Reed's School – The Reeder 2020

REEDER THE

Keith Scholey Our Planet Our Responsibility Black Lives Matter The Outgoing School Captain

CORonaHeroes

ORs who played such vital roles

The Foundation

Richard Nicholson Memorial Bursary

2020 edition

Dear Old Reedonian ‘I hope you are keeping positive but testing negative’ has to be one of the most ironically amusing openings to an email I’ve received from an OR over the last few months! Although in no way should we understate the impact of this pandemic, it did subtly demonstrate how we, as humans, often revert to humour as a coping mechanism during challenging times.

From my privileged position of being in contact with ORs from 18 to 80 (plus!), I have also seen other ways people have managed and shown that Reed’s resilience and compassion.

The pages of this year’s Reeder reflects just a fraction of this... through the Global Action Network, the pen pal scheme, the provision of vital PPE, the actions for social justice, the setting up of new businesses, the incredible fundraising and, most importantly, the OR friendship groups who have continued to support each other across every generation. Incredibly heart-warming!

When looking to write this welcome note, I naturally read what I said last year to make sure I didn’t repeat myself! However, on reflection what I said then, actually rings more true now and I quote: ‘it is important to recognise the power of human connection.’ Now, for the second half of the year, this may have not been face-to-face as much as we would have liked, but the use of technology has allowed more ORs from across the UK and the world to participate in alumni events usually not accessible to them; this is something positive that we will carry forward beyond 2020. So, in reading this year’s Reeder, I hope you still get a sense of connection with the great Reed’s community to which we all belong.

Thank you for your ongoing support. We look forward to seeing you in person in 2021, but do feel free to drop me a line or call at any time.

With warmest regards Sharmaine, Editor smatthews@reeds.surrey.sch.uk 07850 958600

Acknowledgements With many thanks to all those who helped with the production of this edition.

Contributors Keith Scholey, Paul Brown, Thura Soe Paing, Andy Wotton, Bruce Roth, Rt Hon David Laws, The Nicholson Family Design Haime & Butler / haime-butler.com Print L&S Printing / ls-printing.com Proof reading Jen Hart, Kathryn Bartram Cover photo Reproduced by kind permission of Brooklyn Beckham

networkreeds.org  facebook.com/ReedsAlumni  @ReedsAlumni  @ReedsAlumni  @ReedsAlumni

reeds.surrey.sch.uk  facebook.com/ReedsSchool  @ReedsSchool  @reedsschool_cobham  youtube.com/user/reedsschoolofficial

andrewreedfoundation.org  facebook.com/ReedsFoundation  @ReedsFoundation  @AndrewReedFoundation

THE REEDER 2020

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Contents #COMMUNITYFORLIFE

24 54 68

04

Welcome from the OR President

06

Meet Your OR Team

07

A Word from the Headmaster

12

Back to School

18

Feature: Black Lives Matter

20

Lost & Found ORs

23

Reed’s Global Action Network

OR EVENTS & REUNIONS

24

Feature: Our Planet, Our Responsibilty

35

Annual Calendar

36

Reunions & Events

45

OR Sport

52

Feature: Thank a Teacher Day

OR NEWS

54

Class Notes

68

Congratulations & Celebrations

74

Valete

80

In Memoriam

86

Feature: cORonaHEROES

88

An Interview with: Thura Soe Paing

REED’S HERITAGE

92

Feature: Epidemics at the School

96

Blathwayt House Photo 1980-81

97

OR Memories

100 Feature: Spotlight on Thomas Burke 104 Coffee Break

THE FOUNDATION

106 The Foundation: Overview

88

108 The Foundation in Numbers 110 Richard Nicholson Memorial Bursary 112 Andrew Reed in the Limelight 113 Donation Form

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Welcome from Marcus Baker, OR President Marcus with OR Miles Harris at 2019 Leavers’ Drinks

It is hard to believe that I am now into my third term as OR President; in fact, with the extraordinary year that we have had so far, I have to say there are many things that are hard to believe!

There has been so much adjustment to our lives, most of which none of us could have possibly foreseen, but I am so pleased that the core foundations of the Reed’s community remain strong, if not stronger than they have ever been. It is perhaps inspiring to think that we might all find hope for the future in looking within our own OR community. Our 1940s ORs, who are now celebrating 70 years plus since leaving school and have lived through bereavement, evacuation, war, rationing, unemployment, economic crises and natural disasters, still have the most wonderful spirits and, importantly, have each other’s friendships – shining examples of true Reed’s resilience. I also know that these strong bonds of friendship are not just limited to their year group, but that all ORs continue to build that #communityforlife.

To illustrate this in a small way, one thing that has particularly pleased me is the response to the COVID-19 emergency fund appeal that went out to our community only a few months ago.

This fund was to assist current Foundation pupils who found themselves having to return to even more distressing home environments because of the pandemic. Thank you to those of you who have supported this. I think I speak on behalf of all ORs when I say how proud we are to see our old School and the current generation of Reedonians rising above these unparalleled challenges.

Despite the times, we felt that it was important to continue with the production of The Reeder which is one

of the key elements of this great community and, whilst this year’s edition may be a little slimmer than perhaps the 2019 edition, I know that it is packed with great content. For this, we have to thank Sharmaine Matthews and the team at the Development Office under Kathryn Bartram. Without Sharmaine’s steady hand on the tiller and her guidance, I certainly would not be able to do my job.

In addition, I would also like to thank the alumni members of the OR Committee: Roger Mew (Bristowe 1959), Andy Wotton (Mullens 1975), Justin Herbert (Capel 1983), Clive Moon (Blathwayt 1994), Jerry Ross (Mullens 2008), Nick Gray (Blathwayt 1993), Rosie Pidgeon (Blathwayt 2015) and Sam Brandon (Capel 2008) who all dedicate a great deal of time, thought and expertise on a range of areas from financials to the Foundation, from the archive to online.

Their skills make for a diverse group

but, in order to get a complete perspective on the OR community, we agreed this year to invite two Senior School Prefects on to the Committee. I would like to thank Emily Strong (Mullens 2020) and Miles Horwood (Bristowe 2020) for not only attending all of the meetings but also for their valuable contributions from the viewpoint of the current pupils; we wish them well as they become our newest ORs. I know that Mark Hoskins and I share similar views about the sense of community that is an important part of the fabric of Reed’s and the Old Reedonians. I have to say that I was incredibly grateful on a personal level for the amazing efforts undertaken by many of the Reed’s team to produce PPE equipment for local hospitals and care homes. This has been life changing, life saving and of extraordinary value in what have been very difficult times.

OR Prefects - Emily & Miles

Inspirational Totnes ORs

As part of this strong and collaborative relationship, it has been great to see the School listening to feedback from our young ORs about the important issue of Black Lives Matter and ensuring its diversity and equality programme continues to be developed. Indeed, changes have been made to the academic curriculum with Mr Waller including units on Slavery and the Empire, the Crusades, Votes for Women and the breakup of Empires in the History syllabus for younger pupils.

nearly 60 ORs come back to School for a visit and the Totnes boys cleverly managed to get in two reunions before lockdown. ORs were also integral to other events: two FutureCareers evenings on Healthcare and Property, the fabulous Film for the Foundation fundraiser, the Annual Foundation Appeal Launch, Richard Nicholson’s memorial service, leavers drinks for our 2019 cohort, a reunion in London for our 2013 ORs and, of course, the outstanding Andrew Reed Lecture at the Royal Geographical Society, delivered by OR Keith Scholey of Our Planet fame. Please make sure you read his feature piece (page 24) which is not only pictorially spectacular but totally gripping in explaining why we are the most important generation in history.

Even though lockdown has impacted the year, prior to March, there was still a lot of activity in our OR community.

In September alone, we had four OR sporting fixtures: the Ladies’ Hockey at School, OR Rugby at Reeds Weybridge, OR tennis at Wimbledon, and an OR Golf Society Day at Cowdray Park. We had

Post March, of course, a lot of things changed and, indeed, continue to change as we discover new ways of communicating with each other and maintaining our interactions as human beings. From an OR perspective, we have seen a surprising amount of activity which can be read about in the following pages but some of my favourite new initiatives have been the pen-pal scheme, our tributes to our cORonaHEROES, the Reed’s Global Action Network and ‘Tipple with a Teacher’. There have also been many great acts of kindness by ORs from across all generations that have come to our attention and I would like to offer my personal congratulations and thanks to all the achievements of our ORs – both before and after lockdown.

Importantly you are inspiring current Reed’s pupils to follow your example.

Even though we had, regrettably, to cancel our City business-networking event planned for March, I am keen that we continue to expand our focus in this area. I hope that in 2021 some of this

can become more of a reality, especially important as our OR businesses start to recover and rebuild. In particular, our own recent group of leavers from School (who faced so many challenges this year including the manifestly unfair approach to the A Level results) and our young ORs who were robbed of graduation celebrations and now face a greatly changed working world, I feel, will need help and support from our community.

Similarly, it was with great disappointment that we were unable to hold Reunion Day this year; however, I do hope that you were able to enjoy some of the virtual events which several ORs kindly helped us to facilitate and to watch the welcome video from the Headmaster and I. Whilst it was a shame that we could not be together for this annual ritual, for me, it was great to go back to the School to record the video. This I did from the surrounds of the Chapel, which brought back some great memories and, in fact, has reconnected me with Graham Hoskins, who was my music teacher at the time. Looking forward, we shall be working on plans for a bigger and better Reunion Day event in June 2021 in the hope that we can get together. This will provide the perfect opportunity for us to celebrate our recovery from this dreadful virus as an even stronger, more united and ever thankful community.

All that is left is to offer my thanks and best wishes for the coming months. Stay safe, stay connected, and do continue to communicate with your fellow ORs to keep our wonderful community alive.

See you soon.

Marcus Baker OR President (Mullens 1980)

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Meet your OR Team OR COMMITTEE

Marcus Baker OR President marcusnbaker@yahoo.co.uk

Justyn Herbert (Capel 1983) Vice President ORs jh@ahoyhoy.co.uk

Roger Mew (Bristowe 1959) rogerdmew@aol.com

Andy Wotton (Mullens 1975) andymwotton@outlook.com

Jerry Syms (née Ross) (Mullens 2008) jross_89@live.co.uk

Clive Moon (Blathwayt 1994) cmoon@savills.com

Nick Gray (Blathwayt 1993) nick.gray@liveandbreathe.co.uk

Rosie Pidgeon (Blathwayt 2015) rclp20@bath.ac.uk

Sam Brandon (Capel 2008) sam@frissoncreativeagency.com

Mark Hoskins Headmaster, Reed’s School headmaster@reeds.surrey.sch.uk

Lucy Hurford Bursar, Reed’s School bursar@reeds.surrey.sch.uk

Kathryn Bartram Director of Development & External Relations, Reed’s School kbartram@reeds.surrey.sch.uk

Sharmaine Matthews Head of Alumni & Community Relations, Reed’s School smatthews@reeds.surrey.sch.uk

Lucy Sadler Alumni & Development Officer, Reed’s School lsadler@reeds.surrey.sch.uk

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Everyone has inside of them a piece of good news.

The good news is that you don’t know how great you can be! How much you can love! What you can accomplish!

And what your potential is!

A word from the Headmaster It may seem unorthodox to start my letter to ORs with a quote from Anne Frank, but I read this to our pupils during a ‘virtual’ assembly: the parallel with lockdown (albeit somewhat different for her) and her age seemed to make it especially poignant: “Everyone has inside of them a piece of good news. The good news is that you don’t know how great you can be! How much you can love! What you can accomplish! And what your potential is!”

In many ways, it aptly sums up what the last few months, in particular, have shown us all within the Reed’s community.

This is certainly true of our current pupils who responded with great resilience and adaptability to the remote-learning model forced upon them by lockdown. The teaching staff rose magnificently to the challenge of the digital journey to continue to be ‘best in class’ with our provision across the curriculum – adapting, enhancing and developing all areas of school life as required. The numerous positive and constructive messages I received from parents in support of all the hard work and dedication from teachers and all staff has been testament to this.

In many ways, as a result of the challenges with which the pandemic presented us, the academic year has been very special in bringing us closer together as a community.

The last, major, whole-school event before lockdown was our return to the Hideaway Jazz Club in Streatham for an exceptional celebration of the musical talents of our pupils, orchestrated by the irrepressible Mr Carnegie and his team. Demand for tickets was so high we decided to livestream the performance so everyone could enjoy the evening – a portent of things to come, as it transpired.

Lockdown also cut short the hockey season. After defeating RGS Guildford in the semi-final, the 1st XI, unbeaten for two years, had the opportunity to defend their national title at the Olympic Park. Of course, this did not happen and so we take comfort in the fact that the finalists were crowned joint winners and we became back-to-back National Champions – a remarkable achievement! There were also national titles galore for our tennis players and skiers, and in all our sports there was success.

Speaking of the Olympic Park, for two nights in January, Woking Theatre was transformed into the Paris Olympics of 1920 as the protagonists of our School production, Chariots of Fire, Harold Abrahams and Eric Liddle, battled each other and their own inner turmoil in the quest for gold medals. Wonderful direction, performances and set design, complete with travellator for the running sequences marked this production.

We were all delighted that our combination of achievement and participation was acknowledged at the TES Independent Schools’ Awards, which is a bit like the Grammys for independent schools! Facing stiff opposition from other nominees such as Repton and Wellington College, we were delighted to be awarded the Sports Award for 2020. We were also nominated for two other awards: Independent-State School Partnership and Best Use of Technology which was also very pleasing.

Post lockdown, what has most definitely lifted my spirits – and I know those of many others too – has been seeing the pupils taking the initiative to be kind to each other, as well as to organise some incredible fundraising for charity. There are too many to mention, but we had Sixth Formers undertaking half marathons, pupils cycling from Lands End to John o’ Groats, musicians writing charity songs, cooks baking, athletes running great distances, tennis scholars showcasing their skills… and this doesn’t even include all the amazing House and staff charity fundraising events that took place too. And all to raise money for charities like: Blood Cancer UK, Age UK, NHS Charities Together, Muscular Dystrophy, The Rainbow Trust, Refuge and The Princess Alice Hospice. I think if we totted up all this fundraising activity, the total raised would be in excess of £30,000.

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I must also pay special tribute to Paul Millington and Keith Ditchburn who – with myriad helpers – designed, made, and distributed over 4,000 PPE visors to more than 20 local hospitals, clinics, care homes and health practices. This initiative truly defined what community is all about.

To continue the theme of compassion and philanthropy, I think it is important to touch upon the Foundation. When we began to suspect that schools may be closed, we assessed each Reed’s Foundation pupil individually and the impact the pandemic would have. We wanted to make sure that we could maintain their academic development, as well as support their pastoral needs. We put in place measures to provide them with access to technology, remote counselling services, food vouchers and supplies. For our Foundation pupils and their families, this sense of Reed’s community has been a lifeline and we are indebted to everyone who has given so generously to our emergency COVID-19 Foundation Appeal. A more detailed breakdown can be found in the Foundation section on page 106.

And so to some goodbyes...

It is at the end of the academic year when we say farewell to colleagues, several of whom are moving on to promotions in other schools or retiring from post; all have made a tremendous contribution to Reed’s and we thank them for their skill and commitment. Fuller acknowledgements can be found in the Valete section on page 74.

Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.

With the uncertainties of the last few months in particular, I have found the School motto FIDE a helpful reference point. We need to ‘have faith’ in each other and in our community, indeed in society, that we will adapt and surmount the challenges we face. I will leave you with a quotation from Nelson Mandela who sums up why at Reed’s, but also on a national and global basis, we all care so much about school, about education. He said: “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”

How true on every level.

My best wishes to you all now and until we can welcome you back to School.

However, it is to our Upper Sixth students that I must pay special tribute: they are a wonderful group of young men and women who have really come into their own during a challenging final year at School, with lockdown, cancelled exams and the debacle around A Level results but who, I know, will go on to be fully committed Old Reedonians. They are a key generation with much in society that will need their attention, energy and commitment. Combined with their Reed’s values-driven education, I feel their ability to adapt and to change ‘the norm’ is exactly what is needed in tackling the many pressing global issues: equality, social deprivation, food security and – not least – environmental meltdown, which is so eloquently analysed in our lead article by fellow OR, Keith Scholey. With such brilliant alumni role models, I am excited and hopeful for a brighter future with our leavers shaping it.

Mark Hoskins Headmaster

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SNAPSHOTS OF OUR SCHOOL YEAR

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BACK TO SCHOOL

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#COMMUNITYFORLIFE

Even though we have had a disrupted year (to say the least!), it is great to see how many ORs visited and played an integral part in School life before lockdown.

SEPTEMBER 2019 Great to see Akshay Dosaj (Bristowe 1999) back with his lovely family on a flying visit from the UAE.

An 2018 alumni visit of Zara Freeman, Molly Ohayon, Serena Walker, Kitty Roberts, Jia Naveed and Anna Meyler.

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Not often you get to dress up with your old teachers when you visit! ‘Great work’ James Colley (Mullens 2019) as one of those pictured would have said!

What better way of demonstrating our #communityforlife than having two 2019 leavers back to have lunch and a catch up with one of their former mentees.

Thank you Mullenites Frankie Cragg and Harry Williams.

We think that Stuart Maddock (Blathwayt 1986) was very impressed with the Jarrett Indoor Cricket Centre and was delighted to bump into familiar face, Alex Balls.

OCTOBER 2018

With even more students wanting to apply for Medicine, Engineering and to Oxbridge, we were delighted to have so many well-qualified ORs to offer advice and help take them through their paces. Thank you to: Andy Cairns, Alex Lawrence, Joe Bennett, Nic Bentley, Will Morrice, Simeon Smith and Jonathan Salmon.

We were delighted to welcome Keith Scholey (Bristowe 1975) who had not been back since he left in 1975. After a comprehensive tour, conducted by our two OR Prefects, Emily Strong (Mullens 2020) and Miles Horwood (Bristowe 2020), the Headmaster hosted lunch to talk about the 2019 Andrew Reed Lecture which Keith was headlining. Please read his enthralling lead article on page 24.

Great to see James Cooper (Capel 2019) who popped in to collect his amazing A Level DT piece!

How touching that Alex Croker (Capel 2012) came in en route to a new job in Toronto, Canada.

A warm welcome was extended to Jacky Chan & Simon Yeung (Mullens 2018) from all the teachers they bumped into during their visit.

Teru Nate Skinner (Capel 1987) was coming the other way across the Atlantic, visiting from Alberta in Canda.Reed’s Foundation offered him a lifeline.

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It had been only 88 days since their last official day at School, but it was lovely to see a few of our 2019 ORs back before going off to cheer on the School 1st XV as they faced Tiffin: Tom Coker, Gus Baker, Rhys Jones, Alex Gadd and Adam Matthews.

Teru Nate Skinner (Capel 1987) was coming the other way across the Atlantic, visiting from Alberta in Canada.

NOVEMBER 2018 Who better to lead a thought-provoking exercise with Sixth Form Prefects on leadership than Andrew Miller (Blathwayt 2009).

We were very grateful to Harry Master (Bristowe 2015) for accompanying his neighbour, 101-year-old WW2 veteran, Jack Swaab MC, who addressed an enraptured audience about his experiences in the artillery of the 51st Highland Division.

How special to have back David Kelly (Bristowe 2004) and Dilal Ranasinghe (Capel 1999) to address pupils in Chapel as part of our Founder’s Services.

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DECEMBER 2019

JANUARY 2020

Alex Jukes (Bristowe 2019) and Freddy Hood (Mullens 2019) were delighted to get some words of encouragement for their forthcoming uni deadlines and exams from their former teachers.

Our first OR visitor for 2020 was James Cobb (Mullens 2017)! It was really good to hear how well James is doing at the Royal College of Music.

It was wonderful to have Rebecca Lunt (Bristowe 2011) representing Knight Frank, Clive Moon (Blathwayt 1994) from Savills, and Justin Chuter (Bristowe 1977) formerly of Cerberus Capital Management LLP informing and inspiring students about the world of Property at our FutureCareers Seminar.

Our FutureCareers Seminar on Healthcare was expertly represented by ORs in the form of Alex Lawrence (Capel 2011) and Andy Shiells (Bristowe 1984) who spoke to pupils and parents about specialist areas of mental health and osteopathy respectively.

It was a pleasure to see Nicholas Kabban (Mullens 2003) who hadn’t been back since leaving; he was touched to see so many members of staff who’d had such a huge impact on his life.

#communityforlife

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Two lots of visits on one day: we had the lovely Mollie O’Sullivan (Blathwayt 2018) and Lil Callaghan (Bristowe 2018) followed by the equally lovely Matt Gelder, Aron Davies, Jake Stemmons and Kareem Kermad.

Grace McGeehan (Capel 2011) kindly took time out to speak to our Sixth Form about the importance of good mental health, wellness and being kind to themselves.

FEBRUARY 2020 Even though our girls are only with us at School for just two years, it’s great that they feel so bonded. Lovely to see Issy Anderson (Mullens 2018) for a visit.

How often does a top sportsman face the Headmaster of his alma mater in the crease! Well that’s what happened in the Jarrett Cricket Centre when we welcomed back Tim Henman (Blathwayt 1991) and Richard Garrett for a visit.

The Science & Maths Departments were where Ivan Lam (Blathwayt 2019) and Trevor Lui (Capel 2019) headed to during their visit, managing to thank several former teachers.

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Jack Spooner (Mullens 2016) popped in to find out more about the opportunities to teach, as he approaches the end of his Masters.

We were grateful to James Watson (Capel 2019) for coming back to share advice with our budding medics about the rigorous application process which he successfully negotiated last year.

MARCH 2020 We were delighted to welcome back for a visit Dame Gillian Pugh CBE and Nick Drayson (Bishop of Northern Argentina) for whom Reed’s was their home when their father, Robert Drayson, was inspirational Headmaster from 1955 to 1964.

If you are interested in coming back for a visit, offering careers advice and/or work experience, donating prizes, organising a reunion or anything else you think will benefit the OR community and/or our pupils, we would love to hear from you.

Sharmaine smatthews@reeds.surrey.sch.uk 01932 589490 Lucy lsadler@reeds.surrey.sch.uk 01932 588029

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#BLM The outgoing School Captain and now OR of 2020 – Paul Brown – has been an exemplary leader of his peers since starting in The Close seven years ago. He has excelled academically (with a place secured at Durham University studying Engineering), represented the School at first-team level in key sports, spoken eloquently at many School events and simply epitomises our young cohort. As a complete aside, Paul also happens to be black and a former Foundation pupil. Why mention this? Because, he wanted us to. It sets the context for the poignant speech he gave to pupils about one of the key issues of 2020 – the Black Lives Matter campaign – which we wanted to share.

The recent murder of George Floyd, and the protests that have ensued as a result of this atrocity, made me sit back and analyse what life has been like for me, a black kid, growing up and being educated in Surrey. I would like to share this with you as it’s often really easy for us – as British people – to focus on America and neglect the fact that sadly racism still exists here too.

Living in a predominantly Caucasian neighbourhood meant that I was one of the few black people in my area, in my school, and in every activity I did growing up. And even though, for the majority of my life, the people I’ve encountered have treated me with respect from a young age, it was apparent that just because of my skin colour, people had already made preconceived judgments about my character. For as long as I can remember, it has been common for me to get asked questions like: ‘Why don’t you sound like a black person?’; ‘Why are you such a coconut?’; and, even, ‘Why do you act so white?’

At times, I managed to see some sort of humour in the naivety of these comments, other times I was made to feel like I was betraying my own cultural identity. Fortunately, my family had already instilled in me a strong racial identity. One that encouraged me to pursue everything I wanted,

irrespective of other people’s opinions – but I know that’s not the case for every black person. In hindsight, I regret that I let people speak to me that way and it angers me now that I allowed comments from people who didn’t understand my culture to make me feel disappointed in myself.

The fact that I was asked these questions when I was as young as seven or eight years old shows the pervasiveness of racism in our country. I was often pressured by some of my peers to act a certain way, look a certain way, and even to talk a certain way, all of which were too overwhelming for a kid who just wanted to do what he enjoyed. In some instances, these comments led to me giving up activities and sometimes even changing my behaviours, just because I’d been fed the lie that people that looked like me weren’t supposed to do certain things or act in a certain way.

It made me question whether I, as a black person, could have interests and passions that didn’t conform to the societal norm of my black predecessors. And that’s the danger of institutional racism, it’s subtle. It builds itself around stereotypes and, before you know it, you’ve been attributed certain characteristics just because of the colour of your skin. The whole reason for discriminatory behaviour (be that racist, xenophobic, chauvinistic,

that’s the danger of institutional racism, it’s subtle. It builds itself around stereotypes and, before you know it, you’ve been attributed certain characteristics just because of the colour of your skin.

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or such like) is to keep minorities oppressed by not allowing them the freedom of expression and education. It prevents minorities from becoming valuable and valued individuals in all sectors of society; sadly this is very much the case with racism.

In my opinion, this ignorance around racism is not solely the fault of the individual but is due, in part, to the misinformation caused by the media.

We’re consistently fed images of black people only succeeding in certain careers (sport, music, etc), so it almost becomes understandable that people are surprised when a black person doesn’t follow the trend and becomes the head of British Vogue, Louis Vuitton, John Lewis or, even, President of the US. I’m not saying these events should be downplayed, not at all, they deserve to be celebrated. I’m just looking forward to a point in time when it isn’t a big deal to be a black CEO or a black political leader, but rather when a person can be recognised for his/her values and achievements first, regardless of ethnicity.

But how do we overcome this?

Everyone has a part to play, but especially my generation. For me and my fellow ethnic minorities one key way to address systematic racism is to stop being swayed by the opinions of uneducated and/or naive individuals and pursue whatever we feel passionate about. We need to stop being afraid because we’re entering uncharted territory – be that where we live, go to school or work – and, instead, be excited that we can be pioneers to change preconceptions. We should go for whatever we want; we should always be proud of the colour of our skin, as it is our heritage but it should never define who or what we can become. There is no blueprint for what a black person, or any person for that matter, should be.

We need to recognise that one of the ways we can eradicate racism is by having open and honest conversations between all races so there is mutual understanding. Stereotyping is dangerous in all forms – biased or unbiased; it governs how we perceive people’s characters and, when applied to ethnic minorities, it is allowing racism to win.

We need to get to a point where we don’t have to stress that black lives matter and change society to recognise that all lives matter equally. I know, that along with those from my generation, we are looking forward to being part of that change. ■

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Lost ORs Even though we are in touch with some 3,500 ORs, there are many that we are still looking for! Here are another 10 names, randomly selected from each decade. If you know where they might be or can put us in touch with OR friends or – indeed – have googled your name and found it here, please contact Sharmaine (smatthews@reeds. surrey.sch.uk)

1950s

1970s

OR

House

Left Reed’s

OR

House

Left Reed’s

Colin Barber

1953

Trevor Byne

Blathwayt

1971

John Burch

1953

Jon Ledger

Capel

1971

Robert Bradshaw

1954

Michael Berry

Mullens

1973

Jack Byron

1954

Stephan Bryant

Capel

1973

Kenneth Johnson

Mullens

1954

Roger Lister

Bristowe

1973

Graham Bell

1956

David Bartlett

Bristowe

1974

John Holton

1956

Andrew Packham

Mullens

1975

Patrick Hearh

Mullens

1957

Stephan Powell

Blathwayt

1975

Richard Brown

1959

Andrew Smith

Blathwayt

1976

Christopher Burnett

1959

Mark Butler-Madden

Bristowe

1978

1960s

1980s

OR

House

Left Reed’s

OR

House

Left Reed’s

Graham Alner

1960

Charles McManus

Capel

1980

Ian Anderson

1961

Andrew Bennison

Capel

1981

Anthony Austin

1961

Roger Attwell

Blathwayt

1982

James Bardsley

1961

Peter Knight

Bristowe

1983

Robert Bear

Britsowe

1965

Sean Buckland

Blathwayt

1985

Leonard Brauer

1969

Richard Herbert

Capel

1985

Michael Brown

Blathwayt

1966

Julian Bowerman

Blathwayt

1986

Roger Burton

1964

Nicholas Williams

1986

Andrew McCulley

Capel

1966

Julian Philips

Capel

1988

John Powell

Blathwayt

1966

Stephen Taylor

Mullens

1988

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LOST & FOUND 1990s OR Richard Branford Jonathan Austin Chris Hagan Christopher Hartnett Christopher Jordan Timothy Walker Rupert Miller Jonathan Powling Sam Starr Chris Wilson

2000s

House Bristowe Mullens Bristowe

Bristowe Mullens Capel Blathwayt Bristowe Bristowe

2010s

Left Reed’s 1990 1991 1992 1994 1994 1994 1995 1996 1998 1999

OR

House

Left Reed’s

Callum Adam

Mullens

2010

Syed Taqvi

Blathwayt

2010

Robby Cross

Blathwayt

2011

Jessica Hall

2011

Shane Lunn

Blathwayt

2011

Sam Blay

Blathwayt

2012

Tom Gray

Bristowe

2012

Amber Meyer

2013

Sam Druitt

Capel

2014

James Adams

Blathwayt

2016

OR

House

Left Reed’s

Joseph Addison

Mullens

2000

Michael Furst

Mullens

2001

Edwin Tukker

Mullens

2001

Wasim Khan

Blathwayt

2003

Laura Reynolds

Blathwayt

2004

Stuart Whittaker

Capel

2004

Katherine Brent

Capel

2005

Sanjay Katiyar

Bristowe

2006

Rowan Lewin

Blathwayt

2006

Oliver David

Blathwayt

2009

How many times have you moved house since you left School?

5 times? 10 times? Even more?

If you think we might have an out-of-date postal or email address for you, please update on the OR website – networkreeds.org – or email Lucy at lsadler@reeds.surrey.sch.uk

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THE REEDER 2020

#COMMUNITYFORLIFE

Found ORs We are delighted to report that over the last year, we have reconnected with the following ORs who have either sought us out, been put into contact by other ORs or we’ve found them!

OR Stephen Russell John Atter Rick Williams Nigel Grayston Jonathan West Carl Scholfield David Story Robert Stocken Christopher Mace Keith Barton Gareth Hughes Perry Milwol Tim Murray Salih Güvenç Nick Pile Jonathan Paxton Ben Briggs

House

Mullens Mullens Mullens Bristowe Capel

Blathwayt Bristowe Bristowe Capel Blathwayt Capel Mullens Mullens Blathwayt Capel

Left Reed’s 1962 1965 1965 1971 1971 1973 1975 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1985 1986 1990 1998 1999

Indeed, two of our ‘found’ ORs have kindly taken the time to update us.

John Atter (Mullens 1965) In an idle lockdown moment, I came across The Reeder for the first time whilst browsing the internet and was amazed to see my own name in the Lost ORs section, so it was not a difficult decision to reconnect with Reed’s via Sharmaine.

I joined the Royal Marines straight after leaving School, serving in Singapore, Malta, Norway and Italy as well as UK, before retiring in 1997. I was delighted to be asked to inspect the Reed’s CCF in 1994 by David Prince, the then Headmaster. It was good to see the changes and modernisation that had taken place over the years and, of course, to meet pupils and David some 30 years after he had taught me English.

After retirement, I worked for the RSPCA for 10 years and as a member of the Lincolnshire Police Authority for a further five years.

I am now enjoying an active retirement in rural Lincolnshire.

Rick Williams MBE (Mullens 1965) I was contacted by John Atter when he saw my name in the Lost ORs section of the Reeder.

I left Reed’s in 1965 having been House Captain of Mullens and Vice-Captain of School. In my last year, I was also the CCF’s Junior Under Officer and, having been awarded a Royal Marines (RM) Scholarship two years earlier, went on to join them.

On successful completion of the RM Commando training course, I joined 40 Commando RM in the Far East and so began my first career of 32 years. I was appointed to a variety of ‘jobs’, too many to list but an early career ‘highlight’ was that I was selected for Arabic language training, a language in which I became fluent. I was seconded to the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) and was sent abroad on ‘special duties’ where I was attached to an overseas Armed Force.

Within two months, my boss was killed, so I took command of an Arab Infantry Company (about 200 men) at the age of 24 which I led for over two years in combat against a very determined, well equipped and highly capable enemy. I left that part of the Middle East having been wounded on two occasions and twice decorated for gallantry; what followed were some equally interesting but different FCO jobs in the Middle East but, that’s another story.

On return to the RM, I went on to command a Company of about 120 Commandos. I was wounded again on active service having been blown up by IED. I was awarded the MBE as a result of my service on active operations. A series of staff/desk jobs then followed which included working in the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and at the Royal College of Defence Studies in London. I was invalided from the RM in 1997 since it was judged that I was ‘orthopedically challenged’ but, after a series of operations, I was back to rude health and eager to get going, again!

After a year as Operations Director of a London based company, I was head-hunted to form an Amphibious Operational Analysis team at the Maritime Warfare Centre near Portsmouth where I remained for about 10 years. Thereafter, I joined the MoD’s Defence Scientific & Technological Laboratory as a Principal Analyst and the senior Capability Advisor to the Royal Navy’s HQ. This is where I continue to work full time and, that is my ‘story’ – so far!

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As the ripple effects of the pandemic became clear, the idea of pooling all the goodwill shown by the Reed’s community led us to create the Reed’s Global Action Network (or RGAN as it fondly became known) at the end of March.

A few interesting stats: The greatest number of offers came from ORs who left between 2000 and 2019!

ORs from 1959 (now putting them well into their 70s) were just as keen to offer help to others!

Within minutes of launching through personal emails and across social media, we had a huge response from ORs in particular, but it extended to parents, current pupils and both former and current staff.

ORs who were in Capel and Blathwayt were the ones to make the most offers!

We had more offers of help from men!

From as far as Switzerland to Connecticut and Guildford to West Yorkshire, our ORs rubber-stamped what we already knew – how great our alumni community is, across all age groups and in every corner of the world.

We had offers of help from ORs globally in The Netherlands Switzerland, Melbourne, Sydney, Western Australia, Connecticut, with the most exotic offer coming from an OR in Waigeo Selatan in Indonesia!

As we know, difficult times often bring out the best in humanity, so it was heart-warming to see the offers coming flooding in. There were all sorts, including offers to collect prescriptions, to walk dogs, to mow lawns, to deliver food, to provide beds to those stranded overseas and, simply, to be on the other end of a phone for a comforting chat.

These are just a few of the lovely comments we received: “Honestly, I’d do anything.

I just want to help where it’s needed.”

“What a kind, inspiring initiative.”

“Just ask please!”

“I think this is a brilliant initiative and I applaud the School’s proactive approach to helping others.”

“I would offer ironing, however, it’s not my best skill… my shirts are currently a state, but happy to be a chauffeur!

“What a brilliant concept and a fantastic way to use the OR international network.”

Thank you for your support and being there for each other!

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THE REEDER 2020

OR EVENTS & REUNIONS

OUR PLANET, OUR RESPONSIBILITY Following on from his inspiring Andrew Reed Lecture in November 2019 at the Royal Geographic Society, Keith Scholey (Bristowe 1975), explains why we are the most important generation in history.

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The Context This year - in just a few months - nature has brought our modern civilization to its knees.

A pandemic has been predicted for decades, but little was done to prepare the world for this inevitable, devastating event.

Reassuringly, this nightmare has an end: either through a vaccine or natural immunity.

However, more concerning is that nature has far greater horrors in store for us, problems that - once they become out of control - are unstoppable. Once let loose, these other catastrophes will have no end date. Like the pandemic, all of these environmental crisis events have been predicted with considerable certainty by scientists but, once again, mankind chooses not to defend itself. Here, I will outline why I believe the dangers our civilization faces now are so extreme and why the people alive today are the only ones who can solve the situation. What we do now will impact everyone who follows us for thousands of years to come.

Credentials My career has given me the chance to investigate the natural world in some detail. From Reed’s School, I went to Bristol University to study for both a BSc and PhD in Zoology before pursuing a career at the BBC as a wildlife film producer. Later in my BBC career, I ran the Natural History Unit and also oversaw the specialist departments of the BBC, including Science and History. This period gave me the opportunity to get to know a range of experts with detailed insights into our rapidly changing world.

Furthermore, over my 25 years at the BBC, I witnessed first hand the decline of the natural world. When, subsequently, I jointly set up an independent company, Silverback Films, I endeavoured to create documentaries to try to raise awareness of this decline and help to reverse it.

This culminated in the Netflix series, Our Planet, and a feature film, David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet, to be released in Autumn 2020. Making both the series, and especially the featurelength film with Sir David, I realised that we have passed a point of just trying to save nature. Now it is very much about saving ourselves. Here is why.

Complexity of Life Many scientists believe we are now entering an ‘extinction event’, only the sixth in the four-and-a-half billion-year history of earth.

Some may dismiss an extinction event as simply sad, imagining it to be just the loss of a multitude of creatures. However, this misses the central cause of the event which is that our usually stable planet has suddenly become very unstable. That is not just a worry for other species. It is an overwhelming worry for all of us. The stability of planet earth should not be taken for granted. The only thing that keeps it stable is life itself.

Before life, earth was a barren lump of rock and it remained that way for most of its history. As an analogy, if you take a pint of Guinness representing the history of the world, only the froth at the top represents the period in earth’s history when life, as we would recognise it, existed. For some twoand-a-half billion years, microscopic life forms slowly tamed this barren rock, creating oxygen in the atmosphere and the ozone layer to shield us from the sun’s dangerous rays.

It also created a delicate balance in the atmosphere with the ‘greenhouse gas’, carbon dioxide, acting like a warming blanket. As life made earth more stable, life in turn could became more complex and, subsequently, the planet’s stability increased. It was an iterative process over hundreds of millions of years.

The key point is that the stable planet we enjoy is only possible because of the complexity of life on it and, the more complex nature is, the greater the guarantee of long-term stability for us all. So, the last thing mankind should ever have contemplated was to destroy it.

Lessons from the Great Extinctions It is only on five occasions in the past that this stability has been upset: the great extinctions.

These are incredibly rare events and geologists now know a great deal about them.

There are clear lessons for us to learn from the great extinctions, especially from the last three, where life forms were similar in range and diversity to what exists today.

The biggest extinction event of all was the End-Permian, 252 million years ago, which almost extinguished all of life on earth and took a staggering 10 million years to recover from. 96% of marine species vanished. 

As an analogy, if you take a pint of Guinness representing the history of the world, only the froth at the top represents the period in earth’s history when life, as we would recognise it, existed.

the stable planet we enjoy is only possible because of the complexity of life on it and, the more complex nature is, the greater the guarantee of long-term stability for us all.

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THE REEDER 2020

OR EVENTS & REUNIONS

OUR PLANET, OUR RESPONSIBILITY

So what was the cause? Terrifyingly, it was carbon dioxide. As the world’s continents crashed together to form the ‘super continent’ Pangaea, there was an unprecedented increase in volcanic activity; volcanoes are the natural source of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Usually plants on land and in the ocean remove carbon at about the same rate volcanoes emit it. However, in the End-Permian extinction, atmospheric CO2 just continued to climb, with lava fields a mile deep engulfing two million square miles of Siberia and producing gigatons of the gas for hundreds of thousands of years. This triggered runaway global warming, a spiral of events that poured more CO2 into the air creating an ever hotter earth. There were other consequences.

Most damaging was that the excess CO2 dissolved in the ocean made the seas more and more acidic.

Many marine organisms then, as now, had shells made of calcium carbonate which dissolve in acid.

So, the coral reefs of the time all died and even the microscopic plant plankton was destroyed (as each has a central calcium carbonate framework). As a result, the whole ocean food chain collapsed and the once great carbon sump of the ocean became a massive carbon emitter. Then all hell broke loose with other toxic gases spewing from a super-heated ocean which were driven around the world by hurricane winds of an unimaginable force. This is what an extinction event becomes. What is surprising about the End-Permian is that anything managed to survive at all.

What should be so concerning to us about the End-Permian is that it took hundreds of thousands of years to dredge up this amount of carbon to set off a catastrophic chain of events. By burning fossil fuels, we are managing to do the same in under two hundred years. This speed of atmospheric change is unprecedented. The telltale signs of the start of the unstoppable feedback loop are beginning. Coral reefs are dying, phytoplankton is decreasing, forests are burning, and the arctic tundra is thawing, releasing the even more powerful ‘greenhouse gas’, methane. Most scientists agree that we are heading for the point when the process will become a ‘one-way door’ and unstoppable.

The extinction event that followed the Permian was the End-Triassic extinction which was the same story again but less devastating. 201 million years ago, Pangaea started to break apart to form the continents we now recognise and, once again, the volcanic CO2 overwhelmed the planet’s balance.

Finally, there was the most famous extinction event of all. The End-Cretaceous, or K-T, when 66 million years ago a meteorite brought about the downfall of most of the dinosaurs. Fortunately, a few survived and are still with us as birds. The villain that caused this event was no ordinary meteorite.

It was the size of Everest, travelling at 20 kilometres per second. When it smashed into the Gulf of Mexico, and its base hit the sea floor, its top would still have been penetrating the outer atmosphere.

The impact caused an explosion equivalent to 100 million megatons of TNT, enough to send a mountain into space at escape velocity. Shockwaves equivalent to a magnitude 12 earthquake shot through thousands of miles of the planet’s crust.

However, the greatest impact was caused by vast quantities of rock being thrown into orbit and then falling back through the atmosphere as a blizzard of meteorites. This set the whole world on fire. The destruction of earth was spectacular but what I find fascinating is that only three-quarters of the world’s species were wiped out. In essence, life found runaway CO2 in the End-Permian harder to cope with than that of a colossal meteorite impact.

The lesson for us to take from the K-T extinction is the other impact we are having on our planet, mainly the speed at which we are changing its surface. I arrived at Reed’s School fifty years ago and, since that time, the loss of wildlife and wild space has been greater than everything that had been lost in all of our preceding history.

Now, wild mammals, from mice to whales, make up just 4% by weight of all animals on earth with the remaining 96% being either us humans or the animals we eat. Only one in ten of the large fish in the oceans fifty years ago exist today. Humanity has felled some four trillion trees.

Geological changes in our world’s history are usually seen over millions of years, but this has happened in little over half a century. If a 12-hour day represents a million years, then fifty years comes down to just two seconds. It’s a flash, much like a meteorite impact. Therefore, what we are doing is making wholesale changes to the surface of our planet, our oceans, and our atmosphere at a speed not witnessed since the end of the dinosaurs.

Our actions are combining the worst aspects of the End-Permian and K-T extinction events. It is a certainty that this will have serious consequences.

Most scientists agree that we are heading for the point when the process will become a ‘oneway door’ and unstoppable.

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Only one in ten of the large fish in the oceans fifty years ago exist today

The History of Ourselves Some might say that people are used to change and very adaptable and, after all, hasn’t climate always changed? There is some truth in these points, but they are inherently misleading. Again, history helps us to understand why, this time by looking at the history of ourselves.

Anatomically-modern humans have been on earth for just over 200,000 years. The term ‘anatomically modern’ means scientifically that these ancestors of ours would be indistinguishable from people today.

These were not dumb cavemen. Some have argued that these distant ancestors of ours were the fittest and brightest people that have ever lived because they had to be in order to survive. They were hunter gathers relying continually on their fitness and wits to stay alive.

It was only in the last 10,000 years that we suddenly escaped from the confines of hunting and gathering by inventing farming. As a species, we became turbo charged and, in just a few thousand years, were landing on the moon. But why was humanity stuck as hunter and gatherers for more than 95% of our history? The answer was climate.

Humanity has felled some four trillion trees

Before 13,000 years ago, the global temperature fluctuated widely by some 10°C as the world went in and out of ice ages. Then suddenly something unprecedented in recent geological history happened: global temperature stabilised and has remained so within plus or minus 1°C ever since.

Scientists call this period the Holocene and it turned out to be our ‘Garden of Eden’.

With stable global temperature, the world fell into a rhythm of predictable weather and seasons. 10,000 years ago, mankind could finally domesticate plants and animals and the rest is history. However, to this day, our food production has always relied on this remarkably stable climate. When James Watt invented the steam engine, we set off on a rapid journey to end the very conditions that had created our civilizations. As global temperatures passed the 1°C increase this century, scientists proposed that we had left the Holocene and entered a new geological period they call the Anthropocene, the ‘age of man’. What is important to grasp is that by so dramatically changing the carbon cycle and the functioning of the natural world, we have changed the geology of the whole planet and have become a geological force in our own right.

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THE REEDER 2020

OR EVENTS & REUNIONS

OUR PLANET, OUR RESPONSIBILITY Breaching our Planetary Boundaries Over the last few years, I have worked closely with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and an extraordinary scientist, Johan Rockstrom. Johan created an institution to investigate the limits within which our planet functions; he calls these the ‘Planetary Boundaries’. His theory is that within the Planetary Boundaries our world self regulates. Carbon dioxide for example will be emitted from the earth by volcanoes at the same rate as life returns it to the earth, mainly by dead plants and animals becoming buried on land or sinking to the ocean floor. As rock formations weather they also help to keep the balance. In this way, the earth operates like a thermostat and stability is maintained.

Extinction rates of creatures also remain in balance in usual times. As some species naturally go extinct others evolve at the same rate to replace or increase them. Johan’s investigations show that some of these boundaries are being breached and species extinction is one of them. Alarmingly, large numbers of species are going extinct compared to their rate of replacement. Once the Planetary Boundary is broken, the earth seems to switch from helping to bring about stasis to a runaway feedback loop that causes an acceleration towards imbalance. With species

extinction, for example, as too many species go extinct their ecosystems start to falter and, as a result, more species are lost. Eventually the whole ecosystem collapses. With the carbon cycle, as more CO2 warms the climate, fires and melting permafrost pump more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and the global temperature increase accelerates.

In filming for the Our Planet series and the David Attenborough film, we wanted to show what breaking a Planetary Boundary actually looks like.

One of the starkest examples is the impact of CO2 increase on coral reefs.

In 1998 I was the Head of the BBC’s Natural History Unit and we were making a series called The Blue Planet. One of our underwater cameramen, Peter Scoones, had been sent to the Maldives to film dolphins. While he was there, he witnessed and filmed a largely unknown event: the coral reefs in the shallows were turning white. Peter had witnessed one of the first, mass coral reef bleaching events and this was just over twenty years ago.

Corals contain a symbiotic alga which both gives them their colour and a food source. In 1998, an extreme El Nino occurrence had resulted in very warm sea temperatures in the Indian Ocean; the

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All the reef scientists I know say that this most complex of ocean ecosystems will be gone in just forty years.

high temperatures caused the algae in the coral to produce so much oxygen they became toxic to the host coral. In an act of desperation, the corals expelled the algae, turning them white or bleaching and, consequently, the corals lost their food source.

The sea temperature remained high for too long and so the corals died.

At the time, we all thought that new corals would recolonise the dead reef and that, in a few years, the Maldives would look as good as new. Sadly, this has never happened and instead there has been wave after wave of bleaching events in the Maldives killing off deeper and deeper corals. Thirty years ago, the Maldives were a coral reef paradise. Today they are largely graveyards. The culprit, CO2 warming the atmosphere and subsequently the ocean at unprecedented rates.

Since that event, we have watched nearly half the world’s coral reefs bleach and die. All the reef scientists I know say that this most complex of ocean ecosystems will be gone in just forty years.

The corals of today evolved after the Permian extinction and have thrived for more than two hundred million years and even survived the K-T extinction. However, they do not seem to be able to survive the horror we have unleashed upon them in little over a century.

Scientists have spotted signs that some corals are more resistant to warming and these at least may survive and give us hope. However, even their survival will be short lived because CO2 drives the two horsemen of the ocean’s apocalypse. As the concentration of CO2 builds in the atmosphere, it dissolves in the ocean to form carbonic acid. Our oceans are suffering from acidification. Corals build skeletons of calcium carbonate which dissolve in acid and so acidification will bring about their complete demise. Whenever I talk to marine scientists about ocean acidification, they offer no hope. It is a simple chemical process which is inevitable if atmospheric carbon remains at its current level, let alone continues to increase.

On our current track, acidification will kill a large proportion of ocean life. This is a certainty.

This loss will have a direct effect on all of us.

Growing coral reefs are huge ‘carbon sumps’ as they take carbon out of the ocean and lay it down as stony skeletons. Rock deposits like the White Cliffs of Dover are remnants of this reef-building process and all chalk or limestone rocks hold vast quantities of carbon safely from the atmosphere.

However, now coral reefs are being rendered useless as sumps and another ally of ours in the battle to keep the planet in balance has been lost due to our industrial activity. 

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THE REEDER 2020

OR EVENTS & REUNIONS

OUR PLANET, OUR RESPONSIBILITY

The Reality Travelling the world, the Our Planet team recorded many other ecosystems crossing the planetary boundaries, such as rapidly disintegrating glaciers, shrinking rainforests and thawing tundra. It is not just scientific data and endeavour telling us we are in trouble. Our world is crumbling before our eyes and for many people the impact is already hitting them hard with the increase of natural disasters.

I witnessed the full force of the Anthropocene in the British Virgin Islands. As a family, we have sailed around this archipelago for many years and it is a place very close to my heart. My last visit was after Hurricane Irma, the most powerful ever to form in the Atlantic. Its aftermath was truly shocking. Island townships and resorts literally looked like they had been hit by an atomic blast and were completely destroyed. Nearly every citizen lost the roof of their house and nearly everything they possessed. Two weeks later, another major hurricane, Maria, mercifully just missed the British Virgin Islands but inflicted the worst natural disaster in modern history on Puerto Rica. More than three thousand citizens died. Then there was major Hurricane Dorian that smashed through the Bahamas destroying two other islands I know well, Great Abaco and Grand Bahama. The societies of these islands have been shattered. However, what is terrifying for people living in the Caribbean is that every climate model shows that these super storms will become more and more frequent. Global warming is shifting once rare events to becoming the norm. A ‘one-in-a-hundred years’ mega storm when I was born became a ‘once-in-a-decade event’ and now is an ‘annual event’. From here on the mega storms will become more and more frequent and powerful. Sadly, the once thriving societies on these islands in the Holocene will not be able to take the continuous pounding of the Anthropocene and will become both uninsurable and uninhabitable. And it is not just a worry for the Caribbean. Last year the first ever hurricane swung east and struck the Azores. It ended up on our shores as a storm.

As the ocean warms, it is only a matter of time before hurricanes will be knocking on our door.

The Australian bush fires are another example of what the Anthropocene has in store. Australia is warming faster than most continents and again the projections from climate models are very worrying.

This, coupled with too much water extraction and

Our world is crumbling before our eyes and for many people the impact is already hitting them hard with the increase of natural disasters.

poor land use, created the extreme events we witnessed last year with forest fires on an unprecedented scale. However, once again these will become more frequent and eventually the ‘new normal’. Agriculture in large parts of Australia is collapsing from drought and much of the continent will become uninhabitable by the end of this century.

Our weather in the UK is starting to show extremes too. This year we have had the highest ever recorded rainfall in February and the lowest ever in May. Again, this should be no surprise as climate models all show that our weather will become more extreme.

If we, as humans, have an Achilles heel, it is agriculture. By and large, farming still relies on regular seasons. I was raised in Kenya and when I was a boy the rainy seasons ran like clockwork.

Guy Fawkes night was always close to the start of the ‘short rains’ and as kids we worried about this as the rains would start within a week either side of November 5th. Would bonfire night be a wash out? Then, farmers could plan precisely when to plant and harvest. Ask any Kenyan farmer now when is best to plant and they will throw their arms in the air in despair. The rainy seasons in east Africa are all over the place. Also, the quantity of rain from year to year is oscillating through extremes. This year it has been far too wet but the year before too dry. Consequently, food production in Africa is faltering.

Global food shortages are clearly now on the horizon. Perhaps the most vulnerable continent in the near future is South America. The Amazon rainforest, up until now, has created its own continental weather system called ‘the river in the sky’ which moves more water through the atmosphere than the mighty Amazon river. The sky river irrigates half the continent’s agricultural land.

However, deforestation of the Amazon is pushing this greatest of rainforests to a tipping point where it will not be able to produce sufficient rain to irrigate itself and it will switch to becoming a dry savannah: the river in the sky will be no more.

There is a huge irony here. The Amazon is being deforested largely to provide grazing for cattle to supply humanity’s insatiable requirements for beef but, in doing so, we will destroy most of the continent’s agriculture. Here lies the problem.

Short-term gain always overrides long-term defence against environmental disaster. 

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The Amazon rainforest, up until now, has created its own continental weather system called ‘the river in the sky’ which moves more water through the atmosphere than the mighty Amazon river.

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THE REEDER 2020

OR EVENTS & REUNIONS

OUR PLANET, OUR RESPONSIBILITY

We know what is coming… do we have the will to stop it?

This brings me back to Covid-19. There is a very good TED talk by Bill Gates where he eloquently describes the pandemic, predicting it would cost the world three trillion dollars. Now, he did get the costs wrong as it will be a lot more than that, but we should forgive the error because he gave this talk in 2015! What is so astounding is the detail of his prediction about what was going to happen. Watch this talk and no one can say we did not know what was coming. I would say the same can be said about the environmental crisis. We can predict it just as accurately and it is an inevitability if we do nothing to prevent it. In his TED talk, Gates argued that we needed to spend to create a pandemic defence plan and defence force. Of course, most of the world did not follow his advice with the disastrous consequences we see now. Had it done, the global coronavirus pandemic crisis could have been quickly controlled.

The worst of the environmental crisis is also avoidable if we take action now. However, as with pandemics, we need to treat it like a war and create serious defence budgets. At present, what little we spend on trying to hold back the environment crisis often only comes from tourism or charitable donations. Just imagine if we funded the army in the same way!

So, what needs to be done? First, we need to urgently reduce atmospheric CO2. Right now, it is at 416 parts per million (ppm). Before the industrial revolution it was at 280 ppm and it had varied very little through the whole Holocene period. The last time the world was at 400 ppm was three million years ago and the temperature was two to three degrees warmer with sea level 15 to 25 metres higher. We have rushed to beyond 400 ppm so quickly the climate is having to catch up. We need to not just stop adding more CO2, we also have to remove it.

Reducing CO2 emissions is becoming far more feasible than it was a decade ago. Renewable energy is quickly becoming more cost effective than fossil fuel, and investors are turning to renewables as a better return for the future. We have also demonstrated in this pandemic that we can dramatically and quickly change our society and industry if we think the threat justifies it. So, while

there are huge challenges ahead to make the reductions, we have demonstrated that with the will we can overcome them. The big question is, do we have the will?

Removing CO2 is more complex. There are carbon capture technologies being developed but none that can be scaled up to the needs required to get back to pre-industrial CO2 levels. Nature remains the only feasible option for removing CO2 and so if we ‘rewild’ the planet with a combination of massive reforesting, reinvigorating grasslands whose soils capture huge quantities of carbon, and restoring the oceans, we have a chance of achieving this goal.

The ocean is the quickest option to gain results.

Coastal reefs, seagrass beds and kelp forests all grow very rapidly and are very efficient in capturing carbon. In the open ocean, phytoplankton does the same on a vast scale. However, the productivity of all these marine ecosystems depends on them having functioning food chains driven by a multitude of species, especially fish.

At present, massive overfishing and degradation of coastal marine habitats are dramatically reducing the productivity of our oceans and, correspondingly, their ability to capture carbon. Scientists know how to solve this: if we protect a third of the oceans as marine reserves, the whole system bounces back.

It is a win win because as well as removing CO2, the total fish catch from the unprotected two-thirds starts to rise again too, reversing the century-long decline in global fisheries.

On the land, we need to create more space for both forests and productive grasslands. Growing trees is known to be a very effective means of capturing carbon, but less well known is that the soils of healthy grasslands do so too. To increase both, we must use land more efficiently to feed our burgeoning population. We can do this by firstly changing what we eat and secondly changing how we produce food. Changing what we eat boils down to reducing our meat consumption. A large predator in the Serengeti needs some 100 prey animals to eat every year. That is why predators are rare and why they need a huge area of land to sustain each of them. Humans are omnivores and historically meat made up just a small proportion of our diets.

However, in the last fifty years many of us have behaved like top predators and the planet simply does not have enough space to grow this quantity

We need to not just stop adding more CO2, we also have to remove it.

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If we allow it to, technology can play a big part in both feeding a larger global population and also reducing the land we need for agriculture.

of cattle feed. Nearly all the deforestation of the Amazon is to provide feed for cattle. So, a reduction in the amount of meat we eat and the substitution of meat with either ‘vegetarian or synthetic meat’ will have a dramatic impact on the amount of agricultural land we need and our ability to rewild.

Agriculture has remained much the same in principle since we first invented farming. We clear the soil, plant seeds and harvest what we grow.

Yes, productivity has massively improved, but we still need lots of land. However, an agricultural revolution is happening with many plants being grown indoors with massive yields per hectare.

The Netherlands is the leader here and, despite being one of the world’s smallest countries, is now one of the greatest food exporters. If we allow it to, technology can play a big part in both feeding a larger global population and also reducing the land we need for agriculture.

At present, the natural world receives no income for the services it supplies to us, such as clean water, clean air, food and carbon capture. There is now a growing voice to introduce carbon taxes with the revenue gained reinvested into carbon capture.

If a hardly noticeable US$5 tax was charged to every tonne of carbon produced and paid for every tonne captured, the Amazon rainforest’s carbon capture would make it worth £700 billion a year. Increase the tax to US$50 and it comes to US$7 trillion! With this value attached to the rainforest, conserving rather than destroying becomes the sensible economic decision. Carbon taxing would suddenly put a realistic value on all wild places, and many would instantly become more valuable left alone rather than having them degraded by barely profitable practices as they are at present. 

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OUR PLANET, OUR RESPONSIBILITY

Nothing Happens in Isolation Rewilding the world has another massive benefit: it rebalances so many other factors that are causing our planet to become unstable. Pandemics are just one example. Most scientists believe that Covid-19 made the jump from bats to humans because an infected wild animal had been brought into unnaturally close contact with other wild species and then with humans in a Wuhan wet market. Wet markets have existed for hundreds of years in Asia but, because wild and exotic animals were hard to come by, they were very expensive so the wet-market business was limited and exclusive. With the sudden growth in wealth in China, the wet-market business has grown rapidly, driving more and more illegal wildlife traffickers into remote places, bringing back more and more exotic species into the heart of our cities. So, the chances of a pathogen crossing from an exotic animal to us has dramatically increased.

Poverty also plays its role. In Guinea in the 1990s, conflict drove many refugees into the once uninhabited rainforest. Again, a bat-born disease came unnaturally into contact with people and the Ebola epidemic was born. Our invasion or destruction of the natural world is driving up the number of new ‘zoonotic’ diseases from one every century to half a dozen in just the last 20 years.

The next Covid-19 is sadly just around the corner.

Rewilding and isolating wilderness from people will be an essential step in preventing further pandemics.

Loss of species alone increases our chances of further pandemics. A balanced ecosystem with a complex array of species controls the spread of pathogens and pests. A good example is the global outbreak of Lyme’s disease that began in Connecticut, USA. Lyme’s disease is caused by a tick-born bacteria and has probably existed in New England forests for millennia. In the original pristine forests of East Coast America there was a diverse range of species including chipmunks, weasels and opossums which controlled the tick population. A single opossum, through grooming, can remove six thousand ticks every week. As these specialist species were removed by urbanisation, only generalist species were left like deer and white-footed mice which do not control ticks. The bacteria multiplied on a plague of ticks which now has even reached our wilderness areas in the UK. West Nile disease in the USA is similarly linked to a loss of species, this time wild birds.

Loss of species has greater but less visible worries for us. Insect populations alone have fallen by 25% in the last fifty years and our agriculture is

dependent upon insects for both crop pollination and enriching the soils. So often we focus the extinction debate on the big, charismatic creatures, but it is the loss of the little things that will lead to our undoing.

Whether it is fresh pandemics, agricultural failure or climate change, these are all symptoms of our world losing its balance. It is dangerous to consider the components of the environmental crisis in isolation, as is often the case with climate change.

The danger to all of us is how all these fundamental changes, which are igniting the sixth extinction event, come together in ways our ‘Holoceneevolved’ civilisation simply cannot cope with. This is why we must now urgently step back and work on the steps we need to take to rebalance the world.

The one simple and feasible action that can have a massive and rapid impact is to restore nature on an industrial scale as quickly as possible.

Sadly, we have very little time. Having lived through a pandemic, now we all understand how terrifying exponential growth is. The major factors driving us to the sixth extinction are all increasing exponentially. We know that just a one-week delay to locking down Britain had huge consequences for us because the Covid-19 virus was spreading exponentially. This is exactly the same reason why all environmental scientists are terrified by delaying actions to deal with the environmental crisis. In a decade from now the ‘environment crisis horse’ may have bolted and we will be rushing to an unstoppable sixth extinction event.

Two crucial opportunities lie ahead next year: the UN Conference on Biodiversity (COP15) and the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26). History will look back at these meetings as the crucial moments in the history of mankind but, right now, many people and politicians regard them as a low priority.

One way or another, our actions in this next decade will determine the future of all who follow us. This is why we are the most important generation to have ever lived, being the only people who can prevent a catastrophe of a scale not seen for 66 million years.

If we care about the future generations, then none of us can afford to fail at these crucial moments in the coming decade.

Our ancestors, before the advent of agriculture, knew that to survive they had to be a part of nature.

For 10,000 years we have rushed down a road to becoming apart from nature. Now, once again, we will have to learn to be a part of it. And, once again, it is all about survival. ■

One way or another, our actions in this next decade will determine the future of all who follow us.

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Annual Calendar We are not sure how our 2021 calendar will play out due to current circumstances, but are determined that as many of our annual events as possible go ahead online.

For updates, check the website reeds.surrey.sch.uk/1621/or-events, look out for emails or contact Sharmaine: smatthews@reeds.surrey.sch.uk

    

OR Sport OR Reunions Careers & HE School events Fundraising

JANUARY

FEBRUARY

MARCH

APRIL

‘Totnesian’ New Year’s Lunch Main School Drama Production

OR Committee meeting FORS Quiz Night FutureCareers Seminar School Open Morning OR Golf Society Day Tipple with a Teacher

FutureCareers Seminar Sports Dinner Annual Science Lecture Stephen Shiells Memorial Hockey Match v School & Staff OR Ladies v School Netball Match NetworkReeds City Reception

OR PSOBLTA Tennis qualifying round Foundationers & Benefactors’ Chapel Service & Reception London Marathon Spring Music Concert

MAY

JUNE

JULY

AUGUST

School Open Morning OR Golf Society Day Grafton Morrish Old Boys’ Golf Day Leavers’ Day Leavers’ Ball Tipple with a Teacher

Art, Graphics & Design Exhibition OR PSOBLTA Tennis FutureUni Day OR Committee meeting FORS School Summer Party Sports Day CCF Regimental Dinner OR 1st XI Cricket v School OR Dylan Paris XI v School OR Reunion Day OR Cricket Reunion T20 Primary Schools Olympiad

Speech Day RideLondon Surrey-100 OR PSOBLTA Tennis semi-finals OR Cricket Reunion Test Tipple with a Teacher match

SEPTEMBER

OCTOBER

NOVEMBER

DECEMBER

Girls’ 1st XI v OR Girls’ Hockey Recent Leavers’ Drinks OR Recent Leavers’Rugby Totnes Reunion OR PSOBLTA Tennis Final Oxbridge Preparation Evening FutureCareers Fair OR Golf Society Day

OR Committee meeting Grafton Morrish Old Boys’ Golf Final Annual Foundation Appeal Launch Film for the Foundation Tipple with a Teacher

FORS Fireworks Evening School Open Morning Service of Remembrance Autumn Concert Founders’ Week Chapel Services FORS Christmas Fair

FutureCareers Seminar Giving Tuesday OR Tennis Reunion Carol Service at Guildford Cathedral

Save the Date You are cordially invited to the Andrew Reed Online Lecture

‘Perfect Planet’ on Wednesday 27th January 2021, 7.30pm with Dr Keith Scholey (Bristowe 1975) Please see website for details and to register: reeds.surrey.sch.uk/1621/or-events

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Reunions & Events A summary of OR events and reunions that took place over a somewhat different academic year

SEPTEMBER 2019 OR Recent Leavers v OR Invitation XV A really good turnout of players and supporters for this match at Reeds Weybridge. For final result, see page 47.

Totnes Reunion 73 not out! That doesn’t refer to the Ashes but instead to our ORs who attended Reed’s in Totnes that many years ago when it was evacuated during the War. It is always a real honour to share the special and enduring friendships and bonds they have with each other and this year was no different. It was also particularly lovely to see a few ‘OR newbies’ including OR Committee members, Roger Mew (Bristowe 1959) and Andy Wotton (Mullens 1975), who joined us to learn about the anecdotes, antics and rich heritage of the School at that time. All ORs are welcome, so if you are interested in joining us, do get in touch.

Bi-annual International Club Tennis Match Whilst representing GB in the bi-annual International Club tennis match against the US, former teacher Simon Bramwell, met up with ORs Ben Draper and Jack Molloy – both Bristowe 2017 and both tennis scholars at Berkeley in California. Simon reports that both young men are doing really well and that their coaches spoke highly of the Reed’s tennis academy!

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OCTOBER 2019 Film for the Foundation Who would guess that you could transform the Assembly Hall at Reed’s into a Mamma Mia film set, complete with rowing boat, café, lemon trees and lines of washing!? Well, that’s what happened for our fourth Film for the Foundation fundraising event. This is an extract from a note received from Charlotte Mocatta (Mullens 1988) whose OR brother, Simon Church (Mullens 1979), and friend, Jonathan Turner (Blathwayt 1979) we honour and in whose names we raise money for the Foundation.

‘It was fabulous to feel so much love in the Assembly Hall; Simon and Jonathan would be amazed by what we are doing 39 years after their deaths. Mum and I are really grateful that you do so much to fulfil their legacy.

Memorial Service for Richard Nicholson We were honoured to host a memorial service for former member of staff, Richard Nicholson, who sadly died earlier in the year and to welcome his two brothers, extended family, ORs, former colleagues and staff. For those unable to attend, we received some wonderful messages and anecdotes about Richard which were put into a book of remembrance for the family (see Foundation section).

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Reunions & Events

OCTOBER 2019

NOVEMBER 2019

AFA Launch It was wonderful that so many OR Foundation pupils from across the decades were able to join us at Grocers’ Hall for the 204th Annual Foundation Appeal Launch. As our new 2019/20 Appeal President, The Rt Hon David Laws, said at the time: ‘they represent all that is good and unique about the Foundation and Reed’s’.

#WeWillRememberThem

Our 73 OR Heroes who gave their lives in World War Two, were commemorated by pupils in the annual School service: Jack Angus, Harry Archer, Denis Balaam, Harold Balshaw, Norman Bennett, Anthony Blacklin, Anthony Blaikley, Stephen Blower, Geoffrey Boit, Leslie Bond, Patrick Brace, Donald Bruty, John Budd, Allan Cantle-Jones, John Cantle-Jones, William Chapman, Frederick Colson, Geoffrey Cox, William Coxshall, Frederick Craven, Raymond Dale, Richard Dawson, Malcolm Dent, Noel Eldridge, Lawrence Farr, William Good, Francis Goodship, John Gwynne, Geoffrey Hall, Richard Hazell, Alan Hodgson, Mabel Houghton, Peter Hughes, Lewis Kirk, Vincent Lambert, George Landray, John Lane, Harold Lang, Clarence Leonard, John Lindley, William Lindley, Herbert Little, James Lloyd, Donald Mackinnon, Peter Marshall, Hugh McLanachan, Alan Mills, Thomas Moss, Ronald Oswald, Harold Page, Reginald Pedley, David Pledge, Henry Pocock, James Price, William Prosser, Denis Read, George Rowden, Allan Smith, Brian Stacy, Robert Steele, Gilbert Stiles, Harold Tayler, Leslie Thomas, Thomas Trinder, William Tyrie, Norman Walls, Herbert Waterton, Charles Wells, John Whittingham, Percival Williams, Raymond Willshire, Robert Withers, Robert Woods.

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Andrew Reed Lecture On 15th November, we held our biennial Andrew Reed Lecture at the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) in Kensington.

In the hallowed Ondaajte Theatre – where the likes of Darwin, Shackleton, Livingston and Scott are memorialised – our guest speaker, Dr Keith Scholey (Bristowe 1975), captured the hearts and minds of some 500 guests from across the Reed’s community, with a little bit of help from world-renown, natural historian Sir David Attenborough.

Prior to the Lecture, it was wonderful for Keith to catch up with former Biology teacher, Howard Robinson, as well as other OR guests. Keith is the co-founder of Silverback Films, the company that produced the award-winning ‘Our Planet’ series for Netflix.

As a zoologist who also headed up the BBC Natural History unit working very closely with Sir David, Keith was well-qualified to deliver his thought-provoking lecture, ‘Our Planet, Our Responsibility’. This topic so aptly reflected the reason why we hold this biennial event: to celebrate our Founder, Rev Dr Andrew Reed, and to reinforce the values on which he built our School.

Keith definitely sparked our curiosity.

Please read the lead article on page 24 in which Keith provides some compelling evidence as to why we need to take responsibility for our planet.

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Reunions & Events JANUARY 2020 2019 Recent Leavers’ Drinks Nearly 60 of our 2019 leavers joined us for their first official drink as ORs and we even had a cake for birthday boy Gus Baker (Mullens).

Everyone was on top form, enjoying their new experiences since leaving School, although missing us at the same time!

Melbourne meet-up What a coincidence that Val Wakefield should meet up with Becks Booker (Mullens 2006) in Australia who was using her veterinary nursing skills to help the fire damaged animals in and around Melbourne!

2013 OR Reunion There can only be one caption for these photos: ‘friends for life’.

It was lovely to be asked to join our 2013 ORs for their reunion in Battersea, with some coming from as far away as Milan and Glasgow! A fab time was had, with a few hilarious hours spent going through the 2013 Reedonian magazine, spotting themselves amongst the pages. Do let us know if you are getting together and send photographs please!

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FEBRUARY 2020 Totnes Lunch This special photo demonstrates what a community for life really means! The average age of these ORs – who all attended when it was evacuated to Totnes – works out to a remarkable 88.5. However, at our lunch yesterday, we were lucky enough to be served by fellow OR Calum McDermott (Blathwayt 2015), who brought this down to just 81!

MARCH 2020 South Africa Capel boys forever! There may be 60 years between these two young men – Jim Williams (1959) and Adam Matthews (2019) but the Capel spirit lives strong. Meeting up in South Africa at the weekend, where Jim lives and where Adam had been working for four months, they were able to share many stories and much laughter. The book Jim proudly holds is his Howard Rose award for ‘Most Improved’ pupil which was awarded to him at Speech Day in 1959 – FIDE!

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Reunions & Events APRIL 2020

MAY 2020

The Art of Letter Writing As lockdown started to take its toll, we started an initiative whereby we ‘matched up’ Lower Sixth pupils and some staff with ORs from our Totnes and Dogmersfield era. This match was based on something simple like the same house, a similar interest or even just a shared birth month! It was very humbling to see the wonderful letters that were exchanged between pupils and ORs, bringing about much mutual respect and support for each other’s lockdown experience! We are hoping that when the next School reunion takes place, we can get these ‘pen pals’ together to meet in person.

Bristowe 10/5 Challenge OR Bristowians Chessie & Miles Horwood (2018 & 2020) and Alex Greenwood (2015) joined other ‘housemates’ to help raise a whopping £3460 for Refuge in the Bristowe 10/5 Challenge, led by fellow OR and Housemaster, Adrian Blackman.

London Marathon We know it didn’t happen in April, but our ‘Magnificent 7’ of Marathon runners, including ORs, Megan Bennett (Bristowe 2009), Kimble Stuckey (Capel 2014) and Max Anderson (Mullens 2020), along with parents Paul Anderson, Robert Duggan, Nick Farmer and Mel White took part in the #TwoPointSixChallenge, splitting up the 26.2 miles between them, with some impressive routes and times. Keeping everything crossed we see you cross that London finishing line in 2021!

ATP Champions Tour As part of a series of podcasts put out by the ATP Champions Tour, it was great to see two former Reed’s tennis scholars getting together, with Tim Henman (Blathwayt 1991) interviewing Jack Draper (Bristowe 2020).

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JUNE 2020 Reunion Day We had a great line up of activities planned for Reunion Day on Sunday 28th June with the aim of bringing ORs together virtually!

In usual fashion, it was kicked off with recorded messages from Mark Hoskins (Headmaster) and Marcus Baker (Governor & OR President).

Our first live session was a ‘Cricket Chat with Mr Dunn & Medders’.

With a back drop of Big Side Pavilion, our cricketers from across the decades regaled stories about dropped catches, personal bests, tough matches, umpires, school tours and everything in between. Mr Dunn even had his stat books to put Oskar Kolk (Blathwayt 2015), Sam Brandon (Capel 2008) and Toby Tarrant (Blathwayt 2010) right on a few scoring myths!

In our ‘Virtual Lessons,’ Caroline St-Gallay set a tough challenge by asking attendees to complete a selection of more obscure Shakespearean quotes. Luckily, we had some young brains on board, so the ‘OR face’ was saved, but we know it was interesting for ORs to find out what digital learning has been like for our teachers and pupils.

With the same passion and drive that many ORs will know, Head of History, Adam Waller, led a ‘What Happened Next...?’ session which went from putrefaction to exploding molasses! The lesson had it all and had a gripped group of ORs hanging on his every word!

It’s not often you get past and present Reed’s School luminaries like Alex Balls, Geoff Martin, Kim Lambert, Jen Lawrence, Mandy Francis, Lucy Balls, Val Wakefield and, of course, Paul Kemp in one room but we managed that on Reunion Day with our virtual ‘Tea with Kempo’ event. It was great having so many ORs popping in to say hello, including Blathwayt 1997 leavers, Mark Russell from the US and Rahim Lalani from Pakistan; thanks for missing breakfast/dinner for it gents!

The day ended in traditional style with a Dylan Paris XI v School match, but this time it took the form of a cricket quiz against Reed’s staff. Some 45 varied questions were expertly put together by the Quiz Master, Angus Darroch Warren (Capel 1986), with teams captained by Chris Gore (Mullens 1987) and Reed’s Adam Waller. Please see the OR Sport section to read the full match report, in typical Gore style.

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Reunions & Events

JULY 2020 Tipple with a Teacher There are not many reunions where you can have a beer with friends from the US, ‘up north’ and several home counties plus a couple of your former teachers, but that is exactly what we did with our ‘Tipple with a Teacher’ evening! Reed’s leading lights Ian Clapp and Mark Vernon hosted a great ‘zoom’ gathering with some of their 1992 rugby squad each with a beverage in hand! From the outset, you could tell that the camaraderie and banter had not diminished with time!

Thank you for taking part gents: Tim Watney, Rupert Bryan, Seyi Aiyegbusi, Dan Murray, Dan Bayat, Wayne Linton, Matthew Penney, Dominic Margetson, Ogden Coke, Nick Gray, Toby Makzhangi and Matthew Margetson.

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OR SPORT

We managed to squeeze in a few OR sporting events this year before you know what!

OR GOLF OR Golf Society September 2019 Right on cue, the clouds parted and the sun snuck out for our OR Golf Society Day held at the beautiful Cowdray Golf Club, courtesy of member Justin Chuter (Bristowe 1977). We had 14 keen golfers from across all decades who played for the honour of Individual Winner, as well as the other usual team, nearest the pin, etc awards. Delighted to report that newcomer, Lewis Bowerman (Mullens 2015) was our champ on this occasion!

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OR HOCKEY OR Ladies’ Hockey September 2019 Even before Reed’s had officially started the academic year, the Sixth Form Girls were able to have a run out against our OR Ladies in this annual hockey fixture. It was a great game played in really good spirits where the School led 2-0 right up until half time, despite some amazing saves by our goalie. However, the ORs managed to come back to secure a draw which accurately reflected the determination and passion put in by both sides. Afterwards, the ORs reconvened at The Running Mare to catch their breath as well as catch-up with each other. Thanks to everyone who came to play and support; it was good to see you all as ever.

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OR RUGBY OR Rugby September 2019 It was really great to see so many of our 2019 Leavers both on and off the pitch for the Recent Leavers XV v OR Invitation match at Reeds Weybridge RFC. Parents in abundance were there too lending their support.

The game did start off a bit scrappy as everyone vied for position, but the gents soon found their mojo. By the end of the first half, the older ORs lead by some considerable amount with tries from Alec O’Connor, Oliver Taylor, Ed Scott,

George Orme and Alex Soriano. In the second half, the 2019 Leavers, going up-hill but with youth on their side, managed to put on the points required to end the game in a 45:45 draw with tries

by Gus Baker, Alex Laidlaw, Tom Coker and William White.

Jeremy Isaacs (Bristowe 1973) kindly presented the trophy to team captains and celebrations carried on in the bar afterwards. Thank you to everyone for coming along, to Reeds Weybridge RFC for hosting us and Reed’s School Rugby Coach, Tony Talbot, for keeping order!

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THE REEDER 2020

OR EVENTS NEWS & EVENTS & REUNIONS

OR TENNIS

OR CRICKET Dylan Paris ORs v Reed’s Staff Cricket Quiz June 2020

D’Abernon Cup September 2019 Our brilliant OR team of Jathan Malik, Dominic Hodgson, Alex Bull, Chris Jones, Josh Southern, Brandon Drew and, of course, team captain, Adrian Blackman, fought valiantly in the final of the PSOBLTA D’Abernon Cup, narrowly missing out on retaining the championship title to Old Reptonians 5:4. We’ll be back stronger next year!

Tennis for Good September 2019 Reed’s School Tennis Academy gurus, Adrian Blackman (Mullens 1992) and Ben Haran (Mullens 1994) led a team of pupils and ORs to fundraise for the National Emergencies Trust. Their challenge, which was set by academy player, Will, was to run 2020 km collectively over the 12 weeks leading up to the start of a cancelled Wimbledon. The alumni contingent included the likes of Josh Southern, Andy Bettles, Alex Croker, Gary Le Pla, Jack Carpenter, Jonny Cornish and Paul Jessop. The squad managed to raise over £2,000.

Our thanks to Chris Gore (Mullens 1987) for a rather unique, but typically amusing, match report.

In the darkest days of lockdown, remember the date – Sunday 28th June 2020! The day that the Dylan Paris Cricket XI team humbled, perhaps, some of the finest minds of the mighty Reed’s Common Room (RCR).

The DP XI were trimmed down from the usual squad of 12 overweight, middle-aged former public schoolboys to a fighting fit elite unit of brainiacs led by Chris ‘Mr Know-it-all’ Gore, sporting their customary cravats in memory of Dylan.

This year, it was the RCR who went to the (virtual) pub for a pre-game libation whilst the DP Team read Wisden, Tolstoy, Goethe & Best of Viz Almanac (1985) to mentally prepare for the cranial challenges that lay ahead.

Sharmaine – who would have been a blessed relief for either side – decided to stay impartial and didn’t want the added pressure of trying to keep control of what was sure to be a highly charged event with testosterone flowing to and fro. So at a time of need, who better to take control than the highly-feared, not to mention regarded, figure of Angus DarrochWarren former School Captain (Capel) from 1986. He was recruited with the promise of an extra helping of pork pie as payment.

You could hear the collection of “sssssssssssssssssssssssssss” which used to greet Angus when he strode to the front of the School assembly to dish out whatever reprimands or punitive measure that Dave Prince had in stall for everyone but, lo and behold, when the Zoom screen came into focus, there was Angus, or was it? It was certainly Angus-like but only a lot less so. That extra pork pie was no longer needed as he is now a black-belt, vegan and importantly at least 6 stone lighter.

For any normal man, losing 6 stones would have meant them losing their identity, but for Angus it meant he was now only 18 stone, so still not to be trifled with.

The RCR had their own weight issues and had clearly found some of those

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6 stone which they shared amongst themselves, with some taking on more of the load than others but, if I want this to get published, I won’t name names. Alex Balls was a big part of their team followed

by Ben Edwards, Jando (yes that is a name not a pub game apparently) Adam Waller, Richard Bath and not to forget the ever non-aging icon that is Malcolm ‘Benjamin Button’ Dunn who looked exactly the same as he did in 1963 when he joined the School!

The DP team was made up of me as Captain (of course), Simon ‘Please, please, please can I open again Chris’ Stokoe, Andy “Soft Hands” Shiells but this time without Debbie (yes Stokoe was upset) but he had an able replacement in Mr ‘Peter’ Shiells who could remember the days even before Malcolm Dunn was at school. Other team members were Jon Don Carolis who’s only job was to keep an eye on the clock, Chris Hugall who kept an eye on Jon Don, and our last minute wild card – Tom ‘Stato’ Baldock.

Andy Pickles arrived 20 minutes late but no one was quite sure what he did other than remind us he had a dentist appointment coming up. Sadly Jonny ‘Let’s get p…..d’ Gleed wasn’t allowed out this year and the virtual RCR breathed a collective sigh of relief.

The RCR were overtly confident in the pre-match banter, they had even arranged for Maureen Savage to come on and take over the call with a flurry of insults and put-downs that even Steve Waugh would have blushed at. But, no sooner had she made Simon Stokoe cry, than she left in a flurry as she had another Zoom to attend to with a ‘more interesting crowd’ apparently. I knew that if Maureen was all they had, then we still had a chance and once we had worked out how to put Stokoe on mute, I felt this was still a game that we could win and it would be a quiz of two halves, and who wanted it more and, possibly, who had bribed Angus the most.

Using the power of some clever technology via slido.com, we were all moved into team rooms by Angus which meant we didn’t have to listen to the RCR guffawing away from their holiday homes in Switzerland, Monaco and Claygate. The quiz started with questions being posted to our mobile phones and then there was a 30 second window to send in an answer.

It wasn’t easy for Jon Don to count up to 30 without taking his shoes and socks off but, with Hugall’s help, they got it done, well done lads very proud of you both.

After every five questions or so, Angus sent the best looking team member their team’s position in the quiz so I kept the rest of the boys updated. We got off to an early lead, despite some tricky questions, but it was question 14 that caused a stir: ‘Who was the Reed’s School 2nd XI coach in 1985?’. The options were Richard ‘Please don’t call me Papa again Simon’ Warnock, Eric ‘Bally Bally’ Hearle, Geoff “Ricky” Martin or Pick Myrgos, sorry Mike Pyrgos?

Now, as Stokoe had spent three straight years as scorer for the 3rd XI looking to get into the 2nd XI hut, you’d have thought he’d know the answer. Apparently, Dunn also remembered that year as he re-sat his A Level in woodwork for the third time.

Balls was also sure that was the year when Mullens beat Blathwayt in the House 7s and his tackle only resulted in me losing my boot but still scoring (which is true and highly irrelevant at the same time by the way).

But I digress… there were 45 questions and after the 40th the DP team went from our usual 1st place to 2nd as Baldock finally got a few wrong and Peter Shiells failed to remember some stats from the 1903 to 1926 season leaving the RCR sneakily nipping ahead with only five questions left.

Now I didn’t have access to the RCR room, but I am reliably told that when the news broke that they were finally in 1st place with only five questions left, they were slapping each other on the backs (from 2 metres of course), popping even more champagne and counting down the days until another three months summer holiday loomed.

But as we all know five questions is a long time in a high calibre quiz where there are no marks for spelling your name right.

Just as the DP team had done for the last few years (OK, several years), the RCR managed to pluck defeat from the jaws of victory and the final question: ‘In 1978 who was the first professional cricketer to wear a helmet in a Test match?’ settled the game.

Bladock stepped up and knocked it out of the park with a crash bang (Graham) Wallop and it was done. Justice. Revenge is a dish best served cold and this was chilled to within an inch of its life and presented on a silver platter.

It was strange that just at that moment, the RCR lost connection and their video feed was cut off so we didn’t get to see their sad faces, but the sound was on and we heard Dunn banging his copy of the History of Reed’s School 2nd XI Cricket 1985-86 and screaming it was Keith Youde, Keith the keeper of the stationery cupboard Youde I tell you!

Angus managed to switch on their video feed remotely via some secret surveillance app and the RCR quickly managed to mumble, ‘well done’, ‘good show’, ‘what time does Antiques Road show on?’, ‘where the hell was Maureen when we needed her?’ and ‘don’t run in the corridor’.

As before not all of this is true, but that doesn’t really matter… what was important was to get together for ORs Day, toast Dylan and win for a change. Many thanks to Sharmaine and Angus for making it happen.

Until next year… when ‘we’ll meet again’.Skipper Gore

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THE REEDER 2020

education choices

The key to your child’s education An online portal, sharing news, educational updates, school achievements and advice for children and parents.

Issue 1 out now!

OR Memorabilia Our Old Reedonian tie is unique; each stripe representing our house colours. It is also just one of the many items of memorabilia that symbolises the strength of our community.

To browse our collection visit: reedsschoolshop.co.uk/memorabilia

Available for parties, corporate events and weddings. Choose what is right for you.

Cash Bar

Everyone pays thier own way.

Tab Bar

put some money behind the bar. When the tab runs out we revert to a cash bar. This is a nice way of treating your guests to a couple of drinks without footing the whole bill.

Drinks Packages Great for a warm welcome. We pre-plan a few drinks for your guests, fill gaps in your day or simply just provide a little treat.

Bartending service Together we design your menu. Then you buy the supplies and we take care of service. We just charge for our time and what we bring with us.

See our latest edition at educationchoicesmagazine.com

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Live.Love.Bleed.

RUGBY Casual apparel for the more discerning rugby fan

L I V E L O V e B L E E D R U G B Y. C O M

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y a D r e h c a e T a Thank In recognition of National Thank a Teacher Day on 20th May, we posted a simple photo on our OR social media pages of a few familiar faces from Reed’s. Sadly we didn’t have space to feature every teacher in the collage, but that did not stop friends from across the community contributing some wonderful comments. In a year when the teaching profession has had to face unparalleled challenges, it seems only right to celebrate how much #TeamReeds are appreciated.

Miles Harris (Bristowe 2019) Mr Norman what a legend, hockey and history guru!

Caroline Seymour (former parent) I know I’m a former parent but I must say thank you. There are so many amazing, incredible teachers and families who were all intrinsic in helping to bring-up my son and see him turn from a boy to a man.

Something I will be eternally grateful for. There is one very special, patient, understanding and incredible man who supported us and that’s Alex Balls – he is our Reed’s Hero.

Emre Aktas (Mullens 1995) Paul Davies! Best teacher I had at Reed’s who really encouraged my passion for History!

Jamie Woodward (Blathwayt 2005) Wow so many to mention, but for me the best teachers I had were Mr & Mrs Wakefield; Derek was my all-time favourite and I can’t forget the big man himself, David Jarrett. We had a very interesting relationship as I wasn’t always the model student but he made sure I came away understanding the word ‘repercussion’ and having achieved as much as I could.

Siân Rowland (Mullens 1986) Some teachers were slightly perplexed by how to deal with the very few girls at Reed’s during my time, but I couldn’t have asked for a better (and more lenient) housemaster than Mr Martin. I loved A Level French with Mr King and English with Mr Prince who called me a ‘Bluestocking’ which I had to go away and look up! Happy days.

Emma Beamish (Blathwayt 2001) I was part of the first full year of girls in the 6th form. All of the teachers were brilliant I cannot thank Reed’s staff enough for their incredibly supportive culture whilst always having time for a laugh. Not to mention the sport that has made me the sports woman I still am today.

Love you guys x

53 Graham Milton (Blathwayt 2004) A wall of legends. It must be the sign of a good team when it only feels like a couple of years ago.

Paul Siira-Tharme (Capel 2004) Too many to mention on an individual basis so its collective thanks from me, but a sincere one. I am very grateful for all the efforts that formed my Reed’s experience. Thank you all.

Nick Gray (Blathwayt 1993) It’s a long list but the main person I would really like to thank (and can’t find any contact details for) is Mr Andrew Watson (Art).

He advised me not to go to art college, even though he was my tutor and art teacher... saying that I would end up doing something creative but earn more than being a fine artist.

He was so right, but at the time I didn’t talk to him for about a month. I owe him a big thank you and an apology. I loved it at Reed’s. Thank you all and Andrew Reed himself for helping us get on and make friends for life.

Pete Bassett (Capel 1982) I was lucky enough to be taught by seven of these magnificent people.

Chris Bramley (Blathwayt 1995) Geoff Daniel is the reason I’m an author. He believed in a small, different, troubled kid where I didn’t in myself.

He has my eternal thanks.

Robert Beaton (Bristowe 1998) I want to thank so many great teachers. Mr Coulson: an incredibly talented man, with a rare knack of encouraging so many at Reed’s – to not just succeed at, but crucially, persevere with their music.

Harry Simons (Mullens 2004) All heroes with endless patience. Thank you! I may have left 16 years ago now but still learning lessons from these incredible people that helped shape who I am today.

Giles House (Capel 2000) Many great teachers during my spell, but a few standouts: Geoff Daniels, 6th Form Housemaster and Tommy Jones, Physics.

Leo Coates (Bristow 2005) Every teacher I encountered at Reed’s, even if they weren’t my specific teacher, was amazing.

I think the main factor is that we were treated like young adults which went a huge way in how we carried on in life after leaving. Can’t praise the School highly enough and still think about how many great times were had!

Tom Murdoch (former Teacher of English) Teaching at Reed’s did so much for me personally and professionally and taught me what dedication to the job looks like. An amazing standard across the board, some absolute classroom legends (many but not all of whom are pictured) and a wonderful common room. I encountered many a great student too – all now ORs – who helped make for fun and caring school culture. Looking forward to returning once the world has righted itself...

Rachel Corbould (Mullens 2006)  Mrs Hart

Bill Haswell (Mullens 1989) Whey hey! Thanks to, David Prince, Geoff Martin, Richard ‘Rome’ Garrett, Gary Kirkham, Basil Green, Richard Nicholson, Ian Funnel, Keith Youde, Ian Clapp, Bob Bullard, Christine Holt, Ed Harrison and Sister Kiehne for fixing us up!

Alan Lam (Bristowe 2005) I don’t necessarily want mention anyone specifically but I do want to say thank you to ALL Reed’s staff who’ve had a significant impact upon my life and express my gratitude and appreciation. Thank you.

Omar Al-Saffar (Mullens 2013) Thanks for everything!

Tim Mather (Blathwayt 1995) Rev Brian Close... legend of a teacher and an inspiration.

The complete package.

Tom Murdoch (former Teacher of English) Teaching at Reed’s did so much for me personally and professionally and taught me what dedication to the job looks like. An amazing standard across the board, some absolute classroom legends (many but not all of whom are pictured) and a wonderful common room. I encountered many a great student too – all now ORs – who helped make for fun and caring school culture. Looking forward to returning once the world has righted itself...

Patricia Wheeler I am a past parent and I cannot thank the School and the wonderful staff enough. I don’t want to single anyone out in particular but from our first meeting with the school I have very fond memories of Mr Warnock and Mr & Mrs Hearle who showed great compassion coupled with just the right amount of discipline. Thank you to all the staff, very special people xx

Paul Jessop (Blathwayt 1991) So many great teachers in my era of late 1980s and early 90s.

Mr Garrett, Mr Hewitt, Mr Hearle, Mr Selby, Mr Clapp, Miss Thorne to name but a few – interesting I don’t know most of their first names!

Nick Way (Mullens 1992) Mr Hoskins and Mr Hall, Housemasters of The Close circa 1984-85, made very positive impressions on me.

Fond memories of all our teachers at Reed’s.

Bryn Nathan (Capel 1977) Thank you to Tom Steadman, my Housemaster and hero, and to Rodney Exton, my Headmaster who gave me my first Lord’s Test Match ticket!

Harry Charrington (Mullens 2008) Luke Michael, always there for advice or just a laugh when you needed it! Hero!

Ollie Weguelin (Bristowe 2006) So many legends. Huge influences and a lot of great mentors through my years there.

Morgan Males (Blathwayt 2018) Too many to mention, they’re all heroes, but the Dunn, Balls, Michael, Edwards, Hart and Medlycott families will always be remembered with endless laughs and valuable lessons learnt from every individual.

Mrs Millington too, my school mum, who made sure I was happy and organised. Thanks to all the teachers that make it the incredible place it is!

Seb Horst (Blathwayt 2009) Too many names to mention; thanks to all who made my years there unforgettable.

Peter Chislett (Blathwayt 1977) John Savage and Eric Hearle (Housemaster and Deputy of Blathwayt) both treated me with great respect; as a boarder I could not have asked for better people to have in charge.

Georgina Sheedy-Collier (Mullens 2009) Thanks you lovely lot!

Harry Simons (Mullens 2004) All heroes with endless patience. Thank you! I may have left 16 years ago now but still learning lessons from these incredible people that helped shape who I am today.

Bryn Nathan (Capel 1977) Thank you to Tom Steadman, my Housemaster and hero, and to Rodney Exton, my Headmaster who gave me my first Lord’s Test Match ticket!

Will Hitchcock (Blathwayt 2008) The Kemps... absolute legends.

Christian Williamson (Mullens 2015) Medders, Waller, Jolly, Murdoch and Balls, you’re all great.

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Class Notes Enjoy reading about all the varied and exciting news from ORs and former staff Chloe Abbott (Blathwayt 1992) Chloe Abbott (Blathwayt 1992) It has been a very busy and productive year, despite COVID-19. As a family, we have been very impressed with the efforts many Reed’s staff and pupils have gone to supporting the elderly and providing PPE. My son, Joe Barker (Mullens 2019), completed two-thirds of his first year at Exeter Penryn studying International Relations and has loved every minute.

My company, CJA Educational

Chuck Adolphy (Blathwayt 2015) As a presenter on Forces radio – BFBS – Chuck had the honour of interviewing Captain (now Sir) Tom Moore and, consequently, was interviewed on BBC Breakfast himself! Chuck then went on to raise over £1500 for Mind by running a marathon in his bedroom!

We love receiving your news and updates. Simply email snippets and all important photos to thereeder@reeds.surrey.sch.uk

Consultancy, has been growing and our exciting new venture is setting up a new online magazine ‘Education Choices’.

This aims to support schools and universities in the UK and to keep parents and children up-to-date on new developments and changes in entrance exams, facilities and improvements, share exciting news or developments and advice on exam procedures.

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Frank Anstis My son Simon (Capel 1975), now living nearby at Penryn, helpfully converted my greenhouse into an outdoor studio complete with fans, heaters, chairs and refreshment facilities where I can resume my painting hobby with less inconvenience to my wife, Evelyn.

I owe much of my interest in painting to former colleague, Howard Pickersgill, who inspired me and numerous former pupils.

Those who remember me as “over the hill” in the 1950s will see that I have fallen over the edge now!

Alfie Baker (Blathwayt 2018), Sam Moldon (Mullens 2018) & Harry Springford (Capel 2018) With the help of friends, Alfie produced a very powerful film entitled ‘Man-Up’ in which the gentlemen interviewed, including ORs Sam and Harry, were incredibly brave in opening up and reflecting about being a man in today’s society. Can be viewed on YouTube.

Alastair Beardsall (Mullens 1972) The recent few months in lockdown have produced many memorable family moments. Henry, my eldest, finished off his first year at Southampton University by moving back home, and continuing his lectures via Teams, he certainly appreciates home catering/laundry now. Lizzie (Lower 6) and Charlotte (Year 3) continued their education via Zoom, supplemented with parent coaching; but both were frustrated with the curtailment of various sporting interests. Edward (Year 10), who moved to a STEM school last September, seemed to cruise through his tasks set each day by 11am and used the extra time to self-teach himself to weld, a great life skill! Heather and I are both enjoying our time at home with the family, but somewhat frustrated by the cancellation of sailing regattas and summer holidays.

Richard Borley (Capel 1951) Just before lockdown struck, we moved house from Somerset to Surrey to be closer to our daughter who lives near Box Hill.

Our grandson is now 40 and lives in Carshalton and our grand-daughter, 38, lives in West Ewell. Their children, our great grand-children, are now 8 and 8 and 5 and 5 – all nicely matched.

Josh Brown (Bristowe 2009) & Alex Batten (Blathwayt 2009) There can be fewer greater honours than meeting the now Captain Sir Tom Moore on his 100th birthday... and look who did it!

None other than Josh, as his and Alex’s company, Henley Shipping, were entrusted to deliver the Olympic Torch to this living legend in April.

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Class Notes

Ian Chate (Bristowe 1962)

Quite by coincidence I bumped into OR Keith Miller and his wife, Heather, at a concert in Burgess Hill. OR Geoff Spinks and his wife were also there as members of the orchestra and we were able to meet afterwards to congratulate them on their performance.

What a way to spend a landmark birthday!

A trip to the Pacific Islands was off so the next best thing was to don a Hawaiian shirt and celebrate in the garden!

I am one of a core group of 1960s ORs who meet for lunch at The Bear in Oxshott twice a year and during lockdown four of us reached our three-quarter centuries.

So much to celebrate and no one to celebrate with! We are all looking forward immensely to putting this right as soon as possible.

As I write I am still looking forward to my annual visit to Totnes. Although circumstances have reduced the number of Totnesian ORs attending what was usually our reunion event, I hope to be there for John Rogers’ 90th birthday celebration.

As a Sussex County supporter I am enjoying watching OR Phil Salt’s cricket career taking off.

Mike Colvin (Cael 1954) I still play rugby, but now more of a social level, golf has fully taken the front seat, much to my wife’s joy! I hope all the Reed’s team and Old Reedonians are well.

Since being confined to the house during lockdown, we have focussed on getting jobs done that we should have done long, long ago. So from that point of view, whilst it was not our first choice, lockdown has actually facilitated us doing what we should have indeed done before.

So ‘clouds with silver linings’ spring to mind – much the same for many others I assume.

Leon Dore (former Teacher of Art) I had two exhibitions cancelled during lockdown but have one current exhibition of Portland seascapes in Poundbury Engine Room.

Leo Coates (Bristowe 2005) In this crazy year, we have been kept very busy by our 9-month old Oliver!

It’s been a real silver lining being able to spend the last five months with my wife, Nicola, watching him grow during my time on furlough.

After relocating to Cambridgeshire a few years ago and commuting to London for work, the catering and hospitality industry in London pretty much came to a standstill which meant that in June, I was – unfortunately – made redundant.

However, I have recently joined Chartwells Independent who specialise in delivering catering to top independent schools (maybe Reed’s one day). I am currently based at Rugby School which is right up my street with its history!

Bill Collins (Bristowe 1948) There was a good turnout for the deferred Christmas lunch in Walton-on-Thames which brought together several ORs aged 80+ and included two ORs – Bill Pickering and Steve Beamish (pictured) who had been at Reed’s at Watford, Totnes and Cobham. To our surprise our young waiter was himself an Old Reedonian too.

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Dan Douthwaite (Capel 2015) Really pleased to learn that Dan was awarded the John Derrick Young Player of the Year award at his club, Glamorgan, in first season.

Amber Emson (Capel 2019) Amber was invited to perform at an exclusive fundraising evening for The Nicholas Boas Charitable Trust. The Trust supports young musicians at the start of their careers with particular projects such as attending masterclasses, travelling to auditions, making initial recordings, commissioning new works, etc.

Luis Echegary (Capel 1999) I worked at Sports Illustrated for three years as host/writer and head of Latino content but, in the autumn, started full-time as a host and content development strategist at CBS Sports, now presenting their daily podcast. I am also involved in NBA podcasts with a big social media following and I’ve even had the chance to interview David Beckham and Nani!

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Class Notes

Ashanti George-Faure (Mullens 2008)

Major Mike Foster Vander Elst (Mullens 2001) I have been fortunate enough to gain a rifle company command for the second time, in my home battalion of 3 RIFLES in Edinburgh. So I found myself amongst friends for the last, best command appointment in the Army – at company level. This is the point at which one can know every Rifleman personally, and can lead your own team with almost total freedom.

Fawaz Fram (Capel 2002) My first book, The Art of Dylan, published in August 2020 came about after the work I carried out as part of my Creative Writing diploma (at Madingley Hall, Cambridge). In it, I respond to the art of Bob Dylan in the form of poetry and song, interrogating the imagination, lyrics and even cover-art of Dylan resulting in a book that I hope offers the reader an opportunity to engage with the artist in a fresh and interesting way.

Prior to deployment, we conducted a demanding conventional battlegroup exercise on Salisbury Plain in our new ‘strike’ role, at which everyone excelled.

This set us up well for success on operations in Iraq.

B Company Group under my command had the entirety of Iraqi Kurdistan as our area of operations – and total mission command to go with it. The mountains and meadows, and welcoming Kurdish people, were a far cry from the desert and smog of Basra days and of central and southern Iraq.

I’m lucky that my job has taken me up and down the country, around Europe and even the Caribbean and I’ve even been fortunate enough to meet and work with some of my heroes which can be rather surreal at times!

I absolutely love what I do and, even though initially the first couple of years after leaving university were difficult, I believe that my hard work is beginning to pay off: earlier in the year, I was named on the Sport Industry ‘Next Gen 30 Under 30 list.’ It’s an industry-wide list for people working in the sports industry who are seen as the next generation of leaders, so it is a massive honour to be named on it and hopefully is the first step of many.

Eugene Mark Gillespie (Bristowe 1985) Fantastic to see Mark gain his first international cap for Luxembourg, who won 23-0 in the match against Sweden.

Having done our bit to help our allies, the Peshmerga in the fight against Daesh, we returned in June 2019 for some well-earned leave prior to rebuilding the company’s core skills.

In a nice twist, Mike Holgate (Mullens 2000) was commanding his engineer squadron in 3 RIFLES Battlegroup in Iraq on the same tour.

I’m currently working at Refresh Sport, which is a boutique consultancy mainly focussed on footballers, football managers and sports presenters after previously spending time in athlete management and working for a cycling event company.

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Tom Hardy (Capel 1992) As part of CBeebies Bedtime Stories week, Tom read ‘Hug Me’ by Simona Ciraolo, a particularly poignant tale for all generations during this time of isolation.

Not forgetting the rumours that Tom is tipped to be the next James Bond… watch this space.

Eleanor Graves (Bristowe 2018)

Ben Haran (Mullens 1994)

In August, during some of the hottest but also wettest days this summer, I completed a gruelling fundraising walk for Parkinson’s UK. This involved undertaking the equivalent of nearly five marathons in five days along the Two Moors Coast to Coast Way in Devon. This was in memory of my grandfather who had recently succumbed to the condition after a long 10-year struggle.

Ben took advantage of all tennis having been cancelled to do a live Instagram talk with OR brothers, Ben and Jack Draper (Bristowe 2017 & 2020).

I started on the beautiful but technically difficult path east of Plymouth up to Ivybridge before crossing the eastern side of Dartmoor and crossing the gorges and ravines of mid-Devon. Lush, rolling hills give way to the exposed heights of Exmoor and then the final descent of 400 metres to the sea at Lynmouth.

Chris Hawkins (Blathwayt 1962) It’s been ‘head down and carry on’ start to the year. Being over 75 I am in the high risk category but, touch wood, both Sylvia and I are in good health and have carried on regardless, creeping out as and when needed. The house and garden have more attention than usual, the good weather helps and all our family are well.

Unfortunately a number of our choral involvements have been cancelled and look likely to remain so. The photo is of Sylvia and me celebrating a mutual hair cut as soon as those restrictions were eased!

The pain and discomfort I suffered for a few days was nothing compared to that endured by my grandfather for so many years, so I was delighted to have raised £2500 for Parkinson’s UK to help their struggle to combat the effects of this disease.

#communityforlife

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Class Notes

(Major) Michael Holgate (Mullens 2000) Having completed a seven-month operational tour in Iraq (with fellow OR Mike Foster Vander Elst) and returning to the UK to hand over command, I have immediately moved to the NATO Rapid Deployable Corps near Milan.

Tim Henman (Blathwayt 1991) It was great to see Tim and his Tim Henman Charitable Foundation launch #THFOnline2020 during lockdown.

The aim is to extend learning beyond the classroom by offering a series of challenges online, some of which Tim presented and demonstrated himself.

We know that many primary-aged children, as well as their parents and teachers, had lots of fun!

Simon Holden (Blathwayt 1957) There can be no-one unaffected by the current world situation, ourselves included in Luanshya, Zambia.

The downturn of the copper industry over the previous few years provided a new contract for our drilling and blasting business early in 2019 which was then rudely interrupted in September by its cancellation.

Since then, we have constantly been snatching ‘defeat from the jaws of success’ and remain hopeful that a wind of change is rustling through the bush in Zambia. When you run your own business, there is no other way but to be optimistic. So, retirement did not materialise as planned and our concentration has been to maintain our drill rigs and equipment in a high readiness for any developments in the mining industry.

Our family are all well. Clive, Amanda, girls and boys live in Fetcham near Leatherhead and Marcus, Liesel and Zoe in Shenington, near Banbury.

Greetings and the message of staying safe and being on your guard of your wellbeing is extended to all.

STOP PRESS We heard the very sad news that Simon Holden passed away at the end of October. A full tribute will be paid in the next edition, but we send our sincerest condolences to all the family.

It’s been a challenging year, the last six months having been dominated by living in the European ‘Ground Zero’ for the COVID-19 pandemic whilst continuing to maintain the Alliance’s readiness and supporting the Italian Armed Forces’ national response to the outbreak.

Evan Hoyt (Blathwayt 2013) It was fascinating to read Evan’s article that appeared in The Times in August showing great resilience and strength of character in pursuing his dreams in the tennis world.

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Alex Kendall (Mullens 2005) Over five years after starting the Snowdonia Way with many miles of walking, copious note-taking and hundreds of photographs, I finally completed and published my trilogy!

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Colonel (Rtd) John Hughes-Wilson (Mullens 1962) I continue to regard the world with an increasingly jaundiced eye from my eyrie in Turkish North Cyprus. The release of my latest book on nuclear misses and accidents, called the ‘Eve of Destruction’, has been put back to the London Book Fair in Spring 2021. I am currently ghostwriting an autobiography for an eminent politician. Asked recently in an interview what Reed’s did for me, I replied: ‘Reed’s taught me to write and had a CCF that drew me towards Sandhurst and a military career. I owe Reed’s a lot.’

Sir Simon Keenlyside (Capel 1978) We were delighted to see Simon continuing to support the efforts of Grange Park Opera by making his fourth appearance in June. Although not able to showcase their incredible 2020 programme of live events, the company were able to put on a series called the ‘Found Season’, with new work from 45+ artists being filmed on their stage in Surrey.

Nolan Lambroza (Bristowe 2008) Thrilled to see Nolan feature in interviews with the Los Angeles Times, Broadcast Music, Inc. & Forbes. Sir Nolan – as he is better known in the music industry – is a leading record producer and songwriter who has collaborated with the likes of Justin Bieber, DJ Khaled, Selena Gomez, Nick Jonas & more and has now kindly offered to help advise our up and coming Reed’s School performers.

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Class Notes 1959 where I’m on the second row that did the trick. I was so pleased too to read that Frank Anstis is still thriving in his 90s. I was hopeless at Physics but he was so understanding about it and was such a great teacher. So was Peter Prior, sadly no longer with us, who also appears in those two photographs, and his inspirational teaching is why History is still a major interest and why I went on to teach the subject.

After leaving Reed’s, I ended up teaching in secondary schools, first in Leicester, then Southampton and, after that, Cambridge. I also did part-time coach driving including the World War 1 battlefield tours, which started as a hobby, but then went full-time, after teaching in the state sector got ever more stressful.

Jack Manchester (Mullens 2017) Aged just 21, Jack was selected to compete in the Le Mans 24 Hour Race with his Thunderhead Carlin Racing team in June, which sadly has now been put back to later in the year. We are hoping he stays safe and does well.

Peter Mettam (Watford & Totnes 1945) Jean and I are still ‘hunkered-down” in our ground floor space here in Maryland, US, as we began doing in March 2018 when I broke my leg! I am now able to walk our dear dog Daisy, 9½, for about an hour each day, or rather she walks me!

poll workers, who are largely elderly and retired, are refusing to be there due to COVID-19 fears. This means that many more will opt for postal voting and the burden on an almost bankrupt Post Office will be overwhelming. In addition, long lines at the remaining polling stations will not be healthy, particularly in those parts of the country that refuse to wear masks, wash hands and social-distance – too many, by far.

Nevertheless, we are still doing quite well on our respective slides into dementia, typified by memory loss at present.

We eat well, have food delivered from local supermarkets, as needed, as are our (many!) prescription medications. I did manage to celebrate my 90th birthday in January!

Finally, family! Our eldest, Ian, is a company principal but getting ready to retire, with two daughters, 25 and 20, working in the world of NYC fashion. Our middle son, Terry, is an active musician/teacher with a 30 year-old daughter, a child educator.

The youngest, John, works at the University of New Hampshire leading IT.

Ken Mitchell (Capel 1963) There is little to comment on, except the on-coming disaster that will be our elections in November! Increasingly it looks as though the available polling stations will be far fewer than necessary because

The last superb edition of The Reeder finally got me round to doing what I should have done years ago, and send a bit of news about my life since leaving Reed’s.

It was seeing the two School photos from 1956 where I’m on the front row and

I met my wife, Rae, in Southampton and we have now enjoyed many years of happy retirement in lovely North Yorkshire with coast, North York Moors and, arguably, the best fish and chips in the UK at Whitby, all on our doorstep.

We enjoy travelling but avoid air travel, preferring leisurely self-catering holidays in Europe. These days we sometimes also opt for cruises which enables us to travel more widely, such as the US and Canada, one return journey coinciding with a hurricane a few years ago.

I lost touch long ago with friends with whom I was at Reed’s, so it was great to read updates from people who I remember well: Ian Driver, John Hughes-Wilson and Peter Saliba, who I recall from our Close days. It was also very interesting spotting fellow ORs in those two 1950s school photos. It would be good to hear news about others, who like me, have never got round to sending an update before.

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Max O’Hagan (Blathwayt 2016) For a fourth consecutive year, Max was named the First Team All American at his university, Florida Institute of Technology, with a fab set of golfing results.

Mark Morris (Blathwayt 1981)

Keith Miller (Bristowe 1951) In October 2019, Heather and I celebrated our 60th wedding anniversary. To mark this very happy occasion, we held a small party in a pub in Frant, East Sussex. Among our guests, we were honoured to have several ORs and Kathryn Bartram and Lucy Sadler representing Reed’s. Sadly, Sharmaine was unable to attend as she had other family commitments.

In November, we flew to South Africa for two weeks holiday in Hout Bay, a suburb of Cape Town. Whilst there, we went across to Robben Island, took the obligatory cable car to the top of Table Mountain, visited Boulder Bay to see the penguins, drove around the coast to Simonstown where the British Navy had a base during the Second World War. We also visited a new and very unusual art gallery on the Waterfrontand drove out along the coast road from Hout Bay to picnic whilst watching sunset over the bay, a very moving experience!

Heather and I have been in self-isolation and, with Ashdown Forest on our doorstep, have been able to keep fit by taking occasional long walks in the Forest, where you hardly meet another soul, so it has been quite safe!

We love receiving your news and updates. Simply email snippets and all important photos to thereeder@reeds.surrey.sch.uk

I wanted to share a picture of a long awaited reunion between two Blathwaytian buddies from 1976-1981. Kevin Richards made a fleeting visit from his home in Washington DC to the UK and we had the opportunity to catch up and reminisce on what, we both agreed, were great times.

Kevin was the first person I met on that first Sunday when we joined Reed’s as boarders.

I still remember how nervous and unsure I was, not especially helped by a seemingly strict Prefect who told us to get off the grass of the quadrant within two minutes of setting foot in the house. A little riddle: the Prefect in question had blonde hair, middle parting, wore glasses and went by the surname of a very well-known English, Fez-wearing, stand-up comic.

Great memories.

Ryan Nesbitt (Capel 2001) With my business partner, I have recently launched Swig, a new digital marketing consultancy to the food and drinks sector, providing branding, web design, events and social media services. https://swig.agency

Alice O’Hagan (Blathway 2019) Never to be outdone by her golfing OR brother, Alice was named (Co) Freshman of the Year at Central Michigan University; a great accolade to her hockey skills and contribution to sport at the university.

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Class Notes Jack Revell (Mullens 2008) During COVID-19, I set-up a coaching business that helps high performers in the wellness sector to achieve incredible results. 2020 has been the year of discomfort for the world but it has put everything into perspective. It’s allowed me to slow down in order to speed up and I am thoroughly enjoying this new venture.

postponed Málaga Film Festival. Space precludes me from explaining what a biznaga is! We had to hurry to order a couple of glasses of sweet, Málaga moscatel wine before the new midnight deadline. Horribly reminiscent of last orders back in GB in the 1960s and 70s!

If any of you wish to hear more, I can be reached at peter@saliba.com

Peter Saliba (Mullens 1962)

Phil Salt (Mullens 2015)

A great loss this month in Málaga has been the August Fair which includes a national holiday for the Assumption of the Virgin Mary on the 15th and a local holiday celebrating the cities’ two patrons: San Ciriaco and Santa Paula. In addition, the hospitality sector is struggling to survive with a great dearth of foreign tourists. Each evening, Carmen and I look out of our kitchen window to check on the state of play at the Ilunion Hotel, the adjacent four-star hostelry which belongs to ONCE, Spain´s national charity for the blind and disabled.

As well as continuing to do a fantastic job for Sussex CCC, Phil was also selected for the ODI squad against Ireland in June and then again in September to face Australia.

Molly Ohayon (Blathwayt 2018) Everyone will recognise this amazing individual in this beautiful sketch, but the wonderful thing is it was drawn by Molly.

She drew it in his honour and asked us to share the link to the petition to have him awarded a knighthood. Even in these uncertain times, it is brilliant that our young ORs continue to show so much compassion for others.

Alistair Pole (Bristowe 1991) I am now Senior Director Project Management & Partnerships at African Wildlife Foundation (AWF). It was very fortunate timing that on 4th December, I managed to travel to London from Zimbabwe for AWF’s fundraising dinner held at Somerset House. It was a shame it was such fleeting visit as I did not get a chance to meet up with any old Reed’s boys.

Like the UK, next month schools go back but the sector is plagued by doubt and uncertainty. How will the authorities maintain social distancing? Will classes have to go online? Will the wearing of face masks be compulsory? Parents, teachers, pupils and teachers’ unions are all worried.

It’s Saturday night as I finish this letter.

Carmen and I have returned from watching the social drama called El Inconveniente.

This feature film from 2019 was competing for the Biznaga de Oro in the annual,

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Coronavirus outbreak, the destination had to be changed whilst we were sailing).

It really did end up being a truly incredible adventure and was the trip of a lifetime (excuse the cliché).

The leg was split into two races, the first lasting 26 days from Australia to the Philippines and the second lasting 10 days which was from the Philippines round some southerly Japanese islands and back again. Some highlights from the race included not showering for almost a month, crossing the equator, being stuck in a wind hole with temperatures in excess of 40 degrees, surfing a 70-foot boat down 4/5 metre waves and seeing some very interesting wildlife (whales, dolphins, etc).

Jem Sharples (Bristowe 1989) As a member of Tenors UnLimited, Jem has been unable to perform publicly due to COVID-19, so instead he has been able to put his talent to use good in raising the spirits of others by regular street performances for ‘Clap for Carers’.

Chloe Spooner (Mullens 2014) I have recently graduated from Cardiff School of Medicine and will be undertaking my foundation training in Wales. To help during the COVID-19 pandemic, I worked at Nevill Hall Hospital as an interim foundation doctor.

Ben Stokes (Bristowe 2015) I’m delighted to say that since the last edition of the Reeder, I completed my part of the Clipper Round the World Race.

We started in Airlie Beach, Australia and finished in Suibic Bay, Philippines (it was meant to be China but due to the

Thura Soe Paing (Bristowe 1992) Being married to a diplomat means we move every three to five years. We have been in Berlin since late 2018 and our next posting will most likely be back in Brazil.

Doing my best to be a trailing spouse but failing…

I continue to run corporate finance and strategic consulting advisory in Myanmar so going back and forth between wherever we’re living and Yangon. (See page 88 for ‘An Interview with...’).

Although we didn’t manage to secure a podium in these races, we did get 4th and remain third overall in the race standings.

To anyone that has been thinking about some sort of adventure, I would highly recommend it!

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Class Notes Richard Turner (Mullens 1956) I feel I have been fortunate during the pandemic lockdown as I have enjoyed beautiful weather and am five minutes walk from our local park and the historical Norsey Woods.

Ollie Stuart (Blathway5 2017) Together with his brother, Ollie combined his love of music with fundraising to put on a virtual club night which lots of ORs took part in, raising money for the NHS Together charity.

James Taylor Thomas (Blathwayt 2008) It was lovely to see James on our screens in the new ITV drama, Belgravia – a bit of light relief prior to lockdown.

Ben Taylor (Bristowe 2008) It was great to hear that Ben had secured his PGA Tour card for the 2019/2020 season.

However, this was not enough to assuage my need to do more with my time, so I started a photobook of my life. When I left Reed’s, I did a year’s course at Southampton University’s School of Navigation at Warsash. This was a very intense course run on strict military lines with the aim to turn boys into men within the year. I followed that with an apprenticeship in the old British India Shipping Company which merged with P&O in the early 1970s.

Thereafter, my career varied extensively but all the time connected in some way to P&O. I retired as a Ship’s Captain in 2002.

Since retirement many friends have suggested I should put down my memories on paper but these suggestions fell on deaf, until COVID-19 presented me with an ideal opportunity to actually do something. Completing the project took a lot of time but I found it a source of great interest and satisfaction. I now have the finished book with 78 pages and over 300 full gloss photos and thousands of words.

Reed’s was a massive influence in my life and features quite prominently in the book.

David Varley (Blathwayt 1969) 2019 ended with a surprise phone call from OR Mark Buxton (Bristowe 1969) who I’d not had sight nor sound of since he visited me in 1969. A very kind act, done in case I was lonely.

2020 continued conventionally for me with OR Peter Verstage’s luncheons and a little croquet until the first case of locally transmitted COVID-19 happened. My usual March trip to London took a week or two to move from determined to cancelled and so, as a non-driver, I was effectively ‘isolating’ but my tenants and comestible deliveries kept me comfortable.

Zoom has been added to the arsenal of Verstage’s talents and ‘Zoomtails’ replaced Friday lunch until the home (Isle of Man) was declared free enough to allow hospitality venues to re-open. As well as playing croquet, I have been regularly playing GO Online with a friend in lockdown in London. (Lichess and Pandanet both offer opportunities for ORs to ‘club’ one another on-line, perhaps extending to House against House?). I have also enjoyed the on-line school and OR events, well done Reed’s!

The photograph demonstrates the skill which can be developed using the beard trimmer applied to a higher-up coiffure.

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Ben Warwick (Bristowe 1992) Just before lockdown, Reed’s teaching legend, Richard Garrett, was able to see Ben in the Blackeyed Theatre touring production of Jane Eyre. Hope they can get back on the road as soon as possible.

on earth was I ever going to cope as an adult in the outside world which I felt totally unqualified to enter. Ill-equipped, not only devoid of academic achievements, no other qualifications and lacking hugely in selfconfidence (plenty of bravado – which is not the same thing) but, worst of all, that other members of our fairer sex waiting for me out there, ready to tear me apart and show me up for what I was/wasn’t.

Roll on 60 years later, the current crop of ORs represented by Adam: super confident (but not arrogant), academically wellqualified, accomplished conversationalist, well-groomed, already travelled and having lived abroad for a while and no doubt with a string of beautiful young lasses

who felt that he was the “bee’s knees” – the differences were evident.

Having eventually come to terms with being an adult, working, earning, courting, travelling, marrying and procreating with a few bob behind me now, I can let out a gasp of air and say: ‘Thank goodness, I made it!’ Adam – on the other hand – seems to me to be more than half way ‘there’ already. How well the Reed’s product has morphed over the years!

Mazel tov, Adam and to all the new ORs, walk tall and be incredibly proud of this unbelievable start which you’ve been privileged to experience – its one heck of a journey. FIDE.

Cameron Williams (Bristowe 2016) Great to see Cameron and band, Shai Brides, featured in Atwood Magazine, hailing their new single, ‘Honeydew’, as the perfect synth-pop track to elevate the talented five musicians “into a prominent position in the music industry”. A session with ‘BBC Introducing’ backed this too.

Jim Williams (Capel 1959) They say that ‘comparisons are odious’ (a terrible term as far as I’m concerned), but my meet-up with Sharmaine, husband Peter and recent OR son, Adam Matthews (Capel 2019), at O.R. Tambo International Airport Johannesburg in March was an incredible experience that led to comparisons being made by both parties.

Exactly 60 years separated Adam and I in our leaving of Reed’s and the difference was like that between chalk and cheese!

In 1959, when I said my farewells to all and sundry at Cobham (people, buildings, playing fields and general environs), the lump in my throat was like a goitre and my emotions palpable. I had no idea how

We love receiving your news and updates. Simply email snippets and all important photos to thereeder@reeds.surrey.sch.uk

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CONGRATULATIONS & CELEBRATIONS Tom Curtis (Mullens 2010) You can tell from the photo how happy Amelia and I are in announcing our engagement in April.

Delighted to share the happiness and joy of our ORs

Alex Batten (Blathwayt 2009) Claire and I were delighted to announce our engagement this August. Early drafts of our wedding invitation list show a strong Reed’s contingent in excess of 40 people which demonstrates just how strong the connection still is with the School.

It will be some party I am sure.

To share your good news, email Sharmaine at: smatthews@reeds.surrey.sch.uk

Ricky Kent (Capel 2001) November 2019 brought about my engagement to the wonderful Renee, combining our two little families into one, finally after 7 years!

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James Langham (Capel 2006) I thought I would let you know about both my wedding and the birth of my baby boy in this year’s edition. Aimee and I got married on 6th September 2019 and Alfie James Langham was born 6th June 2020.

It was great to have so many ORs there as you can see from the photos.

Back row from left: Robbie Mavor, Lucas Macdonald, Edward Springett, Alistair Gaisford, Will Davis, Sharaz Hussain. Front row from left: Jack Hawkes, Aimee Langham, James Langham, Vicky Beckett, Alistair Hitch

Alfie James Langham

From left: James Langham, Will Davis, Jamie Cowden, Lucas Macdonald, Elliott Langham

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Congratulations & Celebrations

Josceline Erskine-Thomas (née Lester) (Bristowe 2008) Joscelin Lester married Evan on the 15th June 2019 at 1pm in the West Wittering Church where they were joined by their closest friends and family. They continued the celebrations at the Lester family beach house as Mr and Mrs Erskine-Thomas.

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Congratulations & Celebrations Ankur Patel (Mullens 2005) Here’s the story… my lovely fiancé, Harpreet (Lakhan), and I were planning to have a large wedding in Chicago this summer with all our family and friends, however, with COVID-19, our plans had to be postponed. To make the best of the year, we decided to ‘elope’ joined by a few of our local friends to Gold Creek Pond in Washington, about an hour away from our home in Seattle and did the deed on 15th August. Our families (thankfully) were able to stream the wedding on Zoom! We are looking forward to the large celebration with everyone next year!

Ollie Millroy (Blathwayt 2006) Delighted to announce that Fern and I got engaged in July in Menorca (when it was safe to go there!).

Toby Tarrant (Blathwayt 2010) Chuffed to bits to report that I asked my best mate Pippa to marry me in July and she said yes. This feels like a great idea at the moment but ask us again when we’ve spent a few more months together in lockdown!!

To share your good news, email Sharmaine at: smatthews@reeds.surrey.sch.uk

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Simon Veaney (Capel 1998) Pictured in the group photo is my wife Timi Csizmadia being serenaded by me as well as ORs Chris Twydell (in the cravat, class of 1997) and Alexei Haigh (best man, blue suit at the front, class of 1998). Also in the background is Ian Broatch (class of 1998). The wedding took place by Lake Balaton, in Hungary in April 2019.

Florence Verbeek (Bristowe 1997) Florence Verbeek and Heiko-Jan Lameijer are very proud to announce that on 7th September 2019 Quentin Jonathan Andrew Lameijer was born, a beautiful, happy and active little brother to Christopher (2016) and Oliver (2018).

Michael Wakefield (Mullens 2005) Zak George was born to Michael and Ellie on the 28th July at 2:07 am, weighing in at a hefty 8lbs 4oz. Parents and former staff, Val and Derek Wakefield, are thrilled to welcome their sixth grandchild into the family.

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VALETE CLASS OF 2020 Even though it is sad to see them leave School, we welcomed our 2020 leavers into the ever-growing OR community, with this message…

You are a wonderful group of young men and women who have really come into your own during a challenging final year at School. As you start another chapter, our advice would be to take time to enjoy this moment of your life and keep your options open. Believe it or not, when you look back in years to come at the photo, you will remember it as one of the best times of your life, a time of expanding horizons when the world feels full of possibility. Go on to have big dreams and big ambitions, and please carry a piece of Reed’s with you.

Photograph taken on last day at School pre-lockdown

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2020 leavers’ destinations Talia Akdeniz University of Birmingham Human Biology

Christopher Chua Nottingham Trent University Politics & International Relations

Lorenzo Fourie University of Warwick Accounting & Finance

Eleanor Hitchins Bournemouth University Archaeology

Melodi Akkemik University of Birmingham English

Lucas Clancy University of Exeter Business Economics

Ruben Fraser University of Brighton Building Surveying

Miles Horwood Loughborough University Industrial Design and Technology

Max Anderson University of Nottingham Politics & International Relations

Gabriel Clark Gap year*

Toby Fryers Gap year*

Thomas Hurford Gap year* (Internship, EDT)

Georgia Cook Manchester Metropolitan University Marketing

Ben Furner Newcastle University Biomedical Sciences

Myles Ibbetson Royal Holloway, University of London History

Ella Cooper Durham University Anthropology

Emillie Gabriel University of Sussex Social Sciences

Charlie Jamieson University of Reading Business & Management

Lauren Corbett University of Bristol Criminology

Sam Gaisie Newcastle University Architecture and Urban Planning

Caidem Jasem University of Aberdeen Law with English Law

Issy Cossey University of Nottingham Geography

Austin Gambel University of Exeter Economics and Finance

Lucas Joshi University of Nottingham Physics

Sasha Crockett University of St Andrews Chemistry

Imi Garthwaite University of Nottingham Philosophy, Politics & Economics

Rishi Khiroya Newcastle University Biomedical Sciences

Jay Cronjaeger De Montfort University Product Design

James Ghirardani University of Nottingham Criminology and Sociology

Jemima Laidlaw University of Bristol English

Nathan Cutting University of Nottingham Mechanical Engineering

James Gillett University of Bristol Geography

Thomas Latham University of Hull History

Emily Davies University of Birmingham Psychology

Jai Golar University of Sussex Business & Management Studies

Guy Laville University of Leeds Music

Jack Driscoll Birmingham City University Music Technology

Louis Goodall Nottingham Trent University Sport Science & Management

Amelia Le Cluse Gap year*

Ethan Drummond Rey Nottingham Trent University Business

Barney Goodwin University of Bristol Music with Innovation

Max Edmondson University of Exeter Combined Honours

Anna Gray University of Bristol Classical Studies

Lauren Ewer University of Exeter Drama with Study Abroad

Ben Hayes Cardiff University Economics and Management Studies

Darius Arouna Nottingham Trent University International Business Brydie Ault University of Exeter Psychology Lauren Avery Gap year* Jacob Barlow Gap year* William Barnard University of Bristol Mechanical Engineering Ignacio Barquero Swansea University Computer Science Angus Barrett University of Nottingham Mechanical Engineering Matthew Boucher University of Nottingham Zoology Paul Brown Durham University General Engineering Zoe Buggins University of the West of England Biological Sciences Max Burley Oxford Brookes University Psychology James Candey University of Nottingham Geography with Business Issy Chappelle Nottingham Trent University Graphic Design Tommy Chedumbrum University of East Anglia English Literature with Creative Writing Andrew Choung University of Bath Chemistry for Drug Discovery

Tom Faulks University of Nottingham Economics Jack Fletcher University of Nottingham Geography Adam Fluck Newcastle University Biomedical Sciences

Florence Henderson University of Exeter English and Drama Jenny Higgins University of Nottingham Sport Rehabilitation Spencer Hill Colgate University, USA

Rachel Lee King’s College London Film Studies Samuel Leon University of Bristol Chemical Physics Elliot Lewis Newcastle University Biomedical Genetics Johnson Li University of Bath Pharmacy Charlie Linehan University of Birmingham Modern Languages & History Joseph Lynch University of Exeter History

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Samuel MacLennan University of Sheffield Civil Engineering

Falaksher Naveed Gap year*

Robert Mason University of Nottingham Natural Sciences

Max Newbold University of Leeds Business Management & the Human Resource

William Maxted University of Exeter Law

Alfie Newman University of Nottingham Geography with Business

Charlotte Maxwell University of Birmingham Modern Languages & English

Niamh O’Connor Loughborough University Media & Communication

Harry McGugan Nottingham Trent University Mechanical Engineering

Alastair O’Donnell Newcastle University Law

James McIntosh University of Nottingham History

Alex Page University of Leeds Languages, Cultures & Economics

Callum McManus University of Bristol Chemistry

Angela Pan Imperial College London Materials Science & Engineering

Louis McMillan University of Manchester International Management with American Business Studies

William Parson Nottingham Trent University Real Estate

Harry Messent University of Bath Biochemistry Rory Millar University of Exeter Medicine Ava Morrison University of Exeter English & Modern Languages Ryan Moss University of Cambridge Land Economy Remi Moussarie Queen Mary University of London Chemistry Malaika Mudry University of Nottingham Law Izzy Muir Newcastle University Geographic Information Science Charlie Mullen University of Bristol Mechanical Engineering Suleiman Naqvi University of Exeter Business Economics

Maya Pendrill-Adams Gap year* Alex Pittaras University of Bristol Mechanical & Electrical Engineering Grace Poulter University of Exeter Biological Sciences Tom Randell University of Leeds French Isabella Richardson Lancaster University Biomedicine Chloe Rowland University of Nottingham English & Philosophy Thomas Rowland Imperial College London Mechanical Engineering Phoebe Schofield University of Cambridge Veterinary Medicine Benji Sealy University of Nottingham Mechanical Engineering Rachel Shaffer University of Birmingham Political Science & Philosophy

Leo Shepherd University of Nottingham Modern Languages with Business

Matthew Ussher University of Exeter Business and Management

Jessica Skinner University of Plymouth Marine Technology

Rebecca Vernon University of Manchester Biomedical Sciences

Axel Slijepcevic University of Bath Mechanical with Automotive Engineering

Miranda Vesely Falmouth University Marine & Natural History Photography

Georgia Smedley University of Sheffield Law and Criminology

Alex Walden University of York History

Cameron Smith Newcastle University Geographic Information Science

Maya Walter University of Bristol Psychology

Max Smith University of Exeter Geography

Cameron Watkins Nottingham Trent University Business Law

David Snedden University of Exeter Law

Oscar Weightman Gap year*

Lorcan Spelman Oxford Brookes University International Business Management Emily Sprackling University of Edinburgh Architecture

Cameron White University of Bath Sport and Exercise Science Jack Wiegreffe University of Surrey Business Management (Marketing)

Emily Strong Gap year*

George Williams University of Bristol Politics & Spanish

George Sturgess Cardiff University Business Management (Marketing)

Hannah Williams University of Nottingham Psychology

Zac Svarovsky Durham University Classics

Conor Williamson University of Nottingham Psychology

Finlay Tattersdill Newcastle University Biomedical Sciences

Christopher Woodthorpe University of Nottingham Finance, Accounting & Management

Toby Teed University of Birmingham Geography and Urban & Regional Planning Theodore Temple-Lecky University of Sussex Life Sciences Frankie Trimborn University of Nottingham Geography Isabella Trimborn University of Birmingham Geography with Year Abroad

* To be updated next year when university details confirmed.

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2019 leavers’ update

Staff We also said a fond farewell to the following members of staff. We would like to thank them for their dedication to Reed’s and wish them all the very best for the future.

Maddie Disney University of Exeter Modern Languages Isaac Farrant University of Nottingham Environmental Science Emily Fennell Newcastle University Medicine & Surgery Timothy Fortescue University of Cambridge Modern Languages

Stephanie Drake Music Assistant

Ross Peters Drama Assistant

Emma Stanger Director of Finance

Catherine Brookes Teacher of Chemistry Moves to be Head of Chemistry at Blenheim School

Katie Goden Teacher of Mathematics Moves to Frensham Heights as Head of Mathematics

Chris Hawley Head of Science Moves to Seaford College as Head of Science & leadership team member

Ed Swift Head of Philosophy & Religion Moves to Ibstock Place as Assistant Head (Teaching and Learning) and a member of their leadership team

Tim Rushbrooke Teacher of Computer Science Moves to Harrow Bangkok

Jason Ellis-Woodley Teacher of Biology Moves to Charterhouse School as Head of Hockey

Simon Sweeney Sports Coach (Cricket & Hockey)

Adele Smyth School Nurse

Brian Cockburn Smith Minibus Driver

Freddy Hood University of Nottingham English & Philosophy Asfand Khan Marketing Internship Don’t Cry Wolf Communication Ivan Lam University College London Economics & Statistics Adam Matthews University of Bristol Geography with Innovation Adam Shaffer University of Oxford Engineering Zak Sheikh University of Southampton Biomedical Sciences Jake Stemmons University of Southern California, USA Millie Stokes University of Edinburgh English Literature James Stott University of Birmingham Geography

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Special recognition must also go to these long-serving members of staff…

Paul Millington Head of Design Technology ‘Mr Mill’, as the boys refer to him, is retiring after a hugely distinguished career in which he’s made a phenomenal contribution to all aspects of life at Reed’s in his 18 years. As well as being Assistant Housemaster of Bristowe, tennis coach, mechanical genius, Common Room Committee member and inspirational teacher, Paul was an outstanding Head of DT and was integral in the design and building of FutureTech – not a bad legacy!

He leaves with our very best wishes for a very enjoyable retirement.

Iain Carnegie Director of Music Iain leaves us after 17 years, thankfully not to another school but to pursue his composing, podcasting, conducting and a range of other projects where he is in huge demand. This is not surprising based on his incredible and far-reaching talents.

He has been responsible for building an incredible Music Department at Reed’s and has raised our profile to a national level. He has been, and is, exceptional and we wish him every success.

Judy Brewster Teacher of Chemistry (former Head of Department) Judy was an outstanding Head of Chemistry for 10 years and a quite exceptional teacher of some 40 years.

As well as inspiring countless Reed’s pupils over her 14 years, she was a valued mentor to new staff, a talented musician and chair of the Common Room. We are very grateful for her skill and commitment and wish her every happiness in her retirement.

Chris Lewis Foundation Manager (Relations) Prior to joining Reed’s, Chris was the Director at the Royal National Children’s Foundation (RNCF), a sister charity of the Andrew Reed Foundation, for over 12 years. During her two and a half years working in the Reed’s Foundation team, she brought a wealth of experience, professionalism and integrity to her role, raising vital funds for direct Foundation pupil sponsorship. Chris retires knowing that she has changed the lives of hundreds of children for the better.

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In Memoriam

Our tributes to ORs and friends whose deaths we have sadly learned about this year.

Chris Player (Blathwayt 1964) August 1947 to January 2018 We were saddened to hear of the death of Chris from his wife, Jenny, who explained that he passed away on 6th January 2018 but remained positive to the end despite having many trips to hospital in his last three years.

Chris is very much missed by his wife and five children: Toby, Ben (from his first marrage), Jeremy, Luke and Sarah and two grandchildren, Remi and Easton.

Richard Bawtree (former Teacher of Biology) To June 2001 We were kindly informed by OR Tim Smith (Mullens 1979) of the death of former teacher, Richard Bawtree, who taught Physics from 1973 to 1978. Tim had recently made contact with Mrs Bawtree in the hope of speaking to his former master, but was sadly told that Richard died unexpectedly in June 2001, aged just 51. Tim passed on condolences on behalf of Reed’s and the OR community.

After leaving Reed’s, Richard went to teach at Cranleigh School for a year, moved into industry for 18 years and, subsequently, returned to teaching at St George’s in Weybridge. Tim remembers Richard as a kind and popular teacher who had a profound influence on him both as his Physics teacher and, latterly, as his year tutor. He also remembers ‘RSB’ having the biggest lapels, the widest ties and the most wicked flares, being the best double bass player and sharing his aversion to the sports field.

Anthony ‘Tony’ Cole (Mullens 1958) June 1941 to April 2015 We discovered, by chance, that Tony sadly passed away in 2015. We are making efforts to contact his family to pass on our condolences; a full obituary will included in the next edition of The Reeder.

Chris worked in publishing for many years and set up a successful book distribution business, Astam Books, representing many large academic international publishers in Australia where the family lived. As well as being a busy business owner and father, he worked on a small farm south of Sydney. Even having a disability from polio, leaving his left leg weak, did not stop him reaching his goals: his adventurist spirit and single-minded ambition made him a great role model for his children.

Chris Cadzow (Mullens 1955) March 1939 to January 2020 We are grateful to OR Derek Owen (Capel 1955), close friend of Chris, for informing us of his sad death.

Our thanks too to Roger Mew (Bristowe 1959) for compiling this tribute.

Chris joined Reed’s in September 1950, aged 10, on the same day as Derek, both Foundation pupils. Chris wore a built-up shoe arising from a failed operation on his leg as a youngster, so his sporting ability was limited although he managed a bit of cricket and was a reasonable slow bowler. He was a popular boy and Secretary of the Stamp Club.

On leaving School, his first job

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was with Kolster Brandes Ltd, manufacturers of radio and TV components. He then joined the BBC working on design systems for colour TV. In the late 1970s, Chris left the BBC to start his own electronics company carving itself a niche as a specialist supplier of modular products and time-code equipment, holding a prominent position in the European market.

Derek was in the same industry and, curiously, his and Chris’s companies were both suppliers and customers to each other but also competitors in some products. They were fortunate to attend trade shows in places like Amsterdam, Montreux, Dubai, Singapore, Sydney, and Las Vegas, often staying in the same hotel with their wives.

Chris and his wife Anne attended OR reunions occasionally. Sadly, Anne passed away about four years ago and Chris had been suffering from Parkinson’s for quite a few years and was wheelchair bound. Despite this, when Derek last visited him, four months before his passing, Chris remained in good spirits, still quite ‘with it’ and his appetite, love of good wine, G&Ts and liqueurs still unchanged.

Chris and Anne had no children, but his elder brother, Neil and son, also Chris, both resident in Australia, were able to attend the funeral. Derek concludes by saying: “Chris was always a true gentleman in every sense of the word and an excellent engineer and salesman. However, he will be best remembered for his generosity and his encyclopaedic knowledge of fine wines, liqueurs and French cuisine plus his uncanny knack of finding the most amazing and unusual restaurants and hotels anywhere in the world”.

Brian (‘Nobby’) Turner (Bristowe 1954) June 1937 to January 2020 This lovely tribute has very kindly been compiled by Brian’s friend and former team mate, OR George Spinks (Mullens 1953), with input from other ORs who remember Brian fondly.

Brian and I were at Reed’s at roughly the same time, but I was actually in the same year as his brother, Barry. Although we didn’t have much to do with each other, we were bonded by the fact that most of us were at Reed’s as a result of losing one or both parents.

In the early sixties, I was living in Streatham and Brian was living in a flat nearby with another OR, Derek Osman (Capel 1948). It was when we joined the OR Rugby Club that we became great friends.

I don’t recall much time spent on any formal rugby training but, at least once a week, we would keep fit by running around Tooting Bec Common or attending a weekly session at the Lucas Tooth Gymnasium near London Bridge.

During the summer, we also played cricket. Brian was a fine batsman, not in the Corinthian style but, when the chips were down and you needed someone to stay at the crease, Brian was your man.

Brian was a printer by trade and, in those days, it was a very well paid job; ever generous, he was always first at the bar. They were halcyon times in the company of our other great friends, Rodney Pearson, Bill Lee, and Hayden Morgan.

I am somewhat hazy on dates, but Brian went to South Africa, possibly because his brother Barry was working in Africa. He returned to England in the late nineties and settled in Beare Green near Dorking. He then met Alison and they set up home together. Brian

and Alison moved to Weedon, near Northampton, where they bought a canal boat and happily chugged their way around the UK for several years. After selling the boat, they bought a motor home and enjoyed eleven years travelling the UK and Europe. He loved driving and it was only ill health in the last couple of years that finally made him stop touring. Sport was always important to him and, with Alison’s support, he was able to follow the success of Reeds Weybridge rugby as well as the international scene.

I have so many happy memories of Brian, especially through our combined interest in rugby and cricket – an uncomplicated character, a great sportsman and excellent company.

Dr Peter Harry Miles (Blathwayt 1955) September 1940 to January 2020 This tribute has very kindly been compiled by OR Roger Mew (Bristowe 1959) in liaison with Clare, Peter’s daughter.

For medical reasons, Peter’s father was prevented from joining the services in WW2 but, unfortunately, died after contracting flu during the national epidemic in March 1946. He had owned a confectionery business and, sponsored by the Confectioners’ Association, Peter gained a place at Reed’s as a Foundation pupil in 1951. During his time at Reed’s, he was active in the Scouts, the ACF, and attended to his allotment. As reported in The Reeder 2010, Peter was presented with a Royal Humane Society Award for his brave attempt in 1954 to save a Reed’s boy from drowning at Black Pond.

Peter left school in 1955 to join the naval dockyards in Portsmouth

and, after completing a five-year apprenticeship, left – first to a career in politics then to the newspaper industry. He qualified as an Offshore Yacht Master with the Royal Yacht Association and helped crew various boats around the world, notably on one difficult transatlantic crossing to the Caribbean. He completed a Masters degree in Marketing from Nottingham then a PhD in Philosophy from Derby at the late age of 63 following which he turned to teaching and spent time in Asia, Africa, and the Philippines.

He spent considerable time in the Philippines involving 16 round trips developing its tourism industry with his marketing skills and, for his efforts, was appointed Visiting Professor of International Tourism at The Asian Institute of Tourism.

Peter had married Christine in 1965 and daughter, Clare, was born in 1967 followed by son, Andrew, in 1969. Sadly two separate tragedies struck the family: Peter’s wife died in 1991, aged 52; then his son, Andrew, died suddenly in 2007. Peter was teaching tourism and marketing in the Philippines, had built a property, and was running a letting business in Britannia House.

However, by 2009 Peter’s health was declining and, as the cost and availability of medicine in the Philippines was becoming an issue, he decided to return to UK and settled in Beeston near his daughter.

Throughout his life Peter had a wide range of interests and in his later years had travelled the world extensively. With his passing he leaves a sister (Sylvia), daughter, a son-in-law and four grandchildren, aged 21 to 13.

Peter Stoehr (Bristowe 1974) August 1955 to February 2020 We are grateful to Ben and Joe, sons of Peter, for allowing us to edit their wonderful tribute to their father. Our condolences to them, his wife, Gail, and extended family.

Peter was born in Averley near Romford to Sheila and Hans Stoehr and had an older sister, Lynn. He attended Penthorpe School and then gained a scholarship at Reed’s as a boarder. It was there that his love of sport grew. He played some rugby, but his true love was

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cricket: a passion that would last all his life. Peter was Reed’s Captain of Cricket in 1973/1974 and was proud of his entries in Wisden for having the best bowling average for Reed’s in 1971: 10 wickets for 79 runs.

Peter obtained a degree in Botany & Zoology at Nottingham University and then a Masters in Applied Genetics from Birmingham. In 1977, Peter met Gail and they were married in 1985. He started his working career at Newcastle University in the Agriculture Department and was captain of its staff cricket team in the early 1980s (there’s a pattern here). In 1982, they moved to Milton and, by luck or design, bought a flat overlooking the cricket field. Peter played cricket for Milton over many years, captaining the club between 2001 and 2009 before becoming club president until he passed away.

Work took him, Gail and young son, Ben, to Heidelberg where Joe and Katie were later born. They all returned to England in 1994 when he (along with a few colleagues) was tasked with setting up a UK outpost for his then employer, EMBL. Peter took early retirement in 2012 and, immediately, went back to work as a consultant at the same company, seemingly doing the same thing that he had just retired from.

Once he had properly retired, he spent a lot of his time back in the garden, growing everything from potatoes and carrots to chillies and mushrooms. In the last year or so, Peter took up pickleball, a sort of scaled-up table-tennis, and quickly excelled in it. He attended a couple of international open events where he won a gold and three silver medals.

Peter had an incredible sense of humour, which ranged from

very highbrow and intellectual to childish and immature. On just about every device, he had created a jokes folder which he loved to share with his grandchildren. Peter loved his family and friends, dedicating a huge amount of time to digitising old family photographs and videos into an incredible collection. He also spent a lot of time researching and updating his family tree, claiming to have a direct line to King Henry 4th, his 19th great grandfather!

Peter leaves his wife Gail, sons Ben and Joe, daughter Katie, and grandchildren Finley, Ollie, Ava and Rosie, but also extended family, friends, colleagues and team-mates who often credited Peter for his calm demeanour, good humour, loyalty, perfect manners, supportiveness, and a sportsman-like competitiveness.

Christine Kemp (former Teacher of MFL, Close Housemistress) July 1959 to March 2020 A wonderful tribute from Christine’s loving husband, Paul Kemp, and her adoring family.

Christine was an incredibly kind and loving person, always putting others before herself, treating everyone with the same warmth, compassion and good humour.

She died in March after a four-year battle with cancer, a battle she fought so bravely and with great positivity.

It was especially cruel that, after 25 years at Reed’s, she should retire with much to look forward to with her family and the grandsons she loved so dearly and yet be diagnosed just three months afterwards. She enjoyed good health for long periods in the fight and made the most of this to create wonderful memories, even when suffering from the sideeffects of copious bouts of chemo.

She was energetic and friendly, always making people feel good about themselves. Her devotion to her family was extraordinary and her dedication to her work unparalleled. Many a pupil has commented on what she did for them and many staff have praised her unselfishness.

Christine was born in Manchester to a Mancunian mum and a Polish

dad and was the middle child, having an older sister, Barbara, and a younger brother, Michael.

She spoke Russian and French and, after degrees at Leeds and York Universities, she got a languages teaching post in Warrington before meeting me in 1985 and moving to Macclesfield, where we married in 1986. In 1990, we moved to Reed’s while she was pregnant with son, Michael; daughter, Alex was two.

In the mid-1990s Reed’s made an error with timetabling and found themselves a French teacher short for one class so Chris stepped into the breach and the rest is history.

She taught languages until retiring in August 2015 but also helped run The Close from 1998 to 2010, and here she did so much for pupils and parents, a surrogate mum to many children and a friendly face to all.

Between 1995 and 2010 Christine looked after no less than 39 ‘gap’ students, another job to which she gave so much. She was their confidante and friend, treating them like sons. She must have trained them well as one, Jono Douthwaite, is Housemaster of The Close now! Christmas also saw Christine arranging the staff children’s party which – to this day – remains a feature of the Reed’s community, a community that she showed unwavering commitment

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to and was very much at the centre of. Then there were the bonfire nights at The Close which always heralded the start of the build-up to Christmas and led to her wonderful decorations which made Christmas at The Close so special.

She went on many school trips, often because she could not say no. She ran the First Form summer trip to France for many years and was an avid member of the choir.

Her beaming smile and bubbly personality uplifted so many occasions and she was a feature of so many OR Reunions which she always looked forward to because she thought so much of other people.

She will be sorely missed but will remain forever in so many hearts and minds, and one suspects that this will be evident when COVID-19 finally allows her memorial service at Reed’s to take place.

Anthony (Tony) Lincoln Richford (Blathwayt 1961) June 1943 to March 2020 This tribute has been kindly provided by Lynn Richford, widow of Tony. We send our condolences to her and all the family.

Sadly, we were unable to have a family cremation due to the Coronavirus; we had to settle for a family Zoom and a drink in Tony’s memory on the day of his cremation. It just happened that Tony was cremated 75 years to the day that his own father was killed in Germany at the end of WW2.

His mother thought a boy’s school would be good for him, so Tony joined Reed’s at the age of 11 in 1954 but found his first term difficult. He returned after Christmas and, from then on, was happy and well into school life. He particularly enjoyed hockey and was a member of the School team.

He left Reed’s after A Levels and did a sandwich course with the gas board, six months in Croydon and six months at Aston University in Birmingham. He did not enjoy the factory environment, so decided to give Barclays Bank a try. He said the best things about university were learning to play bridge and meeting me!

We met in June 1962 and Tony joined Barclays in the September; he was very happy right from the word go. He started in the Mount Street branch and, through the

beloved game with his ‘brothers in arms’.

years, progressed to be manager of branches in Fleet Street, Pall Mall and Head Office. He went to Zimbabwe for three months in 1974 to help bring the branches up to date after all the upheaval the country had been through. We moved to Cambridge in 1980 where Tony took responsibility for most of the branches in the area.

After two years, he returned to London and finished his banking career managing Harlow, Stanstead, and Bishop Stortford.

Tony and I married in 1964 and had three children, Julie, Mark and Joanna. They are all happily married and we have six grandchildren. Tony and I were able to indulge our fascination for foreign travel and travelled extensively – we returned from a Norwegian cruise three weeks before he passed away He was a beloved husband, a wonderful father, an adored ‘gramps’ to his grandchildren, and a popular and well respected member of the community.

Tim Cotton (Blathwayt 1971) December 1951 to March 2020 It was with great sadness that we heard from Adrian Ricks of Tim’s death. Below we have a touching note kindly sent by his widow, Julia, and also a tribute from Adie, showing just how enduring Reed’s friendships are.

From Julia: My darling, stoical husband Tim fought his huge battle against throat cancer for seven-and-a-half years. He did this against all the odds and in despite of all that it stripped from him. His incredible fortitude and ‘joie de vivre’ were truly inspirational. His family apart, the love of his life was r ugby; never was he more animated than when he was watching his

From Adie: Tim was a wonderful friend for almost 50 years. We met at Reed’s in the late 1960s drawn together on the sports field. Not only was Tim a speedy winger, with a ferocious tackle at both rugby and hockey, but he could also smash a cricket ball out of the ground with ridiculous power for a relatively small bloke.

He was well liked by all; a modest and self-effacing guy which probably accounts for the complete lack of photos over our long friendship. In those days, when you were out with your mates, selfies and posing was just about the last thing on your mind, hence the only photos I can find and include were the official School ones.

Over the years, I had wonderful times with Tim, mainly on the water. We visited the Isle of Wight each year for the powerboat racing, inevitably getting into all sorts of trouble! More recently, we enjoyed quiet days out in his sailing boat, me with rod in hand trying to catch supper. He was invariably late for everything, always dishevelled, bumbling along like a modern-day Detective Colombo (for those of you struggling, google 1970s detective series!) but you could only love him.

He was incredibly lucky to meet the love of his life, Julia, who presented him with the apple of his eye, Ella, and Tom, who brought much joy to the family. How how lucky was he to have that trio looking after him towards the end.

My love and very best to the Cotton family; you did an amazing job. I’ll never forget my friend, Tim: he touched many lives, mine included. RIP Tim and get those beers in for my arrival.

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John Leach (former Head of Music, Reed’s School) July 1937 to July 2020 We are indebted to Philip Leach, nephew of John, for taking the time to let us know the sad news of his uncle’s death. This tribute is an amalgamation of the eulogies delivered at John’s funeral which the family have kindly approved.

John Malcolm Leach was born on 15th July 1937 in Brockley, London to parents David & Phyllis.

He was the younger brother to Tony, my father, by some six years.

In 1942 the family moved to Pinner, Middlesex, which they had decided was a safer place to be during wartime.

Their father worked at the Baltic Exchange and was a notable baritone. He had seriously considered making his career as a professional singer but, after much thought, chose the more conventional route. His wife, Phyllis, taught piano at RADA. So, as my father Tony often said: ‘You can see where John’s talent and passion for music came from’.

My dad also commented that John was the true academic of the two of them, Tony being the much more practical man. This was further proven when John went on to study Music at Magdalen College Cambridge, graduating in 1960. The two brothers had a great love and respect for each other in spite of being such entirely different characters. Sadly for our family, both Tony and John both passed away within 15 days of each other.

John taught at Reed’s from 1967 to 1971 and then went on to Chetham’s School of Music in Manchester. At his funeral, one of his former pupils gave a touching tribute, praising John for helping those who were having a rough ride, offering his support when

needed and sometimes flying in the face of authority to stand up for what was true, what was right, and what was just.

John lived for his music, and was described as ‘an out-and-out’ musician. He wrote a book on harmony in classical music; he was an examiner for musical examinations; he was one of the organists at St Mary, Ellenbrook and - at one point - was the stand-in choirmaster and organist at Manchester Cathedral.

John was indeed a gentleman – and a gentle man. He was softly spoken and unfailingly courteous, a throwback to an earlier age where old-world charm was the rule rather than the exception. His funeral took place on 6th August at St Mark’s Church, Worsley, and included the Reed’s hymn, Lead Us, Heavenly Father, Lead Us.

Rt Hon Kevin Pakenham, former Foundation Appeal President and Vice-President of Reed’s School (November 1947 to July 2020) We were saddened to read about the death of Rt Hon Kevin Pakenham in the news; our condolences go to his whole family, including his three Old Reedonian nephews – Guy, Harry and Richard. Below is an extract of the obituary which appeared in The Telegraph.

Kevin Pakenham, who died suddenly at 72, sustained a

high-profile career in the City of London over five decades; but the youngest son of eight children to the Labour cabinet minister and penal reformer, Lord Longford, and acclaimed historical biographer, Elizabeth Longford, refused to conform to stereotypes and ranged widely in a vivid life that was lived to the full, embracing literature, politics and, latterly, his own tireless work for prisoners.

He was born on 1st November 1947 in north London. He was educated at St Philip’s and followed his brothers Thomas, Paddy, and Michael to Ampleforth College.

As a PPE student at New College, Oxford, in the Swinging Sixties, he founded Cover, a university magazine. Even after 1972, when he was busy making a name for himself in the global asset management industry based in the City of London, he continued to write for his own satisfaction. In the months before his death, with the help of his third wife, the award-winning ITN correspondent, Ronke Phillips, he had been putting together a collection of his own poems. It will be published in November as Songs of Love.

Though there was no great family connection with the world of finance, his decision to choose a career in the City after doing postgraduate studies in Economics at St Antony’s College, Oxford, could be seen as a rebellion against all that his parents had instilled in him. He liked jokingly

to describe himself as the only right-winger in a left-wing family.

His career in the financial world saw him hold senior positions at Rothschild Intercontinental Bank, Ivory & Sime, American Express Bank, and F&C Management, before he became, from 1988, chief executive of the fund manager, John Govett and Co, and from 1996 of AIB Asset Management. In 2000 he joined Putnam Lovell, and from 2007 was managing director of Jeffries International. In 2011, he started Pakenham Partners, his own corporate finance advisory firm.

The loss of his sister in a car crash had a profound influence on him. If he inherited from his parents a strong sense of the value of hard work and making your mark in the world, then there was also in his make-up ever after Catherine’s death, a determination to live life to the full.

Alongside his career in the City, and his writing, he shared his family’s long-standing commitment to making society a better place, as a trustee and treasurer of the Ireland Fund of Great Britain from 1989 to 2009, and from 2002 as the founding chairman of the Longford Trust, set up to continue his father’s commitment to rehabilitation as part of his high-profile mission as a prison reformer. As fundraiser in chief, his efforts sustained the trust’s work in supporting ex-prisoners through university and into careers.

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John Wimbleton (Blathwayt 1959) (August 1942 to July 2020) John was born on 20th August 1942 at Kimberworth, Rotherham, son of Ronald and Nellie. His father had been invalided out of the RAF and was working as a transport manager. At the end of the War, the family moved to Watford and after living for a time with his grandfather in South Ealing, they moved back to Rotherham where he attended Herringthorpe Junior School.

On the death of his father in October 1950, with the help of the Bishop of Sheffield and assistance from the Royal Airforce Benevolent fund, he joined Reed’s in September 1953. John left School in July 1959 and started work as a police cadet in Newark.

John was appointed as a Constable to the Nottinghamshire Constabulary on 20th August 1961, his 19th birthday. John was first stationed at Warsop but was then moved to Newark in 1964.

He transferred to Sutton in Ashfield in 1968 where he married and remained until 1989 when he was seconded to the Firearms Licensing Department. When these Firearms Enquiry Officers posts became civilianised in 1992, John was successful in applying, so retired as a Police Officer after thirty-one years of full creditable service. John remained as a civilian Firearms and Explosives

Licensing Officer until 20th August 2007. Upon retirement John continued with his police links by being a member of NARPO, the National Association of Retired Police Officers.

At this time, John was also an active member of the Freemasons, becoming Worshipful Master of Ashfield Lodge in 1995. He received the honour of a Great Priory rank of Past Great Aide de Camp in 2015 and on the 11th October last year, he became the Provincial Sub Prior of Nottinghamshire.

When living in Calverton, near Nottingham, John attended St Peter’s Church and used to help drive elderly folk to church on a Sunday morning. It was here that he met his second wife, Glenda, in 1997. They married in St Peter’s on the 11th August 2001 and John became Church Warden at St Peter’s in April 2002.

John is survived by Glenda, his three children – Kathryn, Richard and James – and his four grandchildren – Julian, Charlie, Noah and Grace.

Christopher Pacey (Bristowe 1965) February 1947 to July 2020 It was with great sadness we received this touching message from Christine Pacey about the sad death of her husband, Chris.

We offer her and the Pacey family our sincere condolences.

My husband, Christopher Pacey, sadly passed away on 28th July due to terminal lung disease. He had been suffering for some years with his breathing and spent a couple of months earlier this year in hospital. On his return home, however, he still wasn’t quite right.

The respiratory medical team was unable to identify the cause so had planned to send him to a renowned London hospital which might have been able to administer the correct diagnosis and medical treatment. Sadly, this was at the time we found ourselves in lockdown, so there was no chance of him going.

Chris ran a well-respected business in Dorset for many years.

Reed’s gave him the independence necessary to be a chartered building surveyor, specialising in cob dwellings (a thesis of his is still filed in the library at Reading University). He was a favourite with insurance loss adjusters dealing with thatch fires. I could go on but you only need to be proud of another Reed’s pupil, now aged 73, at his early death.

He passed away with great dignity and peacefully I’m pleased to say. He was a good patient considering what he had to put up with towards the end. His funeral took place on 28th August at a woodland burial site where his ashes will subsequently be left at rest.

Our condolences to all families and friends of loved ones who have sadly passed away this year. #FIDE

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CORONAHEROES Recognising just a few of the ORs who played such vital roles during the height of the pandemic… we know there are others out there and we applaud you all.

Andy Cairns (Bristowe 1973) GP & Ward Doctor, Petersfield Hospital Andy was one of the brave thousands who came out of retirement to return to the frontline. In his first week, he contracted COVID-19 but fought off the virus and was back again working in Petersfield Hospital.

Alice Gaffney (Mullens 2009) Pharmacy Technician, Royal Devon & Exeter NHS Foundation Alice works in the busy Pharmacy at the Royal Devon & Exeter NHS Foundation Trust.

It was wonderful to hear her saying how grateful she was to be going to work!

Aleks Rula (Capel 2012) Foundation Doctor, Sothend-on-Sea Hospital Aleks’ seven-day week hospital rota covered both COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 wards at Southend Hospital, so when we were looking forward to our weekends, he was hard at work.

George Stuart (Bristowe 2010) PC, Surrey Police As a PC at Surrey Police, Runnymede Beat, a key role for George has been working on the frontline to keep people safe during the pandemic, offering advice and guidance on the ever-changing regulations.

The Reed’s Community Staff and ORs Led by D&T gurus Keith Ditchburn and Paul Millington, and Kate Dunn from a medical perspective, a host of families based at Reed’s came together to go above and beyond in the production and assembly of more than 4,000 PPE visors donated to a vast list of local hospitals, care homes, hospices and health centres which were much appreciated by all.

Stuart Bentley-Hibbert (Blathwayt 1989) Consultant Radiologist, New York Presbyterian Hospital Recognising that this pandemic is exactly that... a global virus touching many lives, we were pleased to hear that Stuart, a Consultant Radiologist, was doing well at the New York Presbyterian Hospital, albeit busy and having to work in different ways!

Alex Greenwood (Bristowe 2015) Greenwood’s Grocers Okay, so they may not be wearing PPE in the photo, but our #cORonaHEROES don’t all have to be medics! Alex and his brothers, Ali and Jack, (still at Reed’s) set up a fruit and veg delivery service at the start of lockdown, providing vital services to vulnerable customers that extended to Clandon, Cobham, Esher, and Weybridge.

Luke Morgan-Rowe (Mullens 2002) Vascular Radiologist, Lister Hospital Luke, a Vascular Radiologist at the Lister Hospital, is pictured in his PPE just before going into emergency surgery. Sadly, COVID-19 touches all parts of our health service.

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Fred Shepherd (Bristowe 2016) Brand Development Director, Charles Austen Pumps Fred, and the company where he is Brand Director, have been the UK’s sole supplier of medical suction pumps, critical for ventilator treatment, many of which were used at the Nightingale Hospital. They have also been involved in the manufacture of specialist equipment for laboratories, including autoclaves (also known as steam sterilisers), macerators and blood analysers.

How incredible to be playing such a vital role in the fight against COVID-19.

Tom Worner (Bristowe 98), Josh Brown (Bristowe 2009) and Alex Wratten (Blathwayt 2009) Co-founder, Henley Shipping So this is how the story goes...

Tom got in touch after seeing posts about the Reed’s PPE visors to ask if we could provide his mother’s care company with some for their frontline staff.

Like a shot we said yes and then contacted fellow ORs Josh and Alex, Directors of Henley Shipping, as they’d kindly offered to help with deliveries.

Josh himself took them down to Bramley. Talk about the power of the Reed’s community.

Connor MacMillan (Bristowe 2015) My Experience on a COVID-19 ward Each person has his/her own story to tell about this year; for me, transitioning from being a student to a full-time medical professional, more than a year earlier than I should have, was not something I planned on doing!

In March 2020 I should have been on an Obstetrics ward, learning about the art and science of childbirth. However, one week into my eight-week placement, all medical students were told to go home. The next thing we knew, Matt Hancock announced that thousands of student doctors would be graduating early and joining the NHS workforce to counter the global pandemic, much to the surprise of the universities and the students.

My peers and I were given the title of Assistant Doctor; this meant my role was similar to a Junior Doctor (or F1), but without prescribing medication.

On starting, every single person on the ward was extremely friendly and welcoming. They appreciated we had chosen to be there in order to help and understood that this was our first experience of working in a clinical environment not as a student. The sense of unity and teamwork throughout the

whole of the NHS was the biggest thing that struck me, probably amplified during the pandemic, creating an extremely supportive environment in which to work.

One of the most remarkable experiences I had was when one of the nurses asked me to review a 34-year-old man with COVID-19 who was struggling to breathe. In a short space of time, his oxygen saturations in his blood plummeted so was swiftly taken to ICU to be put on a ventilator. This rapid deterioration in a patient so young was extremely eyeopening and something that highlighted the unpredictable nature of the virus.

By contrast, there were the many seriously ill patients who recovered, including one who had spent over 11 weeks in hospital, having been intubated and ventilated in ICU. After recuperating, she was able to return home and, on leaving, the whole ward gave her a spontaneous round of applause.

This was a perfect example of what this profession and the NHS is all about. This woman was given the best care from medical professionals in every sector: doctors, nurses, physios, healthcare assistants, pharmacists, dieticians, porters, cleaners, catering staff…the list goes on. The combined teamwork meant this patient, and so many others, were able to go back to their families. Seeing tangible results only furthered my desire to finish my studies and qualify so I can be part of this wonderful institution.

Being unable to see my family was difficult at times, but they were extremely supportive of my decision to work in the NHS and gain invaluable experience during a pandemic.

It will be a time I will never forget, and it will undoubtedly benefit me as a future doctor for years to come.

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An interview with...

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Thura Soe Paing (Bristowe 1992)

We have ORs in all corners of the world, including Myanmar… a country of some mystery. We had a chat with Thura to find out a bit more about living in the largest of the mainland Southeast Asian states

How long have you lived there and did you know the country as Burma?

As an entrepreneur, I set up one of the first mobile financial service providers in Myanmar and now I very much enjoy being a mentor in a few incubator and accelerator businesses...

I actually left Burma when I was very young with my family, as my father worked for the UN, and we only went back during Christmas and summer holidays.

After my time at Reed’s, I lived in London for many years until my wife and I left in 2007 for Beijing. We then moved to Myanmar in 2010.

The international name of the country was changed by the military government in 1989, arguing that Burma was a colonial name which didn’t reflect all the ethnic races that make up the country. In the local language, the name had always been Myanmar, a bit like the Ivory Coast being Cote d’Ivoire and Madras is now Chennai.

Many ORs will recognise the name of Aung San Suu Kyi, but can you update us on the current political landscape today?

Politics has always cast a long shadow over Myanmar. The country gained independence in January 1948 but, after much political conflict, it fell under military rule in 1988. This resulted in crippling sanctions for decades because there was no democracy and no freedom of speech; at the same time, trade and engagement were encouraged with countries like Vietnam and China in the hope that it would bring about better democracy and human rights.

Then in 2012, Myanmar became the darling of the world after the military decided to relinquish power. Aung San Suu Kyi and her party came to power following the 2015 general election. Her official title is State Counsellor, but she is effectively the incumbent Prime Minister.

The constitution drafted by the previous military government doesn’t allow her to be the head of state.

However, since 2018, the country’s profile has been somewhat tarnished. The Rohingya crisis is, of course, very serious and very sad, but it had been brewing for many years. What is important to know is that it is an ethnic issue and not a religious one. If you visit Yangon or most cities in the country, there are Hindu temples next to churches and mosques of all denominations which have been co-existing for generations.

For the ORs who would like to know more, I can recommend a book called The Hidden History of Burma by Thant Myint-U. It’s an easy read and not too history heavy.

How has the country changed since you got back in 2010?

It’s night and day. It is easy to forget how far Myanmar has come in such a short space of time.

There was no free media and press, only official ones. You needed special approval to buy a SIM card, and it cost USD800 for locals and USD1500 for foreigners! The internet connection was terrible and the military government would cut it off whenever they wanted, not to mention the regular power cuts. There were no ATMs and no credit-card terminals anywhere; you had to fly to Bangkok in Thailand every now and then to do a bank run.

Now there are more active SIM cards in Myanmar than the number of people, with over 80% smart-phone penetration – that is higher than most European countries.

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And what has been most remarkable are the opportunities that are now available for young men and women which really weren’t there in 2011.

accelerator businesses; it has been very rewarding to watch their young men and women develop into experienced professionals.

That is a big cultural and economic change in such a relatively short period of time. What were the main drivers?

How has the pandemic affected Myanmar and working life?

Our religions, philosophy and cuisine are greatly influenced by our neighbours: India, China and the rest of Southeast Asia, to bring about a diverse culture.

Indeed, Indian dishes such as biriyani and parathas are as much of our culture as noodles and roast duck. From a business perspective, this diversity means that things are changing for the better. More companies are putting efforts into corporate governance, gender equality, environmental checks, transparency, and proper accounting practices. This was, initially, driven by the requirement of external investors, financiers, and foreign partners, but now many companies are using it also as a way of attracting and retaining talent. I would say that all the recent positive changes have come from opening up and re-engaging with the international community.

You run your own boutique corporate finance company – how does that work in Myanmar?

My company is more of a multi-disciplined advisory firm. We offer management consulting for both local and foreign companies, and market entry work for businesses setting up in Myanmar – from manufacturing to financial services, as well as straightforward M&A work.

As an entrepreneur, I set up one of the first mobile financial service providers in Myanmar and now I very much enjoy being a mentor in a few incubator and

The Myanmar government put in place some really strict measures to prevent and contain the spread of the virus and to protect the general population. Borders were closed and domestic travel restricted by the end of March; however, there was never a full lockdown. Amazingly, in a population of over 50 million, there were only six Coronavirus-related deaths in the country; of course, testing hasn’t been as widespread, so it is hard to know the full extent of the pandemic. The fact that there haven’t been big surges in hospital numbers, seems to indicate the situation is under control so far.

There has been a dramatic effect on the economy though: huge supply-chain disruptions, with most exports stopped and factories closed – some permanently – and reduced tourism. As always, the poor will suffer the most with no savings and no safety nets.

Things are returning to normal, schools and offices are open again, so I am cautiously optimistic. But – like many countries - it will still take time for things to improve.

What does the future hold for Myanmar?

I am optimistic for the future; the potential is there. We have a young and educated population, but we still have a long way to go.

I would recommend ORs visit the country; we have everything from great beaches to ancient sites.

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Much of the changes needed will take a long time and will not just happen in one government or be carried out by one person. We need more international engagement, dialogue and assistance in all areas. The country and the economy will greatly benefit from more responsible investors engaging in Myanmar. Boycotts and sanctions will take us back to where we were, which is in the hands of dictators and unsavoury investors.

In the World Bank’s Global Economic Prospects 2020 report, it stated that although economic growth for Myanmar

is forecast to slow to 1.5% due to COVID-19, this could rebound to 6% by 2021 (on a par to the growth in 2019 of 6.3%).

What do you do to relax when not working?

I play a golf! Myanmar is not quite the golfing destination like Thailand, but there are a few good courses around Yangon, both old and new. Eating out in Yangon is also getting better with more and more good bars and restaurants opening up. Our equivalent to the pub is a teashop – they are generally open from breakfast time to late in the evening

and I enjoy the local art scene which is developing as well.

I would recommend ORs visit the country; we have everything from great beaches to ancient sites. Your tourist dollars will make a positive impact to and, if timing allows, it would be my pleasure to buy any OR a pint of Myanmar’s finest in Yangon.

Thura’s bio 1987-1992 Reed’s School 1992-1995 London School of

Economics, BSc 1996-1996 Boston University, MSc 1997-1998 Boston Consulting Group (London) 1998-1999 Citibank (London) 2000-2007 Consultant and various start-ups 2008-2011 Strategy 613 (Beijing) 2012-2014 Frontier Technology

Partners (Yangon) 2014-2016 Golden Rock Capital

Pte Ltd (Yangon) 2016- All Myanmar Advisors (Yangon)

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REED’S HERITAGE

EPIDEMICS AT THE SCHOOL

Using his extensive knowledge of our rich history, OR Committee member, Andy Wotton (Mullens 1975), has compiled this fascinating account of past medical professionals who served the School.

The COVID-19 pandemic could be seen as the worst outbreak of disease in its history. Apart from a very tiny minority of the world’s population, no living being has experienced anything like the Coronavirus which spread so rapidly to every corner of the globe from Wuhan in China. The disruption to the lives of the School and the wider Reed’s community has been immense. Throughout this year’s magazine, there are many references to the heroic efforts of all those in the NHS, as well as countless hundreds of thousands in other ‘key-worker’ roles, so it seems appropriate for the Reed’s Heritage archive piece this year to shine a light on those who have been responsible for maintaining the health of the pupils over the generations.

Throughout the crisis, as with year’s pandemic, those responsible for the medical provision and supervision of the sick were heroic in their efforts to tend the children. The two men in charge were Dr Dennis de Berdt Hovell, aged 48 at the time of the outbreak, and his junior partner, Dr Charles Dudley Kingsfold who was 35.

Their efforts, however, would have been far less effective were it not for the dedication of the nurses, both professional and auxiliary. The Head Nurse was Margaret Neale, who was born and raised in Hackney. Writing in 1890, a former pupil, Charles Pipe, who nearly died, but recovered after six weeks, remembered Margaret’s care and kindness.

Hackney 1865 – Typhoid The first great outbreak of illness, and the deadliest, in the School’s history occurred between November and December 1865 (often mistakenly recorded as 1866), when 214 children out of a total of 461 contracted Typhoid. The School’s Annual Report of that year confirmed that fifteen children died during the outbreak. The first pupil was Alexander Pardon on the 21st November, aged 11. Such was the random nature of the outbreak his younger sister, Mary Ann Pardon, survived. The youngest to die was George Frankland Dady who was just 9 years of age when he passed away on the 10th December. The oldest and last pupil was 14-year-old Frances Armour on the 2nd January 1866.

The number of cases came thick and fast.

Between the 5th and 11th November, there were 40. The following week the number rose by 76 and, one week later, 83 new cases were recorded. The worst single day was the 16th November, when 21 new cases were diagnosed.

“Miss Neale was one of the kindest souls that ever breathed, and I think that was the reason we preferred being in the Infirmary to over the way. Never shall I forget her extreme kindness to me, of which it has been my pleasure of late years to thank her personally and very slightly repay her.”

Another nurse, this time singled out in an article for the medical journal, The Lancet, was Mrs Anne Boor, in which it said, “She displays, in regard to the case of each sick child, a knowledge and an interest almost parental.”

Others mentioned for their sterling efforts, although sadly we have no knowledge of them, were a Miss Johnson, a Miss Denner and someone called Caroline Cowen.

As a direct result of the outbreak, the Governors took the decision to move the School out of the sprawling metropolis of Victorian London to pastures new.

The place they chose was a 36-acre site adjacent to Watford Railway Junction, which opened to much fanfare on the 20th July 1871. Nurse Margaret Neale decided not to move to Watford and remained in Hackney for the remainder of her life, as did Anne Boor, along with her husband Edward, who was an Accountant at the School.

The Infirmary 1910s

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Dr Alfred Thomas Brett

Watford 1871 With the move to Watford, the School needed to establish a relationship with a new doctor. That doctor was Alfred Thomas Brett and, for the next twenty-five years, he served both the Boys’ and the Girls’ Schools as its Chief Medical Officer from 1871 until 1890 and then as its Consulting Surgeon until his death in 1896.

There was one other early and important action the Governors decided to take.

Today, Vicarage Road, Watford, is known by many as the home of the town’s football club. Long before Watford Football Club built its stadium in 1922, there was a cemetery opposite the ground; sometime around 1873, a plot of land was consecrated for the burial of those pupils whose family or guardians were not able to make provision for their deceased child’s burial. Although medical science made great strides forward in the 19th century, the death rate amongst infants and school-aged children was still high.

By the 1890s, it was on average 150 in every 1,000 children. The first burial in the Watford plot was on the 29th August 1874 when eight-year-old William Samuel Pitman was laid to rest. He had only been admitted to the School in June. Over the next 47 years a further 20 pupils were buried in the plot, the last one being Ernest Morris Downs on the 18th April 1921.

A year later the cemetery closed to further burials and a new one opened in North Watford. There are no records of any School-related burials at the new site.

The Infirmary Watford 1910

Dr Edward Hardenberg 24th Sept. 1903

In the autumn of 1886, Enteric (otherwise referred to as Typhoid) Fever returned to the School. Although the impact was less severe than in 1865, it still claimed the lives of six children, four of whom were buried at Vicarage Road between the 22nd and 31st December. In total, Doctor Brett reported to the Board that 51 children were infected.

Shortly after the outbreak of Enteric Fever, Doctor Brett was joined by Doctor Frederick Haycraft Berry as Medical Officer for the School. Berry had qualified at Guy’s Hospital and after serving as HousePhysician and Obstetrician there, he went into practice in Watford in 1883. In time, he became not only the Chief Medical Officer to the School (when Doctor Brett died), but

he also served the Post Office and the London and North West Railway Company.

Following Brett’s death, Berry was joined in 1897 by another doctor from Guy’s, Edward Francis Herman Hardenberg. Originally from the Netherlands, Doctor Hardenberg became a British Citizen the same year he joined Doctor Berry and, for the next 15, he developed a very close bond and working relationship with the School.

Dr Hardenberg not only helped attend to the medical needs of both the Boys’ and the Girls’ Schools but was a frequent supporter and benefactor of the children, a point well made in the Girls’ Magazine in 1914, when news of a serious illness reached the School.

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Glendinning’s association with the School also ended with the outbreak of the war, but he was still practising in 1939, being 20-years younger than Hall.

Infirmary 1930s set back to the left of main buildings

Boys’ Infirmary circa 1930

“It is with the deepest regret that we record the very serious illness of Dr Hardenberg. Since last November he has been very ill, and his condition now is causing the gravest anxiety. During the 15 years Dr Hardenberg has been our School Doctor, he has taken a great interest in our school life, and we all feel what a real friend he is. He has always helped and encouraged us in our games; indeed, it was mainly through him we started Hockey; he helped to coach our First X1 and has often umpired for our matches. We have thought with great sympathy about him during this long illness, and earnestly trust that the means used to alleviate his pain may be blessed.”

news from there was not subject to any form of media censorship. This meant that, whilst the flu was present in most of the watring countries, it could not be reported on. Those restrictions did not apply to Spain, so the newspapers reported on its deadly spread there and it became known as the Spanish Flu. The estimated statistical impact of the flu varies immensely, but most analysists seem to agree that a third of the world’s population was infected, and between 20 and 50 million died by the end of the outbreak.

At Watford, the School was greatly affected by the flu, but no pupils or staff died, a remarkable fact in itself.

The ‘very serious illness’ was cancer which claimed his life on the 22nd March 1915.

The British Medical Journal published an obituary in which it said his illness had begun in November 1913 and, whilst fully aware of his condition, he faced his fate “with exemplary fortitude.” The obituary concluded: “Probably the highest tribute to his memory is the work he did, as medical officer, for the children of the London Orphan Asylum. He gave unstintingly of his best for their welfare, a service warmly appreciated by the Governors and staff of that institution; the children were devoted to him. Short though his career was, Dr Hardenberg left behind him a memory which his colleagues will cherish, and a reputation of honour to his profession.”

Spanish Flu The war eventually came to an end, but not before the world was engulfed in the largest pandemic since the Black Death, the Spanish Flu. There is still some debate about where the outbreak first occurred, but it wasn’t Spain. During the War, Spain was a neutral country and therefore any

Following Hardenberg’s death, Dr Berry was joined by Vincent Glendinning, a doctor originally from Canterbury in New Zealand. He arrived in England in 1904 and, after qualifying, entered into Dr Berry’s practice. The bond between the two men was strong and was further strengthened when Glendinning married Berry’s daughter, Frida. Dr Berry died in 1922 and, for the next decade or more, well into the late 1930s, Glendinning was the School’s principal Medical Officer.

Very little is known about Glendinning, but one former pupil writing about his time at the School described him as ‘gruff, but kind’. Another recalled a time of some amusement when the good doctor stood too close to an open fire and singed his trousers! Glendinning was joined by Doctor Charles Herbert Hall. Not much is known about Doctor Hall either. He was born in Manchester and, with his wife Nellie, he moved to Watford in 1893 where they started a family. He and Dr Glendinning appear to have been the School’s medical practitioners through the 1930s and probably up until the outbreak of World War Two in 1939, when the Schools were evacuated. Certainly, by 1939, Hall had retired but remained in Watford where he ended his days in 1952, aged 84.

After the war, the two Schools were split geographically, never to be co-located again. The Girls’ School at Dogmersfield had Dr Ronald Harward as its Medical Officer, a position he held until the School’s closure in 1955. At Cobham, the first Medical Officer for the Boys’ School was Dr John Hale. His practice, since 1920, had been in Hogshill Lane, Cobham, but before that he had been in Watford where, in 1923, he married his wife Elsie Coles. It seems highly likely, therefore, that Dr Hale knew of Reed’s School (the London Orphan School when he knew it initially) and that his appointment may have been as a result of that knowledge.

The records are a little unclear how long Hale remained as the Chief Medical Officer, but it seems that Dr John Lytle may have taken over from him in 1949, a position he held until the mid-1980s. What is much clearer, however, was the significant change in the overall provision of medical care and the fact that deaths from disease/ illness were all but eradicated. Doctors Glendinning and Hall reported to the Board that there had been one death in 1936, but there are no records of any more at the School after that date.

There have, of course, been many outbreaks of illness going back as far as you care to go but, over the past sixty years, it has mainly been influenza that has laid the School low; 1958, 1960, 1974 and 1978 to highlight just a few. The one in 1978 has had a lasting legacy to this day.

Matters were so difficult with pupils and staff succumbing to the illness that the Headmaster’s wife, Phoebe Tyson, put out

Sick Bay 1970

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Girls’ Infirmary circa 1930

an SOS to the local community to come into the School to lend a hand. Many responded to the call and, as a direct result of their help and compassion, the Friends of Reed’s School (FORS) was formed. Initially as an auxiliary support to the hard-pressed medical team, FORS next turned their attention to raising much appreciated funds to support the School’s activities which continues to this day.

This article began by highlighting the medical care provided by Margaret Neale back in 1865, at a time of great pressure and strain on the School’s resources during the outbreak of Typhoid that year.

It seems appropriate, therefore, to end by saluting those nurses and medical staff who have watched over the Reed’s pupils over many years and continue to do so today. Over the years titles may have changed - Sister, Infirmary Nurse, Medical Centre Sister, and more besides – but the degree of care, compassion and professionalism has been of a high standard throughout.

Sister Elspeth Storrar, universally known as “Sis” cared for her charges between 1913 and 1936. She was much loved and many former pupils would seek her out to talk

over past times on their returns to the School. There have been other nurses such as Margaret Vaisey, between 1922 and 1932, before she switched to become a House Matron until her retirement in 1954. In the late 1950s there was Mary Cuthbert whose place was taken in 1960

by Sister Norma Kiehne from Wondai in Queensland. She was the Sister until 1995, the longest serving in the School’s history.

Sister Deirdre Boylan worked alongside Sister Kiehne, before taking over from her, and eventually retiring in 2001.

Norma Kiehne

Today the Manager of The Health Centre is Kate Dunn, supported by nurses Anna Stringer, Ann West, Suzanne Druce and, until very recently, Adele Smyth. They are ably supported by various experts in their fields, such as Dr Richard Draper, OR Andy Shiells (Bristowe 1984), Donna Morgan and others.

Having shone this light on the School’s medical staff, it is clear that some past Head Teachers, Editors of the School magazines and the reminiscences of former pupils have occasionally mentioned their work and, when they have done so, it has always been with gratitude and warmth. 

The Medical Centre today

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Blathwayt House photo

1980-81 With special thanks to Bruce Roth (Blathwayt 1984) for working so diligently on identifying the ORs in this photo.

Blathwayt: September 1980 – July 1981 Names from left to right

Back Row Chris A Potts (3rd) Dave J Edwards (4th) Michael D Coupland (3rd) Joe P Statham (4th) Byron R Eyre-Varnier (3rd) David C ‘Nobby’ Clarke (5th) C Rupert Hartley (3rd) Farivar N Tabrizi (3rd) Martin R Light (3rd) Steve J Gates (4th) Michael R Nunan (4th) Peter J Potts (4th) Bradley Sidey (3rd) Andrew J Parker Tweedale (3rd)

Fourth Row, James Eason (4th) Parry E T Lim-Low (4th) James N R Grist (4th) Phil J Hardy (4th) Ian A Leonard (3rd) Roger J Attwell (4th) R M Brown (5th) Simon O Lea (5th) Bruce N Roth (4th) Chris R Notton (4th) James B Woodfield (5th) Simon J B Remnant (3rd) Tahir I Khan (5th)

Middle Row Jeremy E Cox (3rd) Ian Ross (5th) Richard V Smallwood (3rd) David Cantoni (5th Jolyon P Spence (5th) Geoffrey R D Edmead (5th) Louay M Al-Samarrai (5th) Martin S Leonard (5th) Mark D S Foulsham (4th) Russell A P Maddock (5th) Peter D Milne (5th) R Lewis Jepson (5th) Simon J Edwards (L6th) David P Lampen (5th)

Please do get in touch if you have any old school photographs that we can add to our Reed’s Heritage site and, even better, are prepared to help put names to faces! Who is going to step up to the mark next time…?

Second Row: Ashley P R Ames (5th) Richard J Chamberlain (L6th) Mark Morris (U6th) Kevin G Richards (U6th) Jan-Willem O Alkema (L6th) David N J Syms (U6th) Mike A Worsfold (U6th) Jonathan D L ‘Harry’ Rawle (L6th) Donald F Brown (U6th) Simon W Woodfield (L6th) Robert N Hughes (L6th) Alex ‘Sandy’ Milne (L6th) Robert J New (L6th) Angus C D Eason (L6th)

Front Row Nicholas J Hardy (U6th) Anthony G B Robbins (L6th) James W Hartley (L6th) Malcolm R Dunn (L6th) Nigel R T Jones (U6th) Mr Eric Hearle (Assistant Housemaster) Mr John Savage (Housemaster) Mrs Everall (Matron) Chris Nehring (U6th) David T Henfrey (U6th) Phil J McDuell (U6th) Michael E Powell (U6th) Paddy G Steele (U6th)

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OR MEMORIES

It’s good to take a trip down memory lane…

The Rogers Brothers Alan Rogers (Bristowe 1948) 1939 was not what you would call a banner year for the Rogers family in East Molesey, Surrey – a family consisting of parents, Millicent and Cecil, and three sons: John, Alan and Peter. In September, World War 2 broke out and later that autumn, Cecil died from a brain tumour.

Millicent, of necessity, found a job to support the family and Cecil’s mother was called upon to be the caregiver for the boys during the day. After a short time, she too, passed away and other arrangements had to be made.

A chance conversation between Millicent and a casual acquaintance brought up the subject of Reed’s School, known to be a sound boarding school which espoused strong Christian values and which promoted integrity, honesty and fair play. A sponsor was arranged, paperwork completed, and the adventure began!

John and I were put on the train to Reed’s which was in Totnes then, having been moved from Watford due to its close proximity to London and the bombings taking place at that time.

We were eventually followed by younger brother, Peter.

Reed’s became a second home to us and John, in particular, thrived. Later, as many will probably know, John became very involved in the governing body of the School and a leading light of the Old Reedonians Rugby Club, now the very successful Reeds Weybridge.

For these reasons, and because we know that John holds Reed’s so close to his heart, Kathy and I were very happy to donate to the Foundation in honour of John’s 90th birthday which was on 4th September.

Jerry Shelton (Blathwayt 1962) Reading about the excellent achievement of Reed’s becoming national hockey champions last year (congratulations to all concerned), reminded me of a chilly October day in 1955. I was one of a large group of juniors gathered on the School football pitch (the one adjacent to where we used to play ‘bowling up’) to listen to our new Headteacher, Robert Quested Drayson, already known to all as RQD. RQD had descended on Reed’s as a human whirlwind. Over the next 10 years he was to lay the foundations for the School to become the brilliant success it is now.

However, all that I felt on that day in 1955 was deep resentment. There was to be no more soccer! Instead, we were to start playing hockey, a game I thought was for girls. I lived in Liverpool and had been mad about football almost since I could walk.

Gloomily, I listened to RQD describing the rules (and potential hazards) of hockey.

My imagination was aroused by his vivid description of how he had witnessed one particularly wild use of a stick which led to it having to be levered out of some poor wretch’s skull. As the smallest boy in the school, I felt kind of vulnerable....

Anyway, there was no choice. We started playing hockey and, much to my surprise, I was soon loving the game, despite being pretty average at it. In my

final year, 1962, I captained the 2nd team but only managed to make the 1st team on one occasion – a far from memorable event, as we were thrashed 6-1 by RQD’s team of guest players. Men against boys!

I returned to Liverpool, and after an interval of three boozy and largely idle university years, played for Liverpool Sefton Hockey Club until 1976, when work took me down to live in Monmouth. I then joined Lydney HC, playing for them until 1983, when I moved, again with work, to Cardiff. Once again, my first act was to join Cardiff HC, one of the UK’s top clubs, with superb facilities. They have always had a top-class first team, though I only ever played one game for it.

I still live in the city, but retired from regular hockey in 2006, aged 62. Having said that, I also played several times for the Wales Over 60’s between 2004 and 2008.

The photo shows the team before its March 2004 inaugural fixture, against England, in Lansdowne Road, Bath. We won 3-2; I’m in the front row, second left, next to our keeper.

My son Mark, whom I have taken to games since he was barely toddling, has been a hockey fanatic ever since he could hold a stick and has turned out to be a much better player than I was. His daughter looks like she will be just as good. So, RQD, thanks for everything!

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OR MEMORIES

Calling all former pupils of Vanbrugh Castle School David Pafford (Capel 1965) Vanbrugh Castle School (VCS) was run by the RAF Benevolent Fund and between 1960 and 1976, when the School closed, several boys moved on to Reed’s. Two years ago, in September 2018, several former pupils of VCS attended a reunion hosted by the current owner of the Wakefield Wing, Lisa Taylor. She and her family organised the event together with ex-pupils Frank Valentine and David Gardiner. When the School closed, the Castle was divided into four apartments and the current owners welcomed all the visitors to the reunion and kindly showed us round their properties. Unfortunately,

my brother Chris and I were the only Old Reedonians to receive the information and to attend the event.

It is proposed to hold another reunion at the site on 5th September 2021 and I would like to invite all Old Reedonians who attended VCS to take this opportunity to visit the site of their old school.

My memory has been sorely tested in trying to remember the names of ex-VCS boys who went to Reed’s, but I hope some of the following people see this article, get involved and pass the information on to any others they know: Don Taylor, Andrew McCulley, Chris Sanderson, Javed Rashid and Chris Pafford. My apologies to those I have failed to remember.

Frank Valentine runs the VCS website and can be contacted by email at: vanbrughcastleschool@outlook.com and Danny Downes is a good source of information: dannydownes@sky.com The announcement of the reunion can be found at: vcs.atwebpages.com/ reunion-2021.html My details: dmpaff@gmail.com I hope to see you on 5th September 2021, if not before.

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Robert Wilmot (Bristowe 1969) Reading last year’s article from Jess Houlgrave and, in particular, her work at Sotheby’s, inspired me to write about my experience in the world of art conservation. It was fairly clear when I left Reed’s in 1969 I was going to Art School. I did not know that my fascination with learning about the painting techniques of the old masters would lead me into the world of art conservation. After Art School in London and Bristol, I had to wait two years before I could begin to study Fine Art conservation. I completed a PGCE at Bristol University and taught at Ramsey Grammar School on the Isle of Man. In 1980, after completing training in Easel Painting conservation in the UK, I Ieft family and friends to progress my career in Australia.

One widely held misconception in conservation and restoration of museum artefacts or ‘portable heritage’ is that the restorer is replacing or putting back into a damaged artefact what was originally there. Phrases like ‘as good as new’ and television programmes such as The Repair Shop – despite unarguably demonstrating high technical skill – unwittingly serve to feed and perpetuate this idea.

As far as paintings are concerned, the conservator or restorer must learn unnerving respect for the work of art and what the original artist was trying to accomplish. In compensating for damage or loss, the restorer must try to preserve and protect as much original material as possible and then recreate the intentions of the artist so that the viewer may experience the best possible chance of seeing what was originally intended. To avoid fraud, the restorers work must be carefully documented and recorded.

I was not aware of the personal significance of my first major painting restoration job at the time: it was the treatment of a water-damaged painting entitled The Embarkation of the Sudan contingent at Circular Quay, Sydney 3 March 1885 by the English artist, Arthur Collingridge. My maternal Grandfather, Robert Wesley Kelly, emigrated from the Isle of Man to begin a new life in Johannesburg in 1889, later moving up to East Africa, where I myself was born in 1951.

My work led to me developing the Lateral Tension Frame which, in turn, led on to the design and construction for a circular aboriginal acrylic painting from the Western Desert. Then, two years later, our workshop was given an unusual job of removing significant stained glass windows from a church in Adelaide to protect them during extensive building modification works. I know I will share with most, if not all Old Reedonians, the unshakeable core belief that the nurturing of the next generation is the most important thing that we can do and so, I hope, I leave some inspired.

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Spotlight on...

We have many interesting and inspiring characters amongst our alumni, going back over 200 years. In this regular feature, OR Andy Wotton (Mullens 1975), points the spotlight on one of those characters… Thomas Burke. It is a fascinating read!

The Burke Society In 1958 the School’s Headmaster, Robert Drayson, announced the creation of the Burke Society, ‘to encourage debating, literary activity and the art of discussion’.

Its membership was drawn from the Sixth Form initially but it was seen, by some, as elitist and slightly mysterious. Whether these views were fair or not, the perception continued, on and off, for the duration of its existence. The last mention of the Society was made in the Reedonian magazine in 1997. Throughout its life, however, the Burke Society had many outings, debates and discussions and, occasionally, attracted a distinguished guest, arguably the most prominent among them being Sir Barnes Wallace, the inventor of the ‘Bouncing Bomb’.

The Society was named after Old Reedonian, Sydney Thomas Burke (to use his full name), a very prominent author of his time, but whose personal story was never known or told. Indeed, when he died in 1945, the Times obituary used material taken from one of his books (The Wind and the Rain) which was believed to be (but was not) autobiographical… now is our chance to shine the spotlight on the life of this fascinating individual.

The boyhood of Thomas Burke Thomas Burke (he dropped the name Sydney) was born at 9.15pm on Thursday 29th November 1886, and how do we know this? James, his father, wrote the details down in the family bible. James was married to Emma Williams, his second

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‘Good God, I wasn’t expecting the author of those sketches to be a schoolboy!’ wife, 24 years his junior. Their first child, Annie Louisa, was born in 1884 in Lambeth and Thomas followed two and a half years later.

Sadly, James Burke died four months after his son’s birth. He had been the Manager of the Army Clothing Depot in Pimlico (now the site of Dolphin Square) but did not earn a large wage and, thus, had little savings put aside. Although Emma had affluent relatives (her cousin was Sidney Arthur Alexander, Canon of St Paul’s Cathedral), she remained proud and independent of any potential help they may have offered to bring up her two children.

Instead, when Thomas was six months old, Emma secured the position of Housekeeper to a wealthy titled family who owned property in Portland Place in London and Ware Park House, a county mansion in Hertfordshire. During this time, Emma taught her children, but by the time Louisa (as she was then called) was nine and Thomas was seven, Emma decided her children needed formal education and so they went to All-Souls Church near Portland Place. Thomas was bright and a quick learner but his general health was not particularly robust, being very slight and only five feet three inches in adulthood. The next move would have been to an inevitable job in a factory, which Emma knew would not best suit her son.

So, at the beginning of 1897, she decided to apply for a place at the London Orphan Asylum in Watford, which was only 25 miles from Ware Park House. Her

application was successful and, in June 1897, Thomas was admitted along with 33 other boys.

An inquisitive soul It is clear from some of Burke’s early writing that he resented going to the School, but that resentment was more aimed at his mother for sending him there rather than a reflection on the School itself.

Whilst it wasn’t all plain sailing, he was a model student and a bright one and, in later life, he wrote warmly about his five years at Watford. His main frustrations seem to have been around being constrained by the rules and not being able to apply his initiative.

Thomas left the School in October 1901 and, aged 14, was placed as a clerk in a bank in London called Stilwell & Sons; his sister was a cashier in the City and the family were living in Clapham. However, Thomas hated the tedium at the bank so, after a year, left and found another office clerical job, which wasn’t much better.

Once he had mastered the routines, which didn’t take long, boredom set in once more.

Travelling by tram and bus to and from work, Thomas used to let his mind wander as he looked down the side streets and alleyways, later actually taking to walking down them. This was a fertile breeding ground for his imagination and he never looked back. In Son of London, a book published posthumously in 1946, he wrote, ‘only genuine life is in the imagination which is the food of the spirit, and which no material circumstance or outer turmoil

can ever trespass upon or soil.’

It was around this time, in 1903, that Burke began to write properly, having given up his boring office position and securing a job in a second-hand bookshop. The owner wanted someone to mind the shop during daylight hours, when it was relatively quiet, an arrangement that suited Thomas very well, because not only could he expand his reading, but he could also do some writing. By the time he left the bookshop in 1905, at the age of 19, he was a very well read young man.

Cazenove and Perris The year 1905 was to be a very significant one for Thomas, although initially it did not start well. Thomas made an appointment to meet Mr Charles Cazenove of the literary agents, Cazenove and Perris, to seek support for the publication of some short essays. Although he was 19, Burke looked more like a 13-year-old, especially wearing his old school cap for the meeting!

As such, Mr Cazenove breezed past him as he sat waiting. It was only when Burke was later announced, did Mr Cazenove exclaim, ‘Good God, I wasn’t expecting the author of those sketches to be a schoolboy!’.

It appears that nothing tangible became of the sketches, but Thomas Burke emerged from Charles Cazenove’s office with a job at the literacy agency, where he remained for the next seven years. Burke and Cazenove had a great mutual respect and the younger man saw his elder as the kind of father figure he had never known.

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Spotlight on...

Founders of United Artists (from left to right): Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, and film director Derek Griffith

As time went by, Thomas was given greater responsibilities within the firm, something he much appreciated.

Unlike many of his School’s former pupils, Thomas did not fight in World War One. He was too small and too weak physically to pass the medical, but he did work for the Ministry of Information towards the end of that conflict.

Sadly, the literary agency closed in 1914, because Cazenove was ill and business had declined, meaning that Thomas was out of work. All was not gloom and doom, however, because in 1915 the publishers, Allen & Unwin, published Burke’s first book, Nights in Town: A London Autobiography. Thomas was now 28 and, later that year, went to work at Fleetway House in Farringdon Street at the offices of the journalistic mogul, Lord Northcliffe. It was there he met Winifred Welles, who, three years later, he would marry.

No such thing as bad publicity!

Whilst Nights in London had modest success, his next book, Limehouse Nights published in 1916, burst on the scene and placed Thomas Burke amongst the most

talked about authors of his time. The book was really a collection of short stories which focused on the growing tensions around the Limehouse Chinese community who were associated with vice, drugs and gambling. Burke’s book tapped into these feelings and conjured up the remote and dark alleyways of the old London docklands. For some circulating libraries, it was too intense and the book was banned from their shelves, the result of which was to boost its sales!

In whatever way the book is viewed today, and almost certainly there will be some who would be disparaging about it, Limehouse Nights put Thomas Burke on the literary map. So much so that one of his short stories in Limehouse Nights inspired the first film produced by United Artists.

On 5th February 1919 celebrated actors Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and Charlie Chaplin, together with film director Derek Griffith, formed United Artists to allow film artists greater say and control over their work. It was Mary Pickford who brought Limehouse Nights to the attention

of her fellow actors; on 13th May, the film, Broken Blossoms, was premiered in New York and was a big box office success.

Before the film release, the book had been printed eight times; afterwards, a further seven editions followed.

By the early 1920s, Burke had seven of his books in print in England and the US; his finances were sufficiently sound for him to purchase a villa in Folkestone for his mother and sister and a flat in Highgate for him and Winifred, who was also a writer.

Confidante of Charlie Chaplin In 1922 Charlie Chaplin, by now a film super star and known the world-over, decided to make a trip to London. He was keen to visit some of his childhood haunts, but most particularly he wanted to meet Thomas Burke. Chaplin never revealed the exact location or date of his birth, but it was widely believed to have been very close to where Burke was born in Lambeth. Chaplin, who disliked crowds, was not happy with the original idea of Burke conducting a group tour so arrangements were made for the

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gentlemen to meet at 10pm at Burke’s home.

Chaplin was fascinated and yet slightly puzzled initially by his host. He wrote, ‘He is very curious. Doesn’t seem to be noticing anything that goes on about him…I am warming to him considerably…

Is his reticence real, or is this some wonderful trick of his, this making his guest feel superior?’.

After conversing for a while, the two men set off on their stroll together towards no place in particular. They chatted about Limehouse Nights, but Burke was silent for long periods. Chaplin said, ‘And then I awaken, I see his purpose. I can do my own story – he is merely lending me the tools…’ Chaplin understood that Thomas had already shared the stories in words and now was telling them visually. He wrote, ‘Every once in a while, Burke lifts his stick and points. His gestures need no comment. He is most unusual. What a guide he is… I feel that he has gauged me quickly, that he knows I love feelings rather than details.’ The pair walked until 3am before returning to Highgate, clearly enjoying each other’s company. Chaplin concluded, ‘He would sit there immobile, yet he drew me out. I felt I wanted to unburden my soul to him, and I did. I was at my best with Burke.’

It was ten years before the two men met again, but the friendship forged that night in Highgate and Limehouse never ceased and remained strong until Thomas Burke’s untimely death.

Endorsement by Alfred Hitchcock In recognising his success, in the same year that Burke met Chaplin, Thomas’s photograph appeared in a book of portraits by Alvin Langdon Coburn. The book was called More Men of Mark and included literary giants such as Thomas Hardy, Ezra Pound and Joseph Conrad.

Thomas was in exalted company. In late 1924, Thomas and Winifred moved to a flat at 33 Tavistock Square in fashionable Bloomsbury, the literary centre of London.

However, Thomas was not part of it, being unbothered by such literary gatherings.

Burke wrote over forty books and short stories, as well as poetry, covering both fiction and non-fiction topics, but in 1931 he published a crime thriller The Hands of Mr Ottermole which became a best seller.

In fact, some described it as the best crime story of the 1930s and in 1949, four years after Burke’s death, a panel of critics voted it the best mystery of all time.

In 1957, Alfred Hitchcock - that doyen of the murder mystery and suspense – presented the story on television in his series Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

The End On 3rd May 1932 Thomas’s mother, Emma, died at her villa in Folkestone, aged 85. Tragically, Thomas’s own life came to an end at the Homeopathic Hospital in Great Ormond Street on 22nd September 1945. The cause of death was peritonitis following a perforated gastric ulcer; he was just 58.

The Post-script For several years during the 1960s, an American writer from Philadelphia, Josephine Shotwell, had been in correspondence with Louisa Burke and others about Thomas with the intention of writing his biography. Sadly, this never came about because Josephine died in January 1968. She did, however, type up where she had reached in the story of Thomas Burke, the year 1929 and, through good fortune, her manuscript and some of her working papers were given to the School in the mid-1980s. They have lain, undisturbed, until now.

Maybe one day, the full story of Thomas Burke will be revealed, for he was undoubtedly a scholastic and enigmatic man… perhaps these are the traits Mr Drayson was looking for when founding the Reed’s Burke Society and why it was perceived in such a similar way! 

The full version of this article, written by Andy Wotton, can be found on the Reed’s Heritage website: reedsschoolheritage.co.uk

A rare photo of Charlie Chaplin and Thomas Burke 1922 (copyright Roy Export Company Establishment, scan courtesy of Cineteca di Bologna)

If you’d like to learn more about the School’s history register on the Reed’s Heritage website and explore...

If you would like to contribute an article or a memoir or an artefact, please contact heritage@reeds. surrey.sch.uk for more details.

We’d love to hear from you.

reedsschoolheritage.co.uk

REED’S HERITAGE

104 THE REEDER 2020

Coffee Break We hope you have enjoyed this year’s Reeder with all its news and articles, but now for something different! Take a break and have a go at these…

(Solutions on inside back cover)

Word Search Can you find these words hidden in the grid which all appear in our main feature. Words can go in the following directions:   Word clues algae attenborough biodiversity carbon climate

fish fossils humanity methane nature

corals crisis earth eden environment

savannah scientists soil trees wildlife

oceans oxygen planet rainforest rewild

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105

Maths Crossword

Word Polygon

A favourite puzzle from the UK Maths Challenge chosen by Mr Ha, Teacher of Maths and Head of Third Form.

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Across 1. The remainder when 11 Down is divided by 19 Across (3) 3. The mean of 25 Across and 10 Down (4) 5. The product of 16 Across and the difference between 1 Down and 20 Down (2) 6. Three less than 4 Down (3) 7. The number of digits in 2555 × 102411 (3) 9. A power of 2 (3) 12. A cube (3) 14. A prime number that is the sum of the first few consecutive prime numbers (2) 16. A factor of 10 Down that is a multiple of a square greater than 1 (2) 17. A multiple of 18 Down (3) 19. The square of a prime number, with digits in descending order (3) 21. A Fibonacci number where all adjacent digits differ by one (3) 23. 23 Down increased by 1130% (3) 24. A number with an odd number of factors (2) 25. The product of the first five prime numbers (4) 26. 4x + 14 where x = 10 Down − 15 Down (3))

22 Down 1. A multiple of 8 Down (3) 2. The sum of two squares (3) 3. The sum of the first five prime numbers (2) 4. Three more than 6Across (3) 8. A factor of 1 Down (2) 9. A Fibonacci number divisible by 11 (2) 10. The mean of 25Across and 11 Down (4) 11. This number is reversed if you multiply it by 4 (4) 13. A cube (2) 15. The remainder when 21 Across is divided by 9 Down (2) 17. An odd number that is a fourth power (2) 18. The product of two triangular numbers that is not itself

a triangular number (2) 20. The number of degrees in a rhombus plus 23 Across (3) 21. The difference between 21 Across and 9 Down (3) 22. x where 3 Across − 25 Across = 3x − 2 (3) 30 23. The number of digits in 2 × 1253 × 44 (2)

24 words = average 32 words = good 38 words = excellent 43 words = genius!

Maths Challenge In this question the letters F, O, R, T, U, N and E represent different digits.

The digits O, N, E, F, U and R satisfy O O O + O

N N N N

E E E E

F O U R N represents 5.

The digit represented by T is less than the digit represented by O. What is the value of F + O + U + R + T + E + E + N?

106 THE REEDER 2020

THE FOUNDATION

The Foundation

Foundation Appeal Presidents: His Grace The Duke of Wellington KG (1827), HRH The Prince of Wales (1922) and Douglas Fairbanks, KBE DSC (1953)

Overview from Kathryn Bartram Director of Development & External Relations

When you next visit Reed’s, as you enter the main reception, take a moment to admire the boards on your right. There you will see the list of Foundation Appeal Presidents dating back to the very first Appeal in 1815. It is a virtual roll call of some of the most illustrious names in British history, from monarchs to city titans to film stars. In all this time, none would have such a deep understanding of the importance of education for the disadvantaged and vulnerable as our 2019/2020 President, the Rt Hon David Laws.

David was the Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament for Yeovil from 2001 until 2015. Between 2010 and 2015, he served in the Coalition Government as Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Schools Minister, and Cabinet Office Minister. Since 2015 he has been the Chairman of the Educational Policy Institute, whose aim is to identify strategies that raise educational standards in the UK, particularly with regard to closing the gap in attainment.

We are immensely proud and honoured that during his tenure as Appeal President,

David developed such a strong affinity for the values and aims of Reed’s that he has subsequently agreed to join the Board of Governors and the Andrew Reed Foundation Board.

He speaks and leads so impressively on the issues facing vulnerable children, in general and more recently with COVID-19, that whilst I could try to summarise, I would invariably not do him justice. Please continue reading for a message from David to the Reed’s community.

Message from Rt Hon David Laws Foundation Appeal President, 2019-2020 and Executive Chairman, Education Policy Institute Across the political spectrum, there is one issue on which everyone is united: the need to ensure that educational opportunities are more equally spread, so that every child in our country can fulfil his or her full potential. This type of educational goal is one of the best long term investments that society can ever make. But, in the short term, the costs are high and, unfortunately, we are a very long way from delivering on this aspiration.

Researchers at the Education Policy Institute, an organisation which I helped establish, have used government statistics to show that, on average, by the age of 16, a child from a ‘disadvantaged’ background is the equivalent of one and a half years of learning behind the average of all other children, damaging their prospects in later life. For children who have been taken into care, the gaps are even wider.

Under successive governments, policies have been developed to try to narrow these gaps, with some success, but the impact of COVID-19 will only help to increase the gaps. Perhaps this should not be a surprise. We can easily imagine just how different the experiences are for children growing up in our country today: some have every possible support from parents, relatives, friends and high quality schools; others face a life of poverty, enforced care, instability and even unhappiness at home, and they attend schools which do not always have the resources to counter these strong headwinds.

While some Foundation schools, perhaps in response to financial pressures, have rather drifted away from their founding mission, Reed’s has – over two centuries – stayed true to Rev Andrew Reed’s great moral purpose – it has provided support,

107

love and learning to over 12,000 children who would otherwise not have been able to attend a school of this character and quality, and to tens of thousands more through the School’s outreach programme.

Reed’s is an exemplar, which shows just what can be achieved with the necessary care, support and resources and it is why I was so delighted to be asked to lead the 2019/2020 Annual Appeal. The Foundation places which the School offers, backed by top quality pastoral care, can be literally life-changing and the outreach work is also incredibly valuable, for thousands of children who cannot themselves attend the School.

When I took on the role of Annual Appeal President last September, I did not imagine that my Presidency would be the year remembered for a global pandemic, which saw unprecedented disruption to

thousands of school children’s education.

Unfortunately, the pandemic has meant the gap between rich and poor, advantaged and advantaged are widening again measured in terms of education, income and health. However, once again, Reed’s has shown, through their immediate response to lockdown, how all schools can harness their responsibility to lean against this undesirable trend and play a part in the nationwide recovery.

For this reason, I was particularly touched by the number of donations we received following our Emergency COVID-19 Foundation Appeal in April and in that, in many cases, these were subsequent donations, often bigger than the original!

Thank you again!

If you are a current donor to the Foundation thank you for lending your support to the Foundation’s life-changing

work, you are making a real difference!

If not, please consider donating, knowing that in doing so you will be helping to realise the potential of generations to come.

The Foundation places which the School offers, backed by top quality pastoral care, can be literally life-changing...

COVID-19 Emergency Appeal Total rasied

£55,610 An incredible amount which all went to provide vital support for our Foundation pupils during the first lockdown.

Each of them was assessed prior to going home across three categories on a traffic light system. Sadly, the majority of our Foundation pupils were stuck on red and, therefore, the money raised was able to provide the following vital support to ensure their education was not disrupted: KEY AREA OF CONCERN

1. Ability to access curriculum

ACTIONS/SUPPORT GIVEN

2. Living conditions

• Those pupils not able to return home immediately were kept onsite until provision had been made to travel or find alternative care.

• Ensured that pupil had a conducive work space.

• Provided some stipends for electricity, gas and other utility meters.

3. Health and well-being

• Provided laptops and ipads as necessary.

• Pupil received training on Teams, Zoom, etc.

• Provided enhanced wi-fi capability where needed with equipment and access.

• Organised online counselling sessions.

• Ensured Reed’s pastoral staff were in regular contact with high concern parents and pupils.

• Provided vouchers specifically for purchasing food.

108 THE REEDER 2020

THE FOUNDATION

The Foundation in numbers Academic year 2019/20

70 65% 35% Foundation pupils in the School These are just three of their stories…



I was removed from my Mum six years ago by social services, so now I live with my Gran in a one bedroom council flat. I sleep on a camp bed in the living room. Gran is great, we get on well.



y mum died when I was four and M my dad has found it hard to cope since. We now live with my grown-up half-brother and his family and they help look after my dad too.



I live with my mum, dad and sister.

My mum and dad are both teachers, but my dad has motor neurone disease (MND) and will probably die whilst I’m at Reed’s.

have been exposed to either neglect, abandonment, abuse, mental health or chronic illness

£1,470,000 total Foundation pupil costs

£1,003,980 total donated and pledged in 2019/20

£176,336

£476,762

£131,456

£139,020

donated by external individuals

donated to legacies and endowments

have been adopted/raised by relatives, bereaved or are young carers

donated by trusts, charities and corporates

£80,406

donated by Old Reedonians (via Decade Syndicates, Annual Foundation Appeal, COVID-19 Emergency Appeal, RMG Fund, Hylke’s Fund, Simon & Jonathan’s Fund, Cricket Centre)

donated by parents and staff

We were incredibly grateful for the response to our COVID-19 Emergency Appeal by ORs, many of whom had not donated previously. However, overall regular giving from ORs was down from last year’s total of £112,000. We know that this pandemic is impacting people in many ways, but if you have found yourself amongst those fortunate enough to be safe and secure and would like to change the futures of vulnerable Foundation pupils like those profiled above, please contact Sharmaine or visit the website, andrewreedfoundation.org

109

FOR THE PRICE OF A CUP OF COFFEE AND A MUFFIN YOU COULD CHANGE THE FUTURE OF A CHILD’S LIFE Join our OR Syndicates for as little as £5.00 per month and you could help support a deserving Foundation pupil who has the potential but not the social or financial background to a life-changing education at Reed’s For more information contact Sharmaine Matthews smatthews@reeds.surrey.sch.uk 01932 589490

110 THE REEDER 2020

THE FOUNDATION

A LEGACY THAT LIVES FOREVER Richard Nicholson Memorial Bursary ‘Reggie’ or ‘REN’ (Richard Edward Nicholson) sadly passed away in May 2019 (see 2019 Reeder for obituary), but even during his darkest times battling with Parkinson’s, the Reed’s Foundation was in his thoughts.

As his good friend and fellow teacher, Richard Garrett, said in his touching tribute to Reggie at the memorial service held in November 2019:

The Reed’s Foundation and community, but particularly the Reed’s students, were central to REN’s thinking. It was REN who gave his double bass away to a student; contributed regularly to the Christmas drinks for the Catering and Maintenance staff; and made a significant bequest to Reed’s School Foundation in his Will to support the very community and students that he loved.

To read Richard Garrett’s full tribute, please visit Heritage site, reedsschoolheritage.co.uk

111

Hugh & Frank Nicholson, with Pete Burrow (Blathwayt 2003)

REN remembered…

Mr Nicholson’s Media Studies class is the reason I went into PR and now own a successful PR agency. I owe him a lot and, to be honest, I’m pretty gutted I never told him that.

Phil Savage (Blathwayt 2003)

We are eternally grateful to Richard’s brothers, Hugh and Frank Nicholson, and all the extended family, for ensuring the wishes in his Will were realised; their message aptly sums it all up: “Richard had many interests: music, cricket, steam trains, current affairs and his garden, to name but a few, all of which he loved and studied in depth.

But Reed’s School always came first with him. As a teacher, he found great satisfaction in passing on his knowledge and helping to influence young minds. It is for this that I’m sure he would like to be remembered.

to him. With such a brilliant mind and so many talents, Richard could have chosen to work anywhere, but we believe that his commitment to Reed’s was because of the ethos of Foundation and the opportunities it opened up for so many deserving children.

As sad as it was to have to deal with a brother’s dying wishes, it gave us some comfort knowing that Richard’s legacy gift to the Foundation was what he wanted and that it will ensure his name is always associated with a place he loved, supporting future generations of Reedonians.”

Hugh & Frank Nicholson

As many will know, Richard was a very particular and somewhat private man.

However, as the effects of his Parkinson’s worsened, he confided in his family regarding his Will and made us promise that we would ensure his gift to the Reed’s Foundation was seen through. It was only then we realised just how much the School had meant

Richard’s gift to the Foundation will be part of our Andrew Reed Growth Fund, an endowment from which only the interest is drawn to support the Foundation. It means that his legacy – both financially and educationally – will carry on in perpetuity and everything that REN was known for, will never be forgotten.

Building our Andrew Reed Growth Fund is vital to the long-term viability of the Foundation. If you would like to talk – in confidence – about making a legacy pledge, please contact Sharmaine. Everyone wants to make their mark on the world and to have their life remembered; leaving a legacy to the Reed’s Foundation does exactly that by ensuring future generations of Foundation pupils can call themselves Old Reedonians too.

Teachers do a job. But it’s not just a job, it’s a vocation and, in reality, it’s more than that. Thank you to Richard for helping make me the man I am today.

Ali Duncan (Capel 1997)

I remember Mr Nicholson as a man who shared all his knowledge right from the heart.

He was so dedicated.

Ann Deckers (Bristowe 2004)

Richard learned of my interest in opera and knew that, as a Foundationer, there was no possible way I could afford to go.

Soon after that he demonstrated amazing thoughtfulness and generosity by taking me to Covent Garden to watch Tosca and then some time after to see La Traviata.

Both incredible experiences remain with me to this day as fond memories. Vale Richard and thanks.

Darren Paterson (Bristowe 1985)

Richard had a laugh that one would always know in the corridor, even without seeing him, and he will be missed!

Alicia Groves (Bristowe 2003)

112 THE REEDER 2020

THE FOUNDATION

Andrew Reed in the limelight The recently launched Foundation website

It also offers a simple guide for those interested in applying for a Foundation place, be that from a parent, guardian, charity, school or local authority, as well as information about supporting the Foundation.

To promote the far-reaching work of the Foundation, we have also launched streams on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

We are delighted to have launched the dedicated Andrew Reed Foundation website which provides a fascinating insight to the charity founded in 1813, the historical impact the Foundation has had on over 13,000 children since that time and the way it has evolved to meet the societal needs of current times. All continuing the compelling vision of our Founder, Rev Dr Andrew Reed.

Shahin Baghaei (Capel 2002)

Aleysa Capelle (Bristowe 2013)

We are indebted to those OR Foundation pupils who allowed us to profile them on the website: Shahin Baghaei (Capel 2002), Aleysa Capelle (Bristowe 2013), Bill Collins (Bristowe 1948) and Angus Darroch-Warren (Capel 1986).

Nothing speaks louder or stronger in demonstrating the impact of the Foundation than personal testimonials like theirs.

Bill Collins (Bristowe 1948)

andrewreedfoundation.org Please visit the Andrew Reed Foundation website and follow us on social media:  @ReedsFoundation  @ReedsFoundation  @AndrewReedFoundation

Angus Darroch-Warren (Capel 1986)

You and your data We are incredibly grateful for your support and for undertaking to be part of our special extended Reed’s community. As such we would like to stay in touch for a variety of reasons such as to provide opportunities to network, offer employment opportunities, find old friends and invite you to help with School initiatives. But most of all, we enjoy engaging with all our ORs on a regular basis to build a sense of community.

We are committed to protecting your personal information and will never sell your contact information or personal details onto a third party. Any information held will be used solely for the purpose that it was intended and all financial information will be destroyed securely.

Our ‘Privacy Notice for Alumni & Supporters’ can be found on the OR website: networkreeds.org This explains how and why we collect the data we have for you and how we store and process it. There is nothing you need to do unless, of course, you wish us to change the way we communicate with you in the future; to do this please email: development@reeds.surrey.sch.uk or call Sharmaine on 01932 589490.

113

Old Reedonians Donation Form I would like to support the Reed’s Foundation by donating to one of the following OR funds (please tick): Annual Foundation Appeal

COVID-19 Emergency Appeal

OR Decade Syndicate

Simon Church & Jonathan Turner Bursary Fund

Hylke van Slooten Memorial Fund

Richard Garrett Scholarship Fund

Legacy Fund (see over)

Unrestricted

Other

YOUR DETAILS Name: (including title, first name and surname)

Address: (please provide your residential address if completing the Gift Aid Declaration overleaf)

Postcode: Email: Telephone:

I would like to make a REGULAR GIFT I will set up a Standing Order using my online banking facility, paid to: Account Name: Sort Code: Account Number: Reference: to make a gift of:

Reed’s School Charity Account 30-99-55 22883568 please use your surname and initial £

every:

Month

Quarter

Year Year

Payments should be made until further notice OR Payments should be for a period of

/

years starting on:

/

I would like to make a SINGLE GIFT I enclose a cheque (payable to ‘Reed’s School Charity Account’) for: £ OR I would like to make a Credit/Debit Card single payment of: Card type:

Visa

MasterCard

£ Maestro

Name on Card:

Card Number: Valid From:

/

Expiry Date:

3 Digit Security Number:

/

Issue Number:

OR I will make a transfer of: Account Name: Account Number:



Signature:

£

using my online banking facility, paid to:

Reed’s School Charity Account (London Orphan Asylum) 22883568 Sort Code: 30-99-55 Date:

(please turn over to complete form)

114 THE REEDER 2020

LEAVING A LEGACY I am interested in leaving a Legacy gift in my Will to the Reed’s Foundation (the Foundation Office will follow up) I have already included a Legacy gift in my Will to the Reed’s Foundation

GIFT AID DECLARATION I want to Gift Aid this donation and any donations I make in the future or have made in the past four years to Reed’s School Foundation.

I am a UK taxpayer and understand that if I pay less Income Tax and/or Capital Gains Tax than the amount of Gift Aid claimed on all my donations in that tax year, it is my responsibility to pay any difference.

Please notify the Reed’s Foundation if you: • want to cancel this declaration; • change your name or home address; or • no longer pay sufficient tax on your income and/or capital gains.

Signature:

Date:

If you pay Income Tax at the higher or additional rate and want to receive the additional tax relief due to you, you must include all your Gift Aid donations on your Self-Assessment tax return or ask HM Revenue and Customs to adjust your tax code.

YOUR DATA We are committed to protecting your personal information and will never sell your contact information or personal details onto a third party. Any information held will be used solely for the purpose that it was intended and all financial information will be destroyed securely.

Thank you Your support will help transform the lives of vulnerable children now and in the future.

Please return this form to:

Registered Charity No. 312008



Development Office Reed’s School Sandy Lane Cobham Surrey KT11 2ESreeds.surrey.sch.u

115

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N

T

N

E

B

V

S

M

A

Z

H

Word Polygon Solution

Maths Crossword Solution

6 letter words planet platen 5 letter words laten leant leapt lepta palet panel paten penal petal plane plant plate pleat plena tepal 4 letter words ante elan etna lane late lean leap nape neap neat pale pane pant pate peal pean peat plan plat plea tael tale tape teal tela tepa

1

5

14

Maths Challenge Solution F=2, O=6, R=4, T=3, U=0, N=5, E=1

1

8

1

17

20

4

2

3

9

1

1 0

2

5

2

9

2

7

4

1 8

2

4 4

22

24

1

10

2 16

3 26

1

5

18

8 21

23

1

13

7 0

7

1

4

8

5 2

2

9

12

8

8 25

6

2

1

15

7

3

6

3

1

8

2

6

2

7 19

9

8

8 7

11

4

7 3 4

6

Development Office Reed’s School Sandy Lane Cobham Surrey KT11 2ES Kathryn Bartram Director of Development & External Relations 01932 869025 kbartram@reeds.surrey.sch.uk Sharmaine Matthews Head of Alumni & Community Relations and Editor of The Reeder 01932 589490 smatthews@reeds.surrey.sch.uk

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