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OU Archives
Archive Request
If you have photographs, magazines, programmes, books or pictures relating to the School which are surplus to family requirements, please do not throw items away. I am very keen to add to the School Archive collection and am always interested to receive original items or scanned copies. If you have medals, cups, old reports or any other Uppingham ephemera cluttering up the attic and you are considering what to do with it, please get in touch with Jerry Rudman the Archivist on (01572) 820610 or email JPR@uppingham.co.uk. I would be very keen to hear from you.
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Jerry Rudman
ARCHIVE MATERIAL NEW ON THE OU WEBSITE
The Hospitaler 1851 – 1853
The School Magazine 1939 – 1957
Meadhurst House Photographs 1938, 1940, 1943, 1945, 1948, 1950, 1952, 1955
Photographs of selected pupils from 1860’s, 1870’s, 1880’s and 1890’s
Cricket 11’s
Football 15’s 1860’s and 1870’s
1860’s and 1870’s
Would you like to help sponsor the scanning of more archival material for viewing on the OU website?
Some suggestions are:- sponsor a decade of your house 50 years / century of your main sport your house photographs Sponsor another decade or two of the School magazine. Scan the OU leaflets
Please contact Jerry Rudman on 01572 820610 or email jpr@uppingham.co.uk.
OU Classic Car Club
I would very much like to try once again to get this off the ground having floated the idea a few years ago. I would envisage it having its own small committee arranging one or two events a year one of which would include Uppingham. It would help foster the great tradition of motor sports amongst OUs created by legends such as Malcolm and Sir Donald Campbell and many who have followed them.
If you are interested in joining the club, please get in touch with me here at Uppingham.
Staff News – past and present
Leavers
At the end of the summer term Uppingham sadly said goodbye to Neil Gutteridge, Housemaster of Farleigh, who left to become Director of Spor t at Ardingly College. Neil Gutteridge joined Uppingham in 1995 as Head of Rugby and Director of Spor t, positions he held for the next seven years. The undoubted highlight from this period was the unbeaten season of Uppingham’s 1st XV in 1998-1999, no mean feat when you consider the School’s annual opposition. Fur thermore one of the players from that era, Dan Hipkiss (Fgh 98), played in the 2007 Rugby World Cup final –an incredibly proud moment for his ‘old’ coach.
Like all the Houses at Uppingham, Fairfield has its place deep in the School’s history. Fairfield was the first Girls’ House at the School, opening in 1975, and quite remarkably there have only been two sets of Housemaster and Housemistress at the helm in 33 years. Tessa and Stewart Drummond left Fairfield this summer after 16 happy years in the House having, it seems, acted in loco parentis for half the young women in the local counties. They have made a great impact on the lives of their girls, been there for their ups and their downs, and for this and so much more, the young women of Fairfield are very grateful.
For tunately Stewar t will remain at Uppingham, sadly, however, Tessa is off to be Assistant Director of Music and a Housemistress at Oakham.
Rosemary Netscher retired from the post of Headmaster’s Secretary in the summer, after 24 years at Uppingham. The Headmaster thanked Rosemary for all that she has done for him, and the School, on Speech Day.
“Rosemary has been secretary to three successive Headmasters and a more loyal, discreet and hard working person one could not wish to meet.
Births
Andy Chessell and his wife Rachel had their second son Hal on 28th August 2007.
Glen Moodie and his wife Vanessa had a daughter, Olivia 2nd September 2007.
Lorne House Housemaster, Kurt Seecharan and his wife Katie had an early Christmas present in December as baby Alice arrived just in time for the festivities on 21st December 2007.
Leap year baby Abigail arrived on February 29th 2008, a first child for Clive Simmons and his wife Helen.
The Bursar, Stephen Taylor and his wife Vera had their first son Cecil on March 8th 2008.
David Jackson and his wife Fiona had a daughter Imogen on 24th May 2008 a sister for Phoebe.
Engagements
Colm Kelley (ex-staff) now teaching at Shrewsbury got engaged on 25th October 2008.
Deaths
Jeff Abbott – Housemaster of West Bank 1968 - 1983 Jeff Abbott, “the Major”, was the Mr Chips of Uppingham. He was the father figure, mentor and legend for generations of Uppinghamians. He continued to care for them after they had left the school, and they kept in touch with him. He taught his children Roman stoicism, good manners and Britishness. They never forgot him. Jeff was born in 1933. He was the star of Newbury Grammar School, playing rugby for Berkshire, and winning a major scholarship to Trinity College, Oxford, to read Mods under Tommy Higham and Greats under James Holladay. From him he learnt his love of Rome. Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire was one of his favourite books. He played at No 8 or lock for Oxford and the Harlequins, and was fast, clever and brave. Although a giant, he was not quite big enough to win a cap for England, though he came close. He was also a thespian for the dramatic society and the Trinity Players. In later life he and his friends re-enacted The Four Men of Sussex around the inns of the Downs, setting a table with jugs of ale between the audience and the players for all to help themselves ad lib. And his performance as Badger in The Wind in the Willows, whacking the weasels, gave a taste of his later ironic use of the cane as schoolmaster.
At Uppingham he taught English and Classics, in a memorably individual style. He was Housemaster of West Bank between 1968-83. Innocents imagined that his house flag displayed crossed hockey sticks. In fact, Abbott had designed crossed canes, and a sun with flails coming out of it. He chose St Francis Xavier as his house saint because St Francis introduced the scourge to Japan. It was irony. He was a strict housemaster but was in turns both frightening and funny. He was a gentle father figure to unhappy small boys without male role models. He created West Bank’s wonderful garden, “the Dell”, where he would teach his class whenever weather permitted, or even if it didn’t.
The crusty codger carapace was partly a jocular act. He hated ships and pretended to be terrified by mobile phones. He held that the Greeks were nowhere as good as the Romans, and he thought that a healthy respect for all things Roman would teach our current political masters a thing or two. He stood for Parliament for UKIP, not entirely as a joke, though he managed to get many laughs and jokes out of his campaign. But beneath the bluff exterior, the Major had a bottom of good sense. “Be precise, concise and concrete,” he advised his boy essayists. And: “No essay is complete without a quote from Alice (in Wonderland).”
He loved going to Devon for bridge and beer-drinking. Every year he went to Scotland for the Melrose Sevens and the Edinburgh Tattoo. He was the subject of a cricket book by J. S. Finch called Game in
Season, subtitled Mr Abbott’s Sporting Tour, which is regarded as a classic.
Abbott was a regular correspondent to his Old Boys, with newspaper cuttings, encouragement and jokes. He was a great schoolmaster who influenced his country more than most schemes of political improvement.
He is survived by his wife, Angela, and by the three children of his first marriage to Jo Philby, and three step-children. Courtesy of Anthony Trace (WB 72) ..................................................................................................... Revd. Ian Watts (1915-2007), School Chaplain (1968-1973), from a former pupil’s eye view.
Little seemed to be known by his pupils, at the time of his Uppingham ministry, about Revd. Ian Watts’ previous experiences. In his characteristically modest way, nothing was said about his 1st Class Geography Tripos at Oxford, his twice Rugby blue as University fly-half and his work in the Sudan Political Service. As a fluent speaker of Arabic, he was ahead of his time in interfaith work.
Who would have relished the challenges facing a minister of the Gospel in a testosterone-charged public-school atmosphere during the days of Mary Whitehouse, the publication of the first edition of Oz and the culmination of the 60s social revolution? It was, probably, Ian.
Those of us at Uppingham in the late 60s and early 70s may remember the battered old Volkswagen, imported from Nigeria, otherwise known as “The Moving Experience”. Latterly, we may have noticed its replacement, registered EUT –“Evangelical Uppingham Transport”.
Evangelical, a Bible Christian, but not limited or literalist, Ian Watts’ generous care and purposeful conviction were there for all, and his inner peace and gentle humour absorbed even the worst excesses of teenage ribaldry. These qualities also quietly informed us charges about the merits of some degree of personal dignity and responsibility.
It was sad to learn of Ian’s death in the last edition of this news. He lived in good golfing health till his 90s and remained a quiet source of encouragement to thousands more after his Uppingham days. I well remember his unmistakeable profile appearing, unannounced, in the late summer evening shadows at village Evensong in Culham, rural Oxfordshire, some thirty years after all those debates about the Permissive Society. on to marry soon after the completion of his Uppingham ministry, and thank God for a faithful Christian soul who gave much and touched lives for the better. The prayer he prescribed for us black-suits, in his final chapel sermon, was for love, joy and peace; these he gave and, within them, abides. Revd. Edward Tildesley (B 69)
Who? What? Where?
Paul Griffin, Senior English Master (1949 – 1955), has been awarded the Seatonian Prize for Religious Poetry at Cambridge University. He won it once before in 2001 but was only 79 then!
Old Uppinghamian Clothing and Gifts
Whatever the occasion, whether it’s for you, your family or a friend, Uppingham School Shop stocks a range of OU products.
Scarf & Wrap Cricket Cap Silk Ties & Bow Ties Polyester Ties Silk Cravats Polyester Cravats Blazer Badges Blazer Buttons Socks Chain Link Cufflinks School Crest Cufflinks Champagne Flutes Pint Tankard Half-pint Tankard Whisky Tumbler Bud Vase Wee Dram Set Paperweight Umbrella Shield Maglite Torch New Items Braces Belts Silk Cummerbund Pewter Tankards (Two sizes) Special offers available on:- Cricket Sweater Golf Tee Set Golf Ball Set Scrabble Cufflinks Tie Pin/Brooch Wine Cooler Parker Pen Personal Organiser Wrist Watch Prints (Framed) Prints (Unframed) OU BOXER
SHORTS
Available in all sizes £14.99 boxed Ideal Christmas present! Available from the School Shop
