Hello everyone

What an amazing honorary degree ceremony the college hosted recently. Judging by the comments and pictures posted on our group Facebook page it was a very significant and meaningful day for many people. Unfortunately, I was unable to be there myself, for which I know I will be eternally sad. This has naturally resulted in a good deal of interest in continuing the process of reconnecting and so I have devoted the rest of this month’s article to just that. I recommend visiting the college's YouTube to channel to watch the streaming of the honorary degree ceremony.

First up I have been asked by Torchy to post the passage below in which he talks about his plans for a reunion at the college at the end of August. As many of you know Torchy has been organising these gatherings for years now and they are all very well attended, so I would suggest you put the dates in your diary and start planning for it.

He says:

Looking forward; this weekend has encouraged a lot more interest in reunions, large and small. The two significant anniversaries coming up, 175 years existence and 100 years at Strawberry Hill will again have many opportunities to meet up. The one for founder members will be not the best attended. As we age so does the significance of reunions. When we get together, increasingly are stories are of those who have travelled, to borrow from Irish Gaelic, the Road of Truth. We have already chosen the last weekend in August for the next reunion at Simms. That is Friday August 30th until Sept 1st. I hope you all come. Before long I will have forgotten all your names and will be asking you, "What's mine?" Please encourage your friends and particularly, let's get some more over from Ireland. This weekend we had representatives from Derry, Armagh and Letterkenny plus but there are so many others.

For me I am always aware that those who cross oceans and continents, both plurals are accurate, are approaching times when the possibilities dwindle.

So, write in your diaries, spread the word, and watch out. I have already started saving the beer money.

Torchy

Social gatherings

Continuing in the spirit of reunions, some of you will already be well aware that we have been holding social get togethers in London Manchester and Bristol for some years now. They are all well attended and have been instrumental in helping many old friends reconnect. This year’s meetings are, as usual, at O’Shea’s Bar in Manchester on the 11^th April, and then at The Chandos pub next to Piccadilly Square in London on the 12^th April. And finally, we will collect at The Knights Templar pub in Bristol on the 9^th May. All these events are designed to allow you to travel there and home again in the same day wherever you may live, so the venues are all located close to mainline stations and start at 12 noon. If you’ve been before you’ll know the drill, but if the recent degree ceremony has whetted your appetite for more, why not join our group and you’ll be kept up to date with all these meetings and many other things.

Finally

As I mentioned last month, I have been updating the contact list of all our members. Well, that is now complete, and I will be sending it out in the next few days. This list contains over 1200 people, split into the year groups they started at St Mary’s and has proved invaluable in helping many old friends find each other again. I can only send out copies of this list to people who are members of our group, so if you would like to touch base again with the people you went to college with email me and I’ll sign you up.

See you soon.

Joe

Hello everyone

As I'm sure most of you are well aware, next month the college is holding it's honorary degree ceremony to award B.Ed degrees to those past students who attended the college before 1983. I'm not going to go into details about it here, because if you have applied to recieve yours and are attending the ceremony on the 15th March you will know all about it. For everyone else I recommend visiting the college's YouTube to channel to watch the live streaming of the ceremony on the 15th of March.

Trip to Stratford-upon-Avon

Last month I posted a reminiscence from one of our members about a college trip to Stratford-upon-Avon in 1974. That article jogged the memory of Jerome Johnston (1971-1974) about those times and prompted him to send in the missive.

He says:

John Jackson’s piece about the English department’s trip to Stratford-upon-Avon, triggered memories for me about Joan Reilly.

Joan was certainly an inspiration. She often had tickets to plays in the West End, usually up in the Gods which she wanted us to use and encouraged us to check the auditorium for better seats closer to the stage, which we could then “occupy”. Her rationale was that the actors didn’t like to see empty seats, so we were doing them a favour. I’m not sure if the theatre managers would have agreed with her! However, her love of the theatre stuck with me, and I hope I’ve passed it on to those I’ve taught.

I didn’t go on the trip to Stratford-upon-Avon, but Joan was enthusiastic about their productions. She managed to obtain five pairs of tickets for Macbeth and Twelfth Night matinee and evening performances and arranged transport. Nicol Williamson played both Macbeth and Malvolio, Helen Mirren, Lady Macbeth and Jane Lapotaire, Viola. Ron Pember played Feste. I only remember snatches of the plays; well, they are 50 years distant now! But I do remember the thick fog on the return journey.

Perhaps the most extraordinary aspect of this day out was that Joan did not accompany us. Instead, she handed me the keys to her DAF Variomatic and told me to drive carefully. I can’t imagine that happening nowadays!

Jerome

I’m glad the original article prompted Jerome to put pen to paper with his memories of Joan Reilly. If anything you read in these pages takes you back to those times, why not put the kettle on, make a brew, spend half an hour creating a memory, and send it to me so we can all enjoy it.

Social gatherings

At the moment I’m in the middle of settling on the dates for our group meetings in London, Manchester, and Bristol. We normally meet three times a year around Easter, Summer, and Christmas. It can be a tricky exercise to choose suitable dates because I need to avoid school holidays and other events which vary throughout the country. As soon as we have settled on the dates, I will let those of you who are in our contact group know by email and post them on our Facebook page. For those of my readers who are not in either of those groups, (why not?) you will be able to see them in next month’s article.

Contact list

On a final note for this month, it’s a long time since I issued an updated contact list, and we have recruited many new members since then, so I intend to be doing just that in the next week or so. If you are reading this and would like to join us, drop me an email and if your quick enough, you’ll get on the updated list and all your old friends will know how to find you!

If you’re going to the honorary degree ceremony in March, have a great time and I’ll see you again next month.

Take care.

Joe

Hello everyone and belated Happy New Year!

How do you like the photos I have chosen for this month’s issue?

Peter Trant (1977-1980) posted them on our Facebook page in December. Apparently, they were taken around 1978 at a sit in in the Old House to protest the lack of heating in the hostels at that time. Do any of you remember the sit in and can you see yourself sitting on the floor? They are just the sort of thing we like to see on our Facebook page to conjure up memories of our times at college, so, if any of you have stuff like this cluttering up your attic, why not dig it out, dust it off, and post it there for us all to enjoy.

Memories of a college trip to Stratford-upon-Avon

You may recall that a while back I asked you to send me your memories of times at Simms to share and some of you have done just that. Below is an article about a group trip to Stratford-upon-Avon by John Jackson (1971-1974). I hope you enjoy it and if it brings back memories for you, why not put them down on paper and send them to me so I can share them with the group?

A few months ago, I wrote an article for the newsletter describing a Simms football tour to Luxembourg. It elicited a number of responses including photographs of the trip and fellow Simmarians’ recollections. In response to Joe’s plea for more contributions to the alumni newsletter, I thought I might share with readers a few memories of a Simms trip of a different kind which might be of interest to a more diverse audience: a coach trip to Stratford-upon-Avon. I think it took place in 1974 but perhaps readers will correct me if I’m wrong as well as add more detail, and, if we’re lucky, some photos. The trip was organised by Joan Riley, one of our English lecturers. She was enthusiastic about drama, especially Shakespeare, and clearly wanted to share her passion and inspire her students. Although I was involved at the planning stage, being the representative for the Literary Society, I can’t remember whether we had to pay for the trip. I suspect that it was at least heavily subsidised by the college. Nor do I remember whether it was restricted to students who had English as one of their main subjects.

We travelled to Stratford-upon-Avon by coach. We stayed two nights in a very nice hotel in the centre of Warwick. It may have been called The Warwick Arms. We visited Charlecote Park, a very grand Tudor house and estate owned by the Lucy family. The house was especially interesting to History students among us. The gardens, designed by Capability Brown, were splendid, and Joan Riley told us about all the Shakespeare and other literary connections. (Wasn’t there a children’s novel set there?) But the highlight of the trip was the Royal Shakespeare Company production of ‘Macbeth’ which we saw at the Globe Theatre in the evening. If memory serves me correctly, the eponymous hero/villain was played by Nicol Williamson, with Helen Mirren playing his ‘fiend-like queen’. The staging was brilliant: as Macbeth became more ‘cabined, cribbed, and confined’ the stage/acting area became more and more reduced, with the King’s throne eventually ending up perched on the table and the furniture crammed into an ever-reduced space. It taught me a great deal about the relationship between set design and text and served me well teaching students about such concepts. After the play we just had time for a swift nightcap in The White Swan pub otherwise known as The Mucky Duck. Shortly after this trip I wrote a short review of our jolly entitled ‘Stratford through a beer glass mistily’ for the college magazine/newsletter. Any shortcomings in my present recollections are more like to be the result of the passing of time and creeping old age rather than alcohol induced. I’m sure there are other Simmarians who have more detailed, more vivid memories of this excursion and might want to add them to future alumni updates.

John Jackson (1971-1974)

Membership

And finally, it has been 18 months since I sent out an updated contact list and our membership has grown considerably since then. So, I intend to issue a new version in the next couple of weeks. If you are reading this and are not yet part of our contact group, but would like to be, please email me at joe@theloughrans.co.uk with the year you started at college and your surname at the time and I will gladly add you to it. I can't begin to tell you the number of old friends who have found each other and reconnected as a result of joining the group. With over 1200 members, there are bound to be people in there that you know at college and have lost contact with since.

I look forward to being snowed under with new members soon!

Until next month.

Take care.

Joe

Christmas get togethers

Hello Everyone

This month has seen us holding our Christmas get togethers. As you will know, every year we hold them in London Manchester and Bristol. The photo you see above was taken at our usual venue in London. It was an excellent turnout, so good in fact, that I couldn’t capture everyone in a single shot, unless I turned into a wedding photographer asking everyone to bunch together for a family photo!

The Bristol meeting is happening at the end of this month, and we are expecting another great turn out. Holding the meeting in Bristol not only attracts old Simmarians from the southwest, but also entices members to venture across the bridge from Wales!

I attended the Manchester meetup the day before, which was also well attended. Unfortunately, we spent so long meeting old and new friends and gassing about all things Simmarian I forgot to take a photograph. One of the reasons for that shows why these groups are so good. I was sat chatting to a group of old friends, all of whom I knew except one lady. When we introduced ourselves to each other she said, “You’re the guy that threw me out of the VW chassis we were racing about in” She turned out to be Maggie Atkinson who was attending her first Manchester reunion. Her saying that instantly brought back the memory to me of the time when one of our friends was doing up an old VW beetle he had parked behind the halls of residence. It was only a chassis and wheels, with an engine steering wheel and two front seats. We thought it would be great fun to see who could drive it up to the main road and back the fastest, via the Sports Hall and Woodwork departments. You will recall that this included two sharp bends. I can’t remember who won the time trials, but I do remember going for it with a girl as a copilot. We shot off up the road to the towards the Sports hall turn, but I went round it a little too enthusiastically and we were both thrown out of the car onto the grass as the VW wandered off on to the rugby pitch slowly coming to a stop. There were no seat belts then and no body work (such as doors!) to keep us safe, so, as the car went round the right hand bend me and Maggie carried on going. We were both unhurt.

I have been writing these articles for several years now and, as you might imagine, I only have a limited amount number of memories that I can drag up and set down here. You lot, on the other hand, have hundreds and hundreds of them and it would be great if I you could put pen to paper and let me have some of them. If you do that, I will include them in these articles. You can email me at joe@theloughrans.co.uk

Now, onward…

The college has now agreed all the details for the presentation of the honorary degrees and if you have applied for one you should have received an email containing those from the alumni dept by now. If you want to know more about this event please go to the college website and visit the alumni page where it is all set out for you.

Right. Time for me to get on with my Christmas shopping, so I’ll wish you all the best for the festive season and hope to see you at some of our events next year.

Happy Christmas!

Joe

Hello everyone

I like to head up these articles with a photograph, or something that reminds us of our time at college and this month and I found this picture taken by Tony Scurfield in 1968 which was on our group Facebook page. It is one of 6 pictures he posted, so if you recognise anyone on here it’s worth a trip to over there to see the other pics. Tony said about it “I came across these self-printed photos of the 1968 cast of Iolanthe. It was an in-house production in the Music Auditorium with scenery painted by the Art Department. You may recognise yourself and smile as I did.” If you are already a member of our Facebook Group, you can go and spend a pleasant time wandering through all the photos posted on there. They are all in one place under the heading “media”. If you haven’t yet joined the group, just go there and ask to join and I’ll buzz you in as soon as I receive your request.

Honorary degrees

I have received several messages from members asking about the progress of this award, so I thought I would let you know the current position as I see it. The alumni dept have received over 700 applications from past students wanting to collect their honorary degree, which has somewhat overwhelmed them. All of these must be checked and approved which takes time. Please don’t worry if you have applied and not yet heard anything, they are working on it and will have it all sorted well in time for the presentation ceremony next year.

Christmas reunions

I have already told you all about these dates in earlier articles, but we have had to change the date of the Bristol one, so I thought I would take the opportunity to remind you about all three of them. The Bristol one is now happening on Thursday the 30th November. The Manchester one is still on Thursday the 23rd November and London is the following day, Friday 24th November. They are all taking place in their usual venues and times, but if any of you out there would like to come along and need more information, just email me.

Memories of a Divinity lecture

Back in August George Reilly joined our group and as soon as I found out that he used to be a lecturer at Simms I asked if he would pen some memories of his time there, which he kindly did, and which I lay down here for your delectation.

My career in Strawberry Hill started as a lecturer in divinity in September 1968. I had just done a licentiate in theology in Rome, and this was my first appointment. Father Cronin was the principal then. It was a very happy time, and I was young and carefree!! Wonderful colleagues: Duncan Macpherson, Fr. Beirne, Bernard Loughran, Fr. Stan Brindley, Fr. Kevin Rafferty, John Iddon, Cecily Hastings, to mention just a few. The bar on the campus, the senior common room. And of course, the wonderful students, many of whom were older than me! I was just 25 - 26 then!!

Wanting to pursue further studies in theology I registered as a Ph.D. student at King's College of the University of London and that led me to the university of Tübingen in Germany in the earlier seventies on a German government scholarship to do research on a theologian called Rudolf Bultmann. I got leave of absence from Strawberry Hill and from King's College. The scholarship lasted for two years and then I returned to St. Mary's. I finished the Ph.D a few years later. In the meantime, I had met my future wife in Tübingen and that made me decide with a heavy heart on the one hand but deeply in love on the other to hand in my resignation as a lecturer in St Mary's - and moved to Germany. That was 1975. With my wife Barbara I have four daughters and we have six grandchildren. All living in Germany.

We live in the old historic city of Aachen - badly damaged in the war. Aachen is a border city. The Dutch border is about four hundred metres from our house and Belgium is just a half-an-hour's walk through the woods. Internationally Aachen is known for its annual horse-riding championships. Known in Germany as the site of the favourite palace of Charlemagne. It is also the site of a magnificent cathedral which dates back to the time of Charlemagne, around the year 800. Students of history also probably know that the emperors of the Holy Roman Empire were elected in Frankfurt and until the sixteenth century were enthroned in Aachen, following the tradition of Charlemagne who was the first of the Holy Roman Emperors, crowned by the pope in Rome on Christmas day in 800.

Apart from our house here in Aachen we also have taken on my wife's parental home in the south of Germany. It is situated in the Rhine valley on the edge of the Black Forest, ten kilometres from the Rhine and the French border, about forty kilometres north of the German university city of Freiburg and about fifty kilometres south of the French city of Strasbourg. We use it as a holiday home for the whole family. The area is well known in Germany for its wine.

In Germany I trained and worked at first as a religious education teacher at a grammar school and then moved back into various fields of teacher education. My last position (for about twenty years) was as principal lecturer in the in-service training of religious education teachers in an institute for the training of teachers run by the diocese of Aachen. Here in the state of Northrhine-Westphalia where I worked there is an agreement between the state government and the Churches that the state does the initial training of teachers at the state universities and the Churches in cooperation with the state are responsible for the in-service training of the religious education teachers. (There are similar arrangements in the other federal states of the country.)

When I retired in 2008, I went to Rome for nearly three months. I wanted to see it again with "adult" eyes. It was an extremely enriching experience and opened up new areas of interest for me. When I was a theology student in Rome I avoided as much as possible all things baroque. Quite a feat in Rome!!! On retirement though I realised that there is more to the baroque period than meets the mind's eye and got quite involved in studying (and writing about) it. That was very rewarding.

What do I do with my time now? The usual gardening, looking after the house here in Aachen; the same with the house (and very big) garden in the south; welcoming our children and grandchildren who live in various parts of the country; cycling and hiking (the hiking usually takes place when we are on holidays somewhere, more often than not in the Alps). I used to do a fair bit of (scholarly) writing, but I find that too strenuous now.

I would say that is enough from me to keep you going!

Thanking you for bearing with me!!

Yours
George Reilly

That’s all for now folks. Stay warm and dry and I’ll see you again next month.

Joe

Hello Everyone,

Earlier this week I was looking through my collection of memorabilia from College days for a suitable cover picture for this month’s news, when I came across a copy of The Simmarian Newsletter dated April 1967. I’m not sure how I got hold of it because I didn’t start until 1969, so I’m guessing one of you guys sent it to me. The wonderful thing about this particular edition is the letter from the principal, which in those days was Fr Cronin. The college first opened it’s doors to women in September 1966 and Fr Cronin’s letter is a reflection of that first year as a mixed college…in the style, language, and attitudes of the time! On further rummaging, I came across the photograph above which, presumably contains many students from the 1966 intake.

Letter from the Principal

See you all next month.

Joe

 Hello Everyone

This month it’s time to celebrate our Summer Reunions, so I thought I would borrow a picture of a previous one in the hope of tempting you to try one out. This picture was taken at The Chandos in London in 2019. We couldn’t get everybody in the pic because they were spread out on other tables scoffing their lunch. I have been arranging these gatherings for over 10 years now and I can’t begin to tell you how many old friends have found each other at them. If you’ve nothing better to do on the dates below, we’d love to see you at one of them.

Summer get togethers

The first of these is happening in Bristol on Tuesday the 11^th of July at the Knights Templar Pub right outside Temple Meads Station. Our London bash is the next one, at our usual spot, The Chandos Pub on St Martins Lane, close to Trafalgar Square. This takes place on Friday the 14^th July and if it’s anything like the last one, it will be a blast! And last but no means least is the Manchester gathering on Thursday the 20^th July at O’Shea’s Irish Bar on Princess St, a 10 min walk from Piccadilly Station. In order to make timings and travel as easy as possible, all these meetings are close to mainline railway stations and start at midday, which allows people to travel there and back in a single day. If you need any more information, just drop me an email. I Look forward to seeing you there.

Honorary degrees

Some of you may have heard that the college has at last decided to award honorary degrees to past students up to 1983. I can do no better than reproduce their announcement of this, below, which tells you everything you need to know at this stage. I would, however, like to say something about providing evidence of your attendance at college. If you have lost or misplaced your certificate and you don’t know your student ID number, I think I can help. Over the years I have built up a library of Pass Lists for all the years between 1962 and 1980 except 1979. So, if you are struggling for proof of attendance, please drop me an email and I’ll send you your Pass List. While I’m here, I would love to get hold of the 1979 list as well as the ones for 1960 and 1961 to make a complete set. Anybody out there got them?

"Dear Alumni,

The University is delighted to announce that it is opening the application process for the conferral of Honorary Bachelors of Education degrees for our cohort of students awarded the Certificate of Education up until 1983.

Whilst detailed arrangements are still under development at this stage, in order to enable University staff to plan graduation ceremonies, we request that potential applicants contact alumni@stmarys.ac.uk providing proof of their original award where possible. This will be verified against our historic records and allow an invitation to a forthcoming ceremony to be issued. In order to assist planning, please provide details by 30^th September 2023. It is expected that the first opportunity to confer these awards will be alongside the University’s Spring graduations scheduled for March 2024. Depending on demand we will look to schedule further ceremonies as required.

In those situations where the original award has been lost or destroyed, please provide your name when studying and if possible your student identification number, alongside your course details and the year of graduation. The University will then check its historical records to confirm eligibility. 

Please do share this information with fellow St Mary’s graduates, as we are keen to reach as many of our alumni community as possible. We will share further details via our alumni communications later in the year and we look forward to celebrating with those of you able to attend the ceremony next year. In those cases where an individual is unable to attend the ceremonies, we will arrange for a certificate to be sent.

Further details on the arrangements for the ceremonies will be announced later in 2023.

If you have any questions, please do get in touch with the alumni office at alumni@stmarys.ac.uk.

Best regards,
Alumni Office"

That's enough typing for a while.

Take care.

Joe

 Hello Everyone

I hope you’re all enjoying this spell of good weather. Maybe it makes you feel like singing and if it does you can sing along to the songs below which were sent to me by Keith Nicholls (1965-1969). He doesn’t give me any background to them, but judging by the words they look to me, like drinking songs. If any of you recognise them, I would love to hear any stories you can attach to them which I can share with everybody.

Now for the proper stuff.

It is with regret that I have to pass on the news that the great all Alumni reunion event planned for the weekend of 10^th and 11^th June has been postponed for a year. The main reason for this has been the lack of uptake by past students from all year groups. This is what the college said on the various social media sites they use. “We are disappointed that we cannot go ahead this summer, but we have sold fewer tickets than we had hoped and as we are keen to welcome as many of you as possible back on campus, we have decided to rearrange the reunion to a time and in a format that enables more of you to come. We understand the disappointment this may cause, especially given the enthusiasm and interest many of you have shown for the event and we apologise for any inconvenience this change of dates might cause.”

Rugby Club 1961/62

It wasn’t my intention for this month’s news to be all about the Rugby Club, but when you guys send me the stuff, I have to share it. This pic of the 1961/62 rugby club was submitted by Charlie Cuckson. He tells me that after seeing the football group from the same year in the last issue, it brought back memories, so he dug out this pic and sent it in to me to share with everyone. He has kindly attempted to recall the members of this pack as you can see below. Perhaps you can fill in some of the blanks.

Back Row: Ged Higgins, Gilbert Johnson, ???. Des Broderick, ???, ???, ???, ???, Paul Moorhead, ???, ???, ???, Des Sally, ???, Mike Davies, Ge Elcock, Jim Cleary

Middle Row: Pat Leng, ???, ???, Laurie Hawton, Mike Brennan, Tony Short, Rocky Hopkins, Riki Pavis, ???, Robin Gregory, John Evans, Robin Foulger, ? O’Brien, ???

Front Row: Bro O’Mahoney, Kevin Hickey, Brian Condon, Brian Dilly, Brian O’Gorman, Paul Sullivan, Laurie Sullivan, Mike Ryan (C), Charlie Cuckson (VC), Tom Foster, Dave Ellerby, Ray Symonds, Brian Dickson, Phil Woods

Reunion Weekend 18th-20th August

In spite of the College cancelling their big reunion in June, David Simpson (Torchy) and Micky Kerr are organising a get together over this August weekend for any former students from the 66 to 74 period. Torchy has been running these for many years and lots of you will know about them. It is a very informal weekend where everyone is welcome. The plan is to meet in the Pope’s Grotto (now called the Alexander Pope Hotel) on Friday evening for a beer or three, when the plan for Saturday is usually arranged, which ends with an evening gathering at the College bar. After mass on Sunday everyone says goodbye and wends their way home until the next time. Lots of people make the effort to come along to this reunion, so whether you’ve been before or not, I can heartily recommend giving it a go. Should you have any question, you can contact me at joe@theloughrans.co.uk. See you there!

TTFN

Joe

 Hello Everyone

Those of you who read these articles of mine will have heard me asking you all to look under your beds, or wherever you keep your memories of college, and send them in to me so I can share them with everyone. Well, this month Jim Hagerty (61-64) did exactly that. He sent me this month’s picture, which is of the 1963 Soccer Club and as you can see he managed to list almost all of the people in it. Perhaps you can fill in some of the missing ones. I’ll post it on our Facebook Group page so you can go there and share your memories of the team.

St Mary’s College, 1963, photo of soccer club taken outside the Old House. Club Patron Fr Desmond Cleere CM. Club Captain Joe Hughes; Vice-Captain Tony Patterson; Secretary Jim Hagerty.

Front row left to right:

??, Mick Glover, Ged Drumm, Mike Chapman, Brian Jones, Terry Metcalfe, Joe Hughes, Fr Cleere, Tony Patterson, Jim Hagerty, ??, Frank Daley, Brian Hickey, John Harold, Tony Donaghy.

Middle row left to right:

Pat Lavin, Tony Crossley, Jim Wilson, Dave Spence, Mike Preston, ??, ??, Jim Forde, ??, Bernie Winters, Zbigniew Sinicki, ??, Tony Greene, Charlie Lynn

Back row left to right:

??, ??, ??, Julian Harland, ??, ??, ??, Peter Carney, ??, John Fitzsimons, Ian Britt, ??, ??

Honorary bachelor’s degree

For a good while now there has been talk of the college joining other establishments and awarding honorary degrees to those of its past students who obtained a Cert Ed up to 1983. Well, the good news is that they have now confirmed that they intend to do this. But before you get all excited let me point out that having made the decision, they now need to sort out the logistics of it. They need to determine how and when to do this, who qualifies and how to contact them. They also need to agree how, when and where they will present the degrees, and I am not in a position to give you any information about any of that. If your email address is registered with the Alumni Office and you keep dropping onto their website and the various Facebook groups you belong to you will see the plans as they emerge and, of course I will be posting any news I get on here.

Pass lists

I recently received a request from one of our members for a copy of the 1974 pass list, which I was able to send him from the library of these you have helped me build up over the last few years. So, I thought I would take this opportunity to remind you all that I have them and that they are available for you if you would like to remind yourself who you were at Simms with. My library contains all the years in our group except 1960, 1961 and 1979 so if any of you can dig out a copy of those missing years, I would love to receive a copy and if any of you want a copy of the year you graduated just send me an email.

And finally!

When I sent out reminders about the recent London meeting, I received the reply below from one of our long-term members. As you will see from his message he suffered a stroke after lockdown, but then went on to succumb to Shingles and he wants everybody to be aware of the pain and suffering this condition can bring on. If you are over 70 the jab is free, and our member strongly recommends that people should get one. So, put the kettle on, open your laptop and get googling.

“You have not seen much of me lately. After lockdown, I had a stroke, but thanks to my level of fitness and some brilliant medical help, I am completely over that. However, without much of a break, I succumbed to shingles, on my face and head, and my reason for sending this tale of woe is to encourage people to think about getting a shingles jab. Shingles is excruciatingly painful and twelve weeks into it, I still have shooting nerve pains. So far, six people I know have had the jab, after they saw me, and fortunately I am almost over it now. I won't make the London meeting, as my wife who has put up with my afflictions, wants to go somewhere else, but I fully intend to make the next one.”

OK everybody. Please stay safe and I’ll see you next time.

Joe

Hello Everyone

This month’s cover picture is a bit special. Back in February, I received an email from Elizabeth Watson about her husband Michael who suffers from Dementia. She sent me this picture which has Mike at the end on the right. Although he is now too confused to come to any of our social meetings, Elizabeth tells me that he gets enormous pleasure from visiting the college and remembering happy times there. So, I am posting the photo and Elizabeth’s comments about his time at Simms in the hope that some of you will remember him.

Elizabeth tells me that Mike went to St Marys in the early 60’s, and his friends there were Gerard Mulligan, Gervase Roughly and Billie Church among others. He lived near the college and used to climb over the wall to get to lessons. The rest of his friends boarded. He played in a band and performed on eel pie island. After St Mary’s he went on to became Headmaster of two schools and chairman of the Appeals Committee for Grammar Schools. 

He eventually took early retirement and started his own Consultancy called “Excellence my dear Watson,” making good schools better. Mike can’t remember anything, so I have just cobbled this together. Hope it’s ok. 

If any of you remember Mike, Elizabeth would love to hear from you and share any memories you may have with Mike. His email address is mwonisland@icloud.com

Memories of a football tour from 1972

This message arrived last week from John Jackson (1971-1974) and was inspired by a trip to his loft!

Many people join an alumni association hoping to connect with old (in both senses: former, and aged) classmates who might remind them of fun times and early achievements. They might gather together occasionally to remember what Bruce Springsteen calls “a little of those glory days”. As time passes, the little inevitably becomes even smaller, I reflected on this recently when I was in our loft and came across some old photos of bygone days.  Unfortunately, I did not come across some photos I used to have of Simmarians on a football tour in 1972. I offer my few recollections of this tour in the hope that they might rekindle some memories in others who might share their own memories

The tour was organised by the college's football president at the time, Phil Don, who went on I think to become a headteacher and, perhaps more notably in the wider world a well-respected international football referee. Phil was in the Second Year at Sims when I joined as a First Year in 1971. Even then Phil must have had enviable organisational skills as the eight-day tour taking in France and Germany, with Luxembourg as our hotel base only cost 220. I think there was some help from the Universities' Athletic Association.

So, what do I mistily remember about the tour? Well, I think it took place in the Easter holiday 1972.We travelled interminably by coach to our hotel in Luxembourg. We played four matches, two in France, one in Luxembourg itself, and one in Germany.

The game in Germany was in the city of Trier. Our opponents turned out to be a semi-professional team who didn't bother to take off their tracksuit bottoms but still beat us 6-0 under floodlights. Truth be told we had a far from professional approach ourselves and over-indulged in the generous hospitality, especially in France, where many of us discovered the delights of red wine which were to last a lifetime!

On our last night in Luxembourg our bedrooms were burgled in the middle of the night and many of us lost passports and valuables which were never recovered. The police investigation was very cursory, and our own motivation was only lukewarm since many of us were suffering from hangovers and we had a ferry to catch. But that was the only downside to the trip. (Apart from the German humiliation!)

I only recall a few names: two Geordies, Dave Dixon and Dave Stapleton, both defenders, a goalkeeper catted Yuri Kazkovski, Paul Hounslea„ a centre half Johnny Roberts, Jimmy Kerr, Paul Warburton. The hospitality from all our hosts was extremely generous; for many of us it was our first experience of French red wine, so hangovers were inevitable!

If I do come across those team photographs, I will certainly send them to the newsletter but with a bit of luck there may be someone who was also on the trip who might beat me to it.

Both of these articles have been written and submitted by you guys and are good exmples of why I set the group up in the first place, so people could find old friends and share memories. I'm sure lots of you have photoes from back then and if you would like to share them with us and maybe pen a couple of lines about the people and action in the pictures, I'll gladly share them with the group on your behalf.

Closing headlines

For some time now there has been an ongoing discussion among our members and within the college itselft about the possibility of awarding Honorary Bachelor's Degrees to former students who received a Cert.Ed prior to 1983. The good news is that this is now going ahead and the college is currently working out the details and logistics to make it happen. Those of you who are already on the college email list will no doubt hear about things as they develop, and I will keep the rest of you up to speed as things firm up. 

Joe

P.S. Don't forget the Manchester get together is happening on Thursday 20th April and the London one is the very next day, Friday 21st April. I look forward to seing you all there! If you need any info about them, please email me.  

Hello Everyone

I trust you are all well and looking forward to the forthcoming spring. 

How do you like this month’s cover picture? I haven’t got a lot of information about it to pass on to you. It looks to me like they are in the middle of Teaching Practice, waiting at Strawberry Hill Station for a train to take them off to whichever school they have to get to for 9am. What do you think?

You may recall that last month I showed you a letter from my local authority telling me where my digs would be when I started at St Mary’s. Well, thanks to the power of this group I subsequently received a note from Gerry Coburn (64-67) who also stayed with the same landlady a few years before me. Many of you will have been placed out of college (with good old-fashioned landladies) in your first year and I thought it would be nice to share Gerry’s memories of those days with you.

‘Hi Joe,

I read your report in the last Alumni Newsletter from Strawberry Hill and was intrigued by your reference to Mrs. Skingley. By coincidence she was my landlady during my second and final year at Simms (1964-67). I was in the Old House during my first year. I have to say I got on really well with Doris and learned all about her family especially her son whom she often visited in Copenhagen. She took pity on me in my early days walking to and from college and came in one day with a bike she’d managed to scrounge from her greengrocer friend. It needed a bit of fettling, but I was glad of it at times. 

I don’t know if you were aware that she was a pianist for a ballet school on a Saturday which meant that I could get a lie in because I knew which train she came home on and the railway line was at the bottom of her garden. I knew how long I had to get up and clear the breakfast things away. She was always grateful that I had enjoyed my breakfast and then washed and tidied away. The truth was I simply put everything away and did without breakfast. Still, it kept her happy!

I met and subsequently married Madeleine Long (1966-69) from the first female intake, so I was back in college most weekends and often stayed with Mrs Skingley or with one of her friends down the road. I was working at Blessed John Sherd school in Crewe at the time, so I was the one with the money! Once we were married in 1971 I moved to Birmingham where I finished teaching after 39.5 years in Special Education. Madeleine retired three years later as Head of St. Andrew’s School, Solihull. Since then, we’ve enjoyed extensive travelling and our seven grandchildren.

I just remembered that the chap who lodged with Mrs. Skingley before me was called Rooney from Lancashire way I think. Do you know when Doris finally gave up? We didn’t stay in touch after Madeleine left Simms except for the odd Christmas card.

Times were good then and we have very many happy memories.

Regards,
Gerry Coburn’

I stayed with Mrs S in 1969/70 and visited her occasionally afterwards, but, as with Gerry, life took me to other places. If any of you who stayed in digs in your first year at college are willing to commit your memories to paper I would be very glad to share them with the rest of the group through these pages.

Social gatherings

Now, I must correct a faux par I made last month. In an effort to give you all plenty of time to plan for our social get togethers this year I published all three dates for all three venues in one go. So far so good. However, since then it has been brought to my attention that some of the dates fall within the school holidays when some of you may be committed to childminding and other associated duties. So, after asking for your suggestions we have come up with new dates which should allow more of you to come along to one or more of them. The new dates are below and I will be in touch with you again as they get nearer.

• London: 31st March, 14th July, and 24th November
• Manchester: 20th April, 20th July and 23rd November
• Bristol: 13th March, 11th July and 1st December

Talking of social get togethers. As you know I get occasional requests from members to hold meetings in places other than those above, and my answer is always the same. We can organise meetings anywhere you like, all we need is for someone to pick a venue and agree to host the meeting. Now, when I say “host” the meeting, all I mean is to be there on the day to welcome people and make sure they find each other. A focal point if you like. You will not be required to buy any drinks or provide any food, all our get togethers are very much self-financed by those who attend.

The reason I mention this again now, is because I have just received the message below from Peter Kelly.

‘Hi Joe,

Is there any possibility we could have a get together on dear old Erin's isle in the coming year? We haven't had one since the Croke Park gathering 2018?

Please don't add this to your to do list. However, if you can delegate the project to a person of organisational skill..... I'm happy to join the party even at short notice.

By the way we have free public transport here, North and South, for those of us with a bus pass (65+)

Peter Kelly (68-71)’

I regularly get requests from some of you who live across the water to arrange a get together there and while I am very willing to give whatever assistance I can to help set one up and publicise it, but I don’t live there (lovely as it is!). If you want to hold a social meeting in Ireland, someone, who lives there will need to be the host, pick a venue and I’ll try and get as many members to turn up as I can.

That’s all for now folks.

See you next month.

Joe

Happy New Year Everyone.

Now that Christmas is over and we’re into a very damp and cold January, I’m struggling to fill this month’s article with interesting and exciting stuff, so I have been trawling through my collection of old papers and memorabilia (God knows why I kept all this stuff, I’m not usually a hoarder) from my time at St Mary’s and came across a couple of things which some of you may find interesting.

The first one above is a note which was stuck on the notice board of Hostel 33 (and which I obviously removed) warning students about the dangers of climbing on flat roofs. I don’t know about you, but I certainly used these as a means to get in and out of various hostels, usually at night and sometimes in a hurry! It is written by the warden Mr or Mrs Lazell (I can’t recall which) and if you notice they think the plural of roof is “rooves.”

The second one, below, is the letter I received from the college before starting in 1969 confirming the details of my “approved lodgings.” I remember Mrs Skingley well, she was a retired old lady who presumably took in lodgers for a bit of extra cash. She liked to keep an eye on me and had no problem commenting on the clothes I went out in and the times I came and went. As the year went on and my hair got longer, she started hinting that she would have to tell my parents about my “decline.” She was a very nice lady who looked after me very well. I stayed in Twickenham for 10 years after leaving college and used to drop in and see how she was getting on from time to time.

Social gatherings 2023

As you know, attendance at our social get togethers dropped off over the last couple of years, what with Covid and other things, but I’m very pleased to report that things improved in the last half of 2022, and we are seeing numbers creeping up again. So, I thought I would take this opportunity to give you the dates for this year’s meetings to allow you to put them in your diaries and on your calendars before they get filled up with other stuff.

• London: April 14th, August 11th and November 24th
  
• Manchester: April 19th, August 16th and November 22nd
  
• Bristol: April 6th, August 3rd and December 1st
  

If you’ve been to one of these before you’ll know the griff and if you haven’t, don’t worry, I’ll provide all the details you need well in advance of each event.

Right, that’s the first one of the year over with. I’d better start casting around for the next one! If any of you guys have stories, pictures, or memories you’d like to share with the group, please send them to me and I’ll see what we can do.

TTFN

Joe

Hello Everyone

At this festive time of year, I thought I would start with the programme for the Christmas Ball in 1971. I have very fond memories of all the college balls, from hiring a penguin suit from the local Moss Bros, to dancing all night and watching films till dawn. As you can see I attended this event with Lesley O’Regan from Hostel 33 (I think!). I wonder where she is now?  If you have any photos and memories of these balls why not share them on our Facebook page.

Social gatherings

We have recently held two of our periodic social meetings and both were a great success. Attendance at these events understandably dropped off when Covid struck but I’m glad to report that things have picked up now. The London meeting was held in our usual venue at The Chandos and turned out to be one of the best meetings we’ve ever had. Lots of people came along, including regulars, old friends and several first timers who seemed suitably impressed. The Manchester meeting at O’Shea’s Bar was also well attended and bodes well for our get togethers around Easter next year. If you nip over to our Facebook page you can check out the photos of each event and see if you recognise anyone.

That only leaves the Bristol meeting for this year, which takes place at The Knight’s Templar Pub outside Temple Mead Station on Wednesday 30^th November. Humphrey Needle is your host, and we are expecting another good crowd. When I sent out notice of this event, I got the following email back from Mike Collins (69-72). “Hope the Knights Templar event doesn’t include a massive barbecue!! Just a history joke for those Simms historians.” Presumably it will mean something to some of you!

Pass lists

I recently got an email from one of our members asking me to send him a copy of the 1971 Pass List because he had mislaid the one I sent him originally. This reminded me that back in 2020 I set out to create a library of the college Pass Lists for each year between 1960 and 1980. It was a very successful exercise and I now hold all the relevant lists except the ones for 1960, 1961, 1973, 1979 and 1980.

If any of you have a copy of the missing Pass Lists, I would greatly appreciate it if you could send me a copy for the library and if you joined our group since I compiled my list and would like to have a copy of the one for your year just drop me an email and I’ll zing one back forthwith.

Now off you all go and have finish your Christmas shopping.

Joe

Last month I posted a copy of a letter I had received from my local education authority showing their contribution to my Tuition Fees at Simms.

Since then, and quite by chance, I came across a letter from them confirming the maintenance portion of my grant for the same period, of which my parents had to cough up nearly half. I know it doesn’t seem much nowadays, but, in all honesty, I don’t recall ever being broke. Can any of you remember the size of your grant?

New alumni website

Before I go any further, can I tempt you to visit the new layout for the Alumni section of the College website. The new team in the Alumni Office have been working very hard to modernise and improve this area and if you click here you can go and check it out. It looks very fresh and sets out all the things the college can do for you, and you for them, in a clear and easy to follow manner. Strongly recommended.

Forthcoming reunions

Most of you know that we hold social gatherings three times a year at various locations around the UK. Before the Covid pandemic we had built up good attendances at these, but that has fallen away during the last two years, and I am now on a mission to entice you back. Below are the details of the dates and places we will be meeting in November. Please try and come along to one near you; if you don’t bump into old friends this time, I guarantee you will make a whole bunch of new ones.

London: This one is on Friday 18^th November at our usual venue, The Chandos on St Martins Lane, near Trafalgar Square. If you click here, you can check it out

Manchester: This is planned for Wednesday 23rd November, again at our usual venue of O’Shea’s Bar on Princess Street, close to Piccadilly Station. Click here for all the Griff.

Bristol: We have agreed upon Wednesday 30^th November at The Knights Templar pub, right outside Temple Meads Station. Once again, click here for details.

All of these get togethers start at 12 noon and are located within easy striking distance of a main line railway station. This is designed to allow people who may be travelling some distance to get there and home again the same day. If you want to come along to one of the venues, you will be welcome at any time in the afternoon, we are usually in residence for several hours. If you require more information about these events, please feel free to email me at the address above.

Exam results!

Here’s the “Theory of Education” exam I took in my last year. How many questions can you still answer?

Lost and found

Our recent success tracking down a couple of old friends has spawned a new batch of enquiries. As you know we have a good strike rate when looking for your old college pals and if you can help with any of these please drop me an email at the address above.

Peter and Elaine Stafford (59-62) would like to contact Mike Sweeney (59-62)

Malcolm Mair (74-77) is looking for Maureen Carr. He tells me that she was at college 1975-78 and studied drama and she “came from somewhere up north (possibly Durham).”

Greg Martin (73-76) would like to trace John Feeney and Phil Owen who were both at Simms from 1973 to 76.

Marianne McAleer (73-76) recently found some old photos of her time at college in which there were a couple of pics of her friend Suzanne Harman (73-77). She would like to send these to her and wonders if anyone out there can point her in the right direction.

And finally, in this section, I have had a strange request concerning Paul Crow, who is thought to have graduated in 1968/9. The requestee (if that’s the right phrase!) is not looking to reconnect with Paul, just confirmation that they were at St Mary’s around that time. So if you remember Paul, please let me know, even if you have no other information about him. Thanks

Old friends

Paul Speakman (65-69) has been in touch to let me know about the recent death of Joseph “Joe” Coan. Joe was born in Whitehaven and passed away in Altrincham on 18^th September, aged 90. Paul says, “Joe was my PE teacher and rugby coach at school. I last met up with him just 4 years ago. He was the coach behind the Saints’ four trophy success in the 1965-66 campaign, was a rugby union enthusiast from Cumberland who whilst never playing rugby league professionally, enjoyed great success as a rugby league coach.” Joe attended Whitehaven Grammar School and went on to do his teacher training at Carnegie and Strawberry Hill. He began his teaching career in Chesterfield, where he played rugby union, before returning to West Cumberland, where he taught at Workington’s St Joseph’s School.

Now you’ve got to the bottom of this screed you can go and have a look at the new Alumni webpage, can’t you!

Stay safe,

Joe 

Hello Everyone

Now then, do any of you recognise this? It is a payment slip from Coventry Education Dept to Simms to cover my tuition fees for some period around December 1971. I think it was probably for a whole term. Back in the days of free education the local authority paid the tuition fees for us. On top of that we also got a grant to cover our living expenses each term. This bit was means tested in some way and, in my case, Mum and Dad had to stump up part of it. From memory I think it was £3/£400 a term altogether and surprisingly it was almost enough for us to live on. However, in my second year, in an effort to earn a little extra cash, I (and several others) got a job with a local security firm (Paramount Security Services) and I spent many a boring night sitting in a building till dawn. One of the sites I had a regular spot at was the Police National Computer (PNC) in Hendon. You’ll hear it mentioned regularly in TV cop shows. I had to drive round the North Circular Road twice when I was on duty, and it was a good distance from college; can you imagine trying to do that now! I was there when it was being built, so I was guarding a building site. There was an Alsatian dog on site for the whole time and he was passed from guard to guard at each session. He was great company except when you were on the night shift. Then you took your sleeping bag and tried to get some sleep on an office floor. Unfortunately, your “sleep” would be regularly disturbed by him jumping up and barking at the door whenever he heard a noise.

For some unknown reason I kept a copy of my identity card from Paramount and telling you this story has reminded me about it, so I dug it out and here it is. Don’t I look cool! They managed to spell my name wrong on it, but it never seemed to matter.

Lost and found

In last month’s column I asked for your help to trace Joe Duffy, an old friend of one of our members, John Farrelly. Well, I’m pleased to report that you did it again and we had contact details for Joe in short order, so thank you for that. We have a good strike rate in this area, probably tracing 50% or more of the people we enquire about, so if you would like to touch base with someone you knew back then, drop me an email and I’ll see what we can do.

Social gatherings

We have now agreed when our Christmas social meetings will take place and I set them out below in case you want to put them in your diary.

London: This will take place on Friday 18^th November at our usual venue of The Chandos on St Martins Lane, near Trafalgar Square. If you click here, you can check out the venue.

Manchester: This is planned for Wednesday 23rd November, again at our usual venue of O’Shea’s Bar on Princess Street, close to Piccadilly Station. Click here for all the Griff.

Bristol: We have agreed upon Wednesday 30^th November at The Knights Templar pub, right outside Temple Meads Station. Once again, click here for details.

As some of you may know, all of these get togethers start at 12 noon. This is designed to allow people who may be travelling some distance to get there and home again the same day. If you want to come along to one of the venues, you will be welcome at any time in the afternoon, we are usually in residence for several hours. If any of you require more information about these events, please feel free to email me at the address above.

I’ll let you go now, there will be more info about the social meetings as we get nearer, and I hope to see some of you there.

Joe

Hello Everyone

I trust you are all well and enjoying the cooler spell of weather we’re enjoying at the moment. This month we’ve got some memories for you from a field trip to the Lake District, a few thoughts about our social get togethers and a new appeal in our occasional Lost and Found section.

Memories

 Tony Pearson (63-66) has sent me these pictures of him and friends on a field trip to the Lake District in 1964 and the same group 25+ years later. Maybe you recognise someone. Tony says:

 I have been dredging through some photos from my box in the loft and came across these. The first, was taken at the Newby Bridge Hotel in the Lakes at Easter 1964. Note the obligatory ties and cigarettes! The other; 25 plus years on in North Wales sitting in the same order and with our wives. From left to right we are...Vince Helm, Tony Pearson, Pete Hearth, Pete Sharpe, Joe Skillicorn and Rob Palmer. Sadly, Vince, Pete Sharpe and Rob are no longer with us. Pete and Pam Hearth and Anne and I, meet up each month and we have met up with Joe and Jo in Florida and New York and on their regular visits to the UK from Canada.

 We like getting pictures like these, and if you have any lurking in a “box in your loft” send them in and we’ll do our best to share them here. If you are members of our Facebook group, you can nip over there and wallow in hundreds of photos from back in the day.

Social get togethers

 Regular readers will know that I organise social meetings in London, Manchester and Bristol, three times a year around Easter, Summer and Christmas. Prior to the pandemic we had managed to build up a good level of attendance at these events, but Covid put paid to that! They have now been reinstated and I would encourage you to come along and help us to turn them into active, lively meetings once again. On a personal level, not only have I reconnected with many old pals who I was at college with, but I have met so many new friends through this group, that I know many more people now than I did when I was there. Some people are nervous about coming along to these events, thinking they won’t know anybody, but it’s true that “Nobody knows everybody, but everybody knows somebody”. Our Christmas meeting will be held around the end of November, and I will put the dates on here next month. It would be great if you come along and start to build the numbers up again.

Lost and found

 As you know, we run a lost and found column in these pages, and this month John Farrelly (69-72) who studied P.E. at St Mary’s, is looking for his old mate Joe Duffy. Below is his message to me which may help you place him and Joe. If you know where Joe Duffy is now, please get back to me and I will pass your information on to John.

"Hi Joe

I had the urge today to try and locate my old classmate and best man at my wedding in Isleworth in 1972.

I stumbled across your name in my search and was amazed to see that we were at St. Mary's at the same time (1969 - 72). Amazed at this coincidence, I just wanted to say Hi!

I am from Dublin and really enjoyed my time there. I taught at Wandsworth Comprehensive school for one year before moving to America in 1973 and have been here since. I got my masters and PhD here and taught at Coastal Carolina University in Teacher Education (College of Education) for 32 years, now long retired at age 77. I studied Physical Education at St. Mary's, played rugby for the college, and the London Irish RFC, on the left wing.

I was the somewhat crazy guy who played the trumpet on occasion in the college bar and did the conga many times to the song "In the Summertime" (Mungo Jerry). Fun memories. 

I loved my time there. Mr. Joe Jagger, Mick's dad, is the one who convinced me to pursue graduate school in the US. We exchanged Christmas cards for years up to the time of his death at age 93. A wonderful man.

The individual I am trying to trace is Joe Duffy, a feisty Scotsman and classmate, and great friend during my time there.

If his name and whereabouts are known, I would love to hear back from you.

John Farrelly"

So, it’s over to you now…..let’s hope I have some good news to report next month.

Take Care

Joe

Hello Everyone.

I’m guessing you all remember this place! I found this picture among all the photos on our group Facebook page. There are hundreds of pics on there posted by our members, if you fancy a walk down memory lane, visit the page, go to “media” and go explore!

My own strongest memory of the Balmy Arms concerns a fake £5 note. I was in there one night with a group of friends, and for some reason that escapes me I had a fake £5 note (like you could buy in souvenir shops then).  We thought it would be a good laugh to see if we could spend it over the bar without getting twigged. I went up to buy a round of drinks and proffered the note for payment, which the barmaid took and rang up into the till without a second glance. Being an honest guy, I brought it to her attention, we laughed and I swapped it for a real one. However, when I got home that night, I realised that I no longer had the fake £5, so at some point, I must have spent it without either me or the bar staff realising!

Change of name

When I set up our Facebook page many years ago it was the only one apart from the official college one, so I called it the “Simms Group”. This worked well for ages; however, since then, we have manged to establish FB groups for each of the decades following and I am now getting requests to join from past students who would be better suited to a more modern group. So, in order to fix this, I have now changed the name of our FB page to “Simms 60s & 70s Group” So, if you want to find us now, you know where to look.

Group social meetings

As some of you are aware we hold social meeting three times a year in London, Manchester and Bristol and the summer ones are coming up right now. Below is the message I have just sent out to our email group with details of where and when they are. If you have the time and inclination, you will be most welcome at any (or all!) of them.

For those of you who may not have been before, they are all arranged to start at 12 noon at an easily accessible location. The lunch time start is to allow people to get there and back the same day if they are coming from any distance.

London – After a short hiatus, due to a change of landlord we are now returning to The Chandos. This is on St Martins Lane near Piccadilly Circus and easily accessible by any means. It is this coming Friday the 29^th July. Find out more.

Bristol – This gathering is hosted by Humphrey Needle and is held at The Knights Templar next to Bristol Railway Station on Wednesday 3rd August at 12 noon. Find out more.

Manchester – We hold this meeting at O’Shea’s Bar, which is a 5 min walk from Piccadilly Station, on Wednesday 10^th August at 12 noon. Find out more.

Now that Covid is no longer the problem it was, I hope that more of you will feel ready and able to come back to these meetings and reconnect with old friends again.

I look forward to seeing you there.

Music at the college

Forgive me if I’ve told you about this before. I came across this website by accident a while back and have been singing Its praises to our members ever since.

The site is setlist.fm and provides details of venues, dates and setlists for a wide variety of bands going back a long way. If you visit the site and type in “ St Mary’s College Twickenham” you will be shown the bands who played there while we were there. It is not comprehensive, or exhaustive, but I’m sure it will bring back many memories for most of us… enjoy.

See you all next month.

Joe

Hello Everyone

What do you think of this month’s pictures?

They are a couple of welcome postcards designed by the new Alumni Team of Georgia Boatman and Harry Mithun, to be given to past students returning to Strawberry Hill for a reunion.

For some time now, I have been pushing the college to take a more proactive approach to welcoming their past students back to the college and now that Georgia and Harry are running the show, they are fully on board with this as you can see. These cards were placed in the rooms that attendees stayed in on campus and handed out to those who were there just for the dinner. Not only did they produce these cards, but they also made name badges for everyone which made it much easier for old friends to find each other.

I want to pass on my personal thanks to them for their efforts and look forward to bringing more of the same to the Alumni Dept in the future.

Now, way back at the end of last year Graham Marshment (64-67) organised a reunion of old friends in Burton on Trent and sent me some pictures and notes about it. Unfortunately I managed to misfile his report….until recently!

I came across it the other day and now set it down below for you to enjoy. I hope you recognise the faces.

       John l'Anson                        John White                            Peter Booth

   Michael McCabe                    William Carville                  Graham Marshment

         Martin Astle                          Roger Kerry                          Bob Andrews

Robin Gregson-Brown

Burton-on-Trent meet-up

A group of six Simmarians from the 64 – 67 cohort enjoyed a re-union which took place over three days in Burton-on-Trent.

Graham Marshment organised the event in his hometown and it was thoroughly appreciated by John White, Peter Booth, Mick McCabe, John I’Anson and Bill Carville. The group visited the National Memorial Arboretum at Alrewas and National Museum of Brewing and also enjoyed excellent meals at The Winery and at the Burton Club.

The latter was a private meal shared with some of Graham’s friends at The Burton Club; naturally the Simmarians stayed late and enjoyed a few beers and memories.

The problem was that when they came to leave the gates had been locked! The intrepid group managed to find a nearby ladder and scaled the walls to meet their awaiting taxi – a thoroughly memorable and amusing end to the evening.

Originally, there were more Simmarians planning to attend but the numbers dropped to six in the final weeks but that did nothing to dim the memories of a truly great few days.
Graham Marshment (64-67).

Lost and found

I have a new request from for our Lost and Found Column this month. Lena Pennington (66-69) has asked me if I can help her track down Gordon Tompsett from the 1965-68 era. If you can, please drop me a note and I’ll pass on the information to Lena.

Absent friends

And finally, I have been asked to pass on to you the sad news about the death of Mark Booton who was at college from 1974-77. His brother, Paul, tells me he passed away on the 20th June.

See you next month

Joe

Hello Everyone

Do you recognise anyone in this month’s cover photo? Charlie Graham (70-73) posted it on our Facebook Group page recently, challenging people to name the participants. I recognise many of the faces and lots of suggestions for names are popping up on FB. It looks like the group were at college in the early 70’s and if you want to put names to these faces click here to nip across to our FB page and see if your memory is still working.

Lost and Found

I have a couple of people looking for old friends this month, if you can help, please email me any information you have, and I’ll pass it on.

Gerald Kerslake (73-76) is trying to find Bill Browne (73-76). Bill studied History and PE and was friends with Tosh Battle and Phil Bevan. He would love to touch base again.

Geoff Elder (68-71) says: "Thanks Joe for bringing old friends together. Could I add one more to your list. Could you please ask if anyone knows anything about Joanna Cummins (68-71) Thanks.”

Caroline Willis nee Curran (74-76) says: "I Hope this email finds you in good health and spirits Joe. I would just like to check on one of my fellow students from 74 to 76. Her name is Pauline Clarke. I hear from her every Christmas, but I didn’t last year and I’m just wondering if anyone has heard anything about her.”

College Memories

Peter Baker has sent me a couple of pictures from his days with the Hockey Team back in the 1960’s. If you have any stuff like this, that you are willing to share with everyone, please send them to me and I’ll do the rest.

Peter Baker says: “I was at Simms 1964/67 and played hockey for the first team during that time. The club ran three teams then and we played all over the London area.  Father Beirne was the patron of the club and a great supporter. Some of the best players were from Gibraltar.” 

 Here are the names in the photo that I recall:

Back row, left to right: Lionel Perez RIP, John Appleton, Steve Rudman, 'Pip' Rodgers, Ken Robinson, Mike Worthington, Chris Whitfield, Fr. Powell?

Second Row: ?, Duffy, Joe Brennan (RIP), Pat Jordan, Pat O'Gara, ?, Pete Baker (capt 1966), ?,  ?, ?, Felix Cavanagh, ?, Fr Ryan?, ?, ?, Maurice Regan, ?.

Third Row: John Morton?, Vincent Latin, John O'Connor?, Mike Stevens (capt 1964), Fr Beirne (RIP), Pierre Le Cocq (capt 1965), Dave Stacey, Kevin Cook, ?.

Front Row: Brian Atkins, the last three I don't know.

Please excuse me if I have the names wrong or anyone has passed away that I am unaware of. I hope this photo will bring back memories for some.

The First XI 1964/65

Back Row, Left to Right: Mr Hanchett (umpire), Mike Hunt, Pete Baker, Chris Whitfield, Pierre Le Cocq (capt), John Appleton, Vincent Latin.

Front row, Left to Right: John Dawes, Lionel Perez, ?, Percy Dawes, Dave Stacey.

See you next month
Joe

Hello Everyone

I hope you’re all fit and well. This month we have been holding our first social get togethers of 2022 in London, Manchester and Bristol and I’m happy to say they were a great success. We didn’t achieve the numbers we were getting pre covid, but the desire is there, and I expect attendances to grow and return to pre pandemic levels as the year moves on. We hold these events three times a year at Easter, Summer and Xmas and if you are members of this group, you’ll hear all about them as they approach. To join us, just email me on the link above.

When I was at the Manchester reunion someone mentioned that they had a VW Van that they loved going on holiday in. This reminded me of the old VW Microbus we bought at the end of college for a road trip down to Italy where one of our group had family, so I thought I would share the memory with you. The cover picture above was taken in the countryside outside Paris and that’s yours truly sitting on the top! In those days there were plenty of these vans around and we went up to London to buy ours. Every Sunday morning outside the Australian High Commission on the Aldwych, there was a busy trade in them. Aussies going back home met there to sell the vans they had used to tour Europe, and the new influx of Aussies and anyone else quickly bought them up for their own trip. We got ours, took it home, painted it up as you see and fitted some basic cupboards and beds inside ready for our trip. At the end of the year, we took it back to the Aldwych and sold it on to new travellers. Many times, over the years I wish I’d kept hold of it!! 

Once it was ready, four of us drove down through France and Austria to Italy. We visited many wonderful places and met lots of people en route and had a great time. In Italy we saw Venice, Florence, Sienna and Pisa among lots of other places. Back in those days we were actually allowed to climb up to the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It was really weird looking over the railing at the top! I remember there were scooters everywhere, no driving etiquette and a fraction of the tourists you see nowadays. Happy days!

Jobs while at College!

I recently saw a posting on our Facebook Group from someone recalling one of the jobs they had while they were at college. As you can imagine, this has generated a huge number of responses some of which I have pinched and copied below for you.

Humphrey Needle says – I worked at Cross Deep on the maisonettes in 1968 during the summer holidays, carrying bricks for the bricklayers. Alan Cleary got me the job. It was hard work and glorious weather, and I used to pop into the Pope’s Grotto for a few pints of Youngs and then into college for a shower on the way home to Cambridge Road. Wonderful times.

Eddie Keane says – I worked at the Waldegrave Arms, or “Waldie” on a seasonal basis. I also worked at the Grundy beer barrel factory near Kingston during my summer holidays. At Christmas time I worked at the Twickenham postal sorting office transporting parcels from the railway station to the underground sorting office. The sorting was hectic and some burst open due to rough handling. At the end of a 12 hour shift the supervisor divvied up the spoiled goods which invariably included chocolates and biscuits! From January to March the 5 nations rugby at Twickenham saw me working as a glass collector or carpark attendant. I also got a bird’s eye view of the game. Good times indeed.

Giovanna Grabowski (1970-73 cohort), says “At the time I was lucky and had a government grant which helped, but during term time I worked at the takeaway chippie opposite the cinema in Twickenham. Can’t remember the names of either! We often had Pete Townsend from The Who come in. In the holidays I worked at a continental food and wine wholesalers. My husband Marek cleaned carriages for London Underground for a time”.

Susan Hennebury says “I was at Simms 73-76 and had part time jobs throughout. The first was at the Zippy bar in Twickenham and I still love a thick milkshake. I worked behind the bar at the Clarence in Teddington but the most fun was working at Cheeky Pete’s disco in Richmond. There was a whole crew of us from college who worked there behind the bar and some bouncers. It was non-stop, but great fun. A minibus would bring us back at 2pm and inevitably stop at the Kentucky Fried Chicken in Twickenham”.

If these few tales spark some memories of your own, there are over 100 other comments about such things on our Facebook Page. You can nip over there and spend half an hour wandering down memory lane. If you are not a member, please feel free to join the group.

Grand 50^th-ish Reunion

In case you have not yet heard there is a big reunion going on at the college over the weekend 10^th-12^th June. It is being organised by John Booth, who has done many of these over the years. Below is the introduction to his more detailed timetable of events. You can contact John for the full plan.

Dear Simmarian

Simmarians who were at St Mary’s in the early 1970’s have held a Reunion every 5 years since 1985. When we get there, this will be the eighth such do. [In 2015 we had over 200 attendees!]

For a couple of year groups this is either 50 years since you started, or 50 years since you left.

The invite is all embracing and is directed towards no particular group or year but we’re especially aiming at all Simmarians who arrived between Sept. 1970 and Sept. 1974

If you were in any adjacent years, feel free to weigh in, you’ll recognise the mood music.

After a couple of false starts (guess why!) in 2020 & 2021, we have organised a do on the weekend of June 10th – 12th 2022. The re-union itself is planned for the Saturday night in the Waldegrave Ballroom.

If you want further information or would like to book a place you will find John at idlebooths@blueyonder.co.uk or you can talk to the college directly on alumni@stmarys.ac.uk.

That’s enough for this edition. But if any of you out there have anything you’d like to tell us or memories of college you are happy to share, just send them into our massive editorial team (me!) and we’ll do our best to pass them on.

Stay Safe
Joe

 Hello Everyone,

How do you like this month’s photo? It’s a shot of the building of the chapel, taken in the early 60’s by one of our members, Pat O’Byrne who was a student between 1960 and 1963. Pat has been kind enough to share some memories of those days along with more photos which you can enjoy below. See if you can spot Tom O’Connor in one of the pictures. He was a student at St Mary’s before giving up teaching for a career in comedy!

Lost and found

As you know I occasionally get asked to help members try and find friends from their time at Simms, and this month I have been asked to try and trace a couple of people from the early 70’s. We have quite a good success rate at locating old friends so let’s see if you can help with any of these.

Patrick Doherty (72-75) says: “I am trying to trace a young lady named Ester McCormack. We shared a mutual friend outside the college and unfortunately, she has now passed away. I remember seeing Ester at Strawberry Hill and you are probably my last hope in trying to contact her.”

Zelma Braganza nee Ferriera (72-75) is looking to find Mary Kelly (nee Cunningham), Paul Kelly and Sister Magella, all of whom were at college from 1972 to 1975/6

If you can help us find any of these please drop me an email and I’ll pass on your details. Thanks.

Now, onto the memories and pictures from Pat O’Byrne.

First, to introduce myself:  I was a student at Simms from 1960 to 1963 in the days when its purpose was simply to train teachers.  Our cohort was the first of the three-year group; previously it had been just two years (probably to rush new teachers through, after the shortages caused by the war).  My brother Barry followed me through; he was there from 1962 to 1965 and was very active in the Country Dance Society which then was a major player in college life.  His son Damian is now on the Staff at Simms in the IT Department (I think!)

It was during my time that the new chapel was built, and I took some photos of it as it rose from the ground. In June 1962, the Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Godfrey came to bless the chapel and I took several more pictures of the celebration.  I am attaching some of the pictures for your interest.

You will see that, on the day, the roof had not been built so I climbed up among the rafters to take some of the pictures. The scaffolding can be clearly seen. The two priests assisting are Frs O'Dowd and Devine.

In the picture of the priests in procession outside the building, the Principal, Fr. Kevin Cronin, is seen third from the front in the procession.  The priest second from the back is Fr. McLean, Head Teacher of the John Fisher School in Purley, where my four brothers and I attended between 1947 and 1967.  At the end of Mass, as he left the altar, the Cardinal tripped and fell. To my dismay, my film had run out so I could not get a picture of this. Later, I heard that the Richmond and Twickenham Times was offering five pounds for a photo of his fall so my chance of fame slipped away. I doubt if I would have given it to them as the college authorities would probably have been a bit miffed about it. The Cardinal died about six months later - was it the fall?  Who knows?

I had a very happy life, teaching, for 54 years, retiring only in 2017, at the age of 75.  Not sure if this is a record. Like many other Simmarians, I married a teacher, Vivienne Jones, from Coloma College and we marked our Golden Wedding last year. I hope you find these pictures of interest; I need to share them before I shuffle off my mortal coil. 

My last offering was taken outside a cinema (long gone) at the junction of Cross Deep and Twickenham High Street, showing members of the College Country Dance Band.

On the left on the fiddle is Gerry Bennett (from Sheffield, last heard of living somewhere near Vancouver). On the white accordion is Tony Garrigan from Liverpool. This picture was taken at the end of our first year, in 1961, as can be seen on the poster. For our last two years, Tony led the Band at the Sunday evening dances and on bookings in London and on tours of Ireland, set up by John Cummins. They even appeared on a regular radio programme in Ireland, called "Ceili House. “On the drums is a young man who later became a National Treasure on television.  His name was Tom O'Connor.  Anyone heard of him???  Perhaps someone could use this picture on one of those "Before they were famous" films.

Best wishes to all those following at this wonderful College.

Pat O’Byrne (60-63)

I hope you’ve enjoyed Pat’s memories and photos. I bet there are a lot more of them out there in an old cardboard box near you. If you fancy having a rummage and sharing them with us, we’d love to see them.

Stay safe and healthy and I’ll see you next month.

Joe

Hello Everyone…and a belated Happy New Year.

I hope you are all well and looking forward to a better year than 2021 turned out to be.

The cover picture this month was posted on our Facebook page by Anne Geoghan (69-72) last September and it was so evocative of those times I thought I would share it with you. I started at Simms in 1969 and recognise many of the faces shown here. They are Maria Trevithick, Alan Parish, Shelagh Lindsay, Anne Leavy, Matt Geoghan, Carole Bunce, Andy Bazan, and John Ingram. The picture was taken outside No 15 during the 1^st term of 1969. While writing this I have noticed a spare pair of legs directly behind the first girl on the left. It looks like there is someone hiding almost exactly behind her…..any ideas who it might be?

Reunion News

John Booth (72-75) and Frank Sudlow (72-75) have been organising reunions at the college for many years now and they have another one coming up this June. Below is a brief message John recently sent out about this. If you’ve not seen this or would like to know more about it, please contact me or the college directly.

“Simmarians who were at St Mary’s in the early 1970’s have held a Reunion there every 5 years since 1985. When we get there this June, it will be the eighth such do. [In 2015 we had over 200 attendees!] For a couple of year groups this is either 50 years since you started, or 50 years since you left.

The invitation is all embracing and is directed towards no specific group or year but we’re particularly aiming at all Simmarians who arrived between Sept. 1970 and Sept. 1974. If you were in any adjacent years, feel free to weigh in, you’ll recognise the mood music.

After a couple of false starts (guess why!) in 2020 & 2021, we have organised a do on the weekend of June 10th – 12th 2022.”

Memories of College Life.

Gerry Creagh, whose is our second oldest member and was at St Mary’s from 1948-50 has sent me some recollections of what life was like back then. I’m sure many of you will recall the names and places:

At the end of the Spring Term,1950, as the College social secretary, I organised the Rugby Club Supper at the Waldegrave Arms with fifty attending.  En masse, we exited the pub at 10pm closing time, formed a “column of 3s platoon” and singing traditional college songs, we happily marched back to our Alma Mater. 

The high gate into the College sports grounds was closed which meant we would have to march on for over a quarter of a mile, to get to the main students' entrance. There was a formidable eight-foot-high boundary wall, but I decided that was not going to be an obstacle to ex-service men who wanted to take a short-cut into their college grounds and in mutually well-trained commando fashion, I organised the lads to assail that stone wall. 

One after another, they quickly ran across the road, stepped up into my clasped hands and were hauled up and over the wall, to resounding cheers as each one made it. Finally, I had to make it myself……. Two second-row forwards hung over the wall, ready to haul me over but just as I started my run, a police car pulled up and a bloody great Alsatian was released. As I hung on the arms of my "fellow commandos", the Alsatian got its teeth into my trouser leg. The more I yelled to my buddies to let me go, the more determined they became that the Law wouldn't get me! 

The dog was making an unholy racket which persuaded my mates to let me go. As I turned to cower against the wall, two coppers ran up and yelled "Sit!" 

I sat, only to be hauled to my feet...."Not you, you bloody idiot...the dog!"

I was bundled into the "paddy-waggon" and hauled to the Twickenham "Nick" to be arraigned, for disturbing the peace. Dressed in my college blazer, it was obvious I was a student at St Mary’s, but the neighbours had complained….and I was, literally, the "fall guy"! 

As the Sergeant was making out the charge sheet asking the usual questions, the phone rang. He listened and shook his head in disbelief, then he began to laugh.

"Aren't you the lucky one to have such good mates!” That was Fr. Sweeney, your Dean of Discipline who said that all 50 of the College Rugby Club has just “rocked up” at his bedroom and told him that, like the Three Musketeers, it's "All for One and One for All" and they asserted that all 50 of them should be charged.... not just you alone!  “There's no way we are going to charge all 51 of you, so a constable will drive you back to College. ……. Don’t disturb the neighbours again!"  

My second - very expensive - brush with the Law, was as a result of celebrating the end of Final Teaching Practice at a Kingston Secondary Modern, in January, with Vin Green and Tommy Slater.

Just after my first brush with Law described above, we three were called to the Principal's Officer to be confronted by an Inspector of the Railway Police. The “Prinnie”, Fr Kevin Cronin, looked very severe as he recited the charges of…… “disturbing the peace and causing a 10-minute delay to the timetable of Southern Railway at Clapham Junction, at 9pm on Friday, 27th January 1950 ……etc, etc, etc.”

He paused, then asked us if any blood had been spilled or blows struck at the police or members of the Public…. or was there any damage to Railway property? We answered “No” to each question. He looked at us in turn with his piercing blue eyes and said, “So, it was as a result of your simply letting off steam, after Finals?” We answered in unison, “Yes”.

His face then broke into a broad smile as he exclaimed, “Wouldn’t you know it! I said to Fr Twomey only last week that we hadn’t had a student in the hands of the Police for three years……and now we’ve got you three! 

“The Inspector says you are to appear in Kingston Magistrates Court next month and the College Barrister will represent you …… “Ite in pace!”

Home we went to sweat it out over the Easter Vac.

On the day, all the expensive barrister said was…. “Guilty - as charged!” We got an “ear-hammering" from the Magistrates …… "Irresponsibility, bad example to future pupils, etc etc” then they fined us £5 each. 

In addition, we had to contribute £5 each to the College barrister’s fee.

A bottle of Guinness cost 1s 3p, but the 8 bottles of Guinness I drank that night, cost me a total of £10…. a third of my subsistence grant for that term! 

(PS Pre-decimalisation…. £1=20 shillings=240 old pence)

Gerry Creagh - St Mary's College, Strawberry Hill, 1948/1950

And Finally

Kevin Cook, former Geography Lecturer and active member of SHOCC (Strawberry Hill Overseas and Community Concern) has asked me if I can bring to your attention the efforts of one of our members, Dee Smith (72-75). Below is the message and link he sent me.

SHOCC is running a campaign called "DEE'S BEES" to raise funds to enable Dee Smith (1972-1975) to purchase 50 beehives at her hospice in Guatemala. Each hive costs £50 and we are inviting donors to buy a hive. So far, we have raised funding for 8 hives. Hopefully, with the help of your group, we can increase this number.

The link to the Just Giving campaign is https://www.justgiving.com/campaign/deesbees 

Many thanks,

Kevin

Right. That’s enough for your first newsletter of the year. I’ll let you go and digest all that for now and see you again next month. Meanwhile, if you have any photos and/or memories of your time at college that you would like to share, send them over and we’ll see what we can do.

TTFN

Joe

Joe@theloughrans.co.uk

Hello Everyone

How are you all? Things seem to be calming down a bit on the Covid front, and I’m guessing that most of us have been double jabbed by now so, maybe we’re able to get out a bit more than we have been able to up to press. When I was writing this, I got a text from the Government telling me I was now eligible to receive my first booster jab and simply by following the link on there I was booked in to a local pharmacy and was jabbed within two days, and on the same day my wife and I received a text from our local surgery asking us to book in for our winter flu injection, and by the time you read this we will have been done.

Now that we can get out and about a bit more, I thought I would use this month’s article to talk about reconnecting and let you know about, and report, on the reinstatement of our social get togethers in London, Manchester, and Bristol. Those of you who are in our email or facebook group will already be aware of these. We held the first one recently in London, which is this month’s cover picture, and the story of that is next up.

London Meeting at The Chandos

We held our first social get together post covid (?) last Friday at our usual location just off Trafalgar Square. It wasn’t the biggest turnout we’ve ever had but that wasn’t the point. We were attempting to restart this very successful social event and we did. There were more old friends there than the picture shows, but a few people had already left before someone reminded me to take the “official” picture of attendees!

The most positive outcome for us was the landlord’s attitude to our group. Some years ago, I asked him if we could reserve the front of the upstairs bar where we sit, and he refused on the grounds that he doesn’t take reservations from anyone. However, about a year ago he changed his mind and we have been able to save our space for our own use ever since. When I spoke to him before this meeting, he told me that the upstairs bar wasn’t open at the moment because he couldn’t get sufficient staff to run it. Having said that, he still wanted us there, so he agreed to open the upstairs area for our exclusive use if we went downstairs to order our drinks etc.

This gives me huge confidence that we have a great, central spot for our meetings, fully supported by the landlord, which means that there will always be space and a welcome for us at future events.

We will be holding our next meeting there around the end of November (our Christmas do!) if you fancy giving it a go.

Reconnecting

One of the main reasons we have this group is to help past students reconnect with each other and although I know this happens, I rarely hear about it, but when I recently sent out the latest updated contact list, I got the following response from our member Martin Gonzales (73-76)

Hey Joe

Thanks for this. I’ve scrolled down the list paying very close attention to the 70s, and a lot of forgotten names and faces have surfaced! Maybe some of them are blurred as Time, the unforgiving Master of Destiny, plays games with Memory, but wow this is an amazing document!

Thanks for all your time and effort. Via this forum I have been in contact with at least 12 friends from Simms in the 70’s. God bless you and please rest assured that your work is much appreciated.

Martin

It was nice to have it confirmed that the contact list actually works (and quite well apparently) that I asked Matin if he could pen a short piece for this month’s eNews….and this is what he wrote.

“I don’t recall exactly how I came across the group but I’m so glad I did! Having been out of touch with my college buddies and acquaintances, except for those who live in Gibraltar, for over 40 years, it’s wonderful to hear from old friends via the group!

I’ve posted some photos on the group’s FB page, all that remain from my time in Simms during the mid-70s. My biggest regret was throwing away hundreds of photos I’d taken at Simms when I sold up and moved house a few years ago after the death of my wife. I was forced to downsize and got rid of all my “stuff” which included slides, black and white photos, and hundreds of negatives which I never printed. I never thought I might need them again! There would doubtless have been something of interest to the group in that collection. I could have rivalled Marianne McAleer’s treasure chest…..wishful thinking!

I love scrolling down the lists and trying to put faces to the names. Many names seem to ring a distant bell, although the faces are mostly blurred by time. Let’s keep the group alive with old photos, anecdotes from the past and news of reunions!”

Back in May Peter Nolan (68-71) joined our group and sent me this note after receiving, what was then, the current contact list.

Hello Joe,

Many thanks for letting me join the group.

We must have met sometimes in the Physics lab. There was only Paul ????? and me doing B. Ed Physics in 71-72 which was your final year. I remember a young Mr. Mackie doing his PHD and lecturing us. And who can forget Dr. Vosper and the superb Mrs. Travis in her Sunbeam Alpine looking like someone out of the Avengers. Yes, a few names jump out at me from the list. One or two good friends who I lost touch with.

There are so many stories of life at college come to mind! I'll post a few pics over the next few weeks. My great friend at college, Mick Bolton, sadly died on New Year's Eve. He lived next door to me in Wigan and moved down to St. Mary's straight after A levels, studying Music. I joined the bank but was unhappy and left after 6 months. I used to visit him regularly every fortnight and we would watch bands at the Coliseum and other venues like the Barmy Arms where sometimes members of the Strawbs and the Who would just get up and play. He filled in a college application for me and the next thing I knew I had been asked down for an interview!

After I got in, we shared digs in Richmond then Twickenham, but he got thrown out midway through his 3rd year, my 2nd. He moved back to Wigan and started a civil service job in Manchester. He auditioned and played organ for Mott the Hoople joining them on 2 tours of the States and one in Japan.

He left and joined Dexys Midnight Runners and another claim to fame was teaching Linda McCartney to play the organ. He used to visit their house regularly. If you google 'Mick Bolton Mott the Hoople' you can read about him.

Best wishes

Pete Nolan

Future Meetings

Below are the dates of our established gatherings. They are set in a central, easy to get to, location at a time of day that allows you to get there and home again in one day and we have people coming to these events from great distances. We chose Manchester and Bristol because people asked for meetings in those areas, and we can establish similar get togethers in other places if enough of you want to attend. I have been asked to set them up in the Birmingham area, the Northeast, Scotland and Ireland and I have also received requests from Central Florida, Australia, and Gibraltar! If you are willing to host a meeting in your area let me know and we’ll see what we can do to set something up.

Now, next Tuesday (5th October) is our Manchester gathering. We meet in O’Shea’s pub at 12 noon. Click on the link for detail of the pub. From the comments and messages I have received so far it should be a good show.

We’re also starting up the Bristol get together on the following Wednesday (13th October) at The Knights Templar Pub at 12 noon for those of you in the Southwest.

I’ll look forward to seeing some of you there.

So ‘til the next time…stay safe

Joe 

Hello Everyone,

I thought I’d start you off this month with an enquiry I recently received asking for help with identifying and (hopefully) tracking down the people in this picture. The lady who sent it to me tells me there are three names on the back Orlando, Jorge, and Lil or Lol. (I don’t know if the names are in the same sequence as the people). Apparently, it was taken in 1969 and she would like to know where the photo was taken, and if anyone has any news and or contact details for the people you can see. I recognise the guy on the left of the shot but can’t put a name to him. If you can help, please get back to me and I will pass on the information to her.  

Social Gatherings 

Covid has played havoc with many things, and one of them was our get togethers. As you know we have two very healthy groups meeting three times a year in London and Manchester, and we had just started a South West group in Bristol when the dreaded lurgy struck. Well now that we can apparently all start moving around again, we can think about reinstating these. We would normally hold a meeting in July or August, but that may still be a bit too soon for many people, so I thought we might look at kicking them off with our Xmas gatherings sometime in early December. I’ll put some feelers out and report back to you next month. 

Facebook Groups 

In my June article I told you about the formation of two new Facebook Groups covering the first two decades of this century, and if you take a wander through the college website, you will notice that the Alumni section has now been revamped to reflect these as well as the 1980’s group which has been going for some time now. There is also a 1990’s group with a significant membership, and we expect them to have a presence on the website shortly. Once they are all up and running there will be 5 groups covering all the students who have attended St Mary’s in the last 60 years (and earlier), which gives the college a huge opportunity to reach out and engage with many more people than they ever had before. 

And talking about Facebook Groups, our pages are looking very interesting at the moment. Some of the new members who have found us and joined recently have been posting some great pictures and memories of their days at St Mary’s. If you’re a member go and have a look at them, you might see yourself in glorious black and white and if you haven’t yet joined click here and sign up. 

Occasional Stuff 

One of our members, Eddie McClusky, who was at the college in 1961 has been in touch and sent me some memories of The London Simmarian Club. It was before my time, but I’m sure it will bring back memories for some of you. 

“I became a member of The London Simmarian Club soon after leaving College in 1964 and getting my first PE teacher post at St Thomas More School, Tottenham where I remained for 42 years, the whole of my teaching career. The headteacher was John Chamberlain, now deceased, a staunch Simmarian who had on the staff, at the time, a continuous sequence in leaving years of graduates from Simmaries. He insisted that I joined the meetings and there got to know Laurie Ibberson, the secretary, and other headteachers John Cullinane and Lou Irwin who was the head at St Josephs, Beulah Hill. The monthly meetings were held at The Irish Club in Eaton Square and the annual dinner at Quaglinos in Piccadilly. I was given the responsibility of organising and running the London primary schools’ 5-a-side competition that was held for many years at the College on a Saturday morning. When this competition finally came to an end as a result of falling school numbers participating, I replaced it with The Lou Irwin Trophy supported by the Irwin family for many years for Secondary schools’ First Football X1’s. The finals over the years have been played on top non-league football grounds Barking FC and Enfield FC where I happened to be the Manager at the time and in more recent years at Enfield Town FC. I am very grateful to these clubs who have provided their facilities free of charge over the years to give the competition a top-class ground fitting for this London Catholic Schools and Colleges finale. That competition has now been running successfully since the 1970’s, only stopped from conclusion in 2019/20 by Covid restrictions and unfortunately not able to run for 2020/21 for the same reason. Hopefully back up and running for the academic year 2021/22. 

The London Simmarian Club came to a sad end when the officers grew old and there was not a younger element prepared to keep it running but fortunately the name lives on with The London Simmarian Club Lou Irwin Football Trophy.” 

- Eddie McClusky 

Right. I’ll let you all get back to what you were doing before this missive dropped into your inbox and if any of you have pictures and memories that you are willing to commit to paper, you can send them to me, and I’ll see if we can add them to these pages. 

Take Care 

Joe 

Hello everyone,

How are you all? Now that summer is upon us, I thought I would give you all a nice sunny picture for this month’s news. This was sent in by John Thornley and shows one of the many floats at the 1973 Strawberry Fair.

The first thing I want to tell you about is the formation of two new Facebook Groups. Our FB group for the 60’s and 70’s has been going for some years now and has been joined by the “1980 Simmarians” and the “1990 Simmarians” groups, which are self-explanatory and have very healthy memberships. Well now, we have been joined by the “Simmies 2000” and the “Simmies 2010” groups to provide a separate home for past students from those decades to find old friends and share memories and photos from their time at college (sorry University!)

I know that to you and me, we are Simmarians and always will be, just like it is a College and not a University, but I am reliably informed that not only is it now a Uni, but the modern intake are Simmies, not Simmarians……what can I say, we have to move with the times. You can read more about these new groups elsewhere in this newsletter. The creation of these provides 5 distinct FB groups covering students from the last 60 years of St Mary’s life and we are looking forward to working with the college to use them to improve and enhance the Alumni experience.

Now that we seem to be getting on top of Covid we can start to think ahead about reinstating our social get togethers again. As you know, we meet up three times a year in London, Manchester, and Bristol and if Boris removes all Covid restrictions on 21st June as planned we can look forward to getting back together sometime in July. If you want to be part of these meetings, you’ll need to be members of our Facebook Group or contact list. If you’re not, and you’d like to be, just drop me an email and I’ll sign you up pronto.

Now, some time ago Tim Hipkiss (65-68) sent me the article below and I promised to share it with you guys… so here it is. I hope you enjoy it.

Simms Rugby Tour to France 1967

In this awful year of Covid I have spent a lot of time, like so many other people, reminiscing. The contributions in the Simms Magazine recording the success of so many leading athletes who have links with Simms are interesting but there does not seem to be any accounts of the non-specialists who participate in the wide range of activities that I remember were available at Simms in my day. You could join a club and participate irrespective of your skill or ability and through this facility possibly develop an interest that had been stifled or even dissuaded in the educational system of the late 50s and the 60s. It was through this facility and friendship of Simmarians that I developed an interest in Rugby, I was not very good, but I enjoyed myself. The highlight for me was going on the Rugby Club tour to Bergerac and Sarlat in March 1967. My recollection of this tour is somewhat hazy, not just caused by time but also a strong contribution by ‘vin’ at the time! What follows are my somewhat confused but nevertheless happy memories. Any errors would be happily accepted and corrected.

The trip began in the Bar at Simms on the evening of March 17th, yes St Patrick’s Day, which was an excuse to ensure that dehydration would not be an issue and once adequately hydrated we moved to Victoria Station, whether we went from Strawberry Hill and changed at Richmond I honestly have no idea. We then went from Victoria to Newhaven to catch the night ferry to Dieppe. I know we had to have our own passports but as to tickets etc. I believe this was all arranged by a member of the committee of the Rugby Club. Once on the ferry some tried to sleep on the benches in the saloon, others continued the hydration process!

On arrival at Dieppe, we chanted our way into the port! As the ship was pulled in backwards, repeated choruses of “Haul him down you Zulu warriors” alerted the Port staff, Duane and Gendermerie of our arrival. One of our party was not welcomed to France and had to return on board! The fluent French intervention of another of the party enabled the ‘banished one’ to rejoin the group ashore. I do remember some of us sat down alongside the train in protest but that did not last long. Eventually we were all accounted for and on the train. The party had increased in size since arrival at Dieppe, with one or two Madamoiselles joining us as they wished to play in the front row! From where they came, I have no idea, but I recall that when the ticket inspector came round during the journey, he discovered they did not have tickets and they were removed from the train.

Once in Paris we went off in small groups to eat a meal which could be called either breakfast or brunch. I ended up in a small bar eating a gristly and very fatty “Jambon sandwich” and a black coffee. Which station we arrived at and which one we departed from I have no idea but again the ‘committee member’ had the tickets and organized us onto the correct train for Bergerac. I think most of us dozed our way south towards Bergerac.

On arrival in Bergerac, we were met by our hosts and transported by coach to Sarlat. It is from now on that event become confused in my memory. At some point we were taken to a chateau and were hosted to a wine tasting with dignitaries of the wine growers in ceremonial robes. The wine, a Bergerac, and a walnut liqueur “Noisette”, topped us up and prepared us for the evening reception in the ancient town hall in Sarlat. The first course of the meal was soup with noodles in it and at this point we were inducted into the method of clearing the noodles, red wine was poured into the soup bowls and then drunk from the bowl. Our overnight accommodation was a dormitory in a school, I think.

The following day there was a match against Sarlat, but I can’t remember the result. I do remember that the pitch was very sandy, and this caused friction burns on legs and uncovered flesh. The next day was a Sunday and it must have been Palm Sunday for when we went to mass in the church in the centre of Sarlat most of the congregation were carrying large boughs of evergreen shrubs. In the afternoon we travelled to Bergerac where we were accommodated in a variety of locations, I ended up in a small hotel with another member of the party.

The time phases now become confused because I remember a series of events, but in which order they happened is lost in the changing room of time. There was a match in a somewhat daunting stadium, again with a very sandy pitch. Our hooker was injured and had treatment and x-rays which revealed broken ribs. Again, I do not recall the result, many of the team had their sand burns treated with something like gentian violet.

In the evening there was an official reception in possibly the Salon des Fetes of Bergerac because I recall a formal layout of tables on a balcony overlooking a dance floor. The committee of the Bergerac club were very much in attendance along with other dignitaries and so began an evening of bacchanalian pleasure, commencing with the soup bowl activity as before. For me and others of the party it also included a nightclub/disco by the river and a somewhat circuitous walk back to the hotel.

The next day bleary eyed, delicate, and weary we made our way back to Paris by train. From Paris we must have travelled overnight because I do remember waiting at Victoria coach station for the majority of the next day to catch the motorway bus back to Birmingham as it was now the Easter holiday from college.

The names of people on the tour that I recall are few and I hope others will be added. They are:

Peter Murphy, Peter Ormerod, Jake Wade, Colin Lucas, John Quinn, John Lee Hooker, Paul Speakman, Bob Bacon, Dennis Brady, Terry Fowler, and two members of staff from the P.E. Department Jim O’Callaghan and Bill McLoughlin accompanied us.

For those tour members I have forgotten please accept my apologies and perhaps let Joe know who you were, or other people could fill in the gaps.

Best wishes to all and thanks for another fondly remembered Simmarian experience.

Tim Hipkiss 65-68 proud member of the Vipers.

That’s all for now Folks…. I’m off to catch some rays!

Laters.
Joe

Hello Everyone

I hope this month’s cover shot brings back happy memories. This is the cinema at the traffic lights in Twickenham town centre. We saw many famous pictures there: I remember watching The Exorcist and The Graduate, not to mention Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. I still remember those movies with huge fondness, they stay with you all your life. It also has a special memory for me because one of our Rag Week stunts was to sit on upturned dustbins outside the cinema for 12 hours, collecting money. When we got bored, we started jumping off the bins when the traffic lights were red and hassling the car drivers for money too. Happy days.

Now, let’s talk Covid… It would appear to be slowly coming under control, so we can start thinking about reinstating our get togethers in London, Manchester and Bristol. As you know we hold these three times a year in each place, so I’ll start thinking about dates for the Summer and Xmas meetings and keep you informed of progress through the enews, Facebook and the email group as usual.

This month I am including a memory of Fr Cronin, sent to me by David Stacey and a wonderful story by John (Toby) Twort about his arrival and first few weeks at college back in 1966. I hope you enjoy them. If you have any memories of your time at college that you would like to share please send them to me and I’ll make sure they get posted here for all to see.

Fr Cronin

Back in February I was sent this picture of Fr Cronin by David Stacey together with a few words to mark the anniversary of his death. I have already shared it with our email group but I’m sure there are many of you out there who will also remember him.

Hello Joe,

I wonder if any of your amazing Simmarians will remember Father Kevin Cronin CM?

He was Principal during my time (63-66) but may have retired two or three years after I left - hopefully, he didn't retire because of me!

Today is the anniversary of his death - 12th February 1992 - he was 84 years old. RIP. I think Fr Cronin was succeeded by Father Tom Cashin. Father Byrne was Head of Divinity during my time at Simms and I think he too was appointed Principal at a later stage. Not sure how many of our happy 63-66 cohort are in "Joe's amazing group" but hope this may be of interest to you and other Simmarians.

Very best wishes and renewed thanks for all you do to remind us of treasured times at Strawberry Hill.

David Stacey (63-66)

Memories of Arriving at St Mary’s

September 1966. Arrived at the Old House to register with two school friends, Paul King and Dave Ayling, having travelled down to Paddington by steam train on the GWR, from Birmingham Snow Hill.

We were also accompanied by Kathy Wilkes, a friend from our old youth club, one of the first female students. The admission of females was not any kind of admission that women could teach, it was a realisation that the college was desperate for students.

I was initially dismayed to be allotted digs in Mortlake. I arrived there and met up with two other lads, one from Wales, the other from Middlesbrough. Brian Harvey, whose main subject was Art. I was doing (we never said “reading”) English and History. Brian was to become a good friend and we went on to share digs together at Hampton Wick, having complained to the College about the bizarre breakfast routine at the digs - the owner and his wife, Eastern Europeans, both left for work early and our breakfast was laid out, consisting of a piece of bread for toast, a slice of salami and one cup with a spoonful of instant coffee. More disturbing was the fact they kept the owner’s father incarcerated in the front room.

The college found us a room in Hampton Wick, with a lovely lady and her slightly eccentric husband. We could walk into college from there and it wasn’t too far to stagger back on Saturday nights from the weekly dance. Brian went on to stay there in his second year with Paul King, as I got a room in halls, having been made fixtures secretary for the Soccer club.

That first week was certainly memorable, trying to impress on two fronts.

First, in the refectory, eyeing the parade of sophisticated girls who lined up for lunch and tea. As it turned out, both Dave and I met our wives at Simms. Dave married Ann Prior, their marriage in our second year sent shock waves round the college. I married Barbara Ward - lucky me. 53 and 48 years respectively, later. We live 20 minutes’ walk from each other and are regularly in touch.

Second, on the football pitch, with trials for the college team. Inevitably, Paul went straight in to the first team although he played for our First-Year team in a local league, on Wednesday afternoons where we would come up against Kew Market Traders and other likely lads in what turned out to be a very successful season. Joe Jagger, Mick’s dad, would occasionally coach us from the side lines.

Apart from Paul, the other stand out player was Bob Houghton, who had trials for Fulham. Always immaculately turned out in a blazer and tie, when not on the pitch. With his blonde hair and Cockney accent, he was a dead ringer for Bobby Moore who in 1966 lifted the World Cup for England. Bob Houghton went on to coach Malmo. They were runners-up in the 1979 European

Champions Cup final, which they lost 1–0 to English club Nottingham Forest, in what was, if my memory serves me right, the most boring Cup Final in the history of the European Cup.

But Bob was a lovely bloke, and I shall always remember the strains of “Reach Out I’ll Be There”, by The Four Tops -my introduction to Motown, bellowing out from his room in the Old House as he got ready for a night out back in Croydon. Refectory teas were mainly good, and my particular favourite was on Sunday nights, when it was very often, veal, ham and egg pie, salad and chips - I sometimes still have it at home.

Could not finish without reference to The Waldie (Waldegrave Arms) which became the first port of call every Wednesday and Saturday after football and tea. Imagine being able to buy 9 pints of Watney’s Mild at a shilling and a penny pint - 1/1d in old money - and still have change from a ten-bob note! (50p.) We were Brummies’ - we drank mild then, none or your fancy Watney’s Red Barrel. Games of Round the Clock on the dartboard with The Monkees being screened on a small black and white TV perched precariously on a shelf.

Paul, Dave, Ann and I went on to be head teachers eventually, and Barbara became deputy head at our local Catholic primary school, whereas Year VI teacher, her class achieved top of the league SATS scores.

So, all in all, Simms proved to be a catalyst in our lives for the good and I have nothing but many and more happy memories.

I’ll leave you with one recollection.

Each club or society was granted one of the Saturday dances as a fund raiser.

The soccer club were lucky to have Tony Rivers and the Castaways -very popular Beach Boys type harmony group. My friend Brian Harvey, a decent inside forward and “artist”, was the obvious choice to paint a banner which was to be hung up across the top of the stage.

Brian painstakingly went about this and on the afternoon of the dance we helped to string it across the stage. But to our horror we noticed that it read as follows: -

TONY RIVERS AND THE CASTASTAWAYS

It was quickly pulled down and somehow, we managed to fold over the extra letters and rehang it. Brian was still having his leg pulled about that last time I saw him...in the Waldie.

John (Toby) Twort (66-69)

I hope you enjoyed those reads. I’m off to do something in the garden now the sun has finally arrived.

See you next month.

Joe

Hello Everyone

Welcome to the first eNews of 2021.

Covid has changed the way we all have to operate, and this group and the College are no different. As you know we have had to put all our social get togethers in London, Manchester and Bristol on hold until all this is over, and the College has had to cancel all reunions planned to be held there. However, we can still keep in touch. The Facebook group is stronger and more active than ever, and I try to keep you all up to speed with my occasional messages to the email group. For the moment, these eNews articles will be coming out every two months, but on the positive side the 1980’s group of Simmarians have agreed to start posting articles aimed at students who were there during that decade, so look out for the first one of those in the next April.

Now then…. onto nicer stuff!

Do you like this month’s picture? It was recently posted by Marianne McAleer on our Facebook page and shows a float for the 1974 Rag Week going down Waldegrave Road on Strawberry Fair day. There are more pictures of that day, including the famous “ducking Stool!” on the site, and if you click here you can nip over there and have a gander. I spoke to Marianne about her pictures and she kindly agreed to write a short piece for this eNews about her memories of that day and here it is.

"As a student at St Mary’s from 1973 to 1977 I had the time of my life. I found myself in a beautiful place, studying subjects I adored and surrounded by people my own age. And there was something intangible about this college that brought out the best in people. We all seemed so happy to be there!

 Over Lockdown I’ve been delving into the tea chests and shoe boxes of yesteryear, in the hope of digitising my ancient slides before the colours and images deteriorate beyond recognition. Remember those oil lights at the discos – all psychedelic swirling colours? Well, that’s what happens to slides. I wish I’d known that in the seventies!

 Bringing these images to life and posting them on the Simms Facebook page has taken untold hours but it has also brought back fantastic memories of the friendly characters I knew back then. I always had a small, basic Instamatic in my backpack at college. Point and click. Although it was simple it was trustworthy - and I could produce it at a moment’s notice to capture a smile, a milk churn in a tree, a chef in the ref, an eager gathering around the Porter’s Lodge, a row of feet along a rooftop, evening sunlight through the many trees around Strawberry Hill, pints flowing, inspiring lecturers, unforgettable housemates, girls in their long dresses, guys in their dickie bows, Vincentian priests, guitarists, Chapel Choir-ists, tennis players, thespians, candlelit dinners, last nights of term in the bar and, of course, anyone who might be dressed in a deliberately silly way.

 Photos from June 1974 surfaced recently, taking me back to the madness of Rag Week and the gorgeous mini festival that was Strawberry Fair Day, when the sun shone gladly down on the college lawns and hilarious antics were everywhere to be seen.

 During the week, a 24-hour disco offered a challenge for the energetic. We began dancing late at night and gradually the spectators drifted off to bed, leaving us to jive and twirl the dark hours away. A ten-minute break every two hours allowed just enough time for a dash to the loo but otherwise we had to keep moving – there were student inspectors there throughout the 24 hours to make sure we were lifting our feet off the ground! After about five hours that old saying, “Dance like there’s no one watching,” became our mantra and kept us going until the following evening’s witnesses arrived, a stage appeared from somewhere and then – who’s idea was this??? – spotlights! Just as we reached exhaustion! No matter, it was a wonderful experience and after a good sleep I felt as if I could do it all over again.

 A Ram Rod Bitter lorry, loaded with fancy dressed students and adorned with balloons and streamers, took to the streets of Twickenham on the morning of Strawberry Fair Day. Lipstick, rouge and Dusty Springfield eye makeup were essential to ensure we’d be noticed by suburbia and, with any luck, entice locals to the college to shed their hard-earned cash. Looking at the photos there doesn’t seem to have been a discernible theme to the costumes. Anything eye-catching was a winner. Here was an opportunity to be outrageous.

 For the rest of the day there were stalls and amusements around the college grounds, tombolas and coconut shies, fellow students making beer can pyramids, priests strolling through the cheerful crowds – and the ducking stool!

 We were young. It was summertime. Among we lucky Simmarians grew an undeniable camaraderie.

 The photos tell the tale."

 Marianne McAleer (McPhillips) – February 2021

 I’m sure that has brought back fond memories for many people, and it might be a good idea to see if we can’t get more of you to share your memories with us on these pages. We can investigate this more while Lockdown is still on. I’ll be in touch.

I couldn’t resist sharing the picture below, which comes from the ones Marianne posted on her Facebook page. It shows her and Bill McCarthy at the 24hr Disco that year. And the reason I can’t resist it, is that in 1970/71 I was a member of the Rag Committee who first thought of holding this event. We wanted all the Radio 1 DJ’s to do a spot and spent several weeks chasing round London trying to meet them, and by hanging around outside the BBC offices and Radio Luxemburg etc, we spoke to Jimmy Saville. Ed Stewart (Stewpot), John Peel, Tony Blackburn, Kenny Everett, Dave Lee Travis and a couple of others, who were all most gracious and said they would gladly do a spot if everyone else did…….so, of course, no one did! Still, we had fun tracking them down and the disco went ahead anyway and raised lots of money. I’m glad to see it carried on for many years afterwards.

Time to sign off now boys and girls. I hope you enjoyed this edition of the eNews. You can now get back to doing whatever has been keeping you sane during this time and I’ll see you all in April.

Joe

Hello Everyone…….

The last time we spoke in July everyone was working out ways to cope with Coronavirus, and the college has been no exception. It has had to make many adjustments, some temporary and some permanent and fortunately for us the hiatus in alumni relations was a temporary result of the pandemic. 

The college has always been committed to its Alumni and was keen to restart alumni activities in some form as soon as possible and recommencing the Alumni News and our page on their website is a good start. You can appreciate that reunions and college visits are off the agenda for the moment, but I’m sure we can look forward to reintroducing these in some form in the second half of next year. 

The same is true of our own social get togethers. As some of you may know our group has been holding well attended meetings in London and Manchester of some years now, and we were just about to hold our second Bristol gathering when the dreaded lurgy struck, but as soon as conditions allow these will be back on the agenda. The cover photo above was taken at one of our get togethers at The Chandos in London a couple of years ago. 

So, what’s been happening since July? 

Lost and Found Bureau 

Back in July we had just started this. From time to time, we get asked to track down old friends, and I have to say, we have enjoyed a very good strike rate. So, I decided to create the Lost and Found Bureau to give it a more regular footing, and I’m glad I did. Since then, I get requests to find old friends every month and if it goes on like this, I’m going to have to change my name to Columbo! 

Pass Lists 

For some unknown reason I still have a copy of my Pass List from 1972 and I thought it would be a good idea to collect these into a library so our members could enjoy a trip down memory lane. Since then, I have managed to get hold of lists from 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1971, 1972, 1976 and 1980. If you would like to see one of these or have any of the missing ones in a box in the attic, we’d love to hear from you. 

And finally, after a few months off, let me remind you of who we are and what we do. We now have over 1000 members in our email contact group from all over the world and are unearthing new ones every week. This group is the one we use to keep in touch with everyone about what we’re doing, such as social events, news and tracking down old friends etc. But the big drawback with the email group, is that you can’t share pictures, memories and banter on it, which is where the Facebook Group comes in. Now that this has grown to 750 peeps it is full of all these things. Members have dug up and posted a host of old photographs which in turn have attracted lots of comments and banter. It is a fully private and closed group, and you have to have gone to college in the 60’s or 70’s to join it. As a consequence, there are no unwanted adverts or silly clips of dancing cats etc. I would strongly recommend a visit to see what it can offer you. Click here to start the fun! 

Right, I’m off now to cook my tea, but if you want to join us or have any questions you can get hold of me at joe@theloughrans.co.uk. 

So, until next month, please stay safe and well. 

Joe

x

Hello Everyone,

I hope I find you fit and well and Covid free.

Here is this month’s cover picture, sent to me by Jim Coffey. Do any of you recognise the people and/or the place it was taken? I’m not going to tell you about it here, but I have included the details Jim sent me at the end of this issue, for those of us with fading memories. I certainly recognise most of the faces, but I’m afraid the names escaped me! 

Lost and Found “Bureau”

If you are a member of our email group you will already know that I get occasional requests to help old friends find each other, with a remarkable degree of success. Recently a lady emailed the university to see if they could help her track down her mother, who she thought was at St Mary’s around 1970, but was unsure of the subjects she studied and her name at the time! The university was unable to help and passed her on to me. I duly sent out a missive to the group and not only did you know who she was, but two different members were able to give me her mother’s name, home address and phone number back then. How good is that?

As a result of a success like this I felt we should make more of an effort to offer this ‘track and trace’ service to our members, so I thought we could start a new lost and found “bureau” and see how it went. Of course, this exclusive service will only be available to members of our contact group, so if you want to get help finding old friends, you’ll need to join us. Just email me as above and I’ll happily sign you up.

Talking of membership, I have just issued a new contact list for the group split in to 5-year groups. Below are the number of members we have in each group together with the few naughty ones who have forgotten to give me their starting dates! If you would like to keep in touch with the people who were at college when you were, here looks like a good place to start.

Contact list 1965 and before – 123 members

Contact list 1966-70 – 392 members

Contact list 1971-75 – 359 members

Contact list 76 and beyond – 82

Contact list with no start date – 65 members

Facebook v Email Group

Now, here’s a conundrum. Which one do I join? These are two very different things. If you are a member of the email group, you’ll be kept abreast of all the news and in touch with everything we get up to, but you can’t see or share any old photos or documents you may have from that time. But If you are a member of the Facebook group you can post whatever you like, see other people’s postings and join in the banter and comments that come with them. Now we have over 650 members on FB there is always lots to look at and join in with, so if you fancy giving it a try, open Facebook and type “Simms Group” in the search box and we should pop up instantly. It is a closed group, but if you ask to join, I’ll buzz you in straight away.

Pass Lists

I was recently asked to track down a copy of the 1971 Pass List by a member, which I managed to do via the email group, and it stirred up quite a bit of interest, which made me start thinking. I have a copy of the 1972 Pass List, which was my year and I thought it might be a good idea to start a library of Pass Lists for all the years between 1960 and 1980 in case any of our members would like to see theirs. If you have the Pass List for your year and are willing to send me a copy, I will gladly start compiling a library of them.

And now back to the photo at the top of this screed. This is what Jim wrote:

Hi Joe,

Here's one for the archives. You can let them guess the names or you can tell them. It's 1969.

Left to right: Alan Jeffers PE, John Doyle PE, Vic Kinsella PE, Pat Lavery PE and Phil Grant PE.

Taken beside the Old House. Just coming back from the refectory as Phil has his yogurt and bottle of milk in his hands.

Please stay safe and well and I’ll see you all next month.

Joe

x

Hello Everyone

This month’s cover photo is a picture of a trip to North Wales in 1968. From left to right we have Joe Jagger (Mick’s Dad), Pat Briggs, Brendan Byrne and John Allen. I knew Joe when I was at college and he was a really nice guy and a true gentleman.

At this time when we are all in some form of lockdown, I don’t have lots of stuff to put in this column, so it gives me a chance to recount one of my own memories of college days, and Joe in particular. The PE department used to run trips down to the Bowles Outdoor Pursuits Centre near Tunbridge Wells, but you had to be studying PE to get on them.

Now, I didn’t study PE so couldn’t get on a trip, but my friends and I were members of the college climbing club and knew that Bowles was based around a lovely range of sandstone cliffs, so we made it our mission to get to know Joe and then when a course was coming up down there we badgered him into giving us any spare spaces on the trips so we could get a weekend’s climbing in for free. In this way we managed to go on many trips and Joe was friendly, understanding and helpful every time. Here’s a pic of me messing about on the rocks down there.

Last month I included some memories of college days from our members, which prompted others to send in some more of their own.

Here is one from a student from 1975-79:

When I started in 1975 I went straight on to a BEd course under the University of London. I started by completing both A and B level units each year towards either an ordinary or honours degree. A units went towards the Ordinary degree and B units towards the Honours degree. 

So after three years I had a BEd and after completing and passing my 4th year it became a B.Ed (Hons). 

Sadly, the day I was supposed to go to the Albert Hall (during my first year of teaching) and shake the Queen Mother's hand, it was cancelled. There was a TUC day of action, so little transport etc. and the Albert Hall was closed. 

I went into school that day instead. I had been given the day off by Education dept in the borough and school governors, to go to London. I returned my gown and mortar board after a couple of photos at home (I also didn't get a refund on hire costs!).

I had been the first one on either side of my parents' families to go on to further education and graduate and I had been looking forward to going with my parents for the day and celebrating with them.

And here’s an epic from John (Toby) Twort (1966-69):

In September 1966, I arrived at the Old House to register with two school friends, Paul King and Dave Ayling, having travelled down to Paddington by steam train on the GWR, from Birmingham Snow Hill.

We were also accompanied by Kathy Wilkes, a friend from our old youth club, one of the first female students. The admission of females was not any kind of admission that women could teach, it was a realisation that the college was desperate for students.

I was initially dismayed to be allotted digs in Mortlake. I arrived there and met up with two other lads, one from Wales, the other from Middlesbrough, Brian Harvey, whose main subject was Art. I was doing (we never said “reading”) English and History. Brian was to become a good friend and we went on to share digs together at Hampton Wick, having complained to the College about the bizarre breakfast routine at the digs - the owner and his wife, Eastern Europeans, both left for work early and our breakfast was laid out , consisting of a piece of bread for toast, a slice of salami and one cup with a spoonful of instant coffee. More disturbing was the fact they kept the owner’s father incarcerated in the front room.

The college found us a room in Hampton Wick, with a lovely lady and her slightly eccentric husband. We could walk in to college from there and it wasn’t too far to stagger back on Saturday nights from the weekly dance. Brian went on to stay there in his second year with Paul King, as I got a room in halls, having been made fixtures secretary for the Soccer club.

That first week was certainly memorable, trying to impress on two fronts.

First, in the refectory, eyeing the parade of sophisticated girls who lined up for lunch and tea. As it turned out, both Dave and I met our wives at Simms. Dave married Ann Prior, their marriage in our second year sent shock waves round the college. I married Barbara Ward - lucky me. 53 and 48 years respectively later, we live 20 minutes’ walk from each other and are regularly in touch.

Second, on the football pitch, with trials for the college team. Inevitably, Paul went straight in to the first team although he played for our First-Year team in a local league, on Wednesday afternoons where we would come up against Kew Market Traders and other likely lads in what turned out to be a very successful season. Joe Jagger, Mick’s dad, would occasionally coach us from the sidelines.

Apart from Paul, the other stand out player was Bob Houghton, who had trials for Fulham. Always immaculately turned out in a blazer and tie (not on the pitch). With his blonde hair and Cockney accent, he was a dead ringer for Bobby Moore who in ’66 lifted the World Cup for England. Bob Houghton went on to coach Malmo - they were runners-up in the 1979 European Champions Cup final, which they lost 1–0 to English club Nottingham Forest - in what was, if my memory serves me right, the most boring Cup Final in the history of the European Cup.

But Bob was a lovely bloke and I shall always remember the strains of “Reach Out I’ll Be There”, by The Four Tops - my introduction to Motown -  bellowing out from his room in the Old House as he got ready for a night out back in Croydon.

Refectory teas were mainly good and my particular favourite was on Sunday nights, when it was very often, veal, ham and egg pie, salad and chips - I sometimes still have it at home.

Could not finish without reference to The Waldy, (Waldegrave Arms) which became the first port of call every Wednesday and Saturday after football and tea. Imagine being able to buy 9 pints of Watney’s Mild at a shilling and a penny pint - 1/1d in old money - and still have change from a ten-bob note (50p)! We were Brummies - we drank mild then. None or your fancy Watney’s Red Barrel. Games of Round the Clock on the dartboard with The Monkees being screened on a small black and white TV perched precariously on a shelf.

Paul, Dave, Ann and I went on to be head teachers eventually, and Barbara became deputy head at our local Catholic primary school, where as Year VI teacher, her class achieved top of the league Sats scores.

So all in all, Simms proved to be a catalyst in our lives for the good and I have nothing but many and more happy memories.

I’ll leave you with one recollection.

Each club or society was granted one of the Saturday dances as a fundraiser. The soccer club were lucky to have Tony Rivers and the Castaways – a very popular Beach Boys type harmony group. My friend Brian Harvey, a decent inside forward and “artist”, was the obvious choice to paint a banner which was to be hung up across the top of the stage.

Brian painstakingly went about this and on the afternoon of the dance we helped to string it across the stage. But to our horror we noticed that it read as follows: -

TONY RIVERS AND THE CASTASTAWAYS

It was quickly pulled down and somehow we managed to fold over the extra letters and rehang it. Brian was still having his leg pulled about that last time I saw him...in the Waldy.

That’s all for this month Folks.

Stay safe and well and I’ll see you all in July.

Joe

Hello Everyone.

How do you like this month’s photo? A poster for the 1971 Rag Week artfully displayed by its owner Gareth Rees (69-72). Have you got any of these at home you could share with the group?

You will recall that last month I included some memories of college from three new members. They went down so well it prompted a burst of similar stories from you guys and I thought I would include another batch in this month’s edition. Look out below for those.

But first…are we Simmarians or Simmies?

The college has recently started a “Simmies Spotlight” section on the Alumni page of their website, to highlight the good news and contributions ex-students are making to the community especially at this time. Having only ever considered myself a Simmarian I thought it would be fun to ask the rest of our group what they considered themselves to be and boy, did that stir up a hornet’s nest!! It would seem that for our age group it’s Simmarian and not Simmie, but some of the younger alumni prefer to call themselves ‘Simmies’. Poor Elinor Hatt, the Alumni Officer, has been fielding all sorts of questions and comments about this and, below I have crystallized her many replies into, what seems to me, a balanced view. You will have to make up your own mind.

The term 'Simmies', referring to alumni of St Mary's, has been going for about twenty years and appears to be the most common way that our graduates from that time period refer to themselves. The alumni featured in the 'Simmies Spotlight' stories mentioned in the enews tend to be recent graduates.

I've come across alumni who studied at St Mary's at different times referring to themselves as 'Simmaries', 'Simms', 'Simmarians' and 'Simmies', and there are various online groups calling themselves by different names and they are most welcome to do so.

You may notice that the byline of the eNews is always ‘Your monthly Simmarian news digest, and the twice yearly college magazine is called “The Simmarian. ‘Simmarian’ remains the correct name for a St Mary’s alumnus/alumna but sometimes a less formal name is a nice way to show the affection that exists within the community.

Elinor

Now for those stories.

The first one comes from Andy Browne who was at St Mary’s between 1972 and 75:

Dear Joe

I have just read your April round-up of Simms News. In it you include a letter from Paul Sullivan, who would be a year ahead of me, I was '72-'75. I did Art too, but the Head of Art was called John STAGG, not FLAGG. I know this, because he had been in my Father's Scout Group in or near Malvern, where incidentally I was born. My Father was a Tutor-Librarian in a Teachers' Training College actually in The Duke of Northumberland's Castle at Alnwick. The one that the first Harry Potter film was used for. Watching that film is terrible for my friends, as I keep on saying things like - "That's just by my Dad's office “or "I've walked that corridor many times." However, that is not the tale I want to relate.

Having been brought up in the small village of Warkworth in Northumberland, my mother and father wanted me to go to College/University near home. I decided to get away from home, as it would 'Make-Me-A-Man!' So, Simms it was. As all Simmarians will attest, a GOOD TIME WAS HAD BY ALL!!! (In fact, my friends and I from that time wonder how we ever actually became teachers?!!) Knowing my parents didn't know any daft prank or misbehaviour was great!

Then, "One day".... my ather came down to London and came to see the Simms librarian about a book. After an hour, I went to pick him up, and was told to "shower/shave/brush my hair and to put on my suit" as we were invited to the Senior Common Room, (Staffroom to you lot). This I did, and up to the Senior Common Room we went. (Remember, I thought my parents knew nothing of my misdemeanours.) In we walked, to be greeted warmly by John Stagg, an English Tutor called Cicely (?) then nearly ALL THE REST OF THE STAFF!! I was dumbstruck!! I never did find out if he knew of my nefarious past, but he did smile a lot for the rest of the day!!

"The Lads" or "The Magnificent Seven" as we were well known to nobody except us, still see one another if possible once a year, though one of us has unfortunately died. Thanks for all your hard work from Simmarians everywhere. If you want to reuse this letter in your next blog, please do. Keep safe and well!!!

Andy

The next one is from Mike Wolinski, part of the 65-68 team.

Joe, I have a short story from Sept 1965. 

It was my first year and I shared a room with a very nice guy from Swindon, John Stafford, in one of those old houses on Waldegrave Park. One evening of the first week, we decided to check out the local pub, the Waldegrave Arms, and have a pint or two. About 4 of us wandered in and started enjoying the beer. After about an hour 3 or 4 burly locals came in and sat down near us. 

My roomie, John, looked them over and saw one of them had a strange looking trilby hat on with feathers and stuff sticking out from it. After a few minutes John said in a loud Swindon accent “What a silly looking ‘at!” Within seconds it was like a scene from the Wild West! Chairs got thrown back and the locals grabbed us all. I remember one of them physically picked John up and threw him out. We fled back to our house and, needless to say, didn’t venture in the Waldy for another couple of months. 

John was a great musician and a year later played the organ at my sister’s wedding. Good days and memories. John, if you’re still out there, get in touch! I remember we also had Jim Yeo, Tony Webber and Steve? in the house, as I recall, all Lancashire lads. Hope you’re all doing ok. 

Two other good pals were Dominic Raby Cox and Dave Edmundson. Unfortunately, neither finished the course, but that’s another story!

Mike

This one was sent to me by Pat Shepherd who was there from 1968 - 71

Hi Joe

My memories of my first week are very vague. It was all so new, and we were out in Twickenham in the house with the nuns so not many memories of being in College. And I was dreadfully homesick. 

I do remember working on the third-year production on lights so staying very late at the theatre and having to try and climb in through an open window in the middle of the night to get back into my room. I almost fell on top of the nun asleep in her bed. So, I learnt it was easier to stay at the theatre and sleep on old curtains next to the lighting circuits which was quite warm and then walk into the house in the morning carrying a paper as if I had been out to get one first thing. I also remember the security guards plus dog checking in to see us in the middle of the night and have a cup coffee when we were hanging lights. Happy days. We did some daft things! 

Pat 

And finally for this month, one from Tom Farrell about his first days at college in 1969:

Hi Joe

I'm reading Pete Postlethwaite's memoirs at the moment, and his recollection of his days at Simms. So that inspired me to offer a few thoughts on my early days in 1969.

My first memories were of the acceptance interview in November 68. I travelled down by coach to London from Blackburn and remember the excitement of the journey to this imposing city and college. As I was getting the overnight bus back, I thought I'd satisfy my teenage kicks by going to the West End and watching Hair. It didn't disappoint!

Like lots of others I was overwhelmed by the independence and freedom you were given. I was in digs in Teddington in the 1st year with a Londoner, Neil Fee. The house was very middle class and I felt like we were treated like teenage delinquents in that there were disapproving looks if you were in late after a night in the bar. Wouldn't be able to manage lockdown with them!

Remember banter with those cockneys trying to talk Northern, aye up. Also, Saturday nights in the bar when the rugby team began serenading us on the tables with "She came from Glamorgan..."

Had a girlfriend at Mt Pleasant in Liverpool, so had to hitch lifts to save money. Standing on North Circular slip road with a cardboard sign and hoping the competition wasn't a lot of pretty girls. Mind you my hair and cherub face might have worked. Looking back, what a dangerous thing to do. Luckily got into Wiseman for second year and had fun with "pinhead" as well as making good friends with Kev Corcoran and Terry Coughlan. Kev's journey from a seminary mirrors Pete Postlethwaite's. Terry was a good footballer and I remember him winging his way through a Chelsea X1. Unfortunately, it contained Dave Sexton, who proceeded to take no prisoners! Thinking about sportsmen I remember sitting opposite David Bedford in Refectory while he shovelled a big fry up down! 

Cheers

Tom

As Bugs Bunny would say “That’s all, folks!” but if you have memories and stories like those above and are willing to share them, you can either send them to me at the usual address or post them on our Facebook Page yourself. If you are not yet a member of this, make sure to check it out.

See you next month and in the meantime, stay safe and well and do what your children tell you!

Joe

Hello Everyone

We’ve done it!!

We have found our 1,000th member. He is Paul (Sully) Sullivan and in these trying times speedboats are hard to come by, so he wins a year’s supply of toilet paper instead! If you know Sully and are a member of our group, you will have already received a note from me with the details of our latest new members, so you can get in touch with him.

This month I thought I would share with you some of the comments I get when new members join us. For me they express what we are all about and why we have this group. If the stories below spark any memories for you (and they are suitable for sharing!), you can send them to me or post them straight into our FB page.

The first one is from Sully himself:

“I was at Simms from 1971-74 and studied Art with John Flagg, Tom Elliott and Dorothy Peacock as tutors. Also, Sociology with Mike Marsden. The latter subject, being pretty new at the time, had enough flexibility in interpretation to suit my rather indolent frame of mind at that time

"I was assistant Social Secretary from 1972-74 with Steve Lloyd being actual Social Secretary. I was happy to be the weekend DJ for free Newcastle Brown Ale and tickets to various live bands in London. We had Marc Bolan and - I think - Caravan at Simms when I was in role.

"There was also a guy named Dave who was a senior member of the Student Union at the time, but for the life of me I can’t remember his name - despite getting drunk MANY times with him!!!!

"I was also Chairman of the Art Society from 73-74.

"Would love to be kept in touch with Simms stuff even though I haven’t taught for 40 years! I do keep in touch with Peter Johnson who was the year ahead of me in the Art Department.

"I now have retired with my wife to our home in rural, very French, central France.”

Paul Sully, 1971-74

This one is from Anne Kelly, née Walsh, who was also at St Mary's from 1971-74:

“Discovered the SIMMS group after browsing through the St Mary's University website. I would really love to become a member of this group to hopefully get back in touch with college friends from long ago and reminisce about the great times we had at SIMMS. 

"My maiden name was Anne Walsh, I attended from 1971-74, English & History/Primary course. I was in digs in my 1^st and 2^nd year in Elmsleigh Road but managed to get into Clive Hall in my 3rd year - a bit miffed about that as would have preferred it the other way around!” 

Anne Kelly, née Walsh, 1971-74

And finally, Gerry Creagh, who was there way back before time began in 1949 (!) sent me this tale of drunken antics from the Rugby Society back in 1950...and as we all know there haven’t been many of those have there?

“Background…When I was at Simmaries, there were only 200 in each year.

"At the end of the Spring Term, 1950, I organised the Rugby Supper at the Waldegrave Arms with about fifty attending.  En masse, we exited the pub at 10pm closing time and singing our songs, we happily marched back to College.

"The first gate into the College sports grounds was closed, which meant we had to walk on for more than a quarter of a mile, to get to the students' entrance. 

"As you know there's a formidable eight-foot high boundary wall, but we decided that was not going to be an obstacle to ex-service men wanting to take a short-cut into their College and in true commando fashion, I organised the lads to assail that stone wall.

"One after another, they ran across the road, stepped up into my clasped hands and were hauled up and over the wall, to resounding cheers as each one made it. Finally, I had to make it myself...Two second-row forwards hung over the wall, ready to haul me up and over but, just as I started my run, a police car pulled up and a bloody great Alsatian police dog was released.

"As I hung on the arms of my "fellow commandos”, the Alsatian got its teeth into my bare ankle and trouser bottom. The more I yelled to my buddies to let me go, the more determined they were that the Law wouldn't get me! The dog was making an unholy racket which eventually persuaded my mates to let me fall. As I cowered against the wall, two coppers ran up and yelled "Sit!”. I promptly sat, only to be hauled to my feet...."Not you, you flaming idiot...the dog!”

"I was bundled into the "paddy-waggon" and hauled to the Twickenham "Nick" to be arraigned, for disturbing the peace. Dressed in my college blazer, there was no question that I wasn't a student of St Mary's College, but the neighbours had complained...and I was the "fall guy”! As the Sergeant was making out the charge sheet asking me the usual questions, the phone rang. The Sergeant listened and shook his head in disbelief, then began to laugh.

"Aren't you the lucky one to have such good mates!.......That was Fr. Sweeney your Dean of Discipline, who told me that all the College Rugby Club has just rocked up at his office and told him that, like the Three Musketeers, it's "All for One and One for All"  and that all of them should be charged..... not just you! There's no way we are going to charge all fifty of you, so we'll drive you back to College and don't disturb the neighbours again!"  

Gerry Creagh - St Mary's College 1949/1950

Look after each other, stay safe, keep washing your hands and hopefully I’ll see you all next month.

Joe

Hello everyone,

I haven’t got a lot of pressing news this month (you’ve had enough of that with Coronavirus and flooding!) so I thought I’d use the time to bring you up to speed with our social meetings set up. We now have these organised in three regions across the country in London, Manchester and Bristol. London has been going since we started this group eight years ago and is always really well attended and a right blast. We are in our second year of meetings in Manchester and that too is now well attended and attracting more of you each time. We set Bristol up last year so this month’s meeting will be our second one but judging by the response to the event on our Facebook page it has generated a lot of interest and we expect a healthy turnout.

In order to allow you to plan for these get togethers we have fixed their dates, so they all take place in March, July and November. The London meeting takes place on the third Tuesday of these months, the Manchester one is on the second Wednesday and the Bristol one on the fourth Thursday of the month. This being March, if you fancy a day out, you can come to the Manchester meeting on the 11^th, the London meeting on the 17^th and the Bristol one on the 26^th. All these start at 12 noon and are deliberately located close to the relevant main line station to make it easy for you to get there and home again the same day. All the details are available through our contact group and Facebook page. If you already belong to one or both of these you will have all the details for the meetings, but if you’re not, you can email me on joe@theloughrans.co.uk or join one or both of our groups and stay in the loop forever!

Now, while I’ve got you. You can see from above that our membership has now reached 984, which, as teachers, you will know is almost 1000. The group is spread all over the world, and thanks to the snowball effect we are attracting new members all the time. This month I have a wonderful example of exactly how that works. I, and several others of my social group at college, have been trying to locate one of our close friends of the time for the past six or seven years to no avail. He seemed to have disappeared off the planet. So, imagine my surprise (as they say), when I opened my laptop last week and found a request to join our group from the very person we had been searching for. Trebles all round!! We have been in touch and he is coming to the London meeting next week, as are the rest of the peeps who have been looking for him.

That is exactly what this group is all about, and in case you think there may not be many people in it who were at college around the same time as you, I have split the membership into 5 year groups and listed them below so you can see how many were there when you were.

1965 and before   114

1966 – 1970           381

1971 – 1975           351

1976 – 1980           73

This is not a complete list because there are 78 members who have yet to let me know what years they were at Simms.

If you fancy a day out, but think that you won’t know anyone, rest assured, you will. Our philosophy is that while “nobody knows everybody, everyone will know someone”, and I can’t tell you how often that has been proved right.

I’ll leave you now and hope to see you at one of the gatherings this month.

Stay safe and keep washing those hands!

Joe

Hello Everyone

Can you guess which famous rock band I have chosen as the cover picture for this month’s column? They played at the college many times and went on to become world famous! The reason I have done this is because when we held our 50^th anniversary Reunion at Simms last August I got talking to Tony Walsh (68-72) who was deeply involved in the music scene at that time and he kindly agreed to write down his memories of those days for me to share with you. He has now done that, and his fascinating article is below. I’ll tell you who the band is further down!

Membership

As you can see from above, we have almost reached our 1000^th member. I wonder who that will be (and win a year’s free shopping at Tesco!). In addition, we have very nearly cracked the 600 ceiling in our Facebook group. Now, I’ve said this before, but it’s worth repeating. If you’re in the email group but not the FB group, you get all the latest news, updates and goings on, but have no access to the photos, documents, shared memories and banter enjoyed by that group. And, if you’re only in the FB group you already share in all that stuff, but you miss out on the news, events and goings on enjoyed by the larger email lot. So, here’s an idea. Join both and never miss out on anything!

The band is Free, by the way. Did you get it? 

Now, moving swiftly on.

Below, as promised, is a remarkable piece about the music scene around the time we were at college. Tony has captured those days in great detail, and I, for one, have learned a whole lot more about why our college was such a popular and respected music venue then. 

Great Music, Great Bands, Great Bar, Great Jukebox – a great time was had by all!

Simms Social Committee
Social Secretaries
1968 – 69 – Gerry Wright
1969 – 70 – Mick Byrnes
71 – 72 - Brian ?
Other members of the committee included Tony Walsh.

Just before I attended the recent 50^th reunion on the weekend of 30^th August 2019, I was in touch with Joe Loughran regarding music and tracks from the famous College Bar Jukebox and also some of the bands that played at Simms and went on to – some might say – greater success in the years that followed. It might be hard to imagine today that at the end of the 1960’s and into the early 70’s St. Mary’s was one of the greatest rock music venues in UK and especially on the burgeoning college and universities scene at the time.

I managed to get in touch with Paul Rogers (via his secretary) lead singer of Free who along with Deep Purple were virtually house bands at Simms at different times because they played so often. Strange to think that Free originally came to Simms as part of a deal to get a band (now long defunct) called The Spirit of John Morgan and first appeared in a disco slot in the old chapel. Hard to think of one of the leading rock bands of the period starting their life on the college circuit as disco warm-up band on a Friday night at Simms.

That first booking – which I think was £25 - led to Free being booked as the first act on the Saturday night concert roster. It was apparent from the first night that disco was never going to be their metier, but we were so impressed and booked them for three gigs – I think at the princely sum of £500/gig. Long story short, by the time the third booking came around All Right Now was released and riding hit in the singles chart going to Number 1, Fire & Water the album went to number 2 in the very competitive album charts in UK and the band also headlined at legendary Isle of Wight Concert in 1970. By this third concert we did receive a call during the week from (I think NEMS, who we used to book most of the bands and acts from); thinking they might wish to re-negotiate the £50 deal – as the band were reputedly charging over a £1000 a gig by then, but we were wrong. In fact they offered to come for free – literally, not a pun – if we would allow John Peel to record their set in theatre for his then highly influential Sunday afternoon Radio 1 show, of course we said yes but as a gesture offered the band and roadies free beer and sandwiches – from the bar!

Who knows - we might encourage Paul Rogers to comeback and make a nostalgic appearance at some point!

But if Free were a big name there were many others. I read the Summer 2018 article in the Simmarian Magazine by David Lawrenson – who I don’t personally remember, though we must have crossed paths. Memories of Pink Floyd are still strong, but earlier memories of Deep Purple – Richie Blackmore giving an impromptu version of “We Wish You A Merry Christmas” at a Christmas gig and John Lord’s never to be forgotten “Mandrake Root” which seemed to carry on for ever – wonderful.

When Renaissance appeared with Sandy Denny, Trevor Lucas et al. – if my memory serves me correctly, Micky Byrnes, then social secretary arranged a special dinner in a private room attached to refectory for the band, the first and I think only time rock stars were exposed to pleasures of dining in the Simms Refectory.

When I went to Simms in 1968, Gerry Wright was social secretary, followed by Micky Byrnes in 1969 and then I think in 1970, Brian (whose surname now escapes me – sorry Brian!). It was always a wonder that what appeared to be a small venue on the outskirts of London could attract such mega rock bands and stars. I was told at the time that this had a great deal to do with the musician union embargo on playing in central London and the demand for high fees from any performers who were not in the union – how true this was I am not sure, but certainly Simms and Brunel University, who were not based in Central London, attracted many of the greatest bands at the time. While Simms held Saturday night gigs in the Theatre and Refectory, Brunel organised ‘all night gigs’ at the Lyceum in the Strand. I was never sure how that worked with the Musicians’ Union, but they were great nights. The one I most remember had Deep Purple as the warm-up band at around 1am. and later acts, Renaissance, Andromeda with headliners Fleetwood Mac who at 6am awoke a sleepy crowd and had everyone on their feet by 6.10.

Though we were entering the time of big concerts such as the Isle of Wight in Summer 1970, there was even talk of the student union holding a gig at Twickenham Stadium where headline bands with names like The Who and Led Zeppelin were mentioned but it was considered, probably rightly, that would be a gig too far for a relatively small college and the potential financial risks were enormous – but some of us could dream!

It might seem a bit strange to talk in these terms but around Twickenham, Richmond and Kingston but in those days the Rolling Stones (Mick Jagger’s father Joe being a lecturer at Simms), Pete Townsend having a house behind the Barmy Arms in Twickenham, Justin Hayward (Moody Blues) living in Crossdeep (I think) and Eel Pie Island, Twickenham holding some famous gigs. These included The Stones, Manfred Mann, The Yardbirds, Long John Baldry’s Hoochie Coochie Men (featuring a young Rod Stewart), Steampacket (again featuring Baldry, Stewart, Julie Driscoll and Brian Auger), David Bowie (still billed as “Davie Jones”) with his Manish Boys, and the Graham Bond Organisation. These were all going on from the mid-60s into the early 70s and students at Simms and other west London colleges were on the spot. What now seem extraordinary times were simply what was happening on a weekly basis. But I must give one mention to Reg and the guys who ran the famous Simms bar. Having become fully co-ed in my first year of 1968, not only did the bar flourish beyond rugby club drinking sessions but introduced what was to become an institution the Simms Jukebox – often proclaimed by those who were students or simply attended by invited guests as the best ever jukebox.

I will leave it at that. Great music, great bands, great bar, great jukebox – a good time was had by all and believe it or not most of us passed our final exams and went on the teach the next generation of Catholic students.

Tony Walsh – 1968 – 72

And finally…for Simms 67-70 & Friends

There is a Jubilee Celebration Lunch in the Garden Café of Strawberry Hill House. This was originally scheduled for the 5^th July, but due to circumstances beyond our control has had to move back to the 27^th June. Below is a flyer for the event and if you need further information please contact Brendan Murphy at brendanmurphy@btconnect.com.

See you all next month.

Joe

Hello Everyone

Welcome to 2020 and a very Happy New Year to you all!

It was only in November I told you that we had reached 900 members but, as you can see from above that is now history. Since then I have received details from enough people to take us past the 1000 mark, and I hope to confirm that next month.

As promised, I have now issued a new updated contact list, split into 5-year groups. If you’ve not received a copy, it’s because you’re not part of the contact group! So, if you would like to get your mitts on it and find your old friends you just have to join the group. Send me an email with the years you were at college and your surname at the time and I’ll do the rest.

Group Photo Album

The cover picture this month shows a group of students posing on the steps of the chapel on a sunny day in May 1976. This, together with several others, was posted on our Facebook page by one of our members and attracted much comment and reminiscing, and is a nice lead in for me to bring you an update about the photo album which I have been working on with the Alumni Department.

As you can see from the membership numbers above, there are twice as many of you in our email contact group than there are in the Facebook group, so only those on Facebook can share and enjoy their pictorial memories of college days. However, the good news is that we have now set up an Alumni photo album on the university website. If you click here you can see it. If you do go, you will see that it is in the early stages of development. I have sent in pictures of our reunions in London and Manchester and many other old photos I have in my collection, which will be uploaded in the coming weeks. Now, it’s not meant to be a public version of my photo album, and it will only work if you guys dig out your own memories and send them to alumni@stmarys.ac.uk together with names, dates and places.

So that’s your homework for January. Let’s see what the album looks like in February.

Oldest Member!

We have recently signed up our oldest member yet. John Moran attended St Mary’s from 1942 to 1944 when he left to become a navigator in Bomber Command, returning as Head of Geography from 1962 until 1982. As you can see, he therefore qualifies as a member. John wrote me the lovely note below when he joined us and, as you can see, he would like to hear from any of his old students who remember him and want to get in touch. For data protection reasons I can’t give you John’s contact details here, but if you email me or alumni@stmarys.ac.uk we can follow the proper channels to put you back in touch with him. 

Greetings Joe,

Thank you for your invitation to include me in your conversation group, and it will be of great interest to me to hear from any of my old students, and to know about their career experiences. You probably know, from Kevin Cook, who was one of my old students (1962-1964), that I was privileged to be Head of Geography at Simms, from 1962 to 1982. These were formative years, when we hammered out the curriculum, to be implemented for the new Bachelor of Education, with limited resources at our disposal, and a certain show of reluctance on the part of some university academics, who appeared to think that the Colleges of Education were poaching on their territory. We had the task of demonstrating that educational development was a larger field than academic knowledge of a subject, based on sound experience of the cognitive processes involved in teaching and learning. You may be interested to know that I included a brief account of those events in my Geography Notebook, in my book, ‘Know Your World’: A Geographer’s Guide to the Anthropocene Age’, published in 2016.

With best wishes to all my fellow Simmarians, especially to my old students, to whom I express my grateful thanks for the inspiration received from them.

John J. Moran: alumnus 1942-1944; Member of London Un Air Squadron Training Wing based at Simms 1942-1944: RAFVR Navigator 97 Sqdn. Bomber Command 1944-1946: Lecturer and Head of Geography at Simms. 1962-1982.

I’ll let you go now, but watch this space for lots of interesting news, events and reunions in London, Manchester and Bristol throughout the year.

Joe
x

Hello Everyone,

The following five minutes will be completely Brexit and General Election free…enjoy!

This month’s cover picture is from the recent Manchester get together. As you can see, we are now getting good attendances at this event and I expect it to grow in popularity as we hold more of them.

The week after this, we held our “Xmas” meeting at The Chandos in London which, as always, was well attended. If you want to see who was there follow this link to our group Facebook page for pictures and names.

Membership

Earlier this month our membership passed 900, but we are not stopping there. During the month one of our number sent me his contacts from the 1966 intake. We already have 72 members from that year, and I expect these new people to take us past the 100 mark for that time and well on our way to the magic 1000 for the group as a whole. If you are not yet part of our group and would like to find old friends again, we may be able to help. A very good example of how this works comes from Freda Collins (née Jenkins) who was at college from 1972-75. Freda recently joined us and when I sent her my list of members from that time, she immediately discovered five old friends, including three who were in Hostel 16 at the same time as she was. They are all back in touch with each other now and recapturing old friendships. 

Reunions

There are two reunions taking place at St Mary’s next summer and there seems to be some confusion about who they are for. The best way to check on the details of any forthcoming reunions and/or events is to visit their website, click on the alumni section and see what’s planned. If you click here it will take you to the “Events and Reunions” webpage where you can read the details of each event and decide which one is right for you.

As I write this you will find two events on there. The first one is the alumni weekend (19^th-21^st June), organised by the alumni office at St Mary’s. The other one is for those celebrating their 45^th anniversary but is open to all who were at St Mary’s between 1970 and 1978. This has been held every five years since 1985 and is a well-established event. It is being organised by Frank Sudlow (frank_sudlow@yahoo.co.uk) and John Booth (idlebooths@blueyonder.co.uk) and if you click here you will be taken to their notes about the event. If you are thinking of attending these events please contact either the boys above or the alumni office on alumni@stmarys.ac.uk. 

Group Photo Album

Last month I mentioned that I was working on a photo album for the group to be set up on the college website and I can now report that we are nearly there. We are just working out the best layout to allow you all to post and find photos and videos from your own time at college and then we’ll be going live, as they say. I expect it to be up and running shortly. Meanwhile, to whet your appetites I have included a video from Strawberry Fair in 1973/4. Click here to view it. This is the sort of thing I hope we will be able to post in this album as well as your photographs and any old letters and other stuff you may still have. Below are some pictures from the 1973 Strawberry Fair sent to me by John Thorley.

And finally………… for this year!

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you who have had the patience and interest to read my scribblings throughout the year. I hope you have found them enjoyable and may I wish you and yours a wonderful Christmas, a happy New Year and a great 2020.

See you on the flip side

Joe
xxx

We were out of sync with the monthly news but are now back in the right month with November’s update!

Autumn Greetings to One and All

Now that the weather is changing and the nights are drawing in, it’s time to start thinking about our Group festive meetings.

This month’s photograph was taken at the inaugural South West meeting which was recently held in Bristol. You all know by now that we hold social get togethers in London and Manchester three times a year and as a result of conversations, suggestions and requests from various people we decided to set up a similar event for those of you who live in that part of the world. As you can see, on the day we only had four people who could make it, but I heard from many more who wanted to be there but couldn’t make the date. This is of no concern. When we started meeting in London seven years ago, we regularly got half a dozen peeps or so and now we get so many the landlord has agreed to reserve the whole of the front part of the upstairs bar for our own use.

Manchester has only been running for a year or so now and we are starting to attract a good crowd, so I am confident that our Bristol gatherings will grow in popularity as time goes by. Of course, if you live within striking distance of Bristol and are not yet a member of our group, just drop me an email and I’ll sign you up and keep you posted about all things Simmarian. The next meeting will be in March or April next year, so keep an eye out for that.

Now, on to London and Manchester. We call these two meeting our “Xmas” get togethers, because we hold them towards the end of the year, but not so close to Christmas that they interfere with members own Christmas arrangements or make people travel at a busy time of year. Here are the details for your diaries.

Our Manchester get together is being held on the 13^th November at O’Shea’s Bar on Princess Street, Manchester, which is a 5 min walk from the main Piccadilly Station. We start at 12 noon to allow everybody to get there and home again the same day. They are expecting us and there will be signs out and around to let you find us without difficulty.

The London meeting is held at The Chandos Pub on St Martin’s Lane, off Trafalgar Square. We are meeting at 12 noon on the 26^th November, and as usual we will be hogging the front of the upstairs bar. Again, there will be plenty of signage to allow you find us.

If you are interested in attending any of these please email me for more details.

Group Photo Album

As our Facebook page membership grows, we are seeing more and more photographs of our time at college being posted on there, which is exactly what it’s there for. However only about half our membership belong to the Facebook Group, which means that those who aren’t on Facebook can’t see them at all. In an effort to make these more widely available I have been discussing the possibility of creating a photo album for our group on the college website, and I am pleased to tell you that they have agreed to this. Those of you who have pictures of college days and are willing to share them with the rest of us can send them to the Alumni office who will post them in the correct album for you. If you can give as much information as possible about your photos (especially the years) they will try and post them in the correct album. 

Contact List Update

It has been a while since I updated our email contact list and as you can see above, we now have almost 900 members, so it’s about time I sent you all an updated version. To avoid confusion and make it easier for you guys to find old friends, the list is split into 5-year groups as follows:

1965 and before – 91 members                     1966-70 – 334 members

1971-75 – 333 members                                  1976-80 – 65 members

We also have 68 members who have not yet given us their start date at college. (naughty!)

If you are not yet a member of our group but would like to find old friends from college days, now would be a good time to join us. If you send me your email address and the year you started at Simms, I’ll be able to add you to the new list and you’ll get your very own copy to pore over. 

See you next month and stay warm.
Joe
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Hello Everyone

Welcome to the September news. Anyone recognise this month’s picture? It’s now the Chaplaincy, but used to be the Porters’ Lodge. Many of you will remember what this was like when we were at college. Those windows formed the back of a huge alphabetic letter rack where the porter would put any mail or small postal items for collection by the students. I remember climbing those steps in front of the window, looking to see if there was anything for me that day, and if you were expecting anything special (money from home, love letters! etc) you would be there all the time until it arrived. Do you have any special memories of the Porters Lodge? If so, why not drop onto our Facebook Page and share them with us.

The recent reunions held at the college were a great success and have resulted in yet more people joining both our email and Facebook groups, as you can see from our latest membership numbers above. I have already reported on the 50^th reunion for those who started college in 1969 and there are plenty of pictures and comments on our Facebook group, but you may not be aware that there was also a reunion to mark the college opening its doors to women for the first time. In 2016, some of those ladies held a reunion at the college to celebrate 50 years since that milestone and this summer’s reunion was to celebrate 50 years since that first intake left. The group has 97 members, the majority of whom were able to get to this summer’s celebrations and I’m sure that some of you reading this were part of that intake, or know someone who was. If you would like to find your old friends from those days again, drop me an email and I’ll put you in touch with the lady who organises it.

They say it’s good to talk, and that is certainly true when this group get together.  The success of our social gatherings in London and Manchester has led to requests for more of them and as a result of this, I’m pleased to announce that we will shortly be holding our first meeting in the South West. We are in the process of organising a get together in Bristol towards the end of October. It will be run along the same lines as our other gatherings, namely starting at lunch time in a venue that is easy to get to, which allows people to get there and home again in a single day. As soon as I have all the relevant information, I’ll post it on email and Facebook, so if you’re already a member of either of those groups you’ll be in the loop. If, on the other hand, you’re not yet a member and think a Bristol meeting might be of interest to you, just email me or join the Facebook group and I’ll make sure you hear all about it.

We have also been talking about the best way to allow people to share photos and other stuff (see below) from their college days with the rest of the group. For those of us on Facebook it can be done very easily, simply by posting them on there. But for members who aren’t on Facebook we need to find a different way, and with that in mind, we are working with the alumni office to see if we can set up a photo album on the college website where members can post their memories of those halcyon days. Below I have added one of the Education papers that I sat for my Cert. Ed in 1972. I have no idea why I kept it and it is not the only bit of paper I still have from college. I’m sure that many of you out there will have stuff like this which is ideally suited to be posted and shared in our photo album if we can get one set up. I’ll keep you posted on our progress. 

And finally, one of our members, Kevin Johnson, who started at Simms in 1960 would  like to find a couple of old friends. He is looking for Sam Grice from Carlisle and Stan Grue from Liverpool who both lodged with him in hostel 9 back in the day. If you can help Kevin reconnect with these guys, please email me and I’ll pass on the information.

Hello everyone

Since we last spoke there has been a 50^th reunion at St Mary’s which had a great turnout and which you can read all about on our own Simms Group Facebook page. The whole point of these reunions is that they allow old friends to meet again and reconnect with each other after many years in the wilderness! 

And that’s what I want to talk to you about this month…connections.

When I started this group back in 2012, I was hoping that it would be a vehicle to let old friends find each other again after the many years that have passed since we were studying together. The new-fangled technologies of computers and the internet seemed to make that possible and sure enough, with email and Facebook we started to track down long lost friends and colleagues.

Over the years I have encouraged people to use the group to look for old friends and you will have seen my requests for help going out from time to time, usually with a good deal of success. Another route to success has been the growth of the group. As we have developed, we have attracted more people from all over the world, which has given us a larger database to work with.

Now, the point I want to emphasise about connections is that despite how many successes I am able to pass on to you, many, many more connections are being made between old friends that we as a group don’t hear about. If you want evidence of that you only need to visit our FB page and read through the postings to see old friends discovering each other again and again. 

And now that our London meetings are well established and attended, new and old friends pop up all the time. Our recently started Manchester group is also coming along well and at the recent reunion at college it was suggested that we should start a south west group, possibly meeting in Bristol. More on that to come.

So, if you are reading this article and would like to find your old college friends, why not join our email contact group or our Facebook page and start reconnecting!

And on that note, I have included below some requests for old friends from those days. If you can help with any of them, please respond directly or through me. 

Malcolm Mair (74-77) is looking for an old friend, Maureen Carr, who studied drama from 1975-78.

Chris Fitzpatrick (73-76) is looking for David Midlane (73-76). The last time he saw him was at his wedding in the early 80s.

And finally, an interesting request from across the water. 

Dear Alumni,

Our group from all over the United States studied drama through The Foreign Study League Summer Program at St. Mary’s College in 1969. This year is our 50th reunion year and we are attempting to contact students, American professors, and chaperones, as well as our British hosts and professors who took part in our summer program. The British host that ran our program was Roger Lane. His counterpart was a Father Brown from Boston, Massachusetts in the States.

Would you have any information on Roger Lane or others who made our stay so memorable?

Any help you might give with our efforts to contact anyone connected with that year’s summer study program would be much appreciated.

Respectfully,

Mrs. Meleny N. Rehr 

See you all next month.

Joe

x

Right Gang

How are you all?

This month I want to talk to you about reunions. The college is changing the way it offers and supports alumni reunions. With effect from next year they are putting on an annual alumni weekend for all past students. Below is how they announced this on the college website last month.

“We are delighted to announce the introduction of the St Mary’s Annual Alumni Weekend, when the whole campus, including accommodation, will be set aside for St Mary’s alumni, to reconnect with friends and celebrate their time at St Mary’s. 

The first Alumni Weekend will take place on Friday 19th June to Sunday 21st June 2020, when we will celebrate 170 years of St Mary’s.  All alumni are invited to attend the weekend, and there will be special events within the weekend for those celebrating significant anniversaries e.g. 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50+ years since graduation.  We plan to organise a range of other activities too, such as opportunities to tour the University, sports fixtures and lectures, and there will be Mass on the Sunday.”

I was aware this was being planned and think it is a great idea. It allows us to get back to St Mary’s and touch base with old friends without having to organise the whole thing ourselves each time! However, one of my concerns about this format was how to ensure people from different year groups could find and spend time with each other and during conversations with the college they agreed that there will be nominated areas put aside to allow students from different time periods to find each other and reconnect.

Between now and then there are 3 reunions which relate to our group as below:

50^th Reunion – For those who started college in 1969 or were there between 1967 and 1974. Over the weekend on 30^th August to 1^st September 2019 throughout the college.

50^th Reunion – For the first co-ed students at Simms between 1966 and 1969.  On Saturday 7^th September 2019 in the Waldegrave Ballroom.

45^th Anniversary – For anyone who was at the college between 1970 and 1978. Over the weekend 12^th to 14^th June 2020

You can book your slot for any of 2019 gatherings by clicking on this link.

Occasional Stuff

Back in March Mick Byrnes (67-70) sent me this picture taken at Strawberry Fair in 1970. He tells me the suspects are:

Back row L-R Julian Reynolds sister; Julian Reynolds: Marie-Anne Anderson; Lou the barman; John Quinn; Les Collins; Mick Casserly;

Front row L-R Reg the bar steward; Dave Sparrey; John O'Brien; Pauline Wallace; Pat? 

I came across this cartoon about our generation the other day and I thought some of you might appreciate it!

Til next time

Joe x

Hello everybody

How do you like this month’s picture? How many of you can identify where it is and what shops and pubs you can see? I know some of you used to live in the flats above the shops here and I know that because I remember going to parties there and climbing out onto the roof space above the shops for a dance. (Didn’t we all!)

News

Since we last spoke, I am pleased to tell you that our group membership has now passed the 800 mark, and our Facebook group is growing every month. Both of which have inspired interest from other people within the alumni family. This past month I have been working with a student from the 1980s who wanted to create a similar group for his time at college and has now set up the “1980s Simmarians” Facebook group. It is off to a flying start with almost 200 members already! There are also moves afoot to set up a group for the 1990s intake, but that is in its infancy at present. I’ll keep you posted on its development.

50^th Reunion Celebrations

We have now almost completed our planning for this which is taking place at the end of August, and as word is spreading, I am increasingly getting asked to confirm the dates. So, get your diaries out and put this weekend in there while you’re thinking about it.

FRIDAY 30^TH AUGUST – SUNDAY 1^ST SEPTEMBER

Whilst it is 50 years since the 1969 intake started college, it is meant to be a celebration of the whole era and those of you who were at college from (say) 1967 to 1974 are most welcome to come along. There’s lots going on and some surprises, so if you think you might be interested visit the alumni page of the college website in a week or so and book your place and, of course, there will be lots more information about it on FB and through the email group as it gets nearer.

Occasional Stuff

Bernard Jarvis (61-64) was wondering, via our FB page, if there were any photos out there of the college in the 60s. Now it’s true that photography was not very widespread then and the Polaroid camera didn’t come out in the format we all recognise until 1972, but I’m sure there are memory boxes and photo albums out there that have wonderful shots of the college and old friends hidden away in them. And now we can scan documents in as well you can share old letters and stuff with us. Below are the pics Bernard sent me and selection of other shots posted on our FB page and it would be really great if those of you who have stuff like this lying around could share it with us. You can either post it on our group Facebook page or send it to me and I’ll make sure it gets published.

Anne and John O’Connor (nee Hunter of Maria Grey College), Maureen Jarvis (nee Barrett) of Maria Grey and Bernard Jarvis. 1961-1964.

Chris Boyle with Ann (nee O’Neil) Digby Stewart College and Bernard Jarvis. 1961-64.

See you all next month.

Joe x

Hello everybody

How do you like this month’s photo? As you can see Paul Warburton sent me this picture of his old College Meal Book (sorry Permit!) together with tales of the black-market trade in them, which I knew nothing about at the time. If any of you have pics like this and stories from the days of the Refectory, please send them in to me or post them on our Facebook Page so we can all enjoy them. I remember the struggles we had during TP to fit breakfast in and still get to school on time and then making sure we got back in time for our evening meal!

Now, onward. As I mentioned last month, I am in the middle of updating our contact list and I know that there are loads of you out there who receive this eNews but are not on there. If you think you might like to join us why not send me an email soon so I can include you in the update.

I am also making progress with our efforts to set up an Irish get together as per the London and Manchester ones. More on that next month.

Australian Chapter

I have been asked several times about helping to connect those of you who live in the antipodes. Now, before you point out the obvious, I appreciate that it’s a little bigger than the UK so meeting in a local pub might not be on, but it’s been my experience, that there are enough of you out there to at least make a stab at putting you in touch with each other. If you are reading this and live down under why not send me an email and I’ll start one of my lists!

London Gathering

Yet another success. This meeting is going from strength to strength, especially since we changed the day from Friday to Tuesday. This time there was another group already at the front of the upstairs bar. They turned out to be a load of retired railway engineers having their half yearly reunion in the area we usually occupy, so space was limited and somewhat cramped for a while, which led to a good deal of banter between us and since we well outnumbered them, at one point they offered to sell us their table for a fee! etc, etc.

I took this opportunity to speak to the landlord again about reserving space for us. Some years ago, I raised this issue with him, and he told me then that he doesn’t take reservations from anyone because it’s too difficult to manage in a busy central pub like this. However he was aware of our group and the length of time we have been going there so he has agreed that for us he will make an exception and reserve a number of tables in our usual spot on the days we chose to hold our gatherings, which is really great news.

I have attached some pics click here for those who couldn’t make it, but to be honest we were having such a good time that remembering to take photos was very much a sudden afterthought at the end of the day, when some of us had already had to get off and the pub was quieter, and look, Torchy did turn up eventually (in joke!)  As usual there were old friends there and some new faces, but it was much appreciated by everyone and we are already looking forward to the next one on in July or August.

Manchester Gathering

This was only the third meeting of this group, so it is still establishing itself, and due to the relatively short notice we gave for the date it was not as well attended as we would have liked, but some early meetings at The Chandos were on a similar scale and look at those now. We still had a great time with members coming from as far away as Liverpool and Hull. Some pictures were taken but they have not yet arrived in my inbox so I can’t pass them on at the moment. I’ll do so as soon as I have them. We had to compete with a plane load of disgruntled passenger who had been bussed back from Manchester Airport for a free lunch and stopover due to a problem with their flight, but there is plenty of space in this hotel, so it wasn’t a problem. Our next meeting here will also be around July or August and I promise to give more notice for this one to allow you all to plan for it little better.

Occasional Stuff

In the February update I posted a picture of the 1973 Rag Week Team. Well, since then I have come across the document on the left which seems to list the suspects in that picture (copied below). The committee certainly managed to persuade an impressive set of celebrities to get involved! I was one of the minions helping with Rag Week around 1970 and one of my fondest memories is of a gang of us driving off after dark in a Morris Minor with rag week posters, buckets of paste and brushes to stick them all over other Teacher Training Colleges.

I remember invading Digby Stuart, Southlands and Goldsmiths in the dead of the night and daubing our posters in as many embarrassing places as we could find before being discovered and then laughing all the way back home. They, of course, returned the favour when it was their rag week. 

See you next month
Joe
x

Hey Guys,

This month’s picture was taken at one of the regular Friday night discos in the Old Bar in the early 70’s, and yours truly is the dashing guy in the waistcoat, bustin’ some groovy moves!! Now, this is not a random photo from my collection of old college shots, I’ve put it here to highlight one of the treats of the forthcoming 50^th Anniversary Reunion this August. Mick Greenwood, the regular DJ at that time has agreed to recreate what you see above for us in the University bar on the Friday night. He tells me he still has all his records and is already working on a set list. Maybe nearer the time we’ll put a call out for some suggestion.

Contact List Update

As you can see above, the membership of both our email and Facebook groups continues to rise, so it’s probably time for an update. We have attracted over 100 new people since I issued the last one, none of whom will appear on the list you currently have. If we give it a week or so to allow for the new members this month’s eNews will generate to come on board, and for me to organise them into their year groups, you can look forward to a new list coming to an inbox near you shortly after that. If you are not yet a member of either of these groups just drop me a line and I’ll fix it.

Group Get Togethers

Below are the details of our Easter meetings in Manchester and London, which are on the 5^th and 9^th of April respectively. I apologise for the short notice, but we only settled on these dates earlier in March and this is the earliest eNews we could put them in. I hope it still gives some of you time to slot us into your diary.

Manchester Meeting

This will be the third meeting of this group and as before will be held at The Mercure Piccadilly Hotel at Piccadilly Gardens in the centre of town. The date is Friday the 5^th April and we aim to get there around 12 noon, which allows people to travel there and back in a day. We meet in the Brasserie bar on the 3^rd floor. It should be easy to spot a bunch of old folks having a laugh, but in case you can’t, there will be a sign on one of the tables to help you recognise us.

London Gathering

This gathering will be on Tuesday the 9^th April at our usual venue, The Chandos pub off Trafalgar Square at 12 noon. We have traditionally held this meeting on a Friday, but last time we thought we’d try a different day, so we picked a Tuesday, and the turnout was much improved……so were sticking with Tuesday for the moment. If you’re thinking of coming along, make your way to the front of the upstairs bar which is where we tend to settle. There will be a sign on one of the tables to help you pin us down. If your already on the email list you’ll be hearing more details as we get closer, and if you’re not, write to me and I’ll sign you up pronto!

Irish Get Together

Last month there was a very successful reunion at Croke Park in Dublin for ex Simmarians living in Ireland. Some of our members who attended have been in touch suggesting we investigate the possibility of setting up an Irish version of the London and Manchester meetings which we hold three times a year. That sounds good to me and we will be talking to the college and others about the best way to organise this. If you think such a  group might be of interest to you, it would help us greatly if you could drop me joe@theloughrans.co.uk or the Alumni dept alumni@stmary’s.ac.uk an email expressing your interest and ideas so we can start to get a feeling for numbers. We are thinking of trying to arrange something this summer around the same time that we hold the London and Manchester events. Watch this space for more news next month.

1969 50^th Reunion Celebration

This September it will be 50 years since some of us started at St Mary’s in 1969 and, as you may already be aware, we are planning a big reunion celebration at the college over the weekend of Friday 30^th August to Sunday 1^st September. This event is not restricted to those who started that year and if you were at college from (say) 1966 to 1975 you will be more than welcome to come along as well. We are still in the early planning stages but to whet your appetite, here are a few things we have already agreed on.

Many of you will remember Mick Greenwood who was the resident DJ for the discos in the Old Bar. He has kindly agreed to recreate that Friday night feeling for us in the Uni bar on the first night of the reunion. He tells me he still has all his records and is putting together a set list just like he used to play back in the day. We are also planning a Photo Wall for you to post pictures of what you looked like back then!! And there might be a quiz in the Café bar in the afternoon based around those halcyon days. There will, of course, be a dinner in the Waldegrave Ballroom on Saturday night and accommodation for the weekend has been put aside in the halls of residence. For those of you who want to recreate the true feelings of college days we have been able to secure 15 twin rooms in “The Girls Hostels” on Waldegrave Park, which are on a first come first served basis. There is a lot more to organise and if you are interested in coming along please visit their Events and Reunions page where you will find more details and options for you to register your interest. Look out for more information as the months pass.

Occasional Stuff

Earlier this month I received a message from Jenny Evans about her husband David who was a student at St Mary’s in the 60’s. Her son, who also went to Simms, read about our group in The Simmarian and showed it to his Mum who decided to share the following article about David with us.

Hello Joe. My son showed me an article in The Simmarian about the 60’s and & 70’s Facebook group, and I thought some of the members might like news of my late husband David Evans, if they remember him. David was at St Mary’s from 1965 to 1969. He was very involved with the NUS at that time, and after qualifying, taught for a year at St John’s Beaumont in Old Windsor, before the NUT came calling for him full time.

After that he moved onto the banking union where he spent the rest of his working life and did a brilliant job. David had to retire early because of heart problems, but we still couldn’t stop him being a workaholic, except he now did it for free! He became a magistrate, a labour councillor, a rugby referee assessor, a secondary school governor, an FE college governor and was Chair of Governors at a primary school for 11 years, among others. Unfortunately, in July 2012, after a busy day in court, he suffered a massive stoke, which he survived against all the odds. We were so lucky that he retained his speech and his ability to eat and drink but was paralysed for the rest of his life and spent almost 6 years in his specialised bed or wheelchair. He passed away on 24^th June 2018 having amazed all the doctors with his resilience. Whilst he was at St Mary’s he was close friends with Ann Towndrow and stayed in touch with her family for many years.  When our son Dafydd was offered a place at Simms to do Sports Science and Business Management in 2004 he was over the moon, and we spent many happy weekends back in the Twickenham area. I hope this message is of interest to you. David was so fond of his time at Simms.

Jenny Evans. x

I asked Jenny if she had a picture of David and she sent me the two shots you see here. She says of these, “Both of these pictures are probably 7 or 8 years after college, but David was always behind the camera. The picture with the statuettes illustrates two of his great passions, rugby and all things welsh. David spent a lot of Saturdays at London Welsh and our son played for them in his early teenage years and his first year at Simms. He also arranged 3 or 4 concerts by the London Welsh Choir while we still lived in Surrey”.

If you remember David and maybe, have some photos of him, it would be great if you could go to our FB page, where I have also posted this article, and add your memories and comments for David’s family to enjoy.

If I don’t see you at either of this month’s meetings, I’ll talk to you again in May.

Joe x

Hiya Gang

This month’s pic is of the old Odeon Cinema in Twickenham around the time we were all there (sorry about the quality). I remember being part of a team who sat on upturned dustbins in front of this for a whole day to raise money for our Rag Week charities in 1970. Every time the lights changed, we jumped on the new set of drivers at the lights trying to relieve them of some cash. You can also see that our numbers are creeping up. 800 here we come, and our Facebook group is now 414.

Group Get Togethers

I’m sure you are all up to speed with the fact that we now hold our thrice yearly group meetings in Manchester as well as London and the next ones are due to happen around Easter, which this year is on 19-21^stApril. In order to avoid the holiday rush at that time we’ll probably hold them in the early part of the month. The London get together is, as ever, at The Chandos off St Martins Lane. They don’t have a website but if you click here you will get all the griff on them. We have now settled into The Mercure Piccadilly Hotel on Portland Street Manchester for our Northern meet. You can check them out here Piccadilly Hotel. Look out for the dates through my email messages later this month. If you’d like to join us at one of these events and you’re not yet a member of our group just drop me a note to joe@theloughrans.co.uk and I’ll set you up.

1964-67 Group

John White has managed to make it along to both of our Northern meetings so far, as a result of which we are now aware of this long-standing group, some of whom are already members, and below is a note John sent me about them.  We currently have 76 people from the 64-67 period in our membership. If any of you out there were at college in those years and would like to regain contact with old friends, please drop me a note and we’ll make it happen.

“As you may be aware from our previous correspondence, myself, Peter Murphy and Graham Marshment have together been long-standing coordinators of our Simms 1964-1967 year group cohort reunion activities over the years. To date we have organised eight very successful reunion events at Simms, starting with our 1992 Silver Jubilee Reunion until our last 2017 Golden Jubilee Reunion.

We have a list of over 100 contacts from our cohort, out of a year group intake of 245 students in 1964, but sadly our list of contacts continues to diminish with the demise of too many close friends over time, although we still continue to re-establish contact with ‘lost’ colleagues occasionally, as well as achieving some 50 plus attendees at our regular reunions.”

Occasional Stuff

Kevin Clayton has sent us a bunch of pictures of the antics of a group of students from a Strawberry Fair Rag Week in 1965, together with comments. Here are a few, and the rest can be found in the photos section of the Facebook group.

“I was at Simms 1962-65 and took these photos of Strawberry Fair week 1965. The theme was Pirates and there was a chariot race. Eddie Bleasdale in the chariot was president of the Auto Club. Two PE main lads pulled it. A lot happened on Richmond Bridge with someone going into the water as well as collecting money. As I did Handicrafts, I collected a year of the Weekly Record and bound it. It should be in the college archive and ought to contain lots of interesting stuff. I handed it in around 2005 along with a vinyl record of Skulduggery – a play put on in 1963.”

Kevin mentions his collection of Weekly Records donated back to the college. I bet there are plenty of copies of this august magazine out there. It would be great if those of you who have any could share them with us. Send me, or the Alumni Office a copy and between us we’ll find a way to share them with everyone.

See you in April.

Joe x           

Hello there... only me!

The eagle-eyed among you will have noticed that I have changed the cover picture this month. It looks like a Strawberry Fair gathering to me, but you may know better! I’m sure there are a lot of pictures out there which would make great cover shots for this page and we’d love to see them. If you have any photographs you think would look good in this spot, please send them to me or the Alumni Office and we’ll make it happen.

News

This month I have to report a change at the helm of our Alumni Office. Lucy Edington came on board at the start of this month and we are already working together to further the various projects some of us are involved in this year. You can get hold of Lucy at alumni@stmarys.ac.uk  She replaces Helen Major who has taken up a new challenge in the Engagement and Internal Comms Dept, where among her other duties she will still be keeping an eye on us to smooth and enhance our relations with the various other departments within the college.

Membership

As you can see, at the top of the page I have introduced a record of the number of members we currently have. Since we started working with the college, the size of our group has grown considerably, and the membership count represents the number of people we now have on our email contact list. The Facebook count shows those of you who have joined that closed group. Not everyone who is a member of the FB group has joined the email list, so you may find old friends on there you didn’t know about. Click this link to our page and join in the fun. This year we’re aiming for 800 members so if you are in contact with old friends who have not yet joined us please point them in my direction and I’ll do the rest.

Missing Persons Squad!

Over the years we have been remarkably successful helping old friends find each other, and now that we are a larger group, we can do even better in this area. If you would like us to help you track down your old college pals, please send me their name (at college) together with any other helpful information you have, such as the subjects they studied and the years they were there, and we’ll see what we can dig up for you.

50th Anniversary Bash – 1969 Intake

Some of us are now reaching an age where each year will be the 50th anniversary of starting at St Mary’s, and this year it is the turn of the 69er’s! It will of course, also be the 50th anniversary of those who left that year. However, that doesn’t mean our celebrations are only open to that year’s students. There’s plenty of spread either side of that, so if you were at college a couple of years each side of 69-72 you will be most welcome. There will be lots more about this over the coming months as we put plans in place.

Occasional Stuff

Continuing our policy of sharing occasional stuff that comes our way, this month I am including a photograph sent to me by Alf Yates and a shot of the 1973 Rag Team. I don’t have any information about the rag pic, so if any of you can name the suspects, I’d love to hear from you.

Hi Joe,
This is a picture of Elizabeth Yates (née Cooney) and me with our three children and grandchildren in the Chapel after Sunday Mass on 12th July 2015, exactly 40 years after our wedding there on 12th July 1975.  We were married by Fr Sean Johnston and were both at College from 1971-1974.
Alf

See you all in March,
Joe x

Hello Everyone and a Happy New Year to you all.

December is a very busy time for everyone, so this month we’re just having a catch up, a bit of planning and some more occasional stuff.

Manchester Xmas Meeting

We had our Christmas get together at the Mercure Hotel in Piccadilly Gardens on 6^th December Even though it was only our second visit, the staff remembered us and made us very welcome. We took over a cosy corner and spent a very pleasant few hours meeting old friends and discovering new ones. Tom Farrell came from north of Scarborough and Mary Onezime made it all the way up from Southend. A great effort from both of you, and well appreciated. A huge thanks to all you who managed to come along and to those who sent their apologies, it bodes very well for our next meeting at Easter next year.

There is an interesting twist to this tale. Half way through the meeting two guys came in like they were looking for someone. They were about the right age (aren't we all!!) so I asked if they were after our group......and they were. It turned out they were members of our group who were in Manchester for unconnected reasons and were passing the hotel on their way back to the station. One of them thought they remembered that we were holding our meeting today in this hotel, so they popped in for a minute to see if we were there. The pic above catches the moment when they realised, they had found some old friends they hadn't seen for 40 odd years. They could only stay for a few minutes, but it was well worthwhile. Let's hope they can stay for longer next Easter.

2019 Events:

I think 2019 will be another good year for us. Now that we have got the Northern group established there will be three get togethers in London and Manchester during the year, watch out for details. In addition, there are moves afoot to set up a similar arrangement down in the South West and I’ll let you know how that develops. This year is the 50^th Anniversary of those of you who started college in 1969 and we will be celebrating it at the college over the last weekend in August (Friday 30^th August to Sunday 1^st September). Although that year is our starting point it is not restricted to those dates. A lot of you will know people either side of 1969 so you’ll be most welcome if your college years were anywhere from the late 60’s to the mid 70’s. And don’t forget there is also a group who left college that year. You guys are all welcome too. Lots of planning to do yet and I’ll keep you up to date with it all, but you might want to mark that weekend off in your diary.

Occasional Stuff:

The cost of going to University is now significant. By comparison, here is a photo of the letter my parents received from the LEA in 1971 confirming the size of the grant they would be paying for my last year at Simms. It’s pretty self-explanatory and believe it or not I was quite happy with it. I did get a part time job as a night security guard during the summer break before this which I continued during my last year (the theory being that I could get a lot of study done while sitting in some empty premises or building site overnight….yeah right!). As you can see, tuition, food and accommodation were all free!

Catch you all later, 

Joe x 

Hello out there

Doesn’t time fly! It’s already December and Christmas is fast approaching. This month we’ve got a report on a fabulous gathering at The Chandos in London, a couple of reminders for future events and a great piece from an ex Simmarian about her involvement in the School in the Clouds.

Chandos Christmas get together

This was one of our great meetings. You can see from the photograph above how many peeps came along. Everyone in this picture is a Simmarian and there were more around the place who I couldn’t catch for this shot. There was a good mix of old friends who’ve been before and new members giving us a try for the first time. If you’re in our Simms Group on Facebook, nip over there and check out all the pictures and comments about the day, and if you’re not…….why not? 

Manchester Christmas get together

This takes place at The Mercure Piccadilly Hotel on 6^th December. I’ll be sending out the details later this week. If you’re already part of our group you’ll get all the guff next week, and if you haven’t joined us yet………...why not? At our first meeting in September one of our members, Linda Marsden, was telling me about the work she was doing with “The School in The Clouds”. It was fascinating, and I thought you would like to hear about it so, I asked her if she wouldn’t mind writing a piece, that I could pass on, and she very kindly sent me the article and diary below.

The school in the clouds

Some years ago, I listened to a chap who was a computer programmer in New Delhi. He worked next to a slum. He decided to stick a big robust computer into a hole in the wall there and see what would happen. After being abroad for a couple of months he came back to see what had gone on. The street children who had never used a computer before or the internet started browsing. Their complaints to him were - they wanted a faster processor, a better mouse and why was it in English? They'd had to learn English!

The chap was Professor Sugata Mitra and 'The School in the Cloud' was born. He recognised that children could organise themselves to learn whatever they wanted - SOLE - Self Organised Learning Environment. It made headlines in the newspapers and there was much discussion about children's aspirations being raised. Street children in India could dare to dream about a better life and a more hopeful future. It also made a good story - one that was written by a young Indian writer. Danny Boyle made this into a film - 'Slum Dog Millionaire'.

It all began with one chap and a computer in 1999 and children from a slum in New Delhi. Today, 'The School in the Cloud' is a vibrant worldwide community where self-organised learning takes place. I am one of the many volunteer grannies/grandpas who mediate through skype with children in areas where it's most needed. The children always amaze me at their sheer grit and determination to learn. Here is a a short video about it...

Linda Marsden (73-76)

Linda then went on to let us have a section from her diary which gives you a very good idea of how it works.

Wednesday 1st August

East of Kolkata - A small village in the sticks - nearest sizeable place Korakati. 13 children turned up today aged between 5 and 17! and all ages in between. Crumbs, I thought what on earth am I going to do with them for an hour! Seeing the 17 year old in front of the screen I felt confident that he could act as 'leader'. Big mistake - he spoke little English. I continually have to remind myself that it is their 3rd language. All was not lost though. After introductions and general introductions I used my trusty British Council website ' learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org' for a variety of songs including 'The Wheels on the Bus', 'I can sing a rainbow', 'Head, knees and shoulders' with actions, 'Hickory, Dickory, Dock' plus a few others. They all enjoyed it thankfully and I'm always full of admiration that they're coming to the community lab at the end of the school day (usually a.m. timewise for us) for these skype sessions.

Tuesday 7th August

Knowing that the groups are fluid, and anyone can turn up can be a challenge. Today, one child Jit, 10 took control of the keyboard typing in names; interesting as there were older children there, but they mustn't have felt as confident as Jit. Frustratingly there were problems with them not being able to see and hear me. At first, I thought the problem was at their end, but I realised there was a problem with my microphone. Fortunately, it didn't stop the session going ahead - I sent them an activity - to use 'Google Images' to find photos of butterflies, research the 'Big Butterfly Count' and send me photos of butterflies in their area and find words with the word 'butterfly'. They did really well.

Tuesday 14th August

A shock to the system! 14 very intelligent children aged 12-16, found my locality on 'Google Maps', got on to live streaming of the International Space Station, discussed that and found google maps of Mars which I didn't even know existed and then provided a shedload of information about Mars. Very enjoyable, but I needed a lie-down and a strong drink after that as I was exhausted!

Monday 20th August

The younger children who appeared today love anything to do with animals. I sent them a whole range of animal photos and they knew every single one - their range of animal vocabulary is amazing and extensive.

Wednesday 29th August

The children are always keen to screen-share from their screen, that's fine, but today they merrily started watching a video clip I'd sent them about the rainforest, but I couldn't see it! Anyway, Milan, who is the co-ordinator at the lab making sure that everything's ok clicked on the right button and I could see it.

Friday 7th September

A disaster! My lap-top has forced me to update my skype version. I'm sure eventually it will be fine, but at the moment I can't find any of the control buttons and am not able to screen-share. I was able to send them text messages via skype and I got them researching festivals. I told them about our 2 festivals in Ramsbottom, Lancashire this month - jigsaw and black pudding; yes, I know bizarre!

Tuesday 11th September

Today the girls wanted to sing me a song which I enjoyed. I mentioned our 2 festivals again which they found images of. They told me all about their 10 day ’Ganesh Festival' which they were very excited about. Two of the boys then sang me a song, then together we did a number of tongue twisters which they enjoyed. I wished them a happy time at the festival and they went off very excited.

Wednesday 26th September

The children had all enjoyed the festival and told me all about the food, music, dancing, the parades through the streets and they then screen-shared a video of it. It looked very colourful and joyful. They'd had a very happy time and told me more about the traditions surrounding the festival and then Milan found a video showing how paniputi and panipuri are made. I'd never heard of either, so that was an education in itself!

Tuesday 2nd October

Torrential rain, no children have turned up today - Milan sent a message through.

Wednesday 10th October

Still trying to become familiar with this new skype version - still not fully 'au fait' with it. I'm sure it will get better. I think one of the advantages is that I will be able to link up with another lab in India and then we could share a session with them and the lab at Korakati. It worked well when I did it once a couple of years ago, but it was set up for me at the Indian end. I think in the future I'll be able to do it from my end with the new skype version. Today, the children wanted to look at video stories. I found a good one on my faithful British Council website 'The dark, Dark Wood'. The bonus was that there were activities with it too. The mixture of children I had struggled with repeating a lot of the phrases in the text but were very keen to read it. We did it slowly and they had a go at the word activities and did really very well. It helped, as visually there were a number of good illustrations - this worked well given that there were a number of small children. A song always helped, so we finished with '10 Little Aeroplanes' - a counting video song.

Tuesday 16th October

We were going to have a go at singing 'Old MacDonald' but they seemed a bit bored, so I changed tack. They enjoyed a couple of word games and a few tongue twisters. We finished with a jungle story which they enjoyed.

Wednesday 24th October

No internet - being in the sticks it's generated by solar power. It seems though that the problem was with the inverter, so a new part had to be brought from Kolkata. It continually brings it home to me how remote and rural this area is and how far the people here are away from a sizeable centre. It's predominantly a potato growing area together with rice and other vegetables. I'm hoping next time to talk about Diwali with the children.

Monday 29th October

The inverter still hasn't arrived, and Milan said they're still waiting.

Thursday 1st November

The inverter has arrived, so internet is back on. Heavy rain and no children.

Wednesday 7th November

A good session, but there were 18 children! I heard all about Diwali, photos, music and videos. They had enjoyed everything. I did a game 'What is this?' with various items of doll's clothing - skirt, trousers, jumper, hat, scarf, dress and T shirt. they told me their names and colours. We talked about the clothes they were wearing and colours. I also asked them how far they lived from the lab. This varied significantly. The nearest was 10 minutes, but the furthest was an hour. The majority of them cycled to the lab - often with 2 or 3 sharing a bike. We looked at pictures of other forms of transport and a gave them a matching game where they had to match photos with the correct word. They made a few mistakes and had to change them, but generally they did well. Next week hopefully if there are no techie glitches at either end, I'm hoping to hear more about the different festivals, customs and traditions.

Wednesday 31st October

All set with Korakati centre - more activities on the rainforest. What can go wrong? Big mistake! Never assume it will be straight-forward. This new version of skype has been playing up again and today the web cam wasn't working for some reason, so the children couldn't see me! It was so frustrating as they were busy waving at the screen which of course was empty. At least I could copy and paste in the text box to them. The youngest today, a little boy of 5 was telling me what he had enjoyed about the recent festival of Durga Puja. He had enjoyed a savoury dish of panipuri, a bit like small dumplings. Trishna, a 12 year old girl, quite shy in contrast had enjoyed the dance and a very confident Lakshmi, aged 8, who was doing all the typing of names had enjoyed the sweets. Milan then found a video clip to show me how the panipuri are made. We enjoyed a song - 'The Ballad of Lisa the Lemur' being forced out of the rainforest and I gave them some tongue twisters which they enjoyed. They were amazingly patient considering that they couldn't see me. Hopefully the video will work next time!

And finally!

The October news carried a report on the 50^th Anniversary celebrations for those who started at St Mary’s in 1968. Well, unsurprisingly, next year will be the turn of those of us who started in 1969 and we have now booked the college for the weekend of August 30– 31^st 2019. There will be lots more about this in the following months, but if you were there around that time (say 1967-74) you’ll know a lot of the attendees and you’re very welcome to come along as well. Mark the dates on your calendar.

Before I sign off, just for some Christmas fun, I thought I would remind you of warmer times. This is a picture of how some students from the 60’s found time to sunbathe on the roof of the QM floor of the Old House. Recognise anyone? 

If I don’t see you before, may I wish all my readers a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I hope 2019 turns out to be the year you’re hoping it will be.

Joe Loughran (69-72)

Hiya Folks

What do you think of this month’s cover picture? It was sent in to the group by one of the members and is from the Going Down Ball in 1973. Do you recognise anyone, or are you on there yourself? Answers on a postcard to……….!

As you know we’re here to help old Simmarians find each other and stay in touch, and so far we seem to be doing just that. Electronically we have our email list and Facebook page and physically we meet in London three times a year and now in Manchester as well.

To further aid this process I recently published a copy of our contact list broken down into year groups, so the people you were at college with are now right there next to your name! If you would like to get a copy of the list and check out if any of your old friends are on there all you need to do is join the group. Just send me an email and I’ll make it happen for you.

There are more than 700 people on the list and it continues to grow through word of mouth, our Facebook page, the column we now have in the Alumni page of the College website and by our search requests, which are wonderfully fruitful.

This month I thought I would show you some examples of how we are helping old friends reconnect. The first two met by chance on a cruise, the next ones knew each other but didn’t realise that either was an old Simmarian, and the last one hooked up again as a result of one of our email appeals. They are all members of the group.

This is the story of how two old Simmarians discovered their connection whilst on a cruise.

During a raging storm on the Bering Sea between Alaska and Russia and just north of a joint Chinese-Russia naval missile exercise, two strangers were playing “Trivia” on the cruise ship Silver Shadow. Both missed a question about Alexander Pope and Peter exclaimed “I should have known that; the Popes Grotto was right next to my college”.  Joan, in amazement, queried “Strawberry Hill”?  To which Peter replied “Yes”.

There ensued an exciting conversation covering the Waldegrave Ballroom, the Long Gallery the running track and the 27 bus etc.

Both are now retired; Peter Daley (59-62) followed a career as a Foreign Exchange Trader and later as a director of a US bank and Joan Street nee Whelan (68-71), who studied Maths & Chemistry, now lives in Sydney following a career as an educator in Financial Services. Both have fond memories of St. Mary’s, the friendships made and the education received which has enabled them to build careers they have both enjoyed.
Pete & Joan

This next tale is weird because of the location! Eileen McNulty (69-72) and John McSweeney (70-73) both live on Thursday Island at the top end of Australia. (Check it out on Google Maps) They knew each other a little, but neither realised that the other went to Simms. Here is a photo of their own reunion back in 2015, and Eileen’s comments about it.

I couldn't believe it when John McSweeney, another ex Simmarian, and I ended up on Thursday Island in the Torres Straits round 2014/ 15. Thursday Island is TINY, less than 2 by 3 kms and one of over 200 little islands in 48 000 sq. kms of sea. I reckon he and I were closer neighbours (within 1 km of each other) than anyone else on our contact list. I'll bring my Aussie map to the Chandos if anyone can get there so you can see just how remote it is. For goodness sake Australia's remote!!

And here’s one more….

Dear Joe, 

Not sure if I told you this - I was looking for Maggie Whelan, 75 -? Well, I have found her, or at least she found me! One of her best friends from College spotted my E-mail appeal and got in touch with her. She is living very near to where I was born in Worcestershire. Her Parents were my God Parents, and I just found out my Dad was her twin Sister's Godfather. That makes her my God Sister, I think. We hope to meet up again next year some time. So, there is a piece of good news to spread around, all because of your hard work! Keep it up!!!
Andy Browne (72-75)

If you have an interesting tale like this we’d love to hear about it.

Now, some dates for your diaries. We will be holding our usual Christmas get-togethers at the end of November or early December in London and now Manchester; those dates will drop into your inbox in the next week or so.

And 2019 is the 50th Anniversary for the 1969 intake (that’s me then!) as well as the 50^th leaving party for the 1966 lot. Initial plans are underway and any thoughts about how you would like the celebrations to go will be most welcome. You can send your ideas to me or Helen Major at the college on alumni@stmarys.ac.uk.

If you want to join our movement and change the world! Just send an email to joe@theloughrans.co.uk.

See you all next month.
Joe x

Hey Kids 

Autumn is the season of mist and mellow fruitfulness, they say. But before we think of winding down for winter there’s still plenty going on. This month’s edition reports on the recent 50 year celebration for the 1968-71 intake, and we also had our first Northern meeting in Manchester this month. It turned out to be a great success as you’ll see below. Now read on…

News

Earlier this month I used my old codgers rail card and took a day trip down to the college for a meet and greet with the Development and Alumni Relations Team. During the day I met lots of interesting people, all very keen and willing to foster and develop relations between the college and all Alumni. For us the point of contact is Helen Major, who recently joined the team and has plenty of ideas to move things forward, and I also met Julian Smyth, the Director of Development who brought me up to speed with the progress he has made to get various departments of the college more involved with the Alumni to improve our experience when we contact or visit the campus.

I’ll be reporting on all the things we discussed as they start to come through look out for updates. 

50th Reunion Celebration 1968-71 

This reunion proved to be a wonderful success. The weather was great, the company was great, and the fun and friendship was great. Old friends were there from all over the shop; Australia and South Africa to name but two. We even had one hardy lad who drove all the way down from Sunderland and back on Saturday just for the day! Jim Coffey has penned a wonderful description of the whole thing which is posted below and if you visit our Simms Group Facebook page via these three links you will find a wealth of photographs covering the whole weekend.

• Friday
• Saturday
• Sunday

I would very much like to record some words of thanks for our recent 50th Reunion on behalf of the many who attended the occasion. Perhaps too, it will provide a pen picture of happenings for others out there where ever you may be.

Without doubt our 50th celebration was a memorable success all round.

At the centre of this was the organisation of the activities by Gwen Hickey and Dave 'Torchy 'Simpson but not forgetting the assistance of the college Alumni department and the catering staff who did an admirable job.

Oh, and let's not forget Joe Loughran for all the extra publicity that he gave the occasion through his trusty emails, it was good to see you at the celebrations Joe.

It was also marvellous that other year groups attended, after all we are of the same era! Indeed, an invitation to attend the 69/72 events next year has been mentioned already.

The turnout was the best ever and people came from far and wide, from up and down the country and even further afield. The call went out and so many responded!  

Well done to Gill Argent who came in from Southern France and Bernadette Richardson from the South Coast of Spain and everybody else, great to see you all.

A sight to behold was Ian Lee arriving on that humungous motorbike from Co Offaly in Ireland. He certainly fitted the bill as the 'ton up rocker!'

The Pope's was the venue for that first informal get together on the Friday evening but that was only the start.

The informality continued on Saturday with a meet and greet picnic in the grounds of the college. Torchy, Pete Kelly and Humphrey Needle like true Simmarian blues ensured that we were ably entertained with music and song. 

Thanks to Jim Powell for organising the cricket match, the quality of play was perhaps not quite up to Lords standards but who was caring? They say it's the taking part that counts!

Saturday evening was the highlight of the weekend with the buffet in the Waldegrave Ballroom, scene of many other gatherings we had back in those college days.

Stories were retold, and new ones shared, it was like we had never left there.

The evening was interspersed with sounds of the 60's, All right Now the Free.. Stones, Marvin Gaye, Otis Redding and all the rest. We even had a cake to cut which Micky Kerr carried out with precision, it must have been all those maths lessons on fractions over the years. Thanks Micky for the cake cutting exercise and the cool music sounds.

The dancing was pretty energetic oh wow as we tripped the light fantastic!

We were even treated to a rather different take on a swing number with legs to the left and legs to the right thanks’ lads. They were looked down on from the portrait of Lady Waldegrave no less, as you will see from one of the photos.

And so, we closed what was a very special evening with people vowing to keep up the contacts. On Sunday we gathered in the chapel for 11am mass and certainly it was a time of reflection. We remembered those who could not be present but most of all those Simmarians from our year group who had passed RIP. Torchy provided a gentle lament played on the flute, is there no end to that man's talents? 

Pauline and Paddy Ruth had something very special to remember when they received a blessing during the mass to celebrate forty-five years of marriage.

Congratulations Pauline and Paddy from everybody!

The time was near for us to say our farewells to friends who had celebrated 50 years since we started college in 1968. The flip side to that is we must all meet back at Simms in three years’ time when it will be 50 years since we finished college!

Life can be so interesting if you make it that way!! 

Good luck everybody...

Jim Coffey (68-71) and on behalf of the rest of the quality vintage!!

First Northern Get Together

Last Friday saw the inaugural Northern meeting of our Simms Group, and what a day it turned out to be………..way better than my wildest expectations. We met at the Mercure Hotel bordering Piccadilly Gardens in central Manchester.  I got there early on the off chance that someone might actually turn up, but I needn’t have worried. Old Simmarians soon started wandering into the lounge bar, easily recognisable by their energy and youthful good looks!

As you can see from the photograph we had a great turn out, easily matching those we have been enjoying down in London for some years now. You can see more pictures and read the many comments on our Simms Facebook page by following this link:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1805387226353109/?ref=bookmarks

The hotel could not have been more accommodating. They kept an area to one side for us and waiters and bar staff tended to our every need for the afternoon. One thing I hadn’t thought of was name tags, but that was solved by approaching the registration desk for a conference that was taking place further down the corridor from the lounge bar and persuading them to lend me a load of blank ones for the afternoon. Note to self, bring name tags next time!

Everyone was very enthusiastic about the whole thing and keen to establish it as a regular event. As you can see we had a great turnout for a first effort, and on top of those who came we had many apologies from those who couldn’t make it this time and promises to come along to the next one, so it looks like future gatherings will be well attended. There is a list of those who came along on the FB page, but if you want more info just drop me an email. As for future events, it was not a matter of should we, but when, so we’re going to plug it into the calendar and as soon as we have worked out a suitable date for the next bash I’ll let you know.

A big, big thank you to all those who were able to make it this time and we look forward to seeing you all in Manchester for the next one...

Joe Loughran (69-72)

Greetings Pop Pickers!

By the time you read this month’s news the great 50th Celebration for the 1968 intake will have taken place. We’ll have a full report and pictures in October and we’re starting to talk to the college about making this an annual event, so 69’ers you’re up next!

It has been another month of new members finding us, and old friends finding each other through the growing email list we have. There are now 650 of us and I am amazed at how successful we are becoming at playing detective. If you fancy jumping on the bandwagon, send me an email with the years you were at St Mary’s and I’ll do the rest.

And now onwards…

Chandos Meeting

You may recall we had our latest “Gathering of the Clans” at The Chandos on Friday 13^th August, and despite the date it turned out to be one of the best ones we’ve had. Now that we have a presence on the college web site we are generating new members all the time and we had a good turnout of those here. It is always great when we see new faces coming along as well as those of you that can get there more often. One of our members, John Harkin was over from 

Australia and it turned out that not only did he and I study Physics together at Simms, but we are both Coventry boys (different schools) so we had a lot to catch up on. John was really hoping to see his old friend Tim Daley who he hadn’t seen for 43 years and sure enough both Tim and Teresa came in half an hour later. There were tales of new members finding and reconnecting with old friends they had seen on the email listings or had heard from since I put out a new joiners list. It is always good to hear that our messages and newsletters are putting an increasing number of old friends back in touch with each other, and if it happens to you we would love to hear about it, after all, that’s what this group is about.  Here are some pics for you. If you want me to identify anyone just email me.

Northern Meeting

Last month I told you that we were having our first get together “Up North”. Well it’s happening this month in Manchester. I originally opt

ed for a local pub very close to the main Piccadilly Station for ease of access, but I was not happy with their proposals for the room and food etc, so I looked elsewhere and received a very warm welcome from the Manchester Mercure Piccadilly Hotel in Piccadilly Gardens (10 mins from the station).They will cordon off an area for us in the 3^rd floor lounge and we can get whatever food and drink we chose from their bar and extensive menu.

The date we have chosen is Friday 28^th September and we will meet at noon along the same lines as The Chandos meetings.

More details to follow. You’ll easily find the hotel on goggle and If you are interested in joining in and want more info send me an email. joe@theloughrans.co.uk.

Occasional Stuff

Now, something for the oldies!  This month we have been sent a couple of sporting photos by John Quinn (1960-61 and 1965-67) from the very earliest days of our group membership. See if you can recognise anyone?

Photo of First Year football XI (1960/61)

This was taken before game against Second Year XI, which was won by the First Year XI.

Back Row from left to right - Phil Entwhistle - Brian Jones - Tony Patterson - Julian Harland z(?) Sinicki (we all called him “Sini’ - Roger Mackay - John Walmsley - Joe Hughes….I cannot remember why Joe wasn’t dressed. He was the best First Year player and played College1st XI along with three other Fist Years, Sini, Tony Patterson, and me.

Front Row left to right - Frank Daley - Dave Spence - Don Preston - Brian Hickey - et moi, John Quinn

Photo of College Volleyball team (1960-61)

Back row from left to right -Lou Baker - Tony Patterson - John Molloy - Andy Grigulis - Stan Bissinger Pete Hughes

Front Row left to right - Tony Short - Pete Harvey - John Wilcox - Brian Wood - George Bulman - John Quinn - Lucas Remedios

See you all next month,
Joe x

Hello Again, 

This month we have, news about our first Northern meeting for the group, a twist on the Simmarian Magazine’s “Where are they now” column, a reminder of Strawberry Fayre 1963 and a really great video of life at St Mary’s around 1969-71 Enjoy. 

Updates 

A final reminder for those of you who were at Simms around 1968-71, that your 50th Anniversary party is happening at the College over the weekend of 31st August to 2nd September. If you don’t know about this yet or want more information you’ll get everything you need from the Alumni Office at  alumni@stmarys.ac.uk  or drop me a line and I’ll point you in the right direction. 

Where are they now? 

As you know the College already runs this section in the Simmarian Magazine to let people know what their old friends have been up to since leaving St Mary’s, but this month I want to turn that on its head and ask for your help to find the lady below. 

Normally we rely on our existing contacts to try and track down old friends, but occasionally we get a request which might deliver better results if we ask the wider Simmarian community. 

An example of this is a request from John Hillel to find Elizabeth Mate’ (with an acute accent). John tells me that Elizabeth was a librarian at the College in the late 60’s, so she ought to be known to many of you (‘cos we all spent hours in there, right!) If any of you can help John, please send me an email. 

Chandos Meeting 

Those of you who are already members of our group will know that we have been holding regular get togethers for some years now at The Chandos Pub in St Martins Lane off Trafalgar Square, and our summer meeting is happening there on Friday 17th August. We have found that if we run the meeting from 12 noon onwards it allows those of us who travel to get there and home again in one day. So, if you fancy a day out in London, send me an email and I’ll let you have all the details. 

Northern meeting 

Following the success of our London gatherings we have had several requests to organise a similar event in “the North”, and to quote all the best politicians “we’ve been listening”. We will be holding our very first Northern get together at The Waldorf Pub on Gore St Manchester, just 5 minutes’ walk from Piccadilly Station. It will either be on the 21st or 28th September and we intend to follow the same successful formula we do at The Chandos. It’s still in the planning phase, so look out for the concrete arrangements in next month’s newsletter………..or better still, join the group and never miss opportunities like this again!! 

Occasional Stuff 

One of our members, Margaret Cribbin (nee O’Reilly), has posted the video below on our Simms Group Facebook page with the following notes. It’s well worth a look. If any of you have stuff like this hiding away at home, we’d love to help you share it with the wider group. Just send it to me or post it on our FB page. 

I have just had some old Cine films converted to video. They show Strawberry Fayre 1969-71 but I’m not sure which year. It also has a section on the Plasy Brenin outdoor activity centre with some of the PE group, followed by scenes taken near the sports hall. If you look carefully Miss Stapleton makes a fleeting appearance. The groups featured are mostly lads from Liverpool, the Irish PE group and my Cross St housemates, Lynda Mullin, Shelagh Killen, Kate Taylor, Gail Murray, Pat Gilbert and Jo Doyle, all of whom are still in contact with each other. Hope the video revives happy memories. 

Apologies for the bad camera work!  
Regards to all  
Margaret Cribbin nee O'Reilly 
https://drive.google.com/file/d/18SM8omj_9s07laywWNFWSLZcWBG3ASjP/view  

And Finally...

Hi everyone,

How’s this weather suiting you all?

Having our own web page is proving very fruitful for us. Since last month we have recruited another 40+ members from all around the world. The Alumni part of the college website has a “ Where are you now” section and we have attracted some new members through that. The college is always looking for updates and stories from past students and would love to hear from you guys about what you’ve been up to since leaving those hallowed halls!

Strawberry Fayre

I’m sure we all have fond memories of Strawberry Fayre, and back in March we were lucky enough to get hold of some rare footage of one of those wonderful events from 1973/74. Here is a link to the page. Enjoy.

Updates

As you know we hold a low-key get together at The Chandos pub in London three times a year and right now, we are just working out the date for the next one, which will be later this month or early August. Once we’ve finalised that I’ll send a note out to everyone. If you are not yet on our contact list and think you might like to come along send me an email and I’ll keep you informed about it.

Reunions

Many reunions take place at the college, organised by the different year groups who have kept in touch. Recently, Tony Aitken sent me a wonderful web page he created of a 2012 reunion for the 1964-68 group. I have attached it below. I’m sure it will bring back many memories for some of you. 

Occasional stuff

There will be an article about music gigs at St Mary’s in the next Simmarian magazine. One of our members has sent us his memories of the music scene when he was there, and it really highlights the way the whole world of music changed during the 60s:

Re. music at Simms - the Modern Dance orchestra at the college provided most of the music in the early 60s and would occasionally have guest instrumentalists from the military. These provided many a swinging evening for all the dancers. Barney O’Hare who was president of the Modern Dance Society in 62 invited an Irish Showband to perform one evening and they rocked the old Aula with their rousing rendition of the “Lone Ranger” theme. We also had a trio at that time with my old friend, the late Mike Lynagh on drums. 

I also see that the BBC has been reminiscing about Eel Pie Island and the Richmond Hotel which were favourite haunts for the college aficionados of the new beat in those days. At that time, Joe Jagger was the college basketball coach and the PE members made every effort to petition him to have son Mick and the Stones play a gig at the college. Alas! It came to naught.
James Forde (1961-65)

Hello everyone

Here we are with our third group newsletter. I’ve tried to give it some sort of format, but that may change as we develop it. If what you see here inspires you or reminds you of your time at college, you can share your stories and memories (including pics and vids) on here by sending them to me or directly to Elinor Hatt at the uni at alumni@stmarys.ac.uk.

News

This month we have great news for you. The college like what were doing with our group so much that they have now given us our own page on the University website. You have reached this by clicking on the “read more” button in the enews letter, but if you want to get to our page through the Uni web site, you need to do the following. Go to www.stmarys.ac.uk and click on “Alumni” in the top right-hand corner. This takes you to the main “Development and Alumni Relations” page. Now scroll down and click on “Alumni Services”, then “Support Services”, and you will find our group listed in the column on the right-hand side of the page. This is a little convoluted, and we’re hoping to make it an easier click through in the future, but it’s a start.

Since the last issue of this we have attracted another 32 members, so although I haven’t totalled up our numbers recently, I guess it’s around 650 by now. In order to get my emails through to everyone I have to split them into 4 groups, so you will not be aware of who all our members are by scrolling through the list of addresses at the top of the emails you receive. I am in the process of creating a full list of members to pass on to you all. This is a slow process but look out for more progress on it in the coming months.

Updates

I recently asked for your help to track down pictures of Tim Cullen for one of our members and as usual you came through. We managed to get not only photos but were able to provide video as well.

Thanks very much to everyone for sending these in!

Reminders

This September it will be 50 years since the 1968 intake started and to celebrate this, there is a reunion taking place at the college over the last weekend in August (from Friday 31^st to Sunday 2^nd September). Even though the central date is 1968, old friends who were at college around that time will be most welcome. Plans are already well underway for this event and if any of you would like to attend or get more information about it please contact alumni@stmarys.ac.uk or you can book online here.

Occasional stuff

One of our members has passed on a video of Strawberry Fayre 1973 and 74, and I have included a link to it here for those of you who might like to see it. This is the video that, by sheer luck, included shots of the Tim Cullen that our member was looking for…enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqgtqDQ6jp0

Ghost Hunting in the Old House

Jim Powell, who was at St Mary’s from 1966-69, has sent in this recollection of one of his late night excursions into the Old House to hunt for Ghosts, a journey many of us have been on!

Walpole House had a reputation of being a centre for black magic in the past.

At the end of the night, when the bar closed a group of 3 of us were still wide awake. We had heard about the round room. We walked up the corridor and up the stairs into the round room. The markings for the black magic were supposed to be under the carpet. For the magic to work the room had to be completely round. The window shutters and doors were slightly curved and covered in the same material of the walls. We closed them. There was completely darkness.

We got bored after a time and decided to leave. We felt our way around the wall and found a door. It opened onto the Long Hall. As we opened the door, a shaft of light slowly appeared in an otherwise dark Long Hall as a door was opened at the far end. A hooded figure appeared and slowly turned towards us and advanced.

Being the brave lads, we were, we panicked and slammed the door shut. Now we are in complete darkness and the walls and the doors flowed into each other. Each one of us were running across the room with the inevitable collisions. I found the correct door first and went through it, slamming it after me in case the hooded figure would catch me. Immediately after the door slammed shut I heard 2 thumps as my compatriots hit the closed door. I am sure that I cleared the stairs in one leap.

I waited down by the bar and waited for the other 2. They did not have kind words for me!

We decided that we had to go back because we did not really believe in ghosts. As we came to the top of the stairs, we saw the hooded figure again advancing towards us! It was a small thin priest who was on duty because of the theft and vandalism at night. He asked if he should call the police because of the event. We did not admit that it was us, but we advised that it was not necessary. When the priest left all three of us were very sober and quiet.
Jim Powell (Physics and Maths, 1966-69)

Hello everybody

Welcome to our second group update. We had a great response from the first one that came out last month, attracting more than 40 new members. Since this is a new venture for us I’ve set down below a potted history of our group so you know where we came from.

It began in 2012 when 6 of us got together over lunch, and since then it has grown steadily such that we now number more than 600, with a membership from the beginning of the 60s to the end of the 70s. We take a low key approach to things, holding periodic get togethers and regular contact, rather than the more traditional big reunion once every 5 or 10 years with little in between. 

For those who feel inclined we meet 3 times a year at The Chandos pub off Trafalgar Square (Easter, Summer and Xmas) and in between we encourage members to keep us all posted with news and anything Simmarian! Some of us live abroad these days and so far we have been very successful in organising get togethers for those that come back to these shores for a visit. Some members have suggested we hold a northern meeting as well, so we will be trying that later this year.

Sometime ago we created our own  Facebook page, called the ‘Simms Group’. This is a closed group so there are no annoying little kittens or adverts or anything else unwanted! There are currently 230 members on there and the photos, memories and banter on the site are well worth a visit.

As well as helping people keep in touch, one of the reasons for our group is to allow old friends to share their memories of time at college, and this month we have included just such a note. One of our members sent in a series of photographs of the Art Department students around 1970-73, which we posted on our Facebook group. This prompted Andy Browne (1972-75) to send in his memories of that time, which you can read below. If you want to see the pictures, they are all on the Facebook page with many other comments.

If any of you has memories and/or photographs like this of your time at St Mary’s, and would like to share them with us, please send them over and we’ll see what we can do.

See you next month. 
Joe Loughran (1969-72)

I have been looking at the Art intake at College 1970-73. I certainly remember Paddy Fallon as a friend from College married his sister, Katherine.  She was known to us as Tatty, as that was what she called herself when young. The Fallon family lived in Bath, and that is where Paul Booton, Andrew Collins and I all taught, me as a supply teacher. The school was called Beechen Cliff School For Boys, and had been Bath Grammar For Boys, and Wells Road, it being a split-site. One of the Deputy-Heads was Bill Fallon, Paddy and Tatty's father! 

When did the College Art Department close? John Fagg who was Head of Department when I was there, was a member of my father's scout troop in Malvern, Worcestershire. I did not know this until my father visited College one time in 1973 or 74. He was an English lecturer and librarian in a teacher training college actually inside Alnwick Castle, where Harry Potter was filmed. Watching the films, I can recognise some of the places shown. Anyway, Dad came down to see our librarian at college. I left him there and was told to return two hours later. When I did I was told to smarten up, put on a suit, and do my hair, (which when Dad said, you did with no argument!) We then went into the Senior Common Room. 

One of the reasons I went to Simms is that it was a nice long way from Northumberland where I lived, so I could let my hair down, without my parents knowing what I was doing. Well, of course Dad knew nearly all our staff! I remember he knew John Fagg, and an English lecturer (Cicely something?) Whether he knew everything I did wrong or with high spirits I don't know, but he had a twinkle in his eye after we left the common room!
Andy Browne (1972-75)