Conference of public school Heads from around the country was held in London in October. I wouldn’t normally regale you with stories from what is
When I reviewed the events of the first two terms in preparation for this address it was with a huge sense of nostalgia for the things we used to be able to do.
