Commemoration

Commemoration 2014 Head Master’s Commemoration Address, 4 July 2014

On Sunday morning, the extraordinary caravan that is the 101st édition of the Tour de France will sweep past the Minster’s mighty walls and make its looping 123-mile progress from York to Sheffi eld via the Pennine hills of West and South Yorkshire. The route for the Tour is different every year, becoming more and more elaborate over the past 111 years. Studying this year’s route, it looks like the work of a malfunctioning satnav with a wicked sense of humour. Rather than going direct from A to B, the route deviates wildly, wilfully seeking out cruel detours, harsh gradients and sharp descents. Amongst the contenders for the Yellow Jersey will be GB riders Mark Cavendish and Chris Froome. A year ago Froome won the 100th édition of the Tour, completing the 2,128-mile course at an average speed of 25 miles an hour. That’s including the mountains.

One hundred years ago today, the 12th édition of the Tour de France was already well under way. Back then, the average speed of the 54 riders was a more modest 16 miles an hour and the 1914 course was wonderfully simple. It was a 3,359-mile grand tour of the outline of France; Le Tour autour, as it were. Starting in Paris, they headed up to Le Havre and proceeded anticlockwise around France’s noble exterior, all the way back to Dunkirk. Well before the inception of professional sport, the 1914 Tour was characterized by a unique blend of sporting spirit and moments of glorious amateurism. On the third stage, the riders reached the fi rst checkpoint one hour late, after they had taken the wrong route and ridden more than 20 miles in the opposite direction. The wives and mothers in this congregation will know all too well how unlikely it is that 54 grown men would admit that they’re lost, let alone stop and ask directions. In fairness though, anyone who has driven across France might sympathize that the road signage is often enigmatic or even self-contradictory.

By the sixth stage, the Pyrenees Mountains appeared. The weather was getting increasingly hot and, by the eighth stage, the cyclists did not want to race. Perhaps because this was France, the spirit of unionism and direct action was in the air: the entire fi eld agreed to cycle at low speed. The Tour management got the message, stopped the race and held a sprint tournament instead. On the ninth stage, scandal broke as former Tour winner François Faber was given a 90-minute time penalty for being pushed and for taking drink from a motor-cyclist. History does not record what was in the drink. It is tempting to imagine that it was a half-bottle of Chablis.

After the thirteenth stage, Belgian rider Philippe Thys was ahead of his nearest rival by 31 minutes and 50 seconds: surely, an unassailable lead. But, during the penultimate stage, Thys’ bicycle wheel broke. The Tour rules were clear. It was expressly forbidden for a competitor to receive any help with repairs. However, Thys decided to take the risk of a time penalty and seek breakdown support. Those of us who have broken down in France will fear for him, especially as this was during a lunch break. But Thys was in luck, and he bought a new wheel at a shop. Although this cost him 30 minutes on the clock, he retained his slender advantage and rode triumphant up the Champs Elysées.

Why all this cycling history? Well, fi rstly, this service is an act of commemoration and what history tells us is that it is very important that we remember. The day of the 1914 Grand Départ, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated in Sarajevo, lighting the touch-paper for the outbreak of the First World War. One week after the 1914 Tour had been completed, Germany invaded the race-winner’s native Belgium and declared war on France. Suddenly, festivals of human endeavour such as the Tour de France became as meaningless as they were impractical. Le Grand Départ would not occur again until June of 1919. By that time, three former Tour de France champions had lost their lives. The 1914 winner survived the war and went on to secure a third and fi nal Tour victory in 1920.

This gathering today must surely consider the 100th anniversary of the Great War. In 1914, there were 102 boys at St Peter’s School. Some 540 Old Peterites served with the Armed Forces in the First World War. Of those 540 young men, 75 were killed. What is perhaps most signifi cant is that 361 of them joined up before conscription was introduced in January 1916. What does it tell us of the spirit of Peterites 100 years ago that, of those young men who fought in the Great War, more than three quarters of them joined up voluntarily? Amongst other things, I think it tells us of their deeply-held value of service.

Mere numbers cannot tell the full story. Reading reports and articles on the young men in question, we get a fuller picture. With typical Peterite honesty, the 1914 edition of the school magazine describes the merits and characters of some of the First XV players, the following of whom volunteered:

These short descriptions of the merits of schoolboy rugby players are poignant. It is not hard to imagine how their skills and abilities were applied in the theatre of war: the courage, the commitment, the sense of loyalty and service. Nor is it hard to feel the tragedy of the loss of youth, the desperate waste of potential. The fates of fi ve members of the First XV, including the three we just heard described, were dictated by forces beyond their control. None of them returned from the war.

When it fi nally came, the end of the Great War was marked by a Chapel service in November 1918. Sam Toyne, the then Head Master, concluded his address saying: ‘let us discipline ourselves to God’s ways […] let us, as Peterites, never betray the trust of

those beloved and honoured sons of the school who have laid down their lives in this mighty confl ict.’ The names of those who had died were also read out at the Commemoration service of July 1919. Our act of Commemoration today affords us an opportunity to pay tribute together to all those connected with our school whose journeys through life were cut short by war, illness and other kinds of misfortune. We will remember them in a Chapel service on OP Day, 30th August.

Not withstanding this sombre anniversary, Commemoration is an occasion for celebration of all the things that make St Peter’s the School it is. It is, above all, a celebration of what our young people can achieve, individually and together. This school year has been a year of celebratory anniversaries. We have marked the 60th anniversary of Queen’s House. 2014 sees the 100th anniversary of Grove House and the 50th anniversary of Dronfi eld House, named of course after the longest-serving Head Master of the School.

2014 is also the 10th anniversary of the school’s Community Action programme. Community Action encourages pupils to serve others through volunteering. Throughout the year pupils have volunteered their time to help with cookery and craft, swimming and music for children with special needs, as well as hosting tea parties and computer classes for local senior citizens, all on-site and sharing the school’s facilities. Many others have volunteered off-site in the local community, assisting with numerous projects, working in charity shops and helping with children’s clubs. Last week we hosted our third MENCAP Day, with over 70 MENCAP members and their carers spending the day with our pupils and staff, enjoying tennis, wheelchair basketball, football, cycling, drama and drumming. Meanwhile, up the road at the Glen Respite Care Home, 25 Fifth Formers were working on the next phase of a garden makeover and the installation of a two-level sandpit to allow access for children in wheelchairs. On the same day, a trio of Lower-Sixth pupils were invited to the Mansion House. They were three of only nine young people in York to receive the Lord Mayor of York’s Special Award for Volunteering. This culture of service is at the heart of what our school stands for.

There are many other ways to serve our community. In its broadest sense, the positive contribution every individual makes is a service to the community. Whether it is in academic study and intellectual enquiry, drama (and we have been treated to some stellar productions this year), spirited debating, heartilycontested sport, all the beautiful music-making (not least in the moving concert in March and the exuberance of the Cabaret Concerts), the CCF (who achieved an excellent biennial inspection report), Young Enterprise, art and design – and what stunning exhibitions we have enjoyed – or the myriad other activities, trips and tours. Pupils serve the school every time they compete, every time they represent their house, every time they represent the school, every time they leave our site wearing the uniform and colours of the school. There have been many victories in tournaments and friendly fi xtures – it’s been a terrifi c year for girls’ sport this year in particular, with unbeaten seasons in hockey, netball and tennis, at various

levels. All our sportsmen and women serve the school, at whatever level, by showing good sportsmanship, by extending the hand of friendship to visitors and by showing commitment to the end and dignity in defeat.

The Archbishop of York, who is Visitor to our school, chairs the Living Wage Commission. St Peter’s is embracing those principles wholeheartedly. We have such a committed support staff, and I am delighted that, from September, every single support staff colleague will be paid the living wage or above. I am very grateful for the service given by our hard-working colleagues in the bursary, estates, domestic, catering, facilities assistants, matrons and nurses, grounds and maintenance staff and technicians. Last year saw the introduction of long-service awards: we gave out over 30. There are almost 40 colleagues across the three schools who have worked at the school for a quarter of a century or more. This tells the story of what service means at St Peter’s School. A further eight members of teaching staff received their 25-year long-service awards at the Whole Staff Party a fortnight ago. One such long-serving colleague is Mr Bob Shread who retires from teaching Chemistry today after 29 years at St Peter’s. Bob is wellknown for his excellent teaching, passionate leadership of school tennis and trademark wink. Also retiring are Mrs Lesley Birch, who has taught English at the school for seven years and Mrs Maggie Smales. Miss Katherine Barker moves on after four remarkable years to take up the promoted post of Head of Classics at Hurst School, in Sussex. Dr Matthew Thomson leaves us for the excitement of global travel with his wife. Johannes Hofmann and Tereza Hercigová leave us after successful one-year placements.

Our pupils benefit from a dedicated and inspiring teaching staff. Thankfully, this is not just my view but also that of our parents, 61% of whom kindly took the time to complete the school improvement surveys we conducted earlier this academic year. The findings were that ‘parents believe pupils are academically challenged while experiencing a range of other activities […] in impressive facilities. […] particularly noteworthy is the high endorsement of exam success and other measures of academic provision, the care and communication shown by boarding staff and the opportunities provided in sports and music. Looking at “the School’s results in public exams” and “the way pupils are stretched and challenged academically”, the school is rated significantly higher than the benchmarks from 30 other boarding schools across the country. […]’. A summary of the findings was sent to parents earlier this week and will guide our improvement planning. I thank all parents for your terrific support of the school.

The quality of the pupil experience at our school remains our number-one priority. Parental feedback has usefully flagged some important areas for us to improve. Careers and higher education advice and support remains, rightly, an area of high expectation as we continue to diversify and develop our programme and seek to offer the individual support pupils need and parents require. We want to improve on communication with parents; we want to be more proactive and more detailed. We must continue to provide inspirational teaching in inspiring learning spaces. With this in mind, as the Chairman mentioned, we begin a three-year programme to improve our classrooms. We have appointed a

Head of Digital Strategy to deliver our IT plan. Curriculum design and innovation in learning remain key priorities. This year we introduced the Extended Project Qualification in the Sixth-Form curriculum, and we have more innovations planned as the national exam reforms come on-line.

Recent physical improvements have gone down well. The newlyrefurbished Memorial Hall has already served the school and wider community wonderfully well and the new Gym is very popular with the pupils. We’ve had unprecedented demand for places at all levels of the school. We have ambitious plans for the future and we are in a good position to deliver them. In this shared pursuit of excellence, I would like to express my ongoing gratitude to the Board of Governors for their support and expertise in guiding the school forward. I’m delighted that Mr Bill Woolley has taken up the Chairmanship of the Board and I very much look forward to

leading the school forward together. I also warmly thank the St Peter’s and Whole School leadership team for their outstanding work this year. I thank my wife, Jules, for her unerring support, and for her interior design of the Memorial Hall, alongside a number of demanding day-jobs. Most importantly, I thank each and every pupil: your efforts and achievements, so many and various, are a genuine pleasure to see. And always the highlight of our jobs as teachers.

So, in just under two days’ time, the peloton will speed past this beautiful, ancient building. As a leadership team we were so privileged last week to have a tour of the East Window and see up-close the beautiful seated figure of St Peter that was blessed last Sunday on St Peter’s day. This is a building that has, over the centuries, seen all manner of processions of human transport go by: horses, donkeys and carts; walkers, wanderers and pilgrims; pedlars [sic] of a very different kind. It has seen carriages and sedans; bicycles and motor cars, and the lives of the transported - countless human lives lived in the glorious and benign shadow of the Cathedral Church of St Peter. A few years ago, I bought a T-shirt in a French market which had on it a quotation from Albert Einstein, translated into French: La vie c’est comme une bicyclette. Il faut avancer pour ne pas tomber. ‘Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.’ With this in mind, let us turn our thoughts to our UpperSixth leavers. This great occasion signals your own personal Grands Départs. It is the wonderful privilege of teaching to watch children grow into confident young adults. Many of our leavers today have been in the school from St Olave’s and plenty, including our Head Girl, have travelled all the way from the Nursery at Clifton School. Our Heads of School, Katharine and Toby, along with their deputies and an excellent team of Monitors, have served and led the school with dedication. Whether they joined the School in Nursery or the Lower Sixth or somewhere in between, the Upper Sixth of 2014 have shown themselves to be as diverse and characterful a year group as you could hope for. I hope all of you feel that your time at the school has served you well and that you are well-prepared for the next stage.

To our leavers today, I say: enjoy the road ahead. Be prepared for deviations. Look for new roads, moments of surprise and beauty. Take time to admire the countryside. Enjoy the company of your co-travellers and those new friends you make along the way. Don’t be afraid to break away from the peloton. And if you get lost, for heaven’s sake, don’t be afraid to ask for directions. I hope you find the endurance to handle the punctures and crashes that will inevitably occur along the way. Keep your heads down when the wind, and the weather, are in your face. Keep moving forward as you travel over the ancient ways. And remember this simple but remarkable truth: that with a bicycle, its passenger is also its engine. And so it is with life.

Mr Leo Winkley Head Master

Facts about the Friends of St Peter’s

• The Friends of St Peter’s is a volunteer committee of sashwearing parents who help at a variety of school events and raise funds for projects around school.

• The committee was formed 25 years ago by Wendy Shepherd, a former Head of Girls’ Games, to welcome new parents to life at St Peter’s and to support the staff during the school year at music concerts, drama productions, school lectures and the

Leavers’ Ball.

• Our fundraising is mainly through raffle ticket sales and profits from refreshments, which is then donated to different departments within the school based on a bidding system.

• In 2013-2014, FOSP accepted bids of £1,600 for projects such as the school magazine and radio, money towards a new First

XV scoreboard, kickboards for the pool, items for the Chapel

Choir and the girls’ Barbieshop group, and Community Action projects.

• FOSP also likes to support the school in raising funds for major overseas trips at events such as the annual Music School

Christmas and Cabaret Concerts.

• Under the guidance of Mr Morris, FOSP is now involved with the annual Stargazing evening in January and also helps throughout the year at the public lectures.

• FOSP is always grateful for any offers of help, event sponsorship and raffle prizes. Please contact our school representative, Mrs

Justine Williams, or the school office.

On a personal note, our fundraising is going from strength to strength as the school continues to improve the facilities, particularly the fantastic new Memorial Hall and foyer. We all really enjoy taking a more active role at school and although we work hard, we have fun, too. Thank you so much to such a wonderful, enthusiastic team and thank you to all the parents for their support. Why not come and join us?

Mrs Kate Fordy

Obituary - Christopher Blood

Chris was a passionate man and also a private man.

His passion for the trumpet was incredible to see – his trumpet was so much part of him. Chris had passion in such great measure that it made him one of the very best teachers that I have ever known. He was a man who did not like fuss; in his last few years, he did not like openly discussing the details of his illness and certainly did not want any special treatment.

Of course there was his other passion: aeroplanes (and, by extension, the RAF). He married Della in the School Chapel, dressed in his RAF uniform from his work with the school RAF section of the Combined Cadet Force. His best man was his dear friend, Matthew Grant, who ran that section. He had pictures of planes and insignia in his room at school together with a variety of trumpets from all periods and a vast array of mouthpieces. He could hear a Spitfire flying miles away and be able to tell which mark of Spitfire it was, even before it came into view! When Chris went to RAF camps he was always excited: almost like a schoolboy, he loved the formality of it, the clean shoes, the uniform and the strong structure.

Chris was born in 1953 in Clifton Village, a small, picturesque village situated by the river Trent, just four miles outside Nottingham. It is full of beautiful old houses, and Chris was particularly proud to have been born in a thatched cottage that several generations of his family, as tenant farmers, had lived in. When Chris was about eleven years old, he pestered his Mum and Dad for a trumpet after hearing his Dad, Oliver, accompanying his trumpet-playing friend, Alan Wright, on the organ in the Methodist Chapel. ‘You can have a trumpet as long as you practise!’ was the deal, and Chris certainly maintained his side of this bargain for the rest of his life!

Alan became his first teacher, and his regular visits to give Chris lessons became Red Letter Days in the Blood household. After helping his Dad in the school holidays in his blacksmith’s shop and doing a spot of farmyard tractor-driving to earn some extra pocket money, Chris left Nottingham to study the trumpet at the Royal College of Music in London.

During his time at the RCM, he won the prestigious Manns Brass Prize for solo trumpet playing. Whilst Principal Trumpet of the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company he enjoyed so much the unique experience of performing The Pirates of Penzance with the company in a private performance in Windsor Castle, where the select audience consisted of the Queen, Prince Philip and other members of the Royal Family.

Chris played in many different orchestras and for West End shows before moving into teaching as Head of Brass at Bedford Modern School and also at the Junior Guildhall School of Music. Chris moved to York with Tina and their two daughters, Anna and Jenny, of whom he was so proud, in January 1992 as Head of Wind Studies at St Peter’s. Chris’s room was opposite mine and when I arrived each morning he would always be practising: long notes, scales, and arpeggios. A routine, yes, but a careful and thorough one from which many could learn: a professional routine that ensured that he was always in good shape to play. It distressed him so much latterly when he could not play at all.

Chris insisted on high standards in rehearsal and that everyone was part of a unit, all contributing to the whole. Teamwork in the bands and groups that he ran was an absolutely essential requirement. Above all, in everything that he did he was a professional. He provided excellent brass groups for our Minster services each year and he was so proud when one year he had a brass group that included a complement of five tuba and euphonium players.

The school’s first USA Music Tour was in the July of 1993. To see him lick the Wind Band into shape during that year was so amazing, and choosing music that was difficult enough but still possible was an art he had clearly mastered. In that year he also established the Swing Band which is now such an important feature of musical life at St Peter’s. The idea of touring with 80 pupils for over two weeks was quite new to him, and he was not a little apprehensive about the whole thing.

Over the years Chris’s work with the Wind Band was so wonderful. His choice of repertoire was always impressive and imaginative. One of the pieces he loved was Holst’s Suite in E flat – especially the Chaconne from this, which he conducted many times so effectively and memorably. Tim Dunn, one of his early band leaders, affectionately called him ‘Cap’n Blood’; Captain Blood is a film starring Errol Flyn with music by Erich Korngold – a composer much admired by Chris. One review of Chris’s work in The Peterite says ‘also thanks go to Cap’n Blood for his great patience, when most of us, at some time or other, have deserved to walk the plank.’

Chris’s work in St Olave’s in getting new brass and wind instrumentalists started was also notable, and his organizing of classes where every pupil had an instrument to play got so many involved in music.

Chris did some notable orchestral conducting – in my time I remember a performance of Elgar’s Overture Cockaigne at the Jack Lyons Concert Hall at the University – an extremely diffi cult piece played with real fl air and precision. Then, more recently, a performance of Schubert’s ‘Unfi nished’ Symphony in the Minster – so polished and beautifully shaped. In his last major conducting role, in March 2013, he directed Arthur Bliss’s Kenilworth Suite in the school concert in Leeds Town Hall arranged for Wind Band by Chris himself. It was a wonderful testament to his work with that group.

He was a Tutor in Temple House and inspired much affection in his pupils in his down-to-earth, no-nonsense dealings with them. Chris loved bands and would regularly arrange for Army or RAF bands to visit both St Peter’s and St Olave’s, and for our pupils to play with them. This was also another way to encourage others to take up wind or brass instruments.

The Remembrance Service in the Chapel each year is a very special occasion, not least because so many former pupils died in the two World Wars. Chris meticulously prepared the trumpeter for this service each year and also sent out many other trumpeters to similar services around York, all thoroughly rehearsed.

I have seldom seen someone so attached to his particular instrument. In fact he had 16 trumpets altogether! His promise to Alan Wright to practise was always kept, but, far more than that, he placed something of that same enthusiasm in so many youngsters’ heads and hearts. It is such a sad loss that so many in the future will never experience that special enthusiasm, encouragement and professionalism. Chris’s life touched those of so many others, all of whom will remember him with deep affection.

Mr Andrew Wright (Director of Music, 1986-2010)