ANNETTE CHOWN Frankenstein in...
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THE OE NETWORK MAGAZINE 2016-2017 ANNETTE CHOWN Frankenstein in Bath
Transcript of ANNETTE CHOWN Frankenstein in...
THE OE NETWORK MAGAZINE
2016-2017
ANNETTE CHOWN
Frankenstein in Bath
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In this issue…FRANCIS RING
President’s welcome 3
News 4
ANNETTE CHOWN
Frankenstein in Bath 7
SIMON GLENDAY
Crafting a career 8
PAUL HIGGS Chairman’s letter 9
ROBIN BATES The Red Lancer 10
FRANK THORN
The Rambling and Mountaineering Club
MATT CROOK The survival instinct
ROGER CRUDGE
Just bananas!
JOHN GILLMORE
Life at the crossroads
Kenya became
an independent nation
in 1963, with Jomo
Kenyatta at its head,
and once again we
were at a crossroads.”
MARTIN BODEN Headmaster’s view 16
JOHN WROUGHTON The Lovell letters 24
OE news 29
In memoriam 33
School sports news Events calendar 2016-2017 36
Front cover photo: © Libby Christensen
ANTONY BLACKMORE AND MARK SHIELDS From classroom to boardroom and back 20
I don’t want
to show people as
victims, but rather,
as what they are
– survivors.”
The classes of 1977 and 1996 have also enjoyed great get-togethers at KES in recent months and, building on this appetite for ‘Class of’ reunions, we are looking forward to next year when we introduce our new Anniversary Reunion for leavers from the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, which Paul Higgs writes about in his Chairman’s Letter.
As a local resident, I do enjoy being able to come to many of the special events held by the School during the year, such as music concerts, drama productions and art exhibitions, as well as the wonderful Carol Service
and Founder’s Day Service in the Abbey, which are all a delight to attend. Whether you are local or plan to visit Bath from distant shores, do keep in touch with Claire Davies if you would like to join in. More details about both OE and school events are included in our calendar on the back page and you can also visit our web pages at www.kesbath.com/oe. To receive personal email invitations, please send your email address to [email protected]
This issue includes a great variety of articles by OEs and former staff, ranging from items of historical interest and memories of KES through to news and reports on careers that reflect the diversity of choices made by OEs after leaving King Edward’s.
Many thanks to all those who have contributed
to this edition of the ‘OElink’. Perhaps next year’s magazine
could include an item, however short, from you?”
Welcome to the 2016 edition of the OElink magazine!
It has been another active year, with OE events in London, Oxford and Bath attended by OEs of all ages, often with their partners, and joined by both current and former staff and friends of KES. The year started with a superb London Dinner in January held at L’Escargot, the oldest French restaurant in the capital. Many thanks to 2002 leaver, George Pell for hosting this event. In May we gathered amidst Oxford’s dreaming spires and enjoyed a very relaxed lunch and an afternoon of catching up at Balliol College. This was followed in June by the annual Summer Reunion for leavers from the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. This event was a great success, with over 70 guests meeting up in the School’s new Wessex Building, many returning for the first time since leaving many years before! The focus for this year’s Summer Reunion was a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the School’s expedition to Swedish Lapland. We are very grateful to expedition member, OE Chris Rapley (1965) who treated guests to a fascinating talk about the trip, accompanied by a film he had specially compiled from his original expedition footage.
GARETH DAVIES
Old Edwardians and the Great War
Francis Ring 1947-1952Top: Summer Reunion
Middle: 1966 expedition to Lapland
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CONTACT DETAILS:
Claire Davies Email: [email protected] Tel: 01225 820357 Post: Development and OEs Office, King Edward’s School, North Road, Bath BA2 6HU
Old Edwardians, King Edward’s School, Bath
Join the Old Edwardians’, Bath group
@KESBathOEs
www.kesbath.com/oe
CONTACT THE DEVELOPMENT AND OES OFFICE TO:
• Arrange a visit to the School
• Book tickets for OE events
• Request log-in details for OEs Online
• Offer careers help to the School
• Contribute news for the OE website and the OElink
• Find help in organising a reunion
• Find help in tracing old classmates
• Purchase merchandise
• Update your contact details
• Make a donation to the Annual Bursary Fund
• Pledge a legacy to the School and join the Blake Odgers Society
CURRENT EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE:
PRESIDENT Professor Francis Ring 1947-1952
CHAIRMAN Paul Higgs 1990-2000
TREASURER Geoff Staley, former staff
OE/STAFF LIAISON Mike Pell, current staff ([email protected])
SECRETARY Claire Davies, current staff
For a full list of current members, visit www.kesbath.com/oe
New committee members are always welcome! Contact: [email protected]
Lead role for Natalia Warner Natalia Warner, 2010 leaver, is playing the lead female role in Temple, a new American psychological thriller to be released this Autumn.
Temple was filmed on location in Japan by David Lynch’s production company, Absurda, alongside the producers of The Ring franchise, Mulholland Drive and Twin Peaks.
Natalia joined KES for the sixth form and studied Theatre Studies at A Level. She played Puck in the School’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Edward in Edward Scissorhands. In 2013 she played a supporting role in BAFTA award-winning director Richard Ayoade’s The Double in scenes opposite Jesse
Eisenberg (The Social Network, Batman v Superman) and Mia Wasikowska (Alice in Wonderland, Jane Eyre). This was followed by lead roles in British independent features, Learning to Breathe and Following Footsteps.
Natalia’s next project will be an American comedy, which starts filming in Los Angeles in Summer 2016, opposite T J Miller (Deadpool, Big Hero 6).
Tom Payne joins cult TV seriesOE actor Tom Payne has this year joined the cast of the cult US-based TV series, The Walking Dead, as Paul ‘Jesus’ Rovia, appearing alongside fellow Bathonian Andrew Lincoln (This Life, Teachers, Love Actually). The series is currently the top-rated show on US television.
The 2001 leaver previously played the role of a Cajun jockey in the HBO series, Luck, which starred Dustin Hoffman and Nick Nolte. Past UK TV credits include Waterloo Road, Skins, Best: His Mother’s Son, Wuthering Heights and Marple: They Do It With Mirrors. Tom has also enjoyed much success with film roles including Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (2008), The Inheritance (2012) and the lead role in The Physician (2013) where he acted alongside Ben Kingsley and Stellan Skarsgard.
A prolific contributor to the Drama Department throughout
his years at the Senior School, Tom studied at the Central
School of Speech and Drama and was named as one of Screen
International’s Stars of Tomorrow in 2007.”
Bath Old Edwardians RFCCaptain of Bath Old Edwardians RFC, Kit Chapman 2002-2013, shares news of a successful OE rugby season.
We had a slow start to the season, with the team losing their first two games. After this, we pulled our socks up and increased training to twice a week. The extra work paid off and the team came back very strongly and were unbeaten in the league for the rest of the season!
With the team playing in a structure that no one else in the league could touch, we had some memorable matches, including a win against Walcot 5-83, with OE John Carroll
scoring a hat trick, and a nail-biting end of season match against top-of-the-league side, Chew Valley, with Nick Legg scoring a length-of-the field try to secure a 14-24 victory. OE Sam Mills ran the show at fly half all season and was named Players’ Player of the Year while flanker George Cook was named Young Player of the Year.
The Old Edwardians ended the season second
in the league and are now guaranteed promotion to
Somerset North 2.”
This has enabled us to enter a second team for the forthcoming season, which means there are plenty of spaces available for new players of all abilities, shapes or sizes! If you are interested in joining the team, please contact Mark Tyrell on 07714 008022 or via www.pitchero.com/clubs/batholdedwardians.
We are not just for Winter either; this Summer we ran a touch league, open to all, down at Bathampton playing fields. Come and join us!
Scene from Temple
Scene from The Walking Dead
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This Summer I will be walking in the footsteps of Mary Shelley or, more accurately, Mary Godwin. She was 18 when she first dreamt up Frankenstein and I can’t help but think about my own footsteps
at that age, many of which were taken at KES.If you followed my footsteps around the School, you would
have found yourself in the English and History departments before treading the boards in the Wroughton Theatre as Adelaide in Sue Curtis’ production of Guys and Dolls. Keep following and you would end up fully-masked on stage, at the Bristol Old Vic, in the Ancient Greek tragedy, Antigone.
My love of acting did not end with my time at KES. I went on to train at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and have been working as an actor ever since (with a few day-jobs thrown in!). This year I will be back in Bath as I perform Frankenstein in Bath, with Show of Strength Theatre Company.
Many of you reading this will know the tale of Frankenstein’s conception, on a stormy night, at the Villa Diodati near Lake Geneva, in the presence of Byron (not the first or last conception in his presence). But how many of you realised that Mary Shelley wrote most of the first draft of the novel during her stay in Bath? Most people have no knowledge of this connection, but Frankenstein in Bath intends to highlight the role of the city in the novel’s creation and shed some light on secrets that the Shelleys and Godwins were trying to keep during their time here.
It is a performed walk, which reveals, among many things, where Mary wrote most of her novel, where her father stayed while he
tried to hush up news of her half-sister’s suicide, where Mary’s mother, Mary Wollstonecraft lived, and where her stepsister gave birth to
Lord Byron’s child, as well as what ‘The Oxford Guide to Literary Britain’ got wrong.” Annette also writes a blog:
Downstagewrite.blogspot.co.uk
The debut, described by one critic as “a mesmerising and magnetic coming-of-age tale”, stars well-known stage and screen actress Juliet Stevenson
(Truly, Madly, Deeply, Bend It Like Beckham) and young actor Alex Lawther (The Imitation Game) as a troubled mother and son preparing
for the sale of the family’s remote holiday house in the South of France.
After studying at the Central School of Speech and Drama, Andrew initially worked as an actor before setting up a production company, The Motion Arts Group, for which he directed theatre and opera productions including Over Gardens
Out by Peter Gill, The Lighthouse by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies and Peter Brook’s version of Bizet’s La Tragédie de Carmen. In 2005, he directed and co-produced, with the Old Vic and the National Theatre of Baghdad, a new bilingual version of Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale with a cast of actors and musicians from Britain and Iraq.
Andrew set up Motion Group Pictures in 2009, writing and directing four short-films before Departure. His next project is inspired by the work of Polish composer Górecki, and is a feature about fathers, sons and music. It all began, however, at KES where he was tutored by Sue Curtis and Jill Ross and for whom he acted in numerous productions including playing Sydney Carton in A Tale of Two Cities. In his gap year, he and Sue Curtis wrote and staged at KES their millennial play, The Fool, and Andrew also directed The Tempest by William Shakespeare.
Andrew Steggall 1992-1997, has written and directed his first feature film, the British Film Institute-funded Departure, which was released to critical acclaim in the UK earlier this year.
Annette Chown 2000-2002 explains how her new role is a journey around Bath and back in time.
The show runs every night, rain or shine, from 16 June (200 years after Mary had the dream that inspired Frankenstein) until 30 September, and I am one of the performers who will be alternating over the run.
When I am not walking the streets of Bath, I will be touring country houses and castles across the UK with GB Theatre Company’s productions of Romeo and Juliet and As You Like It, playing Nurse and Jaques. Having studied Tudor History at KES, I will be especially excited to visit locations such as Kentwell Hall and Arundel Castle.
As an actor, I am used to walking in other people’s shoes. However, performing Shakespeare, I am acutely aware that I have been left some very big shoes to fill, as I follow in the footsteps of many great actors! But, whether it’s Shakespeare or Shelley, I know every step takes me further along my own path as an actor and, whilst I don’t know where the path will take me, wherever it is, I think I should invest in a pedometer!
Top image: © Libby Christensen
Reunion for the class of 1996
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Welcome to another edition of the OElink. If you read my letter in the last edition you
will realise that I made a mistake, although I was not aware of it at the time! Clearly the last edition was not my last as Chairman, as I then believed, and so I am able to write to you all again to encourage your ongoing support for the School and our KES OEs network.
Our calendar is an ever-expanding and changing feast for Old Edwardians and this year we have seen a number of reunions taking place, including year reunions for the classes of 1977 and 1996. In 2017 we will be launching our new Anniversary Reunion, beginning with the classes of 1987, 1997 and 2007 on 13 May. This is a great opportunity to see the changes to the School but also to catch up with people you may not have seen for years. Please contact Claire Davies if you could be a representative for one of these year groups and help us to rally your year together. Also we realise that many OEs have friends in different year groups, so if you have OE friends in one of these anniversary years, but were in a different leaving year yourself, you are warmly invited to join friends at this event.
In my last letter I asked you to consider making a financial pledge to help support
less-advantaged children to benefit from KES’ excellent standards, not only in education but in extra-curricular activities. I myself had pledged to donate £10 per month to the Annual Bursary Fund and asked you to join me, by making either a single donation or a regular commitment. The response from the OE community was excellent and we have seen a significant increase in both regular and one-off donations in the last 12 months.
We have exceeded our target of raising sufficient funds to provide the equivalent of one
full year’s fees for one child.”
This is an amazing response and I would like to thank all of you who have contributed this year, no matter the size of your donation.
However, when we originally set out on this path of bursary fundraising we set ourselves the inspiring target of providing seven fully-funded places per year (one for every year group). We are still some distance from this and I hope that many more of you will join us in making donations. In fact I hope that last year’s donors might even
consider increasing or repeating their contributions so that we can continue to increase the number of OE-supported places in the School.
For the past 12 months I have been making a donation of £10 per month to the School. This year I am going to double that amount to £20. With Gift Aid, this will contribute £300 per year to the Bursary Fund. If you will pledge to be one of an additional 88 OEs to contribute a further £10 per month, together we shall fund another child to receive a year’s education, every year! Join me in becoming part of this legacy and help KES to benefit children of all backgrounds. Please get in touch today with the School’s Development Director, Karen Teague, at [email protected] to find out about the many ways in which you can support the School.
Finally, it is my pleasure to thank all of you in the OE community who have contributed in some way this year. I am really proud of the way we have been able to support the pupils of the School over the past few years, not only financially but also through careers advice and other time commitments. I wish you all the best for your endeavours in the coming year. Please keep us updated with your news and on any exciting things you may be doing.
Simon left King Edward’s in 2002 and, after taking a gap year, studied Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Manchester, where
he was awarded a scholarship to study for a further Masters degree in Corrosion Control Engineering. Following graduation, however, he came to the conclusion that a career in engineering wasn’t really for him and so headed instead to Australia with two friends in search of self-discovery.
During his time there Simon ‘fell’, as he puts it, into a marketing role with Australia Post and, upon returning to the UK a year later, embarked on a career in advertising with several Manchester-based agencies including JWT and TBWA. Whilst enjoying his work in advertising, Simon felt he had yet to find his true vocation and throughout this period he kept up his long-standing interest in leathercraft. It wasn’t long before friends and colleagues began asking for their own versions of the wallets, belts and accessories he had been making for himself. Word continued to spread until the orders were flooding in!
In 2013, boosted by the interest in his leathercraft, Simon decided to set up his own company and last year he took the plunge and left his role in advertising to concentrate on the business full-time.
From day one, Simon has been managing the majority of tasks associated with running a small business himself. As well as designing and producing all of his products, he does all his own photography, packs, copy writing and despatches all the items from his workshop based in Manchester. In addition to the practical skills Simon learnt both as a pupil at KES and later at university, his background in marketing has proved to be invaluable.
He is determined to stay true to his original values, with all items in his product range, including wallets, purses, card holders, belts and accessories, being crafted by
hand using only the highest-quality, locally-sourced natural materials. All the leather is sourced from a nearby farm which uses environmentally friendly methods handed down through the generations. His belt buckles and hardware are cast using traditional methods in a foundry in Walsall and he uses natural linen thread, produced in the UK, which he waxes by hand using natural beeswax to add durability. There are no machines in his workshop; Simon makes each item individually by hand.
The business is going from strength to strength and last December he gained a small business award from Theo Paphitis, best known for his role on BBC2’s Dragons’ Den. With a clear vision for his company’s future, Simon is building on this success and is currently working with a number of online retailers to reach a wider customer base and to further establish his brand, whilst developing new products to add to his growing range.
“Deciding to pursue my true calling and quit the rat race has been the best decision I’ve ever made, though it’s not been without its challenges. I would not be where I am now without the grounding I gained from King Edward’s and the opportunities that my time at the School has created for me. My advice to young Edwardians is not to be afraid to follow your dreams and to seize every opportunity available to you at King Edward’s.”
Crafting a careerSimon Glenday 1996-2002 has turned his hobby into an award-winning business.
There comes a time when you need to
throw caution to the wind and start doing
what you love. Leather & Thread was born and I’ve never looked back.”
Simon Glenday 1996-2002
FAVOURITE SCHOOL MEMORY
My friend, William Snelling, accidently smashing a window after an English class and his face upon realising what he’d done!
Find out more at: www.leatherandthread.co.uk
25% discount on all items for OEs using discount code KES25
Chairman’s letterPaul Higgs 1990-2000
Class of 1996 reunion with former staff
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of France – and the scourge of Europe. I discovered The Anatomy of Glory by Lachouque and Brown and found the focus we needed: the Red Lancer of Napoleon’s Imperial Guard would be the leitmotif of our enterprise.
In May 1984, I flew to London to bid on John Hannington’s collection of toy soldiers and models at Phillips. These successful bids formed the base for launching The Red Lancer in the USA several weeks later. At that time, there were few sources in this vast country for antiquities of the sort still to be found in Britain. The veterans of World War Two, and the younger generation, began to assemble large collections of old toy soldiers, decorative and variable.
We had arrived at the height of a breaking wave
of collecting mania and the Phillips cache did not last long
– it flew off our shelves.”
The wave allowed for expansion and the window of opportunity encouraged us to enlarge our portfolio to include military books, prints, paintings and consulting services. Sales at ‘antique’ shows and several product catalogues each year widened our client base. Our love of fine leather bindings led to book-binding services using expert craftsmen from Bath in the process.
Robin Bates 1945-1947 emigrated to Canada in 1968 and then to the USA, before finally settling in Arizona in 1980. Here he describes the inspiration which led him to set up The Red Lancer, a business trading in artefacts and memorabilia from the Napoleonic era.
A short time later, a client asked us to assist in the sale of
his collection of rare Napoleonic military artefacts and we
jumped at this opportunity.”
French and British swords and firearms, uniforms, helmets and headgear, prints, paintings and books, orders, medals and accoutrements, all arrived on our doorstep in the years following. Lovingly preserved or bearing the hallmarks of many wanderings and transactions, all were welcome, some to remain with us but most to find new homes with those who shared our interest and passion. From time to time, great rarities appeared, such as the hunting musket by Lepage, presented to Marshal Ney by Napoleon; Marshal Davout’s sabre, captured in Russia during the retreat from Moscow in 1812; Napoleon’s silver cup from his toilet set, captured at Waterloo. These, and many other memorabilia of the era, have passed through our doors.
During his lifetime, the Duke of Wellington was renowned for a sixth sense that allowed him to unlock the hidden secrets of the terrain on which he fought his battles. His staff and commanders were in awe of his eye and instinct for anticipating the movements of the enemy and the lie of the land on ‘the other side of the hill’. Although a child during World War Two, I later developed a keen interest in ‘the other
side of the hill’ in this war and, while not within the general Red Lancer context, discovered the aviation art of Robert Taylor and developed an inventory of his limited-edition aviation prints. Virginia Bader (a cousin of Douglas Bader, the legless RAF Battle of Britain ace) promoted in California a series of symposiums featuring Robert’s art and a discussion panel of top fighter aces from Britain, Germany and the USA. We seized the opportunity to relax with these heroes of our age, dining and reminiscing with General Adolf Galland, General Günther Rall, Air-Vice Marshal ‘Johnnie’ Johnson, Wing Commander Geoffrey Page, the crew of the Memphis Belle and many more. It was the chance of a lifetime. Truly, a view from ‘the other side of the hill’.
www.redlancer.comIn recent years, Robin and his wife Heather had an incredible life-altering experience when they found themselves stranded in the Mojave Desert.
Robin’s account of their desert journey can be read at: www.kesbath.com/oe
Having spent 30 years working in HR and then as a Head Hunter for MSL in the UK, Canada and the USA,
by the early 1980s I had reached a point where it was time to consider alternative interests and seek new horizons. Historical events and personalities, human accomplishments and structures, antique relics and artefacts had long fascinated me and I decided that it should be possible to harness these interests in the form of a viable business venture that would occupy my energies for the second part of life. And so it was that The Red Lancer emerged from the mists of these deliberations.
But what would be its focus? My family lived for music, especially the Baroque and Classical eras and masterworks; I had discovered Beethoven and was thrilled by the giant, heroic and bloody march of events that must have inspired him. From the ashes of the Revolution, Napoleon had emerged as the saviour
Far left: Painting by Lucien Rousselot of Marshal Murat at the Battle of Eylau, 1807
Left: French Officer’s helmet, Cheveu Leger Lanciers, c.1812
Above and below: Images of Marshal Davout’s sabre
Above: Robin with General Günther Rall
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My best memories of KES were playing sport, including 1st XV rugby, 1st team hockey and 2nd
XI cricket, but my destination after leaving school was to train in various aspects of pathology at the RUH. This was ‘hands-on’, with some teaching at Bristol Technical College. The course incorporated National Service during which training was continued and included a posting to the Middle East which, at that time, although not evident to me, was the ‘Crossroads of the World’. Many changes were soon to come, with massive development in the oil industry and superpower rivalry seeking to control both access and supply. There were opportunities to work in the Persian Gulf and visit Somaliland and Ethiopia. (Bath, of course, was home to the Emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie, during the years 1936-1941.)
This course led, in time, to an appointment in Kenya with the Government Medical Department and Maureen and I were married just before our departure in 1959. Finding ourselves posted to Mombasa was something of a culture shock, particularly for Maureen, but we settled rapidly and had two years coping with various anaemias, parasitic diseases and getting a primitive blood bank off the ground. One of the difficulties with this project was the ill-based suspicion that Europeans were using native blood to grow tomatoes! We eventually had a measure of success with school and college communities. To have even a small amount of blood on hand altered the outlook for surgery and the treatment of emergencies.
All this had to be seen against the background of the end of the Mau Mau Uprising and the political and national changes resulting from this. Subsequent transfers to Nairobi and Nakuru meant, among other things, taking part in research, treating cancers of the head and neck, which were very common in the African population, and developing early forms of chemotherapy. It was during this time that I met, firstly, John Ireland (who was serving with the East African Rifles) and later Ken Arnsby (who was with the British Army), both of whom I had known at KES.
One of the major projects at that time was the investigation and treatment of Burkitt’s lymphoma, subsequently found to be caused by the same virus that causes glandular fever in Caucasian populations. It was also interesting to discover patients suffering from bleeding diatheses, such as haemophilia, not previously recognised in Africa.
It was not a matter of all work and no play. We had times of recreation with our children, Jane and Mark (both born in Kenya) and the possibility of safari to different parts of the country to pursue our interest in the incidence and natural history of the many species of animals, birds and even insects, such as the aggressive bee population. One of the highlights was the proximity of Lake Nakuru and seeing the vista of millions of flamingo and other species.
Kenya became an independent nation in 1963,
with Jomo Kenyatta at its head, and once again we
were at a crossroads.”
Many chose some form of relocation, but it was also a chance to re- evaluate our direction. I was given the opportunity of further study at the University of Bristol Medical School so we moved back to the West Country and I qualified in Medicine in 1970.
After early appointments in Bath, Bristol and Cardiff, I entered general practice in Nailsea in 1972. At the time this was one of the government-sponsored growth towns and had expanded from a village of 3,000 to a small town of about 7,500 by 1972. There were times when we felt that
we were working in a gigantic building site! We had a rapid turnover of patients, many staying for only three to six months. In the early days there was a lack of community facilities and the problem amongst young families of loneliness and lack of wider family support, the consequences of which were often depression and anxiety. There was also a large elderly community to look after. We were very busy, but settled and happy, and made many friends in both the community and the local church. Through the church, we had several opportunities to visit Israel, including a sabbatical in 1990, just at the time when Saddam Hussein entered Kuwait, culminating in the Gulf War. It was a very tense time, but we learned much from and about our hosts.
When I retired, I joined the Christian Friends of Israel, an organisation which helps Christians to understand the biblical relationship between Israel and the church and to reconnect with the Hebraic roots of their faith, as well as seeking to give a truthful and balanced perspective on events in the Middle East. I was actively involved for 18 years, which included further visits to Israel and spending several years as a trustee in which we sought to break down barriers and to help build bridges of genuine friendship with Israel and the UK Jewish community.
1952 was a pivotal year for John Gillmore 1946-1952. Not only was there a change of government and a new monarch, but it was also the year he left KES and was launched into the big, wide world!
We sought to break down barriers and to help build bridges of genuine friendship
with Israel and the UK Jewish community.”
Roman aqueduct in Caesarea, Israel
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themselves. That’s not the kind of image you’ll see on a TV advert asking for £3 a month, but that’s the difference between reality and marketing.
There was a time when I might have written about the resilience of the people of the Philippines or tried to put across how inspiring they are in the face of adversity. But if there’s one thing I learnt in the nine or so years I spent in Southeast Asia it’s that people survive. I’m not just talking about surviving a typhoon; I mean any kind of situation that puts a person to the test. We do what we need to do and then, we get to live.
And that’s what they were doing there in Mindanao. They were dealing with what life had thrown at them. You stop calling it amazing once you realise there’s really no choice when you’re in that kind of situation. You do what you have to and when that’s not enough, someone will hopefully be there to support you.
It was the same in Nepal after last year’s massive earthquake. I was out in the hills in Dolakha district where I met a young woman named Nimdiki who had walked for two days by herself to get to a health centre so she could deliver her third child – immediately after the earthquake! Nimdiki was quick to brush off my dumbfounded adulation.
“I knew the way to come when I was in labour because I’ve been here twice before.”
It was as simple as that. She hadn’t done it to earn respect or kudos. She needed to bring her child into the world safely and that’s all there was to it.
We all do what we need to do to survive; we just come from different places. I never realised that when I was at school, but it kind of makes sense now.
Matt Crook 1994-2001 works for the Campaign to Protect Rural England. From 2011 to 2016, he was with Plan International, one of the oldest and largest non-profit children’s development organisations in the world. He reveals how the human instinct to survive and thrive can transcend the most devastating of natural disasters.
Matt Crook 1994-2001FAVOURITE SCHOOL MEMORY
Going to the Bath Festival for the first time, trying to buy alcohol and ending up with a bottle of Babycham. I wasn’t quite ready for the big league.
FURTHER EDUCATION
• University of Sheffield: Biblical Studies, BA
• SOAS, University of London: Southeast Asian Studies, MA
CAREER
• Digital Comms Editor for the Campaign to Protect Rural England
• Formerly Global Press Officer (Asia and the Americas) for Plan International
LOCATION
London
CONTACT
www.mattcrook.me
there to tell the stories of those people who have been affected, creating content that we can use in the media or for fundraising campaigns or to show what we’re doing. It’s not a poverty porn thing, though; I don’t want to show people as victims, but rather, as what they are – survivors. More on that in a sec.
We emerged from the hills and were cruising along the coast to our rendezvous point when we saw a bunch of kids playing basketball on the road. The Philippines is a basketball-crazed nation and that even goes for typhoon-ravaged Mindanao.
The basket these children were using had been
cobbled together out of old bits of wood and metal. It had
somehow withstood the typhoon or else been propped up once
the winds had passed.”
They were throwing a little ball around and dunking like Michael Jordan on this ring that couldn’t have been more than about seven feet off the ground, but they were having a whale of a time. We stopped and chatted to some of the villagers to see how they were getting on, but it wasn’t long before we were shooting a few hoops with the kids, who proudly showed us their best moves.
It’s probably not a scene you’d expect to find in a disaster zone. People’s homes had been wrecked just a couple of days before, and here were the children playing, laughing, having fun, just being
We’d been driving for what felt like an eternity, over hills and through valleys. The cool early morning
gave way to the usual uncomfortable mugginess the Philippines is renowned for. The scenery was beautiful: captivating rice paddies, towering coconut trees and ramshackle huts made out of wood and bamboo. Some kind of paradise, perhaps.
But there was a moment when the scenery, and with it the mood, changed dramatically. All I could see was absolute devastation. It looked like a tsunami had flattened everything in its path.
Houses had been reduced to piles of rubble; massive trees uprooted as if they were toothpicks; roofs ripped from atop churches and dumped hundreds of metres away; the exposed steel of huge billboards twisted and turned like some kind of barbaric torture device.
You probably saw some of these images on TV. I was in Mindanao, the
southernmost major island of the Philippines – a country of islands that has endured some of the most devastating typhoons the world has ever seen. This was the aftermath of Typhoon Bopha, which had been given the deceptively jovial name of ‘Pablo’ locally.
More than 1,000 people died and more than a billion dollars of damage was done when Pablo’s 175mph winds smashed into Mindanao not long before Christmas in 2012.
So there we were, driving through the carnage as people wandered around trying to salvage what they could from what used to be their homes. I was there because I was working for a non-profit organisation, Plan International, which operates in Mindanao and across the Philippines. We had sent in a team to assess the damage and to figure out how we could best support the Government to respond to the disaster.
My role is communications, so I go into these situations as a kind of reporter. I’m
Top: An 11 year old girl in Nepal carries a basket on her head
Above: Matt in the Philippines
Far left: Boys play basketball by the side of the road in Boston municipality Philippines
Left: Victims of the earthquake in Nepal
Images: © Matt Crook/Plan International
16 17
It has been a pleasure catching up with so many Old Edwardians during the course of the academic year. 2016 has already seen
a run of really enjoyable events: a memorable London Dinner at L’Escargot, a wonderful reunion lunch at Balliol College, Oxford, and a number of gatherings at school in the recent Summer months, including a great turnout for the annual Summer Reunion in the new Wessex Building. A notable highlight of this last event was a presentation by Professor Chris Rapley on a ground-breaking school expedition to Swedish Lapland exactly 50 years ago, complete with Chris’ own cinefilm footage from the time (in colour, no less!). It was wonderful to have several members of the expedition crew back together at school for the day and to be able to reflect on a spirit of enquiry and adventure that the modern generations of King Edward’s pupils remain very keen to embrace today; with sporting, charitable and adventurous trips to South Africa, Tanzania and the mountainous north Indian region of Ladakh lined up in the next two years, it is clear that the pioneers of 1966 have worthy successors half a century on. If only the same could be said of our national football team…
As with those reunions mentioned above, the latest edition of the OElink magazine brings together former pupils and staff from across many generations, indeed this year spanning seven decades of membership of King Edward’s. As always, it is so uplifting to read tales of enterprise, adventure and success,
both in Bath and across the globe, and I am very grateful to those of you who have shared your stories with us. The link between King Edward’s and its alumni feels as strong as it has ever been, and the support that the OE community gives to the School – through careers and higher education advice, work experience placements and very generous bursary donations, to name just some areas – is much appreciated.
Life at North Road over the past year has been as busy as ever; we kicked off the latest academic cycle with another record-breaking set of public examination results (including 68% A*/A at A Level, again ranking King Edward’s amongst the top 50 independent schools in the country) and signed things off with another marvellously varied and wonderfully vibrant set of trips and events during our annual Activities Week. In between times, the pupils and staff have again thrown themselves into the many different challenges and opportunities that present themselves here with customary gusto, and it is notable that we now have over 80 different clubs and societies running each term, meaning that there is almost certainly something for everyone to get their teeth into!
Although we did not have to welcome the ISI Inspectors this year, we did enjoy our visit from the Good Schools Guide just before Christmas and, in particular, the glowing report which followed: “This is a school which achieves its exceptionally high standards by support and inspiration… The atmosphere is relaxed and constructive, which probably explains why the results are
so impressive. Parents say teachers have the knack of identifying an area where a pupil can shine, and the confidence gained infuses everything else… High standards are expected and achieved, but the achievement is grounded in confidence, trust and support rather than academic pressure… Everything is directed towards the well-being of pupils; no wonder they enjoy their education and do so well in it.” I hope that you agree that this is high praise indeed, and we are quietly proud, as King Edward’s embarks upon its 465th year, to reflect on how the School seems to be going from strength to strength.
I am delighted that so many OEs continue to share
so actively in that journey, and I wish you all well, wherever
you may be in the world.”
Martin BodenAbove: The Headmaster with Professor Chris Rapley (fourth from left) and members of the 1966 expedition to Lapland.
Above: The 2016 Ten Tors teams on Dartmoor
18 19
Looking back over the 25 years since I left King
Edward’s, I am so glad I chose a career based on a subject
I am passionate about rather than a more traditional
profession. I love my job and also the journey I have taken to get to where I am today.”
a nearby dairy farm (incidentally, the farm of Geoff Bowles, also an Old Edwardian) and it was at this point in my life that I began to take an interest in agriculture. My first Summer at Ivy House Farm was a dream come true: days spent outside in the countryside, big machinery, animals, fields of growing crops, harvest time and, of course, lots of cups of tea, and fish and chips. What started as a short-term holiday job led to weekend work and eventually became the impetus to study for a BSc in Agriculture and the Environment at the then Wye College*, of London University.
I graduated from Wye in 1995 and, after a short spell on a sheep farm in Aberdeenshire, I went to Africa where I spent five months working on a tobacco plantation in Zimbabwe. On my return to England I joined a management trainee scheme in the fresh produce business, completing my training with a large company specialising in importing, shipping, ripening and distributing tropical fruit, in particular bananas and pineapples. It quickly became clear to me that I had found my niche.
I have now spent nearly 20 years working with bananas, starting on the warehouse floor at a small ripening centre in Leicestershire, and steadily working my way up to my current position of UK Quality Control Manager. In 2002 I was posted to Central America and spent five years living in Costa Rica and Belize, learning the local language
(Spanish) along with all aspects of banana farming, exporting and shipping, as well the responsibilities of a British ex-pat representing a large multinational company whilst living and working overseas.
After a short spell back in the UK I spent two years travelling extensively throughout Colombia, furthering my understanding of the banana business and getting to know what has become, after England, my second favourite country. I found myself heavily involved in both Fairtrade and organic bananas, and countries such as the Dominican Republic and Peru came under my remit.
Over the last few years I have had a number of assignments, not only to Central and South America, but also to Africa, namely Cote d’Ivoire, Mozambique and Uganda, but the key objective has always been the same: just bananas.
My role now is largely based around quality control, although I am also involved in auditing and customer relations. I spend almost half the year in hotels, varying from the most luxurious to the very basic. My work takes me from plant nurseries, plantations and packing houses throughout the banana-producing world to ships,
container terminals and ports. I follow the banana from its ripening cycle and packing process to the consumer. It is a fascinating product and luckily extremely popular, the best-selling fruit in the UK.
When we buy our bananas, most of us don’t appreciate that it has taken around nine months for the plant to grow and produce a bunch ready for harvest. Nor are we aware of the correct terminology to use when referring to our favourite fruit. Today we generally buy bananas either as a single finger or a cluster of between three and seven fingers, loose or pre-packed in bags. Hands and even bunches are no longer shipped, and yet almost every day I hear people claim that they have just bought a lovely bunch of bananas from their local shop. A bunch is the entire stem of around 100-150 fingers (between eight to ten hands) and can weigh anything up to 40kg. Even our most loyal customers don’t eat that many in a week!
I am very much looking forward to reaching my 25-year milestone in this industry, as well as being able to say I have been to 50 countries. As to my sporting achievements, whilst in Belize I twice took part in the famous ‘La Ruta Maya’, a 175-mile canoe race on the Belize River over the course of four days.
The news that I had decided upon a future in the agricultural industry received a mixed reaction at King Edward’s
School back in 1992. I am sure many of my contemporaries and teachers thought that, after such a privileged education, I should have stretched myself and considered a more ambitious career – perhaps medicine, dentistry, veterinary science or even law. Few would have imagined me as a farmer, and fewer still could have pictured me driving a tractor, milking cows or lambing sheep.
I joined King Edward’s from a small village primary school over 10 miles from Bath, and only knew the city for its old buildings and stunning surrounding countryside. At the tender age of 11, I had little idea what it would be like to study at King Edward’s, at that time an all-boys school with a strong focus on academic excellence and sporting achievements, let alone what path I would take when I left.
I was never a keen sportsman, and indeed spent much of my time in the early years avoiding any kind of physical activity. Neither rugby nor hockey was for me, and it was only when I reached the sixth form, when we could choose to play badminton or other slightly less strenuous sports, that I began enjoying games lessons. Even then I wasn’t very good.
After completing my GCSEs I had a long Summer holiday with little to do to occupy myself. I started working on
Recently I took up running and am close to completing my 50th Park Run, not bad for someone who shied away from the games field all those years ago.
Looking back over the 25 years since I left King Edward’s, I am so glad I chose a career based on a subject I am passionate about rather than a more traditional profession. I love my job and also the journey I have taken to get to where I am today. Indeed, when people ask me what I do for work, I am proud to tell them: I am a Bananaman.
* Wye has sadly now closed after over 100 years as the School of Agriculture within the University of London.
Contact: [email protected]
Living and working abroad has and always will be
something that excites me. The hot humid climate of the tropics
can often be far from glamorous, but there is no substitute for actually going to visit these countries as the best way of
understanding how an industry such as the one I have chosen
to work in really operates.”Roger Crudge 1985-1992 shares how he followed his passions and now travels the world with his dream job.
Transporting banana bunches by bicycle, Uganda
Roger at a banana farm, Uganda
21
OE PRO
FILE
20
Development Studies. Louise Formela-Osborne, John Tidball and Wendy Fletcher are teachers Antony cites as being a strong influence in his decision to become a teacher and pursue a career in education. Whilst at KES, both Mark and Antony, undertook an extended work experience at the (now-redeveloped) Lime Grove Special School in Widcombe to help disadvantaged children gain in skills and confidence. This experience contributed to the focus of their current work and remains with them today.
Both well-travelled, Mark and Antony say their desire to explore the world both before and during their careers stems much from teachers’ encouragement to take gap years and expand their horizons. After Antony completed his teaching qualifications, he took up a voluntary teaching position in Malawi, working in a rural school and in the surrounding area. He returned to the South West in 2010 to begin his teaching career at the John Bentley School in Calne. Whilst there he benefited greatly from the experience and expertise of OE, Adrian Roberts (1989), and progressed to the position of Assistant Headteacher.
Mark also spent time in Africa where, over two Summers, he worked in Zimbabwe for the country’s opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change. He subsequently developed his career by working in partnership with the Ministry of Rural Development in India to place over 8,000 impoverished young people in sustainable work. More recently, he was Director of Operations at a FTSE-100 company, running a traineeship programme which supported unemployed young people aged between 18 and 24 into apprenticeships in the financial services sector.
Antony and Mark would welcome the opportunity to discuss their work with any Old Edwardians who may be interested in finding out more and can be contacted at www.simpact.solutions or their email addresses (see profiles).
After 20 years of friendship, forged on the rugby fields of Bathampton and in the classrooms of Q Block, Mark Shields 1993-2000
and Antony Blackmore 1989-2000 have combined to set up Simpact Solutions, a social enterprise business to help disadvantaged
young people across the South West.Antony Blackmore
UNIVERSITY
• University of Sheffield: Sociology, BA Hons
• PGCE in English• Prof Certificate in
Management
PERSONAL
• Brothers Matthew (1995) and Edward (1997)
• Last ‘youngest pupil in the School’ from Broad Street to hold the School Charter for the Head Boy to read at Founder’s Day.
CONTACT
Mark and Antony joined forces in 2015 to bring together the experience and knowledge gained
from their diverse careers to date and harness their collective talents and motivations. Founded by Mark and joined in July by former Assistant Headteacher, Antony, the Bristol-based business has quickly grown.
As Managing Director, Mark heads the Business Services side of Simpact, which works to support the growth of small businesses and charities operating in the employment, education, skills and health sectors, by working with them to secure and implement new business contracts. The profits from this are then re-invested into the Simpact Talent Foundation, led by Antony who, as the company’s Director of Education and Skills, works with disadvantaged young people across the South West to fulfil their potential and give them better life chances and opportunities when they finish school. Using a combination of soft skill engagement, aspirational development and support so that they can engage and achieve in school, the Forward Motion programme helps to develop young people so that they can succeed at school and look forward to a more positive future.
Currently operating in Bristol and Wiltshire, the programme is on track to reach 100 pupils (aged 11-16) this year, who will all have benefited from the unique combination of professional dance workshops, individual music lessons and classroom-based confidence building.
Mark and Antony both joined King Edward’s Senior School in 1993. Mark, arrived with his twin brother, Ross, from High Littleton Primary and Antony from the Junior School, as part of the last cohort from Broad Street, to join his older brothers, Matthew and Edward.
Friends throughout their school years, they enjoyed their time at KES immensely. Both were guided by the wise words of John Turner, Val Mead and Peter Simonds, amongst many others. John Turner’s advice certainly directed Mark towards his study of Politics and Philosophy and his later MSc in
Both Mark and Antony still retain close links with Bath and look back with great fondness on their time at King Edward’s. They both now appreciate that the experiences they
gained both in and out of the classroom at KES have helped to drive their work and fulfil their ambitions today. They feel that there are many KES teachers past and present who deserve
their gratitude and, in hindsight, a fair few who probably deserve their apologies too!”
Mark Shields UNIVERSITY
• University of Sheffield: Politics and Philosophy, BA Hons
• SOAS, University of London: Development Studies, MSc
CONTACT
SHARED FAVOURITE SCHOOL MEMORIES
Playing rugby at Bathampton on Saturday mornings; evading staff whilst playing British Bulldog on the grass banks; the ever-interesting experiences of life in the Sixth Form Centre.
King Edward’s School 1st XV Rugby Team 1999Back row left to right: Chris Walker, Dominic White, Jonathan Oakey, Roland Fairman, Barnaby Henshaw-Depledge Middle row left to right: Mr B Packer, Oliver Herbert, Jermaine Harvey, Oliver Taylor, Oliver Williams, Joe Goodman, Matthew Hobbs, Peter Gray Front row left to right: Oliver Sawyer, George Chapman, Oliver O’Hanlon, Kim Watson, Antony Blackmore, Mark Shields, Matthew Lewis
22 23
The Rambling and Mountaineering Club The Watson years 1971-1979
Many OEs who were taught Classics by Dr Frank Thorn during his 34 years at KES will remember his inspiring and energetic teaching style, but many former members of the School will also recall the 180-plus legendary outdoor pursuit trips which he ran over three decades in Britain and France. Here he tells how it all began…
The ‘Club’ was conceived on the purple leather upholstery of the Pulteney Arms over several pints of beer with my
colleague Brian Watson. It replaced caving as the one KES outdoor pursuit. ‘Mountaineering’ was soon dropped, as it frightened the insurers, but the club became much more than ‘rambling’ and ‘hill-walking’. Brian was experienced on British and foreign mountains and brought zest, imaginative route-planning and a spirit of adventure to enthuse pupils. I was stolid, administrative, less experienced, but enjoyed bad weather and all-night walking without a lamp.
The first trip, in July 1971, combined my tutor group with Brian’s 3 Alpha. To teach the latter was like conducting an orchestra of Cossacks but I secretly admired their over-brimming energy,
large personalities and sense of fun. The route – the full width of the Forest of Dean from Bream to Symonds Yat – was probably the only one we ever reconnoitred. We were advised by Hugh Bungay who, as an ex-vicar, was generally regarded as a paragon of moral rectitude, that he knew a ‘little watering hole’ which would slake the boys’ thirst.
Thereafter we simply posted a club notice every month inviting third-formers and above. It began tentatively: the Mendips, the Quantocks, Cranborne Chase. February of 1972 found us in North Devon and April in North Wales. Little by little it became a real club. The first members stayed and matured and helped the newcomers acclimatise.
Our first camp, in May 1972, was in the Black Mountains, where an unremitting wind set the nerves on edge. We
weren’t then the all-weathers group we became; seeking refuge from the Mistral effect, we watched Tora! Tora! Tora! and Bedazzled at an Abergavenny cinema. The second camp, in August 1972, was to the Pysgotwr Valley north of Llandovery, on the southern edge of a vast mountainous emptiness. Here there was evening mad-midge hour, when millions came to bite and die in the hot embrace of the Tilley lamps, masking their light. Simon Pryce ‘liberated’, and we cooked, a salmon for breakfast. In October 1972 we were at Ystumtuen, in unceasing rain though the hostel was without water. Lost in a sylvan valley, we asked said Simon to sight the way by climbing a tree (he later became an arboriculturalist) and it gently fell, depositing him on the other side of a river in spate.
Parents were greatly supportive and could not fathom
why their sons would not walk to the shops but would happily
yomp through muddy bogs.”
We began to take sisters and younger brothers. A pattern developed: day trips crossed the Severn, February was in mid-Wales, Easter in the Lakes, Summer in the Pyrenees, October in North Wales. In mid-Wales in February we usually had the hostels to ourselves. Hostel rules chafed but we were not then ready for camping barns or backpacking.
Our club, with a core of faithful members, grew resourceful and hardy. They were cheerful, they sang, their morale was high and they kept moving whatever the conditions. The unarticulated aim of those years was aventure sans frontières: longer, harder, higher; making new routes, crawling off-piste through forests, climbing waterfalls, scree-running, slag-heap glissading, scrambling, boulder-hopping, wading through rivers and walking on high mountains in rain, wind and snow. We trusted our members and their instinct for survival. Our parties were the dirtiest, but the happiest. They were also incredibly competent on the knife-edges of Striding Edge and Crib Goch where once, in mist and a snow that turned
to ice under a footfall, we rescued six London policemen on a boys’ day out, who were sitting forlorn in a gap before a celebrated mauvais pas, waiting for something to happen. We climbed Coniston Old Man by our special gully route when people were descending, warning that progress was impossible. And, truly, there was a mother of gales on the misty, iced-up final ridge. We attached the heavier to the lighter and Brian and I had to leap up and grab a lad as the wind filled his cagoule and he lifted off. That day we saved a man from Sussex and his daughter who were shivering in flip-flops and ‘waiting for the rescue services’. He observed that it wasn’t quite like Beachy Head.
In many ways Brian and I were redressing balances. Walking could be seen as a heavy trudge and we wanted it to be a joy. We strode light, without excessive food, water and clothing. We changed plans at will. We cooked as little as possible. As a youngster I had been appalled by the arrogant and aggressive aloofness of some of my teachers and I knew that, in the classroom and on a mountain, hierarchies had to be flatter and relationships warmer and more relaxed.
There are so many memories that flood back with digital-picture clarity. A freezing New Year 1973 at Tregaron, an old corrugated-iron school house with a left-hand stream for drinking and a right-hand for washing and evacuation. Some mountains were so boring that
they were a ‘never again’: Plynlimon and Moelwyn Bach, the Welsh for ‘tedious’, boringly conquered after a confrontation with an armed member of the Free Wales Army. Jonathan Gilligan, plunging into an icy lake in the bole of Helvellyn and disappearing into the mist. My humiliation at climbing the wrong peak of Cader Idris: “But sir, that one’s higher!” Crouching, heads down, on a scree-slope, waiting for a violent electrical storm to pass. And the all-time favourites, Tryfan, The Glyders, Y Garn, done by the hardest routes, chimneying and free climbing.
Between 1971 and 1979 we went on 114 trips, long and short. So why did we do it? I wanted to pass on my enthusiasms to my pupils. I am in awe of mountains, their majesty, their savagery. To me, they put the petty human ferment in perspective. They face us with dangers and they encourage self-reliance. To be hungry, cold, lost, scared and benighted is a birthright and to overcome these is a lesson for life.
Recently I was asked: “Weren’t you anxious all the time?”. Not in the least. It was simply enormous educational fun. We predated route-cards and risk assessments. Facing a mountain, Brian would say, “That gully looks interesting”. These became the imaginative ‘Watson routes’. This was trailblazing, with adventure foremost.
With thanks to Brian Watson
Imag
es: ©
Fra
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/Sim
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24 25
The brothers were clearly ‘outdoor types’, who greatly enjoyed their holidays at home. There they could help on the farm with ‘‘making cider, lambing the sheep and repairing farmhouses’’. They revelled in the chance to go out ‘‘fishing with rod and line, riding and tending their garden’’, where they grew peas, beans and cucumbers. They were most excited too when Mother wrote to them with this news: ‘‘Monday last, Mrs Stump’s bull was baited in Croftshay and made very great sport, tossed all the dogs and endeavoured to hurt no one. The butcher bought him.”
No wonder that they always looked forward to the end of term and the journey home. In July 1774, Peter wrote to his mother to check the details of the journey. ‘‘I suppose we are to wear our best coats, linen waistcoats and corduroy breeches to come up in, as our common clothes are now rather too shabby. Our portmanteau is here, and we shall take good care to clean it well before we pack up. The little horse will be in good order to ride on. Pray let us come up to you on Friday as every day seems to be a month. We have set our hearts so much on it.” King Edward’s pupils can be very persuasive!
Both boys eventually left school when they were 13 (which was the norm), before proceeding to Oriel College, Oxford.
occasion, when she was ‘‘much out of order’’, she consulted a doctor, Mr Dell, who ‘‘bled me’’ having diagnosed a nervous fever. Their father, on the other hand, once stayed for a month “to pump both his arms’’ in the hope that Bath’s hot spring waters would ease his rheumatism.
Occasionally the boys attended a special event, such as the annual Mayor-Making ceremony in the ‘new Town Hall’, which opened in 1778. Traditionally, one of the King Edward’s boys made a speech in Latin welcoming the new Mayor. In 1777, it was the task of Hugh Atkinson. One other pleasant outing was a Sunday visit to Charlcombe Church ‘‘to drink tea with Mr and Mrs Morgan’’. As part of his salary, the Master of the School owned ‘the Rectory’ [i.e. the tithes paid by parishioners], although he appointed a curate to run the life of the church.
While their lessons were almost entirely centred on Latin, John at least had become an avid reader in his spare time. ‘‘I am reading Tom Jones in four volumes,” he reported, ‘‘and this week I read The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews and intend to get the spiritual quixote written by Mr Graves.” He also sought leave to purchase two poems at Mr Tucker’s bookshop.
Letters between the boys and their mother went via the ‘messenger service’ operated by The New Mercury. Mother’s letters usually asked the boys to pick up dressmaking materials or cuttings for the garden from the local shops and to send them to her via the same means.
From time to time Mrs Lovell visited Bath, staying at the White Lyon – not to see her sons, however, but to visit the races, the Pump Room, the theatre or the riding school. However, on another
mathematics, languages, history, geography or organised games. The boarders were accommodated in dormitories upstairs, although sometimes their sleep was disturbed by “the planging of the Octagon Bell”. The boarders were fed lunch in a dining room, whereas the day boys went home for theirs. It seems, however, that the boarders had to fend for themselves at breakfast and supper time. Certainly, in his letters home, John often thanked ‘Mama’ for sending “the piece of ham, of which I daily make breakfast” and for the pears, plum pudding and simnel cake (although, as he reported, ‘‘Mr Morgan has not portioned it out to us yet’’). Peter informed his mother that he would “cut salads almost every night for my supper out of my little garden” (which he clearly had near the School). He bought his cucumbers locally, especially “since they have fallen to two pence apiece”.
Judging by the tone of their letters home, Peter and John were very happy at the School, although they greatly disliked the Usher, Collinson, who deputised for the kind and helpful Mr Morgan. ‘‘Collinson now usurps the Upper Desk’’,
wrote John, fearing that his letters home would be censored. The boys only went home for two main holidays each year, at Christmas (four weeks) and for six weeks in the Summer. For shorter periods, when the School was closed, such as at Easter and Whitsun, the boys stayed at Broad Street. ‘‘There are only five boys here today as four have gone home for the holiday and the rest dine out,” wrote John. Instead, the brothers went out for walks, much to their mother’s anxiety. “I cannot think what you went to Bradford for, a walk enough to have killed you both.”
Although, typically, the boys did not often mention
their school work, Peter once reassured his mother that he
would do her shopping ‘as soon as I have said my lesson’, mentioning also that ‘we learn
Homer after breakfast’.”
Peter and John Lovell (1774-1779) attended King Edward’s School as boarders, whilst their sister, Sally, attended a small
private school for girls, also in Bath. Their parents, John and Mary Lovell, lived affluent lives on a large farm set around their home, Cole Park, near Malmesbury. It is Mary’s correspondence with her two sons that provides the insight for this historical account.
By 1774, when the two boys started to attend King Edward’s, the new Broad Street building had only been open for 22 years but it was about to enter a truly golden period in its history under its new Master, the Reverend Nathanael Morgan. Many boys from this era became nationally famous, including Sir Sidney Smith who, after leaving in 1777, was later to thwart Napoleon’s designs on India and Palestine.
The School took around 100 pupils at this time, including boarders from neighbouring counties and day boys from the city. There was one large schoolroom where boys were taught to write and speak in Latin (having learnt to read and write in English before joining). There was no science,
During his time as Headmaster, Dr John Wroughton was given privileged access to a set of old letters from the 1770s belonging to the Lovell family. Here he shares the unique historical insight he gained into the lives of two brothers who attended KES over 200 years ago…
Top left: The playground, known as the Ball Court, Broad Street in 1842 Engraving by W N Hardwick
Bottom left: Broad Street in 1982 Painting by S W Tart
Below: The Reverend Nathanael Morgan, Headmaster 1778-1811
26 27
of the battle it was just a collection of broken stumps, and Wood was killed by machine gun fire. His brother was wounded near High Wood seven weeks after William’s death.
LCpl Gerald Wooster was serving with the 1st East Surrey Regiment. In two days of fighting around Longueval, 12 officers and 300 soldiers were lost. Gerald was one of those killed on 29 July.
2Lt Thomas Fitzgerald served alongside OEs Harleigh Cox and William Wood in the 8th Battalion the Gloucestershire Regiment. He died on 30 July leading A Company in an attack just north of Bazentin-le-Petit, just a few hundred metres from where his brother officer William Wood had been killed a week previously.
Major Frederick Skinner of the 14th Hampshires had been a teacher at KES from 1905 to 1912. During his time in Bath he had been Captain of the Cadet Force and the first editor of The Edwardian magazine. He was killed on 3 September near Beaumont Hamel whilst in command of the battalion and he is buried in the Serre Road Cemetery.
Also killed that day were Pte Arthur Ramsden, a Somerset Light Infantryman serving with the 1st Wiltshires, and 2Lt Lionel Vincent of the 12th Gloucesters. Arthur Ramsden was shot and killed in an attack on the Leipzig Salient. Lionel Vincent was shot and killed by a sniper near Guillemont.
2Lt Reginald Newman was the younger brother of Vernon Newman who was killed in 1915. Reginald joined the 12th Gloucesters in 1914 and was later commissioned into his brother’s regiment, the 4th West Yorkshires. By 1916 he was in the Machine Gun Corps. He died on 7 September in a bombardment near Leuze Wood.
Pte Percival Mundy served in the 13th Londons (the Kensingtons), having initially joined the 15th Londons (the Civil Service Rifles). He was killed on 9 September near Guillemont.
LCpl Raymond Ford was working in Canada when the war began and enlisted in the Canadian Army. He was serving in the Saskatchewan Regiment of the Canadian Infantry when he died of wounds at a dressing station on 2 October, having been injured near Courcelette. He is buried in Courcelette British Cemetery.
Pte Douglas Williams was killed on 4 October. He was in the 26th Royal Fusiliers (the Bankers Battalion) and died acting as a runner, sent forward to collect reports from the Company commanders. He is buried in the AIF Burial Ground in Flers.
Beyond France and FlandersThe global nature of the Great War continued in the period July 1916 to July 1917. In the Middle East the Egyptian Expeditionary Force went on the offensive in August 1916 at the battle of Romani, followed by the first and second battles of Gaza in March and April 1917. In Mesopotamia, British and Empire troops captured Baghdad in March 1917 and there were some limited successes on the Salonika (Macedonian) front, in particular the gains at the first Battle of Doiran in March and April 1917. The British also maintained a large force in India throughout the Great War. OEs fought in all of these campaigns.
On 28 January 1917 Lt Harold Baggs died of wounds in Mesopotamia; he is buried in the Amara War Cemetery. He was serving with the 8th Battalion of the Welsh Regiment, and had previously fought at Gallipoli. At school he had been vice-captain of cricket.
On 3 April 1917 Cpl Henry Barter, serving with the 2nd/4th Somerset Light Infantry, died from acute nephritis in India. He is buried in Calcutta’s Bhowanipore Cemetery.
2Lt John Bellamy of the Royal Field Artillery was killed in Macedonia on 24 April 1917 and is commemorated on the Doiran Memorial in northern Greece. He had previously served in the North Somerset Yeomanry.
France and Flanders 1917The months immediately following the Somme campaign were relatively quiet. In March 1917 the German Army strengthened its position by withdrawing to the Hindenburg line (which would be the scene of heavy fighting in late 1917 and in 1918). The first major offensive of 1917 was the Battle of Arras of April to June 1917. This action made some territorial gains, particularly those by the Canadians at Vimy.
Pte Francis Veal 1st Somerset Light Infantry died of pneumonia on 29 January 1917. Francis had only arrived in France at the beginning of January 1917 and within three weeks he had contracted both trench foot and the infection that would kill him. His wife was with him in France when he died at the Australian Base Hospital in Rouen.
Major Frederick Skinner of the 14th
Hampshires had been a teacher at KES from 1905 to 1912. During
his time in Bath he had been Captain of the Cadet Force and the first editor
of ‘The Edwardian’ magazine. He was
killed on 3 September near Beaumont Hamel whilst in command of
the battalion and he is buried in the Serre
Road Cemetery.” By the end of the
battle in November 1916 over 400,000 British and Empire
troops had been injured; the overall death toll
was 95,000. Fourteen OEs were killed
during the battle.”
of whom 19,240 died. Many were from the newly raised Kitchener Army which included Pals battalions. By the end of the battle in November 1916 over 400,000 British and Empire troops had been injured; the overall death toll was 95,000. Fourteen OEs were killed during the battle.
Captain Harleigh Cox commanded C Company of the 8th Battalion the Gloucestershire Regiment. He was killed on 3 July, his first wedding anniversary, during an attack on the village of La Boiselle.
2Lt George Barber of the 10th Lancashire Fusiliers was killed on 7 July 1916 in action around Contalmaison. He had been seen by a fellow officer ‘very gallantly leading a party of bombers’ prior to his death. Of the 21 officers in the battalion, nine were killed and five were injured.
2Lt Frederick Greenaway joined the Army as a private soldier in 1914, aged 18, and in 1915 was injured and invalided home for three months. On 14 July he was commanding a platoon in the 8th Leicestershires when he was killed a few yards from a German trench between Mametz and Bazentin-Le-Petit woods.
2Lt William Wood served in the 8th Battalion the Gloucestershire Regiment. He was killed on 23 July in the battle for High Wood (a battle described by Robert Graves in his book Goodbye to All That). The wood was a German strong point, although by this stage
In parts one and two of this series, I looked for a common narrative that linked the military service of the OEs who died in the Great War. During the third year of the war, the OE death toll rose, as did their geographical spread, and the only narrative that connects the men described below is that they were OEs and young men dying for King and Country.
The SommeThe battle that dominates this period is the Somme. Launched on 1 July 1916, the British offensive was part of a wider attempt to defeat the Germans, which included the French actions at Verdun as well as those of the Italians in the north east of their country and the Russians in the east. General Haig’s objectives were to relieve pressure on the French at Verdun and to inflict losses on the Germans.
The offensive achieved some successes. In the south the French inflicted a serious defeat on the German Second Army on the first day and by November 1916 the Allies had penetrated over six miles into German territory, taking more ground than at any time since the Battle of the Marne in 1914. Tanks made their battlefield debut on 15 September 1916.
The Somme will forever be remembered for the scale of the casualties. On the first day the British suffered over 57,000 casualties,
Five hundred and sixty OEs and staff fought in the Great War and 74 of them were killed in action or died of their wounds.
This third instalment in a five-part series by Gareth Davies 1972-1983 provides an insight into some of those OEs and the actions they
took part in during the third year of the Great War.
Above: Arras Memorial
Far left: Thiepval Memorial
Bhowanipore Cemetery, Calcutta
OE PRO
FILE
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To contribute news for the next issue, please contact the Development Office (see contact details on page 4).
2Lt Cecil Erwood, who had survived the Somme, was killed on 17 February 1917 while commanding a company of the 1st King’s Royal Rifle Corps in an attack near Miraumont. Cecil Erwood was a great sportsman during his time at KES and had been captain of football.
Pte Arthur Baggs* was serving with the Canadian Army, having signed up in Vancouver in 1915. A former worker at the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, he went missing on 1 March 1917. His body was never found and he is remembered on the Vimy Memorial.
Pte Herbert Best went missing on 3 May 1917 in the fighting around Bullecourt during the Battle of Arras. He was killed by shrapnel and was buried along with many others in a communal grave. His body was never recovered to a permanent cemetery and so he is remembered on the Arras Memorial. Herbert, a teacher, was a long-distance runner and he played rugby for Twickenham.
Capt Harold Rose, a doctor, served as the Medical Officer of the 2nd Battalion Coldstream Guards. He was wounded by a shell as he left the battalion’s aid post on 7 July 1917 and he died a few hours later while being evacuated to a dressing station.
Gunner Bernard Baker served with 222nd Siege Battery of the Royal Garrison Artillery. He died of wounds on 15 July 1917, having been injured in Belgium. Bernard initially joined the Pay Corps and later transferred to the Artillery.
Training in the UKLt Alfred Long initially joined the Middlesex Regiment, reaching the rank of Sergeant before being commissioned. He then transferred to the Royal Flying Corps. He was killed in an air-to-air crash on 23 March 1917, while training at the Central Flying School at Upavon and is buried in the Moravian Burial Ground in East Tytherton near Chippenham.
* Pte Arthur Baggs was not a sibling of Lt Harold Baggs
Old Edwardians and the Great War…
2Lt Cecil Erwood, who had survived the
Somme, was killed on 17 February 1917
while commanding a company of the 1st
King’s Royal Rifle Corps in an attack near Miraumont.
Cecil Erwood was a great sportsman during his time at KES and had been
captain of football.”
Gareth Davies 1972-1983
CAREER
A former Lieutenant Colonel in the Royal Tank Regiment, Gareth left the Army in 2015. As well as working as a defence consultant specialising in command, training systems and simulation, leading battlefield tours to France and Flanders, Italy and Palestine, he will be spending the next few years researching and writing a book on tanks in 1917.
PERSONAL
“There is an element of irony in my interest in Military History as I am one of two OEs in my year who did not do History O Level!”
CONTACT
All memorial images: © Commonwealth War Graves Commission
John Coombs 1958Sent this photo (above) of a memorable KES trip to the Houses of Parliament in the early 1950s. See anyone you know?
Mike Gibbons 1970
Has been working with the Rio 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games as an International Olympic Committee Technical Advisor on their Live Sites events.
Roger Thomas 1979Has recently qualified as a PADI open water diver whilst on holiday in the Red Sea.
Scott Harrison 1983Has written a new book, Theo’s Travels, under the pseudonym Stanley Sprocket. Available through Amazon, it tells the true story, through the eyes of Scott’s son Theo, of the family’s 12-year journey around the world in a 1962 double-decker bus, performing circus comedy shows.
Julian Bray 1985Joined other 1985 leavers in July 2015 for a 30 year reunion: “We had a super day and enjoyed a good walk around the School, followed by drinks and dinner in Bath.”
Above: Vimy Memorial
Left: Doiran Memorial
Class of 1985 reunion
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Tom Tilley 1994Jonathan Green 1990Has had two new books published: Alice’s Nightmare in Wonderland, a gamebook inspired by the Fighting Fantasy series that was very popular at KES in the 1980s, and a new Doctor Who gamebook, Night of the Kraken.
Tony McNicol 1994
“I’m now living in Frome and working as a Japanese-to-English translator and regularly travelling to Japan to write magazine articles. Since last Summer I’ve been running private tours for photographers in Bath, showing them the best places for photos, telling them about Bath and teaching them photography.”
More info at: www.thebathphotographer.uk
Dan Batcheldor 1997Has written a book called Astronomy Saves the World, available through Amazon. It shows how the accessibility of astronomy can promote learning and how a better-informed and scientifically-literate society will help support the future development of the human race.
His solo classical guitar album, Twenty Five Famous Classical Guitar Pieces, produced by Custodian Records, is available for download via Amazon, iTunes and Spotify. A follow-up is currently in the pipeline so watch this space…
Josie Masters and James Sterling 2007 Josie and James married last September. Since meeting in the sixth form at KES eight and a half years ago, they have completed their degrees at Southampton University and travelled round the world together.
Many of their old KES friends were at their wedding
– they even did a bit of a twist on the ‘wedding sweets
table’ by having their own mock KES tuck shop!”
Jackson Toms-Limb 2001 Married Louise Tibbitts at Birtsmorton Court, Worcestershire in June 2015, having been together since meeting as students at Exeter University. Former KES classmates Tim Caines, Tom Beby and Kathryn Sharrocks joined the celebrations.
Frederick Platt 2007Is Assistant Conductor with Bath Philharmonia. Seen here conducting at the Bath 200 Gala Concert in April, a partnership performance between Bath Philharmonia and King Edward’s.
Sam Gotley 2007 and Sarah McGrigor 2008Congratulations on their marriage in July 2016.
Amy Wagstaff 2008Is working in Leeds for Arcadis, a global design and consultancy firm for natural and built assets, as a Project Manager, advising clients on technical matters related to the design and construction of new-build and refurbished schools across the UK.
She completed an MSc in Construction Project Management and became a RICS chartered surveyor in 2015.
Tom Oldaker 2010Studied Industrial Product Design at the University of Bournemouth and, following posts in the advertising industry and as assistant product manager for The Consortium, he now works for Generative Parametrics as an automotive and product designer.
Tom recently visited KES to talk to DT pupils in Years 8 and 12 about the varied career opportunities available within the world of design.
Andy Staples 1988“After a decade lecturing in universities and business schools in Japan, and more recently working as the Director of the Economist Corporate Network for North Asia (the briefing and networking arm of the Economist Intelligence Unit for senior executives), I recently relocated to Singapore to run the flagship South-East Asian network. I am quite frequently on TV, talking about economic issues in the region, and regularly chair high-level meetings with senior business leaders, politicians and thought leaders. Recent highlights have included ‘In conversation with...’ events with Japan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister, Taro Aso, and former Prime Minister of Malaysia, Dr Mahathir.”
Huw Jones 1989Is now Managing Director of Nine Feet Tall Ltd. The Bath-based consultancy, which won the Bath Business of the Year Award in 2013, delivers complex change projects for clients nationwide. The company sponsors fellow-OE Guy Mercer at Bath Rugby, as well as new Fijian Number 9 recruit, Niko Matawalu, and was business partner and official training kit sponsor for Bath Rugby for the 2015/16 season. Nine Feet Tall also works with the Rugby Players Association and the Welsh Rugby Players Association to develop skills and capabilities in professional athletes for life after sport. Huw, who played rugby at KES, is a keen rugby fan and, despite living in Wales, is seen most match days at the Rec!
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Geoff BenceAt KES 1935-1940Passed away 26 November 2015, aged 91
Geoff was the second of three brothers, all of whom attended KES. A keen sportsman, he played rugby for the School and trialled for England Schoolboys. He also played cricket for KES, Box village and, briefly, for Ceylon Army Command.
He left KES in 1940 and joined the Army, training as a wireless operator with Force 136 Special Operations Executive (SOE), going on to serve in India, Ceylon, Singapore, Malaya, Siam and Cambodia. It was Geoff who made the first contact, after two years’ silence, with F Spencer-Chapman’s guerilla team, operating behind Japanese lines. This enabled urgently-needed supplies to be airdropped to them. Years later, following a BBC feature on this clandestine operation, he was able to make contact with the survivors, one of whom remarked, “Picking up that signal was a life-saver for us”.
He stayed on in the Far East after the Japanese surrender, helping with the
repatriation of Allied prisoners of war and participating in the post-war clear-up in Siam and Cambodia. He finally returned home, married Barbara, raised his family and ran Box village grocery store as well as becoming an active member of Box Cricket and Badminton Clubs before retiring and moving to Bathford. There he continued to explore his love of gardening, creating a delightfully secluded oasis on his steeply sloping site, and keeping its tall hedges in beautiful trim, working off a high ladder well into his eighties.
Sadly, Barbara died in 1991 and it was about this time, with many of his old army chums also passing on, that he decided, with the help of his family, to write about his time in the Far East. He had kept a journal, strictly against orders for SOE agents, which gave his memoirs a fascinating and lively immediacy, best described as combining John le Carré with It Ain’t Half Hot Mum. Extracts were read out at his funeral service.
He kept in touch with his wartime friends and regularly attended the annual reunion of the SOE but few in Bathford had any inkling of their unassuming neighbour’s amazing experiences in the six years after he left KES.
Robert ‘Joe’ Poynton
Mike Cooper MBEAt KES 1955-65Passed away 14 March 2016, after a brave fight against prostate cancer
Mike joined KES at the Belmont Preparatory Department and later attended Broad Street and North Road. Although academically very able, his real passion was rugby and he became a very effective tight head prop forward. He was also an enthusiastic member of the CCF, under the eccentric but dynamic leadership of Bill Currie. He rose to the rank of Cadet Sergeant Major. He later briefly served in the Territorial Army as a tank crewman in the North Somerset Yeomanry.
He won an army scholarship to the Royal Military College of Science at Shrivenham where he was awarded a BSc in Civil Engineering and commissioned in the Royal Engineers. His army career took him to the far corners of the earth and included the conflict zones of Northern Ireland (twice), Kuwait, the Gulf, Bosnia and Kosovo.
He married Pauline in 1974 and daughters Sarah and Elizabeth soon followed. Michael retired from the Army in the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and then began a second career as a defence consultant.
His enthusiasm for practical engineering never faded. At North Road he owned a very iffy Lambretta and would take part in the daily ‘after school’ drag race down the length of Pulteney Street to the infamous ‘Salamander’ coffee bar. Superior vehicles followed and over the years he restored several old MGs. He later became a driving force in the restoration of steam locomotives and was project leader in the daunting task of rebuilding the County of Glamorgan GWR locomotive at the Didcot Railway Centre. An interest in military history expressed itself in a highly practical form of walking, sometimes scrambling over the actual terrain that was fought over. I joined him on ‘walks’ both on the Gallipoli peninsula and in France. He was of the firm opinion that only at ground level could the appalling difficulties experienced by the troops be properly appreciated.
Mike and Pauline settled in the village of Abbotts Ann in Hampshire, where he took a full part in local affairs. He led a very full life, was unafraid of challenges, kind, caring and a very good friend.
John Lover
Above: Nas Andriopoulos (fifth from left) with sixth form pupils
Nas Andriopoulos 2012Has recently graduated with an MSci in Chemistry and Molecular Physics from Imperial College, London and this Autumn takes up his post as President of the Imperial College Union. Nas visited KES this April to talk to sixth formers about the value of studying STEM subjects at university and gave some top tips about how to choose the right university course.
Toby Reynolds-Cotterill 2013 (Year 11 leaver)
Received the Higgins Group Plc annual Youth Award for Hockey in January 2016. Now at Loughborough University, he is the England and Great Britain U21 goalkeeper as well as a member of the senior England indoor hockey squad.
Rob Goodman 2011“I passed out from the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst in August 2015, gaining a commission into the Royal Artillery. I subsequently finished the Young Officers’ Course at Larkhill, where I trained as a Command Post Officer within an armoured Close Support regiment. In February 2016, I was posted as a Troop Commander to 1st Regiment Royal Horse Artillery, based in Tidworth, where I lead a troop of 36 soldiers. Since arriving, my duties have included parading for the Captain General, HM The Queen, to mark the 300th anniversary of the regiment and a Royal Gun Salute at Stirling Castle.”
Ellie Cumpsty 2015Ellie came eighth in the U21 World Sailing competition last Summer.
She is now sailing full-time in the Olympic programme as part of the P3 squad and is expected to win a medal at the U21s this year. Watch out for Ellie at the 2020 Olympics!
Geoff Bence
Mike Cooper
Rob with Pippa Beard (2011) at a dinner night in the Officers’ Mess.
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Edmund Robert FishAt KES 1941-50Passed away 17 November 2015, aged 83
Edmund joined the School when his family moved to Bath during World War Two. He enjoyed his time at KES and was a member of the Cadet Force. He finished his schooling in London and in 1955 was awarded a BSc in Special Maths from Woolwich Polytechnic. He married Jean in April 1955 and in July they emigrated to Canada where Edmund had a post with Avro Aircraft. In 1959 they moved to Washington State where he joined Boeing, followed by a third move to California in 1961 and a post with Western Development Lab (WDL). There Edmund obtained a Masters in Electrical Engineering, before relocating back to England, still working for WDL based at Menwith Hill. His health deteriorated after forced retirement at the age of 75 and he received dialysis treatment for the last four and a half years. He is survived by his wife, five children, ten grandchildren and six great grandchildren.
Jean Fish
John HaddonAt KES 1962-1966Passed away 28 September 2015, aged 69
John’s arrival at KES in 1962 from Sidcot School in Somerset coincided with his father’s appointment as Head of Geography at Newton Park College, now Bath Spa University. He was well read; he had a comprehensive knowledge of contemporary jazz; his Polonius in Trevor Rhymes’ production of Hamlet was memorable. Intellectually sharp and challenging, he was also amusing, kind and very good company. He studied an unusual combination of A Levels (English, Maths and Geography), but English was always his focus and in 1967 he went up to Selwyn College, Cambridge to read English.
John’s Cambridge years were marked by a continuing fascination with his subject and a developing expertise in it. Selwyn very much suited him, and he suited the college. He was as familiar, popular and respected a figure in subject seminars as he was in the college bar, and he made firm friends amongst fellow students and academics alike. He retained a lifelong
Geoff SarjeantAt KES 1944-1952Passed away 3 November 2015, after suffering a stroke in early September
Peter SheppardAt KES 1932-1944Passed away 13 June 2016, aged 90
When Peter joined King Edward’s, aged six as a boarder at Belmont, he began a lifelong association with and enthusiasm for the School. Whilst a pupil, he became company sergeant major of the STC, captain of the 1st XV rugby team, monitor, and also won the Lawrence Prize for High Endeavour and the Nahum Nurnberg Exhibition. Later he played cricket and rugby for the OEs and some 50 games for Bath RFC before injury forced him to retire.
Aged 18 he was selected for army officer training, joining the Royal Engineers and later serving with the Bengal Sappers in India. After the war he went to Manchester University to study Civil Engineering, following which he joined his father’s Bath-based business, Sheppard and Barrow, and stayed there for the rest of his working life. He also became managing director of several of his father’s businesses, and was actively involved in the Sand and Gravel Association, becoming its regional chairman for many years. Busy as he was, he did find time to marry Mary and they had two sons, Thomas and Angus, both of whom attended KES. It was during this time that he became Chairman of the Friends of King Edward’s School and served as Chairman and later President of the OEs Association.
association with Cambridge; returning in 1986 for a term as Schoolmaster Fellow at Clare. It seems fitting that just days before his sudden death he attended a conference at Downing on T S Eliot and F R Leavis.
After Cambridge, John taught English at Newport Grammar School, Essex, the beginning of a long and successful career as a secondary school teacher. When teaching in Frome he met Trish, who taught Maths in the same school. They married at Newton St Loe and later moved to Ryde, Isle of Wight, where they continued teaching and began their family; a son, John and daughter, Jo. Throughout his life, John was interested in theatre, and at Ryde he both produced and acted in a number of plays. In 1981 John was appointed as Head of English at Hatton School in Derbyshire and the family moved to Derby where their second daughter Ruth was born. In 1989 John became Head of English at Littleover Community School, Derby, where he worked for the remainder of his career, with the exception of a year spent in Buxton as a literary advisor.
John was a natural and committed teacher, energetic, engaging, kind and formidably well-informed. His special interest in Shakespeare opened the eyes of many of his pupils, and he was a frequent contributor of articles and reviews for The Use of English. After retiring he wrote Teaching Reading Shakespeare (Routledge, 2009) and The Comedy of Forgiveness: Readings in Shakespeare and Dickens (Brynmill Press, 2012).
Although John continued to study, write and teach (helping at the local primary school and supporting children of friends), he and Trish also enjoyed retirement together, working with the church, walking in the Peak District and spending time with their children.
Hugh Dowson, Richard Reeve, Ian Viles and with many thanks to Trish Haddon
Barry Masterman Mills At KES 1943-1952Passed away 23 April 2016, aged 81
Barry was born in Surrey to Stanley and Coralie Mills in 1934 and they moved to Bath in 1939. He had a very happy school life at King Edward’s and remained closely linked through the OE Association throughout his life. Both of his sons and two of his grandsons also attended the School. He studied Veterinary Science at Bristol University, graduating in 1956, and his first position was with Stephens & Stephens in Frome. In 1962 he became one of the five partners in the largest practice in the area. In the true ‘Herriot’ tradition, he worked long hours until the job was done. In latter years he concentrated on farm work and specialised in cattle. He was a very well-respected and liked member of the community, a first-rate clinician and always available to discuss a difficult case and eager to pass on any knowledge he had. He became a pivotal cog in the running of the business and a founder of Garston Veterinary Practice. He served for many years as one of the resident vets at the Royal Bath and West Show and enjoyed the variety of the work and the buzz of the show. Barry’s two loves were sailing and gardening and he enjoyed both right up to the end. He was also a keen follower of cricket and rugby and enjoyed watching his sons and grandsons participate in the sports. He will be sorely missed by many and leaves behind his partner Mary, four children Anthony, Jeremy, Sally and Lucy and eight grandchildren.
Lucy Hotson
When injury forced him to stop playing rugby, he took up pheasant shooting and also, with Mary, became an enthusiastic Scottish country dancer. Not being a small man, he was quite a sight in full reel in his Black Watch kilt and regalia.
In 2013 a series of illnesses meant that he required full-time nursing and so he moved to a nursing home, which provided excellent care; last September he celebrated his 90th birthday there with all the family. Sadly, the years and various ailments gradually caught up with him and he passed away on 13 June 2016.
He leaves his wife, two sons and four grandchildren. He is much missed by his family and friends.
Trevor Elsom Rhymes
David William Ernest ThomasAt KES 1948-1955Passed away 17 April 2016, aged 78
After leaving KES, David studied Modern Languages at St John’s College, Cambridge and then followed a career in secondary education. He taught languages, becoming Head of Languages at Hampton School, followed by Deputy Headmaster of Verulam School, then Headmaster of Raine’s Foundation School and finally Headmaster of Enfield Grammar School until he retired in 1995. He leaves his wife, Carole and their son and daughter, Nick and Jo.
Ian VilesAt KES 1959-65Passed away March 2016
Ian joined the Senior School in Broad Street in the Autumn of 1959 from Grosvenor High School, along with Roger Bennett and Alistair Farleigh, and was amongst the first wave of pupils to transfer to the North Road site.
On leaving KES in 1965 he joined the Finance Department of Cedric Chivers, the bookbinding company, then situated in Bath. He gained qualifications in economics, commerce and accountancy and in 1973 was recruited by the NAAFI, where he trained and qualified as an auditor. He was highly regarded by those with whom he worked as an effective, dependable and sympathetic colleague. Much of his career was spent abroad and his overseas postings included Mönchengladbach, Belize, Singapore, Brunei and Oman. Ian was in his element abroad. He especially enjoyed Belize and later in his career he developed a particular interest in the Far East, travelling widely, exploring the cultures he encountered, coming to terms with the local languages, and making lifelong friends. He returned to the UK upon retirement and, drawn back to the West Country, settled in Corsham where he divided his time between managing an auditing company he acquired, travelling abroad on work assignments and for holidays, and curating a family wood in North Wraxall near his former parental home. In his leisure time he was a voracious reader and particularly enjoyed modern history, novels and poetry.
Ian had a lasting affection for the School and a sense of gratitude towards those who had taught him. He was good company, well informed, kind and engaging. He had a keen sense of humour and a fund of acute and entertaining reminiscences which unfailingly enlivened encounters. He is very much missed by his family and friends.
Hugh Dowson and Richard Reeve
John Haddon
Barry Masterman Mills David Thomas
Ian Viles
Peter Sheppard
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S Wroughton Lecture12 October 2016 7pmWith historian, Professor Ronald Hutton
Wroughton Theatre, Senior School
Tickets £8.50/£4.50 for pupils
To book tickets, email: [email protected]
S Cutting Edge14 October 2016 6.30pmA talk by Jonny Hannah, illustrator and printmaker
The Wessex Building, Senior School
Tickets £7/£4 for pupils
To book tickets, email: [email protected]
• Pop-up jewellery workshop with The Workbench19 November 2016 11am-3pmDesign your own unique hand-crafted silver ring
The Wessex Building, Senior School
Tickets £59 (includes brunch and drinks)
Limited places only – please book by 17 October 2016
• Old Edwardians’ Annual General Meeting 28 November 2016 6.30pmThe Wessex Building, Senior School
S Senior School Carol Service13 December 2016 7.30pmBath Abbey
To reserve seating, email: [email protected]
• London drinks January 2017More details to follow
S KES Gala Concert 14 March 2017 7pmThe Guildhall, Bath
< Anniversary Reunion13 May 2017 11.30am-3pmFor leavers from 1987, 1997 and 2007. Partners and OE friends from nearby leaving years also welcome.
The Wessex Building, Senior School
More details to follow
> Summer Reunion10 June 2017 10am-3pmFor leavers from the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s and 1970s
The Wessex Building, Senior School
More details to follow
S Founder’s Day Service12 July 2017 11amBath Abbey
To reserve seating, email: [email protected]
To ensure you receive the latest events information, please update us with any email address changes at
< YOUNG OEs • ALL AGES > 60+ YEARS S SCHOOL
Setting the scene for inspiring sporting performanceAt the time of writing, the School’s astro turf at the North Road site has been completely removed, having been in place for 25 years. Groundworks are now underway for a new high quality surface to be in place for the Autumn Term. The enhanced facility will include a separate warm-up astro, electronic scoreboard, KES-branded dug-outs and a levelled spectator viewing area with hardwood seating, provided by parents. The astro will continue to be used for hockey and tennis and the modern surface is expected to facilitate overall play and skills development.
Also on the sporting front, in the Spring we celebrated the opening of the new state-of-the-art cricket nets with Somerset captain and England bowler, Anya Shrubsole, who joined a Year 8 cricket lesson at the School’s Bathampton playing fields.
The School has invested £70,000 in four high-spec all-weather lanes with
extended run-ups, akin to those in use at Lord’s Cricket Ground and accredited
by the English Cricket Board.”
Greg Brown, Head of Cricket, noted that the combination of the new nets and the School’s existing link with Bath Cricket Club, will ensure pupils have unrivalled access to professional standard cricket facilities. We look forward to an exciting sporting year ahead!
Anya Shrubsole, Somerset captain and England bowler
