Atrium, Old Pauline News, Spring/Summer 2020

SPRING / SUMMER 2020

ATRIUM THE ST PAUL’S SCHOOL ALUMNI MAGAZINE

Sir Jonathan Miller CBE (1934-2019) Philosopher

The Interview

Pauline Perspective

Orlando Gibbs meets Henry Hardy, keeper of the Isaiah Berlin flame

Mark Lobel interviews the High Master who opens up on female role models, bursaries and safeguarding

Tom Hayhoe provides a perspective on mental health provision over the last 60 years 1

Editorial

Welcome to the second edition of Atrium. My first act as editor is to state that this is the only mention of Covid-19 at any point in the magazine. I will try to track down an eminent Pauline virologist to comment sensibly in the autumn.

M

y second act is the pleasure of thanking my predecessor, Simon Bishop (1962-65) for his 12 years of dedication to the role and for making the handover unimaginably easy. His efforts provide a wonderful platform on which to build. I am delighted that he has agreed to continue as a contributor.

compiled by Lorie Church (1992-97).

Stephen Baldock (1958-63), Tim Cunis (1955-60) and John Dunkin (1964-69) have acted as great spotters of all things Pauline in the media and elsewhere. Photographs have been taken by Bruce Viveash (1961-66). And Last Word was written by Jonathan Miller (1947-53) 37 years ago.

In 1983, Jonathan Foreman (1979-83) as editor of the School newspaper Folio asked Bernard Levin to share his views on school magazines. The great critic wrote back, ‘I have always thought that school magazines should not concern themselves too much with school itself; that is the job of the graffiti writer, and a school magazine should aim to be as close to a ‘real’ magazine as possible, and to encourage good writing on a wide variety of subjects.’ I believe this advice holds good almost 40 years later and this is where I would like Atrium to be.

Now for the hard part – I believe Atrium should not shy away from the difficult stuff. In this magazine Tom Hayhoe focuses on mental health issues, the High Master talks candidly about past safeguarding failings and Orlando Gibbs refers to Isaiah Berlin’s (1922-28) resignation from the Old Pauline Club. I have read the recently published Serious Case Review and it makes very sad reading. I am probably not alone in struggling to understand how best historical abuse can be met when its ghosts and demons have the capacity to batter lives decades later– even when those lives may have found the finest love and support. I hope the School’s recent response has in some way helped those abused.

In this magazine alongside Simon’s there are articles written by Paul Ganjou (1960-65), Tom Hayhoe (1969-73), Robin Hirsch (1956-61), Peter King (1967-71) and Mark Lobel (1992-97). From this century’s Paulines Henry Dyer (2010-15), Orlando Gibbs (2008-13) and Simon Lovick (2008-13) have contributed.

The crossword has again been

In Pauline Memories, you will find a pen portrait of WW Cruickshank (Master 1947-73) by Mark Lovell (1947-53) and the next Atrium will include essays by Bob Phillips (196468) on Tom Howarth (High Master 1962-73) and Michael Simmons

(1946-52) on Pat Cotter (Master 1928-65). These masters obviously had profound and positive impacts on Mark, Michael and Bob’s lives. Many of the opportunities I have had since leaving St Paul’s are the result of the wonderful teaching and influence of masters including Peter Thomson (Master and Surmaster 1961-84) in particular.

Jeremy Withers Green (1975-80) jeremy.withersgreen@gmail.com

Atrium Needs You • A magazine thrives on quality copy,

please send in memories and suggestions for articles. Please do let me know if you want to add your name to our list of contributors.

• Provoke debate on anything Pauline that matters to you. I am keen to expand our Letters’ Page.

• Please help keep paper use and costs down and opt for ‘soft copy’ if that suits you. There will be an email in the coming months from the School Development Office on this.

I must also acknowledge with much gratitude the hard work and support of many at School, particularly Ginny Dawe-Woodings, St Paul’s Archivist and Jessica Silvester and Kate East in the Marketing and Communications Department.

CONTENTS

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18

22

26

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02 Miller and Parsons Remarkable Paulines who became leading lights of their generation

03 Letters OPs comment on Shaping Our Future, Batting Averages and Reunions

04 Briefings News of OPs including memories of WW Cruickshank and Polymaths

11 Pauline London Henry Dyer (2010-15) explores Stockwell and Brixton

12 The Interview Mark Lobel (1992-97) meets the High Master

16 Profile John Thorn (1939-43) Headmaster

18 The Genius and his Editor Orlando Gibbs (2008-13) meets Henry Hardy who edited Isaiah Berlin (1922-28)

20 Performers Simon Lovick (2008-13) on performing at The Fringe

22 Abolitionist Simon Bishop (1962-65) discovers Thomas Clarkson (1775-80)

26 Pauline Perspective Tom Hayhoe (1969-73) provides perspective on 60 years of mental health provisions

30 Et Cetera Robin Hirsch (1956-61) ‘Inventory’ – Tourettes and Oliver Sacks

32 Pauline Philanthropy

33 Old Pauline Club Featuring The Feast Service and Reunions

36 Obituaries 41 Old Pauline Sport The School plays OPs at Rugby and Football, the story and success of OP Fives

45 Past Times Snippets from 10, 20, 50 and 100 years ago

45 The Crossword Lorie Church (1992-97) poses a crossword puzzle with a mental health theme

46 Pauline Relatives Polly and Ed Vaizey (1981-85) share their Pauline and Paulina experiences and values

48 Last Word Sir Jonathan Miller (1947-53)

‘Shaping Our Future’ update

Cover photo: Richard Pohle / News Licensing

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MILLER AND PARSONS

This edition of Atrium went to print before we signed off the obituaries of two of the leading Paulines of the last 100 years. Shown below are tributes that were written for the Old Pauline Club website.

It is with great sadness that the St Paul’s School community learnt of the death of Sir Jonathan Miller (1947-53) on 27 November 2019.

Miller qualified as a medical doctor before happening upon success with Beyond the Fringe at the 1960 Edinburgh Festival. He enjoyed an outstanding career as a writer and director for theatre, opera and television.

Arriving at St Paul’s from Arnold House in the autumn of 1947, Miller was a member of ‘B Club’. In an interview in the 1982 edition of The Pauline magazine, Miller described how he met his wife, Helen Rachel Collet, in the Walker Library at St Paul’s: ‘My wife was at St Paul’s Girls’ School.

There was a play-reading society called the Milton Society, and once a year we had a joint play-reading with the Girls’ School: we met in the Walker Library round a great big table. That was where I met her, and we kept going all the way through. That doesn’t happen very often, and I’ve been married nearly twenty-three years.’

In the same interview, he also mentioned his experience of acting at St Paul’s: ‘I never acted in any plays.

I acted in the Colet Club’s revue. The Colet Club was an East End charity which St Paul’s had an interest in, and once a year there used to be this revue put on by Mr Harbord (Master 1928-67) who was in charge of High House. He also ran the school drama, and about three times in my career I appeared on the stage doing funny sketches.

But I was always working too hard and

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enjoying it too much for drama to become a very important part of my life then.’

While at St Paul’s, Miller formed a lifelong friendship with fellow pupil, Oliver Sacks (1946-51), writer and neurologist, who greatly credited Miller’s inspiration in the success of his own bestselling book, Awakenings.

While at St Paul’s, Miller formed a lifelong friendship with fellow pupil, Oliver Sacks...

In more recent years, the school was most grateful for a visit from Miller in which he invited a ‘question and answer’ session from pupils in the school theatre.

He was, by all accounts, sparkling and charming in his interactions. Upon being informed by the then Director of Drama, Edward Williams that the school had recently included Theatre Studies in its curriculum, Miller was less than impressed. He countered that the only subject worth studying was Philosophy.

The St Paul’s School Community sends its deepest condolences to Sir Jonathan Miller’s family.

We are deeply saddened by the news of the death of Nicholas Parsons CBE (1937-39) on 28 January 2020 at the age of 96.

Born in 1923, Parsons attended St Paul’s School between 1937 and 1939, having

previously attended Colet Court. He was a contemporary of John Treacher (1938-42), who went on to become Commander-in-Chief of the Fleet.

A member of C Club, Parsons participated in Rugby, Cricket and Fives and was a member of the School’s Boxing team. On leaving school, he wanted to pursue acting but, at the wishes of his parents, he spent the next five years as an engineering apprentice at Drysdales and studying Engineering at Glasgow University.

Parsons enjoyed an outstanding career as an actor, radio and television presenter, hosting Radio 4’s Just a Minute for more than 50 years as well as Sale of the Century, The Benny Hill Show and The Comic Strip Presents for television. He was a regular at the Edinburgh Fringe with The Nicholas Parsons Happy Hour, and the author of four books.

In 2011, St Paul’s School was very grateful to Parsons for hosting An Evening with Nicholas Parsons in the Wathen Hall, which raised money for the school’s bursary fund.

In the words of BBC director-general Tony Hall: ‘Very few people have done so much to entertain audiences over the decades, and no one deserves to be called a broadcasting legend more than Nicholas Parsons. His charm, inventive intellect and ability to create laughs were unsurpassed.’

The St Paul’s School Community sends its deepest condolences to his wife Ann and his family.

LETTERS Dear Sir, The article on Pauline cricketers rightfully suggests that Percy Fender (1906-10) is the most famous Pauline cricketing personality, perhaps best known for hitting the fastest first class century v Northamptonshire in 35 minutes in 1920.

Norman Mischler (1934-39) was a prolific scorer and in 1938 and notched up 1,218 runs at an average of 87.00.

I think the highest batting average at St Paul's School was attained in 1925

by Edgar Thomas (Tom) Killick (192126) who would go on to win his Blue at Cambridge and two caps for England, opening the innings with Herbert Sutcliffe in 1929.

Dear Sir, leave the field. Happily, Collins relented and the four boys returned. Killick made 31 on a difficult pitch.”

Editor: Monty Garland-Wells (1921-26) is the Hon Sec. (in the photo on captain Tom Killick’s right) and went on to captain Surrey. Mainly a batsman, his most memorable moment with the ball was to bowl Don Bradman for 32 in 1930 when the great batsman was en route to his thousand runs in May. Monty is probably the School’s only Association Football international. He played in goal once for the England Amateur XI in 1930.

Dear Jeremy, Congratulations on the first edition of Atrium.

His annus mirabilis at St Paul's was in 1925 when he scored 940 runs with an average of 104.44, which even exceeds the great Don Bradman's Test average of 99.94!

Best regards, John Dunkin (1964-69) Editor: taken from his obituary in Wisden. “The Reverend Tom Killick died while taking part in a cricket match between the diocesan clergy of St. Albans and Coventry at Northampton on May 18 1953, aged 46. He played for Cambridge University, Middlesex and England. While at St Paul's, where he also won his rugby colours, he captained the cricket XI. In 1926 he led the Public Schools XV against the Australians at Lord's.

H. L. Collins, the Australian captain, objected to the Schools fielding fifteen players and Killick had the unenviable duty of deciding which four had to

I was glad to see the emphasis on reunions, which are something the Old Pauline Club is right to be encouraging.

They need not all be marking tens or scores of years, and sitting everyone down at table to course after course.

An informal drink, perhaps five years on could be a useful addition to the portfolio? And I was particularly glad to see the news from Durham University. Perhaps you could stimulate some inter-university rivalry?

All best wishes for 2020...what the oculists tell me should be the year of perfect hindsight.

As ever, Brian Fall (1951-55) Editor: this year’s university reunion is planned for Bristol and we are hoping to invite Paulina students and Bristolian members of the Paulina League.

I found ‘Shaping Our Future’ a depressing read. While the emphasis on bursaries is important, the School should be doing this anyway. When I was at School, the School’s annual fee income was around £5million, which with inflation would be around £10 million today. However, thanks to continuous fee hikes, the actual school fee income in 2018 was £32 million.

Surely, somewhere from the extra £22 million a year, there should be enough for 153 bursaries. Where is all the money going?

The school is richer than it has ever been in its five hundred year history, and yet when it comes to bursaries, it seems to need to ask for extra money from Old Paulines. Why isn’t it doing this anyway?

From ‘Shaping Our Future’, it would seem that the area where St Paul’s is really keen to be outstanding is in the splendour of its boat house and cricket pavilion. I love cricket and still play regularly, but to spend £2.6million on a cricket pavilion beggars belief. This has nothing to do with inspiring cricketers (which teenager was ever inspired by a pavilion?) but is everything to do with desiring a spectacular ‘showcase building’.

St Paul’s continues to be gripped in the ‘Keeping up with the Joneses’ culture where private schools are addicted to articulating excellence by ever more splendid buildings, which offer no real gains to a pupil’s experience. This is vainglory – nothing more.

This ‘new’ vision was launched at St Paul’s Cathedral in order to emphasise the link to John Colet’s vision, but it has precious little to do with Colet’s ideals, and the idea that his name would be used to justify £7 million on a boathouse and £2.6 million on a pavilion will have him turning in his grave.

Yours sincerely, Robert Stanier (Caput Scholae, 1993) Editor: see Mark Lobel’s interview with the High Master for his thoughts on ‘Shaping Our Future’.

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BRIEFINGS

Pauline Memories

Nicholas Parsons – you have Just a Minute on your time at St Paul’s Paul Ganjou (1960-65) met Nicholas Parsons CBE (1937-39) in the last year of Nicholas’ long life. They talked about his time at School.

The happiest days: ‘there is an old saying “School days are the happiest days of your life” and this was certainly true of my time at St Paul’s and Colet Court (St Paul’s Junior School). I was usually the last boy in the playground to catch the tram home, which was then in Clapham. Later we moved to

Hampstead and then it was just a short walk from Olympia and the number 28 bus – much easier.’

Teachers: ‘I have a theory that those who take up teaching as a profession either do so because it appeals as a pleasant job, or they are committed to passing on knowledge and learning.

I was fortunate enough to have 3 teachers with this latter gift – all classics masters so I happen to excel at Latin and Greek.’

‘Tommy’: ‘In my final year, before I was moved away from the school early, dictated by the outbreak of war, I was taught by TL ‘Tommy’ Martin, as he was affectionately known by all. He was a slightly larger than life character of corpulent build, but had a real gift for teaching and imbuing his pupils with a desire to learn. I often think that whatever self-education I may have acquired since that the foundations were laid by this exceptional teacher and I still remember him with great affection.’

Sport: ‘I am not an academic; my great love is sport and my two schools gave me the chance to express myself in various activities, including cricket and fives and rugby. It was the latter game where I excelled and I was selected to play for the 2nd XV when I was only 15 and then for Glasgow University and reached a very high standard.’

Boxing: ‘I also boxed – as did most boys at the school – under an amazing teacher called Bo Langham. St Paul’s was then the premier boxing school in the country and the 1st Team often beat Sandhurst.’

Paul Ganjou was at School 21 years later and was also taught to box by Bo Langham. Both he and Nicholas won boxing ‘Colours’ and shared 2 other coaches – Bill Williams and ‘Buster’ Read, both ex-pro boxers.

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WW Cruikshank (Master 1947-73)

Wally Cruickshank was part of a double act. Whereas Pat Cotter was almost always clearly in view, open for business, Cruickshank was the introvert.

This did not prevent him from exercising a profound influence on my generation of classicists. He habitually looked serious and cautious. Boys approached him with care. Yet underlying his aura was a determination to help us succeed and there was a delicate humour that was very winning when it was carefully teased out.

His voice was unusual. It was guttural and his r’s were elusive, sometimes almost disappearing. Occasionally I paid so much attention to how he was speaking that I missed what he was saying. This led to embarrassment.

He was strongly influenced by his wartime experiences and his military life. He had the gift of natural control over his class, reinforced by glowering eyebrows and a luxuriant moustache, which earned him the nickname ‘Fuzzybristle’. (A few also referred to him as ‘Crookers’ but that was less common.) He realised that control in itself was not enough. It had to be combined with politeness, encouragement and an eagerness to offer new angles to inspire attention and interest.

Referring to wars in ancient history he once demanded, “What made some countries or city-states stronger than others?” Some of us suggested superior weaponry, tactics, or Spartan upbringing. He nodded politely. Those were the aspects favoured by Livy, Herodotus and other historians. But “portable protein” which could last longer than a campaign or a siege was the answer he proposed. Cheese that had a long wallet-life made all the difference. Famished troops could be swept aside. This unromantic but pragmatic opinion caught our imagination. He pointed out that ‘Kraft’ was a very appropriate brand namethinking of what that meant in German.

His humorous remarks were never flashy. His eyes twinkled, his

moustache quivered, but he rarely laughed aloud. He could be very entertaining, but strictly on his own terms.

One of his preferred approaches towards somewhat smug Pauline classicists was to make seemingly impossible demands on our versatility. In those days translating English poetry into Latin verse composition was expected of all classicists regularly, every two weeks with a week for Greek verse in between. Once he proposed a poem

by Robert Fuller Murray that begins: He brought a team from Inversnaid To play our Third Fifteen...

He smiled at the combination of horror and bewilderment on our faces.

A classmate whispered to me, “Did Virgil ever play rugby?”

This improbable task was one of many he conceived to correct incipient over-confidence and to make us prepared for anything when aiming at a university scholarship.

He was a devout defender of the English language. This was a losing battle, I am sure he realized. Yet he urged us to fight on. Classicists, he felt were one of the last important bastions.

Once he looked at our class as if rallying troops in time of war. We were translating some Pliny aloud, one by

one. Somebody used the word “chided”. Cruickshank intervened.

“Excuse me,” he said. “The correct form is ‘chid’.” The old past tense was to be used whenever appropriate. Its fate was in the balance and it needed our protection. Similarly – sped and bled. Even at the expense of sounding a tad archaic.

He warned us against neologisms of any kind. He accepted that as scientific knowledge increased, suitable new identifications were inevitable. But as classicists our task was to play defence.

When I played for the 3rd XV Cruickshank was its coach. He somehow guided our not very talented crew towards winning some matches.

This he achieved mainly by applauding things we managed to do right. He could also be sly. One Friday we were roped into a futile mini-match against the 1st XV. I was playing hooker and he tapped me on the shoulder before a scrum. “Tell the others, this time hold it in front and wheel left,” he ordered.

“You might surprise them.” We did.

It worked and we scored a try, which was instantly disallowed so as not to demoralise the 1st XV. Cruickshank smiled quietly. He never crowed.

He remained in his private space.

Over time we appreciated and learnt from that.

 Mark R C Lovell (1947-53) 05

BRIEFINGS

Pauline Music

Pauline Books

Fearful Symmetry

Summer Serenades

Jeremy Shotts (1968-1972) shortly after his 64th birthday, along with his supremely musically talented cousin Suzi James and collectively known as 'Fearful Symmetry' released his first album. It is in the progressive rock style of the late 60s/early 70s but with more recent influences too – inspired by and dedicated to the Life and Works of William Blake. It is called 'Louder than Words'. To the band’s surprise and delight the album has been universally well received in the world of 'progrock' enthusiasts.

OP violinist, director and conductor Adrian Butterfield (1978-83) has a series of summer concerts lined up for the Tilford Bach Festival of which he is Musical Director. The Festival will be held at All Saints’ Church, in the pretty wooded village of Tilford, near Farnham in SW Surrey, and will run from 5-7 June. Highlights will include virtuoso concertos by Bach, Vivaldi and Leclair, played by the London Handel Players; Baroque violin students from the Royal College of Music performing a selection of movements from Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin; J S Bach Mass in B minor BWV 232 with the Pegasus Choir; and Bach’s comic operas, again with the London Handel Players.

Bruce Howitt The End of Terror

On Saturday 13 June, Adrian will be performing concertos by Bach, Telemann, Handel and Vivaldi, including Brandenburgs 4 and 5 and the Bach Double with the London Handel Players at Wendover Music, Buckinghamshire.

Bruce Howitt’s (1952-56) first novel was published in November 2019. After school, Bruce emigrated to Canada attending McGill University. Following a successful business career, he semi-retired in 2015 to focus on his writing and family.

See adrianbutterfield.com/diary for more details given current uncertainties.

The End of Terror is the account of how a small group of skilful and determined men and women counter a terrorist threat.

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Josh Morris The Mysterious Case of the Missing Tuk-Tuk Josh Morris’ (1987-92) journey to being a novelist has been a winding one.

Days from starting law school in 1997 he quit in what he later described as a moment of clarity. He then spent the next 6 years working in youth homelessness and international development – most notably working with young offenders in The Gambia.

After that he returned to Exeter University and has since spent 14 years teaching Geography in Thailand, Vietnam, India and Chorleywood.

Josh is currently on sabbatical and his second novel has recently been published under his pen name, Zach J Brodsky. The Mysterious Case of the Missing Tuk-Tuk has been described as quirky, humorous, odd and definitely an easy read. Josh currently divides his time between South Devon and South East Asia and is writing and pondering a return to full-time employment.

Wynn Wheldon The Fighting Jew Wynn Wheldon (1971-76) has recently had The Fighting Jew: The Life and Times of Daniel Mendoza published.

This follows the publication of Private Places in 2015, Kicking the Bar: A Filial Biography of Huw Wheldon in 2016, the foreword to Dear Mona: Letters from a Conscientious Objector by Jonah Jones in 2018 and Daniel Mendoza for the volume Jewish Lives: Sport for the Jewish Museum.

Alex Edmans Grow the Pie – Purpose and Profit Alex Edmans (1993-98) is Professor of Finance at The London Business School. He wrote Grow the Pie out of concern for the increasing polarisation between business and society.

Some businesses see exploiting society as the best route to profits – cutting worker wages, hiking prices for customers, or polluting the environment. Equally, some reformers see businesses as the enemy of society and attempt to straitjacket them through regulation.

This polarisation is an example of the pie-splitting mentality. The value generated by capitalism is a fixed pie – any slice given to stakeholders reduces profits; any profits represent extractions from society. This book is about the pie-growing mentality. The pie is not fixed. In the face of the conflict between business and society, this is a fundamentally optimistic book.

Yet this optimism is not based on blind hope, but on rigorous evidence that this approach works for both investors and stakeholders.

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BRIEFINGS

Pauline Appointments

OPs at the Guild of Mercers’ Scholars Richard Thompson (1973-77) OBE was installed as Guild Master in 2019. Tim Cunis (1955-60) has handed over the role of School Court Assistant for St Paul's School to Simon Rooms (197378). Tim had been in the post for more than a decade. Few OPs were involved at the Guild when he started but there are now 65 OP Guildmen as well as 12 Indentured Apprentices.

OPs in the Commons Robin Walker (1991-96) was appointed Minister of State at the Northern Ireland Office on 13 February 2020, having previously been Under Secretary of State at the Scotland and Northern Ireland Office.

In 2015 Tom Tugendhat MBE (1986-91) was first elected as Member of Parliament for Tonbridge, Edenbridge and Malling and was re-elected in December 2019.

He was Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Exiting the European Union from July 2016 to July 2019. He was first elected as the Conservative MP for Worcester in May 2010.

In Parliament, he has sat on the speakers’ Advisory Committee on Works of Art of the House of Commons and in July 2017 was elected chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, which he continues to chair in the current Parliament.

OP Chairman of The Queen’s Club Andrew Lowenthal (1966-71) has been elected Chairman of The Queen’s Club.

Andrew first visited Queen’s while at School in West Kensington; St Paul’s did not have tennis or squash courts on site and played both games at Queen’s before moving to Barnes with its own courts. He was captain of tennis and squash at School.

In the picture Andrew (second from the left) admitted that it was the only time he was ever likely to share a tennis court with Andy Murray, with whom he shares a birthday.

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Paulines on Tour

Pauline Boarders q High House on Brook Green

q H. Cedric Cunis pictured outside Colet House, c. 1918/19.

OPs at the 2019 Rugby World Cup Stuart Hardy (1963-66) and his brother Chris (1969-73) (resplendent in their OPFC blazers) are seen here with Richard Freeman (1977-82), a former captain of the rugby club, at the final in Yokohama. Richard who lives and works in Japan as a rugby journalist contributed an article to the final programme.

Boarders at St Paul’s Tim Cunis (1955-60), Archivist to the Old Pauline Club, has shared his research on boarders and the Club system at St Paul’s.

Dean John Colet founded St Paul’s for dayboys in 1509 next to St Paul’s Cathedral. In 1884 it moved into its fourth building in West Kensington.

By the 1890s it had two off-site boarding houses for 30 to 40 boys each. These were 'High House' on Brook Green and 'Colet House' near to Barons Court station. When the

Talgarth/Cromwell Road was widened in 1956, 'Colet House' was demolished and its boarders were moved on-site into 'School House', a building that was originally the High Master's residence and is now the independently owned St Paul's Hotel. When the school moved in 1968 to its fifth site in Barnes, the 'High House' and ‘School House' names were retained for its two on-site boarding houses. Those two buildings have since been demolished to make way for a concert hall and theatre and there are now only 20/30 boarders in a single boarding house.

All boys were originally allocated to one of six Clubs in West Kensington, A, B, C, D, E, & H or 'Houses', which was for the boys in the two boarding houses. F & G were added later in order to simplify arrangements for knockout competitions between eight Clubs.

 School House, now St Paul’s Hotel

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BRIEFINGS

Pauline Polymaths

Korn, Miller, Sacks: from The Independent’s obituary of Eric Korn in 2014 “When Stephen J Gould wrote that "...every classroom has one Sacks, one Korn, or one Miller, usually a lonely child with a passionate curiosity about nature and a zeal that overcomes pressures for conformity," he was warning of the danger of overlooking individual merit while purging elitism. He was also making a private joke; for one remarkable classroom did once hold Oliver Sacks (1946-51) (neurologist and author of The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat) Jonathan Miller (1947-53) (Beyond the Fringe, The Body in Question, and celebrated director) and Eric Korn (1946-52) (doyen of The Round Britain Quiz and antiquarian bookseller).

Korn, Miller and Sacks attended St Paul's School in London, where they became the heart of a group of Jewish intellectuals on a quest for a secular gnosis. Under their inspirational master Sid Pask they shared a love of biology and a passion for Darwin. They formed a literary group that was banned for sedition by the school authorities, and a lifelong friendship. All three pursued a study of science, but were all perhaps more romantic than practical scientists, finding the search for truth in the world of the mind more than in the microscope lens”.

Editor: Michael Simmonds remembers Jonathan Miller and Oliver Sacks being drawn to fight in the Green Cup (a boxing tournament involving every boy at the school).”The two of them camped it up horribly, turning it into some kind of contest between prehistoric monsters with loud grunts and groans. Not a punch was landed. Bo Langham and Bill Williams were not amused”. Perhaps Eric Korn was the timekeeper.

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Pauline London OPs are invited to share their favourite places to eat, drink or visit in the capital. Please send your suggestions to: jeremy.withersgreen@gmail.com This selection is by Henry Dyer (2010-15) p The Crown & Anchor, Stockwell

WHERE TO DRINK The Crown & Anchor, Stockwell Equidistant from Brixton and Stockwell tube stations, this pub on the bustling Brixton Road, just down the road from the Brixton Jamm, has a brewery-like decor and a range of beers to match.

A freehouse which flies the flag of the Camra movement without its pub bores. It combines a range of real ales, ciders, and craft beers with its achingly young clientele. The Crown’s jaunty mixture of reggae music, exposed original brick walls and the cash-free policy is a real delight. You still have to pay, of course, but two quality pints will leave you with change from £10.

WHERE TO EAT Booma, Stockwell But why limit beer to a pub? Situated right opposite The Crown & Anchor is Booma, a curry house which develops the staid “pint of Cobra with a chicken korma” into a tapas-style meal of small plates with schooners of craft beer to match. 15 dishes and 10 beers make up their menu. Familiar dishes such as wonderful onion bhajis and a delicately spiced curry with succulent chicken tandoori nestle next to unconventional but delicious options like pulled duck in a garlic naan roll or slow-cooked spare ribs drenched in a spicy masala.

Fancy a curry? Go to Booma.

WHERE TO VISIT The Ritzy, Brixton Finding a good and relatively affordable cinema seems to be an increasingly difficult task. But handily a short walk (or stumble, if visiting post-pub) from Booma and the Crown is the Ritzy, which has stood for over a century despite WW2 bombing, a 1980s reputation as a lefty cause, and recent strikes and pickets over employees’ low wages. A Picturehouse cinema with great films, cheap tickets especially on Mondays, and a discounted bar for members.

Pauline Gallantry OP military awards The front cover of the recently published For Conspicuous Gallantry

by Neil Thornton has a photo of three officers, one of whom is the Old Pauline war poet, Lieutenant Ewart Alan Mackintosh M.C. (1909-12) of the 5th Seaforth Highlanders. He was killed in November 1917. The officer on the left is Siegfried Sassoon.

Other Old Paulines awarded the M.C. in World War 1 include the cricket and rugby international Major Reginald Oscar Schwarz M.C. and the rugby international Major Sir Laurence Pierce Merrian, M.C., ‘Toc H’ Founder, The

Reverend Philip Byard ‘Tubby’ Clayton D.S.O. M.C. and Lt General Sir Humphrey Myddleton Gale K.B.E. C.B. C.V.O. M.C., who later became Deputy Chief of Staff to General Eisenhower.

In the South African War (18991902) Old Paulines were awarded 15 Distinguished Service Orders, 3 Distinguished Conduct Medals and 30 were Mentioned in Despatches.

The South African War Memorial commemorating those killed unveiled

by Field Marshall Lord Roberts in 1906 was designed by Old Pauline architect, Frank Chesterton who himself was killed on the Somme in 1916. The

monument was disposed of from the Barnes site in the 1970s and languishes in a garden in Sussex.

11

THE INTERVIEW

Professor Mark Bailey Journalist Mark Lobel (1992-97) talks to High Master Mark Bailey who returns to the University of East Anglia later this year.

W

e are sitting in an executive portacabin currently parked on the school’s tennis courts – in a makeshift room masquerading as his study – overlooking the river. It is the High Master’s last day holed up here before moving back into his newly renovated office. Bags full of waste – the fallout of any office move – surround us.

I was keen to hear Mark’s views on Sally-Anne Huang, the next person to occupy his chair. She will be the School’s first-ever female High Master in its 510-year history when she steps down as Head of James Allen’s Girls’ School in Dulwich.

I was originally meant to be interviewing her until she was hit by the flu. Atrium has been assured that Sally-Anne will speak to us when her feet are firmly under her new desk.

The current High Master stepped up and quickly explained why her arrival is so keenly anticipated by the School.

“Staff and parents have said that the relative under-representation of senior female role models in the senior school is one area for improvement. Also, she has significant experience of a number of schools to draw upon.”

Mark also thinks Sally-Anne’s media profile and upcoming role as Chair of the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference will help put St Paul’s “back onto the national platform in educational debate” – a move he concedes is now “overdue”. He also expects her to focus on “academic provision” within the school, having spent less time on it himself than he would have wished to over the past nine years, alongside continuing the focus on “rebuilding, bursaries, safeguarding and pastoral welfare”.

As we now know, it may only be three years until we see the first female students at St Paul’s too. Mark says it can not come too soon. But plans have yet to been signed off.

Some parents and boys remain concerned about the “cultural change” that it may bring.

The entrance of girls is likely to be restricted to the 8th form but there is also a desire for a “critical mass so that girls make up to a third of the pupils in those years, so that they feel an integral part of the senior school and not just an afterthought”.

But for many future parents of sons – or daughters – who are at the School, the biggest hurdle remains the cost of an education.

In 2016, the High Master famously set alarm bells ringing by saying it had become “unaffordable”. What he actually said was the fees – which were over £22,000 then and for the Senior School are now over £25,000 a year – were “increasingly unaffordable” for middle-class parents.

He says he would still describe current fees as “certainly unaffordable to certain groups of people” but is pleased that fees at St Paul’s have increased at a lower rate than the peer group London average over the past four years.

But now he thinks that the School needs to “flatline” fees as much as possible over the next decade.

“We’re going to have to promote commercial revenues to keep those fees flatlining and raise other money for bursaries and building projects.”

As a bursary student himself, Mark Bailey could not be more in favour of expanding them at St Paul’s and is delighted to have seen more bursaries over the past few years, which includes children of parents with a joint income of £120,000.

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Perhaps Mark’s legacy will be having turned a school that was previously focused on excelling in sport and academic studies into one that puts the safety of pupils above all else.

The aim is to increase the current 115 bursaries initially to 153. There is a debate about whether fundraising efforts should focus solely on bursaries now and omit building work (see Letters page 03). Simply put, to prioritise poorer people over grand construction projects.

But, according to Mark, there are issues with this for a number of reasons.

A recent confidential survey of donors found a “sizeable minority” would prefer their money goes towards buildings and not bursaries. That is why buildings are part of the ‘Shaping Our Future’ campaign.

From an ex-pupil’s perspective, speaking for myself, one of the things I most remember from the 1990s was in fact the buildings – such as the boathouse. Perhaps this is simply sentimentality and that is what explains our fascination with buildings.

A thought with which I appreciate many readers may disagree.

The High Master makes an even simpler point.

“The school does not have any provision for replacing the boat house or cricket pavilion, both of which will have to happen sooner or later.”

He concedes that a new boathouse could, for example, be built for less than seven million pounds, but at that cost it reflects the sensitivity of building on a river-front and also provides for a new hospitality suite on the second floor, which opens up any number of commercial possibilities that would then bring in regular income. Much needed if fees are to be fixed given continued cost pressures.

How does one respond to historic abuse in a way that is right for everyone within a school community? This is

an impossible question, but it is hard to imagine how anyone could have faced up to this challenge more assiduously than Mark.

When the High Master was finally allowed to meet with a sexually abused former student face-to-face, years after the allegations of historic abuse at St Paul’s surfaced, he was so shaken by what he heard that he had to step outside his own office.

QUICKFIRE Did you watch the Brits?

No – what are they?

Did you vote Leave or Remain?

Remain.

What can Later Medieval History teach us about exiting the EU? (Laughs) Do it.

I ask if that meant he had shed a tear.

“Yes,” he says, looking in my direction but not quite at me, rather through me, as he fell silent.

Is Boris Johnson good for Yorkshire?

Yorkshire is convinced that he is good for it.

As Mark eventually regains his voice, it is clear that the past few years of having to deal unexpectedly with the worst scandal in the history of the School (much of which was spent without knowing the identities of the victims) has taken its toll.

Would you prefer a Canada or Australia-style trade deal?

Canada.

“I had to remove myself from the room for ten minutes. I think it was just seeing the impact on the victim, the enormity of it and also coming to terms with the responsibility of dealing with it on behalf of the community.”

He speaks highly of the “typically Pauline” response of the victims he met.

They were “brisk, open and analytical” about their “life-changing” events, as they bravely described to him the “distressing, moving, excoriating” effect the abuse had on them and their families. It proved “invaluable” in helping senior staff actually understand how grooming can happen at school and how to best prevent it ever happening again.

Our interview falls on the day the American film producer Harvey Weinstein’s grim face adorns the newspaper front pages. It is the moment the man, whose grotesque actions

Greggs or Pret?

Ugh, grief. Greggs.

Should mobile phones be banned in schools?

No. Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump?

Bernie.

Who should lead the Labour Party?

Keir.

Have you met Boris Johnson?

No. What’s the last thing you saw on TikTok? On what?

Will you miss Harry and Meghan?

No. What attracted you to Later Medieval History?

The Black Death. Mortality.

Read my book!

13

THE INTERVIEW

“it was just seeing the impact on the victim, the enormity of it and also coming to terms with the responsibility of dealing with it on behalf of the community.”

unwittingly gave many victims of abuse the strength to come forward and sparked the #MeToo movement, is finally charged for his sexual crimes.

One lesson from the Weinstein case was not just that he was bad, but that those around him let it happen.

After reading through Richmond Council’s report on St Paul’s dark past – that heard from 59 ex-pupils – I wonder out loud, in front of the current High Master, whether that same lesson, that others who should have known better but instead fell silent, has been addressed.

The SCR reported that one unnamed High Master destroyed pages of a diary detailing abuse and quoted a view that teachers had a “licence to terrorise” and that things were “Darwinian in that the weak and frail were preyed upon the most”.

I pressed Mark on whether former High Masters and Heads of the Junior School should have been found culpable, in addition to the five former members of staff so far convicted of sexual offences.

“If there was any criminal responsibility, even by the laws of the time, the police would have picked that up.”

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He suggests there may have been a culture of “incredulity” at the time, adding, “I just don’t know how much information was passing up to senior members of staff.”

Looking back, it seems like teachers were woefully unpoliced.

“My sense is that the school permitted autonomy in highly-able teachers, both as pedagogues – what they taught, how they taught – and how they interacted with pupils. With close interaction, then the boundaries become blurred and that’s where there were dangers, particularly for the charismatic who sought to abuse.”

Now that the school has publicly apologised and taken full responsibility for all past abuse, Mark’s sense is that after all the “publicity, passage of time and openness” will have encouraged people to come forward, although two former staff members are still under investigation. He thinks parents are reassured with the “multiple levels of deterrents” and specialist training for teachers now in place.

As we continue our conversation in the temporary office, through the windows I can see a row of elegant but rare black poplar trees – once a staple of the British landscape – now difficult to find.

At one point it looked like private schools could go the same way.

Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour was intent on scrapping them.

“The debate isn’t over,” Mark insists.

“It’s linked to the societal shift against elitism,” he warns, adding, “it would be better if we could engage in a more informed and empathetic way in what we mean by elitism, because at the moment the debate seems to be dominated by crude stereotyping.”

Regarding this “threat” as an opportunity, Mark thinks independent schools need to make themselves more “relevant” and to engage with wider society through bursaries and state school partnerships.

But if independent schools become a token target for anti-elite sentiment or the cost takes it out of the reach of more parents, he predicts the “future of British independent education is, ironically, abroad,” where it will thrive among increasingly affluent middleincome families, especially in Asia, and thus make British education “exportonly”.

As for what to teach pupils in the future, Mark thinks the School needs to refine its skill sets to ensure the “employability” of its pupils, with more emphasis on “social awareness and more collaborative ways of working”.

While St Paul’s thrives with small classes and the “dialectical and disputatious element of discussion” he would like to see improvements in “community engagement and utility” by enabling boys to undertake voluntary activities, such as the current work helping the homeless with their literacy skills and applying for credit.

“If we promote good citizenship and boys with a social conscience then I think we are going to be preparing them well for what on earth the mid-21st Century employment market throws at them.”

reared on the 20th Century and 19th Century revolutions that there is something really worth understanding about modernity from the Middle Ages.

It is a passion and for as long as I can read and write I will be lecturing and writing on Medieval History.”

There is also the issue of “identity” to grasp.

Does that leave a gap for anything else, a new hobby or sporting challenge for the former rugby union international winger?

“A small number of pupils have expressed a desire for a different identity and we’ve accommodated that.

We have systems and a culture that is sympathetic. Those boys have continued to be integrated into the life of the School. I attended an LGBT meeting last term, there are posters around the school encouraging boys to attend societies which promote discussion of these issues and access to appropriate changing rooms and toilets is made available.”

He has a book entitled “After the Black Death: Society, Economy and Law in 14th Century England” coming out at the end of the year.

“If that doesn’t cure insomnia, nothing will.” His words, not mine.

“The last nine years have been exhausting. I’ve now been 21 years a head teacher. I’m not immediately looking for new avenues and opportunities. I just need to take stock.”

When the interview is over, the School’s 34th High Master is asked whether he would have taken the job in the first place, if he had known what was coming.

“Absolutely,” he says without blinking.

“It’s made me a much better person.

I won’t live as long now, that’s for sure, but I wouldn’t change a thing.”  Autumn’s THE INTERVIEW will be with Sally-Anne Huang, the next High Master of St Paul’s.

But soon Mark will have to leave all these issues to his successor.

Next for him, is a return to the University of East Anglia as a Professor of Late Medieval History. There, he is to launch a new course for first year students and improve the University’s pastoral side.

“it would be better if we could engage in a more informed and empathetic way in what we mean by elitism, because at the moment the debate seems to be dominated by crude stereotyping.”

“I’m greatly looking forward to teaching Medieval History and trying to persuade first year undergraduates

15

PAULINE PROFILES

Summoned to teaching John Thorn (1939-43)

I

n his last year at Cambridge, John was considering academic research but changed his mind when Desmond Lee, the Head of Clifton College who had been his senior tutor at Corpus, “summoned him to teaching.”

Before World War II, John lived in Chiswick (two doors down from the Madge family) and attended Colet Court. His first term at St Paul’s coincided with the evacuation to Crowthorne and he never set foot as a pupil in Waterhouse’s buildings in West Kensington.

Walter Oakeshott was High Master, who John describes as a “very great High Master. He was not a good organiser or administrator but he had the likes of Alan Cook to do that”. Oakeshott left St Paul’s in 1946 to take on the headship at Winchester.

p Portrait of John is shown with the permission of Winchester College.

He thought co-education worked well and is delighted to hear that girls are set to enter the Eighth Form at St Paul’s. “How can you be promoting diversity if you only educate half the population?”

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John’s memories of Crowthorne (where the boys were billeted) and Easthampstead Park (where they were taught) were of a time of few rules but very good behaviour. “Everyone just behaved because there was a war on”.

They bicycled the three miles from Crowthorne for lessons. He describes Crowthorne as “an ugly village with housing for Broadmoor workers. Its only redeeming feature was a cinema”. In the 8th form, he switched from Classics to History and was taught by Mr Eynon Smith who “was dominating and rather frightening but was the greatest teaching influence on me without being a good teacher. We were lucky to be at school then because there was no obvious syllabus and Eynon Smith would unexpectedly teach us about the history of medicine or lurch into political theory”. Eynon Smith was killed in an air raid in 1944 while staying at the house of the sister of Colet Court’s Headmaster. Another master he

John Thorn (tallest in the back row) pictured here in his school days 

He describes Crowthorne as “an ugly village with housing for Broadmoor workers. Its only redeeming feature was a cinema” remembers is George Rude who was openly a communist (not unusual in the Common Room during the 1930s and World War II) but could not keep order.

There was little organised sport during the war. John describes himself as “adequate” at boxing. This did not suit the master in charge, Bo Langham, who was “an incredibly successful fanatic”.

He remembers two school friends well, Ian Collin (1939-43) and Keith Hamylton Jones (1937-42). Ian was Captain of School when John was a prefect, reprimanding John for not policing cycling assiduously enough. Ian spent three years in the RAF before reading History at Corpus with John and beating him at squash twice a week.

The “delightfully mad” Keith joined the Welsh Guards on leaving school and, after being a POW, entered the FCO. John remembers that a posting to Warsaw ended abruptly after Keith tore down a poster of Stalin.

Joining the Navy was a strange choice as John could not swim and suffered terribly from seasickness. After initial training, he saw active service on HMS Eskimo in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans before arriving in Durban for a refit a few days after the Hiroshima bomb was dropped. On her return to England, Eskimo was scrapped and John was posted to HMS Zambesi. His final posting was in command of HMS Tumult. This did not end well with Tumult torn from her buoy in a gale and thrown on a mud bank when he was enjoying a weekend’s leave in London.

After the Navy, he took up his place at Cambridge leaving in 1949 with a first-class degree and “a very patchy knowledge of the Middle Ages”. While on leave from the Navy and at Corpus, he continued to attend the St Paul’s Christian Union becoming a House Party officer while at Cambridge. In his

autobiography ‘Road to Winchester’, John wrote, “I valued the friendship, the idealism, the vision of what human relationships could be which my visits to the House Parties gave me”.

John felt “ill-prepared for teaching” when he arrived at Clifton but appears to have mastered it quite quickly. He was soon head of history and, after marrying Veronica, took on a dayboy house which “I was to run fumblingly and uncertainly”. He liked Bristol particularly its wine merchants. In 1960, John received a letter inviting him to lunch with the then Lord Montgomery ((1902-06), School Governor 1948-68)) who was interested in him as the next High Master. “The job rightly went to Tom Howarth, one of Monty’s staff officers and then Second Master at Winchester; the hot favourite all along.

And Tom was to do a wonderful job at St Paul’s.”

John attained his first headship in 1961 and stayed seven years at Repton School (still in the shadow of former Headmaster and Archbishop Geoffrey Fisher) rather regretting taking the job.

“I wasn’t good at it and didn’t like it.

It was too gamesy. The staff room was sport dominated and it was very difficult to start up the intellectual life.”

In 1967, he learnt that his summoner to teaching, Desmond Lee, was to retire as Headmaster of Winchester College.

Veronica was no lover of the Derbyshire countryside and encouraged John to apply. To his delight he discovered that Tom Howarth had not applied as he was on “a wave-crest and perhaps thinking that Winchester was unlikely to be as exciting as the academic forcing-house, now sited on the south bank of the Thames”. To his surprise at the age of 43, he was appointed. But “at Winchester, problems were not slow in coming… Drugs arrived at Winchester

about a year before I did”. One of the two friends John had on his arrival was Tony Wood (1937-42) with whom John had been billeted in Crowthorne. With the help of Tony, he set to and, during his time at Winchester with the sale of the The Malory Manuscript of Le Morte D’Arthur (discovered by Walter Oakeshott in the 1930s), Winchester introduced a bursary scheme and made its entrance examination more maintained school friendly.

But “at Winchester, problems were not slow in coming… Drugs arrived at Winchester about a year before I did”.

After retiring from Winchester, John had “my most enjoyable time as a teacher” preparing very able boys and girls at Portsmouth Grammar School for their Oxbridge entrance examinations.

He thought co-education worked well and is delighted to hear that girls are set to enter the Eighth Form at St Paul’s.

“How can you be promoting diversity if you only educate half the population?”

Repton is now fully co-ed. “This was easy enough, given the space there; you just build a couple of new boarding houses”. At Winchester, “there was never any pressure for taking girls and it would have been a significant architectural challenge”.

Until a few months ago, John and his late wife, Veronica lived in Winchester when he acted for a time and “not very effectively” as a director of the Royal Opera House and as a trustee of the British Museum. He now lives in the Sunrise Home in Winchester. He would welcome any Pauline visitors. The conversation will not be dull.

17

OLD PAULINE PROFILES

“He found it difficult to take a condemnatory attitude to anything he disapproved of”, Hardy notes, but it appears he made an exception for the quota on Jewish pupils at St Paul’s.

PHILOSOPHER THE GENIUS AND HIS EDITOR “Systematically overestimated” is not a description of Isaiah Berlin (1922-28) that one expects, least of all from himself.

Yet feeling like a fraud is the most significant characteristic of his that emerges from an interview with Henry Hardy, editor of Berlin’s work. Before the screening of a film about his time as Berlin’s editor, Hardy kindly agreed to talk to a Berlin layman with a generosity of spirit that, it seems, was typical of Isaiah too.

The founding of Wolfson College and a series of books on a range of subjects including liberty, Romanticism, and J. G. Hamann, an eighteenth-century pietist of whom I had never heard, have cemented Berlin’s legacy. All I knew about Berlin was that he attended the same school as I did and was a charismatic debater, and a successful philosopher and historian of ideas. An insight into his self-doubt therefore fascinates.

He suffered from imposter syndrome about what Hardy called the “tendency to deify him”, which appears to have been both affectation and genuine feeling: if you disagreed with him about being a fraud, he disagreed back at you; if you agreed with him, he wasn’t too

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pleased. I am aware that if I say “very relatable”, it implies (incorrectly) that I have experience of being deified; I mean that it is only too human to be plagued by a sense that you are valued beyond your competence, and simultaneously secretly to adore that validation.

It is easy to see how Berlin could be deified. A wealth of brilliant ideas poured passionately forth whenever one spoke to him. He could discuss a wide range of cultural topics, evidenced not least by an anecdote in Hardy’s 2018 book In Search of Isaiah Berlin: A Literary Adventure, in which Berlin began to recite Milton’s Lycidas in the Wolfson common room from memory. Hardy concludes that this was the result of memorising it at School.

He remarks that Berlin rarely talked about his time at St Paul’s, but that it was clear he looked back on it with affection.

During his time at School, Berlin experienced no anti-Semitism, so it seems baffling that he should experience it years after leaving. “He found it difficult to take a condemnatory attitude to anything he disapproved of”, Hardy notes, but it appears he made an

exception for the quota on Jewish pupils at St Paul’s.

We come on to Hardy’s role as editor, at once rewarding and frustrating.

Berlin frequently hesitated to print material that Hardy rated highly, and would suggest changing or deleting passages very late in the day. This self-deprecatory vacillation provided a real challenge to Hardy, but Berlin often articulated it as blunt realism, balking at requests for him to publish more. He would say to Hardy “I know what I’m worth”, and claim that he was not sitting on a mine of untapped potential, that people “do what they’re capable of”.

Hardy’s role has been an intense occupation. He has transcribed many lectures and interviews, and, assuming the duties of a classical textual critic, has combed through stenographers’ and secretaries’ erroneous transcriptions to piece together what Berlin actually said.

He has also had to identify deleterious amendments by Berlin himself; a typical example is in The Magus of the North.

Occasionally Berlin’s typist, Olive Sheldon, left blanks in her transcript,

as she could not hear what Berlin was saying on the recording. In one instance, Berlin refers to religious apologetics as “an attempt to domesticate God, to place him in some tame [] of one’s own.”

Correcting the transcript, Berlin wrote in “harmless formula” where he had dictated the more economical and pointed “herbarium”. Anecdotes like this provide a fascinating glimpse into the rewards of working closely with an author like Berlin.

of saying thank you. It is good that he did found Wolfson, because that is where Hardy and Berlin met in 1972; without that meeting, the years-long, fruitful relationship between the two may not have existed.

To sum up Berlin in a single, pithy sentence would be too difficult, and would also go against the pluralism

(the rejection of single-valued, reductive theories of culture, religion and philosophy) he so often advocated. It is clear from our conversation and the film that Berlin typified this pluralism: an irreducible and at times inconsistent personality, and a giant intellect. “You couldn’t pin him down”, Hardy chuckles.  Orlando Gibbs (2008-13)

Berlin’s writing is a rewarding corpus to edit. His prose is crisp and sophisticated without being obscure. Hardy describes his style as belletristic, created by dictating freely and taking a bird’s eye view of human nature; but he also comments that this would not pass muster today. Indeed, he wonders whether Berlin would have been as successful if he were pursuing an academic career now, as the scholarly rigour that is now a standard expectation was frequently lacking in Berlin’s routine.

Why Balliol rejected him is a mystery to both Hardy and me, although one certainty is that they made a mistake.

It is remarkable that a man of Berlin’s talents was not admitted to his chosen university and college on his first attempt. Rejected by Balliol as a scholar and a commoner, he successfully applied for a scholarship at Corpus Christi. Why Balliol rejected him is a mystery to both Hardy and me, although one certainty is that they made a mistake: Berlin throve at Corpus. Furthermore, Hardy speculates that he may have become lost in the enormity of Balliol; he was “more naturally a Corpuscle”.

Oxford gave him a formative experience, for which he felt a great debt. The lack of a great work on, for example, the history of Romanticism left him with a sense that he had not given back in a way that was commensurate with what he had derived from Oxford; the founding of Wolfson College was a way

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OLD PAULINE PROFILES

PERFORMERS

TAKING A SHOW TO THE EDINBURGH FRINGE In art, originality is everything.

“You go up with an idea, and you come back with a show” Given this, it is difficult to believe that, every year, over three and a half thousand shows descend upon Edinburgh for three weeks for the city’s famous Fringe Festival.

For comedians Alexander Fox and Jacob Lovick (both 2006-2011), the Fringe is a fixture in the calendar. But what does it actually take to bring a show up to Edinburgh?

For both Alex and Jacob, comedy and performing dates back to their time at St Paul’s.

This largely revolved around a fledgling ImpSoc (or Improvisation Society). A far cry from today’s sellout ImpSoc shows at the School theatre, their ImpSoc mostly consisted of a small cluster of 4th formers trying to make each other laugh in the old Drama Studio.

“In a sense, improvisation is the meat and drink of Paulines,” Alex suggests.

“Something about flying by the seat of your pants and hoping someone doesn’t catch you out, or saying something with such confidence that no one questions you.”

“I didn’t really enjoy sport at School, and didn’t really enjoy many of my lessons. I just found my niche in trying to make people laugh,” Jacob adds.

Did St Paul’s encourage them to be performers? Not particularly—very few, if any, of their year ended up at drama school—but it was certainly supportive at the time. There were plenty of opportunities to perform and direct.

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 Alexander Fox

Jacob Lovick 

The uncertainty of the Fringe seems to be the uniquely fantastic thing about it.

Every performance and every Fringe really matters.

Opportunities which ultimately transformed an interest in performance to something more than just making people laugh.

Jacob remembers performing in a School production of David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross, playing down-onhis-luck salesman Shelley ‘The Machine’ Levene. It clicked—it was more than just something he enjoyed doing. “It felt worth doing because it actually meant something to me.”

Similarly, it was in a Pauline-devised production of Orpheus, directed by Andrew Broughton, which took Alex up to his first Fringe in the summer after his A Levels. This unexpectedly spawned one of his first comic inventions: an Alan Partridge-inspired advertising executive, who formed the basis of his first show.

Their experience of performing has unsurprisingly changed much since School. “When you’re fresh out of school, you get away with the novelty of youth,” Alex reveals. “This industry rewards novelty over experience more than any other industry.”

This of course comes back to originality. The constant pursuit of trying to write something new, or tread untrodden ground, is an important and inescapable pressure of performing.

“You’re really thinking, ‘How am I going to do this differently?’" Jacob says.

Originality is just one part of standing out. For anyone who has weaved between the hordes of flyerers on Edinburgh’s Royal Mile will understand how difficult it is to stand out from the noise.

You cannot, they both agree, get away with just being another white middle class male comedian on a stage telling jokes.

Both have stepped beyond the traditional ‘stand-up’—popularised by the Michael McIntyres and the Jimmy Carrs of the comedy circuit – in pursuit of trying something new. For Jacob, this year is his first solo show, about a twelve year old Spanish boy lost in Birmingham; for Alex, his past two shows have been ‘one man, multicharacter shows revolving around a drum kit’, while this year, his improvised James Bond show Shaken Not Stirred will, by definition, change every night.

“Any good art comes out of, ‘What can I say that is new?’” Jacob poses.

For both, every year has been a foray into the unknown. You have to be ready for things not to work, for jokes to fall flat. Or that, on the night, something just goes terribly wrong. Alex recalls a drunk spectator who was sick down his front and sat through the remainder of the show.

But at the same time, the uncertainty of the Fringe seems to be the uniquely fantastic thing about it. Nowhere else would you perform in front of a fresh crowd for twenty-five nights on the trot.

“You don’t get that anywhere else,” Jacob confirms.

Originality, and rogue spectators, are not the only challenge. More shows have meant more demand for venues and accommodation in Edinburgh, meaning prices have sky-rocketed.

While going up with a university improv or revue group softens the financial blow, both are now out there on their own, funded themselves.

“We have to work full time to fund this,” Jacob says, “So you really have to think through the implications of taking the financial hit of a Fringe show.”

This inevitably impacts their work.

While standing out is important, as is originality, shows have to be financially viable. Money is always at the back of their minds.

But the Fringe is not about making money. It is an opportunity to try things out, in front of a fresh audience each night, no more accurately summed up than by Alex, “You go up with an idea, and you come back with a show.”

Both are well into Fringe production double figures: Alex, from writing for the Oxford Revue to his current show, Shaken Not Stirred; Jacob, from performing with the University of Birmingham improv troupe to his own double act LoveHard.

Each year and each new show comes with it that excitement of the unknown, that feeling that you can never quite be sure what the Fringe will throw up.

It is that feeling, they both agree, that this could be the year. Given that the obvious next step for both Jacob and Alex is doing this full time – every performance and every Fringe really matters.

Alex will be performing in Shaken Not Stirred: The Improvised James Bond Film. Jacob will be performing Don’t Worry It’ll Probably All Be Fine.  Simon Lovick (2008-13)

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ABOLITIONIST Clarkson’s Calling

A quiet academic destined for a promising and steady career in the church experiences a Damascene moment when he considers the contents of his winning essay and concludes he has no other choice than to form “a resolution from which he dare not resist”. The history of the abolition of the slave trade is bound in that moment.

Close to the docks in Bristol city centre there is a small pub called the Seven Stars – after the constellation better known as The Plough or the Big Dipper – tucked away behind the well-known live music venue, The Fleece. You could easily miss it, but outside there is a blue plaque dedicated to Thomas Clarkson (1775-80) and his objective of collecting first-hand accounts from seamen involved with the slave trade, often found in this and other local hostelries.

A short while ago I was inspired to go to Juliet Gilkes Romero’s new play for the RSC at Stratford after reading a review in The Guardian. The play’s double entendre title, The Whip, cleverly conjures both the lash used to drive slaves and simultaneously, the member appointed by a political party to enforce party discipline and to secure the attendance of party members at important sessions. The latter in this case being Alexander Boyd, Chief Whip of the Whig Party at the time the Anti-Slavery Act was passed by Parliament in 1833.

The review mentioned the extraordinary fact that the Treasury had announced,

by Tweet, just two years ago, that the compensation paid by British taxpayers to slave owners had been finally paid off in 2015. In somewhat flippant prose the tweet announced: “Here’s today’s surprising #FridayFact. Millions of you

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helped end the slave trade through your taxes. Did you know? In 1833, Britain used £20 million, 40% of its national budget to ‘buy freedom for all slaves in the Empire’. The amount of money borrowed for the Slavery Act was so large that it wasn’t paid off until 2015. Which means that living British citizens helped pay to end the slave trade.” The tweet was roundly attacked and was removed shortly after publication online.

So… a pat on the back for us good tax-paying Brits? Romero’s play, enriched with deep research and peopled with characters from all sides of the slavery story, male and female, unveils another not-so-virtuous narrative. There is unfettered greed on the part of slaveowners, including prominent MPs of the day such as Gladstone, bargaining up payback in return for their support of the bill. There are twisted tales of supposed negro naivety and incompetence used to enforce a further seven years of non-paid apprenticeship on the ‘freed’ slaves which rapidly takes the shine off any idea that the compensation signed off slavery at a stroke, or that ‘owners’ got that it was an immoral trade. That it took us a further 182 years to pay off (equivalent to £15billion in today’s money), thereby including taxes paid by descendants of slaves during that time, must have been the Treasury’s closestheld secret till a minion was lost for something to put out as that ‘FridayFact’.

As a Bristolian I am acutely aware that the city’s history has a darker side.

Recently, to mark anti-slavery day, an unofficial ‘guerrilla’ art exhibit was laid out at the foot of the statue of Edward Colston, MP, merchant, philanthropist and slave trader, that sits in the city centre, close to the concert hall still bearing his name. 100 ceramic figures were lined up below him to resemble the cargoes of slaves packed into ships en route for the Caribbean and North America.

This subversive artwork, the blue plaque at the Seven Stars and Romero’s play conspired to awaken my interest in the life of Thomas Clarkson and what he learned and witnessed in my home town 233 years ago.

I probably have little need to remind Old Paulines of Clarkson’s career trajectory. But for those, like me, who may have little detailed knowledge; here are some basics.

Clarkson was born on 28th March 1760, the son of Rev John Clarkson who was headmaster of the local free grammar school in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire.

Thomas was admitted to St Paul’s in October 1775 at the age of 15. His High Master was Dr Richard Roberts, who had a reputation for “only coming to life when plying the cane”. Clarkson managed to survive or avoid Roberts’

 Thomas Clarkson by Carl Fredrik von Breda Oil on canvas, 1788 (National Portrait Gallery 235)

attacks and gained himself a place at St John’s College, Cambridge in 1779, having won both a Gower and a Pauline Exhibition worth some £60 per annum.

He gained his BA in 1783 with a First in Mathematics. He was ordained as a Deacon but never proceeded to priest’s orders.

It was while at Cambridge in 1784 that Clarkson won the Latin essay for middle bachelors. No one had yet won two consecutive essay prizes at the university, but Clarkson was determined to do so. Whilst reading for his MA, Clarkson entered the competition for senior bachelors on a question set by the then Vice-Chancellor, Dr Peter Peckard: Anne liceat invitos in servitutem dare?

(Is it lawful to make slaves of others against their will?). Peckard was an advocate of civil and religious liberty, believing ‘the heaviest judgement of Almighty God’ would ‘come down on the slave trade’. He had also been enraged by reports, published in 1783, of slaves being thrown overboard from the ship Zong, whose captain had sought insurance pay-outs for their ‘loss’.

“Our own moral condition must have been necessarily improved by the change” Clarkson only had two months to overcome his profound ignorance of the essay subject. His primary sources were the papers of a dead friend who had worked in the slave trade and the eye witness accounts of slavery from officers who had served in the West Indies during the American war, including from his brother John, then a naval lieutenant. He also chanced upon a new edition of Anthony Benezet’s Some Historical Accounts of Guinea, with an enquiry Into the Rise and Progress of the Slave Trade, published by a recentlyformed Quaker committee devoted to exposing the evils of the trade.

During his preparatory work Clarkson wrote: “It was but one gloomy subject from morning to night. In the daytime I was uneasy, in the night I had little rest.

I sometimes never closed my eyelids for

grief.” It later became his hope that what had started as a trial for academic reputation would transform into a work that “might be useful to injured Africa.”

At the conclusion of his essay, written in Latin, he was summoned back to Cambridge to read it, to “generous applause in the Senate House”.

As Clarkson rode back to London he described being in a state of agitation, choosing at times to dismount and walk for a while before climbing back in the saddle. Above Wadesmill in Hertfordshire he remarked: “I sat down

disconsolate on the turf by the roadside and held my horse. If the contents of the essay were true, it was time some person should see these calamities to the end.” In 1785 Clarkson expanded and translated his essay into English for the general public, something he was nervous of doing for fear of exposure to criticism. It was published simultaneously in Britain and in America.

Over the next few years Clarkson covered some 35,000 miles on horseback while researching the realities of the

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“I began now to tremble, for the first time, at the arduous task I had undertaken” slave trade, beginning in the Port of London, and continuing on to Liverpool and Bristol. He also travelled to revolutionary France to seek support.

On reaching the West Country port he noted, “It filled me, almost directly, with a melancholy for which I could not account. I began now to tremble, for the first time, at the arduous task I had undertaken, of attempting to subvert one of the branches of the commerce of the great place which was now before me.”

Clarkson found people willing to talk at first but rapidly ran into walls of silence as news of his mission spread. Later, his life was threatened in Liverpool when he narrowly escaped the attentions of a gang intending to throw him off the pier.

But having befriended Mr Thompson, the landlord of the Seven Stars in Bristol, he started to make progress. Through this association he began to build up a picture of how many crew members perished in the trade, and who had been inveigled against their will to join ships.

This would prove to be a compelling part of his anti-slave trade rhetoric. Similarly, his collection of African artefacts would help to convince public opinion of the civilised, cultured nature of the people being forced into servitude and the possibility of other, more lucrative trades that could be followed, such as in wood, honey and leatherwork.

Influential Quaker groups gave Clarkson unrelenting support and direction, leading him to set up the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade and ultimately a meeting with William Wilberforce, an independent MP for Yorkshire, a man he could eventually count on to bring an anti-slavery bill

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before Parliament, and who recognised Clarkson’s book as decisive in steeling his resolve, eventually leading to the Slave Trade Act of 1807.

In his preface to the book The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the Slave Trade, published in 1808, as well as stating that the Bill had not gone far enough, he stated: “I scarcely knew of any subject, the contemplation of which is more pleasing than that of the correction or of the removal of any of the acknowledged evils of life; for how we rejoice to think the sufferings of our fellow-creatures have been thus, in any instance, relieved, we must rejoice equally to think that our own moral condition must have been necessarily improved by the change.”

It would be a further 26 years before slavery would be abolished throughout the British Empire by the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833, and a further five before full emancipation in 1838. But Clarkson remained a pillar of reform throughout. Referring to his sense of calling at a speech delivered at Exeter Hall in 1840 he said, “I have often indulged in the belief that this feeling might have come from God. To him therefore, and not to such a creature as myself, you are to attribute all the honour and all the glory.”

Postscript St Paul’s School has proudly embraced Clarkson’s name and has sought to emulate some of his selfless qualities since his death in 1846. In 1962, the Clarkson Society was founded with a remit to promote social service activities and assist the Borough Welfare Association by visiting old and lonely

people living in Hammersmith. A series of speakers visited the Society including Mr Tony Benn MP in May 1963, who spoke to over 100 boys about the problems then facing the nation, including the ban on black people driving Bristol buses, which eventually led to the passing of the first Race Relations Act of 1965, making racial discrimination unlawful.

On the wall outside the library today you will find a poster promoting the Clarkson Award. The award is made to the pupil “who has consistently demonstrated traits and attitudes the School deems exemplary, including but not limited to exceptional leadership, bravery, support of others and commitment to voluntary service and/or charity work.” The Clarkson legacy lives on.

The School’s rare books archive contains a number of Clarkson first editions.

Most notably it holds a first edition copy of The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (2 Volumes, 1808), which features the iconic diagram of the Brooke’s slave ship. It also has a handwritten letter by him, written in 1813, which includes some of his personal thoughts on Quakerism to a friend.

Clarkson’s obituary ‘beetle’ is currently hanging in the Kayton library as do a couple of engravings of him. My thanks to Ginny Dawe-Woodings who kindly provided access to the archive’s collection.

 Simon Bishop (1962-65)

ď ° Thomas Clarkson Engraving, 1847 from a painting by S Lane

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PAULINE PERSPECTIVE

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MENTAL HEALTH THEN AND NOW A BOARD ROOM PERSPECTIVE Tom Hayhoe has been chairman of West London NHS Trust since 2015 and for many years was closely involved as a friend in the care of Robert Silver, whose obituary appears in this edition of Atrium.

A

rriving at St Paul’s from a comprehensive school in the late 1960s, about the only Latin I recognised was “Mens sana in corpore sano”. Looking back from my current role chairing an organisation providing mental health services for a large part of the school’s catchment, I recall plenty of provision for “corpore sano” but precious little for “mens sana”.

Physical wellbeing was ostensibly part of the purpose of compulsory rugby in the autumn term and in the wide choice of sport during the rest of the year. A local GP served as school doctor, undertaking periodic physical checks as we passed through adolescence. For those who didn’t head home at the end of the school day, the School House and High House matrons administered aspirin gargles for any ailment irrespective of diagnosis. On the other hand, any provision or concern for our mental wellbeing beyond the tutorial system was well concealed.

The picture today is very different. St Paul’s is deservedly recognised as a pioneer and leader for its investment in mental wellbeing. It has a dedicated senior member of staff, Sam Madden, designated as Deputy Head (Wellbeing and Mental Health). All tutors complete an externally accredited two-day Mental Health First Aid course. Paulines attend lectures from external mental health campaigners. The School is piloting an

on-line tool for tracking the emotional wellbeing of younger boys. 8th Formers run a society called ‘MindMatters’ with the goal of tackling mental health related stigma and promoting positive wellbeing. The importance of this work is demonstrated by the evidence for increasing pressures on the mental wellbeing of teenagers: the rate of referral nationally into NHS child and adolescent mental health services doubled between 2012/13 and 2018/9.

Fifty to sixty years on, the approach we take to mental health is transformed but there is still much to be done.

The disparity nationally between the status of mental and physical health in the 1960s was enormous. However, change was already on the way. New psychiatric medicines were coming on stream and the emphasis was shifting from treating people in hospital to supporting them in the community. The decade opened with a speech delivered

by Enoch Powell as Minister of Health to the National Association for Mental Health that has passed into NHS legend: “This is a colossal undertaking…. in the sheer inertia of mind and matter which is required to be overcome. There they stand, isolated, majestic, imperious, brooked over by the gigantic water

tower and chimney combined, rising unmistakable and daunting out of the countryside – the asylums which our forefathers built with such immense solidity to express the notions of their day…. We have to strive to alter our whole mentality about hospitals and about mental hospitals especially... We have to get the idea into our heads that a hospital is a shell, a framework, however complex, to contain certain processes, and when the processes change or are superseded, then the shell must most probably be scrapped.”

Fifty to sixty years on, the approach we take to mental health is transformed but there is still much to be done. The water towers have gone and most of the old asylum buildings have been demolished or repurposed as desirable residential developments. A few vestiges of the old mental health estate remain including, scandalously, some dormitory style wards. The NHS Trust that I chair is desperate for capital to move from the remaining pre-Victorian wards it occupies at the St Bernard’s Hospital (originally built as the Hanwell County Asylum). It was only last December that we finally moved the patients at Broadmoor High Secure Hospital from buildings erected in 1863 to an environment fit to support the recovery of men who are extremely unwell and a high risk to themselves as well as the public, preparing them for an eventual return, via less secure hospitals or prison, to life in the community.

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The transformation in the approach to mental health involves more than the relocation of people with acute mental illness from long-term hospitals.

As a lay person working in this area, my impression is that the change results from continual improvement in the clinical understanding of mental illness and the tools for helping people experiencing difficulties in their mental health.

Our mental health reflects a huge range of potential influences: genetic inheritance, organic illness throughout our life, psychological influences in our families, upbringing, working and domestic lives, traumatic events, what we put into our bodies – not just drugs (prescribed or otherwise) and alcohol – but the food we eat and the accompanying organisms (both good and bad for us) that affect our individual gut flora. This is no different to other aspects of our health. While there may be specific immediate causes for our “-itis”, “-algia”, “-opathy”, or “-noma”, the upstream causes, our susceptibility, and our ability to cope with physical health conditions are just as diverse as those determining our mental health. We are hugely complex organisms exposed to an almost infinite variety of external factors and experiences.

Correspondingly, professions in mental health that have traditionally been at loggerheads about treatment methods are increasingly accepting of the wide range of interventions to help recovery or at least manage symptoms.

Antipsychotic drugs over the years have become more effective for schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, some bipolar disorder and severe depression by reducing or controlling symptoms, and have fewer side effects.

Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT), extensively used for people with much less acute conditions, can also assist by providing these patients with strategies to help cope with unpleasant or difficult experiences arising from the underlying psychotic condition. Similarly, while

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some people with anxiety or depression come through their condition with psychological therapies alone, others benefit from medication, most commonly from one of the classes of serotonin reuptake inhibitors that increase the level of an important naturally occurring neurotransmitter in the brain.

The change in the pattern of mental health care delivery for those in most acute need has been dramatic. The number of mental health inpatient beds in England fell from 130,000 in the 1940s to 80,000 by the mid-1980s and currently stands at 19,000, made possible by more effective therapeutic interventions and a shift in resources.

Looking at international comparisons, the reduction could go further: the average length of stay in an inpatient mental health unit in England is 32 days, compared to 11 days in Australia and 9 days in Sweden. However, to make progress we need to invest more in support for patients following discharge from hospital, not least around social care needs and housing.

And as OPs we can be proud of our association with a school that now treats the mental wellbeing of its pupils as an equal priority with its tradition of academic excellence.

The biggest change in the delivery of mental health care in the UK has been in the improved support for people with less acute problems, such as mild depression and anxiety, through the delivery of psychological therapies under the IAPT (Improved Access to Psychological Therapies) programme launched by the Labour government in 2008 and taken up with enthusiasm first by the Coalition and since by the Conservatives. 1.1 million courses of treatment were delivered during last year and the ambition in the NHS Long

Term Plan is for this to increase to 1.9 million. The benefits of this investment are twofold: psychological therapies help most of the people referred to the service address their symptoms and get back on track; and, for those with deeper underlying problems, symptoms are spotted earlier and the risk of potentially longer term problems mitigated.

The good news for anyone with an interest in mental health is the increased interest in the area. Prince William and Prince Harry have emerged as great champions. There is progress in the commercial world, with exemplary leaders being open about their own mental health challenges, employers recognising the need to take more care of their staff and engage in programmes such as Mental Health First Aid, and the success of initiatives like the City Mental Health Alliance. Our politicians are increasingly interested in mental health, evidenced by the increase of mentions of mental health in the party manifestos: the Conservative Party’s general election manifesto carried five mentions in 2015, rising to 35 in 2017, and Labour’s four mentions in 2015 and 13 in 2017.

As chair of an NHS Trust providing mental health services, I take heart from the commitment of the Department of Health and Social Care to increasing the funding for mental health. And as OPs we can be proud of our association with a school that now treats the mental wellbeing of its pupils as an equal priority with its tradition of academic excellence.

 Tom Hayhoe (1969-73)

MENTAL HEALTH TODAY A PATIENT PERSPECTIVE

M

en’s mental health is gaining more and more exposure, which can only be a good thing. If your eyes do not work so well, you wear spectacles.

If you have a broken arm, you have a plaster cast until it is better. The same applies to mental health. There is no shame in admitting part of your body does not work properly even if it is your brain.

However, professional and researched help is available (NHS and/or privately) for those who suffer from this debilitating and scary illness. Mental illness/ psychological trauma / being a bit nuts, however you are comfortable in labelling any issues you might have, the message is clear: there is nothing to be ashamed of. If you need it, get help from your GP or, in emergency the crisis line for your local NHS Trust.

Previous generations used euphemistic phrases like “midlife crisis”, “nervous breakdown”, “the only difference between madness and eccentricity is wealth”, “the men in white coats“ etc. etc. These are not helpful in addressing what is a very serious issue, and one that affects a quarter of the population in any given year. Depression is not the same as sadness. Anxiety is not the same as trepidation. Bipolar is not the same as having an off day. Psychosis is not the same as disappointment.

Part of the problem is our understanding of these and related words. Personally, I use the term “a little bit nuts”; it deflects sympathy but maintains gravitas. It is no longer okay to sweep mental health issues under the carpet, as our forefathers had to.

Another part of the problem is that men are under-diagnosed, we are all stubborn and many of us are introspective; that does not mean we are not susceptible, no matter how much it piques our masculinity.

The audience for this magazine is largely professional, intelligent, and high achieving men. We all have St Paul’s School in common although time and distance may separate us. As members of this (or any) community it behoves

us to help one another in the spirit of common decency and good manners.

Mental illness is like a cold sore; while it may not be always flared up, it is always there in the background with the potential to appear at any trigger.

Although I am probably not qualified to have an opinion on this, I think that the sociocultural awakening for this generation will be that it is okay to have mental health issues. Our greatgrandparents’ views on race and grandparents’ attitudes towards homosexuality are unsavoury to the modern palate. Where Martin Luther King and the Stonewall movement spearheaded breakthroughs for those generations, I am hopeful that one legacy we can hand down is tolerance of psychological divergence. While one could never condone intervention for issues of race and sexuality, with mental health, treatment is proven to improve quality of life.

If you have advised a loved one to see a doctor when they felt unwell, take your own advice. Yes, we are all busy, yes none of us want to admit there might be something wrong, and yes we’d see a doctor if one of our fingers fell off.

I am not a mental health professional and can only speak from personal experience. After many years of low mood and disturbing episodes, after the death of my brother from cancer aged just 41, my undiagnosed mental illness spiralled terrifyingly out of control. I was clinging to the wreckage of my own sanity and it was scary. I had become a danger to myself and others, but one visit to my GP set me on the right track.

I was not sectioned. She realised that the black dog had me firmly in its jaws and that hallucinations and paranoia were clouding my better judgement.

The GP expedited me to the local mental health team who took me on with kid gloves. This was two years ago.

Now, with the help of a kind and patient shrink (she prefers to be called a counsellor), and prescribed medication, I am on the road to recovery.

At first I was adamant that (what I perceived to be mind-altering) drugs

would not play a part in my recovery but, by and by, my psychologist and I concluded that it would be the best course of action, alongside therapy.

Science has improved since the days of the so-called happy pills.

I was initially prescribed 50mg of sertraline, which was incrementally raised until my present dose (still under supervision by the mental health nurse).

Side effects have included double incontinence and fluctuating libido, but the positives far outweigh the negatives.

Mental illness is like a cold sore; while it may not be always flared up, it is always there in the background with the potential to appear at any trigger.

Everybody is different but in my case the drugs also triggered my sense of taste. Before, I ate out of necessity deriving no pleasure from food. I thought I could taste food in the same way as everyone else, but now I realise that I was wrong. The first food I ever tasted, at the age of 38 was a microwaved cheese pizza; absolutely nothing special, but the flavour explosion I experienced was an epiphany. Mood has been noticeably less low too, yes, there are bad days and good days, but the lows no longer approach the terrifying depths pre-medication. At present I am still not able to work and some days are difficult but, had it not been for the NHS and my GP, my mother would be mourning both her sons.

I do not mean to sound sanctimonious or preachy but if this has resonated in any way with the reader, I strongly encourage you to book an appointment with your GP, be open about any concerns you have. In any other area of life, it is sensible to take professional advice when your own capability falls short, mental health should not be the exception.

 Lorie Church (1992-97) 29

ET CETERA Robin Hirsch (1956-61) owner of the Cornelia Street Café in New York for more than 41 years shares a story from a memoir in progress, called THE WHOLE WORLD PASSES THROUGH: Stories from the Cornelia Street Café and includes recollections of two very eminent Paulines who have died recently, Oliver Sacks (1946-51) and Jonathan Miller (1947-53).

Inventory were a terrible and mysterious companion of my adolescence, which years of Freudian therapy did nothing to resolve. They made me feel intensely crazy, alien, and alone, and therapy served only to magnify those feelings.

Finally in Drummer I’d found a kindred spirit whose tics and twitches I could inhabit and exfoliate.

It’s Thursday, the last day of the week for ordering. I’ve run around downstairs checking paper goods, cleaning supplies, beer, wine, liquor. I come upstairs. It’s lunchtime. It’s May. The sun is shining.

The doors are open. It’s busy.

A man is sitting at a table in the side room. I am vaguely aware that he is watching me through the archway. I look up and he beckons me over. “Are you an actor?” he asks.

“Occasionally,” I reply.

“Did you do something at the Murphy Center about ten years ago?”

“I did a couple of things there.”

“Did you do something with Oliver Sacks?”

“The neurologist? Yes, I did. Were you there?”

“I was. I remember it very well. You did a piece about a Touretter.”

I did, indeed; a couple of plays inspired

by Sacks’ case histories. One was A Kind of Alaska by Harold Pinter, which seemed to have emerged almost fullblown some nine years after Pinter had read Awakenings. The other was a monologue by Peter Barnes called Drummer, which had been inspired by a case history of “Witty Ticcy Ray,” who suffered from Tourette’s Syndrome, an affliction of the brain which causes sudden quite violent and scatological eruptions even in the middle of genteel conversation.

We managed to get hold of Sacks.

He agreed to come on the night and to talk or at least respond to questions afterwards. Could he bring a friend?

Of course.

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I directed the Pinter, which is a deliberative, almost elegiac meditation on a woman slowly emerging after twenty-nine years in a coma. Drummer is a very different kettle of fish. It’s short, it’s abrupt, it’s funny, it’s violent. It’s also a piece that is quite close to me.

As a child growing up in London after the war I had developed fits which never totally left me and which were occasioned by unlikely things that happened at home – my parents smoking, for example. I would begin to tremble and shake and eventually I’d rush to my room to try and block out all kinds of intrusions – my father’s violence, my parents’ unhappiness, early pre-conscious memories of the Blitz during which I was born, the shadow of a history from which my parents had escaped but about which they were silent, who knows what else. These fits

On the night, out front in the audience amid the generalized hubbub I hear a sudden shout, and then another. The hubbub subsides and what we all then listen to, audience and actor alike, is a series of inchoate staccato outbursts of the kind that I am preparing to deliver.

Slowly it dawns on me that Sacks must have arrived and that the friend he had said he was bringing with him must be a Touretter – the genuine article as opposed to the fake that I was preparing to become.

We managed to get hold of Sacks. He agreed to come on the night and to talk or at least respond to questions after wards.

Could he bring a friend?

I don’t think I have ever been as nervous before a performance as I now became.

The lights went out, and, in the darkness and the dreadful interrupted silence, I stumbled out towards the drum set. Now there were two Touretters in the house, the real one and a bogus one people had paid money to see. The lights came up. I picked up my drumsticks and in a strangulated voice began to speak.

I twitched, I shouted, I banged my drums. And every so often out in the audience someone unseen twitched and shouted with me. Together we built to a climax and then finally it was over.

After a break Sacks, a large, rumpled, and surprisingly shy man sat on the stage and responded with some hesitation and considerable thoughtfulness to questions from the audience. He introduced his friend the Touretter, and, inevitably, in that small theatre, with so much revelation and such cloistered intimacy, a three-way conversation ensued.

Sacks, I learned, had gone to the same school, St Paul’s as I in London, though some ten years earlier. He and Jonathan Miller had been friends there.

There was a party afterwards. Sacks, I learned, had gone to the same school, St Paul’s as I in London, though some ten years earlier. He and Jonathan Miller had been friends there. Both had become doctors, though Miller had achieved enormous and very early fame as a comedian. Oddly, though Sacks had none of the manic performance energy that Miller brought so brilliantly to bear in Beyond the Fringe, there was, it seemed to me, a certain attunement to a kind of human, or perhaps, more accurately, divine, comedy in the shy neurologist, an understanding.

As with so many things in the performing life it was a one-night affair.

Magical but written on the wind. I never

saw Sacks again, though I kept up with some of his writing and the memory of that evening never left me, and lingered perhaps even for others.

“So, yes,” I said to my interrogator, “I did indeed play a Touretter. You were there?”

“I was indeed,” he said. “I am the Touretter,” and he barked and leaned over and punched me in the chest.

“You are the Touretter?”

“Yes. Oliver brought me with him.”

I said, “I’ve written a book, a memoir, since we last met. It has nothing to do with Tourette’s, or acting, or the café. It’s about growing up in the shadow of the Holocaust. That’s the disease I suffer from. If there’s a copy downstairs I’d like to give it to you.”

I found one. He told me his name and on the flyleaf I wrote: “For Lowell Handler, who does a pretty good imitation of me.

With admiration, Robin Hirsch.”

I handed it to Lowell. He leaned over and punched me in the chest. I punched him back.

Then I returned to my inventory.

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PAULINE PHILANTHROPY

Shaping Our Future – OPs Step Up From its foundation in 1509 St Paul’s has been educational philanthropy in action. The vision of founder, John Colet, was ‘to educate boys to serve society regardless of their race, creed or social background’. The ‘Shaping Our Future’ campaign, launched in May 2019, is seeking to renew this founding vision.

The campaign’s target is £20m.

It splits three ways. The target for bursaries is £9.9m, £0.5m is earmarked for partnerships (Paulines volunteering in state schools and School facilities being opened up to state school pupils), and £9.6m for the new boathouse and sports pavilion.

The bursary and partnerships target is an ongoing one.

Across St Paul’s Juniors and St Paul’s there are currently 108 bursaries awarded which annually “cost” £2.1m. The equivalent figures in 2016 were 49 and £0.8m. The £2.1m annual bursary cost represents about 6% of fee income in an undisrupted year. When the bursary element of the ‘Shaping Our Future’ campaign is fully funded, the School will be in a position to fund 153 (a full shoal of miraculous fish). To this end an annual target of £3.3m has been set.

This will fund these places with any remaining money going in to the

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bursary endowment to allow the School to move further towards its ‘needs blind’ ambition. £3.3m would represent around 10% of fee income.

Nine months on from launch, income and pledges received to date stand at £6.1m, which represents nearly a third of the target. The majority of this income is towards the bursary and partnership total of £10.4m.

This balance matches the focus of communications since the campaign was launched.

When the bursary element of the ‘Shaping Our Future’ campaign is fully funded, the School will be in a position to fund 153 (a full shoal of miraculous fish).

OPs have donated 35% of the running total and make up 26% of donors to ‘Shaping Our Future’. 11 OPs are “major donors”. There are 483 members of the 1509 Society (a regular gift of any amount or a single gift of over £500) of whom 130 are OPs. 21 OPs have indicated that they intend to recognise the School in their Will.

If you feel able to join the supporters, here are the links and details of who to contact.

Please do visit the website at donate.stpaulsschool.org.uk for more information, or contact Ellie Sleeman, Director of Development, at: ems@stpaulsschool.org.uk

OPs have donated 35% of the running total and make up 26% of donors to ‘Shaping Our Future’.

OLD PAULINE CLUB

Feast Service 2020

On 3 February, around a 100 Old Paulines, along with their guests, leaving Upper Eighth students and their parents, gathered in St Paul’s Cathedral for a celebration of Evensong to mark the Feast of the Conversion of St Paul. The choir included members of the St Paul’s School and St Paul’s Juniors chamber choirs. Rev Mark Oakley, Canon Chancellor of St Paul’s Cathedral, and Brian Jones, President of the Old Pauline Club, gave the readings. As Brian Jones noted in his speech at the Mercers’ Hall, it is something of a coup that we are able to celebrate the Feast in this way at the Cathedral, with the School’s own choir singing in a public service. Brian thanked Rev Matt Knox, Chaplain of St Paul’s and St Paul’s Girls’ Schools, for enabling the OPC to maintain such a positive dialogue with the Cathedral.

Following Evensong all made their way to the Mercers’ Hall. Guests were welcomed with an opening speech by Adam Fenwick, House Warden of the Mercers’ Company and Governor of the school. Adam spoke of the history of the Feast and also paid tribute to the outstanding leadership of Professor Mark Bailey, this being his last Feast Service as High Master.

Brian Jones followed, speaking of the numerous social and professional networking opportunities open to the leaving Upper 8th students through the OP Club.

literature and religion of the Chinese; Levick, G.M. 1914. Antarctic penguin: a study of their social habits; and Allan, I. 1942. ABC of Southern locomotives: A complete list of all Southern Railway Engines in service). Hilary Cummings, Librarian at St Paul’s, gratefully accepted the books on behalf of the School. The speeches concluded with the High Master, who gave a glowing review of the support lent by the Mercers’ Company and the Old Pauline Club throughout his time at the School, as well as again thanking the OPs for the book donations.

As is customary, Brian presented the school with books donated by the Club (Medhurst, W.H. 1838. China: its state and prospects, with especial reference to the spread of the Gospel: containing allusions to the antiquity, extent, population, civilization,

The buffet supper that followed the speeches enabled Old Paulines from close to a 70- year range of year groups, current students and parents to enjoy the hospitality of the Mercers’ Company.

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OLD PAULINE CLUB

Reunions 2004 1st XV Squad Saturday 16 November Held at St Paul’s School Attended by 6 Old Paulines

Singapore Dinner Monday 3 February Held at The Tanglin Club Attended by 10 Old Paulines

1958/59 1st XV Saturday 14 September Held at St Paul’s School Attended by 8 Old Paulines

2019 Leavers Thursday 19 December Held at the Rutland Arms, Hammersmith Attended by 60 Old Paulines who left the school in 2019

Durham Drinks Thursday 7 November Held at The Boat Club, Durham Attended by 15 Old Paulines studying at Durham University

1979 1st XV Saturday 16 November Held at St Paul’s School Attended by 14 Old Paulines

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Winter New York Drinks Wednesday 5 February Held on Upper East Side in memory of Jamie Morris Attended by 16 Old Paulines

New York Lunch Wednesday 15 January Held at The University Club Attended by 10 Old Paulines and guests

Old Pauline Club Committee List 2019/20

Shop online for OPC Merchandise Choose, order and pay for your items online.

Try it now! Go to: opclub.stpaulsschool.org.uk/merchandise

President B M Jones Past Presidents B D Moss, C D L Hogbin, C J W Madge, F W Neate, Sir Alexander Graham GBE DCL, R C Cunis, Professor the Rt Hon Lord McColl of Dulwich, The Rt Hon the Lord Baker of Dorking CH, N J Carr, J M Dennis, J H M East, Sir Nigel Thompson KCMG CBE, R J Smith Vice Presidents P R A Baker, Professor M D Bailey, R S Baldock, J S Beastall CB, S C H Bishop, J R Blair CBE, Sir David Brewer CMG, CVO, N St J Brooks, R D Burton, W M A Carroll, Professor P A Cartledge, M A Colato, R K Compton, T J D Cunis, S J Dennis MBE, Sir Lloyd Dorfman CBE, C R Dring, C G Duckworth, A R Duncan, J A H Ellis, R A Engel, D H P Etherton, The Rt Hon Sir Terence Etherton, Sir Brian Fall GCVO KCMG, T J R Goode, D J Gordon-Smith, Lt Gen Sir Peter Graham KCB CBE, Professor F D M Haldane, S A Hyman, S R Harding, R J G Holman, J A Howard, S D Kerrigan, P J King, T G Knight, B Lowe, J W S Lyons, I C MacDougall, Professor C P Mayer, R R G McIntosh, A R M McLean CLH, I C McNicol, A K Nigam, The Rt Hon George Osborne , T B Peters, D M Porteus, The Rt Hon the Lord Razzall CBE, The Rt Hon the Lord Renwick of Clifton KCMG, B M Roberts, J E Rolfe, M K Seigel, J C F Simpson CBE, D R Snow MBE, S S Strauss, A G Summers, R Summers, J L Thorn, R Ticciati OBE, Sir Mark Walport FRS, Professor the Lord Winston of Hammersmith Honorary Secretary S B B Turner Honorary Treasurer N St J Brooks FCA

Summer or regular OP blazers are available to order

Main Committee Composed of all the above and P R A Baker (OP Lodge), A J B Riley (Rugby Football Club), T J D Cunis (Archivist & AROPS Representative), C S Harries (Association Football Club), J P King (Colet Boat Club), P J King (Fives Club & Membership Secretary), N H Norgren (Elected), T B Peters (Cricket Club), J Withers Green (Editor Atrium & Social Engagement Officer), J D Morgan (Golfing Society), D C Tristao (Tennis Club) Executive Committee B M Jones (President & Chairman of the Committee), R J Smith (Immediate Past President), S B B Turner (Hon Secretary), N St J Brooks (Hon Treasurer) N J Carr (TDSSC Ltd Representative), J H M East (Elected), J A Howard (Liaison Committee Representative), P J King (Elected), J D Morgan (Elected) J Withers Green (Editor, Atrium & Social Engagement Officer) Liaison Committee J A Howard (Chairman), I M Benjamin, N J Carr, R J G Holman, T B Peters Ground Committee J M Dennis (Chairman), R K Compton, G Godfrey (Groundsman), M P Kiernan, J Sherjan Accountants Kreston Reeves LLP Trustee OPC Trustee Company Limited

35

OBITUARIES

Listed are members of the Pauline Community who have died since publication of autumn’s Atrium.

Name Peter R Bacon

(1946-50)

David J Cakebread

(1942-45)

Richard J (Jim) Cook

(1944-49)

Edward M (Martin) Dyson Master in Charge of Cricket (1960-65) David H Evans

(1953-58)

Thomas (Tom) J Gilbert

(1945-48)

Malcolm Heath Cricket Professional

(1991-2001)

John R Jevons

(1943-45)

Barnaby I Levy

(1998-2003)

Sir Jonathan Miller CBE

(1947-53)

James (Jamie) R Morris

(1959-63)

Christopher H O Richards

(1946-51)

Stephen D Natcher

(1955-57)

Christopher N (Nicholas) Parsons CBE

(1937-39)

Jonathan Richmond

(1971-76)

Peter H Rothschild OBE

(1938-40)

Peter S Savill

(1953-58)

Robert J Silver

(1969-73)

David C Snelling

(1961-66)

Vanni E Treves

(1953-58)

Rev Dr Anthony (Tony) M Williams

(1952-56)

David J Wilson

(1972-77)

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Thomas J (Tom) Gilbert TD MSc DIC CEng FIChemE (1945-48) My father, Tom, who has died aged 90, was at St Paul's immediately after World War 2, after wartime evacuation to Keswick. He rowed in the 1947 First VIII, "The Champions of The Tideway". Having represented the school at Henley Royal Regatta, for the next 70 years he was a familiar sight in the Stewards' Enclosure, wearing his School Colours Cap. After St Paul's Tom studied Chemical Engineering at Imperial College, where he maintained his passion for rowing, staying on for an MSc. He joined the Institution of Chemical Engineers in 1949, was Chartered in 1960 and elected a Fellow in 1974.

Tom did National Service in the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers in 1954/5, continuing as an officer in the Territorial Army until the early 1960s, commanding his Light Armoured Workshop during annual exercises in Germany. He was awarded the Territorial Decoration.

Tom met his wife, Judy, while working for ICI on Teesside. They married in 1964.

After five years in Great Ayton, North Yorkshire, they moved to Rickmansworth, on the outskirts of London, living in the same home for over 50 years.

His engineering career saw him managing a variety of projects for companies that included Power Gas, Pritchard Rhodes, Bechtel and NorskHydro. Some of these took him abroad (unaccompanied), to Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Norway.

A passion Tom shared with Judy was classical music, especially the piano, and the opera. A chess set was always at hand for a visit of son or grandson. He loved reading, especially books about Churchill and Field Marshal Montgomery. Tom had the ability to form lasting friendships and enjoyed the opportunity of retirement to strengthen these relationships. Thoughtful and kind, he was always encouraging, displaying his natural geniality and enthusiasm for life.

Tom died on 9 December 2019 with his family by his side. He is survived by his wife, Judy, children Peter, Penny and Jo, and six grandchildren.

Submitted by Commander Peter Gilbert Royal Navy (son)

Malcolm Heath (Cricket Professional, 1991-2000) Malcolm Heath played for Hampshire from 1954 to 1962 and was an integral part of the Championship winning team of 1961.

Derek Shackleton and Malcolm formed a formidable new ball bowling combination.

Their enterprising captain Colin InglebyMackenzie referred to them as “Cab Horse” and “Wonder Horse”.

In 1958 he took 126 wickets including a match analysis of 13 for 87 against Derbyshire at Burton. Those 13 wickets were some of the 39 that fell in one day in a game that Hampshire lost. Malcolm was also the only member of the team prepared to sit in the passenger seat of his captain’s car as he drove idiosyncratically on the winding A-roads of pre-motorway England for the duration of a 28-match season.

Malcolm was upright in all senses of that word. He had a beautiful, high action that made best use of his lean 6’6” frame, and firmly held views on how life should be lived and how cricket should be played – competitively, fairly, skilfully and for enjoyment. He always maintained that he had been fortunate to play in a golden age.

His great experience, deep knowledge and gift for communication helped to make Malcolm an impressive coach. With his warm, rich tones, smiling visage and relaxed demeanour, he worked by encouragement and persuasion, never diktat. He was both greatly liked and hugely respected by the boys, who never doubted his judgement. He abhorred excessive noise and any hint of exhibitionism on the field but admired application, effort and skill, whether by friend or foe. His imaginative warm-up exercises and competitions, particularly at the end-of-season festivals, were extremely popular, as were the prizes for them (usually made of chocolate).

Always immaculately dressed whether in ‘civvies’ or ‘whites’, Malcolm made a massive contribution to the cause of Pauline cricket.

In 2001 he retired to his much loved Stroud, and in December 2019, in the words of his wife Margaret, “he was run out going for his 86th run”, and so sadly he will not attend the re-union of the unbeaten 2000 1st XI, who so admired him, which is planned for June 2020.

Gwyn Hughes

Paul Anthony Leppard (1954-1960)

Nicholas J L Lockett (1957-62)

Howard Manuel (1951-56)

Paul was a second generation OP following his father Tony (1922-28). Paul became a Vice President of the OP Club in 2006.

After responding to a call in an issue of the OP News for a sub editor, he was immediately made editor – producing his first edition in 1995. Twenty six editions later he stood down in 2008.

In his first term at school, Paul kept a detailed diary. On his first day he "joined the fencing society and played rugger".

A contemporary and friend throughout his life was Stephen Bailey (1955-59). Paul played clarinet and created the school's music society – later playing in a concert at Wathen Hall. Paul was a Foundation Scholar. After St Paul's he went to Trinity College, Dublin, to read maths.

Paul was thrilled that Adrian Barnes (1956-61), the City Remembrancer, officiated at his Freedom of the City of London ceremony in 2000. Paul had named his first son after Adrian.

Paul was a true individual and hated committees, highly intelligent – his MENSA scores put him in the top two per cent – he was easily bored: "waffle, waffle no action" he would say.

Paul spent a lifetime researching his family name, tracing all Leppards in the world back to one family in Lewes. He gained a diploma from Birkbeck in Genealogy and the History of the Family.

Photography and film making were passions. A well-known London orchestra fired a BBC film crew and employed Paul to produce its worldwide promotional film "because he understood the musicians".

Despite a fear of flying he travelled the world, quickly learning the language of the country – putting this ability down to maths and music. He was a great rock ‘n’ roller, a terrific ballroom dancer but the worst disco mover in the world!

Paul died in Cannes, where he had lived for many years, from post-operative septicaemia aged 77. He leaves a wife, Leigh, and two sons – Adrian and James – from a previous marriage.

Written by his wife, Leigh Mendelsohn

Nick was born in Surbiton in 1944 and lived much of his young life in Kingston where he attended Arundel House Prep School later going on to St Paul’s.

He always showed a keen interest in electrical engineering which lead to a long and successful career, through a Marconi sponsorship he went on to obtain his degree in this field at Loughborough University.

Nick’s association with Marconi (later GEC and British Aerospace) allowed him to travel extensively and work overseas in Kenya, Trinidad and Cyprus. He also worked closer to home at Goonhilly Satellite Earth Station in Cornwall and latterly at the Marconi Research and Development Centre in Great Baddow.

Nick married Jan in 1979 and they and step son James moved to Tiptree where their daughter Emma was born and they later moved to Great Totham.

Nick enjoyed many hobbies including photography and music, he was always whistling, humming or singing and needed little encouragement to play his clarinet, harmonica, concertina or in fact, anything he could get a note out of. He was also a keen Radio Amateur, (call sign G4 EMB) and was for many years an active member of RAYNET (the Radio Amateurs Emergency Network).

A surprising late addition to Nick’s interests was keeping pet rats (having looked after his daughter’s when she went to University) resulting in him becoming a founder member of The Estuary Rat Club and Treasurer to The National Fancy Rat Society -travelling all over the country to shows and meetings, he was very highly regarded throughout both organisations.

Nick received treatment for cancer in his last few years but this did not stop him spending time with his family, including his two grandsons Freddie and Barnie. He spent his last 2 years of life at Woodland View Nursing home in Colchester and died on 15th June 2019, after an unexpected decline, with his daughter Emma by his side.

Nicholas’s Family

Howard Manuel, who died in August last year at the age of 81, was a proud Pauline who talked of his time at school with affection. While at St Paul’s it was assumed that he would become a classicist but, following an appendectomy in adolescence, he set his heart on becoming a doctor, studying at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and the Middlesex Hospital.

Howard started his military career aged 13 in the school Combined Cadet Force.

At university he was a part of the Officer Training Corps and, on qualifying, he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps. He became a Senior Specialist in Pathology, awarded first prize by the RAMC in Military Medicine, Army Health and Pathology.

Howard served in Malaysia and Borneo and was posted to Singapore, Germany and Hong Kong.

A highlight of Howard’s army medical career was his role as Medical Officer on active service with the Gurkhas in Borneo in 1965. The Gurkhas talk with pride of his heroic actions following an ambush, when he volunteered to trek for hours into jungle swamps to treat an injured man in enemy territory, staying with him until a helicopter arrived. Howard’s family only learned of the incident when the news of his death reached the Ghurka Battalion.

Howard married Gloria Balloch in 1961 and they went on to have three children.

Having reached the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, he retired from the army in 1979, though he then joined the TA Royal Yeomanry in 1980 as Regimental Medical Officer.

Howard became a GP in 1979, practicing in Pimlico for over twenty years.

A passionate and committed doctor, clearly adored by his patients, Howard continued working as a locum until 18 months before his death. He and Gloria separated in 1994 and he went on to live with retired army nurse, Maura Mulhern, until her death in 2016. Howard is survived by his children Chris, Nicky and Katy, nine grandchildren and two great grandchildren.

Howard’s Family

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OBITUARIES

Peter James Montagnon (1963-67)

Peter D Quick (1965-69)

Peter H Rothschild OBE, TD (1937-40)

When the school moved from Hammersmith to Barnes, the 1st XV pitch or “Big Side” was lifted and the headmaster photographed holding the final piece of turf. As editor, Peter reproduced the photo in Folio captioned, “The last sod to leave Big Side”. It was an early flash of the fearless approach he would bring to his career as journalist and corporate governance activist.

A Foundation Scholar he followed his brothers, Christopher and Timothy, to St Paul’s; sister Catherine attended the Girls’ School. President of the Chesterton Society and Secretary of the Historical Society, his paper on the Borgias was described as "a theme natural to the deliverer's insatiable appetite for scandal”.

He won a Travelling Scholarship and a place at Cambridge to read Modern Languages. There he edited Varsity, meeting his future wife, Isabel.

If St Paul’s nurtured a taste for scandal and travel, Peter channelled it well. He spent his next thirty years with Reuters (three continents in one decade) and the Financial Times, editing Lex and leading coverage of the 1997 Asian financial crisis.

He once joked a journalist needs only the ability to send a telex when drunk.

In 2000 he began a second career in corporate governance with the Association of British Insurers, becoming President of the International Corporate Governance Network.

Following his death from a heart attack aged 69 tributes came from as far afield as the Tehran Stock Exchange. The FT wrote that his “shrewd analysis, surefooted moral sense and dry wit brought him both influence and affection”.

Writing on corporate culture and good governance last year, Peter argued that a business must stand for something: “when a company’s employees go to work in the morning, they ought to do so with a sense of purpose beyond that of simply making money for their owners” – advice reflected in his own life, full of purpose and joy.

He is survived by Isabel, all his siblings, his two children and five grandchildren.

Family & friends

Peter arrived at St Paul’s with a scholarship and was immediately fast-tracked to take his O levels at 14 and his A and S levels at 16, leaving his final year to spend preparing for the Oxbridge entrance exams. He felt very privileged to be in such an academically demanding school and it was something he looked back on with enormous pleasure. He was also thrilled to be able to play as much sport as he wished, playing rugby, cricket, fives, tennis, table tennis and squash.

When he was offered a Postmastership (scholarship) to read PPE at Merton College, Oxford he played in many of the college sports’ teams and also played tennis for the university, gaining his tennis Blue.

After Peter left Oxford, he joined what was then Ocean Transport and Trading as a graduate trainee. He worked in numerous different Ocean subsidiaries before deciding that he would return to studying and enrol on the MBA course at Cranfield. Having gained his MBA, he took a job lecturing at the Oxford Brookes school of business and discovered a passion for teaching; from there he moved to EAP (now ESCP) the foremost French Business school where he relished teaching the extraordinary culturally diverse groups of post-graduates who walked through its doors.

In 2015 he retired and was diagnosed with motor neuron disease. With his wife Alison, whom he had met in his last year at Oxford, he had had three children.

Tragically, not only did he have to contend with his disease, but also with the unimaginable distress of his son’s cancer diagnosis and death in 2017. Peter died aged 66, on 12th October 2018. His gift to family, friends and students has been to engage them in uncompromising and stimulating intellectual debate; his gift to his family has been his unwavering love and support. He is hugely missed by Alison, Rosalind, Vivien, their partners and his grandson.

Alison Quick, widow

Peter was born in 1924 in Freiburg, Germany. In 1928 he came to the UK when his father took up an academic post at Cambridge. Returning to Germany in 1932 the environment for a Jewish family was already difficult and friends they had made in England arranged for them to come back permanently.

Peter went to The Hall and then St Paul’s, initially at West Kensington and then at Crowthorne. He matriculated in 1940 and we still have the heavily censored copy of Jane’s Fighting Ships that he was awarded at Apposition for Geography.

Peter worked briefly for London Transport before joining the King's Royal Rifle Corps. He was demobbed as a captain in 1947, having served a stint with BAOR. He then collected a degree in Economics from the LSE before re-joining London Transport. His remaining career was all within the transport field.

Peter’s life was marked by endless enthusiasm for his passions. He maintained his ties with his Old Pauline friends right to the end. He served with the KRRC in the TA until he had to retire but he and Lord Bramall still exchanged birthday greetings until their last. In his retirement he remained remarkably active, working as a police volunteer, a driving force within the British Chambers of Commerce in Europe, a Rotarian and as a director of the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch railway.

In 2008 he was awarded an OBE in respect of his services to trade. Up until months before his death he was still going, probably the oldest police volunteer in the country, still an active Rotarian and proud to witness the 90th anniversary of his beloved railway.

On February 14th 1944 Peter met his future wife, Helen, a corporal in the Royal Canadian Air Force, on a blind date.

They married in 1948. Helen and their two children Mary and David (also an OP) all survive him.

David Rothschild OP (1964-69), son

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Geoffrey J Sadow (1944-49)

Peter S Savill (1953-58)

Robert J Silver (1969-73)

Geoffrey Sadow was born in Cricklewood in 1930, the only child of accountant Alexander Sadow, and his wife Anne.

At the age of 7, a freak accident playing football at school led to septicaemia and bone infection that plagued him throughout his life. There were no antibiotics and the only treatment was surgical drainage and complete bedrest.

Numerous operations meant he missed 5 years of school, however he still managed to gain a place at St Paul’s in 1944.

Despite his profound limp, Geoffrey learned to ride a bike meaning he could attend some lessons at Easthampstead.

Tragically, when he was just 13, his father died following surgery for cancer.

Geoffrey went on to study medicine at University College Hospital and became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons.

He worked at a number of NHS hospitals, eventually becoming Orthopaedic Consultant at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Kingston. He also worked in private practice in Harley Street. He was devoted to his patients and received many letters of thanks from those who lives he had improved. After retirement he often served as expert witness in clinical malpractice cases.

He had a passion for classical music, horse racing, fine wine and antique clocks.

He combined his passion for horse racing with acting as consultant in cases of jockey injury. He attended many classical concerts and race meetings with his wife Daphne, with whom he shared a love for the Jewish way of life and their Synagogue community. They were supporters of the Yehudi Menuhin School for young musicians. They travelled extensively.

Geoffrey was very proud of being an Old Pauline. As well as making a significant contribution through his successful career in orthopaedics, his legacy includes triumph over adversity.

He lived with constant pain from that childhood injury, but seldom complained about it.

He is survived by his daughter, stepdaughter and grandchildren.

Geoffrey's Family

Peter was a boarder at High House from 1953 to 1957 and a pupil of Sid Pask. He went on to study forestry at Bangor University and afterwards he took up the role of Assistant Conservator of Forests in Sierra Leone.

In 1966 he returned to the UK and worked in the Northern Ireland Forest Service. He managed to combine a busy working life with academic study. In 1971 he completed an MSc in Forestry at Bangor, and in 1977 a PhD at Queen’s University, Belfast.

Peter’s unrivalled combination of professional experience and research expertise made him the perfect candidate for the post of University Lecturer in Silviculture at the Commonwealth Forestry Institute in Oxford in 1980. Here, he lectured on forestry to undergraduates taking the BA in Agriculture and Forest Sciences.

Peter taught for the M.Sc. course in Forestry and became course director in 1996. More than 570 students graduated under Peter’s watch and it was as a teacher that he has left his most important impact. His students describe a kind, gentle and above all humane man who took a genuine interest in their development and who inspired their studies. He was a fellow of Linacre College, where he served first as Senior Tutor and then as Vice Principal.

Peter was author of four important books.

His Silviculture of Trees Used in British Forestry is described perfectly on Amazon as “the Bible”. His 90 peer reviewed research papers, supervision of 26 DPhil students and more than 50 MSc dissertations are an eloquent tribute to his long-lasting contribution to our understanding of British forests and forestry in particular. His contribution was recognised by the Royal Forestry Society in 2007, by the presentation of its Gold Medal – a rarely awarded honour.

It is poignant that, just as the world is waking up to the fundamental importance of trees and forests to human well-being, we have lost the very man who might have been our wisest guide.

Peter is survived by his wife Michelle whom he married in 2004.

Martin Savill OP (1955-61), brother, and Dr Nick Brown, Principal of Linacre College, Oxford University

I met Robert on our first day at Colet Court in Miss McLaren’s form. We were in the same class for the next ten years until he left for Trinity College, Cambridge, with a history scholarship.

Robert had a fabulous memory, was a ferocious conversationalist, an avid debater (President of the Chesterton Literary and Debating Society) and a trenchant writer. At Cambridge his journalistic and political enthusiasm brought friendships with Oliver Letwin and Charles Moore. If mental illness had not intervened I have no doubt that Robert, too, would have enjoyed a distinguished career as a journalist, lawyer, campaigner and possibly an MP. He started down that path at Cambridge, at the Union and as editor of the Fabian Magazine.

Sadly, in his last year at university, things began to unravel. Schizophrenia had invaded him. He managed it well for several years and was called to the Bar, but practising never became possible.

Robert wrote interesting, punchy articles for the New Statesman, Spectator and other quality papers, especially obituaries for the Times. In the same period he began a PhD. He was an active member of the Labour Party.

For the last half of his life, sadly, his friends watched as he was sectioned under the Mental Health Act seventeen times. Robert was the gentlest man but would attract attention when he asserted his freedom by refusing to take his medicine. With the support of a fantastic social worker, his last four years were calmer. He lived quietly, as a well-known local figure, close to the old Colet Court building. Just after he died I met a woman who lived nearby. She recalled Robert with great warmth sitting on the front steps of his house, chain-smoking, characteristically without socks and shoes, often with an immaculately groomed Siamese cat on his lap.

Robert was an important feature of my life and that of other OPs, Tom Hayhoe, John Reizenstein and Rebecca Fitzgerald.

He will be missed and should be remembered for his enthusiasms, energy and courage.

Peter Freeman OP (1969-73) 39

OBITUARIES

Vanni E Treves, CBE (1953-58)

Rev Dr Anthony (Tony) M Williams (1952-56)

Vanni was born in Florence in 1940. Three years later his father was killed while helping the Allies fighting in Italy. In 1946, Vanni's mother married an Englishman and they moved to London. He won a scholarship to St Paul's in 1953. His abiding memory of St Paul's was of the bus journey, involving at least one change of bus, and tackling his homework after such a long day. He used to proudly tell of how he was the oldest boy in the School to be beaten when, aged 17, he was caught handing a fellow pupil in an exam a glacier mint with a maths equation scratched on it.

After St Paul’s, he went straight up to University College, Oxford, to read Law, at the precocious age of 17. He enjoyed life on the water, becoming a cox. Vanni was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to the University of Illinois for a year and then joined the City firm, Macfarlanes. He was Senior Partner from 1987 until 1999.

He enjoyed a varied career with several directorships, including Saatchi and Saatchi, and Chairmanships of London Business School and Channel 4 TV. The most high profile (and biggest challenge of his career) was chairing Equitable Life from 2001 after its collapse. He was awarded a CBE for his services to education when he chaired the National College for School Leadership. He served as a trustee of many charities including the John Paul Getty Charitable Trust and ran a fundraising campaign for the Monte San Martino Trust – a charity which thanks the Italian people who sheltered escaped Allied POWs by bringing Italian schoolchildren over to the UK to learn about British life. His last appointments were as a governor of Homerton Hospital, and Chairman of the Felix Project.

He was generous with his time and liked nothing more than to advise people and share his considerable experience with them. He had a sharp intellect and a wicked sense of humour. He was married to Angela and they had three children.

The Treves Family

Tony’s time at school was one of all-round excellence, especially out of the classroom where he developed skills in boxing and rugby – though he insisted he never combined the two on the pitch. He later became one of the finest scrum halves to have played for the Old Paulines.

Tony began a successful engineering career at Vickers Armstrong, where he joined others in offering himself as “luggage” for proving flights in newly developed aircraft, completely devoid of any seats. The Test Pilots would put the plane through its paces in the air, flinging its passengers around the empty fuselage – highly dangerous but wonderfully exciting when you are in your early 20s.

He worked on the design of various aircraft most notably the, eventually cancelled, TSR2 and then Concorde in its early stages.

Tony moved on to EMI’s Central Research Laboratories in Hayes, being the Lead Mechanical Engineer in Sir Godfrey Hounsfield’s invention of the CT Scanner: he is named on its Patent. He was also the very first person in the world to be “scanned”.

Married to Sara and with two sons, he then moved to Iver and became very involved with St. Leonard’s Church – becoming ordained in 2003. On his retirement, they moved to the Cotswolds where he continued his involvement with the local churches.

Tony had a happy and fulfilling life by many measures. He died on 22 August 2019, to be followed six days later by his beloved Sara.

Simon & Robert Williams (sons)

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ATRIUM

SPRING / SUMMER 2020

SPORT OLD PAULINE RUGBY Saturday 14 December 2019 the St Paul’s Leavers XV versus ‘Last Year’s Captain’s XV’

This annual match was held as always at the Old Pauline Sports Ground at Thames Ditton. The morning kick-off, the wintry weather and the previous night’s festivities may all have contributed to the teams arriving just short of a full complement of players; but turn up they did, as did a highly competent referee and a large and enthusiastic crowd of families, friends, staff and Old Pauline rugby supporters.

Despite a strong wind blowing directly down the pitch, the crowd was treated to an excellent match. The 2019 Leavers’ were captained by Declan Thompson (unfortunately unable to play himself due to an injured hand). With the wind at their backs, they started strongly and their heavier forwards secured a constant supply of possession. As the first half wore on, the Old Boys used the elements well and reached half-time 19-0 up. Theo Moreland, who looked distinctly fitter than many of his colleagues, Edan Baines and Euan Morrison, scored tries. Isaac converted the first try; the less said about the attempt to convert the second the better and Euan Morrison surprised everyone by converting his own try from near the touchline.

The question being asked at half-time was would the lead be enough. The St Paul’s team had already shown signs

of their adventurous approach and full-back Luke Scott made a magnificent break from his own half, only to succumb to a painful looking hamstring injury as a try looked likely.

Just as Luke left the field his brother Alex emerged to reinforce the Old Boys team, but sadly the opportunity was missed for them to face each other on the pitch.

With the wind behind them, the school team set about reducing the deficit and their efforts were rewarded when left wing Daniel Whiley crossed in the corner after fine handling by the backs.

He then nonchalantly slotted the conversion from wide out. Ten minutes later Daniel scored again after clinging onto a beautifully floated pass from fly-half Finlay Bell. For the rest of the game the match ebbed and flowed with everyone committed to trying to secure victory for his team. Players found hitherto unexpected reserves of fitness as breaks were made, tackles and turnovers effected and kicks chased.

But still the score remained resolutely 19-12 in the ‘Old Boys’ favour. In the last minute the School launched another attack and centre Freddie Eltringham picked a great line to take a pass and crash over under the posts. Two points down with the kick to come – could Freddie hold his nerve? The kick was never in doubt. The ball sailed between

the posts and referee Tom Bliss immediately blew the final whistle.

A 19-19 draw was a fair result and testimony to the efforts of both teams.

Everyone then took shelter in the Colets’ clubhouse and enjoyed the hospitality of the Old Pauline Rugby Club. Ties were awarded to the deserving ‘men of the match’ from the two teams – Alexander Davies and Toby Depel – and Brian Jones, OP Club President thanked everyone for supporting this annual event. Andy Riley (OPFC Co-Chairman), Rob Rayner (Club Secretary) and Chris Jackson (Tour Organiser) then spoke briefly about the rugby club and its ambitious plans to tour South Africa as part of the club’s 150th anniversary celebrations in 2021.

Huge thanks to James Blurton for bringing the school team along, to captain Archie and his team for making the effort to play after the rigours of a long term, and to Declan and his year group for making sure that they too could field a team. Everyone entered into the spirit of the day and it was generally agreed that 2019’s was the best in the recent series of matches.

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OLD PAULINE FOOTBALL Saturday 15 February 2020 – St Paul’s versus OPAFC

The combined efforts of both Storm Ciara and Storm Dennis saw the annual fixture between OPAFC and the School switched from the hallowed (and sodden) turf of Thames Ditton to the hardy 3G surface of Lonsdale Road. It was a grey and blustery day, though the Amber warning was no more than advance notice of the attacking menace about to be unleashed.

First up was the 2nd XI match. Both sides contained an attacking mix of players and before long the School took an early lead,

courtesy of a sharp finish from Paolo Chiesa.

With the wind in their favour, they continued to press and added two further goals – aided by the elements; at half time it was 3-0.

The change of ends spurred OPAFC into life; soon a goal was pulled back through a 20-yard postage stamp finish from Nirav Ghantiwala (2003-08). Chances were now being created at both ends, but it was OPAFC who were able to turn pressure into goals thanks to precise finishes from Nick Troen (1998-2003) and Nick Andrews.

Try as they might, neither side could produce a winner and so it was penalties.

Both sides missed one each amongst a flurry of well-taken penalties. The pressure was mounting. Who would blink first? The prized scalp of a Nick Troen penalty being saved is now the highlight of James Stubbs life as a goalkeeper, captured for posterity by the paparazzi…

And now for the 1st teams. With the rain falling hard, the School dominated the early exchanges with slick and incisive movement from all positions. Before long, it was 2-0 thanks to goals from Luke Warriner (1997-2002) and Tyler Payne, and looking very much like game over for OPAFC. A rare counter-attack resulted in a penalty (VAR proved inconclusive) and Hatam Al Turaihi (2009-14) coolly slotted home for 1-2. Soon afterwards another OPAFC attack levelled things up and it was 2-2 at half time.

With the wind now in their favour, OPAFC would have harboured ambitions to take the game by the scruff of the neck in the second half. However, the School had other ideas and were quickly 4-2 up courtesy of a brace from Joe Brian.

OPAFC continued to press and closed the gap thanks to a fine 20-yard strike from Joe Birtwistle. Could they haul themselves back into the match once again? The School side assembled by Luke Warriner showed its composure and moved its slick passing game up a gear to take the game away from OPAFC. Two further goals, from Tyler Payne and James Baxter, put the game to bed and SPS ran out deserved 6-3 winners.

Huge thanks to Luke Warriner and Nick Troen for organising a great morning of football, and thanks to both sets of players for playing both matches in such a good spirit.

OPAFC will be hosting summer training at School and welcome all leavers, gap year & university students, and recent graduates.

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OLD PAULINE RUGBY FIVES

 Cunis Cup 2020: Dan Tristao, Matt Shaw, Jack Malde, Julian Aquilina, Ben Beltrami, Tim Cunis, Elliot Malone, Peter King

Fives is a game that is great fun to play, simple to resource and sociable in the extreme. The camaraderie built up on court at St Paul’s, and at schools’ matches and tournaments leads to lasting friendships. Why would there not be a place for an Old Pauline Fives Club?

And yet it was not until the ‘class of 2002’ that any group really suggested and set about forming the club.

 Owers Trophy winners 2018: Ben Beltrami, Julian Aquilina and Dan Tristao with the eponymous Mr Owers

national singles rankings, with Daniel having recently retained the National title with his fifth win, fifty years after John East’s triumph, and the first OP since to do so.

It was quite a short step to establish a weekly club night on Thursday evenings at School (still the regular meeting point), to open up membership to leavers recent and less recent, and see who came along.

Founder members included former National Singles winner John East (1960-65) and his school contemporary John Dennis (1959-64), National Schools’ champion Simon Kemp (1975-79) and an array of variously talented players from the late 1990s and early 2000s.

One of the most charming elements of the game is its suitability for players of many standards, and in doubles especially the principle of balancing pairs to make an even contest has been enshrined in the RFA President’s Cup tournament, contested annually for over sixty years.

Four different OPs have their names on the trophy from the last four events, and the OPRFC stages its own version of the tournament as well. Founder member Tim Cunis (1955-60) presented a cup for the Club’s singles tournament, also a ‘handicap’ event for which the organisers have had to devise increasingly stringent handicaps to prevent Daniel Tristao continuing to win despite everything.

Success in the world of Fives tends to be cyclical. Oundle, Bedford and St Dunstan’s enjoyed periods of supremacy, and more recently Winchester and Alleyn’s. But from the mid 1990s onwards St Paul’s has enjoyed exceptional success as some outstanding groups of friends and players found their way into the sport. Adrian Lee (1997-2002) lost not a single match in five years of National Schools’ singles in the different age groups. Three years earlier Giles Corner (1994-99) had almost achieved the same distinction. Daniel Tristao (2002-07) and Ed Kay (2005-10) both won the Nationals in consecutive years, and it is hardly surprising that they are now the two players at the top of the

The dominance of Old Paulines in the national rankings at present (at least half of the top twenty in both singles and doubles with the majority in the top ten) reflects the strength of the game at the School. The Wood Cup, a teams-of-four competition for clubs, had been dominated for much of its 35 year history by Manchester YMCA and Alleyn Old Boys.

OPRFC’s first win in 2011 was the start of a ‘new era’, as one of the Manchester players observed, which saw five wins and five finals in ten years. Similarly the Owers trophy, a competition for “genuine” old boys’ teams instituted in 2004, has rarely lacked a Pauline presence in the final, with the 2019 win being the club’s tenth.

The world of Rugby Fives provides admirable bridges between the school and adult game, with competitions for universities and Under 25s. With the School’s academic strength it is hardly surprising that we have contributed by some distance the largest number of participants to the Oxford v Cambridge Varsity match over the years, including many captains, on more than one occasion the captains of both teams.

Among those who have won full blues (discretionary, rather than the more routine half-blue) are John East, Alan Beverly (1999-2004) and Charlie Brooks (1997-2002) (multiple winners of the BUSF doubles for Cambridge), Ed Kay, Ben Beltrami (2009-14) and Matt Shaw (2008-13). Charlie has been a highly ranked player for many years, and like Daniel sits on the RFA board as well as the Jesters Club committee, and has enjoyed several wins in the National Doubles.

The success of School and OP Fives owes much to the enlightened choice to equip six courts in the 1968 buildings, by a distance the most congenial and natural home for major tournaments such as the National Schools’ and matches involving large numbers including the Varsity match. The sports policy for the Spring Term in the Fourth Form also gives a real opportunity to pupils to discover games which they might otherwise never have known: Ben Beltrami, for example, is on record as saying he might have been merely a low-level team footballer if that had been the sole or normal option, instead of which he discovered a passion for a great game and now ranks 4th in the country – well, the world, really! I am sure Alastair Mackenzie had much to do with the planning of the building before the move from West Kensington; he was also careful in selection of potential players, as I well recall being quizzed by him on the playing fields at Osterley when I first applied to play. And the enthusiasm of the coaching staff continues to inspire. Long may it continue to do so.

 Peter King (1967-71) 43

SPORT

OLD PAULINE SPORT ALMANAC OP CRICKET 2019

OP FOOTBALL 2019-20

Team

P

W

D

L

A

Team

P

W

D

L

1st XI

20

6

2

11

1

1st XI

14

3

3

8

2nd XI

18

12

3

3

0

2nd XI

12

7

3

2

Sunday XI

3

3

0

0

0

Vets XI

3

1

0

2

Surrey Championship 1st X1: 6th in Division 4 2nd X1: Champions Division 5 OP Cricketers in 2019 (25): Tom Abbott, James Grant, Ollie Ratnatunga, Chris Berkett, Joe Harris, Yaseen Rana, Jamie Bomford, Rich Hay, Tim Schneider, Mihir Bhushan, Michael Lever, Jehan Sherjan, Sam Cato, Freddie Light, Tom Speller, Rahul Dev, Charlie Malston, Narayan Subramanian, Henry Dodd, Dave Mathuen, Oliver Tapper, Alex Duncan, Tom Peters, Jack Turner, Archie Foster.

OP Footballers in 2019-20 (45) Alex Lloyd-Jones, Ciaran Harries, Rishi Stocker, Hatam Al-Turaihi, Max Gordon-Brown, Harry Browne, Matthew Evans, Pareet Patel, Jasper Harlington, Aaron Connor, Jez Conrad, Tom McGlynn, Peter Wellby, Jack Wellby, Luke Warriner, George Mayo, Greg Brown, James Gosling, Jack Kleiber, Olly Jones, Alec Stewart, Kit Brice, Adam Klein, Jehan Sherjan, Justin Maini, Ben Roberts, Paul Clarke, Russell Burns, Mark Weston, Ed Owles, Nick Troen, Dave Arrowsmith, Harry Cotterall, AJ Foster, Math Williams, Nye Williams, Harry Draper, Jeremy Roberts, Roland Archdall, Onur Kuzalti.

OP GOLF 2019

OP RUGBY 2019-20

Played 11, Won 4, Halved 2, Lost 5

Team

P

W

D

L

1st XV

14

4

1

9

2nd XV

15

6

1

8

Vets XV

6

3

0

3

Kayton Trophy Just Cup Haswell Bowl, Kayton Cup Eastman Salvers

Mercers Cup, Sayers Cup Lane Cups

Walker Cup, Bewshar Bowl North Cup Courlander Cup, Cunis Claret Jug Edgar & Williams Cups

Downing Salver Jubilee Salver

Toby Bain Neil Fitch Chris Vallender Nick Downing/ Steven Spencer Rob Smith Robert Silverstone/ Nick Downing Robert Silverstone Nick Cardoza Robert Silverstone David Charman/ Robert Silverstone Tom Webb-Wilson Robert Silverstone

OP Golfers in 2019 (55): Chris Vallender, Hugh Roberts, Robert Silverstone, Brian Thompson, Philip Francis, John Cooper, Robin Campbell, Alex Kerr, Robin Young, Robbie Parker, Max Rose, Charlie Prior, Tito Bastinello, Freddie Bastinello, Alex Bastinello, Robbie Lyon, Lucas Moore, Ben Rowan, Jamie McFarlane, Ian Starr, David Pincott, Brian Selwyn-Barnett, John Woodcock, Nick Cardoza, Laurence Harris, Jeremy Williams, Toby Bain, Charles Mathias, David Charman, David Mayhew, Dick Vollmer, Steven Spencer, Mike Rowley, Hugh Garnham, Alex Meadows, Richard Hamilton, Nigel Williams, Chris Kraushar, Jon Morgan, Neil Fitch, Nick Downing, Rob Smith, Tom Webb-Wilson.

Laurence Gilford, John Stone, Guy Wildy, John East, Brian Lowe, Harvey Bogard, David Basham, Charles Miller, Alan Stranders, Oliver Gilford, Ray Burton, Charles Hogbin.

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Leagues and positions 1st XV: Surrey 3, 10th 2nd XV: Surrey Combination 1 North, 7th Vets XV: Surrey Vets League 2, 3rd OP Rugby players in 2019-20 (17): Tom Roberts, Toby Ejsmond-Frey, Jake Coleman, Rahul Shorthouse, Toby Depel, Declan Thompson, Martin Macdonald, Tim Barlow, Stuart Kerrigan, Tom Arscott, Robin Ejsmond-Frey, Iain Stewart, Theo Moreland, Euan Morrison, Juyong Kim, Pete Henshall, Fred Engelbach.

PAST TIMES 10 years ago (2010)

20 Years ago (2000)

Forum Society At the dawn of the second decade of this millennium, the ruins of the dormant Forum Society were reconstructed and built anew. Forum has hosted speakers from contrasting political convictions. Nigel Farage – the leader of UKIP – did not fall short of our expectations of attacking his usual subject. Former London mayor Ken Livingstone returned to the society after speaking at St Paul’s many years ago. He gave an impassioned speech about the looming demise of Britain because of its failure to invest in the future, and the demise of the world because of the onset of global warming.

Former Education and Home Secretary David Blunkett rounded off the year discussing the difficulty for the Labour Party in being a force for reform in what he deems to be a fundamentally conservative country.

Stephen Baldock (1958-63) thanks John Beastall (1954-59) for his contribution as Development Director It was entirely appropriate that our first Development Director should be an Old Pauline. John’s vision was a clear one: he believed passionately in the quality and worth of St Paul’s and in the socio-economic diversity of its pupils, which he regarded as an essential and distinctive feature.

John was constantly reminding us that people matter more than things and that the ‘fide’ needs to underpin the ‘literis’.

CROSSWORD

50 years ago (1970) The Masters’ Match The pedagogues faced their pupils this year with more than usual trepidation. Not only was the School XI undefeated, with a formidable batting line-up, but the Masters’ XI (as opposed to Howard Masters’ XI) perforce included some who had to have their fielding positions

26

25

24

23 22

20

19 17

18 16

15

14

13 12

11 10

9

8

6

5

100 Years ago (1920) School Confirmation in St Paul’s Cathedral The annual Confirmation took place on March 23rd. A hundred candidates were presented to the Bishop of London, who delivered an address, taking as his text: ‘Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.’

For various reasons the Cathedral choristers this year could not help, and the School had to provide its own music. The eighty singers sat in the choir, one of the six rows being masters or Old Paulines; they sang in unison and with Mr Croager at the organ, the effect was sufficiently noble.

This crossword is a higgledy mess. It is up to you to find the hidden beauty. Trust me, it is there. Mental Health problems can often leave one feeling how this crossword looks. In this crossword solvers must deal with upsetting setbacks to discover a joy from the chaos of colours where everything else seems to be going the wrong way. At the end, you may wish to black out everything but seven little grey cells of triumph.

Little grey cells by istenem

21

explained to them in terms geographical rather than cricketing, as well as being in some doubt about which end of the bat to hold.

Fortunately by winning the toss, they were spared the embarrassment of batting first, with the consequent possibility of a three o’clock finish.

7

4

3

2

1

Upsetting 2 Prone to anger, tiger’s home with youth-leader (5) 3 Murphy, Izzard and The Eagle united against choppy waters (6) 4 … make it right (But two Wrights make an aeroplane) (3,6,3’1) 5 2/7 (6) 6 Fish half gutted and thrown back in as lucky charms (7) 9 Insures crack of Dawn (7) 11 Siren shows fall of wicket has been reversed. Upheld by both sides (3-4) 15 Greek fiddle resolved by British Roadmap of UK and Ireland (7) 17 Mongolian critter turned up with numberplate from Liberia (6) 18 3/7 (6) 21 Civic leader of Irish county, essentially corrupt (5) Setbacks 1 5/7 (4) 4 Hammer God bears a different weapon on chest (6)

7 6/7 (6) 8 A tuba’s bust, not half shameful but touching (5) 10 Hit the jackpot and finish off knocking back a bottle (3) 11 Courier maybe, one of a kind (4) 12 4/7 (5) 13 Three points around animal park to drop off (6) 14 Shambolic Corbyn’s out of sync with the world (3) 16 Solo runner on snow keeping constant velocity, yes (3) 17 Chuckleheaded Joe leads baby horse to heartless landlady (6) 19 Topless swimming costume for Bruce (5) 20 Seem awkward with girl (4) 22 1/7 (3) 23 Hitchhike from centre of Northumbria (5) 24 Stereotypical Irishman banjaxes oilery (1’5) 25 7/7 (6) 26 Left worrying about revolting thing on witch’s hooter (4) 45

PAULINE RELATIVES

If you were to type Pauline Family into a search engine, one of your first hits would be the Vaizeys. Polly and Ed (1981-85) are first generation Paulina and Pauline.

Their brother, Tom (1978-82) was at School between them. Ed’s wife Alex was at the Girls’ School for the 6th form. The second generation is working its way through with Kate in her final year at the Girls’ School and Martha and Joseph are at Brook Green and Barnes.

Our conversation was over lunch at a restaurant suitably equidistant from the two schools. Polly and Ed’s mix of tenderness and shared intellect was palpably bright against the view of the wintery sun and grey Thames.

They have the ease of a shared life.

Why St Paul’s?

The short answer is that the family home was in Chiswick and their mother (Marina Vaizey, the renowned arts writer) still lives close to it.

There is also the longer answer. Their father, John Vaizey, who died when Polly was at Oxford and Ed was at School, was an Economics professor specialising in education. In the late 1960s he was appointed to Harold Wilson’s Public Schools Commission.

While serving on the Commission, Lord Vaizey met Tom Howarth (High Master 1962-73) and decided St Paul’s was the route for his children, despite the controversy of his Labour Party membership at the time. Polly started at Bute House (where she is now a governor) in 1971 and Ed left St Paul’s 14 years later in 1985. John and Tom

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They both answer almost immediately: Ed, ‘the importance of friendship’ and Polly, ‘the value of friendship’

Both believe that it will improve the School if girls are admitted to the Eighth Form. became firm friends; and the High Master (by then retired from St Paul’s and Magdalene College) gave the address at John’s funeral in 1984.

How did the six-year age gap work?

Polly still cannot understand why her parents had more children after achieving perfection first time round.

She describes Ed as cheerful and effortlessly clever as a boy. She was and remains a protective elder sister; a role defined by their father’s early death. Polly obviously blazed a trail that both Tom and Ed followed as they all went on to read History at Oxford.

Was there much contact between the schools?

Ed’s answer is short. “Yes, my first snog was with a Paulina”. Polly mentions plays and debates.

One of Polly’s oldest friends is Eliza Thompson so she knew her brothers Piers (1972-76) and Barnaby (1974-78) and through them she met other Paulines.

What is the most useful thing you learnt at St Paul’s?

They both answer almost immediately: Ed, “the importance of friendship” and Polly, “the value of friendship”. Polly cannot understand where Alicia Friedman was when the group photo of still her closest friends was taken. Ed’s closest friends from School remain Stuart Williams, Kirk Zavieh, Matthew Slotover, Antoine Palmer and Piers Pressdee (all 1981-85).

What about girls at St Paul’s now?

Both believe that it will improve the School if girls are admitted to the Eighth Form. The boys will have an improved experience and the girls will be going to an excellent school, although Polly worries about the possible impact on the Girls’ School.

They see boys at the Girls’ School as a non-starter.

QUICKFIRE Duty or Ambition?

Polly Duty, Ed Ambition Cameron or Osborne?

Both Cameron Premiership or Six Nations?

Both Premiership Twitter or Instagram?

Both both Fame or Fortune?

Both Fortune Radio 4 or LBC? Polly LBC, Ed Radio 4 Lord Bercow Yes or No? Both No Lunch with a Pauline or a Wykehamist?

Both Pauline (Polly’s husband Charlie is a Wykehamist)

47

LAST WORD After having the front cover, it seems appropriate that Jonathan Miller should have the Last Word. This was written in 1983 and is reproduced by kind permission of Jonathan Foreman (1979-83), who at that point was Editor of Folio. He had asked five famous men of the time to send in their musings on school magazines. They all replied. Below are Jonathan Miller’s memories of The Prickly Pear.

And these are some extracts from Jonathan’s Leaver Report.

Mr Strawson: ‘A brilliant boy…. He has little sense of judgment, and has never fitted well to the discipline of school life… I like him but I am glad he is leaving.’

Mr Pask: ‘Brilliant and versatile…His state and open scholarships at Cambridge speak adequately for his academic attainment… He has shown himself able to deliver a very good lecture.’

Mr Reed: ‘He has done nothing at all for his Club.’

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