These are names I remember from my Downer days.  Some were friends, others class-mates and some just people I recall.  So far only two of us are members.

Tony Batkins (Edgware)
"Buzzy" Berman (N. Harrow?)
Carol Bromley (Stanmore)
Tony Callender *member*
John Clements (S. Harrow)
Tony Clipstone (Edgware)
Charlie Fox (Wealdstone)
Roger Gerrard (N. Harrow)
Maureen Godfrey (Greenford)
Keith Holmes (Edgware?)
Harry Hurst (Edgware)
Bernard Jolly (Edgware?)
Trevor Lay (Headstone)
Roger Lees (Cunningham Park, Harrow)
David Maberly (Wealdstone)
Derek Munday (Wembley)
Alan Palmer (Edgware)
Bob Parnell (Edgware)
Dave Sears (Pinner)
Alan Shillito (Cunningham Park, Harrow)
Bob & John Stark - twins (Edgware?)
Anthony (?) Steggal
Jeff Stilton *member*
Tony Toombs (Edgware)
John Wood (Headstone)
Neil Wright (Headstone)

I'm working on a list of school staff from tha era and hope to post it later. In the meantime if any more student names from this time come up let's fill out the list.

Jeff Stilton

Hello Jeff.  I've just joined, I think!  We now live and work in Suffolk and I remember some of the names on your list.   I hope to come to the reunion next year.  It will be my first return since 1961.  Other names I remember in no particular order are:
Chris Ison
David Bird
Roger Poole
Barbara Watts
Kate Steele
Bob Dossetter
Megan Foulds
Anne Winterbourne
Kate? Lambert
Gillian Brason

I will look at the 1955/6 long photo for more inspiration.   By the way you mention David Sear(no "s").  He married my cousin Margaret and they now live in Los Angeles.  I will email him the site details.

Regards
Andrew

Hello Andrew: I am pleased to find that I am not the sole survivor of our class. Thanks for the additions to the list I assembled. Since then I recalled a couple of names on your list plus Frances Whittaker who lived in Edgware. Between us that accounts for 39 names from approx. 120 students. Not bad for 40+ years. Please remember me to Dave Sear. His mum used to work at Hamley's and he had a super Hornby Doublo train set. (No wonder I never had any luck with girls)! I have been putting together a list of teachers and will submit that when I have sufficient names.

Also on the staff side I remember that awful care-taker, Mr. Thomas. He was always very officious and would take peoples's names for running in the hall and similar serious offences. He really hated whistling, so of course we whistled whenever we were standing behind him within range! It was great fun as he would turn to try to catch someone in the act. Of course we carried out a sort of whistling wave, only those behind him continuing to whistle as he turned. He was in fact so universally disliked that in the summer of 1958 rumour had it someone ordered a load of ready-mixed cement dumped in the garden of his house on the property. Can't confirm that though.

I have had some chuckles recalling events at Downer, perhaps they are funnier in retrospect. I do not however have a copy of the 1956 long photo you mentioned. I think that one boy appears at both ends, having sprinted behind the posed group as the camera panned. (Perhaps that's also a case of synaptic aging though). I live in the US but would love to see the picture if possible. 

Regards, Jeff

Hello Jeff,

Thanks for your message and you have inspired me to get out the old photos.  My long pic is in fact July 1954 sorry and lives in my mind as I forgotten my tie so had to hide in the back row!  I have emailed David in LA so I hope he will come on board.  There are several names on the friendsreunited web page like:
Gordon Dennett
John Fullelove

and some more I have remembered:
Hazel Grove
Sheila Dear
Susan Gardiner
Geoff Hunter
Graham George

I have found some photos of the trip to Christchurch at Easter 1957 I think.  The trip was led by Mr Clark and we stayed at a holiday camp.  I also have some pics of the Biology field trip to the Gower Peninsular (S Wales) with Miss Jones, Mr Gorsuch, Kate Steele, Megan Foulds, Susan?, Bob Dossetter and me.  I think this must have been 1959.  I am sure we will get some more names as there is a lot of publicity for www.friendsreunited.co.uk at present.

Best wishes Andrew

Dear Jeff,

I discovered this site through Andrew Budden and have just checked out the messages you two have been exchanging.  Amazingly, I have just found an old diary which I kept in 1957 and so many of the entries on school days began “caught the 7.50 183 and met Stilton at Harrow". From there we used to continue the journey to Queensbury on the 140 — I'm sure you must remember it too.

I note that you are also living in the States..  Where are you? I have been in Los Angeles with my wife and two sons since 1982, though the elder one is now living in Hawaii.

You and Andrew seem to have done a pretty good job remembering names and I cannot recollect any additional ones without studying the 1954 school photo, which I will do..  Great to have news of you after 43 years and I look forward to exchanging reminiscences..  Let's hope some of the others will also get in touch in the coming months..  Perhaps we can even get together some time if you are on the West Coast.

All the best, DAVID

Hi

A few more names come to mind:
David Bird
Andrew Budden
Alan (fuzzy) Hughes
Chris Ison
Jessica Flint
David Sear
Kathleen Steel

Rgds Tony

David,

Although we were not contemporary (I was '55 to '62) I have an Oxford Dictionary at home with 'David Sear' inscribed (in the ubiquitous Quink ink of the time), on the side of it..  Unless my mind is playing tricks I do seem to remember you. Is my name familiar?

Bob Head

Hallo Andrew

Seeing your name brought back memories of the mock general election we had when you were the Liberal Candidate.  Graham George was the Labour Candidate but I cannot remember who the conservative one was.  I must have been in the 4th or 5th form at the time being younger than you lot.  However I made myself a rosette out of green ribbon as I felt sorry for you and didn't think you would get many votes. (not I stress because I had a liking for you as one teacher put it! )  My political persuasions over the years seem to have followed on in this vein as I have frequently voted Liberal  etc not wanting to be responsible for putting either of the other 2 in power.   Probably not good political tactics.

Dear David:

It was great to hear from you after all these years. That my daily movements from 1957 are chronicled and archived is a stunning discovery. I have lived in the USA more or less since 1964 (my arrival preceded the Beatles by two weeks). I've stayed mainly in the east and came to Richmond, Virginia in 1972. Don't have any plans to come west in the foreseeable future but let's keep in touch.

I would like to go to the school's 50th reunion next year but it depends so much on when it is scheduled. October would suit me better than June. I am going to update the list of students form our class that has lengthened with the help of Andrew and Tony and ask Roger to post it as an official class list.

It would be fun to hear from others of our generation.

Best regards, Jeff

Last time I tried to send a reply I lost it somewhere in the electronics.   Its so much easier at the office because there is always someone to tell the old man what to do!   I am going to send this short message to see if I can make it work.

Andrew

However, it is with a heavy heart because while I do remember you Robert, with Val the story is very different.  I really did think that you cared for me and all these years I have been keeping a candle burning for you.  Now I learn that you were just sorry for me so I suppose its off to a monastery now!  Like you I can't remember who was the conservative candidate but I am sure that he or she got elected beating Graham by a few votes, I think.

My wife and I live in rural Suffolk where I now work for a housing association having had two previous careers in transport management and horticultural marketing.  Both our daughters are married and our son lives and works in London.   Will we all meet again at next year's reunion?  I am going to shut up now whilst I have a slight hope of getting this message to you all.

Andrew.

Dear Bob,

I am afraid I do not remember you, though we were at Downer together between '55 and '58. How interesting that you still have my old dictionary with the ‘Quink’ inscription. I still have a wooden 12-inch ruler with the name of one my class-mates Roger Lees inscribed on it. The ink itself has long since worn off, but you can still read his name in the wood because of the pressure he applied when writing it.

Strange how we hang on to these things — feelings of nostalgia I guess.

David Sear

Dear Jeff,

I am amazed to hear that you have been in the States for so long — I guess you must have taken out U.S. citizenship by now. We are still British citizens despite our 20 years here, though I suppose we shall have to take the plunge soon. I have never visited Virginia but now I have a good reason to take a trip, though we may meet before that at the Downer reunion. I do hope some of our other class-mates will stumble across us at the web-site. It would be great to have a strong showing at the reunion from our year group.

Have you heard from anyone else other than Andrew and Tony? I sent several e-mails through the Friends Reunited site and had replies from Derek Munday and Tony Callender, though nothing yet from Maureen Godfrey.

David

I was also a pupil from 1953 onwards but left in 1957 (couldn't wait to go to work).  Unfortunately I didn't keep in touch with school friends but some of the names I remember include Gillian Brason, Joyce Childs, Margaret Fletcher, Alison Mathieson, Pat Holmes and Maureen Godfrey.  Cannot recall many boys names except for Charlie Fox - I think we spent some time in the art room painting a dragon for the 'Mikardo'.

My name then was Leila Huxford (now Mapley).

Here's some more names 1953-58/60 that don't yet seem to appear on the replies.

Ken Coldwell
David Cramp
Malcolm Campbell
? Challis
Keith Bickerstaff
Terry Cunningham (1958 only)
Maurice Laws
Pat Davis (Davies?)
Mary Gibbs

I was 3 years behind you [55-62] but remember you and your nickname "Cheese" of course...

Looking at that list of names I remember many of them I have recently been in touch with Tony Clipstone who lived a few houses "up" Taunton Way from me.  He was a whizz with model aircraft and making pipe bombs [the sort of thing that was innocent enough in our day but now gets the FBI up your arse in a nanosecond!].  Tony is an engineer and lives in Reading, Berks.  Plays golf and is into ballrom dancing [he is on the Friends United website].

Keith Holmes' sister Carol was in my class and is in touch with others of my year--it seems as if Keith died some yers ago--I do not know the circumstances. They lived on Langland or Portland Cresc., Queensbury--not Edgeware. Do you remember the big punch-up between Neil Wright and the lad from Camrose--major stuff this.  In the end McGillivray bundled Wright into his car and took him home. Names other people raised in this chain of correspondence: Pat Davis lived on the same street as me--I was friendly with her brother John who was in the year behind me. Malcolm Campbell's brother Rich was a friend of mine in my class--he [Rich] went into the army and then police force and is now retired--he's in touch with Ricard Evans of our year and you could probably find out about Malcolm via Rich.

"Doc" Thomas--the bloody Welsh caretaker--I'd like to have put him and Biggar on a desert island with some sharp-edged implements and watched to see which one survived...

Tony Kingsley who was [I think] in your year put the 1954 lower school "long picture" up on the FU website in 4 sections and he e-mailed them to me.  I can send them to you as JPGs if you want. This picture has many fo the people named in your chain of correspondence [Campbell, Neil Wright etc.].  Kingsley lives in Montreal and tells me that Dave and Pam Soward live in Georgetown, just outside Toronto and that another DGS couple [unamed] also live in Toronto [the place I hang my hat].

If you want the '54 pics contact me or Kingsley. I'm at: andy_forester at telesis dot ca