John Clarke’s Toast to the Association, OFA Annual Dinner
Farnham College, 19 March 2005

First a bit more about me and my time at Farnham.

I was one of the last years to enter FGS, in September 1971. I was a very small boy in what seemed then as an enormous school complex. When I started at the school, Mr French was already installed in the Head's Office, steering the Grammar School to its end, yet overseeing its transformation into the first 6th Form College in Surrey - at that time a completely novel idea.

Like some others before me, I had failed my 11 plus. Under the system then followed by Surrey County Council, I was interviewed at my primary school and in due course was offered a place at Farnham.

I was the only person from my primary school to get a place here. Living near Farnborough (more precisely in the village of Mytchett), I joined the commute from Ash Vale Station to Farnham.

In 1971-72 the younger, more boisterous pupils on the train were kept in order by Prefects. They were usually immaculately dressed and wore different ties. One (I think his name or nickname was "Clive" - I don't know if he had a friend called "Derek") caught someone out and set them the task of "400 words on the inside of a ping pong ball"

Although I didn't hang around to hear more, I have often marvelled at this penalty. Was Clive just setting a 400 word essay on this bland subject? OR was the hapless pupil expected to cut open a ping pong ball and inscribe his chosen 400 words on its inside surface? This and similar incidents started to open my mind to the nuances of the English language.

FGS had an abundance of characters. People like Mr Dyer, the School Caretaker and Maintenance Man. At break times, he manned the Tuck Shop. This was situated in a sort of damp dark dungeon adjacent to the boiler room. Today it would be immediately condemned on Health & Safety grounds. Rumour had it that if you telephoned Mr Dyer he would lift the receiver and say "Diarrhoea"

And what about the succession of awful foreign language tutors? If you study the 1972 school photograph (which is available on the OFA Website) you will see what I mean. For there, sitting next to Mr Nicholson (dear old Nick), is that year's German Assistant, a sort of female Herman Munster, who was instantly dubbed "Big Bertha".

One of the French Assistants, with wild long dark hair and a heavy French accent (I ought at this stage to mention this was a male assistant) was variously called "Loony Ledenoir" or "The Wild Man of Borneo"; whilst a subsequent replacement, called Patrick, was the first man I ever saw with a handbag.

Needless to say I learned very little French or German from these people, but they did a great deal to instruct me in the peculiarities of the human race.

Doubtless the staff could say the same about us.

To return to the OFA. I am a new recruit to its committee and am still being trained in its rituals of attending meetings here in the college and adjourning to a local hostelry.

The future of the OFA - with events like tonight's dinner, this summer's celebration lunch, continuing support for the College and its work, lies in our hands. More particularly those of us towards this side of the hall.

The school community that we enjoyed as pupils lives on through us and the OFA. And to ensure the continued and continuing success of the Association we should try to encourage our fellow school friends to support the Association by attending events like the annual dinner and the annual lecture and by doing so getting them to join the OFA.

Gentlemen, the toast is the OFA