Open Day 2001As some of you will know, it is the tradition of leavers in the Oratory School to play pranks on the school in an attempt to make the school look bad to the public on its "Open Day". A day where people from the public come to see the school - usually because they are prospective parents. This of course means that the school want to look as good as possible for this day..
I am trying to get hold of some photos from people who have them (obviously enough).. at the moment all I have are the clippings from the newspapers. We made the Henley Standard (a regional paper), The Sun (national) and The Daily Telegraph (national). The Sun I might add is Britain's most popular paper.
Of the newspapers, the Daily Telegraph is the most accurate.. and also the most brief.
I was disturbed during my work on the Nottingham website that I had to conjure for Young Enterprise (we called ourselves Vortex) because the bell started to ring manicly - the thing was going crazy - at around 3-4am!!! I know that someone videoed it and I will try to capture the video when I am back at school. Anyway - I got up and walked to the fourth form corridor where the control box was located (I found this out because Harry Bayntun had been reprogramming it to go off during the Headmaster's speech - looks like he messed the am/pm up!) and I found the box still unlocked, opened it and there was a big red switch in it - lighting up the dark corridor - so I flicked it off and the bell stopped. Brilliant! Back to work.
Apparently while I was doing this, and the bell was going off, and the teachers (who were patrolling) were shining their torches up on the roof, "Da Crew" was at work painting the Chapel - Roco (Achi), Manic (Javier) and Gato (Gato) and a couple of others who I forget ( I will email them after this ), were on their way back from a successful prank - painting the chapel skylights with "Da Tarmac Crew 2001" or similar (again I will check).
The bell scared the shit out of them and they hit the deck and panicked as the staff's lights started to crawl over the roof in search of the bell ringer (they really should have realised that it is electronic, and that I was at the controls, in full view of the window.. ). They ran and jumped through the window of Gato's room ( now mine ) and Mr. Womersley came up to catch them - but they went down the other way like a shot, all dressed in black balaclavas and so on.
Apology
I know that I made quite a few mistakes above - I was not taking part, as those that did know ( I was working! to a strict deadline ). So PLEASE email me with corrections and stories from your point of view and I promise to add them to the site!
Next Open Day (2002)
Next year it is my year's turn to do the pranks - I have been told that if we pull of their master plan it will be something that no one will EVER forget - unfortunately the secrecy shrouding this prank is incredible - and they won't tell me. But it will be great - I'll make sure of it.