Visitors & Old Boys

I remember visiting St Hugh's from our school in Melton Mowbray. It was St Francis senior school for young ladies and we used to visit annually. I remember being very shy and the boys would take us on the lake in the punt. They would tease us that they would leave us on the island but they never did and were always perfect gentlemen. There is one person I have always remembered with fondness. I think he was upper or lower 6th at the time and was a member of the Magic Circle. His tricks always amazed us girls. The years we visited were between 1966 and 1968 with Mother Christina and Sister Thomas More who is now head of St Francis Junior School in Melton.
Michelle Sivyour

It was fascinating to see myself as a youngster once again. That was me at the end of the race in the Games section. I have to figure out what year and what event. I have some memories of Fr Wilkie (is he still living?) filming events and expect there are many more gems on the "cutting room floor". Thank you for your work.
I live miles away in Edmonton which is just east of the Canadian Rockies and these clips brought back many memories from another time and place. (photo on the Links page)
Jim Mullins

I was there from Sep 1973 to my rustication with Liam Clift (who I am still in contact with). In the same village as Haslingfield is a Paul Munro same class and same year. Have been in business with a David Malbon for the past 19 years. We stayed in contact since leaving school.
I initially thought that I had a number of photos from one of the ‘Fund Raising Open Days’ – I forget what the official name of it was. But it was when all the parents came along and had a go on some of the stalls. Knocking cans off a shelf to win a coconut, giant skittles etc. Sadly the pictures I am left with are the blurred ones and the ones that I call: "didn't make the album".
I got in touch with Liam Clift, he also lives in Cambridge and we were in the same form together to see if he had any photos of the grounds or any events and he didn't, but I wanted to make sure before I replied. Keep up the good work with the web site. Despite being rusticated in my final year (1975), they were without doubt the best years of my life.
Danny Norris

Hi John you won't remember me but I am an old Hugonian as well 1969-1974 better known as Dicky Martin and your site has certainly reminded me of the good? old days at school.
David Martin

I really like your web site. When I was a little girl, my mother brought us to Sunday mass at St Hugh's. I was always in awe of the marble, the glass roof and the nuns, who taught us Sunday school. I am having trouble remembering names - was there a Father Atkinson? He took my first confession just before my first holy communion - even though I was quite little, probably about 8, he seemed very old and tiny. A very, very lovely man and very kind. We used to go to the laundry and get thrown out and I remember the ladder/fire escape too. My brother would go up it quite high - I never managed more than a few rungs. There was a monkey puzzle tree growing a spiral the "wrong way round". At the annual diocesan fair my mother served the ice creams. I remember being very small and having a pony ride and a ride on a pirate boat over to the "island" to look for treasure.
It would be the 60s through to the 70s. We stopped coming to mass at St Hugh's when I was about 11 or 12 - the feeling was that we (the few Tollerton catholics) should go to Keyworth at Mary Ward. So things fizzled out after that - probably by 1972. The garden fetes were earlier, certainly by 1966, and later on Mum kept her good work up for some years, if I remember rightly, after we stopped going to Mass at St Hugh's - she would probably have been offended if they had asked someone else to do the ice cream! I went to Loreto in 1970, and one of the nuns gave me an amazing Easter egg when she heard I has passed my 11 plus and had got in - she was very pleased. So I would definitely have been there in 1972 - but I don't remember space hoppers.
....name and address withheld

I was at the college 1959 -1965 when it was more of a "junior seminary". Magnum silentium from night prayers through the night till breakfast next morning was strictly enforced with caning if you were caught.
Enjoyed viewing the web site. I see the turrets have gone off the centre tower now. I wonder if the clock is still going in the clock tower as I used to maintain it in my last year. Well that all seems a long time ago now (tempus fugit!).
Now living with my wife in New Zealand.
Fred Sheader

Hi John, I still recognise you! Are you responsible for the website? - just found it. I was at the school last weekend but the gate was closed. Feeling very nostalgic. (I live in Dublin these days.) I stayed with Anthony O'Connor last week and we were saying it would be wonderful to have a reunion. All the best,
Jim Gallagher

I went to St Hugh's aged 10 and stayed till I took my A-levels (1975-82). I then went off to University in Bangor, North Wales, where I got a 2i in History in 1985. Since 1989 I have been in London working for HM Customs (never worked in VAT, I was a Gentleman of the Excise till 2002 when I transferred to Anti-Smuggling work). Currently I am based at Heathrow. Many happy memories of St Hugh's. Maybe not so many happy ones of Tommy, after lunch, dismissing Mill Lane and then uttering the immortal words "For manual labour..."
Phil Curley

Message: Hi John, had another fond look at this wonderful section on the internet. Thanks again for putting it together. I had a fantastic six years at Tollerton Hall between 76 and 82, and still long for the memories. For a lot that attended that hallowed place, it was magical; and the fact that it closed a real shame. Please send me any news of old boys, or anything to do with the memory that was St Hugh's College. All the very best,
James Jarvis