Brentwood School 450th Anniversary Dinner
When I was bang in the middle of planning a trip to Europe to learn a bit of Italian earlier this year, I received an invitation to attend a dinner at my old school to celebrate its 450th anniversary. The invitation was only sent to those Old Brentwoodians who were at school for the 400th anniversary in 1957.
The dinner was to be held at the school on Friday 25th May and as it turned out we planned to arrive in England on that day. It would have been a real rush since we would arrive at Heathrow at 2:30 pm and I would have to go through customs, pick up a hire car, drive from one side of London to the other, pick up a dinner suit, book into a hotel, shower and change and get to the dinner by 7:30 pm. Hmmm – I thought this might be a bit of a rush. So we changed our plans to arrive on 24th May and that gave us time to do all of the things that were necessary.
I tried to book a hotel close to the school but eventually found a place called Prested Hall in Feering, close to Colchester. From the web site it had a good feel about it and even though it was about 45 minutes drive from Brentwood we decided to book in for a couple of nights. Prested Hall turned out to be the most delightful place and the owners and staff were so kind and generous to us that we felt very much at home. It was an old manor that had been completely refurbished and was adjacent to a new health club that was one of only three places worldwide to have two or more real tennis courts. One of the others is a Sherwood Street, Richmond not that far from where we live in Australia. Anyway on the first night we had dinner at the club and met the owners. They were absolutely charming and treated us very well. They had spent some time in Melbourne and were very knowledgeable about real tennis and had ‘poached’ the professional from Richmond to be the professional at Prested Hall (I think that’s what had happened).
The next day Jenny and I went into Colchester and managed to hire a suit from Moss Bros together with all of the necessary bits and pieces. We bought a teddy bear for Felix which we planned to give him for his second birthday (this is Jenny’s plan for all the grandchildren) and then found a hairdresser in Feering where we both had our hair done for the first time in a couple of months – it felt great. We returned to Prested Hall and I got ready for the dinner at the school.
I was quite nervous because of the anticipation of meeting people who I had not seen for 45 to 50 years. I had previously been in Europe at the time of the School House dinners but had never managed to be close enough to make it possible to attend. I had a range of expectations and had hoped to see a number of the people that were in School House when I was there. I arrived a bit early and walked down the Chase from the old Signals Hut and found my way to School House and the old tennis court and pond and then wandered across the old croquet lawn to the Chase where Dennis Riddiford lived in what used to be the cottage on the Chase. It was no longer there and had been replaced by the Hardy Amies building which from memory is used as the new Arts Center.
I thought maybe Peter Bugge, Rodney Mellor, Stanley Hogg, John Andrews, Barclay Dutson, Francis Roads, Martin Jones, John Knopp, Ian Small, Tony Vidler and a number of others might be there but it turned out that very few that I remembered from the boarding school or School House in particular were there. Nevertheless the evening was a real delight for me and I met a number of old friends that I had not seen for so many years. I first bumped into Ian Pitwood and gradually came across Steven Deakin, Derek Harris, Robert Bowden, Tony Wadsworth as well a host of other friends I had not seen for so long. I was saddened that Phil Crapnell had died only a month or so earlier.
At the end of the evening Carol Wadsworth, now Mike Bradford’s wife, came to pick him up and I was pleased to be able to meet her after so many years. I well remember the times when the girls from the High School joined us for dancing lessons with Mrs Millman in the main hall. Carol mentioned that Janet Booth is now living in Balnarring on the Mornington Peninsular and that she would send me her email address but unfortunately my emails to Carol must have gone astray since I have not heard from her. Oddly enough I also sent email to Derek Harris and got no reply – maybe the UK government censors emails coming to the UK from Australia!
I was prompted to reflect on such a terrific evening when I received the August edition of The Old Brentwoodians Chronicle. To my disappointment there was not a word about the evening in the Chronicle and none of the group photos were included that had been taken before the evening got underway.
