A year in the archives, by Tony Jones, school archivist

Since opening the Archive has attracted considerable attention from pupils, visitors, OEs and researchers. There have been several occasions where it has been open to large groups in the last year.

Firstly, Dacre Day was a resounding success, this was followed by Open House Day when we were open to the public. Our third big event was the OEA Annual Dinner, most of the OEs visited the Archive and enjoyed their stay.

Although developing the Archive has had many highlights. Meeting the OE playwright NF Simpson was the most memorable experience. It happened by sheer fluke, a BBC researcher who was working on a radio documentary on Simpson’s life contacted me, and in turn introduced us. We struck up a correspondence which resulted in him inviting me to the premiere reading of his fist new play in over 30 years at the Royal Court. He has since donated a large collection of exceptionally rare theatre memorabilia related to his work and life to the Archive. Keep an eye out for him in the London listings, as there has been a mini-revival of his work in 2007 and 2008 and some of his TV material from the early 1970s was showing at the NFT.

The OEA very generously donated some fantastic artifacts in 2007 including a 1948 army rugby cap, which belonged to Bruce A Neale who played for the England XV in the 1950s.

The second was a collection items relating to the Surrey cricket captain Stuart Surridge, we were given school medals from the 1930s and various other tankards and glasses from the 1950s. These are all very special items, and we are grateful of the OEA, and the donator Claude Scott’s, continued support and interest in the Archive.

We were given several other similar items including a collection of sporting medals from the 1960s, donated by Richard Moody.

Mary Dobson of the Foundation Office very kindly framed an original 1869 Westminster map which shows the location of Emanuel Hospital. This stunning item is displayed at the bottom of the Archive stairway.

Over the time I’ve worked at Emanuel Mike Markland has been one of the Archive’s greatest friends. He has regularly donated photos and other documents. However, just in time for our opening he donated his full CCF uniform from the 1950s, still in immaculate condition (he claims he can still squeeze into it). Y9 pupil Dominic Anderson has since modeled it, indicating what all the buttons and awards mean.

Another fantastic item given to us was a Boys U19 England rugby jersey, John Williams played for England boys in 1963, and also kindly gave us the match program. Both items are on display in our glass cabinets.

When we have the time we enjoy welcoming OEs back to the Archive. Just before Christmas both Les Stocker and John Reader visited.

Les is the founder of St. Tiggywinkles, the biggest wild-animal hospital in the world, and John is author of many geography, photography and nature books. Both kindly donated substantial collections of their books to the Archive. Many other OE authors have donated books and include Ian Badger, Colin Sutherland, Professor Denis Noble, Doctor Tim Hand, Roger George Clarke, Richard Plant, Don Farr, David Whitehouse and the Estate of OE Historian CW Scott-Giles.

We were delighted when West-End Star Rupert Degas attended one of our Library openings. He donated signed posters of both Stones in his Pockets and The 39 Steps, in which he starred, and they are now proudly on display on our archive stair-way. When not on stage Rupert can be found voicing numerous characters on kids TV shows including Bob the Builder.

I've struck up numerous email conversations with other OEs, many of which have resulted in interesting donations or promises to visit. We really hope Mick Rock finds time to fit us into his schedule next time he’s in London. Mick is one of the World's leading music photographers and is often called "the man who shot the 70s" for his iconic photographs of Queen, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop and Blondie to name just a few. Mick very kindly gave us copyright to use his images on the "News" section of the OE website. Much of the research I do, on the OE side of life, ends up there in some form or another, so it is well worth a look if you haven’t looked at it before.

After corresponding for a time with poet Clive Wilmer, who was taught by the famous English Master Charles Cuddon (who taught at Emanuel for 39 years and died not long after retiring in 1996) Clive kindly gave us copyright to use the poem he wrote in tribute to Cuddon when he retired. The poem is on display in the Archive, and can be found on the Alumni website should you wish to read it. Cuddon, of course, when we wasn't teaching, wrote "A Dictionary of Literary Terms" (which is still in print), as well as numerous ground-breaking and ahead of their time, travel guides.

I also chatted with Kevin Jackson, one of the UKs top film critics, and he donated some of his books. Playwright Steve Gooch gave us the graphics of a few of his many plays to use as posters, and top NYU historian Professor Tony Judt sent over a collection of his books from America.

Obviously helping research the New Illustrated History of Emanuel School took up quite a bit of time. However, that is only the tip of the iceberg... We're also helping with what might turn out to be a book on NF Simpson, a Stuart Surridge biography, research on Charles Cuddon, the History of Emanuel School Boat Club, and I've also been told there is a book about the OE Rugby Club in the pipeline.

I've found that talking to one OE often opens a door to someone else, I call it the "Do you know who was in my class?" syndrome, and this has helped us "discover" interesting OEs we might never have heard of.

This syndrome helped us discover Chris Hughes who was the drummer of Adam and the Ants, Alan Caddy who was the bassist of The Tornadoes, they wrote "Telstar" the most successful instrumental hit-single of all-time, and Bernard Colin-Day who was one half of the duet "The Allison's" who came second in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1961. Changing musical directions completely Paul Slack was the bassist in legendary London punk band the UK Subs. We also uncovered rugby player Tony Boddy, who toured South Africa with England in 1971, and is currently General Manager of the premiership team Worcestershire Warriors.

Jumping from sport to the arts, we uncovered Derek Davis is an OE. Derek is one of Britain's best known post-war potters, however in recent years he has switched to painting, and his work fetches a pretty price. He has a signed retrospective of his work in the Archive, and Derek hopes to visit us later in the year. Neil Mullen (from the Classics Dept) also uncovered, what seems to be, an annotated school text by Classics Professor David Stockton, who wrote a highly regarded political biography on Cicero. It includes various doodles and sketches, showing the young mind at work, of a soon to be Oxford Professor.

We've been successful in contacting almost everyone we're tried to. One of the few exceptions is Ian Wilson, historian, BAFTA winner and Turin Shroud expert. Ian emigrated to Australia a few years ago, and so far we haven't been able to find him. If anyone can locate him I will give them a prize!

We're relied on the generosity of both parents and OEs in developing the Archive. They have helped us bind (for the first time) all the post-1950 Portcullis magazines until 2005, completely rebind all the school report cards (which were in terrible condition) from around 1910-1930 and professionally frame many of our paintings, photos and posters. We received a very generous donation from the estate of CW Scott-Giles, OE Historian and author of the original School History, which played an important part in restoring the school reports.

2008 and 2009 should be exciting years for us, as the Archive has gone digital. Ben Newton has created a Filemaker Pro database so we can archive, and organise, all our photographs, posters, clippings, and everything else. This means, for the first time, when we get an enquiry, we can very quickly identify what (if anything) we have on a particular subject, event or person. This is a far cry from the Old Library where the archive material were stored wherever there was a spare drawer!

So if you have anything hiding in your attic which you think might be of interest to Emanuel School I would be interested to hear from you.

Best wishes

Tony Jones, school archivist

trj@emanuel.org.uk TRJ