Sam Ashton (SH 47-53) has commented on our last issue as follows:

“My father was on School House 1919 to 1923. I’ve looked back and forth along the ranks of the 1921 school photo but can’t recognise him. However, a contemporary and friend, Gething, is clearly to be seen on the back row with his trademark ears, a characteristic handed down to his two sons, who were contemporary with me. The connection with my family is that the Gethings had a smart milliner’s shop on Deansgate Manchester, and my grandfather Will, was the second generation to manage the Ashton family firm, which made cardboard boxes, including circular and elliptical silk-lined models for the millinery trade.

Also, one of the very few masters mentioned to me by my father was John Boulter. In addition to his achievements mentioned in the piece was his successful drainage project of the ‘Crease’; the boys dug the trenches. Anyway the nickname ‘Navvy John’ was coined.

I think that my father, well established as a chartered accountant in a senior job in a very large manufacturer (Global Markets) in Lancaster by the late thirties, was a subscriber to the rescue fund.

I was highly amused by ‘Cec’ Reid’s memoir, but he doesn’t tell us what a talented fellow he was; a fine tenor voice, and a brilliant actor. My best memory is his playing the part of the anti-hero in G.B. Shaw’s ‘Arms and the Man’. He was in other, darker productions but alas I can’t now remember the details.”

 

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St Bees School,    St Bees,    Cumbria,    CA27 0DS.

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