Atrium, Old Pauline News, Spring/Summer 2025

ATRIUM

Paradise Lost

Milton’s Epic is Central to Christianity

In Conversation Mark Rosenblatt and Theo Hobson discuss Giant

Last Word Sam Freedman is Set Right

ST PAUL’S ALUMNI MAGAZINE

Editorial

Atrium has received a letter from two Old Paulines who suggest that it had moved too far away from being a traditional alumni magazine. The letter from Bob Porter (1963-67) and Merrick Willis (1961-66) is published in full on page 5. It asks for more about OP events and what old boys are doing.

Our vision for Atrium is different. It is to publish a magazine that displays the talents and interests of Paulines and not just reports on what alumni are doing or have done (as in the obituaries section). In summary, Paulines writing about interesting things and not only us writing about interesting Paulines.

We have Bernard Levin (sadly not an OP) as our guide. When one of our Editorial Board members, Jonathan Foreman (1979-83), edited the pupils’ newspaper Folio in his final year at School, he wrote to Bernard Levin asking for his views on school magazines. The great columnist wrote back, “I have always thought that school magazines should not concern themselves too much with school itself: that is the job of the graffiti writer. A school magazine should aim to be as close to a ‘real’ magazine as possible and to encourage good writing on a wide variety of subjects.”

We thank Bob and Merrick for their letter and respect their view but continue to believe that Levin’s advice holds good. The Old Pauline News section is, however, weightier than in the recent past with 15 events highlighted, reflecting improving engagement levels across OPs.

For a few weeks after Atrium is published, our inbox bulges with OPs asking to be put in touch with each

other. Two of these introductions are featured later in the magazine. Derek Coleman (1942-48) is now in touch with Michael Simmons (1946-52) sharing their love of jazz and disagreeing over bepop. Both are in their 90s. After reading Jonathan Foreman’s article on Edward Behr (1940-44), Robert Silman (1953-58) has been in touch about when he met Edward and about Ian Young’s (1954-58) book The Private Life of Islam: An Algerian Diary which we highlight in Pauline Books. Edward reviewed it in Newsweek in 1974, praising the book for being ‘the most important book to have been written about Algeria since Independence’ and saying that it should be compulsory reading for every member of the Algerian government.

This magazine’s articles include Richard Davenport-Hines (1967-71) on being gay at School, current Pauline Theo Frankel’s prize-winning essay on Laurence Binyon (1881-88), a Pauline playwright, magicians and ventriloquists and Theo Hobson (1985-90) reviews the latest book about John Milton. The School’s copies of Paradise Lost, that were once owned by Burns and Napoleon, feature on our cover.

Jeremy Withers Green (1975-80) OPC President

The Editorial board thanks all contributors, information providers and proof readers and particularly Hilary Cummings, Kaylee Meerton and Kelly Strickland.

Atrium’s Editorial Board: Omar Burhanuddin, Jonathan Foreman, David Herman, Theo Hobson, Neil Wates and Jeremy Withers Green.

Cover

photo: John Milton’s works from the Rare Book Room photographed by Tom Bradley

Design: haime-butler.com

Print: Lavenham Press

Richard

Theo

David

Jeremy

When

Hilary

Lorie

Neil

Sam

Simon

Hilary Cummings arrived at St Paul’s as the Librarian in 2018. Hilary gained her degree in Management Science from UMIST then worked in transport management before returning to university to retrain as a Librarian. She worked in university libraries for many years before a family relocation to Shanghai brought a move into children’s librarianship. She has worked in school libraries since her family’s return to London in 2014.

Kaylee Meerton joined St Paul’s as the Marketing and Communications Manager in 2023, taking on the role of managing the School’s internal and external communications, as well as leading the marketing of the Old Pauline Club. Originally hailing from Australia, Kaylee relocated to London in 2022 with a short contract at King’s College London before joining St Paul’s. Prior to that, she graduated from Curtin University with a degree in Journalism and International Relations, picking up work experience in China and the United States. Her career started in Australian regional journalism, with roles as an editor and reporter for Fairfax Media, Australian Community Media and Student Edge.

Theo Frankel is a current pupil at St Paul’s School, studying English, Philosophy, and Drama for A Levels and will be going to Oxford to read English Literature. Theo is currently rehearsing for the Spring Term senior play, Hangmen, and made a garment inspired by sustainable practices for his Extended Project Qualification.

Michael Simmons (1946-52) read Classics and Law at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He qualified as a solicitor and, after serving for two years as an officer in the RAF, practised Law in the City and Central London for 50 years. Since retiring, he has pursued a new career as a writer. Michael is in touch with a sadly diminishing number of members of the Upper VIII of 1952.

David Abulafia CBE (1963-67) is Emeritus Professor of Mediterranean History at the University of Cambridge, a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, and a former Chairman of the Cambridge History Faculty. His books include Frederick II, The Discovery of Mankind, The Great Sea and The Boundless Sea which was the winner of the Wolfson History prize in 2020. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, a Member of the Academia Europaea, a Commendatore of the Italian Republic and Visiting Professor at the College of Europe and at the University of Gibraltar. He has been the Apposer at Apposition and is a Vice President of the OPC.

Richard Davenport-Hines (1967-71) is a Quondam Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, a former trustee of the Royal Literary Fund and of the London Library, and a former member of the staff of the London School of Economics. His first book was awarded the Wolfson History prize in 1985. He has written biographies of W. H. Auden, Marcel Proust, John Maynard Keynes, and King Edward VII, historical studies of the Security Service, sexually transmitted diseases, drugs trafficking, the Profumo Affair, and the sinking of the Titanic

David Herman (1973-75) studied History and English at Cambridge and English and American Literature at Columbia University. He produced arts, history and talk programmes for BBC2, Radio 4 and Channel 4 (when it was good) for nearly 20 years and since then, has written about literature, and Jewish culture and history.

Jeremy Withers Green (1975-80) read History at Magdalene College, Cambridge before starting work in finance. After 27 years in the city, he left J.P. Morgan Cazenove and began working as a volunteer and trustee in the charitable sector at The Haller Foundation, The 999 Club and Friends of the Elderly. In 2016 he joined the OPC Executive Committee and has worked as Communications and Engagement Director and Editor of Atrium and remains a member of the Editorial Board. In June 2023 he started his two years as Club President.

Theo Hobson (1985-90) studied English Literature at York University, then Theology at Cambridge. He has written some books about religion including God Created Humanism: the Christian Basis of Secular Values and much journalism, including for the Spectator. He is currently a part-time teacher, part-time writer, and part-time artist.

Zahaan Bharmal (1990-95) read Physics at the University of Oxford and won a Fulbright Scholarship to Stanford University where he earned an MBA. He spent his early career as a policy adviser and speechwriter for the British Government and the World Bank and is currently a senior director with Google. Zahaan has recently published his debut book, The Art of Physics. He also writes about space for The Guardian and has won NASA’s Exceptional Public Achievement Medal for services to science communication. He lives in Yorkshire with his wife and two young sons.

James Grant (1990-95) sits on the Old Pauline Club’s Executive Committee as Sports Director, as well as holding the posts of Chairman of the Old Pauline Cricket Club and Honorary Secretary of the Old Pauline Golfing Society. After a career in event organising and charity fundraising, he now works at St Paul’s School as Associate Director, Alumni Relations and still feels nervous entering the staff room.

Lorie Church (1992-97): when he is away from the workplace, Lorie encourages people to put letters in little squares. He has had puzzles published in various titles internationally. As well as contributing to the Listener series, Mind Sports Olympiad and Times daily, he sets Atrium’s crossword.

Edward Evans (1993-98) received his BA in Ancient and Modern History and MPhil in Oriental Studies from the University of Oxford. He then received his Ph.D. in English Literature from Bar-Ilan University. He currently teaches literature at the Tel Aviv School of Arts and had Shakespeare’s Mirrors published in September 2024 by Routledge.

Sam Freedman (1994-98) is a senior fellow at the Institute for Government and a senior adviser to Ark Schools. He has spent his career working in different policy-focused roles around Westminster, including as an adviser to the leader of the opposition and three years at the Department for Education as a senior policy adviser. He writes about policy and politics for numerous outlets including the Financial Times, Sunday Times, Guardian and New Statesman. With his father, Lawrence Freedman, he runs ‘Comment is Freed’, Britain’s most popular politics substack. He also has a following of over 140,000 on Twitter.

Neil Wates (1999-2004) worked in the property sector for 15 years before training as a Psychodynamic Therapist and Counsellor. He is a trustee of a UK based charitable trust and an NGO committed to the alleviation of social violence in East Africa. He also founded Friendship Adventure; a craft brewery based in Brixton. Neil is on the OPC Executive Committee.

A confident Pauline ventriloquist

Letters

Dear Atrium,

I look back at my days at St Paul’s with much appreciation. Getting up at 6am to commute an hour on the number 33 bus and then returning home at 6.30pm only to start two hours of homework was the norm.

Some unique memories include listening to a couple of boys discussing the 100 ways they could tie their neckties – apparently there are over 177,000. Getting a detention from Mr Smith (Classics Department 1962-98) for rolling up my sleeves and for picking a leaf off a tree. Being so terrified of my Latin teacher that my textbook had thumb holes through the pages where I had sweated through them with fear. To this day he remains the scariest human being I have ever encountered. I once returned to St Paul’s in my 20s and found myself cowering away from him as he passed me in the corridor. Yet during the next lesson we threw paper balls at the music teacher. What makes one teacher terrifying and one not?

My “journey” did not take a typical Pauline route. One day in the Walker Library I discovered a book called 100,000 jobs in the USA. Little did I know that it would lead me to taking a gap year in the States. There I would see a man perform with a puppet, which ultimately would result in me becoming a ventriloquist. Little did I know that my job would one day entail public speaking to thousands. I discovered there is a mathematical formula to dream achievement. Apparently, it is proportional to the size of one’s dreams, the desire to achieve them and one’s ability to overcome disappointment. Can we get up one more time and push through all those disappointments? As Paulines, we learn we can.

Perhaps my biggest takeaway from my time at St Paul’s is a sense of confidence. Of never being overawed by anyone but rather being able to communicate and relate to anyone, whether that be in a high-end cocktail party on a cruise ship or to the hurting and homeless who need an encouraging word.

Thank you to my father and mother who gave up their holidays so they could give me one of the best educations possible. Thank you to St Paul’s for the confidence that you helped install in me.

With much appreciation, Marc Griffiths (1984-89) (Marc’s book ‘Get Happy’ is included in Pauline Books)

“...who have no memorial” Dear Atrium,

What a wonderful “Last Word” from Malcolm Sturgess (1947-52) in Autumn/Winter 2024’s Atrium. Despite our being of different vintages (I was mid 1960s), I identified wholeheartedly with Malcolm’s observations about Pauline “also-rans”.

I remember that, at my parents’ interview with the then High Master, Tom Howarth (High Master 1962-73), he made it clear that St Paul’s was an “elitist institution” (reminiscent of the scene in the film if...., when the headmaster says to his senior masters that he makes no apology for being “elitist”), and this ethos followed me throughout my time at School.

I was competent academically. I even came “top of the class” once, which occasioned a trip to the High Master to be personally congratulated. My standards must have slipped, because, in a subsequent High Master’s Report, he wrote “5% more effort, and this would be a really good report”; this has haunted me for the rest of my life.

As A Levels approached, I decided that I did not want to follow the expected path to Oxbridge (or Redbrick, if you must...), but would train to be a journalist. I remember the look of disapproval on Tom’s face as I told him this at my Valete interview; it was akin to an Army “interview without coffee”!

Years later, when I found myself in the lower reaches of the Civil Service, I wanted to be at the “coal face”, as I saw it, rather than devising Policy, I was brought up short when a colleague, on learning that I was not the expected “Fast Streamer”, remarked, “Ah, one of those Pauline failures”! I was no longer part of the elite.

By and large, and despite not conforming to the Pauline ideal, I was very happy at St Paul’s, and had a varied career. I have fond memories of my friends at the school (several of whom, inevitably, have now “gone beyond”) and remember some of the staff who were also contemporaneous with Malcolm “Willie” Gawne (Master 1947-77), a lovely man, who would take members of the Selborne Society on jaunts (“field-trips”) into the countryside, and was always very apologetic if he had to beat a boy.

Happy Days, Mike Ricketts (1963-68)

On reading Jonathan Foreman’s (1979-83) excellent article on Ed Behr (1940-44), I am reminded of Ed’s encounter with another Old Pauline in the 1970s.

Ian Young (1954-58), a pupil of Philip Whitting (History Department 1929-63) in the late 1950s, had gone on a medical elective to Tizi Ouzou in Algeria and turned his experience into a fascinating book on the emergence of Islamic fundamentalism within socialist Algeria. The book was titled The Private Life of Islam published by Pimlico Press, and without Ed knowing anything about Ian, he wrote a full-page review in Newsweek praising the book for being the most important book to have been written about Algeria since Independence and that it should be compulsory reading for every member of the Algerian government.

Ian wrote to Ed at Newsweek to thank him for the review, and Ed replied by saying he had to speak with Ian urgently and in private. At their meeting, Ed told how he had been invited to Algiers to interview the Foreign Minister before he had written his review. On arrival at Algiers airport, Ed had been arrested by the security services and the question they repeatedly asked him was who the author of the book was that he had reviewed.

Ed was detained, refused entry even though invited by the Foreign Minister, and expelled. His urgent message to Ian was to warn that he must not set foot in Algeria because if he did, he would never get out alive. Ian heeded Ed’s advice, and they subsequently became the best of friends.

With very best wishes, Robert Silman (1953-58)

Warts and all Dear Atrium,

I was delighted to see the “warts and all” approach in the Autumn/Winter 2024 magazine – the gratuitous unpleasantness revealed in Nick Birbeck’s “not all happy days” letter about his time at Colet Court and, in particular, the article about Josh Hawley, the former temporary staff member who so distinguished himself in the US Senate on 6 January 2021.

Perhaps, in the light of the commemoration of that notorious figure, it might be time to add reminiscences of another former staff member, who died recently. Richard Williamson (English department 1965-70) was the Holocaust denying former bishop of “l’église de Dreyfus était coupable” (AKA the Society of St. Pius X), who in the mid-1960s was able to unite an otherwise disputatious class against him, memorably in his description of one of the favourite comedies of the time, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore’s Not Only But Also as “evil”.

With best wishes, Peter Davis (1962-66)

Ed Behr and Ian Young Dear Atrium,

The PT Squad – a preparation for adult life Dear Atrium,

David Herman’s (1973-75) excellent Pauline Profile of Jonathan Miller (1947-53) omitted one rarely mentioned feature of school life in the postwar years. Jonathan was a proud member of the PT Squad, a gaggle of rebels and misfits who avoided joining the cadet force or the Scouts by spending two hours in the gymnasium every Monday afternoon under the supervision of the luckless Mr Williams. Miller was not the only joker that the teacher had to deal with. I recall one Eighth Year hiding in the hated vaulting box and only emerging twenty minutes into the session. In later reminiscences Jonathan spoke of the ‘Jewish PT Group’ but it was open to boys of all beliefs and none (especially none). The School’s hierarchy ignored its existence except for the Annual Parade, where we had to lurk in the basements, primed to emerge and discreetly to remove any cadet who fainted.

I served five years in the group and when I was leaving St Paul’s in 1957, I went to bid farewell to Mr Williams. He stared at me and grunted ‘Well, you were one of the more co-operative ones’. He had occasionally put me in charge of some younger boys and I soon discovered that I could instruct them to perform exercises which were beyond me completely. Perhaps that is why I went on to spend half a century as a schoolteacher and lecturer. The PT Squad – a preparation for adult life.

Jonathan was five years my senior so I did not know him personally. When he was producing at the Mermaid I cheekily wrote to ask if my A Level English group could sit in on a rehearsal. His Shakespeare play was due to open one day after the public exam. He did not reply. I guess I should not have mentioned the PT Squad.

Regards, Morgan Phillips (1952-57)

PS. There were two members of staff called Williams – the one who took the PT Squad and a full-time gymnastics instructor. Because of their height they were known respectively as Little Willy and Big Willy. Oh well, we were schoolboys!

Dear Sirs,

Atrium feedback

We wanted to offer feedback on the recent edition of Atrium

We understand that editorial policy is “to move away from a traditional alumni publication and to have interesting articles written by OPs about topics where they have a depth of knowledge rather than writing about Paulines and the Pauline Community.”

We have to ask: why? We receive frequent emails addressed to the “St Paul’s Community”. The only common features of this so-called “community” are the School, its alumni and activities involving either or both. While some contributions by individual OPs on areas of general interest may be welcomed, there does not seem a logical case for concentrating on them at the expense of the sort of “traditional” aspects found in most alumni magazines which are likely to be enjoyed by the widest possible range of OPs. The thoughts of someone who just happens to be an old boy on an unrelated subject may or may not be of interest but should not usurp the sort of School and OP-related material more normally associated with a publication of this type.

Some feedback on the new style may indeed be positive, but we would urge you to seek views as widely as possible in order to ensure any change is widely welcomed by Atrium’s customers, the OP community.

Bob Porter (1962–67)

Merrick Willis (1961–66)

A letter from Tel Aviv

Edward Evans (1993-98) writes: The Lighthouse on the Sea

I have the privilege of teaching literature at the Tel Aviv School of Arts. My students are at peak curiosity and restlessness, creativity and mischief, months before they leave home for the army, their bullish spirits reminding me of my senior years at St Paul’s School.

My bike ride takes me past city landmarks: the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Ichilov hospital, the Cameri Theatre, the National Opera, glass towers surrounding the Templar colony like sheets of placid sea, and the sprawling army headquarters.

I ride past images of merry grandparents and pretty girls. Graffiti on lampposts and stickers on walls demand an end to their suffering. They are the hostages; some dead, others praying for an end to the nightmare, can you ever come home from where you have been? An olive-green helicopter brings a military casualty to a helipad.

Tel Aviv is a blend of the old and the new, a city built on Eastern Mediterranean dunes, it is climbing upwards and looking towards the horizon. Her avenues are tree lined and well kept. Her people are anarchic and warm, and in the morning the streets are filled with children on their way, like me, to school. An air raid siren blared in the night. But the blue sky is clear; the day has begun, again, with quiet determination.

At the school gates, a municipal flag shows the city as a lighthouse on the sea. My students teach me that a righteous dream cannot be eviscerated or taken hostage by darkness. Our miraculous city shimmers like a mirage on desert sands. The hostages will return home and our mourners will bury our dead.

“Shalom, Dr Evans!” a cheeky student chirps.

“Good morning. Carry on,” I reply. The library of human cruelty, hypocrisy, and love has numberless texts in its timeless catalogue. We shall begin the day with Psalm 55, escaping the agony of the present on the wings of a dove. I nod at the armed guard and follow my students to class. Together, we shall shine our light across the sea. Together, we shall find salvation on the ethereal substance of sacred poetry. Together, we shall turn the dream of returning home into a tangible reality.

Tel Aviv is a blend of the old and the new, a city built on Eastern Mediterranean dunes, it is climbing upwards and looking towards the horizon.

David Abulafia’s Atrium Notes

Nowadays The Pauline devotes fascinating pages to the school trips to Greece, Italy and further afield. But, as I found when my daughters were at school, school trips have so much become part of the regular experience of children that it is easy to forget that once upon a time they were a rarer and therefore more special event. I was supposed to attend a CCF (RAF section) camp but I managed to escape its tedium by signing up for my one foreign expedition under Pauline auspices: a trip during the same days to the divided city of Berlin with about a dozen other boys. It was led by a German master whom I barely knew, as I was learning a little German with another master; and he was accompanied by a female nurse who seemed to have remarkably friendly relations with him. The cost was low, since we were subsidised by the AngloGerman Society, of which we were somewhat suspicious, as there was still a sense more than 20 years after the end of the war that one should not be too friendly to Germans. And we were constrained by the extremely tight regulations imposed by the Labour government that strictly limited the amount of money one could take out of the country. The £50 limit of those days would probably equal at least £1,000 today.

We flew directly from Luton airport – then just a shed – to Berlin, along one of the air corridors over the so-gennante Deutsche Demoktratische Republik, the so-called German Democratic Republic. The plane was an ancient, shuddering, slow museum piece that deposited us in the middle of the night at Tempelhof airport. When we reached our Pension we battled with the duvets, since we had no idea whether we were expected to climb inside them or just lie under them. But then some words of my former Classics master Mr McIntosh came to mind: there was a type of

feather-bed in Germany that you wrapped around yourself and was deliciously warm (a good idea as there was snow on the ground). That must be it.

As well as taking us to the Opera and various city monuments, the AngloGerman Association was keen that we should understand local politics, so we were taken to an observation post on the Berlin Wall and were plied with American and German leaflets and booklets. This made us all the keener to see what life was like on the other side, and we had the opportunity to do that, first with a guided tour and then on our own. In East Berlin there was a strong sense of stepping back in time, by comparison with the bustling shops and cafés of the Ku-Damm in West Berlin. (This was even more uncannily true in other DDR cities, as I discovered several years later, travelling by train to Prague via Leipzig, where the magnificent station was festooned with flags and East German soldiers were goose-stepping back and forth along the platforms). On both sides of the Wall all the men seemed to carry a briefcase. We asked the German master what they put in them and he said “Sausages”. I have no proof of that, but John Olbrich (1963-67) was brave enough to eat a sausage in a café in East Berlin, paid for with the lightweight East German coins we had acquired at an extortionate exchange rate of one East Mark for each West Mark.

On the famous Museum-Insel, Museum Island, the only museum that seemed to be open was the National Gallery. This disappointed me, as I had hoped to see the great Pergamon Altar – on every trip I have subsequently made to Berlin it has been undergoing restoration, so I have yet to see it. But the National Gallery had its compensations. Apart from a naturalistic painting of Lenin addressing a crowd that hung in the atrium, the museum consisted entirely

of remarkably similar Socialist Realist paintings of peasants and workers, divided up country by country, so there was a room for Bulgaria, another for Czechoslovakia, and so on through the Soviet bloc. I found a couple of guidebooks on sale there, guides to the ancient Egyptian and ancient Mesopotamian museums, which are sitting on the bookshelf opposite me as I write now. But where these museums might be we never discovered, and in any case the famous bust of Nefertiti, which we did see, was kept in a West Berlin museum until the city was re-unified.

Then we were off to Checkpoint Charlie or another crossing-point, where gruff East German, or maybe Russian, border guards, grilled us: “Haff you any money of ze DDR?” If so, it was supposed to be surrendered, even a few pfennigs. Nonetheless, I kept some of my last pfennigs, having spent others on that day’s Neues Deutschland, the boring, propagandist newspaper of the East German Communist Party (very good on whether the country was meeting its tractor targets), and by carrying it on the West Berlin metro I prompted quizzical glances from old Berliners. I still have that copy, with its fulsome praise for Walther Ulbricht and the other die-hard members of one of Europe’s most repressive post-war governments – though nowadays revisionist historians try to re-cast the DDR as not so much worse than West Germany, which seems to me perverse. It was certainly a marvellous educational experience, though I am not sure it did much for my German. I do wonder, though, whether modern parents, seeking to save some of the VAT they must now outrageously pay on their fees, will decide that their budget does not quite extend as far as a school trip to the Acropolis or the Alhambra.

Briefings

St Paul’s: ‘Considerably Older than the German Empire’

The Pauline in 1917 included this wonderful exchange between two Old Paulines. The correspondence of J Gibson Harris and the Editor brilliantly sums up the wit and camaraderie of Paulines during the First World War.

The Montgomery Room

Since the redevelopment of the Barnes site, the Montgomery Room has been on the ground floor to the north of the main entrance – where the G and H Club lockers used to be. Until this year its walls were decorated with many of the same paintings as the earlier first floor incarnation. Portraits of High Masters since 1968 had been added, but it was little changed.

To the Editor of The Pauline:

DEAR SIR – Has your attention been drawn to the fact that the colours of the Old Paulines (red, white and black) are those of the German nation, and I believe of the Prussian Guard? I have only recently become an OP, but since I have worn the colours, quite a number of people have drawn my attention to it. I hope some way will be found of remedying this.

Yours truly, An OP.

A reply was duly received: Editor of The Pauline – This unfortunate ambiguity had escaped us. The remedy seems to lie in persuading the German nation to change their colours – along with their Kaiser and their Kultur.

Another Old Pauline agreed.

To the Editor of The Pauline: SIR – I thought every Old Pauline was aware that the colours of the Old Pauline Club were similar to those adopted by the Prussian Guard. Some years ago, when travelling in Norway, I met a German who called my attention to the fact that I was wearing the German colours. I am afraid he was not altogether pleased with my answer when I informed him that the colours were those of a Foundation considerably older than the German Empire.

Yours truly,

J GIBSON HARRIS

Those High Masters, except for Mark Bailey, now adorn other walls on the Barnes site and have been replaced by images of eminent Old Paulines who attended St Paul’s in the last decade of the 19th century through to the Crowthorne evacuation years. The portrait of Montgomery remains, as does his map, used to plan the D Day invasion at the Hammersmith school site. 

Paul Nash (1903-08)

Sir Isaiah Berlin OM CBE (1922-28)

Sir Peter Shaffer CBE (1942-44)

James Clerk Maxwell Garnett CBE (1893-99)

Three of the four OP portraits selected would be high on any list – Paul Nash (1903-08), Sir Isaiah Berlin OM CBE (1922-28) and Sir Peter Shaffer CBE (1942-44), but the fourth was less well known to Atrium

James Clerk Maxwell Garnett CBE (1893-99) was a Foundation Scholar and played for the 2nd XV. On leaving School, Garnett went up to Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1904 he started work as an examiner at the Board of Education and in 1912, became the Principal of the Municipal School of Technology at Manchester where he encouraged the municipal schools to focus on higher education. He was awarded a CBE in 1918 for this work and published on the importance of character education in schools in 1939. In 1920 he became the General Secretary of the League of Nations Union (LNU), which worked to encourage support in Britain for the League of Nations. LNU became one of the most influential peace organisations in Great Britain. He held this post until 1938.

Philip Gaydon, who teaches Theology and Philosophy and is also Head of Character Education at St Paul’s, commented “When researching Garnett as part of looking into OPs connected with character education, I was struck by his relationship with “integrity”. This clearly played an important role in his educational thinking, and his theory that good character can only be built upon “a single wide interest” that provides an individual with a philosophy and purpose typifies this (Knowledge & Character : 279). He appears to have lived this theory in his professional life as well, with a clear commitment to educating for peace. Of course, as with many who so firmly and whole-heartedly commit themselves to a cause, his colleagues were sometimes divided between admiration and frustration – with some at the LNU recounting that they used to joke that “his initials stood for ‘Just Call me God’.” (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)”

Osterley Revisited

If you want somewhere different to walk the dog, try the grounds of Osterley House. You can combine it with a visit to the school playing fields nearby that were last used in the 1970’s.

The Thursday schlepp out to Osterley for games afternoons was a part of generations of Paulines’ lives. On the drive out from central London, you can test yourself on the order of the tube stations passed on the journey to the suburb – Hammersmith, Turnham Green, Acton Town, South Ealing, Northfields, Boston Manor and Osterley.

On finding the entrance to the Osterley playing fields, you will be denied access as they are now the training ground of the Premiership team, Brentford FC. It all looks very impressive. The Bees of course play in the OPC (and German Empire) colours of red, white, and black.

Osterley Park is fine dog walking territory – accessible, dry enough, dotted with mature trees and well maintained, but not at all municipal. It was once owned by Thomas Gresham (1531-37), who could well be the wealthiest Old Pauline ever. He bought the manor of Osterley and built a new house on the site in the 1670’s. He bought the neighbouring manor of Boston a little later – why not?

Osterley House has been rebuilt since Gresham’s day. It is now owned and run by the National Trust. The banking Child family became owners in the eighteenth century, as bankers did of many grand houses at the time. They commissioned the Scottish architect Robert Adam in 1761 to transform Osterley into what Horace Walpole described as ‘the palace of palaces’.

Here are some gobbets Atrium has gleaned about Thomas Gresham. Sir Richard, his father, wanted him to become a merchant so sent him,

after St Paul’s, to Gonville and Caius, Cambridge and at the same time apprenticed him in the Mercers’ Company. In 1543, Thomas was admitted as a liveryman and later that year, left England for Belgium. Based in Antwerp he became renowned as a successful investor on the Antwerp Exchange. In 1551 he came to King Edward VI’s financial rescue by somehow managing to increase the pound’s value so successfully that the King’s debts were almost all discharged. Gresham was well rewarded. He also served Queen Mary and notably Queen Elizabeth, becoming a Knight Bachelor in 1559. Again, he was very well rewarded. Thomas then proposed and built the Royal Exchange modelled on the Antwerp Bourse.

He accrued significant rents that were bequeathed to the City Corporation and the Mercers’ Company for the purpose of instituting Gresham College, at which he stipulated that seven professors should read lectures, one each day of the week, in astronomy, geometry, physic, law, divinity, rhetoric and music. The College was London’s first institution of higher learning opening in 1597. It remained in Gresham’s mansion on Bishopsgate until 1768. Since 1991, the College has operated at Barnard’s Inn Hall in Holborn and regularly welcomes visiting speakers who deliver lectures on topics outside its usual range and also hosts seminars and conferences. There are over 140 lectures a year, all of which are free and open to the public.

Geoffrey Matthews (1972-77) and Chris Vermont (1973-78) are current members of the Gresham College Council.

When Water Rats Meet

Paul Ganjou’s career was in Financial Services but he has always had family show business connections. His father, George, had been a variety artiste and, as an impresario in the late 1950’s, had booked several promising young artists, including then unknowns Jimmy Tarbuck and Cliff Richard.

Paul is a member of several entertainment charities, including the Grand Order of Water Rats (GOWR), where he knew OP and Past King Rat Nicholas Parsons (1937-39) well. He is also on the Executive Committee of the Royal Variety Charity (RVC), whose main fund-raising event is the annual Royal Variety Performance (RVP).

Paul’s family appeared in two RVP shows in the 1930s and he has attended most of the RVPs since 1963, when Beatle John Lennon famously invited posher audience members to “rattle their jewellery”. He kept the programme and over the years accumulated a large collection of historic programmes, many signed by the cast, which he has recently donated to the GOWR’s London museum and

to Brinsworth House, the residential Care Home for retired entertainment people, which is supported entirely by the RVC and where the history of the Charity is fully recorded.

At the 2024 RVP in the Royal Albert Hall, Paul had the honour of meeting the RVC Patron, HM King Charles III and noticed that His Majesty was wearing a Grand Order of Water Rats emblem, as indeed was Paul. It was an obvious topic of conversation especially as the lady next to him in the image below, Pat Church, is the widow of Past King Rat Joe Church, who had initiated the King into the Grand Order in 1975. The King found it highly amusing to be reminded that a ‘King’ had initiated him into the Order when he was only a Prince.

Pauline Scrabble Finalist

Better late than never, with thanks to Jewish News, Atrium has news of the final of the 2022 UK Scrabble Championship which saw Elie Dangoor (1972-76) play a grand master. It all came down to the last letter in the bag.

Elie narrowly lost in a tense match to Brett Smitheram, 43, a Scrabble grand master and the then reigning UK national Scrabble champion who is one of the most successful players in the history of the game.

Dangoor, whose brother David (1976-80) is also an OP, took an early lead with words such as ‘blowiest’, ‘pricier’, and ‘encave’ – a triple word score – but Smitheram recovered taking the match to the last letter.

“He needed an E – a one-in-eight chance – and he got it,” said Elie, who also plays backgammon, chess, and bridge. “It was most unfortunate. Still, it was a very satisfying tournament, as I was only seeded 11th. It’s a shame because I would have been the oldest national champion if I’d won.”

Elie is a real estate director who chaired the World English-Language Scrabble Players Association until 2020.

Paul Ganjou (1960-65) and HM King Charles III

Monarchs meet

Pauline Gallantry

Sam Alexander (1995-98) MC

Sam Alexander was born in 1982 in Hammersmith. After Colet Court and St Paul’s, Sam worked in construction until he decided on a change of direction. He joined the Royal Marines in July 2006 and was passed fit for duty in October 2007.

On completion of his training, he was appointed to the Fire Support Group in Mike Company, 42 Commando Royal Marines. He later moved to Kilo Company. In 2009, he was awarded the Military Cross for gallantry.

While serving in Afghanistan, he charged down a group of insurgents to draw fire away from an injured colleague. Having used all the ammunition in his machine gun, he continued his assault with his 9mm pistol until that too was empty – forcing the enemy to retreat. The citation for his award said he carried out his brave actions “despite being completely exposed to heavy and accurate enemy fire”.

On his return from operations, Sam trained as a Heavy Weapons (Anti-Tank) specialist and was appointed to Juliet Company, before returning to Afghanistan. He was on patrol in Helmand province in 2011 when killed by an Improvised Explosive Device. He was 28. He is buried in St Mary’s Churchyard, Bickleigh, Tiverton.

Sam married Claire Wills in 2009 and in 2010, their son Leo was born. His widow, Claire died in March 2020.

A plate on Hammersmith Bridge in his memory was unveiled in 2012 by the mayor of Hammersmith and Fulham, Frances Stainton. The quotation is taken from a poem written by Sam’s mother, Serena, who taught at St Paul’s in the 1990s.

The inscription reads: In loving memory of MNE Sam Alexander MC. Born Hammersmith 1982, died Afghanistan 2011. One of the bravest of the brave, who died for you. Still whispers in your ear: “now, you, be brave too!”

Pauline Pianists

In February Aron Goldin (2014-16) released his second album as a classical pianist

It was recorded at Abbey Road Studios and features the debut of South African soprano Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha, a rising star of the opera world, winner of the Herbert Von Karajan Prize 2024, and Cardiff Singer of the World Song Prize 2021.

Noah Zhou (2014-19), currently a Master’s student at the Royal Academy of Music, is the recipient of many awards including the Young Pianist Foundation European Grand Prix, Horowitz International Competition, Drake Calleja Trust and the Hattori Foundation.

A first prize winner at competitions in Rio and Valsesia in Italy, recent concerto performances include appearances in the Netherlands, Ukraine and Brazil. Noah’s virtuosic lunchtime recital on January 15 at the Wigmore Hall saw him perform Rachmaninov’s Etudes-tableaux Op.33, Clementi’s Piano Sonata in A Op.33 No.1 and Liszt’s Reminiscences de Norma S394

Noah Zhou

Aron Goldin

Pauline Grammy

At the 67th GRAMMY awards ceremony in February, it was announced that Dom Shaw (201217) won in the ‘Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical’ category for i/o.

Dom works at Real World Studios and is a music engineer and multi-instrumentalist songwriter performing as Waterlog. He is also a record producer and has worked with Peter Gabriel and Birdy, among other artists.

Paulines on Netflix

Henry Lloyd-Hughes (1998-2003) is set to join royalty of British cinema in a Netflix production of The Thursday Murder Club Other stars include Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, Ben Kingsley, Celia Imrie, David Tennant, Jonathan Pryce and Richard E. Grant.

The film is based on Richard Osman’s novel of the same name published in 2020 about septuagenarian amateur sleuths attempting to solve a murder. One had been a spy, one a nurse, one a trade union official and one a psychiatrist.

Also on Netflix, Bank of Dave 2: The Loan Ranger continues the Dave Fishwick story. Having established his community bank for the people of his native Burnley in Bank of Dave, this time local hero Dave Fishwick takes on a new and even more dangerous adversary – The Payday Lenders of Britain, who Dave sees as having caused so much misery through debt. For a few days in January the film was the most watched on Netflix. Rory Kinnear (1991-96) again plays Dave Fishwick. During its promotion Rory said, “It was so wonderful to see how many people responded to the first film. They really seemed to love it, so it’s great to be back.”

Pauline Brit

Electronic duo, Chase & Status, won the Brit Awards’ Producer of the Year last February.

Saul Milton and Will Kennard’s (1994-99) production credits feature on tracks by major artists including Rihanna, Rita Ora, Kano, Tinie Tempah, Example and Plan B.

Chairman of the Brit Committee for 2024 and managing director and president of promotions at Atlantic Records, Damian Christian, added: “For two decades, Chase & Status have been at the heart of UK dance music. As one of the most progressive and prolific groups around, it’s no surprise that they are still at the top of their game. After an incredible 2023, Chase & Status thoroughly deserve to be crowned producers of the year”.

Reflecting on the win, the duo said: “We couldn’t be more proud – we’ve been flying the flag for British music now for a long time, we’re super proud of all the music that has come out of the UK. As producers, and as a creative duo, I think we are probably in one of the best places we’ve been.”

Dom Shaw

Will Kennard and Saul Milton

Henry Lloyd-Hughes

Rory Kinnear

Pauline Appointments

Mark Charkin (1984-89) has been appointed Executive Director of GBx. In 2013 Mark moved full-time to San Francisco. He helped scale start-ups such as Bebo, and King Digital Entertainment (Aka Candy Crush) and has worked in an advisory capacity at Snap, Brightroll and Onfido among others. More recently, Mark has worked around virtual humans and AI and was involved in ABBA Voyage. GBx is a private network for successful British entrepreneurs, investors and senior British tech executives in the Bay Area. The non-profit community has built up a large and loyal member base including a multitude of Unicorn founders and c-suite at: Apple, Airbnb, Google, Monzo, Calm, Bebo, Trulia and Slack among others. Entrepreneurial OP Amaan Ahmad (2017-19) is one of its members.

Roger Bland (1968-72) has been awarded a CBE for services to heritage. He retired in 2015 from the British Museum, where he was Keeper of the Department of Britain, Europe and Antiquities and founded the Portable Antiquities Scheme. His field of expertise is Roman coinage and hoards. He is currently President of the Royal Numismatic Society and is writing a volume in the series Roman Imperial Coinage His book Hoards and Hoarding in Iron Age and Roman Britain (with 10 other authors) was published by Oxbow in April 2020. He is a Lay Minister in the Diocese of Norwich.

Floyd Steadman (Honorary OP) has been presented with an Honorary Doctorate from Brunel University. Floyd’s careers have spanned elite rugby, as captain of Saracens, and education as Headmaster at several prep schools after his time at St Paul’s. Amongst his other commitments, Floyd, now travels the length and breadth of the country to talk to people and students about unconscious bias. He was awarded an OBE in the King’s first New Year’s Honours in 2023, for services to rugby, education and charity.

Freddie Sayers (19952000) the chief executive of Old Queen Street Ventures (OQS) and editor of UnHerd, has become the publisher of UnHerd and The Spectator Sir Paul Marshall (father of Winston Marshall (2001-06)) has completed a £100m takeover of The Spectator magazine. Marshall, a backer of GB News TV channel which launched three years ago, has acquired the magazine through OQS.

Tom Adeyoola (1990-95), co-founder of Extend Ventures, non-executive board member at Channel 4, St Paul’s Governor and OPC Vice President, has been appointed a member of the Creative Industries Taskforce led by Baroness Shriti Vadera and Sir Peter Bazalgette. The Taskforce has been set up to help deliver a plan to grow the creative industries. The plan will be published alongside an Industrial Strategy and will set out new policies and government interventions that will help to deliver a further boost to the creative industries’ potential for spreading growth and opportunity for all.

Tom Hayhoe (1969-73) has been appointed as Covid CounterFraud Commissioner, reporting to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Chancellor Rachel Reeves said on the appointment “Tom Hayhoe brings a wealth of experience and will leave no stone unturned as a commissioner with free rein to investigate the unacceptable carnival of waste and fraud during the pandemic.”

Pauline Books

Atrium (unless otherwise described) uses reviews provided by authors or their publishers.

Edward Evans (1993-98)

Shakespeare’s Mirrors

Edward reviews his own book.

Shakespeare’s Mirrors proposes a radical new way of conceiving Shakespearean drama, the clues to which were left behind in the obsessive and voluminous use of mirror metaphors to describe “the purpose of playing”.

Mirrors had been used since early Attic tragedies as a metaphor for drama. As such, mirrors symbolised the way drama reflected truths about human performance back onto spectators. Shakespeare overturned this millennia-old

tradition, suggesting that mimetic display could not reveal the truth of human nature which lies beyond the visible, spoken and performed.

This densely researched and meticulous work reimagines Shakespearean drama as the projection of conscience onto the early modern stage, revealing characters at odds with their dramatic duties (the clichéd roles of the mimetic tradition), determining instead to find poetic resolution to their sense of being separate from the action by reimagining the theatrical world in which they find themselves conceived.

Thus, Hamlet’s famous “the mirror up to nature” speech on drama overturns the idea of dramatic action as a feasible representation of the metaphysical truth – “that within which passes show”.

This rolling revolution and counter-revolution in Shakespearean drama, drawing us back to the future by recentring the Pauline doctrine of the theatre of the world – “through a glass darkly”– was made possible by two simultaneous developments: the invention of perfect glass mirrors in Venice and the publication of the Geneva Bible in the decade of Shakespeare’s birth.

Perfect glass mirrors exposed the lie that a viewer might see metaphysical reality any more clearly by staring at a reflection of themselves in the world. Meanwhile, Pauline theology translated into vernacular English in the Geneva Bible supplied an alternative ethics and ontological metaphysics to remake drama in the image that scripture provided, highlighting the obsolescence of Elizabethan mirrors as an object, like a twenty-first century selfie, in revealing the essence of humanity – “conscience”–that which Hamlet calls his “mystery”.

Mirror metaphors and the associated word “conscience”, physical and metaphysical embodiments of the Elizabethan age, were conceits accessible to Shakespeare’s audience, but quickly faded into obscurity in the centuries that followed. Shakespeare’s Mirrors reanimates the source of the dramatic revolution that saw characters formed by acts of their own imagination.

Shakespeare’s Mirrors was published in September 2024 by Routledge.

Zahaan Bharmal (1990-95)

The

Art of Physics:

Eight Elegant Ideas to Make sense of Almost Everything

Zahaan reviews his own book. People are messy. Science is methodical. At first glance, the two could not be further apart – or so I thought. In my debut book, The Art of Physics, I take readers on an unexpected journey, showing how ideas from physics can illuminate the chaotic, unpredictable, and deeply human experiences of modern life. This book is rooted in my own story. As a lonely and confused student at St Paul’s, I turned to physics for answers. Inspired by The Hitchhiker’s

Guide to the Galaxy and its tongue-incheek claim that the answer to life’s ultimate question is “42”, I began a quest for answers; answers I hoped physics could provide.

That journey led me to study physics at Oxford and set the stage for a career that has taken me from management consultancy to Whitehall to The World Bank to Google, where I have worked for the last 16 years. Yet, as I can candidly reveal, life has not always been straightforward. From losing my job to navigating heartbreak and even facing a mid-life crisis, my path has been anything but smooth. Through it all, however, physics has been my constant guide.

At its heart, The Art of Physics explores how scientific thinking can provide tools for making sense of life’s messiness. Drawing on concepts from quantum mechanics, chaos theory, thermodynamics, and more, I seek to connect abstract scientific principles to everyday dilemmas. Chaos theory, for instance, becomes a framework for dealing with crises and unpredictability. Thermodynamics sheds light on managing energy and motivation. And quantum mechanics offers insights into the seemingly irrational choices we all make.

One of the book’s main aims is to show the balance between the personal and the universal. I try to write with honesty and humour about my own experiences, from grappling with unfairness to feeling like a stranger in my own home. These moments of vulnerability I hope make the book relatable, even for readers with no background in physics. At the same time, I highlight the work of real-world physicists applying their expertise to tackle some of society’s most pressing

issues, from climate change to economic inequality. The result is a book that I hope feels both intimate and expansive, offering readers practical wisdom alongside a broader perspective on the world.

The Art of Physics has received praise from several esteemed authors and thinkers.

Alain de Botton, author of The Consolations of Philosophy, describes it as “exceptionally interesting.” Thomas Erikson, known for Surrounded by Idiots, asserts that it is “a book that will transform how you understand human behaviour.” Michael Brooks, author of 13 Things That Don’t Make Sense, finds it “joyful, fascinating and highly original.” Cal Newport, author of Deep Work, commends it for identifying “elegant explanations for our messy world.”

Readers looking for a traditional science book may be surprised by The Art of Physics, but that is precisely the point. The book invites us to see science not as a collection of formulas, but as a toolkit for navigating life’s complexities. I hope my writing is accessible, thoughtprovoking, and infused with a quiet optimism that encourages readers to embrace the unknown.

“Physics teaches us to embrace the questions.” Whether you are a physicist, a curious reader, or someone searching for clarity in a chaotic world, The Art of Physics is an invitation to think differently. By the end of the book, you may not find the ultimate answer to life, the universe, and everything –but I hope you will come away with a deeper appreciation for the beauty of the questions themselves.

You can order your copy at: www.theartofphysics.com

Nick Brooks (1965-70) Fraud

Nick Brooks spent 40 years working in the City of London as a chartered accountant. When he retired in 2018, he wrote and published his first novel – Betrayed. His second novel, Revenge was the sequel. Fraud is the third in the series. Nick is the OPC Treasurer and a Vice President of the Club. He lives in Chiswick and is the fourth generation of his family to live in this leafy suburb. In Fraud, two suspicious deaths lead Will and Jay Slater and their old adversary, Inspector Dawkin, into the murky world of powerful business and politics. A huge multi-national organisation will stop at nothing to win a contract to handle the UK’s nuclear waste. With fraud at the heart of the case, and hunted by a dangerous assassin, the Slaters travel to South Africa and Scotland in a deadly quest for the truth.

‘A hugely enjoyable read. Superbly crafted plotting, here is a depth to the narrative, which helps to build up the drama and suspense. The characters within the book are well written and fleshed out. I found myself eagerly turning the pages as the hunt to discover the truth gathered pace. It is quite a pacey read where the action moves quickly around, everything building to the finale, the action moves seamlessly between Scotland, London and South Africa. You get a real sense of atmosphere. A read which, at times, had me on the edge of my seat, where the action twists and turns. The author uses the narrative to build scenes with intensity and drama, equally, the writing creates plenty of suspense and tension, leaving you unsure as to the fate of the characters. Overall, this was a deeply satisfying read, the kind of book which would make a perfect beach read. Would certainly be looking out for the author’s previous books.’

AMWBOOKS REVIEW

Oliver Sacks (1946-51)

Letters (Edited by Kate Edgar)

These are the letters of one of the greatest observers of the human species, revealing his passion for life and work, friendship and art, medicine and society, and the richness of his relationships with friends, family, and fellow intellectuals over the decades. After St Paul’s Oliver Sacks read medicine at Queen’s College, Oxford. He completed his medical training at San Francisco’s Mount Zion Hospital and at UCLA before moving to New York, where he soon encountered the patients whom he would write about in his book Awakenings. Sacks spent almost fifty years working as a neurologist and wrote many books, including The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Musicophilia, and Hallucinations, about the strange neurological predicaments and conditions of his patients. The New York Times referred to him as ‘the poet laureate of medicine’. His memoir, On the Move, was published shortly before his death in August 2015.

Oliver who describes himself as a “philosophical physician” and a “neuropathological Talmudist” wrote letters throughout his life: to his parents and his beloved Auntie Len, to friends and colleagues from London, Oxford, California, and around the world. The letters begin with his arrival in America as a young man, eager to establish himself away from the confines of postwar England, and carry us through his bumpy early career in medicine and the discovery of his writer’s voice; his weight-lifting, motorcycle-riding years and his explosive seasons of discovery with the patients who populate Awakenings; his growing interest in matters of sight and the musical brain; his many friendships and exchanges with writers, artists, and scientists (to say nothing of astronauts, botanists, and mathematicians), and his deep gratitude for all these relationships at the end of his life.

Sensitively introduced and edited by Kate Edgar, Sacks’s longtime editor, the letters deliver a portrait of Sacks as he wrestles with the workings of the brain and mind.

‘Here is the unedited Oliver Sacks – struggling, passionate, a furiously intelligent misfit. And also, endlessly interesting. He was a man like no other.’

ATUL GAWANDE

Author of Being Mortal

Ian Young (1954-58)

The Private Life of Islam: An Algerian Diary

Ian Young spent a summer as a medical student in a provincial maternity unit in Algeria. This book is taken from the diary he began on arrival, when he found himself the privileged witness of the insides not just of Kabyl women, but also some muchtrumpeted ideology. The immediate villains are a couple of expatriate Bulgarian gynaecologists.

Dr Vasilev, at the closing stages of a career of fathomless incompetence, forms a bond of affection with the author and they spend many hours in the office over an old route map of Bulgaria, discussing mileages and motorcycles as Maternity drifts beneath them like an abandoned ship.

Dr Kostov packs a powerful bedside punch and saves his humanitarian feelings for the health of the Deutschmark. The two form a macabre comic team as they take the reader through a series of medical nightmares. But their lot is scarcely more enviable than that of their female victims: the foreign doctors working in blood, excrement and death are the unhappy executors of the most respected attitudes in Algeria. The Private Life of Islam is a ruthlessly clear-sighted view of a particular place at a particular time. It is also a classic in the art of storytelling.

Robin Renwick (1951-56)

The Intelligent Spy’s Handbook: Spies and Writers, Writers and Spies, and the Contribution of British Spies to English Literature

Robin Renwick, Lord Renwick of Clifton KCMG, was a crossbench peer in the House of Lords. He was ambassador to South Africa in the period leading to the release of Nelson Mandela, then British ambassador to the United States between 1991 and 1995. He was also the author of Fighting with Allies, A Journey with Margaret Thatcher and Helen Suzman: Bright Star in a Dark Chamber

Few professions comprise such an eclectic mix of personalities as that of intelligence. The characteristics required to thrive as a spy – ideological conviction, ego, the ability to manipulate, deceive and remain cold – have created some of the most compelling and enduring figures in history.

In The Intelligent Spy’s Handbook, Robin Renwick provides an overview of the biggest names in the world of espionage, with a wonderful eye for the details that bring each of them to life. We hear, for instance, of how Kim Philby, to have fun at the expense of his colleagues, kept a photograph in his office of Mount Ararat – taken from the Soviet side.

We see how the audacious, far-fetched ideas of the naval officer Ian Fleming, aside from creating the most famous of all spies, may have actually inspired the real-life Operation Mincemeat. And the darker side of some of our more heroic stories is exposed, from the chemical castration of Alan Turing to the personal sacrifices Oleg Gordievsky made to become Britain’s most successful Soviet mole.

(An obituary for Robin appears later in the magazine).

‘A real achievement, personal as well as literary.’

DAVID PRYCE-JONES

The Times

‘The most important book to have been written about Algeria since Independence and that it should be compulsory reading for every member of the Algerian government.’

EDWARD BEHR

Newsweek

Sam Freedman (1994-99)

Failed State: Why Nothing Works and How We Fix It

In Failed State, Sam Freedman, one of Britain’s leading policy experts, explains why it is harder than ever to get a GP appointment. Burglaries go unpunished. Rivers are overrun with sewage. Real wages have been stagnant for years, even as the cost of housing rises inexorably. He asks why everything is going wrong at the same time?

It is easy to blame dysfunctional politicians who are out for themselves. But, in reality, it is more complicated. Politicians can make things better or worse, but all work within our state institutions. And ours are utterly broken. Sam offers a devastating analysis of where we have gone wrong. With historical depth and plenty of infuriating examples, he explains why British governance has fallen so far behind. Speaking to politicians of all stripes, civil servants and workers on the frontline, this book bursts with insight on the real problems that are so often hidden from the front pages. The result is a witty, landmark book that paves the way for a fairer and more prosperous Britain.

Marc Griffiths (1984-89)

Get Happy: Make your dreams come true NOW!

Marc Griffiths has addressed more than a million people in over 5,000 talks. As a keynote speaker, he has researched, written, and spoken for 25 years, speaking to all types of audiences on the subjects of Happiness, Personal and Professional Development, Self-Esteem, Goals, and Dream achievement.

His humour and ventriloquism make his talks exciting and different, while his inspiration and wisdom bring immediate and long-term results. Originally from the UK, Marc speaks internationally and now lives in Los Angeles with his wife and five children.

Jack Furniss (1998-2003) Between Extremes

‘We can only hope that every member of the new government will read and digest this book’

DAVID AARONOVITCH

‘Brilliantly timed and frighteningly true’

SIR ANTHONY SELDON

Everyone lives in a box. Are you going to keep living an average life, or are you going to get out of your box and start to make your dreams come true? There is a secret to success. There is a specific key you need. How much do you want it? Get Happy: Make your dreams come true NOW! is an inspirational book, filled with humour, to help you get you what you want.

Jack is head of the History and Politics Department at Old Palace of John Whitgift, in Croydon. He has graduate degrees in History from the University of Oxford and the University of Virginia. Between 1861 and 1865, northern voters fortified Abraham Lincoln’s administration as it oversaw the end of the institution of slavery and an unprecedented expansion in the size and scope of the federal government. Since the United States never considered suspending the democratic process during the Civil War, these revolutionary developments – indeed the entire war effort – depended on ballots as much as bullets. Why did civilians who, at the start of the conflict, had not anticipated or desired these transformations to their society nonetheless vote to uphold them? Between Extremes proposes an answer to this question by revealing a potent strand of centrist politics that took hold across the Union and provided the conservative rationales that allowed most northerners to accept the war’s radical outcomes.

‘A scintillating explanation of how, during the political turbulence of the Civil War, the American Union’s key state governors harnessed the electoral muscle of conservative centrist patriotism. Furniss’s astute examination, fresh in conception and compelling in argument, rightly casts the malleable Union party coalitions as essential to Lincoln’s purposes and national survival. Quite simply, a lasting gem of a book.’

RICHARD CARWARDINE

William Mallinson (1965-70)

The Real Story of the Relationship between Britain and Greece

There are thousands of books about England, on the one hand, and Greece, on the other, but none which looks specifically and critically at the story of the relationship between the two countries and their peoples, and in particular at how England has influenced modern Greece, not always to the latter’s benefit.

This book has been written by a former British diplomat with a Greek mother and English father, who has lived for the last 30 years in Greece. The book gives a true picture of the good, the bad and the ugly, warts and all, up until today, despite the efforts of various party-politically influenced academics and officials to play down embarrassing facts which do not fit their agenda. The book will appeal to discerning tourists as well as to international historians, Anglophiles and Hellenophiles, and will inject more transparency into the story, in order to rock the boat of apathy, rather than paper over the cracks, and thus promote and improve relations between these two countries.

William is a member of the editorial committee of the Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies. His books include Cyprus: A Modern History; Cyprus, Diplomatic History and the Clash of Theory in International Relations; Britain and Cyprus: Key Themes and Documents since World War Two; Kissinger and the Invasion of Cyprus; and Guicciardini, Geopolitics and Geohistory: Understanding Inter-State Relations

Nick Bromley (1958-62) Cakes and Ale:

Mr Robert Baddeley and his Twelfth Night Cakes

Nick Bromley’s book is a highly illustrated biography of the life and times of Baddeley, who was a member of Garrick’s company at Drury Lane for over 30 years. A sterling actor, he was married to the infamous Sophia Baddeley and fought a duel with George Garrick because of her. It also tells the story of the Baddeley Cakes which have been cut at Drury Lane on each January 6th from 1795 to the present day.

Cakes and Ale: Mr Robert Baddeley and his Twelfth Night Cakes explores the rich history of a beloved British tradition. It delves into the life of Mr Robert Baddeley, a renowned actor from the 18th century who was famous for his Twelfth Night cakes which remain an integral part of the festivities surrounding the Twelfth Night celebrations. The book offers a fascinating glimpse into the culinary and cultural significance of these delectable treats, providing a captivating read for anyone interested in British history, theatre, or gastronomy.

Bernard O’Keeffe (Honorary OP)

The Masked Band

Bernard O’Keeffe taught English at St Paul’s from 1994 to 2017 and was Senior Undermaster from 1997 to 2006. Since he retired, he has written a series of novels featuring DI Garibaldi, all of them set in Barnes.

The Masked Band is the fourth in the series. It starts with a concert. Mick Jagger, Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, David Bowie and Debbie Harry. They call themselves The Okay Boomers and it is quite some band. And it is quite incredible to see them playing the Bull’s Head in Barnes on a Sunday night.

But all is not as it seems. Behind life-like masks are five local celebrities. They are playing for fun and trying to keep their identities hidden, but when the body of a man is found at one of their houses their secret’s out. DI Garibaldi is on the case and he is soon asking a few questions.

Did the dead man fall from the first-floor window or was he pushed? Why was he wearing the Mick Jagger mask? And why have all the other masks disappeared? When members of the Okay Boomers are attacked by someone wearing those very masks, Garibaldi’s investigation closes in on each of the celebrities and he wonders what else they have been hiding.

Paradise Lost

Milton’s Epic About the Fall is Central to Christianity

Theo Hobson (1985-90), author of Milton’s Vision: The Birth of Christian Liberty discusses Paradise Lost and reviews What In Me Is Dark: The Revolutionary Life of Paradise Lost by Orlando Reade.

Paradise Lost is a very long poem written by John Milton (1620-25). It is a retelling of the Christian story of the Fall. Published in 1667, it was a staple of Englishspeaking culture for a few centuries, read by anyone with any claim to intelligence. Who reads it now?

While at School I did not try it: the aura of grand traditionalism was forbidding. At university I loved it. As a literature student with a strong interest in theology, that was not very surprising. Is the epic worth the attention of the general reader? It is hard to say. If you have no sympathy with its religious perspective, it is probably not for you. Of course, plenty of critics go on about its contemporary psychological and political relevance, but maybe they just want to write a book about something. I will come on to one of these critics shortly – first, my take on the poem.

As you might expect of a very long poem, some bits are more compelling than others. Some skipping and skimming is called for. Otherwise, you will probably give up in Book One (out of 12).

Of course you have to read the very first bit, in which Milton grandly presents himself as an inspired prophet and then introduces us to bolshy Satan. But once you have got a sense of the stormy antihero, feel free to glide over

the long political speeches in hell, which continue through most of Book Two. The start of Book Three is an interestingly weird conversation between God and Christ, then there is more of Satan’s tormented plotting. Again, feel free to skim it. Modern critics, starting with the Romantics, have over-egged Satan as the star of the epic: he is not, he is just a very naughty antichrist. The real star of the epic is Eden.

Maybe all the build-up is necessary, maybe all the grand CGI descriptions of cosmic space help us to believe in Eden, when we get there at last in Book Four. We partly see it through Satan’s eyes, as he comes aprowling. After some description of the lush landscape, we meet our first parents – and they are shockingly naked. The verbal camera lingers on Eve’s sexy hair which falls to her slender waist in ‘wanton ringlets’. It is a funny sort of para-porn, in which we are often reminded that the scene should not be viewed through the impure lens that we cannot help viewing it through –on one level we are dirty voyeurs like Satan. I find this thrillingly paradoxical, as well as more mundanely thrilling (yes, they do it).

The rest of the epic is a mix of happy (and then less happy) domestic scenes, and conversations with angels, who tell Adam about theological history (Eve goes off gardening preferring to hear

it later from Adam, so he can mix his teaching with kissing – a charming but sexist detail). There is a long description of war in heaven that you might want to skip. In Book Seven there is a lovely description of the creation of the world – for example we see mountains rising up, ‘their broad bare backs upheave / Into the clouds…’ But Book Eight is best of all: Adam recounts finding himself in Eden, at first alone, and then meeting Eve, and desiring her. She is bashful and reluctant, which does not make much theological or biological sense, but makes for a pleasing sex-scene –

As you might expect of a very long poem, some bits are more compelling than others.

‘To the nuptial bower / I led her blushing like the morn…’. There is also a lovely passage in which Adam tells the angel that his love of her feels excessive, a threat to rational and godly order: ‘All higher knowledge in her presence falls/ Degraded, wisdom in discourse with her / Looses discountenanced, and like folly shows…’ I remember finding these words very apt as a shy bookish love-struck undergraduate.

Paradise Lost

Spoiler alert: this sensual and horticultural bliss cannot last: Book Nine tells the drama of the Fall, in which a bit of flattery of Eve gets Satan everywhere. When she finally eats the famous fruit, the cosmic change is presented in ecological terms:

Earth felt the wound, and nature from her seat

Sighing through all her works gave signs of woe, That all was lost.

I happen to have re-read the epic during the pandemic – the odd silent Spring felt an appropriate setting for musing on the beauty of the natural world and humanity’s complicated fouling up of everything.

The description of Adam’s horror at her deed, but his decision nevertheless to join her, more through fear of loneliness than love, is surprisingly psychologically convincing – then there is one final, less wholesome sex-scene, of defiant and desperate carnality. The last two books deal with the fall-out and offer a preview of human history. As Samuel Johnson said, no one wishes it were longer.

So, what draws me to the epic is a mix of its grand religious purpose and its dramatic, psychological and aesthetic aspects. I am a bit wary of critics who ignore the former, and claim that it nowadays has huge importance, in secular cultural terms.

On the other hand, there is an interesting story to be told about its political and cultural afterlife, for the epic was frequently cited by all sorts of modern thinkers and writers, who found secular revolutionary energy in it. This goes against Milton’s intentions, for it is Satan who defies authority. But maybe not entirely, for Milton was a revolutionary republican and opponent of established churches, in the English civil war.

In a recent book, What In Me Is Dark: The Revolutionary Life of Paradise Lost, Orlando Reade explores this tangled history, with mixed results. First, we hear about the American revolutionaries’ love of Milton. Then we hear about the English Romantics. It was Blake who came up with one of the soundbites of literary history: because Satan is depicted so engagingly, Milton ‘was

a true Poet and of the Devil’s party without knowing it.’ But Reade focuses on Wordsworth – in fact on Dorothy as much as William. Their siblinghood was a sort of fragile Eden. Then we are reminded that in Mary Shelley’s famous novel, the sad monster actually reads Paradise Lost and learns to resent its creator, sensing itself to be ‘both Adam and Satan.’

brief comments on the epic are negligible, as is Reade’s disapproving response.

When he tries to tie up his thoughts about the epic’s relevance, they are as paltry as fig-leaves: ‘it reminds us that it is only in the world and not in any fantasy that we can be happy.’ Hmm. If Milton saw Eden as a distracting fantasy realm that humans should

I happen to have re-read the epic during the pandemic – the odd silent Spring felt an appropriate setting for musing on the beauty of the natural world and humanity’s complicated fouling up of everything.

Much of the rest of the book is concerned with slavery and its legacy. We hear of the epic’s influence on the first chronicler of the Haitian revolution, then on the abolitionist movement, then on the original New Orleans carnival, then on Malcolm X and C.L.R. James. Reade is also concerned with female readings: we hear about George Eliot and Virginia Woolf (but neither says anything very interesting about Milton as far as I can see). And Hannah Arendt is also given a section, though it seems she made only one tiny mention of Milton.

Reade interleaves this cultural history with a lively summary of the poem itself. But there are one or two missteps. When Satan first spies them, he says, Adam and Eve’s relationship ‘is already fraught with insecurities. Even as Milton describes his patriarchal Eden, he shows its difficulties.’ No: their relationship before the Fall is perfect. Milton’s imagining of it might contain sexist assumptions but it is, according to the logic of the narrative, perfect, and to question this is a category error.

At one point he refers to a passage in Malcom X’s autobiography that ‘has often been mentioned by modern scholars of Milton, hoping to make Paradise Lost seem relevant.’ This is a bit rich. His approach to the reception of the epic is one-sidedly trendy. A section on Jordan Peterson is perhaps an attempt at balance, but Peterson’s

reject, then it was an odd decision to write such a long poem about it. Sorry to be old-school – but this is surely a safe space! – but it seems to me that Milton wrote an epic about the Fall because it is very central to Christianity. It is annoying when someone wokesplains the epic’s relevance, ignoring its abiding purpose.

John Milton

Seventy-three Miltons

St Paul’s Librarian, Hilary Cummings, curates the works of John Milton in the Kayton Library Rare Book Collection. She writes:

Our last Treasures evening celebrated the work of John Milton, and we gaily committed to displaying everything by him in our Rare Books collection. We were discomfited to realise that we had too much to display easily. The Rare Books collection includes 73 books by Milton, many of these are very early editions, spanning both his political writings and his famous poem. It also includes a tiny edition of Paradise Lost which is only three inches tall.

Areopagitica; A Speech of Mr John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicenc’d Printing, to the Parliament of England is our earliest work, a first edition pamphlet dating from 1644. This is Milton’s passionate defence of free speech written at a time of heavy

censorship by the Crown. It also includes a favourite comment on the value of books:

“a good Book is the precious life-blood of a master-spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life”

The Doctrine And Discipline Of Divorce was also published in 1644 and ours is the expanded second edition. Milton had married in 1642 but his wife quickly left him and returned to live with her mother. There was no legal divorce at the time and in his pain and humiliation, Milton decided to try to convince the government to change the law. He was not successful and only succeeded in damaging his reputation: it was held that he only wanted divorce because he was a polygamist.

It is astonishing that this collection allows us to hold in our hands books held by both Robbie Burns and Napoleon.

As a supporter of the Commonwealth, Milton was commissioned to write Eikonoklastes [Image Breaker] in response to King Charles I’s Eikon Basilike [Portrait of the King]

This work had been published in February 1649, just after the King’s execution, and emphasised his religious principles and the purity of his political motives. It was enormously popular, much to the irritation of the new Commonwealth, thus the attempted rapid rebuttal via Eikonoklastes published later the same year. Milton argued that tyranny is inherent in all monarchies and described the late King as “Gentlemen indeed; the ragged Infantrie of Stewes and Brothels”. Unfortunately for Milton the restoration of King Charles II put him on the wrong side and he spent some time imprisoned for anti-monarchist views.

We are very lucky to have a copy of the original Paradise Lost: A Poem Written in Ten Books published in 1669 and donated by Osborne Aldis at an unknown date. This is a first edition, but a 7th impression. The original work had caused consternation by starting the verse immediately after the title page, a reader complained this was neither “usual nor handsome”. In the later impressions ‘Arguments’ were

written to ease the transition, and in ours there is a note from the printer saying that explanatory arguments have been added “for the satisfaction of many who desired it”. He adds that this will also give “a reason of that which stumbled many others, why the Poem Rimes not”, a topic still discussed in scholarly works today. Our copy also has printing errors which has allowed scholars to track the printing sequence.

Five years later Milton had reworked Paradise Lost into the twelve-book text we know today. Our 1674 copy is a first edition of the revised work, with the poem now split into 12 books, each with its Argument preceding the verse. It was previously owned by John Grant of Reading who was Oculist to His Majesty: able to diagnose and treat eye disorders, including an early form of cataract surgery. We sadly have no record of how his book came to be part of our collection.

Paradis Perdu, a French translation by Jacques Delille which was published in 1805 always creates great interest when we display it. This copy has the ownership stamp of Napoleon’s St Helena library and was presumably part of the consignment of 50 boxes of books he took into exile. After Napoleon died his belongings were sold at Sotheby’s in 1823. The book passed into the ownership of The Lord Gower and later arrived at St Paul’s via an unknown donor.

A real treasure is the two-volume edition of Poetical Works from 1770 previously owned by Robbie Burns with his ownership signature in each. One volume has a handwritten note inside the cover by Mrs H Cromek dated July 8th, 1833, saying she had received them from the poet’s widow via her father. There is a note of ownership inside for a Lord Monboddo, although sadly it is not dated. It was presented to the School by John Watney, again we do not know when. It is astonishing that this collection allows us to hold in our hands books held by both Robbie Burns and Napoleon. Paradise Lost is still taught for A Level English and it is exciting to be able to show pupils the original works and discuss with them Milton’s life. These books also show us Milton’s readers, the people who bought the books, read them and kept them safely for us to enjoy today.

Paradis Perdu

The two-volume edition of Poetical Works owned and signed by Robbie Burns

‘Oh

What Fun We Had’

Richard Davenport-Hines (1967-71) fondly remembers being gay at St Paul’s

John Venning’s (English Department 1989-2014) conversations with gay men who feel aggrieved by their treatment as pupils at St Paul’s make hard reading. I do not want to detract from anything they have said, but my experience, as a Pauline in 1967-71, differed in significant ways.

Tom Howarth was High Master (1962-73) in my time: a lonely, complicated, anxious man, who muffed any expression of his generous and affectionate nature while he was head of St Paul’s, but showed it readily in his next post as a Cambridge don. He was the antithesis of an earlier headmaster of Marlborough who suppressed a school magazine after it had satirised philistinism and preached a sermon against intellectual arrogance.

Tom admired intellectual arrogance when it was stylishly displayed and not doctrinally based. He thought egalitarianism was philistine claptrap in schools and society. He upheld diversity based on mental outlook and emotional type rather than ethnicity or class. At St Paul’s he encouraged nonconformity when it was accompanied by hard work.

Apart from Terry Etherton (1963-68), John Venning’s interlocutors are too young to have known Howarth’s exacting but liberal rule.

I knew that I was attracted to other boys by the time that I was five or six. This was my secret; but a privileged and enriching – not a shameful – secret. I enjoyed the sense of being different, and of having a private knowledge of myself that no one else could infiltrate. By the time that I reached St Paul’s I knew that my nature gave me perceptions, insights and a singularity of outlook that were advantageous and enjoyable.

I was overt in my behaviour. I lisped, I gesticulated, I talked about Proust, I tried to coin epigrams.

Richard Davenport-Hines

Richard at St Paul’s

I was overt in my behaviour. I lisped, I gesticulated, I talked about Proust, I tried to coin epigrams. A worldly-wise boy, Nick Kotch (1966-71), warned me that I was not going to succeed in life if I kept my ‘Etonian’ accent so I must have been plummy as well as camp. On one occasion, in my first year as a Pauline, my rhotacism made it seem that I had spoken obscenely to my French master. He was enraged until several boys in the class shouted affectionately on my behalf: ‘He can’t help it, Sir. He doesn’t mean it. He can’t pronounce the letter R.’ Evidently my mannerisms were semi-endearing. I do not recall hostile epithets being flung at me. If they were, I did not notice or care. I was not jostled or bullied in any way. I never felt isolated or shunned. Sports masters gave no trouble. At Osterley cricket matches I was sent to the boundary where I spent my time making daisy chains. It was my special pride at rugby never to get flecked with mud.

I thought, and still think, that the business of ‘coming out’ ought to be unnecessary. It smacks too much of asking for permission, or of putting oneself in a position of supplicant inferiority. Nevertheless, I did ‘come out’ twice at St Paul’s. The first time was a speech at the Chesterton debating society, when I was quite young. I made a bravura performance recounting a recent incident in which I had been queer-bashed, with punches and shoves, by Hammersmith roughs in a pedestrian subway. Boys crowded into the debating room: I was cheered and cheered when I admitted that there had been a thrill in the experience.

In my experience it was a tolerant school. Among my contemporaries there was a boy bursting with vitality and enterprise, obviously marked for a great future, and wholly heterosexual, who liked to cross-dress.

On another occasion I mentioned my sexuality to Ron Popper (1967-71), who was the best type of Pauline, a practical-minded idealist (he subsequently took on the job of trying to convert Swiss banks to ethical investment). He gave a big affectionate smile and started

quizzing me with characteristically well-organised curiosity about states of mind, rituals, partners and activities. I contrast Ron with Robert, who personified to me the worst type of Pauline: showily articulate, shallow and conceited, mollycoddled by a protoTiger Mother, he asked me: ‘Why do you keep pretending to be gay?’

The saddest memory of my time at St Paul’s concerns a gentle, funny boy called Tim. He was besotted with the actress Glenda Jackson, of whom he did winning imitations, and theatrical in his interests. I once said to him, as a statement of the obvious, that he was gay. He recoiled, literally jumped back while putting out his hands in dismay, and cried, ‘No, no! I’m NOT gay! No, how can you say that?’ He was terrified. We did not talk much after that. He died young, of the virus that killed many of my generation.

Tim was scared and isolated, but whether that was much St Paul’s fault I doubt. In my experience it was a tolerant school. Among my contemporaries there was a boy bursting with vitality and enterprise, obviously marked for a great future, and wholly heterosexual, who liked to cross-dress. On Friday afternoons he would emerge from his carrel in a sequinned ballgown, twirling a fake row of pearls, and serenade us with music-hall songs. Tom Howarth’s school was a place where self-confident eccentricity was appreciated.

I suspect the School changed in the 1980s as a result of the panic about HIV aroused by the gutter press. It was difficult to keep balance in a period when a Daily Express editorial of 1986 could say that the majority of Britons believed that ‘the homosexuals who have brought this plague upon us should be locked up. Burning is too good for them. Bury them in a pit and pour on quick-lime.’ The Conservative government’s sponsorship of the iniquitous Section 28 in 1987-88 had regressive results throughout education. One cannot expect St Paul’s to have been immune to the nastier national temper: the then High Master was later nominated to a peerage by a Conservative prime minister.

In my time, parents sent their sons to school and left the teachers to do their best. We would have been 

Richard’s books

mortified if our parents started telephoning the school, criticising classroom methods, and trying to turn education into a high-performance rat-race. I gather this changed in the 1980s when teachers first had to cope with interventionist parents. Possibly, too, in that period, a few repressive fathers made representations which changed the School’s mood on sexuality. I know one Pauline who was banned from the house of a sexually unassailable schoolfriend by the boy’s father, who thought him flirty.

Compared to friends who went to state schools, I had an easy time at St Paul’s. My contemporaries were acceptant, relaxed and humorous. One boy took me as his confidante and regaled me with tales of his doings with his girlfriend on Saturday nights when their parents were out. I think he chose me as someone to whom he could talk in a softer way than if he was bragging to other straight boys. I loved these intimate confidences and envied the girlfriend in the candle-lit bedroom with the scented sheets.

Both at School and at Cambridge I found that youths who were highly sexed, and secure in the knowledge of their heterosexuality, might be willing to get off with me when nothing better was available. A binary attitude to sexual partners seemed such a waste of possibilities. In the 1980s I went to three weddings in a row where I had slept with the groom ten years earlier. My contemporaries who were committedly, rather than opportunistically, homosexual were often too tense and inhibited to do anything about it.

I had a valued friend, Mark, who was gentle, thoughtful, considerate, socially responsible, and exclusively interested in girls. When I suggested that we go to bed together, he replied with great charm, ‘If I was going to go to bed with a boy, it would be you – but I’m not.’ Mark was too peaceful, and lacking in competitive spirit, to be Oxbridge material. The School hierarchy accordingly devalued him, and I doubt if he was even congratulated on gaining a place at Newcastle University. In adult life, he worked in a heroically difficult area of social service and has done greater good than most of us. It is hard to forgive

the way that St Paul’s hurt his selfconfidence and demeaned many decent pupils who were not up to the top marks.

Home, in my experience, is a claustrophobic fortress island which restricts a child’s conduct and outlook. School is an airy archipelago with free movement between its parts. Many Paulines, in their home lives, were segregated from the wider world by parental neuroses, prejudices, and possessiveness.

But the superb Pauline teaching in Tom Howarth’s time desegregated many of us. The History department gave me unfettered scope to think. Best of all, Gerald MacCarthy’s (1969-72) English A Level teaching changed my life by providing sumptuous reading-lists, which veered entirely off syllabus.

But the superb Pauline teaching in Tom Howarth’s time desegregated many of us. The History Department including Hugh Mead (1966-86) and Peter Thomson (1961-84), gave me unfettered scope to think. Best of all, Gerald MacCarthy’s (1969-72) English A Level teaching changed my life by providing sumptuous reading-lists, which veered entirely off syllabus. I remember Gerald discussing an essay in which I had drawn parallels between the queerness in Catcher in the Rye and Brideshead Revisited. Such candour was easy at St Paul’s in the Howarth years. Probably it became less permissible in the decade of Section 28.

The unlikely sequel to these adventures is that I married with great joy and fathered a Pauline and a Bedalian. But that is a different story, in which Tom Howarth’s enlightened regime played no part.

Richard’s books

Mark Rosenblatt

(1990-95)

Giant’s author Mark Rosenblatt (1990-95) had worked as a theatre director for many years but never saw himself as a playwright, until the idea for this play came along, as he explains to Theo Hobson (1985-90).

One of last year’s most highly praised new plays was Giant, about an episode in the life of Roald Dahl. It premièred at the Royal Court Theatre, starring John Lithgow. Having written an article strongly critical of Israel in 1983, Dahl was accused of antisemitism; he faced the choice of whether to soften his views or risk alienating a sector of his readership. 

Mark Rosenblatt

TH: I am guessing your schooldays involved a lot of drama?

MR: Yeah, I was in a lot of School plays and even started directing there – I directed a play in the Milton Studio, a year or two after it opened. I think it was a fairly new thing, for boys to start their own projects. It was an amazing opportunity.

TH: And this continued at university?

MR: Yes, I did a lot of acting and directing, to the neglect of my degree. And after university I focused on directing.

TH: But you never felt the impulse to write? You felt there were enough plays around?

MR: I’d written for film a little bit, and worked with playwrights on lots of projects, sometimes even conceiving a play with a writer, but it never occurred to me to write a play from scratch. Then I had an idea,

and pitched it to Nick Hytner back in 2018, assuming that we’d find a writer. But when he heard me pitch it, he suggested that I write it myself.

TH: He saw that the story was personal to you?

MR: Very much so, yes – it was something that I was quite politically angry about.

TH: Well, can I get on to that by backtracking, and asking about your first experience of reading Roald Dahl?

MR: I’d always loved his books. They were the imaginative wallpaper of my childhood. I’ve got two kids now, so they’re part of my life again. Of course, when I was young, I wasn’t conscious of his reputation for antisemitism, and I don’t think my parents were either – not enough to steer me away from him.

TH: Yes, I think it only became widely discussed ten or 15 years ago. Do you now look on his books differently?

MR: I guess there is something of the essence of a conspiracy theory that you can see traces of in some of his stories; he’s interested in what happens when someone is the victim of adults working in cahoots, or oppressive structures bearing down on good innocent people. In my play this comes up when Dahl’s American publisher asks him to consider this in relation to The Witches – of how the idea of a secret conspiracy of witches might be perceived in the light of Dahl’s recently published antisemitic opinions. I don’t think Dahl intends this, but in that book the witches do bear some of the hallmarks of antisemitic conspiracy theory! Needless to say, Dahl isn’t best pleased.

TH: So, the play focuses on an incident in which he was in danger of being cancelled, as they didn’t say back in 1983, after writing an article attacking Israel’s recent invasion of Lebanon. That argument really happened?

MR: Yes, there was a substantial press reaction to his article, and soon he gave an interview in which he doubled down on his views. But I invented the visit of his publishers to his house, to try to reason with him, which is the central action of the play.

TH: The surprising thing is that his reputation didn’t really suffer – even after he said some pretty extreme things in that interview, his reputation wasn’t really damaged, in his lifetime. Does that show that society was more forgiving of antisemitism then?

MR: Er, possibly. It’s also worth noting that there was no social media to fan the flames of such controversies, so the ruckus in the press was more localised. In the play, Dahl is confident that it will blow over; he says that children don’t read the New York Times

TH: Maybe antisemitism was changing at that time. After the Second World War, it seemed to be on the wane, with the

Mark Rosenblatt

Holocaust creating a lot of sympathy, then maybe it re-emerged around this time, with Israel becoming more of a focus?

MR: Yes, maybe the old clubroom antisemitism of English tradition was catalysed in a new way, with Israel giving people a new target.

TH: Were you aware of antisemitism in British culture when you were growing up?

MR: Not really, but I had a few odd comments at school – at primary school actually, not St Paul’s, that reflect the old clubroom thing. I put a couple of them in the play – the Jewish publisher character recalls kids dropping coins in the playground, and when he picked them up, they taunted him for being Jewish. And there’s a comment about Jews having horns –that happened to my wife, at her sixth-form college. Often these comments are said in a jokey way, but they connect down to something insanely medieval.

TH: You wrote the play long before the war in Gaza but its staging has been pretty timely, hasn’t it? Maybe the play provides a slightly distanced way for people to reflect on the current conflict?

MR: Yes, because it deals with an earlier phase of Israel’s history, it is not so in your face, not too close to the bone. And there are extraordinary similarities between what happened in 1982/83 and what is happening now, but also enough differences to create a bit of distance. I think you need that distance: I would never think of writing a play about what is happening right now, it’s all far too raw.

TH: Can I ask a general question about Judaism and theatre? Do you feel there is a distinctive Jewish theatrical tradition?

MR: It’s a huge question, really hard to do justice to here but it’s well established that the American musical has roots in the New York Yiddish theatre, from sentimental Yiddish musicals to the immigrant experience melodramas and angry socialist issue plays, even taking melodies from synagogues, for

example. And possibly the moral and dialectical arguments in, say, an Arthur Miller play have a Jewish influence, but of course there are lots of non-Jewish playwrights with a similar approach, so it’s hard to be definitive. But few would dispute that the wave of Jewish immigration into the States in the early 20th century, and the theatre they made to define their experiences had a hugely formative influence on modern American theatre. In Britain it’s subtler, but Harold Pinter and Arnold Wesker certainly put their Jewishness on stage, directly and indirectly.

TH: Finally – as a parent of young kids, what do you think about recent children’s books – are they all a bit tame after Dahl?

MR: Not all! But I suppose, yes, even David Walliams, who tries to imitate Dahl, doesn’t have quite the same darkness. I think there’s a moralistic and punitive side that comes from the different school experience of Dahl’s generation – recent writers didn’t get sadistically caned!

TH: Also, we’re less judgemental about horrible, spoiled children. We blame the parents or the culture.

MR: Yes, in his day corporal punishment was seen as the obvious answer to all bad behaviour – now we try to find the causes of it. Which is a good thing – whatever its effects on the quality of children’s literature!

Giant, starring John Lithgow, is showing at the Harold Pinter Theatre in the West End until early August 2025.

A scene from Giant

Modernism and Laurence Binyon’s Manuscripts

Theo Frankel (current Eighth Former) chose Old Pauline, Laurence Binyon (1881-88) for his essay that won the High Master’s Prize.

“We must remould it in the fire of our necessities, we must make it new and our own.”

In 1933, Laurence Binyon published his translation of Dante’s Inferno that aimed to preserve the terza rima of the original poem, and this translation piqued the interest of active literary critic and modernist Ezra Pound. The two had exchanged correspondence previously, but this could not be called a friendship due to their respective literary traditions: Binyon wrote in a style Pound sought to overturn. However, his translation greatly impressed Pound, and consequently they became close acquaintances, sending letters between Massachusetts and London, with Pound being the only person Binyon would trust to comment on his translation of Purgatorio and Paradiso. At first, it would seem as though Binyon’s use of anachronistic and florid language, as well as his focus on classical figures and nature is in opposition to the fragmented and concise style of Pound. However, Binyon lived through the same troubled era as his modernist contemporaries and World War One particularly shook him, with him soon becoming known as a war poet.

Laurence Binyon,

by William Strang

In contrast to other writers who, in the wake of intellectual and political revolution sought to reject the past and ‘make it new’ (Pound, 1928), Binyon turned to the past, drawing upon tradition to bring truth to the 20th century. The original manuscripts of a varied collection of his poems demonstrate an understanding of both precise use of literary techniques, as well as a concern with light and colours due to his job as an art historian. Ultimately, it will become evident that Binyon’s position within the modernist movement was one that drew upon the established literary canon, in particular the Romantics, in order to apply historical thought to the modern era. This was spurred on by the First World War and Binyon’s famous relationship with it, as well as his position as an art historian and classicist due to a heightened understanding of the past.

Binyon’s relationship with Pound before his translation of Inferno was infrequent: occasional references in letters and reviews suggest they met through mutual friend Wyndham Lewis, and that Pound had read Binyon’s book Painting in the Far East However, they became so close afterwards and held each other in such high esteem that Pound’s review of said translation opened: ‘The venerable Binyon has, I am glad to say, produced the most interesting English version of Dante that I have seen or expect to see’ (1934, cited in Fitzgerald, 1981, p.492). Binyon expressed surprise at Pound’s acclaim and asked him to proofread his translation. By this point, Pound even referred to him as ‘my dear BinBin’ (cited in Fitzgerald, p.496). Pound’s comments on his translation commended Binyon’s precise use of language, in particular noting his commitment to masculine and feminine rhymes, the inversion of word order and the lack of excessive words. Binyon’s translation and writing process are evidenced in his manuscript titled Virgil and Beatrice. While at first, it appears to be an unpublished poem, on closer inspection it is an early attempt to translate one section of Canto II. This was written in 1926, but his full translation was published in 1933, so this manuscript is useful to see how he revised his drafts over seven years, and interestingly, very little is changed from the published version. While there are changes within the manuscript, changes between the manuscript and the publication are largely to do with word order or minor changes. For example, he changes ‘of what I have heard from’ to ‘I have heard of him’, or ‘To know desirest’

Weygandt said ‘If Mr. Laurence Binyon were a painter, he could not be more concerned with the color and form of things’.

to ‘desirest knowledge’ (1926 pp.1-2 & 1933). His ability to maintain an effective translation without many corrections demonstrates a strong ability for translation, and therefore, strengthens Pound’s praise due to his talent. However, there are far more corrections within the manuscript. Some are translation based corrections, such as changing ‘shrink his’ to ‘quicken his’ to ‘rescue’, or ‘eager in’ to ‘prompt in my’ back to ‘eager in’ (1926, pp.1-4). These demonstrate a desire for close accuracy to Dante’s written word, and therefore a respect for his literary predecessors. However, he also exercises his creativity when making stylistic translations, such as ‘like the stars, yet stars shine less’, to ‘like a star, yet stars shine less’, to ‘the morning star shines less’ (p.1). Here, the continual progression of individuality and titlehood of the star referenced in the simile and later metaphor demonstrates his attempts to increase the significance of what Beatrice’s eyes are compared to. Similarly, he seemed to struggle with the final line in the Canto, changing it from ‘Just entered on the pathway steep and dread’ to ‘Just entered upon the path, dismal and dread’, to ‘Begun the steep and dismal path of dread’ (p.4). The only significant stylistic change in the published version was he then changed this line to ‘Began the desolate, arduous path to tread’ (1933). This evidences his commitment to maintaining the rhyme scheme used by Dante but found difficulty in choosing adjectives to describe the path. The final description is the most dramatic of them all, demonstrating how he wanted to show the extremity of the narrator’s journey. By embellishing the descriptions in both of these descriptions, Binyon wanted a powerful story when translating the poem. He was not an Italian scholar, so while he was attentive to Dante’s voice, he also wished to write a poetically captivating translation with an importance placed on accuracy. This demonstrates the main part of Binyon’s quasi-modernist ideology: that he wishes to draw upon history, rather than overwrite it in order to create understanding in the modern day.

His understanding of tradition and its place in the present day is linked to his studies of Eastern art. He was interested in how particularly Japanese artists had a strong emphasis on their past, while acknowledging the contradictions between ideas in the present day and history. Critic Holaday tied this to Western modernism’s rejection of the past, saying ‘According

Fetching the Wounded

The Burning of the Leaves

to Binyon, it is the paradoxical nature of the Oriental artist’s relationship to his tradition, … that allows the constant renewal of the tradition. Pound’s own career can be said to have been founded upon the imitation of the tradition, … and the testing of it, the straining against the lines to ‘make it new’’(1977, p.30). This demonstrates that Binyon’s work on Eastern art which Pound read may have influenced Pound’s theories, and likely affected Binyon’s position on modernism. He demonstrated an interest in tradition and classics from a young age, as he studied Literae Humaniores at Oxford, and his first commended poem was Niobe. This poem was composed for Apposition at St Paul’s School, where he studied, and won the School’s Milton composition prize (Lupton, 1887, p.543). The language used in the poem is grandiose and florid, using phrases such as ‘Have ye forgotten utterly to love’ to emphasise the despair and force of her emotions (n.d., p.1). He considers her feelings and narrates her story in the style of the Romantics, with clear influence from Keats, granting classical figures original voices. Binyon would go on to edit a collection of Keats’s poems and essays on him, demonstrating admiration for his predecessor. Southworth says, ‘He does not look to the past either as a means of escape from the present or as a period when life was better than it now is’ (1935, p.342), demonstrating his attention to the past as a source to gain knowledge from. His dedication to both classical characters and the literary greats demonstrates his interest in tradition and ancestry.

The influence of his studies of both art and the Romantic poets is also evident within his manuscripts. Weygandt said ‘If Mr. Laurence Binyon were a painter, he could not be more concerned with the color and form of things’ (1905, p.279), demonstrating a link between his studies of art and his writing. In Binyon’s manuscripts, this is evidenced by the constant revisions of words relating to colour and luminosity. For example, in Fetching the Wounded, he changes ‘their every’ to ‘each luminous’, or ‘a charred’ to ‘the shadowy’ (1916?, pp.1-2). He pays close attention to words relating to light, often overriding them for words unrelated to colour, such as changing ‘lighten’ to ‘deliver’ in Virgil and Beatrice (1926, p.1). This evidences how luminous words in particular catch his attention. Alternatively, he uses the reverse; adding a colourful word in order to embellish

Binyon was too old to fight despite his wishes to be on the front lines in the early months of the war. Instead, he worked as an orderly for the Red Cross and was often tasked with collecting dead bodies

the visual description. For example, the metaphor in Death of Adam; ‘That rose and sank nine silent suns’, he changed to ‘that waxed and waned each heavy day’ (1904, p.6) Here, he chose to remove the detail of the number of days, replacing it with more description of the light’s properties, which demonstrates the importance placed on luminosity. Additionally, his own essay on Keats praised his ‘richness of colour and harmony of form’ (Binyon, cited in Weygandt, 1905, p.280), evidencing that the traits he admired from his predecessors, he wished to use in his own poetry. This demonstrates that Binyon had a clear eye for light and colour which he developed from his career in art, and by looking at Romantic writers. Corbett says Binyon’s ‘Late-Romantic aesthetics are based on the same dissatisfaction with nineteenth-century western culture that the modernists felt in 1914’ (1997, p.184), and therefore Binyon’s inspiration drawn from both previous writers and Eastern art demonstrates his relation to modernism by using an alternative method of expression.

As well as Binyon’s inspiration from the past, there is also direct evidence of his opinions relating to the events of his time. Binyon is most famous as a war poet, and his poem For the Fallen is often recited at Remembrance Day, in particular the line, ‘At the going down of the sun, and in the morning. / We will remember them’ (2016, p.25). The poem was described as the ‘focal expression of national grief’ (Hatcher, 2004, p.779), and although Binyon was supportive of the First World War initially, as it went on soon became critical of any decisions to prolong it. This line demonstrates in particular the grief he and many others felt, as the final line in the stanza ends abruptly, with far fewer syllables than any other line in the poem, evidencing the shock and damage felt by those who lost someone. This line also echoes one of the changes made in the Death of Adam manuscript, as he changed ‘Remembrance on remembrance gathering grows’ to ‘memory upon memory’ (1904, p.3), evidencing an interest in the power of memory. This is linked to his interest in tradition, as by drawing on memory we can preserve our ancestors and their practices, which he has a strong belief in maintaining. We can also see his apprehension for conflict in the manuscript of his poem Fetching the Wounded. Binyon was too old to fight despite his wishes to be on the front lines in the early months of the war.

Binyon's books

Instead, he worked as an orderly for the Red Cross and was often tasked with collecting dead bodies from any conflict. This experience traumatised him, and the changes in the manuscript reflect how he wished for the scale of the conflict to be shown. As previously mentioned, he was concerned with light, and this is prevalent in Fetching the Wounded, where he often embellishes the gothic atmosphere presented. For example, in the published version, ‘dazzling’ was changed to ‘gloom-surrounded’, removing any light or imagery of hope, and making darkness seem more pervasive (1916?, p.1 & 2016, p.33). However, he changes the description of the ethereal flowers from ‘separate’ to ‘intimate’, portraying nature as a dreamlike source of hope. This demonstrates Southworth’s claim; ‘in spite of the apparent chaos of twentieth century civilization, beauty, serenity, and the abundant life are still attainable’, evidencing his belief in the power of nature and beauty in the modern day (1935, p.341).

He also demonstrates a strong belief in individuality and freedom here. ‘Each man’ was changed to ‘where each’, anonymising and sterilising the bodies and removing their humanity, demonstrating the brutality of the conflict (1916?, p.1). There is evidence of his individuality since his youth, as the student magazine The Pauline when he was a schoolboy describes how he debated in favour of ‘“Que la conscription est nuisible,”[Conscription is harmful]’. Additionally, ‘“Que la monarchie est une institution peu civilisée et doit être abolie en Angleterre,”[The monarchy is an uncivilised institution and must be abolished in England] was proposed by Binyon, [who] delivered an ingenious and somewhat impassioned speech’ (Lupton, 1888, p.664). The title quote of this essay, taken from his essay The Art of Botticelli on the necessity of change, demonstrates that Binyon was a firm believer in change, as he believes we must reforge the past (1913, cited in Corbett, 1997, p.183). While he draws inspiration from history, that doesn’t mean solely relying on tradition, as he is happy to overthrow the monarchy. Instead, he believes in taking what is necessary to carry forwards. Therefore, Binyon’s combination of a belief in individuality, grief faced after the First World War and interest in memory closely links him to the modernist movement as he shares many similar goals and beliefs, but differed in his method of portraying them.

In conclusion, Laurence Binyon had an extremely important position within the modernist movement, influencing younger writers and reflecting their views. His work on a terza rima translation of Dante’s Inferno was highly praised by Ezra Pound. Although the two practised two antithetical literary styles, they demonstrated similar beliefs in drawing upon the past and building upon or reforging it. In turn, Binyon’s theories of studying and embellishing upon tradition, based on his work as an art historian, was linked to his studies of both classical figures and canonical writers.

Binyon’s combination of a belief in individuality, grief faced after the First World War, and interest in memory, closely links him to the modernist movement.

This theory was likely shared with Pound through his essays on Orientalist art and shared many similarities with other modernist theories. Additionally, he demonstrated a passion for freedom from a young age, as well as an anger towards conflict and a belief in the power of memory that made him similar in opinion to younger poets of the time. Meanwhile, changes made in his manuscripts evidence his passion for art and inspiration drawn from Romantic writers, as well as his grief after working for the Red Cross. His skill and attention paid to Dante in translation are easily seen, which evidences the importance placed on the literary canon. Therefore, this all demonstrates his close ties to the modernist movement, as although his writing style may have been more similar to the Romantics, what he expresses and his opinions are similar to those across the western world, as people tried to search for meaning in a fragmented world.

For the Fallen in the British Library

Laurence Binyon

Museums, Parents and Paulines

David Herman (1973-75) describes the place of John Ayers, JB Trapp and Michael Kauffmann in the pantheon of British high culture.

When I arrived at St Paul’s in the mid-1970s one thing that struck me was how many of my friends’ parents did such diverse and interesting things. One was the son of the Controller of Radio 4 and the woman who founded Playschool; another was the son of an academic at the LSE; someone else was the son of Britain’s most famous playwright; and a fourth was the son of two art publishers, the grandson of the Viennese Jew who founded Phaidon Books and the nephew of a leading composer, who soon after I left school was to write the title music for Rumpole of the Bailey.

Then there was a cluster of parents who were museum curators and directors. One of my closest friends, a brilliant young medieval historian, is now a professor in the history of art and the editor of The History of British Art, 600-1600. He was the son of John Ayers, an acclaimed scholar who worked for many years at the V&A. In 1970 he had become the first head of the newly created Far Eastern department. He was the author of books such as Oriental Art in the Victoria and Albert Museum, Far Eastern Ceramics in the Victoria and Albert Museum, Chinese Ceramics: The Koger Collection and The Seligman Collection of Oriental Art, Volume 2: Chinese and Korean Pottery. He died in 2021 having published his threevolume catalogue of Chinese and Japanese Works of Art (2016) in the Royal Collection in his 90s.

Tim Ayers (1971-75) and I were both prefects in 1975 along with Michael Trapp (1970-75), who later read Greats at Corpus Christi, Oxford and wrote his DPhil on the second-century platonising

orator (and representer of Socrates), Maximus of Tyre. He came to the University of London in 1984, teaching first at Birkbeck College, and moving to King’s in 1989, where he specialised in Greek literature and thought of the first two centuries CE, and the reception of the ancient world, with special reference to the figure of Socrates. Michael’s brother, another Pauline, is James (1972-77). He has worked as the China Education Manager at the British Museum and the UCL’s Confucius Institute.

Michael and James were the sons of JB Trapp, a librarian and scholar who spent much of his career at the Warburg Institute. He was born in New Zealand and came to England in 1951 and became assistant librarian at the Warburg. According to a tribute in the British Academy, “Joe Trapp was to become the embodiment as well as the resolute defender of the Warburg’s multidisciplinary approach and commitment to the disinterested pursuit of knowledge.” In 1959 he was appointed assistant to the new

Director, Ernst Gombrich. Until his retirement, according to Elizabeth McGrath’s tribute, “nothing produced by or for the Institute from the mid1950s until his retirement in 1990 was not to some degree Joe’s editorial responsibility, and he continued to help with the Journal right up until his death.”

JB Trapp was a close friend of Michael Kauffmann (1943-48) and his wife, Dorothy; Claus Michael Kauffmann FBA was one of that extraordinary generation of Jewish refugees who came to Britain in the 1930s and enriched post-war British culture.

Michael was born in Frankfurt in 1931, where his father, Arthur Kauffmann, was director of the Frankfurt branch of the auction house, Hugo Helbing. In 1938, Michael was sent to England, to live with his uncle and aunt in Lancashire and went to Clitheroe Grammar School. His parents fled Nazi Germany for London a little later. It was only in 1943, that Michael moved to St Paul’s, then in its temporary home in Berkshire, until it returned

to London at the end of the second world war.

He studied History at Merton College, Oxford, before returning to London to take his PhD at the Warburg Institute in 1957. His thesis was on the 10 illustrated manuscripts of a 13th-century poem on the Roman baths at Pozzuoli, near Naples. This led to a job at the Warburg, then the Manchester City Art Gallery, before moving to the Victoria & Albert Museum’s Department of Prints, Drawings and Paintings as Asst. Keeper from 1960-75 (during which he was also Asst. to the Director, 1963-66), and then Keeper from 1975-85.

He was then Director of The Courtauld from 1985-1995, where he brought the Gallery and the Institute back together in Somerset House, managing the great “move in”. Whilst working at the V&A and cataloguing the paintings collection, he continued to pursue his work as a medievalist and expert on the study of Romanesque manuscripts.

He completed his major work Romanesque Manuscripts 1066-1190 in 1975 in the path-breaking Harvey Miller series. A survey of manuscripts illuminated in the British Isles. After retiring from The Courtauld he was able to return to the study of manuscripts: his book Biblical Imagery in Medieval England 700-1550 was based on courses he had taught at the Institute. The subject of his last major publication, Eve’s Apple to the Last Supper, was about the illustrations of scenes of food and meals recounted in the Bible. Michael was made a Fellow of the British Academy in 1987. He was the father of two Paulines, Francis (1971-75) and Martin (1975-79)

These three figures were all distinguished scholars. But their sons’ relationships to St Paul’s tells us an interesting story about British culture and about the School itself. What might be immediately striking to present-day readers of Atrium is how museum keepers and curators could afford to send one or even two sons to St Paul’s. Not just people working at

the Courtauld, the Warburg or the V&A, but also some of those I mentioned earlier – at the BBC, the LSE, art publishers. Post-war Britain was another country. It was more cultured, more highbrow, a place of great cultural institutions which achieved worldwide reputations.

This raises a second, more troubling question. What can be done to enable such parents to send their children to St Paul’s today and perhaps follow in the footsteps of this remarkable generation of scholars and museum curators, and, indeed, their sons, who have also had such distinguished careers over the past 40 years. This is not (excuse the pun) an academic question. It is at the very core of the future of the School and I wish the present High Master and her successors every success in solving these questions and ensuring the future success of St Paul’s and, with it, of high culture in Britain.

Above left: JB Trapp

Above right: book by John Ayers

Right: Michael Kauffmann

Jeremy Withers Green (1975-80) meets an American Vietnam Veteran

Ross Fenton

“Honour

the Veteran not the War”

Americans at St Paul’s in the 1960s were rare beasts when Ross Fenton (1963-65), whose father was an oil executive living in St John’s Wood, arrived for his A Levels. Known inevitably as ‘The Colonial’, Ross rowed in the 1st VIII before leaving to attend Brown University in Rhode Island where he read Economics and rowed in the freshman crew. He left after a year to enlist in the US Army in 1967. Posted to Vietnam, Ross served for 13 months outside Saigon, mostly at the Ton Son Nhut Air Base. He was awarded the Army Commendation Medal. Returning to the USA, Ross completed his tour of service at Fort Devens, Massachusetts where he met his future wife, Kathleen. 1st

In 1970 Ross went back to Brown to complete his degree. He found that Vietnam veterans were often not understood. His English Professor asked the class to write a composition, and Ross chose to discuss the conflict of having volunteered to serve his country in the Army, the guilt of seeing a country and its people being bombed and killed and there being no end in sight for peace. The Professor rejected his thinking as being ‘hogwash – it can’t be like that.’ It was then that Ross told the Professor, ‘I was there.’ It was in May of that year that the National Guard killed and wounded unarmed students at Kent State University prompting Ross to join Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), heading the Rhode Island Chapter. This is the moment when Elise Lemire’s book Battle Green Vietnam takes up Ross’s story. He is one of the veterans she features as she describes the march from Concord to

Boston – the reverse of the route that Paul Revere took in 1775 on his midnight ride – and during the occupation of Lexington Green on Memorial Day in 1971.

P71: “While most of the Vietnam veterans marching defiantly toward the memorialised Lexington Green on May 29, 1971, were wearing boonie hats or helmets... one of them had paired what looked like a cowboy hat with the short-sleeved fatigue shirt to which his name, branch and rank tapes were still affixed: FENTON, U.S. Army, Specialist 5th Class. Ross Fenton’s shirt proclaimed his love for the country he served, while his hat made the point that ... he was intent on employing his masculine powers in pursuit of justice, even if it meant having to break the law.”

P87: “After receiving some much-needed counselling from Ross, the veteran had decided to give him the Australian Army slouch hat, a cherished symbol in Australia of

VIII 1965

the tough soldiers that country had fielded in World War I and II. ‘This seems to suit you more,’ he had said to Ross. ‘You wear it.’”

P77: “Ross was also thinking about the dangers of patrolling, recalling the twelve months he spent on burial duty at Fort Devens after his Vietnam tour. He and six other soldiers formed the Honor Guard. After a short prayer the sergeant in charge would present the American flag that had been draped over the coffin to the nearest surviving woman, usually the dead man’s wife or mother. Then the Honor Guard would get the command. ‘Ready, fire. Ready, fire. Ready, fire.’ Decades later Ross trembled with emotion at the memory. ‘Some threw themselves on the caskets, unwilling to let go of their loved ones.’”

P92: “On the Battle Green ... Bestor, Ross, Don and the other veterans stood shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, their arms round each other’s shoulders in a counter-expression of love for each other and their cause that rejected their fathers’ model of militarized toughness. They were showing ... that there is far more purpose to be found in political activism, brotherhood and being alive than in killing and dying.”

The organisers’ request to camp on Battle Green was declined. The VVAW and local residents who supported them camped there anyway. At 2.30am on 30 May, local and state police awoke and arrested Ross and 440 other demonstrators for trespassing; all reported in the USA and internationally. They were transported on school buses to spend the rest of the night at the

Lexington Public Works Garage. Julian Soshnik, who had been the Boston Strangler’s lawyer, was among those who volunteered to represent the demonstrators. He worked out a deal with the Concord Court Judge. The protesters paid a $5 fine each and were released.

In 1971 Kathleen was a nurse at Massachusetts General. She had volunteered at an ambulance stationed at Bunker Hill to attend to veterans needing medical care. Some were wheelchair bound having lost limbs in action. Ross and she reconnected and married in 1973. In 1974 after graduating from Brown, Ross took a job in the petroleum industry. He still does some consultancy work in that field. Kathleen went on to take a Masters and has recently retired as a family counsellor. Their daughter Amy, works at Harvard Business School and their son, also Ross, is a PR executive in New York.

This famous image above (included courtesy of Associated Press) shows John Kerry, who was Democratic Presidential candidate in 2004 and later Secretary of State, with Ross in his Australian slouch hat at the foot of the Bunker Hill monument just before the march to Boston Common.

It is over half a century since Memorial Day 1971; that makes it no less important. Part of Ross and the VVAW’s purpose then was to show fellow Americans that US servicemen in South Vietnam were often resented in the same way as the British were two centuries earlier in America and that their presence would also fail in its mission. It is still relevant, and next

year the US public broadcasting television station will present a NEHfunded documentary on VVAW. Ross met the High Master in October last year at the Head of the Charles in Boston. He asked to join and is a very welcome member of the OPC’s Armed Forces Network.

Posted to Vietnam, Ross served for 13 months outside Saigon, mostly at the Ton Son Nhut Air Base. He was awarded the Army Commendation Medal.

Ross with the High Master

Vietnam Veterans Against the War

Photo by Robert Hall

Michael Simmons (1946-52) profiles Derek whose Facebook entry tells us ’Works as Bepop Musician, Drums and Piano’.

Derek Coleman

(1942-48)

How many 94-year-old OPs can claim an entry on Facebook like that? As he skips around London on public transport, Derek Coleman looks like an active 60-year-old. Taking into account his time at Colet Court, he must be one of the few surviving who started at Hammersmith in 1938, was evacuated to Crowthorne during the War and spent two further years at Hammersmith when the School reopened, before finally leaving in 1948. Derek now takes up his own story.

“I was no academic and destined to go into the family firm, but I had other ideas. My father ran a successful textile business in Savile Row but I had been captivated by the records of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. I wanted to be a bebop musician. I spent many inconclusive hours with Chris Barber (1946-47) over lunch debating the merits of trad jazz over bebop and, while I was at Crowthorne, drove Chris Heath and other Masters mad with my

incessant practising on the alto sax: it was the equivalent of devil worship. The family was outraged that, after leaving St Paul’s, I wasn’t joining the family business but I moved into a bed sit in North London and started my career as a jobbing jazz musician.

Don’t think it was easy. I used to hang around Archer Street in Soho with the other musicians waiting for gigs. It was a bit like the agricultural labourers in Thomas Hardy standing around the markets waiting to be hired for the day. It could be anything and anywhere. One day, I would be drumming at a society wedding in Surrey, the next playing to the frantic jivers at U.S. Air Force bases all over East Anglia and also in Germany. Playing in some of the Soho drinking clubs, you needed to concentrate on the music and not look too closely at the burly men in overcoats by the bar where London’s top gangsters gathered. There were some decent jazz gigs in the pubs but they paid peanuts and I spent a week in Moscow with the Bruce Turner Band, as well as time at sea on Cunard’s Britannic in

Derek

I spent many inconclusive hours with Chris Barber (1946-47) over lunch debating the merits of trad jazz over bebop and while I was at Crowthorne drove Chris Heath and other masters mad with my incessant practising on the alto sax: it was the equivalent of devil worship.

the ship’s orchestra, in order to get to New York to listen to and learn from the jazz greats in Birdland and elsewhere.

However, after six years and marriage I had to accept that it was going to continue to be a precarious living and that I was not in the top flight as a jazz musician. This did not so much reflect badly on me but I was surrounded by some absolutely brilliant players.

I capitulated and joined the family firm. As an initiation, my father sent me to Huddersfield for nine months to work on the production line with the girls in a textile mill. In the evenings, I studied at the local Technical College, so I learned about the theoretical side of the business. In my spare time, I started a jazz club. Back in London, I would still do the odd jazz gig but getting to bed at four in the morning and having to be in the office at nine just didn’t work. We were providing material for Mary Quant and Biba etc, etc, so it was more appropriate that we should move to Margaret Street in the West End. I worked in the business until it was time to retire, but then what?

I decided to have another go at the jazz world. I did a refresher course at the Royal Academy of Music and let all my old contacts know that I was back as a jazz player. There was nothing regular but nevertheless opportunities came my way (and still do) to play with the top musicians in the field. You can see me drumming away on YouTube if you look up Derek Coleman Bebop Jazz at the Map Studio Café and under Peter King Bebop in a London Garden. The pressure is off. I don’t have to make a living from it but I can enjoy myself. I’m already planning for some outdoor gigs next summer.”

I had to pinch myself and remember that I was talking to a 94-year-old, full as he is of future plans, when so many half his age dream of retirement and slippers by the fire. Being a nonplaying jazz enthusiast myself, Derek and I have many friends in common. We have had our first meeting at lunch time at the Spice of Life in Soho where he feels particularly welcome. All being well, we will beat up the London jazz clubs together for many years to come.

Derek at Colet Court

Derek’s House at Crowthorne; Derek is second from the left in the third row

The Prestige Society has provided a forum for Pauline magicians since 1977. In its first heady years it hosted guest speakers, including Mr Howard Peters – ‘one of Britain’s top escapologists’, and TV illusionist, Ali Bongo. Atrium invited its founders to recall its early days; two later OPs continue the story.

St Paul’s Prestige Society

Simon Fox (1974-78) battled stuffy prejudice to spread a bit of magic

Like many children, my introduction into magic was a Christmas magic set.

Setting up a magic society at School in 1977 seemed like a fun way to share my interest and love of magic. Magic not only entertains but it breeds selfconfidence, discipline, dexterity, curiosity, presentation skills and so much more.

However, the School was wholly against the idea, seeing it as trivial and unlikely to last. After much lobbying of the Surmaster with the help of my friend Jonty Rix (1974-78) we eventually reached a compromise. We could set up the society so long as it did not have ‘magic’ in its name. And so, the “Prestige” Society (a play on the French word for conjuring – ‘prestidigitation’) was born.

I decided that we needed a President and to my utter astonishment the Chair of the Magic Circle and perhaps the most important magician of the time, David Berglas, immediately agreed to take on the role and to address and perform at our first meeting.

Unsurprisingly it was a packed house. He picked pockets and read minds with boys (and masters) cramming in to see, hear and learn. Week after week we hosted incredible events and to our amazement, they became more and more popular. However, our longevity was never guaranteed and we narrowly escaped being closed down on many occasions, most memorably when one boy had to attend the First Aid room after failing to master the swallowing razor blade illusion and when we destroyed too many spoons from the canteen as we attempted to master ‘spoon bending’.

It is with disbelief and delight that I learnt recently that nearly 50 years later, the society is going strong.

My magic journey continued postschool. I have continued to get and hopefully give joy from magic. I have entertained at children’s parties, busked round Europe, performed at the Dean’s Christmas party at Cambridge, produced bouquets of flowers as best man at Jonty’s wedding, become a member of the Magic Circle and regularly torn and restored newspapers during my time at the Daily Mirror

Here’s to the next 50 years of magic at St Paul’s.

It is with disbelief and delight that I learnt recently that nearly 50 years later, the society is going strong.

How Jonty Rix (1974-78) found his voice – and Joey’s

Quite how the conversation turned to setting up the Prestige Club is lost in the mists of time. But I feel sure that Si was the driving force and I was his (not particularly) glamorous assistant. I do recall the excitement of the meetings to set up the club, printing the posters, organising the rooms, welcoming the guests and delighting in the success of doing something unexpected.

I spent many hours in Si’s bedroom hearing about tricks he was learning and people he was meeting. I tried to learn some of the tricks but I never had the sleight of hand that he had, except a few card tricks of which I was immensely proud. But in that room was one thing that did speak to me. Joey. Joey was a wonderfully ugly ventriloquist dummy and he and I got on really well. Whereas I could not make myself practise sleight of hand in the way Si did, I was happy to stand for long periods looking at myself in the mirror (vanity, oh vanity) to practise the skill of talking and projecting my voice with my mouth closed. I can still do it today. I can sing and talk and be stuck in a box. I can say bottle of beer without moving my lips. I can talk high and I can talk low. I love doing it.

At the time there were many ventriloquists whose lips were clearly moving and I could not understand how they were so popular. But thanks to the Prestige Club, I got an insight into why. With some persuading in that first year, I gave a lunchtime performance. As I recall it went on for a large part of a lunchbreak. Joey was very rude. He and I sang songs, we had arguments, he heckled the audience, I told him off, they heckled him back. It was all improvised and my peers seemed delighted. In many ways, keeping my mouth closed had given me the confidence to stand up (or sit on a table) in front of them, but it was Joey and his relationship with me and them that won the day.

Joey and I gave many performances to friends and family after that. We appeared in many improvised university shows. Then in 1982, Joey was trapped in the boot of a car that caught fire. He became a blob on a stick. He never called out. And the rest is silence.

Theo Hobson (1985-90) was a

nervous magician

The magic bug bit me when I was about 11, so it was a thrill to discover, at my St Paul’s Open Day, that I was about to join a school with a magic club.

The first time I went on a bus on my own was to visit a magic shop – Davenports, in a weird underground arcade by Charing Cross station. It was a den of incredible delight. I loved all the exotic kit, the silk handkerchiefs and wands and smooth bright playing cards and little boxes that vanished things. On one level it was a new excuse to play with toys. It was also an imaginative realm, linked to theatricality, and to the past – I was glued to books about Victorian illusionists, some of whom posed as Chinese sages and so on.

I liked the magic at kids’ parties, with clownish patter and big shiny props (I did a few shows for my younger brother and his friends). I even acquired a pet rabbit, with a view to learning to vanish it. This is not a good reason to own a pet, and Percy was not a happy bunny. But what really drew me was sleight of hand: I spent many hours in front of the mirror trying to master a few moves. I admired the skills, and showmanship, of the buskers and jugglers at Covent Garden. My favourite prop was a little gadget that the audience never even saw, but that allowed one to vanish a silk handkerchief from one’s fist – I will not even name it because it gives it away, but one or two readers will know what I am talking about.

In my day, the Prestige Society attracted a few rather shy boys, blushingly fumbling with their latest props, jealously guarding their secrets. But I once saw an older boy back-palm a playing card and determined to learn it (many more hours in front of the mirror). Magic obviously attracts a few confident show-offs, but I think it also attracts a lot of shy boys (I do not know about girls), who dream of delighting big crowds but are wary of actually performing to anyone beyond their mum. I was one of these. The pressure of pulling off a trick was almost too much for me, and if the trick did work, I was slightly guilty about deceiving people. For a while I favoured ventriloquism, where the deception is in the open.

So, I drifted away, to more abstract imaginative realms. In fact, one of my central interests in later life has been religious ritual, and in a way, magic was a sort of first draft of this.

I still have a little old suitcase of tricks, the silk handkerchiefs threadbare but still bright, the smart wands still firm (except the comedy collapsing one). Maybe their time will come again… 

Beau Roberts (2009-14) was no mere schoolboy dabbler; he is now a professional magician, among other things.

Magic tricks provoke an instantaneous level of reactive interest. Having one’s perception and intellect challenged is alluring to many, if not most. My initial forays into magic – card tricks in particular – began with an outing to the International Magic Shop at 89 Clerkenwell Road (still around today and well worth a visit), following which I harnessed my cohort of roughly 150 Paulines as an audience, their beady eyes, quick wit and sharp memory prompting them to call out every fumbled sleight, every amateurish lie. It is difficult developing the skill to misdirect and deceive those who know you well, especially when each word you utter in performance is intended to disguise subterfuge. But then it starts to work. Suddenly, your hands do not shake anywhere near as much as they did; you have learned to maintain eye-contact, to breathe, to relax. The scrutiny of your unforgiving cohort has thickened your skin such that when older boys hear about your card tricks and ask to see one, the prospect is not so daunting. Then they tell everyone and soon enough you are the ‘magic guy’, regardless of whether or not you wanted to be.

I have observed that this equally applies in the wider world. Take the most confident person in the room, the one who hears about you and treats you with mild disdain because you are a magician. They will invariably dismiss the attempts of their associates to have them see one trick and, when they finally relent, will maintain that same dismissive air. At this point, you are put on the spot and have a very short space of time in which to produce something spectacular. You feel the pressure but must not flinch because you have to focus and keep composure so that you can execute a dozen or so secret techniques and manoeuvres in plain sight. There is no stooge, no ancillary. You work alone, gauging your audience’s pliability while executing feint after feint, timing the denouement. And then it comes. Now, your adversary just stares at you. You bastard. How the *&%! did you do that? The adult has become the child,

the former sceptic now better promotion than could ever be otherwise found. Be you in a theatre, a private members’ club or at a corporate event, in the midst of restaurateurs, lawyers, actors or musicians, this scenario never fails to play itself out. More importantly, however, magic tricks generate fervour; they are intriguing, to be shown immediately, a tangible talking point in an increasingly virtual world. Sharing what you do – not from behind a screen but what you really do – is so important. Don’t merely talk about it: give the world a glimpse of your flair.

A special thanks to the Prestige Society, from whom I borrowed untold decks of cards yet neglected to return them, and to the Christian Union for their terrific House Parties, where magic tricks became an informal part of the entertainment roster – aside from the huge amount of fun to be had otherwise! A moment also for the late Rahoul Biswas-Hawkes (1996-2016), a budding magician in his own right.

From The Pauline 1977

Beau Roberts

James Grant (1990-95) meets Nick Troen and Tom Killick

ESTER

Many readers will know or remember Nick Troen (1998-2003), as a schoolmate, as their Geography teacher or as a team mate on the football pitch for OPAFC. As well as teaching Geography, Nick is also the school’s Head of Entrepreneurship. This is a position well suited to Nick, who founded a successful six restaurant-strong Mexican food business in his early 20s.

St Paul’s, through Nick, has for the last few years pioneered an innovative entrepreneurship programme called Start It, which teaches sustainable entrepreneurship and innovation skills. Start It recently launched the ESTER, an ‘incubator programme’ for younger OPs with the financial support of St Paul’s, the Old Pauline Club and The Mercers’ Company. ESTER is the first incubator in the UK to be based at a secondary school.

ESTER allocates up to £10,000 funding per entrepreneur, typically aged 18-25, plus 12 months of dedicated guidance and mentorship for successful applicants. Access to Venture Capital networks and Angels allows participating students to take their business idea to the next level – and in some cases a future pathway to another OP-led initiative, Capital Angels Network, run by Tom Adeyoola (1990-95).

After I approached him, Nick was very keen to focus on one of the programme’s success stories, CorpusAnalytiX. Founded by Ansh Tandon (2020-22), this start-up aims to deliver a B2B SaaS healthcare data-brokering platform that helps users retrieve inaccessible biomedical databases: corpusanalytix.com

Remarkably, Ansh has founded the company, found its first client – Penn Medicine – and has taken it to the next level while studying at the University of Pennsylvania. The initial idea was inspired by aspects of Biology A Level classes at St Paul’s, taught by Dr Powell and Dr Langley, focusing on digital health. His plans to become a doctor shifted, as a result.

This is a true Pauline success story; all of the CorpusAnalytiX Board are OPs, with Nick Troen joined by Stephen Rockman (1968-72) and Kut Akdogan (2001-06), who was Ansh’s initial mentor during the ESTER process. To complete the circle, the company now employs four interns, who are all current pupils at St Paul’s, with vacancies advertised through the School's Computing department. Another OP Ansh credits for useful advice is fellow entrepreneur Giles Tully (1993-1998). The future may hold even more collaboration with OPs as Ansh looks for further investment,

building on recent success as in winning access to two accelerator programmes, Wharton Cypher and VIP-X, run by Venture Labs.

ESTER is looking for new start-up companies founded by Old Paulines to support, as well as looking for Old Paulines to help with mentorship or investment.

While Nick, Ansh and I talk in the Montgomery Room overlooked by a Field Marshal, High Masters and august Old Paulines, Ansh’s gratitude to the School is clear. He talks fondly of the help Nick gave him during the early stages, of Kut’s mentorship and even of an early grilling that Steven gave him which led to him changing his business model and concentrating more on the brokerage side, which Nick describes as a ‘lightbulb moment’. 

ESTER presentation

The early-stage funding from the School and Old Pauline Club has been crucially important and Paulines such as Ansh are fortunate to have an opportunity that many other school pupils and young alumni from other schools just do not have.

Ansh was very keen to tell his story and impart helpful advice to those who might want to start their own business. That advice is very simple: “Talk to people.” One of his ambitions as he scales up the business is to be in a position where he can give back to those who helped him on his journey.

Kayyan Elmasry (2017-22), Huw Siddle (2008-13) and Will Englander (2009-14) are other OPs benefitting from support through ESTER, and the next cohort with confirmed funding include Prince Kumar (2022-24), Ibrahim Khan (2019-24) and Radhey Patel (2019-21)

ESTER is looking for new start-up companies founded by Old Paulines to support, as well as looking for Old Paulines to help with mentorship or investment. For more information, please email Nick Troen on npt@stpaulsschool.org.uk 

Co-curricular

Tom Killick is the School’s Deputy Head, Co-Curricular. He joined St Paul’s in 2012 as a Mathematics teacher after a career in the City as a trader. He had a stint of three years as President of the SPS Boat Club and spent a year as Undermaster in 2016 before becoming a Deputy Head, and he teaches several Mathematics classes every week.

I started our interview by asking Tom a very obvious question. The answer: co-curricular is what many of us would have referred to as extra-curricular in times past. The difference is very little but shows that activities outside of academia complement pupils’ studies, rather than being seen as entirely separate.

A large part of the work within Tom’s department involves school trips, with all of the administration and safeguarding sensibilities therein. There are, these days, hundreds of trips all over the world during half terms and holidays and during termtime, for example to the Feast Service at St Paul’s Cathedral in February.

Sport remains, of course, a huge part of the co-curricular programme and sees Tom working closely with Director of Sport Luke Warriner (1997-2002). The School is hugely proud of its successes on the water, with last year’s 1st VIII sweeping all before them and a very good start to the 2024/25 year with success at the Head of the Charles Regatta in Boston. Rugby is seeing a welcome uptick in participation, with St Paul’s at the very forefront of discussions into player safety, as exemplified by leading a new ‘3rd Game’ in consultation with the RFU and hosting the ‘Ahead Of The Game’ conference led by Sam Peters (1991-96). Squash is thriving with the Games Half at Roehampton and teams are regularly qualifying for the National Finals; Fives is still going strong and Rackets too – James Rossiter (2018-23) recently won Open tournaments in the USA and Canada. Cricket has the

disadvantage of exams in the Summer Term but is alive and well and producing excellent players, including Krish Patel (2019-24) who recently signed for Northamptonshire CC.

The big difference these days is Football. I remember two teams in my day – the 1st XI and the Colts XI. These days block fixtures against other schools feature up to 20 teams and very successful ones at that: school teams have won several competitions in recent years, including the Southern Independent League which was won by 1st, 2nd, 3rd and Under 16A XIs in the 24/25 season. This year, the 1st XI progressed to the ISFA National Final in March.

Outside sport, many of the societies that will be remembered by thousands of OPs still exist – Polecon, The Halley Society, Law Society and History Society regularly feature on posters on the walls and on the morning Tannoy – the Tannoy now being a daily email rather than the mysterious announcements many of us heard through the ceiling. There are now over 100 societies which cover everything imaginable. Some produce their own high-quality magazines, for example Polyglot from EuroSoc and Vector from Bio-MedSoc.

I recently met with Tom and Simon Hardy (1974-79), OPC Deputy President and, at the time, chair of the Old Pauline Trust, to talk about the Trust making small awards to school societies – this might pay for a guest speaker for example. The energy around the societies during lunch breaks is really quite remarkable and the Tannoy list each day, substantial. They are diverse too, catering for all faiths, characteristics and interests. Several link to the revamped House Activities, including the popular ‘Magic, The Gathering’ which Tom describes as an example of typical Pauline quirkiness. I particularly enjoyed watching pupils competing against each other recently at Countdown –

with words permissible only in French, German or Latin. Other societies may become busier at certain times of year, for example during Pride Week and Black History Month.

Tom explains both the process and the importance of encouraging the boys to take part in activities outside of lessons, with Undermasters and Tutors key to a process that is meant to be nurturing rather than prescriptive. The philosophy is that ‘every pupil should do something’ and they are encouraged to take part in three activities every week. In the Fourth Form pupils are required to take part in House Choral, House Activities and sport. In Fifth Form they also join a society, and in Sixth Form Tom speaks to the boys about their level of activities, given that it is their GCSE year. Lower Eighths are asked to lead something – typically a society – or found something new.

One that is not so new but will feel very new to many OPs is the Firefly racing programme, as part of the Engineering Society. What was CDT in the 1980s became Design & Technology and then the Engineering Department. The smell of woodwork and plastic product design is still as strong as ever in the workshops, but there is also emphasis now on Computer Aided Design and a series of Firefly racing cars, built by Paulines, compete in Formula 24 races.

What about staff? Teaching staff are expected to contribute to societies as well as to House activities. Non-teaching staff are also, rather pleasingly for me at least, very welcome to attend society talks and get involved.

The impressive Dorfman Theatre is the School’s Drama centre. Most productions have mixed casts, with St Paul’s Girls’ School providing the female characters, and I have firsthand experience of the quality of the performances having watched Oklahoma! in the Autumn Term.

I often encounter Old Paulines who worry that the School’s outstanding academic success comes with a decline in emphasis on co-curricular activities. It is not a view I would share – and I say that as coach of the Under 15Cs rugby team as well as my Alumni Relations role.

Some of the plays acted out on the Dorfman stage are even written by pupils. Music is flourishing in the impressive Wathen Hall building, with instrument rooms dotted around this world-class auditorium, and hundreds of boys performing in concerts each term.

I often encounter Old Paulines who worry that the School’s outstanding academic success comes with a decline in emphasis on co-curricular activities. It is not a view I would share – and I say that as coach of the U15C Rugby team, as well as with my Alumni Relations role in mind. They might be heartened to know that after the School was recently inspected by the ISI, co-curricular was highlighted above all other areas by the inspectors as a ‘significant strength’.

OLD PAULINE CLUB NEWS

New Appointments

New OPC Secretary

We are delighted to announce Tom Arnold (2007-12) as the new Secretary of the Old Pauline Club. Tom works in the finance team at SSAFA, the Armed Forces charity, and is a keen student of military history and aviation. He takes over from Sam Cook (2011-16), who will stay on the Executive Committee as a second 20s Decade Champion.

New Director of OPC Trustee Company Limited

Regional Drinks

Sam Hyman (1992-97) has been proprietor of Hyman Developments, a family run residential developer in the Cotswolds, since 2009. He is a chartered surveyor having qualified at Donaldsons/DTZ where he specialised in retail development, compulsory purchase and regeneration. He is also the proprietor of Hyman Estates Limited which provides Energy Inspections, including commercial and domestic energy performance assessments. Sam is also Managing Director of VinoVeritas Asia Limited, a Hong Kong based wine company specialising in the wholesale of Italian wine to the trade and private markets. Sam is a founding board member of the company and holds a Level 3 (advanced) WSET qualification.

OPC Photographer

Tom Bradley (1999-2004) discovered his love of photography in a year out in southern Africa before studying Zoology at Durham University. Going straight into freelance photography, he quickly specialised in leprosy, working and living in south Asia and Africa. He furthered photographic studies at Pathshala South Asian Media Institute in Dhaka, Bangladesh (2015-2016), later working there. He has had grants from Open Society Foundation, been nominated for several awards, and exhibited across the UK, Germany and India. As a professional photographer, he divides his time between his documentary art practice and commercial/corporate photography in London. He is (still) an officer at the SPS Christian Union.

The ‘OPs in London’ informal networking event was a great success in November, with OPs and SPGS Alumnae of all ages getting together at The Ship near Fenchurch Street. Feedback from attendees was very positive so we will look to organise two such events each year, as well as looking into the possibility of similar events in other cities, including Edinburgh.

The OPC’s Wessex branch met for their annual lunch at the White Hart in Salisbury on 17 October. Stephen Baldock (1958-63) was in the chair for the last time and welcomed Jeremy Withers Green (1975-80) as the guest speaker.

If you are interested in helping to organise OP events in different areas of the UK, please contact James Grant on jsg@stpaulsschool.org.uk

Madrid Drinks

After a Zoom meeting of the global representatives of the OPC, Murray Grainger (1985-90) proposed and arranged a first meeting of the Old Paulines in Spain. A drinks evening was held in Madrid on 16 January at Roxy 63 with seven in attendance. A second eventis planned.

Pauline Continuum Cycling

St Paul’s pupils, parents and OPs enjoyed the Continuum Cycle ride in October. For many it was a chance to visit Colets, the home of the Old Pauline Club, for the first time. Most then braved the heights of Box Hill, led by OP staff members Luke Warriner (1997-2002) and Sam Roberts (1977-82)

USA Visit

The High Master, along with Ellie Sleeman, SPS Strategic Director and Hon OP and James Grant (1990-95), visited New York and Boston recently, meeting many Old Paulines during the week-long trip. Highlights included a meeting of the Colet Foundation, now chaired by Kut Akdogan (2001-06), a successful fundraising event at the Ned Nomad attended by 80 OPs, a drinks reception for Boston-based alumni at Fenway Park, the Head of the Charles regatta and lunches with OPs at Columbia (pictured), UPenn, Princeton and Harvard.

Overseas Branches

A successful online meeting was held in December for representatives from our international branches in Spain, Greece, Hong Kong, Israel, Australia and the USA. James Grant (1990-95) and Simon Strauss (1968-73) hosted, with Simon able to update the group on the successes of the New York branch.

Time zones were not easy, ranging from 6am in New York to 10pm in Sydney and Melbourne but it was a great meeting, full of energy and ideas. If you live overseas and would like to join a local OP network, or indeed set one up, please email community@ stpaulsschool.org.uk

Remembrance Service

OPs from our newly formed Armed Forces Network attended the School’s Remembrance Service. A two-minute silence was observed by all pupils from both the junior and senior schools during a poignant service led by the School’s Chaplain, Rev Matthew Knox. A wreath was laid on behalf of the Old Pauline Club by Brigadier (Retd.) David Wakefield OBE (1981-86)

Old Pauline Club Annual Dinner

The Old Pauline Club Annual Dinner was held in October. It was attended by 120 OPs and guests, who enjoyed speeches by the High Master, OPC President Jeremy Withers Green (1975-80) and Matthew Gould (1984-89)

St Paul’s 1st VIII Presentation

The Old Pauline Club was delighted to fund special memorabilia recently to commemorate the stunning success of the 2024 1st VIII, who won the Princess Elizabeth Cup at Henley, the National Schools and Schools' Head of the River regattas, and the Head of the Charles in Boston. Framed photographs will be given to all crew members and coaches. OPC Treasurer, Nick Brooks (1965-70), is pictured presenting one of the frames to Bobby Thatcher, SPS Director of Rowing and Honorary Life Member of the Old Pauline Club. Our thanks to go to John Dennis (1959-64) and Simon Bishop (1962-65) for their work in putting the frames together.

Real Estate Professional Network

In November, OPC Executive Committee member David Methuen (1995-2000) hosted more than 60 pupils, parents and Old Paulines at CBRE’s UK’s headquarters for the Real Estate Professional Network. Guests heard from a panel of three OP experts, Michael Brodtman (1973-77), Jamie Phillips (1995-2000) and Edward Freeman (2003-07), who shared their professional experiences and discussed the current Real Estate market, before enjoying networking drinks.

London Reunions

Thanks to Tim Cunis (1955-60) for his efforts in organising two successful reunion lunches full of a huge amount of archive material. The first took place at the Ecole Française de Londres Jacques Prévert, the Brook Green site of the old High House boarding house, for former High House boarders in the late 1950s and 1960s. The second was a lunch for 30 ‘80-ish’ OPs held at the Royal Thames Yacht Club (pictured), thanks to member Kiran Fothergill (2007-12)

Feast Service And Supper

Following the Feast Service held at St Paul’s Cathedral on 3 February, where the Bishop of Kirkstall Arun Arora preached, the Old Pauline Club hosted a reception and supper for Paulines and SPGS alumnae of all ages and their guests. We were welcomed by the Mercers’ Company’s Upper Warden, Alice Hohler. Jeremy Withers Green (1975-80), School Librarian, Hilary Cummings, and the High Master gave short speeches and Richard Atkinson (1971-76) said Grace.

2024 saw the return of a traditional Feast Service including many of the glories from previous centuries; a celebration of Pauline tradition including a procession, wonderful music and a bishop preaching. The service this year was as splendid as 2024’s with the small but significant reintroduction of Stewards of the Feast, with Peter King (1967-71) acting as Chief Steward.

University Drinks

It was a busy Autumn Term for our team, with university drinks in Cambridge, Edinburgh and Oxford. These events are proving even more popular with OP students this year, not least because of the additions of food and SPGS alumnae. The Spring Term will see similar events in London, Durham and Bristol.

December also saw us catch up with the most recent school leavers at their First Term Reunion in London. We hope very much that these young OPs will continue to engage with the school and the Old Pauline Club throughout their university years, but also after they graduate.

Law Professional Network

February saw the latest Law Professional Network Event, held at the offices of Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP. The panel featured Stephen Pidcock (1995-00), Paul Hardy (1979-84), Jon Unger (1992-97) and Matt Williams (1995-2000). Guests included OPs, SPGS alumnae, as well as current pupils interested in Law as a career.

Rare Book Gift

The Old Pauline Club has continued its support of the Kayton Library and Archives.

A tradition stretching back five centuries of alumni (including Samuel Pepys) was again honoured at this year’s Feast reception when Jeremy Withers Green (1975-80) presented School Librarian, Hilary Cummings with a new addition to the collection of a book by John Edensor Littlewood (1900-03). He was a boarder, was in C Club, played cricket and was in the gymnastics and the chess teams. His Mathematics teacher was the influential Francis Sowerby Macaulay, and under him, Littlewood was inspired to go on to Cambridge where, at 21 years old, he became one of their youngest Senior Wranglers. Littlewood made significant contributions in prime numbers, differential equations and particularly in the mathematics of ballistics during the Second World War. He is also known for Littlewood’s Law, “individuals can expect ‘miracles’ to happen to them at the rate of about one per month”.

G H Hardy (Sadleirian Professor at Cambridge) at Srinivasa Ramanujan’s funeral said of the great Indian mathematician, “I can say something that few can that I have collaborated with Littlewood and Ramanujan on something like equal terms”. A clear indication of Littlewood’s position in the pantheon of mathematicians.

The book is A Mathematical Miscellany by John Edensor Littlewood signed by the author, and was previously owned by Tom Lehrer, Harvard-educated mathematician, satirist, singer-songwriter and best known for his satirical song, The Elements recorded first in 1959.

This year the OPC also helped conserve De Scriptoribus Ecclesiasticis by Joannis Trithium, known as Trithemius. Published in Basel in 1494, it is the earliest book of bibliography completed as a practical reference tool and is still useful for medieval scholars. Trithemius is considered one of the founders of modern cryptography, had a reputation as a magician and occultist and his cyphers are reputed to have been used in communications between John Dee and Elizabeth I. De Scriptoribus is one of our St Paul’s School’s most valuable works, and one of only a few incunabula held by the School. The text is in very good condition with wonderful annotations, but the boards are very loose, and the book is suffering from red rot, so it desperately needs this conservation.

Old Pauline Club

St Paul’s Alumni Association

Spring 2025

President J Withers Green

Deputy President S P D Hardy

Past Presidents

C D L Hogbin, C J W Madge, F W Neate, Sir Alexander Graham GBE DCL, R C Cunis, Professor the Rt Hon the Lord McColl of Dulwich, The Rt Hon the Lord Baker of Dorking CH, J M Dennis, J H M East, Sir Nigel Thompson KCMG CBE, R J Smith, B M Jones, The Rt Hon the Lord Vaizey of Didcot

Vice Presidents

Professor D S H Abulafia CBE, T M Adeyoola, Rt Revd R W B Atkinson OBE, Professor M D Bailey, P R A Baker, R S Baldock, S C H Bishop, J R Blair CBE, N St J Brooks, R D Burton, W M A Carroll, Professor P A Cartledge, M A Colato, R K Compton, T J D Cunis, A C Day, S J Dennis MBE, Sir Lloyd Dorfman CVO, CBE, C G Duckworth, A R Duncan, J A H Ellis, R A Engel, D H P Etherton, The Rt Hon the Lord Etherton of Marylebone GBE PC, Sir Brian Fall GCVO KCMG, N J Fitch, Sir Simon Fraser CMG, KCMG, GCMG, B R Girvan, The Rt Hon the Lord Godson of Thorney Island, T J R Goode, D J Gordon-Smith, M S Gould CMG MBE, The Rt Hon the Lord Greenhalgh of Fulham, Professor F D M Haldane, H A Hampson, S R Harding, S P D Hardy, R J G Holman, J A Howard, S A Hyman, S D Kerrigan, P J King, R M Kinnear, T G Knight, J W S Lyons, I C MacDougall, G C Matthews, Professor C P Mayer CBE, R G McIntosh, A R M McLean CLH, M H Modiano, J D Morgan, A K Nigam, N H Norgren, The Rt Hon George Osborne, Sir Mene Pangalos FRS, T B Peters, D M Porteus, R M Rayner, The Rt Hon the Lord Razzall of Mortlake CBE, J A Reed CBE, Sir Bernard Rix, B M Roberts, J M Robertson, J E Rolfe, Professor S J Russell OBE, M K Seigel, J Sherjan, J C F Simpson CBE, D R Snow MBE, S Strauss, A G Summers, R Summers, R Ticciati OBE, The Rt Hon Tom Tugendhat MBE, VR, Sir Mark Walport FRS, Professor the Lord Winston of Hammersmith

Executive Committee

Jeremy Withers Green (President and Chairman of the Committee), Simon Hardy (Deputy President), Tom Arnold (Secretary), Nick Brooks (Treasurer), Kut Akdogan (US), Jaipal Chawla (30s Decade), James Grant (Sports and AROPS), Sam Hyman (Co-Opted, Surveyor), Dave Methuen (40s Decade), Elizabeth Monro-Davies (Parent), Nog Norgren (50s Decade, Legal), Ali Palmer (Governor), Rishi Patel-Warr (20s Decade), Ellie Sleeman (SPS Development), Simon Strauss (Overseas), Nick Troen (SPS Staff), Sam Cook (20s Decade), Neil Wates (Communication and Engagement)

Nominations and Awards Committee

Jeremy Withers Green (Chairman), Simon Hardy, Brian Jones, Peter King, Nog Norgren

Sports Committee

James Grant (Chairman), Ross Compton, Rob Rayner, Jehan Sherjan, Nick Troen, Jack Turner

Officers Committee

Jeremy Withers Green (President and Chairman of the Committee), Simon Hardy (Deputy President), Tom Arnold (Secretary), Nick Brooks (Treasurer), James Grant

Communication and Engagement sub-group

Neil Wates (Chairman) James Grant, Jeremy Withers Green

Colets Development Financing sub-group

Simon Hardy (Chairman), Nick Brooks, Richard Holman, Sam Hyman, Brian Jones, Jeremy Withers Green

Advisory Council

John East (Chairman)

David Abulafia, Peter Baker, Jon Blair, Paul Cartledge, Mike Colato, Ross Compton, Richard Cunis, Tim Cunis, Alan Day, John Dennis, John Ellis, Robert Engel, Brian Fall, Dean Godson, Mike Graham, Stephen Greenhalgh, Harry Hampson, Richard Holman, Brian Jones, Peter King, Charles Madge, Alan McLean, Jon Morgan, Francis Neate, Rob Rayner, Tim Razzall, Bernard Rix, James Rolfe, Mike Seigel, Jehan Sherjan, Nigel Thompson, Ed Vaizey

Archivist

Kelly Strickland

Photographer Tom Bradley

Accountants

Kreston Reeves LLP

Trustee

OPC Trustee Company Limited

OLD PAULINE SPORT

RUGBY

The 2024/25 league season has presented some unique challenges for the club, but also plenty of opportunities for growth and development. After a strong pre-season, where we saw excellent attendance, welcomed several new players to the squad and had a competitive fixture against Warlingham, we have faced some setbacks. A number of long-term injuries, relocations and key player retirements have tested our resilience, but it has also brought the club closer together. The wider OPFC player base has stepped up to the challenge, demonstrating remarkable commitment and team spirit in getting a competitive 1st XV out each week.

Despite some tough losses early in the season to Old Glynonians and Cranleigh, our performances have steadily improved, particularly thanks to standout contributions from players like Harry Strauss (2013-18) and Josh Zillig (2014-19). A notable highlight was our spirited effort against unbeaten league leaders Haslemere which proved that, with a full squad, we are more than capable of

competing with the best. A thumping 51-24 win against Reigate further reinforced this view.

During the second half of the season, we are focused on continuing to build on this progress. The upcoming fixtures against teams lower in the league give us a great opportunity to climb up the standings. While this season has been about rebuilding and resetting, we remain excited for what is ahead.

OPFC welcomes new players of all levels and we have already seen some fresh faces, including Tan and Dan Lam (2016-21 and 2019-24), Joseph Middleton (2016-21) and Harry Poon (2005-10), don the club colours this season. Spectators are also invited to support us by joining the ‘Balcony Boys’ at our clubhouse at Colets on matchdays. For more information about playing or supporting, please email clubcaptain@opfc.org.uk Instagram: @oldpaulinerugby

GOLF

Nick Cardoza (1983-88) took over from Mike Rowley (1969-74) as the Society’s Captain during an excellent AGM and dinner at Royal Mid-Surrey in December. Nick is already bringing ideas and energy to the table as we continue on our journey to make the OPGS attractive to OP golfers of all ages. We have a fantastic year of meetings and matches ahead of us, including the jewel in the crown, the Halford Hewitt Public Schools Tournament. Charlie Prior (1995-00) captains again and will be hoping to down Mill Hill in the first round at Royal Cinque Ports.

Our last meeting of the year took place at West Hill GC in November. The Pat Humphreys Salver was won by Ben Turner (2012-17), Downing Salver for best scratch score by Ian Bailey (1974-78) and the Kayton Cup for best Stableford score for members aged over 70 was won by John East (1960-65)

OPs interested in joining should contact Secretary James Grant on jsg@stpaulsschool.org.uk and are welcome to play in a meeting before deciding to join formally.

FOOTBALL

At the time of writing, OPAFC is gearing up for an action-packed journey through the business end of the football season.

The first team is basking in the glory of a sensational start to their Senior One campaign, currently perched atop the league standings. Their meteoric rise was confirmed by a stunning 4-0 victory against previous leaders Fulham Compton Old Boys just before the festive break. With sights set firmly on the coveted AFC Premier League, players are eager to maintain their momentum and push toward the rarified air of the promised land.

Meanwhile, the second team has shaken off their cautious beginnings in Intermediate South and is demonstrating a newfound confidence, sitting comfortably in fourth place. With several encouraging performances under their belt, the dream of promotion is very much alive.

The newly formed third team is also making waves in Division 3 South, with a promising start that sees them positioned in third place. They are well in the mix for promotion, as well as a Cup Quarter-Final to navigate, and the competition is heating up, promising to make every match a must-watch event.

CRICKET

OPCC has seen more change for the 2025 season. We are grateful to Chris Berkett (2005-10) for picking up the 1st XI captaincy again for a year. He now hands the baton on to Sam Cato (2006-11), our only player with his own Wikipedia page. Yas Rana (2009-14) will continue to lead the 2nd XI with support from a new Vice Captain, Oscar Jefferson (2010-15), who will bring passion and zeal to the role. Another new appointment is 3rd XI Vice Captain – former 1st XI Captain and Club Chairman, Tom Peters (1989-94) The Club is looking forward to a season of regeneration, and is particularly keen to field recent school leavers and other young OPs. If you would like to play some league cricket – or indeed social Sunday cricket – at our fabulous facilities at Colets this summer please email Club Chair James Grant on jsg@stpaulsschool.org.uk

In Division 4 South, the fourth team has faced the challenges of unexpected promotion head-on. After a tough start, they ignited their season with a commanding 4-0 triumph over Old Tiffinians right before the holiday break. This much-needed victory has reinvigorated the squad as they prepare for the challenges of 2025.

On a different note, the OP Vets have been waiting patiently for more game time, hindered by unpredictable weather and a fluctuating fixture list. However, spirits remain high as they look forward to getting back on the pitch soon.

The matches against St Paul’s in February were a great success, despite the weather, with four games played on the School’s 3G surface and honours even.

As OPAFC navigates the second half of the season, the excitement is palpable. With every team poised for success, it’s an exhilarating time to be part of the OPAFC family. There will be summer training at School. Please contact Ciaran Harries (ciaran.harries@btinternet.com) if you would like to know more.

OBITUARIES

In Memoriam

Timothy R Alcock (1958-62)

Nicholas J C Argyris (1956-61)

Keith Bell (1955-59)

Anthony ‘Tony’ D H Crook (1958-63)

Neil A Danziger (1988-93)

Grahame Y Ford (1957-62)

Keith F Goodenough (1951-55)

Oliver ‘Charles’ Gordon (1957-60)

Peter W Graham (1950-55)

Adrian C Hampton (1959-62)

Colin P Jardine-Brown (1953-58)

Robert D Jones (Honorary Life Member, former Head of Economics and Politics 1983-2008)

John C Lawrence (1954-57)

John M Litchfield (1956-60)

Alexander ‘Serge’ Lourie (1959-64)

Ian C McNicol (1960-64)

Chailert ‘Chai’ Na Nakhorn (1960-65)

Jon Na Nakhorn (1964-67)

The Rt Hon the Lord Robin Renwick (1951-56)

Simon A Weil (1966-71)

Isabella ‘Bella’ Yu (Honorary Life Member, former Visiting Music Teacher 1996-2016)

Nigel B Backhouse (1959-64)

Nigel Backhouse, who died on 12 March 2024, was born in Bristol in 1946 to Peter Backhouse and his wife Margaret (nee Jones). His early years were spent in Malta where his father was based as a civil servant in the Admiralty Naval Stores Department. The family subsequently moved to Egham where he attended Staines Preparatory School. He entered St Paul’s in 1959, becoming a Foundation Scholar in 1962. In 1964, he won an open scholarship to read Mathematics at Jesus College, Oxford.

After graduating with a First in 1967, he remained in Oxford to study for a D. Phil, the last year being spent as a Graduate Scholar at Wolfson College. In 1970, he was appointed to a lectureship in Applied Mathematics at the University of Liverpool, where he remained until 2003, being promoted to Senior Lecturer in 1980. During his career at Liverpool, he taught the full range of Mathematics courses to students of Mathematics, Engineering, Physics, Chemistry and Economics; supervised and examined many MSc. and Ph.D. students; and published numerous research papers. From 1971 until 1980, he was also sub-warden of a university hall of residence. From an early stage, Nigel had a particular interest in school Mathematics, giving talks to schools, setting mathematical challenges, and representing the University of Liverpool at careers conferences. In 2003, he made the transition to school teaching, with appointments at Winchester College, Portsmouth Grammar School and Marlborough College. At the same time, he became involved in the setting and marking of examination papers for the International Baccalaureate and the Cambridge Pre-U, becoming the first Chief Examiner in Mathematics for the Cambridge Pre-U in 2008, and Chief Examiner in Higher Level Mathematics for the International Baccalaureate in 2013.

In his retirement, he kept busy working as a subject expert for Ofqual, and as a proofreader and editor for mathematical textbooks. His chief leisure activity was gardening, especially experimenting with unusual vegetables and fruit.

He was a kind and unassuming man, who wore his learning lightly. He is survived by his wife Diane, four children, and seven grandchildren.

Diane Backhouse, widow

Keith Bell (1955-59)

Keith Bell started life in Durban, South Africa, born as an only child to Myrtle and Norman in 1941. He travelled to the UK with his parents at six years old, where the family set up home in Fulham. His education started at Colet Court and progressed to St Paul’s as a scholar, moving seamlessly to read History at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.

Keith married Jillian Lee in 1970 and moved out from the city to Maidenhead where he worked for ICI at Jealott’s Hill in the personnel department. His talent for recruiting was quickly recognised and he joined Price Waterhouse in 1979 as a Senior Manager, ultimately becoming their Director of Recruitment, and a Partner in the firm, until 1999. Keith was known as a pioneer for the promotion of women and the unrepresented within PW, alongside his uncanny ability to remember the names of all those he interviewed. Following his death, the family received many letters, including from former Partners, who all credited him with their future success.

Keith retired at 58 as Price Waterhouse merged with Coopers and Lybrand and spent his new spare time focused on the development of others in Association Internationale des Etudiants en Sciences Economiques et Commerciales (AIESEC) and being an active member of the golf club, local history group and Neighbourhood Watch. He was a pioneer of AIESEC in PW during his career and, as Chair, he travelled with Jill to India, China and beyond, sharing his enthusiasm for life as a passionate advocate for young people and their future opportunities. At home, his world revolved around family and the simple aspects of life: loving, laughing, sharing experiences and being grateful for all that life gave. It was by happy coincidence that his last weekend was spent celebrating his son-in-law’s 50th birthday at home surrounded by family and friends.

Keith was a much-adored husband to Jill, father to Catherine and Elizabeth, grandfather to Rueben, Marley, Joshua and Charlie, father-in-law to Michael and Dee, and a firm friend to many. Testament to this was the presence and support of three of his friends from Colet Court and St Paul’s at his funeral in October 2024, all of whom shared amazing memories of Keith, both as a child and adult. Throughout his life, he credited his good fortune to the foundations of an outstanding education at St Paul’s, and for that, we are truly thankful.

Catherine Corrigan and Elizabeth Bharj, daughters

Christopher J A Curtis (1949-55)

Chris died in February 2024, aged 87, after suffering from Alzheimer’s for several years.

Chris grew up in Australia, and then London, where his father was vicar of the Church of the Ascension on Beaufort Road, Ealing.

He went up to St John’s College, Cambridge, in 1955 to read Classics, winning the Sir William Browne’s medal in 1957.

He went on to teach Classics, first at Alleyn’s School in London and then at Nottingham High School from 1964-1996. There, he became Head of Lower School, a role he was ideally suited to thanks to his gentle, patient temperament. He is remembered at Nottingham High School for mentoring younger staff, his dry sense of humour, and for running rugby and cricket teams.

Chris enjoyed bird watching, mountain walking and music and was a much-loved family man. His wife Jane and their three sons, Andrew, Tom and William, and their families, survive him.

Jane Curtis, widow

Anthony ‘Tony’ D H Crook (1958-63)

Professor Tony Crook CBE, a distinguished figure in planning research, academia, and charity governance, passed away at the age of 79. His immense contributions to the field, the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI), and the broader social sciences community, leave an enduring legacy.

Born on 22 December 1944, Tony graduated with a first-class degree in Geography from the University of Bristol in 1965 before completing an MPhil in town planning at University College London in 1967. He began his career as a research officer for the Greater London Council before joining the University of Sheffield in 1968. Over the decades, he became a professor of town and country planning, head of department, and later the university’s senior Pro-Vice Chancellor, overseeing academic planning, HR, and capital projects. His research into housing, particularly the private rented sector and planning obligations for affordable housing, was widely respected. He authored over 250 academic works, including the influential Planning Gain: Providing Infrastructure and Affordable Housing (2016).

Beyond academia, Tony was deeply engaged in the not-for-profit sector, serving on the boards of numerous organisations including The Conservation Volunteers, Shelter, Orbit Housing Group, and the Coalfields Regeneration Trust. His commitment to housing policy and governance earned him a CBE in 2014 for services to housing and charities, and his guidance and leadership were instrumental in advancing planning education and research.

Tony was also a prominent advocate for the social sciences, serving two six-year terms on the Council of the Academy of Social Sciences. He co-founded the Campaign for Social Science and chaired its inaugural committee, reinforcing the role of social science in policy-making and public discourse. Meeta Kaur, Chair of the RTPI Board, paid tribute: “Tony was a key figure within the RTPI and across the entire planning profession. His contribution is immeasurable, and his impact will continue to shape the future of planning.”

Tony is survived by his daughters, Hannah, a planning academic, and Emily, an architect. His commitment to education, housing, and governance has left an indelible mark, ensuring that his influence will be felt for generations to come.

Adapted from the obituaries published by the Royal Town Planning Institute and The Planner on 5 December 2024

Colin R Dring (1959-64)

Colin went to St Paul’s, following his father Richard Dring (1928-31), embracing the school and forming life-long friendships that would shape him for life. His school days instilled in him a sense of resilience and a stiff upper lip that served him well. Colin faced every challenge with quiet determination, handling things with grace and a wry smile. It was this calm, steady presence that endeared him to those around him, never one to seek attention, but often with a sharp, dry remark.

On leaving St Paul’s, he trained as a Chartered accountant with FW Stephens (now Kreston Reeves) where he dedicated 40 years, rising to partner. He met his wife, Judy, a student nurse in London, and together they built a wonderful life full of joy, laughter with an ever-growing “Chaos of Drings” – David (1985-90), Caroline, and Christopher.

After leaving School, Colin set up ‘The Rhinos’ cricket club with fellow Old Paulines. Weekends were often spent with the family travelling to pavilions across England enjoying the cricket, never without an afternoon tea, barbeque or warm beer. He enjoyed watching other sports – rugby at Twickenham, cricket at MCC, and was a regular with old school friends at Fulham FC. He was an avid music lover and was often found relaxing to a variety of different genres. More lately an avid opera fan, he enjoyed regular visits to the Royal Opera House and the Royal Albert Hall.

In retirement, Colin and Judy enjoyed holidays in Cornwall and West Wales, walking the coasts with their beloved dogs. As eight grandchildren arrived, Colin was quietly amused by their antics and, in return for his gentle and wise words, he continues to have a special place in their hearts.

Colin remained loyal to the School and was keen to continue to assist by playing an active part as the Old Pauline Club Treasurer (1993-2011), and latterly as a Vice President (from 2002).

Colin was ‘old school’, and it is his warmth, charm and kindness that we remember. A true gentleman who will be deeply missed. David Dring (1985-90), son

Rev Edward ‘Ted’ Duckett (1950-54)

Ted was born in 1936 and gained a scholarship to Eton College Choir School, from where he later attended St Paul’s (where he gained a reputation for leaving his cap at every train station on route!). From St Paul’s, Ted studied Theology at Keble College, Oxford and then spent two years teaching in Nigeria. Ordination training at Cuddesdon College was followed by a curacy in Portsmouth and a position as Priest in Charge at a further parish in Rotherham.

However, he later moved back to Portsmouth and undertook training in a new career as a Child Care Officer and Social Worker, where he felt at that time he had more to offer. A colleague at Portsmouth said of him “He was the one person who was most friendly and welcoming to anyone who walked through the door, which made a huge difference both to staff and to our clients who came with such an assortment of difficulties”.

Ted then took a post at St Neots in Cambridgeshire, and was later to become Divisional Officer for South and East Cambs Social Services, managing 600 field, residential, and administrative staff. His academic and analytical skills made him highly regarded, and colleagues commented on his warmth, understanding, authority and a great approachability.

As time went on, Ted once again felt a call to the Ministry and moved back to parish life in Cambridgeshire, where he served in several parishes before retiring to Worcester with his second wife, Ginny.

He was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2013, and there followed a gradual decline in his health, in particular his mobility. After being bed bound for the past few years, Ted slipped away peacefully at home following a brief illness.

Ginny said, “Ted never felt he had achieved much in his life and that he was a bit of a disappointment to himself and to God. How very wrong he was!”

Ginny Duckett, widow

Peter W Graham (1950-55)

Lieutenant General Sir Peter Graham KCB CBE (14 March 1937 – 30 December 2024) was a distinguished soldier known as ‘The Tache’ within the Army. Over his 37-year career, he held key positions, including Brigade Major in 39 Infantry Brigade during the Troubles, commanding 1st Battalion The Gordon Highlanders in Belfast, serving as Commander of the Ulster Defence Regiment, Commandant of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, and General Officer Commanding Scotland and Governor of Edinburgh Castle.

The last Colonel of The Gordon Highlanders, Sir Peter led the Regiment’s Farewell Parade in 1994 before its amalgamation. His greatest legacy is The Gordon Highlanders Museum in Aberdeen, which he tirelessly fundraised to open in 1997.

His career saw demanding operational roles, including Brigade Major of HQ 39 Infantry Brigade in Northern Ireland, earning him an MBE. As Commanding Officer of 1st Battalion The Gordon Highlanders, he led them through tours in Belfast and Chester, receiving an OBE for his service. He later served as Chief of Staff of HQ 3 Armoured Division in West Germany, earning a CBE, before returning to Northern Ireland as Commander of the Ulster Defence Regiment, where he was again Mentioned in Despatches.

His final military appointments included Commandant of Sandhurst and General Officer Commanding Scotland until his retirement in 1993. Even then, he remained deeply engaged in preserving The Gordon Highlanders’ legacy, spearheading the museum’s development and advocating for the Regimental Flag. His efforts also led to the Gordon Highlander Statue in Aberdeen.

Beyond the military, Sir Peter was an avid rower, tug ‘o’ war competitor, country sportsman, and historian. He contributed to two volumes of Gordon Highlander Pipe Music and was a member of The Royal Company of Archers. A proud Scot and Briton, he supported the Better Together Campaign with conviction. His dedication to his regiment and country was unwavering, leaving an indelible mark on all who served under him.

Sir Peter is survived by his wife, Alison, and their sons, Jamie, Roddy, and Dougie. Adapted from the obituary published in The Scotsman on 18 January 2025

Colin P Jardine-Brown (1953-58)

Colin Jardine-Brown was born 9 January 1941 to Joan and Robert. He started at St Paul’s aged just 12 years old, which meant his lessons in the first term took place alone in the School Hall. At St Paul’s, Colin found a love of rugby and rowing, becoming a regular member of the 1st XV and 1st VIII from the age of 16, benefiting from his imposing and broad 6ft 6.5 inches. His highlight was winning The Princess Elizabeth Cup at Henley Royal Regatta in 1957. Two years later, despite his A Levels being disrupted by the Regatta, he was accepted by Westminster Medical School. There he played rugby for the university and London Scottish, rowed for London Rowing Club, and was selected for an Olympics rowing trial in a coxed pair aged 20.

After the retake of his Physics A Level, Colin passed every exam put before him, taking both the Cojoint Diploma of the Royal Colleges and the MB BS degrees in the same year, adding the London and Edinburgh Surgical Fellowship a year later. After this long surgical apprenticeship, Colin specialised in Obstetrics and Gynaecology and was awarded the gold medal for being the top Commonwealth candidate in the 1974 membership exam, before being appointed a consultant in 1979.

As well as practising full time, Colin led the cancer services, examined at Southampton University and abroad for the O&G College, trained members of the SAS and sat on the ethics committee at Broadmoor Hospital.

At Westminster, he met fellow medical student, Karin Robertson, and they were married in 1965. They had two daughters and a son – Sarah, Robert and Catriona –and five grandchildren. Colin’s hobbies continued to include rowing, as well as painting and sailing on his beloved Carrick Roads in Cornwall.

Henley Royal Regatta remained a special place for Colin with a yearly pilgrimage to support St Paul’s and London Rowing Club. It seemed fitting that St Paul’s won the 2024 Princess Elizabeth Cup five days after he died, having stoically dealt with his cancer diagnosis. Sarah Hayes, daughter

Rob Jones

(Honorary Life Member, former Head of Economics and Politics 1983-2008)

Rob Jones, or ‘RDJ’, was Head of Economics and Politics at St Paul’s School, and led Careers, Golf, Young Enterprise, Target 2.0, Polecon and the 2nd XV.

One student said of his teaching: “He treated us like adults, and in his unique way, demonstrated that he really cared about us. He went well beyond the curriculum, which inspired us to pursue careers in related fields”. Another said: “He wanted debate, he was definitely a social democrat. We were forced to ‘think’, which sounds obvious but wasn’t always. His classroom operated on the Socratic principle. I have fond memories of a teacher I really liked”.

Another student described Rob’s “ability to ask questions which pierce to the heart of the matter. He never allowed anyone to get away with evasive or woolly answers.”

Professor Minford, advisor to Thatcher and Major, was one Polecon guest who “went head-to-head with Mr Jones on whether two million lost jobs in the early 1980s was a price worth paying to get inflation under control. It was the highlight of the year.”

There was even a Facebook student appreciation group.

Rob was a formidable sportsman. Gwyn Hughes described him excelling as the 2nd XV coach, despite it being “the hardest job in rugby”. His team captains described him as their “16th man”, and thanked him for his “wit, frankness and skill”.

For colleagues, Rob “was the consummate professional. He was gracious, kind and got on with the job”. “He was one of the cycle commuters meeting in the staff changing rooms every morning: never loud, but always listened to, an imposing figure whose somewhat stern-looking countenance would frequently break into a huge smile. He was kind, considerate and quietly witty and we all liked and admired him very much”.

Passionate about justice and fairness, he was never vehement. It could be hard to make him laugh, but his smile was unforgettable. He was utterly loyal. He was one of the best.

Jenifer Ball and colleagues

John M Litchfield (1956-60)

After attending Durston House preparatory school in Ealing, John went on to study at St Paul’s, where his main love was rugby. He passed the Outward Bound course and, through one of the masters, acquired a love of birds which was to last his whole life. John completed a Timber Trades apprenticeship with James Latham, East London, lodging locally and throwing himself into this very new world. He met his wife at Ealing Common’s St Matthew’s Church Youth Club. The couple were married at the same church. At the end of his apprenticeship, he moved to Richard Graef, a veneer company at High Wycombe. He and his wife bought their first home at Hazlemere and welcomed the arrival of their sons, Peter and Matthew. Seven years later, John was appointed manager of the then Gabriel Wades at Wolverton, Milton Keynes, just as the new city was beginning. This firm eventually became Jewsons and their offices alongside the Grand Union Canal were one of the main suppliers for Milton Keynes. Moving to a small Northamptonshire village, John and Sue welcomed the arrival of David, their third son.

John was a true gentleman with strong family values and a wonderful sense of humour. Honest as the day is long, with a strong sense of community. His staff admired him, and under his leadership the firm flourished. Within his community he was a Parish Councillor, Church Warden, Tree Warden and Youth Club Leader.

In 2012, the couple retired and moved to live near their oldest son and his family in Dorset. He took up cycling and would happily cover 60 miles a day. He designed and stocked their new garden, encouraging an amazing variety of birds. Surrounded by different plants and trees, he was at his best. Alive and alert, he could lecture you on the different types of plants, together with their names and where you could find them.

Sadly, John was diagnosed with dementia, a disease which he fought bravely till the end. We miss you, John. May your wonderful soul rest in peace. Rev Sue Litchfield, widow

Alexander ‘Serge’ Lourie (1959-64)

Serge Lourie, who died late last year, went from St Paul’s School to Worcester College, Oxford, to read PPE from 1965 to 1968. Serge then qualified as an accountant with Cooper Brothers (now PWC), but politics claimed him early on. He became a Labour member of the Westminster Council in 1971 and was GLC member for Hornchurch from 1973 to 1977.

As a member of the Labour administration, he signed the documents that resulted in the move of the School to the current Barnes site, not that he felt that was necessarily something to be proud of.

When the SDP was formed in 1981, Serge left the Labour Party and joined the new party, which was when our paths first crossed. Despite being at the same school and Oxford College, we had not met as I was slightly older.

By then, I was Deputy Leader of the Liberal group on the Richmond Council, so Serge fought the 1982 election in alliance with us. He was elected to Kew ward, which he held until 2010. The SDP merged with the Liberal Party in the late 1980s, so from then we were in the same party.

Serge’s career in Richmond closely followed mine. I was Deputy Leader of the Council and Chair of the Policy and Resources committee from 1983 to 1997 and, when I retired, he took over from me until 2001 when he became Leader of the Council. He lost his seat in 2010.

Serge was always delighted he was not the only Old Pauline on the Council. Apart from us, we had David Cornwell (1954-58) and the late Raymond Hart (1949-53) as Lib Dem colleagues, and the late Geoffrey Samuel (1944-49) on the Tory benches.

Apart from his political career, Serge was a leading player in a number of housing organisations as well as the Kingston Hospital NHS Trust and found the time to run five marathons.

He will be much missed by Julia and his children, his many friends and colleagues, and by all the organisations he so ably supported.

The Rt Hon the Lord Timothy Razzall (1957-62), former colleague

Ian was born in New Malden on 25 November 1946. He had a younger sister, Susan, who died in 2018. The only other family are two cousins, one living in Edinburgh and one in Tasmania.

He attended St Paul’s School from 1960 to 1964. He took science A Levels and was a stalwart of the 3rd XV Rugby and 3rd XI Cricket teams. He read Chemistry at Bristol University but then qualified as a Chartered Accountant. He did a variety of accountancy jobs until he retired in 2012.

‘Tickles’ was given the nickname by fellow members of the OP B XV, based on Mr McTickles, a character in the Beano comic. He was an ardent reader of books, newspapers and magazines. Until recently, he completed the Times and Telegraph crosswords in under half an hour for each and was a proud prize winner. His other great interest was astronomy – he was a life-long subscriber to the Sky at Night magazine.

Ian made a significant contribution to OP sport. He was a prop forward for the OP B XV in the 1970s. When he finished playing, he was the touch judge for the OP 1st XV. He also played cricket for the OP 3rd XI and was a regular tourist but is best remembered for his many years as an umpire.

In addition, Ian contributed to the administration of OP sport. For many years, he was Honorary Treasurer for OPCC and was Secretary to the Ground Committee.

Ian’s love of cricket extended to his membership of the MCC and Surrey CCC. As a member of Surrey, he would invite friends to attend the Test Matches at the Oval. The trips are remembered with great affection.

Ian was a member of the St Paul’s School Colet Society and left a significant legacy to the bursary fund. He died on 14 February 2024. His ashes were spread at the OP ground at Thames Ditton in the presence of the OP 2nd XI and their opponents of the day.

John Ellis (1959-63) and John Dennis (1959-64), friends

Chailert ‘Chai’ Na Nakhorn (1960-65)

Jon Na Nakhorn (1964-67)

With great sadness, I lost my father, Chailert (Chai), in August 2023, and my uncle, Jon, in December 2017. My relationship with my father was at its strongest during his last ten years after we moved back to East Anglia and reconnected properly, following years apart due to my parents’ divorce, school, the army, and life itself.

I miss my father dearly. He also leaves behind my brother Toby, my sons and his two dearly loved grandchildren, George and Arthur, and his sister, Jen, who survives both him and Jon.

As part of their obituary, I thought it fitting to share this lovely piece by Tim Newcombe (1963-67), with whom I have recently reconnected.

“I was very sad to hear of the deaths of both the Na Nakhorn brothers, both contemporaries and friends of mine at St Paul’s. I was at school with Chai and Jon in the mid-60s, a time of great change and a certain amount of rebellion for some. It was the time of the Beatles, Rolling Stones, rhythm and blues, and hair being allowed occasionally to venture over the ears. There were endless parties at the weekends, often involving the Girls’ School or Putney High.”

The Na Nakhorns came from an aristocratic family in Thailand and were sent to Tower House School in Sheen, I believe, before going to St Paul’s. They did not board, instead residing with a guardian family near Richmond Hill.

Chai was the elder brother and, to me, was something of a hero. He was a pioneer of fashion – always elegant, often wearing a long fur coat. This was the time of Biba, Kensington Market, and Portobello Road. He sang, played guitar, and led the school band c. 1964. By chance, I bumped into him when I moved to Norwich around 1980, and we ended up sharing a house. Chai settled in Norfolk, married, and had two sons, Jeston and Toby. He continued his passion for music, often playing at local venues. Jon, in my year, followed his brother musically. We formed a band, playing mostly music by the Kinks. Jon later returned to Bangkok, holding a senior position at Thai Airways.”

Jeston Na Nakhorn, son/nephew and Tim Newcombe (1963-67), friend

Robin W Renwick (1951-56)

The Rt Hon the Lord Robin Renwick, a distinguished diplomat and key figure in shaping Britain’s foreign policy, died at the age of 86. Renwick played a crucial role in the transition from apartheid in South Africa, and was a trusted advisor to British leaders, earning a reputation as one of the country’s most skilled diplomats.

Born in York in 1937, Renwick won scholarships to St Paul’s and Jesus College, Cambridge, where he earned a first in History. After a year at the Sorbonne, he joined the Foreign Office in 1963, serving in Senegal, India, and Paris before taking a leading role in Britain’s diplomatic efforts in Rhodesia. He was instrumental in negotiating the 1979 Lancaster House Agreement, which ended white minority rule and led to Zimbabwe’s independence. In 1987, Margaret Thatcher appointed Renwick as Britain’s ambassador to South Africa. Recognising the intransigence of President PW Botha, he independently built relationships with reform-minded Afrikaners like FW de Klerk and anti-apartheid leaders including Oliver Tambo, Cyril Ramaphosa, and Desmond Tutu. He discreetly facilitated dialogue between opposing factions and used British influence to pressure the regime. When Botha suffered a stroke in 1989, Renwick’s groundwork paid off. De Klerk succeeded him, began dismantling apartheid, and personally called Renwick before announcing Nelson Mandela’s imminent release.

Renwick’s close relationship with Mandela was pivotal in ensuring a peaceful transition to democracy. He advised Mandela on diplomatic matters, encouraged policy moderation, and facilitated meetings with Thatcher and other world leaders. By the time Renwick left South Africa in 1991, the country was firmly on the path to democracy.

Renwick then became Britain’s ambassador to the United States, before retiring from the Foreign Office in 1995 and transitioning into business and later advising Tony Blair. He was ennobled in 1997 and continued writing on international affairs.

Renwick is survived by his partner, Ann, and his son, Alexander (2013-18). His legacy as a diplomat who played a decisive role in some of the most significant global events of the late 20th century remains enduring. Reflecting on his career, he once said: “A lot of diplomacy is going through the motions. But some isn’t, and you can really help people who need help and deserve it.”

Adapted from the obituary published in The Times on 5 November 2024

Ian C McNicol (1960-64)

Simon A Weil (1966-71)

Simon did not have a conventional life –he lived alone and did not have a job, partner or children. He was slim, fit and cycled everywhere. As we live in modern times, when 70 is not perceived as being particularly old, I feel as if he was short-changed.

Simon was born at Queen Charlotte’s Hospital, London, on 17 September 1953. Our family lived first in Finchley, then Chelsea from 1968. Simon excelled at St Paul’s and won an exhibition to Jesus College, Cambridge to read Natural Sciences. He spent more time doing light shows for rock bands than studying and left with a third-class degree.

He was immensely knowledgeable with great enthusiasms, including jazz and politics, as well as a crazy sense of humour.

Simon was kind and accepted people at face value without making instant negative judgements. He loved to give advice –some was good, some was bad, but all was well-meaning. Intelligent and energetic, too often he was brought low by anxieties that could not be comforted. He was well liked by his neighbours in Fulham, where he lived for more than 30 years.

Simon died on 8 August 2024. Like my sister Annie, I will miss Simon very much. Without him, our family is going to seem smaller and a good deal more conventional.

Stephen Weil (1968-72), brother

Alan J Winter (1947-51)

Alan John Winter (born 1934, died 2024) was a pupil at St Paul’s from 1947 to 1951, but his connection to the School through the Golf Society lasted for many decades longer.

After completing his mechanical engineering qualifications, Alan did his National Service largely in Hong Kong. As well as some soldiering, he pursued his first love of golf and was found by his great love and fellow serving officer, his wife of 60 years, Dorothy.

They returned to England, marrying in the snowy winter of 1963 to allow Alan to pick up his engineering career working in a diverse range of industries all over the British Isles. The years that followed saw the arrival of son, Conrad, and daughter, Helen, and later grandchildren, Alexandra and William.

Outside work he maintained a keen interest in sailing, the natural world, and history. He aired this learning with appearances on both Brain of Britain and Fifteen to One. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Alan served on both district and town councils, proving to be a skilled and principled committee chair. A move into consultancy, overseeing the introduction of better and more efficient working practices in both the private and public sectors, culminated in him heading the direct labour force at South Oxfordshire Council. Sadly, this precluded him from further political service.

Despite the distraction of work, golf remained a constant. He was an active member of the Old Pauline Golf Society for most of his life, playing in both the Halford Hewitt and Grafton Morrish teams. He was never without an active golf club membership, and, well into retirement, was founding and organising the Senior Open at Bowood, his last club, which flew its flag at half-mast to mark his death.

Alan was a loving and witty husband, father, and grandfather who had a funny story or gem of knowledge for every occasion. He is greatly and constantly missed by family and friends.

Conrad Winter, son

Isabella ‘Bella’ Yu

(Honorary Life Member, Former Visiting Music Teacher 1996-2016)

Former colleagues provided some words about Bella.

Robin Wedderburn: I will always remember Bella’s kindness, warmth, sense of fun, generosity and her quality of character, which one looked up to.

Jonathan Varcoe: She was a good woman, a teacher liked by her pupils, and she had a pleasant and winning personality.

Ian Hunter: Bella Yu was an exceptional teacher with many of her pupils getting excellent results. She was also a great friend to other teachers.

Richard Dunster-Sigtermans: Bella was kind, generous, firm, strong-minded, funny, gifted and a loyal friend and colleague. As a teacher, she had the highest standards, and she was a very fine pianist (she studied in Boston and Paris). She had a fantastic sense of humour and was always laughing.

Karenne Mills: Bella was always very generous and welcoming, taking simple teaching relationships and developing them into enduring friendships. She would willingly give pupils free extra exam preparation; Bella believed in her pupils and wanted them to achieve the best mark possible. Her pupils loved her and would visit the music school many years after they had left and ask to see her.

Matt Allsop: When Bella played the piano, it was simply beautiful – humble, yet remarkable. Bella was dedicated to her pupils and, among her friends and colleagues, Bella liked to enjoy good food and laughter. I’m honoured to have known and spent time with Bella. She is very much missed.

Peter Gritton: Bella could somehow impart the most telling truths with a smile on her face. With Bella, what you saw is what you got. Bella was a dear person, a superb colleague and a breath of fresh air – kindness incarnate.

Mark Tatlow: Every music department needs a Bella Yu. Someone who is able to add their love of music to their experience as a teacher in the service of each and every pupil. She could be both firm and gentle: whatever was called for. A true servant of her art, and an inspiration to her colleagues.

Ian Archer on sailing around the world and arriving at St Paul’s

By the time Ian Archer (1946-50) arrived at St Paul’s he had circumnavigated the globe, avoided German U-boats and learnt no Latin. He takes up the story in 1945, aged 12, as he leaves New Zealand with his grandmother on route to meeting his parents for the first time in four years and his ‘new’ two-year-old sister. This extract is taken from MY STORY by Ian Archer.

“Finally in 1945 I said goodbye to my New Zealand friends and with Nana in charge of Paul (Ian’s brother) and me, we set sail for England on the Shaw Saville liner, SS Wiawera, via the Panama Canal, stopping to refuel at Curacao.

We were met by my parents at Avonmouth and, needless to say, they did not look at all like the photo I had kept by my bed all those years. My father drove us back in his old Hillman Minx car to the bungalow they were then renting by the River Thames at Staines. We broke down on the way because the tyres were very old as new ones weren’t available in the war, and one had punctured. Mary was woken in her cot to meet her two brothers – we thought her a very pretty little baby girl.

My father had put my name down for Tonbridge School but when they had heard that I had done no Latin in New Zealand they would not accept me there. But one day a teenager was swimming in the river and asked if he could climb up our riverside steps onto our bank. My father welcomed him and was so impressed by the boy’s manner he asked him where he was at school, which turned out to be St Paul’s.

There was an entrance exam there shortly after this, so I was taken to the

massive Victorian buildings of that school in West Kensington to sit their exam. I remember climbing what to me were steep steps to be met at the top by a corpulent but affable porter called “Huff”, (one of whose duties was to swing the large school handbell that used to call us all to classes). Anyway, he was reassuring to me, an obviously nervous small boy, and he showed me down the corridor to the large assembly hall which had a huge organ at one end, where I was to sit the exam. There was a Latin paper, but I just wrote on it that I had not yet studied Latin.

Happily, for me I was accepted, probably because, having been evacuated during the War the school was expanding again. It just so happened I enjoyed my 1st year of Latin, coming top in my class in the subject. I spent four years at St Paul’s and although I enjoyed my time there, I never excelled in sports. I tried most things, including rowing, but only represented my school once against Wellington College in boxing when I was knocked out in the first round. Academically I was not brilliant but did quite well when the masters were good. Of course, I remember those who were eccentric. In my first year I was taught English by Darry Young (English department 1921-56)

a moustachioed man who read Dickens with us so that ever afterwards I have loved Dickens. He was a very funny but lovable man and many years later I went to his funeral.

Frank Commings (1931-36, Master 1946-54 and Surmaster 1964-76) was my form master in our School Certificate year, and I got to know him so well that Jenny and I visited him and his wife on our honeymoon when he was head of Wells Cathedral School – he later became Surmaster at St Paul’s.

I left St Paul’s at 16 as I did not like what would now be called A Level studies and an Old Pauline came to the school recruiting for his Chartered Accountants firm, Edward Boyles and Co. I liked him, Stuart Morton (1932-36), and in my immature way signed articles for five years without realising what it was all about, merely that it involved figures and my father was an accountant and seemed to enjoy his working life.

I was lucky in that the career of accountancy suited me and in 2005 I received a card from the Institute of Chartered Accountants congratulating me for being a member for 50 years.

Adam and Eve by istenem

Some clues refer to (6 down) a famous work of literature by someone featured on the pages of this issue.

Across

1 Form that 23 takes in 6 (5) 4 Leg on high beauty (3-2)

8 Standard comparing middle (3)

9 Nameless woman on Mayan bust (7)

10 Singer Brown changing sides at the end makes a mistake (5)

11 Swallow neck (5)

12 Sparkler where baseball is played (7)

13 After New year maiden champions a reform; they like it a lot (13)

16 Make flavour of the month (7)

18 One of many sent to thwart 23 in 6 (5)

19 Cohabited daughter with English lieutenant (5)

20 Bloodsuckers sac V&A for united referees (7)

21 Unhealthy Dutch was one at the beginnings of European (Lappish) mythology (3)

22 Initial state of Adam & Eve in the 7 in 6 (5)

23 Leader of the 8d in 6 (5) Down

2 After o/s switch, minibus crashed into metal (41 on the table) (7)

3 Eskimo canoe works either way up (5)

4 Give advance notice before fighting before noon (7)

5 Sonar control stripped drug cop (5)

6 OP’s opus (8,4)

7 Where Adam and Eve lived in 6 (6,2,4)

8 Every wickedness, e.g. Covid-19 not in control, Litvinenko killer not Cambodian dictator (11)

14 Heft onboard initially before tides turn (7)

15 Where regalia is circulating (7)

17 Keels over in a pleasingly smooth way (5)

18 First character with record in expression of surprise (5)

Charlie (1999-2004) and Douglas (1997-2002) Fink Neil Wates (1999-2004) meets

The relationship between Charlie and his elder brother Doug is defined just as much by their similarity as by their difference. A thoughtful pair who were schoolmates from the age of four, they shared the same experience but held differing approaches to almost all aspects of life. Hardly revelatory perhaps, for those of us with siblings. Where their shared experience differs from most, though, is that theirs involves things like appearing on David Letterman, selling out tours across the world and playing to 65,000 people at Glastonbury. In 2006 Charlie founded Noah And The Whale, with his elder brother on drums, and they soon became staples of the indie music scene of the noughties.

Noah And The Whale’s debut album, Peaceful, the World Lays Me Down was released in August 2008 and reached number five on the UK Albums Chart. At that point the band comprised Charlie and Doug, a childhood friend Matt, Tom Hobden (2001-06) and Laura Marling (who went on to form her own profoundly successful musical career, with Charlie as producer). The album included the hit single 5 Years Time which garnered significant radio play and introduced the band’s folk-pop sound to a wider audience (not least as background music on Match of the Day). They cut their performative teeth in a music scene sharing gigs with fellow up-and-comers Jamie T, Mumford & Sons (then featuring) Winston Marshall (2001-06), Johnny Flynn, The Maccabees, Adele and Florence & the Machine.

Charlie’s musical endeavours flourished at St Paul’s. ‘I was just obsessed with music’, says Charlie. ‘And I saw school as sort of a background thing that was happening while I was teaching myself how to play guitar and to learn how to write

songs. I think maybe as a teenager I had a hard time pairing my genuine passions with what I would do in school but looking back it was nurtured there, too. George Adie was the guitar teacher at St Paul’s and he was an amazing man. So passionate and intelligent, a skilled guitarist and very kind. He really went above and beyond. He really cared that he was making young people passionate about music. That mattered to him. And I feel incredibly fortunate for that.’

While Charlie enjoyed the Music department, Doug thrived academically. ‘I enjoyed the academic competition at St Paul’s. The message was you’ve come top of this exam and therefore that means you’ve done well. But I don’t remember there being a culture of arrogance around it. It was very much devalued if you then started making claims off the back of it.’

Following school, Charlie enrolled at Manchester University to study American Studies – the closest academic subject to Bob Dylan that was available. But he lasted less than a year. He quit his studies and moved

Noah And The Whale

This was a journey that began firmly at St Paul’s. ‘I was just obsessed with music’, says Charlie.

back to London to perform music full time. What might be seen from afar as a typical ‘drop out’ was actually quite the reverse – it was the foundation for success. A manifestation of the drive, creative endeavour and, crucially, risk that Charlie knew was needed. Despite not playing music together before, more or less at all in their childhood, there was a shared sense this was something they were going to do together.

Was there ever a conversation about it, though? Did they ever see this happening? ‘Not that I remember’ answers Charlie. ‘Doug was a very creative drummer and a big part of our early sound. The only place we could do rehearsals was in his front room. That was our rehearsal room for the first year of the band, basically. At that moment, it was mostly just me, Doug, and Tom [then a very recent St Paul’s leaver] ’. Doug adds ‘I’d just sort of play along. It became clear that Charlie obviously created something really special.’

Success came quickly. Charlie is keen to qualify it though. ‘We did get very fortunate in the time period. Like, that era of London was amazing. Good timing. If you look back at Blue Flowers [a regular gig held at the George IV in Chiswick, which often featured Charlie and Doug] there were probably four or five future Glastonbury headliners playing there. Even then it felt really exciting.’

As if a touring band was not enough, Doug had also recently qualified as a junior doctor at UCL. When Charlie left university to form Noah And The Whale, Doug paused his studies to join him for the first record, little knowing what was to come. ‘I probably would have done a lot better at medical school if I didn’t have to go out of London to gigs all the time. I was revising for my exams on tour all the time.’

Stressful enough for some, but School was a good training ground. ‘At a private school like ours’, Doug explains ‘you just were continually doing something. Seven days a week didn’t feel strange. It was nice to do, too. It was great to do it with Charlie, obviously. That was the best part of it.’ Doug formally left the band during the recording of the third record. ‘I was doing a bit of recording for it, but then they went to live in LA, and I couldn’t go, because I was stuck doing medicine in Stevenage.’

Their family history looms large when reflecting back on their shared school days. Charlie and Doug’s father Richard was an internationally renowned chemical pathologist. Their mother retired from nursing soon after having Charlie. Their paternal grandfather was a Jewish refugee who fled Berlin in 1939. His mother had fled the pogroms of 

Russia at the turn of the century. She was taken to South Africa under a blanket in the hull of a ship. Richard could claim 20 lost relatives as a result of persecution. ‘That kind of thing shapes your perception’, says Doug ‘and even on mum’s side – a different story but no less hardship. Her family were miners who successfully fought the injustices of slum landlords. They lifted themselves out of it. We were aware, growing up, how fortunate we were.’

Charlie believes that this manifested itself in a strong work ethic, but in different ways for each of them. For Doug, it translated into academic and professional excellence. For Charlie, it fuelled the determination required to build a successful career in the arts, despite external scepticism about the viability of such a path. ‘I think that more than anything, our parents saw St Paul’s as something that provides a safe path through the world. Neither of them came from homes that had experienced that safe path. For me though that caused a lot of anxiety because what was being offered as the safe path felt in conflict with the thing that I was passionate about. That and the School definitely contributed to the residual anxiety that art isn’t valuable in the same way that other things are.’

‘We took it for granted at the time,’ Doug reflects. ‘But now, looking back, the work ethic we absorbed from our parents was pretty remarkable.’

Both brothers have successful careers since the band. Charlie composed the music and lyrics for the Olivier Award nominated The Lorax (Old Vic) as well as Cover My Tracks (Old Vic), The Man In The White Suit (West End), As You Like (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre) and the Evening Standard described him as a ‘theatre composer of the first rank’. He’s a screenwriter for film and TV projects on both sides of the pond. Not bad for someone who felt paralysed creatively at School and chose Technology GCSE over Music, Art or Drama.

Doug’s rise through academia continued apace. Having graduated from University College London medical school with distinction, he progressed through academic medical training funded by NIHR and a Welcomefunded PhD in viral immunology. He now leads his own research group at UCL and is an honorary consultant at the Royal Free Hospital, specialising in infectious diseases and virology.

One could be forgiven for thinking that so much achievement is hard to be around. Two rockstars, one successful screenwriter, one medical doctor and one academic PhD is quite the familial CV. But the brothers are gracious, empathetic and modest. Theirs is a loving fraternal dynamic linked by achievement, dedication and hard work.

‘I’ve got two young sons now’, says Charlie ‘and I have noticed how the younger one’s attitudes are influenced by the older. You need to carve out

your own path and I definitely think that which has preceded you shapes a little bit about where the space is for you. I see now that was what was going on when I was at School.’

Their reflections are not without issue. For Doug, ‘it was pretty shocking how self-interested St Paul’s was when we were there. There really was no sense that there was another way, that the rest of the world was trying to muddle through. I don’t know if that changed my journey but inequality was not something that they were that bothered about, either academic or social. That is something that the School I hope has changed and addressed.’ Charlie remembers ‘a strong sense there that choosing a career in the arts was sort of euphemistic for choosing a life of destitution. The irony was that the arts were taught really well at St Paul’s.’

Both still enjoy warm memories about their time at School. Both have enduring friendships with their peers and both speak particularly highly of the English department. In particular, both brothers found John Venning’s (English Department 1989-2014) lessons transformative. ‘I don’t want to seem overly pretentious, but in our first album there is so much owed to the imagery of John Donne and the way we were taught to explore it’ says Charlie. ‘We were ripping him off.’

Charlie and Doug Fink

Sam Freedman (1994-98): Dr Lawson Set Me Right

My tutor at St Paul’s was Dr M K Lawson, a mild-mannered and extremely supportive medieval historian who authored several academic books. I always got on well with him and never heard him raise his voice. Except once.

I cannot remember the details. It was the mid-90s and I was 14 or 15, but the School had organised some kind of swap with a local comprehensive. A group of students from both schools would spend a week at the other one. When Dr Lawson told us about this opportunity, I made a joke along the lines of “well I’m not doing that, I wouldn’t survive a day” (being, as I still am, small and nerdy).

He became very angry and explained, more eloquently than I can do justice to 30 years later, that this was exactly the kind of snobbish arrogance that the swap was designed to challenge. I knew immediately he was right, and the sense of shame was powerful enough that I remember this moment better than the content of any lesson I sat through.

As I have grown older and spent much of my career working in education policy, I have realised that this is a systematic problem rather than just a reflection of my own juvenile blinkers. For far too many people in the top echelons of our society, state education is at best a mystery and at worst subject to the

same set of stereotypes that prompted my “joke”.

This has been painfully apparent during recent debates around adding VAT to private school fees, with a raft of Telegraph op-eds bewailing the horrifying prospect of having to use the schools that 93% of children attend. There are parents pursuing costly cases through the courts demanding that judges overturn the policy, on the grounds that having to go to a comprehensive breeches their offsprings’ human rights. It is offensive and ridiculous.

This kind of disconnect with the reality of our state school system –which is now one of the highest performing in the world according to international comparative studies like PISA and TIMSS – is a reliable sign of a wider failure to understand society. Stereotypes around schools bleed into ones around the welfare system, criminal justice and other policy areas.

Last year I published a book called Failed State: Why Nothing Works and How We Fix It (see page 18) looking at why Britain’s political institutions are struggling so badly. It mostly focuses on long-term systemic trends that have weakened the state. But it is hard to escape the conclusion that one reason a succession of political leaders has been so willing to trash parts of the public sector, and welfare state, in recent years is that it is so distant from their own experience. Whether that means they have bought into false

stereotypes or that it simply does not impinge on their consciousness, the effect is the same. They have been consistently more willing to defend the interests of their own social group.

There is growing evidence from around the world backing the intuitive hypothesis that social mixing at a young age does make a significant difference to the way those from wealthier backgrounds behave.

One such study – by Harvard academic Gautam Rao published in 2018 – looked at a 2007 change in Indian law which meant private schools had to take 25% of their cohorts from poorer backgrounds. Because some schools were exempt, and others complied a year late, researchers were able to assess the impact of this change in cohorts on the behaviour of richer students. They found those in schools that applied the 25% rule change students from wealthier families were significantly more likely to volunteer for charitable work and, in money sharing games, to act more fairly towards others regardless of background. Whether this changed behaviour continues into adult life is not yet known, but it is strong evidence for the impact that social isolation has on those educated privately.

While countries like India have looked to tackle this issue directly, private education in the UK has become ever more the preserve of the very richest. Since my time at St Paul’s, fees have more than doubled in real 

terms (prior to the VAT rise) and I very much doubt my parents could have afforded it now on two academic salaries.

The current leadership of the School might counter that they have a substantial bursary scheme. But when you look at the details you realise quite how exclusive the sector has become. Parents are eligible to apply if their gross household income is below £135,000 and they have assets worth less than £1.5 million. To put that into context – the average household earnings are around £35k, and £135k would place you comfortably into the top 5% richest households. That level of assets puts you in the top 10% nationally.

Plus, students who do get bursaries still have to pass stringent examinations, that parents who can afford tutoring, or have a high level of education themselves, are better able to support. A truly enlightened bursary scheme would be focused on the genuinely hard-up and be non-selective.

Even in the scheme it does provide, St Paul's is highly unusual. Most private schools have almost no serious bursary provision because they have chosen to invest fees in the small class sizes and facilities that help them beat off the competition.

Given the fuss about VAT, it does not seem likely that any UK government would force non-selective social mixing in the way India’s did. But the private sector should – given most

schools are still charities – consider whether they want to become an ever more irrelevant haven for the very richest, or make some attempt to return to their earliest roots as schools for all children.

And parents should consider whether the undoubted benefits of private education are worth the social consequences. Not everyone has Dr Lawson to set them right.

Since my time at St Paul’s, fees have more than doubled in real terms (prior to the VAT rise) and I very much doubt my parents could have afforded it now on two academic salaries.

Old Pauline Club

OPC Merchandise

Did you know that Old Paulines probably drank more than 100,000 cups of coffee last week? Time for an upgrade? Or maybe you need some smart new stationery? Check out the latest additions or the old favourites of the OPC merchandise range at opclub.stpaulsschool.org.uk

DIARY 2025

APRIL

19 April

SPS 1st XI v OPCC 1st XI and tribute to Alex Wilson 1pm, School

23 April

London University Drinks 7pm, Brewdog Waterloo

MAY

TBC

Pauline Continuum Cycling School and Colets

JUNE

5 June

Old Pauline Reunions

6pm, School and The Bridge 11 June

Summer Drinks and Comedy 6pm, George IV

24 June

OPC AGM

6pm, School and online

JULY

3 July

Leavers Ceremony 5pm, School

SEPTEMBER

3 September

Apposition Dinner Mercers’ Hall

OCTOBER 9 October

OPC Annual Dinner

6.30pm, School

NOVEMBER 11 November

Remembrance Service 11am, School

DECEMBER 13 December

First Term Reunion Drinks London

For more information, please contact James Grant, Associate Director, Alumni Relations on jsg@stpaulsschool.org.uk

USEFUL CONTACTS

Old Pauline Club: Tom Arnold, Secretary tomarnold1805@gmail.com

Atrium Editorial Board: Jeremy Withers Green jeremy.withersgreen@gmail.com

Old Pauline Cricket Club: Yas Rana yaseen1995@live.co.uk

Old Pauline Football Club: Ciaran Harries ciaran.harries@btinternet.com

Old Pauline Golfing Society: James Grant jsg@stpaulsschool.org.uk

Old Pauline Rugby Club: Hugh Vermont hughvermont@yahoo.co.uk

Old Pauline Fives: Sam Roberts sjr@stpaulsschool.org.uk

Old Pauline Squash: Russell Burns rgburns9984@gmail.com

Colet Boat Club: Sam Cook samueltrnr@gmail.com

Old Pauline Ultimate Frisbee: Rob Wight rwight04@gmail.com

OVERSEAS BRANCHES AND HUBS:

Australia: Canberra: Nick Bailey nijilb@bigpond.com

Sydney: Freddie Blencke fredrik.blencke@gmail.com

Victoria: Tristan Kitchener tristan@kitchenerpartners.com.au

Canada: Amir Rahemtulla amirhms_@hotmail.com

Greece: Menelaos Pangalos menelaospangalos@hotmail.com

Hong Kong: Arun Nigam anigam@arunnigam.com

Israel: Michael Horesh mshoresh@netvision.net.il

Middle East: Eben Rollitt ebenrollitt@gmail.com

Spain: Murray Grainger Grainger2008@gmail.com

South Africa: Josh Dovey Josh.Dovey@omgsa.co.za

USA: New York: Kut Akdogan kut.akdogan@gmail.com

San Francisco: Nick Josefowitz nicholas@josefowitz.com