When I was asked to become your President I was deeply moved and very honoured. My first problem was, of course, what to talk about today. Unlike most of your presidents, I cannot talk about my days at Ayton but I did decide I would add a bit about my schooldays later if only so you can understand that your tribulations at Ayton were shared by me in another place. I could talk about farming but I do that too often and though I hope I never moan, farmers have a reputation for doing just that, so I had better not. I could of course talk about the weather but that may not be popular with those of you, including your Chairman, who have spent the last two nights under canvas. So finally I felt I had to talk about the end of your school. It will not be comfortable for many of you and is very difficult for me but there is a need among us all to put an end to that chapter. I also need to try to set the record straight about some of the rumours, which, even yesterday, were circulating among some Old Scholars.

I am, I think, the fifth president of the AOSA who was neither an Old Scholar nor a member of staff. The other four were Messrs Hodgkin 1890/91, Thistlethwaite 1903/4, Backhouse 1904/5 and Kitching 1906/7, probably School Committee members from their well-known Quaker names. My connection is as a spouse, and later a parent of Old Scholars. Later still Chairman of the School Committee – and not only chairman of the School Committee but in the words of one Old Scholar to Jane , “the bloody fool who closed the school.” Now just in case the person who said that is here today or reads this later, let me say, it is by no means the worst thing I have been called over the closure of the school, nor does it cause me offence, because it is really an expression of the frustration everyone felt over the closure and the deep respect you all have for the education you received at Ayton. Whether it is a natural human need or a recently developed human expedience, I know not, but it seems that we are being encouraged to seek someone to blame for all our ills. From tripping on a broken paving stone to closing schools – a responsible person has to be found and if, in the case of Ayton, blaming me helps individuals to cope with their grief, so be it.

But as you all know – and I have been asked often enough – I have not blamed anyone, for I believe that everyone involved in Ayton gave of their best but sadly that was not enough. Others could perhaps have done better, but either they did not seek nomination to the committee, apply for jobs or find other ways to help. The sadness is that often they now are the ones that are the most knowledgeable about the errors of those who tried. If ever I wish to apportion blame, then first I have to prove to myself that it was not my fault before looking for others: that is often a revealing exercise.

Perhaps today is also an occasion for me to put what I see as a failure behind me. My father had a little rhyme:

They said ‘twas a thing that could not be done,
And he quietly said that he knew it,
But he tackled the thing that could not be done,
And found he could not do it.

Which is very true of the situation I faced when asked to take the chair of the committee. But as it had to you, Ayton had given a lot to my family and I felt it deserved a try from me. Given a fair wind there was, in the view of the committee and staff I worked with over those years, a real chance that we could pull through.

Here I would particularly like to record my immense admiration for, and appreciation of, the work of Alice Meager , our last Head, and John Roberts , our last Bursar. They had the courage to take on what, even at the time of their appointment, could have been seen as a dead end job, to fight for the School’s survival, and finally to organise its closure in such a sensitive and effective way. I am so pleased that Alice is here today and John came yesterday, though he was unable to stay; they deserve our heartfelt thanks.

Why did we not succeed? Like everything these days it comes down to money. In his proposal speech last year, Dick Dennis kindly spoke of my work along with Jane , David and Val Oliver – also parents, in the setting up of the Development fund in 1982. Sitting in our lounge the four of us with little knowledge, other than that which was publicly available, had worked out that the fabric of the school needed improving. This would generate the growth in pupil numbers that was needed to improve the cash flow and thereby solve the financial problems. We started, always with small aims that we could achieve quickly. If you think that our aims were not small or that Ayton was somehow unique in being unable to fund its own improvements at that time, let me tell you that my own school, of which more later, launched an appeal at about the same time for over £1 million. But importantly, private approaches before the appeal went ‘public’ had raised half that sum.

We had to work with care because for some years there had been a rumour that Ayton was about to close. Yarm had recently been founded and, when asked, its founding head said of Ayton that it was a non-academic school run by Quakers and “alright if you want that sort of thing.” We had not got the ear of the customers. When we did some market research, we discovered first, that among the parents who crossed Ayton’s threshold when looking for a school, our success rate was very high and second, that parents took very little time in selecting a school for their children, relying largely on one visit to a school of which they’d heard well. In the late 1980’s it was socially acceptable to have children in certain schools, and Ayton was regarded as being the second choice. Mind you, we did from time to time have the last laugh as some very unhappy children found the peaceful atmosphere of Ayton a better place to achieve their potential.

After four years, carefully written into the ASDF constitution, I left its committee and with it my co-opted post on the school committee. I felt my contribution, inadequate as it was, to Ayton was over and hopefully I could fade into obscurity – but as it turned out not quite far enough.

In 1994 I was asked to rejoin the committee, to take the chair the following year when Richard Taylor retired. The problems were, as we all know, considerable and compounded by the Charity Commission ruling that we had to run the School until the assets of the charity equalled its liabilities. As trustees we were in Mr Micawber 's position, assets £1 liabilities 19/11d – fine! Assets £1 liabilities 20/- and one penny meant that the penny could well have had to come from the committee’s pocket.

We soldiered on; we raised over half a million pounds from supporters to ease the burden of the bank loans and to give us the security to carry on. John Roberts , the Bursar, and his staff generated substantial income from holiday lets and improved the fabric. Alice Meager , the Head, and her staff enhanced Ayton’s reputation, increased the numbers of pupils and the race was on – and a very evenly matched race it was. Could we generate income fast enough to drive down our borrowing and interest charges? Each year’s balance between leavers and new intake was critical and in the Spring of 1997 the maths failed to add up; we were going to fall at the next fence. It was not inevitable but it was almost certain and the risks of falling, to the children and staff, had to be weighed against the option of pulling up and walking home with everything under our control, rather than under the control of outsiders.

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