Issue 27 | AUTUMN 2018
From the Head The new academic year began with very pleasing A Level results, the first to be reported under the new linear regime. Excellent academic results usually lead to success in higher education applications and 95% of our students were offered places in The Times top 25 universities with twelve offers at Oxford and Cambridge. Our students have been busy travelling the world with the School over the past six months from the Galapagos to Cape Town and many points in between! The sporting season got off to a good start with the South Coast Rugby Tournament in September and some impressive early results, particularly for girls’ hockey. We have also enjoyed two drama productions and some wonderful musical performances directed by our new Director of Music, Miss Forsey. We were delighted to welcome Felicity Aston MBE as chief guest to award the prizes at prize giving. She is an author, former Antarctic scientist and a polar expedition leader. She provided a fascinating address although probably very few of us would wish to share her more challenging experiences on the ice cap! We are very pleased to announce the appointment of the new Head, Mr Neal Parker. Although he will not begin work at the School until September 2019, the handover process has already begun. Details of his career are included below and we look forward to introducing him and his family to the KES community. This term there has been a particular focus on the centenary of the end of hostilities in the First World War. We were very privileged to have the Memorial Garden dedicated by the Venerable Stephen Robbins CB, the former Chaplain General of the Army. The statue created by Mr Michael Long, the former Head of Art
at KES, provides the central focus. It is a remarkable piece of work and depicts three Old Edwardians killed in action. The garden, designed by Mrs Emily Peebles, our Head of Finance, is well worth a visit and we are very grateful to the OE Association for its support in helping to finance this project. At Hill Lane we have been busy with the expansion and refurbishment of our Dining Hall giving much increased capacity, and greater flexibility. On the prep school site at Stroud, we have renovated a number of key areas and built a new classroom pod for our Key Stage 1 pupils. There have been a number of OE reunion events ranging from OE hockey, netball, cricket, football and golf to our annual gathering of the Poole veterans. It is always good to hear from former students and we welcome snippets of news from OEs around the world. The King Edward VI Foundation continues to support children from disadvantaged backgrounds so that they can benefit from an education at King Edward’s. Further details may be obtained from the School via the website or The Development Office. As ever, we are grateful to the OE Association for its support of the School’s activities and to our staff, particularly Ms Hooper, our Development Officer, who work so hard to ensure that our alumni stay in touch with the School and each other. AJ Thould - Head
New Head appointed for 2019 Following the announcement of Julian Thould’s retirement at the end of this academic year, the Chair of Governors has announced the appointment of the new Head, Neal Parker, who will take up his post in September 2019. Mr Parker is currently Vice Principal and Head of the Senior School at The Grammar School at Leeds, a co-educational independent 3-18 day school with a very similar structure to King Edward’s. He joined the school in 2012 as a Senior Deputy Head, before taking up his current role in 2016. Previously, Neal was Director of Music and Head of Performing Arts at the Newcastle Royal Grammar School, having started his teaching career at King’s College School in Wimbledon. Educated at the British School in the Netherlands and The Purcell School of Music, Neal read music at St Anne’s College, Oxford. He also holds a Masters in Educational Leadership from Newcastle University, and is currently studying for an MBA. He is a long-standing ISI inspector and is currently a member of the Board of Directors at Leeds College of Music. Neal is married to Sarah, a Deputy Head at Harrogate Ladies’ College, and they have a son, Joe. As well as his passion for music in all its many forms, Neal is an avid sports fan and lover of the outdoors, particularly enjoying hiking in the Lake District.
2
www.kes.hants.sch.uk
What’s happening at School! Another year of excellent exam results This year’s Fifth Years and Sixth Formers produced another set of excellent exam results. 99.9% of King Edward’s students passed their A Levels with 18% of grades at A*, 54% at A* and A, and 86% at A*, A and B; a significant achievement in the light of new A Level specifications being examined for the first time.
New Dining Hall The extension to the existing Dining Hall to create a newly improved and enlarged space was completed in time for the start of the new academic year. The changes increased the capacity of this area from 240 to 320, something that was becoming more and more necessary, as numbers of those pupils wishing to have a hot lunch have risen over the last decade. Currently, of the 950 + pupils on roll, over 90% eat daily in the school servery.
IGCSE and GCSE results were also very encouraging. 97% of IGCSE and GCSEs were awarded at grade C or above with 73% of all grades at A* and A and 47% at A*. 90% of all grades were awarded at A*, A or B. 100% of students obtained the minimum 5 GCSE passes including IGCSE Mathematics and English. These results have ensured that students have been able to proceed to a range of competitive institutions in Higher Education with 95% gaining places at their chosen university. A small number have opted for places at art or music colleges and a few are moving directly into the world of work through graduate apprenticeships. 90% gained their choice of university course with 96% of places in the top 25 UK universities, including twelve students offered places at Oxford and Cambridge, and eleven at medical school.
KES continues charity work in South Africa The School continues to raise money to support the work of the Goedgedacht Farm and its Pathway out of Poverty (POP) initiative. The POP aims to break the cycle of poverty present in many rural areas of the Western Cape, focussing on education as a crucial tool for breaking the cycle of school dropouts and combining this with personal development and health and care for the planet to help bring up intelligent and conscientious young people. This summer’s annual Sixth Form visit to the farm saw KES students playing and working with the younger children as well as socialising with the teens who attend the POP centres. They also helped with various projects during their stay including packaging seeds to send out to the local communities and working in the Goedgedacht bicycle project that repairs bikes before distributing them to local people. A highlight of the week at Goedgedacht included a visit to the KES-funded POP 6 centre so that they could witness first-hand the huge impact that the School’s fundraising throughout the year is having.
3
Charities Commission sponsors Guide dog Charitable fundraising has long had considerable prominence at the School with the ever busy and popular Charities Commission raising substantial amounts of money each year for local and national charities. In the past year alone over £30,000 has been raised by students themselves for a range of different organisations. One of the projects that the School is currently funding is the training of a Guide dog for the blind and this term we were delighted to welcome back Monty (our KES sponsored Guide dog). Monty lives with his puppy parents who help him develop his social skills and teach him familiarity with daily life, but he attends Guide dog training classes in the week. We look forward to following his progress through puppy school.
2018 King Edward VI Goblet winner This year’s prize giving event was, once again, held in the Dobson Theatre in an evening format, which allowed many of the prizewinners’ families to attend. The chief guest was British polar explorer Felicity Aston MBE who delivered a thought-provoking address. Felicity is an author, speaker, expedition leader and former Antarctic scientist and in 2012 became the first woman to ski alone across Antarctica. The King Edward VI Goblet is one of the highest accolades awarded to a student and is presented annually at prize giving. Each year, there are a few students in the Upper Sixth who achieve the highest standards of academic excellence whilst taking leading roles in drama and music performances, holding senior positions of responsibility and securing university places on the most competitive and demanding courses. The 2018 award went to George Budden who combined a portfolio of academic excellence alongside representing his country in the modern pentathlon, whilst maintaining a demeanour of modesty and grace.
4
www.kes.hants.sch.uk
Dedication of new Memorial Garden On November 9th, as part of King Edward’s Remembrance Service, the School was joined by The Lord-Lieutenant of Hampshire, Nigel Atkinson Esq. and The Venerable Stephen Robbins CB, Chaplain-General 2008-11 to commemorate the 100-year anniversary of the end of the First World War. The Service included the anointing of the Memorial Garden and Statue, which have been created in honour of the fifty Old Edwardians who gave their lives. They will serve as a permanent reminder of those who have died. With such a significant anniversary this year, King Edward’s felt it was appropriate to provide an additional space in the School to mark the occasion. At the centre of the garden is the symbol of a poppy laid into the ground surrounded by the words, engraved in bronze, from Colonel John McCrae’s poem ‘In Flanders Fields’. A statue forms the focal point of the garden, designed and sculpted by the recently retired Head of Art, Michael Long. It depicts three OEs, described by Peter Jones, another former teacher at King Edward’s, in his book, “The Stormy Blast”, who gave their lives in the First World War. Pupils have made fifty ceramic poppies – one to represent each of the OEs that perished and these are sited throughout the garden. Plaques between the windows in the courtyard give more detail about the hundreds of OEs who fought in the war and a circular stone bench provides a place for quiet contemplation and a little oasis of calm in the midst of the everyday bustle of school life.
5
Reunion
William Capon Club Dinner We were delighted to host a dinner for a large group of William Capon Club members at Wellington Sports Ground on Wednesday 13th June. of The venue proved a bit hit, as many this d visite r neve had ent pres e thos venue. The new Pavilion, complete with balcony, was the perfect setting for a summer dinner overlooking the beautifully kept cricket pitches. The all School remains extremely grateful to VI rd Edwa King the those who support Foundation with donations or legacies so that we can offer financial support to gifted children from less affluent family backgrounds.
6
www.kes.hants.sch.uk
Reunion
2008 10 Year Reunion Claedssbacof k around 50
ber, we welcom At the beginning of Novem reunion. ers’ cohort for their 10-year members of the 2008 leav an impression new Dining Hall, which left The event was hosted in the at KES. rly remember lunchtimes on all the guests who clea
7
Forthcoming Reunions 50 Year Reunion (Class of 1969 & 1970)
8th February 2019 at 7.30pm
at KES
Oxbridge Dinner
15th March 2019 at 7.00pm
at St Edmund’s Hall, Oxford
Poole Veterans’ Luncheon
20th May 2019 at 12.00pm
at KES
Heads of School Dinner
7th June 2019 at 7.30pm
at KES
Keep us updated! Please notify us of changes to your contact details by emailing edwardians@kes.hants.sch.uk giving your name and date of birth.
Join our KES network group on Linkedin
New Privacy Notice Data protection law changed on May 25th 2018. To make sure you fully understand how we use your personal data, we have updated our Privacy Notice. It can be found at:
Join our KES alumni Facebook page
https://intranet.kes.hants.sch.uk/site-guide/privacy-notice
Music Alumni Concert In June, the Dobson Theatre played host to a selection of alumni, former and current staff members and pupils for a concert to celebrate the Music Department. The audience were treated to a wide variety of music ranging from Caccini to Debussy. It was wonderful to see the successes of so many former students and provided a chance to thank Mrs Freemantle for all her hard work and dedication to the department as she retired. It is hoped that this type of event will become a regular feature of the school calendar.
8
www.kes.hants.sch.uk
Richard Jackson (KES 1994-2001)
Virtronix, a tech company set up by Old Edwardian Richard Jackson (KES 1994 - 2001), are proud to present the first phase of the King Edward VI School virtual reality experience. Using a combination of sophisticated 3D scanning, 360° and aerial photography, Virtronix have created a digital copy of the School, its grounds and buildings. The VR Experience is an exciting, interactive and immersive way for new and prospective students, parents and staff to discover everything that King Edward’s can offer at any time on any device while also allowing current and former staff and students the opportunity to rediscover the school, no matter where in the world they find themselves today.
The VR Experience includes 3D models of the school buildings, allowing you to ‘virtually’ walk the corridors and classrooms, but also features a number of mediarich interactive hotspots to bring the School to life. The VR Experience for Hill Lane and the Wellington Sports Ground will shortly be going live on the school website and the Stroud and Lovaton sites will be added over the coming months. Richard launched Virtronix in October 2017 within three weeks of being made redundant from John Lewis Head Office in London. Richard has added many strings to his bow in his life since leaving KES, many of which he links back to experiences and opportunities that King Edward’s gave him. One such opportunity arose on May Day 1999 when Mr Hall, Director of Music, arranged for the choir to sing live on BBC Radio
Solent from their studios in Southampton immediately following the annual madrigal singing at the top of the Bargate. This brief radio appearance gave Richard the broadcasting bug and he was delighted to join the team at BBC South, a couple of years later, as a cover traffic and travel reporter! From here, he trained as a weather presenter before becoming a permanent studio producer for Sunday morning religious and light programming with Tim Daykin and as part of the ‘Toast & Roast’ magazine show. He also supported the live Children in Need appeal nights for BBC South as Pudsey bear for a number of years. The BBC kept him busy at weekends, but it was another love of his which ultimately was to guide his career further. In his Sixth Form years, Richard delivered an assembly about the new West Quay shopping centre and opening of John Lewis Southampton. It was, therefore, perhaps little surprise that the retail sector was to form such a large part of Richard’s career after leaving KES and gaining his Management and French degree from the University of Southampton. Little did he know that his KES late bus trips (that would drop him off at Tesco in Winchester for a three-hour evening shift in the petrol station once a week aged 16) would lead to him running all of the Tesco petrol filling stations as UK Operations Manager at the age of 24. This meant a move away to Hertfordshire, where Richard lives now with his wife and young daughter. Richard kept himself busy in his fourteen years at Tesco. He managed the relaunch of Tesco Momentum 99 Super Unleaded, development of a bespoke petrol pump, rollout of an improved Pay at Pump system and development of digital price gantry signs to name but a few initiatives. He is very proud of the part he played in Tesco becoming the largest fuel retailer in the UK. He ended up, in another ironic twist from that assembly, at John Lewis Head Office as Value Manager. His team optimised the “Never Knowingly Undersold” process to highlight competitor prices for the commercial Partners and re-wrote the John Lewis Pricing & Promotions policy, working as part of a Trading Standards working group within the British Retail Consortium. Richard was made redundant from John Lewis two days after the birth of his first child and set up Virtronix within a few weeks. His experience from School, and working with such institutions as the BBC, Tesco and John Lewis, have given him a breadth of knowledge to help run his own business, which has just successfully completed its first year and with ideas and plans to grow in the future. Richard is delighted to present the virtual King Edward’s to showcase the school and all it can offer for future generations, whilst also offering a nod to the past. He hopes that the thousands of pupils that have crossed the Crush Hall can enjoy a virtual trip down Memory Lane. For a taster please visit: https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=SxqPmf3Py1Q
9
Clare Mitchell (2010-2017)
This summer I spent ten weeks in Uganda as one of eighteen project workers, all students from Cambridge, Oxford, Warwick and London Universities, for Education Partnerships Africa (epafrica.org. uk). I left KES in June 2017, and started my Natural Sciences degree at Cambridge in September 2017. I was introduced to EPAfrica at Freshers’ Fair, applied to be a project worker and, having been successful at the interview stage, was accepted onto the programme. Thereafter followed six months of training and fundraising before it was finally time to go! Our first few days in Africa were spent at our ‘Central House’ in Mbarara completing our first week of training. We were reminded of EPAfrica’s five principal goals; facilitating learning, improving health, realising post-secondary opportunities, supporting student welfare and rights and strengthening school organisation. Training included sessions on Ugandan history, the education system and conflict resolution.
10
expensive and an evident health risk. We decided to put 8 million Ugandan shillings towards the cost of a 70,000-litre water tank, which should sustain the school for about a month. Soon we were in Balya Stint Hardware buying materials with a very large stack of 50,000 Ugandan shilling notes!
After five days we attended the Head Teachers’ Conference where Heads of present and past partner schools took part in discussion groups. Along with my project partners, Beth and Mia, I then travelled with David, our Deputy Head Teacher, to Rwantsinga High School. The Archdeacon had kindly agreed to put us up and we were soon sharing evening tea with him and his daughters.
On our third weekend at school, we went to the stunning Lake Bunyonyi. We swam, went dugout canoeing, watched the sun rise, and set over the lake. We also waited for responses from possible speakers for our forthcoming Health Day. However, by Tuesday morning we had a timetable and speakers to fill it. The School Nurse taught the girls how to make reusable sanitary pads while the Health Patron spoke to the boys about drug abuse and gambling.
Our first weeks at RHS were focused on data collection and building our relationship with the school. We had many meetings with different members of staff, including the Head, the Bursar and the Director of Studies. We also organised a meeting with the School Council and a suggestion box for students and staff. Our conversations with the teachers over dinners of matoke, posho and beans, were informative, enjoyable and a fun place to watch England’s World Cup semifinal! Everyone we asked (teacher, student or governor) told us that the main problem was a lack of water. In the dry season, the school truck travels daily, multiple times, to collect dirty water from a dam. This is
We then continued to work on other projects. We ordered twelve windows and four doors for the two incomplete classrooms. Their completion has meant that the S1 (Year 8) pupils can be split into three streams rather than two, improving the teacherstudent ratio from about 80:1 to 60:1. We also reinstalled the tippy taps (hand washing stations) and paid for the dirt floor of the dining shelter to be concreted. ‘URTI’ (upper respiratory tract infection) was by far the most common entry in the nurse’s record book and she told us this was probably due to dust inhalation. It is hoped that the new floor might help reduce the students’ exposure to dust.
www.kes.hants.sch.uk
Week 8 in Uganda was ‘holiday week’. Along with four other project workers I travelled to Fort Portalm from where we went chimpanzee trekking in Kibale. We also visited the Amabeere Caves and the crater lakes. Staying at Lake Nkuruba was amazing and we finished our week by spending 24 hours on safari in Queen Elizabeth National Park where we saw lots of wildlife. Our final two weeks at RHS were very busy. Having noticed smoke pouring from the kitchens while we were checking on the floor, we were concerned as the stoves were supposed to be energy efficient and hence produce little or no smoke. It was explained to us that the stoves had been broken through misuse and therefore we decided to fund their repair to a higher standard, bought saws to cut the firewood and provided written instructions to help prevent damage. Our last major projects were the school library and the Bursar’s office. We moved the contents of the library store-cupboard into a shed and used the plywood partitions of the cupboard to install a ceiling in the nurse’s office in the hope that this would stop the rats from the adjoining food store entering the sick bay. We then replaced and reordered all the library books, categorising them and creating extra space in which
we installed a board upon which to display profiles of alumni to inform and inspire the students and a further careers board displaying information about postsecondary pathways, university scholarships and CV writing. In the Bursar’s office, we arranged for shelves to be built so that the financial paperwork relating to the 550 students (all paying their school fees in random instalments) could be stored in an orderly fashion. EPAfrica was an amazing experience. I met some incredible people and I hope that the projects we completed, in partnership with Rwantsinga High School, have a sustained, positive impact. I am grateful to all my generous donors for supporting EPAfrica and our work this summer.
Tom Slattery (KES 2008-2015) Tom Slattery is currently studying for a BSc Computer Science at Bath University having taken Maths, Physics and Chemistry at A Level at King Edward’s. He was a Sixth Form academic scholar. During the placement year of his degree he worked at IBM Hursley’s Research and Development lab; the home of development for CICS, a transaction server used by all major players in the financial services sector and the longest running product offered by IBM. Whilst on placement, Tom worked in a specialised division of the CICS test team called Customer Service in Production, where he tested the relevance of the system to the requirements of large financial organisations. The placement allowed him to acquire many new skills including how to debug a large distributed system and to diagnose problems in software that span multiple development technologies. Tom also learnt to apply the IBM Design thinking process to his work; something that is extremely useful in every area of software development and of which the principles can be extended to any other discipline.
the placement, he was given training in inventing and filing patents and was encouraged to form a small team to generate and realise ideas. Together with another student, he drafted an idea relevant to internet banking and mobile payments, which was submitted for review by master inventors. After presenting and explaining the invention to senior technical staff members at IBM, it was assigned priority and submitted for a prior art search by a specialist legal team. After all prior art claims were refuted, a patent lawyer was consulted who assisted them in writing the draft into an official software patent. The idea was successfully filed by the United States Patent Office making Tom and his co-worker the first placement students to file a patent in 10 years and earning them IBM awards for their work.
The main product developed by the team was a scalable representation of a banking system, implemented with CICS. Dubbed the ‘Bank of Hursley Park’, this test environment is structured as a plex of connected CICS regions running on IBM mainframes. Tom’s role was to create a Liberty web user interface interacting directly with the Bank of Hursley Park, similar to those created for internal administration staff at banking organisations. In the first month of
11
OE Sport OE v 1st XI Football Match
OE v 1st XI Cricket Fixture
In September, the KES 1st XI football team had an exciting first match of their new season against an OE side. The OEs started the stronger team and were 3-0 up at half-time. However, a superb second half team performance from the school players helped KES go 4-3 up, before injury forced the abandonment of the match with just two minutes remaining due to a trip to A&E for one of the players.
This year’s OE V KES 1st XI cricket saw the OEs bat first. Having just watched England’s footballers win their game against Panama, it was clear that the adrenaline was still flowing as Dan Damley-Jones got them off to a flying start and, with a typically speedy 50 from Gregor McKenzie, the School were set a challenging target of 187 in their 20 overs.
Our thanks to all those OEs who played and to Matt Stelling who organised and captained the team. OE team: Matt Stelling, Barnaby Taylor, Bruce Carpenter, Ed Dawson, George McCarthy, George Vincent, Hugo Wilkinson, Jacob Baxendale, Jacob Fay, James Gaunt, James Young, Patrick Holly, Tom Smart and Will Thompson.
The 1st XI started well but wickets tumbled and eventually KES finished well short as the OE team showed they’d not lost any of their ability during their time at university. The OE team was made up of leavers from across the last 10 years and was compiled by Ali Cheyne, with Ed Wright being the on field captain. Thank you to both Ali and Ed and to all those who played on the day. OE team: Ed Wright, Dan Damley-Jones, Jamie Fox, Rory Morris, Nikhil Chikhliwia, Charles Bolton, Nic Cooper, Alec Damley-Jones, Gregor Mckenzie, Cameron Thomas and Daniel Hemingway.
Golf Eight hardy OE golfers took to the links at Hayling Golf Club in September to compete over 36 holes for the Ray Paull Trophy. The winner was Alex Self (KES 2000-2007) who won with a magnificent 40 points, holing a 60-foot putt on the 18th green. He just pipped Howard Hilliker (KES 1970-1972) to first place, who also scored 40 points, on count back. The Old Edwardians’ golfing Order of Merit was also awarded after this event and was won by Nick Creal (KES 1986-1991) who performed consistently over the season accumulating 23 points. Grateful thanks to James Lay who has been organising the OE golfing events for the past two years. James will be stepping down from this role at the end of the year. If anyone is interested in playing golf for the OEs, or would like to help with the organisation of an event, please email oldedwardiansgolf@gmail.com
12
www.kes.hants.sch.uk
A Trip Down Memory Lane In June, we were delighted to welcome back two former pupils for an informal tour of the School. Brian Meadley (KES 1940-1947) and Jim Anderson (1945-1949) met up again for the first time since they left school and for Brian this was the first time he has returned to KES in 71 years. Jim is more familiar with the Hill Lane site as it is today, having had a daughter and grandson also attend King Edward’s.
OE Climbing Trip At the beginning of September, a group of OE climbers met up at Lovaton to enjoy the Dartmoor granite. The weather was slightly damp on the Saturday increasing the challenges, but still a number of the group climbed multiple top ropes. A large Saturday night meal recharged everyone’s batteries before another long morning on the rock on Sunday.
13
Seeing the changes Since leaving KES in 1964, Phil Preston has obtained BA and MSc degrees and has pursued a public service career, specialising in the management of the Education Service in the South East and London. He was Head of Education Planning for a number of local authorities before moving into the private sector as a Senior Education Consultant for a large international project management company serving clients in the UK and abroad. Phil and his wife Hilary now live in Essex where Phil runs his own consultancy, supporting school providers and leaders at a time of unprecedented change in education. A trip to the south of England gave them the perfect opportunity to pop in and visit the School and see the recent changes that have been made. It was a real pleasure to be able to show them around.
In search of “The Crane” The teacher I remember best from my time at school is Ken Pike, who taught English, and I remember him especially because he opened my mind to poetry. I started out highly sceptical; I thought I hated Shakespeare, because he wrote dreary plays that I was going to have to study. And poetry! Well it was nonsense, wasn’t it? I remember making my point to Ken as forcefully as I dared, and I picked on a line from a poem he had put to us. It was entitled “The Crane”, and the line I queried read “Carrying blocks of circumstance, hewn from the quarried hills of chance”. “Come on”, I said, “that’s absolutely meaningless. What on earth is the poet on about?” And instead of exploding with wrath, or throwing up his hands in despair, Ken quietly explained the line to me, and I suddenly realised not only that poetry could make sense, but that it could express inspiring ideas in stunningly beautiful language. Poetry is an
14
important part of my life, and scarcely a day goes by without my reading a poem - or several. Moreover, poetry led on to a wider interest in the arts - drama, music, opera, and ballet; all of which play a large role in my retirement. A couple of years later I was riding to school to take the Churchill College entrance exam, and I paused my bike at the entrance to Southampton Common, and spent a few minutes thinking of the ordeal ahead. And of course the line of poetry came back into my mind. What was the entrance exam except an opportunity to hew rather a large block of circumstance from the quarried hills of chance? In 1962 I went to Churchill, graduating in 1965. But I’m left with a conundrum. I should love to find this particular poem again, but try as I might, I can’t. I’ve tried search engines and I’ve written to BBC’s ‘Poetry Please’ but it seems to have vanished into the ether, leaving not
a trace behind. Maybe Ken Pike had written it himself? If anyone out there reading this can throw any light on the subject, please do let me know by getting in touch with the Development Office on edwardians@kes.hants.sch.uk Roger Helmer (KES 1955-1962)
www.kes.hants.sch.uk
Obituaries Hugh Whitemore (KES 1951-1955) Hugh Whitemore was an only child who was born in Tunbridge Wells before his family moved to Southampton where he attended King Edward’s from 1951-1955. Whilst at School, Hugh was a Prepositor and Chief Editor of Sotoniensis and Secretary of the Dramatic Society. He also played Alonso in the school production of The Tempest. Upon leaving King Edward’s, Hugh studied at Rada, having begun his career with ambitions of becoming a performer. These ambitions changed, due perhaps, in no small part, to being told by one of his teachers at Rada, the actor Peter Barkworth, that he
had the potential to make a great contribution to theatre – “though perhaps not as an actor”. By the 1960s he was busy in television, winning the first of his three Emmy awards in 1970, and establishing himself as a reliable adapter of popular classics. He moved into playwriting with works such as Stevie (1977), Pack of Lies (1983) and Breaking the Code (1986) working with the likes of Judi Dench and Derek Jacobi. Both Pack of Lies and Breaking the Code were subsequently developed for television. Further television dramas followed, as well as film scripts for films including David Jones’s 84 Charing Cross Road (1986, with Anne Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins) and Franco Zeffirelli’s Jane Eyre (1996 with
William Hurt and Charlotte Gainsbourg). Later work included a Channel 4 version of Anthony Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time (1997) and Richard Loncraine’s television film of My House in Umbria (2003), with an Emmy award-winning performance from Maggie Smith. Whitemore continued to write successfully and his last play was Sand in the Sandwiches (2016), a solo show for Edward Fox as John Betjeman. Hugh Whitemore was a man of huge talent, also serving as a council member at Rada, and was made an honorary fellow of King’s College London in 2006. He is survived by his third wife, Rohan McCullogh and his son, Thomas, from his second marriage. Hugh died in July this year aged 82.
Josh Blunsden
Ellie Steel
15
Snippets Samara Jones
(KES 2009-2016)
won the ‘Outstanding Contribution to Student Life’ award at the University of York’s Love York Awards ceremony in the summer. This award is the biggest award bestowed by the university each year and recognises a student who has made a positive contribution to university life across their time at York so far.
Luke Roberts
(KES 2009-2016) was accepted for a young alpinist scholarship in Chamonix last year. He also raced in the ITU International Triathlon Championships in Denmark achieving a podium finish. He is currently studying Geophysics at the most northerly teaching institute in the world – Svalbard and is working on his thesis on ‘Arctic Fjord water mass exchange driven by ice and brine production’.
(KES 2007-2014) graduated from the University of Oxford (Corpus Christi College) with a 2:1 Master of Chemistry (Honours) degree this summer. He was awarded a departmental thesis prize for his Master’s thesis on the effects of weak magnetic fields on radical pair reactions in the context of magnetocarcinogenesis and avian magnetoreception. He will now study for a combined MRes+PhD as part of the Centre for Doctoral Training in Controlled Quantum Dynamics at Imperial College.
Rob Ward
(KES 1982-1991) recently concluded a 19-year career as a Managing Director at Accenture, one of the world’s largest and most successful consulting and technology firms, during which time he has worked with many of the world’s leading companies - from Microsoft to BP, Vodafone to Lloyds Bank. He has now set up his own business called Brighter Escapes, a company organising tailor-made holidays for individuals, families and corporate clients. www.brighterescapes.com
(2003-2010) has won gold at the Western European Powerlifting Championships in Norway. She lifted a total weight of 523.5 kilograms at 56.93kg bodyweight. She squatted 207.5kg, bench pressed a European record 141kg and deadlifted 175kg, making her the best overall lifter in the competition. She also achieved over 600 Wilks points, The Wilks Formula being used to measure the strength of one powerlifter against another despite the different weights of the lifters.
Glyn Meek
(KES 1961-1968) Glyn is looking to trace two of his former school friends, namely Ian J Williams (KES 1961-1969) and Brian T Saunders (KES 1961-1968). If anyone is in touch with Ian or Brian, or may know where they are now living, please do pass on any information to The Development Office who will try to help Glyn renew contact.
15
King Edward VI School Wilton Road . Southampton . Hampshire SO15 5UQ Telephone: 023 8070 4561 www.kes.hants.sch.uk