AN45

You can now follow Abingdon School on, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Twitter: @abingdonschool Facebook: @abingdonschool Instagram: @abingdon_school The Abingdon Foundation, Park Road, Abingdon, Oxford OX14 1DE 01235 521563 • Edited by Jane Warne – [email protected] 01235 849123 • Design – www.petergreenland.com Abingdon Out of the Past Remembering Their Friends A new home has been found for the paving slabs that once graced the area known in the 1960s as The Precinct, the space between the café and what they called the Court Room before it became the Geography block (and is soon to be the new Beech Court). In 1960 the OAs of the 1920s offered to pay for paving slabs to smarten up this area. They decided that, in addition to their own initials, they would inscribe them with those of some of their friends who had been killed during the 1939-45 War. The stones were taken up before the building work started on Beech Court and have now been given a permanent home in the Jekyll Garden. There are 16 initials on the main memorial stone; 11 of them belong to boys who appear in the 1927 photograph – 5 in the section shown: Dennis Hillier (DJWH), who served with the 3rd Royal Tank Regiment and was killed on 29 June 1944, 19 days after the regiment landed in Normandy; sub-mariners Harry d’Almaine (HRd’A) and Edmund Hunt (EGS) based at Valetta on the island of Malta whose submarines failed to return to port on 1 May 1941 and 8 January 1943 respectively. Lewis Godwin (LJFG), serving with the RAF and also stationed on Malta, who was killed in an air raid there on 28 February 1941, and Peter Darbishire (PO’ND) who served with Bomber Command and was missing presumed killed when his plane failed to return from a mission over Europe 15/16 December 1940. Curious Window Abingdon’s Head Groundsman, Paul Robson, died last year after 17 years with the School. In appreciation of his work, the new all-weather, six-lane cricket nets on War Memorial Field have been named the Robson Wickets and a bench in his memory placed overlooking Waste Court Field. Paul Robson 1959-2016 Curious Window Hillier Hunt Godwin Darbishire d’Almaine For those still wondering where the curious window is to be found (April Abingdon News) it’s to the right of the front door of Park Lodge. The main memorial stone