WHEN these students of Keighley Boys’ Grammar School – aided by three of their counterparts from the Girls’ Grammar School – performed Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night in March, 1945, proceeds helped provide parcels for 561 ‘old boys’ then serving in the forces.

Throughout the Second World War the Old Boys’ Association made determined efforts to trace all their former pupils, who were made honorary Old Keighlians during their service. Whist drives and dances also financed a Comforts Fund.

Term by term the school magazine listed deaths, distinctions and news, such as “Private J Brook, who is a prisoner-of-war in Germany, sent a message over the German Radio, ‘Don’t worry, I’m OK'.”

At the Old Keighlians’ reunion dinner in 1945, the president “reminded his hearers that 604 old boys and six masters had served, or were serving, with the forces. Thirty-three boys and one master had given their lives, twelve were missing and eight were prisoners-of-war.” Sadly, more deaths were to follow.