NOSTALGIA: New school blocks for Grammar boys in 1958 (GALLERY) and school sets up own website in 1998

Two new blocks, one a two-storey science building, the other a hall/gymnasium, were officially opened at Boston Grammar School.

“We have really struck right away from the present style of the school,” said Mr L. Barlow, county architect. “To design it as the present school would have been far more costly, so we have made a really modern approach.”

The science block boasted four new laboratories, a large preparation room, and an office.

Mr H. M. Dickson, senior science master, said: “It provides much more room, and many more facilities for practical work. They are well equipped, modern laboratories. We have needed these for thirty years.”

Forty yards away, across the newly constructed masters’ car park, was the other block.

At one end was a stage, featuring a grand piano for morning prayers. The space had also been designed for school plays and had a ‘first class’ lighting system.

Other features included booms and ropes which could be swung out from the walls to help convert the hall into a gymnasium.

Two doors lead off to store rooms, changing rooms, a medical inspection room, and, for the first time in the school’s long history, showers.

The old science block was to be used as additional classrooms and there were plans to convert the ancient hall into a library.

This week in 1998 ...

* The cinema screen at Boston’s Blackfriars Arts Centre was enjoying a bumper year, councillors were told.

The number of people watching films at the venue during the first quarter of the year was almost double the previous year’s tally for the same period, Barrie Higham, the borough council’s arts officer told the Community Services Committee.

“The cinema is extraordinarily active and popular and growing all the time,” he said. “The popularity has taken everyone by surprise.”

He said that the centre had the advantage of being able to run a film again at almost no extra cost if there was a big uptake of bookings, but with live performances it was not so easy to respond to demand by doing an extra show.

The screen had been opened five years earlier by actor Jeremy Irons.

* Boston’s own website was also proving popular – with almost 1,000 requests for information every day.

Since its launch in July, Boston Online had been visited 74,037 times.

People from all around the world were visiting the site, with one man from New Zealand enquiring about his old Boston school – only to learn it no longer existed.

* Also now in possession of its own website was Haven High.

The school had plans for it to feature pupil’s own pages and video conferencing.