OElink 2019

2019

THE OE NETWORK MAGAZINE

NEWS | FEATURES | CONNECTIONS | EVENTS

Alice UdaleSmith BREAKING THE NEWS

Andy Burden A NATURAL DECISION

Nick Martin WORSE THAN A WAR ZONE

Robin Sheppard A SOLITARY CONFINEMENT

Campaign for change JAMES SELLICK RAISING AWARENESS FOR GREENPEACE

In this issue…

Contact details:

Dudley Thomas

email

PRESIDENT’S WELCOME

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tel

OE ACTIVITY AWARDS

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development@kesbath.com 01225 464313 extn 257

post

Development Office, King Edward’s School, North Road, Bath, BA2 6HU

website

www.kesbath.com/oe

Contact the Development Office to: * Arrange a visit to the School * Book tickets for OE events *C ontribute news/articles for

Sam Lascelles CHAIRMAN’S LETTER

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Miri Stevens ARTISTIC NATURE

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THERE’S A RANG-TAN IN MY BEDROOM

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Andy Burden A NATURAL DECISION

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the OElink and OE e-newsletters

* J oin the committee – new School’s Bursary Fund

WORSE THAN A WAR ZONE

to the School

School and join the Blake Odgers Society

ANNA UNCENSORED A STORY OF LOVE, NOT WAR

* Purchase merchandise * R equest log-in details

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for OEs Online

* Update your contact details Current Executive Committee: president

Claire Davies, current staff

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Roger Wilson

* P ledge a legacy to the

Sam Lascelles 1993-2000

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Nick Martin

*O ffer careers help

secretary

BREAKING THE NEWS

A SOLITARY CONFINEMENT

*M ake a donation to the

chairman

Alice Udale-Smith Robin Sheppard

members are always welcome!

Dudley Thomas 1955-1964

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James Sellick

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Ian Sansbury SETTING A NEW PACE

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OE NEWS

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IN MEMORIAM

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EVENTS

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Our work crosses boundaries and brings people together.”

oe /staff liaison

Mike Pell, current staff (oesmrp@kesbath.com)

Jim Evans ENGINEERING A STATESIDE LIFE 12

front cover

James Sellick Photo © ‘Mother’

Pamela Bougeard FINDING THE WAY…

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editor

Claire Davies

proofreading

Tessa Williams

Martin Boden HEADMASTER’S VIEW

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design

Caroline Curran Design

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print

Futurform Ltd

Follow the OEs:

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OElink magazine 2019

KESBathOEs | Follow KES:

KESBath

I hope that through our Committee efforts more of you will have the opportunity to reconnect with one another and with this great community that we all belong to.”

Dudley Thomas

President’s welcome

1955-1964

I

was honoured to become President of our Old Edwardians’ Association at the AGM last November and I am very glad to be working with the Committee as we reach out to our vibrant and ever-growing community at home and abroad.

I must first offer sincere thanks and pay tribute to Francis Ring, who retired from his position as OE President after ten years last autumn and who sadly passed away this summer. As a committee we were immensely grateful to Francis for his wise counsel and keen interest across a range of different events and activities during his many years of service. He will be very much missed by our community.

We were also extremely saddened this year by the passing of Geoff Staley in April. Geoff, who taught at the School for 34 years, joined the OE Committee after he retired in 2001 and was always actively involved, latterly as Treasurer. He greatly enjoyed meeting up with former pupils and always looked forward to hearing their news at OE events. At Geoff’s memorial service, I sat next to a younger OE who had been taught by him. He described how, after studying engineering at Oxford, he had been inspired by Geoff to also become a Maths teacher. Geoff was very highly appreciated by all the pupils who had the good fortune to be taught by him. He too will be much missed by our community.

My memories of King Edward’s are not so very different from those related by Francis in the last edition of the OElink.

We too lived in terror of H M Porter, who I always thought looked like Harris Tweed in the comic The Eagle, but this was a thought that I wisely kept to myself!

I clearly remember the words chalked above the basement door in Broad Street: “Abandon hope all ye who enter here!”

Not true at all as the small school of around 180 pupils was like a big, happy family.

Music for us back in the early 1960s consisted of an occasional lesson in the Geography room, where we listened to classical LPs played on a Dansette record player – I particularly remember Grieg’s Piano Concerto. OE Geoff Frankcom,

It was a joy to see and hear the talented KES musicians performing pieces from famous films such as Gladiator, Jurassic Park, James Bond and E.T., with some wonderful solo performances included as well. who later became an English rugby international playing in the centre, could play the first movement faultlessly on the grand piano which also lived mysteriously in the Geography room. Later, at North Road, a wooden hut became the Music room and here a choir of sorts would practise, mainly religious pieces.

I unfortunately didn’t make the final performance of Handel’s Messiah, having been booted out because I constantly sang the wrong notes!

In contrast, earlier this year I was delighted to be invited to the School’s partnership concert with Bath Philharmonia, A Night at the Movies. It was a joy to see and hear the talented KES musicians performing pieces from famous films such as Gladiator, Jurassic Park, James Bond and E.T., with some wonderful solo performances included as well. It was truly a night to remember.

I hope that through our Committee efforts more of you will have the opportunity to reconnect with one another and with this great community that we all belong to. I would also like to thank Claire Davies at KES for all the hard work she puts into keeping our Old Edwardians’ Association alive and flourishing.

I look forward to saying hello at a future event and to learning more about you through your news and stories in this magazine or in our e-newsletters. As a relative newcomer to the OE Committee I also encourage you to join our meetings, when you can. We meet three times a year in the early evening and it includes a delicious supper too!

Why not get in touch with us at development@kesbath.com?

www.kesbath.com/oe

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OE Activity Awards At the beginning of February, KES hosted the 11th annual Youth Climate Summit, an environmental conference organised by KES pupils.

Over 100 pupils from five schools around Bath attended the event, with the aim of looking to a more environmentally sustainable future. The event was kindly sponsored by the Old Edwardians’ Association, allowing pupils to put on a truly inspiring and uplifting day which focussed on potential solutions to the environmental crisis.

The day consisted of interactive workshops and talks by guest speakers on a wide variety of environmental

topics. Pupils heard from Chris Goodall (businessman, author and expert on new technologies), Mark Shorrock (CEO of Tidal Lagoon Swansea) and Juliet Davenport (CEO of Good Energy) on the latest renewable tech, and their thoughts on the future of the energy market. There were workshops from Sian Sutherland, founder of A Plastic Planet, and Daniel Webb, environmental photographer, on the importance of reducing our plastic consumption and the truth behind recycling.

Our principal speaker was the worldrenowned environmentalist, Sir Jonathon Porritt, who gave the day’s keynote talk. He laid out the cold, hard truths of the climate crisis, saying: “The younger generation should feel intense anger towards the older generation due to the latter’s lack of urgency in tackling climate change.” He encouraged pupils to take

hold of their future and start making their voices heard. Pupils also heard from local environmental groups, Greenpeace Bath, Bath and West Community Energy and Extinction Rebellion.

Abbey Vaid, a sixth former from KES, said, “It’s been really exciting to be part of the Youth Climate Summit for the past two years because it’s given me the opportunity to inspire and educate others on issues that I am truly passionate about.”

The day left participants feeling empowered and ready to tackle the environmental crisis, with pupils ending the day by making three environmental pledges to take back to their school communities. Everyone certainly left the event knowing that they had the power to make their voices heard in the climate change debate.

Thomas Wilson Year 13

It’s been really exciting to be part of the Youth Climate Summit for the past two years because it’s given me the opportunity to inspire and educate others on issues that I am truly passionate about.”

KES pupils with Sir Jonathon Porritt

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Our Gender Equality Club, Aloud, were delighted to receive an OE Activity Award last year. We basked in the opportunities that this award opened up for us, and our gratitude is immeasurable.

to Mr Boden for his support on the day, and also to Mr Tidball for guiding us and mentoring Aloud. But last and most definitely not least, an enormous recognition from all of Aloud to Pip and Arden, who founded the Gender Equality Club. We hope we can carry on the wonderful thing that you began.

Thank you.

The award was used to purchase the International Women’s Day Awareness Pack and believe me, it did not go to waste! To celebrate International Women’s Day on 8 March, the School Library was alive with the scrawling of pens as pupils and staff wrote pledges for our pledge wall. People were talking openly about the gender inequalities that KES and the youth of today face and the general buzz of our generation.

We enjoyed the high-profile atmosphere that the contents of the pack helped us to achieve. It was a great success and one that we greatly hope to celebrate next year.

Aloud also delivered an assembly to the Sixth Form to raise awareness of

Hepzibah Bevis Year 9 – a proud Aloud member

International Women’s Day and gender inequalities. It was quite nerve-racking, being in Year 9 (and therefore at least three years younger than the audience) but it seemed to be highly impactful and we managed to start our awareness campaign with a large group of Sixth Form and staff support.

Lastly, I would like to say a huge thank you to the OEs for awarding us the OE Activity Award for 2018-2019,

People were talking openly about the gender inequalities that KES and the youth of today face and the general buzz of our generation.” www.kesbath.com/oe

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Sam Lascelles 1993-2000

Above: 1960s leavers with John Wroughton at the Summer Reunion

Chairman’s letter

Left: Anniversary Reunion for 1989, 1999 and 2009

We would love to see you at one of these events soon, be it in formal attire at the Houses of Parliament or in jeans over a drink in a West Country pub!”

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Welcome to this year’s edition of the OElink!

During the last year we sought your views regarding the future social programme for OEs. As a committee we were particularly keen to know which locations and event formats would be most popular and I am pleased to report that over 200 of you responded to our survey. The result is that the OE Committee are now able to publish a new calendar for 2019-2022 and this is included as a separate insert in the magazine.

Our aim is that, over a two- to threeyear cycle, we will cover a range of events, alternating location and level of formality (and therefore cost). We’ll do a big, smart London Dinner in a prestigious location (look out for the Houses of Parliament next February) every other year, alternated with an informal gathering in a pub or bar. We’ll also have a biennial Old Edwardians’ Sports Dinner at KES (do put 23rd November 2019 in your diary!), again alternating this with an informal gathering in a local venue. All this will take place alongside our established summer programme of the Anniversary Reunion in May (next year this event celebrates the leaving anniversaries of 1980, 1990, 2000 and 2010) and the Summer Reunion in June for OEs who left in the 1940-1970s.

Do please study the new calendar and think about which events you fancy. They really are organised for you and we have tried to

provide ‘something for everyone’ over a multi-year cycle. We would love to see you at one of these events soon, be it in formal attire at the Houses of Parliament or in jeans over a drink in a West Country pub!

The Committee are also keen to make sure that the OE community is visible to current pupils, staff and parents at KES. Our ever-closer ties with the School help us as a committee to keep abreast of school developments and needs. The involvement of OEs with careers advice at the School is a great example of this and my thanks go to all the OEs who got involved over the last year at the Speed Careers event for Year 12, the Higher Education and UCAS Day and the Careers Convention. I would also like to thank all the OEs who are providing financial support to the School’s Bursary Fund and helping the School to enable more children to have access to an education at KES. We have also enjoyed our involvement with the School via the OE Activity Award.

Launched last year, this award provides Senior School pupils with an opportunity to apply for a cash award for their club or society. The two initiatives that the Committee have agreed to fund this year are the new school newspaper, ‘Reviewed’, to help it encourage journalism, and ‘KES Pride’, the School’s LGBT+ Club to help it fund a local event next year. As a committee we recognise that extra-curricular activities at KES provided many of our best school memories and we look forward to seeing the success of these latest initiatives.

The linkage between the School and the Old Edwardians’ Association is in no small part due to the involvement of current staff and my final thanks must go to our staff liaison committee member, Michael Pell, and the Headmaster for their engagement, and to Claire Davies in the Development Office who performs such sterling work behind the scenes to produce this wonderful magazine as well as managing all our events, activities and administration. Thank you.

I always loved school and academia, but I knew I would pursue a creative career.”

Artistic nature Year 13 Art and Photography pupils enjoyed an inspiring morning in February when Miri Stevens 2004-2011 visited the School to share ideas, skills and advice for pursuing a career in the arts.

F

or me, as a pupil at KES, the Art and Photography blocks were where I’d spend most of my time. I always loved school and academia, but I knew I would pursue a creative career.

Mr Pell, Mr Willison, Mrs Blamire and Miss Minty were all so inspirational to me and I always felt at home in that department.

I had practised photography since I was 13 or so, but also loved fine art so doing a Foundation Art and Design course at Oxford Brookes University seemed my best course after KES. I then very quickly realised photography was for me and did a fine-art-focussed Photography degree at Falmouth University. One project, where we had to work in a team of seven to construct, light and photograph a 1950s kitchen set from scratch in three days, made me realise my love for production, visual challenges and teamwork so I had an epiphany and started experimenting with filmmaking and gaining work experience in London on film sets.

I’m now on my way to pursuing a successful and fruitful career in music videos as a director and editor and have built a great network in London.

All the skills and processes I learned at KES during my A Levels, and at Falmouth, feed into my work now, whether it’s writing pitches for film projects using my English skills or compiling visual references. Going back to the Art department in February and smelling the rooms, which haven’t changed, was such a treat for me and a lovely hit of nostalgia! I absolutely loved assuring the pupils that a career in the arts is very possible and it’s an exciting and broad industry where multiple disciplines feed into one another. They have a lot to look forward to!

Miri, who studied Photography at Falmouth University, was recognised by Creative Review who named her as one of 20 outstanding UK art graduates for her photography series Curious Continuous (see #curiouscontinuous on Instagram). This landed her a nationwide billboard exhibition in collaboration with JCDecaux.

For more information see www.miristevens.com

www.kesbath.com/oe

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By Christmas Rang-tan had gone viral with 80 million views worldwide and over a million people signing the Greenpeace campaign petition.”

There’s a

Rang-Tan in My Bedroom

An animation written and art-directed by James Sellick 1994-2005 for Greenpeace last year, to highlight the threat to orangutans from deforestation in Indonesia, has inspired a new wave of eco-warriors and contributed to the world’s largest producer of palm oil committing to eliminate deforestation from its supply chain.

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ue to the huge growth in supermarket products containing palm oil – everything from processed foods through to shampoo – the population of orangutans in Indonesia has more than halved since 1995. James, an advertising creative at London-based agency Mother, felt that hard facts and shocking imagery of deforestation were unlikely to get the message across, so he devised ‘Rang-tan’, an emotive story about a little girl who finds a mischievous orangutan in her bedroom. He explains: “It was a completely new approach for a project like this and Greenpeace were nervous at first. But they wanted palm oil to be as infamous as single-use plastics – so we had to do something different.”

Rang-tan, which has a voice-over by the actress Emma Thompson, was launched

by Greenpeace last autumn. It caught the attention of frozen food retailer Iceland which, having committed to removing palm oil from its own brand products, arranged to screen an adapted version of Rang-tan on TV as part of its Christmas ad campaign. When Clearcast, the clearance body for British TV advertising, blocked the ad for being too political, Iceland decided to release Rang-tan to the public via a YouTube video. The controversy caused by the TV ban hit news headlines in November and led to Rang-tan being promoted on social media by celebrities and debated on television, including on The One Show, Good Morning Britain and This Morning. It even got parodied by comedian Russell Howard on Russell Howard’s Good News. By Christmas Rang-tan had gone viral with 80 million views worldwide and over a million people signing the Greenpeace campaign petition.

James says: “I was gutted when I found out that Rang-tan wasn’t going to be a Christmas TV ad, but the public were quick to get behind her. I was very proud to see some of my heroes sharing and talking about the film: Ricky Gervais, David Walliams and Simon Pegg were particular highlights. Environment Minister Michael Gove was another. The proudest moment though was when I found out that Wilmar, the world’s largest palm oil producer, had tightened monitoring and regulation of its suppliers, citing the story as a contributing factor. It is also amazing to see retailers, such as Ocado, start to make changes too.”

It was a completely new approach for a project like this and Greenpeace were nervous at first.

But they wanted palm oil to be as infamous as singleuse plastics – so we had to do something different.”

The campaign has gone on to receive worldwide recognition from advertising bodies such as Annie, Webby, Creative Circle, Cannes Lions and D&AD. It has also led to James landing a literary contract to write the animation as a children’s picture story. There’s a Rang-Tan in My Bedroom, which includes a foreword

by Emma Thompson, was published by Hachette in August 2019. Greenpeace’s executive director, John Sauven said: “Rang-tan has already made a huge difference to how much people know about the impact palm oil is having on rainforests, wildlife and the climate.

With this beautiful book we hope to inspire thousands more children and their parents to learn about and care for the world’s forests and enable them to take action.”

As well as making a virtual-reality story for Greenpeace and writing more TV ads for his day-to-day clients at Mother, James is working on two new children’s books for Hachette and says:

“I would love to continue using my creative powers for good and hope to keep influencing and changing behaviour with my stories, whatever form they take.”

For more information see: www.jamessellick.com

www.kesbath.com/oe

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Bringing the company back to life has been a huge challenge and one of the achievements I have been most proud of in my career.�

Images clockwise: Clockheads, Coneheads, Andy Burden, Georgians

A natural decision Andy Burden 1977-1985 looks back to the moment he decided to follow a creative path and how this led to a career in theatre and his current role as Director of The Natural Theatre Company.

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D

uring most of my lessons at King Edward’s I would tend to stare out of the window. In breaktimes I would hang around the school hall, thinking of ideas for the Sixth Form review or practising my lines for the school play. I helped set up a school magazine and generally did anything that was creative, and which didn’t involve learning facts or writing essays.

I remember sitting in the middle of an A Level Physics class, being taught how to calculate the surface tension of a bubble…

That was the moment I made the major decision to change from Physics to English A Level so that I could go on to study Drama. I’m now Director of The Natural Theatre Company – the top street theatre company in Europe.

Quite frankly, most teachers probably would have given up on me. But at KES they didn’t. Constant encouragement from John Chambers, Jim Graham-Brown and many others meant that I put in the work needed to get myself onto a Drama degree.

I opted for a unique Performing Arts degree at Middlesex Poly (now Middlesex University) in London. The course covered lots of progressive styles of theatre and included invaluable options to study sound and lighting, arts management and directing. As well as gaining many production skills, I learnt how to be an arts administrator. It was a great degree and one which made me realise that I wanted to be a director rather than an actor.

My career has taken lots of interesting twists and turns. I worked in a record shop (I was basically the guy in High Fidelity), and I toured in bands as well as playing solo. I worked as a drama teacher for a bit, then started working at

Leicester Haymarket before returning to Bath to work at The Theatre Royal as a lighting technician. It was around this time that I first made contact with The Natural Theatre Company, having applied for a job as a tour-technician for one of their shows. I didn’t get it, but the director asked me to audition as a performer instead. I got the job and performed with them on and off for about 15 years.

After co-founding a theatre company called Innerroom, I started making a name for myself as a director. In 2000 I took over The Rondo Theatre in Larkhall, building its reputation as a key venue for fringe theatre, increasing its audiences and improving its resources. This helped me make the contacts I needed to build a career as a freelance director, which saw me direct shows at The Lyric Hammersmith, The Tobacco Factory and other major theatres, as well as an outdoor piece to welcome the Olympic flame in Cornwall.

In 2013 I was going from show to show as a freelance director, and I decided that I would like to return to running an arts organisation. I saw the job at The Naturals advertised and the next stage of my career began. When I took over the company its best days were in the past; income was heavily depleted, and the Arts Council had removed all its funding.

I liken it to turning around a tanker in shallow water: the company was about to stop forever. I rebuilt its business model, streamlined its operational processes and created a strategy to bring in new creative ideas alongside rejuvenating its classic pieces. I have now been the Director for five years and we are thriving. Bringing the company back to life has been a huge challenge and one of the achievements I have been most proud of in my career.

The Natural Theatre Company is now

Quite frankly, most teachers probably would have given up on me. But at KES they didn’t. Constant encouragement from John Chambers, Jim Graham-Brown and many others meant that I put in the work needed to get myself onto a Drama degree."

going from strength to strength: we travel the world, working with the super-rich as well as with impoverished communities.

Our work crosses boundaries and brings people together.

We create wandering comic scenarios at festivals, corporate events and parties.

We provide interactive stories at heritage and tourism sites. We perform immersive shows like our famous Austen Undone on the streets of Bath, or Shakespeare Undone on the SS Great Britain. We engage with communities to help them tell their stories through multi-disciplinary arts projects. We train corporate clients using our techniques to build teams and enable more creative thinking. We work in schools, colleges and universities, sharing our skills and teaching people that theatre doesn’t have to be on a stage.

At KES my reports referenced my habit of staring out of the window and said things like “Andy doesn’t do his best”.

Well, I still stare out of the window, but I can say, hand on heart, that I do better now. In fact, these days I do my best at all times.

www.naturaltheatre.co.uk www.kesbath.com/oe

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Jim Evans 1941-1952 remembers how his zest for travel led to post-graduate study in the USA and being inspired by the Free Speech Movement. He settled in the States, becoming Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Washington, and, in retirement, he and his wife went on to build a successful marina and launch the first non-smoking pub in the Seattle area.

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y recollections of 11 years at KES are fading now, but I do recall three strict years at Belmont under Mr W Lewis, whose teaching methods would be unacceptable by today’s standards.

‘Big School’ in Broad Street was rather salubrious by comparison. I selected the science stream as soon as I could and spent my last three years in the Sixth Form, mostly studying Maths with some Physics and Chemistry thrown in. I still feel fortunate to have studied under Mr L G W Jones and he taught me most of the calculus I subsequently needed.

It was understood in my family that I was to obtain qualifications and join a profession. Since I had dropped Latin, Cambridge was not really an option, so I went to Birmingham University to study Civil Engineering. I spent the first two years mainly enjoying my new-found freedom and barely scraped through the exams at the end of each year.

Then, like good Americans, Judy and I started a business together on Bainbridge Island (a 30-minute ferry ride from Seattle across Puget Sound), where we owned some commercial waterfront.�

I buckled down in my final year, however, and was fortunate to have as my best friend in the department Basil Bradbury who, understanding every subject, tutored me. He must have been from a gifted family as his elder brother, Malcolm (later Sir Malcolm), went on to become the well-known academic, novelist and broadcaster.

I did well enough in finals that our external examiner, a Professor Pugsley from Bristol University, invited me to do post-graduate studies under his guidance at Bristol. Having been abroad for two summers at university, I had been bitten by the travel bug and the thought of spending the next few years just 12 miles away from home was not appealing. I replied saying that I hoped to pursue postgraduate studies in the USA. I have no idea where this idea came from as it had not entered my mind before but, as luck would have it, Professor Pugsley answered saying that he would be visiting the USA and offered to recommend places I could study.

I then went off to do my National Service, which in one respect mirrored my KES experience – six arduous months of basic and officer training followed by a year and a half of relaxation in Germany, supposedly designing airfields for the RAF. Whilst I was there, Professor Pugsley recommended Brown University on Rhode Island and the University of

California at Berkeley. Both institutions subsequently offered me teaching assistantships and, knowing very little about the USA, I chose the one which offered me the most money: Brown.

My two years at Brown were fruitful academically but not socially and I was not very happy there. However, I took a motorcycle trip around the country during my first summer vacation and, on discovering California, decided that was the place for me!

It turned out that the offer from Berkeley still held so, in 1961, after two years back in England, I returned with an immigrant visa for Berkeley. This was a fortunate move for me in several ways, one of which was that my four years there coincided with a student uprising, the Free Speech Movement. This was a consequence of the Civil Rights Movement, a fact seldom mentioned by the mostly negative press coverage it received, but, for me, it was an inspiring time to be there and was formative to my subsequent political beliefs.

I was married by the time I graduated and both my wife, Judy, and I wished to remain on the West Coast, so I accepted a position at the University of Washington in Seattle and stayed there for more than 20 years, retiring as a Professor Emeritus in 1987.

Then, like good Americans, Judy and I started a business together on Bainbridge Island (a 30-minute ferry ride from Seattle across Puget Sound), where we

owned some commercial waterfront.

We first designed and built a 50-slip marina and then decided to provide the boating community with a much-needed waterfront pub. The plan was to convert our home, a dilapidated but listed historic residence, for this purpose. This was one of the earliest homes on Bainbridge, a homestead built in 1880, ancient by local standards since the first European settlers did not arrive in Seattle until 1851.

Obtaining a building permit was difficult and was met with considerable opposition from some local church members who claimed that our plans would blight the neighbourhood and corrupt the local youth. In fact, the opposition was organised by a neighbour who was planning to build luxury condominiums adjacent to us. We finally prevailed and, after five years, Harbour Public House, the first non-smoking pub on the West Coast, opened in 1991.

Judy and I ran the pub for a year, but quickly realised that our entrepreneurial skills did not extend to the hospitality business. Fortunately, our daughter offered to postpone her professional ambitions and manage the business for us.

More fortunately, she and her husband subsequently bought it from us and, on my 65th birthday, we retired to our flat in Seattle.

We had often thought of living in England for an extended time and were given strong incentive to do so by the emergence of right-wing populism and a disastrous occupant of the White House.

We have been in the UK for nearly a year now, and I have especially enjoyed spending time with old friends and revisiting the places of my youth. Based in a flat overlooking the Ocean Village Marina in Southampton, we have found a true home away from home until we return to Seattle and family.

www.kesbath.com/oe

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Finding the way‌ The ancient pilgrims’ way known as the Camino de Santiago, or the Way of St James, has long piqued the interest of current staff Pamela and Alan Bougeard. Here Pamela shares how they followed in the footsteps of pilgrims (and some Old Edwardians too) and walked the best part of 500 miles from France across northern Spain to Santiago de Compostela.

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unning the School’s Spanish Exchange for many years meant Easters in Pamplona, watching groups of backpackers hike across the city centre, following the silver scallop shells that mark the route of the Camino de Santiago. I had also taught the Camino as a topic for the A Level Spanish oral exam and became familiar with its origins and statistics. The topic sparked a keen interest in some of the pupils: one of them, OE Joe O’Hara, completed the walk after his A Levels and came in to talk to the next year’s Year 13 about his experiences. That got us thinking. If he could do it, surely we could!

Although one of the definite pluses of teaching is the long summer holiday, doing the Camino at the height of the summer heat was not that appealing. However, the opportunity to take a sabbatical for most of the Summer Term last year suddenly made the whole venture possible.

We decided we had better prepare, so bought lightweight gear and a good rucksack (but not big enough to carry any extraneous material), read some guidebooks and practised walking! Pilgrim blogs and forums are quite something, full of people ready to offer advice. We worked out that the essentials would be a waterproof poncho (to cover both pilgrim and rucksack), a supply of Compeed blister plasters, foot cream and doublelayer socks.

To prepare, we walked the 100-mile Ridgeway trail at Easter, in pouring rain and mud. It was still fun, and we had the right gear, so we took this as a good sign!

So that was it. We set off on 8th May, staying in Pamplona and then getting the bus to the starting point of St JeanPied-de-Port. We had worked out that limiting ourselves to 20km or 12 miles a day would be sensible. That meant a first stop in France, at the pilgrim hostel in Orisson, with a walk of only 8km instead of doing 25km to the first stop in Spain, Roncesvalles. This turned out to be a good move. Over a communal dinner we all had to stand up and introduce ourselves and say why we were doing the Camino. I was amazed how many different nationalities there were – all continents were covered, and there weren’t many Brits. Surprisingly, South Koreans featured at Orisson and on the Camino later. They

DISTANCE

780km nearly 500 miles

told us they had been inspired by the Martin Sheen film, The Way! Reasons given for embarking on the trip were equally varied: recovering from broken backs, broken relationships, celebrating new relationships and new health, as well as those who were on a religious or spiritual journey. For us, enjoying walking, Spain, and a break from work seemed good enough reasons. Many of those we met that first night we saw again at different stages on the Camino and some arrived in Santiago with us six weeks later.

The walking was great. Life as a pilgrim was simple. Get up, walk, stop for lunch, coffee, drinks and rest, walk some more.

Arrive at your accommodation, wash yourself, wash your clothes, eat and drink some more. Go to bed (early) and get up again (early). Repeat.

With so many people walking the Camino, there is plenty of accommodation. The original plan had been to divide our stays between pilgrim hostels, with their communal dormitories and meals, and small hotels. I must admit the ratio changed as we got nearer to Santiago. The communal living is great – we met some interesting people, shared stories, and enjoyed down-time together.

Hostels are not great places, however. if you actually want to get some sleep.

Typically, people start arriving in the dormitories mid-afternoon. They settle in, bag all the best bunks, and lie down to rest – signalling that you need to be quiet.

Then it’s lights out by 10pm. This doesn’t mean you can sleep, though. People flipflop their way to the bathrooms, read with a head torch, or SNORE. Loudly.

Snoring is THE WORST THING about Camino, no question! Then, from about 5am the rustling starts. Some people seem to have packed their every item in separate, especially-rustly plastic bags, just for the fun of it. Then they like to pack them and repack them several times before they tip-toe out of the dormitory.

By 6am you have to admit defeat, and just get up and start your day.

In the end we didn’t need the Compeed.

Five hundred miles in six weeks was very

NUMBER OF PILGRIMS ANNUALLY

327,000+ reached Santiago in 2018

ORIGINS Ninth century with the discovery of the apostle St James’s tomb

do-able. We had thought we might have days off but, apart from a short break in Santiago, we didn’t. After all, what would we do? Walk around the town? We could hardly just sit, and if we were going to walk, we might as well go west.

So, having admired the beautiful spring scenery of the French Pyrenees, Navarra, La Rioja, Castilla y León, and Galicia, we finally made it to Santiago. The pilgrim mass in Santiago Cathedral, with its famous swinging Botafumeiro (incense burner), was quite an event. Walking on from there to Finisterre, literally the end of the world, we made a fitting end to our trip. More than a thousand people arrived in Santiago on the day we did, so we hadn’t achieved anything that special. But it felt special and it had most definitely been worth it.

The Bougeards also raised over £1,700 for Macmillan Cancer Support, the School’s chosen charity last year.” www.kesbath.com/oe

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For all the latest news on this year’s exam results, please visit:

Martin Boden

www.kesbath.com/ media/filter/news

To say that this has been another busy 12 months in the life of King Edward’s feels like an understatement. We have certainly packed a lot into our 467th year, both in and out of the classroom, and there have been, as ever, some memorable highlights.

Official opening of The Rose Left to right: The High Sheriff of Somerset, Mr Denis Burn; The Lord-Lieutenant of Somerset, Mrs Annie Maw; The Headmaster; Mr Tom Morris OBE, Artistic Director of the Bristol Old Vic; The Right Worshipful The Mayor of Bath, Councillor Patrick Anketell-Jones; The Mayoress, Mrs Deirdre Anketell-Jones.

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W

e were particularly pleased to be named ‘Performing Arts School of the Year’ by the Independent School Parent magazine, a recognition of the incredibly vibrant and ambitious programme here at school that sees many hundreds of pupils involved in high-quality music and drama, not to mention art, photography and creative writing. The award was particularly well timed, coming just before the opening of our new Drama Centre, The Rose, which has already proven to be a fantastic addition to our facilities and an inspiring environment for staff, pupils and parents alike.

We have certainly not wasted any time in making use of the further opportunities created by the relocation of Drama, with a superb two-storey extension to the Holbeche Centre rising from the footprint of the old studio and already nearing completion. As well as providing additional social and study space as part of a completely refurbished Sixth Form Centre, there will be a new teaching block, with seven classrooms and office/ meeting spaces for Modern Languages, a subject area whose growing popularity at KES stands in welcome contrast to current national trends. We hope to put the final pieces of this exciting jigsaw in place next year, when the suite of rooms in B-Block vacated by the Modern Languages department will be converted into much-needed additional

Left: The Sixth Form Centre Left below: Bronze Duke of Edinburgh Below: The KES ‘Fractal’ team: Land Rover 4x4 in Schools Technology Challenge

As ever, KES pupils have also been heavily involved in many academic and wider enrichment events and competitions, such as jointly winning the national Land Rover 4x4 in Schools Technology Challenge.

The team will go on to represent the UK at the world finals next year!”

Science labs and prep rooms. As I said, these are busy times!

The pupils have certainly been active, with record numbers participating in school sport, the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, Ten Tors, CCF and much more.

They have also again been very successful, with the A teams in our major sports regularly winning two thirds or more of their fixtures, our U19 netballers crowned county champions for the fourth year in a row and two pupils even progressing this year from KES to professional sporting careers, having signed contracts with Bath Rugby and Somerset County Cricket Club respectively.

As ever, KES pupils have also been heavily involved in many academic and wider enrichment events and competitions, with highlights including organising the BANES Youth Climate

Conference, being judged ‘Best Delegation’ at the Bath Model United Nations Conference and jointly winning the national Land Rover 4x4 in Schools Technology Challenge; they will go on to represent the UK at the world finals next year!

Amongst the more than 100 clubs and societies that help to create such an infectious buzz to the co-curricular life of King Edward’s, the recipients of the second OE Activity Award were the School’s LGBT+ Club, ‘KES Pride’ and ‘Reviewed’, the new school newspaper set up this year. As with last year’s inaugural award, the money provided will help to widen the opportunities available to the pupils and enrich the offering by adding new elements to the programme and bringing in guest speakers. In this area, as in so many others, I am very grateful

indeed for the support that the OEs give to the School to enable current and future generations of KES pupils to benefit from the impressively rich, varied and stimulating education that we are able to provide; thank you!

On a final note, it was a great pleasure, as always, to welcome so many of you back to North Road this year for our annual reunion lunches. It was lovely to see both familiar and new faces, although on a personal level I was faced with the disquieting realisation when meeting the cohorts of 1989, 1999 and 2009 that, for the first time in my 11 years of OE gatherings at School, I was in fact older than all the alumni standing before me!

Fortunately, I have recovered from the shock and am already looking forward to the exciting programme of OE events on offer in the coming year. In the meantime, many thanks again for your continued interest and involvement in the life of the School and best wishes to you and your families, wherever you are in the world.

www.kesbath.com/oe

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Breaking the news Journalist and TV producer Alice Udale-Smith 2000-2010 reflects on her route into journalism and what it’s like to work for a 24-hour news channel.

The buzz you get from getting something on air before anybody else knows about it never goes away.”

W

hen I joined Sky News in September 2015 the world seemed relatively straightforward. David Cameron had finally won a majority for the Conservative Party. Barack Obama was coming to the end of his term in office, with Hilary Clinton looking a strong favourite to succeed him. The Scottish independence referendum had failed and Europe seemed no more unstable than usual. There was a sense that we knew what the next few years would bring.

Perhaps that was why I didn’t take my manager seriously when, a year later, he gloomily predicted we could soon see the UK vote to leave the EU, Donald Trump in the White House and Boris Johnson in Downing Street. But fast-forward three years and two have already happened, and as I write, you’d get pretty good odds

on the third. If I’ve learned one thing in my career so far, it’s that you can never know for sure what will happen next and anybody who says otherwise is lying.

Working for a 24-hour news channel over the last few years has been fascinating. I’ll never forget standing in the newsroom after a long overnight shift to watch David Cameron resign the morning after the EU referendum.

Nor the moment around 2am when the newsroom collectively realised that Donald Trump was probably going to win the US Presidency. The buzz you get from getting something on air before anybody else knows about it never goes away.

It’s perhaps unsurprising, given my general nosiness, that I became a journalist. But when I left KES in 2010 it wasn’t an obvious career path. I initially went to Cambridge to study Physical Natural Sciences, before specialising in the History and Philosophy of Science in my third and fourth years (turns out Physics is hard).

It was while I was at university that I first became involved in journalism, volunteering to be the science editor of the student newspaper Varsity during my second year. Over the next two years I did most jobs at the paper, including a term as Editor in my final year. After that it was off to London for a Masters in Broadcast Journalism at City University

Left: Covering the 75th anniversary of D-Day

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Left: Acting as a sunshield for our presenter at the 75th anniversary of D-Day Below: The view from my seat in the Sky News gallery

and, several internships later, I joined Sky News as an output producer.

I’ve since had many different roles at Sky. I have written articles for our website and apps, edited videos for social media, produced our daily Snapchat discovery edition and worked as a TV producer on our breakfast and daytime shows.

I’ve also been sent to cover the news on location around the UK. My first experience of this came in March 2018 when I was being deployed to York with an hour’s notice, to stand in the freezing wind and snow for seven hours. Luckily since then I’ve managed to avoid any more snow stories. Instead I’ve travelled to glamorous locations such as Margate for World Oceans Day, Gatwick in search of a rogue drone and a gloomy makeshift studio in Westminster.

Most recently, I was fortunate enough to be sent to Portsmouth to cover the celebrations to mark the 75th anniversary of D-Day, a highly impressive and genuinely moving occasion with more world leaders and royalty in one place than I am likely to ever see again.

While my Masters provided my formal journalism training, many of the skills I use every day were unconsciously being developed during my time at KES. My hours spent in the Drama and Music departments taught me how to write

It was while I was at university that I first became involved in journalism, volunteering to be the science editor of the student newspaper Varsity during my second year.

and perform, both vital for the time I now spend crafting scripts for presenters to read on air. Helping stage manage school plays and music concerts also provided me with a technical awareness of sound, lighting and gallery operations, all of which I now use when producing live TV from the Sky News gallery.

My background in Science and Maths has also been a huge asset. The last few years have not been short of elections, and newsrooms sometimes have a lack of staff used to coping with large amount of data. As a result I have been fortunate enough to work on most of Sky’s recent special election programmes, whether that’s a by-election in Peterborough or the US midterms – as well as, of course, on the EU referendum. It never ceases to amaze me how useful even a basic ability to calculate statistics and program an

Excel spreadsheet can be, to say nothing of the analytical skills that studying Physics taught me.

Perhaps most importantly, my time at KES taught me to be curious about the world around me and how to stand up for myself and my opinions, whether in the classroom or out of it. After all, if you can write a History essay on the American War of Independence without remembering a single date and persuade your Head of Year that skipping Games to work on your Drama project was a good idea, you can probably cope with working in a newsroom.

While my Masters provided my formal journalism training, many of the skills I use every day were unconsciously being developed during my time at KES.” www.kesbath.com/oe

19

My captor is gathering strength like a hurricane muscling up in the mid-Atlantic, its advance gusts clearing any sign of resistance until it’s ready for the final full-force assault on my constitution.”

A Solitary Confinement One-time OEs Chairman Robin Sheppard 1964-1973 is well-known in the hospitality industry for co-founding Bespoke Hotels, which has grown to become the UK’s largest independent hotel group, and locally for his highly successful tenure as Manager of the Bath Spa Hotel. He has won numerous awards in his 40+-year career, but he counts his greatest achievement as fighting back from Guillain-Barré syndrome.

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In this extract from his book A Solitary Confinement he describes how he was first struck down with the debilitating autoimmune disorder in December 2004. Finding himself paralysed from the neck down and trapped in his own body, he regained mobility after almost two years of relentless physiotherapy.

Pins and needles have begun to affect my senses, I’m losing feeling in my stomach and my arms and legs are heavy. I have a dry cough and am seriously tired. The flu must be coming. The day blurs as I notice a remarkably rapid reduction in my powers of alliteration and motor function. I am driving to Bath where I will be staying with my father.

When I arrive, I struggle out of the car. I’m sweating, and my walking is uneven.

My breathing is becoming irregular, I feel intermittently faint and then quite lucid. By mid-afternoon I can no longer walk. Somehow, I get out of bed, grimly determined to get to the loo. I fall across the dressing table, steady myself and head for the door. I get as far as the landing, little realising these are to be my last steps for a very long time. Rather like Muttley from the classic Wacky Races cartoons, I have run over the edge of the cliff and, although my legs still spin round, there’s no longer any ground below me. At this highest point of suspended animation all is still and serene. “Shep,” I think to myself, “you’re in big trouble.”

I crash to the ground face upwards and there I stay … and stay. And I’m still desperate to pee. Help is needed. Stark naked, save for a nearby Nokia 3210 to spare my blushes, I try to send an SOS. The first flurry of texts emanates from my fingertips before they give up the struggle, forcing my knuckles to take over. I’m at a loss, not knowing how to describe my malaise without spreading untold panic. I can’t speak to anyone because I can’t lift the phone towards my mouth. Gravity is in overdrive. Indeed, I’m only managing to expedite the texts by resting the phone on my hip and tipping my head to one side to see what I’m doing.

It’s a truly dreadful and terrifying passage of time. I despatch a clarion cry for assistance but it’s overtaken by the predictive text machinery. The simple expression “Help I am in trouble can’t move” turns into a very illuminating “Gely h an go trotter abou note”. Little wonder people ignore me.

Remembering my father’s deafness, I cry out at the top of my voice. Dad, bless him, is downstairs watching Countdown and busy choosing between his vowels and his consonants with the television on full volume. Carol Vorderman stands between me and salvation. Will I ever forgive her for this trespass, or that rubber dress?

I try to move. Nothing happens. I’m completely and utterly immobile. After what seems like eternity there’s a knock at the front door. Fortunately avuncular Albert, our Irish neighbour, has come round to drop off some sausages, as you do. Albert hears my cries straight away and, as he climbs the stairs, comforts me.

“Jesus, look at the state of you! Have you been on the falling down juice?” I apologise for my nakedness while ever-genial Albert takes control and calls for an ambulance. Somehow

he gets me into a pair of bright lemon pyjamas, puts a £10 note and mobile phone into my breast pocket and exclaims: “That’ll see you right!”

I’m about to be trussed up like a turkey in the Accident and Emergency unit of Bath’s Royal United Hospital. How can the shortest day of the year feel so long? So determined am I to hold onto my breathing, I can’t rest, petrified that if I fall asleep I’ll never wake. My voice is rapidly weakening as the balance between talking and inhaling air grows more tenuous.

There’s so much I want to say, endless questions formulating but which will be left unasked. Each word and sentence seems to reduce my lung capacity.

My captor is gathering strength like a hurricane muscling up in the mid-Atlantic, its advance gusts clearing any sign of resistance until it’s ready for the final full-force assault on my constitution. The senior consultant, who patrols the Accident and Emergency department like an officious sergeant major, doesn’t tell me what he thinks my illness might be. He merely explains that my breathing will probably give out soon and I shouldn’t be surprised or alarmed. Easier said than done. I’m quite attached to my breathing and have no intention of letting go of this much-practised skill.

Breathing is getting shallower and more difficult by the hour, then by the minute. Here comes that moment when you’re supposed to see all of your past life before you. Yes, here it comes ... can’t breathe, can’t speak ... pressure on my lungs, Jesus, Mary ... no air, I’m drowning here. Help me, sweet Joseph, can you answer this prayer? I’m gulping, gasping ... distended lips mouthing like a freshly caught trout, eyes rolling in their sockets. I can’t breathe, I can’t breeeee ... falling, falling, falling … all … the way … down.

It’s Christmas Eve. Staff are running toward me in slow motion, the lights going on and off, there is an overwhelming white noise. Finally my breathing collapses as though I’m just dropping off to sleep and a sudden sense of falling takes me away. I want to shout: “Don’t fret, it’s only a myoclonic jerk … happens all the time.” But all is rushing. Trees ripped out of the sodden earth are flying past my window, branches flaying.

I’m leaving … cheerio … ta-ta … goodnight. I pass out.

A Solitary Confinement is available through Amazon.

All proceeds from the book are given to GAIN, the UK charity offering support to sufferers of GullainBarré, of which Robin is a trustee.

www.kesbath.com/oe

21

Worse than a war zone Nick Martin 1981-1992 followed a medical career after leaving KES and never intended to become a whistle-blower. He explains why he felt compelled to speak out about the Australian refugee policy affecting the treatment of refugees and asylum seekers detained on the remote Pacific island of Nauru.

I

left KES in 1992 and went straight to St George’s Hospital Medical School. Halfway through my studies I joined the Royal Navy as I wanted to see a bit more of the world and thought that would be a good way to do it. Somebody in the Navy recruiting office had a better sense of humour than me, and I spent my first few years after graduating stuck on HMS Vanguard, one of our nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines, as her Medical Officer.

11th September, 2001 happened when I was at sea on deterrent patrol, and it

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certainly changed my career. Apart from taking minehunters to the Gulf, I ended up in the middle of Afghanistan some years later as a doctor working alongside the Royal Marines, an experience that will stay with me forever.

I left the Royal Navy in 2012 and made my way to Australia to be a GP there.

After a few years I got itchy feet and needed a new challenge, so applied for a job on Nauru, a tiny island in the Pacific, where Australia has been detaining asylum seekers and refugees who try to reach Australia by boat. It’s odd for a nation

built on boat people and immigration to have such a hang-up about boat arrivals, but it seems to be the case. I hoped that by going there I could see what the situation was really like, as the reports I had read were very partisan and biased.

Forgetting the politics, the way that Australia treats those who arrive seeking asylum is controversial. It has been roundly condemned on the international stage and is a divisive topic domestically.

I quickly formed the view that what was happening on Nauru was unacceptable and tried to effect changes from inside the

An extract from The Nauru Diaries,

by Nick Martin

The people I saw on Nauru, and the state they were in after being locked up there for three or four years, to me was in a way more traumatic than anything I’d seen in Afghanistan.”

system. When this tactic lost me my job, I decided to speak out about what I had seen, to try to help raise awareness back in Australia.

Since giving some interviews, and then concentrating on writing affidavits for refugees requiring court orders to receive the medical care they need, I have seen that off-shore detention has never been far from the headlines in Australia. Many other doctors started a grassroots campaign to get the hundreds of children detained offshore to safety, and I am proud to have played a part in this movement. I got to fly to the UK to receive an award for whistle-blowing in January 2019, which was incredibly humbling and a huge honour. The pressure to close down the camps and have a mature debate about how Australia treats those who come seeking safety remains a difficult but vital issue for Australians and has wider implications on a global scale. This is a worldwide problem.

It doesn’t take long to break a man. You can do it in a second, in one punch, one judgment handed down, one small gesture. I’ve seen it happen: a sudden crumpling of the features, a devastating blow.

I’ve remembered those occasions, viewed them as significant; to watch someone once full of life die, to be replaced by a shattered husk, is humbling.

To watch someone break over a period of months was a different thing altogether. To see eyes go from shining to dull, to watch shoulders slowly droop and hang, as if the arms themselves were too heavy. To hear the tone of bored resignation slowly take over a voice, dulling it until only a monosyllabic version of the previous incantation remained; for a man to become a hopeless case, no longer even angry enough to fight against the injustice of it all, was something I’d never seen.

That’s what I saw as a doctor on Nauru working for International Health and Medical Services (IHMS).

Weariness became king in the camps, watched over by an indifferent crowd of faintly menacing guards, attended by various helpers from myriad agencies, all with the same basic goal: to stop people from killing themselves, and to stop bad news leaving the island. Weariness, helped by a stifling heat, by a hundred petty rules and regulations, by the interminable indignities of closely managed living. No money, queues, carefully timetabled buses that never ran on time, appointments cancelled arbitrarily, interpreters unavailable, petty bickering between people forced to sleep next to each other for years on end in tents or leaking portacabins.

There were times when I would get uptight in meetings, raise my voice in indignation, rail

against the idiocy or downright incompetence of the system that kept these people stuck here and denied them the care they needed. The sheer pigheadedness of some of the decisions, and indeed of the people tasked with parroting them, caused my pulse to accelerate, my anger to rise. I used to feel that maybe people would see that we were all complicit; that it wasn’t good enough to sit idly by and watch these processes slowly destroy any hope that our patients had. I used to feel that perhaps my anger would help fire up others too, might start a shift in attitudes so that I no longer felt like the sole troublemaker.

Weariness became king in the camps, watched over by an indifferent crowd of faintly menacing guards, attended by various helpers from myriad agencies, all with the same basic goal: to stop people from killing themselves.

After about four months it suddenly dawned on me: learned helplessness didn’t apply only to the patients. It affected the staff too. You could see it on the faces of those who didn’t look indignant when their failure to speak up or to comment on another poor decision, their complicity in propping up this inhumane system, was pointed out. They had ceased to care, reduced to automata, ticking boxes furiously to satisfy an administrator in Sydney or Canberra and ignoring the simple fact that, while people were dying in front of us, we failed to express anything beyond what you might give to a nature documentary when a not particularly cute animal died peacefully.

To continue reading, see: www.meanjin.com/au/essays/the-nauru-diaries/

www.kesbath.com/oe

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Anna Uncensored

A Story of Love, not War The adventurous life of Lt George Annaheim (‘Anna’) 1901-1908, who fought during WW1, has recently been documented in a memoir written by his grandson, Roger Wilson. The memoir, which captures Anna’s often conflicting yet passionate feelings about love and war, was made possible by Roger’s discovery of an ammo box that had been sent to Anna’s family after he fell in October 1918. The box had remained airtight for 80 years in the family cellar in Bath and contained over 700 personal letters, as well as military orders, plans, aerial photos and battlefield artefacts.

EGYPTIAN ESCAPADES As well as being good at sports at KES, ‘Anna’ was in the Cadet Corps and OTC. He later joined the Royal Gloucester Hussars, a local territorial cavalry troop. As a bank clerk in Manchester, he joined another cavalry unit, the Duke of Lancaster’s Own Yeomanry, as a private or ‘trooper’. He volunteered for overseas service the day war was declared in August 1914. His first trip overseas was to Egypt in a vast convoy. In February 1915, the Ottoman troops, led by German officers, attack the Suez Canal and Anna, now a lance corporal, takes part in a cavalry charge against the Turks.

He writes in his diary: “This FEELS like war. It’s hot; very hot, and the sky is murky with the swirling sand, but we start to see enemy ahead.

The odd bullet whizzes overhead, but there’s nothing I can aim at. The Turks are

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running back eastwards into the desert.

Now, we have stragglers to be rounded up. They throw away their rifles and surrender straight away as we circle with swords drawn. The Squadron collects about 40 Turkish soldiers and we start to escort them the three miles back to the Canal bank at a walk. Pity we couldn’t catch a German officer. Pity we didn’t get to cross swords with a real fighting force.

But going to war riding my beloved Jack gives me confidence that this is just the start of a life of adventure.”

THE WESTERN FRONT 1916-1918 In Egypt, Anna enters officer school and is commissioned as a 2nd lieutenant. He is ordered to report to the 1st Battalion Royal Munster Fusiliers (one of the oldest regiments in the British Army), depleted at Gallipoli and now due to sail for France.

His role is Transport Officer, and for

KES connection: Anna’s older brother, Edward, also attended KES and served in the Royal Navy during WW1 as Paymaster Commander of HMS Suffolk. Their father, James Annaheim, taught Modern Languages at the School.

I lost two men with banged up eyes – they have been evacuated to the special gas station near Calais. The remainder of us who went up have all got bloodshot eyes! It looks as if we’ve been having a night out!!”

ADVENTURES IN RETREAT three years on the Western Front Anna becomes involved in all the well-known battles on that Front including Somme, Passchendaele and Cambrai, right through to the Advance to Victory. He writes daily to his new fiancée, and later wife, Dorice Hookway in Bath, about his experiences: “Here in France, I am seeing a different face to war; experiencing all the latest advances in industrialised warfare, which is hurled across the Line by each side. And from the air as well! I am seeing beautiful countryside ravaged by all the mechanisms of hate, and, I feel, I am personally being singled out by a series of Boschemen with their shells, bullets and bombs at all times of the day and night!

Pals and men are falling around me, as well as horses and mules killed and injured beyond saving. And then there is the stench. It’s indescribable, pungent and putrid – horrible. Yet the job itself is one I love. The duties of Transport Officer give me freedom like no other role. I don’t have a Company Commander to report to; just the Colonel. I am working well with Baxter, the old QM, and I still have my 60 horses and mules, thank goodness. My 50 Irishmen are proving a tough bunch; hard working when sober, but difficult when drunk. Yet we do have a good understanding and mutual

respect; so discipline is rather good.

But I haven’t told them I was a ranker, like them, only six months ago!”

A WHIFF OF GAS Anna suffered the effects of many gas attacks, starting from his arrival in France in 1916 through to his end. He wrote about them to Dorice as if it was just a normal part of the war experience and often wrote with some humour: “I can’t help remembering the old Chemistry lessons at school; when old Watkins(?), the decrepit Science prof at K. Eddie’s, made chlorine gas by pouring acid over some purple crystals inside a kind of double-bubble glass apparatus. It stank then, and stinks now!

All the gongs in the district sounded again yesterday and we all rushed about trying to find our gas helmets. The majority of the men were sozzled when the fall-in sounded. One of the funniest things I’ve seen – these Irish fellows trying to put on their gas helmets after a serious ‘rum issue’. Mad as hatters, but fierce fellows my Irish Lads!!

But really nasty stuff is this new devilish Bosche mixture of chemistry. They say it is chlorine and phosgene together in one shell. Last night I had to bring the rations up through a gas barrage. Unfortunately,

In March 1918, the old Somme battlefield, won at such cost, is now thinly defended by the British Army including the 16th Irish Division. The fiercest of battles begins on 21st March with the Allies conducting a gruelling fighting retreat lasting two long weeks. Anna manages to get a few field postcards away and a long letter home when the German attack is finally held up outside Amiens, 40 miles back from the starting salient: “I will tell you that the last few weeks have been especially difficult and tremendously horrific. I’m afraid the brave fighting Munsters have been hit mighty hard. The Battalion is now down to five officers and just over 200 men, while the 2nd Battalion is reduced to just three officers and have lost nearly all their men in the fighting retreat.

I have used every ounce of stamina and tenacity to get through with my men and animals, only to find out that so many of my pals have fallen. I cannot begin to count them as it would hurt so much.”

Anna Uncensored is available to OEs from Roger Wilson at the special price of £10.

Please contact: rogerwilsonb@gmail.com

www.kesbath.com/oe

25

Setting a new Pace…

Ian Sansbury 1977-1987 introduces the ground-breaking charity, Pace, which is working to transform the lives of children and young people with cerebral palsy.

Pace is right at the forefront of work with children and young people with CP and we have a growing national and international profile.

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I

never particularly expected to end up working for a charity, and certainly never expected to end up leading one. Come to that, I’m not entirely sure where I expected to end up on leaving KES in 1987. I didn’t have much of a plan, and I don’t think I would surprise any of my former teachers or schoolfriends if I described my early adult life as a case of loosely informed opportunism.

My plans to study History were foiled by an inconveniently poor A Level, leading Maisie instead to a degree in Management from Lancaster University. My plans of being a Brand Manager were foiled by the recession of the early 1990s and I drifted into accounting and banking, and then (largely as a result of good timing and fast talking) into Goldman Sachs. I was really fortunate at Goldman to land a move to New York – and be given a couple of relatively high-profile roles, right at the peak of the industry’s – and Goldman’s – fortunes.

However, although exciting and engaging, working for an investment bank never seemed quite right, or particularly fulfilling. 2010 saw me leave financial services, firstly to the unfinished

If you’re still reading, I very much hope you might now be wondering: “How can I help?”

There are a couple of obvious things: If you have friends with a child with a diagnosis of CP or who is simply beginning to miss their developmental milestones, do please encourage them to contact Pace. We can conduct an assessment, provide advice or simply signpost to one of the handful of other specialist centres that might be more local. business of that History degree (which I had been fiddling about with part-time for the previous seven years) and then to transition into the charity sector, with an organisation called Pace.

Pace is a ground-breaking charity that works with children and young people with cerebral palsy (CP) and their families.

CP is the most common form of physical disability in childhood and affects around one in 400 births in the UK. It is caused by damage to the infant brain while the baby is still growing in the womb, during birth or shortly after, and affects the individual’s ability to move, communicate and make sense of the world around them. It is genuinely life-changing, for both the child and the family.

Pace is right at the forefront of work with children and young people with CP and we have a growing national and international profile. We have a primary and secondary school that delivers a specialist curriculum that fully integrates academic learning with therapeutic input. In fact, our school programme is so specialist that we recently had an international placement from a family that chose Pace over any other school in the world. But perhaps most impactfully, we deliver early intervention to babies and toddlers, when the plasticity of the infant brain (its ability to develop and adapt) is at its highest.

Early and intensive intervention is critical for babies and toddlers with CP and we deliver transformational outcomes for the children we work with. Maisie (pictured above) came to us recently, aged six weeks, after a very traumatic birth which had caused oxygen deprivation and a significant brain injury. Maisie was exhibiting all the classic early indicators of CP, which would, if untreated, inhibit her ability to develop and learn. She attended weekly sessions with our early

Early and intensive intervention is critical for babies and toddlers with CP and we deliver transformational outcomes for the children we work with.”

intervention team, including input from an occupational therapist, physio and speech and language therapist. Training support was provided to Maisie’s parents so that they could support her development at home. Eighteen months after her initial referral, Maisie was discharged from Pace because she was achieving all her typical milestones. The cost of Pace’s intervention over those eighteen months was less than £10,000 but the savings to the taxpayer over Maisie’s lifetime will run into at least six and very probably seven figures.

While progress like Maisie’s does not occur in every child we work with, each baby and toddler accessing our service achieves progress in movement, communication and sensory processing that would otherwise not have been achieved. However, although we are working hard to establish public funding for our early intervention service, the reality is that this work is currently funded by Pace and by parents themselves.

As a charity, we need to raise around £1m every single year to keep doing what we do.

Support us financially if you can. I’m going to be walking the West Highland Way in five very long days in September to raise money for our early intervention work. It would be fantastic if you could support an ageing fellow Old Edwardian in that effort – you can find my JustGiving page at https://www.justgiving. com/fundraising/whw2019.

Your support could make a huge difference to some fantastic children and families.

And, of course, you might think of any number of other ways in which you can support our work, in which case, do please get in touch with me at ian.sansbury@ thepacecentre.org. I’d love to hear from you!

www.thepacecentre.org

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To contribute news for the next issue, please contact the Development Office: development@kesbath.com

BRIAN REGAN 1953 Recalls a memory from his schooldays during WW2: As we waited in the playground for lessons to start, we were startled by the sound of low-flying aircraft in a hurry. From behind us, coming down from Lansdown at high speed, was a German plane closely followed by a Spitfire.

We watched as they disappeared down towards the city and then climbed up over Sham Castle and away into the distance.”

CALLING THE CLASS OF 1970 Believe it or not, it will be 50 years in 2020 since the class of 1970 walked through the gates of KES for the last time.

50 YEARS

The Summer Reunion at KES on 6 June 2020 is a golden opportunity to revisit North Road, meet up with old school friends, renew acquaintances and find out what has happened over the last 50 years, as well as have a guided tour of the School to discover the huge strides it has made in recent years – you may not recognise the place!

Please pass this message on to any OEs from 1970 and former staff from this era you are in contact with.

Register your interest in attending at development@kesbath.com

CHRIS RAPLEY 1966 Professor Chris Rapley provided scientific advice to the production team on the major BBC programme Climate Change – The Facts, which screened on BBC1 in April.

PHILIP WARREN 1975 Has retired after 40 years working in the law. He has already discovered so many enjoyable retirement activities that he is mystified how he ever managed to fit in work!

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1978 REUNION “Thanks to the efforts of Phil Cole and Peter Foster, a group of us from 1978 got together at the Crystal Palace, Bath in June. As we last parted company many, many years before the advent of the internet, this was the first time most of us had seen each other or had any form of communication since the 1970s. Everybody was genuinely happy to be there and to have a chance to catch up. We’ve all matured, but still retained our essential characters and general appearance!”

Kieran Aust

Left to Right: Patrick Ingram, Peter Foster, Iain McKim, Kieran Aust, J C Smith, Graham Stokes, Jonathan Glanz, Mike Godfrey, Phil Cole, Gareth Mills, Mike Robinson, Mark Perrett, John (Benny) Richards

GEORGE WILLIS 1986

ADAM POWELL 1993

Set up (in 2012) the halow250, a three-day event which sees participants cycling from London to Guildford via France to raise funds for the halow project, which supports young people with learning disabilities.

He was joined this year by Justin Birch, Jon Brooks, Mark Pestridge, Nigel Adams and Andrew Georgel.

Living in Australia, he reports that he is still playing tennis, having captained the KES tennis team whilst at school and played in the 1st team since Year 3!

PAT DOUGLAS 1988 In a career that has spanned service aboard Her Majesty’s Yacht Brittania, three Royal Navy command appointments and operational tours including the invasion of Iraq in 2003, Captain Douglas RN has spent much of his career deployed at sea as a Welfare Officer and maritime helicopter pilot. Subsequent assignments have seen him in Whitehall staff roles in both the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

1989 ANNIVERSARY REUNION AT KES OEs from 1989 enjoyed meeting up at the Anniversary Reunion held in May.

Pat now works closer to home, at the Defence College at Shrivenham near Swindon. Here he oversees the education and training of officers from the UK Armed Forces and 58 other nations from around the globe. After over 31 years of service, Pat will retire from the Royal Navy at the end of 2019. He is looking forward to spending significantly more time with his wife Katherine and daughter Emily, who is a pupil at KES.

CERI FIDDES 1997 Dr Ceri Fiddes, who is Assistant Head (Teaching and Learning) at Millfield School, has been appointed Director of the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) 2019. She has been involved with the UK Mathematics Trust for 18 years, having previously held roles including Deputy Leader of the UK IMO team and Director of the inaugural European Girls’ Mathematical Olympiad.

GEORGE PELL 2002 Was married to Malin at a civil ceremony held at Lambeth Town Hall on 11 May and guests included OEs Tom Isherwood and Michael Darcy. They later travelled to Malin’s native Sweden where, on 15 June, they exchanged vows on Rävsten, an island on the Roslagen archipelago, in the company of family and friends, including OEs.

Really good day – amazed that the whole school was open for us to explore. It brought back some wonderful memories.”

Warren Elliott

Photo: Claire Newman-Williams

JON MONIE 1990 Won the Best Script Award for his new script for Beauty and the Beast at the 2019 Great British Pantomime Awards held at the New Wimbledon Theatre in April. Premiered at Blackpool Grand Theatre in 2018, the script will be making its debut at Bath Theatre Royal for the forthcoming panto season this December, and Jon will star in the pantomime as Louis La Plonk. Jon also entered the record books earlier this year when he made his thousandth Bath pantomime performance during the run of Peter Pan.

Back row left to right: Richard Morris, Mark Weeks, James Cooper Front row left to right: Jamie Whitcroft, Malin, George, Angus Morison and Bertie Clayton

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MERLIN HETHERINGTON 2013 Photo: Mostafa Ahmed Photography

A graduate of St Andrews University, he teamed up with current student Alex McMaster to undertake an epic 10,000km bike ride from Cairo to Cape Town over eight months. Along the way, they distributed 2,000 free sightsaving Arclights to rural African communities and provided training to medical staff. The Arclight is an innovative new medical device pioneered by St Andrews University to diagnose eye disease.

KESIA LUPO (NÉE SAUNDERS) 2007 Her debut young adult novel We are Blood and Thunder was published by Bloomsbury in April.

ALAN BOWMAN 2010 Gave a recital at the Bath Music Festival’s opening night, Party in the City. Playing to a full house at No. 1 Royal Crescent, he performed pieces of his own composition for solo double bass. Drawing on styles including ceilidh music and jazz, Alan demonstrated the sonorous voice and versatility of this oftenoverlooked instrument. He said: “This was my first time at the Bath Music Festival. I loved the experience and hope to be back next year.”

BEN HARRIS 2015 Took part in the latest season of University Challenge, along with fellow students representing Emmanuel College, Cambridge. The team made it to the quarter-finals before being knocked out in March by the Darwin team. Ben said: “It was really fun being on the show. When you’re in the studio, you forget about the cameras because you’re so focussed on listening to the questions, but watching yourself back on TV is a strange experience, especially seeing as by that point I’d forgotten what all the questions were!”

LUCY THOMAS 2018 Received an Excellence Award this summer from the Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) in recognition of her having achieved among the highest marks nationally in the 2018 Geography A Level examinations. Whilst at KES, Lucy was also a talented actor, taking a lead role in Pop! The Musical and playing Gretel in the School’s production of Hansel and Gretel at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival. After sitting her A Levels, Lucy returned to the School in a gap year role as the Drama department intern.

Alan is currently studying for a PhD in solar panel technology at the University of Cambridge.

TEAM SPIRIT Recent OE leavers met up in April to play a football match against the current 1st XI team.

The current team won 8-1, with the result being all about the fitness of the players! It was a very enjoyable occasion and a chance to catch up on news over a hot dog and beer in the Winter Pavilion after the game.

Well done to all and hope to see you next year!

David Chapman

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RETIRING STAFF The School bid a fond farewell to four long-serving members of staff who retired from teaching in July.

Top to bottom: Tim Laney, Trevor Medhurst, Neil Purcell, Jane Wilcox

WALKING WEEKEND OEs, including past participants of Ten Tors, enjoyed a great walking weekend on Exmoor last November and were joined by Tim Laney, who this year marked 23 successful years of managing Ten Tors teams at KES.

BATH OLD EDWARDIANS RFC Bath Old Edwardians is the KES Old Boys’ Rugby Club. We pride ourselves on our inclusive nature and the traditional values we strive to uphold, enjoying playing competitive rugby on Saturday afternoon and socialising into the evening.

Whilst we still have many OEs donning the famous maroon, gold and blue shirts, we welcome anyone who shares our enthusiasm for the game. We train on Thursday evenings and have matches on Saturday afternoons.

We are always on the lookout for new players, so if you would like to get involved, please get in touch at bathoe_rugby@hotmail.com or through our Facebook page.

We have a full list of fixtures and socials planned for the 2019-2020 season and are hoping we can go one further than last season and make it to the final of the Combination Cup.�

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In memoriam ANTHONY PATRICK ATHAWES At KES 1941-1950 Passed away 4 July 2019, aged 85 The Athawes family relocated from Sidcup when the Admiralty moved to Bath in 1939. While at KES from 1941-1950, Anthony made some lifelong friends, all sharing an interest in planes, trains and motorbikes. When Anthony left school, Headmaster H M Porter wrote in his reference of his great interest in Physics, swimming and model aircraft, all of which played a part in his varied life.

After School Certificate in 1951, Anthony moved to ‘digs’ in London as a draughtsman and owned a succession of ancient motorbikes which always needed fixing. He joined the Royal Navy for National Service in 1955 and, after two extra years as a photographer, left as Sub Lieutenant to join Kodak, Harrow.

He continued studying ONC/HNC at evening class and met his wife, Sylvia. In 1962 they moved with Kodak to Liverpool, and in 1966 Anthony obtained an MSc in Industrial Engineering from Loughborough University. Avon Tyres in Melksham brought the Athawes family back to the Bath area for six happy years but then Johnson & Johnson, located in the Yorkshire Dales, beckoned and the family spent the next 12 years learning Yorkshire ways, farming and friendships, a wonderful environment for a young family. However, recession necessitated another, final, move in 1986, to a lecturing post at the RMCS in Shrivenham.

Anthony built and sailed the family Mirror dinghy and enjoyed tinkering with the engine as much as sailing. He learned Morse code, became a Radio Ham (G4RUZ), studied electronics and flew radio-controlled aeromodels. He enjoyed all aircraft museums and displays (particularly the Shuttleworth Collection) and had been an active member of Round Table, 41 Club and Probus. His enjoyment of golf started in 1962 and never wavered until 2011 when sadly he lost sight in one eye. He collected clocks, watches and cameras, together with factual and reference books, and with his enquiring mind was a truly ingenious and creative Chartered Engineer.

Headmaster H M Porter mentioned Anthony’s great interest in Physics, swimming and model aircraft, all of which played a part in his varied life.”

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JOHN NORRIS COE At KES 1943-1947 Passed away in December 2018, aged 87

MICHAEL STANLEY ELLARD At KES 1943-1952 Passed away 12 January 2019, aged 84

JOHN HOLTON GILLMORE At KES 1946-1952 Passed away 15 December 2018, following a stroke, aged 83

TIM LYONS At KES 1965-1972 Passed away 2 June 2019, after a battle with cancer, aged 65

JOHN MCKINLAY At KES 1939-1944 Passed away 25 April 2019, aged 90

EDWARD ‘FRANCIS’ JOHN RING At KES 1947-1952 Passed away on 15 July 2019, following a diagnosis of oesophageal cancer three years ago, aged 83 Francis was inspired by his Science lessons at King Edward’s: (“Science sessions in the lab with Colonel McKee (Maggie) were lively, sometimes hilarious, and my favourite subject.”), and he lost no time in pursuing the scientific career which would see him become a notable clinical scientist specialising in infrared thermal imaging and its applications in clinical medicine. After leaving KES in 1952 he joined the NHS, where he first gained practical experience as a medical laboratory scientist working in the Pathology department at the RUH in Bath whilst studying part-time for a BSc at the University of Bristol.

He later gained an MSc and a DSc from the Pharmacology department at the University of Bath in 1975 and 1991.

From the late 1950s he combined part-time teaching at the City of Bath Technical College with work at the RUH for the Medical Research Council, specialising in arthritis and rheumatism. In 1964 he joined the Clinical Research Unit at the Royal National Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases and it was here that he built on his earlier pioneering work with infrared thermography and clinical measurement research and developed a bone densitometry service (one of the first five such centres in the UK), and started digital imaging for wound healing research. By 1978 he was a consultant clinical scientist and Head of Clinical Measurement and was appointed Director of Clinical Measurement and Imaging in 2000, before retiring in 2001 after nearly 50 years in the NHS. Shortly after that retirement, Francis began a second career when he became a part-time professorial research fellow at the Medical Imaging Research Group at the University of Glamorgan (now the University of South Wales), where he worked on an international research project to establish the first online normal image database for infrared imaging in medicine. He finally

retired in 2017 at the age of 81 and was elected Emeritus Professor in 2018.

As an eminent clinical scientist, Francis was cited in publications such as Who’s Who and Europe 500. During his career he published over 250 papers on infrared imaging and osteoporosis and presented over 400 papers at congresses. He was always busy, not only travelling within Europe, but also internationally to present papers and to act as an examiner for PhD students. He was particularly fond of his visits with colleagues to conferences in Vienna, which took in scenic mountain routes, and to visiting the University of Tromsø above the Arctic Circle in Norway.

He was a fellow of numerous institutions, including the Royal Society of Medicine and the Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine, and was elected an Honorary Fellow of the National Osteoporosis Society in 2017.

Of his many notable achievements, perhaps the less well known are that in 2004 he was elected as a national expert by the British Standards Organisation to draw up new standards for infrared imaging for fever detection in ports and airports, and that he acted as a scientific advisor to Goldcrest Films, Channel 4, Granada TV and the BBC. Back in Bath, Francis also had a great passion for astronomy and photography. A founding member of the William Herschel Society, he remained actively involved as Chairman and later Vice President. He was similarly involved with the Royal Photographic Society (RPS) and was instrumental in setting up links between the RPS and the School.

As President of the OEs for ten years, Francis built on his lifelong association with the School and was always interested, supportive and proactively engaged. Seeking to promote the spirit of community amongst OEs, he rallied old friends to come together at reunions held at KES and in Oxford and was unfailingly perceptive, patient and constructive with his advice and contributions at OE meetings. He will be much missed by everyone who knew him in the OE and KES community.

Our thoughts are with Anthea, his wife, and their three children Jonathan, Christine and Juliet, grandchildren Joseph, Aaron, Anna, Jacob, Jasmine and Poppy and six great grandchildren.

He was a fellow of numerous institutions, including the Royal Society of Medicine and the Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine, and was elected an Honorary Fellow of the National Osteoporosis Society in 2017.”

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During the Falklands War he was Commodore of the Portsmouth At KES 1938-1944 barracks and aided the British cause Passed away 26 June 2018, from by befriending the Chilean naval head injuries sustained in a scooter attaché Sergio Cabezas Dufeu. accident in Bali, aged 89 In 1983 he was promoted Rear Admiral and became Director Mike Simpson was born on 27 General Aircraft (Navy) as head of September 1928 to a naval family in the naval air engineering branch.

Keynsham. His father died when he was Awarded the CB in the 1985 eight and he was brought up his mother, Birthday Honours List, he then under the influence of his older brother, retired after 41 years in the Fleet Robert, whom he hero-worshipped. He Air Arm of the Royal Navy. joined KES in 1938 as ‘Simpson II’ and His second career started hoped to follow Robert into the Physics immediately in 1985 when he joined stream and on to Oxford. However Hunting Aviation, a major player in he grew bored when he was relegated the international aviation support to the Latin stream and instead, aged field, as Managing Director of 15, joined the wartime Navy, where their aero engine overhaul factory. he found himself subject to four years’ In 1992 he became Chairman of intense academic and practical training the Hunting Aviation Engineering at HMS Condor, Arbroath, to become Awarded the CB in the Division and in 1994 he also became an artificer apprentice.

1985 Birthday Honours Director and Council Member of After eight years on the lower the Society of British Aerospace deck, Simpson was promoted to List, he then retired after Companies. He finally retired in Sub-Lieutenant and was appointed to 41 years in the Fleet Air 1998, aged 69. the Royal Naval Engineering College, Arm of the Royal Navy.

He enjoyed his association with Manadon, where he passed out in the OEs in recent years, writing 1956 with a First. Seagoing engineering about his career for the OElink in tasks were interspersed with desk 2011, attending Summer Reunions jobs, his key appointments including: and London Dinners, including as air engineer on 728 Naval Air hosting the 2015 dinner at The In & Out, Naval and Squadron, the amphibious warfare trials unit equipped Military Club in St James’s. with Whirlwind helicopters, in 1957; with a Royal Marines He is survived by his second wife, Sandra, the two helicopter force during the Cyprus emergency; with the children of his first marriage and one from his second US Navy on the Pacific coast during the Vietnam War; marriage, and seven grandchildren. and as air engineer of the carrier Ark Royal 1971-72.

MICHAEL FRANK SIMPSON

MEMORIAL FOR MICHAEL KENWOOD A memorial tree for former member of staff, Michael Kenwood, who sadly passed away in November 2016, was planted by his family at King Edward’s last year. The acer tree is thriving and overlooks the Headmaster’s Lawn outside Nethersole House.

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GEOFF STALEY At KES 1967-2001 Passed away 11 April 2019 The death of the ageless Geoff Staley, from an illness only recently diagnosed, has brought shock and sadness to friends, former colleagues and the generations of pupils grateful for his support, guidance and brilliant teaching, whose lives he enhanced or transformed. The affection and sadness were shown in the hundreds of cards and messages that his wife Moira and the School received.

He was born and grew up in Birmingham and went to Queen Elizabeth College, University of London for his degree in Single Honours Maths. There he met his adored wife and lifelong companion. Geoff did his teacher training at Bristol University and, even at so early a stage in learning his craft, he was highly commended.

Later, while at KES he also lectured once a week at Bath University to intending Maths teachers and had them sitting at the back of his KES classes. Subsequently, he gained an MSc there, and found time, with others, to write a series of highly successful Maths textbooks. He was also a chief examiner for the Edexcel and Cambridge exam boards.

Geoff joined KES in 1967 and stayed there until his retirement in 2001. He never had what today is the only definition of ambition in teaching: two years here, three there, sometimes leaving a mess behind and never facing one’s mistakes and inadequacies, but always in pursuit of the highest status as a Head. Instead he simply threw himself into what he loved, namely teaching Maths and helping his pupils to lead fulfilled lives.

His range was large: housemaster, athletics coach, in charge of badminton, member of the ski club, the breaker of tradition in insinuating football into Games.

He succeeded Mike Kenwood as Head of Maths and was a key member of the Executive formed by John Wroughton as Head to plan the school’s transformation. He never sought a pastoral role, yet he cared deeply for his pupils and the members of his department and he counselled

Geoff was not flamboyant or loud or theatrical but an enhanced version of himself and, because he was such a fine man, his classes responded.”

and supported many of both, patiently and warmly. If the School was happy, settled, vibrant and successful during the ‘Wroughton years’, which it was, then Geoff’s human qualities were a key influence.

Former pupils testify to the quality of his teaching.

Maths is essential but can be brain-hurting, discouraging and tedious. Yet Geoff’s pupils looked forward to his lessons. He would always find time for the puzzled, and give confidence to the struggling. As one pupil said, “He had a quiet but very real greatness”; another talks of the “enthusiasm, joy and patience” he brought, and yet another that he “was a great human being with a gentle, calm approach and a wickedly dry wit”. And, of course, for those many who use mathematics every day in their professional lives, the foundations he laid and the ‘fun with numbers’ have defined and directed their careers.

To his colleagues, Geoff had a quiet sense of purpose which never left him. He wanted to do more than simply teach and mark diligently, but also to teach well, to be always thoroughly prepared, to develop the headroom of his own knowledge, to do his best for the whole persons that were his pupils and expect their best from them.

Simply by being who he was he passed on his approach to life and labour. He was never negative or punitive, but encouraging and supportive.

It is said that, aside from knowledge and training, the key elements of successful teaching come from deep within. Geoff was not flamboyant or loud or theatrical but an enhanced version of himself and, because he was such a fine man, his classes responded. Once he had said the magic “Right then, let’s kick off” his classes settled and enjoyed. One could walk into a Geoff class and see no sign of imposed discipline. He was the sort of father anyone would wish for, and despite his gigantic contribution to King Edward’s School he was very ‘home and family’.

Anyone who met Geoff for the first time could see the quality of man and intellect, yet he was shy, private and understated, self-effacing, humble, intensely self-critical and keen to do better; anxious and hard on himself, but that was also the source of his strengths. He never knew how good he was.

For me he was a fantastic colleague, steady under fire, balanced, sane, genuine, yet a pithy raconteur with an amusing wit.

I shall certainly not be the only one who will miss him.

Frank Thorn with thanks to John Wroughton and Moira Staley

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