No. 53 Summer, 1948

Editors: W. S. HARPIN. C. O. MORGAN

Having duly completed the rest of the magazine, the unhappy editor at last thinks he can rest. He lays aside his pen, gathers up the sheets of file paper covered with an uneven scribble and prepares to send them triumphantly to the printers. He has finished, or so he thinks. But no! there remains the editorial, that stumbling block for so many editors. He rushes round in search of ideas: many are forthcoming, some serious, some flippant, some better not printed, hut none that could be extended over the first page. What, then, is he to write about? Is he to be a bright young thing and write a brilliantly witty article? Is he to gaze on the appalling political scene and pen profound observations? Or is he to look at School life and draw a picture of the past term? The latter is, I think, more practical and certainly more within his scope.
We were very sorry indeed to say goodbye to our Headmaster, Mr. J. F. Elam, but at the same time extend a very cordial welcome to Mr. Stirrup, who succeeds him. Staffing difficulties last term were not confined only to the choosing of a new Head. Owing to much illness among the Staff prefects were obliged to manage recalcitrant and obviously hostile Latin and French classes. They were then able to tread for themselves the thorny path which stretches before teachers of the young. It might be said that The Pirates of Penzance was the most important thing last term. Certainly it was the most discussed. Everyone was interested because so many were involved: those who were in the production spent their time telling the others how good it would be, those who weren't spent their time making dubious remarks about individual performers and saying how bad it would be. The former were right. The four outstanding performances of the opera at the end of term impressed everyone with its charm, its freshness and its melody.
I could go on now, with this operatic success as an example, to point out that the School has returned to normal conditions of stability and security, that it has weathered the storm of the War and has now entered the comparatively still waters of the Peace, and with many similarly hackneyed metaphors to say that everything is perfectly all right. But how can it be with so many arrivals and departures among the Staff, when sport i~ restricted by the lack of pitches and tennis courts, when the famous swimming bath is yet but a distant mirage, when, to crown all, sweets are still rationed? No matter I can at least say I have filled up the first page of the magazine.

C.O.M.