The Berkhamsted School Archive

The beginning of this article tells of visitors, which is a lovely thing to say after the restrictions that affected travel; local and worldwide.

The most recent visitors and much closer to home, were a very enthusiastic group of Year 9 boys, studying the poets of the Great War in English. A few objects were chosen for inspiration and the stories behind said objects were told; the boys were full of questions and a follow up email indicated the boys were fired up over the visit.

An international mix of visitors has trickled back into the school this year; with restrictions lifted, tickets were booked and visits arranged.

It is heart-warming to know that when these trips are planned, returning to the schools is a must for some and the minute they step onto the premises, memories flood back and wives, husbands, grandchildren et al are regaled with stories from times past. This was the case with an OB now living in America, an Austrian lady who was an au-pair to the family of an OB and had only ever set foot in the Gravel Quad; seeing nothing else of the school in all the time she had lived in the town and a visitor from South Africa, whose grandfather and two brothers were OBs in the 1920s and whose husband was the first male headteacher of an all girls’ school in the world. The great granddaughter of a previous headmaster also booked a visit, flying in from Australia with unseen photographs and correspondence from his time at the school. An article written about the numerous family letters appeared in the 2022 OB magazine.

A visit to the school from an award-winning set designer, whose credits include Life of Pi and Back to the Future the Musical, was looking for inspiration in the form of the headmasters’ portraits that hang in Old Hall; he knew about these through an OB friend. With permission granted and photographs taken, these images were used in a recent production of Snail House; written by Richard Eyre and recently staged at the Hampstead Theatre.

Enquiries abound from school departments regarding buildings and plans or immersion projects for the Jubilee; to an Oxford school asking for details of past fixtures, as the score books had been lost! An inherited prize book led to a question about school life in the 1900s and a conversation (in the Rectory Lane cemetery!) was followed up with an enquiry about an OB killed in the Great War, whose name appears on the Little Gaddesden War Memorial. Researching sporting history is also a popular topic of enquiry. The historian of the Corinthian Casuals was piecing together the fixtures against the school from the early 1900s and a question about inter-school matches against Repton took us back to the 1980s.

Several OBs were able to look through loaned house books and past magazines at the recent 50+ years lunch held in August at Berkhamsted Golf Club.

The exhibition room now displays a sports blazer with four colours awards for rugby, athletics, cricket and boxing: a rare article and a very welcome donation to the collection. A further donation of a schoolmaster’s life came our way from the family of Reginald ‘Reggie’ Fair, Geography master and more 1954-1988. With the retirement of our Director of Performing Arts in July, the school drama category has been boosted by a large and varied donation of programmes for past productions.

The picture shows the Acacia craft on display in the exhibition room, alongside a photograph of the recently refurbished grave of Hannah Cottingham and the tale of how the acacia project came about.

Lesley Koulouris (Hon) School Archivist