Martin Hammond Reflects Restoring the chapel was one of his top achievements at Tonbridge
OT Magazine JULY 2020 VOLUME 02
THE CHAPELNHS-BLUETURNS
Read about the school response to the coronavirus crisis
Remembering Mike Bushby Tributes to the inspirational teacher, housemaster and cricket coach who had a huge impact on his students
From Cricket to COOK England Selection with Ed Smith (WH 90-95) and healthy ready-meals with Ed Perry (MH 84-89)
OLD TONBRIDGIAN NEWS2 423418 454 2631 CONTENTS 03 Editorial 04 James Priory – the Headmaster’s review of the year 08 From The Chalkface: Chris Henshall 12 The Q&A with retiring OT President, The Rt. Hon. Lord Justice Newey 16 Commemorating the life and career of Mike Bushby, 1931-2020 19 Supporting the community during the health crisis 24 A Year In Pictures: OT Events May 2019 – April 2020 26 The Two Tim Provosts 30 The Tennant Lecture Series Interviews i. Ed Smith ii. Ed Perry 39 The OT Reading List 42 By the Fireside: Martin Hammond 45 A tribute to retiring Director of Grounds, George Alexander 50 Then & Now – Cartoons from The Tonbridgian 52 A Year in OT Sport 58 Deaths & Obituaries
Tim Austin and Tim Chandler, reflect on their time at Tonbridge. The two Tims return almost 50 years later, having both recently retired as Provosts at North American universities. Their interview gives amusing insights into school life in the late 1960s. Read more on page 26.
We are proud to be part of the Tonbridge community that responded so proactively to the challenges of the global pandemic – producing stimulating e-learning opportunities for pupils, helping set up the NHS Assessment Centre at the TSC and making protective equipment for frontline workers, read more on page 19.
e: tonbridgesociety@tonbridge-school.org
In 2019 we said farewell to David Walsh as Chairman, and to Phillip Roberts as Treasurer of the Old Tonbridgian Society. Both contributed tremendously to
Contributors: Tara Biddle, Katerina Dimnik, John Gibbs, Catherine Harmer, Carolyn Lawson, Beverley Matthews, Vivienne Teckoe, David Walsh, Rebecca Watson, Yvette Young
Tonbridge School
We remember Mike Bushby, who sadly died in February 2020, leading to scores of tributes. Mike is described as ‘the conscience of the Common Room, making us think more about the importance and value of community,’ in a touching piece on page 16.
OT Magazine produced by: Tonbridge Society
Rebecca rebecca.watson@tonbridge-school.orgWatson
Tonbridge, TN9 1JP +44 (0) 1732 304253
Join David Walsh in conversation with Martin (HeadmasterHammond1990-2005). If you were at the school in Martin Hammond’s era, be sure to turn to page 42 for memories, including the restoration of the magnificent chapel and the dedication service.
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EDITORIAL
Pupils: James Craggs (PS4), James Earl (JH5), Oli Hards (CH4), Ben Robinson (FH5), Will Webster (FH5)
Director
O
ver the past year we have welcomed back to Tonbridge many Old Tonbridgians from around the world. We are delighted that so many of you continue to share fond memories of your time here, and continue to be engaged with the school whether through reunions or offering your time to speak to our community about your experiences and accomplishments. This edition pays tribute to some of our long standing staff members and highlights some extraordinary careers of OTs who have come back to speak to our community.
Several current pupils have interviewed OTs this year. From the OTS President Sir Guy Newey to the England cricket selector Ed Smith and COOK co-founder Ed Perry, each giving interesting insights into the varied paths of our OTs.
help shape the Society. I extend my personal thanks for all their hard work and service. I welcome Richard Hough (PH 79-84) as Chairman and Chris Rash (MH 7882) as recently appointed Treasurer and look forward to working with both over the coming years.
I welcome Sir Sherard CowperColes, Group Head of Government Affairs at HSBC Bank, as OTS President for 2020-21. He was previously Business Development Director, International, at BAE Systems after a career of more than 30 years in the British diplomatic service. We look forward to hearing more about his fascinating life, in the year to come.
Andy andrew.whittall@tonbridge-school.orgWhittall
The Tonbridge Society have adapted and strengthened our programme to help keep our community connected. This annual OT Magazine has been a team effort. I hope you appreciate the outcome, as much as we appreciate being part of this wonderfully supportive Tonbridge Community.
OT Relations Manager
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TONBRIDGETOGETHER
wewithintoextraordinarybeenseetheschoolreinventitselfweeksandhavecertainlylearnedmuchintheprocess.
However, after an intensive period of planning over the Easter break, we were able to launch Tonbridge Online, and thanks to the incredible support and creativity of our teaching staff, we have have seen extremely high levels of engagement from pupils all around the world. The boys are regularly in touch with their housemasters and house staff, ➻
When the Covid-19 crisis brought a swift halt to Zak and Ben’s England campaigns, it also brought a busy programme of academic, sporting and cultural activities here at school to an unexpected halt. We were nearing the end of Lent Term when our Novi Visit had to be postponed, along with The Argo – a whole school concert which still awaits its world premiere, written by our composer-in-residence Hywel Davies.
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Winter, we proudly enjoyed watching the burgeoning international careers of OTs Zak Crawley (WH 11-16) and Ben Earl (JH 11-16) who broke into the England sides for cricket and rugby, respectively.
HEADMASTER JAMES PRIORY TALKS ABOUT HOW THE SCHOOL IS ADAPTING, SUPPORTING AND CONNECTING DURING THE HEALTH CRISIS
hen I had the pleasure of addressing OTs at the Annual Dinner in the splendid Skinners’ Hall at the start of the academic year in September, no one had a thought that our lives would be altered immeasurably by a forthcoming global pandemic.
Poet Laureate Simon Armitage inspired our budding creative writers and many within the Tonbridge community when he visited the school and the EM Forster Theatre, and three Tonbridge Sixth Formers showcased their musical talents in a London concert series for the nation’s top young organists.Duringthe
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Likewise, when I welcomed 250 OTs to Tonbridge for our swinging ‘60s reunion in November, I talked about the Novi Visit being one of the many things introduced in that era of change by then Headmaster Michael McCrum, never thinking that we would have to find inventive new ways to introduce the Novi to Tonbridge in a time after lockdown.
With OTs returning to Tonbridge for the 1960s reunion from Australia as well as Switzerland, Italy, Spain and France, I joked how relieved we were that Brexit hadn’t thwarted their travel plans, never dreaming that international travel would be at a standstill just four months later.
We even celebrated being named Independent Boys’ School of the Year for 2019.
It has
At the start of this academic year, it was largely business as usual. We were very proud of our boys for their achievements, not only in public exams but in a range of national competitions, demonstrating skill and imagination in poetry, law, aerospace, computing, mathematics and physics.
I am also immensely proud of the school’s community-focused response to this crisis. This has included the setup of, and volunteer support for, the NHS Assessment Centre based at the TSC; the production of thousands of face masks for the NHS and other care workers; the Tonbridge Society reaching out to and supporting Old Tonbridgians; and individuals supporting vulnerable members of their, and our, local community.
On the financial side of school life, we took a decision to reduce Summer Term fees for current families. This comes at a time when it will be difficult for the school to reduce its costs proportionally, and when our commercial revenue has also reduced considerably.However,we are confident that Tonbridge will emerge strongly from these difficult times. It has been particularly heartening, given this period of financial hardship, lockdown and social distancing, to see how swiftly our community has come together.When94-year-old OT Keith David (SH 40-43) wrote to me with his comparisons between the global health crisis and his experiences as a pupil here at Tonbridge during the Second World War, I was inspired to record an Easter video message to students, staff and OTs from inside the wartime Pillbox on Tonbridge School’s campus.ThePillbox was featured in last year’s OT News, when it was rediscovered and excavated during the building of the Barton Science Centre. It formed part of the ‘Ironside line’ of around 30,000 concrete dugouts, built to repel a German invasion and advance on London, and was named after Commander in Chief of the Home
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Forces - William Ironside OT. We have a plaque outside the Smythe Library celebrating his service to the nation.
A level, Pre-U and GCSE courses to the Upper Sixth and Third Year respectively until the May Bank Holiday, after which, with public examinations cancelled, our teaching staff generated centre-assessed grades to support the final award of grades by exam boards this August.
During May we also introduced the boys to their next year’s academic studies, whilst the Upper Sixth took advantage of pre-University enrichment in subjects closely related to their chosen University specialism. And as OT Magazine went to press, we were developing our virtual Leavers’ Symposium, with a range of life skills courses to prepare pupils for university andThebeyond.imagination and adaptability of our teachers has helped ensure that remote learning has been as stimulating as possible. We are fully committed to ensuring that our pupils benefit from the best teaching and learning experience that we can offer,
and come together for weekly Tutor Group meetings as well as having Chapel talks and assemblies. We quickly set up co-curricular and social activities such as a series of webinars featuring prominent OTs and enjoyed a weekend of fundraising events for West Kent Mind and Porchlight which included a ‘virtual’ CRAS and a new-style Novi Sleepout in boys’ homes and Academically,gardens.wecontinued to teach
wherever they are in the world and whatever stage they are at in their educational lives at Tonbridge.
Keith David was right to recognise something warlike about defending ourselves against the invisible enemy of a deadly virus. Today, doctors, nurses and carers have become the frontline heroes in the fight for our health, and on behalf of the entire school community, I send heartfelt gratitude and best wishes to OTs involved in frontline work. We salute your service every evening when the school chapel is lit in blue.
Within the OT Magazine we have included a round-up of just some of the initiatives Tonbridge School has been involved in during the health crisis. I hope it will make you proud to read about the new connections we have made with the NHS and other organisations across our community, as well as the enthusiasm of our staff to support frontline workers.
The journalist Libby Purves observed recently that everything that is happening in the current crisis is gold for the simple reason that we are all learning so much. It has been extraordinary to see the school reinvent itself within weeks and we have certainly learned much in the process. We have also learned to value even more deeply the opportunities that we provide and the relationships we enjoy right across the Tonbridge community.
Please reach out to us via Tonbridge Connect if we can help you, if you can offer help to others, or if you have a story to share. We will continue to do our utmost to facilitate connections and celebrate good news, to help us all through these challenging times as we look forward to the eventual reopening of our school ●
James Priory
FACECHALKTHEFROM
Teaching teenage boys to think about, and ideally to understand the world is, more often than not, an entertaining and joyful business.
member of the Lower Sixth when I fell off a rock climb on the Greek island of Kalymnos; I had written a university reference for a boy which was so flattering that his own mother had failed to recognise him… and I had even taught some Geography. How much fun is a job like that? I’d managed to combine the roles of Chris Bonington, Eddie Jones, the Child Catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Freddie Kruger (that’s Freddie in his role as a janitor rather than as an undead child murderer) and the role of a proper teacher into a single job… and all in no more than a couple of weeks! Truly, laughter is embedded in every facet of teaching at Tonbridge. We are, though, a much smarter looking school these days than when I was interviewed in the Ivy House. Although most of the OTs whom I see in school seem to be more taken by the block paving between the Head and the Upper Hundred than by anything else, one cannot help but notice that large areas of the school have been transformed. Quite apart from the rebuilt chapel which was re-inaugurated soon after I arrived, we now have a state of the art theatre, a remarkably well-appointed sports centre, an impressively revamped library and a brand new science centre fit, I suspect, to take us into the twenty-second century. The Divinity and English
ife can be a bit odd sometimes. One day you’re arriving as a new, 35 year old head of department at a busy school which is buzzing with aspiration and purpose, and in a flash you’ve morphed into some kind of eminence grise, who is asked to reflect on life at Tonbridge in the pages of OT Magazine as you nudge towards retirement. Just where did all that time, all 25 years of it, where did it go?
Today, of course, things would be very different – probably a little less fun and a good deal more rigorous – and would probably involve teaching a demonstration lesson and being quizzed on school policies. Policies certainly seem to be very important these days; we have whole books of them – I think that we even have a policy on policies – and, in my present incarnation as a day housemaster, I’m obliged to display our Policy on Boarding Principles on one of my house noticeboards. Kafkaesque hilarity.
Well, the short answer is that I really have no idea and, moreover, I’m not sure that OT Magazine readers would be very interested. More rewarding, perhaps, is to reflect on the fact that so far at least, the whole thing has been absolutely hilarious; I have laughed during every day of those last 25 years… and usually in a good way. Teaching teenage boys to think and, ideally, to understand the world through which they are beginning their journeys is, more often than not, an entertaining and even a joyful business.
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CHRIS HENSHALL, HOUSEMASTER OF SMYTHE HOUSE AND FORMER HEAD OF GEOGRAPHY, REFLECTS ON THE LAUGHTER THAT HAS PUNCTUATED HIS 25-YEAR CAREER AT THE SCHOOL
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Lowson, I was visited in turn by Peter Commings, Graeme Gales, Vic O’Connell, Mike Rowan and David Tennant (familiar names to some readers of OT Magazine, I’m sure) and, as they probed me expertly about matters geographical, each of them bought me an ale. By the end of the process, I could scarcely talk but any reservations I might have had about coming to Tonbridge had evaporated; it was clearly a splendid school!
But more simple fun comes through every day. For example, I was recently musing on my experiences over a couple of weeks in the second half of the Michaelmas Term. In mid-October I was mistaken, not for the first time, for the house janitor by a visiting parent; my rugby team managed to put over 50 unanswered points on Harrow; I was dropped about 20 feet by a
For me, the hilarity started as early as 1995 with the interview process for the job of Head of Geography. A good deal of this took place in the Ivy House – the long-closed pub adjacent to Ferox rumoured to be re-opening soon – and it consisted, primarily, of trial by consumption of Harvey’s Sussex Best. Installed in a window seat by the outgoing head of department, Nigel
departments also inhabit new or extended premises while Old Big School is now so beautiful that, when not fulfilling its traditional role as an exam hall, it doubles up as an art gallery. It’s not a terrible thing to find yourself heading off, say, to teach a lesson on a Wednesday evening after activities and being struck by the sheer magnificence of your workplace; it does help to put a spring in the stride.
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But that’s not to say that all that much has changed; a pupil from the late 1990s – or even from the 1970s –would probably find much that is familiar. Laptops and mobile phones weren’t a thing in 1995 but much is the same and, if anything, I think that we – both boys and staff – probably do more and do it rather better than we did. As the articles and reports in the ever-thicker editions of The Tonbridgian attest, all three legs of the Tonbridge tripod – academic endeavour, cultural engagement and sport – are as healthy as they have ever been. As well as policies, the noticeboards in my house are covered with posters for concerts, lectures and plays, for cadet force exercises and inspections, for Duke of Edinburgh expeditions, society meetings and, of course, house competitions. We were,
for example, building up to what would have been a world premiere of The Argo by Hywel Davies, a choral performance in which every boy in the school was participating, when we were stopped in our tracks by the coronavirus. Less conspicuously –weekly Octagon Concert number 579 featured seven pieces for classical and electric guitar.
This term’s lectures in the atrium of the Barton Science Centre have included presentations by recent OTs on studying science and medicine at university alternating with talks on the coronavirus and on “Quantum Robins” (don’t ask!) by leading specialists in their fields; last year, we even had a pair of NASA astronauts leading the boys through a series of scientific investigations. This being the Lent Term, the sports board is crammed with information about this weekend’s hockey fixtures against Charterhouse and football fixtures against Radley but there are also notices about a five kilometre time trial for the Cross Country Club, fencing matches against Ardingly and training sessions for climbing, sailing and Ultimate Frisbee. Aficionados of the fine detail might like to hear, though, that flooded fields have meant that this
CMH on the summit of Monte d'Oro in Corsica
year’s Cras was postponed.
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CMH climbing at Harrison's Rocks
So, everything is different and everything is the same. The boys learn about their preps from an online system and complete them using keyboards but they still troop into chapel on four or five days every week. With an upper and a lower school council as well as an anti-bullying committee and regular meetings of various discussion and support groups, the boys have never played a greater role in the running of the school – but a single teacher armed only with a whistle still seems to have little trouble in preventing a contact sport descending into thuggery on the rugby field on a weekly basis during the Michaelmas Term. And it’s all still hilarious… there is laughter every day and, even though I still occasionally lob lumps of granite and limestone in the general direction of boys whose concentration may be wavering, my classroom is a happy place
11MAY 2020 COULD YOU BE A KICKSTARTER?CAREER Sign up to our mentoring scheme at: tonbridgeconnect.org/careers
I would pick out two.
The other problem is Brexit. For better or for worse, for more than 40 years European law has been very important to our legal system. Assuming that we do leave the European Union, all sorts of problems and legal issues will be thrown up, some of which we can anticipate now and others of which will not have been predicted. All that will have to be worked through.
The legal system of England and Wales has a very great deal to commend it, but I am not able to say whether it is the best anywhere and I certainly favour trying to learn from other systems. In my work we regularly refer to Court decisions from elsewhere in the common law world as well, of course, to those of the Court of Justice of the European Union. I have also been involved in two interesting exercises where a judge ruling on company law in London, and a judge ruling on company law in the American state of Delaware, are asked to say how they would approach each other’s court cases. The similarities and differences are instructive.
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The OT Society’s outgoing President, The Rt. Hon. Lord Justice Newey (SH 72-76), was appointed a judge of the High Court of Justice in 2010, when he was also knighted and assigned to the Chancery Division. In 2017 he was promoted to the Court of Appeal and the Privy Council. Back in September Sir Guy Newey spoke to current Tonbridge student and aspiring lawyer, Will Webster (FH5), about his views on the justice system and gave his advice about entering the legal profession.
The Rt. Hon. Lord Justice Newey
Whilst our constitutional rules were severely tested by the Brexit issue and the proroguing of Parliament, I would not rush to have a written constitution. Writing a constitution would require a huge amount of work and make it more difficult to adapt to unforeseen circumstances and changes in society. For example, the original US
The first is access to justice. Someone once said that “the law, like the Ritz, is open to everyone”. The trouble is that people need lawyers to be able to vindicate their rights. The legal system is generally too complicated for the average person to cope well with on their own. When I was a junior barrister there was a lot of state funding to help people get representation if they could not afford it.
Q: Do you have an opinion on whether an unwritten constitution is better than a written one?
WILL WEBSTER (FH5)
Q: Do you think there are any particular challenges facing the British legal system today?
Q: Do you think that the courts of England and Wales provide the ideal justice system, or can we learn from other nations?
Over the years that has been cut back. The fact is that it has become progressively harder for people who aren’t rich to get legal advice and take part. This is always a problem for courts.
I think you can adapt better, by not having something codified. If I were to try to codify something, the point would be to produce entrenchment. I can see the case for entrenching the democratic process and indeed Parliamentary sovereignty. I can see why you might want something in writing that sets down the rules of democracy. I would be much slower to entrench any particular rights. It is not obvious to me why this generation, who may think a particular right is especially important, should bind the next generation who doesn’t. Suppose the US Supreme Court is right and those drafting the constitution intended it to confer an individual right to bear arms. Why should this bind a 21st century population? Further, writing things down does not necessarily solve the problem. You still come up against circumstances which have not been clearly provided for. Some of our current issues can be attributed to the drafting of the Fixed Term Parliaments Act which is only a very recent statute. In an American
Constitution is more than 200 years old and the now-majority in the Supreme Court is “originalist” and so on the face of it are striving to work out what the document meant to those who put it together, without regard to what’s happened since.
Q: What are your views on the idea that politics is leaving a hole which is slowly being filled by law?
context, when President Bush Jnr. was elected, there was a lot of controversy over the counting of votes. This ended up in the Supreme Court, but they still were not very clear; even though they have a written constitution.
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Former Supreme Court Justice, Lord Sumption, says that politics is leaving a hole which is being filled by law, but I am not sure what the hole is. I agree with his point that there is not as much engagement with politics as there used to be, which reflects the fact that masses of people used to belong to political parties, whereas very few now do. In that sense, politics has receded a bit, but that has not stopped politicians producing law. If you go back a couple of hundred years you would find relatively little by way of statute law; but over the course of the 20 th century and into the 21st , while the public may not belong to political parties in the same way, that has not in the least bit stopped politicians legislating. There is much more legislation than there used to be, and in that sense, there is not an antithesis between politics and law; politicians make lots of law. When Lord Sumption says that there are many more lawyers than there used to be, that is in part because there is much more legislation than there used to be.
Going beyond that, Lord Sumption says that there are sensitive issues, assisted suicide for example, that are much better decided politically, and I entirely agree with that. He then refers specifically to human rights questions and it is perfectly true that, over the last 20 years, the courts have been far more involved with deciding human rights issues than they used to be, but that is primarily because the Human Rights Act was passed. The Human Rights Act tells judges that in various ways they have to take into account the European Convention on Human Rights and the European Court of Human Rights. So, yes, the courts have been brought into sorting out human rights issues but that is primarily because Parliament has chosen to legislate for
example by getting cases heard by more junior judges. There has also been a concern that cases should be heard more locally, away from London.
Cases are interesting in different ways. Some raise interesting legal points, and some are factually interesting. In terms of being factually interesting, one of my last cases before I moved to the Court of Appeal involved a farmer, who I’m afraid was not very good at looking after his animals, but cutting a long story short had a dispute with the RSPCA and the case went on for some while. He was a litigant in person against two barristers. In court one day he pointed to the barristers’ wigs and asked if he could wear one. I
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Q: Do you think that Supreme Court justices could be out of touch with modern society, considering the youngest is 57 but the oldest is 74?
No, they really do. Judges think that judicial independence is absolutely fundamental to the system and thus far it has been entirely maintained regardless of political or press criticism. For instance, the famous Daily Mail ‘Enemies of the People’ headline, when the newspaper criticised the three judges who ruled that the UK Government would require the consent of Parliament to give notice of Brexit. That sort of criticism really does not affect how judges decide things. As to neutrality, again, judges are very, very concerned to be neutral, but that does not mean that, if it looks to them as if something has gone wrong, they might do something about it.
Q: Do you think then, that many justices do not respect the conventions of judicial independence and neutrality?
Q: Do you think that since being appointed as a judge the role has changed at all?
Then there is the further point about the courts’ willingness to engage with certain decisions by the Government. It is certainly the case that in the years since the Second World War the courts have relied and built upon much older ideas to become more prepared than they once were to judge the propriety of governmental action. In particular, they look at whether government powers have been used for the purposes for which they were conferred, whether decisions are rational and whether a fair process has been used. To that extent, there has been an increase in court involvement. I don’t myself see it as filling a hole, but rather a response to Parliament and government intervening in people’s lives in a way that they did not in the past.
I do not see that this makes them out of touch. On average, yes, they will be comfortably off and have gone to a good university, and a significant number will have been to fee-paying schools. But through their careers they will have encountered all sorts of issues and seen all sorts of things which most people do not see.
Essentially no. From a selfish point of view, my role changed when I went from the High Court to the Court of Appeal. Whilst I have been a judge there has been a drive to make the best use of the limited resources, for
Q: Have there been any thought provoking or intriguing cases that you have sat on? What made them interesting?
the courts to do this.
My third guest would be Emperor Akbar who was a very important Mughal ruler in India in the 16th century. He was very successful in terms of expanding the empire and its wealth, but he was also a great advocate of learning and culture, and was pluralist in outlook, favouring religious toleration and introducing some important social reforms (banning the practice of suttee, for instance). He would be really interesting to talk to and would help me understand a very different culture at the time ●
1640s. Unfortunately, Parliament then impeached Sir Robert, sequestered all his assets, and declared him legally dead. He went into exile in France. Topically he was a staunch defender of prerogative powers which was also very topical in the reign of Charles I. He could tell you about the school, the locality (because he lived in Brasted near Sevenoaks) and law and politics in the early 1600s.
Firstly, when you decide you want to be a barrister, try to work out which bit of the bar suits your talents and tastes. The chancery bar, for instance, doesn’t require the same characteristics as the criminal bar. A good commercial barrister will tend to have a glittering academic record whereas the criminal bar may not care so much about academic credentials and may be more concerned with personality and articulacy. You need to consider how important financial reward is to you. Whilst appearing in criminal courts may appeal to you, it is relatively poorly paid. If you’re a commercial barrister, the
For a case of a different kind, one case which I heard as a High Court judge was called Constantin Medien AG v Ecclestone which involved allegations of bribery against Bernie Ecclestone of Formula 1. This raised interesting points about English law, but a lot of the case was also governed by German law which was fascinating to hear about. It was also interesting just seeing the people giving evidence.
replied: “I do not think there is a rule against it but I bet they would rather not be wearing them as it is very hot.”
Anyway, nothing else happened that day, but in court the next day he wore a sheepskin draped over his head and shoulders and I wondered whether I should say anything about it. I decided against it, and for the rest of the case and when I went back to give judgment, he wore this sheepskin over his head and shoulders. I think in some way he felt that he needed to wear it to maintain a comparable status. Incidentally, I ruled in his favour.
Tonbridge was good at getting me to think for myself, look at arguments critically, and construct arguments, all of which are crucial to law. What I learnt about writing essays in history had a longer-term effect on how I wrote essays at university which in turn influenced how I wrote opinions when I was a barrister and how I write judgments now. On a slightly different aspect, when I was a student I saw law as a cross between history and maths, both of which I studied at A-level – so those subjects at Tonbridge stood me in good stead.
Q: If you could invite three people to a dinner party, who would you invite? And why?
The first one would be Sir Robert Heath who was at Tonbridge School in the 1580s between the ages of seven and fourteen, then went on to be Charles I’s attorney general in the 1620s. He was briefly appointed as the Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, which is sort of equivalent to part of the High Court today. Then he was sacked, probably for corruption, but re-appointed as Chief Justice of the Court of King’s Bench, which again is equivalent to part of the High Court, in the dying days of Charles I’s reign in the
Q: Is there anything you learnt at Tonbridge that you have taken into your career?
Judicial independence is absolutely fundamental to the system and thus far it has been entirely maintained regardless of political or press criticism.
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My second guest would be Lord Mansfield who was chief justice of the Court of King’s Bench for a good part of the 18 th century and who was very important to the development of English commercial law. Lord Mansfield was particularly famous for his role in the Somerset slavery case in 1772, when he described slavery as “odious”, and this helped in the movement towards its abolition. He had a great niece called Dido who came to live with him in Kenwood House in London, and she was mixed race and was recently the subject of a movie called ‘Belle’. It would be great to understand his views on his niece and slavery.
Q: To a prospective barrister, what would be your main piece of advice to help them further their career?
chances are you will earn more money. In terms of taking silk, in an ideal world you would arrange things so that you would appear in court, doing the talking yourself, in a number of cases of significance in the years before wanting to apply. But in the real world, barristers have relatively little choice on what cases they get so it is hard to arrange things this way.
Mike Bushby
ike Bushby was born in 1931, growing up in Sutton with his father Howard, who worked for the Prudential, his mother Muriel, a primary school teacher, and his elder brother John. His childhood was interrupted by the war, with two spells of evacuation in 1940 and 1944, the latter after the family house was badly damaged by a flying bomb. He joined his brother at Dulwich in 1944 on a scholarship from the local authority, for his parents could not afford the fees. He played four years in the Dulwich cricket XI, the last as captain, and two years in the rugby XV, again as captain. In 1949 he left to do National Service in the UK with the Royal Fusiliers before going to Queen’s, Cambridge in 1951.
OBITUARY
Tonbridge has been blessed with many fine teachers in the second half of the twentieth century, but few have made as much impact on the school and the lives of boys as Mike Bushby (Common Room 1954-91). The tributes which have poured into the school and to Mike’s family bear witness to not only a great teacher but a much-loved person.
In 1954 Lawrence Waddy appointed him to Tonbridge, where he spent the rest of his career, apart from an exchange year abroad at Melbourne GS in 1964-5. In this year in Australia his headmaster, Brian Hone, thought so highly of him that he not only gave him the cricket to run but also the housemastership of a day house. Appointed to teach English and History at Tonbridge, he became a tutor in School House and was not subsequently sympathetic to colleagues who complained about their school accommodation, pointing out the spartan nature of his own bedsit in School House with the bowl of water brought in each morning and the chamber pot under the bed. In 1955 he took over from John Knott as master-in-charge of cricket and produced a string of successful sides until he gave up the role in 1972, their style of play characterised by generous declarations and fine fielding. Mike was one of the best fielders of his generation and you could supposedly tell the players he coached by the scars on their knees and elbows.
In these first years at Tonbridge, Mike married Judy in 1962, introduced to each other by Harold and Alison
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At Cambridge he read English in his first year, and then history. He played rugby for Cambridge without winning a blue, but won three cricket blues in 1952, 1953 and 1954, the last as captain. These were golden days for university cricket, Mike opening with David Sheppard in 1952, with Peter May at number three, and having Colin Cowdrey as the opposing Oxford captain in 1954. As captain in 1954, he opened the batting with Dennis Silk, who went on to become Warden of
Radley and was his closest friend through his life.
M
Edwards, and together they went in to run Ferox Hall from 1966-81. Mike was frantically busy, teaching a full timetable and still running the cricket in his first six years in the house. The late 1960s were not easy years for any authority figures but, with Mike, boys knew exactly where they stood. He was firm but fair, with a soft spot for the more rebellious and a very strong sense of the importance of the house and school community. When he came out of Ferox in 1981, his last ten years at Tonbridge remained remarkably busy. Mike continued to help with cricket and fives, and became Chairman of Common Room, where he put great emphasis on bringing the teaching and non-teaching staff into closer fellowship. He developed new areas of expertise in his teaching, including Chinese history, and became immersed in schemes to help the vulnerable, which lasted all the way through his retirement until his death. For 28 years he was a Samaritan, but his main work was with disabled adults through Winged Fellowship and its home at Crabhill in Reigate. In all this, as with his Christian faith, he just did it with reticence and a deep sense of understatement.Thereweremany qualities which made Mike an outstanding schoolmaster. He thought much more of others than he did of himself, knowing everybody in the school community and caring deeply about every one of them. It was that gift for caring friendship with people of all ages and backgrounds which set him apart. He had a complete absence himself of any pretentiousness, ‘side’ is the old-fashioned word, and he valued
17MAY 2020
Far left: In 1954 Cambridge captain Mike Bushby (left), approached his opposite number at Oxford (Colin Cowdrey - right) to try and resolve the fact that the varsity matches had become dull. Both captains agreed to dispense with tea on the final day, but the match still ended in a draw.
things’, but he had a soft spot for the common man, unless he had the misfortune to be subverted by revolutionaries. He said once in an interview that he would like to have been a Victorian stationmaster, doffing his cap deferentially to the local squire and then playing cricket with him on the village green at the weekend. He was never prepared to compromise on standards in his teaching and was hugely punctilious in his marking of essays, with the red biro remarks often outnumbering the original script.
Sport had been an important part of his life as a young man at school and Cambridge, and he had much to offer at Tonbridge on the cricket field and beyond. When he finished his outstanding time as master-in-charge of the 1st XI, he joined Jonathan Smith (JBS) in coaching the Junior Head. Changes in cricket dress, manners and forms of the game have not always met with his approval, but he loved working with the less talented triers of the 3rd and 4th XIs. JBS did however have to warn the boys, when Mike joined him, not to kick the ball back to him if he was coaching you in the net or chew gum while he was talking. He did his spell of rugby coaching and refereeing, particularly enjoying Senior House Leagues, which he regarded as the essence of Tonbridge sport. He also
Middle: Mike Bushby (right), captain of the Cambridge XI with Oxford Captain and OT, Colin Cowdrey, at the 1954 Lords Varsity Match
ran the fives, which, under him, was transformed from a game to a social mission. He could stand for two hours on a cold January afternoon on those wooden steps overlooking the courts, without a sweater on, constantly encouraging both effort and good court manners.
Above: David Walsh, John Knott and Mike Bushby ran Tonbridge cricket for over 60 yearsphoto 1986, from p111 of Barry Orchard’s Tonbridge History
He had 15 years in Ferox, beginning in the more difficult anti-authority restlessness of the late 1960s and battling hard to get across his ethos. This focused on the best possible care of the individual and a relentless emphasis on proper standards of dress, good manners and looking out for others. He had endless time for the real triers or those coping with emotional issues but could also call out the slothful or those who complained too much. There was one legendary MHB explosion in Ferox when a boy had the temerity to send back to the kitchen a fried egg whose yoke had been broken. His study at Ferox was an unbelievable mess, with papers scattered over every inch of floor. He bought a filing cabinet to improve this but then lost the key, one brave soul suggesting he might have filed it under ‘k’. Above all he was a kind and caring man, inspiring lasting respect and affection in Ferox boys, who continued to visit and dine him out through the whole of his retirement.
every boy and colleague for what they brought to the school community, about which he cared passionately. He expected commitment and high standards in courtesy, literacy and dress, and reserved his ire for the arrogant, discourteous and slovenly. A good teacher’s disapproval is a powerful weapon and Mike was not someone to cross. He took little notice of current fashion, believing that some standards are changeless. Many Tonbridgians will remember trying to sidle past MHB, hastily doing up their top shirt button or retrieving the sweet wrapper they had just dropped on the ground.Inthe classroom he initially enjoyed the role of the old-fashioned form master, welcoming the challenge of teaching both English and History to bottom sets. Many have been the correspondents after his death testifying to the trouble he took in teaching them to write good English and the infectious enthusiasm he brought to the classroom. He was encouraged by wise heads of department to set his sights higher than bottom sets, and he became a hugely effective teacher of O Level History and English Literature (he unsurprisingly preferred Macbeth and Henry V to Romeo and Juliet), and then taking A Level sets through late eighteenth and nineteenth century British history. This was the period he loved most, his historical perspective dividing the key players into ‘good eggs’ like Burke and Pitt, and the ‘prima donnas and subversives’ like Fox and Paine. He shared Burke’s view that ‘good order is the foundation of all
Mike Bushby as Housemaster of Ferox, from The Tonbridgian
David Walsh (CR 72-09)
The sheer joy of playing attacking cricket, of pressurising teams into error by creating a force field of exuberant fielders, of captaincy focused on how to find a way to win cricket matches – this fundamental approach inspired everything I ever did on a cricket field thereafter, and ensured I always stayed in love with the game. If ’Bush’ was not quite a pandemic, my word he was infectious. My memories of an extraordinary man, and an extraordinary influence, will last forever, with boundless gratitude and affection.
their families back to school.
He had the same pastoral concerns for colleagues as he had for boys. His integrity and selflessness stood out and he was always someone to whom newcomers to the school and those with problems could go for a sympathetic and wise ear. He became in many ways the conscience of the Common Room, making us think more about the importance and value of community. He was a driving force in the Community Service Group, his particular focus on the disabled and disadvantaged. This was always done with compassion and sensitivity, for it was for him just a natural and kind thing to do. Without forcing his faith on anyone, he was a strong supporter of Chapel and gave several memorable addresses himself. He did more than anyone to bring together the teaching staff and non-teaching staff, and to welcome retired members of staff and
conversation with him without being aware of his essential thoughtfulness, curiosity and goodness. For all his gifts, he was a deeply modest and self-deprecating person who never aspired to be anything other than what he was. His legacy is the Tonbridge community as it has been seen in the recent crisis, which Mike thankfully missed, of helping and supporting others. His integrity and selflessness made all his colleagues reflect on the contribution they made to that community and the people within it. In all this Judy was his greatest love and supporter for 57 years, bringing her own sense of loyalty, calm and warmth to support Mike in all his endeavours and into bringing up their family. In retirement he was often to be seen around the school whether attending chapel, watching cricket and rugby or just borrowing a book from the library. As he aged physically, he remained mentally sharp and engaging, the quiet humour interspersed with wise observations of life. Being able to sit with him on a chair around the Head and talk to him of old and new times continued to be an inspiriting experience, punctuated by those quiet chuckles which were as far as he went with ostentation. Few teachers manage to elicit such extraordinary depths of affection and respect. As Geoff Allibone wrote in his retirement eulogy in The Tonbridgian of 1991, ‘lucky Tonbridge to have been enriched by the life-long career of a man of such calibre’ ●
We loved him too for his idiosyncrasies. He liked to get his work jackets from Oxfam, both because he felt they benefited from the money he spent but also because natty dressing was not important to him. He was certainly a technophobe, resolutely refusing all his life to engage with emails or mobile phones and taking a long time to abandon the Banda spirit duplicator for a photocopier. The photocopies he eventually gave out had a style all their own, with words sprawled at all angles on the page and the last sentence or two often cut off. When he had a holiday home in Devon, he fancied himself as a dab hand with the DIY, so that plumbers and plasterers from miles around would joyfully anticipate his visits with the chance to repair the subsequent damage. Retiring in 1991, he was thankful to miss out on the regimes which have developed of targets and testing, inspections and appraisal, and he was not entirely in favour of the way in which market forces brought the arms race in school facilities and the spiralling cost of school fees. Imagining MHB as housemaster trying to deal with parental messages and complaints via email, voicemail, text and Whatsapp brings a quiet smile in testing times.
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I do not think he ever explained his philosophy on cricket to us – it just seeped from every pore – but I am certain he believed to his bootstraps that cricket was an action game. Batsmen should hit the ball, bowlers should take wickets, and fielders – ah, fielding. Every moment of every practice that was not batting or bowling was fielding – fielding should be dynamic, intense and exciting. A long barrier would probably have given him apoplexy – attack the ball, dominate space, revel in the sheer joy of a skill well executed. And catching – not just going for difficult catches, but as Trevor Rudd reminded me, impossible catches.
When I became finally big and strong enough to hit the ball (after years of being small and incapable of it), I was intoxicated by the sensation, and found ways to get out that would have driven most cricket masters bananas. But I never remember him criticising me once. The ball is there to be hit.
The image of Mike which will resound most with many people is the letters he wrote. The thought and care he put into these, whether for congratulation or commiseration, were typical of him. The friendship he gave was lasting and you never came away from any
My love of cricket began long before Tonbridge and meeting Mike Bushby, ‘Bush’ as he came to be known to us. But he shaped my approach to the game in a way that has lasted a lifetime.
Paul Box-Grainger (MH 67-72)
Mike Bushby as cricket master
Supporting the community DURING THE HEALTH CRISIS
NHS Assessment Centre
19MAY 2020
Speaking as the Centre opened, Dr Ginny Winstanley, Clinical Director of Tonbridge Primary Care Network said: “We cannot thank Tonbridge School staff enough for the way they have stepped forward and given amazing support to the NHS, as we try and support our local community through the Covid-19 crisis.”
Andy Gallon, Tonbridge School’s Safety and Securities Manager, co-ordinated the work to set up the centre, working with the NHS, colleagues and the wider community that came together with donations for the NHS. For example, marquees were donated by The Party Doctors, portaloos by Portis Hire, signs and visors by Regency Signs, fencing by David Graves and cleaning equipment and PPE by Nicola Homes and Michael Kingshott.
Within a week of that request, the Tonbridge School Centre (TSC) car park had been transformed into a fully-operational NHS Assessment Centre. As Kat Portman Smith, whose usual job is Manager of the EM Forster Theatre, explained: “Once the theatre and the school was closed, I was asked to lead Tonbridge School’s community response to the pandemic and this seemed a great way to help, using the school’s facilities for the benefit of the whole community.”
As the health crisis erupted, Tonbridge School reached out to local government and the NHS to offer assistance. When Nicki Perry, a GP at the Tonbridge Primary Care Network responded with a specific request for help, the school quickly mobilised into action.
The appointment-only, drive-through facility opened on Monday 30 March and has been staffed by NHS workers who assess patients with Covid-19 symptoms, relieving pressure on surgeries and hospitals.
There was also a huge response on social media, with staff in hospitals and care homes – ranging from Chestnut Lodge in Tonbridge to Heron Hill in Kendal, Cumbria –thanking the team for providing a welcome boost to existing PPEOneequipment. Facebook message simply reads: “Very well done Tonbridge. From a grateful NHS consultant.”
And Bluebird Care in Tonbridge & Tunbridge Wells posted: “We want to say a massive thank you to Tonbridge School for donating PPE to us so that we can continue to keep our carers safe!
Between late March and the end of April a school team, led by the Design Technology (DT) department, produced more than 3,000 protective masks for those on the front line in the fight against Covid-19. The mask-manufacturing operation ran virtually non-stop for more than a month. Masks were distributed to workers in Tonbridge and around the country, including those in hospitals, GP practices, assessment centres, care homes and even an optician.
The school made approximately 200 masks every day, with a team of more than 20 staff members, students, family and friends all helping with the full-scale operation of manufacturing and delivering masks. They worked on a shift basis, generally from 9am to 3pm. A DT teacher drove the laser-cutting machine, while volunteers cut Velcro and used staple guns to assemble the masks.
Tonbridge team makes 200 masks a day for front line workers
Will and his team also set up a website, make-moremasks.com, with step-by-step manufacturing information, CAD files and usage guidance, so that other people, and especially schools, could make their own and contribute to
Will Biddle (PH 76-81), DT teacher and Housemaster, responded to the challenge after he was approached by a GP, who is the parent of one of the boys at the school. He said: “Thanks to a great team effort and lots of volunteers, we put together an efficient and flexible manufacturing system, and we were able to respond rapidly to requests for masks. We are thrilled to have been able to meet all the requests as they came in and keep on top of demand.”
the nationwide effort. “The masks make use of materials and equipment that DT departments in schools probably already have, and it has been encouraging to see schools and small business across the country doing their own manufacturing,” WillTheadded.efforts of the Tonbridge team were recognised with articles in national and regional media, and coverage on BBC television and radio news.
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Peter Larcombe, Consultant Neuroanaesthetist at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton, posted a photo with a handwritten message saying ‘Thank you, Tonbridge School’ his protective visor.
OnceVolunteeringtheNHSAssessmentCentrewasup and
21MAY 2020
running, Kat Portman Smith organised an army of school volunteers to provide the centre with behind-the-scenes support to help the NHS staff do their jobs as safely and comfortably as possible.
Middle: TSC volunteers
Within a week more than 140 volunteers signed up to help, including 120 staff plus friends and family members. They marshalled traffic, made and delivered lunches, managed deliveries and laundered scrubs in the school laundry.
Antonia Allman and Hannah Moorhouse
Bottom: initiativeTonbridge’sBiddleandFarprotectiveTonbridgeLarcombeHospitalFarforhomemadeChappendenHelenwithgownsNHSstaffpageleft:BrightonConsultantPeter(right)thankingSchoolforhisvisorpageright:DTteacherHousemaster,Will(PH76-81)ledmaskmaking
Top: Volunteer traffic marshalls: Will Monham and Maxine Williams
As Kat explained: “So many staff have been involved, from porters to laundry assistants, teachers to matrons - all pulling together to make the centre work and serve the Tonbridge community. I can’t wait to get back to my first love and open the doors to the EM Forster Theatre again, but for the moment this is my main focus and I am grateful that I could play a small part in setting up and helping to run the NHS Centre.”
also worked with a neighbour who lives across the road from Park House, which was great.”
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Tonbridge’s Head of Modern Languages, Will Law, helped at the centre during the Easter holidays. “My day job is running the Modern Languages department, and I found the contrast between this and working at the NHS Assessment Centre invigorating,” he explained. “At a time of national unrest and uncertainty, when it is easy to feel helpless, I was pleased to be given the opportunity to help out. I saw Tonbridge at its best during this time, as the proactive, caring and supporting community that it is.”
Some of the Tonbridge School volunteers tell us how they have helped during the Covid-19 pandemic: Tonbridge School receptionist, Jane Bellward, is one of the volunteers at the NHS Assessment Centre. “I volunteered because doing something useful is what makes good things happen. We help so that the doctors and nurses can run things – they do amazing work. There is also a fantastic young cleaner who is contracted to work at the Assessment Centre from 8am to 6pm, five days a week. She keeps the place sterile and spotless.”
Another bonus for Jane is the team work. “It is really nice to talk to other people from different departments at the school - at a safe distance of course. I feel privileged to be helping in a small way, plus it is great to get out of the house for five hours each Monday!”
She said: “The NHS staff working at the site are just lovely and they appreciate what the school is doing to help.” She described how NHS staff use the TSC for breaks before and after their shifts. “The food provided by school is particularly appreciated,” she explained, “because sometimes the NHS staff go onto their usual jobs at hospitals or surgeries after finishing their shift at the Assessment Centre.”
Jo talked about how nice it has been to get to know the boys on a different level. One of the boys sent her a video of his chickens, for example, and another couldn’t understand that she still lived at the school when everyone else had left.
Park House matron, Jo Boler, volunteered at the NHS Assessment Centre most days in its early weeks. “I worked on the reception desk at the TSC, taking deliveries and helping medical staff with any questions about the site. One of the nice things was working with staff with very different roles around the school and getting to know them better. I
Hearing from the volunteers
Jo also talked about the new Microsoft Teams coffee and chat meeting, for boys and staff every day after lunchtime. “It’s been really nice to see the boys again – albeit online –and to have their chat and humour back again!” she said.
Helen Chappenden, Box Office Manager at the EM Forster Theatre, has been making protective gowns for NHS workers at the Assessment Centre. As she explained: “I wanted to put my spare time to good use for the NHS because I had a major
Once the Summer Term started, Jo found herself back to supporting the boys, albeit in different ways once school work was all online. “During the first week of term, I contacted all the boys by phone,” she explained. “My job was to give them someone else to talk to, if they needed it, and to chase them up if they didn’t turn up to online lessons!”
23MAY 2020
“The mini tennis rackets have been especially popular, Bryony added. “We are extremely grateful. Thank you, Tonbridge School!”
Every evening the school chapel has been illuminated in NHS blue in gratitude to the NHS and care workers
operation a year ago, so I have recent, first-hand experience of the care, kindness and dedication of doctors and nurses at Pembury and Kings College London hospitals. I also have several friends who work for the NHS and, like many people, I wanted to help the frontline workers – I have huge respect for them all.”
Sports equipment to local primary school:
More than 450 pairs of safety spectacles, dozens of pairs of safety goggles and ten boxes of surgical gloves from the school’s Barton Science Centre were donated to hospitals, surgeries, GP hubs and almshouses across Kent and Sussex.
Having spoken to a contact at the NHS Assessment Centre, Helen found a pattern to make much needed gowns to use when the disposable personal protective equipment ran out. Marie Wallace, Business Development Manager at Tonbridge Events, donated old sheets and duvet covers and Helen asked a friend to cut the material ready for sewing. As Helen explained: “In two weeks I completed 27 gowns and I have plenty more ready to sew. My friend and I have also made mask mates - which are crochet strips with buttons - to ease the discomfort on the ears for people wearing face masks.”
Bryony Webb, a Year 1 teacher at Bishop Chavasse Primary School in South Tonbridge, got in touch with Tonbridge School for help with sports equipment.“Wearea new school, with children in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2. In normal times children benefit from a specialist PE provider,” she explained.Onceschools were closed to all except children of key workers, the primary school’s teachers were looking for new ways to keep their children entertained and exercising outdoors – albeit at a safe distance. Tonbridge School was able to come to the rescue and lend the primary school all sorts of fun outdoor equipment from their Recre8 programme.
Below: Laundry - Left to right in the photos holding scrubs - Left to right = Sila Rana, Debbie Trask, Joy Hayward
Chapel goes NHS Blue
As the school closed its doors to students and all but essential staff in late March, the school made a delivery to the SUSTAIN food bank in North Tonbridge. The donation included handmade loaves, eggs, milk, cheese, yoghurts, fresh fruit and vegetables, some dried store cupboard stocks and even toilet rolls. SUSTAIN is run by Tonbridge Baptist Church and relies on donated items from local people, schools and businesses.
Donations from Barton Science Centre
Providing to the SUSTAIN food bank:
NEWS IN BRIEF
Far left: Catering - Mario Aleksiev
OT 144th Annual Dinner (Skinners’ Hall) – Mark Pettman (WW 81-85), Paddy Butler (Sc 78-83), Richard Sankey (PS 83-87), Adrian Twiner (Common Room 64-73)
IN PICTURESA Year
5 Year Reunion (East India Club) – 2014 Hillsiders – Jamie Bell (HS 09-14), Chris Henderson (HS 09-14), Daniel Sun (HS 09-14), Oliver Crow (HS 09-14), Laurence Hodgkins (HS 12-14), Jonny Chan (HS 09-14)
OT Summer Lunch (Skinners’ Hall) – James Stewart (FH 56-61), Martin Colvill (FH 54-58)
1960-70 – Peter Morris (HS 59-63), Howard Davies (FH 60-65) (travelled from Australia)
144th Annual OT Dinner (Skinners’ Hall) – Ed Hyde (FH 11-16), Basil Stevens (FH 13-18), Hugo Pettman (WW 13-18) Ed Springett (FH 12-17), Alex Moen (FH 13-18)
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OT Summer Lunch (Skinners’ Hall) – David Mills (Sc 63-67), David Walsh (CR 19722009, Former MH Housemaster and Second Master), Anthony Osmond-Evans (Sc 56-61)
OT 144th Annual Dinner (Skinners’ Hall) –Hugo Pettman (WW 13-18), Mark Pettman (WW 81-85), Toby Pettman (WW 11-16)
10 Year Reunion (The Folly) – John Gibbs (FH 56-61), Fraser Yarnold (HS 04-09) and Hugh Robinson (PS 04-09)
OT Reunion 1960-70 – OTs in Chapel
OT Reunion 1960-70 – Dick Scoones (FH 6266), Nick Court (FH 62-66) (travelled from Spain and France)
OT Reunion 1960-70 – Jeremy Hamer (PH 6570), David Kilpatrick (HS 68-72), Nick Booth (MH
OT68-72)Reunion
OT Reunion 1960-70 – Robert Hadfield MBE (MH 67-71), Charles Burt (MH 67-70), Alan Thwaites (MH 66-71), John Fisher (MH 68-72)
10 Year Leavers Reunion (The Folly) – Tom Warrener (SH 03-09), Chris Henshall (SH Housemaster)
25MAY 2020
Rugby Dinner - Alex Aarvold (JH 91-96), Graeme Gales (JH Housemaster 2003-2018), Hugh Colvin (HS 91-96), Nigel Lashbrook (Common Room), Phil Callow (PS 91-96), George Roffey J(JH 91-96). Unbeaten 1st XV 1995-1996
Headmaster’s Portrait Unveiling – Tim Haynes (Former Headmaster) and Lisa O’Neil – cropped
Rugby Dinner (Tonbridge School) - Joe Froud (Sc 10-15), Alex Dainton (PH 10-15), Felix Saro-Wiwa (PS 10-15), Fred Johnson (Sc 10-15), Michael Scott (PH 10-15), Harry Leek (WW 10-15). Colts team 2012 – 2013
OT Reunion 1960-70 (Tonbridge School) –Drinks in OBS
10 Year Leavers Reunion (The Folly) – Jamie Lavers (JH 04-09) and Ali Taylor (CH 04-09)
OT Summer Drinks (Skinners’ Hall) – Richard Dalzell (HS 54-58) Nick Shaw (JH 79-84), Ian Boyce (JH 58-63)
Headmaster’s Portrait Unveiling – Tim Haynes (Former Headmaster 2005-2018) and Lisa O’Neil
5 Year Reunion (East India Club) – James Johnstone (WW 09-14), Chris McKenzie (WW 09-14), Patrick Holland (WW 09-14), Will Lynn (WW 09-14), Will Biddle (PH 76-81, WW Housemaster), Joe Paisley (WW 09-14), Laurence Turlej (WW 09-14)
144th Annual OT Dinner (Skinners’ Hall) –Paul Farrow (PH 79-84), John Gibbs (FH 56-61), Nick Shaw (JH 79-84)
Rugby Dinner – James Priory (Headmaster) and Mrs Debbie Gales
OT Summer Drinks (Skinners’ Hall) - Connor Hickey (Sc 05-10), Chris Hammond (PS 00-05), Andy Whittall (Director of Tonbridge Society), James Munton (PH 03-08), Josh West (HS 03-08), Ollie Howick (Sc 00-05)
>TC - So then some of these people reappear. This is the last Tonbridge team to play at Lord’s, in 1968, before they cancelled the fixture [Photo 4].
Court, which was comparatively small to the imposing setting of Tonbridge. You’ll remember some of these photos Tim.
This is Michael Bourne (MH 63-68) and this is me. That was the last wicket to go down, at Lord’s as a Tonbridgian, until they played their centenary game a couple of years ago. But that wasn’t on the main ground (“hallowed turf!”) So I’m claiming the prize as the last Tonbridgian.[Lookingat Photos 6 & 7 - their times at American Universities]
And look, Philip Hook (JH 64-68), is in both the Yardley Court and Tonbridge photos. Philip was a Cambridge soccer
This is the other end of my career. This is what Tim and I spend far too much time doing.
TA = Tim Austin, TC = Tim Chandler, KD = Katerina Dimnik, JDG = John Gibbs
>TC – No, but my mother did. This is what comes of turning out your parents’ home when they both pass on. Red tie, green lovat jacket. Everybody wore the same thing. That was the first day. [See photo 2]
>TA – Good lord, you’ve actually got photos from Yardley Court too!
>TA & >TC simultaneously – Yes
Shortly before each retired from their administrative roles, the two Tim Provosts returned to Tonbridge, to tour the school and share memories from their time at the school: what it was like to board or to attend as a day boy; how Headmaster Michael McCrum modernised the school; and some of the mischief they got up to. They shared photos and joked with the Tonbridge Society’s John Gibbs and Katerina Dimnik about their time at Tonbridge, half a century ago.
>TC– Tim and I went through both institutions – at exactly the same time. They look at the photo of Yardley Court and name people [Photo 3}
Tim Austin (WH 65-70) and Tim Chandler (FH 65-70) attended Tonbridge School at the same time and both went on to have distinguished careers at East Coast universities in the USA. Most recently Tim Austin was Provost at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Tim Chandler was Provost at Towson University in Towson, Maryland.
>KD – And what were you thinking then, do you think?
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>TA – You were a very distinguished sportsman.
>TC – What the hell am I doing here? Can I face this? You go from Yardley
Tim Austin (left) and Tim Chandler (right) return to Tonbridge School almost 50 years after they left
That is Neil De Abrew (PH), who died in a car accident during his second year at University College London, which was absolutely tragic. He was a magnificent athlete. Great rugby player, great cricketer, good fives player.
blue (at a time when Tonbridge didn’t play soccer), a novelist and a Director of Sotheby’s. At one time he was a regular fine art and painting expert on the Antiques
>TC – No! I was extinguished – or should have been. There’s me on the first day of school. Every Novi had their picture taken. See the red tie?
[LookingRoadshow.atPhoto5]
>TC - So yes, I actually hold the distinction of being the last Tonbridgian ‘out’ at Lord’s, and it’s one of the most embarrassing photographs that I have, because my captain and I find ourselves at the same end of the wicket.
After a tour of the school, the two Tims start the interview pouring over old photos while sitting in the Smythe Library
>JDG – Were you also at Yardley Court?
>TA – So you kept all these photographs?
THE TWO PROVOSTSTIM
27AUGUST 2018
>TC – Looking down his nose.
>TC - Anyway, you asked for some photographs – you’ve got some.
We get the grandkids to figure it out –and they do in the end, but it takes a while.
>TC – At that point his work was done, and he went off to Eton to sort that place out. Whether that’s even possible.
>TA – And dressing up in fancy costumes.
>TA – That’s me being inspected during the annual CCF General Inspection. That’s the Headmaster, Michael McCrum.
>TC – Absolutely.
>TA – That’s right. Speechifying.
>TC – Well you would have seen more of him as one of those intelligent pupils on campus. You remember the Athena Society - you were a Gilt Pen winner and all that good stuff.
>TC – Speechifying and awarding degrees.
>TC– [Looking at Photo 8] This is brilliant though!
>KD – What was McCrum like as a headmaster?
>TA – Severe in some ways. The more senior you got, the more he engaged with you in a more personal way.
>TC – McCrum had a very clear vision of what he wanted for the school. And he had a remarkable way of getting it done.
>JDG - I mean he changed Tonbridge from a small boarding school to a school which gained its own momentum.
>TA – The only thing I could find is actually from the Tonbridge Courier.
>JDG – I always think he put the school on the right track.
>TA - I think the previous Headmaster, the Revd. Lawrence Waddy, had the difficulty of bringing the school out of the war years, and beginning to get rid of some of the vestiges of the worst traditions of public schools, generally. He cleared the decks. Then Michael McCrum could come steaming in and insist on academic standards.
>TA – Well, the thing is he arrived only a couple of years before we arrived - and then left when we left - which is not a long headmastership.
>TC – I think it was on the academic side that he really made a difference. You know … boys no longer beating boys. I think there was a lot of change during that period. Probably we were right in the middle of it, because he left when we left.
Housemasters probably had more input under McCrum, and I think the school was probably a little kinder and a little gentler, with the array of housemasters. I mean, a), they were pretty good academically, and b), pastorally … you know, I think about Mike Bushby, David Kemp and your dad [Robert Austin, Tim’s father, who was Housemaster of Hill Side from 1962 to 1976].
>TC – Severe.
>TC – One of the most telling things for me, recently, when I was talking to my nephew, Alex Moxon (SH 01-06) and his girlfriend, I showed them a postcard from Eric Bickmore, (Headmaster of Yardley Court and an Old Cliftonian) about this game. And Penny looked at the back of this and she said… ‘What’s 3D?’
When I said to her, ‘Pounds, shillings and pence – you know – LSD,’ she thought I was referring to the hallucinogenic drug!
>TA – Actually, mine was the Parcel Gilt Pen.
>TA – That reminds me of our big family reunion every summer - I’m up to nine grandchildren at this point. We have some of the old board games from when I was a kid, and we pull them out to play. One of the games is called Taxi, I don’t know if you ever had it? It’s in pounds, shillings and pence.
>TC – It was. Much more so than today. The shift from two day houses and five boarding houses in our time, to five day and seven boarding houses today, has, I think changed the nature of the place.
>TA – Hill Side was much more remote, I mean Hill Side and Judde were sort of as far as you could go in the other direction.
>TC – You were tucked back and you couldn’t hear anything, other than the noise from Hilden Grange.
>TC – Yep! And you’d have your little chit and you know, [imitates writing], ‘I need to go to the chemist’. You had to get your housemaster to sign it. Mike Bushby would only ever sign in red.
>TA – And mostly you stayed on the campus over the weekends.
>TC – And that’s how I think about the place to be honest: it was a total institution. Everything you needed was here. You didn’t need to step off campus. Really, you could get everything here. And in fact the intention was that you wouldn’t step off very much. So yeah, we spent a lot of time here.
>TC – You were! You didn’t leave campus because you went between two houses and that was the extent of your travel.
>JDG – You had to get permission to go down town.
Photo 4: The last Tonbridge School Cricket Team to play at Lords, 1968. Tim Chandler (standing, far left), Neil De Abrew (front row, second from right), Philip Hook (standing, one from end on right)
>TC – Well John you were in that house, you know about that. My study was right up on the corner so I had a great view of what was happening.
>JDG – Well of course, Chapel is always in the evening now.
>TC – My brothers and I always felt that the day boys, in general, ended up doing better academically, because they were able to get out of the place and interact with the outside world. As boarders we were very introverted. The Canadian sociologist Erving Goffman uses the term ‘total institution’ – and that includes prisons. As a boarder here in the late 1960s it was like being in a total institution.
>TC – Far enough away so that you couldn’t hear Richard Gracey yelling at the boys too much.
You’d go in and say, ‘Sir, I need this’, and he’d say (emphatically) ‘Yes, of course. Where’s my red pen?’
>TA – And because my dad was a housemaster, I was in much the same boat.
OLD TONBRIDGIAN NEWS28
>TC – Absolutely.
>TA – But you didn’t get out for long, did you? When we started you still attended morning service on Sunday.
>TA – They had to be careful about that. My mother, as you know John, had very strong opinions about indentured servitude.
hand knocking barge from head]
>JDG – There were one or two incidents…
>TA – Also, in our day, boarders seldom left the school grounds. Exeats were few and far between.
When you were here you were here. Exeats were every three weeks maybe? My parents lived about eight miles away, just outside Sevenoaks. So you looked forward tremendously to getting out of town.
>TC – Yes. And their wives were involved in most cases as a support.
>TA – That’s right, and you had to be back for six or seven in the evening. To say this was an exeat was a stretch.
>TC – So at 4 o’clock you’d start to think, ‘Oh God… We’ve got to go back.’ I don’t know how you feel about Sunday evenings, but Sunday evenings are still dreadful times for me. I still hold that with me. Now of course it’s that I have to go back to work on Monday mornings but I still get that same sort of pit of the stomach feeling – that it’s Sunday and it’s 4 o’clock, and Oh God…
He used to do that all the time! ‘Where’s my red pen?’ He used to shout for Judy – ‘JUDY! Where’s my red pen?’
From top: Photo 2: Tim Chandler, first day at Tonbridge School, 1965 Photo 3: Yardley Court Cricket XI, 1964 (Tim Chandler standing - far left)
>TC – And I think there was a lot to that. I think the expectation was that the housemasters’ wives would come along and do what was necessary, which not all of them agreed with. Dick Bradley was my housemaster in the first year. His wife already had a career which meant that the house matron also had an important role to play.
>TC – Once every three weeks.
I can remember when we used to go down town we had to wear our barges. I lost two in the river to the local boys who would knock them off on a regular basis. You know – ‘TOFF!’ [imitates
>TA – Which was far enough away.
>JDG – It was mainly a boarding school in those days.
>TC – And then you went home.
>TA – Now the boys go home all the time. It’s more like weekly boarding.
>JDG – No. If boys have gone out on
>TA – Bernie Wheeler
But no, you had to sign out to go anywhere. And Ferox of course being the corner of campus. We were right on the edge. And we used to get stuff thrown at the windows.
>TC– Oh really? There’s no morning chapel?
“You would of course expect a university provost to recommend hard work in the classroom, the laboratory and the library,” he joked. “It’s the message that provosts spread day in and day out. But I say exactly the same thing as a father and a grandfather.”
He concluded that Tonbridge also taught him to be ambitious - not out of a wish for personal gratification - but because Tonbridge taught him to take responsibility for using whatever talents
“I think at Tonbridge we were encouraged to have confidence in our own abilities, whatever they happened to be – academic, musical, dramatic, athletic,” he explained.
He went on to describe how Tonbridge boys were encouraged to use those abilities to help develop the “quiet confidence” that Tim Austen referenced.Inhisview, the Tonbridge of their era was finally beginning to get beyond Forster’s view that OTs should “go forth with well-developed bodies, fairly developed minds, and undeveloped hearts.” “Wewere generally very well-taught and were certainly encouraged to pursue academic achievement,” he explained.Thetwo Tims took different routes and pursued very different subject matters, but ended up using the same “quiet confidence” to take on the role of universityReflectingprovost.onthe time that has passed since leaving school and their visit to Tonbridge, Tim Chandler used a poignant phrase to conclude this article: “We have come a long way to return home!” ●
>TA – On blocks!
>TA – I never saw it, but we all heard about it!
>JDG – Well my brother, he got a Green Line bus to Bromley after chapel in the morning, had a bite to eat and then came back just in time for evening chapel.
From top: Photo 5: Michael Bourne (captain) and Tim Chandler, Lords, 1968:“I’m claiming the distinction of being the last Tonbridgian ‘out’ at Lords, and it’s embarrassing because my captain and I find ourselves at the same end of the wicket!”
Photo 7: Tim Chandler
Photo 8: Tim Austin (right) at the CCF General Inspection, 1967-68, with Headmaster Michael McCrumb (in his mortarboard) looking on
>TA – Actually you know, sometimes I lament the fact that I think modern students don’t have a sense of mischief - in the good sense! Having fun in a harmless way. Most of the tricks were harmless ones. No one really got hurt.
Saturday for the weekend, then they come back for Sunday.
>TC – McCrum’s car - a dark blue Morris Oxford estate (an odd choice for a Cambridge man). Imagine that!
“It’s reassuring to know that this is still a touchstone of a Tonbridge education and it will serve the current generation of Tonbridgians well,” Tim Austen concluded.TimChandler agreed wholeheartedly with those thoughts.
When he left Oxford to pursue a PhD in America, Tim Austen explained that he knew very little about the realities of university-level research and teaching and still less about the United States. But he described how he took that step, with what Tonbridge Foundation Scholar Alex Moen described in an interview for the School’s Annual Report 2017 as “quiet confidence.”
>TC – It was a very regimented world we lived in.
(Tim PhotoChandler)6:TimAustin (centre) after his last Graduation Address before retiring as Provost of Duquesne University, May 2018
>TC – The one that made the biggest splash I think when I was when the Headmaster’s car was put on the middle of the Head ….
29AUGUST 2018
Tim Austen was first to reply, saying that there was no doubt in his mind that the academic training he received at Tonbridge - from Jonathan Smith, Ken Batterby, Vivian Anthony, Michael McCrum and his own father - provided the foundation for many of the career choices that he later made.
>TC – Exactly! Exactly. You were really dicing with death there!
>TC – Oh, that’s interesting. Well there was Evensong that we used to have to go to.
>KD – Was there any mischief at all?
>TC – With the wheels removed, if I remember correctly.
he was born with, as fully as he could.
After their visit, the Tonbridge Society got back in touch with the two Tims, to invite them to conclude this article with reflections of how their time at Tonbridge School 50 years ago, had impacted on their lives.
>TA– McCrum’s car and Mr Twort’s Head!
>TA – We used to have to go to morning and evening service.
In this year’s magazine, we have chosen to feature interviews with England’s chief national cricket selector, Ed Smith (WH 90-95) and Ed Perry (MH 84-89), who is co-founder and Chief Executive of COOK.
THE LECTURETENNANTSERIES
If you would like to give a talk yourself, please get in touch – you will be in distinguished company. We look forward to warmly welcoming you to the next Tennant Lecture Series. Whether it’s online or in person, we are determined to continue recruiting top quality speakers to the school.
For all enquiries, including how to become a speaker, contact: tonbridgesociety@tonbridge-school.org
To read online Q&As with past speakers, visit: www.tonbridgeconnect.org/news
To find out more about future events, visit: www.tonbridgeconnect.org/events
DISCOVER. LEARN. PARTICIPATE.
It really doesn’t matter what you achieve in your career - whether you build a massive business, become a leading medic or a successful scientist - external achievements will not bring happiness. Happiness and satisfaction in life come from the quality of the relationships you have with friends, family and the people you work with. That’s ultimately what makes people happy each day.
In a new initiative, current sixth-formers have interviewed OT speakers and the boys’ Question and Answers have then been edited, before being featured in the Tonbridge Society’s newsletters for everyone to enjoy.
Ed Perry (MH 84-89)
OLD TONBRIDGIAN NEWS30
DAVID TENNANT, FOUNDER
“It’s been fascinating to hear about the various paths taken by OTs – from practising emergency medicine during terrorist attacks in London to turning around the lives of drug addicts in deprived townships of Cape Town. We could not be more proud of our OT speakers.”
Readers can go online to Tonbridge Connect to review interviews with Dr Tony Joy (CH 94-99) on emergency medicine and Pete Portal (Sc 98-03) on his life living with men coming out of drug addiction in a Cape Town township.
everal prominent OTs returned to Tonbridge this year, to give talks about their careers, sporting successes and interests, as part of the Tennant Lecture Series. The lectures, organised by the Tonbridge Society, are free to attend for all those associated with the school. Boys, staff, parents and OTs are allAswelcome.DavidTennant explains, “Before the coronavirus led us to postpone our summer term events, 2019-2020 was shaping up to be one of our best series of lectures, with speakers regularly addressing packed houses in Old Big School and the Cawthorne Lecture Theatre.
S
Q: Is there a fixture at Tonbridge that really stands out for you – perhaps because of a big rivalry?
Q: You need an escape, don’t you?
The first thing about Tonbridge was the incredible facilities. Secondly, we had very good coaches. When I was here in the 1990s, we had access to a wonderful cricket professional called Chris Stone and the masters were also terrific - Ian McEwan and Paul Taylor. The third thing we had were excellent fixtures.
Q: How do you think Tonbridge as a school balances its academic and sporting pursuits?
You need something else. At school or university, it is built in. When you get older you have to do it yourself.
It is very important to get a balance and I found that I played better when I was working academically, and I worked better when I was playing cricket. Definitely the balance was good for me.
with Ed Smith
INTERVIEWERS: JAMES EARL (JH5) AND BEN ROBINSON (FH5)
I think all the staff involved in cricket at Tonbridge tried to make the fixtures as strong as possible. We played some really good teams from South Africa and Australia and I remember those games well because it was great to play against teams from different parts of world.
Q: How did life at Tonbridge prepare you for professional sport?
Q: Was there one particular innings - at school or university - where you thought, ‘actually I can make it playing cricket?’
31MAY 2020
THE LIFE AND LUCK OF AN CRICKETENGLANDSELECTOR
I wasn’t that good at sport - I played squash and a bit of rackets when I was younger - but basically at Tonbridge I just played cricket and squash. I was not one of these boys constantly playing for the first team - I think it is harder for those guys. I found things were tough for me in my early 20s, after school and university, because as a professional cricketer I wasn’t doing anything else apart from playing cricket and going to the gym.
As England’s chief national cricket selector, Ed Smith (WH 90-95) picked the squad that won the Cricket World Cup in July 2019. He graduated from Cambridge with a double first and his cricket ‘blue’, before embarking on a professional cricket career with Kent and Middlesex. He played three Tests for England in the 2003 series against SouthAfterAfrica.retiring from cricket with an injury, aged only 31, Ed became an author and a journalist. He returned to Tonbridge in February 2020 to talk to a packed audience in Big School about cricket, life and luck, with Headmaster James Priory posing the questions. Just before he took to the stage, current sixth-formers and cricketers James Earl (JH5) and Ben Robinson (FH5) got their chance to ask Ed questions of their own.
I probably had a lot of self-belief when I was young, so I always thought I had a chance, or a bit more of a chance. When I was at school, I watched a lot of professional cricket and I thought, ‘You know
James EdinterviewingPriorySmith
33MAY 2020
Q: You wrote a book solely on luck in sport and life. How big an impact has luck had on your career?
Chicago Bulls when Michael Jordan didn’t get on with one of his teammates and there was a big rivalry. I think respect is very important. I don’t think you will ever get to have a situation where all 15 or 16 people are best friends, but I do think you need to have respect. Of course, like in a family, there are always tensions in teams but there always needs to be that respect.
I did enjoy my career - I really did. First, I loved batting. Second, I enjoyed the friendships I made – long-lasting friendships. Third, I think playing cricket gave me an incredible set of experiences which have been very useful in the rest of my life. Maybe I was aware of that at the time.
Q: Will we still be playing five-day Test cricket in 25 years’ time?
Q: Do you think the lack of pace is an issue in the County Championships now?
Q: How late are teams finalised? Sometimes very late. Not always though. Eoin Morgan likes to have his team ready, and one-day pitches don’t change that much. Normally you know what you are going to get with a one-day pitch, but conditions are more variable in Test cricket. ‘Is it going to turn? Is the sun coming out? Are we going to bat or bowl first?’ These are the questions that cricket selectors are asking before finalising a team. So sometimes we leave it quite late in Test cricket. I want to be clear about my options reasonably early on, but retain some flexibility, to allow for changing conditions.
Someone who played at a very high level for a period of time without getting selected was David Fulton. In 2001 or 2002 he got eight or nine centuries and had exceptional batsmanship. He had excellent mastery towards the end of his career.
A huge impact. One of the hardest chapters to write in the book was
Q: There are quite a lot of rugby players that say they really didn’t enjoy their careers. Did you genuinely enjoy your career and did the 100s outweigh the ducks?
When it comes to the selection of squads, so a squad of 12 or 13 for a test match in England or a squad of 15 or 16 for a tour abroad, there is a three man selection panel of which I am the head - so James Taylor, the head coach and me. If someone has a complaint to make about the squad, the person they should come looking for, is me. For the decision on the final 11, the captain and the coach make the final decision. We talk all the time, but the decision on the final 11 is down to them. That’s always been the convention in cricket, and I can understand that.
Q: Moving onto your role as a selector, how do you take emotion out of the selection process when, for example, you have to consider a player you have enjoyed watching in the past?
Well they are connected aren’t they. I think if you play on pitches that seam around a lot, you don’t have to have pace. Ideally you would want flatter pitches which reward spin and pace.
I think we will still be playing Test cricket, but it will require effort and determination from administrators. I don’t think it’s something that should be taken for granted. If Test cricket isn’t protected, it will be under threat ●
Q: The England & Wales Cricket Board appears to favour the shorter forms of cricket – the 100 and the T20 - rather than four-day matches. So how do you think the County Championships have fared - is it a better competition now, compared to when you played?
No – it’s the same. We use scouting reports and data analytics for all formats of the game. We also have the same level of scrutiny by selectors and the coaching team and the same involvement from the captain, whatever the format.
Q: Does your selection process differ between the different formats?
Occasionally I thought to myself, ‘This is difficult,’ or, ‘I’m getting beaten up here,’ but I had a feeling that the experience might be useful later in life.
Q: Who gets the final call in selection?
Q: Was there ever a time in your career, or a situation that another player has told you about, where you’re wishing against one of your teammates?
what, I would like to have a go at that.’ When I was at university, I scored a hundred on my first-class debut and then the next year, I scored 190 against Leicester who were champions. I was still probably only 19 years old then – so yes – at that point, I thought I had a good chance to make a career out of cricket.
I think the County Championship got better during my playing career. My first game was in 1996 and my last was 2008. The Championship became pretty strong in the early to mid-2000s when Justin Langer was quoted as saying that it was the best competition in the world. Some pace and a lot of good spinners gave county cricket an edge.
about trying to define luck, which is essentially a concept. I think luck has a big part to play in all our lives. At the extreme level, just look at the World Cup Final in 2019, which I was obviously watching with extreme interest. In the last few moments of the regular game, before the Super Over, you just couldn’t make it up! What Ben Stokes was able to achieve was remarkable, but also extremely lucky. He was pushing the boundaries of what was possible.
It’s important to be very unemotional, to have good people around to consult with and you need to ask a lot of yourself as well. I try and see every decision from many different perspectives, and I take my time in order to be fair, judicious and balanced. It’s important to look at all the different evidence and I sometimes have to accept there is no perfect answer and all I can do is make the best possible judgement in consultation with others. I seek to be unemotional, however I do recognise that we are all flawed and that we have biases. It’s important to trust your instincts, too.
Q: Who, in your opinion, is the best player to have never played for England?
I’m not aware of a classic example in cricket but there are so many examples in other sports – for example the
34INTERVIEWER:
OLI HARDS (CH4)
Q: Do you think a university education is valuable, or is experience through apprenticeship more important?
I loved sports, and I was pretty good at rugby and hockey. I was in the firsts for a couple of years in both. In rugby I was a hooker - I was quite fat back then! And in hockey I played right half. I was good at cricket too but they didn’t put me on the Head in my Lower 6th, so I had a strop and gave up.
OLD TONBRIDGIAN NEWS
It was much worse - some of the things that went on were beyond belief. I remember one time, at the beginning of term after everyone’s trunks had been unpacked, the older boys put the younger boys in the trunks and dangled them out the window. In the 1980s, Tonbridge was a tough, tough place. I left in ’89 and I think by the mid-90s, things had changed radically.
So how did Ed Perry turn things around to become the owner of a well-known high-street brand, with sales of £70 million and more than 1,000 staff? Before Ed took to the stage in the Cawthorne Lecture Theatre, where he had last been to take his A levels in 1989, current sixth-former Oli Hards (CH4) posed his own questions to this remarkable entrepreneur.
Q: Nowadays we have a maximum of two people per room. There are ‘raids’ where the upper years come in and throw your stuff around. Did things like that happen when you were here?
If you want to be a lawyer or a doctor, then sure, academic qualifications are vital. But to succeed in life generally, academic qualifications aren’t that important. For example, on our senior team of eight people at COOK four didn’t go to university and four did. I think what’s most important is the ability to persevere. Life is about being able to cope with failure and disappointments, making mistakes and being able to stand up again.
with Ed Perry
I was at Manor House. My Housemaster was Hugh Tebay for the first two years, then David Walsh. David really supported me and if it hadn’t been for his intervention, I think I would have been expelled. I spent my second and third years in the white dormitory which had 16 beds. The squalor and depravity were to behold - it was insane.
Geography, Economics and History. I didn’t enjoy them, but I managed to pass a couple. I started off being taught history by a lovely guy called Francis Cazalet. But after a term, he refused to teach me because I was disruptive, so I was transferred to Mike Bushby’s set. I was very, very lazy and I learned that as I got older, I could get away with more and more, so that by my last year I barely turned up to lessons.
Q: Do you feel that Tonbridge gave you any useful skills to help you
Q: What subjects did you do for A-Levels and did you enjoy them?
I regret that I wasted the opportunities I had at Tonbridge as I was intent on mucking about. There was a café called The Griddle at the top end of Tonbridge - I think it closed about 15 years ago - we used to spend a huge amount of time with the owners Vince and Doris, drinking tea and smoking.
Q: What other activities did you do at Tonbridge?
When Ed Perry (MH 84-89) was invited back to Tonbridge to talk about the story of his business COOK, he said of his time at Tonbridge, “Both the school and I were a little surprised that I had lasted the distance!”
Q: What sports did you do at Tonbridge and what sport were you best at?
Q: Which House were you in at Tonbridge?
RELATIONSHIPS:HAPPINESSPERSEVERANCE,AND COOK CO-FOUNDER’S LIST OF INGREDIENTS FOR SUCCESS
The way we do things is very different from everyone else. It really is home cooking on a huge scale. We have a big
develop and build COOK?
We make food in a way nobody else does because when we started out, we didn’t know what we were doing. In hindsight, ignorance was one of the most valuable things that chef Dale and I had, because it meant we did things our own way. If we’d had any industry knowledge, we would have probably done what food factories do, and we wouldn’t have been able to create the products that we’ve got now.
One thing, more than anything else, it made me self-sufficient. It also taught me how to get on with other people. I’d say the greatest gift I had from Tonbridge is that I’ve still got a good network of friends from school and that’s remarkable because we all left 30 years ago.
Initially I started working for my parents’ business in my early 20s. I didn’t go to university. I just knew I liked being in business. As a teenager, I used to work in my parents’ coffee shops. I liked dealing with customers, I liked the minutiae of business and I particularly liked retailing because I’m very competitive and every day is like a match. You open your shop, you’ve got your targets and you either win, draw or lose. I love the immediacy of it. I’m also pretty headstrong and don’t like being told what to do. If you’re wired like that, then running your own business is probably the best way to go.
Q: At COOK, how do you make your food have the ‘homemade taste’? Do you have a production line?
Q: When did you realise you wanted to start a business and what made you want to do it?
No, that is just a tiny part of the market, although I think artificial meats have definitely got potential. The reason it’s changing is because people recognise the consequencesenvironmentalofeatingmeat. And they recognise health benefits too. People who have been committed
Q: Do customers want premium frozen foods rather than cheaper options?
OLD TONBRIDGIAN NEWS36
Q: How have you changed your product line to fit the growing community of vegans and vegetarians?
The move towards more meat-free and vegan eating has crept up on us over the last three or four years but in the last 12 months, the increase in demand has been extraordinary. When I looked at our January and February sales data, our sales of meat-based products were flat or slightly negative. However, sales of every single veggie or vegan product were about 30 per cent up. For a business of our size, that disparity is mind-blowing and a year ago I would never have predicted it. It’s a huge opportunity for us because we’re good at making that kind of food, but we need to move incredibly quickly.
prep section where we chop all the vegetables and a large cooking section where we use giant saucepans called brat pans. Then we put the various component parts of the dishes together in the finishing section. It is quite unlike other food manufacturers where processes are industrialised.
Q: Do you think veganism and vegetarianism is growing because new artificial meats are now available?
It doesn’t matter whether you are selling £1 lasagnes or £6 lasagnes –you will be successful if you give people the product they want at the price they are willing to pay. Ultimately, a business grows when customers come back, it’s as simple as that. People think running a successful business is easy, but we’re constantly working to fix and improve things.
At the moment my favourite lunch is the Portobello Mushroom Risotto. Yesterday, I had a very good Chicken Tikka Masala for dinner - I needed some comfort food. Our family favourites are Chicken, Ham and Leek Pie followed by Chocolate and Raspberry Roulade for pudding. My favourite curry is the Prawn Karahi, which is quite spicy and very good. And the Red Thai Duck Curry is pretty amazing – a close second!
Q: What is your biggest piece of advice for Tonbridgians?
never really had much direct competition, but in the last year we’ve seen some emerge, such as a very good company called allplants that does vegan frozen meals. We’ve always felt that competition would be helpful because then we’d have somebody to go after. The business we compare ourselves against when we’re trying out our new food is always Marks and Spencer.
Success is all about happiness and relationships. It really doesn’t matter what you achieve in your career, whether you build a massive business, become a leading medic or a successful scientist. Those external achievements will not bring happiness. Happiness and satisfaction in life come from the quality of the relationships you have with friends, family and the people you work with. That’s ultimately what makes people happy each day. The friendships I have from Tonbridge – and from all the stages of my life –are far and away the most important and valuable things to me ●
Q: Which business do you think is your biggest competitor?
Q: Is COOK a limited company, and is that so you can keep control and ownership of the company?
Q: What kind of changes have you made at COOK to make the business more environmentally friendly and help meet the objective of zero carbon emissions in the UK by 2050?
The single biggest thing we have done is to make sure all the electricity we use is renewable. We’ve also recently changed our plastic trays into recyclable material which can, in turn, be recycled. We’ve set targets for 2030 to make sure that we are compliant with the 1.5 degrees set down in Paris. To cut our carbon further, the next big thing is to work on our distribution. The problem is that the technology for big refrigerated electronic vans is just not there yetit’s probably two or three years away.
Q What is your favourite COOK meal?
We do most of it ourselves. From Norfolk down to Bournemouth – a big arc across the South East of England – we manage that distribution ourselves. We use another company for the rest of the country.
One of our problems is that we’ve
Very much so. The people involved are Dale, who is the chef I started with, and my brother James Perry (WW 85-90), who ran the business from 2000 to 2008. He was also at Tonbridge. We’re equal shareholders in the business. I now run COOK with my sister Rosie who is Co-Chief Executive Officer, and we have a small community of owners – no private equity or venture capital – because it’s
very important for us to control our own destiny. I have no doubt that had we had taken private equity money ten years ago, we would be selling in Waitrose and the brand would be all over the place. But that would not have been the right thing for us.
Q: So, is your aim for success to find happiness rather than financial success?
Yes - that’s the holy grail, right? Peace of mind – happiness - living in the present. I used to think, when I started the business, that if we got sales to £1 million, I’d be happy. When we reached that goal, I thought maybe I needed to get to £5 million. When I got to £5 million, I thought maybe £10 million would be the key to happiness. It wasn’t until we reached sales of £30 million that I suddenly realised this wasn’t working. You cannot externalise happiness. Your happiness is only what you have within. I started seeing a life coach about six years ago because my sister insisted. I was highly sceptical but it completely changed my life and I wish I’d done it in my 20s. Happiness really just boils down to living in the present because all you have is the day and the relationships around you. And it’s just about trying to get the most out of each day and being the best possible version of yourself that you can be.
carnivores for years initially think they will compromise their eating experience by going meat-free, but when they start doing it, they realise they do not miss meat at all. I think it’s entirely possible that we will be a completely meat-free business in years to come.
We’ve always managed to grow the business without partnering with any of the big supermarkets because what’s really important to us is being able to do what we want. We’ve got sales of £70 million at the moment, but that’s small in the grocery sector. Supermarkets approach us all the time, but the danger is when you’re relatively small you end up working for them. One way or another they get you in, they’re nice to start with, but then they screw you on price, margins and promotions. We prefer to have our own shops – we have 90, plus 600 concessions where we put our own branded freezers into farm shops and independent retailers – mini shops within shops. That way, we can control our brand and have direct relationships with our customers.
Q: Why have you never considered selling your products via M&S or other supermarkets? Would it be bad for COOK as a business? Or is it more about keeping a separate image?
Q: Does COOK do its own distribution or do you outsource?
37MAY 2020
Professional networking on Tonbridge Connect
For all careers and mentoring enquiries contact: tonbridgesociety@tonbridge-school.org
For OTs who loved sport at Tonbridge, there are clubs on Tonbridge Connect for cricket, fives, football, golf, hockey, rackets, real tennis, rifle shooting, rugby, sailing and squash. Each OT sports club coordinates a busy schedule of social events and matches throughout the year. OTs can get involved by registering online.
To find out more, visit: tonbridgeconnect.org/careerstonbridgeconnect.org/clubs
tonbridgeconnect.org/clubs
their University network.
M
ore than 2,600 OTs have now TonbridgejoinedConnect, the private online platform for the Tonbridge community. With new members signing up every day, Tonbridge Connect helps OTs keep up to date with news and networking opportunities and reconnect with old friends online at a time when social distancing has becomeSeveralnecessary.industryclubs have been set up on Tonbridge Connect and are a useful resource for OTs, helping them to benefit from the expertise of a global community of professionals, for networking and mentoring.
STAY CONNECTED let's
OLD TONBRIDGIAN NEWS38
As OT Relations Manager Rebecca Watson explained: “Over the coming year, we will focus on four sectors: the armed forces, insurance, law, and property, so if your career is in one of these groups, please sign-up online. We will be delighted to hear from everyone – from recent graduates to seniorUniversityleaders.”networks are another useful feature on Tonbridge Connect, helping OTs reconnect and stay in touch with others that went to the same university. The university network groups also offer support for current Tonbridge students thinking of applying or about to start their university studies. OTs wishing to reconnect, or offer advice to current students, are encouraged to sign up to
Our International clubs on Tonbridge Connect provide a support network for OTs living and working overseas, particularly in Hong Kong and the United States where there are thriving OT communities. Online clubs currently cover Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Scotland, Singapore, and the USA. We have active communities in more than 80 countries, so members who are moving abroad can easily be put in touch with OTs in their new destination country.
We are always looking for ways to adapt Tonbridge Connect to make it as useful as possible for members, so if there is a club, society or forum you would like to see online, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
T
39MAY 2020
Include your book in the next edition: tonbridgesociety@tonbridge-school.org
here is something for everyone in the latest books released by OTs over the past year. From history to hymns, poetry to political commentaries, fact and fiction – there is broad range of genre and subjects to choose from.
Those interested in Irish art and culture should take a look at the
reassessment of Thomas MacGreevy, by Francis Hutton-Williams (PH 00-04), who argues that this poet, First World War combatant, Irish nationalist and Director of the National Gallery, reshaped Irish culture at a time of authoritarian rule.
Amongst the fiction titles, Happy Ever After is the first novel from the Margate-based writer and actor, Chris MacDonald (PH 98-03), whose family tale has been described as 2020’s most addictive debut thriller.
THE READINGOT LIST
In May at 10, one of Britain’s leading contemporary historians and political commentators Sir Anthony Seldon (HS 67-72), decodes the enigma of Theresa May as Prime Minister, when Brexit brought about one of the most turbulent periods in modern British politics.
With flood risk increasing worldwide, Edward Barsley’s RIBA publication is timely and pertinent. The book highlights the causes and consequences of flooding and demonstrates ways in which the built and natural environment can be made more flood resilient. With more than 300 original artworks and an exquisite layout, this book brings the subject matter to life, making it a highly visual, rigorous and engaging manual for architects and professionals across the built environment.
Thomas MacGreevy and the Rise of the Irish Avant-Garde Francis Hutton-Williams (PH 00-04)
Timothy Dudley-Smith (PS 40-44)
Tony has written haiku, and the more ancient tanka, since teaching in Japan in 1979, having first become interested in Japan at Tonbridge. Tanka originally meant ‘short Japanese songs’ and writing them is how Tony sings to the world. This book of tanka is a celebration of being alive and the result of a walking meditation by the River Mole in Surrey. Tony is a part of the international haiku community. Copies from: aamarcoff@yahoo.co.uk
When Ireland became a new independent state and society during the 1920s, free from British rule, bitter conflicts followed over its cultural future. Thomas MacGreevy and the Rise of the Irish Avant-Garde focuses on the individuals and groups that collaborated during this period to produce, exhibit, consume and debate some of Ireland’s most radical works to date. In so doing, this book shows how dissident writers and artists moved the nation forward into a new age of politics, thought and feeling.
Light on the Way is a collection of hymns based on Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation. Characteristically elegant, and rich in theology, they were written over five decades. A House of Praise, Part 3 expands on the collection of hymns written since the publication of A House of Praise (2003), and A House of Praise: Part 2 (2015). The three volumes together contain the complete texts to date of one of the most widely published and revered contemporary English hymn writers.
I’ve got a metal knee: A 70-year-old’s gap year John Kirkaldy (FH 61-65)
Happy Ever After C C MacDonald (PH 98-03)
Edward Barsley (WH 99-04)
For most of his life, John believed that he had endured at 18 the world’s worst gap year: working as an accountant in the City of London. Aged 70, he had that rare thing in life, a second chance and despite a knee that set off security systems in airports around the world, he travelled the world, working in France and volunteering in northwest India. Read about the fascinating experiences he had along the way.
Naomi seems to have everything: a beautiful daughter, an Insta-perfect life. But behind the scenes, she and her husband are drifting apart. Looking for a connection and a friend, Naomi turns to Sean, another parent at her daughter’s nursery, and ends up making a terrible mistake. Weeks later, when Naomi tries to contact Sean, he’s disappeared – and it soon becomes clear that someone knows her secret. An intelligent and searing tale about the lengths people will go to for the ones they love.
Light on the Way and A House of Praise, Part 3: Collected Hymns 2013-2018
Tanka: Song of Light and Water –a collection of Japanese poetry A A Marcoff (SH 70-73)
OLD TONBRIDGIAN NEWS40
Retrofitting for Flood Resilience: A Guide to Building & Community Design
Annie’s Gift and Grown Up Stuff for Dummies: Some thoughts for being an adult in C21
May at 10 Sir Anthony Seldon (HS 67-72)
THE READING LIST
This London club was a founder member of the ASA - now Swim England. It provided GB representatives at every Olympics from 1908-1968. It has grown into a vibrant entity providing men’s and ladies teams that dominate UK Masters swimming and compete in the UK’s highest Water-Polo leagues. Tonbridge School links date from 1911 with many OT’s joining. The father-in-law of the late Colin Cowdrey and Chindit Brigadier Mike Calvert were members as was the UK’s recent Ambassador to China.
David Norton (FH 54 - 58)
Grown Up Stuff for Dummies is just that. Exams and interviews, cars and kissing, flying, lying and lawyers, dentists and divorce, sports and games on fields - all the things that come without multilingual instruction manuals or tenpage guarantees.
A History of Otter Swimming Club 1869-2019 James Stewart (FH 56-61)
Jonathan Parkinson (PS 53-57)
41MAY 2020
The Royal Navy, China Station: 1864 - 1941
Until Coronavirus, Theresa May presided over the most dramatic peacetime premiership for a century. This is the compelling inside story of the most turbulent period in modern British politics for 100 years. Written by one of Britain’s leading political and social commentators, May at 10 describes how Theresa May arrived in 10 Downing Street in 2016 with the clearest, yet toughest, agenda of any Prime Minister since the Second World War: delivering Brexit. What follows defies belief or historical precedent.
Cape Town is stunning, but for those living in Manenberg - a township on the Cape Flats - life is as marginal today as it was during apartheid, with the added problems of rampant drug use and widespread gang presence. This is the gripping account of Pete Portal’s move from London to Manenberg, of addicts and gangsters meeting Jesus and being transformed, and how Pete went from living with a heroin addict to establishing a church community.
No Neutral Ground: Finding Jesus In A Cape Town Ghetto Pete Portal (Sc 98-03)
A definitive history of the Royal Navy’s China Station. In the Navy List for April 1864, the China Station was shown as a separate Royal Navy Station and it remained as such until the outbreak of the Pacific War in December 1941. In addition to a precis of the lives and naval careers of each of the Commanders in Chief of the China Station, this volume also outlines the concurrent internal affairs of China and Japan.
Annie’s Gift is the life of a terrier born with a gift. The story gives a dog’s eye view of the wayward human and canine condition in today’s weird and occasionally wonderful world. It is told unsentimentally by Annie and touches the kind and the cruel.
Martin Hammond Bywiththe Fireside
I came into teaching by accident, which was not uncommon in those days. Few of us who came down from Oxford in the mid-1960s had given much thought to what we were going to do. So I rang my old Winchester Housemaster, Tom Howarth, who was then the High Master of St. Paul’s, and asked if he had any ideas for a year of light employment which would give me time for some heavy reading (I felt under-educated in English literature). He said, ‘Yes, you start on Monday’. So I spent a year at St. Paul’s teaching French, which I had given up after taking O-Level at age thirteen, and Latin and a bit of Greek. One thing led to another.
You then spent five further years at St. Paul’s as head of Greek before living in Greece for eighteen months, reading for the Bar and teaching English. Here you met Jane on the island of Spetses, decided that you needed ‘rather more solid prospects’, returned to teaching at Harrow for nine months and then became Head of Classics at Eton in 1974, the first to be appointed from outside in a department of 23 classicists.
In 1984 you moved on to your first headship at City of London School, and then to Tonbridge in 1990. What attracted you to Tonbridge and what do you remember of the selection process?
I did not know Tonbridge first-hand but I liked the sound of it. The interview was wonderfully unstructured, quite different from the do-it-by-the-book interviews which are now the norm. The one question from the selection committee which sticks in my mind was the toe-curling one, ‘How do you see the role of the Headmaster’s wife?’. I said, ‘To keep him sane as far as possible, and at times of stress to tell him, ‘‘Don’t worry, it’s only a school’’.’ Jane was very good at that.
A lot to be done, which was a welcome challenge. That is in a way what you want on taking up a headship, not just keeping the ship on an even keel. The prime need it seemed to me was work on the actual fabric of the school. I remember in my first year that Rowland Constantine (head of New Beacon) came to talk about his boys and said to me –
I did that for six years at Eton and was then appointed Master in College (housemaster of the 70 scholars), which was in many ways the best job I’d had. No house tutors, no assistant housemaster, but a very, very good resident Matron-in-College so that kept me very busy for four years. There were of course some very interesting and testing boys, but it was very fulfilling. Boris Johnson was one of them.
Were you able to put your stamp on the chapel issue?
By this stage McCormick’s plan for a new chapel on the Upper Hundred had been turned down, so the question was what to do about the chapel shell. One plan was to turn it into a theatre, which I don’t think would have worked at all. The other was to restore it, with greater seating capacity, and a decision was needed as soon as possible. For that first year Tonbridge was in effect a single-issue
MARTIN HAMMOND INTERVIEWED BY DAVID WALSH
How would you summarise what you found at Tonbridge when you first arrived?
How did you get into teaching?
Tonbridge is existing on the back of its Common Room and don’t talk to me about facilities because there aren’t any. And of course the sorting out of the chapel issue was a gift to a new head.
Martin Hammond was Headmaster of Tonbridge from 1990 to 2005 and now lives in Suffolk where, in retirement, he has continued translating ancient Greek authors, mainly for the Oxford World’s Classics series. Last November David Walsh (CR 1972-2009) travelled to interview Martin for the Tonbridge archives. In this abridged version of that interview, Martin reflects on what brought him to Tonbridge and his time there as Headmaster.
You tried to introduce central feeding. What happened to that?
deal, though some Prep School heads were alarmed at the rising Common Entrance pass-mark. It was broadly the same population of boys, just doing better, because it was expected of them.
Not managing to elevate further the boarding accommodation. The worst horrors were got rid of but there was more to do there. No other regrets because I hugely enjoyed my time at Tonbridge. What I carry away from Tonbridge is a really considerable amount of pride in the school.
I would guess that you would see as one of your main achievements the redressing of the balance between the cultural and sporting sides of the school?
I was glad that the Governors accepted the argument that there had been substantial under-investment for a long time, that they should be prepared to borrow money, that the cheapest way of borrowing was to borrow from the Judd Foundation and
Yes, I think that would be number one equal. I bored everyone by going on about the three legs of the tripod but I believed that if you can get those three legs (academic, cultural, sporting) to be of equal length and strength, then you get a pretty well-balanced school. The sporting side was strong but on the cultural side, there was probably again that element of ‘Well, we’ve managed OK so far’, but it wasn’t good enough, despite some excellent plays. I was delighted with the way music took off. I thought the standard of music, once Hilary (Davan Wetton – Director of Music) had done his work, was outstanding, as was increasingly recognised by the Prep and Choir Schools. I think the school at large was very proud of that.
Very nearly all. One early thing I did, and this feeds into improving the pastoral care of boys and relations between people, was after I found in my first weeks that it was virtually impossible to find out a boy’s Christian name without direct enquiry, and I thought ‘This is 1950s stuff’. I changed that so the Lists and Calendar included Christian names.
the Chapel Done’. I sent a discussion paper to every member of the Common Room, saying these are the options and these are the consequences, what do you want? And overwhelmingly the Common Room came back with support for restoration, which was good. The Governors agreed, not before some heated argument about the pattern of seating (collegiate or ‘Odeon’) and the nationality of the proposed organ-builder.
And regrets?
I found Tonbridge rather oddly resistant to the idea that the school could do academically very much better. It was important to get staff buying into what I called expectation theory. There would be no problem in boys buying into that if they saw that their teachers believed in them. I was really pleased that Oxbridge numbers went up and up, and it wasn’t as if the intake of boys had changed a great
In general terms how much of what you wanted to do at Tonbridge did you achieve?
With the invaluable help and advice of a Development Working Party, a 5-year Development Plan was drawn up, presented to the Common Room, and agreed by the Governors. The main proposals were a Social Centre (the Orchard Centre), an Arts and Technology Centre, a theatre and the refurbishment of several Houses. There followed, as opportunity presented itself, the addition of Cowdrey and Oakeshott Houses. The 5-year plan of course soon turned into a 10-year plan: I was pleased, and relieved, that the building of a much-needed Sports Centre was agreed at the end of my time.
So pride in what you built, in what you did on the academic side, on the cultural side and in what you did for the boys?
Yes, I think so. That sounds a bit grandiloquent, but it is what I feel ●
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Moving on to the wider fabric of the school, what were the main problems and solutions?
I was in favour of it very early on, because there were staffing problems and was impressed by the new centraldining facility at Harrow but I think I pursued it for too long. I should have accepted earlier that this wasn’t going to work and would have been hideously expensive to build: and there was no obvious site. But improving the quality of the school food was important in those days. I remember my first lunch in the old School House and the main course was two halves of a hard-boiled egg with a bit of mayonnaise, and I thought ‘No’!
Moving on to the academic side, what did you see as your main priorities and achievements?
Certainly right up there, yes. It is a wonderful building, with a world-class organ. And the dedication service (in 1995) was truly memorable. It was a beautiful day in October, the service lasted for an hour and three quarters, there were seven bishops there and the only thing which went wrong was that James Bell could not get his incense to light. The boys were wonderfully attentive and engaged for all that time. I think they realised it was something special.
that if we wanted to get things moving, it had to be done. The building of the new School House was under way and it was clear that prospective parents would compare unfavourably the fabric of the other houses. I remember being horrified by my first look round Judde and Park House, you know with those ‘horse-boxes’ and strip lights, thinking ‘You can’t have this in the 1990s’.
Would you put sorting out the chapel issue top of your achievements at Tonbridge?
GRA: It was a conversation with the Bursar and a couple of others including David Walsh who was then the master in charge of cricket. At that time my CV basically consisted of sport, sport and sport - either working on sports grounds or playing. The interview quickly moved on to whether I could do any coaching! Completely out of the blue David asked, ‘What sports have you played? Would you be able to coach?’ I was taken aback a little bit thinking ‘What the **** is this?’
BY JONO ARSCOTT
JPA: What was the interview process like for the job at Tonbridge all those years ago?
a tribute to ALEXANDERGEORGE
Jono Arscott (JPA): So, George, remind us all when and how you arrived at Tonbridge?
A
45MAY 2020
George reflects on coaching, sports and the grounds over almost three decades at Tonbridge
fter 28 years, George Alexander retires at the end of this Summer Term. As Director of Grounds, he has kept the pitches and grounds the envy of every school we play, not least ‘The Head’, the centrepiece of the school. Yet, George, or ‘the Beard’ as he was universally known, has contributed so much more than that, as many who have been coached by him, will testify.
Here, George looks back on his life at Tonbridge, with Jono Arscott (PH 83-88 and CR 05-18) with whom he coached a 1st XI hockey team which together they took all the way to the semi-finals of the National Schools Cup in 2008.
George Alexander (GRA): Well, I was running Barclays Bank ground and I was really enjoying the standard of cricket there. Surrey 2nd XI were playing there with the likes of Alec Stewart, Mark Butcher and Graham Thorpe in the side. MCC Young Pros made it their base too. I had no intention of leaving, but I got wind of the fact the Bank was selling the ground. In 1992 I moved to Tonbridge with my wife and our 3 young children. My wife, Magdalen, and I have been married for 38 years and we now have 4 children and 3 grandchildren!
JPA: And I know your girls had a lot of success too. What was Tonbridge School like, I mean, how was it different when you arrived?
GRA: That and The Fifty.
GRA: After a couple of years I worked with Paul Taylor on The Head, coaching the 2nd team for about five years. I think during those years we only lost one game and that was away to Wellington - there were some really memorable matches in that period.
GRA: When I came here, I had given up my football and rugby days and recently taken to hockey with Barclays Bank and I joined Tonbridge Hockey Club - not long after they amalgamated with Tunbridge Wells. I played in the Vets side with quite a few OTs like Adrian Schweitzer. Adrian had silky skills and a very different approach to the game than me! He was also a top school coach with a very difficult job, being short staffed every year. My daughters still play at TWHC and my son played at Tunbridge Wells RFC, where after a few years someone dropped out, so another parent and I coached his side from the ages of eight to eighteen which was great fun.
JPA: And you did also get to know a lot of pupils - you obviously enjoyed the coaching side of things, too?
JPA: I’m going to have to delete the colourful language, George.
JPA: So that would rank as the achievement of which you were most proud?
JPA: So, George, what were the biggest challenges you faced when you arrived?
GRA: Yes, back then we probably had a round of House sport every week - or certainly every other week. House sports happen very quickly these days - usually a one-day competition. It certainly used to build up over the term in all the sports. Every final was massively supported, as it is now to be fair. But a bigger build up, definitely.
A look at the Head and the Fifty: George Alexander looking over the Head and Fifty cricket pitches in 2007.
GRA: I think there was an even bigger emphasis on the sport when I first arrived in 1992. Back then we used to come out Monday afternoons, as well as Tuesday, Thursday and Friday! There were a lot more demands on the grounds. It was incredible the amount of sport the boys were offered. Throughout my time the boys have always loved their sport, but back then it really meant something, especially with Park House dominating the house sports programme and some of the selection processes that Gibbo (John Gibbs) used to run.
GRA: The Head always looked very manicured, as it always has I guess, but the rest of the grounds lagged behind massively, whether it be in the winter sports, but most particularly in the cricket season. I think that is one of the things the grounds team and I have improved most. We have raised the standard of pitches across the board. Particularly in cricket, we built two
JPA: Yes. Somehow there was time, every term, for a lot of rounds of House sports.
GRA: Oh, definitely yes. For me it was almost a second career. In my first term I started coaching the hockey 3rd XI which was captained by Richard Hughes (JH 89-94), the famous ‘Keane’ band player! Then I shared the Under 16Cs in my first summer with David Saunders from Judde House. It’s just been a fantastic experience. I enjoyed working with the boys and helping them give their best. It helped that generally they won most of their games!
JPA: That story makes me chuckle. It doesn’t surprise me, Walshy looking for an angle! That leads me on nicely - you also got involved in the local sports around Kent with your children?
squares, Astons North and South. In my experience of coaching the boys and going to away games there aren’t many better squares that lower teams play on than we offer here.
GRA: I’m sure you will, mate!
OLD TONBRIDGIAN NEWS46
JPA: Apart from those early memories, what other memories are the sharpest?
Tom May (PH 92-97) getting three runs off the last ball on Martins against Eton to end their unbeaten season was one! I think it was the year we’d actually lost the one game. Those five years stick in
GRA: Yes, they were a highly successful side. I think they won nine out of ten County Championships for their age group. The only time we lost was when half the team was away on tour with Skinners and Judd!
JPA: They were pretty successful weren’t they George?
JPA: Probably not. Though I expect Ali Taylor’s father will have been sent outside the fence for aggressive coaching again. It didn’t make any difference as he just helped coach from
there! But moving on, how has your job changed over the years?
GRA: Paul Taylor was a big influence and our very first Director of Sport. Albie
(Adrian Schweitzer), I have mentioned. Obviously working with someone like you Jono - I’m never ever going to forget that, am I? Bloody hell - we had some great times!
JPA: Thanks very much George. We did. GRA: Went on some tremendous tours!
GRA: Actually, in 28 years, my team has only increased by one extra member, despite all the extra pitches we’ve had to produce, particularly for football. Going back 28 years we only had one football pitch. Peter Carpenter and his boys had to kick around in the mud! We’ve obviously got a lot more mechanised over the years, but numbers have only increased by one.
I’ve never really professed to be a coach. I’ve just given the boys a bit of nous and a bit of organisation.
GRA: Indeed, I wonder if Hugh Robinson has picked up a second yellow card since then?
GRA: Obviously, these days there is a much more commercial aspect to the school - certainly different from my early days where all we wanted to do was produce the best for the boys, which is what we still want to do, obviously. But now there is a commercial angle lurking in the background which is just something else you have to handle. I have always been there for the boys, basically.
In the hockey season it was the great team that we took all the way to the semi-finals of the National Cup. A challenging group of players - some strong characters in that side. But with your love, Jono, and my bit of steel, we moulded them into quite a nice side.
GRA: The best coach I worked with was Kevin Johnson in hockey. He really opened my eyes. I’ve never really professed to be a coach. I’ve just given the boys a bit of nous and a bit of organisation. The boys have always been very talented whatever team you take. Yes, I’ve just offered a bit of nous, a bit of organisation and a few of the dark arts, Jono!
JPA: Yes - Flint, Tozzi, Taylor, Wallace, Ransom and the rest – they were a great bunch. Perhaps the most memorable day of all was beating Langley Park in the Kent County Final – a team that was so sure they had a brilliant side. But we did too!
JPA: Yes, I remember a few of your hockey ‘tips’. I would certainly classify them as ‘dark arts’, George!
47MAY 2020
Above: Malta Hockey tour 2005
JPA: Wow, that is amazing. Which teachers in that 28 years stick in your mind particularly?
JPA: There were some ups and downs. I remember you getting hit in the face accidentally by a wild strike from a young Felix Saro-Wiwa! What about the coaches?
my mind. Most of the boys were fantastic players – they would have been in the 1st XI in other schools. We actually went out and got fixtures against 1st XI teams from other schools - Colfe’s, Judd and Cranbrook come to mind. The boys played at a high standard and they loved it as much as I did.
Left: George Alexander & James Nicholls at Gleneagles Ryder Cup, 2014, holding trophy.
JPA: Yes. They have absolutely loved your pitches. Your team must have grown in the last 28 years?
days and an unbelievable sporting event. James was great company.
George Alexander in front of the Tonbridge School ‘Head’
GRA: It’s a long way, so not very often, but I do have two daughters and a granddaughter here. Some Cricketer Cup stuff maybe? That would be enjoyable; it’s always been good to see those boys back at Tonbridge.
JPA: I was thinking of the OT Hockey when you said right at the start that you joined ‘Tonbridge’ Hockey Club, but that merged with Tunbridge Wells Hockey Club. Now the boys have started a regular OT Hockey Club, but it is an ‘open’ club, so it is a ‘Tonbridge Hockey Club’ and that has come full circle. It’s a testament to your coaching and lots of people’s coaching that they wanted to start that club.
JPA: I hope we can expect to see you back here in Tonbridge occasionally?
JPA: So, is golf what are you going to get up to when you retire to Cornwall?
GRA: Yes - I think so. It’s also been fun meeting a few of the boys in the OT Hockey Club that have come back over the last two or three years and I’ve been able to do a bit of umpiring for them. It’s been great having a beer with them after the game. All of them seem to have some sort of gripe they want to take up with me
JPA: Well, I think you’ve summed up what staff and boys know you for, George, which is having incredibly high standards. And perhaps someone who did not suffer fools gladly! Is that how you would like to be remembered?
GRA: Thank you. It was a pleasure ●
The 2008-09 Hockey First XI that Jono Arscott and George Alexander took to the National Schools Semi Finals.
OLD TONBRIDGIAN NEWS48
GRA: I hope to get back on the golf course and two of my three grandkids are down there so I will spend some time with them. And I’ll be picking up as much lobster and crab as I can!
about their time at Tonbridge! All in good spirit!
GRA: Absolutely.
JPA: Yes, Well I do hope you come back. It’s been really amazing talking to you George. Thank you so much on behalf of all of us for all you have done for Tonbridge.
GRA: Can I mention one more thing? One of the greatest sporting events in my time at the school was when James Nicholls took me up to Gleneagles for the 2014 Ryder Cup. I shall be ever grateful for that as it was undoubtedly the greatest sporting occasion I have ever been to. We were there for five days with a team of eight boys. It was a group I had not really come across, but they were a super group and we had a memorable five days up there. A lad called Seamus Connelly (SH 10-15) was a complete wag. Crikey, he made the tour for me! It was an unbelievable five
As Archivist, Beverley Matthews explains: “The archive is still in its infancy but I invite you to go online and see what memories you can evoke from your school days.
D
“If you have memorabilia that you are willing to share with me, please get in touch. We would love to receive it so that others can enjoy it too. I am happy to return any items you wish to keep once I have scanned them.”
from student plays and form registers are recent additions. However, some of the most popular searches are from The Tonbridgian date from the first edition in 1858 until the present time.
For all enquiries, contact: beverley.matthews@tonbridge-school.org
THEN NOW
TONBRIDGIAN CARTOONS AND OTHER SCHOOL NOSTALGIA BY BEV MATTHEWS, ARCHIVIST
Two of our favourite cartoons have been re-printed here.
id you know that since Tonbridge Connect launched its digital archives last year, many records, house and sports photographs are now available to view online?Programmes
OLD TONBRIDGIAN NEWS50
With a click of the button, OTs can browse through the school magazine from their time at Tonbridge, to check out articles they penned, sports reports they are named in or even cartoons they created to entertain their classmates of that time.
Browse our online archives at: www.tonbridgeschoolheritage.co.uk
OLD TONBRIDGIAN NEWS52
Old Tonbridgians have enjoyed a fulfilling year of sporting activity with the main events and achievements highlighted below.
A YEAR IN OT SPORT
OT Fives continues in rude health with a regular group of 6-10 players. We managed to play only two matches this season, a narrow loss against the RFA and a thrilling draw against the Jesters. The pandemic put paid to others, including the annual fixture against the school, although a couple of OTs (David Lewis, Rupert Mathieu) did battle with two of the 1st IV: a singles win apiece, the OTs lost the decider in the doubles. Notable other highlights included a very strong showing of OTs in the Cambridge Past vs Present fixture, with no less than four on court (Jackson, Wilkinson and Mathieu for the Past, and Ed Hyde for the Present), while Rupert Mathieu (paired with the very talented James Tilston) won the South East Open Doubles.
Pride of place must go to Cricket with victory in the Cricketer Cup, defeating Oundle Rovers in the final at Arundel, the sixteenth time Tonbridge has triumphed. A friendly draw gave us home games through to the final, the first two rounds bringing easy wins against Haileybury and Ampleforth, with Fabian Cowdrey making first a century and then a double century. In the Ampleforth match the captain, Olly Durell, also scored a century in a massive total of 430-1. Bradfield were beaten by 43 runs, and then Charterhouse were bowled out for only 73 in the semi-final. In the final the Tonbridge bowlers put Oundle under pressure from the start and they could only make 123, a target easily met for a six-wicket win in front of a big crowd. Two other matches were played, the two-day fixture with Charterhouse, which Tonbridge won, and then the Sevenoaks Vine six-a-side tournament where we lost in the final. A further highlight was Zak Crawley’s Test debut in New Zealand.
The Football 1st XI OT looked to recreate the dizzy heights of 2016 (League and Cup double) and
2019 was another full year for the OT Golf Club. As well as entering the Halford Hewitt, Grafton Morrish and Bernard Darwin trophies, we ran four seasonal meetings, played ten friendly matches, and competed in four other golf days. In all more than 125 members participated, which means that the OTGS is one of the strongest public-school old boy golfing societies. We have a strong core of senior members and it is encouraging to see a growing group of younger golfers coming along to play, who benefit from lower subscriptions and subsidised green fees at all our events and matches, with a golf day especially for the U35 members. Clearly the current pandemic has meant that all our fixtures and meetings so far in 2020 have had to be cancelled.
the 2nd XI eyed promotion from Division 3. In a tough and competitive league, the 1st XI struggled to find a consistent vein of form. Some emphatic victories were followed by disappointing performances and a title challenge never materialised. We did, however, continue our love affair with the Arthur Dunn Cup where the semi-final against Old Bradfieldians has been postponed to September. The 2nd XI under the leadership of Owen Clarke saw promotion hopes fade in the New Year, but the team reached the Cup quarter final. The highlight of the season has clearly been the introduction of a specific OTFC pitch at the school – for this, the whole Club is extremely grateful and excited.
53MAY 2020
The OT Hockey Club enjoyed another successful season in London Division 1. Despite starting with a narrow loss to London Wayfarers, the OTs bounced back the following week with an emphatic 6-1 victory over Hampstead and Westminster and continued this form over the coming weeks to record their best start to a season. We lost a close game against HAC but then started the new year with five wins on the trot and were third in the
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league before the season was halted by Covid-19. This was particularly disappointing for Tom and Jack Llewellyn-Lloyd who were both three games short of their fiftieth cap for the club. We are hopeful that the 20/21 season will begin as planned at the end of September and encourage any OTs who are keen hockey players and interested in joining the club, to get in touch with Stuart Flint via Tonbridge Connect or at
The annual OT Rackets Tournament was held in November at the school, with a good turnout. Ed Hyde and Olly Howick defeated current pupils Ben Robinson and Tommy Owen-Browne to take the doubles title. Many thanks to Dave Makey for organising another great tournament and dinner. Tonbridge entered eight pairs into the Noel Bruce in September. Tommy Shields and Nick Hutton played well to progress to the quarterfinals. Ed Hyde and former Tonbridge assistant professional, Ben Cawston, won the National U24 Doubles Championships at the Queen’s Club in December. The annual Varsity Rackets Match saw three OTs on court. Ed Hyde and Alex Moen represented Cambridge, whilst Ed Springett played in the Oxford team for the first time, Cambridge winning the match. The OT Rugby Club finished their 2019 season in third place, narrowly missing out on a chance of promotion. In 2020 the team struggled, finishing in tenth place when the virus brought an early end to the season. We did retain our place in London 2 South West (Level 7). Whilst the results on the pitch were not always brilliant, it was great to see three players reach their 100th caps (Freddie Johnson, Jamie Rushmer and Olly Durell). This commitment has been a key factor in the club’s success over the last eleven years. A further highlight for OT rugby was Ben Earl’s first England cap.
othockeyclub@gmail.com.
The Old Tonbridgian Rifle Club took on the school at Bisley in June. We shot in the afternoon, at 300 yards and again at 600 yards, the OT team being Will Kemp, Ben Meredith, Henry Dodds, Ian Mitchell and Blaise Fenn, and we managed to beat the school’s top five firers by a comfortable margin. During the second week of the main annual event at Bisley, known as the Imperial Meeting, there is a small competition for the veterans of public schools. Five OTs made up the team this year - Henry Dodds, Theo Dodds, Ian Mitchell, Sean Williams and Simon Mavroleon, scoring 228 out of 250.
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The Sailing Club entered two competitions. The Generations Cup is sailed in Firefly dinghies between the School First VI and OTs, for a tankard kindly donated by Richard Langridge. This year the cup was retained for the OTs by Ed Coates, David Jackson, Seb Baucutt, Dominic Lewis, Tom Nicholls, Henry Carr and Rory Fulton. The event was overshadowed by the tragic death of Nick Turner (CH 09-14) earlier in the year. Nick is fondly remembered as a great supporter of the club during his time at school, and as a Generations Cup regular. Ed Coates, who sailed with Nick throughout their time at school, gave a short but moving reflection on their friendship and announced that, with Nick’s parents’ blessing, the trophy will henceforth be known as the Nick Turner Generations Cup. An OT crew was also entered into the 2019 Arrow Trophy on the Solent in October. Over a total of three races on the Saturday, which is all the abysmal weather would allow, we achieved our highest ever finish, fourth in the fleet racing category and eighth overall, under the determined leadership of our skipper Alistair Impey. The club would love to welcome newcomers of any ability to join, by contacting Alistair on otsailing.sec@gmail.com
Regular gifts and legacies to Tonbridge
Regular giving will help Tonbridge to deliver its plans with confidence. Supporters are invited to contribute a regular amount to the Foundation Award programme, helping the school reach its goal of widening its accessibility and diversity, and transforming the lives of more boys.
RECOGNISING YOUR SUPPORT
Becoming a member of the 1553 Society
In recognition of your support, you will receive a 1553 Society pin on joining and are invited to the Headmaster‘s Summer Drinks reception. You will also be acknowledged in future Impact Reports.
Peter Rawlins MemberParent of the 1553 Society
Tonbridge is seeking members to join our regular giving club, the 1553 Society.
To fund one annual 100% Foundation Award with Gift Aid:
giving PEOPLE
per month for 5 years (including gift aid)
This inclusive approach to fundraising allows our entire community to play a personal part in helping Tonbridge genuinely deliver its objective of Excellence for All.
As a parent, I know how much my own boys have benefited from their Tonbridge experiences and I am
delighted to play my small part in giving something back so as to help others enjoy those benefits too. The creation of the 1553 Society, of which I am a member, is an imaginative way to grow the value of the collective efforts of the Tonbridge community in support of the school without relying on large individual donations. The emphasis is on maximising the number of regular donors, irrespective of their individual contributions, relying on the laws of large numbers to deliver a significant recurring value of support.
£15.53 35
Why I support Tonbridge School
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With the period of investment in new facilities largely completed, the Headmaster has signalled that the school’s development priorities will now be focused on accessibility. Tonbridge has long been a generous provider of awards and bursaries to enable talented but less financially fortunate boys to benefit from all that the school has to offer. But demand for assisted places will always exceed what the school alone can supply and so I welcome the Headmaster’s invitation to the entire Tonbridge community – parents, OTs and friends – to join with the school in funding a meaningful increase in the availability of access support.
Why I support Tonbridge School
The Judde Society, which takes our founder’s name, was established as a way of saying thank you to those who have decided to, or intend to leave Tonbridge a legacy.
In leaving a legacy, I am supporting places at a school which sees education as going far beyond the classroom. It will help families in the future that wouldn’t normally be able to afford to attend the school. As you know, the school owes its tremendous history to a bequest by Sir Andrew Judde in 1553. Ever since, legacy gifts from OTs and friends of the school have formed an essential part of helping pupils through Tonbridge and continuing his inspiring vision.
Legacies are one of the most effective ways to make an enduring contribution to Tonbridge, but are also
My association with the school spans almost 40 years: as a boy, part of the teaching staff for 13 years and of course as an OT. This link with the school, its current and former staff, parents and pupils, with the Old Boys and with the friends of the school represents a major influence on my life and has provided many crossgenerational friendships that I love and am wholly grateful for. Tonbridge means a lot to me. I know just how much of a difference it made to me and is still making to the boys and, more broadly, to the families that are coming through it now. I would certainly encourage everyone to come back and visit if they are not already doing so, and to stay, in the words of EM Forster, ‘connected’ or reconnect with Tonbridge.
Since its foundation in 1553, legacies have played a pivotal role in securing a future for Tonbridge School. The school’s founder, Sir Andrew Judde, is also its first legator.
a simple and straightforward way of giving, without affecting the immediate financial needs of yourself and your family. All gifts left to charities in a Will are also exempt from tax and could reduce your inheritance tax rate by 10 per cent.
By remembering Tonbridge in my Will, I feel as though I am playing a very small part in ensuring, in the words of the school song: ‘This is the school of tomorrow’!
Becoming a member of the Judde Society
Jono Arscott PH Member83-88of the Judde Society
57MAY 2020
We are always pleased to welcome new members. You will receive a Judde Society pin and tie on joining, and are invited to special school events throughout the year, such as the annual Headmaster’s Summer Drinks, the Annual Carol Service and Drinks Reception, and will also have the opportunity to lunch in your old school house.
He left property in London as an endowment for the school, helping ensure the school’s financial viability beyond his death in 1558.
Died on 7 August 2019, aged 98. Dearly loved by his long-time companion Dorothy. Brother, Uncle, and (SHGodfather.34-39)
One of my favourite photographs is of him striding onto the pitch at Lord’s for his first innings against Clifton in July 1941. The image is of a confident
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OBITUARIES
The following obituary was written by his son, Tod Masters:
BIRRELL, Norman Alistair (Alistair)
He was one of the kindest men I have ever known, and he was anything but unremarkable. He was and always will be my hero. I am heartbroken to see him go and I will think about him always. (Sc 36-41)
He was a modest man and at times he said he thought he had led an unremarkable life, but nothing could be further from the truth. By the age of 35, he had done and seen more than many will in a lifetime, having played cricket at Lord’s, joined the Royal Navy, shelled Utah Beach on D-Day, sailed to the Pacific in the final months of WWII, journeyed to the Antarctic, graduated from Cambridge and migrated to Canada to start a new life.
Died on 27 February 2020, aged 97. Brother to D A L (Alistair) Birrell (HS 38-41). (HS 36-39)
He was a man with so many qualities that I admire: honesty, integrity, generosity, compassion, empathy, wit, intelligence, dignity and many more. A multitude of influences shape a man’s character, but I believe his time at Tonbridge reinforced these traits in my father. He always spoke fondly of his time at the school and remarked to us about it often.
RAHILLY, John Richard (Dick), Lt Col
18-year-old at his physical peak after spending the summer months working on a farm in Devon - a young man ready to take on the world. He and his Tonbridge classmates would go off to war the following year, a war from which many would not return.After the war, in May 1950, he joined the crew of the British research ship RRS Discovery II and sailed to the Southern Oceans and Antarctica for 20 months. Back in the UK, he was accepted at Trinity College, Cambridge and earned his M.A. in the Classics: Ancient Greek and Roman literature. He was still reading and translating ancient Greek in the months before he passed.
It is with much sadness that I must inform you of the passing of my father, Peter. It was a sunny day, his room was full of flowers and photos and music and my brother, his wife and I were with him as he moved on, free from any pain or discomfort.
MASTERS, Peter Arthur
Died on 16 September 2019, in Nanaimo, B.C, Canada, six days short of his 97th birthday.
It was in Montréal that he met my mother, who was working as cabin crew on Trans-Canada Airlines, the predecessor of Air Canada. They married in August 1959, my brother was born a year later, and I followed two years after that. Over the years, my parents must have come to a thousand ice hockey games (many outside in the frigid Montréal winters) and countless swim meets and rugby matches.
While I can only ever hope to be half the man my father was, I see in myself and my brother many of the qualities that defined him. We both inherited his sense of humour and many happy memories are of us enjoying a joke or slightly off-colour comment, usually about politics or politicians. We both share his love of art and classical music and I have been an aficionado of Shakespeare since my secondary school years.
My brother and I left Montréal to study in other parts of Canada and as he approached retirement, he and my mother decided to leave the cold winters of Québec and relocate to Vancouver Island. Their home in Nanoose Bay backed onto a golf course and he enjoyed many rounds on the Fairwinds links well into his late 70s. Only my mother’s declining health forced them to leave the home they loved in 2015 and move into Nanaimo. After 58 years together, Hazel passed in January 2017 at the age of 87.
In 1951 Dicky married his second cousin, a young Belgian, Nicole Wynen, and began a union which was to last for sixty-seven years. The birth of their
Dicky had an adventurous war career. After qualifying as a fighter pilot in the USA he returned to the UK, where he was trained to fly both Dakotas and Hadrian gliders. Initially he was posted to the Far East where he flew missions landing Dakotas on rough landing strips in support of the 14th Army alongside the Chindits, the special operations unit fighting the Japanese in Burma. Whilst flying a glider with 671 Squadron in India he was involved in a particularly dangerous incident when the towing aircraft for his heavily loaded glider became enveloped in cumulus cloud causing major turbulence. The heavy crates broke loose and crashed through the side of the glider, so Dicky had to cut free from the towing aircraft and with great skill landed his badly damaged craft into no man’s land from where he was later rescued.
first son, Robert, in 1952 was followed by the arrival of Patrick, Colette and Annick.
He is survived by his sons and daughters and by his brother Brigadier Chris Dick. (WH 37-42)
LORD IRONSIDE, Edmund Oslac, (The 2nd Baron)
The following obituary was published in The Telegraph on 23 January 2020: The 2nd Baron Ironside, the son of the wartime field marshal [DB 1893-96], who has died aged 95, carved out a career as a defence sales engineer and a campaigner for electric vehicles, a then unfashionable cause.
Edmund Ironside made the biggest headlines of his life in January 1940 when, aged 15, he was taken out of school to visit the front line to see his father receive the Grand Cross of the Légion d’honneur from General Gamelin, Supreme Commander of the AlliedStandingarmies.beside Churchill – then first Lord of the Admiralty – outside a chateau “somewhere in
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Dicky’s engaging line of approach and the easy warmth and affability of his personality were the natural attributes of a good salesman and he was soon appointed the Company’s sales rep in Greenwich and given his first car, a Standard 8.
DICK, John Vivian Richard (Dicky) Died on 31 January 2019, aged 94.
He and his elder brother, the late Michael Dick (WH 36-40) went to prep school, Yardley Court and then onto Tonbridge School in 1937. Dicky and Michael were day boys in Welldon House whose Housemaster was Mr Bathurst, affectionately known as ‘Bathy’. In the sporting area Dicky was a rower and earned his Number 1 Skulls cap. In October 1942 he left Tonbridge to study for a Mechanical Sciences Tripos at Cambridge, but he quickly joined the University Air Squadron and in March 1943 he left University to join the Royal Air Force.
After his demob, an influential relative had suggested an opening for him in the catering trade but Dicky’s experience of life in a hotel kitchen proved so traumatic, scraping asparagus in the midst of a warring kitchen staff, that he left after a single day. He found refuge in his family’s firm, the Delta Metal Company which had been founded in 1883 by his grandfather, George Alexander Dick, and which specialised in the process of non-ferrous metal extrusion.Hisuncle
In 1962, Dicky was appointed as Sales Director of James Booth Aluminium, a newly acquired subsidiary of Delta, based in Birmingham, later to be taken over by a large American corporation. He remained as Sales Director for the combined company for the next thirty years, supplying aluminium plate to the aerospace and defence industries on both sides of theHeAtlantic.never lost his interest in flying and in retirement he was a founder member of a team of veterans dedicated to the preservation of a Vulcan bomber in Warwickshire.Throughout his life Dick retained a passionate interest in cars and took part in numerous car rallies and car races at Brand’s Hatch, Goodwood and other racing tracks, where he enjoyed racing both Aston Martins and D type Jaguars.
Unlike his father, who did not speak in the House of Lords in the 20 years he held a peerage, Ironside was an active participant from the Conservative benches until his exclusion with most of the hereditaries in 1999.
Died on 13 January 2020, aged 95. Husband of the late Audrey, father of Charles and Fiona and grandfather of Oliver, Anthea, Emily, Alice, Freddie and Alexandra.
Alex offered Dicky a job in Birmingham to learn the nuts and bolts of the engineering trade.
Ironside took a job with Marconi selling radar equipment, then in 1959 joined English Electric, negotiating government contracts for its Leo computer. Spells followed with Cryosystems and International Research and Development.
In 1984 Northern Engineering Industries recruited him to manage their defence sales. When five years later Rolls-Royce acquired NEI they kept him on as a consultant; he finally retired from industrial work in 1995.Itwas 1965 before Ironside spoke in the Lords, in support of the European space programme. Two years later, with the Conservative MP John Osborn, he launched a campaign for a National Library of Parliament, to which MPs and the public would have access.Ironside served on the Lords’ European Community Select Committee, the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee and the All-Party Energy Studies Group, and spoke mainly on scientific issues.
CAVALIERO, Glen Tilburn, The Reverend Died on 30 October 2019, aged 92. Poet, scholar and much-loved teacher, colleague and friend. His critical writings include John Cowper Powys: Novelist, The Rural Tradition in the English Novel 1900-1939, A Reading of E.M. Forster, Charles Williams: Poet of Theology, The Supernatural and English Fiction, and The Alchemy of Laughter: Comedy in English Fiction. His unique depth and range of reading are reflected in the titles of his books. He published seven collec tions of poetry, culminating in The Flash of Weather cocks: New and Collected Poems, published in 2016. (WH 41-45)
Field Marshal Ironside died in 1959, his funeral being held in Westminster Abbey. Edmund succeeded him as 2nd Baron the day after his 35th birthday.In1972
Ironside was replaced as Chief of the Imperial General Staff just before Dunkirk, and his son in due course joined the Navy, serving for nine years before going into industry.
When in 1999 all but 92 hereditaries lost their seats, he put his name forward for one of the 42 ballotted places for Conservative peers, finishing 68th with a creditable 56 votes.
Ironside published High Road to Command: The Diaries of Maj-Gen Sir Edmund Ironside 1920-22, set largely in the Near East during the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire. He aroused some controversy by repeating the story that Lord Curzon, seeing his troops bathing behind the lines in Flanders, commented: “Dear me, I had no conception that the working classes had such white skins.”
During this time, he became president of the Electric Road Vehicle Association, criticising the “negative attitude” toward electric power of the AA, the RAC and the motor industry.
France”, he told reporters: “I’ve never been so thrilled in my life.” Young Edmund was taken to a fort on the Maginot Line, and saw anti-aircraft guns firing at a German spotter plane; he confessed himself “otherwise not deeply impressed”, adding that he was “really keen on the Navy”.
Several newspaper readers wrote in to ask why this schoolboy, of all others, had been allowed to visit the front line, and who had paid for the trip.
In the 1980s Ironside had to sell Broomwood Manor, near Chelmsford, and move to a smaller home after cancer treatment left his wife in constant pain, with a useless left arm. Lady Ironside sued the consultant radiotherapist, but after a High Court hearing in 1991 she dropped the case.
Lord Ironside married Audrey Morgan-Grenville in 1950; she died in 2015. He is survived by their son and daughter, and succeeded as 3rd Baron by his son, the Hon Charles Edmund Grenville Ironside, born July 1 1956. (MH 38-40)
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WRIGHT, Leslie Vandernoll, The Reverend Died on 2 October 2019, aged 95. (JH 38-43)
PETRIDES, James Bannerman (Jim) Died on 27 July 2019, aged 90. (SH 42-47)
Edmund Oslac Ironside was born on 21 September 1924, the son of William Edmund Ironside and the former Mariot Cheyne. As a child he acquired the nickname Bing, after his godfather Lord Byng of Vimy.He joined the Royal Navy straight from Tonbridge School, spent time post-war with the Mediterranean Fleet, then served in HMS Howe at Plymouth and Excellent at Portsmouth. He was invalided out as a lieutenant in 1952.
Lady Ironside then founded Radiotherapy Action Group Exposure (Rage), a charity for women who have suffered excessive radiation during cancer treatment.Ironside was Master of the Skinners’ Company in 1982. He was also at various times president of Chelmsford Sea Cadets, vice-president of the Institute of Patentees and Inventors, and a member of the court and council of City University and the University of Essex.
BLACKIE, Brian Alan Stuart, TD Died on 23 December 2019, aged 92. (PS 40-44)
CLEMENCE, Michael John, TD Died on 15 April 2019, aged 89. (JH 42-47)
Pressed by supporters of Curzon, Ironside said the comment had not come from his father’s day-to-day diaries but was a later recollection.
In the 1990s, when he no longer had an interest to declare, he specialised in defence procurement and chaired the All-Party Defence Study Group.
John had always been a car enthusiast and in the early years after the war, he had bought a well-known Aston Martin road-going racing car which had been owned by Jock Horsfall. With John himself driving, the car competed successfully for many years before he handed over the driving to his son. Only a few weeks before he died, the car was entered for the 2019 Mille Miglia in Italy, which it completed faultlessly. The ‘duck’ enjoyed a second life too, acting as nanny to the Aston on competition days, and giving rides to visitors to the airfield. John’s father was a sufferer of rheumatoid arthritis, a misfortune which was passed down to John, who began to show the symptoms in his early thirties and continuing its crippling progress throughout the rest of his life. Despite the handicaps of the disease, John still drove powerful cars fast and competently, and with Joey, took pleasure in many far away holidays, exotic destinations with climates somewhat warmer than Kent, thanks to the assistance available nowadays to disabled travellers.
BUTTERWORTH, Charles Richard (Richard)
LEADBETTER, David Harold
61MAY 2020
After his time in Parkside at Tonbridge, John was called up for National Service and was commissioned into the Royal Engineers where his unit was in support of 4th Royal Tank Regiment. Having been an enthusiast of all things mechanical from an early age, and of motor cars in particular, he thus found his time as an immediate post-war solider enjoyable. Back in civilian life, he joined the family firm running a wholesale butchery specialising in game and poultry in Smithfield Market in London. His parents also owned a farm and hop garden in Headcorn in Kent, part of which was requisitioned during the war as an emergency landing strip for RAF aircraft damaged in combat. John, together with his brother Christopher (PS 44-48) who managed the farm, was given permission to retain the airstrip after it was released from the Air Ministry. It already had a small aircraft hangar and, with a range of hop garden buildings, made an ideal base for civilian aircraft owners and clubs. After his father died, John continued to run the Smithfield business until he retired.Meanwhile, the airfield had been expanded to host all kinds of air related activities. A club for aeroplane owners was established, with a bar and accommodation facilities, a museum featuring RAF wartime relics, a parachuting and sky-diving club, a gliding club, flying instruction and a wing-walking group all came in, as well as aircraft maintenance facilities. John and his wife, Joey were both pilots and, with John a member of the RE Flying Club, he was able to hire the club aircraft in which they flew all over Europe until they were able to buy their own aeroplane. An early addition to the museum exhibits was a ‘duck’ (sic). No, not a quacking bird, nor yet a cricket score, but a DUKW, a wartime amphibious landing craft used during the Normandy landings and forever referred to as a ‘duck.’ John and his younger brother would drive a car/boat load of friends at high speed around the streets of London before heading
(PS 44-48)
Died on 3 August 2019, aged 89, following recent ill health and a number of years on dialysis. (MH 43-47)
The following obituary was written by Malcolm MacNicol (PS 41-44):
STEPHENSON, Charles Graham, Dr Died on 12 December 2019, aged 89. Charles passed away peacefully at Kiwanis Pavilion in his 90 th year. Survived by his beloved wife of 59 years Carolyn (nee Garnham) and by his children Justin (Cathy), Ashley (Jessie) of Halifax and Lucy Lobmeier (Tony), and granddaughters Louisa and Sophie.Charles was born in Gravesend, Kent, England and attended Tonbridge School and then St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in London where he became a doctor. In 1963 Charles and Carolyn immigrated to Victoria with their two young sons. Four years later their daughter Lucy was born completing their family. Charles worked as a General Practitioner in Victoria for 35 years and delivered countless babies and even babies of babies! He loved fishing, tennis, rebuilding car engines, his allotment garden, ham radio, reciting Albert and the Lion, and golf, being made a life member of the Victoria Golf Club, of which he was very proud.
The family wishes to thank Dr Russell Grimwood, the Rev. Canon Dr John Alfred Steele, the Rev. Jeremy Carr, and all the nurses, staff and carers at Kiwanis Pavilion, whose care surpassed everything they could have wished for. Many thanks also for the love and support of many friends and family, including everyone at St. Dunstan’s Church.
Charles will be sorely missed and was loved so much by his family. Sleep well with Christ until we meet you again Charlie/Dad. (PH 44-47)
Died peacefully at Roundham Court Residential Home on 21 March 2019, aged 88. Much loved by family and friends. (PH 44-48)
Died peacefully on 2 December 2019, aged 89. (Sc 44-48)
Died on August 2019, aged 90.
down a slipway and taking off down the Thames to the great amusement of watching citizens. But using this vehicle the brothers played a major part in rescuing people in danger of drowning during the disastrous storm and tidal surge of 1953.
FREEMAN, John
BELING, David Gibson, The Reverend
Returning to the UK, John attended Staff College, before becoming Adjutant of 36 Engineer Regiment in Maidstone in 1963. His CO commented that the leadership of boisterous young officers during this posting as Adjutant stood John in good stead to manage his lively large family.
After leaving the army, John worked for the Northern Ireland Office under Tom King as Northern Ireland Secretary, rebuilding police stations and army barracks. Living in Stormont for 5 years during that time, and commuting weekly was not an easy life but he made many strong friendships and engendered a love of Ireland.
It was about this time that the Wilkogram was invented. John, always ahead of his time, became well known for his one-line letters and notes. This could be feedback on a task, comment on an event or an enquiry. Wilkograms were short, to the point but always constructive. The Wilkogram continued throughout his life, in paper form as a comment on a postcard, and then in the age of the iPad - a one line email asking children and grandchildren for ‘Any news on the job front” and with replies such as ‘Brilliant’ or ‘Expected’.
John had a long and happy life, experiencing and
In 1983, as Commander HQ Engineer Support, and working with Michael Heseltine, Defence Secretary, he planned and co-ordinated the operation to erect seven and a half miles of fencing around RAF Molesworth, one of only two British bases to house cruise missiles. The operation was planned in complete secrecy to avoid exposure in the media and had to be completed overnight. For the ‘outstanding ingenuity, staff work of the very highest calibre and his personal leadership, determination and skilful control’ John was awarded a CBE by the Queen in 1985. The citation described this operation as the largest concentration of military engineering effort on a single operation since the Second World War.
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Died peacefully on Thursday 18 April 2019, aged 87. Much loved husband of Sue for 63 years and father to Patrick, Zoe, Clare, Mary, Sarah and Hannah and proud grandfather to 13 grandchildren.
WILKS, John Barford, Brigadier Royal Engineers CBE
On completing a Young Officer Course, John joined 55 Field Squadron and was sent to join the British Forces fighting the war in Korea where his troop rebuilt roads and maintained mine fields. His command of the Korean language was still in evidence 60 years later, as he explained battle tactics to his grandsons. He returned from Korea, via Hong Kong, on HMT Empire ‘Halladale’, a journey that took 28 days. On his return from Korea in 1953 John went up to Queen’s College Cambridge to study Engineering.
After Cambridge, John was posted abroad as Troop Commander of 75 Malayan Field Squadron working on the Kedah Roads, Nami bridge and bringing Humes decking beams by train from Singapore. During these four years, John had many adventures involving bandits from the jungle, snakes sleeping on car engines to keep warm, seemingly everlasting orchids, parties and learnt Malay.
John Barford Wilks was born on 30 October 1931 in Old Road West in Gravesend to Thomas, formerly of the Royal Flying Corp, and latterly Barclays Bank, and his devoted mother, Irene. Perhaps a legacy of the First World War, his aunts and uncles never married and John and his elder sister Mary were the only children in the extended family.
THOMAS, David Llewelyn
Died peacefully on 4 March 2019, aged 89. Son of A L Thomas (CR 1928-57) and father of Michael (PH (WH/PH80-85). 44-49)
After school, John joined the army and at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst he was awarded the Armstrong Medal and the Alan Izalt prize. He was commissioned into the Royal Engineers on 8th February 1952. Unfortunately, George VI had died the day before John’s passing out parade and, as the country mourned their King, the parade was cancelled. The cadets, dressed in their No.1 uniforms, were handed their certificates and dismissed for the rest of the day.
With the financial support of his extended family, John attended the Prep School of Kings School, Rochester. In 1944, with a scholarship from Barclays Bank, John joined Tonbridge School and was in Park House. His love of history was fostered, his hockey skills tested on the playing fields weekly and lifelong friends made. His years at Tonbridge were immensely happy ones and he remained a great advocate of the school throughout his life.
As OC of 73 Field Squadron he travelled on operational tours to Belize, and the Gulf, installing Bloodhound air defence systems at Akrotiri. As Commander of 30 Engineer Brigade he had operational responsibility for the Rear Combat Zone from the Channel Ports to Germany in the event of conflict in Europe and the threat of invasion of the UK.
In retirement John served as Chairman of SSAFA (Kent) for many years, as a Trustee of the RE Widows and Orphans Society, and as a Trustee of the War Pensions Committee. An avid writer who wrote many articles for military history journals. His study walls were lined with books on history and politics and he loved nothing more than a lively debate on the issues of the day.
BUCK, Peter George Edmund
Died suddenly on 3 December 2019, aged 88, after a long and active life. A husband, a father of three sons and grandfather of eight grandsons. He will forever be (PHmissed.45-49)
Died in December 2018, aged 87. (Sc 45-48)
Died on 23 January 2020, in Pendean Nursing Home in Midhurst, West Sussex, aged 89. (Sc 45-49)
The thought of following his father into the city was anathema to him. He wanted an outdoor life, abroad, and was offered a job planting rubber in Malaya, after being interviewed in a dark and dusty city office by a very ancient gentleman sitting at the other end of a long table, holding a huge horn to his ear, who asked him where he went to school, and did he play cricket!
LESSEY, Julian Miles
GRIGSBY, Peter Edward, The Reverend
He is survived by Sue, to whom he was married for 63 years, his 6 children, and 14 grandchildren. (PH 44-50)
Died on 4 December 2019, aged 86. Hugh died peacefully at home in Devon following a long battle with chronic heart disease, myeloma and leukaemia.AfterTonbridge, Hugh did his National Service with the Buffs in the Far East including some time in Pusan during the Korean War.
DALZELL, Hugh Anthony
63MAY 2020
In retirement, Hugh moved to the West Country where he joined the Grand Western Canal Trust, serving as Secretary until shortly before his death; the Trust is involved in the restoration of the canal in Somerset and Devon and Hugh’s recent project was looking into using the canal to complement existing park and ride schemes in Taunton through “Park ‘n Glide”. With his own heart problems from a relatively early age, Hugh served on the Wellington Heart Support Group for almost 20 years, becoming Chairman in the early 2000s.
His business career was spent entirely in travel, initially with Thomas Cook, organising bespoke itineraries for the discerning traveller, and then with Alitalia as the South East Regional Sales Manager. He then became a University lecturer on travel and tourism until he retired in 1998.
Died on 20 January 2020, aged 87. (HS 47-52)
Died on 15 June 2019, aged 85. Beloved husband of Deanna Lloyd, much loved father of his two daugh ters, also leaves behind his six grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
The following obituary was written by Deanna Lloyd, David’s wife of 56 years: David, my beloved husband of 56 years, was born in Thorpe Bay, Essex, and went to Alleyn Court Preparatory School, which imbued in him a great love of cricket, his headmaster D. R. Wilcox having played forHeEngland.wentto Tonbridge in 1947, to Hillside, where his housemaster was the school chaplain, who ran a friendly house, and of whom David always spoke fondly, with many happy memories. He enjoyed his years at Tonbridge, playing almost every sport he could, and sharing a study throughout with his lifelong friend Julian Lessey (HS 47-52), who sadly he pre-deceased by just six months.
He continued to play cricket and rugby for many years after leaving school and, in the West Country, inevitably became a big fan of the Exeter Chiefs and attended Sandy Park on a regular basis with his family.Heis survived by Jann, his wife of 50 years, their children Steven and Katie and his younger brothers, Peter and Richard (HS 54-58). (HS 47-51)
David spent 15 years in Malaya planting rubber, arriving at the height of the Emergency, starting out as an Assistant Manager, riding shotgun on a battered up old motor bike, once riding over a snake, and turning round to find it was a deadly hamadryad. When he rose to the dizzy heights of Manager, it was in an equally battered up old Land Rover. I was always glad he chose Malaya, my home, and where we met. We married in 1963, and had two beautiful daughters, both inheriting his devastatingly good looks! He always had a twinkle in his eye, and a roguish sense of humour. When I was first asked to ‘come up and look at his etchings’, I was truly
achieving many things. His legacy to the military will be remembered for years to come and his kindness, quiet encouragement and Wilkograms touched the lives of many people.
POPHAM, Alan Christopher
LLOYD, David John
David’s national service was spent on the lower decks of The Belfast, mainly in dry dock! His greatest achievement there was being picked to box fly-weight for the British Navy in Gibraltar, he reckons only because no one else was light enough!
He had always loved travelling, and when the rubber estate was sold in 1968 with the onset of Malayanisation, the blow was slightly softened by David planning a three month trip halfway round the world, with our two small girls, travelling back to live in our lovely house in Purleigh in Essex, where we then lived for nearly forty years. Once back, we travelled most of Europe in our old BMW convertible, our two little girls in the back seat, heads in their books! Latterly it was long hauls to our younger daughter in Australia, always via Malaysia.
Le FLEMING, Michael James
BAX, Richard Napier Amory
Commissioned into The Buffs in 1956, at 21, he held several appointments in this regiment and, following amalgamations, in the Queen’s Own Buffs and the Queen’s Regiment, serving in the UK including Northern Ireland, Germany and many of the now former British colonies. After attending the Army Staff College Camberley in 1968 he filled a number of staff posts, finishing his active soldiering as British Liaison Instructor at the École supérieure de guerre, Paris, as a Lieutenant Colonel, before retiring in 1984.
Died on 22 July 2019, after a short illness. The young est son of the late Russell White, the first Bishop of Tonbridge, he was married in 1960 to Gunvor (Jill) from Sweden. He is survived by Jill and his two sons children, Kim (Sc 74-79) and Simon (Sc 76-81) and six grandchildren.JohnWhitewas born in Pinner on 1 July 1935 and educated at Tonbridge School and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, where he was a Senior Under Officer and in the 1st XV and 1st VIII for rowing.
RICH, Anthony George Ledger
surprised to find many lovely paintings! Drawing and painting were a huge part of David’s life. He eventually painted professionally, and was commissioned to do at least two paintings of the Chapel of St Augustine at Tonbridge.
Died on 31 October 2019, aged 83. Husband of Pame la. Brother to David (Sc 52-57), Andrew (Sc 57-61) and the late John (Sc 48-52). (Sc 49-52)
Died on 5 December 2019, aged 85. (PH 48-52)
From 1984 to 1995 he worked in his Regimental Headquarters in Canterbury as a ‘Retired Officer’ and was instrumental in the formation of the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment. Among his other activities, he was a volunteer Steward and a Guide in Canterbury Cathedral, at one time President of the local Royal British Legion branch and a member of his Regimental Association. In addition to his family, his main interests were the history of The Buffs, Canterbury Cathedral, motoring and caravanning in France, gardening and walking. (WH 49-53)
BLACK, Christopher Charles, (Charles) Dr Died on 24 May 2019, aged 83. (PH 50-55)
Sadly, in 2016 David was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, but he was determined it was not going to slow him down. Recovering from a nine-hour pancreatomy, he chose to do another five trips abroad, always with the doctor’s blessing! Only two months before he died in June, at the age of 85 he had a last tennis lesson because he felt he had ‘lost his serve’!
also played every other sport he could. It was hockey in the early days in Kuala Lumpur (turning out for the husbands of my team the Selangor Club Ladies!), then tennis, golf, badminton table tennis, real tennis, skiing, and swimming daily for all his life. He played for the Cricketers Club of London for many years, latterly being adopted by them as a ‘mascot’. In one of his last games for them, he found himself playing with the youngest Cowdrey grandson, Fabian Cowdrey (WH 06-11), having been coached by Colin in the nets many decades earlier!
OLD TONBRIDGIAN NEWS64
WHITE, John Joseph, Lt Col
Died in West Middlesex Hospital on 14 June 2019, aged 83. He is mourned and much missed by his loved ones and friends, and best remembered in the community for his time at the helm of his lovely shop for many years, Flemings of Richmond. Brother to the late Daniel (WH 50-55). (WH 49-52)
I cannot think that there can be many who have led a life as full and as varied as David. He was always fun to be with, adored by me and by his two daughters, six grandchildren and one greatgrandchild, and will be very much missed. David was very special. (HS 47-52)
In 1970 David started up a village cricket team with two friends, playing on a very rough football field, very family-orientated cricket on Saturday afternoons, huge teas to include wives and children. Later, when the cricket became too serious and competitive, he started up a more gentle midweek evening team, calling themselves ‘The Old Devils’, a nod to Martin Amis, and he organised cricket trips abroad, playing at Les Ormes in France, and many times to Portugal to play the British Club in Porto, where our older daughter lives. Lunches were very long and very liquid, with a fine bottle of Port always firmly on the score table! In the team were two other OTs, the late Richard Gracey (WH/PS 50-55) and Keith Payne, now Fiddes-Payne (FH 46-51).David
Obituary written by David Walsh (CR 1972 - 2009): Richard Gracey was a prep school headmaster and titan of amateur sport, one of the best in the country in cricket and rackets from the late 1950s through to the 1970s. Born in London 1936, the family returned to India soon afterwards, where his father was a colonel in the Indian Army. As a boy in Holkar, India during the war, his cricket skills were nurtured by Indian Test cricketers like Mushtaq Ali and C.K. Nayudu. After the war the family returned to England where his father bought Hilden Grange prep school in 1948. Richard spent a year at Hilden Grange before going to Tonbridge in 1950, initially as a day boy in Welldon and later transferring for his last two years to Parkside. He became a School Prae and an outstanding sportsman, to the extent that, when he moved from Welldon to Parkside, one contemporary
described the effect on Parkside sport as like ‘getting Lionel Messi on a free transfer’. He played three years in the cricket XI (captain in 1955), one year in the rugby XV and four years in the rackets first pair. After Tonbridge he trained as a teacher at Newland Park College and Grenoble University before coming back to join his father at Hilden Grange as joint headmaster, and then headmaster when his father died in 1967. In 1961 he married Sarah Cullen, moving into the flat above the school, and they had two children, Patrick (PH 1976-81) and Katherine.ColinCowdrey, who played with Richard in successful Old Tonbridgian Cricketer Cup teams, believed that there were not three better off-spinners in the whole of the country during the 1960s and 1970s, professional or amateur. Richard learned his skills from Maurice Tate, the England seam bowler and cricket professional at Tonbridge; one of his best performances came as captain in the match against Clifton at Lord’s in 1955 when he took 7-16 in 15 overs to secure victory. Thereafter his arena was top class wandering cricket, in the days before league cricket took hold, for many different clubs including the Free Foresters, Bluemantles and I Zingari. He reckoned to have taken over 3000 wickets and it was the Cricketer Cup particularly which was to give him the competitive challenge he needed. He played in five winning Tonbridge teams, is one of only two bowlers to have taken over 100 wickets in the history of the competition, and one of only two players to score 1000 runs and take 100 wickets. His bowling was marked by flight, relentless accuracy and many subtle variations. He was also a more than useful batsman with his strong wrists and excellent eye, good enough to make a Cricketer Cup century and put good bowling attacks to the sword.
The cricket club with which he was most associated was the Yellowhammers, founded in 1909 by an OT, Leonard Marzetti, for ‘Tonbridgians and their friends’. From the mid-1950s until 2003, Richard played for the club in what was mainly a week’s cricket, at Tonbridge and Eastbourne, and he was to follow Marzetti and Walter Brice as the Yellowhammers’ third President, a responsibility he held from 1984-2006. In his last appearance for the Yellowhammers in 2003, aged 66, he took 5-29 against the Bluemantles. Sport opened the door for Richard to a vibrant social life and he had the ability to switch off when he came out off the field and to become the genial host or the life and soul of any party. Nowhere was this more so than in Yellowhammer cricket and social gatherings, in which he and Sarah were hugely generous hosts.
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The other major string to Richard’s sporting bow was rackets. Taught the game at Tonbridge by Arthur Hull, he became perhaps the greatest doubles player of his generation for twenty years from the late 1950s. Playing in the forehand court, first with John Thompson and then with Martin Smith, he won the Noel Bruce for school old boys nine times, including a run of six consecutive years with Martin from
Died on 26 March 2019 after a short illness, aged 81. Bryan Dixon was born on 3 April 1937 in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. He was educated at Tonbridge School from 1950-1955, joining Park House from Yardley Court preparatory school. He undertook his National Service in the Royal West Kent Regiment. He went to Jesus College Cambridge in 1957 to read Law. He rowed both at Tonbridge and at Jesus College. He rowed in the boat which came Head of the Lents in 1959 and fifth at the Head of the River Race on the Thames. He graduated with a BA 1960. After graduation he started articles with the firm of Watterson, Moore in Cheltenham. After qualifying he stayed with Watterson, Moore and rose to be a partner. He left in 1977 to join Scott & Fowler in Gloucester where he acted for the Dean and Chapter at Gloucester. He played rugby for Painswick, later becoming a rugby referee for first class games until 1978. He was an active member of his parish churches acting as Churchwarden, Treasurer and Covenants Secretary. After retiring in 1998, he researched the history of the Dixon family, who originally came from Kent, and this research led to an active interest in local history. He also became a keen Bridge player after his retirement. (PH 50-55)
DIXON, Bryan Raymond
Died on 3 December 2019, aged 83. Our best wishes and condolences go to Sarah, Patrick (PH 76-81), Kath erine and Richard’s six grandchildren.
GRACEY, Richard Malcolm Kirkwood
OLD TONBRIDGIAN NEWS66
PROWSE, Nicholas Robin Barrington (Nick)
Richard took great pride in his development of Hilden Grange, where he first joined his father in 1960 to teach French and act as deputy head, and then took over from him as sole headmaster in 1967. He increased the numbers from 80 to more than 300, bringing in co-education in 1983, starting a nursery department and investing in new buildings to support the expansion and enrich the curriculum. In 1990 he handed over the school to new joint heads but kept himself busy as ‘proprietor’, always ready to give advice, help with the finances and take a great interest in what the alumni went on to do. Tonbridge benefited greatly from the increasing numbers entering the school from Hilden Grange and from the choristers who enriched every chapel service.
Died peacefully on 12 May 2019, aged 84. (SH 51-53)
a member of the school Combined Cadet Force he went on to serve for two years in the Royal Air Force, recently receiving the veterans’ badge.
1969-74. He also won the Amateur Doubles five times with Martin. It is an arguable point which of them was the more competitive in fast-moving aggressive doubles matches. Their secret was fitness, consistency and above all pace, hammering the volleys and half-volleys. After winning the Noel Bruce for the last time when he was nearly forty, he took great satisfaction in helping David Makey to coach up-and-coming Tonbridge schoolboys, playing the first pair each week with David and making sure that he never lost. When cricket and rackets no longer presented a keen enough challenge, he took up golf seriously, bringing himself down to five handicap in a couple of years. Apart from being a member of five golf clubs, his sporting life also encompassed plenty of fishing and shooting.
CRANG, Colin John
Richard finally sold the school in 2005 but continued to take great pride in what he had done to make it such a successful school, acknowledging the hugely important contribution Sarah had made to the domestic and entertainment side of the school.
He later turned down an offer of a place at Downing College, Cambridge, instead gaining a place at King’s College London. He thrived on London life and achieved a first-class honours degree in mathematics and physics. Here he discovered a life-long love of mountaineering with the KCL Mountaineering Club as an active leader. He was awarded a PhD from Westfield College, University of London in the mathematics of conductivity. Through his mountaineering friends he met Moya Randall, whom he married in 1964. They have two sons: Gareth, Deputy Headteacher in a secondary school in Carmarthen, Wales, and Lewis, a Financial Manager in Paris.
RENWICK, Geoffrey Owen Norman
SHAW, Richard Dudley
MEREDITH SMITH, John, Dr Died on 24 December 2019, aged 82. John will be greatly missed by his family and wife Moya and his mountaineering friends.
John was born in Sevenoaks, Kent in 1937, two years before the start of the Second World War. He attended Tonbridge School from 1950-55 and was in Smythe House, where he excelled at maths and enjoyed cross country running, rugby and cricket. As
Died peacefully in hospital on 24 January 2020, aged 82. Beloved husband of the late Patricia, much loved father of Jackie and Juliet, dear Grandad and (HSGreat-Grandad.51-55)
Richard Gracey will go down as one of Tonbridge’s greatest amateur sportsmen, although the competitiveness he brought to all his sport was as intense as many professionals. He was good at playing through the increasing aches and pains which beset him, trussed up in bandages and well covered in liniment. Not having to play sport for a living allowed him to take a more balanced view of what life had to offer and he gave generously of himself to family and friends, and to Hilden Grange. Richard and Sarah were married for fifty-eight years, created a loving and supportive family of children and six grandchildren and were a central element in a very wide circle of friends of every generation. (WH/PS 50-55)
He will be deeply missed by Moya, his sons and their five grandchildren. (SH 50-55)
Died on 8 February 2020, aged 81. Much loved husband of Elizabeth and father of Nicholas and Alison. Adored by his 3 grandchildren. Brother to Rodney (JH 49-54). (JH 52-56)
John’s subsequent career was in research at English Electric with LEO in the early days of computers. Then on to work for BOC, then Wordplex and, finally, consultancy before returning to academia. He taught international MBA students from a Grande Ecole based in Oxford for one year, and later at Brunel University to engineering masters students.Afterretirement he and Moya continued to enjoy hill walking and overseas travel. They helped to coach volunteers at a new visitors’ centre for the Friends of Bushy and Home Park, one of the Royal Parks, in Teddington.
Died peacefully after a short stay in hospital in Cowichan Bay, British Columbia, aged 82. Twin brother of Noel Prowse (PS 50-55). (PS 50-55)
Died peacefully on 22 September 2019, at Bramshott Grange, aged 80. Loving husband to Lynda and will be sadly missed by all family and friends. (Sc 52-56)
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Chris: Chris:Woody:Yeah?Yes.Yeahyeah,
just two regattas, such was his love for sailing with her,” shared Lammerts van Bueren. “And for us on board: we all loved him to bits, of course we did, as a friend, a seaman and a legend.
The following obituary was published in Scuttlebutt Sailing News:
Woody raced with the best of the best, top tier Flying Dutchman in the 60s, Admiral’s Cup, Transat, Fastnets, the mighty schooners Elena, Adix, Altair, and the Int. 15-Metre The Lady Anne. For decades, he was on the sailing world’s ‘most wanted list’.
“Over the past 16 years Cambria was his home away from home, and, over all those years he missed
The following obituary was written by his brother, Stephen Gregson (PH 56-60):
Died on 4 January 2020, aged 82. John was an avid sailor and will be missed by so many in the sailing world and remembered fondly by his peers from Tonbridge School. Brother to the late Timothy (FH 53-57).
Died on 24 July 2019, aged 79.
WOODERSON, John Nicholas Wheeler
Everyone knew that going out to sea with Woody meant you stood a better chance, that you would never be lost, not for position, not for stories, not for laughs, not for the finest of company. Try walking down the dock with him; the stories would come out as he knew everyone and often to his own surprise, even more people knew him.
Ricky was born shortly after the outbreak of the Second World War, which prompted our father, Jack (Edward John Gregson, Park House 1924-28), to address him with a deeply felt poem – see below – which was known only to the two of them until a year or so before his death.
Having gained some funds and a few contacts through working at various box offices in London, he worked at Salisbury Playhouse from 1963 to 1966 where he learned backstage and directing techniques, starting in stage management, and progressing to directing an equally young Stephanie Cole – later well known for her TV roles in shows like Tenko, Doc Martin and Open All Hours – in a number of productions; she remembers him fondly for his humour and his scones!
In 1966 he joined the English Opera Group and then in 1967 the Royal Ballet as Stage Manager, returning to the EOG as Staff Producer and Assistant Manager in 1970; here he assisted Benjamin Britten in the premiere of Death in Venice. The strong connections of this group with Covent Garden led to a transition to Staff Producer and Assistant Manager at the Royal Opera House. Over the next decade he assisted in new productions of Eugene Onegin by Peter Hall, La Bohème by John Copley and The Tales of Hoffmann by John Schlesinger, all of which he revived at The Royal Opera House on numerous occasions, Bohème last in 2007. On hearing of Ricky’s death, John Copley noted “Very, very sad news of dear Richard Gregson. He was such a wonderful associate and kept my Bohème in great form for many years. Bless him and RIP to such a gentleman.”Intheearly 1980s the Arts Council encouraged all opera companies to make opera more accessible through education departments and lower prices.
After prep schools in Surrey and Salisbury, he achieved, at Tonbridge, enough to gain a place at Lincoln College, Oxford, and graduated with a B.A. in Modern History which he later converted to an M.A. This was useless as a career qualification, so, knowing that he wanted to produce opera, he proceeded to carve out his own path which led him, deviously, to his objective.
GREGSON, Charles Richard (Ricky)
Johnson Wooderson, 82 years, with a 9 knot breeze from WSW, navigated a course to the Pearly Gates from London on January 4, 2020.
Sail on dear Woody, sail on. (FH 52-55)
“He was as complete a gentleman as they get; confident yet humble, a man who always treated everyone around him with equal admiration and respect. What a joy to have raced with him, what a privilege it was to have him as a friend.”
“In-between there was the Woody wittering, endless stories filled with sense and the all-important nonsense. Whether what he said mattered or didn’t, there was always something about the way he spoke that made it worth listening to; the sheer joy of listening to his voice.”
MEREDITH, Philip
no worries. Tacking!
Died on 21 December 2019, aged 81. Philip Meredith displayed great resilience and grace in the face of his long-term cancer. He was able to remain at home surrounded by his beloved family, with the support of Hospice in the Weald, and Crowborough District Nurses. Madelyn, Oliver (WW 81-86), Benjamin (WW 84-89), Alexander (WW 87-92) and Guy (PH 50-54) thank them for their dedicated care. (PH 52-57)
Woody would mumble: Chris?
“Woody meant so much to so many people,” noted John Lammerts van Bueren. “To me, he was the tactician/navigator on Cambria (1928 135-foot Fife design and built), old school and thoroughly reliable, no fancy electronics, just well prepared with chart, pencil and binoculars in hand. Conversations between our captain Chris Barkham and Woody went like this:
GODFREY, David Henry
To My Son
At the turn of the century he started to gradually decrease his workload and became very active as a committee member of the Trollope Society, helping to arrange the Celebrazione Magnifica at the Royal Opera House in 2012, and the Bicentenary Celebrations of 2015.
SHAW, Geoffrey Cyril
He starred as a runner – particularly cross-country, through the familiar mud. In a photograph of him in 1958 he was running for the school in a crosscountry tussle with Kings Canterbury. The Tonbridgian report noted glumly “We had only two in the first nine home, … Shaw running exceptionally well to come seventh”. As ever, he gave it his all.
During his career he worked with most of the famous names in opera, but he neither sought nor achieved fame and fortune, and, as with his charity, he gave a great deal of himself, personally and professionally, to famous and experienced performers or amateur beginners alike, and earned much love and respect as a result. This was amply displayed at his very well attended memorial service at St. Paul’s Church, Covent Garden, where his Tonbridge contemporary and very close friend, Charles Barr (PH 1953-58) was among those paying tribute. He left us finally in a suitably dramatic manner, as his ashes were scattered by some large rockets just before the New Year.
Oh son, forgive your father’s cynicism, His earliest memories recall a war To end all war; - this is no criticism Of broken faith with those who died before. But this time, son, keep faith with us who go To sleep in Flanders Fields, where poppies grow. (PH 53-57)
My eldest son – perhaps my only son –We who had hoped and waited for your birth Now bid you welcome to a cold grey Earth That greets you with the music of the gun, And first presents you with a rubber sack To save your lungs from German poison gas That you may live to be a man – alas! And die, perhaps, when Germans next attack.
Ricky moved across to create and manage an Education Department for the Royal Opera alongside his production work, piloting its projects and building a base. His aim was to take opera away from being elitist Opera with a capital O, as parodied by Victor Borge, to becoming ‘Musical Theatre’, which sounded less threatening to the man on the Clapham Omnibus.Duringthe 1980s and 1990s he was deeply involved with this and travelled the country helping schools to create their own opera, as well as leading courses for adults at Covent Garden and elsewhere. The journalist, Libby Purves, was one of his biggest fans, having attended one of his courses, and he was on her Midweek radio show; one of his projects featured in Blue Peter, whilst another was the subject of a half-hour programme in a series about Mozart on BBC 2. He worked closely with the Metropolitan Opera from New York, and devised courses to help teachers to lead creative musical projects in their schools. One group of schools near Rugby even created its own theatre company as a result, with all positions from actors to stage managers filled by children.Fromthis, he moved towards freelance productions around the world, and gave more of his time on a voluntary or very low cost basis to numerous amateur or semi-professional groups, notably the Cambridge Handel Opera Group for some 14 years, and gave courses at various Summer Schools. He was also asked frequently to direct revivals of operas at Covent Garden.
He never truly got over the death of his lifetime partner, Jacinto, in 2010, and dementia started to become noticeable five years later, with increasing social isolation as a result. He remained determined to stay at home and look after his beloved animals for as long as possible, but, sadly, he needed to be in a care home for his last 18 months.
He was active in the cadet force. We had all lived through WWII and the Korean War had only just ended. Consequently, we saw the CCF as an institution of national significance. In 1953 Cdt. Shaw was awarded the lanyard of honour on the Recruits test. There was an inspection one blisteringly hot summer’s day when Field Marshal Lord Ironside (DB 1893-96), himself an old boy of the school, came to inspect us. We went annually by special train to CCF camps in tented locations from the South Coast to Northumberland. Little surprise that the CCF led to Geoffrey’s later long Territorial Army service. Chapel,
John Asher (SH 53-58) writes: Geoffrey fitted Tonbridge like a glove to the hand and retained a life-long passion for the school and Hillside in particular, for which he played rugby, cricket and much else. His batting was described as “dogged” – on one last wicket stand he managed 5 runs in an hour and a quarter!
Died on 16 July 2019, the day before his 80 th birthday. His wife Valerie, and sons Barry, Alan and Colin miss him greatly, but give thanks for a life lived to the full.
OLD TONBRIDGIAN NEWS68
Encompassing such subjects as the “feeling for water” that coursed through Roman poetry, the Greeks’ love of its mystical health-giving properties that rendered Achilles invulnerable, or King George III swimming off Weymouth accompanied by a chamber orchestra, Sprawson’s work flows with a casual authority, uninterrupted by indices and references.“AllofCharles is in the book,” a friend said. While he revelled in the sensuousness of water, he also seemed haunted by a sinister darkness in its depths. Death is never far away in his work. Edwardian gentlemen copying the swimming techniques of frogs in tubs next to the bath are contrasted with Captain Matthew Webb, the first man to swim the Channel in 1875, who drowned while attempting to swim the whirlpool of Niagara Gorge.
(HS 53-58)
After a heart attack in 2002 Geoffrey’s focus turned to voluntary work around Buckingham and his second home in St David’s. He acted as a guide and steward at St David’s Cathedral and at Stowe, promoted the Friends of Cathedral Music, worked tirelessly for defibrillator installation in Buckingham district and much besides.
“A flotilla of spent condoms was floating past his head… I don’t think he ever saw those, but he did get very sick, despite trying to drown the germs with whisky” recalls Jeff McKay, a Canadian film-maker who pleaded with him not to go in. “It wasn’t just an eccentric act… he really did want to connect with the ancient times and ancient places.”
While filming an adaptation of his only book, Haunt of the Black Masseur: The Swimmer as Hero, Charles Sprawson stripped to his swimming shorts on the banks of the Tiber and jumped in. Romans had once learnt to swim here with cork boards, but now they stared in shock as this singular Englishman sought to commune with his classical heroes in what had become a city sewer.
Died of pneumonia on 6 January 2020, aged 78. The following obituary was published in The Times, in February 2020:
with the regular sung services, contributed to his enduring love for the church and choral music. He also found time to be Secretary of the Astronomical Society.AtBristol
Geoffrey did with gusto. One Rag Week, he managed to persuade other cross-country runners to join him in a trip up to Gretna Green, where they lifted the ‘wedding’ anvil and took it back to Bristol. They then suggested to the blacksmith that he came to Bristol to retrieve it – another good money-spinner for the rag week coffers! His own romance was surely an inspiration for this, since he had met Valerie at the Freshers Ball and they married in After1962.graduating in 1961 he worked for Esso and completed a part-time MSc at the University of Kent at Canterbury. A spell of part-time FE teaching led him to teach Chemistry at St Lawrence College, Ramsgate where he spent 11 happy years, much of the time as housemaster of a boarding house. This was followed by nine years as Deputy Head of Leighton Park School in Reading.
If something needed doing, Geoffrey would roll up his sleeves and get it done with enthusiasm. His Tonbridge training endured life-long and leaves a lasting legacy.
There he was struck by the widespread negative image of industry as a career for talented youngsters. With Metal Box, he wrote two small books entitled “Industry in Close-Up” and “Industry in Perspective” to provide better information and encouragement for both sides of the “divide”.
The swimmer, Sprawson believed, was “divorced from everyday life” and enjoyed the self-absorption of swimming as “introverted and eccentric, individualists involved in a mental world of their own.” In Haunts, he compared poets empathetically – such as Byron, Shelley, Coleridge and Poe – to opium
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Sprawson’s dip in Rome demonstrated the writer, art dealer and obsessive swimmer’s visceral need to experience classical antiquity in the raw. Published in 1992, his uniquely quirky work not only celebrates the swimmer, but also trawls history and literature through the prism of swimming. A one-off, it became cult reading, spawning a new generation of nonfiction in British literature.
University from 1958-61, Geoffrey read Chemistry and continued his sport, particularly cross-country running, at which he represented the University.Allhedid,
SPRAWSON, Charles
ICF conferences spread nationally including, in 1990, to Tonbridge, when 120 Tonbridgians joined 20 girls from each of Tonbridge Girls’ Grammar School and Bedgebury. No one would claim that the efforts of Geoffrey and the many hundreds of supportive managers changed the attitudes of every pupil. But most grasped the importance of management skills for their future careers.
Taking this further he started Challenge of Management conferences for 6th formers. With the help of some 20 volunteer managers from industry and business, at each conference small ‘management teams’ of pupils were immersed in experiential learning in business situations over three days. In 1986, he launched the Industrial Careers Foundation based at the University of Buckingham.
After a few years Sprawson returned to England and worked as an art dealer in London, where he appeared to corner the market in selling pictures of 19 th century prime ministers to a couple in Jersey. He also befriended Alan Ross, editor of the London Magazine, and began writing articles for him, the New Yorker and newspapers.
It was on the last day of a family holiday in Turkey in the late 1980s that one of his proudest moments came – swimming the Hellespont, or the Dardanelles, as it is now known. The strait is famous for the Greek tragedy of Hero and Leander, the star-crossed lovers separated by water, as well as the battle scenes for Gallipoli during the First World War.To
kingdom and its lack of pools, Sprawson read voraciously and collected notes on any mention of water in literature, from Hemingway to Coleridge. He also made lists of great Olympic swimmers from America, Germany and Japan, and including Murray Rose, an Australian gold medallist at the 1956 Games in Melbourne. Years later he looked up his hero and challenged him to a swim, and lost.
Remembered for being “his own man” at university, as well as for cross-examining girlfriends frankly on their sex lives, Sprawson graduated with a 2:2 and initially worked as a swimming pool attendant in “dismal” Victorian baths in Paddington, London. There he answered an advertisement in Latin in the personal column of The Times to teach classics at a university in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
In 1942 Eric returned home to England to join Bomber Command. He flew in several successful missions over France and Germany, but was shot down while piloting a Lancaster bomber over Caen on D-Day, June 6, 1944. He was reported as missing, but rescued by a French farmer who hid him until France’s release by the Allies.
Charles Sprawson was born in Karachi in 1941 to Eric, an RAF officer stationed there, and Ann (neé Alexander). His birth in the subcontinent reflected his family’s colonial links: Eric’s father, Major-General Sir Cuthbert Sprawson, was director of the Indian Medical Service from 1933 to 1937; Ann’s grandfather, Sir Duncan Baillie, was lieutenant-governor of the United Provinces, now Uttar Pradesh, and her father, Charles Alexander, also worked in the civil service and became financial adviser to the Maharaja of Jaipur.
His notes on references to water in the classical age, Benjamin Franklin swimming in the Thames in 1726 and the first swimming society in England, founded by Old Etonians in 1828, became the source of an article he wrote for the London Magazine in 1988 and, ultimately, his book. In Riyadh he also appears to have developed his obsession with swimming as a refuge from daily life, in particular challenging the feats of Byron.
Eric then returned to India as headmaster of Rajkumar College in Raipur. It was here that, as the only English boy in the school, Charles learnt to swim in a pool donated by the famous cricketer and prince Sir KS Ranjitsinhji, the Jam Sahib of Nawanager.
To escape the long, hot afternoons in the desert
In his later years Sprawson suffered from vascular dementia. Last year BBC Radio 4 made a documentary about his life called Searching for Swimming Pools, which documented his attempts to find lost pools in broom cupboards and behind
From India, the family moved to Benghazi in Libya, where Eric worked for the British Council and Charles’ love of the classics and water began. Not far from the ancient Greek city of Cyrene, the family would bathe every Christmas Day in a rock pool encrusted with molluscs and anemones where Cleopatra and the Romans reputedly swam. “When we dipped our masked faces into the water there emerged on the corrugated sand mysterious traces of the outline of ancient streets and colonnades. Their sanctity disturbed by the regular intrusion of giant rays as they flapped their wings somnolently,” he
Sprawson this was the goal of “every classical swimmer”, a few miles inland from Troy and a place of mythical associations. Byron swam the strait in 1810, and it was reputedly his proudest achievement. Despite arriving “unfit and unprepared”, Sprawson showed no concern for himself or his 19-year old daughter, Clare, who accompanied him. Ibrahim, the Turkish skipper of a small tugboat who lectured “on Greek fragments”, showed them the way with his arm raised in the direction of the course. Sprawson swam sidestroke most of the way, confessing to an abiding fear of sharks and deep murky water. The one time he looked down he thought he saw a “silvery shape”, but later admitted it was probably a discarded packing case.
Sprawson married Ann Fenton in 1966. They later divorced but remained friends. She was killed in a car crash in Crete on Good Friday in 2006. He is survived by three daughters: Clare, an artist, Emma and Sophie.
When he was 17, his parents returned to England, where his father became the headmaster of Beachborough school in Buckinghamshire. A few years later, Charles went to Trinity College Dublin, where he studied classics and captained the university squash team, taking after his mother, who had represented England at squash.
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On returning home he discovered that the Tagus estuary at Lisbon was Byron’s most challenging swim, rather than the Hellespont. When Sprawson attempted to swim that, he was picked up by the police, who thought he was a drug smuggler.
addicts hooked on the feel of the water, its erotic allure but also its dangers.
Atwrote.anearly age he and his younger brother, Robert, were removed from their Libyan idyll and sent to Tormore prep school in Deal, Kent, where Charles was head boy and captained the school in cricket, rugby and football, before winning a scholarship to Tonbridge. At public school, the model schoolboy developed interests in classical sculpture and art, film and the Beach Boys, and began to drift away from the conventional norms.
While Archdeacon of Bodmin, he used skills garnered during a decade in banking to streamline its strategic planning and give spreadsheet totals an extremely welcome fillip. He saw this as very much a core part of his vocation and pushed for everyone within the diocese to take a similar interest in their financial future.
closed doors. Although he was barely able to speak, he recalled parts of his swim across the Hellespont. To help pay for his care-home fees, Vintage republished his book, so admired by Iris Murdoch, David Hockney, and thousands of swimmers and non-swimmers. Although he was contracted to write another book about the Slovenian endurance swimmer Martin Strel, he never completed it. Yet Nicholas Pearson, his editor and publishing director of 4th Estate, believed that Haunts was a new type of non-fiction, sufficient evidence in itself of Sprawson’s felicity with the written word: “It struck a nerve… it feeds into the idea of disappointment and melancholy. When it was published in 1992 we weren’t constantly talking about the changing planet, but by the time he gets to swimming, it is the polluted world that he’s swimming in.” (PH 55-59)
COHEN, Clive Ronald Franklin, The Venerable
regular meetings of House Committee Chairmen, when Alan represented Parkside. We last met on the day of the 2018 OT Winter Lunch, when I saw Alan walking with a stick on the upper floor of the Smythe Library and I jokingly remarked “Alan, you are much too young to be using a stick” at which he replied “I’m afraid it’s really a bit serious” and I was left with the strong impression that he was paying his last visit to the school. So it proved, with his January death reported in OT News in February 2019. These humble words are an attempt to give a little more background on a man who was so unfailingly cheerful and good company at earlier reunions and whose involvement in the Parkside Foundation Committee demonstrated his enduring commitment to the school. Alan was a loyal Tonbridgian to the end and I shall miss him at future reunions, while his presence in my photograph of the 1960 school swimming team, will be a continuing reminder of some happy days. (PS 56-60)
Died on 19 January 2019, aged 76, following a long battle with cancer. Father to Max (MH 05-10) and brother to Tim (PS 61-66).
The ongoing health of the diocese of Truro’s finances is, in no small part, thanks to the shrewd financial acumen of the Ven. Clive Cohen, who died on 8 April, aged 73.
The following obituary was published in the Church Times, in May 2019:
FORREST, Timothy John
MALTBY, Alan Vivian
The following obituary was written by his friend, James Stewart (FH 56-61):
I first met Alan Maltby, soon after my arrival in Michaelmas 1951 at Yardley Court Preparatory School, which Alan had entered in the year before me. We were both boarders and with an intake of only around 10 new boarders per year, we came to know each other quite well. Alan was a good all-round sportsman. The Yardley Courtier of June 1955 records that on 23rd October 1954, “Maltby shot a fine goal from a long way out” in a 1st XI football match versus Bickley Hall. The same issue records Alan’s selection in the school’s rugby 1st XV. In Alan’s last term at Yardley Court in Summer 1955, I had the pleasure of playing alongside him in the school’s 2nd XI cricket. In this context, the November 1955 Yardley Courtier wrote “A special word of praise for Maltby A, who was far too good for a normal 2nd XI wicketkeeper, but unfortunately he lost his batting and that was what the 1st XI really needed.” The boy who took that 1st XI wicket-keeping place was another Old Tonbridgian, Edward Moore (JH 55-60). Alan entered Tonbridge School in the Lent Term of 1956. We came together in representing the school swimming team in Alan’s last term in summer 1960, when he was awarded his school colours, having turned himself into a highly competitive breaststroker, winning the A Class (Senior) 100 yards breaststroke in the finals of the school’s swimming sports. Alan finished up in the school’s History VIa and went on to forge a successful career in the world of Afterproperty.leaving school, our paths diverged, just meeting at OT reunions where Alan was a regular attender. Our paths came together again earlier in the current decade, when the House Foundation Committees were still active in their charitable fundraising on behalf of the school and we met at
The Dean of Truro, the Very Revd Roger Bush, said: “Clive was very radical and innovative. Without him, we wouldn’t be in the position of being an
Died peacefully in hospital on 8 April 2019 after a long illness, aged 73. Former rector of Winterslow. Much loved husband of June, a proud father and grandfather.
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Died in December 2019, aged 76. Brother to Peter (WH 53-58). (WH 57-61)
“Merts,” known for his booming voice and brilliant man-management, died at home on Saturday after battling cancer.
He started on the Kent Messenger in 1964 for £8 a week, then went on to the News of the World, Daily Star, Sunday Mirror, Daily Sport, Today and The Sun David wrote hundreds of exclusives and covered the Falklands War.
Clive’s final priestly act was to baptise his youngest grandchild, Rudy, on his hospital bed on Mothering Sunday.Hedied
on 8 April, a mere four days short of what would have been his and June’s golden wedding anniversary. She survives him, together with their children, Katherine, Alexander, William, and Edward, and seven grandchildren.
Clive may have nicknamed his post for the parish work which came with being archdeacon “Complaints Manager for East Cornwall”, but he was a skilled trouble-shooter and compassionate leader of clergy in the diocese.
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On The Sun he ended every working day with his cheery salute: “Another great day for British journalism.”ExSun Royal Editor Charles Rae said: “David was the ultimate professional, a perfect gentleman and the best boss you could ever hope for.” (MH 59-64)
PACKER, Roger Alleyne
Legendary Sun night news editor David Mertens has died aged 73.
Died on 26 August 2018, aged 69 after a long battle with cancer. Brother to Roger (HS 58-63). (HS 61-66)
The couple moved to Teignmouth when Clive tried to retire in May 2011, only for him to serve two terms as a Chapter Canon of Exeter Cathedral and become Acting Archdeacon of Totnes for a year. He was still conducting services in and around Teignmouth after a second retirement attempt in the summer of 2017, besides serving as the Chair of Trustees of Teign Heritage until January this year.
PETTMAN, Martin Edmund
Died on 22 November 2019, aged 72. He died after an ongoing battle against leukaemia. Husband to Melanie, father to Tessa, son of Peter (PS 33-38), brother to Chris (WH 56-61), uncle to Mark (WW 81-85) and Nick (PH 87-92) and great-uncle to Toby (WW 2011-16) and Hugo (WW 2013-18). A fine sportsman, Martin was Captain of the 1 st XV, gained a Rackets Blue at Cambridge, and enjoyed playing occasionally for the OTs in the Cricketer Cup. He will be greatly missed. (FH 61-65)
SIMPSON, Jock Clement
MERTENS, David John Bridges
His meticulously prepared sermons, delivered in a hallmark deep and honeyed voice from a lofty 6 ft 5 inches above the pulpit floor, were easily accessible and punchy: he believed that what you could not say in six minutes was not worth saying.
Whiledomestically.acommitted Christian and Anglican priest, he was intensely proud of his Jewish roots.
With habitual precision, Clive told his wife of his enduring love for her one last time at his funeral: the Second World War SOE agent Violette Szabo’s code poem, The Life That I Have, was recited at his graveside in Winterslow, the village where they had once lived so contentedly. (FH 59-64)
Died peacefully at home on 19 October 2019, aged 73. Wonderful husband to Sarah and father to Nick, Will and John Charles and grandfather of Byron, Aralai, Holly, Theo and Lily. Brother to Tim (MH
He began his training at Salisbury and Wells Theological College in the autumn of 1979, was ordained in Guildford Cathedral two years later, and then served his title in Esher, Surrey.
accountable and responsible group of people who will make sure that what we believe in can carry on.”
64-68) and son of the late Peter (MH 35-38). Will be sadly missed. The following article was published in The Sun, in October 2019:
Clive collected royal commemorative china all his life, wrote for leading historical journals, opened a bottle of good port to accompany every significant family milestone, and was an impassioned Bath Rugby supporter. He could be occasionally seen walking through Truro with two items under his arm: a newly purchased painting and a bunch of flowers with which to ease the surprise of the monetary outlay
JUDD, Simon Martin
Died on 16 March 2020, aged 72. Son of the late Harry Simpson (MH 16-19). (MH 61-66)
Clive’s years as Rector of Winterslow, Wiltshire (1985-2000), were supremely happy ones, during which he galvanised the community, initiated a new village hall, and hauled the church finances out of debt and on to a secure footing.
Died on 1 May 2019, aged 72. Father of Chris (SH 92-97), brother to Jonathan (SH 57-62). (SH 60-64)
HAPGOOD, Mark Bernard
When James became consumer correspondent of the Guardian in 1985, the biggest food scandal of recent British history was about to land. For years cows had been fed on bone meal containing the remains of other cattle. That led to a brain disease known as BSE, so called mad cow disease. James’ coverage marked a turning point in attitudes to the crisis and the public’s trust in mass production of food.His article A Cow Disease to Beef About, published on 11 July 1988, accused the Ministry of Agriculture of being a “penny pinching”, incompetent organisation for its lack of regulation on animal feeds. It was later acknowledged as the first article in Britain to expose government culpability. James went on to trace people suffering the human version of the disease, CJD, and his drive to expose the scandal meant the Guardian ran more than twice as many articles on BSE as any other quality paper in the UK.
Died on 23 June 2019, aged 66. Brother to David Sievwright (Sc 59-63). (Sc 66-70)
In 1996, James took his bold style of journalism into broadcasting, working first on Radio 4’s consumer programme You and Yours and later joining BBC1. In 1997 he became a presenter of the Channel 4 food series Feast. In December that year, he discovered that beef on the bone was about to be banned, leading to questions from MPs in the Commons about how he had found out before them. He did it by building the confidence of contacts, who very often became his friends for life. The true identity of his informant, known internally at the BBC as the “meat man”, has been taken to his grave.
SIEVWRIGHT, Michael Charles Hume (Mike)
Died on 12 April 2020, aged 69. Brother to Miles (PH (PH63-68).64-69)
Born in New York, James first came to Britain on an
BARROW, Robert James (Bob)
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James always brought his own ethical code to journalism, and on one occasion his editor’s insistence that he accept a free trip from an oil firm backfired badly. Instead of writing an article about the new product on show, he filed a story about lavish free trips distorting the news agenda in favour of wealthy companies.
Died on 6 December 2018, aged 69. The following obituary was published in The Guardian in December 2018:
ERLICHMAN, James Rentschler
Afterdistrict. leaving
Died on 12 September 2019, aged 69. He died in Neohori, Greece where he had lived for some time immersed in the beauty and history of the local
Tonbridge in 1967 Bob joined the Queen’s parachute regiment. He saw active service in Northern Ireland which put him in great danger and for which he was highly commended. He married and his first daughter Shirley was born, while still in service. He left in 1977 and was a police officer in Yorkshire. He then ran a pub in Hawes and then Ripon before becoming an employee of Theakstons brewery. His second daughter Lucy was born during thisHetime. eventually moved to Greece looking for the quiet life which he found. Taking a great interest in the local history of the Mani peninsula, he became quite an authority on the area and published a book on the subject. He remained there until his death last year. He also leaves behind a Granddaughter Daisy. Brother to Ronald (Sc 62-67), Richard (Sc 67-71) and Edward (Sc 73-75). (Sc 63-66)
James Erlichman, who has died after a short and sudden illness aged 69, was a consumer journalist, broadcaster and writer at the forefront of reporting Britain’s devastating BSE food crisis. His work brought home uncomfortable truths about products used by millions.
James continued to challenge accepted consensus, especially when it came to food. Only a week before his death, he had become concerned that when a well-known brand of meat pie was donated to the local food bank it could be counted as a “meat product”. He argued that since the pies contain less than 20% meat (the label states 10%
He remained in Chile thereafter serving as an Evangelical Pastor, beloved and much admired by his flock. He earned his living as a translator with Deloitte, specialising in financial translation. He and Miriam adopted two girls from the south of Chile, whom they raised in the faith, on a smallholding outside Santiago, giving them a new lease of life and providing them with the best education availableboth Deborah and Rebecca have completed University in Chile.
The following obituary was written by his brother, Peter Grimsditch: David was born in Lima, Peru, where like his brothers, on reaching school age, he attended Markham College, the British School in Lima.
In Addicted to Food (2013), James argued that what we eat has become our fourth addiction after tobacco, drugs and alcohol. He attacked the modern food industry for so eagerly exploiting it. He explained that drug or booze addicts can walk away from their vice, but food junkies still need to eat every day. James showed a link between excessive weight gain and income, with unskilled workers suffering obesity far more than the professional classes. In modern Britain, many of the cheapest foods are the worst for you and eating healthily can be
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His1979.father, Irvine, was a cardiologist; his mother, Grace (nee Rentschler), who came from a poor Pennsylvanian Dutch background, taught him the value of good nutrition. His energy and commitment for getting to the truth was rooted in childhood tragedy.James’s sister, Pamela Jane, died after being vaccinated against polio when she was seven and he a year younger. If James had not had a cold, he too would have been given an injection from the same faulty batch, it is thought. Losing his only sibling was a shattering blow that taught James that officials and companies cannot always be trusted with the health and welfare of others.
educational exchange and fell in love with what he saw as greater social equality in the UK. After a degree at Brown University in Rhode Island, he returned to Britain to study history at Cambridge University. Then he went into journalism at the Kent Messenger newspaper and arrived at the Guardian in
Died peacefully in hospital on 30 July 2019, aged 62. Brother to Timothy (JH 65-69) and the late Anthony (HS 66-70). (HS 70-74)
At the time his views were often brushed off as a “scare story”, yet more than three decades later the UK’s chief medical officer Dame Sally Davies is using the same concerns to warn of a “post-antibiotic apocalypse”. His book also raised the alarm on pesticide and hormone residues left in our food, themes that increasingly became the cornerstones of the organic food movement.
IRETON, Richard Alan
GRIMSDITCH, David Maurice
Inexpensive.2007,James moved from London to Worcester to live with his partner Penny Perrett, and in 2010 he gained a PhD in food policy from Sussex University. His voluntary work helping children with their reading at a local school and cooking for the homeless gave him as much satisfaction as even his greatest journalistic scoops.
James’s first book, Gluttons for Punishment, was published by Penguin in 1986 and contains some of the earliest and clearest warnings on antibiotic resistance. He analysed how intensive farming production required low-dose antibiotics to be continually fed to livestock, creating “evolutionary pressure” on bacteria to create super-strains.
beef, 8% pork kidney), clients were getting a poor deal and the product should be re-categorised. He is survived by Penny and by two children, Hannah and Matthew, from his marriage to Susan Littledale, which ended in divorce.
David lived out his life in a wheelchair, with admirable fortitude and courage, swimming in his garden pool for exercise and even driving into Santiago to his office. He eventually fell victim to a
Died on 11 November 2018, aged 61. Brother to Peter (MH 64-69) and John (MH 68-73).
(PS 66-67)
From Lima the family moved to Santiago, Chile, where David also attended a British School: The Grange School, where he learned his hockey and rugby. He also became a very proficient tennis player. He passed his common entrance examination with flying colours and followed his two elder brothers to Manor House at Tonbridge School, where he continued to excel at games, becoming a member of the hockey XI and the first XV.
From Tonbridge he went up to St. John’s College, Oxford, to study Modern Languages, where he also played hockey for the college. In his year off between School and University he had gone back to Chile, where he encountered evangelical missionaries who converted him to their faith. After graduating from Oxford, he went to work for the evangelical organization at their headquarters in Colorado. While there he contracted tuberculosis, a nodule forming in his spine and severing it. This made him something of a medical curiosity in the USA for a while. He was medevacked by St John Ambulance back to England to go through rehabilitation, later returning to Chile to marry Miriam, a Chilean girl whom he had met at an Evangelical Convention in Colorado.
Born in Chiddingstone in 1973, Callum grew up in Brenchley, where he went to school at Yardley Court and then Tonbridge (SH 87-91). Supported by a strong family, he had a golden childhood, making many strong friendships that stayed with him through his life. He would always try and return for an annual golf day with friends from his Tonbridge Spanish class and their teacher, Martin King.
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Beginning by teaching English in Japan, Callum moved across Indonesia, Taiwan, and China.
Becoming fluent in Chinese, he developed his own language learning memory system and quickly acquired knowledge of over five thousand Chinese characters. He would use this memory system for the rest of his life, later completing a degree in English law, which he claimed to have learned in Chinese.
live for the years to come.
On his travels, Callum journeyed deep into western China, and lived for some time with fighting monks at a mountain monastery in Sichuan province near Tibet. Here the scenery was beautiful, but the plumbing was primitive. The energy system involved burning dried animal dung, and daily rations were pancakes made from grass. Faced with regular challenges from packs of wild dogs, this chapter in Callum’s life ended as he was brought down by one such dog attack, forcing him to return at haste to Shanghai for a Rabies shot.
AL QASIMI, Khalid bin Sultan, Sheikh Died on 1 July 2019, aged 39.
Died on March 13 March 2019, aged 45. Brother to Alistair Maclay (SH 85-90).
During these years he developed an interest in music and film production and published a series of children’s stories based around ‘SnowPo’, a polar bear character that he had created.
Khalid Al Qasimi on the runway during the Qasimi Homme menswear spring/summer 2012 show during Paris Fashion Week
MACLAY, Callum
Finding it difficult to settle in one place, in later years, Callum returned to Europe. Adding to the diversity of his journeys, he worked for six months on a farm near Trondheim in the north of Norway. He studied film at South Bank University, supporting his studies with employment in a London Casino, before his long standing colour blindness eventually put pay to his newfound career as a croupier!
Died peacefully in Leicester Royal Infirmary after a short illness on 28 August 2019, aged 60. Brother to Tim (JH 69-74). (JH 72-77)
Fashion designer and crown prince who mixed Arab and western styles and whose clothes were worn by LadyHavingGaga.left his family’s palace in Sharjah to go to school deep in the Kent countryside, Khalid Al Qasimi used to run away at weekends to London. He said it meant he was often in trouble, but he didn’t mind; he revelled in the “Cool Britannia” atmosphere of the city in the 1990s, and fashion influenced by designers such as Alexander McQueen. “It was a really important place for me,” he said. “It always has been.”Years later he set up his own label, Qasimi, for
cancer of the bladder, a not uncommon consequence of living many years intubated with a catheter. He underwent treatment for a couple of years, steadfastly continuing to minister to his congregation, and care for his family. Money has been raised in his name by his congregation to build a social and civic centre that will be named after him, a fitting tribute to someone for whom the welfare of his family and community meant everything. He passed away on Remembrance Sunday 2018 and is lovingly remembered and sorely missed by his family, many friends and members of his congregation. Hasta siempre, David! (MH 70-74)
YATES, David George
Back in England, Callum stayed in Tunbridge Wells playing cricket for Penshurst before moving on to London. Harnessing his Chinese language skills, he worked with the Chinese Immigration Advisory Service before qualifying as a criminal and immigration lawyer working at Freeman’s solicitors in London. He met Wanlin who became the love of his
Irritated with the English weather and fueled by his yearning for diverse spicy food, Callum returned to Asia in 2010. Relocating to what he described as the ‘paradise of the world’ in northern Thailand, he then lived in South Korea, before settling in Taiwan.
Having attended university in Manchester and Bristol, Callum spent his twenties exploring Asia.
Throughout his life, Callum would ‘suck the marrow from a place’ and then move on. In doing so he would always keep his brain turning over by learning new things. It was his way of dealing with the genetic issues that were becoming less dormant as time developed. A permanent student of the world, he lived a life of constant motion, always seeking new exercises and challenges.
He was the ultimate adventurer and free spirit. (SH 87-91)
The following obituary was published in The Times, in July 2019:
George was special. George had an impact on Tonbridge School and Manor House and all those who had the great fortune to come into contact and spend time with him. The fact that we heard the Robert Frost poem that he read at the Leavers’ Service tells you a great deal. Only a handful of boys take part in the service; the heads of school, music scholars, the chapel prae, and in his year, George. Why? I will try and share a few collective memories of his time at Tonbridge and in Manor to explain.
George was not a sporting or musical superstar, an extrovert or a star of the stage, yet he had a greater impact than many who were. As one of his peers said recently. “Everyone knew George”.
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men’s and women’s clothes. His designs combined Arab and western styles in an often provocative manner and were sold in luxury department stores. On one occasion he said he took inspiration from photographs of young Muslims around Whitechapel, London, going to mosques with their sneakers on underneath their gowns. “It’s a very strong look that’s placed in a western situation; I like ideas like that,” he said.Yet as the crown prince and the second son of the ruler of a conservative city on the Arabian Gulf, setting up a fashion label was far from easy, despite his family’s huge wealth, and he sometimes alluded to the difficulty he had faced. “I don’t really like to bring my family into these sorts of discussions,” he once said. “I mean, OK, it wasn’t easy and you have to fight for what you believe in.” He was not married. He had a taste for the finer things on offer in London and had an apartment near Hyde Park. He could be found with friends having Sunday brunch in the Chiltern Firehouse, or discussing music for his shows with plates of lobster noodles and dim sum in the Royal China Club. He also liked the opulence of Leighton House, especially the Arab hall with its golden dome, mosaics and Islamic tiles that were collected from the Middle East. He still flew back regularly to Sharjah. “Obviously, the Emirates is home to me and when the weather is nice there it’s good, but when it’s too hot you can’t stay for long,” he said. “We are always discussing politics, at home, over dinner, it’s present in conversation all the time.”
He was found by a member of his staff at his flat. Three days of official mourning were declared in Sharjah. (WH 93-97)
The following Eulogy was written by George’s Housemaster, Colin Swainson. Someone reminded me recently that George almost went to Sevenoaks! Thankfully for us he didn’t.
He was influenced by attitudes surrounding terrorism and most recently combined the loose
Died in China on 3 July 2019, aged 30. (WH 02-07)
style of the Emirati dress with a T-shirt with the slogan “Don’t shoot” in Arabic, French and English in a Paris catwalk show, priced at £115. He said it was in part the replica of a T-shirt worn by journalists in Lebanon in 1982. “To a western person, some aspects of traditional Middle Eastern clothing are perhaps seen as aggressive or threatening, but if you look at it from the other point of view, the traditional western military outfit could be much more threatening,” he said. His spring 2020 collection appeared at London Fashion week last month. When it came to style advice his tip was always: “Don’t overdo it; don’t overthink it. Keep it simple, always.”
SOMERSET, George Henry Fitzroy
Sheikh Khalid bin Sultan bin Mohammad Al Qasimi was born in 1980, the second son of Sheikh Dr Sultan bin Muhammad Al Qasimi, the ruler of oil-rich Sharjah, the third biggest city in the United Arab Emirates. His mother was his father’s second wife, Her Highness Sheikha Jawaher bint Sheikh Mohammed bin Sultan bin Saqr Al Qasimi. She had three daughters too: Sheikha Bodour, Sheikha Noor and Sheikha Hoor. He was raised in Sharjah, which prohibited the selling of alcohol and which was long known for its more cultural sights and souks, compared with neighbouring Dubai, and moved to England aged nine. In 1999 his half-brother Sheikh Mohammed bin Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qasimi died of a heroin overdose at the family’s estate in East Grinstead, Surrey, aged 24.
GRIFFITHS, Robert William
He went to Tonbridge School, in Kent, and read French and Spanish at University College London before studying architecture. Later he was an architect and chairman of the Sharjah Urban Planning Council. He then won a place on the womenswear course at Central Saint Martins college in London. “I was always interested in fashion, growing up; obsessed with it, collecting a lot of magazines and things like that,” he said. He started the Qasimi fashion label in 2008, soon dropping his women’s line, even though Lady Gaga was said to have worn some of his pieces. He said he preferred working within the restrictions of men’s clothes.
Died on 20 July 2019, aged 20. It is with deep sadness that we must inform you of the death of George Somerset. George was an academic scholar and a boarder in Manor House. He had just completed his second year at Durham University where he was studying Modern Languages and Cultures as a student at the College of St Hild and St Bede.
George loved the outdoors. He spent three happy years doing conservation on Wednesday afternoons where I must confess it was his company and good humour rather than his work that stood out. He was a specialist at making the tea on the fire. There is an apple tree dedicated to him in the orchard. Golden Noble if you want to know. A cooker, like George. George was a baker long before Bake Off made it trendy. A very good one too.
George was the kind of boy that you were delighted to have in your classroom. Delight is a word that comes up time and again. Absolute pleasure. Cheerful. Generous. Enthusiastic. Talented. One in a million. A young man of real character. My brilliantly talented and clever friend. Even gruff old teachers from up north in what George called ‘struggle subjects’ were sad that he didn’t do their subject at A Level. I’ve had great fun reading all George’s reports. I always used to save reading his to last so that when I was tired and grumpy, I had something to look forward to. As Dr Jackson, who knew George so well wrote: ‘There are many students that I will miss but George has been exceptional in so many ways that I will remember him for a long time.’ Or as Doriel Hulse put it. ‘Uniquely, I am lost for words.’ Doriel was never lost for words. George had that impact on people on a truly personalGeorgelevel.was funny. The mere mention of his name makes me smile. He loved his puns. He loved his idiomatic expressions and was delighted when you accused him of sounding old fashioned. A real linguist.George came into Manor after a term as a day boy. The best bit of transfer business I ever did. He was a dream to have in the house. He made people laugh. He drew people in. He coaxed people out. He emanated feelings of comfort, enjoyment and amusement. George was the glue that brought ManorGeorgetogether.loved matron’s room. He lived in matron’s room. It was always a happy place when he was there, winding people up, that grin of his never far from his face. That must be an abiding memory for many of us. George gained legendary status as the only boy to have slapped matron’s bum. Why you ask? Why not? A good story there. Forever in the annals of Manor folklore. Legend confirmed. He loved Nicky. And she loved him too. She used to drive him home every Saturday. He once walked home to bake her a chocolate whiskey cake on her birthday when he had forgotten. They were like an
If you were on his team, one of his friends, a Manorian he backed you to the hilt but he was always open to new friends even those he had disagreed with. Most of the time…… George could talk to people. Really talk to people. It was a wonderful gift. He was my ‘go to’ boy whenever we had guests at lunch that I was worried about or seemed awkward or shy. Not with George. George was genuinely interested in you. George was genuine.
Everyone loved bumping into him. George made people smile. He was genuine. He was interested in you. George cared about others. He was kind. He was the kind of friend you see at any time and pick up right where you left off. George always had a smile. A big infectious cheeky grin. He always brightened up your day and everyone else’s around him. He cared about the lives of others. George was one of life’s good guys.
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old married couple. Forever playfully bickering. Forever winding each other up. George used to walk everywhere. Fast. And he made no allowances for matron, telling her to run instead. All the boys loved the double act. George loved Manor and Manor loved George.
George was generous. Generous with time. Generous with advice. Generous in spirit. An excellent prae. Efficient, authoritative and good humoured; he set the right tone in the house. The younger boys loved him. He always had time to lend boys pens, paper, books as well as help. There are a few people who owe an A level grade or two to George! George got his year group through A levels. Boys get stressed. George would always rally the troops. Frisbee on the upper hundred. And if it was raining, he would sit in your room and make everyone laugh.
Sporting success, as he measured it, eluded George. But not in the eyes of those he played
George could be bossy. He could be stubborn. He could be grumpy, but he mostly got away with it. He very rarely had a cross word for anyone and when he did, he was quick to apologise much like one of his beloved dogs.
For George loved an argument. He was his own man. He would stand up for himself. He was strong minded but also thoughtful and inquisitive. He liked to question things. However, when wrong he would always eventually accept it. I loved our discussions around the lunch table. He infuriated me and made me glad I was a teacher in equal measure. His insistence on proper manners with little people. Better than me with my own Georgechildren.wasloyal.
Some stats for the mathematician in George. Straight A*s at GCSE, Honorary Scholarship, Distinction in his Extended Project. Prizes at Skinners’ Day. An A* and 3 As at A Level. Gold Duke of Edinburgh, one of only a handful in the year and he organised the expedition by himself. Typical George. Creative writing, French Film society, Ruston Society, Ultimate Frisbee, Fives, Badminton, chess. I could go on. He was busy. He made the most of the opportunities at school.
I once compared George to a tree in a Christmas speech along with the rest of his year group. A hazel. With upright stems. A wonderful procrastinator like George trying to make up its mind whether it is a tree or shrub. Though, like George, tough and well liked and good for starting fires.
AUSTIN, Valerie Mary
BUSHBY, Michael Howard (Mike)
MARSHALL, Sir Michael John, CBE
Sadly, an illness that we didn’t see coming took him away from us too fast and all too soon, but I feel lucky to have been involved in his life in a small way.
Michael Marshall took over the leadership of the group from his father in 1989. Astute, hard-working and deeply interested both in people and technology, he presided over an expansion which saw the car sales side expand from four outlets in the 1950s to 30 at its peak.
George and Ultimate were a perfect match. A non-refereed sport, it relies on a competitive approach married with respect for the rules and the opposition. George’s charm, generosity, thoughtfulness and humility were ideally suited to this.Ihave not nearly done justice to George here, but I sincerely hope that you all spend some time today remembering those moments that made us smile and laugh and sharing them with each other. I think he would like that.
Farewell George and thank you for everything. (MH 12-17)
On the aerospace side, he directed the company’s vital support for the RAF’s Hercules and TriStar fleets during the Falklands and Gulf wars and the conflict in Bosnia, and maintained close personal relationships with US manufacturers such as Lockheed Martin.
COMMON ROOM & FRIENDS
Died on 27 July 2019, aged 87. The following Obituary was published in The Tele graph, on 7 August 2019:
Died peacefully on 19th May 2019, aged 91. Formerly of Tonbridge. Beloved widow of Robert, mother of Timothy and Sarah-Jane, Grandma to Jen, Kate, Alison and Dave, and Gigi to her many great(Hillgrandchildren.Side62-76, Teacher of Modern Languages 80-89)
I am beyond sad that he is gone but know that we are all richer for having known him, and his is a life truly worth celebrating. I for one still smile at mention of his name and the times we shared. Thank God he didn’t go to Sevenoaks.
Died on 8 February 2020, aged 88. Beloved member of the Tonbridge Community, Mike Bushby sadly passed away on 8 February 2020 after he had a stroke in January. He leaves behind his wife, Judy, and three children, Emma, Alison, and Jim (WW 84-89). All of us will remember Mike as enormously likeable. He was caring and thoughtful in so many ways, within the school and elsewhere. He had so many close connections with boys, OTs, parents and (CRcolleagues.54-91,Ferox Housemaster 66-81)
Michael John Marshall was born in Cambridge on January 27 1932. He was the son of Sir Arthur Marshall and his wife Rosemary, née Dimsdale, the daughter of a fellow of King’s College and granddaughter of the 6th Baron Dimsdale – a Russian imperial title conferred by Catherine the Great on an English doctor who had inoculated her againstArthursmallpox.wasthe son of David Marshall, a former college servant and steward of the Pitt Club who in 1909 had started a chauffeur-driven car business that became Marshall’s Garages. Arthur was a keen flier who developed an aerodrome (now Cambridge International Airport), a flying school and an aircraft maintenance business alongside an expanding garageDuringchain.theSecond World War, Arthur Marshall had a hand in the training of thousands of RAF aircrew, and in the post-war era his company was involved in many military and civilian aircraft projects, including the design of the droop nose and visor of Concorde.
Michael Marshall was educated at Eton and was commissioned as an RAF pilot for National Service
Sir Michael Marshall, who has died aged 87, was chairman and chief executive of Marshall of Cambridge, the automotive and aerospace business founded by his grandfather; he was also a prominent figure in Cambridgeshire public life and a veteran aviator.TheMarshall group of companies comprises one of the UK’s largest motor dealership chains combined with divisions which service aircraft and supply mobile military equipment and medical systems. In total the group has some 6,000 employees and £2.5 billion of sales.
with. His final Fives report is one of the warmest reports I have ever read. George made a considerable contribution to the Ultimate Club. Committed for five years. A really good player too.
OLD TONBRIDGIAN NEWS78
A detailed tribute to Mike can be found on pages [16-18] of this magazine.
Chris started to fence in his teens in the late 1960s at Stockport Sword Club under Bernard Popland and Adrian Kellett and quickly found that he had not only a great interest in the sport but also a natural flair, and the club asked him to teach other pupils. He competed in County and National competitions amassing a number of gold, silver and bronze medals. On leaving school he went to the University of Wales at Wrexham where his main subject was Physical Education, concentrating on Gymnastics, outdoor pursuits in addition to sailing, mountain climbing and all standard sports and qualified as a PE teacher. Fencing went on temporary hold whilst at college, but he developed an interest in martial arts and soon became leader of the college Küng Foo Club. In his final year at university, Chris became a committed Christian and his faith had a profound
Michael Marshall was High Sheriff of Cambridgeshire in 1988 and Vice Lord-Lieutenant from 1992 to 2006. He chaired fundraising appeals for Ely Cathedral, Addenbrooke’s Hospital and the Prince’s Trust, and for the county’s contribution to the 1984 Olympic Appeal. He was a benefactor of Jesus College, the family having donated the original Marshall garage on Jesus Lane for postgraduate accommodation.Hewasalsoinvolved in numerous industry bodies for the motor trade and manufacturing, and was active in all aspects of air training. Both in business and in public life, he was passionately concerned with helping young people to realise their potential. He was appointed CBE in 1999 and knighted in 2010.
The following Obituary was written by Denis Cruse (CR 2001-16):
influence upon his career.
PENNEY, Maitre Christopher
before going to Jesus College, Cambridge, where he read History and stroked the 1954 Boat Race crew which lost to Oxford by four and a half lengths; he went on to row for England in the 1955 European championships.Hejoinedthe family firm in that year, becoming managing director in 1963 and deputy chairman in 1965; he was chief executive until 2010, chairman until 2016, and thereafter president. The car dealership side was separately floated on the Stock Exchange in 2015, with Marshall of Cambridge remaining its majority shareholder.
wife, Abigail, at university. She survives (CR,him Fencing Coach 2000-2014)
Friend of Tonbridge School and son of Sir Arthur Marshall OBE (HS 1918-22)
Died in December 2017.
Throughout his life his faith had been strong, and he first felt the call to ministry in his twenties. He was active in churches in the Church of England wherever he lived and in the 1990s explored the possibility of ordination, and just into the new millennium undertook training at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford. This was fulfilling but generated some doubts about some of the CoE’s ontology and as a consequence he did not become ordained in the Church of England. However, he preached and ministered at many churches and gradually becoming more comfortable amongst the Baptists became a member of Tonbridge Baptist Church. This led to him being appointed Minister to the Baptist Church in Eynsford, Kent, in 2011, a fulfilment of his long felt calling.
After university Chris found a position on a project with a civil engineering firm in Wales. On completion of that project, during which he did not fence, he decided on a change and moved to Kent where he chose to take up his grandfather’s profession of a medical herbalist. He completed his qualification and practised for more than a decade at clinics in Kent and London. Following his moving to Kent he resumed his fencing. By the mid-1980s, however, he felt the need to change his path again, and having been fencing at Gravesham Fencing Club started to coach there. Further coaching appointments followed: in schools in Kent and Sussex, which comprised a wide variety – prep, independent, both day and boarding, as well as maintained schools –and at Salle Paul where he worked with Peter Frolich and the Olympic team, which he enjoyed very much, and took his international diploma in Sabre in 1999, one of his proudest fencing achievements. During this time he produced many successful fencers in National Youth Championships and the Public Schools Championships, several of whom were medallists and three were National Champions. He also opened his own Clubs variously in Tunbridge Wells and Tonbridge. During this time Chris served the wider fencing community by becoming a committee member of the BAF and was a Regional Coach Educator operating in the South East Region.
A member of the Royal Air Squadron, Marshall held a private pilot’s licence for 70 years and (with his 75-year-old co-pilot) had planned to fly his single-engined Morane-Saulnier Rallye Minerva to Morocco next month.
He married first, in 1960, Bridget Pollock; the marriage was dissolved in 1977 and he married secondly, in 1979, Sibyl Walkinshaw (née Hutton), who survives him with two sons and two daughters of the first marriage, and two stepsons.
As his commitment to the church increased, Chris reduced his coaching load, and by the time of moving to Eynsford was only coaching at Tonbridge School, where he latterly surprised the club by arriving in a Caterham 7, in which there was hardly enough room for both himself and his kit! A little while after an operation for a heart condition he considered that retirement was a wise step and moved to a cottage in north Wales which he had been renovating for some years and joined the Baptist community in the area. He had been there only a short time when pancreatic cancer was diagnosed.Hemethis
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My contribution to her was in introduce her to Jesus – or rather Jésus the lovely Spanish boy who came to my birthday party.
Died on 4 November 2019.
But London can be exhausting. By this time she was working as a nanny for the grandchildren of famous 50s model Barbara Golan and she was ready for a change of scene. In the way that big things happen with small chance conversations, her friend’s sister suggested she became a matron at Ludgrove, the prep school where she was working.
It feels so very sad and yet so fitting to be thinking about her in this beautiful chapel – the heart of school life and also the place where she was married. She loved ceremony and she loved singing hymns.Sarah’s life began in May 1962, just outside Bristol in the small village of Lulsgate Bottom – a place that somehow seemed to set a tone. I know I’m definitely not allowed to tell the story of the time she cricked her neck trying to see her bottom in the mirror.
The following Eulogy was written by Sarah’s brother, William Roberts:
At 11 she started as a boarder at the Hall School near Wincanton. Here many of her creative, artistic talents were encouraged, as well as many lasting friendships formed.
A little sister for 20 month old Jenny and a big sister for me 5 years later.
Back to Dorset for 6th form at Clayesmore and then off to London to take up a place studying fashion design at the prestigious London College of Fashion – a place she was awarded before she did her art A level, as they were so impressed by her drawing skill.
in fashion took her to Liberty’s on Regent Street where she worked in the Oriental Department amongst the beautiful objects, silks and crewel work. Customers and colleagues loved her and she often got grateful letters from across the world – something I can verify as I worked alongside her in my Saturday job selling Japanese prints.
PRICE, Sarah Roberts
This period of our time together in London – when all three of us were in London - seemed long and very happy, even though it was only a few short yearsSarah, with her group of trendy and artistic friends, introduced me to many new things in London – the Sol y Sombre nightclub in Charlotte Street, the Three Lanterns restaurant in Piccadilly which, with a cheap Monday cinema ticket, could provide a night out for under £5 and the high alcohol low cost benefits of Tennent’s Super Strength.
Sarah was a matron in every sense of the word, but for me, she was a mother above all else. She once told me that she loved each and every boy who came through Park House as though he were her own son, and the care she gave was truly unparalleled. As a testament of her true empathy and selflessness, every time that I saw her whilst she was battling the cancer, she apologised to me for being ill. It is hard to put into words the level of her kindness, and the impact of her presence in Park over the years. Her passing has been profoundly felt, both throughout the Tonbridge community and the OT community, and she is sorely, sorely missed. In three words, Sarah was loving, kind, and above all, irreplaceable.
She moved to Bournemouth at the age of 3 and then at 14 moved to the Dorset village of Witchampton. Our house was just by the bridge over the river, which was also the meeting point for Hutch, Benny and all the other young lads of the village. At 9, I was the junior hanger on, and as I discovered, just the decoy so they could gain access to Sarah. She was the cool, trendy, smoking teenager and the heartthrob of the gang of teenage boys
It is a great honour to be able to celebrate the public side of Sarah’s life. She was both a very private person and someone who spent so much of her life in the very public community of a school. Tonbridge School was a very significant part of her life and I know, and you are all a testament to this, that she was a very significant part of the life of Tonbridge School.
OLD TONBRIDGIAN NEWS80
Looking quite unlike any of the matrons I remember from school, she turned up in her silver VW Scirocco and so began her career shaping and forming the lives of hundreds of the country’s future leaders, including Prince William and Prince Harry. She did her best to forge an early betrothal between
The following was written by Henry Matson (PH 2014-19):
She had a distinctive drawing style - fabulously stylised, Dior shaped models and her trademark one eye hidden by a fringe – a style she developed as she found it hard to draw two identical eyes.
Like so many with a talent, she wasn’t always aware of just how talented she was. We all loved her drawings, especially the ones she would do for birthday cards or to illustrate the Christmas lunch menu.Atcollege she landed a really prestigious work placement with Paul Costello. At the end of the two weeks they couldn’t thank her enough for so enthusiastically throwing herself into everything they asked her to do, no matter how menial. Only when her college lecturer rang her frantically asking her why she never turned up at Costello’s did she realise she had knocked on the wrong door and had done two weeks voluntary work for some random clothes factory!Hercareer
an old lady who tells us what really you think! That in old age you and Jenny will not share a swing seat in companionable animosity like our grandmother did with her sister. But we must all be grateful for so manyLastthings.summer, as we spent many warm days with Sarah in the hospice, we had the chance to properly say the things that some people never get the chance to say.
Harry and her niece Christabel, then determined to be a princess, but as we know, Meghan happened and it was not to be.
I hope you will remember Sarah at many times in your life - when offering a caring word to soften a harsh environment; when you choose to be kind; when you say thank you to waiters; when you choose to do the thing that is right; when you follow your values and you give from your heart. And when you hit 30, remembering not to raise your eyebrows as it causes permanently aging wrinkles!
TOBIN, Patrick Francis John
Patrick Tobin, was Head of History at Tonbridge from 1975-81, before leaving to become Headmaster of Prior Park College in Bath. He later became Principal of the Mary Erskine School for girls, and of Daniel Stewart’s and Melville College for boys, in Edinburgh and was Chairman of the Headmaster’s Conference in 1998. Patrick had nearly fifty years of loving married life to Margery, and they had four children on whom he doted and of whose achievements he was very proud – Matthew, Emma, Lucy and Sophie.
In 2007, here in the beautiful school chapel, Sarah became Mrs Price – well sort of, she became a mix of Roberts and Roberts-Price.
With her capacity to show love, as well as her awareness of pain and sadness; her sense of doing things right coupled with her rebellious and subversive streak - it comes as no surprise that she touched people’s hearts and soothed their minds
Sarah’s career in schools, which took her from Ludgrove to Salisbury Cathedral School and then to Tonbridge, was a big part of her life. She felt that her own experiences as a boarder from 11 to 18, which were the usual mixture of good and bad, happy and difficult, meant that she could provide the empathy and the guidance to others in that situation.
And of course, with Anthony came Tristan and all of a sudden she became a mother, not just a mother but the hardest kind of mother - a step-mother. But I speak for all of us when I say there is no step in that relationshipAndthen, to top the surprise of motherhood, along came grand-motherhood. I think even Sarah was taken by surprise at the strength of her love for her grandson Noah.
It has been quite overwhelming for all of us to see the outpouring of love that has come from those whose lives she has touched; like all of you here today – like Henry who will be giving his musical tribute next. Actually, a particularly appropriate piece. When I first went to boarding school, Sarah worried that my musical tastes might make me look like a nerd, so she advised me to just say I liked David Bowie, as everyone thinks he’s cool.
Sarah, you died as you lived – pottering around with cosmetics in your bedroom, making strangers fall in love with you, amusing your family, buying things on QVC and finally, leaving us with your diamonds in your ears and not a wrinkle above your (Matron,eyebrows.Park House 2006-2019)
Died peacefully on 29 April 2020, aged 78. The following Obituary was written by David Walsh (CR 1972 - 2009) with help from former colleagues in Joe Davies, Christopher Everett and Jonathan Smith:
People celebrate the great teachers that honed their vast knowledge or eloquence but it is also people like Sarah who help them to be good people; help them to navigate the emotional landscape of communal living and show them a combination of love, decency and respect – things that will make all of you better husbands, better fathers, better bosses and better kings.
And then came Anthony. Further proof that big things happen in random ways and that the best parties are the ones you least want to go to. A party in Salisbury one autumn night 15 years ago – the friend of a friend down from London.
None of us has had long enough with Sarah and we are all still feeling the numb intensity of the shock of the last year. I have a constant pain in the back of my heart.
I can’t believe Sarah that we will not know you as
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Educated at St. Benedict’s, Ealing and Christ Church, Oxford, he came to Tonbridge from Christ College, Brecon, where he was head of history and numbered Joe Davies among his pupils. Joe remembers him as ‘massively inspirational. He was so lively, so intent on persuading us to get a grasp of historical detail, so adept at explaining the processes of historical interpretation. It is to Patrick that I owed my place at Cambridge to study history and no one who taught me there came as close to inspiring in me the love of the subject as Patrick did. In September 1980 I joined the Tonbridge history department and I am sure it was Patrick who persuaded Christopher Everett that the scruffy, rough-edged Welshman was a risk worth taking. Patrick then threw me in at the deep end by giving
me a challenging teaching timetable while he swanned off to Australia on an exchange year. He had manoeuvred me into a wonderful school and department which gave me standards that influenced me for the rest of my career.’
The impact Patrick had on Tonbridge was far-reaching despite the fact that he only spent six years here, in the last of which he was on an enjoyable and inspiriting exchange at King’s Parramatta in Australia, while John Wickham joined us here. Christopher Everett, whose arrival at Tonbridge coincided with that of Patrick, remembers how ‘conversations with him were a joy because of his wit and wide range of interests and willingness to join in debate. He was always positively engaged in all the school’s affairs with a flow of ideas for how we could do better. His views were trenchantly delivered, with an occasional touch of exasperation when others did not accept them, but with a genial good humour that helped the business along. His passion for his subject and his intellectual energy made him an inspirational teacher. He had a real interest in every one of his pupils.’
Patrick worked closely with Jonathan Smith, stimulating and refreshing the academic side of school life. Jonathan remembers him as ‘a man of great intellectual energy, wide interests and deep convictions. His life was built on his faith (he was a devout Roman Catholic) and on his loving family. Patrick had strong views and did not shy away from academic or political debate. He did not mind a fight. He was a bracing and lively friend and an inspiring colleague. He held your eye. He liked the big issues. He framed the argument. I always looked forward to talking to him, going for walks with him, and getting stuck into some problem or challenge. He had no time for the wishy-washy and even less patience with passing educational blather. He had little tolerance for the feckless and the feeble. Did you want to know? Right. You had to work, to do the serious reading, to put in the hard yards. Then it became fun. I always wanted to know his invigorating views and, after engaging with him, quite often changed mine. I learnt a lot from him. He came to Tonbridge from teaching at Christ College, Brecon, where I had been a schoolboy, and this, with our love of rugby, was perhaps something of a bond between us. We also
Patrick wrote and published a memoir of his time in education, called Portrait of a Putney Pud The chapter he devotes to Tonbridge is notable both in the affection he has for the school (‘In all sorts of ways Tonbridge remains the best school I ever taught in’), but also in the incisiveness with which he could identify the strengths and weaknesses of the school at a time of wide cultural change. He wrote that Tonbridge ‘was, for all its sociability and charm, an unquestioningly conservative society’ and he took issue with what he perceived as a somewhat feudal relationship between the Skinners’ Company as employers and the pay and conditions of the staff. He was one of the prime movers in creating a properly constituted Common Room, with a committee able and willing to represent its members to headmaster and governors, drafting the constitution himself. One of the consequences was a large rise in the pay of the teaching staff. He believed that the self-contained house system, and peer group influence within it, could ‘blunt the impact of the challenging teacher on his pupils’. As head of history, he fought hard to give the subject more time in the Lower School and then, by taking over as master in charge of university entrance and Oxbridge, he was able to influence more of the brightest boys to take it at A/Level and university. One of his outstanding students was the current President of the OTS, Guy Newey, who is still grateful for the influence Patrick had on him as he crafts his written judgements in the Court of Appeal. He enjoyed his rugby coaching and was the ebullient hooker in the Common Room rugby team formed by Michael Mavor to play the 2nd XV and called the ‘Mavoricks’. Tonbridge was greatly fortunate in the late 1970s to have both Michael and Patrick in the Common Room. One of Patrick’s most notable achievements at Tonbridge was to lead a sixth form expedition overland to view the Crusader castles of the Middle East. Modern risk assessments would have been off the scale as he drove the school minibus, loaded with two staff, eight boys, several jerrycans of petrol and not much food across Europe
OLD TONBRIDGIAN NEWS82
started our times as Tonbridge heads of department in the same year, 1975, and both went on exchanges to Australia, experiences which we both found liberating.’In2004
On 4 January 2020, to Rebecca and her husband Stephen, a daughter, Bethany (Database,Rachel.Finance and Research Administrator, Tonbridge Society)
TENNANT
The engagement is announced between Douglas, elder son of Mr Jonathan Bourne and Mrs Susan Bourne, of Sevenoaks, Kent, and Virginia, only daughter of Sabine MacLean, of Tunbridge Wells, Kent, and Mark MacLean, of Vancouver, Canada.
While he was in Australia, Patrick secured the headship of Prior Park, its first lay headmaster with the task of steering it into co-education. From there his ascent and influence within education was rapid, and, as well as running a huge educational institution in Edinburgh, he became the HMC pioneer and expert on professional development. His year as Chairman of HMC in 1998 required great political skills in the first year of a new Labour government, but his conference was notable for his chosen theme ‘Educating into Goodness’, embracing a characteristic philosophical, religious and educational framework. He took on governorships in many schools, one of which was Portsmouth GS, where James Priory found him a great source of wisdom and remembers him as ‘supportive, astute and challenging’. The incisiveness of his advice even in retirement is remembered by Joe Davies, who, by then Master of Haileybury, sat next to him at an HMC dinner: ‘I started to explain to him a particularly difficult and distressing issue I had been dealing with. No doubt I was going into rather too much detail about the complex decisions I would have to make. He brought me up short and (at the time) I thought rather sharply. “That’s why they pay you so well!” was his succinct summation. He was of course absolutely right and any sense of self-pity I might have been developing disappeared promptly.’
WATTS
DIMNIK
(CR, Head of History 75-81)
SLOANE
The engagement is announced between Jonathan, son of the late Mr Tony Todman and Mrs Elizabeth Todman, of Otford, Kent, and Danika, daughter of Mr and Mrs Albert Jarmer, of Brisbane, Australia. PH 90-95
BOURNE
To add a notice online, or in the next edition of OT Magazine, contact us at: +44tonbridgesociety@tonbridge-school.org(0)1732304253
The engagement is announced between Alexander, son of Mr Lewis Watts (WW 78-82) and Mrs Iona Watts, of Hawkhurst, Kent, and Kerry, daughter of Mr Gary Long and Mrs Lynn Long, of Bangor, County Down, Northern Ireland. WW 08-13
NOTICES
On 9 May 2020, to Jamie and his wife Lucy, a daughter, Ella. PH 01-06
SH 04-09
On 27 December 2019, to Nick and his wife Alice, a son, Rafe Nicholas. HS 84-89
83MAY 2020 to Syria, taking most of the summer holidays.
TODMAN
Patrick’s stay at Tonbridge was brief in span of years, but huge in the impact he had on colleagues and pupils, and strong in the memories we have of someone who made us reconsider so many aspects of education and corporate life. His strong Catholic faith, his religious commitment and his fierce desire to take pupils out of their comfort zone were reflected in the last of many inspiring Chapel addresses he gave at Tonbridge: ‘Tonbridge chapel should mean an opening to questions and to mystery, not a cool place to get married in’. Patrick believed passionately in the power of education to make the world a better place, challenged us to reflect more deeply on what mattered and kindled so many splinters of light in those fortunate to have known him. We remember him and Margery with gratitude and great affection.
GARDNER
On 17 March 2020, to Katerina, and her husband Matic, a son, Luca Alex. (Communications Manager, Tonbridge Society)
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84MAY 2020
No. 1099162
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