Treasure Trove of Fond Memories

Treasure Trove of Fond Memories – edited by Louis Hemmings (year of 1975).

Poems, Stories & Videos about a co-ed boarding school in Waterford, Ireland.

​Newtown School is a co-ed boarding school, established in Waterford Ireland, in 1798.

These poems aim to evoke memories of real boarding school life, far beyond the pulp romance of Harry Potter and other accounts!


Newtown School Website | History of Newtown School

The Book


Design Team


Dora Kazmierak

Photographer.


Katya Zhu

Graphics.


Neringa Normantaite

Designer.

Boarding School Poems

Boarding School Scrapbook

Harboured from harm by high stone walls,
unacademic and sports-coach never called;
– spartan-lunches schooled us in justice,
Quaker-soaked silence this rebel trusted.

O sweet those three special girls adored,
shoe-skidded those waxed parquet floors;
readily I joined rowdy-night pillow fights,
unsanctioned walks in early-dawn light.

Long-anticipated each supper dance,
psychedelic strobes, surreptitious glances;
late-sixties student, born to be wild:
underground sounds, flower child.

Art, English and Music held appeal,
nothing else needed, my Achilles Heel;
grateful for many issued detentions,
bullies long-gone, names I won’t mention.

School report true: my existence “aimless”
my challenging conduct, far from blameless;
this academic failure, sometime class clown –
still missed the old school – farewell Newtown…

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