As an Allen descendant whose elder and ancestor were official VIP guests of honour at Allen Glen High’s official inauguration almost a quarter of a century ago, I have a problem with the Hilary White letter in your latest edition.
Initially I thought the piece was one of those that one takes with a pinch of salt as I read, “the school opened 20 years ago” when it is more like 24-years-old. However, it’s what came next that isn’t funny at all. It’s one thing to be witty but quite another when one’s fast-and-loose-with-the-facts-for-effect approach dances on somebody else’s good name, even if that somebody else is now deceased!
Hilary White’s piece is vague, inaccurate and misleading. Her contentions serve only to dupe unsuspecting or ignorant-of-the-facts readers into falsely believing that when it comes to Allen Glen High, choice of school name was a slap-dash, less than minor last-minute non-event, with the name frivolously plucked out of the air and tweaked on a whim and at a moment’s notice when, in reality, choice of school name, invitation of VIPs and ultimately the inauguration ceremony, were serious and dignified occasions, as was the case with the naming and commissioning of every other government school, building or structure, back in the day.
“The school had no name.” Really? Seriously? I distinctly recall my grandmother Gladys (Philip Allen’s eldest daughter) excitedly telling me (at the very beginning of the 1990s) that an English government high school was being built on or close to the land her father had owned and farmed for 30 years in the early 20th century and that this school was going to bear her maiden surname ALLEN and that she would be a guest of honour at its official inauguration, where she would be called upon to ‘cut the ribbon’ and where a photo portrait of her father would permanently hang in the foyer in his honour. Flies in the face of any couldn’t-care-less-about-the-picture-I’m-painting contention to the public that “when the school opened 20 years ago it had no name”, doesn’t it?
“So it was called Allen’s Nek High School until…” Huh? Come again? Here Hilary White creates the impression to the modern public that the school was up and running and duly commissioned with an official name when suddenly that official name simply had to be changed and then was, almost instantly, (as if at the push of a button or the snap of the headmaster’s fingers). Clearly, if the school was named Allen Glen High at its official opening, let alone in 1997 when she says it ‘opened’ and it is still called Allen Glen High today, then it could not possibly have undergone a name change. To publicly state/ insinuate that it did, is incorrect and misleading. If Hilary White is referring to possible unofficial happenings prior to the official inauguration, (which can’t be because according to her the school opened in 1997, not 1993) then she should be falling over herself to clarify them as such.
Unfortunately my dear grandmother passed away in Jan 1993 before she could attend the momentous occasion she was so looking forward to. As I recall, my grandmother’s only sibling (her younger sister) and my grandmother’s eldest son (my uncle Denis who is still alive) performed the honours in her stead. My great-grandfather’s photo portrait hung in the school’s foyer until at least 2006/ 7, which was the last time I personally saw it hanging there. Nevertheless, its very presence in that foyer for more than a decade following the official opening of the school, stands as testament to the thoroughly thought-out official intentions and actions at that time, not the farce presented by Hilary White.
In memory of my grandmother and her father.
