The Southfield House 2008 Reunion Dinner.

The Southfield House Reunion Dinner was held at the King's Arms Hotel Dorchester on 9th July 2008. This enormously successful event was masterminded by Chris Etherington, with assistance from Godfrey Lancashire, John Saville & Graham Allen.

During the afternoon preceding the dinner, the majority of attendees were treated to a tour of The Thomas Hardye School, very competently guided by a few of the School's students. After the tour, the party enjoyed tea & cakes in one of the school rooms. Our grateful thanks are extended to Dr Melvin and members of the School for their warm hospitality.

After the meal, Guest of Honour Dr Iain Melvin (Head Teacher, The Thomas Hardye School) accepted on behalf of the School a collection of Southfield House memorabilia, namely:
- the three volumes of House History (as written up every year by the reigning House Prefect),
- the Dormitory Cup,
- the Head Prefects Shield,
- the Southfield House Photograph Archive, as collected by Walter & Joyce Lancashire during their years at Southfield House,
- the Lines Book, which recorded the lines as punishment doled out to offenders, and which included the famous entry of lines given to one prefect by that same prefect (no names, no pack drill).

To read a few extracts from the House History mentioned above, click here.

Iain Melvin showed part of the 1945 film "Children's Charter", up to the end of the section showing Dorchester Grammar School. This last part can be seen by clicking here.

(I will include copies of the photos from the Archive in a new web page in due course, when I have done a little more detective work to put names to faces. I will also show some extracts from the House History Volumes.)

If you have other photos of this auspicious occasion that you would like to show here, please e-mail me.

Each attendee received a souvenir Menu booklet, which included a number of photos of House Inmates over the years, and also a souvenir paperweight approx. 90mm or 3-1/2ins diameter, as pictured below.

1 - The Most Senior Table: Robin Wallace, John Hodges ...

2 - ... Jimmy Gale, Alan Sully, Malcolm Sully ...

3 - ... Jammy Mathews & David McCririck.

4 - The Very Senior Table: Peter Sedgwick, Organiser Chris Etherington ...

5 - ... Guest of Honour Iain Melvin, Stuart Shelton, John Ratcliffe ...

6 - ... Richard Loveys & John Saville.

7 - The Fairly Senior Table: Eric Taylor, Andy Beaton ...

8 - ... Dickie Duckett, Richard Hole ...

9 - ... Rae Tugwell & Graham Allen. (Also at this table was John Perry - see later pictures.)

10 - The Least Senior Table: Tim Brown, Peter Grundy (House Tutor 1969-70) ...

11 - ... David John (House Tutor 1958-61), John Duckett ...

12 - ... David Drew, Michael Munden & Godfrey Lancashire (the Least Senior present).

13 - Tony Firshman escaped my camera patrol round the tables, but just to prove that he did attend, here he is in the background, lurking behind John Perry & Eric Taylor.

14 - A Collection of Head Prefects - Take 1 (Robin Wallace had wandered off):
John Saville, John Perry, Peter Sedgwick (holding the Head Prefects Shield), John Ratcliffe, Andy Beaton & Rae Tugwell.

15 - A Collection of Head Prefects - Take 2 (now John Ratcliffe has wandered off):
Robin Wallace, John Perry, Peter Sedgwick (still holding the Head Prefects Shield), John Saville, Andy Beaton & Rae Tugwell.

16 - The Dorset Echo printed this article on 10th July, the day after the reunion.

17 - I contacted the Dorset Echo, and they very kindly provided this copy of the original photo for the above article.
From left to right: Eric Taylor, Michael Munden, Peter Sedgwick, Tim Brown, Dickie Duckett, (behind) David Drew, David John, Jammy Mathews, Rae Tugwell, Chris Etherington, (behind) John Ratcliffe, Tony Firshman, John Saville, (behind) Richard Loveys, Graham Allen, Alan Sully, John Perry, Andy Beaton, Malcolm Sully, Godfrey Lancashire, Stuart Shelton.
The copyright on this photo is retained by the Dorset Echo. If you wish you can order a copy from the Echo at www.dorsetecho.co.uk/photographs, quoting the reference F6918.

More recently (2013), Richard Loveys gave me a copy of this obituary to Chris Etherington (see below).

Click here for other Reunions