I do like a bit of numerical serendipity! My Port Talbot secondary school, Sandfields Comprehensive, (I was there between '69 and '76), opened in 1958 and was a significant development in the provision of state education in Wales, being the first purpose built comprehensive school in the country. The photo below features The Great Hall, between the Lower and Upper Schools, where morning assembly was occasionally blighted by a uniform check by the intimidating Miss Chess as we all traipsed out.
1958 was also the year I was born, so next year, in 2016, I'll be 58. And Port Talbot will celebrate the opening of another ground breaking school, 58 years after 'The Comp', : the £40 million Ysgol Bae Baglan for 3 to 16 year olds. I do like it when numbers do pretty!
Not that there's a lot of the new school to see at the moment:
Not that there's a lot of the new school to see at the moment:
a Meccano-like steel monster spreading its wings across the site and the rumble and growl of diggers and trucks that ignite the dreams of all small boys.
But over the next year, if you schedule in a monthly trip to the blue bridge that crosses Seaway Parade from the houses on Baglan Moors, you'll be able to measure its expansion and development.
And from serendipitous numbers to serendipitous language ... While I was taking these photos at the beginning of July I noticed this concrete mixer truck on the camera's screen.
Hope! Of course, we all have hope for our children's future but I'd like to add a few more words to the picture too: commitment, enthusiasm, purpose. Because they're the words I walked away with after meeting and talking to the new head, Mike Tate, on site.
I'm now remembering my first day at 'The Comp' in September 1969, how we hovered at the Lower School gate in our brand new red and grey uniforms, stiff leather satchels hanging from our shoulders. And imagining the 1,500 kids who'll be turning up at this school in September 2016. The uniform will be different and there won't be a leather satchel in sight! But they'll be like we were in so many ways: excited, nervous, curious, hesitant. Although different too because it will be the first day for each one of them, regardless of their age. Each one of them stepping into a new future.
I'm now remembering my first day at 'The Comp' in September 1969, how we hovered at the Lower School gate in our brand new red and grey uniforms, stiff leather satchels hanging from our shoulders. And imagining the 1,500 kids who'll be turning up at this school in September 2016. The uniform will be different and there won't be a leather satchel in sight! But they'll be like we were in so many ways: excited, nervous, curious, hesitant. Although different too because it will be the first day for each one of them, regardless of their age. Each one of them stepping into a new future.
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