Last week’s article Memories of grammar school days, when Jeff Barnard sought some missing names of his old Farnham Grammar School chums, attracted a rapid response.
Jeff shared what he thought was a photo taken on the last day of the summer term in 1946 (pictured again above), and one face in particular stood out for Rev Stella Wiseman, a minister in Upper Hale and Badshot Lea parish.
Stella said: “Looking at the picture of Farnham Grammar School, it’s hard to tell but possible that my father, Tony Wiseman, is the one at the front on the far right.
“It looks like pictures of my brother at a similar age and my father was at the grammar school and, if he stayed until he was 18, would have left in summer 1946. But I can’t be sure.”
Robin Welland-Jones, a pupil of the grammar school from 1969 to 1974, also got in touch – and while an alumni 20 or so years removed from Mr Barnard, shared that the recently-defunct Old Farnhamians Association still lives on in spirit at least.
He said: “You may be aware of the demise of the Old Farnhamians Association (OFA). The association was disbanded after last year’s final lunch at The Bush Hotel in September.
“Our group of school pals regularly presented eight members at the OFA lunches so we decided to carry on, on our own, and also get a few more along.
“With a bit of detective work we gathered together 11 members of the 1969 intake and had an enjoyable lunch in The Queens Head on Thursday, September 7.
“I say ‘lunch’ – we started at 12.30pm and finished at about 7pm! A lot of reminiscing and reminding of misdemeanours went on. Good fun!
“We hope to repeat this on an annual basis and find a few more ’69ers to join us.”
Robin shared a picture of his own group’s reunion (above), and captioned it, left to right: Jim Peters, Chris Fitch, David Greentree, Rod Bennett, Mike Seignot, Robin Welland-Jones (behind) Keith Ryan (front) Steve Pritchard, Dave Hughes, Neil McCabe and Hugh Groves. Apologies were sent by Lee Pogson, Sandor Szarvas, and David Grimes.
“Hopefully we’ll see them next year,” said Robin.
If you can put any more names to faces to help Jeff, or have any memories of that time, email us at [email protected]