I've now "scanned in" the first five volumes of Janus; that's ten issues covering the first five crucial years of Woolverstone Hall School's existence. In the process I've had to read every word, at least twice, and I commend them to you, even if your Woolverstonian experience was two or three decades removed from those early days.

Apart from a simple chronicle of the school's formation and development, which is fascinating enough, a few clues are laid as to why the school was so special.

There were some highly talented boys and masters who clearly couldn't believe their luck at finding themselves in this highly charged environment where they could and did flourish in a way that was an inspiration to all onlookers. Ian McCulloch was one of those. He was the star performer of the first major dramatic production, "The Rise and Fall of Caliban" in 1952. The poetry and prose of Andrew Szepesy is quite outstanding right from the first form. (What ever became of him? Judging by the promise he showed at Woolverstone, surely, only some illness or misadventure could have prevented him from becoming a major force in the literary or artistic field).

We see the amazing development of the school sports teams. Even when the 1st XV was comprised of boys averaging a couple of years younger than their opposition (before the school was mature enough to have a significant sixth form - this did not happen until 1956) they were earning a formidable reputation, forcing the big long established schools in the area reluctantly to offer first team matches years before they really wanted to. By the tenth issue of Janus, when Woolverstone could turn out a team of 16 and 17 year olds Ian McCulloch could write "This season the 1st XV became a really dangerous side, capable of competing with the best in East Anglia .." Players like Marriott and House on the wing and Bill Coutts, who had just claimed a place in the team, and Wilds were to form the first invincible team of 1958/9 featured in the "Photo Gallery" on this Web site. Not only invincible were they, but utterly beautiful and inspiring to watch. In those days, we juniors were herded up on to Church Field and forced to watch the 1st XV games. I had just started at Woolverstone (as a second former) and had never seen rugger before but I instinctively knew that this was great stuff and was soon looking forward to Saturdays for the dose of sheer inspiration.

During this period, and for a further three years, the Headmaster was John Smitherman. In each issue of Janus he wrote a short editorial or Headmaster's Notes, a bit of a pep talk with some basic information about current and future development plans and it appears that he ran the Model Railway Club and tried to get an Old Boys section going. On paper fairly pedestrian stuff but from what I recall and what I understand from information acquired in recent years he was absolutely fundamental to the spirit of Woolverstone in those early days and it was a great pity that he was forced out in the way he was by a faction of the staff who were not prepared to work with him, perhaps for reasons more to do with their ambitions than the moral issue. But we are talking pre Lady Chatterley trial and things really were different in those days. There was a certain "flavour" to the fifties that in later decades has mostly been dismissed as naivety but I see it in these issues of Janus mostly as a self-confident maturity that we never see these days in boys of the same age.

The next ten issues will take us up to 1962 - half way through my era, so I'm looking forward to that.

I hope you will all try to download as much as possible of the Janus archive so that you can read it on your screens or print it out off line. I think a lot of the questions that many OWs appear to ask themselves about the unique experience we all had have some light thrown on them by material in these magazines and rather like a long running TV serial the plot will unfold.

I shall be happy to forward floppies of the first 12 issues (ready now, December 1998) for the cost of a disk and postage).