B E F O R E T H E C A M PA I G N BY PROFESSOR TOM GUTTERIDGE (63-70)
“When I was at RGS, it was a Direct Grant Grammar School and without that support my parents could never have sent me there. Most of my friends from that time benefitted from grants too.”
I
attended the first ON Newcastle dinner shortly after the Tony Blair government scrapped the Assisted Places scheme, it was the first time I’d been back to the school since I left in 1970*. In his speech the Headmaster James Miller (94-08) told us about how this decision would impact the RGS. He was very worried. A substantial proportion of the school intake benefited from that scheme, which enabled bright boys from poorer backgrounds to come to the school. I was shocked by the effect it would have not just on the school, but on the North East as a whole: RGS students made such an important contribution to life in the region at every level, I couldn’t imagine what it would be like if only the children of the rich flowed through in the future. When I was at RGS, it was a Direct Grant Grammar School and without that support my parents could never have sent me there. Most of my friends from that time benefitted from grants too.
After the dinner I took James aside and offered to provide bursaries for three boys for their entire 7-year schooling. In return, I had three conditions: my gifts would be anonymous; I wanted copies of all their school reports so I could see how they were getting on; finally, the RGS should establish a Bursary scheme with the aim of providing bursaries to at least 97 more children, making 100 in all. Funding would cease if the school failed to do this. James agreed. I still have some of their school reports. One even wrote me the sweetest thankyou note when he eventually left the school for a very good university (I don’t think he ever knew my name, but I treasure the letter). I also have a letter from James dated October 2000, enclosing the boys’ reports, where he promised that ‘raising enough money for bursaries is going to be a major objective in the next few years’. The Bursary Campaign was launched after that. * I was with two ON friends (neither of them were actually at school with me between us we spanned 21 years at the RGS). On a whim, we had dared each other to go to the dinner — it was the first time back for all of us. We spent a wild weekend staying in the Copthorne (I know, ‘wild’ and ‘Copthorne’ are not frequently used in the same sentence), driving around our old haunts – getting misty eyed over the sight of the Long Pier at Tynemouth, the locations of our first trysts with reluctant girlfriends, – we behaved like naughty schoolboys. Paul Campbell (70-77) was one of those friends, and the trip clearly had an effect on him, for he upped sticks from London and moved his family back to Northumberland, started a business in Gateshead and became an RGS Governor. I stayed down south, went to Hollywood, and only returned to Newcastle ten years later (I’m back working in California now).
ONA | OLD NOVOCASTRIANS ASSOCIATION MAGAZINE | ISSUE 105 | SPRING 2019
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