Thoughts & Memories
Please share your thoughts and memories with us.
Extract from "The Wrexhamian", July 1963.
You will have read, on the "home" page, how I have recently acquired copies of the Girls' School Magazine ('59 - '65). I have spent a very pleasant couple of hours flicking through the pages. My immediate impression is how different they are from the magazines of the Boys' School. Whilst the former are very literature based the latter have a greater emphasis on sport. My second, and lasting, impression is that the standard of composition, whether it be poetry or prose, in English or Welsh, is incredibly high even from contributors in their first and second years. The topics covered in these compositions vary from the serious to the totally frivolous but all show supreme understanding of language. I reproduce a few examples below:
Riddle -Me-Ree
My first is in shingle but not in land. My second's in church but not in sand.
My third is in father but never in fun. My fourth is in mother, also in son.
My fifth is in Soho, also in home. My last is in London but not in Rome.
My whole is a place where you may go, and there your brilliance daily show.
Valerie Bonnell (14)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Leaves
In Spring the buds burst forth anew, In every kind of shape and hue
In Summer they are at their best, while birds among them build their nests;
In Autumn leaves come tumbling down, in reds and golds and russet brown;
In Wnter as I sadly stare, the trees before my eyes are bare.
Brenda Williams (13)
Limerick
There was an old bear at the zoo, he could always find something to do
When it bored him, you know, to walk to and fro
Instead he walked fro and to.
Anon (first year)
School
In school we work, in school we play, at different subjects every day
Sometimes it's maths, sometimes it's Gym
Sometimes I'm bright, sometimes I'm dim
Anne Bellis (13)
The boys were not to be outdone! :-
Famous last words:
"But why don't you run, sir?"
"I'm sorry, sir, I don't want a programme"
"But sir, I just don't like rugby"
" Honestly sir, they're in the wash"
"Please sir, my aunty knows you"
"...left my homework book in school, sir"
"Smith, sir, J. Smith"
"Please sir, is Jones in this form?"
"Please sir, has anyone found a 1951 Cup Final programme with my name on it?"
"But sir, I thought he was on the bus"
"Would you like a lift home, sir?"
On 14th June 1965 Miss Margaret Copland wrote her 21st, and final, letter to the school magazine. I make no apologies for reprinting part of that letter here:
I should like to think that education in Grove Park has given you three things:- Firstly, the academic qualifications to achieve your chosen career; secondly, a lively mind with an interest in the world around you, in local, national and international events, in books, music, art and sport; lastly, and most important of all, a spirit of service that you will carry with you when you leave school and show, both in your career and someday in the future, as a wife and mother in your own home. "To whom much is given, of him much is required".
