Mike Weston in Voorschoten: Carer of the past
The majority of us have heard, at least once before, the infamous saying “the past makes us who we are”. While we may choose not to believe that our past traces our future, it is not fallacious to think that it is of great importance. Even if we prefer not to reflect on these lived experiences, they candidly provide a copious break from the pandemonium of today’s society when we look back at them — with a hint of nostalgia.
Roméo Buet
Voorschoten - For more than 40 years now, Mike Weston has been caring for the British School in The Netherlands archive, keeping our history alive. He is one of the few who still dedicate their time so that one day someone may look back and understand where we came from. Just like any event in history, the story of how he came to be the guardian of our past is much more convoluted than expected.
To break free from this timeline labyrinth, like any good historian, we will go back to the beginning where it all begun—from there on in chronological order. This brings us all the way back to 1972, when Mr. Weston landed on the campus of the Senior School located at the time in none other than Scheveningen. Children sung in the playground to the sound of the shrieking seagulls and he walked in to school with the other teachers to the wafting salty sea breeze.
“We knew nothing of its history, as it was always on the move. Everything got thrown away”
Over time, Mr. Weston saw numbers grow, from 500 to 1,000 in just 7 years, provoking a change that would be the turning point in Senior School Voorschoten’s (SSV) history. In 1979, a new site for the school was introduced, in none other than Voorschoten. Following the departure to SSV, the headteacher at the time asked staff member Mr. Weston if he would be interested in researching more about the origin of our school, and to our benefit he agreed heartily.
The flux of an international school posed a significant struggle for the archive master. People spread all over the world over the years, going back to their home countries. Yet with relative ease, and a few conversations with retired elderly, a picture of BSN started to form, tracing all the way back to 1948 when it reopened after the war.
The unsolved mystery that was the period before the war did not frighten this newly- appointed carer for the archive. With phone calls to the other side of the world (and a letter found in the gutter!) to the Headteacher, Mr. Weston begun to clear away the fog, which laid out the past. Despite the clues drying up more than once, Mike Weston put back the long-lost pieces of the puzzle. Luck is not to be acclaimed for this, but his meticulousness and perseverance, and most of all his kindness.
Today, we scour through the website to find all the details we may want about our history, but they came thanks to Mr Weston's endless efforts. 2022 will mark 50 admirable years for Mr. Weston at the BSN, as well as close to 40 years of being a tremendous contributing member to the Voorschoten community. On that note, thank you for keeping the history of both the BSN and Voorschoten alive and forming a path for new experiences to be recorded.