8 September 2025
Today's Routh Assembly was lead by Mr McClure
Editor: This year I leave Bromsgrove, as do many others. We all owe a great debt to the School, one which we will never be able to repay. The pleasures of life in this community are transient, but the advantages it bestows are not. 好莱污视频has shaped us; but more important still, it has given us the opportunity to mould ourselves. For this opportunity we shall ever remain thankful.
That short piece, is an extract from the Editorial of the 1979 Bromsgrovian magazine, and was included in a collection of memories that was read to cover the four decades of Old Bromsgrovians who visited us here on Saturday for a Reunion. As always on such occasions, there was a mix of nostalgia, reminiscing, plenty of good humour, as well as a dose of poignancy. Many of you know that I love a bit of history, and having a conversation with a gentleman who was a pupil here in the late 1940s, when the School had only just returned from its Second World War evacuation to Llanwyrtd Wells in Wales was fascinating. Likewise, at lunch I was sitting at a table with a group from the 1970s who could recall the first girls joining the School – just imagine being one of those four girls (that was the total first intake) joining what was still essentially an all boys’ School. And how humbling for me to address in Chapel some elderly gentlemen who had actually been present as pupils at the formal opening service of that very building in 1960 – who had heard live what have become the iconic words in our School’s history of the former Headmaster Routh, himself a spritely 91 years old when he delivered them from the same Chapel steps.
In short, that is what a School can do – I encouraged you all last week to start making memories in your few years here that can last you a lifetime. Saturday’s OB reunion was further proof of that, how, in a moment of recollection, the intervening years can simply disappear and certain moments or events (often fairly insignificant ones in the bigger picture) are recalled with perfect clarity as if they had only just occurred.
That was the cause of much of the camaraderie among the OBs on Saturday, and also some of the anecdotes about their old haunts around the campus which I’m sure some of the Sixth Form guides found it rather amusing to hear. And yet, without looking to sour the mood, I was just as struck in many of my conversations by the memories which were just as vivid, but not nearly so positive. Without looking to be judgemental of what really was a different age and culture, there were as many memories about just how ‘tough’ their school experience was, whether that was the physical conditions (waking up to find frost on their metal bedframes), their acceptance that discipline was largely through physical use of the cane by teachers (all six men on my lunch table had been punished that way), or pupil interactions which could be pretty caustic among peers and which included the so-called doul system (from the ancient Greek doulos meaning a slave) in which younger pupils were assigned to older pupils to carry out arbitrary tasks for them.
And why am I sharing this with you? Simply because it would make me sad to think that, in 45 or more years’ time, your memories of Bromsgrove, for all that hopefully will be positive, include any negative moments based on the behaviour of others towards you. That is a responsibility that we all have to each other within our community, and what we do now, sometimes instinctively, can have a longer term effect on others. It did not make some of the OBs I met on Saturday feel particularly good about themselves to reflect that they knew some of the things they did for their own amusement as pupils had a detrimental effect on other individuals, and with hindsight they knew the names of those peers who would not ever be keen to attend such a reunion. One gentleman was honest in admitting that he had not really enjoyed his time at Bromsgrove, but was proud and reassured, even on the feeling he got from Saturday, to see that his school has grown, not just in scale and facilities, but also into a more inclusive, kinder and international culture in which the breadth of opportunities catered for more pupils.
Of course, at one level and in my role, that was music to my ears, but I am not naïve enough to think we are anywhere near a perfect school in that regard. And I suppose that also ties in with the Assistant Chaplain’s message in our School Service last Friday – essentially, what is our purpose in being here, if we are not looking to help or be positive to each other, whatever our own personal targets and goals. Ignoring or normalising behaviour which we know to be wrong is counter-productive.
Mutual respect and tolerance is one of the fundamental British values which schools in the UK are duty bound to encourage, and think for a moment of the head start you all have in operating each day with a community of such a diverse range of nationalities, cultures, personalities and talents. Within each of your subject classes, Tutor groups, sport teams, musical ensembles, activity sessions, Houses and year groups, you have an opportunity to make your own personal progress, aided by the input and opinions of others whose home may be a couple of minutes from campus or thousands of miles away across the globe. Please do not waste that opportunity to broaden your own horizons, in a way that can benefit you for life. Use it to test or challenge your own opinions so that, even if they remain largely unchanged, they are at least informed. It is also a way to widen your own perspective to acknowledge how your own actions may be perceived by others.
In the last few weeks, parts of the UK, Worcestershire included, have been grappling with the perception of England flags becoming more publicly visible on lamp-posts, even mini-roundabouts, put there by groups stating that it is a popular move to encourage national pride and patriotism. In a School with as many nationalities as ours – a fact you know we are always keen to acknowledge – I am sure there are many in this room who hold their own national flag dear but, in a community such as ours, there will also be many with the perception to find resonance in a line I saw in a BBC news feed that ‘if it is a move that is based on popularity, then why is there so much debate about it.’ Perhaps it is my own Northern Irish background (particularly with flags) which has, over time, helped me to acknowledge that one person’s patriotism can be perceived as another person’s provocation. Somewhat pedantically, I just wish those who feel the need to raise a Union flag were patriotic enough to learn how to fly it the right way up!
So, please, at the start of a new year, do look out for each other, be kind to each other, and help each other to get the very most out of your 好莱污视频experience together. Push yourself of course, and there are plenty of opportunities in which some healthy competition with others can help you in that, but please do not take any relish now in something that sees you cause upset or worse for another peer in this special community. As the reunion on Saturday proved, such behaviour can weigh heavily on one’s conscience, and the names and actions of such individuals are remembered for many years with perfect clarity. As the Bromsgrovian excerpt read to us at the beginning stated, this school does indeed give us ‘the opportunity to mould ourselves’. I would love to think that a little work by each of you on that in these few years will mean that your OB reunion in 45 years’ time can have an even more positive outlook for everyone involved … even if I may not by then be around to enjoy it with you. Thank you.