Old Boys, Girls and Teachers Guestbook

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Welcome to the Guestbook
Feel free to add messages relating to the site and the school. The only rules are: real names only, no personal attacks and no unrelated messages (inappropriate messages may be edited/withdrawn without warning).

It would be appreciated if you gave an email address, where you now live and said when you were at the school, but you don't have to.

Plase note that if you click on an email address below you will need to replace ~DOT~ with . and ~AT~ with @ in your email program. The Guestbook presents these this way to avoid email address harvesters collecting your email addresses from the page. I know it's a pain, but it's very much better than the alternative.

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There are 501 messages in the guestbook
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Viewing messages 41 to 50

Neale Backhouse | neale1447~AT~gmail~DOT~com

Thanks Eric, but it's June 18th.
Much as I admire Alex's Guestbook logistical enterprise, I just can't recall him being a fan of South Shields AFC (The Babes or the Mariners). It's not something we discussed at school.Sorry Alex if I have it wrong.
I do recall my first visit to Horsley Hill Stadium to watch "the Babes." That must have been 1946 (or 1947), accompanied by Bill Dodds, from our form. Bill's dad worked at a turnstile at the greyhound side grandstand and he let us in for free.(not cool today).
Around that time our much admired prefect Graham Duncan turned out for the reserve side and scored four goals on his first appearance. He became an instant hero at school. I don't recall how he progressed as a soccer player,but to us at that time he was the man!!
Mike has a photo of Graham via his thumbnail index. Visit the 46/47 Prefects Photo.
On the same photo sits another of our sporting heroes, Mel Murdoch, cricketer extraordinair, who opened for the first eleven, with Duncan. Sadly Mel died tragically whilst conducting weapons training, during later army service.
Also on the same photo is John Ericson, later to become Professor Ericson, a celebrated historian and author of Russian history. I remember John as a much admired member of the sixth form. No prefect quite read the morning lesson with such confidence and clarity as John. Some memories never fade.
Cheers,Neale.

Wed 8-Oct-2025 00:16 - Victoria BC

Alex Patterson, VUA 1946 - 1951 | ad1935ap~AT~gmail~DOT~com

Speaking of birthdays, mine is 12 Feb 1935, I'm going to have a wild guess at yours as 6 Oct 1935 and Neale's is either 8, 18 or 28 June 1935. I know there's an 8 in it somewhere.
I've been in the residence here for two birthdays, neither of which has been celebrated in the Country Kitchen, where there is a monthly gathering of people getting older. This year I queried the omission and found out that on my entry details from 2 years ago the anonymous "they" had put my date of entry into the residence, in the box where my birthdate was supposed to go, which implied I was only 2 years old this year. "He hasn't aged well, has he?" But they did me proud by having a one-off birthday party the following week. The Country Kitchen BTW is a really nice coffee shop with a free multiple-choice (12 options) coffee machine and cookies galore, soft drinks, tea and juices as well as fresh fruit, jello and yoghurt. It can get busy, until about seven when the majority of the residents seem to go to bed !!
I guess that you, Neale and I are among the oldest still writing to the GB. Keep going guys and we'll break the record this year. Our Flu and Covid shots are coming up soon, so I'll be up to my 8th or 9th Covid shot. I've tested positive twice but have not had any symptoms, so it's fingers, legs and eyes crossed to ward off the awful viruses (virii ?)
Keep Well all you hordes of readers,
Alex

Tue 7-Oct-2025 23:28 - North York, Ontario, Canada

Eric Moyse 1946 to 1952 (Boys) | eric~DOT~moyse35~AT~yahoo~DOT~com

Oh and congratulations to Neale, too. I have a vague recollection that your birthday was in August but I may well be wrong.

Tue 7-Oct-2025 10:46 - Reading, Berkshire

Eric Moyse 1946 to 1952 (Boys) | eric~DOT~moyse35~AT~yahoo~DOT~com

Thanks Alec. I wish I could remember your birthday but congratulations anyway.As both Doeen and I attained 90 yo this year, We have had a series of lunches for family and friends all year and today we are treating fellow Rotarians to drinks.
The reference to Hansard happened as follows: Last year our daughter Susan helped with canvassing with a parliamentary cnadidate who proved to be successful.As a reward Susan and we were invited to the House of Commons for afternoon tea. Afterwards we were amazed to learn that our "accomplishment" in both attaining 90 yo had been mentioned in parliamentary proceedings and we were later sent the relevant edition of Hansard.

Tue 7-Oct-2025 10:43 - Reading, Berkshire

Alex Patterson, VUA 1946 - 1951 | ad1935ap~AT~gmail~DOT~com

Hello Eric, I'm hopeless with birthdays and generally end up a couple of days late or miss out altogether. I put it down to the loss of most of my diaries, over the past few moves. However I think your birthday is around the beginning of October or April...so I'll take a wild guess and wish you either a belated 90th birthday or a very early one. Take care of yourselves. If it is this week...Happy Birthday, Eric and many more in good health.
Alex

Tue 7-Oct-2025 03:57 - North York, Ontario, Canada

Bruce Graham | bsgraham~AT~btinternet~DOT~com

Well said Alex.

It's the first result I look for on a Saturday afternoon.

Hopefully we can survive to see them in the EFL

Mon 6-Oct-2025 19:25 - ruskington lincolnshie

Alex Patterson, VUA 1946 - 1951 | ad1935ap~AT~gmail~DOT~com

South Shields have played 10 games in the National League North, won 8, drawn 2 and are top of their division. Howay the Mariners!!!
Alex

Sat 4-Oct-2025 23:11 - North York, Ontario, Canada

Alex Patterson, VUA 1946 - 1951 | ad1935ap~AT~gmail~DOT~com

OOOooopppsss again !! that should have read 2013 47(3) - 49(10) 23,
Alex

Sat 4-Oct-2025 16:44 - North York, Ontario, Canada

Alex Patterson, VUA 1946 - 1951 | ad1935ap~AT~gmail~DOT~com

OOOOOooooops!!the figures for 2013 should have been 2013 47(3) - 50(10) 23.
Sorry,
Alex

Sat 4-Oct-2025 16:38 - North York, Ontario, Canada

Alex Patterson, VUA 1946 - 1951 | ad1935ap~AT~gmail~DOT~com

Hello to all you responders and Mike of course,
In keeping with my New Year’s Resolution (for 2025) of writing at least one letter per month to the Guestbook, here comes my input for October 2025. It occurred to me that we seemed to have more submissions this year than normal. So I thought, “I’ll just have a gander and see if that’s true.” Then I thought, “No, I’m going to check all 500 letters that we have available to us and see what our yearly input has been.”
Here’s what I found for the period ending with Neale’s 22 September, 2025 input. The numbers in parentheses in the ‘Pages’ column represent the number of emails on that page for the subject year. Each page has 10 emails, but there can be two different years on a page.

Year Pages emails per year
2025 1 to 9(8) 88
2024 9(2) to 10(7) 9
2023 10(3) to 15(9) 62
2022 15(1) to 27(3) 114
2021 27(7) to 33(2) 59
2020 33(8) to 35(7) 25
2019 35(3) to 36(10) 13
2018 37(10)to 38(7) 17
2017 38(3) to 40(3) 16
2016 40(7) to 42(6) 23
2015 42(4) to 45(5) 29
2014 45(5) to 47(7) 22
2013 47(7) to 49(10) 23
500

The reason I started this observation was because I felt that this year’s input would surely be a record and it may still be with three months remaining. But what surprised me was the paucity of emails last year….only 9, !!!???!!??!?…in a whole year? So that’s what triggered my foray into the wonderful world of “emails in the guest book” I imagined that 2020 would be a bumper crop because of COVID, but it wasn’t much higher than normal. However 2021 tripled the regular average input and 2022 almost doubled the 2021 input. I don’t know whether it can be ascribed uniquely to the effects of COVID, but I think a case could be made. 2022 showed a decline in submissions which could coincide with the easing of restrictions on social gatherings (more time away from the computer) but I have no explanation for the miserly and miserable input for 2024. I share the blame with the other few contributors, however we have come back with a vengeance this year and still have time to beat the record. So get your metaphorical pens out boys and girls ( I have noticed some recorded asides from spouses ) and see if we can cap the old 2022 record.

NOTE TO MIKE,
Can you please reinstate the emails prior to 2013? I’m sure you won’t have trashed them and I’d love to have a complete copy of them for my family history book which is now about 300 pages long and contains about 300 photos, all written and compiled by my three daughters and one granddaughter. My eldest great grandchild is only six, and hasn’t contributed anything…yet. If you do have the earlier emails, I’d like to do the same exercise with them and do the second search to list the contributors.
“Bye ‘bye the noo”, from a gloriously sunny and warm North York,
Alex
P.S. I hope the numbers stay in the same format, although when I've sent things before the format goes astray. Sorry. Fingers and eyes crossed

Fri 3-Oct-2025 17:17 - North York, Ontario, Canada

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