BLUE COAT SOUVENIRS

GENUINE MEMORABILLIA

When I left school on 22nd July 1977, I hung up my blazer and never emptied the pockets. I also left my school briefcase as it was, and never unpacked it. The contents of these "time capsules" are revealed on this page. I still have them all! A little bit about each picture is explained lower down this page.

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To see a picture in better quality, just left-click on it. Then you can right-click to zoom in, or out. To return to the gallery, left-click in the small square at the top right of the picture.

Pic 1: My final school blazer, which I wore until the day I left in 1977.

Pic 2: The cap and tie. The list of uniform items that we received before starting at the Blue Coat in 1971 stipulated a cap, so my parents insisted on buying me one. It never appeared in public on my head!

Pic 3: The briefcase. I called this "Henry", and he gave me loyal service through all my six years at the school.

Pic 4: The "Blue Card". We were issued with a new one at the beginning of each term. We had to fill in our timetables on them, and they contained lists of events for the term, fixtures for our sports teams, and lists of school clubs and societies.

Pic 5: A selection of my school exercise books.

Pic 6: An account of the workings of a Van de Graaf generator in my Physics "O" level book.

Pic 7: The pencil case that a boarder sold me. It served for my final three years. The boarders were always selling their possessions - they couldn't ask their parents for extra pocket money when they needed it, as we day-boys could! Also in the picture is my ruler and my book of "Log Tables" (see the next item).

Pic 8: Logarithm tables, in a book first published in 1908. These books also contained tables for Sines, Cosines and Tangents. (Remember "Some Old Houses Creak And Howl Through Old Age", or "SOHCAHTOA"?) Those were the days before computers and calculators, when school students actually had to use their brains! Pocket calculators were just becoming commercially available in the mid-1970's, but we had to use tables or slide-rules.

Pic 9: The Golf Ball. The story of this is related in my book, "Return to the Blue Coat". George Mason and I would kick this ball down the alleyways behind Grant Avenue on our way to the bus stop after school. The ball in the picture is the actual one!

Pic 10: Report books. The blue ones were used in years 1-5 and the yellow ones in 6th form. We were issued with our reports on the last day of each term. We had to return them, signed by a parent, on the first day of the following term.

Pic 11: My final report at the end of my Lower 6th year in July 1977. By then I had lost interest in the work, and was seeking employment. I did not return.

Pic 12: A genuine Blue Coat brick - one of the brown-glazed ones that formed the ridge half way up the walls inside the building. The story of how I acquired it is related in my book, "Return to the Blue Coat". To obtain a copy, please e-mail me.