Back Forward

 

FROM FIRST TO LAST

I remember a tearful farewell outside the chapel on Grand Day Sunday; sixth formers stood smartly in their suits, shaking hands, planning meetings for later in the year and chatting over past times. As a first former, this ritual seemed to hold no meaning, but it is now in my last year that this scene comes menacingly back from my memory with an acute significance.

To a first former, his friends are those who accompany him to the tuck shop, yet now in the sixth form the word has a wider implication. Though many boys revel in criticising the school for its lack of freedom, it has to be accepted that it is within the school that terrific bonds of friendship are made. Not only working, but living with people for seven years curries a sense of comradeship which is hard to explain. This may all sound extremely sentimental but I hope it is a feeling which everyone will experience during their time at the school.

Friendship grows as the years flash by - bonds are initially formed when you discover people who have the same interests as yourself. In the junior school, friends play football together ( and continue doing so through the years), they watch films together (yet gradually learn not to cheer when the white clad "goodies" grace the screen), they work together (and this develops over the years from peeping at your partner's prep to phoning him to discuss a difficult piece of work), they play together on the rugby field, talk together and eventually drink together!

A sixth former always remembers those days when he was a wide eyed, innocent, grey shirted junior - the endless pranks, Sunday morning Cross Country, endless table tennis and dark, stuffy modelling rooms! The lesson I have learnt is that the ample dividends the school provides have to be taken advantage of; it is not sufficient to merely let the school run itself. By contributing, playing, being involved and active all boys can appreciate the fulfilment of their school careers, and only by doing this can the school experience be fully enjoyed.

By now, the prefects are only friends around the table at breakfast time, as opposed to the God-like ogres they seemed years ago. In the fifth form we complained of sixth form authority, but now we can see that it is so necessary.

It will be said on The Grand Day Sunday when I am one of those suited sixth formers shaking hands, talking and roaring to "Sons of The Brave" for the last time.

K. RAYNOR

Back Forward
- 27 -