nulla dies sine linea

Welcome to you all 

If you are new to TOGA then we extend a particularly warm welcome. We hope you enjoy reading this year’s issue and continue to subscribe to this outstanding Old Students’ Association. Please pass the word on to colleagues that The Association, with current members such as Mary NUTMAN (nee STANBURY (25-31) who started at the school in the 1920’s is still going strong with approximately 600 members! New members are always welcome and are always needed to keep the Association alive. Former pupils from the 1960’s and 1970’s are particularly encouraged to join as some of you are the Committee members of the future, through whom TOGA will live on. If your children went to TGS in 60’s or 70’s, and they are not yet members, or even aware of TOGA, please try and get them to join. 

We are delighted to have old and new advertisers on board this year. These are from businesses owned by or closely involved with Old Grammarians. 

Coco helping with TOGA filing

I do hope that you enjoy reading this year’s issue of TOGA NEWS. There seemed to be more news than ever, which, after 80 years of TOGA, can only be good news for the Association. The WEBSITE (www.toga.org.uk) Friends Reunited ,and the use of email has meant that news has come from all over the world, from Antigua, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Spain, Greece, Scotland, USA, Canada, Italy, Israel, Lebanon, France.

As usual while I have sat typing in a room for over a week, with two fans whirring behind me while I answered the phones, emails, letters, badgered you for adverts, typed your news, chased former staff for their news (with little success!), editing and proofreading this, while the sun beat down outside, for a whole week of the heatwave! If you want to book a holiday in this country with wonderful weather, choose the last week in July, because the moment I start this at the end of July, the weather is wonderful. TOGA even predicts the weather for you now! And yes, that damn cat has padded all over my carefully sorted, TOGA news, photos and papers once more. My printer died and I had to buy a new one and my Tel/Fax refused to work, and Coco, my cat, is sitting in front of my screen. She and my husband have had scant attention for 10 days!

We welcome old and new advertisers this year and hope that they may be of assistance to you. Thank you all for responding so willingly. We especially welcome new advertisers.

Photos have stirred up old memories and many of you have written and phoned about them. Thanks to all who filled in missing names and corrected my guesses. I have been inundated with photos for this edition and have tried to include at least one for each decade except for the 70’s. I have been asked to supply magnifying glasses, but trying to include all the news and the photos means type font has to be small and photos can’t be too big either. I have originals of most of them that appear and can send you a good copy if you ask me. I apologise if something you sent in does not appear, it is either because it didn’t copy/print clearly enough, or there simply was not room. I have to keep the weight of the NEWS + envelope within the lower postage rate of 37p, and sadly something has to go or postage leaps to 50p each envelope.

WITHOUT NEWS there would be no Newsletter. My grateful thanks to everyone who has kept my email and my postman employed with all the news. I accumulate news all the year round, the Newsletter starts production in April and takes till July to be typed, edited, proofread several times, printed, collated, then labelled, stamped and despatched by the Committee to over 450 paid up members.