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Dear Old Honitonian,

 

It is over 25 years since Allhallows closed and it is quite an incredible achievement to have kept the OH Club going throughout this time!

 

We have achieved so much over the years and the various OH committees have continually provided their invaluable voluntary support, which has meant that we have survived for as long as we have.

 

However, as time slips by, the number of OHs decline, or become less active, and therefore we need to ensure that we have a clear direction for the future, which has the backing of the Club. Therefore, I would ask you all to provide answers and feedback to the questionnaire HERE which will determine how the Club moves forward.

 

We will conduct this review over the next two months and provide a full update thereafter.

 

All the very best,

 

Seb Warner – President

 

Did we usually win or were we more often the losers? And which sport were we best at?

    To find out, I have spent years researching the results of matches between Allhallows and other schools. 

    I have compiled the results of hundreds of fixtures by consulting school magazines going back to 1940. 

    That has given me a detailed picture of 1^st XI and 1^st XV match results over half a century for all three major sports: hockey, cricket, rugby. 

    I was never in any of those teams and my only part in first-team matches was to spectate. Just a casual curiosity started my statistical enquiry but, as I came across more match results, my curiosity grew. 

    Ours was a small school. “But Allhallows punched above its weight in sport,” I have heard OHs say. This article tests that claim. Perhaps you should stop reading now, so as not to risk disappointment if Allhallows is revealed as a frequent loser. But for all you know I could be about to reveal a victorious past. 

    There is much to tell so in this month’s article there is space to summarise only what happened in matches between 1940 and 1969. For match results in the 1970s, 80s and early 90s you will have to wait for my March 1^st website article. 

    Draws are neutral so this analysis considers only matches that Allhallows won or lost – what I call “result matches”. 

    The harsh truth is that, in matches where there was a winner, the winner was usually the other side. In the 1940s, 50s and 60s there were 745 result matches and Allhallows won 315 of them, which is just 42%.  

    The least successful sport in those 30 years was cricket, with just 39% of result matches won. Hockey won 42%. Rugby 50%. 

    Results worsened over the period. In the 1940s 54% of matches were won but in the 1960s the victory rate fell to 32%. 

    Hockey declined most steeply, with more wins than losses in 86% of seasons in the 1940s, 33% in the 50s and just 20% in the 60s. Hockey’s reversal of fortunes happened in a single year. More hockey matches were won than lost before 1955 but for the next 14 years, with the exception of the almost unbeaten 1963 season, we lost more than we won.  

    Depressing seasons without a win – there were three of them: Hockey in 1942 and 1966, Rugby in 1965. By the way, the regrettable ’65 season must have been a particular disappointment for Gethyn Hewan, a new headmaster who had arrived that term. Hewan loved sport. He followed VAL Hill, a head with little interest in sport. The statistics show that one of the first things Hewan did was arrange more fixtures. 

    Bear in mind that losses were not quite as frequent as analysing only result matches suggests, because even disastrous seasons often included at least one draw to provide relief.  

    Undefeated seasons? Only one: Rugby in 1948. 

    1965’s rugby team had a similar distinction but the other way round: Eight matches and no wins. 

    The following year results were even worse for hockey: 12 matches, 12 losses. 

    To find out what happened next to Allhallows sport, read next month’s column, where I will summarise results from 1970 to 1992 (when recording of results faded out). Did Allhallows manage to ascend from usual losers to usual winners? Did rugby continue to be our strongest sport? 

    Cricket had a poor five-year run up to 1969, when every year for five years we lost more than we won. Next month find out how long it took to recover from that. 

    Rugby had an excellent three-year run up to 1969, when results showed the number of matches won averaged twice the number lost. Next month I will reveal how long our rugby glory years went on.

Following the very sad news of OH Phil Tuck's passing last year, the club has received news of his Memorial Service. 

 

The service will be held at Southwark Cathedral at 11.00 am on Thursday, February 15th. It would be greatly appreciated if as many OHs as possible could attend the service to pay their respects.

 

If you plan to attend Philip's Memorial Service at Southwark Cathedral on Thursday, February 15th at 11.00 am, OHs have been asked to please register on Hatch Mansfield's form so that they can manage catering. Thank you in advance.

 

 

Most Allhallows boys weren’t much affected by the hippie craze but I really got into it. 

When the 1967 summer of love was revolutionising youth in America, I was at an impressionable age. Just turned 15 with no girlfriend and not getting on with my parents, this new prospect of universal free love was a very attractive idea for me. 

A new laid-back lifestyle based on doing nothing much more than being tolerant – count me in, I said to myself. I was looking forward to a bright new future of peace and happiness. 

It was in June of 1967 that the Beatles convinced me that Flower Power was right for me and for everybody. That month the group appeared on TV screens around the globe live. Britain’s contribution to the unprecedented Our World global broadcast showed the group in EMI’s Abbey Road studios, recording their next single. All You Need Is Love disseminated hippie anti-materialist philosophy to the world – including Allhallows. The recording session looked like a love-in, with participants in floral kaftans sitting on the floor or promenading with placards proclaiming love in different languages. We in Venning house were allowed to watch the pioneering global hook-up, and I think it was also seen by pupils elsewhere in the school. Me and many of my friends were impressed. We felt the Beatles’ appearance heralded exciting social change. 

However, large numbers of our more conservative fellow-pupils were not drawn to Flower Power. Me and my hippie-inclined colleagues could not understand why. Conservative pupils, who we might have referred to as “squares”, weren’t even very interested in growing their hair a rebellious length. How boring squares were, we thought. And how foolish and old-fashioned to put their energy into getting good marks and doing well at sport! Poor squares seemed blind to important change that hippie counterculture was bringing to the world. Some of us enlightened rebels talked of dropping out, but the squares still wanted careers. 

While squares were practising their forward defence or revising irregular verbs, hippie types like me were larking about or listening to Frank Zappa records. I took Flower Power further than most, by investing in the brightest blue, pink and purple floral shirt ever worn at Allhallows. 

Being in a traditional male English public school most of the year kept me and other hippie sympathisers largely isolated from the outside world, where Flower Power was bursting into bloom. Within the school, the dominant square culture, based on the Eton model, was still one of sporting heroism, punishment and prefect-led feudalism. 

How wrong I was about Flower Power. To my dismay, it went into rapid decline after 1967. The ascendancy of hippies and love-ins had lasted just a year! San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury neighbourhood, the epicentre of hippie culture, was rapidly overcome by overcrowding, homelessness and drug problems. The world’s youth followed the mood downturn. Idealism faded at Allhallows, and I stopped wearing my shirt. The Beatles abandoned their kaftans and fell into bickering amongst themselves. The world carried on as if Flower Power had been just a dream. Which I suppose it was. 

 

A reply to High hopes or gullible dopes? by George Hayter by Dudley Hopkins OH 

 

I did smile and chuckle at George Hayter’s 1965-1970 descriptive and colourful article on the effects that the said Movement had upon him while he was serving time at the School.....A lad with a rebellious nature!....
I Dudley Hopkins1959- 1964 left before the Movement which had its roots in the American opposition to their involvement in the Vietnam War had gathered pace but sure enough there were plenty of souls indeed who with the same rebellious nature were always pushing the boundaries on school dress, hairstyles and interpretation of the vast raft of school rules which were ALL encapsulated in the last one namely.....A breach of Common Sense was a breach of the school rules..Until the departure of the Head VAL Hill In 1965 after many years the rules were strictly applied in a somewhat Dickensian environment which in fairness was indeed common throughout the public school systems.I did however along with others sample the delights of the Beatles in concert in a master’s room adjacent to the balcony of the Great Hall....Upon leaving
While at Guildford Law School I entered into the spirit of the Movement by purchasing inter alia 2 Pairs of colourful hipster trousers in vogue from a trendy boutique in Quarry Street Guildford but there was no scope for wearing them back in the office while I completed my training before qualifying in June 1972
Long gone are the days when either George or myself could wear a flower in our hair if we had so chosen BUT we can still go to SAN Francisco if we so wish ( Scott McKenzie 1967 )......
Dudley Hopkins.....I felt compelled to say a few words on the topic !!