Written By Matthew Eastley
Pea-souper can’t stop first Prize-Giving
This terrific photograph was taken on the evening of Friday 7 December 1962 at the school’s first ever Prize-Giving.
Thick fog had enveloped North West Kent and South East London and prevented the Guest of Honour, The Right Honourable The Earl of Craven from reaching Chislehurst Road to present the prizes which included one in his name – to the most meritorius student.
Instead the Chairman of Governors, the Very Rev Canon Crowley stepped up to the plate and did the honours.
Canon Crowley is seen presenting the Craven Trophy to upper sixth former, Michael Phillips. They are watched by Fr Charles Howarth who was nearing the end of his first term as headmaster after taking over from Fr Leo McIver. A boy can just be seen grinning in the wings. Who might it be?
Michael Phillips was the school’s first success in the Cambridge Open Scholarship Exam and was granted a Major Scholarship of £100 in Natural Sciences at Queen’s College, Cambridge, which he had just started.
He was joined at Cambridge by Godfrey Newham who had gone to Christ’s College to read Chemistry, much to the delight of the school’s Chemistry master, Doug Wingfield.
It was a busy night in the school hall on that foggy December evening almost 60 years ago. After the prizes, a vote of thanks was offered by Head Boy Rod Tipple and seconded by Ted Bell, both of whom would also go to Cambridge the following year.
This was followed by an anthology called England and the English spoken by Francis Gallagher, Michael Clark, Andrew Sander, Bernard Murray and Roy Cecil.
Tipple and Bell were then on stage again, with Paul Hurley to perform The Proposal, described as a ‘jest’ in one act by Anton Chekov.
Finally, the junior choir performed three numbers.
As the Ford Zephyrs, Vauxhall Veloxes and Humber Hawks edged tentatively out of the St Mary’s car park and into the December fog, all seemed well at the school.
Yet the fog was merely for starters as one of the worst winters of the twentieth century was about to descend.
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