The ALMONDBURIAN

Editor: Roger Dowling July 2023

magazine of The Old Almondburians’ Society

A word from your Chairman

Walter Raleigh

APRIL saw the handover to the School of the new seating area ) in the Big Tree Yard: you will find a brief report on page 48 of this issue. It was a project which took far longer than expected because of Covid but I feel it was well worth waiting for as it provides another useful social area for our ever-expanding School. May I again thank all those who played any part in the concept particularly Ian Rimmer for his support, Chris West for producing the drawings and Tony Hyland (Premises Manager) who with his team made everything happen.

You will remember that for a number of years the Society has been anxious to update our computer records of all those who have attended King James’s Grammar School and more recently King James’s School. Present-day Data Protection rules had restricted the details that School was allowed to provide, so we appeared to be at an impasse. However, earlier this year the body charged with administrating the Data Protection Act gave us further advice on the issue, and the good news is that the School is now being allowed to pass on basic details of students who attended King James’s without the threat of Ian, our Principal ending up in Armley Jail!

However, School is only itself allowed to keep students’ records until the former students have reached the age of 25, which means that the School has only been able to let us have the records of pupils joining the School since 2009. Our present records (which date back to 1900) go as far as 1997, which leaves a gap of some 12 years from 1998 to 2008 still to be filled. Our Treasurer Keith Crawshaw has come up with the idea of using old Presentation Evening programmes which all had a list of students receiving GCSE certificates. (Of course, there may still be a few omissions as some students may have left before Year 11). However, it gives us a real opportunity to largely complete our records. We now have almost all the lists ready for putting on our database and hope that by Autumn it will be another project ticked off.

Similarly we are hoping to update all the new noticeboards we installed in the School in 2017 with the names of Head

Boys, Head Girls and winning Houses. It might also be appropriate to update the list of Heads and put Ian Rimmer’s name on the Role of Honour.

Talking of Head Boys I was looking round a local Garden Centre recently when I was approached by a couple who said “Hello”. To my shame my wife recognised the couple before me: it was Jonathan Dyson and his wife Michelle. Both of course are members of the OAS otherwise I wouldn’t be mentioning this meeting! I didn’t teach Michelle but Jonathan (KJS 1985-90) was an absolute delight. Always immaculately turned out and such a polite, well spoken student, he was Head Boy in 1989/90 before going on to Huddersfield University and then having a wonderful career as a key central defender for Town from 1990-2003.

On a similar theme, I was in a Tapas Bar in Honley when I was approached by a woman. I could say it happens all the time but believe me it is such a rare occurrence that I thought it might be of interest to some students and former staff. She was Ann Heafield, Head of English at KJS around the turn of the century, (2000 not 1900!) She was a wonderful member of staff and was quickly promoted to the role of Assistant Head. Unfortunately she only stayed in post a couple of years before she went to Australia with her partner: KJS’s loss and a gain for Oz. She had a stellar career in Australia, as I would have imagined but is now retired. She regularly returns to Blighty and often stays with friends in Honley before visiting family who live in Mansfield. It was lovely to see her and I wish her well in her well deserved retirement. n