29 May 2022
Written By Matthew Eastley
No ‘honour’ for me bringing these boards home
The Honours Board showing scholarships and exhibitions gained at St Mary’s and then St Mary’s and St Joseph’s
In the garage of my home in the middle of what was Kentish hop-picking land, rest two large wooden boards which never fail to elicit a ‘tut’ from my bewildered wife.
It’s no good me explaining that these items have ‘historical significance’ in terms of our school’s history. To Lisa, they are oversized encumbrances constituting mere clutter.
This Boards shows boys who won Scholarships or Exhibitions mainly to Oxbridge but also places like Imperial London and, in Gerard Costello’s case, The Royal Naval College at Dartmouth.
I rescued this board and its accompanying Oxford and Cambridge ‘Commoner Places’ before they were disposed of and hope to display them at the launch of the book later this year.
A number of old boys on this particular list have supplied me with their memories of the school including Mike Grannell, Patrick Dunleavy, Tim Galligan, Martin Harrison and Paul Hendricks who, like Tim, went into the priesthood. Tim became a Monsignor and Paul a Bishop in Southwark.
Patrick Dunleavy, later a Professor at the LSE.
Bishop Paul Hendricks, left, meeting Pope Francis. Paul won a place at Corpus Christi, Oxford, to read Physics in the summer of 1974.
The Oxford and Cambridge ‘Commoners’ Board which I first posted last year.
When I first started at St Mary’s in 1977, I used to look at these boards curiously as relics of the past, in the same way I’d study the framed pictures of old school plays on the stairwell. Now it’s just Lisa who looks at them curiously….
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Came across your blog when loking for Fr Graystone’s publication record, he was my father’s friend and heamdaster at St Mary’s College Blackburn. My father was history master there and left to become headmaster of a new grammar school in Bradford, Cardinal Hinsley, which sadly closed a few years ago (years after amalgamation with my old school, Margaret Clitherow) . I ended up on this page as I saw the picture of the honour board – I knew one of the alumni very well, Steve Reilly, who is featured on the commoners board. He was at Keble College Oxford and I am sure would have had an illustrious academic career – he had a DPhil from Nuffield Oxford – had he not died at the age of 46. I only discovered this when trying to return a book I had borrowed (so many are still on my shelves) and the only refernce I could find wa s in the University of Canterbury’s annual report, a notice of his death. Lovely to see pictures of Fr Graystone. Many happy memories of looking for Roman roads with him in Lancashire. The last time I saw him was when he officiated at my father’s funeral in 1989. RIP.
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Now for a sad observation – Dave Spalding and Gerry Baker both left St Mary’s (Just re-christened St Mary and St Joseph’s from Sept 1979) in the summer of 1980 – so Dave’s date was a year out!
Thanks very much for getting in touch Mary with those memories but how sad to hear about the premature death of Steve Reilly. Could you email me please at matteastley66@yahoo.co.uk – thanks