“All the balls are up in the air- it’s brave new world and I don’t know whether the new ideas will be a success,” Michael Foley, Head Teacher at Thomas Hardye School told the Old Hardyeans’ Annual Reunion Dinner. He was speaking of recently announced Government proposals for all schools to become academies. Schools would be nominally independent under the new plans, whereas local authorities have maintained schools since 1902.
Mr. Foley welcomed Thomas Hardye School leading a Multi-Academy Trust, and being designated as a teaching school- training the teachers of tomorrow. “Recruiting talented people is our biggest challenge at the moment,” he said.
He had begun teaching at Southwark in 1983 and has led the highly regarded Dorchester school since 2011. Mr. Foley felt that the links between the school and the Old Hardyeans have strengthened. He said Kate Adie regularly comes into the school to talk to pupils.
Guest speaker Kate Adie OBE DL, wearing her old school prefect’s badge, spoke of her own schooldays in the North East. “Our school leaves a lasting impression,” she told the Old Hardyeans, “and it is important that schooldays are happy days- I was lucky to be inspired by my teachers, one of whom spoke many languages and had been involved in espionage during World War II, always having an interesting story to tell.” Leaving university coincided with the start of local radio, “I was keen and I was fascinated by news.” Kate Adie’s, local radio experience at Plymouth and Southampton led to joining the BBC’s national and then the international news teams. She spoke of being in difficult places and theatres of war- “no luxuries, no electricity and terrible food were all the lot of the overseas correspondent.”
Tony Day, the new President of the Old Hardyeans, had earlier said the latin grace prior to dinner. In his address, Mr. Day said it was a great honour to be elected as President and a privilege to work with the school as Clerk to the Governors and Trustees. He said the club existed to stay in touch with school friends and to support the Thomas Hardye School.
The Annual Reunion Dinner was held in the Sixth Form Centre of the Thomas Hardye School, attended by 80 Old Hardyeans- old boys of Hardye’s School and their wives- plus six sixthformers from the modern Thomas Hardye School and some former pupils of the Dorchester Grammar School for Girls and the Dorchester Secondary Modern School, under the wider auspices of the Hardyeans Club.
Master of Ceremonies Chairman Godfrey Lancashire had joined Hardye’s School in 1958. He welcomed particularly thirteen other members of the Class of ’58 to the Annual Reunion Dinner.
“Our Annual Reunion Dinner is always a particularly important date in the calendar, when we reunite as many from the old Hardye’s School as are able to get to Dorchester to meet their contemporaries,” says Old Hardyeans Secretary Michel Hooper-Immins. “I left Hardye’s School 51 years ago in 1965, but many of those friendships made a half century ago are still going strong. That is the real underlying success story of the Old Hardyeans.”
Founded 111 years in 1905 as the Old Grammarians, the Old Hardyeans- also known as the Hardyeans Club- is one of the most successful old school associations in the county, bringing together the old boys of Dorchester Grammar School and Hardye’s School, with ex-students of the modern Thomas Hardye School.
In the times of Queen Elizabeth I, it was Thomas Hardye [with a final “e”] described as a Yeoman of Frampton, who endowed Dorchester Grammar School in 1569. Hardye’s [shopping] Arcade today stands on the site. The Grammar School moved to Culliford Road in 1928- renamed Hardye’s School from 1954.
The new Thomas Hardye School in Queens Avenue opened in 1992, encompassing the best traditions of the two previous schools- but admitting girls for the first time since 1569! Writer Thomas Hardy OM, who lived at nearby Max Gate, laid the foundation stone of Hardye’s School in 1927. He was no relation to Thomas Hardye, founder of the school, nor of Admiral Thomas Masterman Hardy!
To join the Hardyeans Club at £5 a year, consult : www.hardyeansclub.com
Michel Hooper-Immins
