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Special Feature - School Mag Summer 1916

After decades in an  attic, a copy of "The Tollingtonian" of Summer 1916 was returned to us, having been round the Earth and back again. Taken to  New Zealand by an emigrating old boy, it was kindly donated to the Society by his grandchildren. The 78-page booklet is full of astonishing and evocative detail about school life during the Great War: hilarity, schoolboy cheek, much comedy and an appalling tragedy, along with records of Tollington's formidable academic and sporting achievements. Thanks to the miracle of Optical Character Recognition, these articles can be reproduced on our website in a form readable by your word-processor.

...and thanks to that old boy and his grandhildren, this substantial work of students and teachers can have a further reading nearly a century after its publication.

The following features have been published here. Please click on the picture or text to the right of the text below

The Tollentine Archives is a satirical gem, unobtrusively lurking on page 25. It describes a shield-winning victory by the Tolly football team, over an all-star eleven taken from the cream of the other north London schools. Couched deep in the style of an Ancient Greek scribe, it nonetheless evokes  Muswell Hill in 1916 with a clarity that bridges the decades. The reader can picture streets and footpaths that our feet trod more recently and that, if not for the cars and shopfronts, would seem very much the same today.

The writer, teacher or student, we don't know, modestly identifies himself only as "Aphunias the Scribe"

Academic Success Head Master Campbell Brown gives a justifiably upbeat report on the School's outstanding success at the Cambridge entrance exams and other achievements in the year ending December, 1915. He also announces the intention of creating commercially oriented educational streams, but emphasises that commercial acumen is not enough and that a successful business life also needs a strong moral basis...

School Report Year-ending December 1915

Gallipoli has been described as one of the Allies' worst disasters of WW1. 70000 British troops took part in the campaign; 27000 of them were killed. Old Tollingtonian Guy Vokins served in the campaign, was wounded and fortunately repatriated. His diary has survived and was reproduced in the magazine. With typical understatement, Guy's diary recounts his 10-hour ordeal as, wounded and under constant fire, he makes his way to the comparative safety of a hospital ship, and eventually home to England

Gallipoli