If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to the OBA RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Using a modern day colloquialism, one could say that John and I were ‘muckers’.  We studied at B.G.S. in the same B Stream from 1955.  We had many things in common : playing soccer after school in a corner of the playing field, travelling home on the same train and bus – living only a few hundred yards from each other.  The train journey became a trip to look forward to when John suddenly had access to his Post Office Savings Account.  He would go into the bakery in Sittingbourne High Street and purchase a couple of loaves of freshly baked bread and a packet of butter.  He would generously share the grub amongst us on the train.  We were known as ‘The Black Hand Gang’ (hands always covered with ink), and our motto was ‘Semper Ignavus’, which I later had engraved on my wedding ring.

Continue reading ‘John Gourley - Obituary’

The story continues from last month - http://www.oldbordenians.co.uk/?p=146#more-146 for those who hadn’t spotted it was further down the home page! I appreciate that some of the photos are duplicated from the earlier posts, but this part of the story is more a pictorial representation of the old school then and now.

The next photographs show the old school at different times and a little detective work will enable the reader to put them into chronological order. I have tried to take contemporary photographs but much of the school field has been built on to provide private housing taking up the whole corner of the plot bounded by the original road up to the school, Riddles Road and College Road. Hence I was unable to get wide views.

At the time of writing, I have not been able to identify any of the internal rooms mentioned in “Vale”.  I am finding that the more I write, the more there is to investigate. I do not think of time as the enemy but it certainly seems to ‘fugit’ very rapidly! 

 The photo above shows the cricket square in good condition but I think the outfield would have caused a bit of a problem!

Continue reading ‘The old building and the move to Remembrance Avenue (Pt 3)’

This is the 2nd article detailing the history of the school and particularly around the period 1928 - 1929, when the school moved to its current location.  It is a while since the first was published so to refresh memories - http://www.oldbordenians.co.uk/?p=88#more-88.  The story continues ..

I wondered where the photograph shown below was taken.  The text in the previous article seems to infer that this was the dining hall with the ancestral arms mounted on the wall at the end of the room.  I remember them mounted on the wall in the old hall between the Honours Boards. A recent search in Archives produced only the banner. 

Continue reading ‘The old building and the move to Remembrance Avenue (Pt 2)’

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to the OBA RSS feed!