Preamble
Welcome to the Quantock School Alumni Website, home for ex-inmates of the 'School in the Forest'
I was set down from my father's car at the age of fourteen; and there with a sense of bewilderment and terror my life at Quantock began. The summer grass, amongst which I stood, was taller than I was, and I wept. I had never been so close to grass before and so alone. The School towered above me and all around me, each turret tattooed with tiger-skins of sunlight. It was knife-edged, dark, and a wicked green, I was lost and didn't know where to move.
Never to be forgotten, that first long day of a Quantock summer. Never to be forgotten, or ever tasted again...
Laurie Booth
Quantock School 1964-1966
Foreword
This site started out almost seven years ago as something of an irreverent look at Quantock School life and my time there; however, as time moved on and things progressed, its style, purpose and function had to change. As each day passes, the wonders of the Internet have allowed rapidly increasing numbers of ex-Quantockians to find out about former classmates, where they are and what they are doing. It has also led to meetings of people after many years, in some cases even decades.
Quantock School was not just an educational establishment; it was a unique community with a life and culture of its own. The 1981 edition of the school Prospectus, for all its unmistakably twee language, succintly summed up this feeling by describing the persona of the "Quantock Boy". This term of course had to change to something more gender-inclusive when the school became co-educational in 1986, but the essential spirit of the "Quantockian" remained.
An objective historical approach
This is the story of an educational establishment that has now become part of history. Some may find much of what they will find unmistakably familiar, while others may not. Some may find some of my comments sarcastic and even cutting at times, while others may see it simply as honest black humour that echoes their own memories of the 'School in the Forest'. It is my firm belief that in addition to the other things Quantock School gave us, the experience provided us with a fine appreciation of black humour; we all could not have survived such things as washing up duty or Phil's morning cross country runs otherwise.
It has been my intention to write this site not only as a happy trip down memory lane for former pupils - indeed, given my own extremely positive recollections of life at Quantock School it would have been all to easy for me to write a couple of gushing paragraphs stating how wonderful the old place was. However the history of the school, and in particular the events that occurred not less than a decade after I had passed through those gates as a pupil for the last time, does need to be documented in the most objective way possible - and for this I have had to put my own experiences firmly to one side and concentrate solely on the facts that I have had at my disposal. In effect, I have replaced my Quantock School uniform with that of the historian.
Above all else this site is for all who attended Quantock School, and as such the views of everyone will be considered in what is my aim to create a complete living history of the place that played a significant part in all of our lives. My intention is that the site will build on itself and develop through further input and contribution from those who were there and might have something to share with their fellow Quantockians.
In spite of all of that may have happened before, during and after our time at Quantock School, there is one undoubted fact. Although the school is unfortunately no more, the place holds many memories; the corridors, the halls of residence - and even the distinct smells that remain to this day - are things that are indelibly marked on the soul of everyone who walked in and on its grounds. Quantock School was and is not just any school. It was - and still is - our school.
Rick D. Joshua, Webmaster
Quantock School 1984-1987
