HOW IT ALL BEGAN
by Mike Crees

As most good things start "once upon a time " I will start there. Over the last 60 years I have often thought of those carefree school days and wondered where everyone had gone.

I left Winbury when I was 13 years old . The only physical reminder of those far off days was a rather battered photograph taken in 1953 and an old Slazenger cricket bat and ball size 5 signed by Dennis Compton purchased by my mother in Heelas sports dept in Reading, plus a lot of very fond memories in my mind.

So where do I start? We are now in 2008 and in the age of the computer. I had heard of a web site called Friends Reunited so it sounded like a good place to start. So with my computer mouse firmly gripped I entered the world of the past.

At first there was little response, a handful of names were entered on the site under Winbury and the dates that had been entered, in some instances, were three and fours years old.

Then out of the blue Mike Chapman emailed me. Mike had been going through the same thought process and he wanted to write a history of the school. By chance we only lived 25 miles from each other.

We arranged to meet up in Mike's house in Taunton in 2009, and from then on hundreds of emails and telephone calls took place, plus talking to the press and being interviewed by the BBC on the subject of "Old School Days" and our quest, a little bit like "Lord of the Rings" without the ring.

I must admit, when looking back to 2009 and the naming of almost all of the boys in the 1949 and 1953 photograph by Mike and I, and our goal at that stage a "Reunion" and web site, it seemed rather daunting and a bit like organising a trip to Mars.

I could not have imagined that only a few years later, we would entertain nearly fifty of those faces in the same room, that had looked out at us from that old school photograph that in 2009, was 59 years old.

None of this could have ever took place without the help of Mike Chapman ,Peter Prior, Mike Spicer and his wife Barbara and family and yourselves and not forgetting Mike Caridia who bravely who took up the challenge to produce this web site.

For me, even with the Queen's Jubilee and the Olympic Games in London, nothing will come close to the pleasure I felt of having the chance to meet you all again.