Posted: 04/12/14
Staff and students from 1950s to present day celebrate college’s 60th anniversary
Staff and students at West Nottinghamshire College’s Derby Road campus in Mansfield – from its opening in 1954 to the present day – will be guests of honour at an event to mark its 60th anniversary.
The college is bringing together students and staff from the last seven decades for a special celebration tomorrow evening (Friday 5 December 2014) to commemorate the diamond anniversary of its main campus.
They include Roy Broadley, 88, who studied at the former Mansfield Technical College on Chesterfield Road in the early 1940s before going on to teach engineering at the newly-built Derby Road site when it opened in 1954; and Malcolm Brown, 76, who was one of the first students to be taught there when he attended as an apprentice electrician, and helped set up its first-ever football team.
Another guest is Ken Walker, 84, who studied plumbing at the college in 1954 and returned there to teach the subject in the late 1960s, rising to become head of the construction department in the 1980s, where he remained until his retirement in 1993.
Others include one-time ‘office girls’ Gill Kirk, Wendy Wragg, Eileen Matthews and Valerie Ward – who became life-long friends after working at the college – and former principals Don Mackenzie and Jim Aleander, who led the college from 1974-1994, and 1994-2001 respectively.
Their fascinating stories are amongst more than 30 to be captured in a new limited-edition book, ‘Celebrating Sixty Years’, published by the college to celebrate its landmark birthday, which coincides with the completion of a £40 million redevelopment of its buildings and facilities across Mansfield and Ashfield.
The book tells the story of the evolution of the Derby Road campus, as seen through the eyes of current and former staff, students and governors, who share their unique accounts of their time at the college.
Their anecdotes and recollections also serve as a social commentary of the college throughout the decades; from the rise of apprenticeships in the 1950s and appearances by popular bands The Who and The Small Faces – complete with instrument-smashing! – in the 1960s, to the boom in mining-related courses in the 1970s, before the miners’ strike of the 1980s led to the industry’s eventual decline.
The book also tells how the college was re-shaped in the 1990s after being freed from local authority-control, while the 2000s heralded a dynamic new era following the arrival of pioneering principal Dame Asha Khemka, who instigated the largest-ever building programme in the college’s history, completed last month – 60 years after Derby Road first opened its doors to students.
Many of these stories are replicated on an eye-catching exhibition tracing the college’s modest roots as a solitary, three-storey building that specialised in mining and engineering to becoming one of the largest and most successful further education colleges in the country.
Both the book and exhibition will be unveiled at a special commemorative event boasting live music by 1950s-style singer Jeanie Barton and her band; an address by Roy Broadley, making his first visit to the college since re-locating to Worthing, West Sussex, in December 1959; and extracts from the book read by current performing arts students Connor Talbot, Drew Scott Purkis, Frances Savage and Lorna Gribbin, dressed in 1950s costume.
It takes place from 6pm in the college’s boardroom and new restaurant, Refined, at the Derby Road campus. The exhibition will subsequently be on display at Derby Road and the commemorative book, priced £5, on sale at its main reception from Monday (8 December 2014).
Principal and chief executive, Dame Asha Khemka, said: “It has been wonderful to capture the colourful stories and memories of some of the characters who have been part of the West Notts family from 1954 to the present day.
“There is certainly something highly symbolic about the college celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Derby Road campus in the same year that we completed our £40 million building programme across Mansfield and Ashfield; and this book illustrates perfectly how the college – and society – has changed over the years.
“I’m delighted we are bringing together so many of the book’s contributors for this fantastic celebration and I am personally looking forward to hearing how the college influenced and touched their lives.”
The college’s Derby Road campus opened as West Nottinghamshire Technical College in 1954. Its name changed to West Nottinghamshire College of Further Education in 1976 when it merged with the former Mansfield College of Arts, on Chesterfield Road, to form one institution.
The college became known by its present name in 1993 following ‘incorporation’, which saw colleges leave local authority control and become independent organisations in their own right.
