ONA 112 Computer Science at RGS

COMPUTER SCIENCE AT RGS IN CONVERSATION JIM RYAN

SPRING 2023

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

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.

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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

PAUL HUDSPITH (92-99) ONA PRESIDENT

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.

It was with great sadness that we learned of the passing of Alister Cox, Headmaster 72-94, on 7 November last year. I had the privilege of attending Mr Cox’s memorial service along with many other ONs, both staff and pupils, at which John Armstrong (Staff 72-03) spoke warmly of Alister’s time both inside and outside school. An obituary and some of the many tributes we’ve received will be published in our next edition.

Working in IT myself I am particularly pleased to introduce this latest edition of the ONA Magazine, which focuses on the introduction of computer science to the curriculum at Eskdale Terrace, and provides some insight into multiple generations of ONs who have made their careers in the technology industry.

My predecessor Paul Haggie (60-67) mentioned in his introduction to our previous edition the inception of the Economics department when he was a pupil, and the talented economists who have emerged over its 60 year history. In Computer Science the school has a department less than five years old, but one which has already firmly established itself as an inspiring and popular subject thanks to the remarkable work of Chris Wilde (Staff 18-present) and his team: more on this in the coming pages.

I met many current Computer Science students at the school's recent careers fair. I enjoyed hearing about their passion for the subject, in particular the many opportunities they have to explore it way beyond the core curriculum. I was particularly pleased that the majority of students I spoke to were young women; engaging girls at a young age in this challenging and rewarding subject is a huge opportunity to address the industry’s gender imbalance, and reap the rewards of a diversified workforce I have seen in my own teams. I look forward to reading about the impactful technology careers of our future ON computer scientists, female and male, in these pages in the years to come.

IN THIS ISSUE

WELCOME

GEOFFREY STANFORD HEAD

It is a pleasure to be able to introduce this latest edition of the ONA magazine, shining a spotlight on Computer Science at the RGS. When I arrived at the school in 2019, Computer Science was very much in its infancy as a standalone academic department, having just become a separate discipline from our Engineering Design and Technology department. In my time, it has grown to three teachers working through all year groups and offering GCSE and A-Level. There is a real sense of energy and enthusiasm clearly apparent whenever one sees what is going on in their lessons.

Away from the classroom, teams from the RGS have achieved impressive results reaching regional and national finals in competitions ranging from Cyber Centurion and CyberFirst Girls through to the LEGO League which entails programming LEGO robots to achieve complex tasks. At the time of writing, in the last couple of weeks we have had 188 pupils qualify for the second round of the Oxford University Computing Challenge (OUCC). Two of our Junior teams achieved the maximum possible score and 30 students reached the top 10% in the competition, and are now through to the next national stage. We have also had teams achieve maximum possible score in the Perse Coding Challenge as well as reaching the national finals of the Vex Robotics national championships.

In addition to the inspirational work done with our own pupils, the Computer Science team have delivered an extraordinary number of Digital Schoolhouse sessions to our partnership State schools around the region. Indeed, such has been the level of demand for these sessions that we are currently looking for funding for a Computer Science Partnership Teacher to work in parallel with the Maths and Physics Partnership Teachers, already funded by the Reece Foundation and the Robotics Partnership Teacher, kindly funded by British Engines.

These Partnership Teachers not only work with gifted and talented children – currently around 7,500 each year –but also help to upskill non specialist teachers in maintained sector schools. In doing so, they are playing a key part in our aim of helping to raise aspirations and attainment across the North East. Separately, as Paul Hudspith has noted, it was a great loss recently to hear news of the death of one of my predecessors, Alister Cox. He had served as Headmaster of the RGS for 22 years from 1972. Although this is not quite as long as Hugh Moises who held the role for 38 years back in the late 1700s and early 1800s, it is nonetheless an extraordinary length of service to the school. He returned to visit only last year and I felt privileged to have a couple of long conversations with him about the school in his time and how it has evolved since. I have no doubt that he will be missed by so many of those generations who passed through the RGS, under his leadership.

BACK TO THE BROADCASTING FUTURE

BY MARTIN BELL

Iwanted to become an electronics engineer and work in broadcasting and so joined the BBC as a Technical Trainee. This was 1961 and the Corporation was beginning to expand in anticipation of opening a second television channel. But after two years –and a further five as a cameraman in Television Centre Studios –I quit engineering and went into production.

I directed and produced programmes: some were good, some were dreadful, and a few won minor awards. Later I went freelance, working at times for ITV and making programmes through my own company for industrial organisations, returning to the BBC from time to time to work on specific projects.

I had no thoughts of returning to engineering, which I now regarded as a career false start, until one day in late 1994 that is, when I found myself sitting in a small demonstration room in Surrey, the home of BBC Research and Development, being given a masterclass on a new technology called ‘digital’ television. This would allow for multiple television services to be bundled together (multiplexed) and transmitted within one conventional broadcast channel. It opened up the prospect of more services, better picture quality and the introduction of widescreen. The technology was maturing and the broadcasters, regulator and government were beginning to show interest. The BBC had appointed a Controller to oversee a

(50-61)

“You were techie at school” said David Goldwater (51-62). “Why not write about what you went on to do?” Well, yes, I suppose I was a bit techie at school. I used to build radios as a hobby and I was the founder and secretary of the short-lived RGS Electronics Society.

Above: Analogue and digital –the screens in the later demonstration area showing the digital widescreen broadcast (right) and the letterboxed analogue simulcast (left).

The playout area for the pilot during the inaugural digital broadcast of Trooping of the Colour

‘Digital Broadcasting Project’, its main purpose being to demonstrate the nascent technology and the BBC’s ideas for employing it to government and opinionformers, and he needed a producer to devise demonstrations. He recruited me. The trouble was there was nothing to demonstrate –yet. An international group, the DVB (Digital Video Broadcasting), was hammering out a technical standard and under a European Commission collaborative programme BBC R&D, the IBA’s equivalent in Winchester, and research labs in France, Germany and Italy were building, transmitting and receiving equipment. Some were close, but not the BBC, which was late into the race. I went with BBC colleagues to meet opposite numbers at the French research base at CCETT in Rennes to ask to borrow their experimental transmitter and receiver (and the French engineers to operate it). There was an exhibition and demonstration area to conceive and construct, and I put together four two-hour long tapes of digital widescreen programmes. The BBC was shooting some drama in widescreen from which I could use extracts, but a widescreen news bulletin and weather forecast had to be created, so too widescreen trailers and network idents. A sequence of a Blue Peter was reshot, and a football match specially recorded, both in widescreen. Another new concept –a simulated on-screen programme guide –was created and run from laserdisc. Demonstrations took place in March 1995 to government and opposition politicians, other UK broadcasters, receiver manufacturers and retailers, industry journalists and others. Quite rapidly the form of the new digital television landscape

began to emerge, and eventually BBC R&D had their own digital television transmitter and receiver which conformed to the recently signed-off international standard, DVB-T. The receiver was installed in the BBC’s White City building where a new demonstration area was created. A rudimentary playout area was built in TV Centre, for which I negotiated the purchase of some prototype equipment from the French company Thomson, which coded, compressed and multiplexed four programme streams to input to the transmitter. An experimental service with a real programme guide and the nowubiquitous ‘red button’ side channel, was broadcast from the London transmitter at Crystal Palace. The inaugural programme was Trooping the Colour live in widescreen, derived from the same broadcast truck providing conventional pictures to BBC One. It was June 1996. Over the next five months, I conducted over 90 demonstrations to BBC staff and industry professionals from Europe, the Far East and the UK.

In July 1996 the Broadcasting Act allowing for the introduction of digital television was signed into law. The following spring, its task now over, the Digital Broadcasting Project was wound up, and I eventually joined BBC Broadcast to work on the launch of real services in 1998. By now my previous incarnation as a producer was long over; I had become a BBC ‘suit’ with the dubious title of Chief Assistant, Digital Widescreen Development (though in one last throw I managed to moonlight, directing a BBC outside broadcast unit outside the Dome on Millennium night!). I later left the BBC and joined the Digital TV Group, a cross-industry association, as Director of Communications. There was much to proselytise about the new television, and frequent trips to Geneva for meetings of DigiTAG, a pan-European cross-industry group, of which I eventually became Vice-President. I retired in 2004.

So while I never quite returned to being a ‘techie’, my grounding all those years ago in electronics stood me in good stead. I was very fortunate.

Martin Bell’s book, Inventing Digital Television –The Inside Story of a Technology Revolution, is available to order from bookshops or online.

I had no thoughts of returning to engineering, which I now regarded as a career false start, until one day in late 1994 that is, when I found myself sitting in a small demonstration room in Surrey, the home of BBC Research and Development, being given a masterclass on a new technology called ‘digital’ television.

The demonstration area used for the 1995 series

IN CONVERSATION WITH CHRIS WILDE

Paul Hudspith (92-99) interviews Chris Wilde (Staff 18-present), Head of Digital Technology & Computer Science

How do our readers differentiate between the widespread use of technology across the school, and the teaching of Computer Science?

Put simply, Computer Science (CS) is “understanding of computer” versus Information Technology (IT) which is “use of computer”. What appealed to me from the job advertisement was Computer Science being viewed as an academic subject by an academic institution, as you’d expect from the RGS.

Talking of the job, what has been your career journey? Was computing a calling? Not at all –my degree is in Ancient History, Latin & Greek! I took a PGCE post-university, taught history for a few years, then off the back of independently developing online teaching resources, moved on to become an adviser supporting North Tyneside schools transitioning from IT to CS. A lot of those organisations struggled with a lack of ability to teach the subject of CS; in moving to RGS, I’ve been able to execute ideas I was previously struggling to implement thanks to support from the school, and the strong academic ability of the pupils.

How has the department evolved since you started in 2018?

We’ve grown and diversified to meet demand. In my previous role I had to up-skill in order to support the IT to CS transition, and whilst I could pass an A-Level I’m not degree level-educated in CS. Jo Lynn (Staff 19-present) joined us with an undergraduate degree in CS, then subsequently Matt Moore (Staff 20-present) joined the team having worked in the software industry before coming to teaching.

How do you introduce pupils to the subject?

In Year 7 and Year 8 (i.e. 11-13 year olds) we expose pupils to multiple programming languages, though emphasise an understanding of logic and the maths behind computing which is much more important than programming syntax. We use a book called Computational Fairy Tales by Jeremy Kubica, following a character through a magical kingdom experiencing a variety of computational problems in the fantasy context of the story (“Follow the established algorithm for quests, and you’ll be fine” the heroine is assured by a knight in the introduction!). This provides pupils with fundamental learning, an opportunity to play, then challenges them with a problem to solve.

How does this develop beyond Year 7 and Year 8?

Year 9 digs into CS proper including robotic control algorithms, fundamentals such as binary and hexadecimal concepts, and Python programming. We finish the year on cyber security; the RGS is one of 20 or so National Cyber Security Centre CyberFirst Gold-accredited schools in the country. Irrespective of whether pupils are continuing to GCSE or not, we believe cyber-awareness is an important area to teach.

How is the subject assessed at GCSE and A-Level?

GCSE is entirely paper-based; A-Level is both computer-based and paper-based. The paper-based exams feature specially laid-out booklets so pupils indent their code properly! There’s no coursework involved in GCSE (detecting plagiarism is hard!), though at A-Level there’s a nonexamined assessment of code written to solve a problem of the student’s choice. The GCSE papers are Computational Thinking and Programming, mostly factual recall, and Computing Concepts, testing pupils’ understanding and application of knowledge and requires more creative problem solving.

As if on cue, Jo Lynn enters the room and deposits a foot-thick ream of exam papers on Chris’ desk.

Are your pupils generally taking other STEM options, or is there a broader mix? Certainly at A-Level, there is a common pattern of Maths, Physics and CS. We find these students are often laser-focused on their particular solution, it’s sometimes difficult to convey that there are many ways of solving a problem in CS. Our current Year 12 students have been taught by the department since Year 9, and we’re seeing the impact of the lower school teaching on their approach to CS.

How does the pupil gender balance look when the subject becomes optional? It varies year to year of course, but roughly one-third of our pupils are girls. This compares very favourably with national numbers at both degree level and the wider industry. Having Jo on staff really helps us illustrate the subject isn’t just for the boys. We aim parts of our co-curricular agenda specifically at the girls; a great example is our all-girl Year 9 First LEGO League team, who were subsequently CyberFirst Girls finalists, all of whom are going on to take the GCSE.

Sorry, did you say LEGO?!

Yes! I’m a huge fan of using of LEGO to inspire interest and encourage creative problem solving. Teams competing in First LEGO League build a robot to take on an assault course and also have to present their work to a panel. They collaborate, iterate, learn and solve problems. This year we won a Breakthrough Award at the First LEGO League finals, but we’ve participated in many other competitions too. A Year 8 team won the Energy Award at the VEX Robotics championship, one pupil won the Game Concept award at BAFTA’s Young Game Designer competition and we had teams competing in the CyberCenturion finals. We strongly encourage broader engagement in the subject. We don’t run a “Code Club”, rather we open the classrooms outside formal teaching for the pupils to experiment with technology, and if they want to participate in competitions help and encourage them.

What’s next?

More more more! We have more students coming through every year who choose GCSE and A-Level, we have one of the busiest co-curricular programmes in the school and we’re seeing participation growing (who doesn’t want to build LEGO robots at breaktime?). We’re already smashing the various competitions and plan to continue this, but perhaps most close to my heart is to continue expanding RGS’s work supporting students and teachers in our local State schools. But I know there’s more about this elsewhere in the magazine.

Chris you’ve achieved so much, but I sense there’s even better to come. Thanks for your time.

Put simply, Computer Science (CS) is “understanding of computer” versus Information Technology (IT) which is “use of computer”.

SCRATCHING THE TECHNOLOGICAL ITCH

RGS’s Computer Science Co-Curricular Activities

BY MATT MOORE (STAFF 20 – PRESENT)

The aim of the Fabricarium is to allow young people to develop their own interests by working on projects they want to. It’s not a code club –computing isn’t just coding and clubs always seem exclusive. RGS’s Engineering, Design and Technology department is open before and after school, and over lunchtime, for pupils to come and scratch their own technology itch. We have a number of robotics kits, and projects they can have a go at. Staff provide guidance, but don’t formally teach; the students have the freedom to pursue their ideas, make mistakes and fix them. When attendees find a stream they are interested in, we direct them to competition entries but nobody is forced to participate, as the Fabricarium is an enjoyable space where skills can develop at a pace set by the pupils.

Below are some examples of the pathways our current students – and future ONs –have taken through the Fabricarium.

Aidan B

Pioneers > Airgineers > Cyber Centurion

Current Year 13 student, Aidan, was involved in a number of firsts for the department, and his efforts, achievements and enthusiasm helped us formulate the Fabricarium. Aidan worked on a project in Year 8 using the Raspberry Pi, leading to participation in the Pioneers competition,

for which he created a GPS zombie tracker. In Year 9 his team designed, built, calibrated and flew microdrones in an entry to a competition known as Airgineers. More recently he helped set up our first entry to ethical hacking competition Cyber Centurion in which his team progressed to the national final at the RAF Museum in London.

“Competitions such as Cyber Centurion have taught me numerous lessons from using Linux commands to utilising resources effectively. The skills I gained have helped me solve issues that arise in my own projects”.

Gina E and Lara E

First LEGO League > Perse > Raspberry Pi PA > Art Mashup!

Year 12 pupil Gina and Year 11 student Lara are truly amazing computer scientists! Fabricarium began when Gina was in Year 7, where she worked on a buzzbox program that used a list data structure to store notes for a range of songs that were iterated using a capacitive touch sensor. From there she created a LEGO distance sensing hoverboard. She became part of First LEGO League (FLL) team Space Fish, who won their regional tournament and went to the national final. Gina chose CS for GCSE and used her skills to support both her EDT and Art coursework, both influenced by her coding prowess.

“I have learned many new skills from Fabricarium - coding and working as a team in FLL –and have interests through a range of interesting projects. Fabricarium has also helped outside of CS as I apply these skills in Art and EDT projects; work which involved the visual side of coding in Art I found particularly exciting, as it was personal to me”.

Lara has also been a keen advocate of Fabricarium, forming her own team for FLL for the last three years. Team Fredcake won their regional competition, progressed to national finals, and won the best newcomer award. Lara was instrumental in our initial entry to Cyber First Girls, in which her team reached the regional finals, which included a trip to GCHQ.

“First LEGO League and Cyber Centurion taught me new ways to problemsolve and code; I can then use these skills in the classroom, applying them to different scenarios”.

As well as their individual accolades, these young ladies have also teamed up, working together in the finals of the Perse Coding Challenge, making solid progress in Cyber Centurion, and developing and prototyping an autonomous polyphonic irrigation system for the PA Raspberry Pi Competition.

Luke D

First LEGO League > Raspberry Pi PA > VEX IQ Robotics

Still only in Year 9, Luke began his Fabricarium journey during lockdown in the Pizza Incredible team who participated in the PA Raspberry Pi Competition, challenged to use the Pi to solve a problem caused by the pandemic. Their solution was an autonomous facemask with a visor that covered the user’s face when they came within a specific distance of another person. Having reached the finals, Luke decided to form a team to participate in the VEX IQ robotics tournament. Made up of a group of Year 8 pupils, Alfred’s Assistants progressed to national finals and won the “Energy” award.

“I have learnt many skills in the Fabricarium which I can use in and out of computing. It helped me develop teamworking skills as well as being a fun experience supported by helpful teachers, and through which I made new friends. Although there were many challenges with the help of teammates and computing staff, we overcame them and won two trophies”.

I have learnt many skills in the Fabricarium which I can use in and out of computing.”

Jasmine G

First LEGO League > Raspberry Pi PA > BAFTA

Incredible Year 9 student, Jasmine, was another Pizza Incredibles member who competed in FLL, then the BAFTA Young Game Designer competition. Jasmine joined a team of Year 8 girls for FLL; Team Ro-Bo-Go won regionally, but were pipped to national finals by another RGS team. Jasmine then worked on a solo endeavour, creating the concept for a computer game she called Tiled at Twilight. She then used this as a submission for BAFTA’s young game designer awards… and went on to win the BAFTA!

“I’ve been able to pop in during lunch or after school to work on whatever I had in mind, and there would always be other people I can talk to and competitions I can involve myself in. It’s been really fun having Fabricarium there along the way, meeting some other Indie game enjoyers and rambling about how frustrating coding can be. I don’t think I’d be where I’m at now if it weren’t for this environment”.

Co-Curricular Computing Successes 2018-2022

Bebras

531 pupils participated, Best in County in 3 categories Joint best in country in 2

Oxford University Computing Challenge

Round 1 – 192 pupils participated

Round 2 – 2 qualifiers eventually 5th and 4th best in country

Perse Coding Challenge

Round 1 – 120 entries, with 15 teams progressing Round 2 – 5 teams participated

CyberFirst Girls

4 teams (16 pupils) participated

Cyber Centurion

Qualifiers – 18 pupils

Finals – 2 teams represented at national finals (8 pupils)

First Lego League

3 teams (22 pupils)

FLL National Finals

1 team (7 pupils) Winners of “Judges Award” at Nationals

Digital Schoolhouse E-Sports

3 pupils

Vex IQ Qualifiers & Finals

12 pupils Winners of “Energy” Award at National Finals

Vex V5 Qualifiers & Finals

5 pupils Both teams represented at National Finals

Raspberry Pi PA competition

3 teams (12 students)

Bafta Young Game Designer Entries

3 pupils Winner of Young Game Designer of the Year

Astro Pi Mission Space Lab

3 pupils

Pi Wars

2 pupils

Cyber First Trailblazers

25 pupils

Cyber First Adventurers

25 pupils

British Informatics Olympiad

4 pupils participated

I don’t think I’d be where I’m at now if it weren’t for this environment.”

FROM THE ARCHIVES

BY LOUISE PIFFERO (STAFF 21-PRESENT) ARCHIVIST

As always, The Novocastrian is an excellent resource for tracing the early days of the Computer Society. Its origins go back to the Electronics Society set-up in 1958 – ONs may recall from Issue 76 of the magazine that members of the Society built RGS’ first computer in 1968. Computer Soc was then launched in 1969.

We hold the archive of William G ‘Bill’ Elliott (Staff 52-88), a significant collection of papers, photographs and objects relating to all aspects of his time here at RGS. As Head of Technical Studies, Bill was involved in the early days of introducing computers to the school. We also hold records from his successor to Head of Department, Mike Barlow (53-63, Staff 79-95), who built on this work. Both their archives provide a fascinating insight into an event that has gone down in RGS history.

In 1980 two RGS Sixth Formers won the BBC Young Scientist of the Year award, the second time the school took the top prize.

Anthony McKay (71-81) and Graeme Harker (70-81) developed a computerised lighting control system. Their innovative work was used in our theatre, improving efficiency for setting lighting during shows.

We hold the original report submitted by the students for their project, complete with meticulous diagrams. There is also a wealth of fantastic photographs, showing the computer set-up, the students and documenting their trip to the BBC for filming.

Anthony McKay remembers the competition well:

“The day before BBC came to film at the school, we were having technical problems with the dimming electronics. Graham and I ended up staying on in the Physics Lab into Friday evening trying to resolve the issues. Physics teacher FJM Lindsay (Staff 67-87), stayed with us. We ended up working through the night. Mr Lindsay slept overnight on one of the wooden benches. BBC turned up Saturday morning to film and we’d got it all working!”

“The whole competition was the most amazing experience and great fun. No school had ever won this competition twice so it was also huge kudos for RGS.”

“A real highlight for me was getting to hold the trophy which was the actual induction coil that Michael Faraday had made when he discovered electricity.”

Graeme Harker also looks back:

“We were very relaxed (perhaps too relaxed) because the Toon RGS had won BBC Young Scientist of the Year the previous year (with a crazy hovercraft) so we assumed there was zero chance the BBC would let the same school win twice in a row.

It amused us that the Oxbridge judges didn’t know what to ask us ‘cos microprocessors and digital electronics weren’t on the curriculum in those days so the Oxbridge professors had to ask us what to ask us on telly (to seem like they were asking relevant questions)!”

“We did feel like pioneers (it was only a few years after the release of Steve Wozniak’s first Apple computer) but we had no idea how huge this technology would become.”

The RGS Archives receives a steady stream of donations from Old Novos throughout the year.

By summer 2022 we already had 32 separate donations of material totalling over 13 boxes. There have been papers, publications, photographs, digital files, vinyl records, and objects.

We are so grateful to our community for contributing to the history of our school and keeping memories alive. Thank you to all our archive donors. Contact the Archive: archives@RGS.newcastle.sch.uk

Above: Extract from The Novocastrian, Summer 1970, Issue 77, No. 2, p.73

Left: Commodore PET, and Anthony McKay & Graeme Harker with the console and computer set-up used in the competition, 1980

Below: RGS computer room

Computer Science is a relatively new subject to RGS considering our long history. Even so, the RGS Archives has some real treasures documenting the beginnings and development of this ‘brave new world’ in school.

Archive Donations 2022

A HISTORY OF THE RGS IN ITS PEOPLE

ER THOMAS OBE (STAFF 22-48)

BY DAVID GOLDWATER (51-62)

Just over 100 years ago, in January 1922, the RGS Governors appointed Dr Ebenezer Rhys Thomas as new Headmaster, following the departure of John Talbot (Staff 12-21) to Haileybury College in Hertfordshire. Talbot had led the school throughout the First World War, during which he served in the Northumberland Fusiliers as a Major.

His successor, Ebenezer Thomas was born on 10 April 1885 in Aberystwyth, Cardiganshire. He was to serve RGS for 26 years. ‘ERT’ or ‘Eb’ as he was popularly known, led the school during the period following the Great War and through the Second World War, stewarding many of the massive changes which we can still see today. He strengthened the Sixth Form from a very weak position with exam results improving enormously. He appointed teachers of great distinction, including the Anatole Theakstone (Staff 1925-61) and Louis Theakstone (Staff 193238 & 1946-53 – army service intervening), brothers brought up in St. Petersburg and pre-revolution students at Moscow University. Music at the school developed positively after Thomas appointed Arthur Milner (Staff 27-48) as Head of Music in 1927 and drama began its development after the school theatre was built in 1930. A full article on Mr Milner can be found in ONA Magazine Issue 98.

The school’s extracurricular activities were most significant in the growth of school camps, which were eventually to become such a major feature of the second half of the century. Michael Roberts (Staff 1925-31 & 34-41) was one of ERT’s most extraordinary appointments

and is the subject of an article in ONA Magazine Issue 91 in Summer 2014 available here.

ER Thomas instituted parents’ conferences and the good relationships which he fostered with parents undoubtedly helped them to accept the harsh separation of the evacuation to Penrith from 1939 to 1944. The Headmaster, who was himself very keen on working on the school allotments in Penrith to help “Dig for Victory,” encouraged the boys who stayed in Penrith over the summer to volunteer and get involved. The band of Penrith ‘survivors’ will remember the allotment field lay to the East of Beacon Road and despite being full of couch weed, was divided into working plots.

Another of Thomas’ innovations, and his link with our technology theme in this edition, was the introduction of BBC School Broadcasting at RGS, commented on very positively by an American writer visiting in the 1930’s.

He was educated at Aberystwyth School and University College there. He was Tutor and Head of Science at Rugby School from 1912-21, during which time he served in France in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, where he was mentioned in dispatches. After further military service in the UK, he answered the call from the RGS Governors at the end of 1921. Within a year of commencing his Headship in Newcastle, he must have felt secure enough to propose marriage to Dr Mary (Molly) Foster Richardson, 12 years his junior. She was born on 14 June 1897 in Sedbergh, Cumbria and died in 1956 at age 59. She was educated at Bootham’s sister school, The Mount, in York. They were married on 21 June 1923 in the Friends Meeting House, Newcastle.

The school grew physically under ERT’s headship, with the provision of several new buildings, some of which have only recently been replaced, as well as those remaining today. The changes referred to under ERT’s headship were largely funded through the generosity of Old Novo Sir Arthur Munro Sutherland (ON 1878-83), governor from 1919 and Chairman of Governors from 1929 until his death in 1953. He was, by far, the most munificent benefactor the school has ever had. One of his and Lady Sutherland’s most iconic gifts was the Binns Organ which has dominated the south end of the School Hall for 99 years. Plans are in hand to commemorate its inauguration with a tribute in the next edition of ONA Magazine

They had three sons, all attending the RGS: Peter Daniel Spence Thomas (3342), Ioan Foster Thomas (35-45), Donald Birket Thomas (37-48).

The Richardsons were a prominent local Quaker family and Molly’s father Hugh Richardson farmed at Wheel Birks (now Wheelbirks) in Stocksfield, which the family still own, as they have done since 1882. Hugh had originally been a schoolmaster and in October 1927, it was noted: at the annual meeting of the N.E. Branch of the Science Masters’ Association, at the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle: Mr Hugh Richardson, M.A., exhibited an extensive series of experiments illustrating osmosis, colloids and diffusion, and many other experiments were shown by the members in general. So here was the RGS Headmaster hosting his father-inlaw, once an educator himself, now a successful farmer.

Dr Thomas was awarded an OBE in 1941. Retiring in 1948 at the age of 63, he accepted a part-time lectureship in the Department of Engineering at King’s College, Newcastle. He died in Harrogate in 1979 at the age of 94.

A further Richardson connection: in Spring 2018, an article appeared in ONA Magazine about the School Observatory, with its impressive 4.5 inch refractor telescope which used to stand at the north end of the school field. This was the gift of Laurence Richardson, amateur astronomer, educated at the Quaker Bootham School, who lived in Rye Hill. The instrument was made by Cooke and Sons of York, another of whose telescopes was at Bootham.

Some personal recollections of ‘Eb’ by Old Novos

Bill Peacock (45-50)

From my lowly perspective it was difficult to form any opinion save that he was, rightly, respected. As evidence of this and an occurrence which is as clear a memory to me today as it was when it happened was the assembly –and in front of all pupils and masters –he tripped over his academic gown while mounting the platform and took a heavy fall. I would think that in this day and age titters would be heard but such was the respect and concern that all held for an outstanding man, there was stunned silence.

Joseph Fisher (30-36)

My recollection of ERT: Sharp features, stern, little sense of humour and unapproachable to a 13 year old. Would that be him?!

Burland Jacob (44-49)

During the 2019 School Carol Service, the Headmaster Geoffrey Stanford, performed on the French Horn. This reminded me of my first Head, Dr Thomas, who played the cello in the First Orchestra. His nickname was ‘Ebb’ and his wife ‘Flo’.

Dr Stanley Ashman (41-50)

A charismatic Welshman who when entering a room, there was silence. I recall him not allowing George Dean (Staff 1924-67) to smoke anywhere in school and had to go onto the playing field.

Bryan Stevens (Staff

44-49)

Although a disciplinarian, ERT adopted effective ploys when establishing the norms of schoolboy behaviour. His seldomly used cane was more usually replaced by a letter to the parents, via the culprit, to explain or excuse the offence. After hymns and prayers in the morning, the regular warning not to walk on the waterlogged school field would be rigidly obeyed. ERT laid great emphasis on the history of the school and established the house system, the school crest (paid for by Arthur Munro Sutherland, of course). His early schooldays had coincided with the closing days of Queen Victoria’s reign and he laid great emphasis on an allround education, hence there was a General Science period for the Arts Vl and English for the scientists. He himself was an active scientist, but with a deep interest in literature and drama. He also was the real founder of the School’s musical heritage, especially with the appointment of Arthur Milner (Staff 26-48) as the Head of Music. Dr Thomas was a player as well as a keen listener. A great walker, especially during the war years at Penrith, and later he would walk to school each day from his home in Belle Grove Terrace, Spital Tongues.

Sandbags in the Main Hall, 1939 Main Hall without the Binns Organ ER Thomas with the 1921-22 rugby 1st XV

Below (clockwise):

TODAY’S APPROACH TO TEACHING COMPUTER SCIENCE AT THE RGS

BY CHRIS WILDE (STAFF 18-PRESENT)

The approach we now take to teaching and learning is different to the traditional pedagogy that ONs may be used to. The aim of this article is to explain the approach and discuss some of the projects and skills we are developing in our young people.

Our pedagogy is based on multiple years’ experience using technology to develop skills in young people and is influenced by three masters of Pedagogy, namely Ron Berger, Sugata Mitra and Seymour Papert. These experts provide different aspects to the way we structure our learning units.

Ron Berger is an advocate of a learning approach coined “Project Based Learning” (PBL). This methodology is a dynamic approach, which allows students to acquire a deeper knowledge through active exploration of a real-world subject, by working for an extended period of time to investigate and respond to a challenge. Modules take place over six weeks, and task pupils with creating a learning artefact that responds to a challenge.

Examples include:

“Can you create a pinball machine out of LEGO?”

“Do you have the skills to get a place at Bletchley Park?”

“Can you create an interactive adventure game for the internet?”

“How do you code art?”

We pose the problem and provide a scaffolded set of resources that support the pupils in their journey through the module to create the learning artefact that is ultimately marked.

With a project set, and the resources in place, we can move onto our second theoretical approach from Sugata Mitra, the brain behind the “Hole in the Wall”. In 1999 he put an internet-connected computer in a hole in the wall in a Delhi slum and left it there to see what would happen. The computer attracted illiterate children, who, by the end of the day, had taught themselves to surf the internet, despite not knowing what a computer or the internet were. The impact on learning was massive, and Mitra developed projects such as “The Granny Cloud”, connecting older native English speakers with non-English speaking Indian children via the internet. For us, his most influential work was that on Self Organised Learning Environments.

One thing learned through this program is that children are often smarter than they are given credit for! Rather than providing lectures or spoon-feeding information, it is better to ask “engaging, provocative questions” and let students work out the answers. By allowing some freedom in their learning, the students often stretch to comprehend information that might have otherwise been too difficult for them. In our modules, they are encouraged to personalise their learning artefacts and ensure they represent their interests.

Other findings were that the educational experience is enhanced through collaboration and teamwork, and we regularly have pupils teaming and pairing up for their projects.

Our final, and probably most influential pedagogic approach is the constructionist learning theory developed by the fantastic Seymour Papert. Papert developed the coding language Logo, worked with LEGO to develop their robotics platform Mindstorms, and founded the Media Lab at MIT, famous for the development of Scratch with which ON parents of younger children may be familiar.

The constructionist approach is the creation by learners of mental models to understand the world around them.

Constructionism advocates studentcentered discovery learning where students use what they already know to acquire more knowledge. Students learn by connecting different ideas and areas of knowledge facilitated by the teacher through coaching rather than lectures or step-by-step guidance. Further, constructionism holds that learning happens most effectively when people make tangible objects in the real world. As such, each module always includes an “object to think with” such as a robot, a construction kit, a deck of cards or a piece of software that allows pupils to make, remake, refine and rebuild in order to construct their learning artefact. RGS pupils are hands-on with their learning, make mistakes, build resilience and refine their ideas.

For example, in Year 8 we want pupils to acquire skills in web development, using selection in a text-based programming language, effectively searching the internet, responsibly using imagery on the web, and understanding syntax rules. In order to develop these skills, we challenge them to create an interactive text-based adventure game in a piece of free software called Twine.

During this project pupils need to consider the environment for their game, create a flowchart that demonstrates the route through it, use online collaborative tools to develop a piece of creative writing, and create visually appealing, interactive web pages using HTML, CSS and JavaScript. The final assessed piece –or learning artefact –is the actual game, graded against a rubric. This project allows pupils to be creative. Their game can be in any environment they like, and it is their own piece of work. They have time to develop their skills in the software, and regularly go beyond the skill level required.

JIM RYAN

PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE, SONY INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT

BY SUSAN BECK (STAFF 18-PRESENT)

Picture this. It’s 2nd of December 2022, and Jim Ryan (68-78) is back in the corridors of RGS after –what seems like a trivial –45 years since he graduated from school on Eskdale Terrace. The faces are different; indeed welcoming our visiting Old Novo back to school is our current Headmaster Geoffrey Stanford, his predecessor, the late Alister Cox, having bid Jim farewell in 1978, but – as Jim points out – the main buildings still look the same and he whispers to me ‘the old place definitely still has the same energy, the same vibe’.

Jim seems to be oblivious to the trail of doe-eyed boys and girls, (not so subtly) following us around the main hall, hovering under Lord Collingwood’s portrait and skulking behind the organ, desperate to grab an autograph in their school planner, or a selfie with ‘Mr PlayStation’. It doesn’t hurt that Jim has also brought with him various PlayStation goodies to distribute. Jim has just delivered an assembly, the students rewarding his talk with whoops and cheers –admittedly on a completely different level to the polite applause our guest speakers usually receive – and there’s real excitement that he’ll be in school all day. I, of course am not immune to the impact Jim’s presence is having on the students, especially Max, currently in Year 8 (2nd Form in ‘old money’…) who is a keen Computer Scientist and about to combust with excitement at the feet of his hero. As Max poses for a photo with his idol, the delighted look on both their faces makes me realise that Jim may just be reliving a day as 13 year-old ‘Jimmy’ (James George) Ryan, as well as giving Max and his peers a day in school they’ll never forget.

So how did this all come about?

In casual conversation, Robert Newton (68-78), mentioned that his old school mate was ‘running’ PlayStation. A quick check in the school Archives, followed by some unsophisticated googling, confirmed that little Jimmy from Kenton is indeed leading one of the coolest brands in the world.

Notoriously private, other than the expected corporate press interviews –understandably sanitised, given the commercial sensitivities of the gaming

industry –there’s very little public information about him. Indeed, given he’s one of the biggest names in tech, it was initially surprising that he shuns social media – less so when I got to know the man –so I genuinely had no idea if Jim would even reply to my initial contact. Jim shocked us with an immediate and incredibly warm response, not only agreeing to be interviewed by two students – Senior Prefects Taylor Hannant and Evie Tate – but also offering to spend a whole day in school. None of us could believe our luck, especially Evie and Taylor, who I genuinely think had what will turn out to be the best day of their RGS career, thoroughly enjoying getting to know one of our most successful ONs.

Above: Jim with Taylor H and Evie T

Below: Jim with his superfan Max!

The interview couldn’t have started better with Jim immediately putting our very excited but nervous students at ease, demonstrating a gentle manner which carried on into his day in school. As the father of teenage daughters Jim was an absolute natural with the students, though he left no doubt that his corporate mind is razor blade sharp, and I can imagine he’s a fierce negotiator in the Boardroom. Jim was accommodating of our students’ questions, generous with his unguarded insight into his world, and genuinely interested in their perspective of school life. Jim shared with us his journey from Eskdale Terrace to Sony IE, having left RGS alongside Paul Brown (73-78) and Alastair Wolf (71-78), the winners of the BBC Young Scientist of the Year, for their work on the RGS hovercraft sprayer invention. Not yet a tech expert (though perhaps Brown and Wolf’s inventive flair had some unconscious influence) Jim left RGS with A Levels, the Eldon House Cricket Trophy and a Governors’ Leaving Exhibition Award and headed to Manchester to read Mathematics and Languages. On graduating he joined Ford, which was followed by a brief stint at Amstrad, then Oracle and then in 1994 on to the newly created Sony Interactive Entertainment. Jim rose through the ranks of the business and in April 2019 he progressed from Head of Global Sales and Marketing, to Global President and CEO. Perhaps most notably Jim has been instrumental in the success of the company’s PlayStation, including the latest, PS5, which despite its challenging launch in the middle of a global pandemic, is the fastest selling games console, which has just reached sales of more than 30 million units.

Here’s just some of the amazing insight he shared with Taylor and Evie:

Taylor: What are your stand out memories of RGS? Is there anything that you learned here that has helped you at Sony IE?

There was this old teacher called ‘Stoker’ (Laurence Meakin, Staff 31-74). He taught Geography and he was about 100 years old. Or at least he seemed that to me. We were having a really terrible Geography class during which he tried to introduce to his teaching the very latest technology: acetates on an overhead projector. He couldn’t make it work and kept getting it wrong; they’d be upside down or back to front. One of my mates at the back shouted ‘Stoker, you’re c**p!’ to which Stoker said a defeated ‘I know, I just can’t get this damn thing to work’ and on he struggled.

Then a number of years later, I was doing my driving test in Gosforth and very nervously stopped to attempt a three point turn, and who should I see doddering along the road but Stoker?

My attention wavered as I felt regret about our amusement with his own struggles under pressure. I did pass the test, but it taught me real empathy.

There was a teacher called Alan Hall (Staff until 2000) who taught languages. A very shy, diffident man but in my opinion a great man and teacher, and from him I developed a love of languages that has endured. What I’ve taken from Alan and indeed all my RGS days is to give everything your best shot, and not leave anything unfinished. Put everything out there, your heart and soul, and great things can happen.

Evie: How was your transition from the close knit community of RGS in to the wider world? Is there anything that you miss about RGS and being back in Newcastle?

RGS is a wonderful community and my friends are the ones that I made at RGS, which I think is quite something, given it’s been 45 years. I don’t keep in touch with people from university nor many I met in my career. But I do keep in touch with people from the RGS and we get together, we drink too much and we talk about the old days. Though it’s getting harder because we’re all increasingly deaf and when we meet in the pub, we’re all jockeying for position so our good ear is closer enough to hear the conversation. It’s like some bizarre dance.

I miss Newcastle a lot. I still consider Newcastle to be ‘home’ and could leave

RGS is a wonderful community and my friends are the ones that I made at RGS, which I think is quite something, given it’s been 45 years.”

Above: Jim speaks to the RGS Economics Society

London tomorrow. I get back to Newcastle from time to time and always look forward to the train crossing the Tyne and seeing the bridges. It’s difficult to articulate but I find it really moving.

You get off at the Central Station and you know you’re home. People are just nicer, they talk to you and they’re interested and they’re not looking to score something. At 63 years I still consider it home and that’s not going to change, it’s great up there and I owe the region a lot.

Taylor: It’s been an incredible journey, how on earth did it start?

I am a finance person, so after graduating my degree in 1982 I joined Ford Motor Company, which was a very good place to learn positive habits and great workplace behaviours. They just did things in a kind of unspectacular manner, but in a very proper way. After a brief spell at Amstrad with Alan Sugar, which was hilarious, I went to Oracle Systems. They made me redundant in ’94 so I was looking for a job and I took the first thing that came along which just happened to be PlayStation.

I think in any of these things, there’s always a degree of luck. I joined the year before PS1 launched. I didn’t know whether the thing was going to be good, bad or laughable and it obviously ended up a huge success and I was to an extent in the right place at the right time, but I applied myself and made it happen.

My job then was to set up the businesses in continental Europe because there was nothing. Back then PlayStation didn’t exist, there were no people there, no companies, and I had to form the businesses, hire people, find offices. It was real start-up stuff.

It’s just grown from there and my journey has been one of incremental progressions, and that tends to be how life is. When you’re young you might expect that success is when something really big or an amazing opportunity happens, but quite often it’s just small wins over many years, working hard and learning along the way.

Evie: What excites you about the gaming industry?

Obviously the gaming industry is a very cool place to work and PlayStation is one of the coolest brands in the world. I mean have you seen the new God of War ads?

The Last of Us is such a beautiful game, Horizon Zero Dawn is just gorgeous to watch with a lovely narrative.

Jim, Taylor and Evie go on to talk about their favourite games, and it’s clear that Jim is not just the ‘finance guy’ but genuinely loves all aspects of gaming. Eventually Jim asks for a reminder of the question…

Where was I? You know it’s just a cool brand, a cool product and it’s just a great place to work. The people tend to be either young in age or young in spirit and young of heart. It’s fast-paced. It’s international. I love it. I know the studios we work with really well, and I like hanging out with them.

Taylor: Which element of the business do you really enjoy?

I like the business, entrepreneurial stuff, the start-up, the recruiting, the working with the studios, the creative elements, the tech challenge and the sales. I like it all and it’s the diversity of the business which is one of its great attractions. For me it’s primarily the privilege of being able to work with really great people.

Evie: I am sure there are a lot, but is there one proudest moment that really sticks with you as the CEO?

Without doubt launching PlayStation 5 in 2020, in a global lockdown.

Pre lockdown, I was spending two weeks in California, a week in Tokyo and a week in London every month. It was really difficult. It sounds great but I lived my life in a fog of jet lag, grumpiness and disorientation.

Then in March 2020 I had to take the decision to close the offices, yet we had

Pre lockdown, I was spending two weeks in California a week in Tokyo and a week in London every month. It was really difficult. It sounds great but I lived my life in a fog of jet lag, grumpiness and disorientation.”

Above: Jim with with Tom Holland (aka Spiderman) and Angela Merkel, Germany’s then Chancellor. Below: Jim with RGS Computer Science Teacher, Matt Moore

six months to launch this new product everyone had worked so hard to create. We couldn’t build the consoles, the games weren’t finished, the marketing teams weren’t ready. 10,000 staff were working from their homes and flats. I had to put on a brave face to the world, saying this is going to be tough but let’s just roll up our sleeves and get on with it and we can do this. Of course I was terrified and had no idea if it could be done. The launch wasn’t flawless, but not far off.

Sitting at this table –which is my dining table and was my workplace for six months – and having the largest and most important product launch in Sony’s history, was very tough and overnight we had to learn new ways of working.

My work patterns became very different, changes which persist now because I don’t travel as much, now that I know so much travel was unnecessary. I get up very early and I work from 6:30am to 10:30am in order to work with Tokyo, and then I break for sleep, to eat and to walk. Then I start work at 3pm in the afternoon to work with California, and I go through to 7:30pm. And then I stop.

Taylor: PlayStation has provided so much entertainment, I know a lot of my friends and I stayed sane through lockdown by interacting over PS5. What is your personal favourite experience with SIE’s products outside of work life? Just meeting people like you who actually enjoy what we do. It always makes me very humble. I also enjoy the party culture and I’ve met famous people from within the gaming industry or well known musicians or famous movie stars who like PlayStation, like gaming, which is always fun.

Is that your objective when creating PlayStation and its games, to reunite people of all ages?

It also gives me a kick that the people who bought the first PlayStations have stayed with us. They were probably mid 20s then, and will now be in their mid to late 50s. And millions of them have stayed with and are now gaming with their grandkids. I love that we have inter-generational fans and our product connects people.

Having been able to excite people across multiple axes – age, gender, geographies –has been great. We’re a very global business, having content that appeals in Japan, which appeals in the US, and we’ve built a huge business in the Middle East, localising what we do into Arabic, which was very, very radical and actually very difficult from an engineering perspective. We’re enduring in Europe, the business that I built before becoming Global CEO, which is our heartland. In Italy, Germany, France – to treat these as country specific communities is really important.

Evie: Where do you draw your talent from and is there any connection that you have with the North East tech community?

We’ve got somewhere between 10 and 11,000 employees, probably about half in the US, quarter in the Europe including the UK and the final quarter in Japan. The North East has had a couple of development studios over the years but there is no conscious ties with any one region. With the focus on software technology, links to the West Coast of America are very important, for proximity and access to Google and Amazon and Microsoft. We actually moved

headquarters from Tokyo to California, which was a very big, traumatic thing for Sony, which is obviously Japanese. But being close to big tech, and Hollywood, is important.

Taylor: How do you believe your leadership style can be defined?

I tend to think these things are actually very simple. Three things; just do your best, that’s all I can ever ask of anybody or of myself. And you know, sometimes even for me I do my best, and for reasons completely outside of my control it doesn’t work or it’s not good enough. But it doesn’t matter, if you do your best the people around you will respect that.

I think the other thing that’s really important is just to enjoy yourself. I am not a fan of anyone working ridiculous hours and working weekends. You know you’ve got one life. ‘Work hard, play hard’ is very hard, it’s an equilibrium and many people work too hard and don’t play enough. The balance matters.

Finally, conduct yourself properly. Don’t lie. Don’t play politics. Don’t seek to advance yourself at the expense of others. Bring everyone with you instead of leaving anyone behind.

I think some of these values were definitely family driven, but I think the RGS, without question, gave me a superb grounding in my thinking about life, about what achievement actually means, what it requires and what achievement demands. Not only my friends persist from the RGS, but also these values that I learned at school, and which have transcended my early years, University and working life.

We ended our time with Jim with a fascinating chat which included banter about NUFC, favourite biscuits, cats versus dogs, Sixth Form dress code and nightlife venues in Newcastle. Towards the end of our long day together, I could increasingly hear Jim’s Geordie twang make a shy appearance every now and then, and I am reminded that this most successful, impressive – but perhaps most importantly – most humble of Old Novos, is indelibly of great Newcastle stock. How proud we are to watch his continued success.

NEWCASTLE DINNER 2022

Our Archive holds lots of menus from some of the earliest ONA dinners, including this amazing photo of guests from the early years of the event, perhaps around the 1920s or 30s. What a fabulous treasure to hold. In October 2022 we held the 96th Newcastle ONA Dinner, with guest speaker Geoff Riley (Staff 88-00) hosting the ultimate reunion of RGS economists! What a fabulous night, to which we were delighted to welcome the Lord-Lieutenant of Tyne and Wear Ms Lucy Winskell, OBE, who had earlier unveiled a new stained glass window, commemorating the life and service of Queen Elizabeth II.

MEMORIES OF COMPUTING AND TECHNOLOGY AT RGS THROUGH THE DECADES

Some work involved analysis of consumer choices; limited in scope compared with today, but it shows there’s seldom anything really new.

Charles Alexander ‘Sandy’ Christie (50-61)

IIn my era there was no computing at school, nor was it seen as a career for mathematicians. I carried on in the hope that good maths training would be a sound basis for something, and after university joined the Committee for Economic and Industrial Research. The work was interesting and diverse –systems for oil refinery planning, ship scheduling, econometric models, and the DVLA.

I followed some former directors to Logica, which aimed at the nascent data communications sector in the telex era; feasibility and design of the Swift banking network was an early project. I was there over 20 years from start-up to FTSE 500, then moved to a partner who handled the Italian government’s IT including finance, taxes, purchasing and health, developing new capabilities such as Video on Demand and something called ‘the Internet’. Now I’m more or less retired but still pay attention. I question whether “AI” is truly intelligent. The idea of driverless cars in a world of hackers fills me with terror!

If there’s one recurring lesson from my career it’s that the error handling, the problems, are the hard part – basic function is easy and makes you think you’re nearly there. There’s lots of technology still to develop, and a range of related careers. I’m sure RGS will give many pupils a flying start in the industry.

Chris Swan (82-87)

Istarted at RGS just after the win of BBC Young Scientist of the Year with a Commodore PET-controlled theatre lighting system. ‘Stig’, who’d been part of that team, often supervised the computer club. Before long he was embroiled in a copyright suit over his version of Monopoly that had been published in a computer magazine! The club was the only place I wanted to be outside lessons, and a geeky social scene formed there. Geoff Swindon (Staff to 96) wasn’t always around to supervise, so we dashed into town and cut our own set of keys for the lab. Both the cleaners and Dr Swindon were confused at finding us in the lab without supervision, but so far as I can tell this remained secret…until now.

Computing as a business started with bulk-buying floppy disks and selling them from my locker. I had programs published in computing magazines, then odd jobs setting up software for local businesses on Amstrad PCs. The military had the coolest kit, so I joined the Navy as a Weapons Engineer (CCF being one of the few things able to coax me away from computer club), and as a University Cadet studied Electronics. The Navy didn’t keep up with technology, so I left during the .com boom for a more ITfocused career that's had me bouncing between start-ups and global enterprises. I still write code and playing with retro systems in recent years has brought back fond memories of huddling over a BBC Micro in the computer room on Eskdale Terrace.

I did not do well academically in Sixth Form, however made up for those mistakes by earning qualifications later whilst gaining work experience; if you work hard at what you enjoy and are good at both inside and outside the classroom, your days at school can provide the basis for a meaningful career in the tech sector or elsewhere.

Jim DeLaHunt (75-78)

Ilearned to program with the RGS Computer Society. Books on FORTRAN from the Plender Library progressed to treks to the University with access to HP-3000 and IBM/360 systems. We learned BASIC, PL/1, and fed in decks of punch cards, eagerly awaiting the printer to grace us with results minutes, or hours later. Many metres of teletype were expended on a Star Trek game! The late Howard Burchell (Staff 66-99) later set  up a Commodore PET computer in his classroom which allowed freedom of access, and better understanding of how computers worked.

Thus followed a lifetime in software. After university in California in 1980 followed a career in Silicon Valley, in which I joined a Japanese start-up called Adobe Systems and stayed for 16 years as it grew into a software powerhouse.

RGS education echoed throughout in surprising ways. School taught me not just maths but languages and cultures, equations and essays, reading Thucydides, and entire Shakespeare plays. I found my passion where technology and human cultural expression overlapped: multilingual text, fonts, Japanese typography. RGS gave me an advantage as a software engineer, bettering peers at writing and communicating technical subjects and their relation to business goals.

Daniel Hoggan (95-05)

Rhys Harrison (55-65)

I‘backed into’ the tech sector when working as a materials manager with a need to develop a new computer system. As a key user, I was on the development team and ended up moving to a larger company as a computer analyst. A few years later I was leading a large team developing integrated systems. The tech world then was very different to now, but it soon became apparent that the education I received at RGS, especially its broad scope, enabled me to work in several different areas and companies. I fared well as a generalist and was happy that I had not specialized too early in life. It has been very important to be flexible and embrace change.

Learning to work with people of different backgrounds, professions and abilities, especially in project teams, was hard but critically important. At school the academic work you do in groups, the sports teams, the extra-curricular hobbies, trips and camps all provide opportunities to build interpersonal skills. You will need them for sure in the tech sector!

Looking back, my journey within tech most likely started when I was asked to support digital marketing initiatives for a family business. Having just left RGS, I was studying Marketing at the University of Newcastle at the time and, it’s fair to say, few people really understood digital technology or its future value. Fast forward to today, I’m the CTO at Mediaworks. Having grown from four people to 200 in the last 14 years, we support enterprise brands from Johnson & Johnson to Puma and Metro Bank, and we’re very proud to have been recently named one of the North’s Top 5 digital agencies.

On reflection, a key factor in my future career was the foundations I received from my education at the RGS. My A-Level studies in Art developed my creativity, and Economics built up my commercial awareness, both core within any technology-driven role. Supporting others’ learning and development in the tech sector, I co-founded Digital Knowledge Lab, a market-leader in the creation and delivery of online learning. We work in collaboration with York St John University to share digital and data analytics knowledge through free short courses and Higher degree programmes.

THE DAY WE BEAT SEDBERGH AWAY AND OUR BELATED RETURN TRIP

BY NICK BROWNLEE (76-86)

As Malcolm Forbes once said: “Victory is sweetest when you’ve known defeat”. I have no idea who Malcolm Forbes is –his words came up on a Google search for “quotes about victory” – but he is right. And here’s why.

According to the song, RGS was founded in Bluff King Harry’s reign, which means that for almost 500 years the 1st XV rugby team had never beaten Sedbergh away. That changed on a crisp autumnal Saturday in 1985, when a rusting minibus headed for Cumbria, for what your correspondent naturally assumed would be the ritual biennial hiding.

In my defence, the omens were personally daunting. I was playing No 10 back then, but two years previously I had made my debut in the hallowed hooped shirt as a callow 16-year-old scrum half for Ian Hasson’s (74-84) team. Away to Sedbergh. On the way across, the tense, fearful conversation was all about someone called “Carling”, and what damage he would wreak. ‘Who is Carling?” I finally asked, as we turned off the M6 and headed inland towards the snow-dusted Pennines. “Do not ask questions that cannot be answered, boy,” a whey-faced Hasson muttered from the back of the bus.

Will Carling was waiting for us at the school gate with a blonde named Cindy. After a crushing handshake, the future England captain dismissively waved us to the dining hall where we were fed debilitating amounts of stodge, as was the Sedbergh way.

“So, er,” I remember prop Carl Greener (79-84), one of our hardest lads, tentatively asking one of our hosts through a mouthful of suet pudding, “what position is Carling playing today?”. The smile on the Sedbergh man’s face was akin to that of a well-paid hangman. “Full back, fly half, or centre,” he sneered. “He hasn’t decided yet”. In the event, Carling played all three positions and scored a hattrick in each. The only time I touched the ball was to put it in the scrum, which Sedbergh won: final score, 50-0. Hasson, his spirit broken, would later retire to a sanitorium in Switzerland, Greener to a career in the Navy.

So, as the minibus containing Ed Gregory’s (81-86) team spluttered to a halt outside the school two years later, I was already deeply in the throes of what would later be diagnosed as PTSD (Post Traumatic Sedbergh Disorder). Initially, it seemed that history was repeating itself. We were greeted at the gate by Sedbergh’s captain, a 6ft, square-chinned Adonis, standing with a blonde named Cindy. We were marched to the dining hall, where steaming plates of carbohydrates awaited us. Then, like condemned men on their way to the gallows, we were marched to the changing rooms.

And there you’d expect the story to go: “We were beaten 50-0, as usual”. Except. Ah, what a glorious word! The match began. Sedbergh had at us, and the baying hordes of Barbour- and tweed-clad parents hugging the touchlines started up their chant of “Come on, Brown!”. We were bamboozled. The Brown machine scored. But then came the huddle behind the posts which changed everything.

“Who the f*** is Brown?” asked lock forward Jeremy Rowarth (79-86), a quizzical expression creasing his honest Northumbrian brow. “And what position does he play?”. At which point it dawned on me that we might have a chance.

Because we were a new team, one which did not have the weight of history – or fear – upon our young shoulders. Hasson and Greener were ancient history. We had Rowarth, Aidan Dunstan (76-86), Dave Erhorn (79-86), Rob Caller (76-86), Dickie Palmer (76-86), Euan Menzies (76-86), Andrew Robinson (74-84) and the rest – and unlike me, they didn’t know about Carling, Cindy, or the sickening inevitability of defeat at Sedbergh. To them, Sedbergh Away was just another fixture to be won, like Ponteland Away, or Dame Allan’s Away.

In short, the scene was set for a victory which, I have always thought, merits an extra verse in the school song. Against the run of play Erhorn scored twice from the wing. Two conversions and a penalty later, it was all over, 15-9. We embraced. In the primitive visitors’ changing room our coach, Paul Ponton (Staff 71-09), handed out four cans of out-of-date Harp lager, which he had been saving in his kit bag in case the unthinkable happened, to share between us. To add relish to the occasion, their team was immediately sent on a 10-mile run up the nearest fell and a disgusted Sedbergh parent deleted the match video.

Only later did the significance of the victory become apparent. My memory might be playing tricks here, but on the

following Monday morning every member of the team was awarded full colours, some for the second time, having been borne into assembly on shields held aloft by a conglomerate of cheerleaders from Church High, Central High and La Sagesse. Mr Cox (72-94), the headmaster, may well have fallen on his knees in gratitude as skipper Gregory crossed the stage, punching the air and kissing the woven silver badge of his purple blazer.

Or maybe not. I suspect the significance was all in our own minds. But in the intervening 37 years, it has grown to the extent that on 1 April this year eight of that mighty team returned to Sedbergh to revive their rapidly fading memories of glory. Messrs Gregory, Palmer, Dunstan, Menzies, Robinson, Rowarth, Caller and Brownlee spent a highly enjoyable day in hostile territory. We invaded the pitch, re-enacted the winning try, and even meddled with the scoreboard to reflect the final score on that famous day. Sedbergh school had broken up for half-term, of course, and the only people watching us were a couple of quizzical groundspersons. And later, in the pub, few were interested in our recollections.

But who cares? Malcolm Forbes, whoever he is, was surely writing about us when he penned his victory quote. Such is the glory of sport, the fleeting nature of youth, and the enduring power of friendship and memories. Fortiter defendit triumphans, as the song goes – and whatever that means enjoy it while you can, I say.

The team: Caller; Erhorn, Eaton, Dunstan, Graham; Brownlee, Palmer; Scott, O’Forster, Robinson; Rowarth, Turner; Gregory, Menzies, Harrison

Tries: Erhorn (2)

Conversions: Brownlee (2)

Penalty: Brownlee

NEWS & CONGRATULATIONS

CONGRATULATIONS TO ON JONATHAN BLOXHAM

We extend warmest congratulations to conductor and cellist Jonathan Bloxham (99-04), who has been appointed Conductor in Residence and Artistic Advisor for the London Mozart Players (LMP). One of the world’s finest chamber ensembles, the LMP is noteworthy for its rich history and its pioneering approach to music-making. LMP Leader Ruth Rogers comments on Jonathan’s ability to ‘understand the soul of a chamber orchestra’ and is eager for him to help the orchestra ‘tread the tightrope of programmes by balancing innovative and imaginative initiatives’. Jonathan describes a chamber orchestra as a ‘close family’ and his role as conductor a ‘people’ skills job. It’s not telling people what to do but helping them to do the best they can.’ Jonathan began his musical training at the age of eight with a local cello teacher from the Gateshead Schools Music Service. He studied at the RGS before moving to the Yehudi Menuhin School, then the Royal College of Music, progressing on to complete a Master’s degree at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Jonathan’s list of national and international appearances spans the Glyndebourne Festival by way of Saltzburg, Lausanne and Munich and his conducting has been described by critics as ‘mak[ing] the music feel like a treasure chest of the most exquisite jewels, each one a different, rare hue’. With a foot still in the North East, Jonathan remains Artistic Director of the Northern Chords Festival, which celebrates classical music across the region.

IRON MAN

Mike Bradford (67-77) thought that ON readers of a certain vintage might smile at how one of their contemporaries spends a couple of hours each week on a new ‘hobby’!

“I stepped out of ‘professional’ life at the tender age of 60 in 2019, just before meeting up with a number of ‘77 leavers for a couple of nights in the Yorkshire Dales the following year. A couple of weeks before our first Covid lockdown –Liz, my long-suffering wife of 37 years (ex Dame Allan’s) allows me to use a nonRGS taught skill, typically every Wednesday afternoon. So much for stools and bookcases in ‘70’s woodwork classes. A few tips on the more technical aspects of domestic bliss wouldn’t have gone amiss!

KING’S COUNSEL

Huge congratulations to Simon Goldberg KC (85-95) of Trinity Chambers and Richard Whitehall KC (85-92) of Deans Court Chambers, on their elevation to Silk. Here they are at the Ceremony, confirmed by the Lord Chancellor at Westminster Hall.

MORE MEMORIES OF OLIVEREMEMBERING PETER

Ididn’t know Olive Chandler personally. My dad, however, (not an Old Novo –he went to Heaton Grammar 50-60) was reading the ONA article and knew the lady extremely well; he could literally talk to you all day about her.

Olive was well known as a peripatetic violin teacher in many schools (including Central High), as well as being a violinist at the Theatre Royal Orchestra. She was married to Archie Newsome, a cellist in the same orchestra (who apparently couldn’t be persuaded to teach in schools despite her frequent appeals for him to do so) and also a photographer for the Newcastle Chronicle

EX-PAT GEORDIES

They happened to live in Forsyth Road in West Jesmond, as neighbours of Great Grandfather (my father’s father) and then moved to Kensington Avenue in Gosforth where they were neighbours of my Great Great Grandfather (I know, ridiculous coincidence). They had baby-sat my dad in his childhood, and later he helped change the clutch on their Morris 1000, and basically my dad could tell you hundreds of anecdotes from their lives of that period.

Dr John Nicholls (87-97)

It may be over 9,000 miles away, but it’s good to know that even Subiaco Western Australia is a great place to catch up with Old Novos. At a recent Subiaco “Old Boys” soccer team night out, Clive Lumsdon (68-75), Don Inglis (71-75) and Perry McKerlie (68-73) raised a glass to happy times at Eskdale Terrace.

David Kemp (53-60) recently wrote to us with something so lovely we wanted to include in this magazine.

“If an addendum is permitted to the obit of Peter Allan (49-60) I would like to record the following.

I had the pleasure of running behind Peter for several years. We both ran 220 and 440 yards races for the school, city and county. He was invariably first in every race and on a good day I would be a yard or two behind. He had a seemingly effortless, flowing style, which was a pleasure to behold. He was totally lacking in any ego or arrogance: a true Corinthian. The late lamented Bill Elliott (Staff 52-88) whose obituary was in the same issue, referred to our year groups as his ‘golden generation’. None glistened more brightly than Peter Allan”.

CALLING THE CLASS OF 1963

It’s an incredible 60 years since the Class of 1963 left Eskdale Terrace and your contemporaries are keen to organise a trip down memory lane in October 2023. Old Novos from this year group will be assembling for the Newcastle ONA Dinner on the 13 October, followed by other social events.

There will be much fun, reflecting on the good times and a few shots of everyone looking undeniably younger and more svelte!

Pease do get in touch with development@rgs.newcastle.sch.uk if you’d like to hear about the programme of activity.

STAY CONNECTED

Please

NEWS & CONGRATULATIONS

RGS Newcastle is incredibly proud of our heritage, asone of very few Royal Grammar Schools, having been granted our Royal Charter by Queen Elizabeth I in 1601. As such our whole community embraced our celebrations of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee in May, only to be deeply saddened to hear of the passing of our Monarch in September.

Queen Elizabeth II’s service over seven decades has been an inspiration to all and RGS marked the Jubilee with a wide range of activity. Stepping back in time, the whole school community reviewed some of the key developments –at RGS and in the wider world –in each of the seven decades of Queen Elizabeth’s reign.

We encourage Old Novos to review all of the videos of RGS through the past 70 years, which are on our website here www.rgs.newcastle.sch.uk/rgsfamily/royal-heritage

“BRAVELY TO FIGHT FOR TRUTH AND RIGHT, FOR MOTHERLAND QUEEN AND GOD”

Events took place across the school and in our local community, culminating in a special assembly to which we were honoured to welcome the new Lord Mayor of Newcastle, Mrs Karen Robinson, only the second female Lord Mayor of our City, followed by our RGS Jubilee Concert, opened by Queen Elizabeth’s outgoing representative, Lord-Lieutenant of Tyne and Wear, Mrs Susan Winfield CVO OBE CStJ.

Only four months later we sent our deepest condolences to all members of the Royal Family following the death of Queen Elizabeth II. The RGS Union flag flew at half-mast, we held a special Assembly (available on our website) and all members of our community were welcomed to sign a Book of Condolence, which was later presented by our students and Headmaster, to HRH Prince Edward the Earl of Wessex.

It was most fitting that in October, we unveiled a new stained glass window in the school’s library, created by local artist Maralyn O’Keefe. Originally intended to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee, the window, kindly unveiled by the new Lord-Lieutenant of Tyne and Wear, Mrs Lucy Winskell, now serves as the school’s permanent tribute to Queen Elizabeth II and her 70 year reign.

In due course we look forward to suitably commemorating the coronation of His Majesty King Charles III. For Motherland King and God.

DISCOVERIES IN EGYPT!

While Iain Watson OBE (68-78) was on a trip to Egypt with Ian Shaw (69-78), they found some of Ian’s books on Egyptology in a bookshop in Cairo and arranged an impromptu book signing.

RGS NEEDS YOU!

The RGS CCF and Duke of Edinburgh programmes have benefited countless ONs, and are dramatically increasing in popularity amongst our current students. We are seeking volunteers from our ON and (current and former) parent community who may be keen to support these activities in school, on a voluntary basis. Naturally, the voluntary role will involve requisite training and support and volunteers are subject to the usual safeguarding checks and supervision. If you are interested in hearing more about what is involved, please email development@rgs.newcastle.sch.uk

RGS ELOQUENCE

We are organising a networking event for ONs who studied and/or work in law, involving RGS students and pupils from our partner schools who are looking to study or work in the profession. We already have a highly successful equivalent annual event for economists.

If you are interested in getting involved and wish to share your wise counsel with the next generation, please contact development@rgs.newcastle.sch.uk

NEWS & CONGRATULATIONS

MIDWINTER MEMORIES

I n December we asked the ON community to send us their ‘Midwinter Memories’ of the RGS. We hoped that those memories would provoke the nostalgia and love of the school which was also encapsulated in our Christmas card. As a result of the ‘Midwinter Memories’ campaign, we raised further funds for the Bursary Hardship fund through generous donations by ONs. We’d like to say: thank you.

Please enjoy a selection of these moving, funny, colourful snapshots on our website here. www.rgs.newcastle.sch.uk/rgs-family/ rgs-bursary-campaign

CORRECTIONS ISSUE 111

In Issue 111 we featured an obituary for Gavin Deane-Wake (70-80) who died suddenly in October 2021. We omitted to include Gavin’s photograph and we are incredibly sorry for this oversight on our part. Gavin is missed dearly by his family and friends, and we send heartfelt condolences, in particular to his wife Joanne Deane-Wake and sister Sheila Crowe.

There is an error on page 34, the obituary to John Douglas. He died September 2021 not 2022.

RETIRING STAFF

We said fond farewell to two veterans of the RGS English department. Having struggled with health issues, Dr Simon Barker (Staff 85-22) decided to retire from the RGS as Head of English. It is difficult to adequately describe Simon’s incredible impact on the RGS. Since joining the school 37 years ago, he has taught, inspired and nurtured thousands of young people who have passed through the school.

Dr Chris Goulding (Staff 03-22) has also retired having served in the English department for 19 years. With experience as an author, an actor on TV’s Coronation Street and a playwright, he was involved in the designing of the Miller theatre and led a number of school Drama productions. We thank both staff for their phenomenal contributions and wish them well in a happy retirement.

Michael Graham (Staff 77-22) our incredible Maintenance Supervisor has retired after 45 years at RGS. In that time Michael has repaired and rebuilt endless parts of our building, his work impacting thousands of our students. Three cheers for Michael, and the many other support staff who quietly make a massive difference to the facilities and experiences our students enjoy.

We also said our heartfelt thanks and farewell to Dr Marie Slack (Chemistry Teacher and Staff 14-22), Pete Shelley (Economics Teacher 96-22), Clare Lyon (Caterer and Staff 12-22) and Alison Gravely (Receptionist and Staff 15-22).

Finally, Jill Graham (Performing Arts Manager and Staff 05-22) and Paula Conningham (Classics Teacher and Staff 05-22) who both joined RGS on the same day 17 years ago! Both have been part of the beating heart of our school and will be missed by all colleagues and students.

MY BURSARY STORY

BY OLHA V

Old Novos regularly supporting the RGS Bursary Campaign may sometimes wonder what impact their gift is having. Well, Olha’s incredible story was only made possible as a direct consequence of your loyal support. Our monthly donors meant that last year, we had the funds to respond swiftly when we heard about this most exceptional bursary candidate, fleeing the conflict in Ukraine. Here Olha shares her story with Susan Beck.

It’s hard to believe that it is almost a year since war broke in my beloved Ukraine. I am from Khmelnytskyi which is 170 miles west of Kyiv. While not on the front line, the city is still attacked by missiles and everyday life is disrupted, with daily blackouts and no electricity. My parents understandably panicked after the invasion and my mother decided to flee with me and my younger sister. My father had to stay – men cannot leave Ukraine – and he is staying to work in my family’s clothing business, which has been commandeered to manufacture uniforms for the Ukrainian military.

The last thing I wanted was to leave my country, I was sad and furious, and so many young people like me felt the same. I think it was because the choice was made for me; before the war I always imagined I would travel and perhaps study abroad, ideally Stanford in the US, now all I want to do is return and build my life in Ukraine. It’s indescribably difficult to be apart.

We were able to briefly stay with friends in Germany, before finding our host family through Facebook. I quite literally opened a map of the United Kingdom and my finger fell on Sunderland, so it’s a huge coincidence that the host family we were paired with were from nearby Newcastle! I Googled ‘the best school in Newcastle’ and of course found the Royal Grammar School. I could not believe the second coincidence when I found the Headmaster is called Mr Stanford; I now realise that my destiny did involve Stanford, just not quite what I imagined. My host family managed to connect with RGS through LinkedIn and the rest is history.

At first the move was very difficult but I kept busy with online projects with my friend and raised money to provide laptops for children from schools destroyed by bombs. My sister is very grateful to have a bursary at Newcastle High School for Girls and she’s happy and finding good friends. But I am passionate about Computer Science which is uniquely available at RGS. Also in Ukraine there are no girls’ schools and so many of my friends are boys, so RGS feels like the very best place for me.

I am in Year 12, or Lower Sixth Form, and I am studying Maths, Further Maths, Physics and Computer Science. I am passionate about maths, but I admit I am better at Computer Science. My teachers say they are shocked at the level I am working at and that I sometimes teach them! But I can only explain that it comes naturally to me. I have won various competitions, I’m presenting a research paper at the PRIX EIFFEL global innovation meeting and I’m excited to push myself to see what else I can do. What I do know is that I wouldn’t have these opportunities to excel were it not for RGS.

I have a dream that I will go back to Ukraine and be of use to my country. In the meantime I am working hard on my A-Levels, and perhaps I will try to go to Cambridge to study Computer Science, or maybe even MIT in Boston before I go home.

I am so grateful to my mum for making the decision to leave and to protect us, my incredible host family who took a leap of faith to take us in, my RGS teachers who challenge me everyday and to all of the amazing donors who enable me to come to RGS. I am a stranger to you and you will never really know how much your gift has changed my life. I will never forget, and I will also do my very best to make you proud.

If you are inspired by Olha’s story and wish to support young people just like her, please do consider making a gift to the Bursary Campaign. Any amount will make a real and immediate difference, please contact us at development@rgs.newcastle.sch.uk or on 0191 212 8909 if you’d like to talk about how you could help.

OBITUARIES

HANS PETER ROGOSINSKI (45-51)

DIED 10 AUGUST 2022, AGED 89

My oldest and closest friend, Peter was often referred to at school with affection as “Rogo”. Born in the then German city of Konigsberg (now Kaliningrad), his father was an academic mathematician. His father decided in 1937 to flee Nazi Germany and bring his wife and Peter, his only child, to the UK to continue his academic career. In 1945 the family moved to Newcastle, within 100 yards or so of my parents’ home, with his father later becoming a professor of mathematics at Newcastle University; Professor Werner Rogosinski was an internationally renowned mathematician and an FRS.

Each day Peter and I would walk to and from school. At home, Peter’s main focus was academic study and practising the piano, being absorbed in the family academic environment. He was in the A stream, always in the top group of his class winning many school prizes. He was also a very fine pianist, playing memorably, Mozart’s Piano Concerto with the First Orchestra.

Peter and I became interested in astronomy and Colonel Louis Theakstone (31-41 & 46-53), who was a maths master took us to a domed observatory at Rye Hill, Newcastle. The observatory was later relocated to school and is referred to in the Spring 2018 and this issue of ONA Magazine

On leaving school Peter went to Cambridge University, via Manchester University to study mathematics having been awarded a state scholarship. His name is recorded a unique three times on the wood panelled Roll of Honour mounted in the school hall. At Cambridge he was awarded his doctorate, an unusual achievement. He once modestly informed me that when at Cambridge “he received a college prize.” In 1958 he was my best man at my marriage to Linda.

On leaving Cambridge, Peter, like his father pursued an academic career in mathematics, first as a lecturer in the maths department of Birmingham

University before moving to Swansea University, where he remained until his retirement. He stayed in Swansea until a few months ago, when he moved to a care home in Grantham near friends, whom I believe he saw as the family he never had, having remained a bachelor all his life.

Since our leaving school, we continued to have regular contact and later in retirement we holidayed each year around the UK. As youngsters, Peter and I had spent much of our leisure time making music, cycling, discussing many and varied subjects. During our long friendship of some 77 years, we never fell out once.

Peter possessed a quiet disposition being kind, generous with a good sense of humour. My three sons always referred affectionately to him as their “Uncle Peter”. He was a highly intelligent individual, quietly spoken, always interested in what people had to say but outwardly a stereotypical absent minded academic. I looked upon Peter as the brother I never had and would like to complete this tribute with the following quote to my old and closest friend.

“He walked through life and found it good”. Sleep well my friend, Burland.

FJ Burland Jacob (45-49)

Burland’s fuller tribute can be found on the RGS website under ‘RGS Family’.

JOHN MURRAY GALE (43-50)

BORN 5 JUNE 1931, DIED 24 NOV 2021, AGED 90

John Murray Gale was born in Newcastle on Tyne, England on 5 June 1931.

Following his time at RGS, John went to Edinburgh University to study medicine in 1950 and he completed his Medical Degree in 1957. He married Frances Bailey in 1958 and she had also completed her Medical Degree.

John did his two-year residency in Latrobe, Tasmania, Australia and then he worked in a GP practice in Ulverstone for 30 years. Then John started his own GP practice in Shearwater, Tasmania where he worked until he retired at 79 years.

John had four children who all live in Australia. He also remained in contact with his family in England and Canada. John’s wife, Frankie became unwell with Myotonic Muscular Dystrophy and John cared for her at home until she passed away in in 2008.

John loved the outdoors sailing was one of his favourite activities and he successfully raced at a club level. Later in life he enjoyed vintage cars and bought a Studebaker.

Christianity always played a big part in John’s life. He attended church regularly and became a lay preacher. Over many years he contributed to the Anglican churches in Ulverstone and Port Sorell

John had his 90th Birthday on the 5 June 2022. He sang the ‘North East England national anthem’ – Blaydon Races It was a wonderful time with many family members and friends present.

John was able to stay in his own home and live an active life only deteriorating markedly in the last two weeks before he passed away. His commitment to family and faith never wavered.

DR ANTHONY ASHCROFT (32-42)

BORN 19 MAY 1924, DIED 7 FEBRUARY 2022, AGED 97

Anthony was born in Stourbridge and moved with his family to Newcastle aged three. He attended RGS from age eight, including the evacuation to Penrith for Fifth and Sixth Form.

He excelled academically and was captain of cross-country running. A capable musician, he initiated the formation of a choir in Penrith, but he was no singer and failed the audition for the choir he helped to found. He also produced much art and calligraphy, keeping an autograph book in which are found the signatures of masters and prefects in 1942, including Dr ER Thomas (22-48) and a drawing by Major Bertram (28-69).

The school wanted him to apply for Oxbridge but he instead chose to study medicine in Newcastle (Durham University) to be near his parents from whom he had been separated for so long. He graduated MB; BS in 1947, having won the Sir Thomas Oliver prize in Anatomy. After a house officer post at Newcastle’s RVI, he spent two years of National Service as a pathologist at RAF Halton, and thereafter served as medical officer in the Royal Auxiliary Air Force Reserve until 1967. He was entitled to retain the rank of Flight Lieutenant for life.

He returned to the North East in 1950 as medical registrar at Dryburn Hospital, Durham and was awarded MD in 1951 with a thesis on emphysema. In 1952 he entered General Practice at Prospect House in the

West End of Newcastle, where he remained until retirement in 1986, the last 10 years as senior partner. He was involved in the creation of the Northumbria Vocational Training Scheme for General Practice, introducing structured training for the first time, and was a trainer in the scheme for many years. In the Asian flu pandemic in 1957, he recalled sharing 80 home visits a day between two doctors, many on foot, plus three surgeries each a day. There was no PPE or remote consultation; doctors just took their chances. At that time, he was living “over the shop” with his young family. In 1982 he was elected Fellow of the Royal College of General Practitioners.

Outside of medicine, Anthony’s life revolved around his family. In 1949 he married Alison Gillespie, who had been secretary to his consultant at the RVI. They had two children: Christine, who married me, Paddy Neligan (56-67), and Philip Ashcroft (60-63) who qualified as a doctor and emigrated to New Zealand. Nothing was too much trouble to help and support his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. In 2010 Anthony and Alison moved to York to a house just

across the road from Christine and me.

In retirement he enjoyed attending Old Novo luncheons well into his eighties, especially meeting up with other Penrith evacuees and after moving to York, he continued to enjoy reading the ON magazine – including looking for old friends in the obituaries.

After a Baptist upbringing, he became a Quaker in 1964, an important part of his life. Silent worship suited him well: thinking deeply and only speaking when he had something useful to say. He served variously in the pastoral role of Overseer and as an Elder and was on the Funeral committee. He also served many years on the board of the Retreat Psychiatric Hospital in York.

After Alison died in 2018 he moved into residential care for his final years. He is survived by Christine and Philip, their partners, eight grandchildren and partners, and 12 great-grandchildren.

Paddy Neligan (56-67)

A fuller version of Dr Ashcroft’s obituary is available online.

OBITUARIES

IAN MICHAEL JAMIESON (45-54)

BORN 22 MARCH 1935, DIED 28 JANUARY 2021, AGED 85

WILLIAM JOHN SWAN (47-54)

BORN 7 JUNE 1936, DIED 30 DECEMBER 2020, AGED 84

Ian Jamieson came to the RGS immediately after the war and it seems that in the Sixth Form he was finding his professional vocation, as his tutor noted that he had been “an invaluable Plender librarian”.

Leaving in 1954, he joined the staff of Newcastle City Library as an assistant librarian and studied part time, ultimately achieving his Fellowship of the Library Association. He became Head of the library’s Commercial and Technical Department, leaving in 1966 to take up a lecturing post at the Newcastle School of Librarianship, which soon became part of Newcastle Polytechnic. He developed the Local History Studies programme as part of the BA Honours Librarianship course and was appointed as a Senior Lecturer in 1976, a post he held until he retired in the mid-1990s. From 1976-2006 he wrote the chapters on local studies in the five-yearly volumes of British Librarianship and Information Work. He was a founder member of the Library Association’s Local Studies Group in 1977 and was Chairman from 1990-1994. His lasting legacy was the Group’s journal, the Local Studies Librarian, and when he became its first editor in 1982, he had probably not anticipated that he would be in post for thirty years. For this service, he was honoured by the Library Association in 1997. Local history was also a hobby and for many years he was involved with the Kenton Local History Society.

He was a keen hill-walker with a great knowledge of the Lakeland fells. It was as members of a walking group that he and his wife Bertha met in the mid-1960s, and they were able to enjoy more time for walking in their retirement when they visited the Lake District often. One of the great constants in his life was church music. He learned the piano and organ from an early age, following his father, and took up his first appointment as organist at St Columba’s, Seaton Burn at the age of just 15. After several years, he moved on to St Aidan’s, Elswick and stayed there until settling in Kenton, where he jointly became organist at the Church of the Ascension, eventually retiring after more than 30 years. It was there that his long association with Christian Aid began and he organised local collections over many years. He leaves his wife, Bertha, sons Keith and Peter, and two grandsons.

Keith Jamieson (84-91)

William John Swan was born on 7 June 1936, the youngest of three boys and was always known as John. He won a bursary scholarship to the RGS in 1947. He was never athletic and chose rowing as a sport so that he could sit down. He was also a member of the school orchestra, playing the violin. He went to King’s College, which was part of Durham University, to read History.

After National Service and a short time in the Treasurer’s Office in Newcastle he went into teaching, spending ten years teaching in Waltham Forest.

We enjoyed many holidays in the north, particularly walking in the Lake District. John retired as Deputy Director of Education in the London Borough of Redbridge in 1996. We intended moving back north in retirement but with family down south, that did not happen. We enjoyed travelling in retirement visiting: South Africa, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, South America, Canada, North America and much of Europe.

John was also very involved in the Methodist Church and we spent a year back in Newcastle in 1998, in the mission in the West End.

John enjoyed life and lived it the full. He had suffered from autonomic failure for about 16 years and died suddenly on 30 December 2020. He is greatly missed.

Mrs Judith Swan

JOSEPHS MB.BS FRCGP (32-42)

BORN

Born in Newcastle, Jessel was educated at the RGS Newcastle following in the footsteps of his older brothers David (29-34) and Reuben (34-41).

He graduated with a MB.BS Dunelm from King’s College, Newcastle in 1947. Immediately prior to the establishment of the National Health Service, his first appointment as a GP was in South Moor Stanley. After conscription for National Service in the RAMC, he served as MO at postings in Bulford, Bicester, Nottingham and the Suez Canal Zone.

On discharge from the RAMC he took up hospital appointments at Queen Elizabeth, Gateshead and South Shields

General. In 1951 he formed a General Practice partnership in South Shields and eventually retired in 1985. During his career he served as Chairman of the local BMA Branch and played an active role in establishing and running a Post Graduate Centre at South Shields General Hospital, which he continued to attend after retiring.

Jessel, together with Reuben, was one of the Penrith Evacuees in 1939. Notwithstanding the circumstances, he enjoyed his school days in Penrith and he must have made an impression on the staff.

His nephews, John Josephs (52-62) and Anthony Josephs (59-69) both recall being called “Jessel”. John was only ever called “Jessel” (never John or Josephs) by ‘Tucker’ Anderson (24-60) during his time in the Junior School while Anthony was called “Jessel” by Bill Tunstall (37-78)!

John Josephs writes: Jessel was the youngest of three Josephs brothers who attended the RGS between 1929 and 1942, my father David being the eldest. One of the Penrith evacuees, he came under care of Tucker Anderson. Tucker was clearly very fond of Jessel because throughout my time in the Junior School (1952-55) he

only called me Jessel, never Josephs, and certainly never John. I was always puzzled by this, wondering how Tucker could remember someone so well and with such affection from so long ago, but as one gets older one realises that the ten years between Jessel leaving and my starting is no time at all.

In my first gym lesson in the Senior school Colonel Robinson (27-59) asked me if I was any relation to Jessel. When I confirmed that I was he told me that Jessel knew ‘Tickle Toby’, and he’d like to introduce me. He then whacked me with what looked like an extremely large and thick table tennis bat. Happy memories; how times have changed!

Following Jessel’s retirement he moved to Corbridge where he and his wife, Margaret, pursued their love of gardening and Jessel enjoyed fishing.

Sadly, he was predeceased by his daughters Elizabeth in 2013 and Margaret in 2014. He is survived by his son David, his daughter-in-law Elizabeth, his two grandchildren and two great-grandsons. RIP.

David Josephs

BRIAN ALCRAFT (44-52)

DIED 15 OCTOBER 2022, AGED 89*

WILLIAM PETER NEIL ARMOUR (55-62)

DIED 20 JUNE 2022, AGED 80

DR NEIL CARDOE (31-39)

DIED 12 JUNE 2021, AGED 98

CHRIS CORDINER (69-79)

DIED 11 FEBRUARY 2022, AGED 61

ALISTER COX (HEADMASTER 72-94)

DIED 7 NOVEMBER 2022, AGED 88*

ROBIN DUNS (57-61)

DIED 30 NOVEMBER 2022, AGED 79*

ROBERT IAN FAIR (52-62)

DIED 5 JANUARY 2023, AGED 79

JOSEPH FISHER (30-36)

DIED 10 NOVEMBER 2022, AGED 100*

ALAN MICHAEL HAWDON (74-81)

DIED 22 DECEMBER 2022, AGED 59*

GEORGE HOGG (57-64)

DIED 9 NOVEMBER 2022, AGED 76*

DAVID FREDRICK KILBORN (53-63)

DIED 2022, AGED 78*

ALAN MAURICE LARGE (52-62)

DIED 9 JANUARY 2023, AGED 78

DE LEON LE DUNE (44-51)

DIED 4 OCTOBER 2022, AGED 88*

ANDREW MALT (87-94)

DIED 2022, AGED 46

DR PETER MASON (STAFF 83-90)*

JOHN KEITH MOODIE (42-50)

DIED 29 DECEMBER 2022, AGED 91*

NORMAN THOMAS GEOFFREY OLIVER (49-57)

DIED AGED 84

STEVEN PALIN (53-61)

DIED 31 DECEMBER 2022, AGED 78

MICHAEL DAVID PULLIN (62-70)

DIED 15 MAY 2021, AGED 71

JOHN EMMERSON TASKER-BROWN (58-64)

DIED 26 NOVEMBER 2022, AGED 75

DR IAN HAMMOND TAYLOR (44-49)

DIED 5 JULY 2021, AGED 89

ALAN TOWERS (38-43)

DIED 24 JANUARY 2022, AGED 91

* An obituary will appear in the next magazine

OBITUARIES

GEOFFREY ALAN WILKIN (54-61)

BORN 4 NOVEMBER 1942, DIED 9 MAY 2022, AGED 79

The 1961 Speech Day programme records Geoff as receiving a Newcastle upon Tyne City Council Scholarship and securing A-Levels in Pure Mathematics & Mechanics (Distinction), Physics and Chemistry.

A degree in Physics from King’s College Newcastle followed, leading to an engineering career, initially with Morganite and then with IRD of Heaton. Colleagues remember his association with the IRD Walking Group.

JOHN NEVILLE HILTON COX (50-57)

BORN 4 DECEMBER 1937, DIED 21 SEPTEMBER 2021, AGED 83

Born and brought up in Heaton to Mary and Geoff Wilkin, an only child, he entered the second form in 1954. His father had a shipbuilding background with Swan Hunter of Wallsend.

School records reflect Geoff’s broad interests and talents. Unrecorded were his quiet sociability and an insatiable curiosity, particularly for things mechanical.

In 1955 he won first prize in a competition for sketches and essays organised by the Northern Architectural Association, (ahead of CN Dodds (48-59) and BC Syrett (55-61), who received second, and third prizes respectively).

Geoff was awarded rowing colours in 1961 and as Captain of the Boat Club wrote pieces for The Novocastrian

Geoff met Sue in 1966, marrying in May 1968 before settling in Cramlington, where he become a local councillor in retirement. He is remembered as a kind and thoughtful husband and parent to Helen (who briefly taught Chemistry at RGS), Sarah, Katie and Louise, as a grandparent and as a loyal friend.

Geoff succumbed to Lewy body dementia after a long and distressing illness. He is survived by Sue and his four loving daughters and by grandchildren.

Peter Robinson (54-60)

Geoff (centre front) as Captain and Secretary of The Boat Club with the A and B crews in 1961.

John Cox’s life journey came to a close on 21 September 2021 after 83 years. His surviving RGS contemporaries will universally cherish affectionate memories of a popular, genial young man who contributed enthusiastically and responsibly to a variety of school activities. He played a convincing Malvolio in the Fourth Form production of Twelfth Night. John became captain of RGS Boat Club and, unusual for a six-footer, was a member of the RGS Gym team.

A CCF cadet throughout his school career, John transferred to the RAF section where he was awarded a Flying Scholarship. He obtained his pilot’s licence flying in Tiger Moths and, following the completion of A-Level examinations, he invited a classmate to accompany him in an Auster Autocrat as he added another hour to his pilot’s log. John’s natural affability and good manners made him a clear candidate for Head Boy, a role he accepted in 1956.

At Cambridge, John read Natural Sciences, rowed in his college boat and flew with the University Air Squadron. John spent much of his working life with BP, particularly at Hull making organic chemicals before moving into the company’s Personnel department. After retiring from BP in 1991 he turned to charitable work particularly in Central Europe.

In retirement John enjoyed painting and travel, particularly in Australia and New Zealand. He settled in London, attracted by the museums, lectures and art exhibitions.

John was devoted to his family: son Richard, daughters Helen and Sarah and his seven grandchildren.

GEORGE ROBERT COTTRELL (34-41)

BORN 29 MAY 1923, DIED 15 SEPTEMBER 2022, AGED 99

In 1941 George began his medical education at King’s College Newcastle, then a part of the University of Durham. On account of the war, they had four terms each year and no long summer vacation so he graduated quite early in December 1945. His first job after qualifying was as a houseman in Ashington Hospital, which in those pre-NHS days was a joint venture between Ashington Coal Company and the NUM.

also served the community as a volunteer driver taking patients to and from St. Oswald’s Hospice. As a member of Heaton Rotary Group he was proud to be chosen as their President for the year 1989-90 and remained an active Rotarian until the end of his life, continuing charity collections outside supermarkets well into his 90s.

George was born in Elswick and lived in Tyneside all his life, apart from his war service in Germany after the second world war. In 1934 he received a Governors’ Scholarship to the RGS, his primary education having been at Westgate Hill Council School. He passed his School Certificate in 1939, weeks before the outbreak of the second world war and was evacuated to Penrith for his two Sixth Form years: so began his lifelong love for the Lake District. He was very fit as a young man, captaining the crosscountry running team while at RGS and on at least one occasion cycling all the way from Newcastle to the Lake District over Hartside Pass. He also had the honour of becoming a school prefect.

He learnt violin at RGS and played in the First Orchestra; music remained very important to him throughout his life, and he spent many years singing bass in the choir at Heaton Methodist Church. He was a keen follower of the Northern Sinfonia from the early City Hall days through to the Sage. His last visit there was on New Year’s Day 2022, when the fire alarm went off just before the interval. Many people gave up and went home at that point, but he was eager to go back for the second part, and shivered outside in his wheelchair for 20 minutes. As he became less mobile, and especially during lockdown, he spent a lot of his time listening to concerts from all over the world on YouTube.

In 1948, just after the founding of the NHS, he worked as a house physician at Newcastle General Hospital, then decided on general practice as a career. After assistantships in Benwell and Walkerville, he became a partner in the latter practice and stayed there until he retired in 1983, being very well loved by his patients, remaining with that practice as a patient himself until he moved to Jesmond in 2016 –a total of 66 years!

George became a friend of an RGS contemporary, Arthur Hughes (34-41), who invited him to Arthur’s sister Joan’s 21st birthday party in 1942. Romance blossomed and they were married in September 1946 so that Joan subsequently became our mother. However, arrangements around the wedding were not that simple! Although the war was over in 1946, he was called up and had to undertake four weeks military training. On returning home for two weeks of embarkation leave on the 14 September for his wedding on the 16th, he didn’t know whether he would be posted to the Far East or Germany. On return from their honeymoon in the Lake District, he found that his posting was to Germany, and he ended up as a garrison medical officer in Münster.

George had many interests outside his work. His Christian faith was a significant aspect of who he was. Brought up in the Plymouth Brethren, he joined Heaton Methodist Church after marrying Joan, who was a lifelong member. He served the church in multiple roles until it closed a couple of years ago. After retirement, he

General practice in those days was very demanding but he still managed to spend time with his family, and holidays were very important to him. We sons have many happy memories of caravan holidays from the 1960s onwards, in the UK as well as France and Switzerland. He was really quite adventurous in taking a caravan to Europe in the 1960s, before the days of satnavs and mobile phones! There were many scares on those holidays –including one time when the caravan towbar almost severed in two –so it’s testament to his determination and spirit of adventure that he continued with his continental touring.

Over the last several years, he enjoyed attending the ONA Dinner with son David Cottrell (60-70): his last attendance was in October 2021 when we’re sure he was the oldest Old Novocastrian there. He particularly liked it when the President drank a toast with those who were at the school during the reign of King George Vth!

It is always sad to say goodbye to a loved one, but we are very happy to have been close to such a caring and loving man: a true gentleman.

By Andrew Cottrell (58-68), David Cottrell (60-70) and Robert Cottrell (65-74).

MALCOLM HARRY DUNN (60-61)

BORN 22 OCTOBER 1942, DIED 25 FEBRUARY 2021, AGED 79

sources and techniques he established. Some of his most highly cited work was in the field of electromagnetically-induced transparency, which grew from his early spectroscopy work demonstrating the practical application of laser sources.

Malcolm Dunn joined the Physics Department at the University of St Andrews as a PhD student in 1965. In a career of over 50 years he made an outstanding contribution to its rise to among the very best in the UK.

Schooled at Stockton-on-Tees Grammar School and RGS Newcastle, Malcolm’s talents were noted in a long line of outstanding school reports. His natural curiosity was, and remained, wide ranging. Awarded a state scholarship to Cambridge, he wasted no time arranging a position at Parsons Nuclear Power Research Section, Fossway to fill time between scholarship exams and going up to Peterhouse. He was awarded the William Baron Kelvin Scholarship for his final year and in 1965 he was offered a PhD scholarship by Aaron Klug, his physics tutor. He chose instead to join Arthur Maitland with whom he had worked at Parsons. Arthur Maitland had, by this time, moved to the University of St Andrews to establish work in the emerging field of laser physics. Malcolm, Arthur Maitland and, later, Tony Smith were at the heart of this early laser work at St Andrews. From these pioneering beginnings, the School of Physics & Astronomy today has become an internationally renowned centre of research.

Malcolm was appointed as a lecturer in the Department of Physics at St Andrews in 1968. Much of Malcom’s research activity was driven by his keen eye for new application areas for the laser

It was not just in research that Malcolm excelled. Regarded as an outstanding lecturer he taught a wide range of general physics undergraduate courses and specialist laser physics, nonlinear and quantum optics courses to postgraduates. Malcolm placed great emphasis on the quality and craft of “doing” science. A generation of undergraduate and postgraduate students benefited from his keen insight and talent for explaining things from first principles. Among his notes and papers were a collection of postcards sent from exotic destinations by students who attended his advanced lasers course over the years. He would press upon them that only two fundamental rate equations were required in order to derive the key dynamic properties of a laser and that they should commit them to memory in case they became stranded on a desert island and needed them (to his – and the students’ –credit, most of the postcards gave the correct form of equations).

In 1990 Malcolm was appointed Professor of Photonics and in 1992 elected to a Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He served as Head of the School of Physics and Astronomy (19941997) and Vice-Principal for Research (2001-2003). In this last role he was responsible for the promotion, strategic development and evaluation of research across the University.

Malcolm always maintained a focus on the wider societal benefits of university research. In order to bridge the gap between university research and its commercial exploitation he was keen to promote interaction with industry. While Malcolm was obviously incredibly well organised, moving fast through the building with his watch beeping the half

hours, he never seemed to be under stress but radiated a positive attitude that was invaluable during his period as Head of School. He was always a pleasure to talk to because of the interest he took in others’ research. Malcolm read widely in science and literature and had a particular love of poetry. He had a lifelong interest in photography and a fascination with the lesser-known work of James Clerk Maxwell on optics. He was scrupulously fair in his dealing with others, especially in acknowledging their contribution to his work.

He is survived by his wife Catherine and daughters Sarah and Ruth and remembered with great affection by his many students and colleagues.

Obituary compiled by colleagues, friends and family, a fuller version is available online.

ROGER HENNESSEY (STAFF 62-73)

DIED 25 AUGUST 2022, AGED 84

JAMES ‘JIM’ ALAN SKEVINGTON (39-47)

BORN 6 MARCH 1929, DIED 19 AUGUST 2021, AGED 92

My father, Roger Hennessey, who has died aged 84, was an inspirational teacher at the RGS Newcastle from 1962 to 1973, and an effective head of the school’s economics department. After the RGS, Roger was an HMI – a schools’ inspector – from 1973 until his retirement in 1992, latterly becoming the staff inspector of history.

Roger was born in Hammersmith, west London. He was the son of a Royal Navy officer, Sydney, who commanded HMS Scott on D-Day. An only child, Roger grew up with his mother, Winifred (nee Palmer), when his father was away at sea. He eagerly anticipated his father’s shore leave, which invariably began with an understated message from a phone box asking for “the kettle to be put on”.

After education at Epsom College, Surrey, and national service with the Army Catering Corps, Roger read History at Downing College, Cambridge, specialising in the British economy from 1870 to 1940. He graduated in 1960, completed a postgraduate certificate in education in 1961, and joined the RGS the following year. The headteacher, Mr Hayden, wanted to broaden the curriculum and tasked Roger with establishing an Economics department.

He also edited the school’s Old Novocastrians’ Association magazine and wrote a number of secondary school textbooks for the Batsford Past-intoPresent Series, including Transport (1966), Factories (1969) and Railways (1973).

In 1963 Roger married Penelope Coningham, my mother. Although my parents divorced in 1991, they maintained an affection for each other and a shared interest in their three children and four grandchildren.

His time as staff inspector of History coincided with the first national curriculum for History being devised. The chairman of the History Working Group, Michael Saunders Watson, wrote in the foreword to the final report: “I wish to single out the quite outstanding support we have received from our observer representative of Her Majesty’s Inspectorate, Mr Roger Hennessey.”

Around this time Roger met Jennifer Worsfold, who was in charge of the History Working Group’s secretariat, and they married in 1995.

Tempted by generous terms offered when Ofsted was established, Roger retired from the inspectorate in 1992. In retirement he published more books, including Worlds Without End (1999) and Atlantic: The Well-Beloved Engine (2002). Jennifer was diagnosed with dementia in the early 2000s and died in 2016. Roger is survived by his children, Emma, Jasper and Justin, and grandchildren.

Justin Hennessey

James was born in Newcastle. At the age of 10 he was evacuated at the beginning of the war to Penrith where he stayed with Mr and Mrs Pearson until the end of the war. When he finished his schooling in 1947 he joined an Insurance Company and soon he was transferred to South Africa in 1953. He arrived on a Union Castle ship in Cape Town, travelled to Johannesburg by train, until 1962, then transferred to Durban until his retirement.

James was very involved with charity work and appeared in various local shows as a compere, reciting monologues, the most famous being Albert and the Lion which was enjoyed by old and young. He also sang in the Durban Symphonic choir and sang in many shows.

He enjoyed sport and ran the gruelling Comrades’ Marathon from Durban to Pietermaritzburg ten times obtaining his green number in perpetuity and running many other races. He was secretary of the Bluff Athletic Club, also producing the monthly newsletter.

Frail with dementia, Parkinson’s disease started five years ago and became worse in the last two years. James died in the St Augustine’s hospital, survived by his wife of 46 years, Lorraine.

Lorraine Skevington

ONA DIARY DATES

We have a fantastic array of bookable events for every generation of Old Novo, all listed on our website here www.rgs.newcastle.sch.uk/joinus/sign-up-for-an-event

RGS FEST & GARDEN PARTY

Saturday 1 July 2023

10am-2pm (RGS Fest) and 8pm-Midnight (Garden Party)

RGS, Eskdale Terrace, Newcastle, NE2 4DX

Join us for our new take on RGS Day, further details available on our website.

RGS HISTORY WALK

Tuesday 12 September 2023, 1.30pm-4pm

A walk to visit the historic sites where RGS Newcastle once stood. There will be seven points of interest including an interlude at the ‘Discovery Museum’ to see the 1600 Royal Charter of Queen Elizabeth I, ending at Eskdale Terrace for afternoon tea. The guide will be ON David Goldwater (51-62).

THE ONA 97TH NEWCASTLE DINNER

Friday 13 October 2023, 6.15pm-11pm RGS, Eskdale Terrace, Newcastle, NE2 4DX

Further details of this highly popular annual event are on our website.

Below are just a small selection of our forthcoming events, if you are interested in hearing any more information, or would like our support with a year group reunion, please email development@rgs.newcastle.sch.uk

RECENT LEAVERS & Y12 NETWORKING EVENT

Tuesday 4 July 2023, 2pm-5pm RGS, Eskdale Terrace, Newcastle, NE2 4DX

Calling the RGS Classes of 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019 and 2018. Are you missing RGS? We miss you very much and we’d really like to invite you back to school for a very special reunion event, with an opportunity for our current Lower Sixth Form to hear your wise counsel.

ONA SHOP

ONS V RGS 1ST TEAM CRICKET MATCH

Early July 2023. From 1pm Newcastle Cricket Club, 45 Osborne Avenue, Jesmond NE2 1JS

Please contact us to register your interest in spectating at this event.

We have a range of wonderful RGS merchandise on our website, please visit www.rgs.newcastle.sch.uk/ rgs-family/merchandise to order. Below are the new items, recently added to our range:

Water Bottle

Limited edition RGS branded black Chilli's water bottle.

Mug Full of History

A quirky and beautiful china mug featuring the words dear to Old Novocastrians. Handmade in England, from the Susan Rose pottery in Northamptonshire.

RGS Bobble Hat

RGS Logo Silk Tie

A new design 100% pure silk, slip stitched and fully lined tie in school colours and featuring the RGS logo.

We are really excited to share that Old Novos are now able to buy RGS’ range of Castore sportswear. Outgrown that old rugby shirt? Fancy an RGS hoodie? It’s all available through our website.

PERSONAL DETAILS AND DATA PROTECTION

The school has a very special relationship with its former students.

In order to keep in touch we would like your contact details and consent. Please do complete your details at www.rgs.newcastle.sch.uk/rgs-family/on Alternatively to unsubscribe or change your preferences please contact us at development@rgs.newcastle.sch.uk or on 0191 212 8909