London & SE OMA Dinner

Down to London on Wednesday for the annual dinner of the London and south-east-based Old Mancunians. It used to be the case that the venue changed each year for the sake of variety, but this year we were again at the Oxford and Cambridge Club, which has looked after us well in the past. The food and wine are good, and the surroundings, combined with a relatively informal dress code, produce a memorable but relaxing evening, attracting 60-plus guests.

This year's Chairman, Fred Wheeler, introduced his successor, Lee Gabbie, who proposed the toast to our Founder, Hugh Oldham. Then our special guest, actor Robert Powell, gave an extremely amusing account of his life in drama from his days in the second form, later Classical Sixth at MGS, to the present time. Like (Sir) Nicholas Hytner, who spoke at last year's dinner, Robert explained how plays at school allowed him to discover the person he was. For him, as for many, this was in an activity outside the school curriculum, which in those days involved reading plenty of literary texts but not being examined on them. He shares our excitement at the development of facilities for drama at MGS and has kindly offered to present a one-man show in the rebuilt theatre in the autumn. The High Master rounded off the speeches with a brief (yes, really, seven minutes) account of highlights of the last year.

It was good to see the age-spread of the guests - the youngest two or three are still undergraduates at the London universities, the oldest two or three joined MGS in the mid-1930s. All walks of life seemed to be represented: I sat between a retired professor of medicine and a special needs teacher, and opposite an investment banker, a commercial aviation expert and a management consultant.

Back to Manchester to catch up on plans for our big Reunion on 8 May for pupils who joined MGS pre-1950. It's exciting to know that people are coming from as far away as New Zealand and California. Thank goodness the planes are flying again.

Have you made your will?

Does this seem a depressing subject to you? Or just a boring one? It's very difficult to get excited about the world of wills and codicils unless you're a lawyer (or maybe a surprise beneficiary), isn't it? And when you say, 'Yes, I have made a will' only to be trumped with, 'Ah, yes, but is it up-to-date?' that's really not fair. I know that I need to have a look at mine, as it's 15 years since I wrote it, and my children were teenagers then.

Here in the Development Office we think about wills quite a lot. This week we received a surprise legacy gift from the estate of a gentleman who died a couple of years ago. It's worth about £12,000 to us, and is a very welcome addition to our Bursary Fund. In the past ten years we must have benefited from about 75 wills, 2 of them worth over a million pounds each. Clearly the donors believed in the value of giving clever boys a chance, with the support of a great secondary education, and we will look after their money well as we build an endowment fund to last for ever. And the donors' names will live for ever on our honours boards. By using the investment income from the fund we can currently provide about 240 means-tested bursaries - a good number, but not enough to satisfy demand. One day we hope to be able to afford a needs-blind entry system.

So if you are looking at making or revising a will, please consider including MGS as one of the charities you choose. All bequests to charities escape inheritance tax. Click here for further details.

MGS at Blackpool

Well, it wasn't quite a repeat of the WW2 evacuation of the school to the Fylde coast, but we had a great day at Blackpool today to get us in the mood for the summer term which starts tomorrow. Inspired by Assistant Director of Development Simon Jones, who was in action today in spite of a very sore knee, 20-odd sixth-formers and staff ran the Blackpool half-marathon in aid of the MGS Bursary Fund.

They have been raising money by traditional sponsorship and via pages at JustGiving.com (check for The MGS Trust to find their pages). The lads are all motivated to put something back before they leave at the end of this term - they are well aware that either they or their classmates have been able to be at MGS because of the generosity of donors to the Bursary Fund.

Supported by Jane and Julie from the Development Office (sorry about the 7am Sunday start from school, ladies) the runners were at the start-line promptly at 9am. The weather was kind and the route (south to the Pleasure Beach, north to Bispham,) was pretty flat - well at least it looked flat to the spectators.

Mr Jones was looking OK at the halfway point but was already hurting.


Ollie Salt and Tris Honeyborne were our first finishers, with Messrs Noble and Lawrence not far behind.

All the finishers (and all the MGS team did finish) collected their commemorative T-shirt and medal, and most of the team posed for the final photo.

Well done, everyone - a great day.

Term ends today

Another busy term officially comes to an end today, with a Colours Assembly this afternoon to celebrate the sporting achievements of the winter sports teams, followed by the Rugby Club's Phil Wade Memorial game and, this evening, the Rugby Club Dinner at the Cresta Court in Altrincham.

There are so many outstanding sportsmen in MGS at present (20 with international honours in their age-group) but here are two with unusual achievements: Alex Haynes is the current captain of the England Independent Schools' Football Association U18 team, and Max Drakeley has been selected for the U19 England ice-hockey team: he plays for Manchester Phoenix.

Yesterday I had a fascinating hour being shown with one of our major donors round the fast-developing Drama Centre building site. The new stage has a full height orchestra pit below to provide for our musicals, and a tall flytower above for moving scenery up and down. The auditorium has been completely reshaped to allow for proper knee-room and comfortable seats (twin revolutions for MGS!). Sponsor-and-name-a-seat opportunities still exist - please help if you can.


The old Prefects' Common Room will become our Drama Studio, with technical walkways just below the ceiling to allow shows to be rigged with great versatility. Many MGS boys still like to join TechCrew rather than strut their stuff on stage, and this will allow them to operate safely.


Completion of the project is scheduled for late summer, with opening events in the autumn and spring terms.

Next week MGS groups will be travelling as far afield as China and St Kitts. Wherever you are, enjoy Easter.

Alan Garner, the Weirdstone and the Blackden Trust

Old Mancunian writer Alan Garner has lived all his adult life at Blackden, in the shadow of the Jodrell Bank Observatory, near Holmes Chapel in Cheshire. All of his writing is deeply rooted in north Cheshire, extending from the area near Crewe to that near his birthplace in Alderley Edge. The Edge is the setting of his 1960 novel, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, which this year on a magical date (10/10/10) achieves the rare distinction of 50 consecutive years of being in print. To celebrate, a series of special events is planned, details of which can be seen at http://www.weirdstone.org.uk/. You can even visit the mine workings on the Edge.

Alan and his wife Griselda have, with others, formed The Blackden Trust (http://www.theblackdentrust.org.uk/) to preserve the unique qualities of their house and its site, which shows evidence of human occupation for over 10,000 years. The trust offers a number of courses, led by experts, which provide insights into the history and archaeology of the area. It's a magical place: if you can possibly visit, do. You can see details and reserve places here. Some courses are designed specifically for younger people and can change lives: a number of those attending have already gone on to archaeology-related courses at university. The courses are inter-active, and some of the writing done by current MGS boys who have attended in the past can be seen here. After Easter this year all of our Year 8 pupils will have form trips to Blackden - how lucky they are!

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.

Blazers, blues and wellies

On Tuesday to Heaton Moor to see retired Maths teacher Gordon (Tweedy) Harris. My first memory of him is as the non-teaching supervisor of 3a in 1964/5 when the introduction of the 6-day cycle produced a Day 6, period 6 lesson which was an empty slot, and therefore a private study session, for my form. Not sure we made very good use of the opportunity to get any real work done. Gordon trekked, played the organ and officiated at Prizegivings as well as teaching Mathematics. He keeps in touch with school through the 20/30 Club and a number of friends.

Then to Didsbury to see an Old Manc now in his 80s who is being cared for in a nursing home. Macular degeneration has left him with very little sight, but what a wonderful memory he has of his time at school and in particular of a form tutor who took him under his wing, 'Haffie' Field. I was there to receive a donation of two blazers for the MGS Archive - a discreet, navy, colours blazer and a garishly striped Old Mancunians one in black red and gold - both in perfect condition and a great reminder of 1940s fashion. I was also lent a lovely silver lapel pin-badge - a small owl above SAPERE AUDE, which we are going to investigate having copied for sale to 21st century OMs.

Haffie was for years at the centre of MGS lacrosse (as well as teaching Physics and writing comic poems for Ulula and Punch) and would be pleased to know that the game has had something of a revival at school in the last few years. Indeed, we have two OM Cambridge half-blues at lacrosse this year, Sam Spurrell, the Cambridge captain, and Michael Lipton, man-of-the-match in the victory over Oxford.

Bursary fundraising by our senior sixthformers continued this week with the Superstars competition (basketball skills) and a highly entertaining welly-throwing competition organised for our Junior Section boys. This was keenly contested, both for athletic honour and for the prize of a box of chocolates.

So will the next thing be half-blues for welly-throwing? MGS boys will be up there with the best.

The sixthformers' plans for further fundraising via running the Blackpool half-marathon on 11 April are now well advanced. Many of them have pages at http://www.justgiving.com/ - search for the MGS Trust as the beneficiary.