Memories of "The Phoenix" magazine, written by Chris Thomson (School 1951-1956)

Reading through my old copies of The Bromsgrovian, it reminded me of a prank that David Idwal Jones (also 1951-1956) and I got up to during our last year at School.

I was Editor of "The Bromsgrovian" at the time and in my Editorial of April 1956 expressed with great and intentional pomposity grave misgivings about an "underground" magazine called "The Phoenix" which was circulating around School House and bewailing the fact that it had 30 page issues containing contributions from many members of School House whereas the official School Magazine had far fewer.

"The Phoenix" was in fact a magazine that David and I produced entirely by ourselves and for which we were the sole contributors. We managed to persuade the Headmaster’s Secretary that it had official status and she innocently used the School paper to duplicate 100 copies of each issue. These we sold to fellow students at a shilling an issue; it was a sell-out!

We only produced two issues before the Headmaster discovered where his duplicating paper was disappearing and it folded. So "The Phoenix" belied its name.

Provided by Chris Thomson (School 1951-1956)