Fred White, who is believed to be the oldest living Old Grammarian at present, celebrated his 100^th birthday on 30^th January. The occasion was marked by a family party at the Kings Mount residential home in Paignton where Fred has lived with his wife Mabel for about a year. Fred is one of only a handful who will remember the evacuation of EGS to Hitchin in 1940-42 – see his recollection of this time in the History area of the Memories section of the website. The photos of the celebration below were taken by Andy Relf, whose wife Jeannie is Fred’s niece. Andy noted that the card sent from EOGA was displayed beside the one from the Palace.

On 3rd June President Brian York with his wife Pat and Secretary Chris Bennell met up with Jack & Di Revell over a convivial pub lunch on the edge of Dartmoor to present the “This is Your Presidential Life” volume of pictures and text compiled to recognise Jack’s exceptional service as the Association’s President. Brian also presented Jack with an EGS Colours badge, a number of which Jack had himself handed out during his presidential terms for special service to EOGA. Jack was highly delighted to receive both items, as the accompanying photos show; in writing subsequently to Brian, Jack described the presentation volume as being a very special and unique record, evoking such wonderful memories, and a treasure for life.

The content of the presentation book can be accessed via a link on the Officers and Committee page of the website.

Jack with his presentation book 

Jack & Di with the presentation book 

Brian presenting EGS Colours to Jack

The Association’s membership database currently includes just over 400 names, which sounds like a very healthy position. However, less than half of that number received and opened recent bulk emails from the Association, which are sent using the Mailchimp platform; there appear to be two main reasons for this:

1. More than 100 member email addresses have been “cleaned” by Mailchimp because of the number of failed delivery attempts, so there maybe a small error in the address or the members have changed their email provider. Those email addresses are no longer included the bulk circulations.

2. With the latest circulation (about the 2024 Members Weekend), nearly 100 emails were not opened, probably because they went into the Junk folder and were not spotted and read.

If you have not recently heard from the Association and wish to resume contact, please send an email to honsec@oldgramms.co.uk, which will provide your current email address. Please also check your Junk folder!

The Executive has decided that various EGS and EOGA artefacts that have been held in store for a considerable number of years should be disposed of. School magazines have been scanned and digitised and are now available via the website; some other documents are still to be scanned. Anything that potentially has long-term historical interest will be offered to the Sussex Record Office and perhaps to the Eastbourne Historical Society but there are a range of other items that the Executive believes should be offered first to EOGA members; hopefully some at least of the items will be claimed by members, otherwise alternative means of disposal will be used.

The items available include trophies, a few items of clothing, school magazines and publications and other documents. In the first instance, these will be on display and available to be claimed at the EOGA Annual Lunch at the Royal Eastbourne Golf Club on 9th November 2024. For a full list of the items available and for any question you may have please contact Chris Bennell at honsec@oldgramms.co.uk