OA Merchandise
OA Blazers
These splendid Old Albanian Club Blazers are in our traditional colours with external side and breast pockets, an inside breast pocket and are complemented with brass buttons.
We now hold a stock of standard sizes. At present these consist of:
Size 40 - Regular Size 42 - Regular and Long Size 46 - Regular and long Size 48 - Regular and Long Size 50 - Regular and Long Size 52 - Regular and Long
Blazers are priced at £120.00 and stocks are held at the Woollams Pavilion, so are available to visitors to the office. Stocks are held on ‘first come first served' basis and we re-order as and when needed and when someone has a non-standard size. A re-stocking order may take three or four weeks.
If you are not local and wish to order one from stock by post etc, then please email us with your contact details so that we can get in touch with you to organise a cost for sending the blazer by an appropriate and secure method and to arrange payment. We look forward to hearing from you.
OA Tie
100% silk ties in OA colours are available by post at £13.00 plus £1.00 p&p to UK addresses and £3 for overseas postage.
Click here to purchase an OA tie
New CD: St Albans School Choir
The School Choir have recently recorded a new CD in St Albans Abbey, also featuring guest Old Albanians who sang in the choir during their time at School (ranging from 1942-2009!) on some tracks. The CD is available for £10 (+ £1.50 p&p to UK addresses and £3.00 to international addresses).
Click here for more information
Book: St Albans School at War 1939-1945
Ploughing, stretcher bearing, potato picking, water purifying, harvesting, fundraising, home guarding, aircraft spotting, trench digging, hedge laying, panzer stopping, fire watching, .... not shown in the prospectus, but all part of a wartime education at St Albans School in Hertfordshire.
This fascinating book collects memories from fifty ‘Old Albanians' and also pupils evacuated to St Albans from Hastings Grammar School. It tells the story of those years when for the first time in its long history, the School became part of the ‘Home Front' with the threat of air raids and invasion. Education continued, however, punctuated with the odd alarm, episodes of humour, total disregard for health and safety, and of course the sadness of sacrifice.
Click here for more information and to purchase a copy
Crime & Punishment at St Albans School
Robin Ollington (OA 1947) has been at it again with another publication about the School's history, this time an amusing (but anonymous!) compilation and commentary on entries in the Prefects' Punishment Books from 1942-1964, with a foreword by Michael Palin.
Copies can be purchased for just £5.00 + p&p.
Michael Palin's Foreword
How heart-warming it is to see, at last, a proper recognition of the vital part that crime and punishment once played in our school system. In "Tomkinson's Schooldays", one of the Ripping Yarns series, Terry Jones and myself created a School Bully who had twice won the "Public Schools Bullying Cup", and whose first appearance "was flanked by two very large, rather broken-faced schoolboys, sons of night-club bouncers and joint holders of the Bradshaw Intimidation Trophy"
At the heart of this conceit was the idea that bullying which was an essential part of any good school's disciplinary system. Graybridge where Tomkinson learned his bullying, had a School Leopard which was let loose on boys tempted to run away from their torments.
In Tomkinson's world parents were implicated too. There was a waiting list at Graybridge as parents fought to get their sons into a school that boasted the top School Bully in the country.
All quite silly stuff, I thought, until I read Crime and Punishment at St. Albans School. Not only do we have the great Samuel Johnson's verdict that "there is now less flogging in our great schools than formerly, but then less is learned there", we're also introduced to the St Albans Punishment Books, which form the basis for this at times funny, at times rather terrifying collection.
The fact is that the use of physical force was, until quite recently, seen as somehow beneficial element in the imposition of discipline, and indeed as a preparation for the realities of life ahead.
Whilst we may, quite rightly, wonder why the orthodoxy of crime and punishment was allowed to prevail for so long, we can also wonder, marvel and occasionally indeed laugh heartily, at some of its manifestations and eccentricities, so lovingly culled from the Punishment Books of St. Albans.
Read, mark, learn, enjoy. Then write it out a hundred times, or else.
Commemorative CD: 1958 School Carol Service
A recording of the School Carol Service from December 1958 is on sale to OAs, thanks to a tireless project to transfer the recording onto CD from its original magnetic reel-to-reel tape, by John Ellerton (OA 1964).
Click here for more information and to purchase a copy online
Book: A Short History of St Albans School by Frank Kilvington
This concise history of St Albans School was published in 1970 by Frank Kilvington, who wrote in the Preface, "This book has been written with two purposes in mind. The first is to supply for those who may be interested some continuous account of the School's history, and the other to provide a basis for further research, especially by members of the School. It is appropriate that it should be appearing in the year which may well mark the four hundreth anniversary of the Elizabethan refoundation."
Copies of the book are available from the Development Office at a cost of £5.00 plus postage and packaging (£2 to UK addresses or £5 overseas).
Click here to purchase a copy online
St Albans School Mugs
No, not the pupils, but these attractive fine bone china mugs printed in blue and gold now available to grace your desk or table.
Beautifully designed including potted history of the School on the base. They come ready boxed at £10.00 plus postage and packing (£2 to UK addresses or £5 overseas).
Click here to purchase a mug online
St Albans School Tea Towels
Make drying up history with this unique School regulations tea towel. Ranging from the earliest example of 1309 to 1570 when pupils had to provide not only candles, ink and paper but also bows and arrows for shooting. Whilst the dress code against uncombed hair, unwashed face, hands and dirty boots has a current ring.
Historical, amusing and useful. Printed on 100% cotton in Royal blue. Priced at £5.00 plus postage & packing (50p for UK addresses and £3.00 overseas). Proceeds in aid of the St Albans School Foundation.
Click here to purchase a tea towel