Executive headteacher Jo Dibb with newly named Beacon High head, Alan Streeter

• THE renaming of Holloway School as Beacon High leaves this former Holloway teacher rather saddened, (Damning Ofsted report sparks name change for Islington school, June 14).

All the history associated with the old school will be lost. Probably the honours board has long since gone. That board recorded the names of all the boys who had secured a place at Oxbridge.

With the high turnover of staff there will be no one there now who has knowledge of the school’s former footballing prowess.

When I was teaching there the school team made it to the finals of the Schools FA Cup, a match that resulted in a draw, with Holloway and a school from Coventry sharing the cup for a year.

Some old boys went into media and I’m convinced that a scene from Only Fools and Horses is borrowed from an experience of one of my colleagues.

It is the scene where Del Boy comes home with Rachel from hospital and there is a riot taking place in the grounds of Mandela House. On spotting Del, the riot­ers cease their fighting to let Del and Rachel through, and then they carry on fighting when they have safely passed.

My colleague Jeff at Holloway was walking home to his flat in Islington one night and turned into a street in which there was a riot taking place. He could not turn back as the rioters had spotted him.

Fortunately, most were either current or former pupils. When they spotted Jeff they ceased fighting and greeted him like an old friend. After having had his hand shaken several times by rioters, he moved on. Once he was at a safe distance the riot restarted.

Modernity has no place for tradition and history. What it prefers is a new thing lacking any encumbrances from the past.

While the encumbrances of the past may be those the authority wishes to whitewash from the record, they are losing something valuable in the process – a sense of place, a sense of identity, a rootedness within the community. These anonymous new schools could be schools from anywhere.

DERRICK JOAD
Address supplied