The Old Bordenian Association

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This is a guest post from Andrew “Bill” Bailey and is an OBA first – the use of video on the site!

I was at Borden between 1957 and 1964. I found some forgotten reels of 8mm cine film in the roof and was able to transcribe them into digital format. And hence, after only forty years, was able to edit them and produce three or four little films of fairly low quality but of possible interest to those who were at Borden in the early sixties.

The footage was produced on a clockwork Canon camera that an uncle had lent me. 8mm stock actually came as a 50ft reel of 16mm film which was run through the camera twice, exposing first one vertical stripe 8mm wide, 2 minutes running time. Then the film was turned over and given a second run through. Assuming that exposure settings were correct and no light had fallen on the part exposed film during the turnover or removal, one would cheerfully post the reel off for processing, accompanied by a postal order for about three weeks pocket money. These assumptions were usually unjustified and most films came back after a week or so with disappointing results. So then an editing process was required, duff chunks exised with a small guillotine, the remains spliced together with a transparent tape. Or, after one or two showings (using borrowed projector and screen), packed in a box and consigned to the roof.

This film, Working Class Gentlemen, includes some stills from my days at Alexandra Rd and Delemark Schools in Sheerness and was put together for Phil Dangerfield, one of our number. The title derives from a typical George Hardy statement that still makes my blood boil. He said something along the lines of “I set out to make gentlemen of working class boys”. My main problem in making a movie was one of knowing what to shoot, what to spend my very limited cash on. Panoramas of Sheerness seafront, an anonymous ship drifting through the mist, family members standing as if waiting for me to take a snap. There was no question of shooting reels of film and discarding 90% as a professional may have done. All proved to be very uninteresting then and, even today, have little value. I hadn’t solved this dilemma when I took the camera to BGS in about 1962 and captured these shots. The pictures of quad, classroom and corridor largely failed, too dark. Luckily the boys around the milk crate ( a bit of forgotten social history there) were up for a lark and needed no prompting from me. And the prefects, breaking off from a game of bung-ho*, came up trumps. I doubt that our activities would have garnered much praise from the staff if one of them had looked up from his hand of bridge, peered through the fug of the staffroom and looked out of the window. Towards the end, very indistinct, I like the shot of the smokers lurking behind the pavilion during the staff vs 6th form football match…and George puffing, up and down the touch line, on his pipe.

The film of Driving Dizz was my only attempt at animation using a living subject. Dizz and I were probably using a “free period” and I remember how difficult it was to come up with a scenario that might be at all amusing. Dizz is, and was, a very patient chap. He also appears in The Rebounds film which was made at a Queenborough Hall, near Christmas. Dizz was drummer with the band, I was a general factotum and we racketed about Kent for a number of years in an old Commer van. They were a pretty successful band.

This is the most popular of my films (shot by my father & mother) on You Tube, the Highstead School Fete, because one of their current pupils found it and incorporated into her media studies.

I am currently sporadically engaged in an attempt to trace my compatriots from the 1957 cohort, probably numbering 100 or so souls. I have found about thirty so far. Curiosity mostly, wanting to know what happened to my classmates beyond those good pals who have kept in touch regularly. We certainly get around, OB’s have been, and are, all around the Globe and many have reached some pretty senior positions in commerce, the forces and government. Quite a few have been involved in worthier field, church, education, social welfare. And not necessarily the ones I would have expected. So if there is anybody out there who I haven’t contacted, please make yourself known.

*Bung Ho was a game which took place in the prefects’ room. A rubber bung from the bottom of a lab stool was thrown down onto a table set up in the middle of the floor. It was intended that the bung should bounce of a number of walls before exiting the room via one of the windows. A number of window panes were lost this way during the course of a year.

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