ONA 109 - Junior School in Focus

JUNIOR SCHOOL IN FOCUS ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: RGS IN 100 YEARS | ROLY CRAIG | THE FENWICK FACTOR | WILLIAM ARMSTRONG

ISSUE 109/SPRING 2021

ONA MAGAZINE ISSUE 109 SPRING 2021 ONA is the magazine for the Old Novocastrians’ Association All correspondence should be addressed to: The Development Office, Royal Grammar School, Eskdale Terrace, Newcastle upon Tyne NE2 4DX Telephone Development Office: 0191 212 8909 email: development@rgs.newcastle.sch.uk Editor: David F Goldwater (51-62) The Editor reserves the right to edit, alter or omit all submissions to the magazine. Copy may be carried over to the next edition. The Editor’s decision is final.

Contribute! We are always looking for articles and news from Old Novos to include in the magazine, so send your contributions, via email (if possible) to: development@rgs.newcastle.sch.uk or by posting to the Development Office at the school.

Please include relevant pictures if possible. They will be returned as soon as the magazine has been printed.

The deadline for acceptance of copy for the Autumn 2021 issue is Friday 30 July. Copy may be carried over to a future issue.

The ONA Magazine is available online Please note that the magazine is circulated in hard copy and is available on the RGS website shortly after circulation. By submitting an article or news for inclusion, the contributor is accepting that it will be available through both formats and will also be accessible beyond the Association membership through internet search engines or any member of the public viewing the RGS website. www.rgs.newcastle.sch.uk/ rgs-family/ON Please note that the ONA Magazine content does not necessarily reflect the views of the school or the ONA and is based on personal experiences, recollections and memories of its contributors.

Front cover image (lower): This photograph has been reproduced by kind permission of Gillman & Soame photographers and can be re-ordered by visiting www.gillmanandsoame.co.uk using token Login A71211 Password 446975.

www.infinitedesign.com

‘The child is father of the man’ wrote Wordsworth in days when such lines would fail to stir the slightest controversy. But it is true to say that how one is raised, educated and socialises has a profound influence on later adulthood.

The Junior School focus in this issue is important, especially as it is only in the last century that it has come into its own – distinctive, yet in synergy with the wider school community.

Not everyone who attended RGS was in the Junior School, but almost all Juniors have moved on to the Seniors and here we offer an opportunity to take a closer look at both its history and its present – now a vibrant establishment within the RGS Family for both girls and boys. We hope you will enjoy reading the Junior School story and how it is adding great value to the RGS as a whole.

IN THIS ISSUE 1 2 3 4 8 11 12 14 16 17 18 22 24 27 28 30 33 34 36 38

ONA PRESIDENT’S WELCOME PAUL HAGGIE HEAD’S WELCOME GEOFFREY STANFORD TONY BIRD RETIRES BERNARD TRAFFORD JUNIOR SCHOOL MEMORIES WILLIAM LOUGH/TOM BANFIELD/LEO PEARLMAN ROBSON RECOLLECTIONS RUTH ROBSON FAREWELL TO ROLY CRAIG JAMES MILLER THE FENWICK FACTOR DAVID GOLDWATER & ADAM FENWICK HOW THE JUNIOR SCHOOL CAME INTO ITS OWN THE EDITOR A CHAT WITH THE EDITOR SUSAN BECK LUX IN TENEBRIS RGS IN 100 YEARS – COMPETITION WINNERS LEAVING ON A HIGH NOTE ZLATAN FLAZIĆ THE SCHOOL UNIFORM – WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT? THE EDITOR JUNIOR SCHOOL IN THE ARCHIVES GENNY SILVANUS MY BURSARY STORY MICHAEL DOCHERTY THE BUILDINGS OF THE RGS THE EDITOR BOOK REVIEW – SIR ARTHUR MUNRO SUTHERLAND WILLIAM ARMSTRONG DOMINIQUE HEWITSON & THEO HOULT NEWS & CONGRATULATIONS OBITUARIES

Above: Junior School pupils dress as their teachers L-R: Miss Snowball (Andrew Goldwater), Mr Jones (Tony Healer), Mr Eastwood (John Hammill), Mr Wilkinson (Jonny Morton), Mr Hutton (Nick Gandy), Mrs Joy (Matt Sharff) all 1983-93

WELCOME

BY PAUL HAGGIE (60-67) ONA PRESIDENT

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ne of my greatest pleasures, in these recent, uncertain times, was to learn that the School had been recognised in the Sunday Times as North East Independent Secondary School of the Decade.

It is a most signal honour, and as the new President of the ONA, I extend on behalf of all ONs our congratulations to all those who have contributed to achieving it. I would also extend those congratulations to the way in which the School has adapted so swiftly and flexibly to the challenges created by the pandemic. It is a vivid demonstration of how a century’s old tradition of dedication to education in its broadest sense, along with judicious investment in new technology, can power an immediate and effective response to an utterly changed learning environment.

The same combination of traditional strength and adaptability to the present has been demonstrated in the Headmaster’s initiative to create a Race and Diversity Steering Working Group to examine how best the School can respond to the issues raised by the Black Lives Matter movement. The Working Group was organised in response to a spontaneous open letter signed by over four hundred students and recent ONs. I am pleased to have been invited

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to take part in the Working Group, and I am confident that the traditional values that the School has always inculcated of tolerance, respect for the views of others and the value of good humour in debate can all be harnessed to achieve the curriculum and other reforms which better reflect the diverse society the School serves.

The ONA, too, has learned other ways of doing things during the pandemic. Live streaming of School events is just one example of how we can maintain a more intimate sense of contact between ONs and the current School family; another is the live streaming of the ONA AGM which attracted ONs from across many continents. We need to build on this as we strive to make the organisation both more relevant to all individual ONs and of greater value to the School. To that end, we shall be consulting with all our members – representing all ages, genders, ethnicity and background – as we seek to refine a vision of the ONA for the future.

Last but by no means least, all of us in the ONA owe particular thanks to David Goldwater (51-62), who has laboured mightily with the dedicated team in the Development Office to ensure that the quality of this magazine has not only been maintained but enhanced, in spite of all the current difficulties.

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WELCOME

BY GEOFFREY STANFORD HEAD

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cannot introduce this latest magazine without reflecting on the many ways in which the Covid-19 pandemic continues to affect all parts of the RGS community. It is perhaps worth starting by saying that there have been a number of positives from the situation in terms of students developing resilience and the ability to learn independently, as well as providing a catalyst for the school to engage with education technology.

East’s fight against the pandemic. Indeed, I recently heard about an RGS parent who is a Consultant Anaesthetist, working on Covid wards in the day and volunteering to provide vaccinations in her nonworking hours. We should not forget that many of our bursary parents are key workers, whether it be providing social care, cleaning our hospitals or driving the City’s buses. Their work is tremendously important to our City.

With the latest lockdown, however, our current students’ time across the Junior School, Senior School and Sixth Form has been disrupted for almost a year, with public exams already cancelled for the summer. This means that both the Class of 2020 and the Class of 2021 have been denied the opportunity to sit the exams, for which they have worked so hard, and an entire cohort has started a much-restricted University experience. I wonder if these students will, in time, look back on this period with memories of triumph over adversity in the way that the RGS Penrith generation recalled their own evacuation from Eskdale Terrace. I am, of course, full of praise for the way in which recent ONs have dealt with the challenges around exams, the way current students have continued to engage with learning and the heroic efforts the staff have made to continue to teach and support our community, even when operating remotely.

In the last magazine, we paid tribute to some of the many ON medics; our nation is grateful to them and I am proud that the RGS has nurtured such outstanding people. However, I am conscious that so many ONs will have been profoundly affected and I express our solidarity with the circumstances of each individual, wherever you are. I am always deeply saddened to share the obituary of any Old Novo but it is particularly poignant to see in this issue the names of those ONs who have left us this year. Several of these Old Novos were great donors to our Bursary Campaign, and indeed some have left legacies to the school. I know that bursary students, such as Michael featured in this magazine, will join me in thanking all those ONs who have remembered their former school, your loyalty is deeply appreciated.

I am also aware of the impact of the pandemic on RGS parents, some of whom may be facing hardship as a result of the lockdowns. Many parents work in the NHS, in particular staffing our City’s RVI, which has been a beacon of excellence and hope in the North

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I hope that this magazine, on the theme of the RGS Junior School, provides a welcome distraction in these most challenging of times. Please do continue to reach out, via email or on our social media channels; we appreciate hearing your news and being able to keep in touch.

With best wishes

TONY BIRD RETIRES

BY BERNARD TRAFFORD RGS HEADMASTER (08-17) Not many people know this, but I first met Tony Bird in 1998, when I arrived at the RGS as part of a team from the Independent Schools Inspectorate (ISI).

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ames Miller (94-08) was in his fifth year as Headmaster and, reflecting the subjects I was allocated to inspect, I got to know Kevin (76-13) and Christine Egan-Fowler in Art, the late Howard Baker (77-12) in RS and Philosophy – and Tony, then Director of Music, running a very effective department in a hard-to-love building long since demolished to make way for the magnificent PAC where music now lives.

In 1999, Tony was appointed Director of Studies, a senior whole-school role, as a result of which he and I found ourselves thrown together regularly as elected representatives for the independent sector on the National Council of our union, ASCL (the Association of School and College Leaders – though then it was still called SHA, Secondary Heads’ Association).

None of those people mentioned above, let alone Tony or me, could have dreamed in 1998 that we’d end up working together: but we did when I joined the School as James’s successor in 2008.

By then, Tony had progressed to the post of Second Master (nowadays Deputy Head), on the retirement of John Armstrong (72-03). Tony was the kind of well-established, calm and absolutely knowledgeable (no, omniscient!) deputy on whom new heads must rely absolutely, and must know that they can. Someone, after all, has periodically to ask of overeager new heads the perennial question immortalised by Dad’s Army’s Sergeant

Great schools need loyal servants who are prepared to do the long haul. Tony was one such – the finest possible example, indeed.”

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Wilson: “Do you think that’s wise?”

Tony was also heavily invested in the RGS in a personal/family sense: his youngest daughter, Frances (10-19), was about to join the Junior School, son Jonathan (05-15) to move up to the Senior School and elder daughter Katy (07-12) to progress post-GCSE into the Sixth Form (she was a great Head Girl, a year later).

I loved more things than I can list about my nine years leading the RGS. Chief among them, though, was working closely with the amazing people who comprised my senior team in that time, above all forming a triumvirate with Tony and legendary Bursar, Richard Metcalfe (99-16).

Tony’s vision and quiet determination were crucial in our joint work to embed coeducation fully in the school: to plan a programme of building for the future (that particular plan was fulfilled with the completion of the new building and enlarged Sixth Form in 2019-20); above all, endeavouring constantly to perpetuate and spread excellence, good management and effective communication in order not only to retain and raise the School’s profile and standing but also (and most important) to make it an ever more wonderful, happy and fulfilling place for students and staff alike.

Members of the school council will remember Tony’s tireless work, as will those to whom he taught many subjects beyond his specialism over the years. All will remember his warm and personal assembly talks. His kindness and unstinting support will long be valued by the new teachers whose induction he supervised, and all colleagues will know how much he cared for them by ensuring that the appraisal process that he evolved over the years always ended by focusing on their development and needs.

He was almost unflappable and unfailingly patient, his belief in finding and building on the good in colleagues and students driven by his deep personal faith and generosity of spirit.

In the last of his 30 years at the RGS, he stepped aside from his deputy role and ran the school’s outreach, being a moral, far more than a political one. It was typical of Tony that he could help to identify that need, and then set to work to address it.

Great schools need loyal servants who are prepared to do the long haul. Tony was one such – the finest possible example, indeed. All of us wish him and his wife Alison a long, happy and richly deserved retirement.

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JUNIOR SCHOOL MEMORIES The Junior School had no separate home until the 1930s, when six classrooms were allocated above the old Dining Hall. The rest, as they say, is history!

The Junior School in 1929. Staff (L-R): Col. ACH Robinson (27-58), Arthur Milner (26-48), unknown, Donald Meakin (24-65), AE Johnson, 2nd Master (1901-36), Ebenezer (‘Eb’) R Thomas, Head (22-48), unknown, HM Owen (23-60 ) TT (Tucker) Anderson (24-60), unknown

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The old Junior School entrance on Eskdale Terrace built in 1937

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illiam Lough (22-33), who taught at the School from 193639, wrote a fascinating chapter contained in the Mains/Tuck School History * about his years at the RGS. ‘I entered the Junior School in September 1922, when I was eight. No doubt my parents had worried as to whether I would pass the entrance examination, but with two brothers at the school and my father having been there in the Rye Hill days, it was taken for granted that I would follow them. I had looked forward to wearing the school cap, with its proud double badge and its coloured star which denoted your house. Living in Jesmond, I was Blue, but I often wished I wore a Brown travelling on the electric train to Jesmond Station, or better still, a Red coming from across the Tyne. Being a Blue seemed too tame in comparison.

We Juniors were taught on the ground floor of the main school. At prayers (not assembly), we sat in the front pews, patrolling prefects to left and right. ‘Come to me after prayers’ meant reporting to the Sixth Form area behind the platform (Organ) and being awarded lines, or if you were arithmetically advanced enough, a cube. In J1, I was taught by Mrs Burns and in J2, by Mrs Akhurst, who later ran her own preparatory school in Osborne Road.

When the male teachers had returned from the War in 1920, the female staff were

‘released’. I remember both as strict but kindly teachers. One of the subjects Mrs Burns taught us was nature study and I have not forgotten, nor failed to observe her strict injunction: ‘never pick up a mouse by its tail!’ After J2, I passed into male hands.

My form master in J4 was Arthur William ‘Buggy’ Little (02-33) whom we liked, although he was somewhat short tempered as befitted a Colonel.

It was not difficult if he was in a good mood to start him off on his war experiences. Form Master of J6 and Head of the Junior School, was the formidable Rutty.

Above his blackboard, printed in chalk on the wooden frame, was the legendary ‘nonAngli, sed Angeli’ of Pope Gregory the Great. When displeased with us Rutty would sweep up to the board and alter the inscription to ‘non-Angeli sed Angli.’ (not angels but Angles [English])’.

Then Lough goes on to recall some of his teachers, who had taught his father in the Rye Hill days, such as ‘Bulldog’ Stallworthy (1892-1924) and ‘Daddy’ Laws (1892-1928).

om Banfield (51-62) recalls his Junior School years.

I started in the Junior School in 1951, in Mrs Crocker’s class J2B. At that time, the six classrooms were in a self-contained block at the south end of the main school, on the first floor above the school kitchens and dining room. Next was J2A, Miss Joy Pattinson’s (52-84) class – she later became Mrs Knowles of course. Then there was Major RB Bertram’s (30-69) class J3B, which also doubled as the Art Room for the whole Junior School. “Bertie” kept a famous jointed cardboard model human figure to help us when drawing people, glorifying in the name MACF Smith (see below for the full forenames, but do try and remember them for yourself first). Across from the top of the exit stairs, also leading down to the toilets, was J3A taught by Mrs Bainbridge. Finally, the two top classes were J4, taught by the legendary Tucker Anderson (24-60) who was also Head of the Junior School, and J5 Mr Bailey (37-74).

We had our own individual pre-war wooden desks, each with an integral wooden single person bench, a sloping front which lifted up to reveal a storage space, and an ink-well into which we had to dip our nib-pens when writing. The ‘Biro’, then still a trade name, had just been invented and was discouraged - perhaps because of its expense - though we were allowed fountain pens as I recall. All desks faced the blackboard in strict columns, and apart from in the Art Room, there were no work tables and few group activities.

There was an inescapable emphasis on academic progress. We had class exams at the end of every term, and all the marks across the various subjects were added up to rank the whole class in order of exam results. Then the following term we were allocated desks in exact order of rank, with the top of the class seated front right and

Mrs Bainbridge

The full chapter can be found in Brian Mains and Anthony Tuck’s informative History of the School and its Community (1986) available to purchase at the special price of £7.50 inc. postage. See page 37.

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Tucker Anderson

the bottom boy back left (when facing the teacher). Once a week, we had class singing lessons in the theatre, accompanied by Miss Watson (37-62), bellowing out folk songs and spirituals with enthusiasm. I can still recall after nearly 70 years that the Camptown Racetrack was five miles long (doo-dah, doo-dah)! We had gym and swimming lessons of course, and ‘Games’ was football rather than rugby which only the Senior School played. The football pitch was up in the Pinfold, behind a row of trees as far as possible away from the school buildings and right alongside the main A1 London-Edinburgh road. At that time, the national road system was still essentially what it had been in 1939. There was no city bypass, so all the lorries had to go straight down Northumberland Street, then as now the main shopping street, and over the Tyne Bridge along what was still only a 3-lane

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Penrith hostels named Beacon Bank, Sandath, Roundthorn and Lynwood

The football pitch was up in the Pinfold, behind a row of trees as far as possible away from the school buildings and right alongside the main A1 London-Edinburgh road.”

Field-Marshal Montgomery on his visit to RGS in 1953 with the Lord Mayor and Major RB Bertram MBE

single carriageway road, crossed by frequent traffic-light junctions and even pelican crossings for pedestrians. But of course there were only four million cars and lorries on UK roads compared with 34 million now.

I can only remember two specific standout events during my three years in the Juniors. On the morning of Wednesday 6 February 1952, we were called out of our six classrooms into the common central area to be solemnly told by Mr Mitchell (4860), resplendent as always in his full length black gown, that the King (George V1) had died in his sleep and that we had a new young Queen. Then in early 1953, the school was visited by Field-Marshal Montgomery (‘Monty’) who, having inspected the CCF, spoke to all the pupils. Unusually, the Junior School was included, and I can remember standing on the balcony at the far end from the organ – though sadly I have absolutely no recollection of what he said.

Physical punishment was an accepted part of the regime. There seemed to be far heavier snow-falls in those days, and the Masters and Prefects did their best to stop snow-ball fights because of the very real danger that there may be a stone concealed in the ‘harmless’ lump of snow. I can still recall on one occasion, Mr Bailey checking virtually every Junior boy for the tell-tale red wet hands that betrayed the culprits - and said hand would immediately be whacked very hard with a gym-shoe to remind us not to do it again.

Happy days, nevertheless – yes, they really were!

P.S. The art puppet’s name was Marmaduke Adolphus Cholmondley Featherstonehaugh Smith.

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eo Pearlman (87-97) writes: “Wow, Junior School was truly a lifetime ago! But I do have only enormously fond memories of my time there. The Headmaster at the time was Mr John H Jones (69-90), who always reminded me of a character straight out of a PG Wodehouse novel. I don’t remember him ever raising his voice or shouting at a pupil, but when he got frustrated, he would turn red and his jowls would shake.

The one outing that every Junior School pupil was excited for was the annual away trip to Lindisfarne. Three nights away from parents, staying in a hotel and sharing a room with mates. I remember finding out that mead was alcoholic and so a group of us trying at breakfast to get drunk on mead honey every morning!

However, the highlight of my time at the school was playing rugby. I’d never played team sports before joining RGS and instantly fell in love with everything about the game. It was a free pass to tackling and hitting people, while getting covered in mud and getting to do so with your mates.

Plus, they fed us a proper tea after every game and we won trophies for playing.

I learnt so much from Mr Wilkinson (75-12), the Junior School rugby coach and have made my own boys play rugby because of the positive experiences I enjoyed”.

Probably the most iconic character in the history of the Junior School is Thomas Tindle Anderson – ‘Tucker’ (24-60).

He embodied the concept of ‘the RGS Family’, long before its modern equivalent.

Much has been and will continue to be written about this unique and most compassionate man, particularly in his years administering the school’s evacuation to Penrith between 1939 and 1944 and the Race Week Camps across the North and Scotland. As a former colleague wrote in a tribute on his passing in 1972: ‘Tucker’ leaves behind an influence, a presence, that will abide. He was a man gifted with a rare combination of qualities: compassion, understanding, patience, humility, coupled with the persistence of the sea wearing down a rock - We must go forward in faith”, he used to say—and an amazing drive, in pursuing to the end causes in which he believed. He once confessed that, as a magistrate, he found the business of summary jurisdiction difficult. This is exactly what one would have expected of a man so aware of every man’s uniqueness, so sensitive to all the circumstances of a

I remember finding out that mead was alcoholic and so a group of us trying at breakfast to get drunk on mead honey every morning! ”

“case”. One cannot do better than to quote the first verse of Christina Rossetti's poem Uphill, favourite lines of his, ‘Does the road wind uphill all the way? Yes, to the very end. Will the day's journey take the whole long day? From morn to night, my friend’.

It was, then, supremely by personal example that Thomas Tindle Anderson inspired countless of us—be it confessed, shamed some! - men and boys, to give their utmost and to go on giving, in school, on the playing fields, in holiday camps and harvest camps, in causes such as UNO, UNICEF, Save the Children and The Wild Life Trust, to name but a few, for all of which, and so much more, so many of us remain his debtors, always.

A full tribute by his colleague Lawrence Watson (30-71) can be found on this link: https://bit.ly/3pDjYkS

Above: Junior School Staff, 1998: (L-R) Marta Josephs, Val James, Ken Wilkinson, John Humphrey Jones, Keith Hutton, Brenda Joy, Miss Snowball, 1988; Leo Pearlman.

Below: Unknown, John H Jones with Alister Cox, unknown

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ROBSON RECOLLECTIONS

BY RUTH ROBSON

When RGS asked a former parent, Ruth Robson, to reflect on her daughters’ time through Junior School, Senior School and Sixth Form, Ruth wasted no time in digging out the family albums for a most wonderful trip down memory lane.

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GS is about seizing the opportunity. For the Robson girls, Lauren (08-19) and Millie (09-20), this all started on Lambton Road.

Lauren started RGS in 2008; shortly after the school had started taking girls from Year 3 and they were very much in the minority – Lauren was one of only six girls in her class of 20! Millie joined her older sister a year later.

The RGS Junior School offered a chance to try something new, make new friends and learn in a safe, encouraging environment. Lauren took on her new life with relish, the opportunities to try something new came thick and fast and she had a go at every one of them. She learnt how to play the flute, appeared in school plays, sang in the choir and participated in every available sport.

Millie started viola lessons in Year 3 and took this to grade 7, under the patient tuition of Mr Walton. She loved the stage and appeared in many drama productions, orchestras and choir events for school and as a proud member of Collingwood House.

From the beginning, there was a strong camaraderie amongst the children in both years, epitomised in the many House events. This developed their team spirit and a sense of belonging, which is part of the school ethos. The Junior School calendar was full of trips and activities in sports, arts and music where they met like-minded children who spurred them on. The small class sizes at RGS enabled a closer relationship with the teachers which greatly aided the girls’ pastoral and academic development.

The resources to learn and play were used extensively, the outside space and the library were fantastic. Millie spent many a happy hour in the library (this continued

The RGS Junior School gently prepared the girls to make the transition to the Senior School an easy business, the familiarity with the facilities made the first steps in Y7 a natural progression.”

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in Senior School!). The regular performances (choir, orchestra, drama) on the stage in the PAC, although initially daunting, created confidence to speak and perform in public. Additionally, there were the events organised by the Parents’ Association to attend during the school year. These raised money for charities and for Junior School “extras”, e.g. ice cream at the Christmas panto trip! I was proud to be the chair of the JSPA and felt that being a part of this team was a great chance to get involved, whilst making long term friends and memories.

The RGS Junior School gently prepared the girls to make the transition to the Senior School an easy business, the familiarity with the facilities made the first steps in Y7 a natural progression.

Senior School allowed the Robson girls to mature and develop their confidence and skills, whilst obtaining the education that has enabled them to follow their

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dreams at university. The opportunities to try the new activities remained – not just sport, drama or music. The clubs by subject and the lunchtime support sessions were a valuable resource, and as the girls moved up the school, the opportunity to help in these clinics and organise societies provided essential life skills, as well as developing their own knowledge. Both girls also joined CCF Navy, which enabled Lauren to take her Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI) course and Millie to spend time on HMS Bristol in Portsmouth.

Lauren’s hockey career continued all the way through school and she was the vice- captain and First Team Goalkeeper in Upper Sixth. As a diversion from her GCSEs, she decided to try laser shooting club and is now Air Pistol Captain at university. She competed in the British Schools Competitions, and outside school was chosen for the British Shooting Pistol pathway and asked to represent Scotland U20. She enjoyed most lessons, but her real passion was science and maths, this enthusiasm was sparked by Dr Tony Spencer and Mr James Miller in Year 5.

She took Further Maths, Maths, Physics and Chemistry at A Level and is now in her second year at Imperial College London studying Mechanical Engineering.

Millie followed in the sporty footsteps of her sister and again represented school as a member of all teams, her favourite was fencing. This chance to try something different, provided by school, enabled her to captain the school team, represent Scotland at the Junior Commonwealths (captaining the team to win gold), fence for Great Britain on the European Circuit for two years and now compete at university.

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The opportunities are always there and should be seized – who knows where they will take you!”

Millie loved learning new subjects but unlike Lauren, loved the arts. She studied French, History and Economics at A Level and is now in first year at University College London studying Law. The importance of how the girls’ RGS story all began was shown on their last day at school, when the Sixth Formers, who had been with RGS since Junior School, still found time to say goodbye to the teachers who had started and shaped their school careers.

Thank you to all of the staff and sports coaches who made this possible.

RGS provided an environment to learn, to try something new and make lifelong friendships.

The opportunities are always there and should be seized – who knows where they will take you!

FA R E W E L L T O

R O LY C R A I G

BY JAMES MILLER JUNIOR SCHOOL HEADMASTER

The Junior School has been fortunate to have been led by some exceptional, memorable Headmasters over the years.

Characters such as Mr AW ‘Buggy’ Little (02-39), Mr TT Anderson (24-60), Mr RW Bertram MBE (30-69), Mr JH Jones (6990) and Mr John Shackleton (96-99) and not least Mr Roly Craig (99-20), helped to shape the futures of hundreds of pupils passing through the gates of the RGS, many leaving a lasting impression on these young minds.

Above: Junior School Staff on Zoom, Summer 2020

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n the summer of 2020, Roly Craig (99-20) retired from his position and said farewell to his beloved school and team of staff. His successor James Miller, shares his thoughts on the man who certainly left a lasting imprint on the RGS. “I was fortunate to work with Roly for 11 years. As I am sure would be the case for anyone who crossed paths with him. I will always remember him for his incredible sense of humour. Roly’s sense of humour which, I think, set him apart from many other heads – he was always looking for something fun to do!

However, this image of him being the ‘joker’ never got in the way of him accomplishing great things for the Junior School. Roly was an incredibly determined man with a drive and work ethic that set the tone for the development of the RGS Junior School. Roly’s legacy is a thriving, oversubscribed, happy school filled with eager students and enthusiastic staff. That may sound simplistic, but he took this all-boys Junior School by the scruff of the neck, doubled its pupil numbers, introduced girls, built new facilities and secured our position as the pre-eminent school on Tyneside and beyond.

Roly was respected by his staff and adored by his pupils. They would describe Roly as a lover of birds and all things natural. Every assembly would have a reference to a feathered friend, every new set of Year 3s was given a bird as a mascot – his last little lot were the Robins and as a gift, the staff bought him a watercolour of a robin’s nest with three eggs in it. Many students who stayed at the RGS all the way through to Sixth Form, when leaving the school, would always find the time to say their goodbyes to Roly, even though he hadn’t taught them for over seven years.

This says an incredible amount about the impression he left on them. I will never forget the response from students when the whole school assembled in the hall for Roly’s farewell speech. In typical Roly fashion, he had students of all ages in tears of laugher during the final show he put on for them.

One of my funniest memories of Roly, involved a trip to the capital. Each year, Year 6 take a trip to London to visit Harry Potter World and take in a theatre show. One year, Roly was settling the restaurant bill so he said that he would catch us up. Unable to find him, we had to take the 72 children into the Theatre to see the Lion King. About 10 minutes in, I received a call and dashed out of my seat. ‘Hello James, it is Charlie and the Chocolate Factory we are seeing tonight isn’t it?’ asked Roly. Heaven knows how, but without a ticket Roly was sitting with the wrong school, in the wrong theatre – but at least he was in the right city!

For all the laughter and memories I am lucky to have shared with Roly during our time as colleagues, I am most grateful for a piece of advice he gave me when passing over his prestigious title. Roly advised me always to put family first, even when you are giving your heart and soul to the RGS. It’s very hard to find the right balance but those words are still ringing in my ears…”

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THE FENWICK FA C T O R THE EDITOR WITH ADAM FENWICK Fenwick of Newcastle is an institution synonymous with the City, once referred to as ‘a City in Itself’ and three generations of the Fenwick family have served as RGS Governors establishing a unique and enduring link with the RGS Family.

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Painting of John Fenwick by Andrew Festing MBE RSPP

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his is a brief look at the Fenwicks’ role in shaping the RGS of today.

It was Trevor Fenwick (1901-79), who became involved via his role as a Councillor on Newcastle City Council when the school still had grantmaintained support. Older ONs will remember his active role in the 1950s and 60s and he and Mrs Fenwick were regular visitors to school events, especially Speech Days. He instituted the Trevor Fenwick Economics Prize, maintained by the family to this day. As his grandson Adam testifies, ‘it was testament to his desire to ensure that pupils had the opportunity to study the subject and recognise academic achievement. Trevor enjoyed a keen interest in English Literature, acquired at Cambridge and RGS’s academic prowess would have appealed to him.’ Trevor’s son, John James Fenwick CBE, named after his grandfather (1846-1905) and founder of the company in 1882 was extremely happy to be invited to join the Governing Body.

‘My father was delighted when invited to join the Governing Body in 1975. He longed to have been a pupil at the School and indeed my grandparents were set on this course. But as luck would have it, the outbreak of the Second World War saw the School evacuated to Penrith. As my father’s great uncle was based in North Northumberland and this was where Newcastle Prep School (NPS) had chosen to evacuate, it was understandable they chose NPS. Once the war was over and my father had returned to the NPS site in Newcastle, he recounts wistfully looking over the road to the RGS. It was Professor Stanley Dennison CBE (Professor of Economics at Newcastle University), my father’s predecessor as Chairman of Governors who afforded him the considerable honour of being his successor. Stanley had taught my father economics at Pembroke College, Cambridge and they became firm friends when Stanley took up a post at Newcastle University. I know that my father’s 13 years in the Chair is an experience he has always deeply cherished. He feels enormously

fortunate to have had the opportunity to serve the RGS and work with two outstanding Headmasters Alister Cox (7294) and James Miller (94-08).

He has always recognised the vital role the RGS plays in contributing to the strength of the North East region. He is a passionate advocate of the North East region and its ability to compete at a national level. The quality of its educational provision to him was a key pillar in both attracting talent to the region and nurturing local talent.

During his 13 year tenure as Chair, he wanted to do everything possible to ensure that the RGS was the standard bearer for the region’s independent education sector and recognised as one of the leading institutions on the national stage. He threw all his support behind the respective Headmasters to ensure the sound stewardship of the School and the efficient use of all available resources. No one was left in any doubt that ‘detail’ mattered and cost management became a key focus of attention. Richard Metcalfe (99-16) former Bursar referred to this culture as the ‘Fenwick Way’ and I heard it referenced on many occasions during my eight years as Governor.

He was also keen to encourage his Headmasters to search far and wide for the best teaching talent. Perhaps he was setting an example when he drove to South Wales personally to persuade James Miller to take up the Headmaster’s position. My father was very clear that to enrich and improve academic output required the best teachers and that started with the Head.

Performance in the Independent Schools’ League table was carefully scrutinised.

I know he is very proud of the various building development programmes that were undertaken with James Miller and the raising of funds to complete the projects.

But critically the buildings had to be affordable and the construction projects rigorously managed. It was all part of ensuring that pupils and staff had modern facilities for the provision of a rich and diverse education experience both academic and extra-curricular. Overseas trips for pupils were also separately encouraged to broaden horizons.

My father was a passionate supporter of the Bursary Campaign so that an RGS education was accessible to all socioeconomic sectors irrespective of means.

It was also early days for diversity and inclusion but James and he were deeply committed to open access to the RGS for all in the community. He was of course Chairman when the decision was taken to move to co-education and although he had

My father was a passionate supporter of the Bursary Scheme so that an RGS education was accessible to all socio- economic sectors irrespective of means.” stepped down before the first girls were admitted, much of the planning and groundwork went on under his watch. My father was a great believer in getting around the School to find out what was really going on and to recognise the contributions that were being made from top to bottom. He could often be found chatting with teaching staff in the Common Room or staff in the kitchens. Likewise, attending as many School events as possible to meet parents and stakeholders of the RGS community.

He looks back with pride on his period of stewardship of the School and is deeply grateful for the support that he received from his Governing Body and the relationship with James and Alister Cox built on trust, mutual respect and great friendship which endures to this day.’

Commenting on his own eight years as an RGS Governor, Adam adds ‘It was a great privilege to serve on the Governing Body, maintaining a family tradition and having the opportunity to contribute to the School’s ongoing success. It was immensely rewarding not least working with Governor colleagues who had a diverse range of skills, ably led by Louis Taylor (75-85) and then Paul Walker, as Chairman. (Louis’ uncle Arthur C Taylor (33-41) had served with his father John as Deputy Chairman of Governors). The RGS quickly gets under your skin and I found myself swept along by the collective energy, inspiration and dedication that has underpinned its achievement over many decades. There was lots going from building developments through to outstanding educational attainment and an array of extra-curricular activity. An excellent and mutually reinforcing relationship had been built between the Governing Body and Headmaster Bernard Trafford’s (08-17) team. We all found ways to contribute in a stimulating environment and the sense of responsibility was palpable. The RGS is highly regarded within the Independent sector and one of the North East’s great success stories. I was proud to be involved and remain an interested observer of its continuing vitality and distinguished performance.’

ONs Ian J Dixon (47-57), Fenwick Company Secretary and Peter G Coates (56-67), Group Chief Accountant, each serving the Fenwick company for many years.

The next issue of ONA Magazine (Autumn 2021) will commemorate 20 years of coeducation at the RGS and will feature more on the Fenwick family’s contribution.

Trevor Fenwick

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HOW THE JUNIOR SCHOOL CAME INTO ITS OWN

BY THE EDITOR The Junior School as a separate entity is a 20th Century creation. In former times, boys at the RGS in the first three years were regarded as ‘Juniors’, but their classrooms were part of the main School Buildings.

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D

uring Mr Samuel Logan’s tenure (1883-1912) as Headmaster and the historic move to Jesmond, the problems of overcrowding in a growing school were becoming apparent.

It was Mr John Talbot (Head 191221) who recommended that the lower school be reorganised into a Prep School for boys aged 7-11. A new, dedicated building for the Junior School was described as both essential and urgent. The War intervened and the School field and premises were made available to the war effort. His plans for a Junior School were unrealised and it was not until 1933 that the Governors took the decision to build three, later six, classrooms above the new Dining Hall (now Sixth Form Centre).

Later in the 1930s, Sir Arthur Munro Sutherland (1878-83), as part of his huge beneficence, financed the building of more classrooms, a small Assembly Hall and a separate entrance at the south end of the School Buildings. The decision was taken in 1969 to purchase two rather shabby semi-detached houses at 5/7 Lambton Road. These proved impossible to convert, and after demolition, were replaced by an excellent new building in 1972. The Building of the Central Motorway had swept away the old Biology, Geography and Woodwork Block, together with the rather ancient Rifle Range, as well as very top part of the School Field, including the cherished Pinfold area. The resulting buildings funded by the City Council’s

Opposite: Rye Hill school; entrance to the old Junior School Above (clockwise): Boys with Mr John Jones in the old Junior School; the school on the site of Newcastle Cathedral; teaching at the old Junior School. Below: Junior School sports day, circa 1930

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reinstatement were in turn replaced by the buildings of today, including the superb Performing Arts Centre and Miller Theatre (2005).

The Junior School of today has its own mini-campus, with Year 3 and Year 4 taught at Lambton House and Year 5 and Year 6 at Brandling House, across the road, the latter being part of the main school buildings. Boys and girls aged 7 to eleven, now number over 260 and are able to benefit from the Senior School’s superb facilities of today.

Tom Banfield (51-62), an outstanding musician, writes elsewhere on his memories of the Junior School.

‘My own (Editor’s) memories of Junior School Music seem to focus on the triangle and its monotonous tone, but of course, timing was everything.

The grand proclamations of the Great Organ in the nearby Hall, must have seemed awe inspiring to us little folk.

In the Senior School, during Assembly, Jewish and Roman Catholic boys were herded into Room 21, upstairs in the north east corner of the Hall. I used to go outside onto the balcony to listen to the Choir singing Hymns, a great many of which are based on the Hebrew Psalms.’

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A C H AT W I T H

THE EDITOR

BY SUSAN BECK DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT AND COMMUNICATIONS

The Editor, David Goldwater (51-62), was initially reluctant to expand on his long and enduring connection with the School.

‘I

enjoyed my 11 years at the RGS and remember counting upwards of 40 clubs and societies, catering for every boy’s interest, from Astronomy to Zoology, Drama to Sailing; a pupil with no connection to any society would have been dull indeed.

My own interests included The Linguists and XX1 Club, the Observatory and Darkroom, where photographs could appear magically in the murky red light of the tiny

Andrew, David and Adam Goldwater enjoying a pint at The Bridge Hotel, Newcastle

underground room which forever smelled of Ilford ID-11 developer and Johnson’s Hypo fixing solution. But just when University was beckoning, my Dad died quite suddenly. I was 17 and there was pressure to enter the family business. The three years I spent in the Sixth Form were fun, but I never really worked hard enough to achieve the exam results I needed for Cambridge and decided to stay in Newcastle.

When the family now repeats the old mantra that I’ve never really left school, I do look at the old place as having acted ‘in loco parentis’, having lost a father and best friend at a very crucial time. So, having never left Tyneside, when it came to joining the ONA and later the Bursary Campaign Committee, it was easy to re-connect to an institution for which I held only positive memories. It’s the place where I made and have continued to make so many friends.

David and his wife of 52 years, Maureen, raised three children, elder daughter Sarah and two ON sons Andrew (83-93) and Adam (87-97), who was ONA President from 2010-12.

With eight grandchildren to care about, ‘I have to keep things in balance!’ David comments. He was delighted to have become ON President in the years 2000-02, at the dawn of the 21st Century, just as girls were admitted to the School for the first time. ‘With so many connections around the North-East and the country at large, editing the ONA Magazine is both a labour of love and a challenge. As a longtime amateur archaeologist at Vindolanda, I’m accustomed to digging into the past and the School has an amazingly long and illustrious history which is woven into the fabric of the local community in a unique way. Its task goes beyond the education of local young people.

The Bursary Campaign has demonstrated how one of the great Schools of the North can help the less fortunate members of the North-East community by offering places to young people who would otherwise be unable to access the RGS. The Covid-19 pandemic has afforded the RGS Pastoral Team and a team of volunteers the opportunity to help bursary families in a meaningful way by distributing food vouchers and parcels to those greatest in need. Truly a wider RGS family.’

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A

short note in the June 1908 NOVO proves this to be the case and well over a century later, it would be a triumph to solve this anomaly in the School’s long history.

Can anyone help? A framed photograph of this artwork will be awarded to the reader who can solve this puzzle.

NOVO June 1908 It will, perhaps, have been observed that there is, built into the end wall of∞the Science Block, a perfect masterpiece of exquisite stonecarving. This, we are assured, is a faithful copy of the original, which was∞at one time in the Royal Academy, and is regarded as one of the finest specimens of its kind. One could not doubt this, on close examination; for the true artistic moulding, the delicate naturalness of the extended arm of the central figure is worthy of none less than a Michael Angelo (sic). Particularly, however, is tobe commended the ingenuity of the artist in his choice of mystical signs.

Besides several names of scientists, there is the dark expression :— “Lux in tenebris.” Now, what light these throw upon the meaning of the sculpture is, as far as we know at present, beyond the understanding of all.

LUX IN TENEBRIS T H E M Y S T E RY OF THE BAS RELIEF After the School moved from Rye Hill to Eskdale Terrace in 1906, the Bas Relief, now on enhanced view in the newest building of the school and recently cleaned, continues to pose a mystery to all those who take notice of its presence (NB, not everybody). It seems to have been so since it appeared, at one time on the outer wall facing North, before the erection of the Sutherland Baths in 1930.

Can anyone solve the mystery?

The bas-relief outside the science block in the 1950s, taken from the Central High School

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RGS IN 100 YEARS

100 years ago in the NOVO, a student penned his image of the RGS of the future and wrote of walking around a building with glass bricks and transparent ceilings, of seeing automated teachers instead of human ones, of students being silent in lessons and when walking around school.

Today, some of that appears to have come true as we do indeed have some walls made of glass bricks.

With these thoughts in mind, we were curious to know how our current Year 6 (the Junior School 3rd Year) students envisage the school will look 100 years from now, and the results were varied and wonderful. Here are the three winning entries, securing Tess, Nandini and Aaran a £30 Book voucher each, presented by the ONA.

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T E S S PA R R AGED 11

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he classroom was hot. The air was thick.

The open window carried noises of bird song and play. We had been asked to write a long, boring essay on what the RGS would be like in 100 years. My pen hovered over the creamy white paper, waiting for an idea to spark. No idea came.

And then, all at once, I felt a short sharp tug behind my neck, and the blank page, enveloped me.

I closed my eyes and a feeling, not too different to an elastic band being tightened around my stomach, came over me. It stopped as soon as it had started. I sighed in relief as I was released from my bounds. Before I had time to think, I was pushed forwards onto my knees and I opened my eyes to find myself sitting in a vast, intimidating, and yet strangely familiar, building. The whitewashed walls were lined with books sat on shelves with glass doors. White, futuristic chairs sat around small bleached white desks, and groups of children were reading. I must be in a school! Out of the window I felt like I had seen the opposite building before. The red brick walls, the high windows. I was in the RGS! But not as I knew it. Everything had a strangely modern, angelic feeling about it; almost otherworldly. “Can you believe that building there was here 100 years ago?” whispered a dark-haired girl on a nearby table, pointing at the opposite window. “I know right, it's so old.” said boy sitting opposite her, “I mean, it's 2120, I bet it’s the oldest building at the RGS,” and then I realised, with a jolt, I was 100 years in the future!

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A blonde girl looked at a digital watch and said, “An RGS fact file next I think.” She typed something into the device and pressed a few buttons. She got up and walked over to a machine that looked like a printer. “Autumn Frier.” said a flat disembodied voice, “The RGS compendium, by F.L Stanford.”

A book on a nearby shelf disappeared and popped out of a gap in the contraption, into the girl’s open hands. She sat down at the table and opened the blue book. I read over her shoulder: RGS has improved alot since 2020. Fields growing crops replace what was once the rugby pitch – to save money and to be more eco-friendly.

Solar panels are on every roof and wind turbines are dotted around the school. Rugby is now played on the Astro turf as well as other sports. Education in the classroom, is made up of: control panel desks with built in iPads, rocking friendly chairs, and completed with all work done online on devices.

Every student has a digital watch on their wrist that they can order library books that can be collected from book dispensers around for school, they can be used for researching something in a lesson or around school, they can be used to timetable and tell you when your lessons are and overall, everything an iPhone/iPad/laptop/computer.

Suddenly, I felt that same sharp tug behind the neck and I lurched back into the real world. There I was sitting at my desk my pen in hand and feeling like no time whatsoever had passed. I grinned to myself. Now I know what to write.

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A A R A N WA H I E AGED 11

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he lesson was about to start and I needed to quickly find my resources. I peered into my desk, hoping to find what I wanted. As I dug deeper, I didn’t notice that I was literally climbing into my desk! Suddenly, I fell through my wooden container and was surrounded by darkness. Before long, buildings started to form around me, and I found myself in a familiar place… school.

However, it looked different. The bricks had been replaced with some type of alloy that I didn’t recognise. Velvet banners hung down the side of the before me, were words on a grand statue saying ‘strong, calm, able and kind’. I thought that I heard those words somewhere before, but I couldn’t remember where.

My thoughts were disrupted by a commotion of chattering children shattering the silence. I wondered where they were going, so I followed. Entering the building, a man approached me and said, “Welcome to open day - be free to look around.” Now that was something I had a memory of.

Aimlessly wondering around, I came across a massive room with nothing in it. I looked around hoping to see if I could find anything to show me where I was.

All I discovered was a little screen with a light blue button in the middle, placed gently on the floor.

Stooping down to press the button, a voice appeared and boomed, “What do you want to play?” Perplexed by this strange voice, I took some time to figure out what it was saying. Confidently I replied, “I want to play dodgeball.” Abruptly, a pitch of balls and team of people appeared. It was madness - balls were flying everywhere! Commanding loudly, I screamed “Shut,” but nothing happened. I repeated it and magically all the balls disappeared with the people.

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Out of nowhere, a plump man approached me and poshly said, “Ah I see you’ve met our ATP 2000.

Obviously, it came out a week ago and is still new to us. It is 2120 so we are all very advanced.”

I thought the man was crazy, but I couldn’t help but think that if he were right it would explain why the RGS looked so different. I ran out of the hall trying to find a room which looked similar in any way, hoping to prove the man wrong.

Nothing appeared in any way the same to the RGS I fondly remembered. As I was about to give up hope, I stumbled across a room. It had buttons laid out on desks. Perching on one table, I pressed a red button and a holographic screen appeared out of thin air.

It had miniature screens on it labelling different subjects. Beside it was a pen. I picked it up and pressed the spring at the top. Out of the pen capsule came three little pens. They were marked: pro, pencil and pen.

As I was trying to figure out what these devices were meant to be used for, all my vision went blurry and I heard a voice shouting, “I SAID WHAT IS THE ANSWER TO QUESTION FIVE?” I blinked my eyes and saw my teacher staring at me screaming, “Stop dreaming!” I realised it must have been a dream.

Or was it?

NANDINI MENON AGED 11

I

stared at the worksheet in front of me. I was exhausted. After asking to go to the bathroom, I dragged myself towards the sink and splashed some water onto my face. I felt refreshed. While walking back, I noticed a trapdoor on the stairs.

I heard somebody come by, so I clambered in and waited for the footsteps to recede…

I released my breath and peeked out of the trapdoor. Oddly, I couldn’t see the teachers anywhere. I lifted myself out of the hatch and brought my eyes to the place I was in. I rubbed them and looked again. I was in some sort of large tower. It looked beautiful, but this wasn’t the place I was in before. Had I dozed off and was I in a dream? I pinched myself. Nope, not a dream.

Suddenly I noticed that the trapdoor I had been using to conceal myself had disappeared! I looked up. There were stairs rolling up and up as if never to end. I thought if I climbed them, maybe I would be able to rid myself of this place. Soon enough I became tired. I reached a set of chairs and slumped down on the comfiest one.

I heard a voice behind me – a girl was quietly talking to herself. I enquired about where I was, and she simply replied with: ‘The Towers’. The answer left me confused. I told her about my situation and how I got there. She said she would give me a tour of the building and explain everything on the way.

Firstly, the girl explained that the trapdoor I had come out was no ordinary one. It was one that could time travel. I asked her what year it was. She replied with “2120”.

“I’ve travelled 100 years in time! So, this is still the RGS? How do I get back?”

She said that if I found another trapdoor and wished hard to go back to my time, it would work.

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The girl decided to help me find another trapdoor.

She told me that she could get me around the school a lot quicker using her panel. I asked what that was, and she said that a ‘panel’ was what they used to get around school. The pupils handed their panels in at the end of the day, and the robot in the reception gave it to them in the morning.

We both stepped onto the panel and sped off.

The building was like a cathedral. It had glass slabs in the classrooms. Many pupils were swishing around on their panels. It reminded me of the traffic on the way to school. There were hundreds of classrooms, all of them unique – like snowflakes.

A huge playground lay by the marvellous school.

I felt like a tiny speck of dust compared to such a magnificent building.

A tense knot began to form in my stomach. I was afraid. What if it didn’t work? What if I was sent into a time frame where no one could help me? My thoughts ceased as the panel stopped abruptly.

She had spotted a trapdoor. We exchanged a short goodbye and I clambered into the trapdoor.

I thought hard and counted to 60. Afterwards, I carefully lifted myself out and opened my eyes…

I was back in 2020! I raced back to the classroom where the students were writing about what we thought the future would be like. I knew exactly what I would write.

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L E AV I N G O N A HIGH NOTE

BY ZLATAN FAZLIĆ HEAD OF PERFORMING ARTS AND DIRECTOR OF MUSIC

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Being Head of Performing Arts and Director of Music at RGS for the last nine years has been a great privilege, as well as an invaluable learning experience. I have enjoyed seeing my students develop their musical knowledge and skills and learn how to understand harmonic structure, inner melodic shaping and the rhythmic heartbeat of music that is new to them.

M

y students’ academic achievements have given me great pleasure over the years.

I am particularly proud of the work that we have done with our school ensembles. I will always fondly remember developing choral singing in the school and working with what was to become our award winning Junior Chamber, Blue Blazer and Senior Choirs. Not to forget the instrumental music, RGS Symphony Orchestra, casts of the musicals West Side Story, Sweet Charity and The Addams Family. We covered a wide range of repertoires: from Handel’s Messiah (this included the RGS Community Choir and Orchestra) to Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody, from Brahms’ Hungarian Dances to the Flat 5 Jazz Band’s rendition of Stevie Wonder’s Sir Duke. We were fortunate to share our music in various venues: from Retirement Homes to the Sage Concert Hall, from the intimate St Andrew’s Church in rural Hartburn, Northumberland, Jesmond’s St George’s and United Reformed Churches, to the City Centre’s gothic Cathedral of St Nicholas, as well as beautiful churches further afield in Amersfoort and Amsterdam, with choir tours.

None of this work would have been possible without help and support from the whole RGS community: from our domestic, catering and office staff, Junior and Senior teaching staff, Visiting Music teachers, members of the present

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and previous SLT (Dr Bernard Trafford, Tony Bird, Richard Metcalfe and currently Geoffrey Stanford and Roger Loxley in particular) and of course from the support and appreciation of students’ parents and Old Novos, of which Burland Jacob (44-49) deserves a special mention for his warmth, generosity and indomitable spirit. May I take this opportunity to thank everyone, but especially my team in the PAC: to Sarah Bolt, Jill Graham, Mark Burton, Ben Squire, Kat Clappison and my colleagues from the Drama department (including the inimitable Trevor Walters) for their encouragement, friendship, trust and unconditional support. It has been a privilege to work together and as I prepare to move on, I draw strength from the knowledge of knowing what can be achieved with a good team.

My new job as a Head of Qatar Music Academy in Doha will come with a lot of new challenges, but also with new opportunities that will allow me to pass on the knowledge and experience that I have learned and acquired during my teaching time in the UK to my new staff and students. My wife Glynis, son Carlo (Y12), daughter Lola (Y10) and I are very excited about our new adventure.

Although we may be separated by time and distance, the RGS will always will be with us and we shall carry it close to our hearts. We sincerely wish you all the very best for the future.

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THE SCHOOL UNIFORM

W H AT ’ S I T A L L A B O U T ?

Older ONs will recall those Newcastle retailers specialising in School Uniforms, the earliest of these being Raymond Barnes, whose premises at 102 Grey Street will be remembered by many alumni.

BY THE EDITOR

T

heir small premises were adorned with the crests of dozens of schools and it was a late summer ritual to visit these ‘outfitters’. Isaac Waltons in Grainger Street and Bainbridges, later John Lewis, became the appointed specialists, and the Archives hold a Cricket Blazer made from BAINBRO ‘venetian striped’ fabric.

Latterly, uniforms and sportswear are bought by parents online from two approved companies.

NEWTS (Junior Swimming Club) colours Blazer - originally the NEW-TS - anyone know why!

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For my own part, as manufacturers of School Blazers (Distinctive Clothing) supplied all over the UK and beyond, it was an education in itself dealing with very many schools across the entire country.

Whilst the great majority of uniforms, girls and boys, vary only in their colours and fabrics, there are still some anomalies and particular eccentricities perpetuated by a good number of institutions. King’s College, Canterbury have continued the striped trousers and now skirts which used to accompany formal dress jackets. My family used to cringe on holidays as I ‘interviewed’ boys and girls about which school they attended. One hilarious example was twin lads attending Blundell’s School, Tiverton, whose boys wore a most

unattractive mid brown prickly tweed sports jacket, which over a century had attracted a somewhat obscene nickname.

After revealing that we were the manufacturers, they shouted “Dad, dad, this man makes the sh***er!”

Robe-like outfits had existed since the 13th Century, but the monastic cassock worn by the pupils of Christ’s Hospital in the 16th Century was probably the first school uniform. It was not until the 19th Century that the fee-paying public schools adopted the idea. The reason for their conversion was simple. The old public schools had been anarchic places in which the young aristocrats dressed as they wished and played their voluntary games in whatever worn or battered gear was to hand.

Uniformity of dress was one of the consequences of the movement to replace anarchy with order. Along with compulsory games, stricter supervision of the pupils’ lives and morals and the broadening of the classical curriculums, school uniform was an essential characteristic of the reformed public schools. School specific outfits were developed by individual public schools over the years (students at the prestigious Eton College were required to wear a black top hat and tails as their uniform up until 1972), but cost has largely rendered these obsolete and the most iconic item of clothing for both girls and boys today is still the blazer.

Boys at RGS in Charlotte Square, 1867

With the move to Jesmond at the outset of the 20th Century, the uniforms became more like those in use today.”

It seems to be at Rye Hill, where uniform was first introduced to the RGS. A photo of the boys at the School at Charlotte Square, just off Westgate Road, shows a variety of garb, with an equally miscellaneous selection of headgear, from bowlers to bakers’ hats. By the end of the 19th Century, the pupils at Rye Hill seem to be far more uniformly dressed with a neat cap and the large Eton collars of the age. With the move to Jesmond at the outset of the 20th Century, the uniforms became more like those in use today.

RGS uniforms of today are similar to those of the mid 20th Century, with the exception of the school cap, which evolved through different styles and badging over the years. The illustrations on these pages show the variety of styles throughout the School’s history. The double badge is a relic of the 19th Century and the present crest evolved from a melding of the Royal Arms and the Newcastle City Crest. When Junior pupils entered the Senior School, their house emblem was attached to the top of the badge. Houses named Reds, Greens, Browns and Blues, indicated by varied colours in the cord trimmings on the school cap, were first established on the school’s move to Jesmond in 1906. In 1925, the Headmaster, ER Thomas (22-48) had presided over a ceremony marking the fourth centenary of Thomas Horsley’s will

The blazer owes its existence and indeed its name to the bright red jackets of the Lady Margaret College Cambridge Boating Club and as a result of being worn by the St John’s College Boating Team, were once described as ‘ablaze on the river Cam’.

By the 1920s and 30s, striped and plain jackets, often worn for Cricket or Boating and universally named Blazers, became common in more and more schools. Girls’ uniforms adopted this style, buttoned right over left.

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H Potter’s cap label!

in use today and girls’ blazers now display the badge on the lapel.

where the portraits of Lords Eldon and Stowell were unveiled in the school’s Main Hall. In 1931, the old crests of Queen Elizabeth I and the City of Newcastle were unified into a new crest granted by the College of Arms and the houses were renamed Collingwood, Eldon, Horsley and Stowell. Also, at that time, the houses were renamed to honour four local influential historical figures and since then it is to Collingwood, Eldon, Horsley and Stowell that RGS students have pledged their loyalty and galvanized their best efforts in sport, music, debating and other areas.

Today, the house colours remain, together with the symbols from the 1931 Coat of Arms. Eldon in green, symbolized by the castle, Horsley in blue, taking on the head of the horse, Stowell in red represented by the lion whilst Collingwood now bears the brighter colour of yellow, adopting the Fleur-de-Lys. In 1960, after the appointment of WD Haden (60-72) as Headmaster, the blue flannel blazer was joined by a black version for Middle and Senior boys up to the Sixth Form. Flannel gave way to washable polyester or polyester/viscose and after girls were admitted to the school in 2001, a complete re-design including the somewhat controversial transformation of the old crest into the more modern version

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In 1931, the old crests of Queen Elizabeth I and the City of Newcastle were unified into a new crest…”

In other countries such as Pakistan, India, Thailand and Indonesia, as well as across Africa, school uniforms were introduced during the British colonial period. In New Zealand and Australia, the uniform system was and still is followed in the public schools following similar rules to those in Great Britain. So it would seem that the school uniform does have deep historical roots and the purpose for having one has not changed much over the centuries.

Politics has entered into the whole question of uniforms and their cost in recent years, but whether you feel that it means that pupils lose a sense of individuality, it is hard to argue that it does bring a sense of equality across the social groups and teaches young people the importance of portraying a professional image which surely can only aid them in their future careers.

Do you have a heritage item of School Uniform for the Archives? Contact the Development Office.

Embroidered crests of Queen Elizabeth I and the City of Newcastle

JUNIOR SCHOOL

IN THE ARCHIVES

BY GENNY SILVANUS RGS SCHOOL ARCHIVIST In the Archive, we have a limited but wide ranging set of records relating to the Junior School. These include a single Junior School report from 1932, the Jovo magazine (with gaps) from 1937, 1939 and then 1973 to the present day, and weekly Bulletins from 2005 to the present day.

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e hold plans of the Junior School at Lambton Road and the 1973 building (plus correspondence and photographs about the buildings too) and the actual plaque affixed to the Junior School wall in 1937, which was presented by Sir Arthur Munro Sutherland (1878-83).

We have unnamed whole Junior School photographs for 1929, 1979 and 1988, although the Junior School were often included in the Senior School photographs.

There are several albums and files of Junior School photos from the 1970s (including trips to Holy Island and Hadrian’s Wall) and various drama productions, most of which are currently unidentified. Of course, we also have a Junior School cap or two, which fit in with our growing collection of school caps. The three records which I’d like to highlight in this article, however, are a scrapbook, a memoir and a file from the Senior School.

The scrapbook was compiled by a young George Patterson (29-35) and was deposited in the archive last term (Acc. 54).

It consists of a small album with carefully pasted records which George considered important. These include a whole Junior School photograph from 1929, newspaper clippings, and programmes for various concerts and athletics tournaments during George’s time here (with some annotations). Although we have several scrapbooks from different decades, this

scrapbook is unique in featuring the Junior School.

The Junior School is also mentioned in several memoirs. Typically, however, the Junior School only merits a few sentences— possibly because memoirs tend to be written later in life and other memories crowd out the early days. Lawrence Pallister’s (53-63) memoirs, which have been lent to the Archive, however, include an entire volume dedicated to the Junior School. Lawrence includes a brilliant description of his first day in the Junior School in 1953 and goes on to describe different teachers including ‘Bertie’

(RB Bertram (30-69), ‘Ma Crocker’ and ‘Hoodie’ (Johnson Hood (44-52) the violin teacher, the curriculum and life as a school boy in the 1950s.

Many will also remember Laurence’s father, George Pallister (26-66), who taught biology here, and his uncle Larry Watson (30-71).

My third interesting record is file TN 231 from 1960-61. This includes a circular letter sent in 1960 reminding parents that attendance in the Junior School did not guarantee automatic entry into the Senior School. Mr WD Haden (60-72) explained in another letter to a fellow headmaster that ‘I inherit a difficult situation whereby because more boys have been admitted to the Junior School in the last two or three years that ought to have been, I had to explain to parents last September that not all would be admitted to our school’ (TN 231). Although we are not sure of exact numbers in the Junior School (the archive only has admission registers for the Senior School), we know Haden recommended that the Junior School should be 50-60 boys per entry, and of these only 40-45 to be admitted to the Senior. In 1961, there was a 100 place limit for the Senior School, allowing for other students under both the Direct Grant system and fee paying.

I end with my usual plea: if anyone is having a clear out, we’d love to add to our Junior School collection (which currently stands at just over a shelf’s worth). If you have a spare hour to identify any photographs (particularly from the 1970s to early 1990s), or would just like to visit the archive then you are very welcome to email me (development@rgs.newcastle.sch.uk) and come in when we are allowed to reopen to researchers.

Above: William Demery Haden Below: A selection of items held within the Archive

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MY B U R SA RY STO RY

BY MICHAEL DOCHERTY (97-07)

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reminiscence on my time in the Junior School? No problem. After all, it hasn’t quite been 14 years since I first donned the blue blazer and travelled the 18 miles down the A189 from Ashington to Lambton Road. Hang on, though.

That’s not right, is it? Try a terrifying 24 years.

Perhaps readers of my generation have also begun to notice this strange phenomenon. Since hitting 30, time keeps erasing or compressing itself in my memory, so that leaving the Sixth Form in 2007 feels as if it must’ve been roughly a decade ago, but so does starting Year Four in 1997.

There’s a paradox here: on one hand, I’m convinced that my days at school cannot have been as long ago as they were, but I am simultaneously aware that they have begun to recede in my memory faster than the hair on my head. Until a few years ago, my Junior School days still shone in my mind—for better and for worse—with sharpness and clarity.

The memories had a level of detail by which I was assured that they were still proximate. Now, though, things are getting fuzzier. I forget names, specifics, dates. This is what nostalgia is: a perspective from which objects in the mirror are both closer and further away than they appear. There’s a deep sadness in that, one that I’m sure is familiar to older readers. I was grateful, therefore, for this opportunity, to put some recollections on paper before they lose any more of their shape.

The RGS can be an institution that, far from than entrenching privilege, dismantles it.”

One moment I shall never forget in fact precedes my arrival at the RGS. It’s a dark winter’s evening and my father calls me to his side. Quietly, he tells me about a school in Newcastle, a school for bright children. He, my mother, and my teachers at the local state first school think I might like it there, he says, but I would have to pass a test to get in. Do I want to try it? Of course I do: at that age I have no fear of intellectual failure and, having never so much as heard of the RGS, no preconceptions or expectations about the school or what it means to earn a place there. As an insufferable little nerd, all I see is a chance to show off.

What strikes me now about that chat with my father is what he didn’t mention, namely what a private school is and how much it costs to attend one. At that time, my father was a guitar maker and my mother ran a wool shop: I do not imagine that an RGS careers adviser has ever recommended either of those occupations as routes to financial security. Had my parents been required to bear the full cost of my education, my attendance would have been out of the question, but I got lucky. I entered the RGS in the very last year of the Assisted Places Scheme, and thereafter I was fortunate to transition to a bursary.

In an era of so much urgently necessary debate around social privilege and the role of private schools in entrenching such privilege, it’s impossible for someone who had my luck not to be nagged by an uncomfortable question. Had I not been granted a bursary, had I remained in the state system, would I have achieved what I have? Would I have read English at Oxford?

Would I have undertaken a PhD? Would I have become a Fulbright Scholar? Would I now be embarking on my chosen academic career as a scholar of American literature? I’d like to flatter myself that talent would have won out, but the world is not as straightforward or meritocratic as we might wish it.

What I know with certainty are the many times since leaving school in which I have drawn on the experiences of my very earliest days at the RGS. Whenever I stand before a class of eager students to deliver a lecture, for example, I smile as I remember how I was introduced to the pleasures of drama by Brenda Joy. I remember the Victorian Music Hall of Year 4 and Treasure Island of Year 5, the roar of the greasepaint and the smell of the crowd.

I’m a good lecturer because I know how to engage an audience, because I’m happy to ham it up a little, because I’m unembarrassed about treating the task as acting. I learnt how to act from Brenda, treading the worn boards of the old theatre in the pre-PAC days.

It’s a cliché but a justified one that great teachers change lives. In 10 years at the RGS I was lucky enough to

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have several across multiple subjects—among them Simon Tilbrook in History, Maria Elliott in Art, Howard Baker in Religious Studies, and Lindsey Boucaud in French. In English, though, my greatest passion, I crossed paths with inspiring figures with especially remarkable frequency. Absent their encouragement of my enthusiasm and their confidence in my abilities, I cannot imagine that literary study would be my trade today.

With Simon Barker, Hazel Jones-Lee, and Jean Ross in the Senior School I steadily honed my critical faculties, but the die had already been cast in Junior School English—by Andrea Mayland, by John Wood and again by Brenda Joy. Here’s one memory that remains painfully sharp. In Year 4, we wrote poems about the eruption of Vesuvius.

I thought mine was great. Frankly, for the work of an eight-year-old, it was. Brenda thought it was good, too, but not perfect. Describing the citizens of Pompeii going about their lives, unaware of the terror about to befall them, I’d written of ‘people at the theatre, seeing plays’.

Brenda pointed out that this was tautological, redundant, lazy writing. Of course they were seeing plays, what else would they be doing at the theatre?

Think of something else, Michael. Make it better. I duly did, although initially I was hurt, even offended by the critique. Prior to my arrival at the RGS I was unaccustomed to being told that my work could stand improvement. The point, though, was that Brenda pushed me where previous teachers hadn’t, and she did so because she knew I was capable of more. She recognised someone who could reach ‘good’ by his own volition, but who could achieve ‘better’ and perhaps even ‘best’ with the right support—and she had the time and resources to grant that support. That is precisely what the RGS at its own best can offer, where less wellresourced schools cannot. That is its singular advantage.

That is what it gave me.

If the school is to be a force for good—and if it is not then it is nothing—it must continue to extend that advantage to the broadest possible constituency of students. It should be unconscionable to any alumnus of the school that any talented young person should be denied on the basis of cost the education from which we so richly benefited. The RGS can be an institution that, far from than entrenching privilege, dismantles it. It cannot be such an institution, however, without a flourishing bursary scheme.

Entrance to the Junior School on Lambton Road

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BY THE EDITOR It was the Church and the knowledge of its doctrines which gave the lead to the provision of education by those equipped to teach.

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1992 Watercolour by DM Spark (46-54)

A H I STO RY OF THE RGS IN ITS BUILDINGS

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R Laws, who taught at both Rye Hill and Eskdale Terrace from 1892 to 1928, in his two part Schola Novocastrensis (1925) writes about how Bede (c 673-735), from the age of seven onwards, was educated in singing at Wearmouth, the Study of Scripture and in the regular observances of the Church. The food, books and teaching of such boys and youths was free. The centuries that followed witnessed the rise of grammar schools attached to collegiate churches and cathedrals. By the 14th Century, every major town in England possessed a grammar school. There were almost certainly song schools of various churches in Newcastle, where boys and girls were taught both in singing and playing various instruments. It also seems that there was a grammar school in the town around the end of the 15th Century, if not earlier.

By the 14th Century, every major town in England possessed a grammar school.”

Above: The School at the Hospital of St Mary the Virgin. Below: Pillars at the Express Inn, now the site of the Waiting Rooms Bar. Prefects with the ‘Westgate pillars’ in the 1940s.

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But we are more concerned here with Thomas Horsley’s School, whose foundation was laid down in his will of 1525. Schools existed in the grounds of, if not in, the church itself and the first building was in St Nicholas’s Churchyard.

The exact site is thought to be in the back of the old National Provincial Bank, on the corner of Dean Street and Mosley Street, where the School remained until 1607, although the old building was retained for some time as a Writing School.

After the charter bestowed on the town by Queen Elizabeth 1, it was to the Hospital of St. Mary the Virgin, ‘in the Westgate’ that the Royal Grammar School (now a royal foundation) was to be housed from 1607 until 1844. The northwestern gateway was close to the Stephenson monument, one of its pillars still being attached to the corner of a bar, once the site of the Express Inn and the old Douglas Hotel Long Bar, made famous by the film Get Carter. It was here that the Corporation and the School united to elect the new Mayor on the first Monday following Michaelmas Day (29 September). There is a current proposal by an ON in some way to reenact this ceremony which is fully described in the small book The Story of our School by teachers Mr JB Brodie (18981928) and Mr AR Laws (1892-1928) first published in 1924 and updated in 1936 and 1948. Like all pupils of the time, I was presented with a copy on arrival in the Junior School.

The coming of the railways caused the removal of the School once again.

The whole area around what is now Neville Street was to be cleared for the building of the Central Station, designed

by John Dobson and opened by Queen

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Victoria and Prince Albert in 1850. By then, the RGS was in somewhat of a decline and had moved to three rooms in Forth House in 1844, near the site of August Pugin’s St Mary’s Catholic Cathedral, completed in that year. These were the days after the School flourished under the Headship of Hugh Moises (1749-87) and to a much lesser extent under his nephew Edward Moises (1787-1829). The School was struggling against formidable competition from Dr John Bruce and his Academy in Percy Street. Under the Headship of Dr James Snape (1847-71), the School moved again to a nearby domestic house at 6 Charlotte Square in 1848, the first home of the RGS to survive until the present day. A photograph of the boys taken in 1867 at No.6 appears to show them outside No.8, when compared with a modern photo. These premises were well beyond the needs of the two staff and dozen pupils. However, by the early 1860s, the School numbers had grown to over 200. The railway was bringing boys into the area from outlying areas and an emboldened Council used its influence to make the surplus annual income from the Virgin Mary Hospital Trust for the enhanced benefit of the School. This included the building of new premises on land which belonged to the Trust at Rye Hill, completed in 1870. The choice of this area was ultimately to lead to the move to Jesmond, ironic in that the alternative site in Barras Bridge would have cost £3,000, rather than that at Rye Hill which cost £11,000. With Armstrong’s factories only a mile away, the area was to

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The School was struggling against formidable competition from Dr John Bruce and his Academy in Percy Street.”

become more industrial than residential, and as Brian Mains (76-05) and Anthony Tuck (48-59) commented in their History of the School and its Community (1986) ‘how ironical it was when in 1897 the School opened a branch in Barras Bridge to cater for the middle-class districts of Jesmond and Gosforth.’

Dr Snape was succeeded in 1873 by Brian Christopherson, whose tenure was to last until 1883. Difficulties with the provision of sports grounds in the locality meant football and cricket were curtailed and paper chases and cycling were the main physical activities. Playing fields at Burdon Terrace in Jesmond were a remedy, but these were lost when the Fleming Memorial Hospital was built.

Although the Rye Hill School was well appointed for its day, the 20th Century was beckoning and a number of Jesmond and Gosforth residents signed a petition to have a ‘Branch School’ established in their part of the City. This was opened in 1897 at 1 St Thomas’ Place and later at 6 Jesmond High Terrace, lasting for nine years until 1906. The Rye Hill buildings were sold to the Council and became Rutherford Girls’ School.

Above: Aerial view showing All-Weather Playing Area Below: PAC and Miller Theatre under construction, 1993

BOOK REVIEW SIR ARTHUR MUNRO SUTHERLAND THE LEGEND OF NEWCASTLE

BY NIGEL MCMURRAY

1981 building programme at Eskdale Terrace: upper: Dining Hall; lower: Geography, Woodwork and Biology replaced by Miller Theatre/PAC

And so we arrive in Jesmond, where the governors had purchased 10 acres called Brandling Fields. Mr Samuel Charles Logan (1883-1912), Headmaster since 1883, moved to a house in Brandling Park and impressive new buildings in Eskdale Terrace, so familiar to us today, were designed by Sir Edwin Cooper, born in Scarborough, with offices there and in London, who is said to have designed more buildings in the City of London than any man since Wren. The buildings were occupied in 1906 and opened by the Duke of Northumberland in 1907, under the headship of Mr Logan. As war approached, in 1912, Mr Logan was succeeded, by John Talbot (1922), a military man. Talbot’s plans for a Junior School and expansion of the site remained unrealised, but throughout the 20th Century, under his successor, Ebenezer Rhys Thomas (21-48), and initially through the generosity of Sir Arthur Munro Sutherland (1878-83) and later Chair of the Governors, the school campus was greatly (and brilliantly) expanded within the original boundaries.

The saga of how Mr Thomas’s successors as Heads guided the development of the school into the amazing campus of today is well told in the Mains and Tuck History and later in the NOVO and ONA Magazines, now all available online through the RGS website.

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s the Amazon synopsis of the book states ‘this remains a definitive analysis of a man whose business acumen led to a little remembered philanthropic legacy in Newcastle, not least in its Medical and Dental Schools. Most Geordies are aware of him in terms of the Newcastle Mansion House but that is but a small aspect of his former legendary status in the city.’

We of the RGS, of course, still have numerous examples of his huge generosity, the most enduring of which is the Organ and War Memorial in the School Hall, recently restored, and installed almost 100 years ago, on 1 June 1923.

This is not a large book, but its subject is a man of enormous talent and energy, whose generosity left its mark in so many ways on our School. The author covers everything some of us might know but few will be aware of the complete story of this man’s extraordinary life. Copiously illustrated, McMurray has researched Sutherland’s life to the full, as his sources indicate. This book is an essential read for anyone wishing to learn of the complete story of a true legend of the City of Newcastle, the RGS and the world of shipping.

Amazon, £9.99, 100pp

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WILLIAM ARMSTRONG

BY DOMINIQUE HEWITSON AND THEO HOULT The ONA is now fortunate in having two School Ambassadors, as reported in the last issue of ONA Magazine. They are Upper Sixth Form students Dominique Hewitson and Theo Hoult and in this issue, they write on Britain’s sometimes forgotten hero, William Armstrong, Baron Armstrong of Cragside.

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WILLIAM ARMSTRONG (1810-1900)

Lord Armstrong confirmed as Old Novo

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illiam Armstrong features in the old School Song, first sung in 1913 but now restricted to ONA Dinners, still remembered with nostalgia by hundreds of current ONs. ‘…Collingwood, Armstrong, Eldon and Bourne, Akenside, Stowell and Brand…’

But doubt arose over the last century whether Armstrong actually did attend the School. For some time, I have attempted to uncover this mystery and during recent weeks, another RGS mystery appears to have been laid to rest.

An entry in NOVO (Dec.1886), in its second year of publication mentions his attendance with pride.

Henrietta Heald is the author of the authoritative biography William Armstrong, Magician of the North (2010).

I contacted Henrietta recently with this ‘evidence’ and she replied: “You have the strongest evidence there is that Armstrong attended RGS. The school would not have publicly claimed him as an old boy while he was still alive if he had not been one… the estimable Alice Short, who wrote an (unpublished) PhD thesis on Armstrong’s contribution to science and education, fails to mention his attendance at the Grammar School. However, she draws an illuminating picture of the Grammar School at the time Armstrong would have been a pupil there (c.1820) Clearly, it was not the school’s finest hour! In 1820 it had only nine pupils and was embarking on a major structural change. It would not have provided the kind of education that the ambitious Armstrongs were looking for. Indeed, there were no schools at the time that met their exacting standards – though it’s surprising that, apparently, William Armstrong didn’t attend Bruce’s Academy. I suspect that he had brief spells at a number of schools in Newcastle, including RGS, before going to Bishop Auckland – but that none of them satisfied expectations.”

The Editor

RGS students, during their commute to school, will often catch sight of the City’s iconic Swing Bridge, though it wasn’t until recently that it was confirmed that it had been built by an Old Novocastrian, William Armstrong.

Having been referred to as ‘Britain’s forgotten genius’, most of us will be familiar with his work, especially Newcastle University which he founded; however, most people are unaware of how much of an impact he had on the North East as well as in technology in general. Joining the school in the 1820s, we believe he attended the RGS until the age of 16. His father aspired for Armstrong to practice law in the future. After leaving RGS, he was articled to the Newcastle lawyer Armorer Donkin, after which he spent five years in London studying law. He moved back to Newcastle in 1833 and ultimately made his home in what is now Jesmond Dene.

Despite working for 11 years as a solicitor, Armstrong continually showed a keen interest in engineering, developing in the 1840s what is now known as the Armstrong Hydroelectric Machine. His work designing a rotary wheel, powered by water, was met with little interest and this led him to develop a piston engine which he believed could be used to drive a hydraulic crane.

Armstrong’s work came to public light during a scheme to provide piped water to households in Newcastle when he proposed his cranes as a cheaper and faster method to standard cranes. His cranes were so successful that three were constructed along the Quayside.

His work in engineering was officially recognised in 1846 when he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. All the success associated with his crane made Armstrong resign from his legal practice and set up W.G. Armstrong & Company along the River Tyne in Elswick.

Armstrong continued on his innovative trajectory, next designing new weaponry, for the British army to

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use during the Crimean War, that which was said to be superior to all other contemporary designs. However, rather than profit from such an incredible invention, Armstrong surrendered the patent to the British Government, in return earning him the title of Knight Bachelor. Delving into the creation of armaments led Armstrong to create a separate company, then known as the Elswick Ordnance Company, to ensure he would not suffer from a conflict of interests if his own company were to create weaponry. This company however was later reabsorbed into W.G. Armstrong & Company when Armstrong was allowed by the British Government to sell arms to overseas powers, creating the newly, and very inventively named, Sir W.G. Armstrong & Company.

In his later life, Armstrong lived in the expansive Cragside Estate, where his house was the first ever building powered by hydroelectricity, generated by five man-made lakes constructed around the property. Armstrong passed away within Cragside at the age of 90 and was buried next to his wife in the Rothbury Churchyard.

We strongly believe in the importance of remembering Armstrong and the immense impact he had on the people and city of Newcastle, and on the North East as a region. This impact can be seen throughout the area; in Jesmond Dene, which Armstrong gifted to the city, along the Tyne, where the Swing Bridge is still used to this day, to the City’s leading hospital, the RVI co-funded by Armstrong and even as far away as the village of Bamburgh, with the restoration of the castle being Armstrong’s final project. What an indelible mark this Old Novo made on our City, and which we still experience in our lives today.

Dominique Hewitson and Theo Hoult Current Upper Sixth Form students

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NEWS & CONGRATULATIONS

THEO NAMED IN QUEEN’S BIRTHDAY HONOURS

HONOURING THE FALLEN

H

Recognising Old Novos lost in service since 1945

uge congratulations to Theo, who was the youngest person named in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list for the contributions he made to the community during the height of the Coronavirus pandemic.

16-year old student Theo Wride from Sunderland, will receive a British Empire Medal (BEM) “for services to the community and keyworkers in Sunderland during Covid-19.”

Theo gave hundreds of hours of his time designing and creating protective face coverings for his parents, both medical professionals, and their colleagues as well as care home staff up and down the country.

Theo used the 3D printer he had at home to produce the face coverings. The not-so-simple task involved melting plastic and then extruding this into the face visor shape.

At the start, Theo was making four visors a day, before fine-tuning some of the settings to allow for production to increase to six/seven.

With demand for his visors increasing due to the PPE shortage across the NHS and Care sectors, Theo successfully raised £3,000 through a crowdfunding campaign enabling him to increase his production to 70 visors in 24 hours thanks to the addition of new materials and printers.

Theo, who hopes to have a career in engineering, was also recently honoured with an Arkwright Engineering Scholarship.

Speaking about Theo’s inclusion in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list, Geoffrey Stanford, Headmaster, said: “It was a great delight to hear that Theo had been awarded a British Empire Medal for his extraordinary efforts in the creation of much needed PPE for the local community of Sunderland and beyond.”

“We are extremely proud of Theo; he really does exemplify the sense of community we work so hard to promote at RGS.”

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ne of our Old Novo’s, Christopher Dean (45-53) who is also the son of former Second Master George Dean (24-67), suggested that the school considers adding the names of Old Novos who have died whilst serving in HM Forces since 1945, to those already listed on the school’s war memorial in the main hall. We believe that Sir Arthur Munro Sutherland (1878-83), the benefactor of the school’s organ, would certainly approve of this initiative. We do not hold a list of such Old Novos who lost their lives in more recent service, so we would be very grateful if the RGS community could let us know of any individuals whose names should potentially appear. We are specifically looking for any Old Novo serviceman or woman who died whilst serving. Please contact us at development @rgs.newcastle.sch.uk with any feedback.

VIRTUAL OPEN MORNING SUCCESS

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n Saturday 14 November, we held our very first Virtual Open Morning. While there will never be a true substitute to an on-site Open Morning, where prospective families are guided around by enthusiastic, proud Year 7 students, we were delighted with the feedback we received from those who attended the event. The Virtual Open Morning was a combination of pre-recorded and live sessions showcasing all that is great about the RGS. If you would like to take a look for yourself, follow this link: http://bit.ly/ RGSvirtualopenmorning

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NORTH EAST INDEPENDENT SCHOOL OF THE DECADE

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n December 2020, we were delighted to be named The Sunday Times North East Independent School of the Decade by Parent Power, The Sunday Times Schools Guide.

Parent Power is widely acknowledged as the most authoritative survey of the country’s best schools.

Geoffrey Stanford, Headmaster of RGS Newcastle, said: “To be recognised by The Sunday Times as a much coveted ‘School of the Decade’ is an incredible honour; we are amongst exceptional company alongside the very best independent schools in the country. We are rightly proud of our consistently outstanding public examination results, the product of our students’ hard work and determination plus the expertise and encouragement of our staff.”

It is so important for the prosperity of the region, that the North East has such a high performing school which has produced Old Novocastrians who are making a huge impact on the region’s economy, health and culture. Not only is the North East one of the most beautiful places in the country to live, it is also one of the best places to learn, to build businesses and to make a difference in the world.

Perhaps most important, is the Sunday Times’ recognition of RGS

Julie Malpas retires after 32 years as a biology teacher. Earlier in her career she also served as Assistant Head of Lower School and as the first Head of Learning Support. An amazing educator who will be remembered with fondness by the many students that she helped over the years.

Tricia Gill retires after seven years in the physics department, during which she ran the Nissan Engineering Project, assisted with the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme and initiated a large increase in the number of girls participating in rock climbing.

Newcastle’s commitment to social impact, through bursaries, partnerships with state schools and philanthropic ethos.

Geoffrey Stanford added: “It is right that independent schools are celebrated for doing good, as much as they are applauded for doing well.

“We are indebted to generations of pupils, parents and staff, who for almost 500 years have contributed a component part to establish RGS Newcastle as the North East Independent School of the Decade. As proud Headmaster, I very much look forward to building on this phenomenal heritage, and continuing to drive achievement, ambition and impact in our amazing region.”

PERSONAL DETAILS AND DATA PROTECTION The school has a very special relationship with its former students and we very much wish to continue to keep in touch with you. To do this we would like your consent to keep basic details of your time at school, what you have been doing since leaving school and your contact

RETIRING STAFF

details. A copy of the letter and consent form can be found at http://bit.ly/RGSConsenttocontact Please complete the consent form so that we can continue to keep in contact.

Alternatively, to unsubscribe or change your preferences please contact us at development@rgs.newcastle.sch.uk or call us on 0191 212 8909.

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Michael Pitkethly retires after serving as Bursar and Clerk to the Governors for four years. During his time at the school, Mike oversaw the construction of phase three of the school’s ambitious plans to upgrade its facilities. This included a new state-of-the-art library, art studios, maths classrooms, a pastoral suite and assembly space. Mike also project managed the building of the new Sixth Form centre – a combination of the old Sixth Form and old library into a modern, and much larger area.

BOOK OFFER The School has a very good stock of the School History RGS Newcastle upon Tyne. A History of the School in its Community edited by Brian Mains & Anthony Tuck (1986).

To obtain a copy at a special price (£7.50 inc. P & P) contact the Development Office.

STAY CONNECTED Please join us by becoming a fan of the Old Novocastrians Association Facebook page and LinkedIn Group – Old Novocastrians’ Association (RGS Newcastle)

RGS TWITTER HANDLES @RGSNewcastle @RgsArchives @RGSpac @RGSNewMusic

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OBITUARIES ADRIAN CURTIS (72-79) DIED 6 NOVEMBER 2020, AGED 59

W

e were shocked and saddened to learn of the death of our good friend Adrian Curtis at his home in Dubai, suddenly and unexpectedly, with Covid-19.

Always quietly self-assured, Ade enjoyed his time at the RGS and fitted in well. He demonstrated a particular flair for mathematics, becoming a member of Frank Budden’s “double maths” A-Level set. He always seemed to have one eye on the bigger picture, though, pursuing a wide range of interests beyond the RGS including electronics, cycling, travel and theatre lighting.

It was at school that Ade gave early notice of his engineering skills and entrepreneurial spirit, building from scratch a mobile disco which he named Paradox 3 and developed into a successful business in the region with his childhood friend Simon Barnes; after Simon left the area, Ade was ably assisted in this enterprise for a further four years

by Andrew Dorin, a friend from pre-school days right through RGS and university.

While studying Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Newcastle University, Ade applied his expertise to helping to establish Radio Lollipop (hospital radio for children) at the Fleming Children's Hospital. It was there that he met his future wife Jo (ex-CNHS); they married in 1987 and have three children: David, Katrina and Steven.

In 1983 he moved to London to join Soundcraft (a manufacturer of

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professional audio equipment) as a design engineer; he would remain there for nearly thirty five years, progressing to become VP Sales EMEA of Soundcraft’s parent company, Harman. Ade and Jo moved to Dubai in 2018, when he left Harman to take up a position as MD of one of his former customers.

A group of us have stayed in close contact in adulthood, although unfortunately meeting up ever less frequently as we were scattered to the four winds. Dom met his wife Louise at a party at Jo and Ade’s house in 1988, and Ade was their elder son’s godfather.

Gordon, Dom and Ade were sadly most recently reunited at the funeral of Mike Brown (72-79) in 2015.

Our thoughts are with Jo and the family as they come to terms with their untimely loss. Jo invites you to contact her if you wish via family@kitteon.com. If you would like to make a donation in Adrian's memory to a charity that he supported, please follow these links: https://we-make-events.raisely.com/ adriancurtis https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfundin g/adriancurtis

By Dominic Meagher, Andrew Dorin and Gordon Findlay (72-79)

BERNARD MCSTAY (39-49) DIED 28 DECEMBER 2020, AGED 89

B

ernard was born and brought up in Whickham, starting RGS in September 1939. He was immediately evacuated with the school to Penrith.

Many a tale was told by my father of the things they got up to in Penrith… climbing out of the skylight and sliding down the 3rd floor roof to then shimmy down the drainpipes. Apparently, they could see the Headmaster from here if he was on the toilet but they never seemed to get caught. Lessons were held near the present George Hotel. Dad described walking in and out of the local military camps, picking up old tank shells, and even sitting in an unguarded Spitfire. He enjoyed the swimming

lessons in the local River Eamont.

Bernard swam for the RGS Newts and ultimately joined what was then called the Medics 6th. Having completed A-levels, he was a year young to start university and so did his National Service with the RAF, based in Wiltshire, where he trained in electronics and radiocommunications.

Subsequently, he studied medicine at the then University of Durham Medical School at King's College Newcastle and following qualification, one of his jobs was an anatomy demonstrator. In 1961 he married Cath and began in General Practice in Wallsend. They had three children, Deborah, Kevin and Jonathan. Meanwhile, Dad also became the GP to the Tyne Tunnel building initiative during the mid 1960s. His subsequent M.D. described the effects of decompression sickness on labourers whilst they worked there.

In 1978 Bernard suffered a life changing car crash. This affected his walking, but not his resolve for patients.

As a man of great determination, he returned to General Practice after only four months. Indeed, he would return to enjoying hill walking in the Lakes and swimming. After divorce, he moved to Beadnell in 1989. His passion for patients in Wallsend continued, until he finally retired in 2002, aged 72. In his later years he enjoyed painting, French classes and his daily routine of reading The Telegraph, spending time with his good friend Barbara who survives him.

Although frail with dementia in his latter years, he remained living alone, fiercely independent. He died in Hexham General Hospital on 28 December 2020.

He leaves his three children, four grandchildren to Kevin: Anna, Sam, Josh and Nathan and two great grandchildren, Faith and Levi and two grandchildren to Jonathan: Isaac and Ben.

By Kevin C McStay (73-83)

PROFESSOR BRIAN ROBSON OBE (50-58) DIED 5TH JUNE 2020, AGED 81

B

rian had a long and distinguished career as an urban geographer.

Awarded a scholarship to the RGS and from there he moved as an Exhibitioner to St Catharine’s College, Cambridge, in 1958.

After completing his BA, he stayed on at Cambridge for his PhD. In 1964, Brian moved to his first academic position at the (then) University College of Wales, Aberystwyth. With a leading Geography Department, Brian spent three years there as a young lecturer. Then came a year at the interdisciplinary Center for Urban Studies in Chicago. An opportunity arose after a year to return to Cambridge and Brian became a University Lecturer in Geography and Fellow of Fitzwilliam College in 1968 where he remained for almost a decade, helping Cambridge Geography to consolidate its reputation as an international powerhouse for research and teaching.

In 1977, he was appointed Professor of Geography at Manchester University, where he was to spend the rest of his academic career. With a desire to influence UK public policy agendas, in 1983 he founded the Centre for Urban Policy Studies. Underpinning Brian’s research was a frustration that the social, cultural and economic value of cities had been underappreciated. After serving twice as Head of the School of Geography, in 1988 he was appointed Dean of the Faculty of Arts. From 1993-97, he was ProVice Chancellor with responsibility for external affairs. In 2000, he was awarded the Royal Geographical Society’s Founder’s Gold Medal for his services to urban geography, something which he wrote about to the School. He was a Lifetime Honorary Member of the Royal Town Planning Institute, a Fellow of the

British Academy of Social Sciences, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. In 2010, he was awarded an OBE for his work on understanding the impact and effectiveness of urban policy.

Outside the university, Brian was a passionate advocate of voluntary service.

He was a supporter of a number of local charities, serving as chair of the Manchester Council for Voluntary Services and the Manchester Settlement and was an active and regular supporter of the RGS Bursary Campaign. He will be greatly missed by those all who knew him. Brian died peacefully at home in the arms of his wife of many years, Glenna.

With acknowledgements to the University of Manchester for the use of this tribute.

HOWARD BURCHELL (66-99) DIED 4 AUGUST 2020, AGED 81

when speaking, Howard was nevertheless a sociable person, being an active member of the local branch of the Stephenson Locomotive Society until not long before he passed away. For 29 years he was also treasurer of Benton Methodist (now St. Andrews Anglican) Church, of which he and his wife Margaret were enthusiastic members. In this the couple, who shared a strong Christian faith, carried forth a practice from their days in Oxford, where Howard read Physics at Wadham College and Margaret trained to be a teacher.

Being friends with Howard’s two sons, David (74–84) and Andrew (16–86), I was to become, some years later, a fairly regular visitor to their home. I always received a reassuringly warm welcome there, and if lucky we were let loose on Howard’s model railway. When I called in to see Howard and Margaret a few years ago, I was pleased to find him still building rolling stock painstakingly from kits to add to his OO gauge recreation of “God’s Wonderful Railway”. It was touching that over the years, the importance of family to Howard was marked by the appearance of wagons owned by fictitious companies bearing the name of his four children (and in due course, as he was proud to show me, grandchildren).

By Stuart Laws (74–84)

M

y earliest memory of Howard is not at the RGS, but of being given very precise directions on how to reach the hallowed domain of his model railway without incurring any injuries.

At that time the Burchells lived only a few doors away from my parents, before their move to a larger property.

A definite attribute of this house was that it possessed an unusually large garage, one half of which could thus be given over to the construction of a reworked, refined, and decidedly more accessible railway layout.

Whether in school or at home, Howard was a self-assured yet modest man with a dry sense of humour, who chose his words carefully and used them to great effect. Although economical

ONA | OLD NOVOCASTRIANS’ ASSOCIATION MAGAZINE | ISSUE 109 | SPRING 2021

Howard (left) pictured in 1959 fixing a headboard to GWR 0-4-2T locomotive no.

1447, prior to a special Sunday service run for the Oxford University Railway Society on the Abingdon branch line. (Photo courtesy of the Oxford Mail).

A fuller version of this tribute is being posted to the RGS website under the RGS Family section.

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OBITUARIES LIEUTENANT COLONEL NEVILLE POULSOM (36-42) DIED 5 NOVEMBER 2020, AGED 94

N

eville Wright Poulsom was born in Darlington on January 30 1926.

He was a pupil at the Newcastle Royal Grammar School when the war broke out, and along with his fellow pupils, was evacuated to Penrith.

The three years he spent in the Lake District gave Neville an abiding love of the Lakes and the military, the latter through the Cadet Force. At sixteen, he applied to join the Indian Army and after a short period at Durham University reading Civil Engineering, at 17 he was called up.

Neville was posted to the 10th Baluch Regiment in Karachi for three years and upon his return, obtained a commission in the East Yorkshire Regiment, spending time in Austria. He volunteered for the King’s African Rifles and sallied forth to Mombasa, en route for Morogoro.

In 1949, Neville was posted in Mauritius, where he met his wife, Mary, a QARANC theatre sister at the military hospital. The battalion left Mauritius in 1951, with the newly married couple on the troopship Empire Test. Between 1955 and 1959, Neville, Mary and their two young daughters Sarah and Bridget, were located in Singapore, Germany and the United Kingdom. In 1960, Neville boarded the troopship Nevassa, sailing for HongKong to command the Royal Military Police dog company - having transferred to serve with The Royal Military Police.

On his return to England, Neville embarked on another of his passions; polar exploration. With Mary by his side, he spent many hours in the Public Record Office carrying out research for his book.

Research and writing continued throughout his stay in Aldershot, and eventually the book The White Ribbon – A Medallic Record of Polar Exploration was published together with “A Catalogue of Twentieth Century Medals Awarded to the British Army. Apart from a two-year tour in Germany, Neville spent most of the next ten years in the UK, moving every two years before leaving the army in 1975 to work for the Sussex Police as their chief

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administrative officer.

Retirement came in 1991 and Neville and Mary settled in Mayfield, East Sussex, where they became immersed in village life. He was chairman of The Royal British Legion and together they became heavily involved in their parish church, helping elderly parishioners and running the church fete, in between writing more books on military buttons, medals and their ribbons.

In 2016, Neville moved down to join his daughter, Sarah, in North Devon, by then ninety years of age. Life revolved around Mass, trips to the pub and family lunches at the weekend with the four generations sitting down to eat. To his family and friends, Neville was a loving, gentle, kindly best friend who will be greatly missed.

God bless, Daddy, your loving daughter, Sarah (Farrelly).

DAVID IAN GUY (58-62) DIED 5 OCTOBER 2020, AGED 77

D

avid joined the RGS aged 13 when he returned to the North East from Maidstone, after spending an idyllic early childhood playing in the Kent countryside.

Throughout his life he maintained a debt of gratitude for the values and standards he had learnt at the RGS and the many resulting life-long friendships.

After school, he trained as a teacher at Bede College Durham. He took great

pride in leading a very successful Bede College rowing team, representing Durham University in national competitions.

In 1966 he moved to Paris where he taught English at the Berlitz Language School. It was a period that led to a lifelong love of France. His family would joke when he would wistfully say “When I lived in Paris…”. He learnt to speak French fluently and would later take his family to France every year during the 1990s.

In 1968 he taught English to trainee pilots in the Saudi Arabian air force in Dhahran, returning the following year to the UK to marry Valerie whom he had met just before moving to the Middle East.

Soon afterwards, a period of jury service inspired David to read Law at Newcastle University. This enabled him to obtain the position of Legal Services Manager at Blyth Valley Council where he worked until his retirement.

Throughout David’s life, he found much satisfaction in maintaining and repairing cars – particularly his beloved Saabs. When diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2018 he bought a classic convertible Morris Minor as a renovation project. Much to everyone’s amazement, he spent almost two years lovingly working on it throughout his extensive treatment.

His technical knowledge also extended to an ability to undertake house extensions, and to build and repair bicycles, clocks and watches, skills he would also share to help family and friends.

Following his retirement, in 2004, David and Valerie moved to Stocksfield and David was Secretary of the Stocksfield Retired Men’s Association for over a decade.

Sailing holidays to the Norfolk Broads with his RGS friends were an annual highlight for over 20 years, enabling him to enjoy the early morning wildlife and waterbirds of the Broads and, of course, to spend time socialising with old friends.

He leaves his wife of 51 years Valerie, daughter Catherine and son-in-law Daniel, son Richard and daughter-in-law Elena and grandchildren Matthew, Tom, Ben and Oliver.

A fuller version of this tribute is being posted to the RGS website under the RGS Family section.

WILLIAM ANTHONY ‘TONY’ RISING (49-58) DIED 9 NOVEMBER 2020, AGED 79

T

ony sat his entrance exam for the RGS in 1948. He passed and the RGS had an impact on the rest of his life.

The RGS cultivated his love of rugby and he was encouraged by John Elders the new rugby master. In one season he was selected to play for Northumberland under 21s. He was awarded school colours for rugby and boxing and half colours for athletics. In 1951 he received a medal which reads ‘60 yds J3A and J3B’. He fought in the final of the Northumberland Boxing Championship, winning and was awarded a trophy which was taken away for inscription, but he never saw it again!

When Tony left school, he began training as a Chartered Accountant. He moved from Newcastle to Leeds where he continued his studies. After passing his exams he first worked as company secretary in the motor industry, however, he never lost his desire to work abroad and eventually fulfilled his ambition and went to Tripoli in Libya and Lagos, Nigeria where he worked for a total of 8 years.

Upon his return to the UK he became Managing Director of a software company. Ultimately Tony set up business on his own and became a Business Consultant. He enjoyed working for himself and was also able to continue his travels. After the Berlin Wall came down he travelled on the back of a motor bike to Eastern Europe to take part in a rally.

His travels took him to many obscure places, usually inspired by the many books he read.

Tony kept in contact with the school and many of his friends. He was a great postcard writer and was responsible for reuniting many of his friends. He would recount stories of what they got up to in their youth and I have often seen his

friends squirming in their seats with embarrassment. He was good fun with a very dry sense of humour.

He also had numerous hobbies including rugby, fishing, ornithology, chess, travel, coin, book and postcard collecting.

Tony died at home peacefully in his sleep after a long illness. He coped with his illness the way he coped with life with humour and dignity. During his colourful lifetime he was to marry three times and have five children. He is survived by his third wife of 36 years, Moira, and four children.

ANGUS WEBB (86-92) DIED 8 APRIL 2020, AGED 45

He thus created Panelbase which became his absolute passion/baby.

DRG co-founder John Raglan said “Angus played an enormous part in the Panelbase/DRG family in so many ways, and of course, was always the last to leave the party. He became a highly-respected figure in the panel industry, both within the UK and worldwide, and we’ve received more than 800 e-mails of condolence from across the globe. We are all devastated and no words can even go partway to describe what an amazing ‘gentle giant’ he was. Angus was a true leader in every sense of the word. We will all miss him and life will certainly not be the same with his passing”. Fiona Raglan, joint owner added, “No words can express how devastated I am at Angus’s passing.”

Angus was the middle of three RGS brothers.

In early March 2020 Angus went for a few days holiday to Spain, prior to lockdown. He was confirmed with Covid19 shortly after arriving in Spain. The town in Spain where Angus was staying has a first class hospital, and his care was the best at that time, but after 20 days, 17 on a ventilator, he lost his fight.

He was strong and healthy. We are all devastated.

By Andrew and Rosemary Webb

A

ngus grew up in Whitley Bay. As a teenager, he was an accomplished county-level swimmer with Tynemouth Swimming Club, and a lifeguard on North Tyneside beaches.

He was also a keen Boy Scout who attended international jamborees. He was very musical - playing piano, as well as the clarinet in North Tyneside Wind Band. He was fluent in French and Spanish, and he loved to ski. He was proud to be admitted as a member of Mensa.

On graduating from Northumbria University with a BSc (Hons) in Information and Communication Management in 2002, he was awarded the final year prize for the best student. He was head-hunted, through the university,

by Northumberland-based market research agency, Dipsticks (DRG), as ICT/ Marketing Executive, with a remit to help create the technical infrastructure of the business. After eighteen months, he was invited to join the Board of Directors, and set up DRG’s online consumer research.

ONA | OLD NOVOCASTRIANS’ ASSOCIATION MAGAZINE | ISSUE 109 | SPRING 2021

A fuller version of this tribute is being posted to the RGS website under the RGS Family section.

Corrections from ONA 108: Pages 26 & 28 The photograph of Charles ‘Nattie’ Armstrong (1909-14) was, in fact, that of J Stanley Armstrong (1912-16), father of John Armstrong.

Page 29 Sir Ian Gilmore (55-65), a professor of hepatology, was erroneously described as a herpetologist.

Page 43 In the Autumn 2020 edition of ONA Magazine, the brothers of the late Eric Phillips (37-47), Michael Edward (41-51) and Ernest Keith (53-62) were incorrectly described as his sons.

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OBITUARIES DAVID SUMMERFIELD (46-56) DIED 23 AUGUST 2020, AGED 81

E

ven after seventy years, with a cheeky grin, David could recite alphabetically the names of all 31 boys in his form. He talked affectionately about the period he attended school, which began in the academic year 1946-47 and ended in 1956-57.

In 2008, a nostalgic trip to Newcastle upon Tyne was organised by his eldest son, so David could show two of his three grandchildren around the city. The tour included visits to the school, his childhood home in Jesmond and a tour of St James’ Park.

The family visit to the RGS was for one sole reason. To locate and view a state scholarship board which carried an inscription for 1957 ‘Summerfield D.M. Merton, Oxon.’ As David explained to the members of his family, this scholarship changed his life as it provided him with the means to study law at Oxford University.

He graduated in 1960 and relocated to London, where he married Ruth (a nurse) in 1962 and started a family in 1963.

He began work as a solicitor, his specialty being family law. He worked long hours, including Saturday mornings and many weekday evenings. As a volunteer, he lent his legal expertise to the local Citizens Advice Bureau.

In the early 80s, for health reasons, David ended his legal career. The family made a big decision to sell the London home and move to rural Sussex to start

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a new life David realised there was an opportunity to develop a business based on his lifelong passion for cricket and books. He established and entered partnerships with several second-hand bookshops in London and Sussex, including a cricket bookshop close to Lord’s, international home of cricket.

Working with his son Keith, David operated popular book stalls at the County Cricket grounds at Kent, Sussex and Essex and sometimes around the country. In later years, the business became home-based, focussed on memorabilia.

For many years, David enjoyed reading books and newspapers, particularly sports reports. He watched cricket, listened to Test Match Special on the radio and laughed loudly when watching episodes of Bilko, Yes Minister and more. In early 2020, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer and he died, peacefully in hospital, on 16 August 2020 at the age of 81. He leaves his wife, Ruth, eldest son Paul, who works for a think tank in Whitehall and younger son, Keith, who continues the book business.

David had three grandchildren, Joshua, Gideon, and Miriam.

A fuller version of this tribute is being posted to the RGS website under the RGS Family section.

PROFESSOR JOHN TARN OBE (44-52) DIED 8 NOVEMBER 2020, AGED 85

F

ormer colleagues are saddened to hear of the passing of Emeritus Professor John Nelson Tarn OBE, DL, FRIBA, FRHistS, FSA, FRSA (Hon LLD 1999), who passed away aged 85 on Sunday, 8 November following illness over recent months.

After leaving school, John studied at Durham University where he obtained a

Bachelor of Architecture degree with first class honours in 1957. John furthered his academic career with a Doctor of Philosophy degree in architectural history from the University of Cambridge in 1961.

Following his first lecturing position at the University of Sheffield in 1963, he joined Liverpool University in 1973 as its Roscoe Professor of Architecture.

Professor Tarn held the post until his retirement in 1999, during which time he also served as Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Acting Vice-Chancellor. Liverpool University awarded him an honorary Doctor of Laws degree and he became an Emeritus Professor and continuing to support several areas of the University.

During his 12 years as Chairman of the Friends of the University there (2001-2013), John supported fundraising for many student groups and took great personal joy in seeing the impact of the group’s provision of grants for students.

Highly respected for his architectural work, Professor Tarn served in the Royal Institute of British Architects from 1968 to 1992, taking up various important memberships of Committees and Panels under the Institute. In 1992, he received an OBE for services to architecture.

Internationally, Professor Tarn served as a member of The Chinese University of Hong Kong’s Architecture Academic Advisory Committee when the Committee was established in 1988 and took up chairmanship of the Committee from 1992 to 2002. He was key to leading the committee to launch the Department and vastly developed the architecture programme at the University. For his outstanding contribution to church architecture and Catholic heritage, Professor Tarn was honoured with a Papal Award by Pope Francis.

Professor Tarn had a great fondness for the Peak District, devoting 20 years to chairing the national park's planning committee, as well as serving as Vice-President of the Friends of the Peak District. He had lived for a number of years in Darley Dale in his beloved Peak District, before passing away in November.

With acknowledgements to the University of Liverpool for the use of this tribute.

A fuller version of this tribute is being posted to the RGS website under the RGS Family section.

‘HERBERT’ MALCOLM FAIL (45-52) DIED 30 JUNE 2020, AGED 85

M

alcolm’s formative years were spent being moved around different Primary schools as his father, Herbert Fail, was an agricultural engineer.

The family finally settled in Newcastle and Malcolm attended the Royal Grammar School. He excelled in Modern Languages and Mathematics. It was here that he made lifelong friends with Harvey Smith (45-47), Dennis Martin and Brian Allcraft.

At school he played rugby, but he was passionate footballer, and was a life-long supporter of Newcastle United. He studied Modern Languages – French and German at King’s College Cambridge between 1952 and 1955. After serving in the Intelligence Corps Malcolm joined the Westminster Bank’s graduate training programme.

It was at Nat West that he met his wife Margaret and they married in April 1960.

They settled in Bishop’s Stortford and had their first child Catherine in March 1961.

Catherine was a Thalidomide baby, but it was not until late 1962 that they found this out. Malcolm worked with others to achieve compensation for the families affected. Their second child Ian followed in October 1963, and Diana in February 1965, having moved to Colchester, Essex in 1964.

In 1968-69 Malcolm became a Sloan Fellow, London Business School. In 1980 he was promoted to head up the International Banking Divisions Corporate Financial Services, leading a team of 200 managers.

In 1981 the family moved to Great Tey, Essex. In 1989 he became General Manager, Group Strategy and Communication.

Malcolm retired in September 1990 and he and Margaret enjoyed many foreign holidays. Malcolm also took up flying lessons and achieved his private pilot’s licence in just eighteen months, enjoying flights over the Essex countryside. They

both contributed to village life at Great Tey and enjoyed gardening and entertaining friends and family.

In 1999 they took the decision to spend their latter days together in Morpeth back in Northumberland. Unfortunately, Margaret was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease in 2007 and Malcolm became her full-time carer, and eventually she moved into a care home in 2011, before passing away in 2012. Malcolm moved to Yorkshire in 2013 to be nearer his family, after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, until he passed away with Covid-19 in June 2020.

He leaves behind his children, Catherine, Ian and Diana and his seven grandchildren.

A fuller version of this tribute is being posted to the RGS website under the RGS Family section.

JANET COX 1936-2020

I

was touched when David Goldwater asked me if I would write something about my wife who died in September. But also thoroughly surprised.

Here I am, a has-been where the RGS is concerned – once Headmaster yes, but there have been four others since! And if I will mean nothing to younger ONs, I’m not sure that their older counterparts will have any recollections whatsoever of the then Headmaster’s wife. It could be different for former staff – and indeed I think of one good friend of ours who is not yet ‘former’.

When a kind group of such colleagues had the generous idea of compiling some recollections of our time together to mark my 80th birthday, they almost without exception made some happy reference to

ONA | OLD NOVOCASTRIANS’ ASSOCIATION MAGAZINE | ISSUE 109 | SPRING 2021

Janet. They remember her busying about to get to know people at our gathering of staff which preceded the autumn term, and often again for our pre-Christmas parties, which aimed always to include as many from beyond the RGS. She was indeed, as one such colleague said, ‘the most sociable of people’. For another she was a ‘morale raiser’ – a very apt summary. I cannot in fact imagine a better description of what she was to me consistently and unfailingly throughout the 60 years of our marriage (a landmark we had just celebrated this year) and more particularly for the 22 years in which she saw me facing the challenges of the RGS job.

There are probably Headmasters’ wives who become over-involved in the decisions they see being taken – at the risk of incurring gossip about what in politics is dubbed a ‘kitchen-cabinet’. Janet was not one such.

Interested though she was in the school’s extracurricular commitment, unfailing in her following and critical appraisal of its rich offerings in music and drama (and an annual visitor along with me to its array of summer camps), she had no urge to ‘interfere’ with those of us who were shaping the mainstream of RGS education.

There is just one marginal exception to that, which may interest those of you whose days of youth are over: the surprise she expressed that I was daring to allow the School Song to ‘lapse’. I had to believe that she was wrong on that, but she was right that it lost me a lot of standing with many a sturdy adherent to tradition. Janet’s own capacity for that sort of lusty singing was shown to the world in her lead role in the joint RGS/CNHS production of Gilbert & Sullivan’s Patience, this in our last year in the NE and still recollected by one who was there as an ‘awesome performance’.

Awesome was not how she seemed to her Church High School pupils, who found something inspirational about the way she projected her enthusiasm for history. This suddenly made itself felt at a moment of the Classics Department’s trip to Greece in the year when they kindly allowed the two of us to join in. ‘This is Lepanto!’ they remember her excitedly exclaiming, before ‘regaling us with an account of the great sea battle fought in the fourth OttomanVenetian War’. Let that serve as a reminder of the impact she made on others. She was, said another colleague, ‘lively and colourful in style, enthusiasms, language, thought and dress’. Well observed on every point, I would say.

By Alister Cox, Headmaster (72-94)

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OBITUARIES JOHN ALEXANDER (37-46) BORN 1928, DIED AGED 92 DAVID ALLAN (48-60) DIED 3 MARCH 2020, AGED 80

ROBIN BRAITHWAITE DOUGLASS (48-58) DIED 31 DECEMBER 2020, AGED 82

NIGEL DAVID PRICE (64-69) DIED 18 JULY, AGED 69

ROGER F HARVEY (37-43) DIED SEPTEMBER 12, AGED 93

COL. NIGEL GD ROBINSON MBE (50-58) DIED 24 AUGUST, AGED 80

ROBERT BARDNER HORN (45-54) DIED 28 SEPTEMBER 2020, AGED 83

RENE ROBINSON, WIDOW OF MAURICE G ROBINSON (STAFF 34-72), DIED 10 FEBRUARY 2021, AGED 99

IAN JAMIESON (45-54) DIED AGED 85

MALCOLM SIMPSON (53-60) DIED 26 SEPTEMBER, AGED 78

JONATHAN A BRUCE (75-82) DIED DECEMBER 13 2020, AGED 56

RONALD W MARK (46-50) BORN 1934, DIED 13 SEPTEMBER 2018, AGED 84

REX GASKIN TATE (40-47) DIED 31 MARCH 2020, AGED 89

DAVID S CAIL (58-67) BORN 25 NOVEMBER 1949

GEOFFREY NORMAN MARSH (38-48) DIED 1 FEBRUARY, AGED 90

DAVID WILL WATSON (66-73) DIED OCTOBER 2020, AGED 66

WILLIAM R CURRY (37-40) DIED DECEMBER 4, AGE 94

JOHN A MCGEOCH (37-46) DIED 4 JUNE 2020, AGED 91

DR GERALD KINGSLEY WILSON (50-51) BORN 11 MAY 1930, DIED 12 SEPTEMBER 2020, AGED 90

GEOFFREY HARRISON DEES (46-51) DIED 31 DECEMBER 2020, AGED 82

KEITH MEWETT (46-54) DIED 27 MARCH 2020, AGED 84

FRASER DENMARK (55-65) DIED 29 JANUARY 2020, AGED 73

DAVID GB MITCHELL (42-51) BORN 1932, DIED 12 MAY 2020, AGED 88

VIVIAN DENYER (55-63) DIED 22 NOVEMBER 2020, AGED 74

PAULINE PERELLA (STAFF 82-03) DIED 25 JANUARY 2021

Due to publishing constraints, we regret that not all tributes submitted could be included in full in this issue. These will appear in the next issue (Autumn 2021) of the Magazine. Tributes received after Issue 109 was sent to the printers will be included in the next edition.

GUESS WHO? As we celebrate the achievements of the Junior School in this issue, we thought you would like to see how our distinguished contributors looked as innocent and bright-eyed students.

ARE YOU MISSING OUT?

PAUL HAGGIE ONA PRESIDENT

DAVID GOLDWATER EDITOR

JAMES MILLER HEAD OF JUNIOR SCHOOL

GEOFFREY STANFORD HEAD

GENNY SILVANUS RGS SCHOOL ARCHIVIST

SUSAN BECK DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT

Do you know an ON who is not receiving the Magazine and would like a copy sent regularly? If so, please contact the Development Office at development@rgs.newcastle.sch.uk BERNARD TRAFFORD HEADMASTER (08-17)

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ONA SHOP To order from our range of merchandise, please send a cheque payable to ONA, confirming your delivery address and contact details. For further details and postage costs, please email: development@rgs.newcastle.sch.uk.

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1. CUFFLINKS T Bar, enamelled nickel plated, school crest £22 2. LIMITED EDITION PRINTS 480x330mm £10 OR 2 FOR £15 £50 EACH (FRAMED)

3. TEDDY BEAR £20 Collection only

5. NOTEBOOKS A5 £5 A4 £8

4. TIE 100% pure silk, slip-stitched, fully lined. Polyester ties are also available SILK: £20 POLYESTER: £10

6. SOCKS 100% cotton £9

7. SCARF 100% double thickness wool £35 8. BOW TIE 100% pure silk, ready made SILK: £20 POLYESTER: £10

ONA DIARY DATES

2022 LONDON DINNER 2021 ONA OCTOBER DINNER, NEWCASTLE

Thursday 17 March 2022 6.30 until 11pm The Royal Automobile Club, Pall Mall, London

At this moment in time, the October dinner is still under consideration and more information will follow.

We’re delighted to announce the date and venue for the annual ONA London Dinner, with Guest Speaker, Leo Pearlman (87-97).

JOHN ELDERS MEMORIAL MATCH Monday 27 December 2021 Novos RFC v ONA, Sutherland Park Kick-off 2pm, bar open from 12 noon 11pm. Please come along to support the teams and enjoy a festive afternoon’s entertainment.

After two years away, this promises to be a fantastic and a much-needed reunion and we look forward to seeing as many of you there as possible.

To reserve your place, please contact development@rgs.newcastle.sch.uk