So now is the time to grovel (don’t grovel Graville) and say sorry for missing the Spring Mitre. I have no real excuse except a distinct lack of input from the majority of OM.s. There are very honourable exceptions and they know who they are.

             All being well this is my last input as Editor of the Mitre. I have been doing the job for 7 years and that is enough to encourage a mutual parting of the ways. I hope to continue to have my say in the Magazine, trusting that the new incumbent wishes to hear from me and I shall be continuing, providing I am asked of course, in my role as Membership Secretary.

On the whole I have very much enjoyed my time with the Mitre, my only reservation being the poor response from you, the members, to appeals for copy.

There can be not one of you who hasn’t something of interest to say whether it a far flung holiday (or even one in Cleethorpes), new job (or retirement from an old one!!), chance meetings with OM’s or the great and good (or are the two synonymous?), thoughts of school days, memories of friends made and not seen for years, a favourite joke or observation on life (it’s life, Jim but not as we know it!!)...the list could go on and on but it needs YOU to talk to me or at least to my successor, as editor.

It doesn’t need me to tell you that there are no new Om’s, the nearest we come is rediscovered ones, and the website ( 5 28 www.oma.org.uk) has found and is continuing to find Michaelian’s who had lost touch with us and were not aware of the Association. It may even be true to say that the OMA would now be defunct without our presence on Mr Berners-Lee’s world wide web. I can close my eyes and hear all you technophobes crying “what is he on? What a load of rubbish” but I am serious, it has never been easier to communicate, so if you have been lost for 40 years and are now found, what have you been doing for all that time? We want to know, we are anxious to know, we are desperate to know. Silence, in this case is, most certainly, NOT golden.

This brings me onto the subject of the committee. Last year Michael Catterick asked for nominations for the management committee. A form was placed in the Mitre and the end result was...a complete blank, zilch, nichts, nada, niente, rien, not one single volunteer. There are many who have served on the committee as man and boy, and will no doubt continue to do so until old age and senility bar them, but new blood is desperately required if the Old Michaelian Association is to flourish. Next year is the 60th anniversary of the founding of St Michael’s and a knees-up of monumental proportions is proposed. Join the committee and help plan it. This appeal is particularly aimed at the pupils who attended St Michael’s in the mid to late 60s. who are sadly under-represented.

Finally, I should like to thank those select few OM’s who have supported me with articles and the like in the past 7 years. The job I originally took on, or so I thought, was as technical editor, to physically produce the Mitre and not be responsible for the editorial content. I was soon disabused of this fanciful thought and now you are shut of me blathering on. I shall miss it, I have no doubt whatsoever that, when the Mitre lands on our doorstep, I shall say to Barbara, “that’s not the way to do this or that” and she will say to me “if you don’t like the new way you shouldn’t have stopped doing it the old way” and  although she is undoubtedly right, now is the time to say au revoir and to extend my very best wishes to the new Editor when he/she is installed.