A fascinating snippet of school history.
Alan Trinder submits photos of these 2 pages of the school acceptance register for September 1940.
Continue reading “Ronnie Barker joins the school”Poem by Ronnie Barker
Alan Trinder has submitted the following poem by Ronnie Barker, which appeared in a school magazine in the late 1940’s. Possibly his first foray into print? It was printed originally as one long text and we have taken the liberty of dividing it up into sense groups, as this makes it easier to read on-screen.
Continue reading “Poem by Ronnie Barker”Memories of Ronnie Barker
by Tony Phelps (c.1946)
Tony Phelps writes:
“I met Ronnie on the (non-professional) stage in Oxford in 1946. That was the year when I returned from war service.
Having acted a bit during the war, I joined a drama group calling themselves the Theatre Players, somewhere in East Oxford. Ronnie Barker was a member, and we acted together in a thriller called “A Murder Has Been Arranged” in early 1946.
We then began rehearsing “The Blue Goose”, with Ronnie as a small-town mayor (a part he fitted perfectly even as a 16-year old) and me as a round-the-world yachtsman. Unfortunately I had to leave the cast as I got a job in London before the play could be produced.
I met him only once more, when we bumped into each other in the Charing Cross Road, by which time he had already started in repertory.
The Ronnie Barker Blue Plaque
The blue plaque to commemorate comedian Ronnie Barker – who was an Old Boy of the OHS and lived at no 23 Church Cowley Road – was inaugurated on 29 September 2012. The late Mike Chew, who was then Chairman of COSA, was invited to say a few words:
My claim to fame is that I lived in the thirties, forties and fifties in this road at no 59, which as yet does not sport a blue plaque on the wall, and went to the same primary school as Ronnie, Donnington School in Cornwallis Road opposite the air raid shelters, and to the same grammar school, the City of Oxford High School in George Street, opposite the Ritz cinema, and I used to catch the no 3 bus with him to go to school. Being a couple of years older he was probably totally oblivious of me, and I didn’t take much notice of him – well I didn’t know he was going to be famous, did I? Tuppence ha’penny busfare to Cornmarket Street, but if you went to Iffley Turn to get on the bus it was only three ha’pence.
Today, as Chairman, I am representing the City of Oxford School Association, which has donated the plaque. I am pleased to see a number of the committee here and indeed some ordinary members of the Association, who might be classed as plebs. Our school was closed in 1966 and we became part of Oxford School along with Southfield School in Glanville Road. Oxford School no longer exists as such, and we re-formed our Old Boys Association some seven years ago.
It is a great privilege and honour for the Association to participate in this ceremony. Ronnie is still in the hearts of many people who remember not only his comedy series on television, but also his versatile and accomplished acting skills in various dramas. As a blue plaquist, if such a title exists, he follows in the footsteps of another illustrious Old Boy: T. E. Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia, whose plaque is at his childhood home in 2 Polstead Road. Indeed, when Wetherspoons opened their pub next to the old school it was a toss-up whether it would be called the “Four Candles” or the “Lawrence of Arabia”. “Open all Hours” beat the “Seven Pillars of Wisdom”, seven-nil.
This ceremony is a proud moment for the City of Oxford School Association, and we are grateful to the Oxfordshire Blue Plaques Board for inviting us to participate in it.
Mike Chew, 29 September 2012
The accompanying speech by Malcolm Graham of the Oxfordshire Blue Plaques Scheme can be read here.