The matriculants of ’96 and ’97 have just held their 20 year reunion.
My apologies for getting the date of when the school opened wrong (I was thinking of the 20 year anniversary rather as my daughter was involved in this reunion).
My comments were indeed a little tongue in cheek, and I am also falling over myself to clarify.
I was, in fact, on the first parents committee in 1993 when the school opened and I was involved in decisions of uniform, motto and naming of the school along with the other parents and Mr Pope, the headmaster. All of the decisions were made with a lot of thought – the motto, Confidence (because of the mining) and the eagle (because of our black eagles in the area). The naming of school was indeed intended to include the Allen name, and if I recall correctly, Mr Pope wanted to ‘twin’ with a Scottish area, hence Glen. I cannot recall the exact finalisation of the name “Glen”.
During the first term, and maybe the second, the children wore civvies until theuniforms were completed, and the badge created. The naming of the school along with the inauguration happened later that year (I still have my invitation to that but unfortunately there is no date on it).
So Mr Pope’s request during the early months of the school’s opening, to get an official name for the school after he told us, the committee, that he didn’t like “Alan’s neck is on the line” most definitely was not a slap-dash, frivolously plucked out of the air decision, rather, he needed the naming to be sorted properly and quickly.
My apologies for offending Andre Martin Mail and family – it was not intentional.
