Mufti, and more OM awards

Visitors to school today will be baffled to see a uniform-less community. As a reward for their fundraising hard work, the High Master has approved a Year 13 students' plan to charge pupils and staff £2 today for the honour of attending in 'own clothes'. We shall divide the income half and half between our in-house charity, the Bursary Fund, and the external groups we support, notably an up-country school in Uganda.

Oddly, clothing has been something of a Development Office theme this week, as we are arranging to purchase a new supply of Old Mancunian ties - sourced, inevitably it seems, from the Far East (what do they make of Old Boys ties there?). Silk not polyester, existing wearers will be glad to know. Julie is also helping the Year 13 leavers with their orders for 'hoodies' - a relatively new MGS tradition by which the leavers have their school nickname and 'MGS Class 2010' embroidered on a navy-blue training top. They're worn on their last day at school and thereafter as a memento. Meanwhile Jane appears to be running an accommodation agency from her desk as the OMs coming to the Reunion on May 8 gradually fill up all the hotels we know in south Manchester.

I had an exchange of emails with Mike Atherton to congratulate him on his double award of Sportswriters' Columnist and Writer of the Year (having won the Specialist Correspondent award last year). As he proves in The Times and his books, Mike can not only write stylishly but can reliably come up with interesting and original material. My mind goes back to an earlier existence as an English teacher here when I had the good fortune to teach a Middle School class in which Mike, Mark Crawley and Gary Yates sat together - all of them going on to first-class cricket careers.

Looking forward - a week on Monday we are hosting an 8-a-side Chess match between some of the best MGS players of today and yesteryear. Peter Webster has again worked hard to put the OM side together, persuading them to take time off and travel north (in most cases) to test our younger generation of players.