OSA magazine Issue 90

T h e O l d S t a t i o n e r - N o 9 0
You are doing a great job with the
magazine.
Best wishes to all OS’s everywhere.
Tony Turner 1955 -1962
PS I don’t think many people called me Tony
back then. We won’t go into my nicknames but
regarding page 33 my group referred to
Topley as “uncle lightning”
The pictures show Ursula with Messrs Clover
and Davis; The Pension, The Lion
Monument, A real bear and Joan of Arc’s
house at Domremy. Sorry about the poor
quality – my first “real” camera (Ilford
Sportsman) was still about eight years in the
future and these were taken on a strange
contraption with a large waist level
viewfinder but a poor little lens.
Where and When from last issue
Aukland
date unknown
Hi Tim
Thank you for the latest The Old Stationer.
You have probably had a few replies already
from those who did not roam quite as far
and got their copies before me but I can
tell you about the where and when of the
mystery picture in the latest Old Stationer.
I am fairly sure that the picture came from
The Hornsey Journal in the summer of
1956.
The destination “Switzerland” shown by
the bus was correct!
The group were first (year of ‘55) and
second formers (year of ‘54) accompanied
by Messrs Davis and Clover.
We spent the first night at Dover and
crossed, with the bus, to Boulogne the next
day.
Then south-east via Amiens, Rheims
(where we visited champagne cellars!) and
Besancon to Gsteigwiler, near Interlaken.
Each evening we were encouraged to get
out and look around and practice our
French. In Gsteigwiler, we stayed in a
boarding house called Pension Schonfels
where the bus had to be parked on one side
of the river Lütschine and we walked
across a covered bridge. There was an
attractive young waitress there that
everyone was taken with – Ursula?
I remember visiting the Bear Pit in Berne
and taking a funicular up the Jungfraujoch.
Perhaps someone else can add to the
itinerary’
We came back by a different route – I
think through Epinal, Domrémy-la-
Pucelle, Chalons-sur-Marne and St
Quentin. I marked the routes on dad’s
good atlas at the time – he was not well
pleased by my defacing it!
I think that the front row are all first
formers. I recognise myself in the picture
– front row third from the left .
The front row is (L to R and hoping I
don’t misname anyone) John Fiddy, Geoff
Wilson, Myself, Michael Heath?, Michael
Stringer, two unknown and Neil Parkyn.
I think that the fellow on the left hand end
of the second row is Michael Brett and
number three may be Peter Bonner. The
guy next to the driver may be David
Watterson. I don’t know any
others straight off but if there
are any suggestions from other
OS’s I can probably say yes, no
or maybe. As it says somewhere
else in the issue, form levels did
not mix much.
I still have a musical box in the
shape of a Swiss chalet that I
brought home for my mother. It
still works and my eight year old
granddaughter loves it!
If you can give me the email
address or phone number for
Ron Horne I will contact him
but sadly with 23 years between
our times at Stationers’ we won’t
have many people in common. If
my maths is not astray Ron must
be closing in on his century if he
started at Stationers’ in 1932.
Hi Tim
casablanca@xtra.co.nz
31st July 2019
I’ve attached a new scan of one of the Swiss
pics. If the quality is not ok I can do more.
Douglas was my form teacher in Form 1
and I was also in the school choir. I can
still remember many of the songs we sang
I had “Beaky” Davis for French from Form
3 to Form 5. I only got a grade 3 for GCE
but he did give me 1 for my oral!
We corresponded for a while years later
and I visited him at his home a couple of
times on trips back to the UK. Eventually
his sight deteriorated to the point where
he asked me not to write anymore.
Regards
Tony Turner
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