“Becoming President of the Old Hardyeans is the greatest honour of my life,” Peter Foster told the Annual Reunion Dinner at the Thomas Hardye School. He was earlier installed with the President’s ribbon by Michel Hooper-Immins, who revealed they had been firm friends for 55 years- having both joined Hardye’s School in 1958. “That we have kept in touch for over half a century since Wollaston House is entirely due to the Old Hardyeans,” said retiring President Michel Hooper-Immins. “Peter Foster is erudite and energetic, committed and methodical,” he continued, “he and Heather do an outstanding job with our club Newsletter, which they are going to continue. I know Peter will make a superb President of the Old Hardyeans and I congratulate him wholeheartedly.”
Retired NHS and Dorset County Council clerical officer Peter Foster has spent nearly all his life in Dorchester and besides his work with the Hardyeans Club, has been an enthusiastic volunteer with Dorset County Hospital’s Ridgeway Radio for 47 years, currently as Vice Chairman- and with the Swanage Railway, where he is Station Master at Harmans Cross. He and Dorchester girl Heather have been married for 37 years.
In his first address to the alumni of Hardye’s School at their Annual Reunion Dinner, Peter Foster spoke of having not aspired to any great educational achievements at Hardye’s School, but had made his way forward through life with the benefit of a good, rounded education at a place of outstanding educational excellence. His late mother paid his first subscription to the Old Hardyeans in 1964, the year he left school. The Annual Reunion Dinner, held in the Sixth Form Centre at the Thomas Hardye School, was attended by 68 Old Hardyeans and their wives.
Michael Foley, Head Teacher of the modern Thomas Hardye School, assured Old Hardyeans that the school remains in excellent health- many students were going on to brilliant careers and the new sports centre had opened. “I enjoy working day in and day out with young people,” continued Michael Foley, “but the new challenge for the school is to maintain our record of excellence, yet find a million pounds of cuts by 2015.” A joint bid for a new vocational school at Kingston Maurward is currently being considered. “We value the past and our heritage- Remembrance Day is the best time to make the connection with the past,” concluded the Head Teacher. “We look to the future and cherish the past- soon we will start to build an archive with Peter and Heather Foster’s help.”
Born in Poole, guest speaker Sir Roger Gale studied at Hardye’s from 1955 to 1962 and has been MP for Thanet North for 30 years. Last year, he was knighted by The Queen and proudly wore his Old Hardyeans tie at Buckingham Palace.
Sir Roger began by praising the excellent concept of Grammar Schools, “I am in favour of selective education, we do have a lot of good Grammar Schools in Kent and as long as I live, I want to bring them back all over the country- the biggest opportunity for social engineering.”
Only the second Old Hardyean to be knighted, Sir Roger Gale MP spoke warmly of his schooldays, “I am proud of the people at Hardye’s who enabled me to do what I’ve done in my life. The trick is to find what you enjoy doing in life and then get paid for it!”
Jo Roberts, his Housemaster at Heathcote House, was instrumental in encouraging Roger’s passion for the theatre. A hut in the grounds was turned into a theatre. “At age 14, I built a stage from old railway sleepers and scrounged some blackout curtains,” Sir Roger related, “this led to an audition at the Guildhall School of Drama, a career in broadcasting and as a disc jockey. None of this would have happened, but for Jo Roberts agreeing to my converting that hut into a theatre. That stage was the start of my political career- that’s what I owe to Hardye’s School.”
At the Annual General Meeting preceding the dinner, the work of the Hardyeans Club Charitable Trust was much praised and Chairman John Pearson reported that nine needy students of Thomas Hardye School had been awarded annual bursaries of £750 each in the preceding year.
Godfrey Lancashire- son of former Hardye’s School teacher Walter Lancashire- became Vice Chairman and retiring President Michel Hooper-Immins became Secretary. Chairman Colin Lucas, Treasurer Alan Brown, Membership Secretary Bob Rench, Newsletter Editors Peter & Heather Foster, Sports Officer Tony Foot and Webmaster Terry Stone were all re-elected. Tony Day became the School Liaison Officer. Membership has now reached 1,096 throughout the world.
Founded 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, plus 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 an 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!
Michel Hooper-Immins
