Rev Dr Colin Morris - died 20 May 2018  -  Information supplied by Brian Chilver

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Colin Morris started at BCGS in 1940 and began to preach while still at the school. He left school and, after National Service in the Royal Marines, trained as a Methodist minister at Hartley Victoria College, in Whalley Range, Manchester. He took up various ministries in UK then moved to Northern Rhodesia as a minister, returning to UK in 1969 as minister of Wesley's Chapel, London, a very prestigious appointment. In 1978 he became Head of Religious Broadcasting at the BBC during which employment he had an argument on TV with Margaret Thatcher. He later said that he enjoyed a good "spat". He retired to Lewes in East Sussex where he spent his time writing and listening to his sizable collection of music.

For a fuller account of his life and work see this article in The Times, dated 5 Sep 2018

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https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-rev-dr-colin-morris-obituary-xrtcxsqnj

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Gerald (Gerry) Openshaw - died 6 September 2015 - Information supplied by Mike Bainbridge
 
Gerald was undoubtedly one of the oldest known ex students. He was born in 1920 and attended BCGS from 1931 to 1936. He was married to Marjorie (nee Bowdell), an ex teacher at BCGS (Domestic Science), who survives him.
 
Gerald was always interested in technology. He was an avid and dedicated Radio Amateur in the days when radio was mainly Morse code and AM (radio hams will understand the abbreviation). His advanced knowledge of Morse code resulted in his being recruited during WW2 as what became known as a Voluntary Interceptor (VI) or Secret Listener. Their brief was to listen on certain frequencies and copy down the 5 figure, apparently random, groups of characters sent by the German High Command. He would not have known which service was being intercepted, only that the transmissions originated from Germany or perhaps a ship or submarine. The intercepts were collected by courier daily and were immediately sent to Bletchley Park near Milton Keynes where they were decoded by the mathematical brains we now know worked there. After the war Bletchley swore everyone to secrecy so that other enemies, notably the Russians, at that time, would not know what was being achieved. It is said that the work of the Voluntary Interceptors and the decoders at Bletchley shortened the war by as much as 2 years. The secrets were only revealed in the late 1970s. Until that time everyone remained utterly silent. Quite an achievement in itself.
 
After the war he worked for the Post Office on the detection of illegal radio signals, and later, for British Telecom,  as a troubleshooter. When he retired he continued his Radio Amateur activities, embracing the new technologies which followed.
 
In later life he suffered from poor eyesight due to age related macular degeneration (AMD) but continued to regularly use Amateur Radio.
 
He last attended a BCGS reunion in 2010, with his wife Marjorie. They are pictured below with ex pupil Josie Cox (nee Dawson), standing