With extreme misgiving and great trepidation, we make our bow as the first junior editors of the PRESCOTIAN. It was felt that the task of compiling the Magazine should be undertaken by two of the members of the School, under the supervision of the Staff. We hope that the scheme may have proved satisfactory, and that it may be continued successfully in years to come.

We appreciate the honour thus thrust upon us, and now it only remains to introduce the reader to the following record of the School's activities during the past year.

G. R. WILKINSON. J. WAINE.

SCHOOL NEWS, 1945-6

After the thrilling events of the previous twelve months, the year just closed seems to have been of a quiet character, but at the same time it must be looked upon as a year of consolidation following the upheavals of six war years. Numbers were about the same (453) but would have been larger if we had had the usual entry into the Preparatory Department. The loss here was balanced by larger numbers higher up, there being for the first time three " Fifth " forms and a total in the Sixth of 36.

Foremost among news items has been the return of the Masters from the Services. Mr. Drewry was with us for the opening of school in September, but was soon called to fresh fields and left us in December to become Headmaster of the South-West Essex Technical High School, Walthamstow, where we wish him every success. Mr. Smith and Mr. Scott both returned in February, having, by a strange coincidence, been demobilized on the same day at the same place. Mr. Turner had, meanwhile, been patiently watching events from an R.A.F. Station in India, and, when his turn came, lost no time in resuming his work here. To have them all back seems like old times. There are others too to whom we have extended our welcome. The Rev. R. K. Keigh, B.A. (Liverpool), formerly of Bootle Secondary School, has come to take French and Scripture. Mr. W. Peel, B.Sc. (Durham) assists Mr. Hough in the Chemistry Laboratory. Mr. I. A. C. Prescott, of Chester College, an Old Cowleian, is our first full-time Physical Training Instructor, and Mr. R. H. Kelly, B.Sc. (Liverpool), has recently joined us from Toxteth Technical School as a Physics master.

It will not be surprising therefore to learn that we have said farewell to a few members of the staff besides Mr. Drewry. Miss Winstanley. who had taught Mathematics here since 1941, accepted a post in Johannesburg, and sailed in the New Year. Mrs. Russell, well-known to our " Preparatory " boys, left us shortly afterwards in consequence of the illness of her husband, who had been invalided out of the Navy. Dr. Martin, though still an active man, retired at the end of May, and we wish him a very happy retirement, which he intends to spend in Prescot.

Another whose retirement is imminent and who is known to many more by reason of his long service is Mr. James Beesley, the Caretaker. Mr. Beesley has been here for 22 years, having started on the day on which the present school was opened. During this time there have been added the Hall, Dining Room and Kitchen, Woodwork Room, Library, Physics Laboratory and Geography Room but none of these extensions has prevented Mr. Beesley from maintaining the first-class standards which he set himself when he began. Some 1300 boys and Old Boys will have cause to remember him for warm rooms, tidy floors, clean desks and a host of little things which are not listed among the duties of caretakers. We hope often to see him in the future as he will continue to live within a short distance of the School.

Thus there are many changes in "personnel" but we cannot say the same about the school premises. Though we believe certain negotiations have been successfully carried on, there is not, as we write in mid-July, the slightest visible sign of the new Dining Room in which we ought to have been having dinner all through the year. So much for the " hustle " programme of the Ministry of Education. However, unfettered by official action or inaction, we have resumed the levelling of the field where we left off in 1939 and every few hours may be heard the roar of a waggon tipping the remnants of some air-raid shelter into the chasm at the South end.

A new development this year has been the formation of a School Choir, which leads the singing in Prayers and promises to be a useful— and, we hope, ornamental—adjunct to the school. Another " activity "— surely that is the right word—has been the recent extension of facilities for games during the dinner-hour. Thanks to Mr. Prescott, those who tire of cricket and football can now exercise themselves at Net-Ball; Volley--Ball, Potted Sports and the like.

Other columns will tell of our Football activities in the Spring Term, when it must have seemed to outside observers that we were organizing weekly tours by motor-coach. Suffice it to say that the Junior Shield now occupies the honoured space under the clock and that, when the day does come, there will be no difficulty in finding a second space, even if there is no clock to crown it.