Bill Bainbridge WAB

Hi

My name is Gemma and just like most of you reading this, I was a student at Old Hall School, Rotherham.

I attended between 1995-2000. During my time our amazing school was under the headship of Mr Bill Bainbridge. Who I just called Sir, as most of us did.

Many of us will have fond memories of our head; his choice of assembly music, singing pulp whilst walking down the corridors, throwing 20p pieces at you for Mars bars when you got questions correct!

What many people don't know, as they may have left school by then. Was that in 2001 Mr Bainbridge submitted a report to whistle-blow on the child sexual exploitation that was happening in Rotherham. He was one of the first people to raise these concerns, risking his own career and reputation to do so. He was a protector of his students first.

In order to remember him. I thought it would be nice for his students to contribute together for a small wreath.

Initially I wanted to send the word "Sir". However after speaking with teachers and students, we have changed this to "WAB". After his famed signature "WAB is FAB".

Many of you will remember Mr Coupe (physics god), who has kindly offered to deliver the wreath to the funeral on behalf of his students.

I'm ideally hoping to raise £175 for a fresh flower wreath and to cover the costs that go fund me take (they warned something about that) and maybe leave something to cover the fuel costs of the collection and delivery.

However, there is a more budget wreath available which means we can pull this off with just £75.

We're aware that everyone has a different financial situation. Please only contribute if able to.

Should we raise more than what is required for a wreath. We could ask for any extra funds raised to be sent to one of his favourite charities. There's got to be a list of long march recipients somewhere!

Ideally we are hoping to collect the funds at the end of next week, Feb 16th. Giving time for them to be released, buy the wreath and co-ordinate delivery.

Thanks for reading this, here's to Sir!

On behalf of all us Old Hallers - Thank you!

GT