CHAPTER 7Two very important events were to take place in Barsetshire towards the end of July. The first was the formal opening of the exhibition of the Red Cross Hospital bookbinding which Susan had mentioned to Colin. The second was Speech Day at Southbridge School. And this was more than usually important because it marked the end of an era. Mr. Birkett would say his last words as Headmaster to the School where he had served since he was an assistant master in the Junior School. To him and his wife it had fallen to guide the School through the years of war, to receive the Hosiers’ Boys’ Foundation School evacuated from London, to send boys year after year into some form of armed or civil service, each carrying with it its own dangers; to pacify the elder boys who were afraid that the war
