Compotus - Downer School Magazine


updated March '13


A number of editions of Compotus have generously been made available by Sheila Jennings, Paul Kennett, John Brown, Peter Mayer and another, anonymous former pupil.  Despite having been stored under less-than-ideal conditions, apart from a few staples rusting, the volumes have withstood the years remarkably well.

Issues were produced at the end of each summer term.

GCE results may be recorded in the volume following the year in which the relevant exam was taken - eg. the 1966 Compotus records results for pupils completing their 5th (or upper 6th) year in 1965.

Some issues of the magazine will naturally hold more relevance to a site-visitor than others - but all the issues reveal a sense of their 'time and place'.

A debt of gratitude is owed to all the contributors of the articles for contemporaneously capturing and recording their sentiments (despite, apparently, occasionally being under duress!).  One doubts that any of them could have imagined that their adolescent musing would be reviewed over half-a-century later.

Pages from the collection can be accessed directly from the catalogue below using the blue hyperlinks:


    Junior Magazine
Year 1955 (Vol 5) 1956 (Vol 6) 1957 (Vol 7) 1958 (Vol 8) 1959 1960 (Vol X) 1961 (Vol XI) 1962 (Vol 12) 1963 (Vol 13) 1964 (Vol 14) 1965 (Vol 15) 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1972
Contrib. J.B. P.K. P.K. P.K. P.K. anon. anon. anon. anon. anon. HCCL anon. S.A.J. S.A.J. S.A.J. P.M. P.M.

Page range
1-9, 0-7, 8-11 (Pirates of Penzance), 0-11, 1-9, 1-5, 0-8 (Mikado), 0-9, 6 (Twelfth Night), 0-9, 8 (HMS Pinafore), 1-6, 4 (Skin…), 7-10, 9 (Tiddly-winks), 1-4, 5-8 (Iolanthe), 0-1, 2-3, 4-5, 6-7, 6 (The Winter's Tale), 8-9, 0-9, 5 (Pirates of Penzance), 3-16, -1-10, 1-10, 1-35 1-24
10-17 12-19, 12-15 (Lady Precious Stream), 10-17, 6-13, 9-19, 10-19, 10-19, 14 Sports day '61, 11-18, 9-19, 10-11, 12-13, 14-15, 16-17, 18-19, 10-19, 17-23 (The Crucible), 11-20, 11-20,    
18-25 20-28 16-33 18-27, (Quiet w/e) 14-23, 20-29, 22 Under-12 Football Team 20-29, 20-29, 19-25 20-29, 25 Swiss Trip 20-21, 22-23, 24-25, 26-27, 28-29, 20-29, 24-31, 21-30, 21-30,    
26-32     28-37 24-33   30-40 30-37     30-31 30-39, 40-49 32-44, 47 31-42, 45 31-37, 0    

S.A.J. - Sheila Jennings
P.K. - Paul Kennett
J.B. - John Brown
HCCL - Harrow Civic-Centre Library
P.M. - Peter Mayer

Adobe Reader's 'Find' (binoculars) facility may be inoperative with this material.


[Technicalities: when scanned at 300 pixels per inch, a page-pair comprising black and white text consumes about 140KB (gif/pdf-format) - but pages with photos can take nearer to 700KB.  So, for convenient access, pages have been stored in clutches of only about ten (normally totalling less than a MB) so they can be downloaded relatively quickly.

To achieve an apparent 'grey-scale', photographs in Compotus have been reproduced in 'halftone' (a matrix of tiny black dots) - but this can cause distracting artefacts (moiré patterning) when viewed on a PC screen.  So, to mitigate this effect, photographs presented here have been scanned (at 300ppi) as 'greyscale' images, and then slightly blurred to smear the dots.  Some of these photos are presented individually.]