BIRTH | May 6–Berko@475–The Queen & I Celebrate

A small place on its 475th birthday
welcomes a Queen who has just
celebrated her 90th.

Yesterday, May 6, was the 475th birthday of the Berkhamsted School and I was there to snap a few photos and reminisce.

Berkhamsted, Herts. punches above its weight.

It barely has 16,000 residents but its history puts it on the map:

Waiting for the Queen, well-wishers
line the street across from the
Berkhamsted School.

• Its Castle was the place in 1066 the Saxon nobles came to bow down to William the Conqueror of Normany. 
• It is now a train stop and a market town in the Chiltern Hills, 26 miles northwest of London. 
• It's the home of Ashridge Business School.
• And it's the home of the Berkhamsted Boys and Girls Schools.

Berkhamsted School candidates are decked out in
Union Jack hats.

Graham Greene attended the school, at which his father was a teacher and then headmaster. Young Graham was depressed as a student and then at Oxford, but found faith and wrote great literature from his keen sense of the dark side of life.

Eight of my nieces and nephews attended the Berkhamsted Boys School or Girls School–Benny Oakley; Roisin, Caitrin, Liadain and Ailise O'Neill; and Matthew, Kate and Jo Paice.  A ninth, Desmond Oakley, was offered a place but preferred to attend the Cavendish School where his brother Chris went, because Cavendish fielded a football team whereas Berkhamsted Boys played only rugby.