A gathering of about 50 Old Cranleighans and Friends attended a notable Lunch in the Emms Centre late last year. It was particularly appropriate that members of our Armed Forces Society were invited, because the occasion gave eminent sculptor Nicholas Dimbleby (2 North, 1964-67) the chance to introduce us to the plans for a new War Memorial to be built outside the St Catherine’s window of the Chapel.
Nicholas, who has been commissioned to sculpt the centrepiece, was introduced by Martin Reader. Martin emphasised two themes that are clearly going to be central to his Headmastership and to our 150th celebrations, the idea of the Cranleigh Family and the vital place of the Chapel in our School.
In 1921 the original War Memorial outside the front of the School was unveiled to record the names of 133 of the OCs who were killed in World War One. This was removed when the Reading Room Memorial was opened in 1949, to include the names of 136 of the OCs killed in World War Two. The new Memorial will list the 269 and in addition 65 other OCs whose names have recently been researched by our archivist Martin Williamson.
The 334 names will be carved into panels of glass which will surround a paved circular area. In the centre of this will be a plinth on which Nicholas’s sculpture will stand. It will be a slightly above life-size figure representing a young Cranleighan leaving school. Nicholas’s idea is in one sense unorthodox, but is intended to inspire us all to look forward as well as backward, and to challenge Cranleighans young and old to relate to it personally.
The Memorial will be unveiled on 1 July 2016, the 100th anniversary of the first day of the Battle of the Somme, when there were 60,000 British casualties of whom 20,000 died. The date will conclude our 150th celebrations, which will begin on 29 September 2015, 150 years after the first pupils arrived at the School.
Donations to the War Memorial Fund will be gratefully received via the Just Giving page (http://www.justgiving.com/cranleigh-school) or by cheque to Vickie Ingle. The Cranleighan Room, Cranleigh School, Horseshoe Lane, GU6 8QQ, cheques payable to Cranleigh School.