Old Hardyeans gather in Dorchester next month at the King’s Arms for their Annual Reunion Dinner, to celebrate the 110th. anniversary of their founding in 1905. Alumni from the former Green School [Dorchester Grammar School for Girls] and Dorchester Secondary Modern School are being invited to share in the celebrations and make the event into an all Dorchester school reunion.
“The old boys of Hardye’s School have a well established organisation which has supported them for 110 years,” says Old Hardyeans Secretary Michel Hooper-Immins. “In recent years we have encouraged former students of Thomas Hardye School to join us and now we are casting the net wider to encompass the other two secondary schools in the county town. Let’s make it a grand event reuniting them all.” Wives and partners are welcome.
The Annual Reunion Dinner is being held at the King’s Arms Hotel on the evening of Saturday 21 March. It is a welcome return to the hotel, as all the early meetings of the Old Grammarians [who preceded the Old Hardyeans] were held at the King’s Arms Hotel. A photograph shows Thomas Hardy OM and Sir Frederick Treves GCVO as guests of the Old Grammarians in the Casterbridge Room around 1910.
More history is being made this year with Rev. Vicky Thurtell as the first female guest speaker in 110 years. She was Head Girl of Dorchester Grammar School for Girls in 1978, known universally as the “Green School.” Born in Nottingham, Vicky moved to Weymouth when she was seven. From Durham University, she went on to teach at All Saints School in Weymouth, becoming Head of Maths. Ordained in 2005, she became the curate at Chickerell, before the Bishop of Salisbury promoted Vicky to be Vicar of St. Peters, Dorchester. Married to Clive, the couple’s two children were students at Thomas Hardye School, part of the school orchestra.. Matthew is at the Royal College of Music and Jessica at Kings College, London.
“It is a great privilege to be asked to speak at the Old Hardyeans’ Annual Reunion Dinner,” says Vicky Thurtell, “and I’m delighted to be the first woman speaker in 110 years, just a few weeks since Rev. Libby Lane became the first female Bishop!”
Peter Foster, President of the Old Hardyeans, will preside at the Annual Reunion Dinner and makes the keynote address. Michael Foley, Head Teacher at the Thomas Hardye School, will be a special guest- as will twelve current sixthformers. The Annual Reunion Dinner was for many years held at Thomas Hardye School.
“Every year we become a little older, a little greyer, but nothing ever diminishes our memories of happy days at Hardye’s School,” comments Michel Hooper-Immins, who started at Hardye’s in 1958. “For a few hours, our minds are transported back to the late 1950s and early 1960s, with warm memories of our contemporaries and days of yore.”
The cost of the three-course dinner is £21 and bookings must be made by 7 March. Menu and further information at: www.hardyeansclub.com
Michel Hooper-Immins
