ONLINE 2019

ONLINE MAGAZINE FOR THE OLD NORTH LONDONERS’ ASSOCIATION | ISSUE 24 | 2019

Change of Direction

ONL News Feature articles ONLA Awards Book Corner

PLEASE CONTACT US POSTAL ADDRESS

ONLine, Alumnae and Development Office, Canons, Canons Drive, Edgware HA8 7RJ EMAIL

onla@nlcs.org.uk TELEPHONE

020 8951 6475

EDITORIAL TEAM PRODUCER

Carolina Jayson (ONL 1991), NLCS Alumnae and Development Officer ARTS COLUMNIST

Chloé Nelkin (ONL 2006)

Dear ONLs It feels like only yesterday when I was introducing myself to you in ONLine magazine. Somehow a whole year has already gone by and I have completed my first year as Headmistress of this extraordinary School.

I have had the pleasure of meeting a great number of you over the past year: from the ladies who left School more than 55 years ago, sharing some amazing insight about life at School during the Second World War, to our 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 Year leavers. The strength of the School community is evident to me in your stories and I am struck by how many of you are still in touch with your NLCS friends. The shared experience that generations of ONLs recall, in playing games around Budge Square, running down Lime Avenue and creating adventures around the Cedar Tree, is particularly enchanting to me, as I watch our current pupils enjoying exactly the very same.

The 100th Anniversary of World War 1 evoked particularly poignant memories last year. We planted a new cedar tree in commemoration, which we hope will stand tall for future generations of North Londoners to enjoy, just as you have all enjoyed the Cedar Tree by the terrace.

I continue to be impressed by the confidence and courage of our Old North Londoners to define success in their own terms, rather than that

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which is expected of them. The confidence to follow the most appropriate path, even when that means stopping and starting all over again and then be able to excel at that, is a remarkable and yet very common trait amongst the ONL community.

The theme of this year’s ONLine is ‘Change of Direction’. The articles highlight how unexpectedly life can surprise us or rock us, and how we need the resilience required to not only cope with change, but when possible, to thrive on it. It is so important to me that the pupils from this School leave with the self-belief and inner strength to cope with any challenges that might come their way.

Becoming more resilient is a key focus in daily School life. It threads through the delivery of our academic content, the co-curriculum and our pastoral care, as we try to help our students develop the skills they will need in a fast-changing and often unpredictable world.

I love hearing your stories and look forward to meeting a great many more of you over the coming year.

I hope you enjoy this edition of the magazine and the articles which feature so many examples of your wonderful ONL spirit.

Sarah Clark Headmistress

Dear ONLs For those of you who don’t know us, we both left NLCS in 1991, having both started in the Junior School in the early 1980s. As is always the way with ONLs, our paths crossed again over 20 years later and here we are back at NLCS. The Alumnae Team is here to support all ONLs at any stage of their lives. We offer career events, guidance and mentoring, financial bursaries to ONLs for further education and travel, and of course class reunions and other social events.

We are both incredibly passionate about the NLCS community as a whole - the incredible bond that connects all ONLs no matter what their age, and a unique willingness to help each other.

Since we left School 28 years ago - a lot has changed. The School has expanded, we have an indoor swimming pool, a climbing wall and Mandarin is on the curriculum.

But so much has stayed the same – the smell of the dungeons, our love of daffodils and of course, once you’ve left, the refusal to wear brown EVER again.

In this edition, we have enclosed an ONL questionnaire which we hope you’ll complete and post back, or fill out on-line.

This will enable us to plan future events and support for you. Our ONL Community has over 5,000 members and we would like to hear from as many of you as possible about what you would like from the ONL Network.

Carolina Jayson and Poorvi Smith

ONLA AWARDS

ONLA Academic Award PhD in Neuroinflammation WRITTEN BY ANNA SELEZNEVA (2014)

Currently, I am starting my PhD in Neuroinflammation at University College London. During my Master’s degree in Pharmacology at UCL my research made me appreciate the high number of areas which require further exploration. The opportunity to contribute a small piece to every growing puzzle is a great motivation for me to start my research career.

During my PhD, I aim to unite the two areas of research I am interested in, neuroscience and immunopharmacology, by working on neuroinflammation, which I believe is a cuttingedge topic that could lead to new advances in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases. Neuroinflammation is known to play an important role in leading to neuronal cell death in a number of neurodegenerative diseases, including Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s diseases and multiple sclerosis. Millions of people are affected worldwide.

Finding treatments and cures for neurodegenerative diseases is a goal of increasing urgency. My research will contribute to the understanding of the neuroinflammation process in a number of neurodegenerative diseases and, hopefully, aid research into stopping their progression. I am incredibly grateful for all the support I have received from the ONLA and the entire NLCS community.

Above and Below: The Research Group

from UCL department of Neuroscience, Physiology and Pharmacology

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ONLA AWARDS

ONLA Academic Award

ONLA Academic Award

WRITTEN BY CHARLOTTE CAPLAN (2015)

WRITTEN BY MADDY SEALE (2008)

Earth Sciences MSci – North Borneo Leaving NLCS to study Natural Sciences, I intended to specialise in Chemistry. However, during my first year of university, I realised that I much preferred working outside compared with in a laboratory, and thus decided to study Earth Sciences instead. Two years later, I opted to undertake a Master’s in Earth Sciences with a research project involving analysing earthquakes in Southeast Asia in order to further our understanding of tectonic motions in the region.

Therefore, this summer, I travelled to North Borneo to carry out maintenance of seismometers (equipment that records ground shaking) and download previously recorded data. The majority of the seismometers were reached by driving along poor-quality roads, but one seismometer was only accessible by boat and one, in the heart of the rainforest, could only be reached by a gruellingly steep, day-long hike that required ladders at certain points.

Although this day was the most physically challenging, and the most terrifying since I became lost on the return leg, it was an amazing opportunity to experience the beauty of the rainforest.

I am exceptionally grateful for the ONLA award which has enabled me to undertake such incredible fieldwork and embark on a master’s degree.

Plant Biomechanics 2018

Agnes Arber was the first female botanist to be elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society and it was at NLCS that her interest in botany began due to an inspiring teacher, Edith Aitken, with support from another ONL botanist, Ethel Sargant. My own decision to study plant biology crystallised during an A-level lesson, in which we were taught the weird and wonderful phenomenon of fertilisation in flowering plants.

My research now focuses on the structure of the familiar dandelion fruit, how it can fly so well, and how it changes shape when it gets wet. As nature can optimise over millions of years of evolution, we can use this inspiration to engineer microstructures replicating the dandelion’s functions for tiny flying vehicles or sensors that respond to water.

The generous academic award from the ONLA, allowed me to travel to Montreal and give a talk to an international audience at the Plant Biomechanics Conference. This was invaluable as, not only did I gain important feedback on my work, but I am still in discussion with a number of experts I met there that I expect to lead to future collaborations. I am delighted to tread in the footsteps of such important ONLs in my field and am very grateful to NLCS for the support I have received.

Left: The Maliau Basin,

also known as Sabah’s Lost World.

Left inset: Charlotte in

surprisingly high spirits during the jungle trek.

Opposite top: Maddy

with other conference delegates outside the Plant Biomechanics conference venue in Montreal.

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ONLA AWARDS

Barbara Nathan Award Winner

Volunteering with the NGO Advocates Abroad WRITTEN BY TIARA ATAII (2015)

Having volunteered in the past for legal aid NGOs where I worked with refugees in Chios, a Greek island, when I arrived back on the Greek mainland this summer, I was expecting the same complaints regarding the lack of aid, the inhumane conditions of the camps, and the miscarriages of justice that come about as a result of an overburdened asylum system. However, the situation in Thessaloniki was far more desperate than I could have imagined. Due to record high numbers of asylum applications, the Skype hotline in which asylum seekers must register has been out of order for months. As such, asylum seekers, unable to begin their asylum proceedings, find themselves sleeping rough and engaging in unsightly activities in order to be able to sustain themselves.

Therefore, my role entailed not only providing information and accompanying clients to the relevant authorities, but also offering moral support. I frequently heard from clients that our twenty-minute conversation was the first time that they had felt listened to in months. Given the frequency of suicide and the deep-seated trauma amongst refugee populations, I felt that this new dimension to my role was perhaps more vital than the information we were providing.

I am so grateful for the ONLA Travel Award and Barbara Nathan’s family for making this work possible. In the words of Mrs McCabe at the 2015 Valedictory speech, much is expected of those to whom much is given. I hope that my work this summer has in some small way served to redistribute the amazing opportunities I was given throughout my fourteen years at NLCS. 2019 | ONLINE

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CHANGE OF DIRECTION

ONE TINY STEP TOWARDS NORMALISING TRANSSEXUALITY WRITTEN BY DAPHNE GADD (1965)

All marriages have problems, and much as we loved each other, David and I didn’t expect ours to be different. But neither of us was prepared for what happened.

Shortly before our Silver Wedding Anniversary David became depressed. I put this down to our recent unwanted house move and the pressures of his new job, but eventually I realised that something was seriously wrong. My normally lively, energetic, enthusiastic husband hardly spoke, never smiled and seemed remote from family life.

David told me that he needed to express his feminine side. I didn’t understand. He was always a caring, nurturing person, wonderful with our children, and very creative. I don’t like gender stereotypes, but I felt this expressed his ‘femininity’.

However, what he wanted specifically was to cross-dress occasionally at home and to have me call him by his chosen name,

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Penny, in private. I was bewildered. He showed me an online questionnaire (the COGIATI test) which assigned men with gender issues to one of five categories, from unequivocally male to transsexual, according to their score. When David showed me that his score indicated ‘transsexual’ I was dumbfounded.

I believed him, but my mind slid round the idea without grasping it. The test result seemed to solidify the vague notion of a ‘feminine side’, but how could the person I was closest to be so different from my understanding of him? For weeks I was numb, incapable of feeling. All I can remember is the phrase ‘my husband thinks he’s a woman’ filling my head, even while I was teaching music, the job I love passionately.

CHANGE OF DIRECTION

On reflection, David’s revelation seemed both enormous and unimportant. It threw my perception of him into turmoil, but as he didn’t intend to live as a woman why did it matter so much? After all, he assured me that this was the person he had always been. At first he didn’t want anyone else to know about Penny, but when I was allowed to tell my oldest friend I struggled to convey how much the situation hurt me. ‘My husband wants me to appreciate his feminine side’ sounded trivial, but his need to have me acknowledge his femininity fundamentally changed our relationship.

In difficult situations I usually suppress my feelings and rely on facts - not necessarily helpful! I read exhaustively about transsexuality, and became convinced that David would eventually need to live full-time as Penny. She disagreed. She knew she couldn’t go on as she was, but she was desperate to find some way of living happily as a man, so it was nearly four years before she started hormone treatment.

At first counselling didn’t help. The couples’ counsellor had no experience of trans issues, and when seeking help on my own I simply couldn’t describe my feelings. The turning point for me was finding Depend, an online support group for partners of trans people. It was wonderful to meet others who had faced the same practical and emotional upheavals and who understood.

Helped by Depend and by a new, excellent counsellor, I started to make progress.

One day I looked at David’s face in relaxation, and for the first time I could actually see him as a woman. I happily told him this, which delighted him, but I felt miserable inside. This mixture of emotions became very familiar. The first time we went clothes shopping together for Penny I enjoyed helping her choose, but I was crying inside because my husband wanted to look like a woman. I feared that when I saw

Penny dressed as herself for the first time I would see either my husband looking ridiculous or a stranger, but in the event I was hugely relieved. I saw a woman, but she wasn’t a stranger.

After much talk and heartache we decided we couldn’t bear to separate.

Shortly after making that commitment David applied successfully for another job.

This enabled him to live full time as Penny, which she has done since 2004. When Penny started to live as her true self, I found it astonishingly like having David back as he was when we married. The same character and energy in a different outward form!

In 2000 there was very little support for trans people, and even less for their partners. I took a counselling course, and have tried to put my experience to good use in helping other partners. Transition is hugely difficult for both members of a couple, but whereas the trans person is generally fulfilled by the outcome the partner is not.

Trans issues are in the news now, but more help and support is still much needed.

Penny’s transition made me question much about myself and about our relationship. Fourteen years later I am still learning and I hope that I am now more understanding and compassionate. Her transition was slow, which enabled me to travel with her, but it still affects our life in so many ways from the trivial to the important, from making sure we don’t wear outfits that clash to adjusting to the differences in our physical relationship.

It has affected friendships and family relationships, but fortunately most of those closest to us have been very loving in their acceptance.

Now we are an ordinary retired couple in an ordinary town, chatting to our neighbours chiefly about gardens and grandchildren. Many know that Penny is trans, but we are accepted. I hope that this constitutes one tiny step towards normalising transsexuality.

Opposite top: David in

1984.

Opposite left: Daphne and David on their Wedding Day 1975.

Top: Penny at a Café.

Above: Penny and Daphne

at Castle Howard 2018.

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WRITTEN BY HANNAH JULL (NÉE WOOLF, 2001)

A

fter collecting my NLCS ‘A’ Grades, I headed into my late twenties with a life firmly in London, and firmly focused on career. First in Business; on to a Public Policy Masters from the LSE, and then a position with the Russell Group.

With that in mind, it seems surprising, incongruous even, that a decade later, I am now navigating expat life on Vancouver Island with my husband and four children - aged 8, 6, 4, 2 and expecting our fifth child early 2019, and very much a stay-at-home mother, despite my misgivings about that particular title.

So, I think it would be fair to say that if I can speak about anything knowledgeably from well-worn experience (other than, perhaps, surviving the day with a newborn

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and a toddler), it would be about navigating a wildly unexpected course of life.

HERE’S WHAT I KNOW: There’s no Going Back Once you’ve made the leap on to a different path, don’t be tempted to turn back too quickly. Bold moves yield big rewards; but often only when you are able to stick with your new-normal for long enough to see them come to fruition.

You can Always go Back ...Notwithstanding the above, sometimes it’s just good to remember that turning back is an option; even if it’s not the option you want to take right now.

It’s an Ongoing, Iterative Process Perhaps there will be one ‘Defining Moment’, when you decide to navigate

CHANGE OF DIRECTION

some unchartered waters - to retrain in a new profession, or move to a new country, or leave work to stay at home with your children.

Or, like me, you might insist that you will be going back to work three months after your firstborn arrives and, somehow, nine years later discover that a sequence of events, including a year in -40˚C in the remote Yukon Territory, has meant that you are yet to return (and have amassed another 3.5 children in the meantime).

Regardless of the way in which you find yourself in this new life, every day is a choice. You don’t wake up one morning a stay-at-home mother and bound to that role forever. You might be an expat now, or have been for twenty years, and yet still the choice is yours. All I’m saying is: don’t be afraid to evaluate how your current setup is working for you. If you are consistently dreading the week ahead, something needs to change.

Always Listen to Advice (But Don’t Always Take it) Also known as ‘don’t be thrown off-course by other people’s reactions’. An unexpected change of direction for you is likely to be even more unexpected for those around you, especially those who haven’t been privy to your 2am soul-searching.

Of course, this is probably less troubling for ONLs, already well-versed in talking at increasing volume until eventually everyone agrees with you. Not to mention, primed with enough self-assurance to keep pressing forward until everything you might imagine achieving is firmly in your grasp.

That said, if you have been telling anyone who’ll listen that you live for your career and then suddenly announce a change in course, it will take them some time to adapt. And with that in mind, it’s never a bad idea to lay some groundwork before your grand decisions are revealed, or at least be prepared to be patient as people readjust their understanding, thoughts and expectations.

A Change of Path is not a Loss of Identity There is a rather boring trope, that in becoming a mum, you lose yourself. And similarly, if you once felt defined by a job that is changed, in some senses, your identity is compromised.

It might be comforting to remember that no one is truly that two dimensional, even if it might feel like that in the

moments when you realise you have introduced your children and not yourself, because you have quietly accepted that in many circles, you will only be known as Jacob-Elsa-Mim-and-Wilf’s-mum for the foreseeable future.

Regardless of how it may feel, a change in lifestyle is just that - a change in your day-to-day; it isn’t equivalent to a seismic shift in personhood.

Motherhood is not Insular More specifically, people can make some pretty disparaging glib remarks about staying at home with your children - but there is more to it than the menial tasks you might imagine (there are a lot of menial tasks too, and I’m not about to suggest that laundry is either rewarding or enjoyable). Nevertheless, life in any

Hannah Jull (née Woolf, ONL 2001) is a stay at home Mum, lifestyle and parenting author living on Vancouver Island with her husband and four children – 8,6,4, and 2. She writes the parenting blog theMumandtheMom.com and has featured in HuffPost, Selfish Mother, The Sunday Times, and a variety of publications on parenting and expat life.

guise - shockingly, motherhood included is also global, thoughtful and political.

Lastly, I know nothing about your possible future changed life. But I do know, with some real certainty, that my life now is fuller, richer, more exhausting and creatively fulfilling in a way I would have never realised in my previous ideas of a dream fourth decade. It might just be worth considering what possibilities lie beyond the expected.

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WHATEVER LIFE THROWS AT YOU, THERE IS A WAY TO FIND NEW JOY. WRITTEN BY JANE HOWAT (NÉE BRIDGES, 1976)

Just occasionally something on Facebook catches my eye - and Carolina’s request for stories from ONLs did just that.

This isn’t really a story about career changes, it’s more about learning to adapt to and embrace whatever life throws at you; I don’t claim to be an expert and I am sure that there are many more inspiring tales out there, but this is mine.

NLCS was a place of safety and stability for me; only my very best friends knew what was going on in my life. The staff had no idea that my mother was suffering from severe and persistent depression nor that I was learning to deal with great sadness, trauma and uncertainty at such a young age. One of the many impacts was that my

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mind was preoccupied with life and death rather than study, and consequently my A level results were not that impressive. Cue – first change of direction in anticipated career path.

I was lucky to get a place on a B. Ed course and began training as a teacher. Away from home, my academic focus returned in startling fashion.

However, my mother committed suicide on day three of my final ten-week teaching practice. I had little choice but to pick myself up and carry on, with more determination than ever to succeed. I graduated with a very good degree and began a fulfilling and happy career in primary education. Those early challenging experiences have informed my teaching beyond measure.

CHANGE OF DIRECTION

Several years later, my husband was offered two years’ work in Sydney - a huge change of direction. We moved to Australia with nothing but a couple of suitcases (and a couple of children!) and began a new chapter, setting up a Music Therapy Centre (linked to a university and funded charitably by the music industry). It wasn’t easy, as we had very little income and no family support, but I built a new life and was determined to make the most of being in a country that I hadn’t really chosen to be in.

My experiences gave me more compassion for strangers in foreign lands which led to an involvement with refugees. We were privileged to share our home for six months with a young Hazara man from Afghanistan. That was probably one of the most unexpected, most profound and most precious times of my life. When you sit on a sofa with a group of young men who are discussing the best way to dodge bullets or how they avoided beheading by the Taliban, it certainly puts other things into perspective!

Just when all was going well, my husband died

For much of this time, I guess that I had been responding to imposed changes of direction and circumstance, but the time came for me to take control. So, I packed all my belongings into one room of my house and gave away anything that didn’t fit, found tenants, took leave from my job and began a new adventure. I took a ‘gap year’ in my fifties and returned to England to see if life here was both feasible and right for me. I really had no idea of where I would live or how I would find work - and there were many hiccups small and large in my journey that year - but from the moment that I landed at Heathrow, I knew I had done the right thing. I used that time to reconnect with the old and develop the new....

In 2017, I left Australia for good, and flew back to London with two suitcases (again) and a bit of a plan - which rapidly fell apart due to the unexpected sickness of a friend and hence my proposed living arrangements. I spent nearly a year ‘couch surfing’ whilst trying to navigate the delights of house purchasing in England. But I

suddenly, and I was widowed at 54. Once again, I was faced with a very clear choice - fall in a hole or take life by both hands.

I had many ‘wardrobe days’ (where all I wanted to do was hide in a dark place) but I was also very aware that life is precious and can be taken away at any moment and so I was determined that I should try to live well. I decided to explore the possibility of moving back home to the UK. It was a hard path to tread, not least because just before my husband died I had undergone major back surgery and so even walking wasn’t easy!

am pleased to report that I now have a new home, enough work to keep me busy and solvent, a new life doing all those cultural things that weren’t easily available in Australia, new friends and old friends; and in the midst of huge grief for so many aspects of my life, I am embracing and loving every day and looking forward to what the future holds!

I am not a fan of the saying ‘everything happens for a reason’ but it is my firm belief that whatever life throws at you, there is a way to find new joy.

Right: ONL Sydney Lunch

2016.

Opposite top: Jane’s

daughter’s wedding near Regent’s Canal.

Opposite middle: Parrots in

Greenpatch.

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CHANGE OF DIRECTION

Left: IoA qualification.

FOLLOW YOUR HEART WRITTEN BY KAREN WARREN (NÉE HALFORD, 1987)

W

ell before I started at NLCS I knew I wanted to be a teacher and with the arrogance of youth I ‘knew’ I’d be a great teacher. Despite the best efforts of all our teachers and with career profiling telling me I should be an accountant, actuary or management consultant, teaching remained my chosen career through most of my teens. Thus when I was in my third year of University, I applied to do a PGCE to be a maths teacher.

My first change of heart came around when I graduated; I decided to postpone and reapply for a primary school PGCE. I spent a year working at the Clerical Medical Investment Group doing much the same as the actuarial students, telling everyone I knew that I never wanted to see another spreadsheet but that it was okay because it was only a gap year job.

So, I did a PGCE and after a year teaching in Barnet, got married and moved to Plymouth where I got a teaching post in a very disadvantaged area on the outskirts of Plymouth. It’s fair to say I struggled. There were children coming to school hungry and dirty or whose writing showed they had seen inappropriate things. We had no contact with a significant proportion of parents despite our best efforts and a significant proportion of the children would compete for the attention they didn’t get at home by behaving badly. It was a tough environment to work in, but I was doing what I’d always wanted to do and I felt I could make a real difference to the children’s lives.

A few weeks after returning from mater-

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nity leave when my second child was four months old, I got signed off with post-natal depression. At the end of the school year, we realised that I wasn’t going to get better any time soon so I resigned my post and became a full time mum. An epiphany followed a year or so later when, mostly recovered from depression, I started applying for teaching roles, came out of an interview and found myself heaving a sigh of relief that I hadn’t been offered the job.

Several months of soul searching followed before my husband, a music teacher, was told he was being made redundant at the end of the school year. We decided that, as a mathematician, I was much more employable than he was and no longer tied to Plymouth (which doesn’t have a massive financial services industry), the world was our oyster.

Being an Old North Londoner, I wasn’t short of ambition and decided that it would be more challenging to retrain as an actuary than as an accountant. I then faced the challenge of applying for graduate roles 10 years after leaving university with very little computer knowledge. So I did a course run by Plymouth City Council for mums returning to work, which gave me a City and Guilds qualification in Word, Excel and Access, and I revised my statistics to get a head start with the actuarial exams. It was circa 15 years since statistics lessons with Mrs Huntley, but it all came flooding back; the bits I’d done at university felt much less familiar, which says something about the quality of the teaching I’d had there!

This was followed by applying to what felt like nearly every insurance company

in southern England before I got a one year contract working in the Pensions mis-selling review. Six months later I was offered a permanent contract back at Clerical Medical (then part of HBOS, now part of Lloyds Banking Group). Still full of ambition and good NLCS grit, I set about the 15 exams to qualify as an actuary, religiously studying for a couple of hours every evening after the girls were in bed and devising a rewards system to ensure they didn’t disturb me while I was studying. I qualified as an actuary in four and a half years, meaning that in addition to all the small rewards they had got on the way through, we needed to honour our promise of a trip to DisneyWorld. I was one of the 1% of actuaries who qualified without failing any exams, due I’m sure at least in part, to the exam technique drilled into us by the likes of Mrs Parsonson and Mrs Huntley. And I should also mention the other reason I was able to qualify quickly: my husband.

He did get another teaching post having followed me across the country, but with two young children it was tough, so when we moved to Bristol, after two terms of us both working, plus me studying, we re-evaluated again and he became a full time parent. He has his reward now as the girls have left home and he’s still not gone back to work.

My advice to any youngsters – follow your heart even when advised not to (otherwise you won’t know whether it would have been right for you!) but don’t be afraid to admit you made the wrong choices and to start again.

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FINDING YOUR NOTE WRITTEN BY NIKI HARDY (NÉE FORD, 1987)

S

omething inside me would always light up as I ran down the steps to the fields. Crunching over the frosted grass in my ‘never fully dried out from the last time I wore them’ canvas lacrosse boots, with Miss Mitchell waiting with her whistle and bucket of balls, I would come alive. For all my seven years at North London I felt most myself with a gum shield in my mouth and a stick in my hand, charging around a muddy lacrosse field. We all had somewhere we came alive. Liz Temple lit up reciting Puck’s speech in English, Sara Cooper became more of herself crunching mathematical problems or directing musicals, while others found their ‘thing’ in the lab, orchestra, or in the art block.

We all have a note. Something we do that just feels right and where we belong.

For my 1980’s self it was lacrosse. I even toyed with the idea of becoming a PE teacher but my dad warned me that I loved playing far more than coaching and he was right, lacrosse wasn’t it.

So I followed another passion to university and searched for my note there.

Studying zoology at Bristol, I wondered if becoming the next David Attenborough might be it. I could see myself crouching low in dense jungle foliage, guerillas chewing nonchalantly on bamboo shoots as I whispered reverently into a camera.

It all seemed so adventurously exotic but as reality dawned I soon realised that wasn’t it either.

I ended up in Unilever’s management

graduate training program in the jungles of suburban Kingston Upon Thames and learned I was a natural saleswoman and marketer. I could sell snow to the Eskimos and life in brand management suited me, but in the midst of the busyness and success I knew it still wasn’t it. It wasn’t my note.

I married a tall, handsome chap with happy red cheeks who sidled up to me at the photocopier and we were your archetypal DINKYs (dual income no kids yet) living the London life. I loved him and twenty-five years and three kids later still do, but married life wasn’t it either. I still kept trying to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up.

Then, much to my surprise I became a Christian; we both did, but before you stop reading you need to know that wasn’t it either.

Yes, I’d found God and I loved the new life and adventure I found in my relationship with Him but my thing; my calling, still eluded me. I knew I’d been born for a purpose, I just didn’t know what.

Don’t get me wrong, my roles as wife, mum, daughter, pastor’s wife (we’re now in the US leading a church) and friend, are hugely important to me and bring me enormous joy and meaning, but they still weren’t it.

THEN I GOT CANCER. Just six weeks before my diagnosis my sister, Jo (Ford, ONL 1985) died of lung cancer and eight years before that my mum had died of the same thing. As you

can imagine my world was shaken. Had the heat-seeking missile of death locked in on me? Was it my turn?

My cancer wasn’t lung cancer but rectal. I know, it’s not sexy and doesn’t come with a pretty pink bow, just the usual chemo, surgery, radiation, and the added joys of an ostomy bag which let me walk, talk, and poop all at the same time.

What did God think He was playing at?

Was He angry? Had I pissed Him off?

As I endured treatment and searched for answers, friends and family were there for me and gave me inspiring books.

They told me to trust God and hang on to Him, assuring me He never gives us anything we can’t handle, but they were wrong. There were many days I was pretty sure I couldn’t handle it.

And yet a strange thing happened. I started to write. At first purely to give friends and family medical updates, but it quickly became so much more. As I wrote I’d cheer others on in whatever life had thrown their way and slowly I began to hear my note. Eventually I learned how to thrive, not just survive life’s setbacks, and I started to share what I’d learned.

Now, over five years later and with cancer behind me (pun totally intended!), I’m a writer and speaker who’s all about meeting people when life’s not fair and my note rings loud and clear whenever I encourage people life doesn’t have to be pain free to be full. This is my note.

On the eve of my fiftieth birthday I’m finally hearing it and it makes me laugh. For the girl who only scraped a C in English O-level and hasn’t written more then a text, email or science paper since she was sixteen, the irony isn’t lost on me, but at the intersection of my pain, my passion, and what people long for, my note rings true.

If you’ve found your note let it ring loud and clear. The world needs to hear it. If not, don’t stop looking. You may find it in the most unlikely of places and it’s not too late. The world needs your note because only you can make it and trust me, it will set you alight.

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CHANGE OF DIRECTION

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WRITTEN BY SARAH DOERFLER (NÉE BLOOM, 1995)

MY ROAD TO RADIOGRAPHY

A

t the point when we were supposed to be making decisions for the rest of our lives, I didn’t really know much more than that I wanted to ‘heal the world’. Having no idea of the vast array of possibilities out there, I went with the obvious - medicine. Therefore, when I was 16 I went to a large London hospital to shadow a doctor for work experience. Unfortunately, this doctor was someone who went in, did something to a person, and left (after all, I don’t think patient centred care was a concept 25 years ago!). As this didn’t fit my 16 year old idealistic views of the world, I decided I had to find an alternative way of healing the world. Again, my lack of awareness limited my choices, but I had definitely heard of psychology so that was where I headed. I started a BSc (Hons) in Psychology at the University of Leeds in 1995, which I absolutely loved, and in my final year I got engaged. My first job after my degree was working with ‘naughty’ teenage boys in an inner city high school.

During my time there, I came to realise that the reason that these boys were in the state they were in was because of the primary education they had received – so I decided to heal the world by becoming a primary school teacher. In December 1999 I got married and in 2000 I started my PGCE (QTS). I completed my NQT year and then got my first teaching job. In 2002 I became pregnant and went on maternity leave in the May of 2003. After almost a year of maternity leave I returned to work on a part-time basis. Despite juggling home and work life I still really enjoyed my job - thinking of fun ways to impart wisdom and ignite children’s enthusiasm and imagination made me feel like I was doing ‘something’. In 2005 I became pregnant again and therefore started juggling being a mother, being a teacher, and being very sick a lot of the time! In December 2005 I went on maternity leave again, but this time I didn’t go back to work for nearly 2 years. My daughter Kitty was diagnosed with leukaemia at the age of 15 days. She died at 15 months.

During the time she was alive she had every health professional possible involved in her care. This gave me the chance to evaluate the different professions. There were those that were all patient contact but no scientific knowledge and those that were all scientific knowledge but no patient contact. To my mind,

radiographers had a great combination of the two and it ignited a spark in my mind.

After Kitty died I realised it wouldn’t be appropriate to make any big changes in my life so I left it a few years. Six years later I still felt that I really wanted to move into the health system and radiography was the vocation that spoke to me the most. At that point my son was 10 and in his final year of primary school and I had had another daughter who was then three and in nursery. It didn’t seem the best time to leave a good career and go back to university, but when my husband and I spoke about it we realised there would never be such a thing as a ‘good time’ so I decided to just take the leap and apply for a BSc (Hons) in Diagnostic Imaging.

On my first day at university the course leader put up a PowerPoint presentation showing the difference between study now and study ten years ago. I didn’t recognise a thing on the ‘now’ slide but everything on the ‘then’ slide was very familiar! I entered a completely new world.

I loved every moment of my course despite my brain creaking when I was trying to get it back into academic research whilst learning a new job when on placement.

From the first day I felt that I had found my place in radiography.

In the first year we spent pretty much all of our placement in plain film x-ray departments. In the second year the placements covered other modalities such as MRI, CT, nuclear medicine and ultrasound and specialisms such as fluoroscopy, vascular radiography, cardiac catheter labs and breast imaging. Having assumed I would want to end up in general radiography I was amazed by how much I loved my experience in breast imaging. It is everything good about radiography magnified. The patient care is fantastic and the image quality required is exceptional.

I was incredibly fortunate that I was able to secure my dream job straight from university and commence my post-graduate studies immediately – I have now been a specialist radiographer with Leeds Wakefield Breast Screening Unit for two years and recently combined all my skills by being made a clinical mentor for our department and an internal examiner for the University of Leeds.

I am so thankful I dared to take the risk of changing my direction in life and hugely grateful for all the support my family has given me to allow it to happen.

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MY TWISTY CAREER WRITTEN BY VICTORIA PREVER (NÉE SEDLEY, 1986)

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CHANGE OF DIRECTION

‘You left law to become a chef?!’ The reaction I am used to when I tell people about my professional background. It wasn’t the only bend in my career path. Since leaving North London, I’ve obtained several professional qualifications, and ultimately ended up where I wanted to be when I was in my late teens. A journalist writing about food. The problem was that I had no idea at the time, that that was what I wanted to do.

My life has always revolved around food.

I’ve been greedy from babyhood, when my mother remembers me dabbing chubby fingers on my high chair to lift every crumb. I won’t use the cliché ‘passionate about food’ – it’s overused – but I admit to spending too many of my waking hours thinking about my next meal.

It was only right that I made a career of eating, but it was not the academic route expected of North Londoners. At no point during my years at NLCS (1979 – 1986) did I even consider it. The careers ‘library’ – back then, a few boxes of dusty pamphlets in the Anderson Room, was of little use.

In those days, we were directed towards careers in medicine, law and accountancy, and at the very least, a traditional subject at an established university. I’m not sure how my parents would have reacted to my announcing I wanted to become a chef, and it didn’t even occur to me to ask.

I was young for my year, A levels done by 17, and had no real idea of what I wanted to do with my life. I loved magazines and writing, and expected to study English at university as a route to journalism.

For some reason, at UCCA time (as UCAS was called then) I made a sharp U-turn.

The art and culture special subject of my History A-level with Miss Weaver awakened an interest in the arts and I opted for Art History.

My father pleaded with me to change courses, and universities, which only made me more determined to do it, and off I went to the University of East Anglia for three years. My BA (Hons) in Art History left me without a firm career path, and there were no eligible princes on my course. After a brief stint working at the

press office of the Design Council, I decided to travel to Australia and South East Asia for a year.

It was there that I did some growing up, living too far for your parents to do your washing helps with that, and returned with a clearer vision of my future.

My father was only too happy for me to return to studying – actively campaigning for me to sign up to the Common Professional Examination (Law Conversion) course at Sussex University. Two years later, with that and my Solicitor’s Finals under my belt, I started my articles (as the training contract was then known) at a firm of solicitors specialising in music law.

I’d chosen them as I hoped that I would enjoy law more if it related to something I was interested in. It was for that very same reason, that over the next few years I took on roles in firms with portfolios in businesses which included restaurants, hotels and coffee shops. I developed many skills along the way, but they brought me no closer to the actual food. Professionally, I was treading water.

Ironically, the loss of my father, to pancreatic cancer, in 2003, finally kickstarted my move towards fulfilling my career dreams.

A small inheritance and a ‘life’s short’ mentality drove me to sign up for a year’s fulltime diploma at Leith’s School of Food and Wine – Prue Leith’s culinary school. I was in my 30’s, single and sure that if I was going to work for many more years, it should be doing something I loved. I’d just met David Prever, the man who was to become my husband. He had fallen in love with radio in his teens and followed his dream. Now presenting prime time radio shows and enjoying every minute, he inspired my most

drastic change of direction.

The diploma was the most demanding course yet. Eight hours a day at college, evenings spent studying and lesson planning for the next day. At the same time, I was studying for a diploma in food writing.

It was hard-core, but I loved it.

I was asked to teach at Leith’s after I’d graduated and worked in catering whilst supplementing my income with teaching.

A series of lucky breaks helped me into food writing: David was interviewed by the editor of the local newspaper, the Hampstead and Highgate Express. They were looking for a restaurant reviewer and the editor asked if I could write. I sent in a sample of my work, got the gig and ended up being paid to eat out in North-West and Central London. I was living the dream.

I continued doing that as well as teaching and catering until my son was born in 2008. The teaching continued alongside some catering work until my daughter arrived two years later. Another lucky coincidence secured me my current role: David met up with the editor of the Jewish Chronicle, who, a gourmet himself, was keen to upgrade the paper’s epicurean content. He offered me a column or the whole food page.

With two children under two, an imminent house move out of London and no experience of food editing, I hesitated. My husband told me I had no choice, so I took a breath, and leapt. It was tough at times, but I haven’t regretted it. I love my work.

More than thirty years after I’d considered becoming a magazine journalist, I’ve been an art historian, solicitor, business development manager and cookery teacher, but have finally found a job I love.

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FOLLOWING OUR PASSIONS CHANGE OF DIRECTION

9/ WRITTEN BY CHRISTINE POTTS (1961)

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At the time of the terrorist attacks in 2001 I worked in Manhattan, in IT at Credit Suisse. For several years I had worked at 5 World Trade Centre (WTC), one of the 9-storey buildings in the World Trade Center complex, but my group had moved three months earlier to 315 Madison Avenue, a high-rise building overlooking Madison Square Park. The weather on September 11th was perfect - warm and with a clear blue sky. I had an early appointment to donate blood in the building next door to my office. At the blood collection facility there was a television in the area where we waited. We heard the news of the first plane crashing into one of the WTC Towers and assumed it was a small private plane. When the second plane hit the other Tower, the television was turned over to The Sound of Music for us instead. By the time I stepped out onto Park Avenue South, returning to my office, the Avenue had been closed to traffic and hundreds of people were walking uptown. As the communications systems started to go down, I called my husband to confirm that he was okay. I was not able to reach my sister (Jeanne Berry, née Potts - also an ONL), so Michael called a friend in Texas, (before his phone went down) and asked her to call my sister to tell her we were both safe.

Not many people made it into work that day and the office was eerily quiet.

The stock markets had shut down.

Colleagues suggested that those of us who lived in New Jersey should try to get the midtown ferry across the Hudson River to go home because all the other transportation had been halted. The downtown ferries were being used to evacuate people - men, women and children - across the river from the WTC area (I chose not to join the ferry queues because I did not want to wait possibly hours in line after giving blood). With the local phones functioning again, I called Refna Wilkin, an ONL I have known for years, and asked her if I might come to her apartment on the Upper West Side. She invited me to stay the night. By the time I left the office, the buses were running again, although not the subways. The city was very different, with fewer pedestrians, and little traffic. Aside from the ongoing sirens, the city was uncharacteristically quiet. Once on the bus I noticed that

people who wanted to ride the bus but did not have either a ticket or the correct change were immediately helped by others who paid their fare. People who did not know each other started talking.

We were completely stunned by what had happened and had no idea who was responsible.

At Refna’s apartment another friend of hers joined us for dinner. No one wanted to be alone that evening. I have always been grateful that I had a friend, who was also an ONL, to turn to on that terrifying day.

The next day I returned to work. I was still unable to process what had happened and we still did not know who had done this. I felt mentally numb but surprised myself by reacting out of all proportion when a taxi came close to me as I crossed a side street, leaping what seemed like two feet in the air.

The shock stayed with us as thousands of people put up posters around the city, looking for individuals who were missing. I did not know if anyone I knew had been killed. One of the newspapers wrote a short biography of every victim as it became apparent that they had died. One thing that stuck in my mind was that St. Vincent’s Hospital in Greenwich Village prepared for multiple serious injuries to arrive all at once and had stretchers lined up down the street - but no one came. Almost no one inside the towers survived.

Of course, none of us has fully recovered from that day. Friends who were present at the scene are still unable to talk about it. We now have all manner of safety precautions which did not seem necessary before. Like many children who lived in Lower Manhattan, I miss the World Trade Center as it was a compass by which I could navigate (now we have the Freedom Tower). The Wall Street area is unrecognizable due to all the new development and tall buildings. The Oculus occupies the site where the building I had worked in once stood.

It was years before I could bring myself to go back downtown. Finally, with an English guest, (also an ONL, Isobel Ford, née Presswood), I visited the WTC Memorial. We also went to the Queen Elizabeth II September 11th Garden on Hanover Square, built to remember the 67 British citizens who were among the dead. On 9/11 we learned how very precious - and fragile - life is.

CHANGE OF DIRECTION

WHEN LIFE GIVES YOU LEMONS, MAKE LEMONADE WRITTEN BY KAREN BERMAN (NÉE HARARI, 1996)

I left NLCS in 1996 as Sports Captain and member of the newly established Big 6. The world was my oyster and we really were taught at School that we could do absolutely anything; there were no limits to our success in our careers and in life.

With Spanish, Geography, Economics and Maths A/S Level I went to Bristol University and studied Geography. There were multiple geography field trips, I played university lacrosse and found myself gaining a place on the Merrill Lynch summer internship programme to later be offered a permanent position.

Work was great, life was fun, fast and the buzz of the trading floor was exhilarating. The hours were long but I managed to progress quickly and was made a Director aged 28 years old. Part of the job description was to entertain my clients at top restaurants and generally live the high life! It was very easy to get caught up in the bubble that envelops so many in the financial sector.

Unfortunately, during a great career in the City my life took a turn when my mother was diagnosed with cancer. It was a dreadful time in my life, but the closeness of my family and extended family helped us overcome the initial shock. My mother miraculously recovered, but then a year and a half later it reappeared and was ferocious.

Devastatingly, she passed away and it made me totally question my priorities in my life. I have very vivid memories of being at my mother’s grave when the rabbi laid her to rest and hearing what a

wonderful person she was, so kind and generous. It really made me consider life in a way that I had never taken a moment to do so previously. I did not want to be remembered as ‘Karen the great banker’ and I was aware that despite having an extremely understanding husband and two young children, the constant juggling of life and work needed to be reassessed. Redundancy was the result and a welcomed resolution. There was a world outside of the bank, a busy world that exists whilst we were tied to our desks from 6am for twelve hours.

After a couple of years we had our third child. A thoroughly considered decision this time, and such a welcome addition to our family.

Life somehow seemed like it was no longer forever and my decisions were much more calculated. Every problem was just a ‘first world problem’ and seemed minor in comparison to what I had experienced. I really feel that I have embraced the YOLO principle; you only live once.

That is not to say that I don’t plan for the future but I do enjoy every moment and I am so much more aware of our mortality (not in a morbid way).

Three years ago after having some time away from the corporate world to be with all my children, I decided to channel my

energy in a new direction, take the opportunity to challenge myself and retrain as a Personal Trainer. I was always extremely interested in fitness and it was something on my bucket list. Having played team sports to a decent level at School and university and then swapping to the gym given work commitments, it seemed like a natural progression. Someone had advised me that when considering a second career, to make your hobby your work.

As all good North Londoners do, it was not suffice to have the basics, so I armed myself with as many qualifications as possible!

I have been practising for a couple of years and currently train kids, teens and adults. I offer 1on1s, small group training, fitness clubs in schools as well as outdoor adult bootcamps. I am constantly learning through continued education and through the fitness industry. I did not see my life going in this direction. Had you have asked me ten years ago where I would be, a strength and conditioning coach would have never entered my mind. Life rarely goes as planned. In my case, it took heartbreak and a shattering of my world, which then led me to pursue a new career and decide to start afresh.

I guess the motto I live by now is...‘when life gives you lemons, make lemonade’…

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A North L�nd�ner for Life

EMMA GORDON Script Writer Old North Londoner 1985-1995

ENTRY FOR SEPTEMBER 2020 AND BEYOND

OPEN EVENTS for 4+, 7+, 11+ and 16+ admissions are held throughout the Summer and Autumn

A large number of full bursaries available Coach service and free Station Shuttle Buses available Visit our website for further information www.nlcs.org.uk CONNECT WITH US /nlcs1850

ARTS CORNER

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usic has always been at the heart of NLCS. It is therefore no surprise that ONL Sasha Brown has always been mesmerised by the way music has a language of its own and can enhance or alter someone’s mood completely. Now a singer/songwriter, Sasha emerged onto the music scene after her collaboration with Nathan Barato on their Top 40 Track ‘Talk On’. She quickly moved her way to the top, gaining support from industry tastemakers such as Rinse FM, BBC Radio 1’s Pete Tong and Kiss Radio.

Sasha was at NLCS when the Performing Arts Centre opened and has cherished memories of performing on its stage.

After a short acting course at LAMDA, she realised that she really wanted to work as a musician. She chose Bristol University due to its vibrant music scene and, whilst there, ended up singing with the Jazz band and, later, touring Croatia with them. Sasha also become involved with radio and went to festivals and gigs, interviewing artists for her radio show to get a wider insight into the industry.

In her second year, Sasha worked with DJ Bunjy from Laidblak and became serious about song writing. Since then, she has released several singles - the latest of which ‘Boom Boom (She Got That)’ is out right now and can be downloaded on Spotify.

Sasha is also an acclaimed DJ and presenter. On her weekly ‘Feel Good Show’ on Hoxton Radio, she has interviewed prominent musicians including Clean Bandit, Rudimental and Sofi Tukker. She has gigged as a DJ at the El Dorado Festival, where she also played the saxophone, and at London Fashion Week, The Wilderness Festival and also at Sigrid’s After Party as part of the Somerset House Series.

Sasha loves all music and particularly enjoys that, as a musician, you just never know what’s around the corner - something she finds equally exciting and terrifying. It is a tough industry, and Sasha’s advice to anyone interested in music as a career is work on your craft, collaborate and get out there and network - very much an NLCS ethos. As Sasha said, ‘Once an NLCS gal, always an NLCS gal!’ She thinks there is a massive gap and need for more female producers and engineers, this could be a brilliant way into the industry for those looking to make the next steps.

Or, if you’re a singer who can also produce, then remember you don’t need to rely on producers to make music.

Chloé Nelkin Consulting specialises in PR, events and consultancy with a focus on visual arts, theatre and opera. CNC offers an internship scheme to those who are considering public relations as a career option.

Internships last for a minimum of one month and expenses are paid. A love of the arts is essential! This scheme allows people to get a feel for working at a busy Soho office. If you would like to be considered, email info@chloenelkinconsulting. com along with your up-to-date CV and a short covering letter, marking the subject box as ‘internship’.

If you have any involvement in the arts, please do get in touch at info@chloenelkinconsulting. com. To keep up-to-date with my art news and clients, check out chloenelkinconsulting.com.

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ONL NEWS

ROMA AGRAWAL (2001) WAS AWARDED AN MBE IN 2018 FOR SERVICES TO ENGINEERING.

After leaving NLCS, Roma went on to study Physics at the University of Oxford, followed by an MSc in Structural Engineering from Imperial College London.

Her most visible achievement to date is her work on London’s Shard (the tallest building in western Europe) as a structural engineer, but she’s also author of the book ‘Built’, published earlier this year to wide acclaim.

She is a passionate advocate for inclusivity in engineering, a profession that she believes should, but does not reflect the diversity of modern society. Therefore she acts as an unofficial ambassador and regularly goes into schools to inspire the next generation of engineers regardless of their gender or ethnicity.

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UNVEILING OF BLUE PLAQUE FOR ONL BOTANIST AGNES ARBER (NÉE ROBERTSON, 1897) Agnes started NLCS at the age of 8 in 1896 and was taught Science by Miss Edith Aitken.

Over time she discovered a fascination with botany. At School she met Ethel Sargant, a plant morphologist who gave regular presentations to the School science club.

Sargant would later become her mentor and colleague, having a profound influence on Arber’s research interests and methods. Agnes went on to study at University College, followed by Newnham College, Cambridge. She became a leading authority in her field.

Her research spanned the disciplines of science, history and philosophy, and she became only the third woman, and first female botanist, to be elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.

She is commemorated with a blue plaque at her former family home in Primrose Hill.

ERICA BROSTOFF (NÉE REES, 1953) DONATES A BENCH TO THE SCHOOL Erica has kindly donated a bench to the School inscribed with the word ‘Friendship’.

The bench will be one of a pair situated in a quiet place by the new cedar tree, planted in commemoration of World War I.

THE CANONSBALLS NETBALL TEAM TOPS LEAGUE

ONLs from the Class of 2010 and 2011 got together to form a netball team last year. They entered the recreational Go Mammoth Netball League who play every Monday evening at Kings Cross and came first!

Team Captain: India Gurmail-Kaufmann (2010)

EMMA HAGGAS (NÉE LAWSON,1982) LANDSCAPE PAINTING EXHIBITION ONL Emma Hagas and daughter of former Head of Chemistry, Mary Lawson, exhibited her beautiful landscape paintings for two weeks last September at Cricket Fine Art, Chelsea, London.

Team: Beth Denham (2010), Priyanka Mehta (2010), Olivia Beecham (2010), Sophia Sullivan (2011), Cara Stott (2011), Deborah Marmot (2010), Lottie Wakeling (2010), Katie Rubin (2010), Amy Needleman (2010), Sacha Greane (2011) and Anna Pughm (2010)

ONL NEWS

e’d love to hear more news from ONLs. W Please keep us updated by emailing us at onla@nlcs.org.uk

CELEBRATING A VERY SPECIAL ONL

In June 2018, the School and ONL community paid tribute to Margaret Bunford (née Taylor, 1948). Margaret has contributed immensely over decades to the NLCS community. During the afternoon, Jo Newman, Head of the Junior School and an ONL, shared details of Margaret’s wartime experiences at Canons, with air-raids and exams sat in shelters. After leaving, she served for many years as an NLCS Governor, as

JO DUNKLEY (1997) AWARDED AN OBE

Former Fellow in Physics, Professor Jo Dunkley (ONL 1997) has been awarded an OBE in the New Year’s Honours for services to science.

Jo now works at Princeton

well as holding many positions on the ONLA Committee, including Vice President.

It was particularly apt to honour Margaret as she herself has organised so many NLCS celebrations, including the ONLA Centenary tea in 1973, a retirement dinner for Madeleine McLauchlan (former Headmistress) in 1985 and numerous ONL reunions. She also published a book of NLCS ‘War Time Memories’. Margaret was also a founder member and local chairman of the Arts Society and was a tireless supporter of her daughter Fiona’s orphanage in Zimbabwe.

It is rare to meet someone who encapsulates such intelligence, compassion, style and social skills and those of us who have worked alongside her count ourselves fortunate to have been guided by Margaret.

University, pursuing research in cosmology, specifically studying the origins and evolution of the universe. Her major projects are the Atacama Cosmology Telescope and the Simons Observatory. ​She has been awarded the Maxwell Medal, the Fowler Prize and the Rosalind Franklin Award for her work on the Cosmic Microwave Background, and shared the Gruber Prize and the Breakthrough Prize with the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) team. During her time at Exeter College she was named one of the next big names in physics by the Financial Times.

HELEN LLOYD (1968) AND NAOMI PERRY (NÉE FREEDMAN, 1968) WALK DOWN LIME AVENUE

iner. In 2008 I achieved an M.Ed with distinction in teaching English as a foreign language. I have raised 5 children and now have 11 grandchildren aged between 1 and 17. I retired two years ago from a large wellknown school called Kadoorie, in the Lower Galillee, but went back to teaching A level groups in a school part-time closer to home, which I enjoy immensely.

JILL HALL (NÉE HANKINS, 1975) Helen and Naomi visited the School for their 50 Year Reunion and took advantage of the sunshine to walk to the end of Lime Avenue and have a photo taken together to commemorate 22nd November 1963. On that day, they had spent the lunch hour walking down the avenue talking about politics - as 13-year-olds do! - and decided that the only hope for the world was President Kennedy. That evening they heard he had been assassinated and vowed earnestly that they’d always contact each other on that date - and they have done so ever since.

JUDITH ASTARY (NÉE LEVINE, 1967) I attended Exeter University reading German for four years before emigrating to Israel in 1971. After a period in Ulpan to learn Hebrew, I began teaching deprived 8th graders as a special favour to the Kibbutz. This set the course for a now 44 year career in teaching English as a foreign language at all levels, becoming coordinator in three schools and being a senior A level English equivalent exam-

I never went far from school after I left in 1975 and eventually returned to NLCS to work with Miss McLauchlan at Canons on the admin team for four years until my daughter was born in 1985. I decided I was going to be a career mother and I happily raised my two daughters getting hugely involved with local toddler groups and the church in Redbourn where we then lived. In 1997 my husband’s career was taking some twists and turns and we made the life changing decision to move to Mid Devon to a farm of 53 acres in the middle of nowhere.

With my husband away all week, I quickly learned the new trade of managing land and juggling family. I haven’t got any degrees or diplomas from big universities; my continuing education has been in managing the land, lambing sheep, looking after woodlands and driving the tractor as well as developing a show garden.

Would I swap it for any other way life? No way! My elder daughter Jennifer, a farm vet, now farms Shutelake and I am her right-hand woman. Find us on www. shutelakelamb.co.uk and my garden in National Garden Scheme Yellow book guide.

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ONL NEWS

LOUISE LEACH (NÉE COHEN, 1996) After leaving NLCS in 1996, I went to Birmingham University and during the holidays I worked at international Club Med resorts working at the kids club and choreographing shows. After graduating, my dream was to ‘make it’ in showbiz and I ended up on prime time television for the world’s first reality series ‘Popstars’ with Nigel Lythgoe as head judge. I reached the final 20 out of thousands, sharing a room with Coronation Street’s Kim Marsh at Bootcamp rounds! It was fun times hanging out with ‘A listers’ including the Spice Girls, being interviewed for TV, radio and magazines.

Whilst on the cusp of ‘making it’, I spent an inspiring Sabbath in Golders Green and knew then that I wanted to prioritise religion and family over finding fame and fortune.

I quit the industry and started teaching dance classes to ladies and children, opening my company Dancing With Louise (DWL). Shortly after that I met my husband. 18 years later, DWL teaches over 2000 students, running 100 weekly classes at local venues and schools (including at NLCS!) NLCS taught me that the world is your oyster and to think outside the box. The fantastic education gave me the confidence to run my own business whilst juggling family life (we have 5 children!)! Mrs Clanchy was an amazing leader, instilling high morals and ethics within the framework of striving for academic excellence.

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WELCOME TO KAREN DOYLE OUR NEW DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT AND COMMUNICATIONS

Karen Doyle has just joined North London and has strategic oversight on the NLCS Senior Management Team for alumnae relations, development, marketing and communications.

MEET KAREN DOYLE

KAREN, WHAT ARE YOUR FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF NORTH LONDON COLLEGIATE SCHOOL? I have really enjoyed my first couple of months at North London. It is such a wonderful place to work, I have a tremendous love of history so I am truly spoiled working in such a magnificent setting. Everyone has been so welcoming and friendly – the School has a real energy and vibrancy about it. It is also an exciting time to have joined and in particular working with the Head, Mrs. Sarah Clark who is an extraordinary leader. I have already met a number of ONLs who have a deep affection for NLCS. They put in a considerable amount of time, including supporting the work of the department; we are immensely appreciative of them all. In the months ahead, I am really looking forward to meeting ONLs at the many events we have coming up.

TELL US MORE ABOUT YOUR CAREER? I graduated from Warwick University in Classics to start a career in marketing.

After a spell at LBC Radio, I went to work for Bertelsmann, one of the world’s largest multinational mass media corporations, and quickly moved up the ranks. After ten years, I became Marketing Director at DeAgostini, helping to launch a new start-up publishing business. I then went to work for Barclaycard to launch one of the first ever-online shopping platforms, Shopsmart.

I have always loved football, so when the chance arose to work for The FA, as Head of Women’s Football, I was delighted. I developed the original blueprint for the first ever women’s professional super league, helped get the first ever Women’s FA Cup Final live on BBCI, and put together the bid to UEFA to stage the UKs first major championship.

This culminated in me featuring in The Independent newspaper’s Top 50 Most Influential People in Football. I moved from the commercial world to education over 13 years ago. I was Director of Communication and Development at the University of Kent, and then went to work at the University of the Arts as Director of Development and Alumni Relations and, more recently, Education Trust Director at Epsom College.

THE OLD NORTH LONDONERS’ ASSOCIATION IS A GLOBAL COMMUNITY OF MORE THAN 5,500 ONLS – WHAT ARE THE MAIN PRIORITIES FOR THE FUTURE? Considerable work has taken place over the years (by the brilliant Poorvi and Carolina), to build the ONL community.

As a result, there have been numerous high quality events and we have a range of ONL societies. A key priority is to continue to build on this, and involve more of our younger ONLs, so they can experience the many benefits of being an Old North Londoner. Careers and mentoring support is an area in which many of our established ONLs are interested in helping our younger ONLs and our Sixth Form students.

The ideas and opinions of our ONLs are important, so we are keen to understand what ONLs want, and indeed what our former students go on to do. We have just launched a major ONL Questionnaire and the feedback will help shape our plans for the future. Please look out for the Questionnaire in ONLine,

HOW DO YOU THINK ALUMNAE CAN BE INVOLVED AND SUPPORT THE SCHOOL AS IT EVOLVES AND PROGRESSES? There are many things that alumnae can do to support us, but one of the most important is to be advocates for North London; talking to prospective students or parents, employing NLCS graduates and also by offering work placements and internship opportunities. Our alumnae are our best ambassadors. Most alumnae are keen to give something back and are keen to help current students have the opportunities that they had.

DO YOU THINK THERE IS A TYPICAL OLD NORTH LONDONER? Definitely not. One of the things that makes North London special is the diversity in the student and the alumnae population. We have so many interesting alumnae who are working in all sorts of different fields.

WHAT DO YOU THINK WILL BE ONE OF THE MAIN CHALLENGES OF THE ROLE? The School does not have a large endowment fund, so it would be wonderful to galvanize the whole community and raise funds to provide full bursaries for 10% of our Senior School students. Through the kindness of ONLs and parents, The Bernice McCabe Bursary Fund has already helped to transform the lives of a number of students, who have benefitted from a fantastic NLCS education.

LOOKING AT THE YEAR AHEAD, ARE YOU PLANNING ANY NEW INITIATIVES? We are eager to build our social networks and to reconnect with ONLs we have lost contact with both in the UK and globally.

It pleasing to say that we now have over 2,000 ONLs signed up to the Frances Mary Buss Facebook page, and over 1,000 ONLs signed up to ONL Connect, an online platform that allows ONLs to re-connect. We are keen to grow the numbers further, so if you have not already signed up, please do have a look at https://onlconnect.org.uk/

IN 2025, THE SCHOOL WILL BE CELEBRATING ITS 175TH ANNIVERSARY. HOW ARE YOU PLANNING TO MARK THE OCCASION? We are so excited about this – it will be a significant milestone in the School’s history and, of course, the opportunity to look forward to another successful 175 years, along with celebrating our incredible history. Our intention is to stage major ONL celebrations and reunions, and we are keen to hear your thoughts and ideas about how we can make 2025 even more special…so please let us know.

DO YOU HAVE ANY PARTICULAR HOBBIES OR ACTIVITIES? I am a massive Spurs supporter and look forward to the day when we win the Premier League! I also enjoy the arts; I even had a go myself recently and did a studio ceramics course at Chelsea College Art. I regularly go and see live music ranging from rock to punk, and I love the sea, so any excuse being on the water is something I love.

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BOOK CLUB

I LOOKED AWAY BY JANE CORRY (NÉE THOMAS, 1974) Every Monday, 49-year-old Ellie looks after her grandson Josh. She loves him more than anything else in the world. The only thing that can mar her happiness is her husband’s affair. But he swears it’s over now, and Ellie has decided to be thankful for what she’s got.

Then one day, while she’s looking after Josh, her husband gets a call from that woman. And for just a moment, Ellie takes her eyes off her grandson. The accident that happens will change her life forever.

Because Ellie is hiding something in her past.

And what looks like an accident could start to look like murder...

GÓMEZ MANRIQUE, STATESMAN AND POET: THE PRACTICE OF POETRY IN FIFTEENTH-CENTURY SPAIN BY GISELE EARLE (NÉE WILSON, 1963) Gómez Manrique (c.1412 - c.1490) had a long and active life, engaging in military activity as a typical medieval knight before becoming a diplomat and statesman. He was deeply involved in the political turbulence of fifteenth-century Castile, playing an important role in bringing together Fernando of Aragon and the infanta Isabel of Castile whose marriage sealed the union of these two kingdoms. Although Don Gómez has long rested in the shadow of his more famous

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nephew, Jorge, he produced a larger and more varied corpus of verse: courtly love poetry, elegies, moral and political poetry, verse dialogues with friends, consolatory poems and the first play by a known author in Spanish. This study focuses on the social, economic and political context in which the poet lived, and draws comparisons with some other poets who were his contemporaries.

BREATHE AGAIN: HOW TO LIVE WELL WHEN LIFE FALLS APART BY NIKI HARDY (NÉE FORD, 1987) Available August 2019 No one gets to skip the tough stuff and when life crumbles, either in an instant or gradually over time, it threatens to bury us. We’re left overwhelmed and drowning, unable to catch a breath, questioning God, and merely surviving a life we never signed up for. Niki Hardy gets it. After losing both her mum and sister to lung cancer she was diagnosed with rectal (yes, rectal!) cancer and she was left exhausted, wondering where on earth the life she’d planned had gone. Like a practical, no nonsense friend, she shows us that life doesn’t have to be pain free to be full and through her seven hands on practices and the stories from others who’ve been there too, she equips us to leave behind the rubbish we believe about ourselves and God and grab hold of the life He came to give us.

FINDING MY VOICE: A MEMOIR BY VALERIE MENDES (NÉE BARNETT, 1958) In October 2019 Valerie Mendes will turn eighty. It is a grand milestone and, amid the rough and tumble of the high-tech modern world, an achievement in its own right. Here for the first time she steps away from her fiction to describe some of the most important people, places, things and ideas that have shaped her own life.

LARKSWOOD: LARKSWOOD HOUSE BY VALERIE MENDES (NÉE BARNETT, 1958) The very name suggests birdsong, peace and elegance. It is home to the Hamilton children – Edward, Cynthia and Harriet – who enjoy the freedom and excitement of privilege. But in the glorious summer of 1896, with absent parents and a departed governess, disaster strikes the Hampshire family, leaving it cruelly divided.

Released in 2014 and being reprinted this year for the tenth time.

OTTOMAN ODYSSEY: TRAVELS THROUGH A LOST EMPIRE BY ALEV SCOTT (2005) A personal journey by the author of Turkish Awakening across the former Ottoman Empire reveals its legacy: a lasting influence on people from the Balkans to the Levant, and a lively diversity now under threat from rising nationalism.

Alev Scott’s odyssey began when she had to look beyond Turkey’s borders for contemporary traces of the Ottoman Em-

BOOK CLUB

pire. Born in London to a Turkish mother and British father, Turkey was Alev’s second home, where she cut her teeth as a journalist and wrote her first book, and where many of her closest friends live.

After the attempted coup in July 2016, Alev found her writing about the deteriorating situation attracting more death threats than usual. She left Turkey - temporarily, she thought - but found herself banned from returning to Istanbul, her home of six years. Now, she feels guilty even contacting her friends in Turkey: links to a blacklisted person are toxic. Unable to research this book within Turkey, Alev took to the road. The eight-hundred yearrule of the Ottomans ended a century ago yet - travelling through twelve countries from Kosovo to Greece to Palestine - she uncovered a vital and relevant legacy where medieval ethnic diversity is meeting 21st century nationalism.

BEING AN ADULT BY LUCY TOBIN (2004) Adult life is full of mysteries. What should you check before renting a flat? How do you ask for a pay rise? Does anything really need to be dry cleaned? And why does everyone else seem to know these things except you? (They don’t, but this book will help.)

Being an Adult is a practical and entertaining guide to the life skills you didn’t learn at school, from when to ask for a discount or send a condolence card, to how

to save money, and what you need to know before your first day at work.

If you’ve ever wondered when you’re going to become a ‘real’ grown-up, this book - with top tips from 20 and 30-somethings, and proper adults including a plumber, a doctor, and a personal finance expert - will give you the answers you need.

VOYAGING OUT; BRITISH WOMEN ARTISTS FROM SUFFRAGE TO THE SIXTIES BY CAROLYN TRANT (1969) Available September 2019 Consider for a moment the history of modern art in Britain; you may struggle to land on a narrative that features very many women. On this journey through a fascinating period of social change, artist Carolyn Trant fills in some of the gaps in traditional art histories. Introducing the lives and works of a rich network of neglected women artists, Voyaging Out sets these alongside such renowned presences as Barbara Hepworth, Laura Knight and Winifred Nicholson.

In an era of radical activism and great social and political change, women forged new relationships with art and its institutions. Such change was not without its challenges, and with acerbic wit Trant delves into the gendered make-up of the ‘avant-garde’, and the tyranny of artistic ‘isms’. Virginia Woolf’s first novel The Voyage Out (1915) has her female heroine strive towards a realization of her sense

of self, asking what being a woman might mean. In the decades after women won the vote in Britain, the fortunes of women artists were shaped by war, domesticity, continued oppressions and spirited resistance. Some succeeded in forging creative careers; others were thwarted by the odds stacked against them. Weaving devastating individual stories with playful critique, Voyaging Out reveals this hidden history This book was inspired to some degree by the ideas of Peggy Angus, who taught Carolyn throughout the sixties and whose biography she wrote in 2004 (Art for Life published by Incline Press).

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ONL NETWORK

THE ONLA CAREERS NETWORK AND LAUNCH OF ONL CONNECT NLCS is a community for life and the School’s relationship with its pupils extends far beyond their time at Canons. ONLs are a unique and dynamic group of people with careers and life experiences spanning an incredible array of sectors. Young or old, there is an instant bond between them and an amazing willingness to support each other.

Now more than ever, there is a global emphasis on supporting women in their careers and establishing a work/life balance regardless of family situations.

We want our students and ONLs to be aware of their choices, and to have the courage to define success in their own terms rather than what they feel is expected of them. That is why we feel so passionately about the ONL Network and the support ONLs can, and do, give to one another.

Last May, we launched ONL Connect, a new online platform exclusively for ONLs to enable them to connect easily with each other socially and for careers advice and guidance. ONL Connect provides School news and details of upcoming events and reunions; and from a careers perspective, it is there to provide support to ONLs at all stages of their career, ranging from those simply considering a career in a specific industry, to those well-established within their sector.

Through ONL Connect, ONLs can offer advice to more recent leavers about their career choices, and help to promote different industry sectors, identify

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the challenges that women may face within them and very importantly, how to overcome them. The advice from an ONL is invaluable, and we believe that ONL Connect provides the best forum to tap into this incredible resource. If you are able to help other ONLs or if you are in need of ONL support or advice, please sign up by visiting www.onlconnect.org.uk Regardless of career or industry, there are a number of common challenges that almost all women face in their working lives. In November this year, we are holding the second of our annual Women in the Workplace events that spans all industry sectors, where ONLs will hear from prominent women across a number of industry sectors about how the working environment has changed for women over the years and the challenges they still face. We hope you’ll be able to join us, full details will be available soon.

Poorvi Smith (ONL 1991) Alumnae Officer

ONL GROUPS

Left: South West Group

in Kingston Deverill.

Right: Sydney group

Lunch.

ONL REGIONAL GROUPS Our regional group coordinators are happy to be the point of contact for any ONL living or travelling to their area. If you are travelling around the UK, relocating or simply going abroad on a holiday do consider contacting them as they would love to help you plan. If you would like to become a regional or overseas group coordinator, please email us at onla@nlcs.org.uk.

CORNWALL/DEVON Jill Hall (née Hankins) jill22hall@gmail.com NLCS - ONLs Cornwall & Devon We are looking for another Group Coordinator for the Cornwall / Devon area. Please get in touch if you’d like to get involved.

EAST ANGLIA Margaret Angus (née Claydon) maa@angi.me.uk NLCS - ONLs East Anglia We are looking for a new Group Coordinator for East Anglia, if you live in the area and would like to help coordinate get-togethers, please email us at onla@nlcs.org.uk GLOUCESTERSHIRE Dorothy Farley (née Coode) Tel: (01452) 713 883 NLCS - ONLs Gloucestershire HAMPSHIRE Mandy Collins ALCollins@doctors.org.uk Autumn Meeting: 12 October 2019 - Winchester NLCS - ONLs Hampshire LINCOLNSHIRE Caroline Kenyon (née Brandenburger) Tel: (01673) 828 302 caroline@thefoodawardscompany.co.uk NLCS - ONLs Lincolnshire MIDLANDS Kate Jones (née Levinson) Tel: (01564) 776 571 Kate.Levinson@talk21.com NLCS - ONLs Midlands

SOUTH WEST We are looking for a new Group Coordinator for the South West, if you live in the area and would like to help coordinate get-togethers, please email us at onla@ nlcs.org.uk or Audrey directly.

Audrey Derrick (née Dickinson) Tel: (01823) 421 323 priorscombe@gmail.com Autumn Meeting: 19 October 2019, Wells NLCS - ONLs South West England

ONL INTERNATIONAL GROUPS AUSTRALIA - Sydney Kay Moyes (née Hannah) Tel: (0416) 002 701 moyes_kay@hotmail.com NLCS - ONLs Australia FRANCE – Sevres Laura Pyke-Jean laurapyke@yahoo.com ISRAEL – Givat Sharet Debra Benstein (née Kestel) dbenstein@gmail.com NLCS - ONLs Israel NEW ZEALAND - Auckland Helen Chipper (née Marr) Tel: (0064) 2124 70447 j.h.chipper@xtra.co.nz NLCS - ONLs New Zealand USA - New York Sharmila Sani (née Nandwani) sharmilany@aol.com

Join our ONLA Societies on Facebook or email us at onla@nlcs.org.uk

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STAFF ANNOUNCEMENTS

LONG-STANDING STAFF LEAVERS

RETIRING STAFF

Adriana Blond (Teacher of English) left to go to Newmarket and immerse herself in the world of horse-racing.

Caroline Powell After 22 years we said a sad farewell to Mrs Powell, Deputy Head of the Junior School, on the last day of the summer term. The day was dedicated to her love of History as staff and girls dressed in historical costumes, and enjoyed a picnic with Mrs Powell’s favourite pear and chocolate crumble in the grounds.

We have valued her monumental support, her energy, empathetic approach and efficiency. She had a wonderful ability to see the big picture and her calm, measured approach to any issue has been invaluable.

She took a pride in resolving all issues with diplomacy, common sense and endless patience but always with the girls’ best interests at heart. Mrs Powell ensured that all girls were nurtured and supported even when they were finding life a little tricky.

We now wish Mrs Powell every happiness as she packs up her suitcase of history and fills her diary with her many interests and trips to the opera and the theatre. We are sure that she will soon be taking her grandchildren round historic houses so they learn to share her enthusiasm for our culture and heritage. We hope that she will leave time to visit us and help out on occasions as we all miss her wonderful stories, quick wit and expertise. We wish her plenty of fun and a well-earned rest as she continues to surprise us all while she whizzes round town on her bicycle!

Maria Briggs (Teacher of Biology) left to join Berkhamsted Prep School as Head of Science.

Lucy Cooper (Director of Sport) left to join The Royal Masonic School for Girls as Director of Sport.

Stephen Goward (Head of Politics) left to join Wycombe Abbey as Deputy Head of Sixth Form.

Fred Hitchcock (Assistant Head [Extra Curricular] and Teacher of Classics) left to join St Paul’s Girls’ School as Deputy Head.

Megan Murray-Pepper (Teacher of English) left to pursue new adventures out of London.

Sarah Shaw (Junior School Teacher and Junior School Director of Studies) left to spend time with her two young children.

Margaret Wheatley (Head of Geography) left after 39 years at the School to pursue her dream of buying a house in France and studying for a Master’s degree.

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Laurie Winston Laurie joined the Maths Department in 2008 and we are hugely grateful for his decade of wonderful teaching. As a member of the Maths department, he was full of wise advice and happy to share it, especially with younger members of staff, and always done with such humility. He was probably the only Maths teacher in the country to have taught his subject from primary level right up to Oxbridge entrance. His former students, now undergraduates, paid tribute to Laurie’s inspired and infinitely patient teaching, and one student recalled how he guided ‘our possibly outspoken class through Mechanics modules with flying board erasers, and floating books pushed across desks to illustrate various principles’.

Laurie knew about - and loved - every aspect of Maths, and was never happier than when delving into all kinds of intellectual puzzles and problems, yet Laurie’s contribution to the School went far beyond the teaching of Maths; he was an exceptionally caring and patient Form Tutor.

We wish him and his wife, Fran, a long and happy retirement in Yorkshire.

We are very sorry to announce that Bernice McCabe OBE (Headmistress 1997-2017) died of cancer in the early hours of Monday 18th February 2019.

B

ernice McCabe took-up her role as Headmistress of North London Collegiate School in September 1997, remaining in this position until September 2017, at which point she became an Educational Consultant whose work included being Director of International Schools and Educational Strategy for NLCS Enterprises. Sadly, only months into this new role, Bernice became ill and shortly afterwards was diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer, which on 18th February proved to have fatal consequences. She faced the last twelve months with remarkable courage and dignity. She died peacefully at home.

During her twenty years as Headmistress of North London Collegiate School, Bernice sought to enrich the School’s curricular provision. She embedded teaching strategies that focused on a love of subject, and an appreciation that knowledge studied for its own sake is profoundly life enhancing and secures excellence for every child. Bernice was determined to develop within children the resilience and courage to ‘re-write the story’ in the face of adversity, whilst developing the self-confidence necessary to make a difference in the world.

Under her leadership, NLCS expanded provision through the addition of the International Baccalaureate Diploma. This was an alternative programme of study to the more traditional A-Levels for its Sixth Formers and NLCS developed its range of partnerships with other schools in both the State and Private sectors. We also saw the completion of a number of inspirational, transformative architectural developments, including the long-dreamt of Performing Arts Centre.

It was also under Bernice’s leadership that NLCS embarked upon its project of international franchising, spreading the

values and aspirations of NLCS’s ambitious educational provision to schools around the globe. As Bernice said on numerous occasions, international links build an appreciation of what we all have in common and develop a better understanding of others, as well as a deeper awareness of each individual’s rich and unique cultural heritage. NLCS Jeju opened in South Korea in September 2011, followed by NLCS Dubai in 2017, with two more scheduled to open in 2020 (Thailand and Singapore).

After undergoing successful neurosurgery in February 2018, Bernice received the life-extending drug ipilimumab privately at University College London Hospital, with, initially, promising results.

Thereafter, and up until her death, she was a powerful and public campaigner to make immunotherapy available for brain tumours on the NHS. Indeed, NLCS held a fundraising day in October 2018 to raise money for Brain Tumour Research, and anyone wishing to donate to this will find details at https://www.justgiving.com/ campaigns/charity/tnba/immunotherapy.

Bernice passed away in the early hours of Monday 18th February 2019 having been surrounded by her family and friends in recent months. We mourn her passing whilst celebrating the fact that NLCS is a richer institution for her inspirational leadership.

Bernice’s legacy will continue at the School. She was committed to providing educational opportunities for children who otherwise would not have been able to afford them here at School. If you would like to make a donation in her name to The Bernice McCabe Bursary Fund, you may do so via this link: uk.virginmoneygiving. com/charity-web/charity/ finalCharityHomepage. action?uniqueVmgCharityUrl=nlcs Bernice McCabe was an extraordinary leader, and a wonderful friend and colleague. She will be deeply missed.

A book of condolence will be opened in the Old House Reception at Canons, and friends of the School are welcome to pay a written tribute to Bernice. We have also created an online condolence book, and messages can be left using this online form www. nlcs.org.uk/about-nlcs/ bernice-mccabe-obe-condolence-form. Messages will be published on a condolence page on the School website www.nlcs.org.uk/ about-nlcs/bernice-mccabe-obe-condolence-messages.

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REMEMBERANCE

THE SUNLIGHT ON THE GARDEN Written by Dafydd James-Williams, our Head of English, The Sunlight on the Garden, celebrates Bernice McCabe’s twenty years of Headship at North London Collegiate School.

Using Mrs McCabe’s Valedictory and Founder’s Day speeches as source material, the book is an examination of what makes North London Collegiate such a unique educational institution in the 21st century. The

title, The Sunlight on the Garden, is taken from a poem

by Louis MacNeice, referred to in one of Mrs McCabe’s Valedictory addresses. The poem also alludes quite directly to summer in the gardens at Canons, to the spatial and educational freedom offered to students here and, more indirectly, to the passing of generations through the School. The book includes a wonderful selection of photographs of Canons including some of our past and present students.

In our continued support of the National Brain Appeal’s Immunotherapy Fund, all profits from the sale of The Sunlight on the Garden will be donated to this worthy cause.

Books are £15 each and can ordered online by visiting www.nlcs.org.uk/about-nlcs/the-sunlight-onthe-garden

Jackie Beesley (1969) Jackie joined North London Collegiate School at the age of 11 and soon her talent in art became apparent. She was incredibly creative and had an amazing eye for colour. Jackie married Rob in her early twenties and had two children, Mark and Katy. A back injury and related surgery prevented her from driving and seriously curtailed her activities. However, as she was never one to feel sorry for herself, she started her own ‘cottage industry’ from home.

She made personalised cakes for every occasion using all her creative skill and love of art to make beautiful masterpieces - and they tasted wonderful too!!

Jackie was a truly amazing wife, mother, grandmother, daughter, sister and friend.

She had the most beautiful smile that lit up a room and she maintained this throughout the last nine months of her life when she was bravely battling serious repercussions of aortic aneurysms.

We miss her so very much and will never forget her.

Daphne Brissenden (née Roscoe, 1947) Daphne died on 31st January 2018, she attended NLCS between 1942 and 1947. She enjoyed coming back to the School for reunions with her sister Mavis, and looked back on her time at the school with great affection.

Patricia Joy Dodd (née Hardingham, 1946) Patricia attended NLCS during the Second World War

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years having been awarded a scholarship.

She loved the grounds and spoke warmly of her time and the staff. She had a fine singing voice and left School to follow a career in music. Her career path took several turns throughout her life ultimately resulting in the role of Primary School Headmistress. Illness led to an early retirement and then time nursing her first husband Charles who died in the 1990s. In 1999 she remarried to Les Dodd.

A devout deeply faithful Christian who absolutely loved cuisine. Arthritis and mobility problems were challenges to be overcome and she met them full on. She had four daughters, three step daughters, six grandchildren, eight step grandchildren and seven great grandchildren.

She will be greatly missed by all who knew her.

Fenella Fielding OBE (1945) Fenella died on 11 September 2018, aged 90 following a stroke two weeks prior. Born in 1927, Fenella appeared regularly on British stage, screen and television productions from the 1950s. In the 1960s, she starred in three films in the Doctor in the House comedy series and two of the double entendre-laden Carry On comedies: Carry on Regardless and Carry on Screaming. She was appointed OBE in the Queen’s birthday honours in June 2018.

Rachel Garver (née Estermann, 1969)

REMEMBERANCE

Rachel died very suddenly on 31 July 2018. She was a remarkable musician, playing and teaching several instruments. When she began to lose the use of some of her fingers, she took up the French horn, as only three finger are required. She mastered it and took her Grade 8 Exam just before she died.

At her funeral the news was shared that she passed the exam and a cheer went up on that very sad day. She had many other gifts and talents and was loved and missed by many.

Juliet Ann Gass (née Cordingly, 1958) Juliet lost her fight against Motor Neurone Disease and died on 25 November 2017.

She is survived by her husband, two children and three grandchildren aswell as by her sister, Rosemary, who was also at North London.

Sheila Gerhard (née Cooper, 1945) Sheila died peacefully in her sleep on 24 January 2019.

She was proud of her school’s pioneering work in the education of girls. In her role as Head Girl and School Captain at North London, she was the first pupil to meet Dame Kitty Anderson. Sheila went on to study medicine and worked firstly with tuberculosis patients and then as a community paediatrician.

Having survived the blitz as a teenager she was passionate about the importance of contributing to the greater good of society: she was a firm believer in state educa-

tion and the NHS. She had a rich family life and happy marriage and she leaves behind five children and eleven grandchildren.

Joan Mullett (1950) Joan died on 2 October, 2018.

After leaving North London, she became a stage performer, appearing in the Pendley Shakespeare Festival. She also founded an am-dram company in Rickmansworth and, after stepping back from performing, she ran a drama and dance school, teaching and inspiring hundreds of teenagers. She also taught singing and, latterly, ballroom dancing. In her fifties, she graduated with a degree in psychology from the Open University. She was married three times and had three children, Justine, Devon and Alexander.

Judy Oddy (née Cohen, 1954) Judy passed away in February 2018 after a battle with cancer bravely borne. She forged lifelong friendships at NLCS, including with Sylvia Trench and Janet Roberton who both attended her funeral. After leaving NLCS she studied at Leeds University, taught in the UK and Switzerland, and ended her academic career of 40 years at the University of Westminster teaching Science. She was a gifted educator and touched the lives of many with her energy, frankness and good humour. Sorely missed by husband, Derek, sons, Alex and Mike, their families including four grandsons,

together with Judy’s younger sister Naomi Harris (née Cohen), also an ONL. Shirley Orr (née Putman, 1952) Shirley always talked with a lot of love and affection of her time at North London, she won a scholarship there in 1945 and then went on to start her nursing training at the Westminster Hospital.

Her older sister Joyce also attended North London, and being the younger of the two, Shirley adopted the name ‘Little Putman’. She remembered her School days after the war, as very happy times.

Irene Peters (née Lawton, 1963) Irene Peters passed away on 6th October 2018, aged 73, following a long and bravely-fought illness. She grew up in Edgware and attended NLCS from 1955 until 1963.

After leaving School, Irene studied modern languages and worked as a translator for British Steel, before entering the charity sector, where she did extensive fundraising and volunteer work, most notably at the North London Hospice and Chai Cancer Care. Irene was married for 37 years to her late husband, Norman, and is survived by their two sons, David and Jonathan.

Lois Piercy (née Hemmons, 1938) Lois died peacefully at home on 6th October 2017 at the age of 96. Lois matriculated in 1938, moving on to St Marys College where she

completed her first degree.

Lois initially worked as a microbiologist and later joined the genetics department at Glasgow University from where she graduated in 1950 with a doctorate in microbiology.

Lois was keen on outdoor pursuits. Whilst on a walking holiday in Glencoe she met her future husband.

They were married in 1959.

In 1966 the family which by then included three boys moved to north London where she settled for the next fifty years becoming involved in many aspects of the local church and Finchley community.

As the family grew up, Lois restarted her career performing epidemiological research at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

Notwithstanding the onset of Alzheimer’s disease in her 90s, Lois remained physically fit and healthy and continued to lead a fulfilling life with family and friends which included several ONLs. Lois is survived by her husband Brian, three children & five grandchildren & is greatly missed by the many people whose lives she touched.

John Renshaw, Former Governor John died 11th March 2018 at his home. John was a Former Governor of NLCS between 1993 and 2003. We thank him greatly for his contribution to the School.

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DEVELOPMENT

This has been a very successful year for fundraising at North London and we are always grateful for gifts of all sizes towards the Bernice McCabe Bursary Fund and to capital projects at the School. Thank you to all those who support the School, which have enabled us to achieve our ambitions and change young lives.

THANK YOU!

THE BERNICE MCCABE BURSARY FUND

Since the last issue of ONLine, we are thrilled to have received significant donations as follows:

Bursaries hold a very special place at North London. The School was built on generosity and the belief that education has the power to transform lives; we are committed to providing an accessible, affordable education for able girls.

Unlike many schools that benefit from an endowment, North London is dependent on philanthropic support to help us deliver a dynamic and inspirational educational environment. To mark the extraordinary contribution of Bernice McCabe OBE to North London over her twenty years of Headship (1997-2017), the School named the Bursary Fund in her honour. This academic year 77 girls are benefitting from a means-tested bursary, but we would like to increase our provision so that 10% of girls are in receipt of a full bursary. As part of our fundraising campaign, we are looking to raise £1,000,000 towards the Bernice McCabe Bursary Fund, of which we have raised £450k to date (45% of our campaign target). We are extremely grateful to those ONLs who make a regular contribution to the bursary fund. If you are interested in finding out more, please do get in touch at development@nlcs.org.uk, or if you wish to donate, please visit our website - www. nlcs.org.uk/support-us/bursaries. We are most appreciative for all support towards our fundraising target.

ÌÌ A GRANT OF UP TO £180,000 FROM A CHARITABLE TRUST TO COVER THE FEES AND COACH COSTS OF A STUDENT ON A 100% BURSARY FOR 7 YEARS ÌÌ A GIFT OF £20,000 TOWARDS SPORTS COACHING AND RESOURCES FROM THE LUCY WRAY FOUNDATION ÌÌ AN ANNUAL INSTALMENT OF SPONSORSHIP OF £20,000 FROM BANK OF AMERICA MERRILL LYNCH TOWARDS THE BURSARY FUND ÌÌ A GIFT OF £5,000 TOWARDS THE BERNICE MCCABE BURSARY FUND FROM A GRANDPARENT ÌÌ A £10,000 GIFT, PART OF A 7-YEAR PLEDGE TOWARDS BURSARIES, FROM SENIOR SCHOOL PARENTS ÌÌ AN UNRESTRICTED PLEDGE OF £50,000 OVER 5 YEARS FROM JUNIOR SCHOOL PARENTS ÌÌ AN UNRESTRICTED LEGACY GIFT OF £100,000 FROM A PARENT OF TWO ONLS

As we look forward, we soon will unveil exciting plans for our biggest fundraising campaign since we were founded. It will be a – 2025 – 175-year anniversary major development. We are already talking to supporters, parents and friends about the School’s future master plan; we are delighted and extremely grateful for donations received to date.

QUESTION TIME In 2018 we hosted a stimulating ‘Question Time’ style evening in the Performing Arts Centre with proceeds from ticket sales going to the Bernice McCabe Bursary Fund.

Due to its success, ‘Question Time’ 2019 takes place on Thursday 23 May 7.30pm to 9.30pm in the PAC and we are delighted to welcome back to Canons Susie Orbach (ONL 1962), Lucy Tobin (ONL 2004) and Lizzie Paton (ONL 2005) as part of our panel, and Katie Mandel (ONL 2004), who will be hosting the event. Trevor Phillips (writer and broadcaster) and Nadhim Zahawi (MP for Stratford-on-Avon and Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Children and Families) will also be joining the panel, and we are looking forward to a stimulating evening of lively debate. Proceeds from ticket sales will go towards the Bernice McCabe Bursary Fund and tickets can be booked at www.ticketsource.co.uk/nlcs or contact Jo Hemmings, Development Officer at jhemmings@nlcs.org.uk for more information.

ONL WEST COAST REUNION In December, Headmistress Sarah Clark enjoyed meeting ONLs who had been at North London between 1945 to 2018 living on the West Coast at a drinks party kindly hosted by ONL Judge Angela Bradstreet at her home in Sausalito, California. During her trip, Mrs Clark visited Stanford University, and we are extremely grateful to ONL Michelle Clayman for facilitating this visit.

Michelle Clayman is Chair of the Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University and chief investment officer of

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DEVELOPMENT

New Amsterdam Partners, LLC, a firm she founded in 1986. In addition to visiting the Engineering and Design School and the Product Realization Lab at Stanford, Mrs Clark was invited by Michelle Clayman to the ‘Seeds of Change’ initiative which provides innovative training and support to advance women in STEM as they transition from school to University, and on to successful leadership roles in technology careers.

ONL SYDNEY MEET-UP The Sydney group met for a lunch at the home of Group Coordinator Kay Moyes.

They welcomed Juliet Bird (1957) for only the second time as she lives in Melbourne.

Left to right: Gillian Robinson (née Berdinner, 1959), Tina Brain (1979), Jenny Harkness (née Doolittle, 1967), Kay Moyes (née Hannah, 1965), Val Whatham (née Payne, 1959), Sue Labordus (née Selbey, 1961), Juliet Bird (née Wain, 1957), Maggie Moss (née Clough, 1969).

‘THANK YOU’ DRINKS In May 2018, ‘Thank you’ drinks were held at The Royal Automobile Club for those who have supported the School with their time and also financially, and we are hosting another event on Thursday 19 September at Eight Moorgate, 1 Dysart Street, London, EC2A 2BX from 7-9pm. Invitations will be sent out shortly.

continues today. Whether large or small, leaving a legacy in your Will can make a real difference to the School in a meaningful way. In October 2018 we re-launched The Frances Mary Buss Fellowship – our group of individuals that have made a commitment to supporting the School with a legacy gift, and we were delighted when Carolyn Eadie (ONL 1971) agreed to act as the Honorary Chair. Carolyn has worked with us to establish The Alison Eadie Prize for Journalism, in memory of her sister, Alison (ONL 1972), who died in 2004 from motor neurone disease. Carolyn has kindly left a legacy bequest in her Will which will endow a Bursary in Alison’s name.

To re-launch the Society, we were delighted to welcome ONLs back to North London in October for afternoon tea in the Old House, and we are incredibly grateful to those who have joined The Frances Mary Buss Fellowship since this event. We plan to hold a similar event in September 2019, so if you would like to receive further information or register for this event, please contact Jo Hemmings, Development Officer at jo@hemmingsonline.com or on 020 3946 8933.

If you are interested in finding out more about our fundraising plans or want to get involved, please contact Karen Doyle, Director of Development and Communications at kdoyle@nlcs.org.uk or on 020 8951 6479 – we would be delighted to hear from you.

WIN

A BOTTLE OF CHAMPAGNE

For a chance to win one of four bottles of champagne, please take part in our ONL Questionnaire! We are keen to hear your views and opinions-ONLA is here for all ONLs regardless of their age and we want to make sure that we deliver the best Alumnae service we can. This questionnaire will help to shape our future in the biggest survey we have conducted. ONLs can complete the questionnaire inside this magazine (a reply envelope has been provided) or online at: surveymonkey.co.uk/r/onla2019

A GIFT IN YOUR WILL Legacies and bequests have played a key part in North London’s success and that

CLOSING DATE 1ST AUGUST 2019

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ONLS IN WARTIME

NLCS IN WARTIME 1939–1945 THE MEMORIES OF ONLS KATHLEEN HASSELL (1936-1947), JOY COZEN (1941-1951), DAPHNE NUNN (1939-1945) AND MARGARET BUNFORD (1940-1948)

When did you start at NLCS? ‘I started School in 1941, at the age of 8. I had been at four other schools before that. When war broke out, I was moved from my school in Harrow Weald and sent to live with family near Portsmouth. Then Portsmouth was bombed so I was sent back to London.’

‘I had initially been offered a place at Copthall County but that would have meant catching two buses to school.

Then my mother suggested NLCS as it was just a walk across the park, so I came here. I already had the uniform for Copthall, and as clothes were rationed, I was allowed to wear it to NLCS for a few months. My best friend was Rosemary Nunn and we both loved to sing. Because my surname was Nunn too, we were called the Singing Nunns!’

What was it like at School during the War? ‘I would cross Canons Park in the mornings with bombers flying overhead. I was here during most of the war and I can remember being in the middle of an art exam with my easel in front of me and having to rush to the shelters.’

‘On my way to School, I recall seeing a huge anti-aircraft balloon being raised in Stanmore. There were trenches in Canons Park which were filled with

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rainwater and we always wondered how they could ever be used.’

‘I remember that the rounded arches behind the School were bricked up to create a secure enclosed space for us.

There was a concrete floor and only artificial light and we would sit there during the air raids. The Sixth Form would have to go to the Dungeons. We all took books to read and often we’d have to sit in silence whilst the older girls did their exams. We’d be there for an hour and a half or so before we were given the all clear.’

‘We loved the interruptions of sometimes boring classes! When we were cold, we sat on the low radiators - but this was frowned upon and we were warned it could cause piles, which I later found to be untrue!

I went to School for six weeks in the summer holidays too - looking back I realise that the teachers must have given up their time to run this. So many of our mothers had to work during the war and I suppose that it was a form of childcare.’

‘In every lunch break, we would climb “Old Cedee” - the huge cedar tree. It was a magnificent adventure playground.

We used to go extremely high and looking back it must have been dangerous; we swung down like monkeys from broken branches. Then it was hit by

shrapnel and declared unsafe. We were heartbroken.’

‘I think we accepted the restrictions that wartime brought, lessons in the shelters, shortage of paper and books being handed down, which had not previously happened.’

What was the food like at School?

‘Food was limited. We were served fried herrings and figs, which no one liked.

Meat was limited and unfamiliar items, such as horse meat, were served. The food was aimed at filling us up - things like potatoes, suet pudding and rice pudding. We were given morning milk in aluminum tumblers which over time got very dented and were therefore hard to wash. They smelt dreadful and you had to hold your nose and down the milk, or some of us would try and tip it out outside. Eventually small glass bottles with straws were delivered - instructions were given not to make impolite noises with the milk and the straws!’

‘I remember one day finding a bolt from some piece of kitchen equipment in a boiled sponge pudding. We took it with glee to Miss Turpin and had the wind completely taken out of our sails by her response – “ah we have been looking for that all morning, thank you so much!”’

Did the School talk to you about what was happening?

‘School didn’t talk much about what was going on. Perhaps we were too young and they didn’t want to scare us. To be honest, other than times in the shelter, School life remained fairly normal. We did have a map at home though, which we would mark with pins to keep track of what was going on’ How did you feel? Were you frightened?

‘Strangely, we weren’t scared - in a way it felt exciting. We even collected shrapnel as a bit of fun’ ‘We weren’t frightened, I suppose at that age, we didn’t really understand the meaning of death and loss, and we treated it all as an adventure.’

Did you suffer any personal loss?

‘I remember arranging to meet four friends for a day out in London. My friend Rosemary was one of them - and she told us that her brother had been killed in service that morning.’

‘A German plane fell over our estate. I was out shopping for my mother and I saw the plane go down. I ran home and told my father and we went out to help.

Then we realised that it had fallen on to the home of my friends, Pamela and Barbara who were killed along with their parents.’

‘During his Fire Warden duty, my father came home to tell me a house very close to ours had been struck by an incendiary bomb. We initially thought that the house belonged to some friends of ours

and suddenly everything felt very real and very close. Thankfully though, our friends were safe.’

What about School friends?

‘I remember when Pamela Flowers died - it was awful. We’d gone back to our classrooms after assembly one morning and Miss Shillito told our form that Pamela, our very popular Games Captain, had been killed by a flying bomb in Sylvan Lane, Mill Hill. Also Mary Done was killed and her parents kindly donated the swimming pool in her honour. This brought home to us the seriousness of war.’

Did any members of your family fight in the war?

‘My father was not called up as he was older and had served in World War 1.

He was a fire warden during the World War 2.’

‘My father fought in World War 1 and his lungs were damaged. He was awarded the Military Cross at Buckingham Palace and I was so proud of him. The last day I saw him was when I visited him in hospital and he asked to see me in my full School uniform. My being at NLCS was an enormous source of pride for him. I remember having to stand far away from him as his TB was contagious.’

What was life at home like?

‘I was an only child and my mother was nervous about the bombing so we didn’t wait to receive an Ander-

son shelter but had a shelter built between our house and my aunt’s house next door. The shelter had 10-15 bunks and we spent a great many evenings in it, only returning to the house to use the toilet. We had a pump in the shelter so that when it filled with rain water, we could pump the water out. It was cold and damp.

I’ll never forget the very distinctive sound of the bombs flying over us, headed for London.’

‘We would holiday in Pembrokeshire as the beaches were much less protected.

The beaches on the South Coast were surrounded by barbed wire and you had to walk miles to find an entry point.

There were RAF stations in Pembrokeshire and we’d see the incredible flying boats that were patrolling the Atlantic.

Even on holiday, we spent much of our time in school uniform. The uniform had used up a lot of our rations so we had very little else to wear.’

How did you commemorate the end of the War? ‘We had a huge street party and lots of people were dancing in the streets.’

‘My final recollection was on D-Day when Miss Hogg swept into our Maths class and announced “The Allies have landed!” A huge cheer rang out.’

We’d like to thank Margaret, Kathleen, Joy, and Daphne for sharing their memories and stories with us. We were very moved to hear them.

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10 Year Reunion Class of 2008

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20 Year Reunion Class of 1998

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30 Year Reunion Class of 1988

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40 Year Reunion Class of 1978

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50 Year Reunion Class of 1968

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ONL INFORMATION

55+ Year Reunion

Forthcoming Events 2019 Please visit the ONLA section on our website, nlcs.org.uk for the most up-to-date list of events and reunions.

JUNE 17

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Thank you Drinks - Donors and Volunteers ONLA Summer Picnic

SEPTEMBER 18

50 Year Reunion

OCTOBER 12

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UK Hampshire Group Lunch – Winchester UK South West Group Lunch – Wells

NOVEMBER 14

Women in the Workplace Careers Event

To find out more about any event, please visit email onla@nlcs.org.uk or call 020 8951 6475.

ONLA AWARDS North London is keen to maintain a relationship with our students beyond their time at School, supporting ONLs in their endeavours and ambitions whenever possible.

All ONLs are eligible to apply for Travel and Academic Awards. Please contact the Alumnae Office for more details.

CANONS LIFE We’ll only send you a copy of Canons Life, the School’s termly newsletter, if you choose to ‘opt in’ to receive it. If you would like to continue to receive Canons Life by post, please email us at onla@nlcs.org. uk or phone us on 0208 951 6475, and we would be delighted to send it to you. The online version will be available as usual on our website.

LOOKING FOR A SCHOOL FRIEND? Have you lost touch with a friend from School? Perhaps we can help you reconnect. Email us at onla@nlcs.org.uk

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Enrich the lives of future generations by leaving a lasting legacy For those who valued their time at North London, a legacy is a powerful way of giving something back, as well as providing opportunities for the next generation of students.

Since its earliest days, North London Collegiate School has been the grateful beneficiary of legacy gifts, providing a vital source of funds. Bequests, big and small, have helped shape the School from its foundation to the present day. Over the years, legacy gifts have helped fund bursaries and support sport, science, music and the arts, and enabled the School to build important capital projects.

A legacy is one of the greatest gifts you can make and is a lasting testimony to your affection for the School. Bequests can be made for bursaries, for a specific project, or used ‘where the need is greatest’.

North London is a registered charity, so all legacies to the School are exempt from Inheritance Tax.

The Frances Mary Buss Fellowship ONLs and individuals who remember North London in their Will become members of The Frances Mary Buss Fellowship and receive a silver daffodil pin in recognition of their support to the School. Members are invited to annual events, hosted by the Headmistress, to recognise their commitment and support.

If you would like to receive an information pack or speak in confidence about leaving a legacy to North London, please contact Karen Doyle, Director of Development and Communications: 020 8951 6479 or email kdoyle@nlcs.org.uk.

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