Sibford Scene Archive

The Table Tennis Club has now closed. It was in 1948 that Roland Herbert, who taught woodwork at the Friends School suggested that we should form a club and a meeting was called at Sibford Gower School. Twenty two people came including several of the younger members of the Friends School staff and it was decided to hire the Mission Room for four nights a week, for what was very much a social club. We applied for rations of tea and sugar. We also got a licence to get fuel for the fire as wartime restrictions were still in force.

We managed to buy a rather poor full sized table. Also in the same year the Banbury Table Tennis League was formed and it was decided that if we wanted to play in that we would need a better table. Again it was Roland Herbert who came to the rescue by offering to make us a table and obtaining the wood, which was still in very short supply, especially the thick plywood for the top.

In 1949 we entered two teams in the Banbury League although our playing space was restricted by a big cupboard, a raised platform at the far end of the room and a harmonium and a piano in front of that, but mostly by the coke stove that stood out from the wall.

The lower age limit for club members was fifteen but in 1950 we started using Thursday evenings for ten to fifteen year olds. Among the first youngsters were George Hall, Fred Inns, Stan Haynes, Bill Dunkley and Bill Barton. They had no computer games or television to keep them at home in those days.

Travelling to matches was quite a problem in the early years as very few members (had) cars and petrol was still rationed. We cycled to some matches but that was not much fun in winter weather and we were thankful when more people got cars.

In the early years of the league, Sibford players won many of the ladies trophies and had two ladies that played in the Oxfordshire team.

At this time four players formed a team but that soon dropped to three as it has been ever since.

As time went on more young players wanted to play in the league and the number of teams increased until in the 1980s we had eight teams for a few years which made it very difficult to find a night to replay postponed matches.

The youngsters practise night has continued for almost all of the club’s 65 years and although they got no proper coaching several of the young players have developed their natural abilities and become top players in the Banbury League.

In recent years the A team has usually taken one of the top two places in the first division and Jason Tustain and Sean O’Keefe have won the mens doubles and singles trophies.

We have now closed and the two teams that wanted to go on playing have formed a new club and play at Tadmarton.

Sibford School marked Armistice Day 2014 with the opening of a new Peace Garden.

Pupils at the Quaker School, in the Ferris, created the garden in recognition of the 100th anniversary of the start of World War 1 and also as a tribute to former student, Conrad Lewis, who was killed in Afghanistan on 9 February 2011.

Returning to the school to perform the official opening were Conrad’s parents, Tony and Sandi Lewis. A commitment to peace lies at the heart of Quaker belief. Quakers think of peace as an approach to living in the world and working for social change, rather than simply an ideological opposition to war and to violence. The Peace Garden, which will be a place where pupils, staff and visitors to the school will be able to go for quiet reflection, therefore seemed a fitting tribute to Conrad.

We couldn’t be more humbled, pleased and delighted to be here today,” said Tony Lewis. “What has been produced is absolutely appropriate for the school, really appropriate for Conrad and beautitiful for us. I think it is a stunning memorial to Conrad and to peace and we will certainly be back with Conrad’s brother and sister and other friends and family over the months and years to come.”

• Features of the Peace Garden include:
• Giant sculpture created by Year 10 pupils from willow withies;
• Wooden obelisk featuring the words: REFLECT, RECONCILE, RESPECT and REMEMBER;
• Commemorative bench dedicated to Conrad;
• 20 rose bushes planted by Sibford horticultural students;
• and … looking or peace in the widest sense of the word …
• 500 crocus bulbs, donated by the Rotary Club of Banbury, to represent the End Polio Now Campaign.

In addition, inspired by the Blood Swept Lands And Seas 0f Red installation at the Tower of London, Junior School pupils created a number of glazed clay red and white poppies that were ‘planted’ in the garden especially for the opening.

The Armistice Day ceremony, which was attended by more than 400 people, included readings by pupils, staff and parents and, following a silence at 11am, concluded with the playing of Abide With Me by 15-year-old pupil George Johnson-Briscoe on trumpet.

Tony Lewis said: “It is areal honour to open this Peace Garden. Conrad would be surprised, humbled and absolutely delighted to be remembered in any way at Sibford School but certainly in this way. He loved being here, although I think it would be fair to say that the teachers probably found him a little challenging and boisterous … he certainly lived up to the school phrase of‘ living adventurously!”

Pictured: Sibford head Michael Goodwin with Sandi and Tony Lewis seated on the Conrad Lewis memorial bench. Also pictured is Peg, a stray dog that made friends with Conrad in the Quadrant compound when he arrived and was rescued and flown back to the UK after his death.