After more than 35 years away I returned for a look around Princethorpe, this time with my two daughters, Elizabeth (11) and Francesca (8). We started with the excellent College Friday fish & chips lunch, and with the Headmaster jumped the line. I did ask a young lady at the front if she was in the Sixth Form or a teacher and she replied the latter rather sheepishly, they were not that young when I was at school! The layout was unchanged from 40 years ago, although the dinning hall was much brighter and there were no Spanish cooks around anymore.
I was impressed with how well the two floors of boarders rooms had been transformed into classrooms, offices etc and all fully carpeted and heated. No more the cold feel of wood when we were boarders, although the creaky wood could still be heard under foot. The library converted from the old study hall, where all juniors had to do their homework in study periods after school, was impressive and a lot quieter than it had been in my time.
It was interesting to hear that the school now has living accommodation for teachers in the old Sixth Form boarders rooms.
When I was in the Sixth Form we thought we were doing well to have an exclusive common room. Now there is this large private Sixth Form wing, where the prefab language classrooms used to be. Obviously a great deal of thought had been put into it, no wonder the Sixth Form students now number around 200. I thought how greatl it was not to have prefab classrooms any more, until I got round to the other side of the main building and there they were, even more of them, I had to laugh.
My biggest shock was the Chemistry Lab where I did A-level Chemistry under Mr Crosby. It has not changed at all from 43 years ago, the benches, the smell, the equipment, the floor, decades of dents and scratches, lovely. Teddy O'Brien said it had remained unchanged from the time the French Nuns had acquired it well over 50 years ago. In fact, the area from the top of where the 1st year dormitory was, where "Scabby' used to rule the roost, down to the ground floor where the Sixth Form common room was, has hardly changed at all. The stairwell, where John M fell from the third floor bannister in the early seventies floors, is still as dingy as ever.
The conversion of the Roundhouse into a music room and the surrounding area is another formidably well thought out project, with the nuns still buried below. In my time it was just one large junk store. The old mortuary room has also made a good classroom, although I'm sure the pupils don't want to know what it was before.
What did I think after our tour? Well really significant improvements have been made to the infrastructure, but the aura of the place remains unchanged from my school days. Francesca said straight at the end of the tour that she now wants to go to Princethorpe and is still saying that a month after we have returned to Bangkok, let's see! She liked all that space, even though she goes to a newly built private school with over 1,300 pupils (but only 124 in the Sixth Form), it's something we all took for granted.
Thanks to Melanie Butler, Alex Darkes and Teddy O'Brien for a great tour and a walk down memory lane.
Update on the Binney Boys (1969 to 1979): I was at Princethorpe for seven years with my three brothers, Mark "Binney for Pope" was a year ahead and is a vicar with four churches in the Evesham area under his charge, he can't retire until he's 68. However, my youngest brother, Nick retires this September from the police force in Birmingham after serving 30 years. Paul, my twin brother is a Finance Director for a plc in Singapore and I'm a Director of a private group of companies in Asia Pacific with its head office in Bangkok.
