Opus issue 6

Issue 6 • Spring 2012

PUS L

Keeping in touch with OPs wherever they may be

Inside Sporting circles:

The London 2012 OP sports stars running rings around their rivals Arctic Circle: Frozen Planet’s John Aitchison OP gets a warm reception at school

Magic Circle: Profiling the OP coin trickster boss of the Penny Bazaar

Coming full circle: The OPs returning to work at PGS The Magazine for former pupils, former parents and friends of The Portsmouth Grammar School

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OPUS • Issue 6 • Spring 2012

Portsmouth Grammar School • www.pgs.org.uk

Contents In Brief - A round-up of OP news and events

Opus Designed by Simon Udal OP (1977-1987) Simon Udal Design - www.simonudaldesign.co.uk

A round-up of OP news and events

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Tiger on Two Wheels

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Chinese Whispers

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Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Crossword Compiler

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Ask the Archivist - Questions answered by John Sadden 10 The Man who put Magic and Sparkle into M&S 11 Athletic Support - Richard Simonsen OP

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Opus London 2012 Ed Sets Sail for 2012

This Sporting Life

14-15 16-17 18-19 20-21 22 23

Inside Track - Newspaper Editor; Ian Burrell OP

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Geography Forever! Ray Clayton - A celebration

26-29

The Triumphal Arch - Staff who are former pupils

30-33

Latter House Saints and Sinners (1952-3)

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The Vicar Born to be Wild - David Collyer OP

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“It’s time to play the music. It’s time to light the lights!” - James Bobin OP

38-41

Ed helms Year 6 Olympic Sailing Venue Trip OP Ross Leads the 2012 Gold Rush OP Roger is Still in the Running for 2012 The Long Legs of the Law

In Brief

Between the Lines: Say G’day to the OP brothers having a bonzer time in Oz 50-51

Chairman of Governors Honoured by the Queen Opus is delighted to congratulate the Chairman of our Governing Body Mr Brian Larkman on being made an MBE in the Queen’s recent New Year’s Honours List.

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Emission Control - Mick Morris OP Bookshelf

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‘Looks good in his goggles’

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School Community comes together to help pupils make smart career move

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Forthcoming events

56-57

News of Old Portmuthians

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In memoriam

60-65

Announcements

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Pick of the Postbag

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Back cover montage - A key to PGS Sporting Stars

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An OP, Mr Larkman is a retired banker, a non executive director of the UK Debt Management Office, a member of the Exchequer Funds Audit Committee of HM Treasury and a member of the Finance Committee of the Open University. He was formerly Global Head of Money Markets in the NatWest Group (and then in the Royal Bank of Scotland Group), and has acted as an advisor on banking matters to HM Revenue and Customs and has served on the Regulatory Decisions Committee of the Financial Services Authority. He joined PGS’s Governing Body in 2002 and became Chairman in 2009 with more than 25 years’ experience of school governance in the maintained sector. He is also a trustee of the childrens’ charity Catch-22.

Mr Larkman was honoured in recognition of his services to the Financial Services Industry and the Debt Management Office.

An early Golden Haul in London for OPs! Old Portmuthians, Sophie Giles (2003-2010), George Chapman (1996-2010), Alex Sergeant (2004-2010) and Jenny Tilbury (2004-2010) joined the Headmaster at St. James’s Palace in London last November to receive their Duke of Edinburgh Scheme Gold Award. All four former pupils, as well as the Headmaster, were fortunate enough to meet the Duke of Edinburgh himself at the special presentation ceremony.

Headmaster James Priory said. “It is a great honour to be invited to the Palace today to celebrate the achievements of our Old Portmuthians. Outdoor Pursuits is actively encouraged at PGS and I am proud that we are one of the largest providers of the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme on the South Coast.” (from l to r): Sophie Giles, George Chapman, Headmaster James Priory, Alex Sergeant and Jenny Tilbury outside St James’s Palace before the presentation ceremony

Gone But Not Forgotten ‘The Amazing Forrest’

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Postcard from Singapore - Rebecca Drummond OP

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PL Burnell

“Mr Stork will see you in his office”

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Doing the Large Thing

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Frozen Asset - OP film-maker John Aitchison

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Alasdair Akass

Liz Preece

Sue Merton

John Sadden

Chris Reed

Development Director

Development Officer

Development Office Administrator

School Archivist 023 9268 1391 j.sadden@pgs.org.uk

Photographer in Residence

The views expressed in Opus articles do not necessarily reflect those of the Editorial Team.

The PGS Development Team is always keen to hear from Old Portmuthians, former parents and friends of the school. Do please stay in touch and share your stories and reminiscences with us, submit content for future editions of Opus or nominate someone to receive a copy, by contacting us at development@pgs.org.uk High Street, Portsmouth, Hampshire PO1 2LN Tel: 023 9236 4248

Question Time Regular Old Portmuthian viewers of the iconic BBC topical debate show Question Time may have done a double take when the programme was transmitted on Thursday 29 March from the school’s very own David Russell Theatre. Headmaster James Priory, himself a former World Public Speaking and Debating Champion, was thrilled that the school had been chosen as a venue.

“Question Time has been something of a national institution in broadcasting for the past thirty years”, he said, “so we were naturally thrilled when we were approached to host the programme.” The Music Department’s Rotunda served as a green room for David Dimbleby, who chairs the programme, and the guest panellists. Fittingly, the bronze boss sculpture which adorns the ceiling of the Rotunda, and which was commissioned to commemorate former Headmaster Tim Hands’ tenure at PGS, is the work of David’s brother, the sculptor Nicholas Dimbleby. To complete the hat-trick, David’s younger brother Jonathan presented Any Questions from PGS a few years ago. continued...

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In Brief

Portsmouth Festivities

continued

OP Nick’s Survival Instinct and Natural Ability as a Wildlife Filmmaker Nick Cockcroft OP (1988-2001) may have had a long and circuitous journey to establish himself in wildlife filmmaking, but his determination and patience has recently reaped the most spectacular of rewards. Nick, who gained a distinction in his Masters degree in Biodiversity and Conservation from Exeter University, took on a number of roles from being an intern for a large corporate social responsibility organisation in Singapore to a conservation volunteer for Portsmouth City Council before landing a contract as Creative Development Researcher for Tigress Productions, which has a worldwide reputation for the quality of its wildlife documentaries.

He impressed bosses at Tigress with his involvement on the programme Red Sea Jaws, which charted the Great White Shark attacks on holiday makers in the Eqyptian resort of Sharm el-Shiekh and which, in turn, led to him working this summer

OP Club Annual Dinner The 113th OP Club Annual Dinner took place last December and among the distinguished guests were a great number of current Sixth Formers and recent leavers, greater in number than ever before. OP Club President John Bartle (1947-1957) gave a most entertaining speech before urging all those present, who had not already done so since leaving, to come back as often as possible to support school events. “I know that you will be made welcome and that you will come away with your spirits lifted by the energy, vitality, spirit of optimism and joie de vivre that permeates the whole place”, he told a packed Dining Hall. John was given a unanimous mandate at the recent OP Club AGM to serve another term as President. His Annual Dinner speech and AGM Presidential Address can be found on the OP Club section of the school website www.pgs.org.uk (under PGS Association tab).

Portsmouth Festivities is an annual event which celebrates young people and the Arts, at the same time celebrating the culture and heritage of Portsmouth as a city of international significance. Supported by Portsmouth Grammar School, the Festivities now attracts over 30,000 people to 70 different events over ten days.

In 2012 Portsmouth Festivities will take festival-goers on a journey with the world’s greatest storyteller, as we celebrate Charles Dickens’ birth 200 years ago in Portsmouth.

Great Expectations will take place from Friday 22 June to Sunday 1 July, with a wealth of literature, music, film, theatre and exhibitions exploring the power of storytelling and the significance of Dickens’ quest for social change.

This is where the OP community comes in! The Festivities relies enormously on the generous sponsorship of the companies, organisations and individuals who support us.

This year the Festivites are offering a number of ways in which businesses and organisations can support Portsmouth Festivities and at the same time gain considerable benefits and brand awareness.

Also, Portsmouth Festivities will have a much increased online presence as we move to an online ticketing system for 2012.

With 30,000 people attending Festivities events and a unique opportunity to promote your brand locally and across the South East, it is a great opportunity.

For further information about Portsmouth Festivities, or to receive a free programme of events, please email festivities@pgs.org.uk or telephone 023 9236 4248.

Seventh Annual Portsmouth Luncheon Club 2012

with the television naturalist Nick Baker in Namibia on the natural history programme Beautiful Freaks for the Discovery Channel.

He has recently completed production on Hippo: Nature’s Wild Feast for Channel Four. The programme, anchored live from Zambia’s Luangwa Valley, shows the events

of a fortnight as an entire ecological system including predators, scavengers, birds and insects consume the enormous carcass of an adult hippo. Nick helped deploy a battery of remotely-operated cameras and painstakingly waited to see what species would come to feed on it.

Once again, there was an impressive turn out of Old Portmuthians and former staff back in January at the Royal Beach Hotel in Southsea for the annual gathering of the OP Lunch Club. After a hearty lunch, the assembled throng was treated to thoughtprovoking address by PGS Surmaster and OP Steve Harris (1968-1978) on the subject of ‘Risk’. Then it was time for old house rivalries to re-surface as tables were pitted against each other for archivist John Sadden’s highly entertaining school quiz.

Attendees: Tony Adams (1954-1965) Dave Allen (1958-1967) David Allison (1946-1953) Ken Bailey (1939-1944) John Bartle (1947-1957) Sally Bartle Paul Brown (1953-1964) Bob Cooper (1947-1956) Phil Charters (1946-1951) Deane Clark (1944-1953) Laurie Goldstone (1956-1964) Roger Hyson (1952-1958)

David Jones (1957-1966) Howard Jones (1953-1962) John Kidd (1948-1957) Martin Lippiett (1954-1964) John Main (1938-1948) Angela Main Dave Morey (1945-1948) Dave Nuttall (1954-1964) John Parr (1952-1959) Mike Peters (1945-1955) Martin Pickford (1960-1970) Tim Runnacles (1954-1965) Michael Shepherd (1948-1957)

Dave Stenson 1947-1952 Geoff Stokes 1958-1961 Bruce Strugnell 1958-1967 Pete Sykes (1960-1970) Tim Thomas (1960-1968) Peter Wason (1954-1961) John Willshire (1951-1961) Roger Wilkins (1951-1961 & Former Staff ) Peter Barclay (Former Staff ) Gareth Perry (Former Staff ) Tony Savage (Former Staff ) Doreen Waterworth (Former Staff )

In Loving Memory Joan Kinch and her daughter Caro Steward are no strangers to the PGS quad. For many years now they have made the pilgrimage from their respective homes in Langstone and Calne in Wiltshire to tend the tree and memorial plaque which commemorates a much-missed husband and father Gordon Kinch OP (1928-1935). However, in recent years the plaque has become more and more obscured as the herbaceous border it sits in matures. Cue Deputy Bursar Stan Lowe to the rescue! Stan took it upon himself to commission a new plaque and

had it re-sited at the entrance of the newlycreated Neil Blewett Memorial Garden outside Cambridge House. Joan and Caro visited last Autumn to see the plaque in its new home: “We thought that the way the tree has been incorporated into the garden has been done beautifully”, said Caro. Gordon’s late brother, Robert James Kinch OP (1931-1937), who was himself appropriately, an accomplished amateur gardener, was also remembered during the visit by means of a very generous donation to the school’s bursary fund.

Joan Kinch (far right), with her daughter Caro Steward

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Tiger on Two Wheels

Chinese Whispers

Nicknamed the “Biking Brigadier” after taking a Triumph motorbike on a tour of the UK’s Regimental Headquarters to raise money and awareness for the Army Benevolent Fund, the Soldier’s Charity, Brigadier Richard Dennis OBE ADC – one-time Army Director of Infantry and Colonel in Chief of The Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment – paid a visit to school last November.

Julian Guyer OP (1982-1992) is one of the last journalists to be based in Fleet Street, where he works as a sports reporter in the London office of AFP, the international newswire service. He specialises in cricket and rugby union covering both sports’ World Cups in their entirety.

commissioned into the Royal Hampshire Regiment in 1978. He has enjoyed an illustrious military career ever since.

After spending the first 6 years of his service in a variety of appointments in Germany, Northern Ireland, the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and Berlin he then became Internal Security Training Advisor to the Brigade of Gurkhas in Hong Kong.

Known as The Tigers, the Regiment draws its officers and soldiers from Kent, Sussex, Surrey, London, Middlesex as well as Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, making it the local Regiment to PGS. The Regiment has a long, distinguished history, having been involved in virtually every theatre of war since The Battle of Tangier in 1662.

It is the most decorated of all British Army regiments, with 57 Victoria Crosses including the V.C. awarded to Lance Corporal Johnson Beharry in 2004 for his gallantry in Iraq.

Brigadier Dennis (PGS 1971-1977) went straight from school to the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and was

In April 1997 he assumed command of 2nd Battalion The Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment. Highlights of his command tour included exercising the Battalion in Kenya at the height of the flooding caused by El Nino, a further 6 month tour in Northern Ireland as the Belfast Roulement Battalion (for which he was awarded the Queen’s Commendation for Valuable Service) and the planning and subsequent carrying out of the private burial of Diana, Princess of Wales, at Althorp.

He assumed the appointment of Director of Infantry in January 2008. On 1 April 2010 Brigadier Dennis assumed the appointment of Colonel of the Princess

of Wales’s Royal Regiment. He returned to PGS in March, just before deployment to Afghanistan, to offer the benefit of his expertise and experience to pupils considering careers in the Armed Services.

Although Brigadier Dennis has now completed his fundraising challenge for the Army Benevolent Fund, the Soldier’s Charity, stopping at many of the 17 Regimental Headquarters (RHQs) as well as the National Memorial Arboretum at Alrewas in Staffordshire, he is still keen to raise funds and awareness. At each RHQ he met some of those soldiers and families who have been supported by the Fund and highlighted the vital role the headquarters play in recruiting, distributing benevolence, organising the repatriation of the Infantry’s dead, the long term care of their wounded and, critically, providing help with finding a second career when they leave the Army. If you would like to support the cause, donations are still being accepted at www.justgiving.com/BikingBrigadier

He also contributes to Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack and previously worked at Hayters Sports Agency where he wrote for most of the British national press. Julian had never covered an Olympic Games before Beijing in 2008, and here offers his impressions of those Games and thoughts for the upcoming London Olympics.

“When my sports editor asked me to be on the desk at the Beijing Olympics, I suspected this was a form of revenge on the part of my colleagues. Most of the time they have the misfortune to sub-edit my copy, so the appeal of a role-reversal wasn’t difficult to deduce.

This was my first Olympics. Everyone warned me it was the toughest sporting event of the lot and, speaking as someone who has covered Cricket World Cups from start to finish, they were right.

The iconic ‘Bird’s Nest’ stadium in Beijing, one of the defining venues for the 2008 Olympic Games

Visit by Brigadier Richard Dennis OP to PGS, November 2011. Back Row: Alasdair Akass (Development Director); Steve Harris OP (Surmaster and CCF Contingent Commander); Andrew Hogg (Head of Careers); Brian Sheldrick (CCF Head of Army Section) ; James Priory (Headmaster). Front Row: Andrew Knighton (CCF Senior Army Cadet); Brigadier Richard Dennis; Captain Milo Watt; James Cunnison (CCF Senior Navy Cadet)

The friendliness of the volunteers could not be faulted but their eagerness to please, undoubtedly a reflection of the authorities’ wish to show China in the best possible light, did sometimes reach ludicrous lengths. For example, there seemed to be several “greeters” permanently posted outside the toilets at the Media and Press Centre. This was frankly more than a little disconcerting.

Why were they there exactly and why did they think any of us would be offended if they weren’t?

Enveloped in the superbly organised “bubble” that meant only one security check a day, whether you were going to the Media and Press Centre or a competition venue, it was hard to get a sense of Beijing. But the sheer scale of Chinese bureaucracy ran counter to any notion of spontaneous fun. And it is here where London might just have the edge.

Otherwise it is hard to see how, from an organisational point of view, 2012 can top 2008.

Eventually, my employer took pity on me and, in the equivalent of a prisoner being given time off for good behaviour, I was “released” to cover the modern pentathlon and the women’s volleyball final. The former drew pitying looks, the second somewhat envious glances for reasons which I can’t begin to imagine!

Boris Johnson meeting some of the Beijing Olympics 40,000 volunteers

My final duty was to cover the closing ceremony. I sincerely hope - and this is not a party-political point - that the sight of Boris Johnson with his hands in his pockets doesn’t somehow become a metaphor for the London Olympics.

London’s Games undoubtedly have the capacity to be magnificent, the athletes should see to that, although it may be asking a bit much for something on the scale of Phelps and Bolt.

But not even the success of the British team in Beijing is going to put an end to questions over the cost of the 2012 Games and fears that the enduring legacy for London will be white elephants rather than world records.”

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C S O L D I E R T I N K E R T A I L O R O As a suspected spy, Leonard Sydney Dawe was an unlikely candidate. A popular headmaster, he was also a First World War veteran, wore spectacles and compiled S crosswords. But the MI5 officers who knocked on his door were probably aware that the S best spies are people whom no one would ever suspect. Dawe’s profile was so respectable and inconspicuous as to be suspicious.

But the Secret Service had other grounds for believing that he was involved in espionage. The evidence seemed irrefutable.

Dawe was born in Hounslow, Middlesex in 1889. According to the 1891 census, his father was an auctioneer and valuer.

By the time of the 1901 census, the family had moved to St Andrew’s Road, Southsea, and the following year the boy started at Portsmouth Grammar School. He quickly established himself as an excellent allrounder on the sports field.

Dawe played a straight bat for the Cricket First XI, and his ability as a bowler to make the ball turn was worthy of comment in the school magazine, The Portmuthian.

He became a popular captain of cricket, providing “an excellent example in the field” as well as a powerful bat.

W O R D

As a forward in the Football First XI, Dawe’s shooting “gained an accuracy and sting” and he was noted for his ability to hit the target from unlikely and difficult positions.

He demonstrated strategic skills, was a “versatile dribbler” and was “invaluable to his side”. According to The Portmuthian of November 1906 he was “one of the best purely individual players of recent years, and scores many goals by going clean through himself.”

So, Dawe was competitive and an individualist. A maverick, perhaps?

He also excelled in the classroom and was awarded the Grant Memorial Scripture Prize and the School Drawing Prize. He achieved the highest marks in the school in the London Matriculation exams. Too clever by half, perhaps?

Plan showing the assembly zone for the Allied armada, and the locations of the leaked beach code-names

D-Day: Allied troops, some with folding bicycles, disembark from a landing craft while under enemy machine-gun, mortar and artillery fire.

C O M P I L E R

The world was at Dawe’s feet, and it was no surprise when he went up to Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Twenty years later, Cambridge was to become the seedbed for a group of communist spies, amongst them Philby, Burgess, Maclean and Blunt.

But Dawe was only interested in his studies and his sport. He gained his football “blue”, scoring in a match against Oxford that Cambridge won 3-1.

In 1912, Dawe signed for Southampton, scoring on his debut appearance against Plymouth Argyle. He was a member of the Great Britain football squad for the 1912 Stockholm Olympics, but was not selected to play. He appears to have made one appearance for the England national amateur football team in the same year, and a further ten games for Southampton, before concentrating on his teaching career.

In 1913, he took up a position as a science master in Walthamstow from which he progressed to a post at St Paul’s School, Barnes in 1919. He became Head of Science in 1924 and left, two years later, for Strand School in Tulse Hill where he rose to become headmaster. In the pre-decimal currency days, Dawes’ initials, L.S.D., landed him with the nickname “moneybags”.

Dawe began compiling crosswords for the Daily Telegraph in his spare time, and created the first to appear in the newspaper in July 1925. It soon proved immensely popular and Dawe made things more interesting, pioneering the cryptic clue. An indication, perhaps, of a devious mind?

In 1936, a party of boys from Strand School, on a school trip to the Black Forest, was trapped in a sudden snowstorm. Five of the boys died and, as headmaster, Dawe went to Germany to bring the survivors home. The coffins, made of timber from the Black Forest, were returned with scores of swastika-adorned wreaths with the message “for our English comrades”.

Wreaths were also sent to the boys’ funeral from Adolf Hitler personally, and from the Hitler Youth. Three years later Dawe evacuated his school to Effingham in Surrey to escape the bombs of the Luftwaffe.

Dawe kept up his Telegraph crosswords through the war. It was noticed that the word “Dieppe” appeared as the answer to a clue in one of them. Two days after publication the disastrous Allied raid on Dieppe took place. Over half the men who made it ashore were killed, wounded or captured. Dawe’s inclusion of the word was dismissed as a coincidence.

Two years later, during the months leading up to D-Day, the words Juno, Gold, Sword, Utah and Omaha appeared, and the link was quickly made with the top-secret codenames for the assigned D-Day beaches. On the 27 May 1944, eight days before D-Day, the code-name for the whole operation, Overlord, appeared, followed by Mulberry, code name of the floating harbours (some of which were under construction in Gosport).

Finally, three days before D-Day, the code-name for the naval assault phase of the operation, Neptune, was revealed by one of Dawe’s clues.

The evidence, then, seemed irrefutable, and the MI5 agents appeared on the doorstep of his Leatherhead home. Dawe described later that he and another compiler were “turned inside out” but that “eventually they decided not to shoot us”.

Forty years later, Ronald French, a 14 year old schoolboy at the time of D-Day, revealed that his headmaster at Strand School, Mr Dawe, occasionally invited pupils into his study, where, as a mental discipline, he would encourage them to help fill in blank crossword patterns for use in the Telegraph. Dawe would then create clues for the boys’ solution words.

The codewords, Mr French explained, were common knowledge because American and Canadian soldiers who were camped nearby, awaiting the D-Day operation, used them casually in their conversation.

What was not known was where and when the invasion would take place.

After the Allied success, Dawe questioned the boy about the origins of the words that had resulted in him being interrogated, but fortunately not shot, as a spy. Horrified by the boy’s explanation, Dawe made him swear never to reveal what had happened.

Dawe died in 1963, his many achievements as a teacher, headmaster and footballer overshadowed by his brief and completely innocent stumble into the dangerous realm of espionage.

Sources: The Portmuthian (Portsmouth Grammar School Magazine) The Times 23 April 1936 Invasion – the D-Day Story (1954) The Daily Telegraph 3 May 2004 Thanks to Alexandra Aslett, Archivist at St Paul’s School

Landing craft leaving England while barrage balloons hover in the summer sky

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Portsmouth Grammar School • www.pgs.org.uk

Ask the archivist

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The Man who put Magic and Sparkle into M&S The Portsmouth Theatre

Did Dickens go to PGS? While it is a moderately well-known fact that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s younger brother was a pupil at PGS, few people are aware that Dickens also attended the school. Very little is known of his time here except that he was beaten by Bevis and Elliott into third place in the half-mile on Sports Day, 1934.

It is not known if PGS masters of the time had great expectations of the young Dickens, or whether the boy grew sick of allusions to his more famous namesake. If any classroom misbehaviour was met by the expression, “What the Dickens?” followed by a hard time, is not known.

What is known is that the Charles Dickens does have a connection with the school.

Dickens famously left the town of his birth as soon as he could manage to walk, though this was not the reason why, or the means by which, he departed. His father, a naval pay clerk employed in Portsmouth Dockyard, was recalled to work at Somerset House on the 1 January 1815, following Napoleon’s defeat and the end of the war with America, which meant a reduction in work at Portsmouth.

It is intriguing to wonder what might have happened had John Dickens’ work at Portsmouth not come to an end.

The Dickens’ last family home in Wish Street – which they occupied for a year before leaving for London -- stood less than 400 yards away from the Penny Street School, which was then under the headship of the Reverend Bussell. John Dickens was enjoying his highest ever income at £231 a year, and if the Dickens family had stayed in the town, it is possible that the young Charles would have been sent there. However, by the 1820s the school was “in abeyance”, and the boy would probably have benefited from almost individual attention from the Usher, to whom Bussell’s successor, the Reverend Cumyns, had delegated all the teaching.

Of course, we should be grateful that the Dickens family left the town and that Charles cannot be counted as an Old Portmuthian.

John Dickens’ money troubles began when his salary was cut on his return to London, and one of Charles’s most important formative influences – being sent to work in the infamous blacking factory at Hungerford Stairs at the age of twelve – would not have happened. It is supposed that attendance at PGS would not have engendered a similar enduring sense of suffering, bitterness and injustice.

Dickens visited Portsmouth “to obtain local colour” for Nicholas Nickleby, his third novel, first published as a serial in 1838-39.

Sources suggest he visited the Portsmouth Theatre, which stood on the High Street, where the Cambridge Officers’ Barracks was built and which now serves as part of Portsmouth Grammar School.

The theatre was immortalised as the setting for the exploits of actor-manager Vincent Crummles and his troupe. The pantomimist of the company, Mr. Folair, who delights in mischief “and was by no means scrupulous”, is said to be based on Billy Floyer, the Portsmouth Theatre’s leading comedian.

Biographer Frederic Kitton, writing in 1902, describes how “the story is current in Portsmouth” that, while at the theatre, Dickens “went on the stage” and “asked for a small part”. This is entirely possible. A few years earlier, before his literary success, he had decided that he wanted a career as an actor, and though it never materialised, he clearly had talent and devoted much of his time and energy to taking part in amateur productions. But, according to correspondence from writer and critic Walter Herries Pollock, cited by Kitton, “there may well be some truth” in a story that Dickens, “as a very young man, was for a time a member of the company”. Pollock wrote that “this was told me a few years ago by one in authority,” who is not named.

The Portsmouth Theatre had been established on the site in 1761.

Edmund Kean was probably the most famous actor to appear there, but in 1836 it was closed for “lack of support and unseemly behaviour”. In February, 1838, following a complete refurbishment, it re-opened to huge audiences under the management of William Shalders. It was in the same month that Dickens was researching background for Nicholas Nickleby, and he visited Yorkshire to look at schools on which to base Dotheboys Hall. On his visit to Portsmouth, Dickens would have seen the theatre at its best and most prosperous. The Hampshire Telegraph described “boxes literally crowded with beauty and fashion”, “an orchestra of which we cannot speak too highly” and “tumultuous applause”.

A production of the first instalments of Nicholas Nickleby was performed at the High Street theatre on 17 May 1839, though the serial did not complete publication until that October.

Dramatisations had started to appear all over England after only eight instalments. Coincidentally, the part of Headmaster Wackford Squeers at the Portsmouth Theatre was played by Billy Floyer.

By the 1840s the theatre was in decline and in 1854 it closed. The building was bought by the military authorities. Its demolition was witnessed by one of the original teachers in the “old School”, Samuel Hudson, when he was a small boy. Chains were attached to the walls and the building was, quite literally, pulled down.

More enduring are Dickens famous novels themselves, a permanent feature in the school library since the 1880s and a staple of school drama productions throughout the twentieth century.

Charles Dickens in 1838

It is possibly one of the most novel and unusual ways of defusing a boardroom battle, but nonetheless John Salisse OP, a former director of Marks and Spencer, is recorded in the Baker Street company’s history using a duck glove puppet to dissipate any tension between the board of directors. The impromptu ventriloquist act made for raucous and often entertaining meetings.

Salisse joined the Entertainment National Services Association (ENSA) when he left the (evacuated) Portsmouth Grammar School in December 1943. He had been a keen scout at the school (with Christopher Logue - see article on page 45), becoming Patrol Leader in 1941, and also helped to form the school’s Aero Club which met to build and fly model aircraft.

He was inspired by magic as a schoolboy after seeing the famous wartime magician Jasper Maskelyne at the Boscombe Hippodrome.

Maskelyne was a leading variety artist but his astonishing sleight of hand techniques - which included ‘hiding’ the Suez Canal and conjuring up illusions of battleships - were used in the campaign against Rommel’s German army in North Africa.

Salisse was to have a life-long interest in Maskelyne and his family and eventually amassed a world renowned collection of memorabilia about the dynasty.

On the top floor of his home in Hampstead, he dedicated a room to Maskelyne. Salisse spent decades collecting not just magic related ephemera but, more specifically, memorabilia pertaining to the Maskelynes’ theatres.

The material was kept in this room because it was the one room large enough to contain what rapidly become a monumental archive. Lithographs and theatre programmes adorned the walls of the room and a 60 feet long end wall was covered in shelves of black binders.

Here, meticulously arranged, were hundreds upon hundreds of programmes, photographs, letters, playbills, reviews, advertisements, post cards and legal documents, all pertaining to the Maskelynes’ theatrical ventures in London.

He began performing magic tricks in clubs and in cabaret as a teenager and eventually rose through the ranks of The Magic Circle to become its honorary secretary (1966-85) and then honorary vice chairman in 1975.

As his magic career began to flourish and he played to packed audiences at theatres throughout the country and in the United States, so too did his meteoric rise at Marks and Spencer. Starting as a management trainee, by 1968 he had replaced Simon Marks, son of founder Michael Marks as the company Director. The two careers could not have been more different but whether conducting a boardroom meeting in London or presenting a trick with an animated duck in Las Vegas he brought to his work a great sense of humour and charm.

On stage he was a sophisticated and slick performer. One of his best loved and trademark routines was performing with his ventriloquist duck doll ‘Francis’ (so called after another famous ‘Drake’) which slowly falls apart. During the course of the routine, one of Francis’s eyes gets lost and the duck proceeds to search high and low in Salisse’s dress suit to look for it. Once found the pair clumsily attempt to re-attach it. This they accomplish, but the eye is upside down rendering Francis a permanently perplexed look and the audience in stitches. It was a firm favourite, delivered with an urbane and very British presentation which made him particularly popular with American audiences and he regularly appeared at the Magic Castle in Hollywood.

Salisse’s advice was always sought by television and filmmakers about magicians, notably the Maskelynes and he collaborated, with Anne Davenport, on two books on the subject, A Candid View of Maskelynes 1916-17 (1995) and St George’s Hall (2001), an ambitious work about the Maskelyne theatre and magic workshop in London.

He won numerous awards for magic including a fellowship from the American Academy of Magical Arts and the coveted Silver Wand and Maskelyne Award from the British Magic Circle, putting him in an illustrious group of recipients which include Ali Bongo, The Great Soprendo and Earl Mountbatten of Burma.

He was made a CBE in 1985 for his services to British Industry and in 1992 was given the Freedom of the City of London for his charitable work. He was also a director of the London Tourist Board and became Vice Chairman in 1989. In recent years he founded a popular lunchtime social club in London where members met to talk about magic and among his many other interests were playing golf and going to the opera.

John Salisse died in 2006 and was survived by his wife Margaret and their daughter.

He had wowed audiences with stage and television illusions throughout the world, and was instrumental in establishing Marks and Spencer as Britain’s favourite retailer. The retailer used the slogan ‘Magic and Sparkle’ for a Christmas advertising campaign a few years ago, perhaps with a respectful nod towards the one-time enigmatic magician director who cheered the fifth floor boardroom meetings at Baker Street with his card tricks and sleight of hand.

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Athletic Support

helped me along the way. I remember being nervous, but concentrating on a good start on the grass track. I was used to running on the Hilsea grass and for our County Championships, we also had a wonderful grass track in Southampton. I got out of the blocks first and ran scared all the way waiting for the Yorkshire flash to pass me—but there was the tape! I looked around and to my huge surprise, and great joy, I had won! So this was an unexpected feeling of achievement and payback for all the nights of gloomy, wet, winter training, sometimes completely alone, while my PGS friends found time for leisure activities of various sorts.

Former international sprinter Richard Simonsen OP on how PGS helped him prepare for track success I sit here in Kuwait listening to BBC 2 on my computer while I contemplate the challenge Alasdair Akass has thrown to me - to provide some words from my distant past concerning the athlete’s perspective on competition and its many sides.

I take on this task with great pleasure as it will let me reminisce about my time at Portsmouth Grammar School where I was given the wonderful opportunity to develop whatever natural-born talent I was lucky enough to possess, and to parlay it, along with my PGS education and experiences, into a university education in the United States and a career in dentistry that now has taken me around the world and to the Middle East, to spend the last few years of my time in the profession helping to build up a new university in a politically-fascinating part of the world.

You never cease learning and growing!

But I get ahead of myself! I was fortunate that my mother returned to her native land and home town after being evacuated on a ship from Liverpool at the outbreak of World War II when Portsmouth was being heavily bombed by the German Luftwaffe. At 14 years of age, my mum was sent across the Atlantic in a convoy from Liverpool, dodging bombs in the harbour, and U-boats on the open sea, and landed in Montreal, before the trip ended in the state of Maryland, where she stayed with

a wonderful host family until at 17, she was old enough to join the WAAFs. She returned again in a convoy of ships, and later in the war met and married my dad who was Norwegian and serving in the Royal Norwegian Air Force (Norway being occupied, the RNAF was stationed in England). I was born in Portsmouth and I commenced my education at Portsmouth Grammar School in 1953, when I joined the Lower School and started running.

Then, because of my dual nationality, I had to choose between running for England (having already represented England Schoolboys) and Norway, the land of my father’s birth.

I started competitive running because in the playground I always seemed to be able to catch, or run away from, everyone else.

A book prize that I won for “Athletics”, signed by the late Hugh Woodcock, our young headmaster at the time, recently surfaced at home in Scottsdale, Arizona, and reminded me of the positive reinforcement we were given at PGS in areas of achievement. I remember how I treasured that book, and another I won for reading. Not bad for a consistent D- or C-stream boy I thought!

Richard Simonsen 1959

I was thus able to take advantage of my speed to run for my House (Nicol, then Hawkey and Smith) in school Sports Days throughout my time at PGS (1953-1964).

Encouraged by sports teachers like Messrs.

Hopkinson and Stoneham, I was able to progress through city, county and AllEngland championships.

Since the Norwegian Athletics Federation needed a marginally fast young sprinter more than the British team, my chances of being picked for the Norwegian team over the coming years were greater and I chose to compete for Norway. I did so for ten years (1963-1973) running the sprint distances and relays on their national team, while I was attending university in the United States (1964-1971) and also competing for the University of Minnesota.

The pressure? I can’t recall much pressure from my PGS times, but as I began to represent Norway, I certainly do recall times and places where, in international events against other countries, standing on the starting line, I was so nervous as to wish I could be anywhere else in the world but occupying this particular spot in place and time.

Then, after completing perhaps the 400 metres, I also vividly remember the distinct pain, short-term but very uncomfortable, from the build up of lactic acid in my legs.

Again, as with the nervousness, nothing could assuage the feeling but time.

Although I certainly aspired to, I never reached the towering heights of Roger Black’s achievements. Roger, who was to come to PGS some years after me and gain national and international recognition for his Olympic and other feats was a true phenomenon. Had my school records not been erased by the switch from yards to metres, they surely would have been by Roger! But I think it is safe to say that the foundation for our mutual love for running and the successes we each in our own way shared, was laid in our days at Portsmouth Grammar School. Ingrained with a sense of fairness and doing one’s very best, we both left the school to take advantage of the opportunity our time at PGS had offered us. I am forever thankful for those years that, for me anyway, were unappreciated at the time of youthful naiveté, as I knew nothing different. I know now that these were precious years of development, that have let me enjoy a wonderful career and a happy life, imbued, I would hope, with the English sense of the pursuit of excellence as documented in the wonderful film, Chariots of Fire.

Richard Simonsen OP (1953-1964)

Thus the background for Mr. Akass’ challenge. What can I relate to you readers regarding the “feel” of competition - the pressure, the excitement, the highs, the lows? My first memory of a real high in athletics (apart from the thorough enjoyment I had at each Sports Day from various local successes) was winning the All-England Championships in the 100 yards the first time. Why such a strong memory? Because it was so unexpected. I was not the favourite. I remember he, the favourite, was a young lad from Yorkshire whose name escapes me [strangely, as I have read this through several times while writing, the name seems to return to my memory and unless I am mistaken it was Richard Williams]. But although the name is blurry, I can see his face now, almost 50 years later.

I was representing my school, my city, and my county, so on the starting line I had the expectations of many people who had

In 1963, Chris Stoneham took Richard to London to compete for PGS in the London Athletic Club Challenge meeting. Richard returned with three silver cups for winning the 100 yards, the 440 yards and for best performance of the meeting. The cups are engraved with the winners’ names and then returned to LAC after one year.

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PUS LONDON 2012 Ed sets sail for 2012 On a balmy midsummer day three years ago Lord Sebastian Coe, chairman of the 2012 Olympic Games organising committee, proudly showed off the first Olympic venue to be ready alongside representatives from the Olympic Delivery Authority to Her Majesty the Queen and Prince Philip.

Fortunately the lofty ambition of our sailors is matched by the towering presence of Edward Leask OP, at the helm of the Olympic sailing venue – the Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy.

Edward Leask OP

It may have been another member of the Royal family, King George III, who put Weymouth on the map as a resort in 1789, but for now it is as the sailing venue for London 2012 that Weymouth and Portland are capturing the world’s attention. Team GB’s sailors, led by Ben Ainslie CBE, have topped the sailing medals table at the last three Olympic Games and all eyes will be on them when they take to the waters of Portland Bay in everything from dinghies and keelboats to windsurfing boards for fourteen days of thrilling competition featuring nearly 400 participants.

At 6 feet 6, Leask is the human equivalent of a crow’s nest, presiding over facilities which combine some of the best natural sailing waters in the UK with amenities to match on land.

He has more than a fleeting interest in the sport which he is now at the centre of, with a lifetime’s involvement in maritime sport both on and off the water.

A veteran (in more ways than one – he was the oldest competitor in his class at the 1988 Games) of two Olympics – Los Angeles and Seoul – sailing is something of an obsession for the Leask family.

Ed with triple gold medal-winning sailor Ben Ainslie, who is also a Director of the Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy.

Daughter Inga was one-time holder of the middle position on Shirley Robertson’s Yngling, whilst son Magnus OP (19872001) has an equally impressive track record in competitive sailing in the 470 fleet, 505 Class and two-person dinghy.

Edward had been involved with the development of the Academy since its inception during 2000 and thinks it is the perfect showcase for the sport. “I am very proud to take the helm at Weymouth as Chairman”, he said. “This is an exciting time for British yachting following the medal success at the Olympic Sailing Regatta in Qingdao in 2008 and I feel the new facilities at the Academy will help future GBR podium finishes in 2012 and beyond.

We have a strong team at WPNSA with new Directors, including sailing legend Ben Ainslie and I am very confident the venue will live up to expectations as a world class facility for local dinghy regattas through to racing yacht events.”

Edward has been in the sports marketing world since he first teamed up with his business partner and fellow ex-Olympian, the athlete Alan Pascoe MBE, in the mid-1970s. Their company API had some involvement with yachting in the past.

They were responsible for setting up Land Rover’s five year sponsorship of Cowes Week and also secured the memorable backing of the skiff circuit

by Brut by Faberge. It was a stroke of genius not to be sniffed at: Brut was at the time the ubiquitous cologne of the

late 1960’s and early 1970’s in the Western World, associated with the expansion of professional sports to a middle-class audience in Europe and the United States and endorsed by some of the biggest sports celebrities of the day like Joe Namath, Muhammad Ali, Henry Cooper and Franz Beckenbauer. Among their other coups was getting soccer off the ground in the US in the late 1980s where they ended up as partners in the Pro League and ran the Washington club DC United, which won the Pro League in its first two years.

Perhaps most significant was that from 1990 they held the full commercial rights to the Commonwealth Games and ended up the dominant sports marketing entity in athletics in the UK and Europe.

In 1998 Edward, Alan and Jon Ridgeon, yet another ex-Olympian (this time a 110m hurdler), founded Fast Track with one client, UK Athletics, which still remains an important part of the company’s business today. With a team of just 8 people at the start, Fast Track developed a highly successful commercial and televised event programme for the National Governing Body. The business grew strongly from then until August 2006 when that growth was bolstered by the acquisition of sports marketing consultancy, Lighthouse Communications. A roster of world class clients and an additional 25 people helped further build the breadth and depth of the Fast Track offering and together the merged company moved into new headquarters at One Brewer’s Green in Victoria. The new company, now 80 strong, had emerged as one of the leading sports marketing agencies in the UK.

In March 2007, marketing services group, Chime Communications PLC added Sports Marketing to its portfolio with the acquisition of Fast Track in a move that recognised the sector’s growing importance. With over 50 PR, Advertising, Marketing and Research companies in the Group Fast Track was now a key part of Chime’s Sports Marketing Division. The group represents a wide range of clients including BBC Sports Personality of the Year, royal champion showjumper Zara Phillips, the Lawn Tennis Association, British Basketball and the British Triathlon Super Series.

Since then Fast Track has continued to evolve its offer and has built international capability; in addition to its UK Headquarters it now has established offices in Spain, Abu Dhabi, Hong Kong and New Zealand with further expansion expected in 2012. Fast Track’s International reach was further complimented recently through Chime’s acquisition of sport marketing group, Essentially which has market presence in Japan, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand and India.

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PUS LONDON 2012 Ed helms Year 6 Olympic Sailing Venue Trip The whole of Year 6 were guests of honour on a special trip to the London 2012 sailing venue in Dorset and were delighted to be welcomed by former pupil Edward Leask OP, now a leading figure in the world of marine sport.

Mr Leask was an accomplished international competitor and represented Great Britain in the then three-strong keelboat class in the 1984 Los Angeles and 1988 Seoul Olympics, both times narrowly missing out on a medal after finishing fourth.

Edward Leask OP (1955-65)

They were shown around the Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy by its OP Chairman – a former Olympic sailor who spent ten years at PGS before leaving in 1965 to launch a successful sailing and business career.

Year 6 pupils are this year undertaking an Olympic project and enjoying a London 2012 theme to lessons in the build up to the Games so were delighted to visit the academy and be given a talk and tour by Mr Leask and Mr John Tweed, the academy’s Chief Executive.

‘To represent your country in the Olympics is really something very special. You appreciate it even more the second time around! If you ever have the opportunity to represent your country, go for it!’ he told almost 100 pupils and their teachers.

Mr Leask, who returned to school to give the annual OP Club lecture this month about his life on the ocean wave, believes the award-winning, environmentally friendly Weymouth and Portland complex is the best Olympic sailing venue in the world with the perfect conditions for competitive racing. He is especially proud that around 50 per cent of the academy’s output centres on children and teenagers, whether it is introducing them to sailing for the first time, helping them to get out on the water inexpensively or honing more experienced crew into potential world class competitors.

‘Sailing is a lot of fun and especially great for young people – in a dinghy, you have to make your own decisions. There is no one else there for you. You have to decide what to do, be it right or wrong!’ said Mr Leask, who attended PGS between 1955 and 1965.

Chris Law, Ed Leask and Jeremy Richards competing at Long Beach in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Sailing Regatta.

His son Magnus followed in his wake – a competitive dinghy racer, he was also a Portsmouth Grammar pupil, attending the school between 1987 and 2001. The Portmuthian reports that he was reselected for the National U16 squad for Optimist

Class for 1996 and also sailed for the Hampshire U17 team. At the Hampshire School Regatta the following year, Magnus came first in the Fast Handicap.

During the tour, pupils saw the training facilities for Team GBR, which has topped the sailing medal tables at the last three Olympic Games, and then enjoyed lunch in a former helicopter hangar at the ex-naval base. They also went to neighbouring Chesil Beach before visiting the grassy banks of nearby historic Fort Northe where 5,000 spectators a day will be able to watch the Olympic and Paralympic sailing competitions from July to September.

‘It was good fun! I especially liked meeting Mr Leask and seeing where all the Olympic sailors like Ben Ainslie train but I was also interested in seeing the flag from the 1936 Berlin Olympics which was on show,’ said Eleanor Wilson.

on the water at the Portsmouth Outdoor Centre.) He was also an accomplished swimmer, winning the 2 lengths breaststroke at Lower School Sports, and was “the capable captain” of Eastwood House swimming team.

He divides his time between his family home in Southsea and London where he runs the international marine sports marketing agency Fast Track Sailing. Daughters Inga and Cailah also work for the company which has 600 staff in 14 offices around the world and its ranks will swell more than threefold in the run up to the Games this summer.

Mr Leask senior still likes to sail, cruising in a Swan 56 and racing a Swan 42 competitively with Magnus at the helm along with a team of ten other crew. He retires as Chairman of the Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy in July 2013 after a statutory six year tenure and has done much to foster a passion for sailing in new generations of PGS pupils, sponsoring the school team in the British Student Yachting National Championships in 1992.

Magnus Leask (far left) competing in Team GB Olympic trials 1999-2000

In the meanwhile, he is about to set out into uncharted waters when daughter Cailah makes him a grandfather for the first time just weeks before the start of the Olympics with the arrival of her baby boy, a possible third generation Leask PGS pupil!

Junior School teacher and Director of Studies Mr Eugene Sharkey – who was on the trip to Weymouth - remembers Magnus when he was in the then Lower School as he was in his house, Jerrard.

‘He was a very happy boy always with a smile on his face and a very relaxed demeanour,’ said Mr Sharkey, who recalls berating Magnus for missing a catch during house cricket at Hilsea because he was staring out to sea looking at...yes, boats!

Magnus is now in charge of global IT at Fast Track’s associated company Chime Sports Marketing.

Charlotte Webb added: ‘I never expected to ever see the signatures of the Queen and Prince Philip – they were on display in the visitors’ book from their trip here in 2008 when the complex was finished.’

Archie Bennett said he was going to show his Mum and Dad where he had been when the academy and Northe Fort grounds are on television during the London 2012 coverage!

Mr Leask first took to the water in Langstone Harbour when he was around seven but didn’t begin racing competitively until he was in his late teens.

As a member of Portsmouth Grammar’s Royal Navy section of the Combined Cadet Force, he was able to sail his own Fireball as well as the weightier, prescription whalers and trade winds built at school.

(Now, PGS pupils all have the chance to try sailing in Year 4 when they spend a week

Ed Leask (far left) towers above (from l to r) Headmaster James Priory, daughter Inga, son Magnus (OP), John Bartle (OP Club President) and Surmaster Steve Harris (OP) outside the school’s Bristow-Clavell Science Centre before giving the OP Club guest lecture, March 2012.

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PUS LONDON 2012 OP Ross leads the 2012 Gold Rush As one of one of the world’s most accomplished exponents of a sport originally called Murderball, you’d expect Ross Morrison OP (1990-1998) to be something of a bruiser. Which he most definitely isn’t.

Four years later in Sydney it became a full medal sport. Wheelchair rugby is now played at elite level in 20 countries across the world.

The affable nature and popularity of the three times consecutive European Champion and double Paralympic athlete have seen him chosen by his peers as the athletes’ representative on the international federation for the sport as well as featuring in episodes of Channel Four’s That Paralympic Show (presented by fellow OP and Channel Four television personality Rick Edwards) bringing the sport to new audiences.

Wheelchair rugby, as it is now less terrifyingly known, first came to Great Britain in the early 1980s to the spinal rehabilitation centre at Stoke Mandeville.

It was invented in Canada for a group of quadriplegic athletes who were looking for an alternative to wheelchair basketball.

They wanted a sport in which players with reduced arm and hand function could participate equally. There are now over ten clubs across Great Britain.

“Nothing compares to the speed and intensity of the sport”, Ross comments. “In essence wheelchair rugby bears very little correlation to actual rugby, except in terms of the actual level of violence involved.

In that it’s played indoors on a basketball court with four players on each team, on court at any one time, with a regular volleyball. The idea being to push through the goal at the other end of the court, carrying the ball.

Players in possession have to bounce the ball or pass within ten seconds of receiving it. It’s full contact, so although there’s no actual body contact the chair contact is full on.”

In common with most disability sports, wheelchair rugby accommodates a range of disabled people which can make tactics

complicated. Each degree of disability rates a point score, corresponding to the level of severity. The four players on the court must never exceed a points value of eight, making team selection especially difficult. “You could have a very dominant player worth three and a half points, they’d be very quick, fast, good passing ability, but then conversely the other three players will only be able to make up four and a half points, so they’d be balanced out but you’d have to place much weaker style players, what we call low pointers”, Ross explains. “So you could play a more balanced line up, a high/low line up - all sorts of things basically depending on who you’re competing against and what kind of tactics you want to play.”

Competition on the court is matched by comradeship off the court. The sport promotes teamwork, personal independence and the ability to attain success, no matter what the odds. It seems entirely fitting therefore that, in his personal UCAS reference for Ross, former Headmaster Dr Tim Hands wrote:

“Ross, extraordinarily good humoured and well-motivated, is well liked amongst all in contact with him. Ross’s determination to do well is of the highest order and, given the progress he has made so far, we are sure he will achieve his goals.”

Ross was involved in and excelled at a wide range of activities outside the classroom at PGS. He was always a keen rugby player and was captain of the school’s first XV. He also held several lifesaving qualifications including a Bronze Medallion and National Pool Lifeguard of the Royal Life Saving Society and was a regular volunteer lifeguard. In the CCF Army Section he was an enthusiastic member of the Signals and was promoted to Sergeant. He had completed his Duke of Edinburgh Bronze and Silver awards and was part-way through his Gold. With typical grit and determination, Ross went on to complete his Gold Award following his accident, which included completion of a physically demanding expedition in the Peak District. It is however, within the 2.5sq kilometres of Olympic Park in East London later this year, that Ross faces perhaps his biggest challenge to date.

All the portents are good. Team GB got their campaign off to a superb start on last year at a mini-tournament curtain raiser for 2012 in Cardiff with a massive 55-36 win over a strong Sweden side. Ross confided at the time that the team hadn’t thought that victory was possible.

At London 2012, the Wheelchair Rugby competition will take place at the Basketball Arena, a new purpose-built venue in the Olympic Park. The Great Britain squad are ranked first in Europe and fourth in the world rankings and there are high medal hopes for Ross and his team-mates on home turf. All 10,000 spectator seats to watch the 96 competing athletes from 8 national squads have been allocated, but OPs can still cheer Ross on when the event is broadcast live from Wednesday 5 to Sunday 9 September.

Rick Edwards OP (1995-1997), who went through the Sixth Form with Ross and will anchor Channel Four’s live coverage of the event, is in no doubt that wheelchair rugby will be the blue ribbon event of the Games. “Trust me; this is going to be amazing”, he states.

“Wheelchair rugby is a spectacle oozing with testosterone. I’m genuinely very excited about this event at the London 2012 Paralympic Games, despite the fact that I find the sport – and the ridiculously hard people that play it – a little bit frightening!”

How does he rate Team GB’s prospects?

“We should expect big hits, big crashes and plenty of battle scars on show. The Americans, Aussies and Canadians will be among the favourites, but GB’s team stands a great chance of medalling too – they came fourth at the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games.”

In 1996 wheelchair rugby was included as a demonstration sport in the Atlanta Paralympic Games – a tragic irony in that this was also the year in which Ross broke his neck playing rugby union.

“Sweden are a really good team and for us to put that performance on is testament to the hard work we put in on our training camp.”

Ross and his teammates maintained their strong start to the tournament by beating reigning European champions Belgium 58-53 in the evening game. They ended up going all the way to the final, eventually succumbing to the world number one side Australia 59-50.

It was a powerful proof, if any was needed, that the GB side is a force to be reckoned with and a further, tantalising indication that we may be only a few months away from adding another Old Portmuthian Olympian to the school’s Hall of Fame. Ross thundering across his opponent’s goal line with the ball in his hands could well be one of the defining moments of the Games of the XXX Olympiad. One thing’s for sure; you wouldn’t want to bet against it happening.

“Ross is a very experienced player and has competed at many Major Tournaments including Beijing in 2008 and Vancouver in 2010 over the last 10 years, during my tenure and has been a dedicated enthusiastic athlete who has sacrificed a great deal to represent his country. I do believe this year will probably be the biggest challenge Ross has faced in his sporting career, but I am sure he will rise to the occasion.”

Tom O’Connor Head Coach, Great Britain Wheelchair Rugby Rick Edwards OP, presenter of Channel Four’s That Paralympic Show

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PUS LONDON 2012 OP Roger is still in the running for 2012 If Roger Black MBE OP (1977-1984) had any notion that retirement from professional sport would result in less hype surrounding him at this year’s Olympics, he has been sorely mistaken.

“I recall taking the bus from the warm-up track to the stadium in Atlanta for the 400 metres Olympic final in 1996 and there was no banter or tubthumping, just quiet mutual respect between the eight finalists”, he says.

Roger Black 1984

Roger was among a group of 27 of Britain’s most inspirational and accomplished Olympians from previous Games appointed as Team GB 2012 Ambassadors by the British Olympic Association at Tate Modern last year. Between them, the Team GB 2012 Ambassadors can draw upon experience of winning 51 Olympic medals, including 27 gold medals. The Ambassadors have already been an integral part of Team GB in the lead-up to the Games and will continue to be so during London 2012. They will help British athletes and the wider Team GB to achieve their Olympic ambitions, and in doing so, it is hoped that they will serve as a source of inspiration and motivation for the 60 million Team GB fans across the UK. The preparations and punishing schedule of the Ambassadors has been no less demanding than for the athletes they have handed over the baton to, with appearances at Olympic-themed events over the UK. What memories come flooding back of Roger’s own experiences of competing in the Barcelona and Atlanta Olympics as the London Games approaches?

Perhaps his greatest achievement was winning the Olympic 400 metre Silver medal in 1996 and he is particularly admired for his triumphs over adversity, successfully overcoming several serious injuries and set-backs throughout his career. He is keen to cite other powerful sources of inspiration drawn from the sporting world: “Elite sport is all about respect for your rivals and trust in your team-mates. In

It is precisely such stories of triumph overcoming adversity, human endeavour, fairness and sportsmanship that prompted Roger to collaborate with his business partner and fellow Olympian Steve Backley OBE to produce The Little Book of Inspiration, an uplifting anthology of motivational sound-bites from world-class sportsmen and the perfect Olympic year souvenir. Copies priced at £10 (plus p&p) can be ordered by contacting Natalie@backleyblack.com

athletics, the examples of chivalry that stand out for me are Chris Brasher and Chris Chataway slogging their hearts out round Iffley Road to keep the pace up so that Roger Bannister could run the first sub-four-minute mile in 1954.

Or John Landy, Bannister’s great rival from Australia, pausing to help a fallen opponent two years later and missing out on a world record as a result. Then there is Lutz Long, the German long jumper, who saw that Jesse Owens, his American rival, was struggling to qualify for the Olympic final in 1936 and walked over to the black athlete in full view of the Fuhrer and told him to alter his run-up. Owens went on to win the gold medal; Long died in the war but Owens attended his son’s wedding out of respect for his rival and friend.”

Roger Black poses with the other Team GB 2012 Ambassadors and Olympic legends (L-R) Kriss Akabusi, Dame Mary Peters, Adrian Moorhouse, Tessa Sanderson, Roger, Dame Kelly Holmes, Sharron Davies, Sir Steve Redgrave, Robin Cousins, Jayne Torvill, Steve Backley, Christopher Dean, Duncan Goodhew, Denise Lewis, Sally Gunnell, Lynn Davies and David Hemery on the Millenium Bridge for the British Olympic Associition’s Olympic Legends Launch

PGS Development Director Alasdair Akass with Roger Black, guest speaker at The Independent School Awards held at the National Motorcycle Museum, Birmingham last November.

Roger with Olympic Mascots Wenlock and Mandeville

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PUS LONDON 2012

The long legs of the law A criminal active in Portsmouth in the late 1920s would have had cause to think twice about his career choice. Walking the beat in the bustling naval town was a tenacious and ambitious police constable, six feet two inches in height, who was destined for rapid promotion. But, perhaps more alarmingly for those in need of a quick getaway, PC John Hanlon OP was a champion sprinter. pursued criminals in the C.I.D. and, in his spare time, kept up his running in the force’s athletics club.

PGS Senior School Sports Day, between the wars.

Hanlon was born in 1905 and attended Portsmouth Grammar School from 1919 to 1923. His father was a Lieutenant in the Royal Marine Artillery based at Eastney Barracks, and the family home was in Winter Road.

The young Hanlon’s remarkable athletic talents at school were celebrated in 1923 when he was awarded the Victor Ludorum cup (for gaining the most points on Sports Day), coming first in the 100 yards, the hurdles and the high jump.

He played an active role in school life in many ways, as a prefect and member of several committees. As a member of the Debating Society he seconded a motion “that the modern newspaper has abused its privileges”, objecting to the prurient details of horrific crimes that were reported. As a sergeant in the Officer Training Corps, and one of the best shots in the school, he argued that O.T.C. membership should be compulsory for pupils. And, in November 1923, Hanlon spoke in the school’s mock election for a Prime Minister, putting the case for the Conservatives and arguing that “the best way to avoid war was to prepare for it”.

After leaving school, Hanlon went directly into the Portsmouth Police where he

In July 1928, during the Amateur Athletics Association championships at Stamford Bridge, The Times reported that “of our new men, the most promising would appear to be J.A.T. Hanlon, a young and keen athlete…with skilled and careful coaching (he) may go far.” Hanlon was duly selected for the 1928 Olympics 400m and 400m relay.

The Amsterdam Games included women athletes and gymnasts for the first time and also welcomed Germany’s return after the Great War. This was a time of great optimism and, for many, the 1928 Games symbolised a world that was united in peace and harmony.

the first ever constable to practise as a barrister. He wrote the Police Manual in 1952 and served as a judge for many years in the Northumberland area. He died in 1983, having more than fulfilled The Times’ hopes that he would “go far”.

References The Portmuthian PGS Debating Society minutes 1923-24 PGS Admission Register The Times 9 July 1928 The Olympics – Athens to Athens 1896-2004 (2004) F.Inzian et al

Unfortunately for Hanlon, dreams of Olympic glory turned to ash on the cinder track. He was eliminated in the first round and took no further part in Olympic history.

Despite the setback, Hanlon’s athletic career continued. In the following year’s A.A.A. Championships, he triumphed in the 220 and 440 yards and was a member of the winning 4x400 yard relay team in 1932. He competed in the British Empire Games of 1930 and, in 1931, won a silver medal in the 4x110 yard relay.

Meanwhile, Hanlon’s rise through the police ranks was meteoric and, by the age of 33 he had been appointed Chief Constable of Leamington. In 1939 he retired from the force to study law and was called to the Bar five years later, becoming

Amsterdam Olympics posters, 1928 (courtesy The Olympic Museum, Lausanne)

This Sporting Life Two pioneering OP friends and elite sportswomen have embraced the opportunities to hone their sporting prowess during their time at Oxford University. Here Opus does its very best to keep up with the amazingly talented Katie Sage and Eloise Waldon-Day and finds out why 2012 is shaping up to be their year.

Former Senior Prefect Katie Sage OP (2007-2009) is celebrating a conclusive Oxford University Women’s Rugby Varsity win. The 2012 Women’s Nomura Varsity Match was won

by Oxford on Saturday 3 March at Iffley Road by 28 points to 8. The first half was very much a battle of attrition with both sides’ defences on top and there were just six points scored.

It was not until the second half that the Oxford side came alive and scored four unanswered tries as they proceeded to dominate both possession and territory to win convincingly in the end. Katie, playing at full back scored two decisive tries and made the break in the first half that led to the Oxford penalty which leveled the scores.

Katie has played rugby from the age of 6 at Havant Rugby Club and represented Hampshire from 13 to 18, as well as playing for the successful South Regional Team. In her third year at Pembroke College Oxford studying Jurisprudence, Katie has played in all of the varsity matches since she went up to Oxford. Both previous clashes have seen Cambridge victories, though Katie was player of the match at Grange Road last season. Making the very most of her time at Oxford, she combines her passion for rugby with determination and application to her study, is predicted to achieve a 1st Class Honours Degree and was the recipient last year of the Roger Bannister Scholarship for combining Academic and Sporting achievement. She hopes to stay on at Oxford to complete a Master’s Degree next year and also has plans to spend a year working for the Law Commission in Westminster before she pursues her ultimate ambition to become a Barrister. Just don’t stand in her way!

Katie’s friend and fellow former Senior Prefect Eloise Waldon-Day OP (1999-2008), in her final year reading History at Trinity College, is President of the prestigious Atalanta Society, the society of Oxford sportswomen which is open to all who have represented the university in any sport, not only those who have won Blues. The Society is celebrating its 20th birthday this year which Eloise has marked by setting up a Speaker Series in which prominent women in sport are invited to address members. She also confesses to regular less formal gatherings which meet in Vincent’s Club (Atalanta’s male equivalent) for lunch on Saturdays!

Eloise has just been interviewed by First Eleven, the magazine for parents with children at independent schools about girls’ sport provision within the sector. She has an impressive sporting pedigree competing to national standard in netball (England U19 2008-09, English Universities 2011) and athletics (Captain of the England team-ISF World Cup 2007, English Schools Multi-Events U17) and has been heavily involved in Oxford sport throughout her time at Trinity.

She has a Blue in Netball, has achieved three Half-Blues in Athletics and danced in her first year with the Dancesport team. Since then, she has rowed for her college, captained the athletics and netball teams and has even been known to appear on a football, hockey or even waterpolo pitch, with (according to her) varying degrees of success!

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k c a r T e d i s In Newspaper Editor The latest OP to be in the spotlight for Inside Track is Ian Burrell (1972 – 1982).

Ian is Assistant Editor & Media Editor of The Independent, writing and editing the media coverage in both The Independent and i newspapers. He joined The Independent in 1996 and is a former Home Affairs Editor of the paper. He began his career on the Birmingham Post & Mail newspapers where he was Reporter of the Year in the Press Gazette UK regional newspaper awards. He later worked at London Weekend Television and then the Sunday Times, where he was a member of the Insight investigations unit. Ian is also a regular contributor to GQ magazine and has appeared as a commentator on the BBC News Channel, CNN and Al-Jazeera, as well as presenting What the Papers Say on Radio 4. Among the stories he has covered in The Independent recently has been Pompey pub landlady Karen Murphy’s battle with the English Premier League and BSkyB to broadcast live football matches by means of a Greek decoder rather than paying Sky, which holds the rights in the UK. Ian has interviewed a plethora Ian interviews American business magnate Bill Gates of celebrities and public figures throughout his career, including Michael McIntyre, Ozzy Osbourne, Alan Whicker, Michael Parkinson, Ann Widdecombe, 50 cent and Bill Gates. in 2006, a time when he was officially the world’s wealthiest individual.

Of all the people you have interviewed in your career, who has made the biggest impression on you?

The most memorable was with the Microsoft founder Bill Gates in a skyscraper overlooking Time Square in New York City in 2006. Not so much because Gates was an impressive interviewee - he has a soft adenoidal voice, speaks with little passion and fidgets with his feet - but because I had flown 3,500 miles to see him and had ten minutes to generate material for a 2,000-word profile while his minder sat alongside him literally holding a stopwatch. It was highly intense but he was good enough to give me his vision for the future of global media in response to half a dozen carefully-tailored questions.

I have strong memories of interviewing a boyhood hero John Peel, days before he died, and of a couple of interviews with Alan Whicker, one in a hotel in Cape Town shortly after he had pulled down a curtain rail and cut his head open. I’ve made personal friends with some interviewees, such as the artist Barry Fantoni and the broadcaster David Rodigan and others have been or become work colleagues, such as Andrew Marr and Greg Dyke.

The internet entrepreneur Martha Lane Fox, was badly injured in a car crash yet has an inspiring attitude to life. I spent a mad afternoon with the eccentric publisher Felix Dennis over a bottle or two of Pouilly-Fume at his Soho pied-aterre. Steve Coogan was the funniest comedian, though Frank Skinner was the most interesting and Ozzy Osbourne was funnier than them all.

What teachers if any, at school, inspired you to pursue a career in journalism?

I would say those who encouraged us to express ourselves in words - Mr Stoneham, who taught English at GCSE, comes to mind. I’m grateful for the A-level History teaching of Mr Marsh and Mr Reger. I went to the World Cup in South Africa in 2010 and the lessons on the Boer War came flooding back.

The biggest misconception about being a journalist is…?

That we’re commercially-minded animals - people talk of journalists wanting to “sell papers”. That might be true for an editor under pressure from a proprietor to raise circulation. But I would hope that the greatest motivation for the reporter or columnist is to convey a truth. Either you are revealing something previously unknown or you are giving a clearer account of an issue than has been given before.

The Economist recently referred to Britain’s ‘feral Press’. Is that a fair assessment of the nation’s newspapers and approach to investigative journalism?

I think it was Tony Blair who said that first. At the time it was a cheap shot from a retiring Prime Minister who had been given a fair wind by the press in his first term but had subsequently been asked some difficult questions, particularly over his decision to take the country into war in Iraq. In the current climate, when such dirty practices as phone-hacking and bribing police officers are being exposed, the term “feral” seems to me an entirely appropriate description of some elements of the press, I’m sad to say.

What single piece of career advice would you give to aspiring journalists?

Break stories. It’s not easy in an era of 24-7 media but it’s what will make you stand out in a time when almost everyone is using a keyboard and, one way or another, contributing to the public debate through blogs, tweets, status updates right through to full-blown articles.

Can the venerable newspaper survive in the age of the internet?

I think print newspapers have some life in them yet, as the growing circulation of The Independent’s smaller sister paper “i” is showing. There are still many people for whom a well-edited and attractively-presented print paper is the format they feel most suits their needs. National newspapers alone are still selling 9 million copies a day, not including the hundreds of regional titles, so I expect the news-stand to last for another 20 years, though undergoing steady decline. Few people under the age of 30 buy print papers and so digital publication is of critical importance. Newspapers are transitioning from print to digital. Eventually we will all consume our news from websites and apps - or whatever format the digital revolution throws up next. What I do expect is that the British newspaper brands, which are very strong, will continue to be key players in the news industry for generations to come, albeit not in paper form.

What are the strangest lengths you’ve ever gone to in pursuit of the story?

Gosh. When I was on the Sunday Times I had to do some odd things. I remember taking a small boat across choppy waters to the Isle of Sark in mid-winter to expose a tax loophole, and disguising myself as a travel writer journeying through remote villages in Macedonia to uncover a Euro tax scam. And turning up at midnight on the doorsteps of British engineers who had worked on parts for Saddam Hussein’s Supergun. The most ridiculous was spending all night in a race against time ordering a consignment of ostrich meat from a ranch in the United States, getting an airline to fly it free of charge (for the publicity), and fast-tracking it through HM Customs at Heathrow, all so that the Birmingham chef Rustie Lee could cook it live on London Weekend Television.

What’s your killer question when interviewing someone?

I don’t have one as such. It’s something you would have in your armoury as a broadcast interviewer trying to pin down an evasive and media-trained politician. Generally I’m trying to put people at their ease and encouraging them to be open and frank, rather than trying to trip them up. I think you learn more that way.

Rather than asking a killer question, a crucial technique is to know when not to speak, thus encouraging the interviewee to “fill” the void you have created and reveal a little more of themselves. You can also wreck a great quote by interrupting someone at a critical moment.

What’s the scoop you would love to have broken?

At this moment it would have to be the phone-hacking story, uncovered by Nick Davies of The Guardian. Few people, including me, realised just how important this was when it broke. I now have the feeling that there is far more to come and it’s a scandal that will reach into high places and have repercussions that will last for years.

What’s the best newspaper headline you’ve ever read?

The one that made me laugh most recently concerned a looter who had torched an underwear shop during the London riots, falsely denied that he did it but was identified by his tendency to go boss-eyed during moments of stress. The Evening Standard headline was: “Caught out by his cross eyes, the liar who set pants on fire during looting”.

Among the many celebrities Ian has interviewed are popstars Deborah Harry (left) and Ozzy Osbourne (right).

Portsmouth Point Portsmouth Point is a termly record of the intellectual and cultural life of PGS pupils, staff and parents. It includes many of the extended essays written

by PGS pupils. Founded by Mr ElphickSmith and his editorial team in 2009, the magazine has included articles on a dizzying range of topics, including Chaos Theory, the geography of sun beds, Heidegger’s ontology, a recipe for bouillabaisse written in French, social polarization in Argentina, the Taliban, croquet, anorexia nervosa, inflationary cosmology, the music of the Stone Roses, an appreciation of weathervanes and fractal geometry.

In February 2012, a new editorial team, under the editorship of Mr. Burkinshaw, launched the new Portsmouth Point blog, designed and developed by Year 11 PGS pupil, Daniel Rollins. The blog is updated daily with articles by pupils, staff and parents. Recent posts have included analysis of the 2012 Budget, Bruce Springsteen’s new album, Wrecking Ball, a discussion of the situation in Syria and an investigation into criminal psychology. We invite OPs to visit us (and, of course, to comment) at www.portsmouthpoint.blogspot.com

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Geography Forever!

Ray Clayton - A celebration When the newly appointed Ray Clayton entered the Common Room at Portsmouth Grammar School for the first time in 1950, he recognised one familiar face among his future colleagues. By an odd coincidence, he had previously met John Marsh, another recently appointed Assistant Master, during the war. It was John Marsh’s supply column from the Royal Indian Army Service Corps that had supplied Ray’s battalion of Somali soldiers at Dimapur in 1944 before they went into Burma. Both only ever taught at PGS and were close friends throughout their time there and in retirement.

At a time when we pupils were known universally by our surnames, it was an indication that you had “arrived” when you were called by your forename by Ray Clayton. The ultimate accolade was when you were allowed to call him, ”Ray”, an honour for the select few and usually occurring during the celebrated Geography Field Weeks in the Lakes. His accessibility singled out Ray from the general run of masters at PGS at the time.

One felt that Ray was more than a teacher, he was a friend and an inspirational one at that.

Ray in “classic” pose - Lakes 1964

I recently had the privilege and pleasure of interviewing Ray, then in his 89th year, for this article. After some 47 years, I was somewhat apprehensive about our meeting in the Still and West; would we recognise each other, would Ray even remember who I was - one of many thousands of pupils he must have taught over the years? In the event, his recall of dates, events and the details of former pupils was truly remarkable and humbling.

Ray was a Yorkshire lad who has never lost his Yorkshire accent despite living many years in the south. He was educated at Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Wakefield from 1932 to 1941 and from there won the Saville Scholarship to read Classics at Downing College, Cambridge.

The Local Authority award stipulated

that he was to become a teacher after graduation - a family tradition - a grandfather having been headmaster of a school in Yorkshire. In wartime only the first year of the normal three year degree courses was taken with the expectation that courses would be completed as soon as the war was over.

Having successfully completed Part 1 of his Classical Tripos, Ray enlisted in the Army and was commissioned into The King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry in 1942. His wartime military career, however, was somewhat unusual. After completing officer training, he was interviewed by his Commanding Officer who asked if he would like to serve abroad in the King’s African Rifles.

With impeccable military logic, his CO assumed that a Classical Scholar of Greek and Latin would have no problem learning Swahili and Urdu!

So it was that the newly commissioned Lieutenant Clayton found himself on a troopship bound for Africa.

At the time, The King’s African Rifles consisted of some 40 battalions of African troops recruited from the many British colonies and protectorates from Somalia to South Africa. The battalions were led by

Soldiers of the King’s African Rifles in Burma 1944 (IWM)

officers and senior NCOs seconded from the British and Indian Armies. They were used initially for local defence and internal security of their respective colonies, but they became increasingly involved in fighting in the German African Colonies, then fighting the Japanese in Burma. Their natural skills as trackers and their ability to survive in the jungle environment made an invaluable contribution to the Allied effort there.

Lieutenant Clayton was posted first to the KAR depot at Langata in Kenya, where he learnt Swahili, the lingua franca of all the KAR battalions, and got to know the ways of the African troops. From there, Ray was posted to one of the two KAR battalions recruited in British Somaliland, the 71st (Somaliland) Battalion. The Somalis made excellent soldiers and Ray commented wryly that descendants of the soldiers he trained are probably those now terrorising the shipping lanes of the Red Sea! The campaign in Burma against the Japanese was ebbing and flowing at the time and the 71st Battalion was sent to Ceylon to train in jungle warfare skills before being committed to Burma with other KAR battalions. In 1944, the Battalion moved up through India to the north of Burma where, under General Bill Slim’s inspirational leadership, Fourteenth Army was turning the tide against the Japanese.

Ray’s battalion, together with two other KAR battalions, formed the 28th (East African) Independent Brigade within XV Corps. The primary task of this Brigade during Slim’s advance into Burma in

1945, was to deceive the Japanese about where he was intending to cross the River Irrawaddy. In March 1945, 28th Brigade made a feint attack across the river. The Japanese took the bait and deployed large numbers of troops to meet the perceived threat. Ray’s battalion of Somali troops was defending the administrative area of the Brigade at Letse when the Japanese 153 Infantry Regiment attacked the somewhat exposed defensive position at dawn on 20 March. A desperate struggle ensued with the Japanese breaking into the compound many times and being repelled by the Somalis.

After several hours of hand-to-hand fighting, the Japanese were defeated, losing more than half their men.

Slim was able to cross the Irrawaddy elsewhere with little Japanese opposition, taking Rangoon a few weeks later.

During the course of our meeting, I showed Ray a sketch plan of the action at Letse from a wargame on the internet.

His eyes lit up as he orientated the map, as a professional geographer would, and pointed out where his platoon was deployed and where the fanatical Japanese had broken through the barbed wire a few yards in front of his position.

He was amazed to find that the short but desperate action he had taken part in was the subject of an internet wargame more than 60 years later!

Following the defeat of the Japanese in Burma, Ray’s battalion was withdrawn to India to take part in the planned liberation of Malaya and Singapore. However, the dropping of the atom bombs and surrender of the Japanese rendered that unnecessary and the battalion returned to East Africa. Ray was posted to the KAR Depot in Dar es Salaam, where his administrative skills were put to use as Depot Adjutant.

He demobilised in 1947 and returned to take up his place again at Downing College. Perhaps because of his experiences travelling in India and the Far East, he decided to switch to geography, a decision that many generations of geographers at PGS had cause to be thankful for. At Cambridge he came under the influence of Head of the Geography Department, Professor J A Steers, the renowned exponent of Physical Geography who did much to promote Geography as an academic subject in its own right in the 1930s.

Graduating in 1949 and taking his Diploma in Education in 1950, Ray successfully applied for a post at the Portsmouth Grammar School where he was to remain until his retirement some 37 years later in 1987 - an exceptional record. Ray’s leadership, drive and enthusiasm quickly led to his appointment as Head of Smith House which he only reluctantly relinquished in 1956 when he was appointed Head of Geography. It was in this role that Ray really made his mark on the academic life of the school. Under his guidance the Geography Department expanded and flourished, with increasing numbers of pupils leaving to read geography at various universities, a firm link being established with Downing College, Ray’s alma mater.

It has to be said that his teaching method, the dictation of notes in the manner of a university lecture, may not have accorded with modern practice, but the classroom work was enhanced by the legendary Field Trips to the Lake District every Easter. Believed to have started in 1962 with a week in the Outward Bound Centre at Brathay Hall, near Ambleside, the base camp moved shortly afterwards to the Hope Memorial Trust huts near Braithwaite.

Field Trip group photo Hope Memorial Trust huts, Braithwaite 1963

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Ray Clayton - A celebration

For those that were old enough, the Coledale Hotel in Braithwaite (known to all as the Colehole) was the favoured evening venue on the strict understanding that the pupils and staff used different bars.

Apparently the landlords, the Swift family, looked forward to the annual arrival of the party from PGS which they regarded as the end of winter and the beginning of the new season. Ray and the Swifts formed a lifelong friendship as a result.

For many pupils the Geography Field Trip became a rite of passage, involving, for some, hitch-hiking to the Lakes or driving there in a variety of first cars, or even on a motor bike.

Others travelled in the “barouche”, an ancient and somewhat unreliable Bedford Dormobile. Many will have fond memories of loading the barouche at school, of the interminable pre-motorway drive to the Lake District and, on one famous occasion, of man-hauling the van up the Kirkstone Pass in a blizzard. In the early days, the trip was specifically for Sixth Formers of the Geography Department. As time went by more and more pupils from other departments joined in. There seemed to be a preponderance of classicists; perhaps Ray was harking back to his early years at Wakefield and Cambridge or maybe the classicists were under the illusion that they were adding tone to the proceedings?

The fieldwork included practical plane table surveying, a skill I found useful in later life as a Survey Officer in the Royal Artillery and subsequently as a Chartered Surveyor. Invariably there was a trip to Malham Tarn and latterly to a coalmine at Whitehaven on the Cumbrian coast. For the intrepid, and foolish, there was the sport of sliding down the steep hill slope opposite the huts on enamel plates or tin trays. The usual light covering of snow at Easter gave an added frisson to the activity.

Plane table surveying in the Lakes 1964

Man-hauling the Barouche in a blizzard Kirkstone Pass 1962

Ray told me that in later years some 60 pupils, including Sixth form girls, attended and it became necessary to hire one of Mr Byng’s coaches for the week.

He told the story of the girls being specifically told not to dry their underwear on the ancient radiators in the huts only to return one evening to find an array of smouldering undergarments.

He recalled his embarrassment at trying to explain to the insurance loss adjustor the circumstance whereby a teacher at a respected boys’ grammar school was making an insurance claim for burnt knickers and bras!

was one of the school chaplains, Sam Rhys Griffith who, in an extraordinary and literal leap of faith, bounded over the campfire during the last night party and emerged unscathed on the other side to the amazement of staff and pupils alike - the Good Lord must have been looking after his own that night.....

The entertainments invariably included a ritualistic folk dance by Ray and Hoppy, which we southerners could only assume had its origins in some weird Yorkshire cult.

Other members of staff helped during the week, notably John “Boggy” Marsh, John “Hoppy” Hopkinson, Gordon Vowles, Peter Barclay and others. A memorable visitor

Ritual “northern dance”, last night of the Field Trip in 1964

After leaving school many former pupils returned to help with the field trip which became an annual ritual for some. I reminded Ray of a reunion trip made by some of us in the early 1970s when, unbeknown to Ray, we assembled in the bar of the Colehole before his pre-dinner drink. He spotted us in the corner, made a double-take, came over and said “By heck, what are you lot doing here..?.” or Yorkshire words to that effect. Later in the evening, as the 6th form girls were ushered off up the hill to the huts, one of them came over and wished Ray “goodnight,” with a peck on his cheek. He turned to us, who were pupils when the school was all-boys, and said with a wink, “This wouldn’t have happened in your day. There is some compensation to having girls in the school!”

Ray made a considerable contribution to the sporting life of the school. A keen and competent sportsman at Cambridge, he took part in Trials for the University and had College Colours in rugby, tennis, squash, cricket and rowing. At PGS, he

took over from Ted “George” Washington, following his tragic accident, as master in charge of cricket and took the school teams to new heights against our rival schools. He was a founder member of the MCC (that is, the Masters Cricket Club), and is remembered for his opening spells of bowling. He had attended an OP cricket reunion at Hilsea with Hoppy, Peter Barclay and other stalwarts of the MCC only a week before I met him. Ray also served as coach to the 1st XV backs in happy association with Hoppy, the head coach.

Ray’s fine tenor voice is remembered for his solos at the Annual Christmas Service in the Cathedral and in many of John A. Davison’s compulsory, massed choral events.

It has to be said that sometimes his tone was less than perfect after the interval, possibly owing to the close proximity of the Dolphin Hotel.

His wartime infantry experience was used to good effect in his role as an officer in the Army Section of the School Combined Cadet Force. He was also a member of the local Territorial Army Regiment, 457 Heavy Anti Aircraft Regiment, where he commanded P Battery based at Haslar, Gosport. He continued the tradition of encouraging PGS boys to join the Regiment, as their predecessors had done during the war, when the local Regiment had defended Portsmouth during the Blitz

and was largely officered and manned

by OPs. He arranged for CCF cadets to join his Battery for its annual camp, notably Exercise Blue Moon in the early 1960s, when the Regiment was selected to train on a new and complex guided missile system, hitherto the preserve of the Regular Army. The Regiment passed its trials with flying colours and became one of only two Territorial Regiments to be equipped with the Thunderbird anti aircraft missile. Many pupils who subsequently went to Sandhurst and commissioned into the Regular Army had their first taste of military life in “457”.

When I asked him if he ever felt the need to move on, he said that he loved the job, loved the school, loved the area, loved working with his colleagues and, above all, loved the pupils and could see no reason to move. Ray was of that generation of masters who had served during WW2 and were, in many ways, heroes to us boys who had grown up hearing stories of our parents’ wartime experiences.

Undoubtedly, Ray was ahead of his time in his approach to dealing with young men and women. His friendly, informal but firm manner was in marked contrast to that of many of his contemporaries.

His enthusiasm for his subject certainly inspired me and many others to read Geography at university and subsequently to pursue a related career. In Ray Clayton we have much to be grateful for.

Philip Ventham OP 1953-1963

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The Triumphal Arch Last year on Year 13 Leavers’ Day, pupils staged what has affectionately been coined, ‘The March Through the Arch’, when they walked under the school’s Main Arch and down the middle of the High Street, applauded by their parents and teachers, entering the west door of St Thomas’s Cathedral by the West Door for the service to mark the end of their time at The Portsmouth Grammar School and the beginning of life beyond.

But for an increasing number of former pupils the lure to return to PGS is so strong that they just can’t stay away! Here several PGS staff who are former pupils of the school talk about the biggest changes since they left as pupils and why they decided to beat a path back under the school’s Arch in their professional lives.

Steve Harris OP (1968-1978) Steve Harris became the new Surmaster at PGS in January 2011. He read Chemistry at Christ Church, Oxford and came to PGS from Exeter School, where he taught Chemistry as well as being a Housemaster and Head of Careers. He is contingent commander of the school’s Combined Cadet Force and sits on the Old Portmuthian Club Committee. Steve is of course the son of the late Roger Harris, Old Portmuthian, former staff member and President of the OP Club.

Which was more nerve-wracking: passing under the school’s historic arch as a pupil on your first day at school or as a new employee?

As a pupil.

Are there any current Common Room colleagues who you remember being taught by?

No, but I remember Mike Taylor as a prominent member of the most influential department in the school!

Caroline Chambers (née Sayers) OP (1992-1994) Caroline Chambers, Key Stage 2 English Coordinator, Head of Hudson House and Junior School Charities Coordinator, began her professional career at PGS in 1998 after graduating in English and Education at Homerton College, Cambridge. Brother Mark, also an OP, is now an advocate in the Channel Islands.

Which was more nerve-wracking: passing under the school’s historic arch as a pupil on your first day at school or as a new employee?

I think my first day as a pupil was most nerve-wracking. I came to the Grammar School as a Sixth Former having spent all my preceeding years at the same all girls school, so it was quite a change in many respects. It didn’t take long to settle, make friends and know for sure that I had made a good decision in moving schools.

Are there any current Common Room colleagues who you remember being taught by?

I spent many an hour in the company of Simon Lemieux whilst completing my History A level and the mere sight of him still transports me back to those memories.

Who or what inspired you to become a teacher?

My father.

Best and worst subjects at school?

Chemistry and French Best school trip?

Are there any advantages or disadvantages to having seen the school through the eyes of both pupil and teacher?

Climbing in the French Alps

Hard to say as the pupil experience was very different back when the earth was cooling.

Professional squash player……?

What is the single biggest change at PGS since you left as a pupil?

Girls and Cambridge House

If you had not become a teacher, you would have loved to have been a ……?

Best film about teachers: Goodbye Mr Chips The most memorable line from your school report?

Can’t remember any, (perhaps needs to work on memorising facts!)

Our current artist in residence, Christine Derry was my ceramics and Art teacher. I tremendously enjoyed spending time in the Art room, creating a plethora of large pots and sculptures which still adorn my parents’ home. Another long suffering Art teacher of mine was Simon Willcocks, I say long suffering as he was the one desperate to make me draw and paint and do anything other than work with clay! Poor man, it was a hopeless cause.

Who or what inspired you to become a teacher?

I knew from quite a young age that I aspired to be a teacher. I spent many an hour pretending to teach an assortment of toys which I arranged neatly in my bedroom. When I joined the Sixth Form here I made contact with the then Headmistress of the Pre-prep department, Mrs Pippa Foster. She had taught me when I was younger and we had kept in touch. I

spent any free time I had helping in classes in the Pre-prep and was delighted to be of assistance.

Are there any advantages or disadvantages to having seen the school through the eyes of both pupil and teacher?

I think there is certainly an advantage. I know what it feels like to be one of the cohort of students here and therefore it gives me immense pleasure to watch the youngsters who come through the Junior School grow up and become a part of that. It is amazing to see all they achieve and to note the wide spread talent which is encouraged by the school. As a Junior School teacher it makes me all the more aware of the importance of my role in giving these children a firm platform from which to develop.

What is the single biggest change at PGS since you left as a pupil?

I suppose it is seeing the school gradually become completely co-ed as there were only girls in the first year when I began Sixth Form, they were filtering in at the entry points. It is fantastic to see the girls flourishing throughout.

Best and worst subjects at school?

Having only studied for A levels here, the choices are not wide. I thoroughly enjoyed English lessons and was totally immersed in what ever book we were studying at the time. I don’t think I had a worst subject, though Simon Willcocks would probably argue with that on account of my lack of artistic talent!

Best school trip?

French Exchange - It was a fantastic week of fun filled French speaking and a little bit of education on the side! Though I am sure that’s not how it was sold to us!

I have wonderful memories of calling my exchange partner to thank her and her parents for their hospitality and finally realising I could really hold an entire conversation in fluent French!

If you had not become a teacher, you would have loved to have been a ……?

Journalist - I had always enjoyed writing and had dreams of becoming a Sports journalist. This may have been somewhat fuelled by an idealistic image of interviewing top footballers and rugby players, rather than the more realsitic version of journalism which I actually experienced. On work shadowing, I attended the News in Havant, and the most exciting thing that happened all week was a small kitchen fire when a pan caught alight. No injuries, no need for a fire brigade even, but it still made the news. It can’t have been a very busy week!

Best film about teachers: Dead Poet’s Society - a classic!

The most memorable line from your school report?

“Caroline has a tendency to procrastinate” very articulate from Mrs Derry and not far wrong. Life in the Art room was laid back and creative...until exam time!!

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Portsmouth Grammar School • www.pgs.org.uk

The Triumphal Arch

Claire Jepson (née Sawyer) OP (1988-1990) Claire Jepson became Head of English at PGS in 2006. She read English at University College, London before gaining a Masters in Marketing and having a top-flight career with Proctor and Gamble, responsible for the promotion of some of the nation’s most beloved brands, including Bendicks of Mayfair and Werther’s Original, before re-training as a teacher. Claire is the author of several published GCSE English revision guides and is a former winner of Strictly School Dancing, the PGS version of the popular television show!

Stuart Price OP (1984-1986) Stuart Price will join the staff at PGS in the Summer Term as a Mathematics Teacher.

He has a Masters in Mathematics from the University of Warwick and a PGCE from the University of Portsmouth. Stuart was a Research Assistant at the University of Barcelona and is currently teaching Mathematics at St Vincent College, Gosport.

Which was more nerve-wracking: passing under the school’s historic arch as a pupil on your first day at school or as a new employee?

Which was more nerve-wracking: passing under the school’s historic arch as a pupil on your first day at school or as a new employee?

I started at PGS in the pre-prep department, when I was 5. I don’t remember much about my first days in the school, but my teacher was Mrs Compton and I really enjoyed lessons with her. It’s definitely more nerve-wracking to come back as a new employee, although I am excited by the prospect of continuing my career at the school.

Are there any current Common Room colleagues who you remember being taught by?

The physics department has barely changed since I myself took A-level Physics - even Mrs Brown is still there in the prep room. At interview I saw a few familiar faces in the common room, including Mr Hampshire and Mr Elphick-Smith.

Who or what inspired you to become a teacher?

Even during my school days, I enjoyed helping fellow pupils with their maths. I was inspired by the subject knowledge and teaching styles of Mr Foxton and Mr Orton in maths, and Mr Hawkins in Spanish. During my degree I was able to continue peer-tutoring in a more structured way, and then I became involved in facilitating summer schools.

I love being able to explain complex mathematical ideas to people who don’t believe themselves capable of understanding them.

Are there any advantages or disadvantages to having seen the school through the eyes of both pupil and teacher?

Although I will have the advantage of knowing the layout of the school and already knowing some colleagues, it is clear that much has changed since I left in 1996!

What is the single biggest change at PGS since you left as a pupil?

The inclusion of the Cambridge barracks within the school’s grounds. I’m going to be teaching in that mystical building that used to be beyond high chicken wire fencing, conifer trees, and that had a security guard by its entrance barrier!

Best and worst subjects at school?

My strongest subjects at school were Maths, Physics and Spanish. I had consistently poor reports in PE, Art and Music. The only one of those that has since improved is my interest and ability in music, with learning the piano - I must have been a late-starter!

Best school trip?

The only trip I can remember was a Geography coursework visit to Hengistbury Head in Dorset. I’m not sure I would describe it as a best trip - standing on a windy, rainy beach measuring pebbles was not my idea of fun...

If you had not become a teacher, you would have loved to have been a ……?

A dolphin trainer. Or any other role working with animals in a zoo. I guess that’s not too disimilar from teaching now I think about it...

Best film about teachers: I do think the History Boys film was an excellent follow up to the play.

The most memorable line from your school report?

Aside from the “could try harder” lines in my Art and PE reports, my A-level subject reports were very complimentary.

However, the four words that have stuck with me ever since described me as “free from intellectual arrogance”. I think that phrase encapsulated the balance I strike between developing my own subject knowledge, and patiently sharing that knowledge with those around me.

As I joined from a very small private girls’ school with only 15 pupils in year 11, walking through the arch in September to join the Sixth Form was pretty overwhelming. I remember that three of us all started from the same school and we stuck together fairly closely for the first few weeks. At that time there were not that many girls in the Sixth Form and so we did stand out. We all felt a little intimidated in the initial weeks, but then soon settled in to PGS Sixth Form life. (We got to know The Dolphin well, as I recall!)

Are there any current Common Room colleagues who you remember being taught by?

I was taught German by Andrew Hogg and David Hampshire directed me as Mrs Sowerberry in a production of Oliver! in 1989. Mr Blewitt was a ubiquitous presence although he wasn’t one of my teachers. I was also taught History by Alan Kittermaster, who retired two years ago – he was a great teacher but responsible for the only time I ever got asked to leave a lesson. It was Friday afternoon and I was idly doodling in my history book, rather than diligently taking notes.

Unfortunately I was sitting in the front row at the time. Oops!

Who or what inspired you to become a teacher?

What is the single biggest change at PGS since you left as a pupil?

My English teacher at PGS was Paul Dean who was the most incredible inspiration.

He had a unique combination of vivacity and erudition and would think nothing of bursting into song – usually something from Twelfth Night – at the slightest whim.

He was a demon if he suspected any kind of plagiarism, however, and I remember him making at least two boys cry when he pounced on their written homework and unpicked it line by line for “borrowed” ideas. He is, without doubt, the most inspiring man I have ever met. I can vividly recall how he somberly read the line, “I know thee not, old man…How ill white hairs become a fool and jester” from Henry IV, part 2 and it still makes me feel like weeping. When I joined PGS he sent me a congratulatory letter, alluding to “Mr Bleaney”. He was a teacher who, I always felt, like Eliot’s Webster, knew the skull beneath the skin.

The style of teaching, the size of the school community, the vast array of opportunities available to pupils and the pace.

Are there any advantages or disadvantages to having seen the school through the eyes of both pupil and teacher?

To be honest, the school is scarcely recognisable. Twenty years have made the most enormous difference and, in many ways, it feels like an entirely different establishment. I do feel privileged to be able to say that my roots are firmly entangled in G Block, though

Best and worst subjects at school?

My best subjects were English and history.

My worst was definitely Maths (I was taught by a Mrs Wright (how’s that for nominative determinism?) and I distinctly failed to live up to her low expectations!)

Best school trip?

I remember going to an (unintentionally) hilarious production of the compelling German play, The Firestarter If you had not become a teacher, you would have loved to have been a ……?

A mixed-media artist Best film about teachers: Apocalypse Now The most memorable line from your school report?

From my PE Report when I was 10: “Tries hard, but must improve her hit”.

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OPUS • Issue 6 • Spring 2012

Portsmouth Grammar School • www.pgs.org.uk

Latter House Saints and Sinners (1952-3) It was a fascinating, though slightly embarrassing discovery. Asked by Mike Shepherd for my recollections of science teaching at PGS in the 1940s and ’50s for an article he was writing for Opus (Spring 2011), and hoping to jog my memory, I recalled that my Sixth Form science notebooks were lurking somewhere in the basement. Retained originally for their voluminous notes, and later through inertia, they had in fact lain unopened for over fifty years.

But the meat of the book is its record of the achievements and misdemeanours of each of the 112 members of the house.

There were a dozen of them, standard PGS issue at that time, sturdy hard-bound items with 128 lined pages and identical (and anonymous) dark blue spines. It was only when I opened one with no outside label that I realised that there was a cuckoo in the nest - and a very different and entertaining cuckoo at that - the Latter House Book 1952-1953 (incorporating the Eastwood House Book 1952-1953).

The opening pages are bland enough, merely listing the masters and prefects.

The Housemaster was W.T. (Bill) Tweed, also senior chemistry master, a bluff but genial teacher, reputed to have been in charge of an explosives factory during WWII. The House Tutor was W.H. Hore, senior geography master, whom I remember amazing us in the Lower Fifth with the ultra-modern 35mm colour slides he had taken on a trip across North America.

Bill Tweed and W.H. Hore, 1950

The House Captain that year was Richard Sotnick, later Lord Mayor, founder of the Portsmouth (now London) International String Quartet Competition, and recent author of a study in royal history, The Coburg Conspiracy.

Each double-page spread is divided into columns, with the left-most listing the names, ages and forms of up to five boys.

Then come columns for Rugby, CrossCountry and Cricket, and on the righthand page for Scouts, CCF and Discipline.

The latter, naturally, is the widest, with subdivisions Essays, E4s (the prefects’ court, named for the room in which it was originally held), Punishment, Late, and (most ominously) Housemaster.

Richard Sotnick, when he was Captain of the 2nd XI in 1952

The Sports columns dutifully record membership of School and House teams, and the CCF column section and rank. But the most interesting entries are of course those under Discipline.

We find that Sixth-Formers were generally fairly law-abiding, though a few were awarded essays (for what, one wonders - the misdeeds are not specified).

Lateness also remains common. But the lower years provide a richer harvest. In the Upper Fifths ‘3 slipper’ begins to appear. In the Lower Fifths a star sportsman (Colts rugby, 1st XI cricket) gets ‘3 slipper’ twice and also ‘2 cane’, while a boy with no other achievements manages a record in beatings - four over the year. (The ‘slipper’ used was actually a gym shoe - lighter, more flexible and easier to grip than a modern trainer.)

The Eastwood House Book section is organised in a similar way: ‘Housemaster: F.M. Fogarty [who brought rugby to the school]; House Tutor: J. [Jasper] Nowell [modern languages]; House Prefects: A.J. Payne/N.J. Coombs. The House numbers 56’.

A crucial difference in the boys’ listings, though, is that no sports or CCF achievements are recorded, leaving lots of space for details of their crimes.

Typical of these, perhaps, is a miscreant in 4A, given a 50-line essay for ‘Insolence’ and ‘1 slipper’ for ‘Chewing and disturbance in prayers’. (I’m hoping that the current distinguished President of the OP Club won’t object to this advertisement of his normalcy.) The most common charge seems to have been ‘Talking in form’, usually rewarded by a 400-word essay. Other misdeeds penalised by essays ranged from the mundane to the daring:

Diamond Queen While the school has had many distinguished visitors over the years, Her Majesty the Queen has never visited. She did pass by in June 1947 when, as Princess Elizabeth, she was part of a royal visit to the city that included King George VI, Queen Elizabeth and Princess Margaret. They are seen here being driven past the war-damaged Lower School after disembarking from HMS Vanguard.

- General nuisance - Walking in front of D Block - Throwing chalk - Throwing paper pellets with elastic band - Throwing apple at prefect.

E4 offences usually resulted in two or three with the slipper: - Talking in prayers - Kicking stones in playground after repeated warnings - Fighting in form room - Misbehaviour in public - Causing disturbance on Guildhall steps.

An even more evocative find than the book was a batch of four impositions that I’d apparently collected the following year. All were the same - writing out Psalm 1 - only six verses, so the crime, unknown now but presumably a group one, cannot have been too serious. But the most interesting feature was that the three culprits whose names I could decipher (not all in Latter) had all gone on to highly distinguished careers: one as a university lecturer in maths, another as Her Britannic Majesty’s ambassador to Peru and later Brazil, and the third as Chief of the Air Staff. What conclusion should be drawn from this? That my timely correction had saved them from lives of criminality? Or that they had achieved success despite a police-state upbringing, where sadistic prefects were forever watching for infringements of the myriad rules, and opportunities to mete out punishment? The former, of course!

But why did I have the House Book at all? Presumably because I’d borrowed it as a model for the 1953-54 volume when I took over as House Captain the following year. Then, indistinguishable from my science notebooks, it had lain neglected and forgotten for half a century. It may even be a unique survival. John Sadden, the School Archivist, says that he knows of no other example. (It will now be committed to his safekeeping.) But it was presumably the norm for all Houses to keep such a record at that time. Surely they haven’t all disappeared?

Maybe another OP has such a memento hiding in an old trunk or tea chest, and preserving dark secrets of the past? It might be worth checking!

Michael Craddock (1945-54)

Her Majesty is seen in the other archive photograph with the PGS Swing Band at Gunwharf Quays during the 2002 Portsmouth Festivities, which she visited as part of her Golden Jubilee celebrations.

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Portsmouth Grammar School • www.pgs.org.uk

The Vicar Born to be Wild Seven youths burst into the church hall armed with sawn-off shotguns. Their leader wore a Nazi helmet, a studded leather jacket and filthy jeans. A sheath knife protruded from his motorcycle boots. He had come to “sort out” the leader of the “Double Zero” chapter.

The weedy, bespectacled Church of England priest, his mouth dry with fear, struggled to stop his legs shaking and drew on his five years’ experience of youth work in inner-city Birmingham. He had worked with Beatniks, Teds, Mods, Rockers, Skinheads and Hell’s Angels. He knew what to do. He offered to fight him. Man to man. No weapons. Fisticuffs.

David Collyer was fourteen years old and weighed six stone when he took part in the Inter-House Boxing Knock-Out Competition at Portsmouth Grammar School in 1952. Despite “occasional lapses into wild swinging” the standard was high and there were some promising young contenders.

But Collyer was not one of them. The Portmuthian reported that he “lost to Lippiett” and there are no further boxing reports involving the boy for his remaining years at the school. However, on Sports Day a few months later, he came third in the 100 yards sprint.

Later, he played rugby for the Junior Colts XV, was a regular in the Second XV in 1956 and Captain of Athletics in 1957-58. He threw himself into other aspects of school life. As a member of the Play Reading Circle he took the role of the Clown in The Winter’s Tale. In the Sixth Form production of The Government Inspector he played Constable Svistoonov. He found time to run the school’s Scottish Country Dancing Society, aided by “the expert tuition of Mr Barclay”. He rose to Company Sergeant Major in the Combined Cadet Force and was made a School Prefect. John Bartle, a contemporary, remembers him as “an extremely jovial, good tempered and affable lad”.

Collyer knew exactly what he wanted to do with his life. He had known since the age of ten. Headmaster Hibbert remembered the boy telling him soon after he joined the school of his wish, one

day, to seek Ordination. “He is,” Hibbert noted, “a young man who is quite sure of his convictions and firm in his faith.”

At the age of seventeen he was baptised into the Church of England and became a church youth club leader, looking after a membership with a large number of Teddy Boys. He went from PGS to Keble College, Oxford to read English and then to Cambridge for theological training. Whilst studying, he became involved in one of the first coffee-bar type youth clubs which he ran with his wife, Carole.

David was Chairman of the Variety Club of Grat Britain in 1979-80 and is seen here with the actor Sir John Mills and Lady Mills.

The vicar was driven to an all-night garage five miles away, a new fan belt was bought, and the Hell’s Angel – who happened to be a motor mechanic - fitted it. Collyer thanked him.

As he was about to drive off, the Good Samaritan said cheerio. “Let me know if you want anyone sorted out…or a bit on the side – you know, birds and that.”

He was criticised for “bringing the scruffs of the earth into the Church of England” and was dubbed “the Rolling Stone Curate” by the press.

References The Times 18 March 1967, 9 Dec 1967 David Collyer in the 1980s

The Portmuthian

David’s many charitable efforts have attracted much media interest. He is shown here being interviewed by DJ legend Tony Blackburn.

David Collyer’s book, Double Zero – Five years with Rockers and Hell’s Angels in an English City was first published by Fontana in 1973 and republished in 1983.

With thanks to Guy King-Reynolds, (former staff 1956-1957).

In this role, Collyer visited nightclubs, pubs, coffee bars and street corners and became a familiar figure mixing with various youth groups and gangs. The “Double Zero” was, according to a report in The Times in 1967, a “strange and successful” youth club, named by its members and set up

by Collyer in the disused St Basil’s Church in Birmingham. There was no attempt to preach or moralise, just to guide and advise through friendship and trust.

The number of Rockers attending reached seven hundred on some evenings.

The Nazi-helmeted Hell’s Angel glanced down at the priest’s dog collar. He had seen the television documentary in which the weedy vicar had been described as the leader of the “Double Zero” chapter. He turned, sneering, discharged his shotgun through the door of the gents’ lavatory and ordered his sidekicks out, saying that the priest “was not worth bothering with”.

A couple of months later, Collyer was driving home after giving a talk to the Midland Round Table. Suddenly, his fan belt snapped and the radiator started to steam and he was forced to hitch-hike to the nearest garage. A large American car drew up and the driver called out, “What’s up then, Vicar?” The Hell’s Angel leader’s voice was unmistakeable. Collyer froze.

“What was it you said, yer fan belt?”

Attracted by the challenge of “the absolute wilderness” of Birmingham, Collyer became an assistant curate at Perry Beeches and introduced jazz services in church with guitar music and jiving in the aisles.

His stance on baptism (that it should be a personal decision, and not imposed on babies) and race (he was accused of being a “nigger lover”), and his total belief and enthusiasm in the inclusion of disaffected youth, led to much publicity and the offer of a job as “Chaplain to the Unattached”.

Members got involved with good works, including digging senior citizens’ gardens and collecting for the Aberfan disaster fund.

David organised the first ever Prince’s Trust Charity evening in 1982. The Trust encourages disadvantaged young people to undertake projects that will benefit themselves and their communities.

Double Zero Club, St Basil’s Church

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Portsmouth Grammar School • www.pgs.org.uk

“It’s time to play the music.

It’s time to light the lights!”

Last year, James’s company, The Honourable Company of Gentleman FilmMakers, based in West Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles cemented its association with HBO with the commissioning and development of two half-hour pilots: Marbury vs. Madison, a comedy set in the world of academic rivalry written by Bobin, and Permanently Temporary, a female intergenerational comedy written by Bobin’s sister, actress Joanna Bobin.

James Bobin OP (1983-1990) was four when The Muppet Show became a television hit in the 1970s and became a kermitted fan, tuning in to watch the show at his grandmother’s house in Sunningwell, Oxfordshire.

Now, over 35 years later, he has directed the eagerly anticipated new Muppet movie, which was released on 10 February and is enjoying life across the Pond with his wife, the comedienne, historian and television presenter Fran Beauman and their daughter Madelaine.

James, who directed Da Ali G Show and co-created Flight of the Conchords, joined PGS in 1983 and, after a very successful academic career at the school, left to read Modern History at Oxford (Brasenose).

In between his studies, he took a full part in school life, including playing Mr Sowerbury with Claire Jepson, (nee Sawyer OP), PGS Head of English, as his wife in the David Hampshire-directed school production of Oliver! at the King’s Theatre.

If a television award were issued for the most inventive comedy writer and series developer of the 2000s, Bobin would almost certainly top the list.

Being chosen to direct the new Muppet movie was “like being handed the crown jewels”, said James, who was very excited about introducing a new generation to Miss Piggy, Kermit, Gonzo, Animal and the rest of the lovable Jim Henson-created characters. The enduring appeal of the Muppets, according to James, is that “it’s friendly, warm-hearted, good natured. It’s not mean or cynical. It’s very honest and open. I love that sort of humour. That’s what I like to do.”

Best known as the man who helped devise the characterisations of Ali G, Borat Sagdiyev and Bruno (all played by the inimitable Sacha Baron Cohen), Bobin kickstarted his career as scripter and helmer of The 11 O’Clock Show in the UK, then moved into collaborations with Cohen. In that capacity, he co-scripted each of the 12 episodes of Da Ali G Show for the Home Box Office Channel in 2003 and 2004.

Bobin foresaw his next comic achievement in the form of a nutty pair of satirical musicians from New Zealand who called themselves Flight of the Conchords - Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement (McKenzie coincidentally wrote the lyrics for Man or Muppet, one of the two songs from the new Muppet movie nominated for Best Original Song at the 84th annual Academy Awards). As created and executive produced by Bobin and others, the group’s eponymous programme cut back and forth between absurdly stylised music videos in which the artists sang original compositions, and comedic sketches that depicted the boys trying to adjust to life in the Big Apple and achieve fame in America. It debuted on HBO in June 2007 and the first season went on to receive a coveted Emmy nomination.

But it is James’s new film The Muppets, the seventh feature film starring Jim Henson’s loveable creations, which has put him firmly in the spotlight. The film is being lauded by critics and audiences alike, appearing to tap into a return to cinematic nostalgia and family-friendly film-making typified by recent blockbusters and re-releases such as Super 8 and Stand by Me. continued...

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“It’s time to play the music.

It’s time to light the lights!”

He has his own theory as to why the Muppets might strike the right chord now.

“Everything in culture moves in a cyclical way. In the past 10 to 15 years we’ve had a lot of observational, ‘The Office’-style comedy, which is very reality-based and quite cynical about how the world is and how people interact. The Muppets is really about innocence and charm and sweetness and light and having hope – and stupid gags. It’s just a good time for Muppets to come back because that’s where comedy is going anyway. And they’re the best at doing it.”

James’s enduring love of the Muppets, is evidence that it’s not only in Hollywood that Kermit, Fozzie Bear, Miss Piggy and others are remembered with fond reverence.

The long Elstree residency and smattering of British guest stars and writers meant the original Muppet Show always felt almost as British as it did American.

known characters Bobby Benson”, James says, “Bobby was kind of this creepy bandleader dude who appeared in Season 3 or 4 of the shows . In those days he had a cigarette permanently attached to his lips, which is of course something which you can’t do anymore. He’s in the movie far more than he probably should be!”

a great believer that a sense of humour is developed at a very early age and it doesn’t ever change. You’re basically the same person forever so you find the same stuff funny forever. The Muppet Show spoke to me at 5 and it speaks to me in my late 30s in the same way. So I typed back “Yes.” and here I am. “

How did it feel to be asked to bring the characters to big screen after a comparatively long absence? James recalls the moment he was asked: “I got an email which simply said the words: “Do you like The Muppets?” from my agent. I am

It’s difficult to predict where James’s next film or television project will take him, but one thing seems certain: the most sensational, inspirational, celebrational, Muppetational career awaits him.

muPPET mANIA!

a selection of OPs in’s new Muppet Movie, we asked Bob es Jam of ase rele the of tion In celebra Muppet character and why. and staff who was their favourite

Who is his favourite muppet character?

“Well I could say Kermit, Fozzie or Gonzo, but I have to single out one of the lesser

Tim Thomas OP (1960-1968) The older I get, the more I’m becoming like Stadler and Waldorf!

Ellie Davis OP (2004-2011) My parents would say that I’m most like Sweetums, especially when I’ve just got out of bed.

Jennifer Tilbury OP (2003-2010) I’d have to say Beaker because he just makes me laugh more than any other Muppett with high-pitched voice and vacant expression. His rendition of Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit in the new film is amazing.

Jordan WoodhouseButt OP (2009-2011) I’d have to say Kermit.

Like him, I’m always waving my arms about manically.

Andrew Hogg, Head of Careers I remember James Bobin really well. As a big fan of Conchords I had no idea it was him!

My favourite character is Gonzo. Can’t think why…

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Gone But Not Forgotten

Friendships formed at PGS often endure a lifetime. Here OPs Tony Burden and Brian Sawyer recall two much-missed friends and classmates who they remained close to long after they had left the school.

PL Burnell 1946-2009 PGS 1955-1964

‘The Amazing Forrest’

My dear life long friend Peter Leonard Burnell passed away some 2 years ago after a long and brave battle against bone cancer. We first met at the Lower School in Miss Waterworth’s class, Lower 3, seated next to each other by virtue of the alphabet, and we stayed close for the next 55 years.

Son of AL Burnell, the enigmatic art master of the Lower School, ‘Bunny’ inherited his father’s nickname, and also his father’s love and ability at art.

Art and music were the only ‘creative’ subjects in the 50’s and 60’s at PGS. Now, I believe, there is a whole plethora of creative subjects to study, but back in the day, the school was not so enlightened.

Bunny’s career at PGS was as a result sadly wasted, except for being a key member of the scrum in the heady days of the 1963/64 1st XV. His love of everything creatively new and different was unrequited at PGS, and he lacked any interest at all in the subjects he was taught. Even the great late Wally Bartle struggled to engage him in art.

But whilst he was bottom of the class at PGS, later in life he demonstrated levels of innovative thinking that were top of the class.

Having spent my entire career at the forefront of London advertising creativity, I recognise genius when I see it, and Bunny was undoubtedly a creative genius.

He created the MERMIS system for BP. A huge project, based on Bunny’s idea of using interactive computers and the then laser discs (pre CD’s), to give the BP management complete control of a crisis on land or at sea anywhere in the world in real time – and to be able to quickly supply footage to the media as the crisis developed.

He was an evangelical pioneer of computer graphics in the 80’s, and helped build software, which has since been further developed into the stunning world of computer games and the high quality computer animated films we enjoy now.

He created a game show format for the BBC, where you could for example play Prime Minister during a terrorist attack on Waterloo station. His experience with the BP project was invaluable in providing the interactive computer gizmos to make the action seem real.

Later I helped him in a small way develop an idea for another TV show - a cross between University Challenge and X Factor (though he would hate me for reducing the concept to such a banal level).

Teams of students would battle against each other to come up with ways of ‘saving the planet’ and the audience voted for the best ideas. Churchill College Cambridge no less were backing the concept, but sadly, his illness came along and despite carrying on development whilst suffering rounds of chemotherapy, he couldn’t make it happen.

He was always great company, even in the dark, painful days. Original side splitting humour spilt out of him all the time. He had always loved ‘modern’ music, in all its genres (he had been a sound engineer for Manfred Mann), he was a very great lover of movies, especially the work of Stanley Kubrick and he had a huge appetite for 20th century literature, with JP Donleavy and John Steinbeck particular favourites.

He was also a hero. He saved a drowning man’s life off the Cowes promenade, diving into the sea without hesitation and hauling the man back to land. I think he was front-page news in the Isle of Wight County Press.

Bunny was always ahead of his time, sadly, way too far ahead, and hence there’s a thought about his school days that keeps bugging me: At the PGS of today, Bunny would have been a star. Sadly, he was born 50 years too early.

Tony Burden OP (1955-1963)

I wanted to contact the school and to say how devastated I was to lose such a close and dear friend last year in John Forrest OP (1952-1962). I could not believe what I was hearing when I got a phone call from brother Peter Forrest one afternoon in Vancouver to tell me of John’s passing that day at his lovely home in Wichita Kansas. I struggled to get my head around him not being there anymore.

It had been a while since we had been in touch but John visited us for a ten day break in Vancouver a couple years back and attended my son’s wedding in England with my wife Linda and I and almost our entire family, shortly after, in the summer, in Sussex, and as it turned out it was the last time I saw him. We had spoken to each other on the blower after that but John was not well at all at that time.

We had met in 1955 in the third form, he just transferring from life as a junior across the road and me entering from a city junior school. When we lost him last year it had been 56 years that we had known each other and we were like brothers without being related.

At this time, a mere ten years since the end of the Second World War, Portsmouth was still shaking off the dust from the blitz and rebuilding bombed-out wrecks.

Often at lunch break we would assist the demolition crews to tear down bombed buildings and boy did we get into trouble for that. As young boys we and others thought it good fun!!

John and I hit it off right from the first class on the first day and as our bond developed through school so we grew to earn a bit of a reputation for being an innocently naughty pair!! Justifiably so without doubt but I don’t think we were horribly disliked as a result.

Peter Burnell (left), with his parents

Peter Burnell (in fedora hat) in the 1970s

Teachers such as Ray Clayton, Peter Jameson, The Colonel, Hoppy, Boggy, Pete Barclay, senior prefects, house masters and the Head himself all would attest to that if they could be asked.

John and I both enjoyed our rugby, athletics and the CCF naval section in particular where we had great times and fun. We both thoroughly enjoyed our time in Portsmouth Athletics Club John making his mark in hurdling, and me making marks all over the place hurling shots and lobbing the discus about the place.

John developed his own friends in the Sixth Form, most of whom I have never met, but they will know who they are. Denys Hibbert convinced my parents that I should train as a Quantity Surveyor so off I went, avoiding the Sixth Form. Mind you I did and have enjoyed my career and travels as a result.

John ‘s parents were serving in the Navy in Malta at that time whilst John was in the Sixth Form and he was in digs in Southsea as I recall and I did not see so much of him.

I have to say that John enjoyed his American experience, we having been even closer on this continent for over twenty years when he passed away. I had travelled to see him in Detroit three times earlier in 1981, 1988 and 1990. We too have enjoyed our Canadian experiences and in particular the Olympics a short while ago. I recall how active John was when he completely embraced the Obama presidential run and the endless debates and discussion that ensued with my support firmly in the corner of Hilary “Thatcher” Clinton. Both parties it seems are serving the US well !!

Whilst my family spent 17 years in Cape Town from 1971 to 1988 John worked very hard indeed developing his senior status with his company and it was terrific when we arrived in Vancouver from Cape Town in 1988 as John was transferred from Detroit to California and Los Angeles. He based himself in La Crescenta just north of Glendale and visits up and down the west

coast were frequent and fun thereafter.

John and I did everything boys, young men, maturing young men and adults could do together and for each other. We travelled and played together, cared for and protected each other and had so much fun.

I got to know John’s family and he mine.

He was a faithful Godfather to my daughter Jane and cared for my son Michael and daughter Louise. I grew to love his Mother and Father, his fine brothers Robin and Peter and his terrific sons Michael and David.

Rest In peace John, taken from us so young, we have lost a truly fine friend. Life will not ever be the same without you.

PS I took John to the demonstration forest (Yes, trees and things ) in Vancouver one time and there was a very large sign that said “The Amazing Forest “. Well he had the cheek and audacity to stand in front of it and insist I take the photo which, of course, I did and yes he truly was.

Brian Sawyer OP (1955-60)

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Portsmouth Grammar School • www.pgs.org.uk

Postcard from Singapore In the spirit of the First Fleet sailing from Spithead, to found Australia in 1787, a pebble’s throw away from the school’s High Street entrance, successive generations of PGS pupils who pass under the school’s historic arch choose to forge their lives in faraway climes. Here Rebecca Drummond OP (1988-1990), daughter of former PGS Chairman of Governors David Russell, tells Opus what it’s like to live and work in Singapore or the ‘Lion City’.

” e c ffi o is h in u o y e se l il w rk to S r “M Christopher Logue, poet, columnist and screenwriter, was born in Portsmouth, the son of Irish-English clerk, Dominic (Jack), and Florence (Molly). Jack proposed to Molly on South Parade Pier in 1924 and, two years later, John Christopher arrived. It was the year of the General Strike:

hunger.

I came among you in a time of suburb.

My daybreak split on a dockyard water.

Gunboats lay like scum on the d next year I, Christopher Logue, was baptise Rebecca studied Geography and Sociology at Birmingham University and enjoyed a gap year in Canada before spending 5 years in the Royal Navy as a Navigator.

She re-trained as a teacher in 2006 and settled in Singapore with husband James and children Holly and Charlie. She teaches primary school aged children at the United World College South East Asia, one of the most highly regarded schools in the city-state, where she unexpectedly met PGS Headmaster James Priory last November, when he visited the school as part of an international conference on the International Baccaleaureate.

“I ended up in Singpaore when my husband, James, who is in shipping, was offered a job here in 2006. We had both previously served in the Royal Navy and so were used to travel and loved the idea of working abroad, so we jumped at the chance. The children were still very little, only 4 and 2, and so it was an easy time to move them.

Life in Singapore is a very easy place to live.

It is safe, clean and has good schools. There is also a great ‘can lah’ attitude, meaning most things are possible. It is a heady mix of many cultures and nationalities, which ensures there is never a dull moment.

Singapore is small but it is also a major transport hub which makes it easy to get out and about and explore the region.

It goes without saying that I miss my family and friends. Singapore is about 13 hours away from the UK by plane and it is expensive for people to visit. Also, in terms of making friends here, many people here are on short-term contracts and leave after 2 or 3 years and that can make friendships difficult to maintain. I also really miss having seasons. On the other hand, it is always about 30°C so you never have to think about what to wear, but it can also feel rather like Groundhog Day. I sometimes just want to wear a nice pair of winter boots!

I love teaching here. There is a local school system which is very academically focused - the competition to be ‘top’ in Singapore is fierce. Most expats however send their children to the international schools which best fit the systems they are familiar with back home. I teach in an International School (UWCSEA) to the PYP curriculum (Primary Years Programme, which is the junior version of the IB). It is significantly different in approach from the British National Curriculum as it stood when I left 6 years ago. It is an inquiry-based approach and we incorporate a workshop approach to Reading and Writing which I love. As a primary teacher, one of the things I love is that no two days are the same. Neither are two children the same and time spent talking to each individual child and finding out what makes them tick is never wasted. The most rewarding part is when a child really understands something for the first time and you see the “Oh I get it!” face. I am also lucky that

the school provides many opportunities to do community service in neighbouring poorer countries and so feeling that you can also make a difference to those less fortunate is very rewarding.

In many ways I think my time at PGS got me to where I am today. I have many memories of my old school, but I guess the moment that has influenced me the most was when Mr Reger, my History teacher, found the time to speak honestly with me. I wasn’t working hard and had just done really badly in my mock A levels. He encouraged me to look beyond school, and suggested the Royal Navy as a career. I followed his advice and it gave me a reason to persevere at school; my life has followed a very different course as a result!”

Rebecca in her classroom at the United World College, South-East Asia.

hmen, While many thousands of Englis pty, Fists clenched, their bellies em ital city…

Walked day and night on the Cap )

(from The Song of Autobiography

PGS Headmaster Joe Stork

Logue became known for his short, pithy and often political poetry, but it is his retelling of Homer’s epic The Iliad in modern verse for which he is most celebrated. His great friend and fellow poet Craig Raine describes it as “a pacifist’s paean to a brutal warrior culture. The very taste of war is in his words, the flavour of carnage in all its fullness.”

At the age of eight, Logue began to lie and steal. His honest and candid autobiography describes a dishonest and eccentric boy, an infant terrible who acted his age, but very, very badly. As a pupil at St. Swithun’s he played Prince Charming in a school play, an irony that appealed to Logue and provided the title for his autobiography.

In his autobiography, Logue emphasised the happiness of his carefree early childhood spent beside the seaside. He remembered, as a three year old, sitting on his father’s shoulders and following the band of the Royal Marines along the seafront to church parade. The sights and sounds of pre-war “Sunny Southsea” remained with him; the Fleet Reviews, the music from the bandstands, paddling in the sea, the bustle of thousands of tourists, the bathing beauty contests and the great ocean-liners steaming up the Solent towards Southampton.

He proceeded to St John’s College where “only when you walked out through the college gates were you free of the Brothers, their ubiquity, their indoctrination”. Even as a boy, he did not believe in God. Instead of going to church on Sunday he would sneak off and sit in a beach shelter reading, or walk by the sea.

Ken Russell, one year older, was growing up in Southampton, also of a Catholic family, another budding individualist and creative spirit. He later become friends and collaborated with Logue, most notably on his controversial film The Devils (1971).

Logue’s death last December came just a few days after that of the ageing enfant terrible of British cinema.

But the boy’s behaviour worsened and he was sent away to Prior Park, a Catholic boarding school in Bath. There, fellow pupils formed an anti-Logue secret society.

At the age of thirteen, Logue’s desperate parents, having given up on the Catholic fear of God as a restraining influence, found a place for him at Portsmouth

Grammar School. Two days later, war was declared, though this was not Logue’s fault.

Logue remembered being “fitted for a gas mask by men in brown uniforms”.

Substantial funds were involuntarily raised for the Red Cross by pupils, fined for forgetting to bring their masks to school. Headmaster Stork evacuated pupils, initially to a Spartan old house at Sparsholt, but then to hotels and guesthouses in Bournemouth that had some form of heat. Here, safe from the Luftwaffe, pupils were attacked by German measles.

He did, however, have beliefs and a moral code. He believed in “the Lady of the Lake; in ghosts; that my thefts were wrong; that girls were special.”

Christopher Logue at Prior Park College, 1937

continued...

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Portsmouth Grammar School • www.pgs.org.uk

“Mr Stork will see you in his office” Logue joined the school’s Aero Club, where members fashioned models of aircraft out of wood. In 1941, The Portmuthian reported that he had “made a detailed model of a Heinkel IIIk which shows the cockpit controls”. The activities of the club were soon hampered by a wartime shortage of balsa. Logue also joined the committee of the new school Philatelic Society, though the boys’ enthusiasm came unstuck when the war began to impinge on their ability to harvest exotic foreign stamps. In 1943, Logue won a prize for the neatness of his album, an achievement that goes unreported in his autobiography.

Logue was in the school scout troop for three years, and would have attended regular camps at St. Catherine’s Hill. In 1942 he joined the J.T.C. (Joint Training Corps), passed both Certificate A Parts I and II, and was made a Lance Corporal.

Despite taking an active part in school life, Logue enjoyed his own company and, in his spare time, escaped the town to watch the sand martins and kingfishers on the river Stour at Tuckton.

This rural tranquillity contrasted starkly with the scenes of devastation in Portsmouth which Logue witnessed when he came home during school holidays, and which left a lasting impression. He later described the scene near his Festing Grove home, in an area that escaped extensive bombing, where two houses were destroyed and the smell of household gas hung over bomb craters in the road leading to the Canoe Lake.

Red Bird, 1959

However, the safety offered by Southbourne did not include the suspension of another threat.

A knock at the classroom door and the entry of the school caretaker, Burden, meant just one thing.

Burden would stand silently until beckoned by the master, and at the convenient time, whisper a surname into his ear. Then,“Logue. Mr Stork will see you in his office.”

The cane was one enduring memory of Logue’s troubled adolescence. He continued to be, he later admitted, a wilful and rebellious pupil. When he was caught stealing a top-shelf magazine, having felt shame at the prospect of purchasing it, the police were called and he appeared before magistrates in the juvenile court.

Headmaster Stork was there to support and speak up for him and he got off with six months’ probation. Despite the problems, Logue managed to pass the School Certificate but had no idea what to do with his life except to have sex with two ladies he had fallen in love with in Mudeford, and to sail on the river Stour.

He left school and, aged 17, joined the Black Watch where he proved an equally wilful and rebellious soldier.

The inevitable dark cloud under which he left the army had an unexpected silver lining. Logue started to write poetry in military prison.

Loguerhthyms, 1963

He also wrote to his parents, apologising for the anguish and sorrow he had caused them. “You denied yourselves almost everything to keep me at a decent school and have my brain trained along the lines of human life and decency. You struggled for me and I ignored your sacrifice.”

He bought a typewriter and quit austere, post-war Britain for bohemian Paris where he befriended Alexander Trocchi and Samuel Beckett and made a precarious living as a poet and hack writer. In 1952 he published “a left-wing dirty book” called Lust under the nom de plume Count Palmiro Vicarion, happily acceding to the publisher’s instruction that there be “one full encounter of at least five pages for every ten pages”.

In the late 1950s he was invited to reimagine The Iliad for BBC radio, a project that evolved over many years and was published in several volumes under the title, War Music.

He was one of Bertrand Russell’s Committee of 100, the first campaign of mass, non-violent civil disobedience against nuclear weapons, and was imprisoned for a month for “obstructing the highway”. He wrote satirical left-wing ballads for Peter Cook’s The Establishment Club, some of which were recorded as Loguerhythms by Annie Ross and the Tony Kinsey jazz quintet. He also personally recorded Red Bird for Parlophone, his adaptations of Pablo Neruda’s love poems, which was produced by George Martin. In 1967 his poem Be Not Too Hard was set to music by Donovan and later covered by

Savage Messiah (1972), with screenplay by Logue, starred Helen Mirren in one of her first film roles.

Christopher Logue, c1950

Some of Logue’s books in the school library.

Joan Baez and Manfred Mann’s Earth Band.

Logue gave readings at the Albert Hall and, in 1969, bravely, at the Isle of Wight Festival in front of 100,000.

In 1985, Logue married the biographer, historian and critic, Rosemary Hill. In 2005, he won the Whitbread award for poetry for Cold Calls – a volume in his retelling of The Iliad. He was appointed CBE two years later.

References:

Logue visited Portsmouth Grammar School as part of the celebrations for World Book Day in 2002. He later wrote, “My, how the school has changed. Lucky who go there today.”

*The Song of Autobiography by Christopher Logue in The New Reasoner, Summer 1958.

He played Cardinal Richelieu in the other Russell’s The Devils (1971), wrote the screenplay for his Savage Messiah (1972) and appeared in Terry Gilliam’s Jabberwocky (1977) as “Spaghetti-eating fanatic”. Private Eye provided a steady source of income for over thirty years. His column True Stories uncovered bizarre news stories and Pseuds Corner exposed the pompous and pretentious. “I loved editing the Corner,” wrote Logue, “Big heads. Big mouths. Big names.”

Today, Logue is celebrated at the school with a permanent display of two of his original manuscripts in the library, and a school monograph on his life and work which is available free from the school.

Logue wrote regular columns True Stories and Pseuds Corner for Private Eye

Prince Charming – a memoir (1999) by Christopher Logue The Portmuthian, Winter 1941, Summer 1943, Winter 1943.

Do not Pretend: an introduction to Christopher Logue by Alan J. White OP. PGS Monograph 15.

Private Eye 50th anniversary book (2011) (with thanks to Peter Barnes OP)

Logue as featured on the cover of the PGS monograph, Do not pretend

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Portsmouth Grammar School • www.pgs.org.uk

Doing the Large Thing This year the school is celebrating the 85th anniversary of the opening of the Senior School on its current High Street site. Home Secretary Sir William Joynson-Hicks formally opened the school on 13th October 1927 amid great celebrations and rousing cheers from pupils.

“It was when we had passed through the cross-vaulted arches of the imposing gateway and emerged on the parade ground that the vastness of the place forced itself upon us. We were for the moment lost. We thought of the homely, crowded little space which we had always known as ‘the playground’, a thing of collisions and indiscriminate jostling, and then looked about us at this huge, unbounded area. Standing by ourselves… in the midst of it, we felt dwarfed and insignificant.”

Opening by Home Secretary William Joynson-Hicks 1927

Recently, his grandson, Lord Brentford, kindly presented the school with the ceremonial key used on the day. During his visit to Portsmouth, Sir William was also granted the Freedom of the City for his help in enabling the town to gain city status the previous year.

The acquisition of the former officers’ barracks is a milestone in the school’s long history and the key represents a symbolic unlocking of the potential of the school, realised by Headmaster Canon Barton in 1927 and built on ever since by successive Heads.

When Barton joined the school in 1926 he found that the “old School” (now the Upper Juniors), which had been purposebuilt in 1879 for 250 boys, was “dirty and overcrowded with 525 boys”.

News that the War Office was willing to sell the derelict officers’ block of Cambridge Barracks, together with a large part of the parade ground and playing fields at Hilsea, was announced at the O.P. Annual Dinner following the receipt of a telegram that very evening.

“There are times when the large thing is the only thing you can afford to do.

This is a large thing. Great cities and little minds go ill together. Nothing large is done without sacrifice.” Barton’s words inspired the fundraisers. An appeal raised £18,000 which, together with a generous donation by wealthy shipping magnate Sir Heath Harrison, enabled the school to purchase and convert the building.

Barton acknowledged that the project would not have been possible without the help of the Chairman of the Governors, and Portsmouth’s first Lord Mayor, Frank Privett.

Such feelings soon passed, the parade ground became a play ground and feelings of being lost and insignificant no longer apply to members of today’s school community. The acquisition in 2000 of the former men’s barracks, Cambridge House, on the east side of the Quad, reunited the two sets of barracks and strengthened the sense of community.

The Home Secretary’s visit to Portsmouth was reported in The Times, which commented on the appropriateness of the re-use of the barracks bearing in mind the school’s proud record in providing officers for the armed services. The new school accommodated 21 large and five small classrooms, a lecture room, the War Gallery (formerly the Mess Room), Headmaster’s study and rooms for the Bursar, School Sergeant and a large Common Room.

Frozen Asset

The inspiring OP film-maker who brought the Antarctic into our Living Rooms John Aitchison OP (1977-1984), the acclaimed BAFTA award-winning wildlife filmmaker behind the lens of some of the nation’s most beloved natural history series of recent times, more used to standing in front of windswept bird colonies than excited parents, pupils and staff, spoke to a spellbound capacity audience in the David Russell Theatre when he returned to PGS last November.

He recounted episodes from his extraordinary career in wildlife filmmaking in programmes such as Yellowstone , South Pacific and the acclaimed recent BBC TV series Frozen Planet. John, who cites former PGS Head of Biology Nik Knight along with trips to Farlington Marshes with the school’s Wildlife Club and Field Club as fostering his lifelong passion for natural history, filled the auditorium with sound recordings of the shrill cries of auks and skuas and the underwater calls of Weddell Seals as breathtaking images of the eerie Antarctic landscape were played on a big screen.

For the landmark series Frozen Planet, which was transmitted last Autumn, but which took four years of painstaking camera work, John was tasked with filming Shearwaters and Humpbacked Whales gathering to feed in the Aleutians, Gentoo Penguins exploding from waves and being hunted by southern sealions in the Falkland Islands, Emperor Penguins leaping from the Ross Sea in super slow motion then struggling back to their colony, young Adelie Penguins leaving their colonies on the Antarctic peninsula and learning to swim while Leopard Seals hunted them through the ice floes, Fur

Seals fighting and giving birth in South Georgia where young Wandering Albatross were also taking their first flights, Polar Bears eating berries and wrestling on the coast of Hudson Bay as well as searching for nesting Eider Ducks and Arctic Terns in Svalbard where other Arctic birds, including Brunnich’s Guillemots, nest on immense seacliffs.

Taking time out from his latest project - a new series about the Hebrides for BBC Scotland which will be transmitted in 2013, John spent the afternoon meeting members of the school Wildlife Club and having a tour of the new Bristow-Clavell Science Centre, before delivering his much anticipated evening presentation, held in conjunction with the Hampshire and Isle

of Wight Wildlife Trust which celebrated its fiftieth anniversary last year. Eliot Patten (Year 9) who was in the audience with his family said “ One of my favourite bits of the evening was the footage at the end showing the film crew being knocked over on the ice by the penguins propelling themselves out of the water. It was a really interesting talk with great photos , but my favourites were definitely the penguin ones!”

What did PGS Wildlife Club members think?

The first pupils to have a tour of the new school were overwhelmed: Lesson in the War Gallery and Library 1928

“It was funny when the Emporor Penguins were knocking the cameraman over.“ Millie Cooper 7Z

“What a wondeful experience with excellent pictures.“

“It was wonderfully inspiring and the photography was amazing!“

Mollie Birch 7Z

Madeleine Alcaraz 7Z

“A wondeful talk and amazing photos too!“ Matt Roberts 9Y

“Interesting and inspirational talk with amazing pictures.“ Anthony Muscat 4S

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OPUS • Issue 6 • Spring 2012

Portsmouth Grammar School • www.pgs.org.uk

Between the Lines: Say G’day to the OP brothers having a bonzer time in Oz Doctor Down Under: A Day in the life of Peter Lines I returned to school recently for the first time in almost 30 years, along with my youngest brother Robert, and my family. Liz and Sue from the school Development Office and the archivist are to be greatly thanked for making the visit so memorable, and in return I would like to jot down a few thoughts.

I’m out of bed with the sunrise, long before my wife or our three children. Coffee and internet news and e-mails, and then Facebook Scrabble with a colleague 200km away.

05:00

The school has changed enormously and very much for the better; both the lower and the upper schools have been greatly modernised, with excellent new facilities, bright modern classrooms, and wonderful lecture/performance spaces. It now seems like a truly co-educational school, and there is a greater emphasis on a fully-rounded education, so that pupils are encouraged to develop to all of their potential rather than being pushed through the exam sausage machine. Well done.

I am a GP and emigrated to Western Australia in 1998 to work as a solo practitioner in a small town. Two years later my wife and I moved to our present location where I continue to be the town’s only doctor. We have three wonderful children, and my mother-in-law now lives with us. We bought the vacant 1000 sq.m next door (at a cost of approximately £5,000) and doubled the size of the house.

Narembeen is about 300km east of Perth and is in the heart of wheat and sheep farming country. The local government area, which is called a Shire, covers 3800 square kilometers and has a population of 900. I have gradually built up the practice so that nearly half of my patients travel from surrounding Shires to see me, including one family from 180km away, which is very humbling but also gratifying.

Shower and get dressed; the fact that I still wear a tie everyday must owe something to PGS!

06.30

Cycle the 500 yards to the hospital and see one vehicle (a combine harvester mechanic) going to work. Blue sky and 20 degrees, not a breath of wind, and a flock of galah cockatoos in the tree.

07:00

Greet the two nightshift nurses who are giving handover to the day staff; waiting in the emergency room is a farmer who had arrived a few hours earlier with a metal foreign body which has been lodged in his eye for two days. Then see two patients, one with pneumonia and one with severe tonsillitis.

Cycle 500 yards to the surgery, in the main street, (see 2 more cars moving) switch on the computers (still 3 empty appointment slots today), and set up the coffee machine.

07.45

0800-1200 appointments every 15 minutes ranging from acute illness to repeat prescription review, fasting blood tests, blood test and CT scan results discussion, and patients ranging in age from 6 weeks to 99 years. Aim of the game is to have no more than one person waiting, and very unusual to be more than 15 minutes behind.

08:00

Cycle home for lunch with my wife and mother-in-law.

Back to the hospital to remove a skin cancer under local anaesthetic; so far this year 4 melanomas and over a hundred others.

13.30

1400-1600 more appointments at the surgery. At the end one patient with intermittent chest pains, possibly unstable angina. Needs to be admitted to the hospital and transferred to Perth with the Royal Flying Doctor Service.

(I use this service 15-20 times a year.)

14:00

Patient taken to hospital, both nurses involved with getting treatment underway, ECG, oxygen, sublingual GTN, intravenous cannula, troponin blood test, while I liaise with emergency department consultant at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital in Perth, and then talk to one of the RFDS doctors.

Further treatment strategies discussed, and plane arranged, likely ETA 1-2 hours.

Patient stabilised, so cycle home for tea. Get children organised in bathroom, and sit down to watch documentary programme with them. Call from the hospital; patient doing well, and plane expected in 20 minutes. Drive out to the airstrip (5km away) to see the single turbo-prop Pilatus PC 12 touch down just as the local ambulance volunteers arrive with the patient.

17.30

Hand over to the flight nurse (no doctor on this flight), and watch plane take off into the sunset.

Back home, Skype video link to parents in Gosport, phone call from brother Robert who’s just emigrated to Canberra, and out to the big shed to finish some welding on my latest project, and then an episode of QI recorded from satellite TV. Bed. Another good day, think I made a difference, everyone I dealt with was an individual who counts for something, total journey times today 10 minutes (hardly any cars, no traffic lights or roundabouts, no sirens, no CCTV cameras), it’s a great life. No worries.

21.30

Peter Lines OP (1972-1982)

Peter Lines OP 1972-1982 (right) and brother Robert OP 1977-1988 (left)

No more Walkabout for the New Pom on the Block You know you’re having an interesting time at work when you find yourself working out how to get a dozen vodou musicians out of Haiti during a civil war by smuggling them across the border into the Dominican Republic.

One way or another, I’ve spent most of my career working in theatre. A few years in arts marketing (including a brief spell working for Alan Ayckbourn), and theatre management, led to a move to Worcester. Four years producing and touring theatre and dance all over England and internationally had some high points, especially putting the Philadelphian hiphoppers Rennie Harris Puremovement into the West End, and the aforementioned Haitians… More recently I was Producer for a digital theatre company, C&T, which creates stunning and completely original ways for children and young people to learn and be creative.

But you can’t wait for the weather to change, so last year my partner Gavin and I emigrated to Australia. I’ve just started as the Manager of Theatres for the University of Western Australia, which by coincidence only puts me a three-hour drive away from my big bruvver!

Robert Lines OP (1977-1988)

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OPUS • Issue 6 • Spring 2012

Portsmouth Grammar School • www.pgs.org.uk

The OP behind Portsmouth’s most energy-efficient new house Mick says that the very first time he encountered a well-insulated building was on a school skiing trip to Norway with Geography master John (“Hoppy”) Hopkinson.

15 Drayton Lane

From the front elevation number 15 Drayton Lane looks much like those around it, blending in seamlessly with the neighbouring properties. But architect Mick Morris OP (1954-1964) has cleverly created one of the UK’s most sustainable and carbon-neutral domestic dwellings which is one of only a few hundred nationwide to achieve the optimum Code for Sustainable Homes rating.

The construction methods involved the use of timber frame and timber windows from Norway. The house’s heating supply is produced via a ground source heat pump which collects heat from pipes laid in trenches in the garden areas, serving the under floor heating in the winter, reversed in the summer months to cool the building. In addition to this, a large log burner provides 50% of the house’s heating requirements. The hot water is produced by 7m2 of solar water panels fixed to the garage roof. Water saving measures have been introduced to restrict the flow to both taps and toilets.

This ensures a maximum of 105 litres of water per person per day is met. Low energy lighting is used both internally and externally to ensure that electrical use has been kept to a minimum, including the use of A+ rated white goods throughout.

The property also has 4.5kw of P V panels which generates 80% of the electrical demand. Externally the rainwater is collected and stored and is used for external taps.

“I remember leaning against the outside wall of the hotel in Oppheim, looking out of the window at the sub-zero Arctic landscape when my arm suddenly started to heat up. I jumped back from the wall only to realise that it was so well insulated that it was throwing my body heat back at me.” He even challenged Vic the boiler man to tackle the somewhat variable heating with better insulation at PGS on his to return to school! “Bearing in mind that at that time – the early 1960s”, Mick recalls, “the standard issue grey school pullover was not an acceptable clothing, even in freezing conditions, for a fashionconscious second year Sixth Former like me!”

Drayton Lane is an exemplar project which has been recognised by the Portsmouth Society’s prestigious Design Awards as the city’s Best New Building, fending off much larger-scale competition in the form of new buildings at the Queen Alexandra Hospital, Highbury College, the new swimming pool and gym at the Mountbatten Centre, the Cosham Interchange block of flats and Southsea Medical Centre in Somerstown.

Waterlooville-based Mick, whose work in Portsmouth includes the conversion of 1 Florence Road, Southsea, is also a passionate campaigner for the conversion and re-use of existing buildings in the city and was quoted extensively in the local press last Autumn when Portsmouth Main, an imposing Art Deco building and the city’s former radar production site, was demolished. “It’s the Odeon of Portsdown Hill and it’s a great shame it’s going”, he told The News. “All the buildings on Portsdown Hill are wonderful, quite exciting. It’s extraordinary to think what it was used for, considering its design, it’s a stunning building.”

If the Drayton Lane project incorporated a whole host of innovative technologies to create state-of-the-art design, Mick also harks back to Portsmouth’s maritime heyday as inspiration and source material for other ideas.

Some years ago he proposed an idea for a spectacular entrance feature on the M275 access road into the city for the Portsmouth Society.

He described the plan as follows: “Take one retired warship as big as possible, keeping the outline of the hull and superstructure only to the normal water level and scrap the interior. Relocate on the central reservation of Mile End Road adjoining the Market House Tavern.

Landscape surrounding grass into bow waves steaming north out of city, incline ship at 2.5 degrees to port as the roadway is slightly curved. Fly the appropriate flags, cover in flowers.”

Mick Morris, in his Cycle Club Bexley strip, trial-biking

When not designing eco-friendly houses, Mick can be found out in all weathers indulging in another passion – trial-biking on his beloved 290cc Sherco. But don’t think for a minute that Mick throws his environmental credentials out with the rain-harvested bathwater the minute he gets on the saddle; the essence of trialbiking is to overcome obstacles without stopping or using your feet to steady yourself - there is no speed or racing involved. The sport is scored like golf and the key skill requirements are patience and dexterity. And, as you would expect, Mick is far more ‘green-lung’ than ‘petrol-head’; he favours electric bikes which are silent, don’t leak oil and produce zero emissions.

Photo courtesy of Malcolm Wells, The News

During the 1980s prolific author, historian and artist Nigel Grundy OP (1959-1964) made a series of images of Old Portsmouth and Southsea using the medium of acrylic paint, pen and ink, and pencil. Many changes have taken place since that time, altering the centuriesold celebrated skyline forever. In this affectionate homage to his hometown, Nigel presents over 70 different views – including his former school - made as part of that series, accompanying each one with a potted historical description and personal recollections.

The acclaimed crime writer Graham Hurley, is one of those who is captivated by Nigel’s work: “ Nigel’s new book Requiem is a must”, he enthuses. “Each of the 70+ drawings comes with a page of the best kind of history: affectionate reminiscence salted with fascinating facts.

It pains a writer to say so, but Requiem is conclusive proof that a picture is worth a thousand words.”

Requiem is available for purchase and UK posting from Nigel’s website www.imagesafloat.com via Paypal or by post with a postal order for £12.50 made out to ‘Images Afloat’ and posted to Ham Manor Marina, London Road, Newbury, Berks.

RG14 2BP. Please do not forget to include your own address.

School archivist John Sadden has just published a new volume of old photographs of Gosport and Lee-on-theSolent. Over 300 images are included – the most ever to appear in a book on the borough. They date from the late Victorian period through to the 1970s, and tell a story of an area that has changed beyond recognition.

The photographs range from commercially produced postcards to informal, amateur snaps and include a diversity of often unexpected subjects, from Edwardian soldiers with their barrack-room pin-ups, Victorian workers at Priddy’s Hard, the upper-deck of the floating bridge in the 1940s, and boys training to be seamen, furling and stowing the head sails aboard HMS St Vincent.

Views of bustling streets, long-lost pubs, shops that are open all hours, historic events and notable people – including several eminent Old Portmuthians – offer a wealth of social history and will inspire memories in residents and anyone who has ever known the town. Gosport From Old Photographs is published by Amberley Publishing and is available from all good booksellers, and Amazon, at £12.99.

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‘Looks good in his goggles’ We all remember that sinking feeling at the end of term, sensing our parents were about to be informed of our major and minor peccadilloes in those thrice yearly ‘school reports’.

You know the kind of thing: cheating in Latin vocab tests, indifference to the muscular excitation of dead frogs’ legs, inertia in the gym, bumptiousness at all times...

Being a natural-born squirrel, I still have all my reports, ranging from 1950 at the newly built Paulsgrove West Infants’ School (recently demolished), through to my final PGS report in July, 1963.

They retain the ability to embarrass, as they did so frequently in the past, catching me unawares when I thought I’d taken schoolboydom to new heights of perfection.

History

It is strange how fresh and easily recognisable are the writing styles of those PGS staff of the 1950s. Different coloured inks, letters inclining forwards or back, round vowels or elongated consonants.

Occasionally prolix statements, shrinking and tightening as the space available in the designated boxes failed to induce precision. We saw exponents of the pithy phrase, one-liners or even single words.

Art reports were always in bold, extrovert italic script. Sports reports on occasion lacked the refined punctuation advocated

by English specialists. All entries revealed as much of the character of the writer as of the boy.

School Community comes together to help pupils make smart career move John Owens, 1955

do better’ - its role would be to admit or confess aspects of performance that fell - or fall - below the high standards to be aspired to by schools worth their salt. Let’s kick off with an aspect of PGS life in the early sixties (‘That ought to be inoffensive enough’, Ed.).

Staff and pupils then persuaded themselves that they/we were a good cut above all others in the district. After all, we played rugger in the middle and upper schools - nobody else did for miles around and we had to look as far as Southampton and Chichester to find regular fixtures.

We even went as far as Street in Somerset for the annual match with Millfield and cricket fixtures tended also to reflect the preferences for summer and winter contests between schools of similar sporting habits. This was divisive in the city which gave its name to our school, and I well remember a celebrated house master advising, ‘If you really must smoke on your way home, be sure to put on a St John’s College blazer before you light up’!

C- English

The late Hugh Woodcock always cut me down to size with an apt word or two, qualifying any favourable remarks he’d been able to run to: ‘He must try to be less satisfied with himself’; ‘He is still inclined to be pleased with himself’; ‘Rather too big for his boots’, and so on.

A classic example is a swimming report on my elder son, Sam (albeit from a later period), by the Head of PE & Games at Dulwich College Preparatory School. Sam, being no Olympian in the pool, couldn’t quibble with the verdict, ‘Looks good in his goggles’ - that’s all, no more to be said! At DCPS Sam, too, received from Hugh Woodcock those fair but irksome headmaster’s end-of-term entreaties not to be so full of himself.

Geography

Hugh had a clear and effortlessly attractive handwriting style which lent his utterances authority but also a sense they’d been fired off casually, almost as asides. But they spoke volumes to parents then and still raise a blush when glanced at some sixty years on. They were, after all, seriously intended guidelines for the further development of youngsters whose character and accomplishments still fell short of the ideal!

‘School report’ was and is a misnomer.

There never were answering assessments of just how well the school was doing.

These would properly have qualified as ‘school reports’, and it may not be too late to restore some balance. After all, schools and other public institutions are always dishing out self-laudatory stuff to parents, politicians, the press - in short, the world at large. When did you last see a school, advertising its next open day for prospective parents, kicking off with, ‘Well, we’re really not very good at netball and lacrosse, oh and last year’s A level results were the worst in living memory’, however accurate these assessments might have been? No, every pronouncement by the staff of every school always asserts that they and their institution are a gnat’s crochet off sheer perfection! HMI and Ofsted school reports sometimes paint a different picture, of course, but where is the voice of the present or one-time pupil?

In December 1962, an invitation arrived at Cambridge Junction addressed to The Head Boy. As the smug incumbent of that office, I found it to be an invitation from the Head Girl of St Luke’s Girls Secondary Modern School, Milton to their annual school dance. I am ashamed to admit that I accepted and attended the event with a hint of condescension, though that was knocked out of me by the kindness and decency of the reception on arrival, and the enjoyment of an evening with people I didn’t know and have never seen since.

We never thought of extending the hand of friendship and hospitality to our peers in schools around the city, except to the girls of the Portsmouth High School with whom we hoped to conjure meaningful associations!

Mathematics Science

In the Spring Term report of 1959, as I approached my 14th birthday, thirty words were all that were deemed necessary to cover progress towards all 9 GCE O Level subjects in the following academic year.

Housemaster and Headmaster doubled that word count, but even so, contrast that approach with the 200 words demanded of my teacher son, Tom, as the target for each subject, each pupil, each term at his last school!

I wonder if there exists still any vestige of this senseless snobbery towards contemporaries in the area - often including children with whom we shared time in the local primary schools before attaining the heights of PGS?

Good effort

If this feature becomes a regular column - maybe called something like ‘Could

John Owens, OP 1953-1963

With competition for university places and graduate jobs so fierce, practical work experience and getting the ‘inside track’ on their preferred career choices can give candidates an added edge.

For several years now the school’s Careers Department has held an Annual Careers and Gap Year Convention for PGS families with children in Years 10 - 13. This year well over 50 organisations were represented, including 13 universities and 7 gap year companies. Among them were a whole host of Old Portmuthians and current and former parents with fascinating, exciting and diverse careers who were willing to impart the benefit of their experience in everything from accountancy to web design.

In a scene more reminiscent of the January sales, hordes of people filled the David Bawtree building, with pupils earnestly seeking out information, guidance and advice on a wide variety of professions. Matt Pilkington OP (1997-2004), MD of Superrb, a creative design agency, who had a stand at the Convention, was clearly impressed. “ Well done PGS for putting on such a great event!”, he said. “ It was brilliant to meet so many inspiring young people, who each reminded me of what an exciting time it is at that age, when the world opens up to you and you take charge of your own future. I was very impressed by the number of pupils and parents that attended along with some of the questions the pupils asked.”

The Careers Convention is just one of the ways in which OPs can re-connect with the school and mentor those who are on the cusp of going to University or about to enter the world of work. A series of ‘Working Lunches’ held every term gives pupils the opportunity to hear at first hand from professional practitioners across different disciplines in an informal setting where they can ask questions and really gen up on the career they’re interested in. In the past twelve months a number of OPs and parents have been guest speakers at Working Lunches, including Jennifer Penneket OP (1993-2003) (“Becoming a doctor”); Stuart Palmer OP (1974-1984) (“Voluntary Sector work overseas”); Oliver Jones OP (1994-2004) (“Politics and Public Relations”) and PGS parent Graham Cunningham (“Life as a Barrister”). Some OPs, parents and former parents assist the School’s Sixth Form team in preparing pupils for University selection by agreeing to give them a ‘mock’ interview. If you feel able to assist with any of these initiatives, the Careers Department would love to hear from you.

Please contact Andrew Hogg, Head of Careers, at careers@pgs.org.uk

An array of OPs came back to PGS to lend a hand at this year’s annual Careers Convention. From top to bottom: Former Senior Prefect Jess Taylor OP (2004 -2011) gives the low-down on the University of Birmingham, where she is a student ambassador.

Creative agency boss Matt Pilkington OP (1997-2004) fielding questions about careers in web design.

Two for the price of one! Rebecca Lowe OP (2001-2008) and Daisy Harris-Burland (2002-2009) joined forces to give an insight into the world of fashion design, in which they are both flourishing.

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Forthcoming Events

Sunday, 8 July 2012

Saturday, 29 September 2012

Dickens’ Women – An evening with Miriam Margolyes, David Russell Theatre PGS at 7.30pm

50th Anniversary Rugby Reunion, Hilsea Playing Fields 1962-2012 - 50 not out! PGS 1st XV of 1962/3 meets at Hilsea to watch their 2012 counterparts vs. Churchers’ College.

Friday, 29 June 2012 OP Cricket Lunch and Veterans Cricket Match, Hilsea Playing Fields Lunch at the Fawcett Pavilion at 1pm Cricket Match starts at 3.30pm

Thursday, 3 May 2012 PGS Strictly Come Dancing Final, David Russell Theatre 7.30pm Come along to watch staff and pupil finalists strut their stuff on the dancefloor as they compete for the Glitterball trophy and the title of PGS Strictly Come Dancing champions 2012. Spandex and Cuban heels optional! Proceeds from the evening will go towards the school’s Cambodia Appeal. Tickets from Senior School Reception or by telephoning 023 9236 0036.

Wednesday 30 May, Thursday 31 May and Friday 1 June Middle School Drama Club production of Titanic, David Russell Theatre 7.30pm Come along and board the iconic passenger liner on her maiden voyage. Cocktails and canapés will be served by the Captain and crew at your table on deck. Tickets £5 (£3 concessions available from Senior School reception or by telephoning 023 9236 0036.

22 June to 1 July 2012 Portsmouth Festivities: “Great Expectations”

Following the success last year of the OP Cricket Reunion and Veterans Cricket Match we will be repeating the event this year.

Lunch will be held at Hilsea in the Fawcett Pavilion and the match will start at 3.30pm. It is hoped that last year’s players will be willing to step-up to the crease once again and that some new players will be dusting off their cricket whites. Supporters would also be much appreciated and all are very welcome to attend the lunch.

Cost of lunch is £20 (2-course, wine and coffee). If you would like to attend please complete and return the enclosed booking form by 20 June 2012.

If you need further details please contact Liz Preece (l.preece@pgs.org.uk or tel. 023 9268 1392).

Friday, 29 June 2012 Annual OP vs. PGS Summer Matches, Hilsea Playing Fields OPs and their families are asked to support the annual summer clash of school teams vs. OPs. Also new this year – Croquet!

Come and have a try at the Queen of Games under the expert tutelage of members of the Chichester and Fishbourne Croquet Club.

If you would like to represent the OPs, spectate or need further details please contact Liz Preece at l.preece@pgs.org.uk or by telephoning 023 9268 1392.

Cricket: OPs vs. PGS 1st XI - starts at 4pm Tennis: OPs vs. PGS 1st VI - starts at 4pm Veteran OPs Cricket match - starts at 3.30pm

Monday, 9 July 2012 Sports Day, Hilsea Playing Fields, from 10.30am All sections of the school community are warmly invited to spectate this showcase of PGS sport in an Olympic year. Please wear your House colours and show your allegiances! Refreshments available. Please note that there is no parking at Hilsea Playing Fields for this event; please use the parking facilities at nearby Hilsea Lido.

Tuesday, 3 July 2012 Summer Art Show, HMS Warrior A private view on the decks of Britain’s first iron-clad warship, showcasing the best in pupil artwork and design. Places are limited and allocated on a first-come, first-served basis. Please contact Alison Dyer, Head of Art and Design at a.dyer@pgs.org.uk to register your place.

On Saturday 29 September, some twenty OPs who played in PGS rugby teams in the early 1960s celebrate fifty years since the formation of their PGS 1st XV of September 1962. As noted in Opus 5, the hunt was on to locate the twenty individuals known to have played and all have now been flushed out, alive and well, for the most part. They will be joined for dinner at the Royal Naval Club & Royal Albert Yacht Club by guests of honour John Hopkinson (Head Coach), Ray Clayton (Backs Coach) and Peter Barclay (Bulldogs Coach). Most will be accompanied by their wives, girlfriends or significant others, and festivities are scheduled for the weekend for those who can stand the pace.

This is not an official PGS Association/Development Office event, but it would be great to see at Hilsea OPs from the sixties whose interest in rugby extends to seeing again this band of relics on the field of their glorious triumphs! A memorial volume of illustrated life histories of the players and their coaches will be available on the day and the local press is showing some early interest in the anthropology of senior sportsmen!

Grateful acknowledgement is made to the PGS Development Office, School Archive and the Sport and Rugby authorities, without whose enthusiastic support this event could scarcely have been mounted. If you would like to join in the celebrations in any capacity, John Owens would love to hear from you at owens.john5@gmail.com or 01874 636569.

LinkedIn Networking Lunch – Send us your views

OPs Croquet – starts at 3.30pm

Venues around Portsmouth This year the Festivities will celebrate Charles Dickens’ birth 200 years ago in Portsmouth. ’Great Expectations’ will take place from Friday 22 June to Sunday 1 July, with a wealth of literature, music, film, theatre and exhibitions exploring the power of storytelling and the significance of Dickens’ quest for social change.

Participants include Max Hastings, Roy Hattersley, Penny Junor and acclaimed children’s author Anthony Horowitz. For further information or a programme of events please visit the PGS website www.pgs.org.uk or contact development@pgs.org.uk

A not-to-be-missed opportunity to see veteran stage and screen legend Miriam Margolyes OBE bringing to life twenty-three of Charles Dickens’ most affecting and colourful female (and male!) characters, in her acclaimed one-woman show, being brought to Dickens’s birthplace for one night only in celebration of his bicentenary. Margolyes, known to millions for her roles in film and television in Blackadder, The Age of Innocence, Romeo and Juliet and the Harry Potter films presents her powerful, comprehensive, and at times hilarious exposé of Dickens, his writing, and the real-life women who found themselves immortalised in his books.

This event is being held in conjunction with the University of Portsmouth. Tickets are priced at £15 (£10 concessions) and are available by telephoning 023 9284 3757 or by contacting events@ port.ac.uk

Friday, 13 July 2012 Founder’s Day Service, Cathedral of St Thomas, High Street, Portsmouth, 2.15pm Please join us for the annual service of hymns and readings to commemorate William Smith, Mayor of Portsmouth and Physician to its Garrison, who founded Portsmouth’s first school, and all those subsequently who, by their gifts or service, have contributed to its development. The speaker is Robin Griffith-Jones, Reverend and Valiant Master of the Temple in London. Please register your place with Alasdair Akass at a.akass@pgs.org.uk or by telephoning 023 9236 4248.

The Portsmouth Grammar School: Old Portmuthians LinkedIn group now has grown to around 180 members with new OPs joining daily. We thought it might be a good idea to hold an Old Portmuthian Networking Lunch either at PGS or another location (e.g. London). We would like to canvas the opinions of OPs on this idea, regardless of whether you are a LinkedIn member or not, so please let us know your views by sending an e-mail to Liz Preece (l.preece@pgs.org.uk).

PLEASE NOTE that details of all forthcoming events can be found on the PGS website – www.pgs.org.uk under tab ‘PGS Association’ in section ‘Development Office’.

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News of Old Portmuthians

News of Old Portmuthians

Guy BARNARD (1964-1974)

to the West Yorkshire Playhouse in 2004 and was performed with Christopher Eccleston in the lead role. Other plays include 50 Revolutions performed by the Oxford Stage Company at the Whitehall Theatre, London in 2000 and Resolution at Battersea Arts Centre in 1994, and Little Joe and His Struggle Against the World (Radio 3 2005).

Richard, Chief Executive of the social housing corporation Radion, former Chief Executive of RIBA whose naval career culminated in the command of the aircraft carrier HMS Invincible, was elected onto the Committee of the Old Portmuthian Club at February’s Annual General Meeting.

Murray is perhaps most famously known for ratcheting up the tension on Saturday evenings as the man behind the musical score of Doctor Who, which plays a pivotal role in the show. Since 2005, the programme has had new doctors, new companions, writers and directors, but one constant tying ‘New Who’ together is the score. Murray has held the reins for six years, constructing beautiful original themes, as well as incorporating and adapting classic sounds dating back to the days of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Murray has been nominated four times for a BAFTA in Best Original Television Music for his work on Vanity Fair, Queer as Folk, Casanova, and Doctor Who His breathtaking compositions for Doctor Who have been performed live numerous times over the last few years, including Doctor Who: A Celebration performed in 2006 at the Millennium Centre in Cardiff, and appearances in 2008 and 2010 at the the Proms at The Royal Albert Hall. Most recently this month, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra presented the Doctor Who Symphonic Spectacular! conducted by Ben Foster, with live appearances of classic enemies during the performance.

Ed LAKE (1991-1999)

When a party of talented girl athletes had the opportunity for some warm weather training at Club La Santa in Lanzerote, which has played host to Olympic champions, world record holders and professional athletes from around the world, they wanted to be sure that everyone using these world-class facilities knew that they were from PGS. Enter Guy Barnard OP! Through subsidy from Guy and his marketing and promotional merchandise company, JIGAJAG, the group can now proudly limber up in April in kit emblazoned with the school crest.

Rob CLARKE (1997-2005) Rob graduated from Cambridge University with a Masters degree in Engineering and worked in a ski resort for a season before joining the Royal Navy last year. As well as intensive training at Britannia Royal Naval College, Dartmouth developing leadership skills, Rob has also spent 10 weeks at sea on the amphibious assault ship HMS Bulwark, operating mainly in UK waters and involved in a NATO exercise off Scotland.

Sub Lieutenant Clarke is now based at the engineering shore training establishment, HMS Sultan on Gosport.

Hannah DIAMOND (1999-2008) After leaving PGS Hannah obtained a degree in Sport Science from Exeter University and is now studying for an MSc in Sports Medicine. She is also currently training with Skandia Team GBR for the women’s skiff class which will debut as an Olympic event at Rio de Janiero in 2016. The squad comprises four boats and crews are in regular training at the Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy.

Murray GOLD (1977-1987) Former Doctor Who actor David Tennant started off 2012 by collecting the Best Actor Award at the first ever BBC Audio Drama Awards for his role in the play Kafka the Musical written and directed by the composer and dramatist Murray Gold OP (1977-87). The play starts from the suitably Kafkaesque premise that Franz Kafka finds he has to play himself in a musical about his own life. The play - introduces Kafka and the audience to some of the key characters in his life, Milena Jesenska, Dora Diamant and Felice Bauer. Murray Gold’s first radio play Electricity won the Richard Imison award for best new play after its broadcast on Radio 3 in 2001. It subsequently transferred

Murray lives in New York, although is currently in Sydney, Australia on a work assignment. He has been invited back across the Pond to give a talk about his career as a television and film composer by BAFTA at the Royal Albert Hall in July.

Samantha GINGELL (1997-2011) Samantha was presented with her Gold Duke of Edinburgh Award at the beginning of March at St James’s Palace. She has also been accepted as a fencing coach by Camp America and will be spending the summer in San Francisco before resuming her studies at Southampton University.

Abi HARRIS (2005-2010) Forget the Footlights, it would seem that the Cambridge Society to join is the PGS ‘Class of 2010’! Organised by Abi Harris, the former PGS pupils, now in their second year at various Cambridge Colleges, meet up once a month to sample the offerings at different watering holes across the city.

(Clockwise from bottom left): Helena Schofield (Trinity), Chris Smithers (Trinity), James Scott-Brown (Trinity), Abi Harris (Selwyn), Harriet Cannell (Clare), Gavin Rutter (Queens), Alex Bennett (Queens), James Disley (Robinson), Oscar Cunningham (Trinity).

Richard HASTILOW (1956-1963)

Ed studied English at Cambridge and philosophy at University College London. He spent five years at The Daily Telegraph and still writes articles about popular science for the newspaper. He has been Deputy Editor for The Review, a weekly culture and world affairs supplement of Abu Dhabi’s The National, a freelance journalist and is currently editor at AEON Magazine. He is also editor of The Zeitgeist Journal, an online magazine which aims “to talk about what really matters, to whom, and why.”

Ian NICHOLSON (1983-1995) Ian followed his degree in English and Drama at Birmingham University with a Masters in Actor Training at the Central School of Speech and Drama and Ecole Philippe Gaulier. An in-demand theatre director and acting tutor, Ian’s latest project is The Last March, a stage adaptation of Scott’s illfated return trek from the Antarctic.

Stuart PALMER (PGS 1974-1984) Stuart won an English Speaking Union scholarship to visit the USA in 1985 and obtained a degree in Business and Marketing followed by a Masters in Engineering. After several years working as an engineer in London, Stuart joined Traidcraft, a fair trade organisation based in the North East of England, where he worked as Marketing Director. In 2005 Stuart and his family moved to Malawi where he is the Executive Director of the Beit CURE International Hospital which specialises in orthopaedic medicine. This is an international hospital where surgeons from five different countries work. The most comprehensive clubfoot treatment programme in the world is managed by the hospital and it has the largest orthopaedic research programme in subSaharan Africa. Stuart came to PGS in November 2011 to speak to Sixth Form pupils about his work in Malawi and the CURE hospital.

He is married to Zoe, a doctor who works as a volunteer in the local government hospital in paediatric palliative care. They have three children, Iona, Ben and David who is Malawian born and was adopted by Stuart and Zoe four years ago.

Richard STEGGALL (1984-1994) Richard pursues a high level career as a classical french horn player. While he was at PGS he played for local amateur operatic societies, in Hampshire County Youth Orchestra and Havant Symphony Orchestra (alongside his teacher, Bridget Bartholomew) and was soloist in Mozart’s 4th horn concerto with the South-East Hants Youth Orchestra. In 1993 he joined the National Youth Orchestra, and in 1994 was a semi-finalist in the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition. Recent solo performances include Mozart’s 3rd horn concerto with the Petersfield Orchestra and the “echo horn” part in Simon Bainbridge’s “Landscape and Memory” with the Royal College of Music 20th Century Ensemble.

He graduated from the Royal College of Music in 1998, where he studied with Julian Baker and Pip Eastop. He has worked with many of the top London orchestras and has played guest principal horn with the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Philharmonia, BBC Concert Orchestra, National Symphony, English National Ballet and Britten Sinfonia. An interest in chamber and contemporary music has led Richard to perform with the Fine Arts Brass Quintet, Composers Ensemble, Golden Section, Lontano and the Haffner Wind Quintet. As a soloist, he has premiered works at the British Horn Society Festival and the Hoxton Festival and has performed Mozart’s 4th Horn Concerto with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.

His most memorable moment was when he opened Live8 in Hyde Park, playing Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band with Sir Paul McCartney and U2, dressed as John Lennon (in green, third from left).

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Portsmouth Grammar School • www.pgs.org.uk

In memoriam Opus is saddened to report the death of the following Old Portmuthians and colleagues David Alan DAVIES (1934 – 2012) David attended PGS from 1948 to 1953 and passed away peacefully at his home on 5 February 2012, aged 77 years.

John William Gordon FORREST (1944 – 2011) We are indebted to John’s brother Robin Forrest OP (PGS Lower School 1954-1959) for this appreciation of John’s life.

Keith FARWELL (1965 – 2010)

Keith left PGS in 1983 and gained a BA in English from the University of York and an MA in Archaeology from University College London. He joined the trade mark profession in 1987 with a regional private practice, where he gained his UK trade mark qualifications. In 1995 Keith founded, as a partner, his own specialist trade marks practice in Norwich. He passed away in December 2010 after a long battle with kidney disease aged 45 years.

John attended PGS from 1954 – 1962. His passage through PGS was transformed when his ability to high jump and sprint hurdle unlocked his inner confidence and his academic potential began to bloom.

An injury to his right Achilles tendon put an end to his serious competitive participation as he was training for the 1966 Commonwealth Games. He did at least have the satisfaction of teaching Alan Pascoe how to hurdle with some success.

He took English Literature, History and Geography/Geology at A level and seemed destined for university. He stayed on at school to sit the Cambridge entrance exam when the opportunity to join International Computers and Tabulators (ICT, which later became ICL) as a trainee computer programmer was offered to him. After considerable soul searching on behalf of himself, Mr Hibbert and his father, he took this opportunity.

In 1962, as by far the youngest participant on the course he showed great ability. His early projects designing and installing management programmes for companies around the south of England often resulted in job offers. In 1965 this again happened after installing a programme for Vickers Division of the Sperry Rand Corporation in Havant. (He was playing rugby for the OPs at this time.) He took the bait and, in one guise or another, he spent the rest of his working life with the corporation. In 1969

he was promoted to their world HQ in Troy, Michigan. There he met and married Judith Potter, a teacher, in 1972. On his birthday in 1977 he was appointed Materials Manager to the plant in Omaha, Nebraska and here, in 1979, he became a US citizen – still playing rugby for the Detroit Old Guys Select (DOGS) and Greater Omaha Area Touring Side (GOATS).

In 1981 he was appointed General Operations Manager UK. As a result, he and Judy and their two sons, Michael and David, relocated to Surrey and then to Petersfield, where he played for the PRFC vets. He reconnected with many old school friends during this time. Promotion in 1986 took him back to Troy, Michigan, and he was made General Manager Forecasting and Committing. He was promoted again in 1990 as Director of Supply Management in the Aerospace-Marine Defence Division.

At this time, sadly, his marriage to Judy ended in divorce.

From 1992-1995 John was Director of Materials in the Sterer Division in Los Angeles. By this time he had married Rolesta Ellis-Lee and adopted a son, Matthew (he was still refereeing rugby games). He was made a Fellow of the American Production and Inventory Control Society. Then in 1996 the family relocated to Wichita, Kansas, where John was made Vice President Operations and General Manager of Electro-Mech Technologies, manufacturing components for the light aircraft industry centred in Wichita.

In Wichita, John became more involved in church affairs with the choir (echoes of PGS Messiah at the Albert Hall 1955) and bible study groups. He was also active in local and national politics and was involved with the Kansas Christina Prison Ministry. He enjoyed tennis and was passionate about his motocross motorcycle collection. He had raced bikes in his youth with a lifelong school friend, Brian Sawyer.

His sudden death in May last year was a great shock and sadness to his family and many friends and colleagues worldwide.

Previously, John had been diagnosed as having Bipolar disorder, but he was a good

actor and from a distance his friends and family could not tell how troubled his mind was. I know that, amongst other things, he regretted not having tried for Cambridge all those years ago.

John’s outgoing nature, his sense of humour and his friendship touched a great many people at school, at work and wherever he got involved. He is greatly missed.

My brother, Peter, and I wish to thank all the OPs who have contacted us with their great memories and condolences.

(Please see The Amazing Forrest article on page 43)

of the congregation for many years. Deena passed away on 21 October 2011, aged 78, following a short illness.

Gloster John JACKMAN (1938 – 2011) Gloster Jackman attended PGS from 1949 to1954 and left to pursue a career in banking. He died on 26th October 2011 and is very much missed by his wife Lucy, their family and his many friends.

Professor John Norman R JEFFERS (1926 – 2011)

Vic attended PGS from 1933 to 1936 and passed away on the 22 February 2012.

He always followed the progress of PGS with keen interest and often supported fundraising initiatives. Last year Vic kindly shared his memories of the author Percy Westerman OP for a new school monograph.

We are indebted to Mike Warin for this appreciation of Deena’s life Former pupils and staff will be saddened to hear of the death of Deena Harris who was the secretary to the Headmaster of the Lower School (forerunner to the Junior School) from 1979-1993. During her 14 years she provided vital support to three Headmasters (Tony Stokes, John Howarth and Richard Mathrick) until her retirement in 1993. She was a friendly face to staff and pupils alike in the school office and doubled as school nurse in the days before the Medical Centre existed. Previously she had seen service in the Matron’s Office at Bedales School where she was employed as a seamstress, repairing uniforms and mufti for the boarders.

After retirement Deena maintained contact with PGS and will be particularly remembered for providing all the homecooked mince pies at the reception that followed the Lower School carol concert ever year. She remained very active to the end and was a driving force behind many fundraising schemes for several charities and especially for All Saints Church, Denmead where she was a loyal member

Former PGS member of staff Dennis Lane passed away on 8 February aged 80 years.

Dennis joined the PGS Mathematics department in 1968 and taught at the school until his retirement in 1996.

Educated at Clarence Square Boys School, Dennis then attended Southampton University and Portsmouth College of Education. He served in the Royal Navy from 1949 to 1956 and gained qualifications in Mechanical and Marine Engineering. He was also a qualified Draughtsman. His interests included swimming and water polo.

His 28 years at PGS represented a lifetime of service to the school and many generations of PGS pupils will remember him not only as an inspirational maths teacher, but also as an accomplished producer of school plays, swimming coach, Royal Navy CCF section commander and Cycling Proficiency Test examiner!

Victor Lionel (Vic) HANSELL (1919 – 2012)

Deena HARRIS (1933 – 2011)

Dennis LANE (1931 – 2012)

John attended PGS from 1936-1942. He trained initially as a forester with the Forestry Commission, then gained an external degree in statistics from the University of London and was, for 15 years, Principal Statistician in the Forestry Commission Research Branch. He was at the forefront of computer application of statistics in expert systems and modelling.

In 1968 he was appointed Director of the Nature Conservancy’s Merlewood Research Station. In 1973 he became Deputy Director of the newly formed Institute of Terrestrial Ecology and then in 1976 became its Director and Chief Scientific Officer.

After he retired he was appointed as Visiting Professor to the Universities of Newcastle, Kent and Greenwich. He was awarded an honorary DSc from Lancaster University, a distinguished statistical ecologist award from the International Association for Ecology and a medal for distinguished services to forestry from Helsinki University. He was also a research fellow of the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology of the University of Kent, a consultant to the UNESCO Man and the Biosophere Programme and Editor-in-Chief of the UNESCO MAB Book Series. continued...

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OPUS • Issue 6 • Spring 2012

Portsmouth Grammar School • www.pgs.org.uk

In memoriam Dr Nigel Jonathan LINDSEY (1956 – 2012)

W P (‘Bill’) MAIN (1926 – 2012)

We are indebted to Nigel’s widow Julia for this appreciation of his life

Bill attended PGS from 1936-1943 and after leaving school joined the Royal Navy.

He then went on to pursue a career with IBM and spent time in both the UK and Australia, eventually settling in Australia where he became a regular and popular attendee at the Sydney OP Luncheon Meetings.

On leaving PGS Nigel Lindsey (OP 1964 – 1974) studied Zoology at Bangor University. His career took him via a PhD from Sheffield University to a lectureship at the University of Bradford where he became Professor of (was awarded a chair in) Life Science Education in 2009.

In 2010 He became the University’s Director of Learning and Teaching and held a particular interest in equality and in developing new methods of teaching and delivering learning. Nigel’s time with the PGS Wildlife Club (he was a founder member) inspired a life long love of nature and birds in particular. He travelled the world to satisfy his love of nature and jointly authored a checklist of birds of the orient. Nigel kept in contact with PGS and in 2008 attended the Wildlife Reunion. Despite a three year battle with Motor Neurone Disease he was always determined to live his life on his terms and not let his illness dictate to him and continued to work until he died. He is survived by his wife, Julia, and two young children.

Peter M G PERROW (1920 – 2011) Peter attended PGS from 1930 – 1939. He was the son of a naval officer and came to PGS from King’s School, Rochester in January 1930. In 1938 he and three other pupils went on a 240 mile cycling tour of Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg. Peter kindly donated an account of the trip to the PGS Archive along with his PGS caps.

Peter was a protégé of Colonel Willis in 214 Battery and then joined the 57th Wessex Regiment RA immediately from school, shortly before the outbreak of war, serving from 1939-46 in N. Africa and Italy. After being de-mobbed he enjoyed a career with Fisons as their Crop Surveying Manager.

Dennis John (‘Paddy’) SMITH (1924 – 2011) We are indebted to Paddy’s son, Dr Simon J Smith OP (1969-1979), for this tribute to his father written from his home in Canada

Nigel Lindsey (front) at PGS Wildlife Club Reunion, Oct. 2008.

Christopher LOGUE CBE (1926 – 2011) Poet, playwright, screen-writer and actor Christopher Logue, died on 2 December 2011, aged 85 years. Please see John Sadden’s article on pages 45 - 47 for a celebration of Logue’s life and career.

Miss Ascough’s Academy (where he was “very intelligent for his age”) and then Lyndhurst Road School, he won a scholarship to PGS and started there in 1936. His contemporaries included John Rutter, James Clavell and Alan Bristow. By all accounts he enjoyed school life: he excelled at sports and was in the Soccer 1st XI. He spent many leisure hours with friends out in a boat fishing off Southsea.

Paddy was born in North End in Portsmouth – christened Dennis John – but immediately adopted the name familiar to everyone thanks to an Irish midwife. After early years at

He was evacuated with the school to Bournemouth and continued studies there. He used to cycle home to Portsmouth at weekends, and although evacuated, the war was not far off – while with a crew potato digging on a farm in Lymington one summer he had to scatter under machine-gun fire from a stray German fighter. In 1943 he left PGS to enter Oxford under the Naval “Y” scheme.

This meant starting the first six months of a degree course – in this case English Literature at St. Edmund Hall, Oxford where he was lectured by the likes of C.S. Lewis, J.R. R. Tolkein and Edmund Blunden and had Lord David Cecil as a tutor. Weeks were split between academic studies and naval training in the university boat house. In his words, he learnt one kind of Anglo-Saxon from the professors and quite another kind from the naval instructors.

Academic and naval exams were followed by sea training on T.S. Foudroyant and then a tour at the shore base H.M.S. Ganges where they took a three month course in six weeks. He became captain of the shooting team and came top in gunnery, near the top in seamanship, knots and splices and drill.

He was assigned to the starboard gun on the cruiser H.M.S Norfolk as an Ordinary Seaman and left from Gourock in November 1943 for Scapa Flow for trials and then to Iceland as escort on the Russian Convoys. The Arctic Convoys

called for extreme physical endurance as duties included aircraft watch in the crow’s nest at full speed into a headwind, loading 25 kg shells into the guns and chipping ice off the deck at -30°C in the Arctic darkness. On the return from Murmansk, before Christmas, the Norfolk located and exchanged fire with the German pocket battleship Scharnhorst which had set sail from Norway, and after both sustained damage, the Norfolk gave chase and joined a larger fleet for a two-hour battle which sank the Scharnhorst on Boxing Day. After accepting his naval commission, Paddy served on motor torpedo boats out of Dover up to and after D-Day. On his first day the Commanding Officer told him to be ready to go out on “banger” that night – which largely involved crossing the channel and drawing fire from German guns to allow convoys to pass safely. He saw action on D-Day as part of a decoy landing at Calais – in his words, out in a small boat in the dark with a gramophone player and a huge loud speaker playing sounds of anchors dropping, tannoy commands and landing craft engines revving.

After D-Day, Paddy was promoted to sub-lieutenant and moved to a base at Taranto on the Adriatic coast of Italy to participate in action among the coastal islands of Yugoslavia, serving as navigator again on motor-torpedo boats. Action involved harassment of enemy supply lines and support to the Partisans fighting in the islands and mainland as well as minesweeping over a wide area. One story concerns a visit to a harbour in Gozo, neighbour island to Malta, where a stray mine threatened to drift into the harbour causing widespread destruction. Paddy shot the mine at a safe distance and saved the town, and as a consequence was

awarded the Freedom of the Island of Gozo. Other experiences were of making silent approaches to shore with muffled oars to drop off agents, only to be met by shouting and cheering Partisans. The crew apparently joined in the cheers in support of Tito though provided their own words which fortunately for them were not translated. Another involved using tennis balls from a nearby factory to re-float a sunken ship in the harbour at Zara (now Zadar). The posting in Italy continued with a promotion until well after VE-Day with mine clearing duties up and down the coast. He kept in touch with some of his fellow officers for the rest of his life.

Paddy was demobbed in 1947 and came home just in time for the severest of winters. He had a strong interest to pursue studies in science and was not keen to resume the course in English which he had started at Oxford. He joined the Peoples’ Dispensary for Sick Animals as a Technical Officer and travelled the country supporting operations at its various hospitals for several years. He met his wifeto-be through this work he and Alison married in 1952. They lived in Horndean initially, and he continued with PDSA on the mobile dispensary serving local towns.

They bought a house in Cowplain in 1957, where he lived for the rest of his life. He played cricket on the OP team for many years.

Paddy trained as a teacher at Portsmouth Training College just as their son Simon arrived in the early 1960s and then taught at Barncroft School in Leigh Park, moving to become Deputy Head of Petersfield Junior School in 1969 where he stayed until retirement in 1989. He established a strong reputation for science teaching, particularly biology, and was highly respected by pupils and staff.

Wood carving and creation of sculptures in other media had been a leisure activity for many years. Homes and gardens of friends and relatives are graced with woodcarvings of birds, mammals and even modelled heads. In retirement, Paddy added painting to his considerable skills, joining the Artspace group in Portsmouth and exhibiting frequently. He was a frequent visitor to his son in Canada for many years and travelled extensively in North America.

Late in life, Paddy expanded his connection with the Grammar School – talking about his wartime experiences for an oral history project and participating in the reunion of 1930s-40s leavers in 2008 which he enjoyed very much. The Development Office had even arranged a surprise birthday cake for him. One of his last dealings with PGS was to ask school archivist John Sadden for some help with research and so pleased was he with John’s assistance that he sent gift tokens to the school so that John and the Development Office could treat themselves to ‘some posh biscuits for their coffee break.’ He remained active right up to his death from heart complications – painting prolifically and supporting the campaign for official recognition of service in the Arctic Convoys. He was buried at the Sustainability Centre at Leydene, near East Meon in a plot he chose for himself, on a hillside where he once went shooting with his father.

Duncan Hugh SPENCER (1920 – 2011) Duncan attended PGS from 1933 to 1939 and passed away peacefully on 4th September 2011 aged 91 years. He always followed the progress of PGS with keen interest.

continued...

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OPUS • Issue 6 • Spring 2012

Portsmouth Grammar School • www.pgs.org.uk

In memoriam Kerry Marcus John STONE (1940 – 2011) We are grateful to John Bartle (OP) for this appreciation of Kerry Stone’s life.

group of former and serving SAS Officers, who, with a minimum of largely unofficial support, fought an un-recognized war against a huge Egyptian Army force in The Yemen in an extremely harsh environment, and during momentous times in Middle Eastern history. Kerry contributed to a Radio 4 programme about those times in the summer of 2011.

In between his adventures Kerry would invariably return to the Portsmouth area, where he would visit his old school mates, wearing his trade-mark cheeky grin, and with an invitation to ‘come for a pint’.

During longer periods in the UK. Kerry would undertake all sorts of employment, usually provided by his old mates, with gusto and cheery enthusiasm.

Kerry Stone came to the third form from Gosport High School. His time at PGS (1951 to 1956) was not noted for his academic achievements, but he was always the most affable, amusing and engaging character and a team player. In his own words “I left PGS on the last day of the Christmas term 1956, with four ‘O’ levels (taken in two goes), four stripes on my backside from the cane and the best wishes of my Housemaster, F.Howe Esq., who noted that ‘having set yourself low standards, you have failed to reach them.’ “ Kerry left for the Portsmouth College of Technology and was then commissioned into the RASC in 1959 and posted to the Kings African Rifles in Kenya. From there he embarked on an extremely adventurous service career, and during the period up to 1964, apart from further service with the Kings African Rifles, served with the Tanganyika Rifles, and the Northern Rhodesia Regiment of the Federal Army of Rhodesia and Nyasaland.

With the advent of independence he resigned from the latter and entered an even more adventurous period of his life. Of necessity, his activities during the next four years or so were to remain secret for some considerable time, but have recently become known with the publication of a hugely readable account of those times (“The War That Never Was”

by Duff Hart-Davis). He was part of a small

At school in the 1930s soccer was Alan’s favourite game. David Morey, who played with him in the OP Soccer Club in later years, remembers Alan as a strong and fast centre forward and has a copy of The Portmuthian of 1935 containing a photograph of the PGS 1st X1, including Alan.

Kerry never forgot his time at PGS, but, despite his regular visits to his old mates, never visited the school until shortly before his death, when he returned with all sorts of interesting material for John Sadden, the School Archivist. I believe that this was an act which showed how much he valued his time there as a pupil. He will not be forgotten!

Alan Albert TROUT (1918 – 2011) Thanks to Mike Shepherd (OP) for this appreciation of Alan Trout’s life. Alan attended PGS between 1929 and 1935. He died peacefully on July 22, aged 93 Alan was a man of very many talents.

First and foremost was his great musical gift. He taught at Woodcot Junior School, Bridgemary, Gosport, for many years until his retirement in 1980. Alan Jackson, who was his Head from 1974 to 1980 writes; “Alan was always totally loyal and supportive of all that we undertook.

However, his very strong forte was his music. For many years Alan ‘trained’ our school choir. The vast majority of rehearsals were held out of school hours.

Music was Alan’s hobby – his passion. I have said on many occasions that our school choir was as good as any in the land from a similar age group (8 to 11 year olds). Clearly, music played a great part in Alan’s life. There is no doubt that he was a brilliant musician, greatly admired by many people”.

William Henry Francis (‘Harry’) WALSH (1932 – 2011)

As if all this was not enough, Alan acted as a guide around Old Portsmouth. Many remember being amazed at his detailed knowledge and his humorous delivery of the many pertinent and pithy Portsmouth facts.

Alan was in constant demand to play the organ/piano/keyboard in a number of local churches, among them Stoke Road Congregational Church in Gosport, where he was organist for a short time in the 1950s and 60s. For a considerable time he was an organist and choirmaster at Portchester Methodist Church, where he was also a member of the Men’s Fellowship.

Additionally, he was a member of the Roundabout Art Group in Portchester.

Alan’s association with the Portsmouth Players lasted for very many years until 1999, including a long period as Musical Director and Chorus Master, at which he excelled. He was said to be the finest teacher of music that the Players have been fortunate to have for many years.

He would home in unerringly on anyone who was off-key by even the slightest fraction! In 1963 Alan also displayed his considerable dancing talents in a lively production of Call me Madam at the South Parade Pier. Alan always gave unstintingly of his time, whether it was in shows, concerts for the blind, the Rotary Old Folk or many charity concerts.

Alan was a great supporter of the OP Club, a regular attendee at social events, a long serving member on the Committee and President of the Club in 1993. Also, Alan used to do the proof reading of the The Old Portmuthian magazine. In this he was meticulous. Woe-betide any one who misspelled a word or who was lax in their punctuation! In addition to all this, he helped regularly with the ‘postings’ to the 2000 members of the Club, which involved folding and placing sheets in envelopes and affixing labels to them.

In all he did Alan was methodical and meticulous; a hard task master but always courteous and a true gentleman. He was an inspiration to his family and his many friends and acquaintances, all of whom greatly miss him. They have nothing but fond memories of Alan and huge respect for him.

May he rest in peace.

Dave Allison (OP 1946 – 1953) has also provided the following memories of Alan.

I was sad to hear that Alan Trout had died recently. Our paths crossed many times. I was one of those sports mad boys who enjoyed playing football as well as rugby. During school holidays the Old Portmuthian Football Club welcomed young fit Sixth Formers to bolster their ranks. Like the evergreen George Hayward, Alan’s Saturday afternoons were spent with the OPs and my abiding memory of him was when he came on to play as a second half substitute at Alexandra Park.

He was over 50 years of age at the time and this gangling figure from a bygone era was asked to “make a nuisance of yourself” in the middle of the pitch. The looks on opposition faces when he popped up in the penalty area to score a decisive goal were priceless.

Others will recall his years as a respected teacher in local secondary schools and his years as a Musical Director with the Portsmouth Players. He was a modest, loyal and very likeable person.

Harry Walsh, former stalwart of the PGS Biology and Mathematics Departments and Housemaster of Hawkey, died on Friday 18 November 2011 aged 79 years.

He had been receiving treatment for NonHodgkins Lymphoma for some time.

Harry joined the PGS Biology & Mathematics Departments early in 1987.

He brought a wealth of experience from earlier years of his career including from his previous post as deputy headmaster of a large inner city comprehensive school in the Midlands. His charity fundraising at school benefitted a whole host of good causes in the local area and overseas and the annual Sponsored Silence event which he instituted was one of the most anticipated highlights of the school calendar – most notably for the teaching staff! A love of outdoor pursuits, most notably sailing, had drawn Harry and his wife, Mary, to the south coast. In addition to being a skillful sailor he was also an accomplished violin and viola player. He retired from PGS in 1996.

Bruce WRIGHT (1920 – 2011) Bruce attended PGS from 1932 – 1939 and passed away on 31 July 2011 aged 90.

During his time at PGS Bruce was a school prefect, Captain of Latter House and played for the cricket First XI.

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Announcements OP Engagements / Marriages / Births Alasdair Akass, the school Development Director and his wife Emily, Head of Biology, became the proud parents of a baby daughter, India Elizabeth, on 10 March.

Megan Gael DAVIS (2006) gained a BDS Hons degree in Dental Surgery from the University of Newcastle.

Joanna GRAY (née Mattock) (2004-2008) Former PGS Music teacher Jo and husband Ed are very happy to announce the birth of their son, Theo James Gray, on 29 November 2011.

Dave HOLBY (1990-1999)

And Finally..

Pick of the Postbag It is always heartening to receive your reaction and feedback to Opus. Here we reproduce the letter sent

by Paul Huins OP to the Development Office following publication of the last edition.

Sam BARNARD (1935-1939)

Dear Development Office,

Sam and wife Mary celebrated their diamond wedding anniversary last October with a large family gathering at the Royal Naval Club in Old Portsmouth.

The couple were married on October 20, 1951, at All Saints Church in Bath. Mr and Mrs Barnard met in Bath in 1947 when she was training as a midwife and nurse and he was training to be a physiotherapist.

After the wedding they settled in Portsmouth and went on to have four children, Deborah, Nicholas, Guy and Jane.

They also have nine grandchildren and one great-grandson. Sam captained Havant Cricket Club in the 1970s while his wife was a magistrate in Portsmouth for more than 20 years and a county commissioner for Hampshire East Girl Guides.

World-record breaking land rower Dave Holby (see Opus 3) has married his longtime girlfriend, Lara Wolinski. Dave met Lara, now a midwife, when they were studying Drama at Exeter University.

They were married on 25 June 2011, at a ceremony in the village of Newton Longville, Buckinghamshire.

Christopher Benedict TINDALL (2007) gained a BA Hons degree in Sociology from the University of Newcastle.

Derek WORRALL (1932-1939) Derek and his wife Rae (aged 91 and 90 respectively) celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary with a family gathering and a remarkable cake which Rae baked herself. The couple were married on 4 October 1941 at South Harting church. They have 5 children, 7 grandchildren and 5 great-grandchildren.

They still go walking regularly.

I have just re-read Issue 5 of Opus (Autumn 2011) and congratulate you all on a quite exceptional issue of the magazine. In particular, the tributes to the late Wally Bartle recalled one or two personal memories of the great man. I was hopeless at Art, and on one occasion my end of term report read simply: “started badly and got steadily worse.”

Only Wally could have written such a report, full of wit and humour and, of course, totally honest and accurate! I also recall Wally’s superb lectures in the old school hall, which inspired in me and countless other OPs, a life-long interest in masterpieces of art and architecture. It was a genuine privilege to know Wally, and I always had a sense of being in the presence of a true friend and a fine human being.

Paul Huins OP (1954-1964)

A medley of PGS sporting stars The cover of this edition of Opus is a photo mosaic featuring Roger Black MBE OP (1977-1984) on the Olympic rostrum. His Olympic performances include silver medals in the 400m and 4 x 400m relay. The image is made up using photographs of the PGS intermediate athletics squad which won the English Schools’ Athletics Cup in 2007.

The back cover of this issue features a plethora of talented sporting OPs. From left to right: Alex Hibbert OP (1990-1996) Alex was one of the youngest people to complete the 125-mile Devizes to Westminster kayak ultra-marathon. At university he competed at the Oxford-Cambridge Varsity Triathlon, won his rowing ‘blade’ and began competitively running long-distance races. He also reached the summit of Mont Blanc and other peaks in the French Alps.

Adam Carroll Smith OP (1995-2002) Former newspaper sports reporter Adam’s literary debut, Chasing Sachin, was published last Autumn to much critical acclaim .It is the autobiographical story of one Sachin Tendulkar fan’s unlikely mission to try to bowl just one ball at his childhood hero during India’s 2011 tour of England. Adam spends a hilarious summer trying to achieve the unthinkable, fending off the unwanted attentions of over-zealous Indian fans and crazed Italian spiritualists - not to mention the dozens of blazered officials and luminous-jacketed stewards - who stood between him and his hero.

Kitty Newton OP (1998-2010) Kitty broke all her age group swimming records at the annual Junior School galas, before coming fourth in the country at the British 50m championships and achieving a bronze medal for 200m butterfly at the Scottish Championships in Glasgow in 2007. She has now returned to competitive rugby, after a seven year break, joining Solent Sirens rugby team last year. Almost immediately she was approached to attend the Hampshire county trials and was selected to play in the fist XV side. This, in turn, led to an invitation to trial for Richmond Rugby Club, the top women’s rugby club in the country, with teams in the Premier, Division 1 and Division 2 leagues. Kitty instantly impressed and is currently playing in the front row at hooker for the 2nd team and is the youngest member of the squad.

Chris Lewis OP (2004-2009) Chris is studying Sport and Exercise Science at Bath University. The former captain of PGS First XV, has also played for Hampshire U14 – U20 sides, Bath University 1st and 2nd teams and Vectis Rugby Club on the Isle of Wight. He has played for Bath Academy and Bath A team and has secured a strength and conditioning placement in the coaching team of London Wasps.

Chris Morgan OP (1998-2008) A graduate of Hampshire’s Cricket Academy right handed batsman, and former PGS cricket captain Chris Morgan is enjoying a career in the sport. In his first season at the Rosebowl, which ended with the opportunity of training in Australia, he scored 284 runs in a month, including three half-centuries.

James Peters OP (2002-2011) James Peters (helm) and teammate Edward FitzGerald (crew) are in the British Olympic Transitional Squad, both aged 18. Their ultimate goal is to medal at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games in the 49er class. James already has a clutch of titles to his name in the sport, including 2008 Boys Double-Hander ISAF Youth World Champions; 2008 29er National Youth Champions and 2008 29er Youth Champions.

James Rodley OP (2002-2007) Flanker James Rodley had an amazing season with Stourbridge Saxons last year with a string of back row displays and ten tries in the bag. Little wonder then that he was named ‘Supporters’ Player of the Season.’ Rodley has combined his duties at Stourton Park with training at Worcester Warriors together with a number of A League games for the Championship side this season.

Jamie Farmer OP (1999-2006) Jamie’s clean sweep of 10 A* grades together with his two year apprenticeship contract with Millwall Football Club made front page headlines in The Daily Telegraph in 2009. He has now hung up his boots after completing his two years as goalkeeper for the Lions U18 team to concentrate on his A Levels.

Jeff Blackett OP (1966-1973) Headed up by His Honour Judge Jeff Blackett, the Rugby Football Union’s Discipline department comprises three full-time staff based at Rugby House, Twickenham. In his distinguished career, Jeff has been the Judge Advocate General of the Armed Forces and a Senior Circuit Judge. He was previously the Naval Judge Advocate from 1989 to 2003.

Jess Chen OP (1997-2006) Now at Oxford University, most recently achieving 3rd place in the Saucony English National Cross Country Championships in February, Jess is a seasoned athlete and member of Portsmouth Athletics Club. She also qualified for the UK Inter Counties Cross Country Championships. She ended 2007 by winning the U15 event in a top international competition in Bolbec, France and started 2008 by coming fourth in U15 event over 3.3kms at the Hampshire Athletics Association Cross Country Championships.

Mike Wedderburn OP (1972-1983) Mike played rugby union for Harlequins and London Wasps as well as playing as a fast bowler for Hampshire County Cricket Club before an injury ended his professional sporting career. He had stints at presenting on Channel 4 and ITV before joining Sky Sports in 1998, where he usually presents Good Morning Sports Fans. He captained a team of illustrious sporting professionals in the PGS version of A Question of Sport raising money for the Neil Blewett Bursary Fund.

Richard Simonsen OP (1953-1964) See Athletic Support on pages 12 and 13 of this issue for a feature on Richard.

Barbarian Boys Five boys - the most from any school - were selected for the Barbarians rugby squad and toured Zimbabwe last Spring on the first tour of its kind there since political unrest began. Jacob Poulton, Freddie Hooper, Charlie Howard, Alex Wilcockson and Cameron Prentice are all 2011 leavers, though Alex has chosen to return to PGS and fill his Gap Year teaching PE to Junior School pupils.

Mike Barnard OP (1945-1951) As a cricketer, Mike played for Hampshire as a right-handed batsman and a medium pace bowler. As a footballer, he played in the Football League for Portsmouth as an inside left. Barnard played cricket for Hampshire from 1952 to 1966, playing 276 first-class matches for the county and 9 one-day matches.

Barnard played for non-league club Gosport Borough before joining Portsmouth. He made his Portsmouth debut on 26 December 1953, in a 1–1 draw against Tottenham Hotspur in the First Division. He played until the 1958–59 Football League season, scoring 26 goals from 127 first-team appearances in all competitions, 25 from 116 in the Football League.

Vicky Colgate OP (1996-2008) Vicky captained the Cambridge University Varsity netball team last year to a decisive light blue victory avenging a narrow defeat to Oxford the preceding year. She has proved to be an inspirational captain, leading the Blues to the top of their division and now facing play-offs against Exeter and Kent for the right to play in the premier league.

Owen Cobbe Former PGS Director of Rugby Owen Cobbe played for London Irish throughout the 1990s, as well as for Irish clubs Blackrock (Div 1), Buccanneers (Div 1) and Wanderers (Div 2) and, closer to home, Havant Rugby Club (South Div 3). He was the winner of the second PGS Strictly Come Dancing Competition in 2008 and is now Deputy Head of Sixth Form at Mount St Mary’s College.

Alexia Yannaros OP (2007-2011) Nominated for Young Sportswoman of the Year at The News Sports Awards, Alexia broke through into the Top10 rankings for UK Girls’ tennis in 2010.

James Priory torch Headmaster James Priory is seen holding a torch from the school archive reputedly used to carry the Olympic flame across the Channel on its journey from Athens to light the flame at Wembley Stadium on the occasion of the last time Great Britain staged the Olympic Games in London in 1948. It was presented to the school by the Bursar of the day, in 1951.

The Headmaster proudly showed it off on the occasion of a visit to the school by John Armitt, Chief Executive Officer of the Olympic Delivery Authority, in 2009.

Roger Black MBE OP (1977-1984) See OP Roger is still in the running for 2012 on page 20 of this issue for a feature on Roger.

Eloise Waldon-Day OP (1999-2008) See This Sporting Life on page 23 of this issue for a feature on Eloise.

Ed Leask OP (1955-1965) See the articles on Ed starting on page 14.

The picture shows Ed sailing on Eastney Lake in 1963.

Joe Michalzcuk OP (1994-2001) Joe works for Sky News Radio sourcing, creating and reading sports news for over 300 commercial radio stations across the UK. He has reported on Premier League fixtures for Talksport, Absolute Radio and ITN and is the chief commentator on every single Pompey game on Express FM 93.7 FM and Portsmouth Football Club TV.

Hannah Diamond OP (1999-2008) See News of Old Portmuthians on page 58 of this issue for a feature on Hannah.

Jon Ayling OP (1975-1985) Jon is a retired professional cricketer, righthanded batsman and a right-arm medium pace bowler who still coaches for Hampshire Cricket Club. In 1985 Ayling won ‘The Cricket Society Wetherall Award for the Leading All-Rounder in English Schools Cricket’. Jon had a five year playing career with Hampshire in which he took 134 First Class wickets and scored over 2,000 First Class runs.

Rob Burgess OP (1988-1995) Rob graduated from Bristol University in 1999 and worked in a number of jobs in the sports industry, including with the successful London 2012 Olympic bid team. His first job in rugby was in 2005 when he was appointed Rugby Manager at Gloucester Rugby Club. In 2008, Rob joined the RFU when he was appointed England Team Operations Manager by Martin Johnson. He is now Head of Rugby at leading sports agency James Grant.

David Stenson OP (1947-1952) A former President of both Portsmouth Athletics Club and Hampshire Athletics Association, David was responsible for firing the starting gun for the Great South Run from 1991 until last year.

Wally Hammond OP (1914-1921) Walter Hammond was one of Portsmouth Grammar School’s most successful sporting alumni. At school he was soon identified as a natural hitter, but was also a proficient bowler and fielder, coming first in the ‘throwing the cricket ball’ event on Sports Day in 1916. Twelve years later, as a part of England’s strong batting side against the Australians, Hammond hit his record 905 runs at an average of over 113 per innings. Often considered to be the best England batsman of the 1930s, Hammond played in 85 Test Matches in a twenty year England career which included 22 centuries, 110 catches and 83 wickets. From 1933, he headed the national batting averages for eight seasons in succession, a record that has never been equalled.

Jock Clear OP (1972-1982) Jock is Senior Race Engineer working for Nico Rosberg. His career in motorsport began at Lola Cars, where he worked as a design engineer before moving to the position of head of composite design at Benetton Formula in 1989.

In 1992 he worked as senior designer at Leyton House Racing, then joined Team Lotus where he became Johnny Herbert’s race engineer in 1994. When Lotus collapsed at the end of the year, he transferred to Williams F1 and engineered David Coulthard, who won his first Grand Prix in Portugal and finished third in the drivers’ championship. Jacques Villeneuve joined Williams in 1996 and Clear was his race engineer; the Canadian won the world championship the following year under Clear’s guidance.

Simon Faulkner OP (2002-2008) Loughborough University hockey captain Simon Faulkner, son of Olympic gold medallist and England Hockey performance director David Faulkner, was part of the bronze medalwinning side at the 2009 Australian Youth Olympic Festival. The Loughborough student has been enticed to Germany on a year loan deal with Blue-Weiss Berlin Hockey Club, before returning to complete his studies.

Portsmouth Grammar School www.pgs.org.uk