ONA Now and Then
It is a bittersweet moment for me to welcome you to the 100th issue of the ONA Magazine. As always, it’s a delight to do so: and it’s a matter of pride that we’ve been keeping in touch with our ONs in this fashion since 1973. But I write too with a slight pang, because it is the last such foreword that I shall pen.
predictable meals provided by ‘Ma’ Steven and her staff, they were delighted to find that, on that very Monday, one of the choices on offer in the very 21st Century Dining Hall and servery was mince – it was always mince on Mondays back in 1944!
enormous success and good fortune (brought about, as he never tired of saying, through, “industry, thrift and ambition”) brought with it a duty of generosity and benefaction, one that he fulfilled in ample measure.
A memory shared with me that day is one I have frequently quoted since: the Headmaster, ER Thomas (22-48), greeted those impressionable young boys, newly arrived in the school, and informed them that the most important thing they would learn at the RGS was, “thoughtfulness for others”.
I was forced to suppress a slight feeling of guilt when I read about the handsome swimming bath with which he endowed the school in 1930. As I leave this summer, the Sutherland Pool will finally be demolished and the site prepared for another build, the last phase in the Governors’ far-sighted project to equip the school for the next 20 or 30 years.
It’s a marvellous thing about schools (and not unique to the field of education) that present-day visionaries always assume they are doing things better and more effectively than previous generations: yet what timeless and necessary advice was given on that day in 1944! In 2017 we certainly still try to impress on our students the need for kindness and altruism: indeed a body of research is growing that the happiest people are those who are most generous and thoughtful of others. Perhaps one reason why those seeds appear generally to fall on fertile ground is that it’s by no means a new message at the RGS.
Yet what an appropriate moment, perhaps. I’ve experienced and done my best to lead just nine years of the school’s long history: and this magazine reminds us how far back it goes as well as prompting us always to look to the future.
Thus we read obituaries, always sad to lose members of the larger ON family (particularly if they are taken before their time), and invariably find that the powerful and positive personal qualities shine through.
The extract from Bryan Stevens’ (44-49) monograph Newcastle Royal Grammar School in the 40’s recalls for me the pleasure I have had in meeting ONs from that era. Mention of school lunches under the direction of the formidable ‘Ma’ Steven took me back to the visit we enjoyed from members of the ‘Class of 44’. They were with us in September 2014, on the 70th anniversary (to the day) of their starting at the RGS – the first group to join the school in Jesmond since the outbreak of war and the forced evacuation to Penrith. Having regaled us with stories of the fortifying if
Does that fact have something to do with the role models that ONs have had in their teachers? I think so. Tim Clark contributes a characteristically modest valedictory piece: unsurprisingly he plays down the undeniably enormous effect that his twin teaching and pastoral roles have had on RGS students since 1984.
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Altruism was also a driving force within the gigantic figure in RGS history vividly brought to life by David Goldwater (51-62). Sir Arthur Munro Sutherland (1878-1883) certainly believed that his
I’d like to think (hopefully?) that Sutherland would not be offended. A fine building in its time, it had become very much less comfortable and convenient than the pools with which modern children are familiar: and a 25-yard length had become anachronistic! A man always with an eye to the future, I hope he would approve of the fact we move on, not without gratitude, and use that site to build for further success in the school’s future. For the future is what education must be about. So, finally, I’m delighted to mention the piece by Steph Burn (04-06): as a female qualified pilot she’s still in a minority, and a fine example of the RGS students and ONs of the 21st Century, happy to break glass ceilings or overcome other prejudices and vested interests to achieve their ambitions and to make a difference. I leave the school in good heart and as ambitious as ever for the future. And I am more certain than ever that an ambitious future is inevitably founded in a solid past, an appreciation of history and tradition, and a mind-set and sense of ambition that never forget their roots. I shall miss the RGS and all its people: and I wish it and them every success in the future. Bernard Trafford Headmaster
