News Compendium

After several months of closure and the summer break, the School is preparing for a new School year which will be like no other. 

Sittingbourne Heritage Museum has put together a video, available on YouTube, detailing a brief history of the building that was the original site of the School on College Road. Previous news article has highlighted the likelihood of the site, which later became an Adult Education Centre, being redeveloped as a residential site.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwAq1E97RG8

Paul Dawkins has sent a rogues gallery of photos from his final year at the School - 1970/71, including for the record, a shot of that year's prefects. 

Brigadier Ernest Goode, CBE who attended BGS in the early 1920s had a long military career. He was commissioned into the Royal Army Service Corps and soon after seconded for duty with the Sudan Defence Force, 1935-43. Following this wartime service he was appointed aide-de-camp to The Queen, 1959-62.

If you want to hear more about his time in the Sudan, a recording of his experiences in the Sudan is available on the Imperial War Museum's website: 

https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/80004261

We have belatedly learnt of the election of Old Bordenian Peter Butler to be a Fellow of the Royal Society. 

Peter is Professor of Physics at the University of Liverpool. His election was for his work as an experimental nuclear physicist. For those who may understand it, he studies the phenomenon of reflection asymmetry in atomic nuclei and the structure of the heaviest elements.

We have learnt that Old Bordenian Trevor Dadson, 72, died in January 2020. 

We have been contacted by the son of Lewis William Leonard Chelton to inform us of the sad news of his death on 11 February 2020. Lewis attended Borden Grammar School from around 1946 to 1950.

Simon (his son) tells us that on a holiday last year to Montrichard in the Loire valley, Lewis talked fondly of a school trip there likely in 1947 or 1948. 

After leaving the School, Lewis joined the Royal Navy as a 16 year old entry in January 1951. 

If any Old Bordenians have further recollections of Lewis, please send to us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Given the UK government's recent advice on social gatherings and to protect the welfare of our members, we have postponed this years OBA Dinner which was due to take place on Saturday 21st March. We have already informed those who had paid for places.

Although we cannot foresee how long the current advice will prevail, but we hope to still rearrange this for some time in 2020.

Alan May (1955-62) has been in touch to share some memories and photographs of his time at the School.

Jonathan Hopkins has left his role as Headmaster at the School at the end of 2019. He moves onto a school closer to his home in Canterbury.