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1949

VISIT TO Hamlet
Taking a tip, no doubt, from the Monovian review of Laurence Olivier's Hamlet, the Upper School went en masse to see it at the Marble Arch Pavilion. It was thoroughly enjoyed by all.
MONOVIANS IN The Guardian
Congratulations to Chaplin and Gunton on having their photographs in the local paper. We are, incidentally, still trying to find a "Mr. MacRayner" on the Staff.

IN MORNING ASSEMBLY
Mr. Hyde: "If you want to talk you can go outside and talk to your heart's content."
Sixth-former: "What's she doing here?"

EXTENSION OF PREMISES
The fields beyond the School railings, whence friendly land-girls used to present worms to keen biology students, have now been taken over for the School's use, and the football pitches put completely out of bounds. Mr. Philpott says his meadow has never felt better.

IMPROVEMENT IN MANNERS
After an intensive campaign by the Headmaster, boys taking School dinners have learnt to swab down those tables in a gentlemanly manner.

Scott of the Antarctic
This film was the subject of another School visit towards the end of the Spring term.

RAG CONCERT
Held December last, it was quite high in standard as Rag Concerts go. We'd advise the lower forms to leave out jokes on Jane Russell and crude burlesques on sex. Some much funnier material is quite near at hand.

SIXTH FORM VISIT
Wolfit's King Lear and Much Ado About Nothing at the Bedford Theatre, Camden Town, were visited by the Sixth Forms with Mr. Miles. Gunton was just telling two strangers in the row behind him how he was captain of the Monoux School when they said theyd never heard of it. Obviously they'd never been to India's strand.

SCHOOL NEWSPAPER
One of the features of the Spring term was the successful renascence of the weekly news-sheet, The Bulletin, under the editorship of a committee of prefects. It has been continuing steadily since its inception: the ninth issue was double-size (for the usual price of one penny) to commemorate the end of the Spring term. This new Bulletin has been without the lugubriousness of its forerunner, although its Bullets have been definitely inferior, and it suffers from curious conscientiousness that seems to oblige it to record even the unimportant and uninteresting football matches (to the considerable annoyance of most of its readers). Nevertheless the newspaper is far more representative of the whole School than it was in past: it carries a flourishing Readers' Letters column, and it certainly has had the journalistic merit of being highly controversial.

EXCHANGE VISIT
Leslie Burford is spending two months in Oviedo in the North of Spain with a Spanish family. We understand that he is having a most interesting and delightful time there and beginning to speak the language well. He has gone to Spain on an exchange visit and his opposite number, Sr. Don José Arturo Marquinez Pico is staying with the Burfords. This exchange was arranged privately by the two families concerned and we have to thank an Old Boy, Geoffrey Ribbans, for giving us the name and address of Sr. Marquinez, in the first place, and telling us of the latter's desire to visit England. Burford did nearly all the rest himself, with the Headmaster and Mr. Durrant hovering helpfully in the background; the exchange letters between Woodford and Oviedo reached an unprecedented level and the steps of the Spanish Embassy were worn thin by the tread of the indefatigable Leslie. Now he is happily settled in Oviedo and, in having achieved this successful culmination of his efforts, he has made history, for it is the first time that an exchange of Spanish and English students has taken place in the School.

PARIS AT EASTER
Six boys from the 5th and 6th Forms were members of a party, organised under the patronage of the Essex Education Committee, which visited Paris during the Easter recess. They did attend a special school, but the visit was really a holiday in disguise. Some impressions gained as a result of this visit are published elsewhere.

THOUGHT FOR THE TERM
"If life is to remain human then life must remain individual.
There must remain a perpetual protest against regimentation."
B.Ifor Evans, The Shop on King's Road