Old Birkfeldians Newsletter - Summer 2023

Summer

Principal A message from the

Dear Old Birkfeldian

I write at the end of another lovely and very successful Summer Term on campus for students, parents and staff. It would be remiss not to start with our U18 female football treble – Suffolk County winners, England Independent School winners, All England School football winners. We are enormously proud of the players, their coaches and this significant leap forward for girls’ sport at the College.

As you will all recall, this term brings much academic toil in the form of public examinations and also a raft of events, including our Arts Festival, prize givings, and end of term discos, proms and the beautiful Sixth Form ball. It was my pleasure to catch up over coffee recently with fellow teacher, Mr Matthew Berry OB and hear about life in an Irish independent school, Kilkenny College. He also shared fond memories of life as a student and former member of staff at St Jo’s. Matt attended St Jo’s from 1982 to ‘89 and then returned to teach here from 1997-1999. As ever, please do get in touch and share your news with us – if you want to catch up on campus please contact the College through

(OBS@stjos.co.uk and admin@stjos.co.uk) or keep up with us on our social media feeds;

Facebook: /stjosephscollegeipswich

Instagram: @st_josephs_college_ipswich

Twitter: @mystjos

St Joseph’s College Sport: @mystjossport

Old Birkfeldians

Facebook: /OldBirkfeldians

Instagram : @Old_Birkfeldians

I very much look forward to seeing you and your families on campus at our 37th annual Rugby Festival, which this year also coincides spectacularly with the Rugby World Cup over the weekend of Saturday 21 and Sunday 22 October, with the OB game on the preceding Friday.

Wishing you all a fabulous summer wherever you are.

Danielle Clarke Principal

Amberley Munnings

Making the cut as an ENT Surgeon

I joined St Joseph’s College in 1994 in the nursery department when it was still based at Oak Hill! I was lucky enough to attend all my schooling at St Jo’s, including my A-level education to study Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics and English Literature with the wonderful Mr Davey, our Head of Sixth Form at the time. I left in 2009 to study medicine at King’s College London. Having graduated in 2015, I progressed to undertake my foundation year one and two as a junior doctor in Kent, Surrey and Sussex deanery. Having decided to pursue surgery as a career, I then moved to the Thames Valley deanery to undertake my core surgical training for the following two years.

I am currently an ear, nose and throat (ENT) surgical registrar in the Thames Valley region, aiming to become a surgical consultant in the near future, but I am still a junior doctor with more exams to go!

My usual week consists of getting to work for 8.00am and doing a ward round of any inpatients admitted under the ENT team. Common conditions we manage are tonsillitis, nose bleeds and ear infections, but can also include airway emergencies, which are at the scarier end of the scale!

I will then go to clinic to see out-patients attending their ENT appointment – much like someone attending a GP appointment, but for more specialist advice – or go to theatre to operate with my consultant. There are a wide range on ENT operations to learn about. The first procedures you learn to do independently are taking tonsils out (tonsillectomy), ventilating the middle ear to help treat hearing loss and infections (grommets) and taking biopsies of suspected head and neck cancers. Gradually, you learn more advanced operations, for example, taking a thyroid out, performing sinus surgery and complex middle ear surgery.

ENT is a lovely mix of medical and surgical management, with a large focus of improving the quality of life for our patients across all ages, which is why I really enjoy it.

It is a long road to become a doctor, and even more so to become a consultant. I would not have got here without the help and support of the teachers at St Jo’s. I would encourage anybody who wants to do it to go for it. I am happy to be contacted for any career advice in medicine via Mr Kemsley, Futures Advisor.

Birkfield House

A graceful mansion standing the test of time

Birkfield Lodge, which is the administrative hub of St Joseph’s College and which we call Birkfield House, was built in 1817 for the then astronomical sum of £30,000 (over £3 million today) by a German nobleman, Count Litsingen. When he died just seven years later he was on the verge of bankruptcy.

The property was sold to an Ipswich cheesemonger called Mr Clark, who kept it for six years, after which it was purchased by a Mr Campbell of Argyll. He lived at Birkfield until his death in 1865, when it was sold to a Mr Kenison. Some 30 years later it became the home of an Ipswich surgeon, Dr Bartlett.

In 1918 the house and lands were sold to Bunnell Henry Burton. A director of the Ipswich firm of Burton, Son & Sanders, wholesale provision merchants, based in College Street, he was also organist of St Mary-le-Tower Church, Mayor of Ipswich in 1905, and for 38 years Chairman of the Governors at Ipswich School. Knighted in 1934 for political and public services in Ipswich, Sir Bunnell was an honorary member of the Ipswich Art Club 1910-1915 but did not exhibit.

He died at Birkfield Lodge in 1943, his wife, Eveline, having died seven years earlier.

The property was then acquired by Lord Belstead and H. Paul Esq, but the following year the house was requisitioned by the Army as a soldiers’ rest home. At that time, the grounds were used for food production and were worked by Land Army girls and German prisoners of war. Following the Second World War, the estate was bought by the De La Salle Brothers in 1946.

Birkfield House remains largely unalteredalthough additions have been made over its 200 years. The large conservatory on the site of Stokes Wing (which currently accommodates the History department on the ground floor and Learning Support above) was demolished in 1951. This conservatory had a mosaic floor and the walls were said to be covered with camellias.

In the centre was a large datura plant, which bore its heavily-scented trumpet-shaped flowers throughout the year. It was rumoured that the datura was the only one of its kind in the country; a very unlikely claim! Readers will be pleased to learn that the plant, which is highly toxic, is long gone.

Twelve months ago, we were delighted to be visited by Mr George Burton, great grandson of Bunnell Burton, and his wife,Jane. Mr and Mrs Burton toured the house and saw the room in which Mr Burton’s father stayed when living at

Birkfield for a number of years. The room is now used as an office (by day) by St Jo’s Director of Admissions, Marketing and Communications.

Mr Burton kindly let us have scans of the auction brochure when his great grandfather’s estate was sold off in September 1944. We like the description of Birkfield as ‘…a well built structure of two storeys…it could…be readily adapted for use as a Private School, Home or Institution; the level Park lands surrounding the House making it particularly suitable for the first-named purpose.’ We think so too.

In all, the lot comprised ‘a Mansion, 6 Cottages and 109 acres, 2 roods, 26 poles’. A rood is a quarter of an acre and a pole (or perch or rod) a linear measure of 16-and-a-half feet.’The size of the pole (or perch or rod) was constrained by its use in defining the acre, which was a work unit of land: as much as a team of oxen could plough in a day’ - which sounds very much like one of those old ‘problems’ set by Maths teachers. How many teams of oxen would be needed to plough a field… St Joseph’s College has been undertaking a programme of renovations at Birkfield House. The exterior has been repainted, with further touching up to come, and the internal decor has been updated. The original shutters in the Birkfield Lounge have been reinstated. Further work will follow as funds allow.

Old Birkfeldians Mike Richards & Mick Toomey

We are taken back down the decades by Mr Mike Richards OB, who arrived at the school for the 1946/47 academic year. He came to St Joseph’s from Brentwood, having been handed over by his mother to a teacher at Liverpool Street station. He was one of a group of youngsters taking the steam train to Ipswich. There, the boys climbed aboard Felix, an antiquated pre-War charabanc, for the final leg of the journey to Belstead.

‘Shown around, my first dormitory was where we unpacked and I met another new boy from Laindon, Mick Toomey, and so we bonded. During that influential time, we shared the duty of getting ‘puffing billy’ going, a mechanical pump that spread the waste water from overfull tanks around the woods!’

Lessons continued at Oakhill and Junior boys walked there every Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday for Mass … back to boarding for breakfast then back again for lessons. Later as Seniors it was Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. However, changes were afoot and classes were developed at Birkfield and even a new Chapel was constructed.

Jolly’s field had been created and one of the sanctions imposed for misbehaviour was to pick two buckets of stones from this new sports ground.

Over the years many changes occurred, including the establishment of a shooting club and a farm.

‘All this time among many friends was Mick Toomey, who was a class lower but because our homes were close, my father met up with his and he drove us to the school. There are many an

anecdote and memories of past times and on the whole, I was happy there…. Sport was good and I had two years in the 1st XV and the Cricket XI. We both did our National Service before settling down to work.’

Mick Toomey headed up and expanded the Toomey Motor Group after the death of his father, building it into quite a large organisation. His interests outside the motor trade including charitable housing works in the Basildon area. He continued to support St Joseph’s with a regular cricket prize and took a particular interest in the farm.

Mick, who attended early Mass most days and had a strong relationship with Our Lady - having visited the Međugorje pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina several times – sadly died during the Covid pandemic in November 2021, although his death proved to be from cancer.

Mick Richards wrote, ‘His funeral in Basildon in January 2022 was huge with the Bishop and several visiting clergy taking part in a church full of company personnel, friends and family. He had set a standard of hard work and honesty that was the ethos of the company and his life following the school motto: Labore et Tenacitate.’

Driver Required Bag of Tricks to Mobilise Felix

Felix I was bought in 1946 for £300 and her task was to transport the Junior boarders from their meals at Birkfield to their classes at Oak Hill. Built in 1927, the 20-seater Albion Viking was canvas topped and had previously worked the route at Felixstowe front, before being laid up during the Second World War. The bright blue bus was also used for fixtures, Scout camps, school trips and shopping expeditions. A driver who knew her well described the starting technique:

1. Remove plug from flooded cylinder.

2. Retard ignition and half open hand throttle.

3. Close choke by pulling a wire on radiator.

4. Flood carburettor.

5. Swing starting hand

6. When engine fires, RUN!

7. When 10-foot high fountain has subsided, switch off, replace plug and repeat 1 -5.

8. Open choke, advance ignition, close hand throttle and drive off without stalling the engine.

Her successor, Felix II, was purchased in 1951, Another Albion, she was a 32-seater coach and had done service with the RAF since 1937.

The driver reported, ‘The end came when, with the opening of

the Stokes Wing at Birkfield, the primary purpose of the bus ended. Felix II’s fuel consumption – three miles per gallon of petrol in town and 10mpg on a clear run – was just too high for luxury usage alone.

Today, things are rather different. Transport at St Joseph’s College is managed by OB John Atkinson and the school has a fleet of 12 liveried minibuses and a pool car, primarily used by Boarding.

Dr Paul Sinnadurai OB

Dr

Paul Sinnadurai FCIEEM, Honorary Research Fellow Cardiff University Senior Ecologist

Bannau Brycheiniog

National Park Authority Ballet Teacher, L4 Strength and Conditioning Coach, Youth Training Specialist

I left St Jo’s, where I’d been fortunate enough to be DeputyHead Boy alongside Colin Gilbert (see page 13), with Sara Owen and Andrew Ogden as Head Girl and Head Boy, in 1982. I made life-long friends but I’ve not been good enough at keeping in touch with other school mates, which is sad on my part. One of my greatest friends was our inspiring, much loved and lost, Brother Paul McAuley, who taught me to see the good in everyone.

I trod the A-level path and secured my place at King’s College London to study zoology but during my sixth form I caught the ballet bug and decided that I had to try to become a ballet dancer. I started attending lessons in Woodbridge at the late age of 17, got more involved with school productions, annoyed our rugby coach by dropping out of training, and having left St Jo’s, auditioned for ballet school. I got a grant-maintained place, with support from my parents, and my St Jo’s mates. I was lucky to have very patient and understanding parents, and King’s was very understanding too, wishing me the best of luck and if it didn’t work out in ballet, to get back in touch! Different times!

Five years later I graduated from the Central School of Ballet with a Professional Diploma in Classical Ballet and Contemporary Dance, having met the love of my life there, Katy, whom I would later marry. Katy landed a full-time contract with the Ballet der Bayerischer Staatsballett and I landed an apprentice contract there. I danced in the corps de ballet in ballets such as Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, La Fille Mal Gardée, Romeo and Juliet, Onegin, Petruschka and others, as well as numerous operas. I wasn’t the next Rudolf Nureyev or Mikhail Baryshnikov, however, so I always felt I had a limited shelf life as a dancer.

My other great interest has always been nature conservation, as it was at St Jo’s, where I would bore my mates pontificating on wildlife and the environment. So, with a few too many injuries and a realisation that I needed to move on from ballet, and being keen to start a career in nature conservation, I contacted King’s College London, who, on understanding my interests in nature conservation, offered me an unconditional place to study ecology, under the excellent supervision of Drs Peter Moore and Bryan Turner. This was during the era of fully maintained university places. I graduated in 1992 with a First-Class Honours Degree in Ecology, and rather than pursue the post-graduate offers that came in, I felt that I needed to start paying my way in society and look for a job. Also, Katy and I married soon after I graduated and whilst she was by now dancing with London

City Ballet (with whom I danced occasionally whilst at university), we wanted to start a family, so I needed to share the income responsibility.

Six months later I landed my first job with English Nature (now Natural England), where I worked as a Conservation Officer for seven years, in the team covering Essex, Hertfordshire and London. London life was expensive even then, and, with two children and a third on the way, Katy and I wanted to give our children the sort of countrybased childhood I had enjoyed in Ufford and Woodbridge. So, after several near-miss job applications, I landed the job as Ecologist with the Brecon Beacons National Park Authority, where I’ve worked now for the past 23 years.

Dr Victor Yeo OB

We are grateful to Chat Chan OB, who sent us the obituary of a member of his class, Dr Victor Yeo. Chat wrote, ‘He joined the school from Hong Kong in 1980 for Year 4, took O-levels in 1982, and then A-levels in ‘83 and ‘84. He then went up to Cambridge in 1985 to read Medicine. He returned to practise medicine in HK in 1996, where he remained until his untimely death.’

We republish the obituary here;

Dr Victor Yeo (1964 – 2022)

FRCA, MRCP, FANZCA, FHKCA (Anaes), FFICANZCA, FHKCA (IC), FJFICM

My brother, Victor, passed away on 22 September 2022, having succumbed to metastatic renal cell carcinoma. He was 57 years old.

Victor was born in Rangoon, Burma (now Myanmar) in 1964. Our family left Burma for Hong Kong when he was five years old. He studied at La Salle Primary School and La Salle College, before pursuing his education in United Kingdom. He attended St Joseph College, Ipswich, and subsequently gained entrance to study Medicine at Magdalene College, Cambridge and later obtained a scholarship to continue his Clinical Medicine years at Hughes Hall, Cambridge.

He began his training in Anaesthesia at Leicester Royal Infirmary UK and rotated among teaching hospitals in Leicester and Sheffield. He side-branched into Neonatology and Paediatrics for a year, and also ventured across the Altantic to work in the USA briefly to challenge himself. After obtaining his Fellowship in Anaesthesia and Membership in Paediatrics in the UK, he returned to Hong Kong in 1996 and began working at the Prince of Wales Hospital. On completing his anaesthetic training under the ANZCA and HKCA programmes, he decided to pursue a career in Intensive Care Medicine. He obtained his ICM Fellowship under both Colleges too, and moved on to Queen Mary Hospital Hong Kong in 2000. Besides clinical duties, his other passion was teaching. He was an instructor for the ATLS course and an examiner for the College exams.

Victor left the public health sector to work in private practice in 2010. During his career, he treated many patients but the most memorable would be the survivors from the Pak Sin Leng wildfire in 1996, and also the SARS patients in 2003. I never asked my brother why he chose anaesthesia and intensive care medicine. It was well known to all his friends that Victor loved reading and indeed enjoyed studying. It was no surprise that he would choose the most demanding field which would cover all specialties in medicine, and that he would treat the sickest patients in the hospitals. Having Victor as my brother was a special blessing. He would use the knowledge he learnt from physiology and apply it to daily life. When I was sitting for my undergraduate exams, he advised me to avoid heavy meals before exam (to maintain cerebral blood flow), and the advantage of taking candies (the most direct substrate for the neurones). And being a fan of ‘Star Wars’ and the Jedi Order, he would wish me luck saying ‘May the Force be with you’. When we were both anaesthetic trainees, we could discuss our work and our ‘dilemmas’. And in scenarios where we had to decide whether to intubate the patients or not, he would say, ‘if in doubt, put the tube down’, a principle by which I still abide. We could discuss our post-operative analgesic regime or how to improve the success rate of our epidural anaesthesia. He would always give you his honest and fair view. My father told me Victor used to draw pictures of horses all day long when he was young. However, I never saw him draw. In his teen years, his favourite pastimes were making models, playing board games and computer war-gaming. He

would made models of tanks, fighters, warships and battlefields which were based on real historic backgrounds and through these activities he became an expert in world history, especially World War II. Reading was his favourite hobby and Kindle his best gadget. And he would prefer swimming to any other sports. Regarding his musical talent, one must agree his singing of ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’, the only song he would sing on request, was admirable.

When he was undergoing cancer treatment, Victor experienced many, many side effects. We were distraught and devastated, but Victor was the one to comfort us. He remained his normal calm and intellectual self, balancing the benefits and side effects of all the novel treatments he underwent, and analysing his progress as the disease unfolded.

Finally, it was the courage he showed in his fight against the disease, the sufferings he chose to endure silently, and the selfless love he showed to his family, that made him such a remarkable man. Victor is survived by his wife Alice and his two children, Victoria and Horatio, his parents and three sisters.

Dr Patricia Yeo Anaesthetist (Private Practice, Hong Kong)

Rugby Festival

St Jo’s doing what St Jo’s does best – you can be part of it

Your thoughts might well be on holidays and cooling off poolside but the rugby season will be back with us before you know it! Please update your calendar now – the 37th St Joseph’s College Rugby Festival will take place on Saturday 21 and Sunday 22 October, with the OB games (rugby and netball) the previous evening. It coincides with the 2023 Rugby World Cup

We will email more details a little nearer the time and set up a Facebook event. But the bottom line is Your College Needs You! Please contact Mr David Kemsley, our Futures Advisor, (d.kemsley@stjos.co.uk) if you are interested in playing. The Festival grows and grows and we have a waiting list of top schools hoping to take part. Our own rugby players will be back at the College for pre-season training from 14 August.

Our ambition for the event, already known as the ‘king maker’ in honour of its pivotal role in shaping future professional careers in the sport, has prompted us to take another massive leap forward. St Joseph’s College Festival is going global!

The school has been working hard over the past few months to expand what is regarded as the most prestigious school sport festival in the UK to a new level. We are taking it to a worldwide audience to broaden access and opportunity to more age groups and across multiple sports. Introducing a new stage each year at world-class venues, the St Joseph’s College Global Festival will grow towards a seven-stage event that offers a comprehensive experience for all and is shared across the world via our broadcasting partners NextGenXV.

After Stage One in the UK, which will always be held at St Jo’s in October, the second stage will be taking place in Barcelona next February half term;

U15 Boys Football

(Friday 16–Tuesday 20 February)

U17 Boys Rugby

(Friday 16–Tuesday 20 February)

U18 Girls Football

(Wednesday 21–Sunday 25 February)

U11 Girls Football

(Wednesday 21–Sunday 25 February)

U11 Boys Rugby

(Wednesday 21–Sunday 25 February)

OB Sportsman travels the world

Exciting times for OB Joshua Apple, now a professional basketball player. Josh a former boarder at The Mews, dropped into the College recently to bring us up to date on his career since leaving St Jo’s in 2016. A first-rate rugby player, who had been in the reserve Festival squad and then the squad proper for 2015, his talent at basketball was increasingly evident.

Following a year at Copleston High School, Josh was offered a scholarship at East Central University in Oklahoma. He stayed at the College for five years – extended due to Covid provisions – studying Business marketing and Investment Banking. He wasn’t the only Brit in the school, which was also home to a softball player from Bury St Edmunds. Having graduated, he came back across the Atlantic and has just completed his first pro contract, a year with Calais Basket. He is now considering his options and has promised to keep us posted.

OB Props

These two OBs were propping against each other on Friday night in the West Country Varsity match - Bristol University v Bath University. It was a somewhat brutal game but it was all friends afterwards for Wilfred Kemsley and Josh Cilia, who both left St Jo’s in 2020.

Birkfield Career Speakers

It’s not just doctors and nurses

Many thanks to all the visitors to St Joseph’s College this term who took the time to deliver inspiring Birkfield Society careers talks. Our final speakers were Mr Giles Turner OB and St Jo’s parent Mrs Maddie Baker-Woods, who spoke about National Health Service management and the careers available.

Mrs Baker Woods is Director of Ipswich and East Suffolk Alliance and Mr Turner is Head of Workforce Intelligence and Planning for NHS Suffolk and North East Essex Integrated Care Board. They confirmed the NHS is a brilliant place to work, offering opportunities across a huge range of professions.

Those wishing to know more could watch the NHS video, Live 1000 Lives.

Netball star makes a welcome appearance

England Netball Centre and Wing Attack player Hannah Joseph was an extremely popular guest when she came to St Jo’s to run some training sessions with the Prep School children and to deliver a Birkfield Lecture.

Pictured here (below) with some of our top netballers, Hannah made her senior debut for England in 2016 in the test series against Australia. On the domestic front, she is one of the longest serving players for Loughborough Lightning in the Netball Super League. Having first signed for the side in 2011, she delivered consistently on court as Lightning won their first title in 2021. Hannah was reselected for the Vitality Roses programme for 2022-23. As her day job, Hannah is Director of Netball at Uppingham School.

Colin Gilbert OB

Just as we were finishing for the Easter holiday, Mr Colin Gilbert OB dropped in and we were delighted to be able to take him on a tour of St Joseph’s. Colin came through the school from Oakhill to Sixth Form, leaving in 1982.

He was one of five Gilbert brothers at St Jo’s – Howard (who came for Sixth Form) followed by Bill, Andrew, Colin and Tim. Their sister Ellen attended the school of Jesus and Mary – later to merge with St Jo’s. She made another St Jo’s connection by marrying into the Jolly family.

Tragically, Andrew and Tim were murdered in the 9/11 terrorist attack on the Twin Towers in New York.

Colin represented St Joseph’s College many times in rugby, including as captain of the 1st XV. After school, he worked in financial markets and he moved to Australia in 1987, where his home is in Mudgee, a wine-producing region north-west of Sydney.

Colin is pictured in the Sixth Form Centre with Mr David Kemsley, St Joseph’s Futures Adviser. The two recognised each other’s surnames as contemporaries on the local rugby scene.

Keam Yap OB

It’s wonderful to see Old boys (really old ones I might add) returning to St Joseph’s!

We all have great memories there, especially in Goldrood - the haunted ‘scary’ in the basement!

I came back in December 2003 and took my family too, but it wasn’t the right time as it was school holidays!! Still, we felt the difference from those days of Brothers... and boys-only classes as one example! Even the sports and houses had changed! Perhaps one day I may return!

Keam Yap ( 1969 -73)