Thought For The Day – Monday 23rd June 2025
Roots And Fruits
The flourishing of today, and tomorrow, is founded on the roots of yesterday.
The present and the future is founded on the past. We never forget our roots and our past. We go back to, and for, our future. We each have personal, family, community, local, national and international roots and stories.
We inherit, and pay positively forward, that legacy. We owe it to those in our past. We owe it to those in the future.
Those in our past are always with us in our present and future.
Nationally, Sunday 22nd June was National Windrush Day. On 22nd June 1948, women, children and men arrived from the Caribbean. They were dressed immaculately in their “Sunday Best” on “His Majesty’s Transport Empire Windrush”.
“The Windrush Generation”, and their descendants, and other people who settled in the U.K. greatly helped the U.K. re-build after World War 2, and have massively enhanced society since. Many had served in World War 2 to defeat Nazi evil. “The Windrush Generation” massively empowered, enlightened and enriched the U.K. with such great resilience, respect, responsibility and rigour.
“The National Windrush Monument” at Waterloo Station was unveiled by the Prince and Princess of Wales, three years ago.
As regards our shared history, and roots, at T.B.S.H.S., today, Monday the 23rd June, marks the day on which our inspirational, transformative and visionary former Headteacher, Mr. Ian Shaw, was born. 
This was a birthday Mr. Shaw shared with computer scientist and mathematician Alan Turing. Historian Mr. Shaw was greatly interested in Mr. Turing’s team of codebreakers at Bletchley Park, and enjoyed visiting the museum. The odds on the success of the codebreakers’ work were calculated as 158,962,555,217,826,360,000 to 1, an inspirational insight that was read at a very moving service of thanksgiving for Mr. Shaw’s life, held at Saint Michael’s Church, Bishop’s Stortford, and led by Reverend Derwyn Williams, six years ago tomorrow. Past, present and future came together to give thanks on a sunny afternoon.
Although Mr. Shaw always gave all the credit to others, including Headteachers and all those who came before, and worked with, Mr. Shaw, in so very many ways, in every area of the School, Mr. Shaw founded and shaped the ethos, identity, standards and indeed the very name of The Bishop’s Stortford High School (T.B.S.H.S.) in a multiplicity of ways. The roots were the very deepest. Without Mr. Shaw, to name but one example, though the expansive facility was formally opened just after Mr. Shaw had retired, there would have been no Jobbers Wood Playing Field. And, at one crucial point when the future of the School was very uncertain and most unknown, without Mr. Shaw’s leadership, there would have been no T.B.S.H.S. at all. Mr. Shaw always thought of the future, as well as the present.
Mr. Shaw and his family always thought of others. At the refreshments after Mr. Shaw’s funeral of 1st April 2019, there were pictures of T.B.S.H.S. which celebrated other people, events and memories.
In continuing to remember the past, live in the present and think of the future, we know, as Mr. Ian Shaw did, that our roots as a School are equally down to the brilliance, care, kindness, vision and wisdom of Mrs. Barbara Shaw.
