WEST HIGH SCHOOL

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28629, 4 July 1958, Page 7

WEST HIGH SCHOOL

Registrations For Celebrations Sixteen hundred former pupils have registered for the centennial celebrations of the Christchurch West High School, which will be held from September 20 to 24. Six hundred applications were received in the last fortnight before registrations closed. Because it is known that there are others who. wish to attend, a supplementary register has been opened; but, as accommodation limts have almost been reached, only immediate letters can be assured of acceptance.

The organising committee began receiving applications for tickets for the ball, smoke concert, old girls’ afternoon, and the opera a week ago and already 200 have been received. Priority will be given to those received up to mid-July. One reason for this is that the first night of the opera is already over-booked and Christchurch people are being asked to accept other nights. Minister Attending The Minister of Education (Mr Skoglund) and the Mayor of Christchurch (Mr G. Manning) have accepted invitations to speak at the opening ceremony on the Saturday. In the evening there will be an unusual programme for school anniversary celebrations. To avoid friends being “lost in the crowd,” there will be decade parties and then the whole assembly will move out of doors to watch the brass band (doubled in strength by old boys) perform, a girls’ physical education display and the bugle band marching display. All these events will be floodlit Laboratory displays and an exhibition of historical material will also be opened. One of the most interesting photographs has come from the earliest surviving former pupil (Mr Alfred Batten, of Andover street). It shows a group of 1878 with Mr T. S. Foster, who later became a well-known headmaster There will be four pupils attending from the 1870 decade. Otherwise those attending will be fairly evenly divided between those before and after 1925. A centennial service on the Sunday, will be conducted by the Rev R M. Rogers, of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, which found ?d the school, the Dean of Christchurch (the Very Rev Martin Sullivan) will assist, and the address will be given by the Rev. Melville Holmes, an old boy now living in Auckland.