CHAPEL SERVICE

What the Hon Secretary said.........

We have come a long way to be here this weekend – a long, long way. We live in an ever-changing world. Places change, people change – time keeps marching steadily on.

If we stop for a moment to take stock of our lives, we may be surprised to realise just how far we have come (and I’m not just talking of the epic journeys that many here today have taken from the far reaches of the world to be present at this celebration).

Over the three hundred years since Bryan Blundell and Rev Robert Styth put their dream into action, the Liverpool Blue Coat School has come a long way.

When I was editing and proof-reading the various books that the Brotherly Society have published for the Tricentenary, it struck me just how naturally the books fell into chapters – each one following logically from the previous one, and leading – almost surreptitiously – into the next.

And so it has been with the history of the Liverpool Blue Coat School. We can look at chapters of the school’s history, most of which are now beyond living memory.

In the first chapter, the Liverpool Blue Coat School was a mixed day school, “a school for teaching poor children to read, write and cast accounts.”

Only ten years later came the next chapter – and a new building in School Lane, which stands to this day – where children were provided with “meat, drink, clothes and lodgings”. The boarders had arrived!

By the end of the 18th century a uniform was introduced, and it remained in use, more or less unchanged, for over 150 years, as modelled today by Robert Rimmer and Nichole Jackson.

The City of Liverpool continued to grow, and so did the school. In 1906 the whole establishment moved to this building, away from the bustle and smoke of the city.

And so began another chapter, still remembered by some of those here, and so vividly recorded in his book by Danny Ross, whose brother Ted is probably our most senior “Old Blue” here this weekend.

Not long after this came the chapter of the Second World War, and the “Beaumaris era”.

At this point I will stop, as others – better qualified than me to do so – will be speaking of the chapters in the school’s history that can still be remembered with affection and gratitude.

We will hear, from those who were there, about the war years, the departure of the girls, the return of day pupils, the departure of the boarders and the return of the girls, bringing us full-circle to a mixed day-school in 2008 as it was in 1708.

I think Danny Ross hit the nail on the head with the closing words of his book. Most of us probably failed to realise in our youth what a firm foundation this school was laying, on which we could build our lives, and today I am proud to be here, with so many others, to say – as Danny Ross said – “Thank God for the Blue Coat School!”