I must apologise to David and his merry men from YOS 72. I have managed to sit on this item since February this year. That was when they met in London

Thanks to Stephen Robinson (1977) for sending us this from the recent annual reunion of YOS 77 (plus partners), held in Stephen’s garden. The group includes several ex-Loughton CHS pupils, who are named along with the Old Bucks in the caption (from left to right).

I heard this morning from Steve Hyam (BHCHS 1956-63) that his younger brother Pat died on 21st July. Steve writes….

He was found in the morning by his wife still in his favourite armchair and with his dog at his feet, a nice peaceful way to go, Liver failure.  Patrick was a Quantity Surveyor, initially for W & C French the local Buckhurst Hill contractor, working at the then new Harlow Hospital, then various other large sites before going to the Middle East, Jordan, South Africa and Australia where he eventually took Australian Citizenship and married Pamela an Australian.  Working in Sydney area, when retired they took on a B&B in Ross – central Tasmania.

I am grateful to Stephen Robinson (1977), who is Leader of Chelmsford City Council and has been an active councillor for more than 30 years, for sending this video in which tribute is paid to Gerard McEwen, a highly respected councillor who died in May 2026 at the age of 96.

It was down to Stephen to make the connection with BHCHS, pointing out that Councillor McEwen was the father of Nick McEwen (1976). Nick, of course, played a fundamental role in the revival of the OBA when we began tracing former pupils and staff in 1999. He was there right at the start, even before becoming our first webmaster.

Click HERE for a reminder of Nick’s important first contribution, as recorded in our first edition.

The memorabilia I have accumulated over the past quarter century includes more than 40 duplicate copies of our school magazine. The “Roding” suffered a premature death 16 years before the same fate befell the school. We told the story of the magazine in the May 2009 edition of OB News (see page 26).

If you would like to own a copy please contact me. I have spare copies from most years between 1943 and 1973. No charge, but I would appreciate a contribution towards postage.

Is it something to do with our scorching summer? I keep hearing about reunions happening. Robert Wilson (1966) told me about an unconventional idea he and his mates enjoyed recently….

Robert writes…..

I last emailed you in 2023 after Nigel Salter, Robert Hunter, Adrian Ayley and I had met together for the first time in over 20 years – when you told us that GGSK was about to close. 

We met again last month to mark what, in a few months, will be the 60th anniversary of our induction in the playground standing before another new boy, HAC, who I remember addressing us on the steps outside the hall on a sunny morning in September 1966.

Since 2023 Adrian, who has spent the last 40 years living and working in France, has acquired a new 74′ narrow boat which he berths at Droitwich in the West Midlands. We took up his offer of a few days together on the boat, ‘Llygoden Yr Afon’.

We made a good start to bookings for our Annual Dinner on Tuesday 6th October. Here is a summary of bookings by year group so far (year group is start year)

Click HERE to navigate to the Dinner details and booking form.

As always you are welcome to use me to communicate your interest in reconnecting with people from your year group whose contact details you may not have.

This summary of our BHCHS database has been regularly included in OB News so I have updated it and you can view it by clicking on the button below. The record of numbers deceased in each year group is always going to be inaccurate (and increasingly so). This is because we are not always told when someone dies, and searching recent official death records is very difficult.

Click on the button below to open the latest summary.

Publishing the remarkable book written by Bob Druce (1940) was a tremendously satisfying project. A couple of weeks ago I had a welcome visit from Keith Littlechild, one of Bob’s pupils from his earliest years as an English teacher at Townmead Secondary Modern school in west London. Keith snapped up the remaining paperback copies so the initial print run of 500 is now sold out.

If you didn’t manage to get a copy the Kindle version is still available on Amazon HERE.

For more information about the book, including reviews and the story of how the book came to be published, click HERE.