In February 2009 I was delighted to sign over the entire contents of the
display to the BDHS, so the display is now the property of the BDHS. The intention is for it to arrive in Edinburgh on the Thursday
before the Grand Reunion in September 2010.
After it has been on show for the whole weekend the idea is for it then
to be transported to the headquarters of the BHDS in Warrington for storage,
The Display Cabinet
Some of you will remember this being made by Mr Barker and the boys in
the 1960s. It stood under the window in
the Front Hall and was used to exhibit items from the school museum and
beetles, butterflies and so on. Again
the intention is for this to go the BDHS office in Warrington to be used again as a display
cabinet.
New Documents
Lord Boyd sent me two boxes of documents dating from 1954 onwards
relating to the setting up of the school in 1955, the selection of the
Headmaster, the organisation of the new school and so on, including the
bringing of two Manchester University students to the school in 1959, called Mr
Grave and Mr Sayer. It was very strange
indeed to be reading about oneself 50 years ago….. Some
of these documents have been added to the Archive in Woking
and some to the BDHS.
Videos and films
It was absolutely splendid when a film company found ‘A Day in the Life
of the School’ in the South East Film Archive.
This was the film made by Michael Chawner and Alan Loft in 1971 and is
in the Burwood Archive at the Surrey History Centre at Woking,
who store their films / videos with SEFRA.
The company interviewed Michael and included scenes from the film in
their series ‘The Way We Were’ which was shown on ITV in July 2008. We have a DVD with subtitles.
It seems to me that this is just how our Archive should work, keeping
our history alive.
SEFRA has put our videos onto DVDs, but has explained that they cannot
edit the DVDs as coping with old films is their most urgent job. They have sent them to me and I shall be
editing them. These include the videos
of the English Speaking Board talks.
I hope that by the 2010 Reunion every
piece of film and video will be available on DVDs from the OBA and that all
will be there to be viewed. Of course
they range in date from Miss Prentis’ 8mm films to the last videos taken in the
1990s.
The Microfilms
Very soon I shall be handing over the second set of microfilms, provided
by Lady Boyd at the same time as those at Woking, to the BDHS and they will
then eventually be available for viewing at Warrington where there are microfilm viewers. There is some material on them that is not on
the three Archive discs that you can buy from the OBA.
The photographs
I had thought that they would all (some 2000) have been ready by now on
CDs. Indeed I have been through them
all, checking their quality and improving them where necessary. However, the indexing and arranging in
suitable groups is going to take a lot longer yet. Again, they should be ready for 2010.
We hope that the BDHS will be able, by 2010, to produce a book of the
official school photographs, both the school year photos and sports teams, with
all names and comprehensive statistics,
If this can be done it would be a companion volume to ‘Memories of
Burwood’.
Other documents added to the archive with the BDHS are those about the
activities and history of the OBA. Also,
again for 2010, Ronald Gibbins is producing an excellent and extremely
comprehensive ‘OBA Diary’, detailing the history of the OBA .
Do not imagine that the Archive is finished! It is living and growing. For example, every edition of the ‘Boars in
Touch’ is sent to the Surrey History Centre.
News about each of us Old Burwoodians adds continuously to the scope and
depth of the Burwood Archive.
And still occasionally things pop up from the past, to our delight.
I am aware of two real gaps in the Archive. Mr Wood provided some kind of daily school diary
for a Manager, or perhaps for all of the Managers. I have two square inches of it and it seems
that there are no copies left at all.
Also, we have almost NO copies of the original Old Burwoodian magazine
which is a great shame.
If any of you have any copies do please
let us know!!
