Opus issue 9

Issue 9 • Winter 2013

Inside Just what the doctor ordered William Smith’s vision for future young Portmuthians

Dance yourself dizzy Meet the OP ballerina dancing her way to the top

Let’s get fizzical Your chance to win a bottle of champagne

The magazine for former pupils, parents and friends of The Portsmouth Grammar School

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OPUS • Issue 9 • Winter 2013

OP Survey Winter 2013

Your chance to be entered into a free draw for a bottle of champagne!

It is some years since we conducted a comprehensive survey of the OP community and we felt it was high time we found out more about you. We would be extremely grateful if you would take just 5-10 minutes to complete our simple survey. It has three purposes: 1 We want to hear your views. Are you interested in attending a school reunion? If so, would you like it to be based on your year group, on an extra-curricular interest such as sport or CCF, or on your area of business? Would you like to connect with us in other ways? Are there any other products or services you would like PGS to provide to OPs? 2 We want to make sure our data on you is up-to-date and complete.

3 And we would greatly appreciate your help in getting back in touch with any other OPs with whom we are not currently in contact.

The survey can be completed online at the following link:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/M23G6MS We have also enclosed a paper copy, which you can complete and return to the school at our FREEPOST address, if you prefer.

The Portsmouth Grammar School FREEPOST PT192 Portsmouth PO1 2YX The survey will close on Friday 31 January 2014.

The prize draw will take place shortly thereafter.

Your support would be greatly appreciated

The Portsmouth Grammar School • www.pgs.org.uk

Contents

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OPUS designed by Simon Udal (OP 1977 - 1987) Simon Udal Design - www.simonudaldesign.co.uk

In Brief - A round-up of PGS news and events

4-5

‘Take it from here!’

Tony Stokes, Master-in-Charge of the PGS Lower School

Educating Portsmouth: William Smith’s vision 6-7

Sowing the seeds of PGS

Honouring the 130 The centenary of the outbreak of the First World War

The changing face of PGS 8-9

Sam Hutchings OP

Hadamayaa: to be human, to be kind

27-28

Gearing up for a faster future - Paul Davis OP

29 30-31

MORE MEN and BOYS 10-11

Rebecca Johnson OP

Where would you like to be at 25?

The second 50-year anniversary of the school’s rugby XVs

32-34

Anyone for tennis (and cricket ...)?

The aspirations of the class of 2013

12-13

This year’s OPs v PGS summer matches

14-15

A vision for the future: The School Strategic Plan 2013-2016

Fashion forward at PGS OPs lead a seminar on careers in the fashion industry

Citizen 63

35 36-37

Excellent teaching and learning 16-18

John Boorman’s controversial TV documentary

Paul Jones monograph published 19

The launch of PGS Monograph No. 25

Cycling in the Quad, wedding cake in the library Edward Stansfield, much-loved former master

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Ask the archivist - John Sadden

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Bridging the Gap 22

An update on the new Sixth Form Centre

PGS keeps you on your toes 23

Ballerina Samantha Bosshardt OP

Acid + Base = Salt + Water John McIlwaine OP reflects on the “old school network”

24-25

Rand Devalued!

Reunion of PGS and Portsmouth High School former pupils

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This year’s academic results

38

Work experience for OPs - Jenny Codd OP

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Careering back to PGS - Careers advice from OPs

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All out for 92 - A retirement tea for four teachers

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Wildlife Photographers John Aitchison OP and Matt Allen OP

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‘My voyage to Portsmouth Grammar School and Beyond’ - Memoirs of Alan St Clair OP

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Climb every mountain (in plimsolls) Laurie Faulkner OP recalls a CCF trip to Inverness

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News of Old Portmuthians

43-46

In Memoriam

47-49

Inside Track - Veterinary Surgeon Stephanie Davies OP 50-51

Cover image: Snow falling over The Portsmouth Grammar School, by Alison Gardiner, renowned Southsea artist and PGS parent.

We are very grateful to Alison for allowing us to reproduce this image, originally commissioned by the school for this year’s Christmas card. www.alisongardiner.co.uk

Melanie Bushell

Liz Preece

Sue Merton

John Sadden

Jason Baker

Development Director m.bushell@pgs.org.uk

Development Officer l.preece@pgs.org.uk

Development Office Administrator s.merton@pgs.org.uk

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

Photographer in Residence jason.baker@pgs.org.uk

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 issues 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

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OPUS • Issue 9 • Winter 2013

In Brief

A round-up of PGS news and events

Family Fireworks Extravaganza Hundreds of members of the PGS community were treated to a spectacular fireworks display at Hilsea playing fields on Sunday 3 November.

In persistent rain and chilly conditions, the hot soup was selling like hot cakes, but the PGS crowd was not to be deterred and ooh-ed and aah-ed in the traditional manner through a dazzling show which many described as the best they had ever seen.

A glittering – and wonderfully noisy – finale brought the show to a close. Plans are already in hand for next year’s extravaganza.

Great South Run

On Sunday 27 October, over 50 members of the PGS community (staff, pupils and parents) completed the Great South Run to raise valuable funds for Chai Thom School in Cambodia.

With the south coast experiencing strong winds that weekend, the last two miles of the ten-mile course were particularly tough.

The team effort was the brainchild of Director of Sport, Chris Dossett, who said: “We have almost reached our target of raising £5,000 for Chai Thom School, which, amongst other things, will enable the school to train and employ two teachers, buy some children’s Khmer reading books and install a solar panel so that lessons can continue into the dark evenings.”

If you would like to help the school reach the £5,000 target, please visit http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/team/ PGSRuns

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PG tsm S nam out ed ‘B hN es this ews ‘ t Scho WO Nove We Ca ol’ a RK i t n th mber f n Do It the e co or i ’ Aw mm ts ard unit s y

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The energetic and enthusiastic PGS team (before the run!)

The Portsmouth Grammar School • www.pgs.org.uk

A legacy for the future - The Keith Horn Bursaries Thanks to a generous legacy from Keith Horn (OP 1959-64) PGS will be able to offer free places to three young people joining the Senior School in September 2014, which will continue for their entire school careers. Keith’s obituary appeared in OPUS 8.

“It was certainly a case of conflicting emotions when we found out about the legacy Mr Horn had left to the school,” said James Priory, Headmaster, “as it signified the passing of an Old Portmuthian, yet it opened up this amazing opportunity for us to be able to enhance our bursary support, and to be able to offer these free places to young people who owing to financial reasons may not have considered applying to us before.”

As a boy Keith Horn had wanted to join the Merchant Navy but was unable to do so because of poor eyesight. He joined Barclays Bank, retiring at the age of 50. After his retirement Keith took to the seas, cruising on cargo ships, so fulfilling his schoolboy dream of travelling the world. PGS was the sole recipient of his estate.

“We made the decision to use this unexpected bequest to support in full three pupils joining the school next year in Year 7, for their whole time at the school, as this could make a significant impact on their lives,” continued James Priory.

The school already offers a range of scholarships and bursaries to pupils throughout the Senior School and Sixth Form, for which pupils and parents can request consideration when applying to join the school.

“We are committed to making it possible for bright and motivated children to come to PGS regardless of their family’s ability to pay,” said Melanie Bushell, the new Development Director. “Every gift, no matter what size, makes a real and lasting difference to what we can offer to young people from the local area, and enables us to help support their families during their time at the school.”

Anna, a former pupil at PGS, received 100% bursary support whilst at the school and is now studying medicine at a top London university. Speaking to OPUS, she said “When I graduate I am hoping to specialise in psychiatry and work with children and adolescents suffering from trauma as part of Médecins Sans Frontières. I truly believe this wouldn’t have been possible without the time I spent at PGS. I am so eternally grateful and indebted to the people who gave me the opportunity to study there.”

The Keith Horn Bursary Award will be available to pupils applying from state schools to join PGS in Year 7 in September 2014 and will be a means-tested award.

The London Society of Old Portmuthians (LSOP)

Career Mentoring Scheme

Meetings of the London Society of Old Portmuthians resumed in June 2013 and the next meeting will be held on 10 March 2014. OPs meet from 6.30pm onwards in the bar of the Farmers’ Club at 3 Whitehall Court, London SW1A 2EL (020 7930 4730). Dinner is at 7.30pm. Those who prefer not to dine often choose to linger in the bar. All members of the OP community are most welcome and there is no need to register in advance. More information is available from Tim Kidd on timkidd@bluebowler.co.uk tel 020 8668 2861.

Following the article in the last edition of OPUS and further activity on the Old Portmuthians’ LinkedIn page, we are pleased to announce that nearly fifty OPs have so far volunteered to take part in the mentoring scheme that pairs OPs with current sixth formers for help with careers advice and potential work placements. Around twenty of these individuals attended a kick-off meeting at the school in June, which reviewed and addressed issues such as parental consent and other governance concerns.

It was agreed to commence the scheme by conducting a pilot study during the autumn term. This project, which involves ten students of the lower sixth, got underway in November. It is our intention to roll out the scheme to the rest of the lower sixth year at the start of the spring term in 2014.

All of the volunteer mentors will be contacted early in the New Year by the school Careers Department to make the arrangements to allocate the students to the most appropriate mentor.

The school and the Old Portmuthian Club are very excited about the prospects for this initiative in the years ahead and are encouraged by progress so far.

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OPUS • Issue 9 • Winter 2013

Educating Portsmouth: William Smith’s vision The seed of Portsmouth Grammar School may be said to have been sown by a teacher on the Isle of Wight three hundred and fifty years ago. Richard Chamberlain was master of Newport Grammar School and it was here that, in the 1670s, a young doctor’s son called William Smith was admitted.

A school rule-book from around this time shows how Newport pupils commenced their studies at 6am in the summer and 7am in the winter. It was a traditional classical education - Latin, Greek, scripture and history, typical of a grammar school curriculum of the time. Latin was the essential language of higher education and grammar schools served as a bridge to university. While the education was traditional, the schoolroom in which young Smith studied was state-of-the-art, “a fine room for the time, fifty feet long”.

The school library boasted seventy books, thirty-two of them in English.

Smith’s fellow pupils were largely drawn from the island gentry, though the school did offer some free places for those who were unable to meet the fees. By the time boys reached the two senior years of the school they were expected “in all their speeches in the Schoole [to] use the Lattin tongue.” It was a tough regime, but young Smith appears to have prospered under Mr Chamberlain’s tutelage.

Each Sunday and holyday morning pupils had to walk two-by-two in a procession to take their places in the school gallery of Newport Church. There they had to concentrate on the sermon as they

Newport Grammar School, Isle of Wight

would be grilled on the content in the schoolroom the following day. In school there were two daily religious ceremonies and each Saturday the boys would be tested on the church catechism.

The quality of young Smith and his fellow pupils’ classical and religious education was assured by an annual inspection by Newport’s councillors, gentry and clergy.

Leiden admissions register. William Smith is number 236

William Smith’s classroom at Newport Grammar School, painted by John Nixon.

Reproduced courtesy of Carisbrooke Castle Museum.

William Smith’s thesis at Leiden

After answering the esteemed visitors’ questions, scholars fed and entertained them. Richard Chamberlain, like all masters, provided a good role model enforced by strict rules that prohibited “drinking, swearing, incontinency or any other notorious crime”.

Sixty years later, and young Smith is not so young. He is a respected former physician to the town and garrison of Portsmouth, having studied medicine at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands and obtained an honorary degree of Doctor of Medicine from Oxford University. He owns a modest estate on the Isle of Wight and has served his adopted town as a burgess and mayor.

He has taken an active interest in local affairs and is aware that the town and its inhabitants are severely disadvantaged by the lack of a grammar school.

As a medical doctor, old Smith probably knows he is dying. He possibly reflects on his days at Newport Grammar and attributes his successful career and wealth to his schooling. Two days before his

The Portsmouth Grammar School • www.pgs.org.uk

Buckingham House, Smith’s High Street residence

Leiden anatomical theatre

Great East Standen Farm, the Smith residence on the Isle of Wight (today in private ownership)

death he ensures that others benefit from a similar opportunity, that local children will have access to an excellent education without the need for personal wealth or a generous personal benefactor.

From that seed sown in the seventeenth century came, ultimately, dozens of generations of Old Portmuthians, at one time tamed but now socialised, once schooled but now educated, but all largely equipped to make a life, make a living, and make a mark on the world. Teachers, doctors, scientists, engineers, academics, service personnel, architects, playwrights, artists, diplomats, athletes, authors… the seeds have scattered and grown in all professions and vocational fields, enriching lives and making the world a better place.

William Smith’s signature and seal 1714

Cathedral window, Smith’s coat of arms

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OPUS • Issue 9 • Winter 2013

The changing face of PGS In 2010, when Sam Hutchings (OP 1980-1991) and his wife Philippa were deciding where to educate their son, it was not a foregone conclusion that they would choose PGS. Although Sam’s education had stood him in good stead for his progression into the Royal Navy and the medical profession, he was not sure his alma mater would provide the kind of nurturing environment they wanted for Henry, then aged just three.

Sam Hutchings was born in Portsmouth in 1973 into a naval family and knew from an early age that he wanted to follow the family tradition and also become a doctor.

After a couple of years in Dartmouth, the family moved back to Old Portsmouth when Sam was seven and his parents enrolled him at PGS, which had as strong an academic reputation then as it does today.

“I remember it being a very tough, competitive environment”, he recalls. “We were immediately assessed academically and put into streams called ‘Upper’, ‘Middle’ and ‘Lower’. Somehow I made it into the Upper stream, but at the end of the year, when I presented my parents with a letter I had been handed in a sealed envelope, they opened it to discover I was to be ‘demoted’ to the Middle stream for the next academic year. As they had been forking out for school fees all year, the fact that I didn’t seem to have been trying very hard didn’t go down at all well!”

He remembers the teachers being stern and remote figures, particularly the Headmaster whom he rarely saw and certainly never engaged in conversation.

“It was all a far cry from today, with the current Junior School Headmaster, Peter Hopkinson cheerily greeting pupils and

Sam Hutchings aged 8

their parents whenever and wherever he sees them”.

“The strictest teacher was David Hampshire, who was a biology teacher back then (now drama). He seemed particularly fierce to us when we were young but his attitude definitely changed as you moved up through the school. I always wanted to get into Mr Hampshire’s set because he was by far the best teacher and deserves a lot of the credit for getting me a place at medical school”.

When his family moved north in the early 1980s, Sam left PGS but returned three years later when his father’s career brought them back to Portsmouth. After completing his GCSEs and A levels, he secured a medical scholarship through the Royal Navy, and went on to qualify as a doctor in 1996. He is now a Surgeon Commander in the Royal Navy and a Consultant in Intensive Care Medicine at King’s College Hospital, London, spending half his time undertaking research looking at improving resuscitation strategies for patients with traumatic injuries.

His home is still in the Portsmouth area, and after their first child was born in 2007, he and Philippa set about deciding where and how to educate him, so visited PGS on an Open Morning. “As soon as I walked into the Quad, I could tell the atmosphere had changed enormously. And when we went over to the old Junior School site (on Cambridge roundabout, now the Middle School), it had changed beyond all recognition. Gone were the austere and regimented rows of desks – now it has a much gentler feel. There used to be areas of the school like the dreaded D block that were strictly out of bounds to us pupils for no obvious reason. When Henry joined the nursery just before his third birthday, he was the one assuring me that it was OK to cross the invisible line along the edge of the Quad”.

Sam with a young patient and his uncle in Afghanistan in 2012

The shift in the school’s attitude, to a more caring and outward-facing community, was brought sharply into focus in 2011 when Sam found himself serving in Afghanistan. An email exchange with Peter Hopkinson discussed the enhanced pastoral care that the school provides to children whose parents are away for long periods, often through service with the Royal Navy, and went on to explore ways in which the school might support the people that Sam was working with in Helmand. After he explained that he spent about half his time working with critically injured Afghan children, the school set about collecting boxes full of stuffed toys, which were sent out and distributed amongst injured and orphaned locals. Sam explained “None of those kids can read (nor can 90% of the adults over there) but they do value simple things like cuddly toys. For most of them it’s the first time they’ve seen such things”.

Now back in the UK, Sam is continuing to pursue his medical research and enjoying family life. Despite a hectic schedule, on

The Portsmouth Grammar School • www.pgs.org.uk

Junior School pupils with just some of the toys that were sent to Afghanistan

receiving the last issue of OPUS and also reading the school mission statement in the Strategic Plan 2013-16, he was quick to contact the school, offering to help through sharing his experiences of the military, medicine and academic research with current pupils. Needless to say, we were delighted to accept.

If you would like to find out more about admission to the Junior School or are interested in participating in a careers day or our new mentoring scheme, please contact us on 023 9236 4248 or development@pgs.org.uk.

Sam and Henry Hutchings in the Junior School play area

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OPUS • Issue 9 • Winter 2013

Hadamayaa: to be human, to be kind Rebecca Johnson (OP 1993 -2004) tells how a chance visit to The Gambia led to the establishment of a new charity committed to equality and education for the country’s girls and young women.

The Gambia was never on my list of places to visit. In truth I had not heard of this tiny sliver of a country, landlocked in West Africa surrounded by Senegal as a result of colonial trading of land. But when the South African orphanage I worked with was overbooked with volunteers for the summer of 2011, I took the advice of a fellow trainee teacher at the University of Winchester and booked a solo ticket to Banjul.

The heat and humidity were the first obstacles to overcome; I spent my first night struggling to catch my breath under my mosquito net, in a small mud hut on the bank of the River Gambia. I was staying overnight in an eco-lodge about an hour’s drive away from the coast to acclimatize to the conditions before travelling further up country to the small town of Soma, which lies on the Trans-Gambia Highway. In the morning I shared an open air bathroom with some of the biggest insects I had ever seen, and made my way to my final destination.

I was staying in Soma for two months, and had booked my flights with no solid plans. I checked in to a very basic lodge and made enquiries about working within

a local primary school. I was taken to the main school and immediately put in front of a class of around forty children of various ages. Having been informed that this was the Grade One class, I was handed my only resource, a piece of chalk, and instructed to teach. The children sat at wooden desks in rows before me, staring at the toubab (the West African name for

a person of European descent) that had unexpectedly arrived in their bare, empty classroom. Before leaving the room the usual class teacher informed me that not a single child spoke a word of English but that it was policy that only English should be spoken in the classroom as it is the country’s official language. Knowing that I couldn’t break the “English only” rule even if I wanted to, I launched into a nursery rhyme, and, to my relief, the children joined in with my enthusiastic actions and even attempted singing.

Whilst my school days developed past my initial deer-in-the-headlights into a phonics programme and helping to administer and mark the end of year school exams, school closed at one o’clock each day and so I got to know a few of the locals. It became very quickly apparent that the only people I was being introduced to were male. While the men spent their days sat relaxing under the mango trees and drinking attaya (a type of green tea), the women were up at dawn cooking and cleaning, before heading off to the farms to spend the day working under the hot sun. They would then come home to yet more housework and

The Portsmouth Grammar School • www.pgs.org.uk

childcare tasks before going to bed. When I tried introducing myself to a group of women, they were very friendly but our conversation didn’t go very far due to the language barrier. The Gambia’s heavily patriarchal society means that, although education is open to girls, most women in The Gambia have never been educated.

Instead, they are expected to help with household chores such as fetching water and cleaning, and are married very young to men much older than themselves. They then have children before their bodies are ready, and, if they survive pregnancy and childbirth, simply repeat the cycle of poverty their mothers experienced.

Over the two months that I stayed in Soma, I fell in love with The Gambia and its people, and I have returned several times. However, the inequality that the women and girls faced there remained at the forefront of my mind, and I saw more problematic issues each time I returned, from Female Genital Mutilation, to a girl who took first place in her Grade Six exams but instead of progressing to senior school, was married to a man she had never met and sent to live in Senegal with him.

I decided that instead of passively feeling bad about what I saw, I would do what I could to help make a difference for these women and girls. Using male friends as translators, I asked the women what would make life better for them. Education was the emphatic answer. They wanted to send their girls to school, and they wanted education for themselves that would allow them to gain paid employment. From these conversations, Hadamayaa was born - a charity that seeks to provide education, employment and equality for women and girls living in The Gambia. The name is a Mandinka word which simultaneously means “to be human” and “to be kind”.

Hadamayaa runs school sponsorship programmes that enrol and keep girls in school, by paying for their uniform, books and pencils, daily hot lunches and any medications they need (malaria is still a major killer in the country). We currently have seven girls who are sponsored, and were delighted with their end of year exam results – particularly Isatou who came first in her Grade One class with top scores in all subjects. She is the first girl in her family to have ever attended school.

We also work with women, giving them micro-loans to buy the materials to make jewellery, bags and cushion covers and training them in how to make them. These products are then shipped to America where a supporter of Hadamayaa sells them in her smoothie store. All revenue is sent back to the women who use it to buy food, send their children to school and purchase more materials. Four women have used this money to set up businesses in the local market selling breakfast foods.

In the summer of 2012, I plunged my life savings into buying a plot of land to found a project base in the coastal village of Tujereng, on which we are building an education centre that will offer afterschool classes to girls who wish to develop their potential further, and skill-based classes to women (alongside basic maths and English). We have recently raised funds to build a secure perimeter wall around the land, and worked with Water for Africa to drill and install a borehole to provide clean drinking water to both Hadamayaa and the local community.

Hadamayaa is a small, grassroots charity that is still in its early stages. We rely entirely on the generosity of others who share our belief that education and equality is a right for all girls. To help us make this a reality for Gambian girls, please visit our website at www.hadamayaa.com to see how you can help or email me at hadamayaa@hotmail.com for more information.

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OPUS • Issue 9 • Winter 2013

Where would you like to be at 25?

At Leavers’ Lunch this year the Headmaster invited the class of 2013 back to the school when they are 25.

We asked some of them where they hope to be in life when they return to PGS in 2020.

Jess Miller OP 2011-2013

Caitlin Abernethy OP 1999-2013

Philippa Abernethy OP 1999-2013

Where will I be when I’m 25? At the moment, that’s a really difficult question.

Only being at the start of my Art Foundation year, I still have an open mind about what I want to specialise in for my degree, meaning that thoughts of where I want to be when I am 25 feel really uncertain. If all goes well then having finished an art degree I hope to be in employment within the arts sector.

However, I know that wherever I am I hope that I am happy with the paths I choose to take with my life, as well as having the same support from my loved ones behind me every step of the way.

I still have several ideas of where I could be at 25. I am currently studying politics at university and so one possibility is becoming involved in political advising or working with a pressure group. I think pressure groups offer a good outlet for people with more specific political concerns, and so it would be interesting to become involved in this side of politics.

But while politics is the key focus at the moment, I am still considering training in Primary education after I have finished my degree, as I have always enjoyed working with children, and the education section of General Studies at PGS gave me valuable experience in this area. Wherever I end up at 25, I look forward to returning to PGS to share it.

Since leaving PGS and starting my Law degree at the University of Glasgow it has become even more concrete in my mind that when I am 25 I want to be in Scotland practising Law. At 25 I will have completed my LLB, my legal practice course and be coming to the end of my time training in a practice to become a fully qualified Scots lawyer (with any luck specializing in criminal law).

I have also continued my women’s rugby career by joining the Glasgow University WRFC; by 25 I hope I will still be playing, hopefully on a greater stage - the Scotland Women’s team.

Most importantly I hope I’m still in touch with all the people I met at school, and since leaving.

OPUS • Issue 9 • Winter 2013

The Portsmouth Grammar School • www.pgs.org.uk

Kate Murphy OP 1999-2013

George Chapman OP 2008-2013

Lucy Moore OP 2011-2013

When asked where I will be at 25, a blank look usually crosses over my face followed by a number of “ummms” and finally a quiet “I’m not sure”. It’s difficult being asked where you hope to be at 25 when it is constantly drummed into you that there are no jobs available in Britain anymore, especially to graduates, especially to History of Art graduates. However, although I have grown increasingly cynical about my future job prospects, I have also become more determined to succeed. At 25, having graduated from York University with a degree in History of Art, I hope to have a job working within the antique jewellery business, buying, valuing and selling antique jewellery. I can only hope that by the time I reach 25 I will have worked my way up through internships and poorly paid jobs, as well as gaining further qualifications in jewellery and gemstone valuation and grading, in order to reach a point in my career where I am working within the field I am most interested in, even if it is a long shot off the top spot. Ideally I would be working for a well-established private jewellery company, such as Bentley and Skinner, learning the ropes from the very best.

It was during my Year 11 Headmaster’s Interview when I was first encouraged to consider life at 25. Although an unexpected and daunting question, I had it covered; aged 25, I would be Dr Chapman after having completed a PhD in neuroscience – and a research associate at some university or other. As it happens, I’ve just enrolled as a medical student at the University of Birmingham, demonstrating how greatly our aspirations and future prospects can change in little over two years. Like undergraduate medicine at most other UK universities, the course in Birmingham will be at least five years long, with the option to ‘sandwich’ another degree in fields as diverse as Medical Ethics and Law or History of Medicine between years three and four.

Hence, I will finally leave the medical school aged 23 or 24, after having had the opportunity for clinical experience in no less than 15 hospitals and 100 GPs’ surgeries in the West Midlands area.

In terms of where I will be at 25, I don’t think anyone can say with any degree of certainty. I do have several ideas of where I’d like to be, but it remains to be seen if I can achieve them! However, I do know that I would love to continue my Classical studies, and complete my Masters and even possibly a PhD! On the other hand, I have two dreams vying for first position, both a bit far out. I’d either like to be pioneering research in my field, out in Italy, the Middle East or even Africa, contributing to further discoveries and enhancing knowledge for those back at home. Or, I thought I might team up with a friend of mine, and open a safari/wildlife park in Malawi, Africa. I have been to Malawi before, and it’s a brilliant country, incredibly diverse.

This is where the fun really starts.

Currently, I aspire to train as a 25-year-old junior doctor at Chelsea and Westminster, Guy’s or another one of London’s prestigious hospitals. Alternatively, I will of course have the opportunity to realise my Year 11 ambition of researching and studying more specialist biomedicine at 25; perhaps within the realms of neuroscience, as this has remained an area of interest for me. Although I have no crystal ball, and cannot predict the hand that life will deal me, my ultimate intention for when I’m aged 25 is to remain interested and challenged by whatever I do, and, above all, to be happy.

With these possibilities, I have no clue where I’ll be. But I will keep PGS updated, and who knows? Maybe when I come back at 25, I’ll have finally decided.

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OPUS • Issue 9 • Winter 2013

Fashion forward at PGS On a wet and windy Friday afternoon in October, PGS was lit up by the wonderful fashion designs of two former pupils, Emily Garrod (OP 1994-1997) and Daisy Harris-Burland (OP 2002-2009).

It was all part of a seminar on careers in the fashion industry, which was the brainchild of the MP for Portsmouth North, Penny Mordaunt, and was chaired by the Chief Operating Officer of the British Fashion Council, and former PGS Head Boy, Simon Ward (OP 1965-76).

Opening the event Penny said: “Fashion is one of Britain’s great unsung success stories; it contributes £21bn to UK GDP and yet it is too easily dismissed as ephemeral and trivial. There is so much more to the fashion industry than designing clothes; without management, seamstresses, pattern cutters, tailors, set designers and so many more people it would simply not exist”.

Simon spoke enthusiastically about the range of careers in the fashion industry and about his unconventional route into his current role at the British Fashion Council which includes organising London Fashion Week.

Pictured L-R Simon Ward, Misli Akdag, Maisie Skidmore, Daisy Harris-Burland, Emily Garrod, Emily Morgan, Penny Mordaunt

The Portsmouth Grammar School • www.pgs.org.uk He was then joined on a Q&A panel by five former pupils who all have successful careers in the industry. Joining Emily and Daisy were: Misli Akdağ (OP 20022009), who studied fashion marketing and promotion and now lives in New York; Maisie Skidmore (OP 2002-2009), freelance writer and editorial assistant at publishing platform It’s Nice That; and Emily Morgan (OP 1997-2004) who fought off stiff competition to land a place on the John Lewis graduate retail scheme, where she has undertaken a number of roles, including Department Manager in Childrenswear.

The event ended with pupils and our guests from other local schools and the University of Portsmouth chatting informally with Penny, Simon and the five young OPs.

Simon Ward chatting to current pupils

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OPUS • Issue 9 • Winter 2013

Dr Dave Allen (OP 1958-1967) tells the story of John Boorman’s controversial TV documentary Citizen 63 63, featuring Portsmouth teenager, Marion Knight, and invites readers to take themselves back to the age of 16 or 17 and those years at school just around or after GCSEs (or, for readers of a certain vintage, O levels).

Remember (or imagine) that you’re in the sixth form or a college of Further Education and your education is focused around fewer subjects that may lead you to a career. Your peers are the usual mixture of workers and players, extroverts and introverts. There are groups of the studious and groups of the cool. It’s the latter that concerns us most.

One day you hear that a film-maker has arrived from the BBC and is looking to make a 30-minute documentary about someone in your year group, someone interesting enough to command attention of the viewing public for the full half hour and someone with interesting friends, able to contribute to the overall success of the project.

Forest. He began his career in television and in the early 1960s worked on the first version of what we know now as Meridian Tonight. He lived in the New Forest and got to know central southern England quite well. Then he moved to the BBC in Bristol and planned a series of five, thirtyminute documentary films called Citizen 63. Each one focused on one individual - not as ‘representatives’ of a section of the population but indicating through each ‘case study’ key issues, ideas and interests of the day.

His five subjects included a police officer, a ‘showbiz’ entrepreneur, a shop steward and a scientist. Those four were all men, all adults. The fifth was a 16-year-old ‘girl’, or was she a young woman? Marion Knight lived in the Fawcett Road area of Southsea with her adoptive parents who were staunch members of the Salvation Army.

At 15, then the school leaving age, she had moved from Southsea Modern School for Girls across to the John Pounds Girls’ School near Queen’s Street in Portsea to begin a three-year course in nursery nursing.

There are groups of the studious and groups of the cool OK that’s now – or at least I’m asking you now, although you may be thinking back to the ‘characters’ in your year group five, ten, twenty, forty years ago. Who would you choose? Why? Exactly 50 years ago this actually happened in Portsmouth and it all began with a young man who went on to become a famous film director.

John Boorman has directed many famous movies including Deliverance, Point Blank, Hope & Glory, Excalibur and the Emerald

Rod Stewart with his Pompey Beatnik pals in Southsea. Liz, far right, is in the film

The Portsmouth Grammar School • www.pgs.org.uk

Marion was described as ‘rebellious’ but with qualities of ‘leadership and grace’ She wasn’t the first choice for the film but Boorman rejected other suggestions from the Headmistress Mary Bray. He had asked Miss Bray to choose one of her post-15 students because he admired her innovative approach to education, which, while rooted in traditional Christian values, also encouraged the girls in expressive dance, music, poetry and discussion.

The Headmistress was hesitant about suggesting the feisty, opinionated Marion but in his autobiography (2003) Boorman recalled, she was the right choice, describing her as “rebellious” but with qualities of “leadership and grace”.

So Boorman made his film, which was shown on BBC on 11 September 1963. At the time there were just two television channels in Britain, BBC and ITV and on that evening on BBC, Citizen 63 followed the tea-time news, Tonight, Z Cars, comedian Eric Sykes, and Sportsview, - it was shown at 10pm. ITV’s evening programmes included Coronation Street, World in Action and, against Citizen 63, Wrestling.

Citizen 63 opens with Marion on the back of her boyfriend’s motor-bike on Southsea seafront with a voice over telling us “This film is about one person. You may admire her, you may dislike her, but from her we can perhaps learn something about ourselves, for she is part of our society – a Citizen 63” Why might we dislike her? Well the commentary goes on to tell us that Marion is a “leader and a rebel” but also “intelligent, talkative, adventurous”.

The disembodied voice adds that “the biggest influence in her life is her crowd; anti-bomb, anti-adult and obsessively concerned with personal freedom”.

Some other local ‘beatniks’ circa 1963

was just too cumbersome. But when newer lightweight cameras and recorders appeared, documentaries began to change and terms like “Direct Cinema” or Cinéma Vérité were used to describe an approach which sought to present ‘real’ life as clearly as possible. Fewer ‘set-up’ shots were used and at its rawest, such filmmaking would have long unedited sequences and little or no commentary.

At the time of its broadcast, Citizen 63 was often described in those terms yet we can see that the commentary delivers an interpretation of its subject from the outset – it directs us to think about Marion and her friends in particular ways. In addition, the film is carefully constructed so that a sequence when Marion and her friends are singing a folk song, or another in the school classroom, focus on Marion, singing solo and responding to the teacher. In another sequence we see her leave the youth club dance floor where she

has been ‘stomping’ to a jazz record and sit at the coffee bar, engaging in an argument with an adult supervisor about ‘the bomb’ and her membership of CND*.

On other occasions the voice we hear is Marion’s. At the start she tells us that she is adopted and reflects on this. She describes conflicts with her elderly parents, talks about her friends’ varied left-wing political views, teenage sexuality, tastes in music and fashion and describes her work on the nursery nursing course. This led to a local controversy and problems for Marion.

In one sequence in the classroom she describes how she “worked in a residential nursery for a year” with children who were “often deprived” or from “bad homes” and this had consequences for their behaviour.

By contrast she describes how the child in John Pounds’ Nursery “comes usually … from a good family. They’re much more self-confident”. *Campaign For Nuclear Disarmament

Her crowd are “anti-bomb, antiadult and obsessively concerned with personal freedom” In terms of film making this is interesting.

Until around 1960 it was almost impossible for documentary film makers to follow their subjects wherever they went to record speech and sound – the equipment

The Railway Folk Club - Wally Whyton and Derek Sergeant perform - the audience member bottom right, Dave Mills, is in the film

continued...

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OPUS • Issue 9 • Winter 2013

Citizen 63

...continued

Kid Martyn Jazz Band at Portsmouth’s Rendezvous Club

The problems came because this whole conversation was edited over one sequence of Marion in the school’s nursery, showing many of the children. One of the mothers complained about possible misinterpretation, the local newspaper ran the story and councillors and the local Education Committee were involved.

Eventually any blame was attached to Boorman and the BBC for the way it was edited but Marion’s school career came to an end and she left Portsmouth soon after, although she and her local ‘beatnik’ friends re-appeared in Boorman’s first feature film two years later – Catch Us If You Can starring the Dave Clark Five.

The Railway Hotel - venue for folk, jazz, R&B and rock ‘n’ roll

Yet in the closing sequences on Southsea seafront and Clarence Pier we see the first hints of the new Mod fashions appearing in Portsmouth in the weeks following the first local appearance of the Beatles. The boys are brushing their hair forwards and wearing black roll neck sweaters, while Marion sports a PVC jacket and Mary Quant style cap. Here were the first signs of Southsea’s Swinging Sixties.

The first signs of Southsea’s Swinging Sixties In many respects, fifty years later, the film is an interesting example of how the conventions of documentary filmmaking were being challenged, albeit somewhat cautiously in the case of the BBC. It is also an extraordinary record of a transitional period in the explosion of youth culture in that brief period. Marion takes a number of opportunities to distinguish her group’s interests from those of mainstream ‘pop’ fans in terms of fashion, musical preferences and attitudes. Her peer group chooses traditional jazz, poetry, folk music and the dark fashion styles of the beatniks.

They are unimpressed by the ‘pop’ fans congregating around the Southsea Funfair’s Waltzer listening to the latest Top Ten hit records.

Marion with old friend Trevor Jones in Portsmouth last year

On Saturday 28 September, Portsmouth cultural historian and OP, Dr Dave Allen, presented a screening of the episode of Citizen 63 which featured Marion Knight in the David Russell Theatre at PGS. He opened the session by describing the context in which the film was made and the strange series of coincidences by which he came to meet Marion, already knowing of the film and its reputation. After the screening he was joined on stage by Dr Peter Galliver, teacher of history, and together with the audience they explored and discussed the many issues featured in the documentary, including the education system of the early 1960s, the Portsmouth music scene at that time, the controversy that followed the film’s broadcast and the ethics of documentary making.

Amongst the audience were many individuals who were also Portsmouth teenagers in the early ‘60s, including a small number who actually knew Marion, one of whom can be sighted briefly in the background in one scene.

Marion Knight sadly passed away earlier in 2013.

The Portsmouth Grammar School • www.pgs.org.uk

Paul Jones monograph published The One in the Middle: Paul Pond, PGS, Portsmouth and Pop Saturday 28 September also saw the launch of PGS Monograph No. 25, The One in the Middle: Paul Pond, PGS, Portsmouth and Pop. Written by Dr Dave Allen, it explores the musical revolution that took place across the UK in the late 1950s and early 1960s and discovers the part played by a number of Portsmouth residents, including especially Paul Pond (OP 1950-58), better known as Paul Jones of Manfred Mann, later an actor.

Born in Portsmouth on Tuesday 24 February 1942, Paul always sang. He was leader and soloist in the trebles of Portsmouth Cathedral Choir, and was also a member of the school’s Choral Society when it performed in Handel’s Messiah in the Royal Albert Hall. Despite his prowess as a choral singer, Paul Pond’s career choice in the relatively bohemian world of 1960s rhythm and blues owed little to the school’s culture of the time, where there was an emphasis on preparing boys for careers in the services, the professions and further or higher education.

This culture clash makes for a fascinating read to anyone interested in cultural history and copies of the monograph can be obtained free of charge from the Development Office on development@pgs.org.uk

Above: Dave Allen in 1967 Right: Dave Allen at the launch of Monograph No. 25

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OPUS • Issue 9 • Winter 2013

Cycling in the Quad, wedding cake in the library Just before the summer break, a very special visitor was welcomed back to the school. Joan Warren is the daughter of a much-loved former master who fought and was wounded on the Western Front during the First World War. He then served in Africa and India before joining the school as a Geography teacher in 1920.

Edward Stansfield was a highly respected teacher, a great rugby and football player and, for fourteen years from 1932, an effective leader of the Officers Training Corps (now the CCF). At the same time, Captain Stansfield and his wife ran the school boarding house, Prescote, in St Andrew’s Road, where Joan was born 91 years ago.

As Joan toured the school, accompanied by her daughters Rosanne and Penelope, and grandson David, she remembered learning to cycle as a young girl in the Quad - out of school hours - and has other fond memories of her family’s long association with the school. During the war, the Stansfields took a leading role evacuating the pupils and ran the Red Gables boarding house, a converted hotel in Bournemouth, where a dozen pupils

Joan Warren, current pupil Alec Walker and Housemaster David Doyle outside Latter House base, where Captain Stansfield was also housemaster

were accommodated. Mrs Stansfield not only looked after the PGS boys but also carried out duties as a Commandant in the VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment) which gave nursing support to the troops.

her family took a great interest in archive photographs and documents recording Captain Stansfield’s long, rich and varied contribution to PGS life.

As soon as she was old enough, Joan joined the WRAF (Women’s Royal Air Force). In 1947 she was married in Portsmouth Cathedral by former headmaster and family friend Canon Barton, and her wedding reception was held in the school’s Memorial Library.

Edward Stansfield at Hilsea

Captain Stansfield retired at this time and moved to Christchurch, where Joan now lives. After visiting the library, and Latter House, where her father served as housemaster, it was time for tea and cakes in the Willis Room where Joan and

Joan Warren with Headmaster James Priory

?

The Portsmouth Grammar School • www.pgs.org.uk

Ask the archivist

?

Apart from Paul Pond (aka Paul Jones of Manfred Mann fame) and his friends in the late 1950s, what other pupil bands have there been?

A search through the Portmuthian shows that, in the past, despite the school’s innate conservatism and suspicion of anything new - like jazz, rock and pop - a number of bands have been put together and played at school events. In 1962, a jazz band with the unmemorable name of General Modern Trio attracted the largest audience the school’s jazz club had ever had. Simon Clifford was on piano, “seemingly engaged in his own private battle with the keyboard”, Richard Fisher played his double bass while facing the wall “echoing his finely plucked offering around the room”, and John Townsend provided the beat. Their repertoire included “funky, rolling blues themes” like Ray Charles “What’d I Say”, but also Oscar Peterson’s gentle “Tenderly”.

Several PGS jazz purists were upset that Richard Fisher had allegedly tried to flog his “finely shaped female double bass” so that he could buy, God forbid, a bass guitar - an instrument contemptuously described as “so much favoured by the followers of the Shadows”. Two years later, in the summer of 1964, a band named The Beatles, which cleverly combined the word “beat” with the common name for the Coleoptera order of insects, was billed to play at the Middle School review. Made up of Baillie, Cooper, Eddings and Jones, the gig was cancelled “owing to the shortage of electricity for their guitars”. Another non-PGS band ripped off the name and, it is understood, did very well.

Folk raised its head at a PGS concert in 1971 when a newly formed band featuring “self-styled lead singer” Don Stemp was acclaimed as the highlight of the evening. With Pete Crockett, Colin Moore, Nige Pain and Kim Taylor, the band delivered a broad range of contemporary folk music, and their version of “Fixing to Die Rag” went down toe-tappingly well.

The Sixth Form Dance in the 1970s offered established and ad hoc bands the opportunity to impress or entertain or both. In 1972, following a glam rock T. Rex tribute act, a group called Podsols! “delivered a barrage of musical sounds” hampered or aided by “certain amplification problems”, despite the exclamation mark in the band’s name. The line-up consisted of Dave Crombie on organ and synthesiser, “Squid” on bass and Jon Webster on drums. Jon Webster appeared on television recently, celebrated as the marketing genius behind the “Now That’s What I Call Music” brand.

Chaos sixth form band, Portmuthian 1978 Photo by M J Wright

Come the punk era and welcome to Chaos. Their debut gig was at the unlikely venue of the Portsea Rotary Club. A dozen further gigs were well supported by PGS pupils, including one in the Music Machine Club in London, where the Sex Pistols and the Clash famously performed. Described as exciting, loud and raucous, Chaos had Mike Lindsey on drums,

Adie Stokes on lead guitar, Damon Shulman on bass and Calvin Shulman performing the vocals. One wonders what Colonel Willis would have made of their popular classic number, “Pogo Pete”.

Musicologists will have spotted that the band had an excellent pedigree, a previous generation of Shulman brothers having formed the successful group Simon Dupree and the Big Sound in the 1960s, and progressive rock band Gentle Giant in the 1970s.

Multi-instrumentalist Phil Shulman attended PGS from 1949 to 1955.

The Acclaim was formed as a trio in March 1980, with Richard Stainton-Ellis on drums, Simon Poole on lead guitar and vocals and Edward Richards on bass guitar. They were joined by another lead guitarist, Andrew Moorhouse, later that year. The band performed their own material and received a fee of £15 for their first appearance at a New Year The Acclaim, 1981 party. Their most popular gig appears to have been at the Broderick Hall in Alverstoke in front of a crowd of 200. This was reported to be an “overwhelming success” despite the appalling acoustics of the venue and a sound system, which “rendered Simon’s vocals mostly inaudible”. The imminent spectre of ‘O’ Levels appears to have curtailed any further performances or acclaim. We are sure there must have been other pupil bands not named here and would love to know more. Please email your stories to John Sadden on j.sadden@pgs.org.uk.

Have educational standards at PGS slipped since the 1950s?

Judging by the following howlers, allegedly compiled from pupils’ work and published in the Portmuthian in 1956, no.

“The steamship replaced the sailing ship, but not without difficulty as the sailing ships could beat steam ships before steam engines were developed.”

Q: “What is the difference between heat and temperature?”

A: “Temperature can be hot or cold, heat is only hot.”

“The Romantics’ belief in the myth of the Noble Sewage is no longer tenable.”

“Scientists design these machines for firms who sell them for vast prophets.”

“While in prison at Pomfret Castle, Richard II did a lot of drinking. Otherwise he just sat in his cell and smoked.” “an Autobahn is a German garage.”

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Bridging the Gap An update on the new Sixth Form Centre

Headmaster James Priory took a mallet to the old sixth form centre this July, marking the start of the project to transform the PGS sixth form experience by building a brand new, dedicated sixth form centre which will open at the school next year, in September 2014.

During August 2013 the new temporary sixth form facilities were installed in the quad, in order to be ready for the new term in September. These are working well, with the current Year 12 and Year 13 students quickly adapting to their new portacabins.

Once demolition of the previous building was complete, work started on the foundations. An archaeologist was a regular visitor on site at this stage, though all that the excavations unearthed were

old broken red wine bottles, pig bones and some oyster shells!

Since then work has been taking place to finish the concrete foundations and complete the ground drainage systems.

Work on the steel frame is scheduled to commence by Christmas.

News of the forthcoming facilities is making The Portsmouth Grammar School a very attractive proposition to local families deciding where to send their children for Years 12 and 13. At the school’s Open Morning on 28 September, the number of visitors enquiring about entry to the sixth form was up 85% on last year.

We would like to thank the following OPs, parents and friends of PGS for their generous donations to the sixth form centre appeal: Hugh Amos, OP Major R E Arnold, OP Mr S P Barnard, OP Mrs M F Chapman Ronald Clark, OP Reginald John Drew, OP John K Gray, OP Dr H M Hirri Christopher L Hodgkinson Ralph Huckle, OP Mr James Kenroy B King, OP David Lewis, OP Miles J G Linington, OP Air Vice Marshal John B Main, OP His Honour J R Main QC, OP Mr G Materna Mr F McKirgan and S Hainsworth Anthony Middleton, OP Mr N H Ng, OP Simon Privett, OP John Roberts, OP Catherine Smith Roger James Smith, OP Richard Sotnick, OP Anthony Charles Robert Stickland Michael Taylor, OP David Thorp, OP Tony Wardale, OP John Webber, OP Derek Worrall, OP (deceased) There was an additional very significant donation from an OP who wishes to remain anonymous. We are deeply grateful for the gift.

, gone Going, going

The Portsmouth Grammar School • www.pgs.org.uk

PGS keeps you on your toes Samantha Bosshardt (OP 1997-2009) writes about how she pirouetted away from PGS at the age of 16 to join the Vienna Festival Ballet.

I was hooked on ballet from my very first performance at the King’s Theatre aged 9.

I am addicted to the adrenalin rush from the heat of the lights, looking into a black abyss except for the glint of spectacles and white hair knowing that behind the sea of blackness hundreds of eyes are focused on you.

The biggest mistake you’ll ever make, is being afraid to make a mistake It was always a balancing act keeping up with school work and play alongside hours of dance training in the evenings and at weekends. I would always be late for parties and have to leave sleepovers early the next morning, but luckily I had great friends who never made me feel I had missed out who always support me, then and now.

At 16 I took the risk and left home in Portsmouth to follow my passion to London to train as a dancer. My favourite quote from a dance teacher is ‘the biggest mistake you’ll ever make, is being afraid to make a mistake’. I knew that what I wanted to do was a highly competitive and gruelling profession.

Muscle fatigue and bruised toe nails

it takes is a tap on the shoulder or your number not being called and you’re cut; soul destroying, but I kept picking myself up again, and by August I had my first job with Vienna Festival Ballet.

I have completed two tours of Coppelia, Nutcracker and Sleeping Beauty and, at the time of publication, am starting my third tour with a brand new production of Snow White choreographed by Barry McGrath. We have three weeks of rehearsals, where we learn two or three full-length ballets, and then the show is on the road. The short rehearsal time means we have to be very quick at picking things up and always know other people’s parts as well as our own as injuries happen and you have to be thrown in last minute.

Touring is intense; last tour we staged 76 performances up and down the UK. The glamour of the beautiful costumes and wearing stage makeup stays on the stage.

The reality of getting home at 2 o’clock in the morning, 6 days a week, for 4 months certainly isn’t glamorous but being on stage is an addiction and every night bus home is worth it for the applause I get every night for doing my job.

The glamour of the beautiful costumes stays on the stage

I completed three years of 10-hour days of hard core physical work, as well attending lectures and writing essays for my degree alongside. This was a huge leap from what I was used to, but I never regret being at a normal school until 16. I think it has made me better grounded than my crazy college friends. The fame buzz present in the corridors pushed me through the muscle fatigue, bruised toe nails and all the rest.

Vienna Festival Ballet is a small company of 16 dancers, which means we never go off stage, every dancer has many roles and there are always lots of opportunities for good parts. We all have backstage responsibilities as well; props, hair, make up and costumes.

So after graduating at 19, I was in the real world of gruelling rounds of auditions at home and abroad, where I was just a number in competition with hundreds of other numbers all trying for one part. All

Touring means we experience different theatres every night and have to space out the ballet to fit it to the stage we have, which helps keep it fresh.

Audiences around the country often don’t

have a lot of experience of ballet, and we let children come back stage, to show them the pretty costumes and meet the dancers, which is always a very rewarding experience.

It is certainly not a profession for security, money, free time, an easy life, or a long lasting career so you have to be a bit crazy to do it. But we have so much fun, it’s never boring, and of course there is always a bit of drama.

So understandably, it isn’t the career you would choose for your child or student, but I persuaded both the school and my parents that I needed to take the risk because it was something I really wanted, and I couldn’t have pursued it without the complete support of both, which I was lucky enough to have.

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OPUS • Issue 9 • Winter 2013

ACID+BASE=SALT+WATER John McIlwaine (OP 1954-64), now residing in faraway Adelaide, Australia, reflects on how the “old school network” has impacted on his life and that of many others. He particularly remembers John Curtis who taught at the school in the1950s.

The “old school network” is a result of past students and staff wishing to keep in touch with each other. Surely this is in part due to favourable memories and good friends, facilitated more recently by easier communications such as email.

Favourable memories are generated by personal experiences in the classroom and on the sports field, through after-school and other activities and in response to the quality of teachers.

I wish to concentrate on the teachers’ influences. We have read about the huge impact made upon many of us by John Hopkinson, Ray Clayton, Roger Harris, Peter Barclay, Hugh Woodcock and more.

Additionally there were memorable men with memorable quotes such as Mr Tweed’s “What did you learn on mother’s knee? .... Acid plus base equals salt plus water!” I doubt whether any student, having been exposed to that bellowed question sixty three times a term, would ever forget the message.

We were tutored by entertainers, academics, dedicated teachers and a few “also-rans”; some individual staff exhibited two or more of these properties.

PGS staff 1954/5, John Curtis middle of second-to-back row

John Curtis at his beloved St Peter’s College cricket oval, 2013

Many were approachable and a few were as welcoming as an angry taipan.

I have a further example that reflects an ongoing effect after five decades. John Curtis was only at the school for four years, however he still remains an excellent

example of the impact one teacher can have. The affection felt for him has become more apparent in recent years. He was in his twenties when he joined the staff at the Lower School in the mid-1950s young, keen, friendly and energetic. At the

OPUS • Issue 9 • Winter 2013

The Portsmouth Grammar School • www.pgs.org.uk

The unofficial Lower School staff car park in c. 1957. John’s £590 Morris Minor Convertible is the third vehicle in line.

time, we students did not fully appreciate those attributes; it is only now that we recall .... he took us on our first holiday trip away from home; first lessons in French; himself a player with Hampshire 2nd XI and Havant, he coached us in cricket both at Hilsea and more informally with Jack Keenan in the school playground. John was boyish while having all the authority to do his job outstandingly well.

John Curtis remains an excellent example of the impact one teacher can have I was on John’s South Devon youth hostelling tour of 1956 - 40 boys and two adults! No mobiles, no sat nav, no sunscreen and probably no soap - paradise after the shingle and tar of Southsea beach. Only two years ago John circulated photos of the trip which had never been seen before by the participants; and, of course, no boy had a camera at the time.

These photos evoked much praise and fond memories from members of the tour group.

John Curtis with the McIlwaine brothers, Richard (left) and John (right)

John was born in Essex, National Service with the RAF (fortuitously based for one year at St John’s Wood, 300 yards from Lords Cricket Ground!), geography degree at King’s College, London and then to PGS. After staying in Southsea digs with the three Davids (Lenton, Ive and Dyer) he moved to Stamford School for three years; from there to St Peter’s College in Adelaide. After 30 years of teaching English and geography and running the 1st XI cricket for 16 years, he drew stumps.

One day at St Peter’s, my brother Richard who was on a one year teaching exchange from England, introduced himself to John and my name was immediately recognised from 25 years before! This event reunited me with John as I was also living in Adelaide. Regularly I visit John and his wife Rosie and am able to tell friends that I have just been to see a fellow who taught me when I was nine.

to driving the Owens mother and sons to a cricket venue with the Morris Minor top down, trying a little to impress his passengers.

So, here we are at the other side of the world, enjoying a friendship conceived 57 years ago. Another proof that networking of old school acquaintances does not just stop at fellow students. PGS does seem to have generated more of these life-long links than those of most other schools?

We have almost now turned full circle - I am soon to teach my former teacher how to sell some of his treasured cricket memorabilia on eBay!

Here we are at the other side of the world enjoying a friendship conceived 57 years ago John had retained links with former Lower School stalwarts Tony and Ruth Stokes, Doreen Waterworth and Hugh and Bridget Woodcock. When we have UK visitors who were taught by him, we can visit and bore Rosie mad over our reminiscences.

He recalls when he was asked to join the MCC. “That would take years”, he said. “No, the Masters’ Cricket Club”! He also admits

John McIlwaine 1963

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OPUS • Issue 9 • Winter 2013

Rand Devalued!

No, no, no! Not a new financial crisis in Southern Africa; rather a reunion of PGS and Portsmouth High School former pupils last July inspired by electric vehicle wizard David Rand (OP 1951–1961) - that didn’t quite fire on all cylinders. Too little time had been allowed for invitations to be taken up in the holiday season and consequently numbers were down on expectations. Nevertheless, those who did make it enjoyed themselves sufficiently to plan a sequel on 26 April 2014.

The idea was (and is) to bring together, after more than fifty years, ex-pupils of the two schools who had been friends in the days before PGS switched to coeducation.

Official collaboration between the High Street and Kent Road came in the form of a joint annual Sixth Form Play (produced and presented entirely by the students), joint debates, with occasional lacrosse and tennis matches at the less serious end of the spectrum.

Unofficial collaborations took less public forms: from ephemeral liaisons, through lifelong friendships, to full-blown wedlock in a number of cases.

On 20 July 2013, eight ‘old girls’ and ten ‘old boys’ met for dinner at the Royal Naval Club and Royal Albert Yacht Club; the gathering was boosted to twenty-seven by the presence of wives, husbands and/or partners. The Guests of Honour were John and Meg Hopkinson, who took it upon themselves to represent those who were rash enough to be our PGS mentors back in the 1950s–60s. Jackie Gauntlett (née Cooke) had mustered her old PHS friends, both exact and near contemporaries, while David Rand, now and for many years resident in Melbourne Australia, co-opted Ivor Grayson Smith (OP 1951-1958) and John Owens (OP 1958-1963) to whip up the PGS element. The same people have undertaken to cajole or coerce more of their respective school years to join the second celebration in April, which will again be held at the same venue. Readers needing more detailed information, or wishing to book themselves in, should use the contact details below.

Current President of the OP Club, John Bartle, will be joining us. Having attended Dovercourt, the prep or pre-prep part of the PHS, he is almost uniquely qualified as a former pupil of both schools - a PHOGOP, perhaps? Any other such luminaries will be especially welcome, as will all conventional leavers from PGS or PHS between 1960 and 1964 (approx.).

Why not get to work right now on rallying your group, especially if it spanned pupils from both schools. You could also contact the organisers from time to time to ascertain who has signed up for the event - see below.

David Rand david.rand@csiro.au Jackie Gauntlett (Cooke) jag_bng@hotmail.com Ivor Grayson-Smith ijgs@aol.com John Owens owens.john5@gmail.com

The Portsmouth Grammar School • www.pgs.org.uk

‘Take it from here!’

John Owens (OP 1953-1963) celebrates the life of Tony Stokes, Master-in-Charge of the PGS Lower School, from 1969 to 1983.

Tony Stokes in c.1962

Tony at Hilsea in 1956, seated beside his Captain, Jerry Watts, with your contributor, second right, making notes for this article

When John Curtis arrived at PGS in 1954 (see p. 24), Tony Stokes had already seen four years of WW2 service on convoy duty in the Royal Navy, recovered from the ravages of TB which cost him a lung, met and married Ruth in 1945 while convalescing in Canada, taken his Oxford degree and spent four years at Cambridge Junction, first under Mr Watson and, for a year, under the youthful Hugh Woodcock.

diminutive in stature, they had much in common, became lifelong friends, loved their Morris Minors and might have passed for brothers. Tony became a regular, if stooping, wicketkeeper for the Master’s Cricket Club and ran Lower School 1st XI cricket for years.

Both men had been keen and accomplished cricketers, though Tony’s potential was curtailed by the after effects of his wartime illness. One imagines the brilliantly athletic Curtis was the cricketer Stokes could have become, building on his early promise opening the innings for St Paul’s, where he also played 1st XV rugby and boxed for the school. Fair-haired and

“Tony never really grew to be older than about twelve” Tony’s real-life elder brother Richard had taught in the Upper School at PGS for a year before the War and his job was held over into the post-war period. One day he mentioned to Headmaster Donald Lindsay that his younger brother had been invalided out of the Navy and had no idea as to what he might do with his life. Tony

was invited down for a term as a student teacher, so impressing Lindsay that a post was promised if he could come back with a degree, which he duly did, after reading English and Geography at Merton College, Oxford.

The story is told that Tony had once taught a lesson with the Headmaster sitting in. Afterwards Lindsay is said to have exclaimed that Stokes’s performance was better than ‘Take it from here!’, a popular radio comedy show starring Jimmy Edwards. Thus Tony joined the Lower School staff in September 1950 and taught there until his retirement.

Stokes’s performance in lessons was better than ‘Take it from here!’, a popular radio comedy show ‘Stokoe’ was a very funny man whose humour usually had a childlike charm to it. Indeed, Ruth attributes his dedication to primary age teaching to his abiding boyishness: ‘Tony never really grew to be older than about twelve,’ she confided to the writer in the Stokes’ garden in Portchester in the summer of 2012. Neither brother could begin to comprehend how one could endure teaching pupils of the other’s chosen educational phase!

Lower School Staff, 1954/5 – Tony Stokes, seated second from left; John Curtis, standing far left

continued...

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OPUS • Issue 9 • Winter 2013

‘Take it from here!’

...continued office. My optimistic knock on the door was greeted with, ‘Come in...oh, Owens, stand there while I finish with these little perishers. By the way, boys, this is Owens (minor), second in a line of brothers and cousins of that name who threatened to overrun the place back in the 1950s.’ He may have had his own system of mnemonics and is rumoured to have conjured the generic nickname for the other populous family at the time, condemning the Fawkner Corbetts to be known forever as the ‘Fourpenny Crumpets’.

Toad of Toad Hall, 1958. Directed by Mr Stokes and Mr Watson, the scenery was organised by Mr Burnell, and the costumes were

by Miss Waterworth and Miss Maxwell.

Tony’s showbiz tendencies led to his putting on a string of dramatic works, himself appearing as Fagin in an Upper School production of ‘Oliver!’. Especially memorable was his 1955 ‘Toad of Toad Hall’ in which my elder brother Chris played the eponymous hero – I still catch myself singing snatches from one of the choruses: Toad he went a’pleasuring, gaily down the road.

They put him in prison for twenty years, poor old Toad!

On July 31st 1956, Tony and Ruth were treating their Hudson House monitors to a beach picnic at Hayling. Present were David Thorp (with Ruth, the only survivor of the party to this day), Peter White, Dickie Bryant and David Boyle. That very afternoon off-spinner Jim Laker single-handedly secured the Ashes at Old Trafford with match figures of 19 wickets for 90 runs.

Needless to say, Tony and his monitors (all 1st XI players) were glued to the wireless as history was made. With the Ashes in the bag, one imagines them leaping into the waves and demolishing the celebratory picnic. It was typical of the Stokeses to give up their spare time as every year they also entertained Tony’s 1st XI at Hart Plain House in Waterlooville - the 4-5 acre spread where the famed Stokes hens produced enough eggs to supplement his teacher’s salary and warrant investment in a brand

new Morris Minor Traveller delivery wagon.

(See picture on page 25. Tony’s egg van par excellence is the fourth vehicle in line).

Tony had been very happy working to Michael Keall as Deputy Master in Charge for six years. There was no formal procedure in place for replacing him when Keall moved on to Eastbourne in 1969. Tony simply said, ‘I’m here if you want me,’ but on the day of Michael’s leaving party Tony was down at Harvey’s, getting in the party hooch. At the governors’ behest, the outgoing Head was frantically trying to contact him and rang Ruth, saying, ‘We’re very excited, it’s very important – where’s your husband? He must ring as soon as he contacts you!’ Michael was always very glad the decision went Tony’s way, as was everyone else. Thus in 1969 began the unique Stokes regime which would prove equally rewarding for generations of staff and pupils, for Tony and Ruth and for PGS as a whole.

A happy chance meeting in the early 1980s epitomised his flair for the job, especially his recollection of pupils’ names.

On publishing business in Portsmouth, late one Friday afternoon, I called in to see if anyone was still on the premises. At maybe 4.30 p.m. and with the weekend beckoning, evergreens Bunny Burnell, Doreen Waterworth and Gordon Wheeler were conducting boisterous after-school activities as I made my way to the Head’s

His wise, inspiring and humane leadership created a happy and effective place in which to learn how to live Busier than ever, the Stokeses decided it was time to lighten the domestic load and move on. Ruth was ‘done with’ old houses, perhaps influenced a little by their builder friend, Tony Edwards of Denmead, who at last acquired Hart Plain House from them to build new houses where the hens had run. Tony, however, had other ideas and in the end the couple fell for a slightly smaller but equally charming old house under the walls of Portchester Castle. The purchase was blessed by the coincidence that, after moving in, they discovered their doctor neighbour had been at Colet Court (St Paul’s preparatory school) with Tony and they became close friends again after nearly fifty years apart.

Living a stone’s throw from Portchester Sailing Club brought Tony’s early nautical ways back into play, with first a small cruiser, then something larger and finally a 29’ craft bought with his retirement gratuity. There followed trips to Holland, the Channel Islands, to France and down the coast to the south-west, ex-colleague and old friend Doreen Waterworth sometimes enrolled in the crew. Tony’s special knack was ‘coming alongside’, an aptitude he’d practised in all aspects of his life ashore, as well as coming into port. The nearby Southwick Golf Club also occupied these active retirees, Ruth only resigning her membership five years ago, six years after her husband’s death in 2002.

The Portsmouth Grammar School • www.pgs.org.uk In the interests of balance, I’ll close by setting down a mature, parental viewpoint on a man who could do no wrong in the eyes of his fortunate pupils. Jackie Gauntlett, mother of three sons who went through ‘the Stokes experience’ at the Lower School, recalls that his sense of fun was tinged with strictness when the need arose, but always with scrupulous fairness.

Arriving in successors to the Morris Traveller, Tony was met at the school gate by his Head Boy whose job it was to greet his chief and assist in conveying books and other items into School. Parents, too, were only too willing to help, whether as tennis coach, hosting wine and cheese fundraisers, dishing out prizes or making up and dressing schoolboy actors.

In short, the Lower School, under Tony Stokes’s wise, inspiring and humane leadership, was a happy and effective place in which to learn how to live.

erview The archive holds an int an lem Co e conducted by Kat erry wb Ne (OP 1984-86) and Ian (OP 1975-85, d. 11/9/85): ON

MR STOKES - THE PERS A Thumbnail Sketch

Honouring the 130 Next year will be marked by international commemorations on the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War. As described in OPUS 8, the school’s main commemorative project is an ambitious one – to have the grave or memorial of every Old Portmuthian casualty of the Great War visited by a member of the school community, respects paid and a photographic record of the visit made for inclusion in a Book of Remembrance to be placed on permanent display in the school library.

Many thanks to the parents, pupils, friends and Old Portmuthians who have volunteered so far and, in a few cases, completed the visit. For those offering to take part, a school and service biography researched by pupils is provided, and this has been a very real way of recognising and appreciating the sacrifice individuals made. As one PGS parent who has offered to take part said, “It’s an excellent way for our children to connect with the past.”

Old Portmuthians served in every armed service and in every major battle and campaign. The cost to the school community was heavy. Of the five teachers who served, two did not return. Four sets of brothers were among the dead. Five men were killed at the Battle of Jutland on five different ships.

A remaining 65 of 130 graves and memorials remain unallocated, some in Portsmouth but many further afield, in Liverpool, France, Belgium, Iraq, Turkey, Pakistan and Egypt.

A full list is available on the school website www.pgs.org.uk. If you are able to help please contact the school archivist for further details at the earliest opportunity - John Sadden, 02392 681391, j.sadden@pgs.org.uk.

his study as Mr Stokes was visited in last Carol he was preparing for his He was a very Service as Headmaster. n to interview, pleasant and easy perso ract some and we were able to ext m him:personal information fro FOOD: Enjoys good food DRINK: nting with Likes gin and experime drinks. Doesn’t like beer FAVOuRITE FILM: nry V Ealing Comedies and He MME: FAVOuRITE T.V. PROGRA keep chickens) The Good Life (used to o Cricket and good comedies, als MuSIC: s Hollywood Doesn’t like opera but like musicals AY: FAVOuRITE SCHOOL PL ll Ha Toad of Toad HOBBIES: Sailing

This class photograph, showing the Navy Form of 1914, was recently shared by Nigel Clifford (OP 1970-77), who found it in an Arundel junkshop in the 1980s. Of the nine pupils (who, despite appearances, are aged between 16 and 18), five appear on the school’s war memorial.

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OPUS • Issue 9 • Winter 2013

Gearing up for a faster future

Paul Davis in 2007

Paul Davis (OP 2003-2007) follows in the footsteps of an OP who pre-dated him by 25 years, and explains how he blends a career in project management with his passion for motorsport.

In May 2007, during the last week of my time at PGS, before the final A-Level exams began, I was busily getting my Leavers’ Book signed by my friends and teachers.

One message in particular sticks in my mind to this day, that of Bill Taylor, then Chairman of Science, my physics teacher (incidentally, also my Father’s physics teacher from his time at PGS!), my VI Form tutor and, unofficially, something of a career mentor for me too, for which I am very grateful. His message included the sentence “PGS’s next Jock Clear”. At the time, this was a very flattering message for me and still is. You see, every education, exam and career decision I had and have made since before GCSEs has been aimed at achieving a career as an engineer in motorsport. PGS and Bill Taylor’s guidance in particular, played its part in this.

PGS’s next Jock Clear Roll forward six years, having completed a BEng in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Surrey, followed by an MSc in Motorsport Engineering at Cranfield University and I’m pleased to say that I

Paul (far right), the team and the car after Le Mans 24 Hours 2013

Paul Davis during a race at Silverstone in 2013

have begun that career in motorsport that I long aimed for. Now, clearly I’m a very long way from emulating Jock Clear but I have made those all-important first steps into the industry. If I go on to achieve even half of what he has, then I’ll be very happy.

Whilst Jock has made his name in Formula One, my preferred motorsport discipline is

that of endurance sportscar racing and the pinnacle of this is the Le Mans 24 Hours, which takes place every June. In January of this year, after years of perseverance and dedication, I finally gained a role in motorsport and to boot, in my beloved sportscar racing. I am a Data Engineer for a team called “JMW Motorsport”. We run a Ferrari 458 in the GTE (Grand Touring Endurance) class in said Le Mans 24 Hours and the spin-off “European Le Mans Series” (ELMS), a championship of five three-hour races across Europe, keeps us busy for the rest of the year.

As Data Engineer, I am responsible for all aspects of the telemetry, a wireless system that relays live information from the car back to our pit garage, everything from engine pressures and temperatures to fuel level to whether the air conditioning is switched on or off. I monitor all these important parameters when the car is out on track on a large laptop, relaying information and any issues to the Race Engineer over a two-way radio. Consulting

The Portsmouth Grammar School • www.pgs.org.uk

Jock Clear (OP 1972-1982) Jock Clear left PGS over 30 years ago on track for an illustrious career in race engineering which has since taken him around the world.

After leaving PGS he studied for a degree in mechanical engineering at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh.

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.

Millbrook Proving Ground

with the driver and Chief Mechanic if necessary, he then makes a decision as to whether to address the problem or not and if so, how. Racecars are very different from road cars, even those that are based on road cars, like ours. Many of the settings can be tweaked or tuned to suit a certain type of track, such as the suspension settings, the tyre compound or the aerodynamic kit. The data I collect and analyse influences what alterations are made to the car, hopefully, leading to an optimum set-up to be found in the practice and qualifying sessions prior to the race.

I am responsible for all aspects of the telemetry I love the job very much and to have taken those first steps in a motorsport career I had always dreamed of, means a lot to me. Motorsport is a highly rewarding environment within which to work, with thrills, excitement and pressure in equal measure throughout a race weekend. I hope to continue in the role, building my career as the years progress.

JMW Motorsport only keeps me occupied for seven weekends of the year though. I also have an enjoyable day job. I work at Millbrook Proving Ground in Bedfordshire, project managing test work on military

land vehicles. Millbrook tests all manner of land vehicles, mostly cars, buses and trucks, but my department is specifically concerned with military customers.

Testing covers everything from dynamic and mobility trials to environmental work. I work with both civil servants and uniformed personnel, and love the exposure I get to specialist vehicles. I feel very lucky to be part of a team that puts them through their paces.

Thrills, excitement and pressure in equal measure My advice to anyone currently at PGS looking to get into motorsport engineering, would be to persevere, get as much experience as you can and work hard, especially at maths and physics. In terms of university, I would recommend a good quality mechanical, automotive or aerospace degree from an established institution. The recent trend for motorsport undergraduate courses are seen by some employers as not academic enough when it comes to key engineering principles. I would also recommend Cranfield’s Motorsport MSc as a postgraduate qualification, it is an internationally recognised qualification that covers the relevant engineering material and also introduces you to key motorsport industry employers.

In November 2007 Jock was awarded the title Doctor of Engineering by HeriotWatt “in recognition of his outstanding success in applying engineering science in the most demanding and competitive environments and as a role model to young engineers”.

He is now a senior F1 performance engineer working for Lewis Hamilton and Michael Schumacher. Previously he was race engineer for Rubens Barrichello from 2006 to 2009 and Takuma Sato from 2003 to 2005.

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OPUS • Issue 9 • Winter 2013

MORE MEN and BOYS Chris Clark (OP 1953-1964) shares the tale of the second 50-year anniversary for members of the first and second rugby XVs held this September.

With the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness once more upon us, it is only natural that, like old war horses stirring at the distant sound of bugles, old rugby players should feel their sluggish blood pulsing a little more vigorously through their hardening veins and their nostrils twitching in response to the heady aroma emanating from fallen leaves and the loamy smell of rugby pitches, newly marked out for the coming season. This aroma, it might be noted, no longer vies for attention at Hilsea with the foulsmelling miasma that used to emerge from the dank latrines under the old scoreboard, and which used to combine with Mrs Bulbeck’s hot sausage rolls to strike fear into even the most hardened of opposition teams.

Last year, the 1962/63 1st Rugby XV squad celebrated its 50th anniversary by reuniting every member of the squad.

Could the feat be repeated, we wondered?

Well, as it transpired, it could - almost.

Graham Wingate and David Thorp. Photo by Richard Simonsen

Captain Phil White steered things from British Colombia, when he could be prised from his fishing rod, Anglo-AmericanNorwegian speedster Richard Simonsen – permanently in motion between the United States and the Middle-East – brought his Box Brownie over once again,

John Grant hauled his extensively reconfigured body over from Australia, Dick Churm forsook the rigours of the pétanque piste in Brittany, and Jon Webb, our touch judge, once again abandoned his Prague bolt-hole in a bid – forlorn as it turned out - to track down the sixpences (plus

The 1963-64 First XV at Hilsea. Back row: Jon Webb, Max Goodwin, Peter Atkinson, Peter Burnell, Graham Wingate, Phil Bates, Bryan Thompson, Martin Lippiett Front row: Julian Birch, John Fifield, Dick Kendall, Chris Clark, Phil White, Richard Simonsen, John Grant, Derek Case, Peter Stemp

OPUS • Issue 9 • Winter 2013

The Portsmouth Grammar School • www.pgs.org.uk

The current first XV meet their predecessors of fifty years ago

compound interest) owed him for coach journeys and teas. It was also good to see a number of old friends who might not have featured in the rugby squad, but who turned up just to renew old acquaintance.

It is sad, however, to have to record the deaths of two of our regular players - Brian Thompson and Peter Burnell.

The fixture against RGS Guildford 50 years ago resulted in a 12-0 win for us For some, the reunion got underway early, with a pre-reunion meal at the Still & West on the eve of the main event. Some of our number, unacquainted with recent developments, were treated to a guided visit of the new facilities at the school and wondered at the facilities enjoyed by our successors – a far cry from the more Spartan conditions that, so we like to think, made men of us.

mood of sombre Proustian retrospection was lightened by Captain Phil White’s introductory words and a vaudeville turn from James Priory, who drew on his considerable reserves of self-deprecatory wit to set the tone for the afternoon and make us feel, once again, like welcome guests. The only fly in the ointment was the 1st XV’s defeat at the hands of the Royal Grammar School, Guildford, despite outscoring them three tries to two. We drew quiet satisfaction from remembering that the equivalent fixture 50 years ago had resulted in a 12-0 win for us.

The main event of the reunion was the dinner held in the evening at the Royal Navy and Royal Albert Yacht Club, where we again welcomed as our guests of honour John (Hoppy) Hopkinson and Peter (Basher) Barclay. The Navy Club did us proud, and speeches were kept to a minimum. Warm-up men David Thorp and Chris Clark delivered their measured and sober contributions, before unleashing on the unsuspecting audience the force of nature that is Graham Wingate, sporting Boris Johnson’s toupée and interpreting in relaxed fashion the brief that he had been given to unburden himself of one or two

So to Hilsea, where we did justice to a splendid lunch and paraded our time-ravaged features before today’s team, underlining the message of the depredations that time can wreak by obliging them to be photographed alongside us (see above), no doubt causing them to ponder gloomily on their likely appearance in 50 years’ time. The continued...

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OPUS • Issue 9 • Winter 2013

MORE MEN and BOYS

Judy Simonsen, Marlies White and Eve Owens. Photo by Richard Simonsen

worldly observations. Should the world of ophthalmology begin to pall for Graham or that of education lose its lustre for James Priory, the pair have a bright future as after-dinner raconteurs and comedy duo.

A feature of last year’s reunion had been a follow-up lunch held at the home of Jerry and Linda Owens, who this year were our guests at the dinner. The rôle of lunchprovider this year fell to Phil White’s sister, Valerie, also our guest, who generously opened up her beautiful home at Denmead to us and put on a magnificent lunch that managed to sustain the momentum of the festivities into what was, for some hardy souls, their third day.

Force of nature Graham Wingate and Headmaster James Priory have a bright future as a comedy duo And so, late on Thursday afternoon, ended a reunion that had begun for some on Tuesday evening. The clichés turned out to be what clichés often are – verities sanctioned by familiarity and no less true for that. The waist-lines might have expanded, the hair grown thinner, greyer, or even disappeared completely, but 50 years were banished for a brief period and, faced with voices, gestures and mannerisms that we had grown to know

over the most formative years of our lives, we were once again the lithe youths of our imagination, running freely over the Hilsea turf and celebrating the exhilaration of being in our physical prime – well, some anyway - and enjoying the feeling of joint endeavour. We must also pay tribute to our wives and partners, who have tolerated this exercise in nostalgia for two years now – indeed some even admit to having found them not entirely unpleasant experiences.

We were once again the lithe youths of our imagination Our resident publisher and nitpicker-inchief, John Owens once more cajoled and threatened us into producing brief

Richard Simonsen, Peter Barclay and Hoppy

continued

biographies to form the follow-up to last year’s major publication, MEN and BOYS - entitled, you might not be surprised to hear, MORE MEN and BOYS, available from all good bookshops, price negotiable. We were at all stages fortunate to be able to call on the support of Melanie Bushell, Tim Thomas, Liz Preece and Sue Merton in the school development office and the school archivist, John Sadden, who was delighted to see that some corporeal reality lay behind the fading pictures that graced his collection. A display of memorabilia put together by John provided much food for thought and brought old memories flooding back. The sports staff, Hilsea staff, and, of course, the current 1st XV showed a willingness to modify their normal matchday arrangements to accommodate our demands that went well beyond the call of duty.

We have all encountered life’s vicissitudes in different ways We might well ask what comes of all this. Well, since last year there have been numerous visits paid to re-found friends and mini-reunions. And we have come to know that, while we have all encountered life’s vicissitudes in different ways, with its sadnesses, joys, successes and failures, we all have in common the vivid memories of those years spent together, 50 years ago, in the High Street, Old Portsmouth and on the playing fields of Hilsea.

OPUS • Issue 9 • Winter 2013

The Portsmouth Grammar School • www.pgs.org.uk

Anyone for tennis (and cricket ...)?

Tennis This year the OP tennis team celebrated a closely contested victory over the PGS 1st VI. Tim Clark (OP 1984-1991), OP tennis captain, reports on an enjoyable match which resulted in the OPs being victors for a third year running.

On Friday 28 June the tennis courts at Hilsea played host to the annual OP v PGS 1st VI tennis team match. The afternoon was fine and the match turned out to be one of the most closely contested in recent times. The OP team of six players featured a mix of youth and experience, with recent school leavers John Melville (OP 1998-2012) and Alex Gerard (OP 20072012) forming a pair, John Stones (OP 1967-1977) and Richard Cunningham (OP 1963-1971) another and David Thorp (OP 1953-1963) and Tim Clark (OP 1984-1991) the final pair. All members of the school team were selected from Year 12 with Charlie Futcher and George Cripps forming a pair, Rohan Bungaroo and Harry Dry

another. The school were a player short and so the OPs agreed a ‘player loan’ with Stefan Filip (OP 2001-2008) partnering younger brother Adam Filip.

The format for the match was all doubles tennis, with each of the OP pairs playing a set against each of the school pairs in a round robin. All three of the first round matches were tight affairs. At one point Stones and Cunningham were 5-0 up against Futcher and Cripps, but the school pair made a fantastic recovery to take the match 7-6 in a tie break. Bungaroo and Dry beat Melville and Gerard 7-6 in another tie break match. The Filip brothers played well together, but lost 6-4 to Thorp and Clark.

2-1 to the School after the first round.

Round 2 saw Melville and Gerard hit form after an extended layoff. Apparently both had been playing more rugby at their respective universities than tennis, winning 6-2 against the Filip brothers.

Bungaroo and Dry proved too strong for Stones and Cunningham winning 6-2.

Cricket The OPs v PGS 1st XI cricket match was also closely fought and culminated in a nail-biting draw with the OPs scoring 185 for 5 and PGS 185 for 8.

During the afternoon Seth Jackson (pictured), Captain of the PGS 1st XI cricket team, received the Thorp Bat Award, for the year’s most talented cricketer, presented this year by David Thorp in memory of his father, John Thorp, who was Second Master at PGS until 1976 and a keen cricketer who played for the Masters’ Cricket

Thorp and Clark played a steady game against Futcher and Cripps winning 6-0.

The match was even after Round 2 at 3-3.

Round 3 saw the meeting of the two undefeated pairs Bungaroo and Dry v Thorp and Clark. The OPs had an advantage with both players being involved in regular club tennis, and it was perhaps this experience that led to them winning 6-2. It was then that it became apparent that the ‘player loan ‘ could backfire for the OPs with the Filip brothers showing no mercy in defeating Stones and Cunningham 6-1. The match was even at 4-4, with the result resting on the outcome of Melville and Gerrard v Futcher and Cripps which was still on-going. The OPs prevailed 7-6 in a tie break, giving the OPs a 5-4 win.

A good afternoon’s tennis was followed by a fine supper in the pavilion and thanks should go to all those who played, Steve Hawkswell for organising the school team and of course the Hilsea catering staff.

Club for many years. David Thorp and his brother John (OP 1952-62) have alternated in making the presentation of the Thorp Cricket Bat Award since the death of their father in 1999. Speaking in 2010 David said “Our father encouraged and inspired us to become opening bats as we endeavoured to occupy the crease for the school between 1959 and 1963”.

John Thorp

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OPUS • Issue 9 • Winter 2013

A vision for the future: the School In September 2012 fifty individuals, drawn from every area of the life of the school, participated in a PGS Strategy Day. Involving the Senior Management Team, teaching staff, support staff and Governors, the full day of discussion and debate set out to: a) Review the school’s vision statement; b) Consider the key issues that emerged through feedback from the 2010 ISI (Independent Schools Inspectorate) inspection, public examination results, pupil recruitment and financial benchmarking; c) Undertake a review of the school’s strengths, the environment in which it is operating and the opportunities and threats likely to emerge over the next five years; and d) Inform the next strategic plan, ready for 2013.

The PGS Strategic Plan 2013-16 has now been published and OPUS took a look. The plan sets out six key areas for attention, supported by a list of actions, each of which has been assigned a delivery date, responsible staff lead and key performance indicators.

4

A PRIORITISED PROGRAMME OF BUILDING AND REFURBISHMENT

By 2016 we will have further improved our teaching environment and created outstanding new facilities for the Sixth Form. We will have in progress a medium to long term programme of phased development which has been carefully prioritised to allow the school to deliver an outstanding educational experience at all stages.

We have a number of exciting ideas for how the school’s facilities can continue to develop, and recognise that each project – whether refurbishment or a new build – will deliver excellent value for money and have a positive and lasting impact on the education we provide.

1

EXCELLENT TEACHING AND LEARNING

By 2016 the quality of teaching and learning supported by confident middle leadership, will be consistently good and frequently outstanding.

We have a fantastic reputation for teaching and learning, but we understand how important it is to ensure consistency and to inspire and nurture each child’s passion for learning. We regularly observe teaching and learning to share best practice and to support the continuous professional development of our staff, and we monitor closely our pupils’ value-added performances, not only in public examinations at 16 and 18, but in the early stages of their development in the Nursery and Junior School as well.

5

A FULLY INTEGRATED APPROACH TO MARKETING AND ADMISSIONS

By 2016 a fully integrated approach to admissions and marketing will enable us, in a time of continuing economic challenge, to ensure that our recruitment into both the Junior and Senior School thrives.

The continuing vibrancy of PGS depends to a large extent on how well we can communicate to prospective families all that makes PGS distinctive, including our desire to develop the whole person. We are keen to share the good news about our pupils’ progress and achievements, and to provide an informative and positive experience for parents and young people wishing to find out more about the school.

is to: pupils and staff and th bo to s ie pl ap ol ar Scho Portsmouth Gramm e Th of n o si is m e • Th passion for learning d an n io at wider community in e ag th d im , an ty ol si ho rio sc cu e te th • Igni ute to ate what they contrib br le ce to d an al lties du ting and social facu • Value each indivi or sp , tic tis ar , al tu iri dual’s intellectual, sp world • Nurture each indivi d serve in a changing an ad le to e e nc de vidual’s confi university and for lif r fo , rm Fo h xt Si • Develop each indi e sery to th future, from the Nur e th r fo ns tio da un • Provide fo

Valuing Staff

Wider Spiritual Growth

The Portsmouth Grammar School • www.pgs.org.uk

Strategic Plan 2013-2016

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One School

Learning Community

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Family School INNOVATIVE USE OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY (ICT)

By 2016 we will be confident, creative and efficient in our use of ICT in teaching and learning, thanks to a whole school approach which encourages innovation and shares best practice through training.

ICT offers exciting opportunities for pupils’ learning and we are encouraging our teachers and pupils to be creative and ambitious in their approach to the use of new technology.

Significant changes in provision, however, need to have been researched and tested; training and support put in place; and children’s e-safety ensured. In this way, we aim to deliver genuine educational benefits for our pupils as technology moves ever forward.

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PUPIL ENGAGEMENT

By 2016 a culture will have been established in which pupils acknowledge themselves to be instrumental in shaping their learning and in which they play a full role in the life and leadership of the school.

Young people are increasingly eager to take responsibility for their own learning and we are keen to support them in this, giving our pupils more opportunities to become resourceful and independent learners, and growing their confidence to take the lead and to think creatively for themselves.

A DYNAMIC DEVELOPMENT OFFICE

By 2016 we will have fully refreshed our programme of events for alumni and donors, grown our alumni database, and successfully launched a long term bursary fundraising campaign designed to expand our provision of means-tested support.

The PGS family is a rapidly growing one. Former pupils, parents and staff are keen to keep in touch with the school, and it can be inspiring for current pupils to learn about the lives and careers of those who have gone before them. We have plans to invite each year group back for a reunion when they are 25. We are piloting a mentoring programme supported by Old Portmuthians, and we will be seeking the support of alumni in helping us to expand our bursary programme and thus continue to transform the lives of young people here in Portsmouth and the wider region.

e Our vision is for Th ar School Portsmouth Gramm ing to have an outstand ol reputation as a scho le op in which young pe and are inspired to learn nce to development confide ake ty to m believe in their abili to their a positive difference pupils world. We wish our ppy and and our staff to be ha r. de successful, in that or

Service and Leadership

International Outlook Building for the Future

Opportunity for All

Excellence Throughout

Community Tradition and Innovation

OPUS • Issue 9 • Winter 2013

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EXCELLENT TEACHING AND LEARNING We were all thrilled that record academic results were achieved in every area of the school in 2013.

Sixth form pupils (Years 12 and 13) at PGS have the option of studying either A levels or the International Baccalaureate (IB).

This year 84% of all A levels taken at PGS were graded A*A or B, as the number of top grades awarded nationally fell for the second consecutive year. 18% of all PGS results were A* and 46% of the cohort were awarded at least one A*.

In IB, the average points score achieved at PGS was 37.3 out of a possible 45. It was the third year of IB results at PGS and the best yet. Every one of our IB students gained a place at his or her first or second choice university.

In both A levels and IB, we were particularly pleased with the ‘value added’ scores, which showed very many students performing better than internal mid-year testing had suggested.

GCSE results were similarly pleasing, with 42% being graded A*, making the average GCSE grade at the school an A. A staggering 15.3% of all students gained at least 9A*, representing the school’s best year to date.

Junior School pupils also continue to perform well ahead of the national average. Key Stage 2 is taken at the end of Year 6 when pupils are normally aged 11. Nationally, pupils are expected to achieve a Level 4 in the “3 Rs”: reading, writing and arithmetic.

Every one of our 80 Year 6 pupils achieved this.

Most impressive, though, were the Level 5 results, where it was our best ever year, with at least twice as many PGS pupils achieving level 5 as would be expected nationally in all three subjects: National

PGS Junior School

Reading

45%

93%

Writing

30%

63%

Maths

41%

88%

Between 98% and 99% of Junior School leavers are offered a place in the Senior School annually.

INTERNATIONAL BACCALAUREATE The Portsmouth Grammar School was authorised as an IB World School in November 2008. IB schools share a common philosophy – a commitment to high quality, challenging, international education that we at PGS believe is important for our students.

Pupils taking the IB Diploma study six subjects, three at Higher Level and three at Standard Level. This will include English, a language, a humanity, a science, maths (which is offered at a variety of levels), and one other subject, which can be chosen from a wide range.

At the heart of the Diploma is the core which distinguishes the Diploma from A Levels: alongside their chosen subjects pupils will undertake a Theory of Knowledge course, a Creativity, Action and Service component, and complete an extended essay in any subject area. There is a coursework element in most subjects with all formal exams being taken at the end of the two year programme.

The Portsmouth Grammar School • www.pgs.org.uk

Work experience for OPs We are always pleased to do our best to help young OPs who are looking for some work experience to help guide their future career plans, so were delighted when Jenny Codd (OP 2004-2011) got in touch this autumn.

After leaving PGS in 2011, Jenny went on to study History at Warwick University. She had always been interested in a career in teaching, so contacted two of her former teachers, Simon Lemieux (Head of History and Politics) and James Burkinshaw (English), to ask whether she could come in and shadow them during her reading week from university. They were only too happy to help out.

Speaking on her final day, Jenny said: “It’s been really lovely to see all my old teachers again. I always had great relationships with them, so felt completely comfortable emailing them to ask for some work experience. The pupils now are definitely better behaved than I remember us being. I hope they haven’t lulled me into a false sense of security! This week has been really helpful and just confirmed teaching is definitely what I want to do”.

If you are able to offer some work experience to a current pupil or younger OP, please email development@pgs.org.uk

Simon Lemieux, Head of History and Politics, with Jenny Codd

Careering back to PGS Our grateful thanks to all the OPs who returned to the school on Tuesday 9 July to offer careers advice, information and knowledge to Year 8 pupils at their careers fair.

Amongst those sharing their experience were: • O liver Laking (OP 1998-2012) who is now in his second year of medical school at St George’s, London • M ike MacDowell (OP 1996-2006) an engineer with Anthony Best Dynamics Limited • M att Shaw (OP 2002-04) a manager with Barclays Corporate • A ndrew Dartmouth (OP 1987-2000) of Cosgroves Estate Agents • S tephanie Davies (OP 1994-2005) a vet at Harbour Veterinary Hospital, Portsmouth (see Inside Track, page 50).

Other stands were manned by parents and members of staff from the University of Portsmouth, offering advice in areas as diverse as law, languages, finance and the creative industries. Mark Willis from Harrington Design Architects, the company responsible for the Science Centre and the new Sixth Form Centre, also gave up his time for the event.

The day ended with presentations by Gemma Thomas (OP 19932000) on internet safety and Tom Smedley (OP 1998-2005) on his varied career as a doctor.

If you are in a profession which you think pupils would be interested to hear about, please contact us. We arrange careers fairs, talks, networking lunches and seminars and are always keen to welcome OPs and parents to share their experiences with the pupils. Please email development@pgs.org.uk

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All out for 92 In July the school hosted a retirement tea for four teachers who, between them, had chalked up an astonishing 92 years at PGS. Josh Brown joined just four years ago to provide maternity cover in economics and business studies, and quickly proved himself to be a dedicated teacher, wonderful communicator and brilliant with young people.

Daisy Tabtab grew up in the Philippines but came to PGS in 1990 from Surrey University where she had been an Associate Lecturer in Economics. She led a number of school initiatives engaging with the world of work and finance, such as the Ogden Trust Business competition, the Stockmarket Club, and the Student Investor Competition. She served seven years as the much loved Head of Hawkey.

George Tyrrell (OP 1991-2004) described her as a “true PGS legend!”

Daisy Tabtab in 2007

Andrew Hogg clocked up 27 years teaching German at PGS, as well as serving as Head of both Summers and Whitcombe.

For his final 10 years he was also Head of Careers. Ted Edmunds (OP 1993-2007) said: “What I remember most about Andrew was his great further knowledge of topics and how he went above and beyond the curriculum with stories from his times in Germany. It was especially at A-Level that I recall interesting conversations and discussions about music and film with him in class. Andrew’s extensive knowledge of word origins always fascinated a linguist like me. My favourite memory was when he took us down to the seafront for ice creams in my very last German class at PGS in 2007”.

And finally Mike Taylor, who singlehandedly accounts for a staggering 38 of the 92-year team total. Mike joined the school in 1975 (when the current Headmaster was aged just two!) and became Head of Chemistry in 1985, having previously had a role as Deputy Head of Grant. He managed the department successfully for ten years before relinquishing the role in order to focus on teaching and tutoring. Lee Williamson (OP 1986-1993) described him as: “A man of infinite patience and very good at making things intelligible to the dunces, which in itself is probably one of the hardest things to do for someone as obviously smart as him”.

Andrew Hogg with James Priory in 2013

Mike Taylor in 1997

We wish them all a long and happy retirement.

Wildlife Photographers John Aitchison (OP 1977-1984) Award–winning filmmaker John Aitchison’s latest wildlife film series Hebrides- Islands on the Edge, screened on BBC 2 this summer, is now available on DVD. Dramatic Atlantic weather, including high winds, drought and the most dramatic storm in living memory, provides a backdrop to the series which features the lives of a range of wild Hebridean animals including red deer stags battling to win their mates, seals struggling to protect their newborn pups, mighty basking sharks, charismatic white-tailed eagles and swallows who set up home in an Islay whisky distillery.

The series is narrated by Ewan McGregor.

Matt Allen (OP 2004-2011) Matt Allen, budding OP wildlife photographer now in his second year studying Biology at Bristol University, was very active during the summer holidays photographing wildlife in Hawaii (Kauai) and Canada. His beautiful photographs can be seen on his website www.mattallenwildlife.com, and his Facebook page, Matt Allen Photography, provides background to the photographs and news of his travels.

Occasionally, Matt contacts John Aitchison for advice about his photography and after graduating next summer Matt hopes to be involved in a two year wildlife photography project in Europe.

The Portsmouth Grammar School • www.pgs.org.uk

‘My voyage to Portsmouth Grammar School and Beyond’ Alan St Clair is the nom-de-plume of an OP who attended PGS from 1945 to 1949 and went on to enjoy a career on Fleet Street. Here he shares an extract from his memoir.

In 1939 came the Second World War. With Portsmouth a prime target for Nazi bombers. By now we were ten miles outside the city but we still saw bombing.

We lived over the shop in West Street, the main shopping street in Fareham.

Searingly bright searchlights, the sound of bombs dropping, and the sight of explosions lighting up the sky My father was deemed unfit for war service and spent the war both feeding the local population and doing his bit in the ARP (working on every aspect of Air Raid Precautions).

Our large bay front window gave us a direct view of the air over Portsmouth, where many a dogfight flared up during air raids.

In order to keep my brother and me as calm as possible during all the fighting my mother would take us to the front window and show us what to us ingenuous children was a thrillingly theatrical showpiece. With the searingly

Pupils walk past the bomb sites in the High Street in 1945

bright searchlights, the sound of bombs dropping, and the sight of explosions lighting up the sky.

On top of this we watched the dogfights themselves, with aeroplanes chasing each other, firing round after round of bullets at each other. We saw planes shot down and the resulting huge explosions and a lit-up sky as they crashed. On the same level of naivety, we also went in awe to look at bomb craters, not, of course, realizing then how ghoulish that was.

In one night Elm Grove, Southsea, simply disappeared As Mum and Dad had hoped, for the moment, at our young age, we were completely oblivious of the dreadful carnage, suffering and misery being played out right in front of our eyes, with so many lives ruined, destroyed, and lost.

In one night Elm Grove, Southsea, simply disappeared. Totally flattened on both sides of the road.

to spot an advertisement by a local school in the Portsmouth Evening News inviting applications for places at a new school that was opening, safely out in the country in Oakley, near Basingstoke.

The school was Hilsea College, an establishment my parents had walked past many times, almost opposite Hilsea Playing Fields …

We are always pleased to receive copies of OP memoirs for the school archive.

Please contact the School Archivist, John Sadden, on j.sadden@pgs.org.uk, tel 023 9268 1391

Like so many parents, Mum and Dad wanted to get my brother and me away from the bombing and in 1942 happened

Pupils in the High Street in 1945

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OPUS • Issue 9 • Winter 2013

Climb every mountain (in plimsolls) Laurie Faulkner (OP 1960-67) recalls a CCF trip to Inverness which would have today’s “elf ‘n’ safety” crew reeling in horror.

In 1963 I was a 14 year old pupil at PGS. We were all expected to join the Combined Cadet Force (CCF) and it was with some reluctance that I found myself going on a summer camp to Fort George, near Inverness, over 500 miles from home. There were around 150 of us and we travelled in full army uniform on public trains, initially to Waterloo. We then went across London by tube to Euston, where we were put on an overnight train to Scotland. My friend Max Bowker (OP 1957-67) remembers sleeping on the overhead luggage rack.

The most bizarre aspect, looking back, was that we were each responsible for a Lee Enfield service rifle for the whole journey!

They were fully functioning and could well have seen service in WW2. Admittedly we didn’t carry any ammunition, but the other passengers weren’t to know that.

Imagine the outrage, shock and horror if a similar expedition was proposed today, in this Health and Safety conscious age.

Incidentally, the rifles were almost as tall as some of the smaller boys.

Roger Harris and members of the CCF atop Ben Nevis in 1963

Once in Scotland we cleaned our uniforms and polished our boots several times and were sent on forced marches. We were also taken on a boat trip on Loch Ness and fired our rifles at a nearby range. One boy objected to firing at the target, the outline of a soldier, and deliberately aimed very high. We surmised that the bullets could easily have fallen onto the nearby town.

On another day we were taken on Army lorries to climb Ben Nevis. I was one of the few to make it to the top, as did Max, and I have the photograph below to prove it.

It also appears on page 23 of OPUS issue 1. We were all wearing Army uniform, including hobnailed boots, although Roger Harris, the teacher/officer with us, had sensibly changed into plimsolls.

I remember a small group of us walking around Inverness, still in our uniforms, when we had some free time. A kindly old lady came up to me and gave me eight half crowns, one for each of us.

Laurie Faulkner at the top of Ben Nevis

Serving in the CCF was all very characterbuilding, no doubt, and the experience certainly nurtured my subversive side.

We did have some laughs along the way, though. Happy days.

Roger Harris was father of Steve Harris, current Surmaster, Senior Teacher and CCF Contingent Commander at PGS.

OPUS • Issue 9 • Winter 2013

The Portsmouth Grammar School • www.pgs.org.uk

News of Old Portmuthians Professor Dan Berney (1974-1984) Dan Berney is part of a team from Queen Mary University of London that recently presented research suggesting a genetic test might be able to tell apart aggressive and slow-growing prostate cancer tumours. Commenting on the research, Dan said: “We need a better test as we are over-treating many men; most will die with, not of, prostate cancer. We need to discriminate between the aggressive forms and those that just need monitoring”. Such information could substantially change decisions made by doctors and patients but he added a note of caution: “We need to validate it and we’re not there yet, but it is the strongest test we’ve had so far”.

Deane CLARK (1947-1953) Architect Deane enjoys sketching his favourite buildings and boats in his home county of Hampshire and nearby Sussex and the Isle of Wight. As a boy his interest was encouraged by art teacher Wally Bartle, and his photographs were regularly published in The Portmuthian.

A major part of his work as Historic Buildings Architect for Hampshire County Council was care of churches and the county’s rich heritage of 12,500 historic buildings. His new book, lavishly produced like his previous book Deane Clark’s Portsmouth, shows his style developing from formal pen and ink at Portsmouth Art College, School of Architecture, in the 1950s, to watercolours, felttip pens and bright crayons. He continues to enjoy making new images – at home and abroad.

Deane Clark’s Hampshire, Sussex and the Isle of Wight is published

by Tricorn Books, £18.95 Hannah Diamond (1999-2008) Hannah, together with her race partner, Ben Saxton, won silver at the first World Championship for new Olympic sailing class Nacra 17 in the Netherlands in July this year.

Unfortunately a windless final day in The Hague meant the Britons did not get the chance to overhaul the eventual French winners as racing was abandoned.

Speaking to OPUS, Hannah said: “All my teachers at PGS were inspirational. I really enjoyed my time at the school and wouldn’t change any of it! I love that you are encouraged to take part in sport and extra-curricular activities alongside your academic work as it really sets you up for University and beyond. The Sixth Form was a highlight for me because my sailing demanded a lot of my time and all of my teachers were really supportive in helping me to find a balance where I could succeed in my sailing as well as academically”.

Hamish Ellis (2001-2011) Hamish directed a production of ENRON at Sheffield University in November. The play follows the rise of the energy giant Enron through its 1990s boom to its spectacular bankruptcy in 2001. It is a modern morality fable about an Icarus-like figure who soars too high and comes crashing back to earth taking his company, its assets and the lives of its workers with him. While at PGS Hamish stage managed the school’s production of Sweet Charity at the King’s Theatre.

Lucy Jones (1993-2006) Lucy won the Maite de Arambalza Trophy for the best yacht with a female skipper in the 2013 Rolex Fastnet Race in August. The world’s largest offshore yacht race, this year the event attracted over 336 crews.

Lucy started sailing in 1998, aged just 10, and enjoyed her first Cowes Week in 2005.

She left PGS in 2006 and graduated from Imperial College London with a First Class Honours Degree in Earth Science in 2009.

Major Matthew Howard JONES (1983-1993) Congratulations to Matt who was awarded the MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours this June. After leaving PGS Matt spent most of his GAP year with the Army which set him on a course for his future career. He studied History at Cambridge and then went to Sandhurst and was commissioned in August 1998. He has since worked in many different locations in Europe, South East Asia, North America and the Middle East, including an attachment with the Royal Marines.

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News of Old Portmuthians Tim KIDD (1958-1969) Six years ago Tim decided to combine early retirement from the Bank of England with a career change. He studied for a Blue Badge, the qualification of the UK’s professional, registered tourist guides, and set up his company, Blue Bowler, which specialises in bespoke London walks. With his background Tim focuses on financial tours, but he has led all sorts of walks including a film and TV tour and a tour for a Russian group who wanted to know all about English beer.

Recently Tim devised a walk and a cycle ride for the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference which was held London last September. This turned out to be something of a coincidence since former PGS Headmaster and current Chairman of the HMC, Dr Tim Hands, had asked for a Blue Badge holder to be recommended and Tim Kidd’s name was suggested – the two Tims actually knew each other.

Howard Mason (1951-1956) Howard sent us this photo taken around 1955 or 1956.

Howard is in the front row, second from left. We would love to hear from anyone else who is in the photo. Can anyone confirm when it was taken?

Contact us on development@pgs. org.uk with any information.

Libyan coast, which included the direction of Naval Fires and Surface Action, he was awarded a Joint Commanders Commendation.

John Shurmer-Smith (1987-2001) John is a songwriter, performer and poet now known as Louis Barabbas. In 2010 he wrote a folk tale, Scarecrow, which was covered and released early this year by Bridie Jackson & The Arbour. In April Bridie was announced as the winner of the Glastonbury Emerging Talent Prize and went on to perform at the world-famous Festival in June.

Listen to the song now at http://louisbarabbas.com/2013/02/11/ scarecrow-release-and-video/ Richard Simonsen (1953-64) In October Richard Simonsen became Dean of the College of Dentistry at the University of Sharjah, one of the United Arab Emirates, close to Dubai. Sharjah’s Ruler, Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed Al-Qasimi, has two PhDs from the UK, plus many honorary PhDs, and his Emirate is very focused on culture and education.

University City in Sharjah boasts a 5.5km long boulevard of pristine gardens and shrubs, edged by gold and black railings, behind which are university buildings which look like white marble palaces of beautiful Islamic architecture. “It feels a little strange to be starting a new job at 68 but I’m excited at the challenge and think this could prove to be the best job I have ever had. See where a PGS education gets you!”, Richard said.

Lieutenant Commander Simon PRESSDEE (1985-1993) In September 2013 Lt Cdr Simon Presdee assumed command of minesweeper HMS Ledbury. Simon left PGS in 1993 and commenced his naval career at Britannia Royal Naval College in Dartmouth. His work has taken him to many different parts of the world serving on various platforms from Nuclear Submarines to rubber dinghies in places as diverse as Singapore and Scotland. He is a qualified Mine Clearance Diving Officer and was Officer in Charge of a Fleet Diving Unit. Following over seven months of live operations and engagements along the

Commander Anthony STICKLAND (1972-1979) Commander Stickland has taken over as the commanding officer of HMS King Alfred, the Royal Naval Reserve unit based on Whale Island, Portsmouth. A reservist himself, Cdr Stickland is also a director of a Hampshire based electronics company. After leaving PGS in 1979 he read Electrical Sciences at Selwyn College,

OPUS • Issue 9 • Winter 2013

The Portsmouth Grammar School • www.pgs.org.uk

Cambridge and joined the Royal Naval Reserve in 1985. He has served as the navigating officer in HMS Itchen and became the Royal Naval Reserve’s lead precise navigation instructor. He has also served on board HMS Alderney, Exeter, Illustrious and Ocean.

OP WEDDINGS Keith Allman (1991-2004) and Andrea Parker (2002-2004) Keith Allman married Andrea Parker on Thursday 8 August 2013 in Cambridge.

Martin TISDALL (1989-1993) In September of this year Martin was appointed Consultant Paediatric Neurosurgeon at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children. After leaving PGS in 1993 he studied Medicine at Cambridge and then obtained an MA in Social and Political Sciences, also at Cambridge. He achieved a Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) and a Doctor of Medicine (MD), Neurosciences at UCL. He has since worked as the Specialist Registrar in Neurosurgery at North Thames Neurosurgery Rotation, a Paediatric Neurosurgery Fellow at Great Ormond Street and Paediatric Neurosurgery Fellow at The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada.

Captain Tony WARDALE (1948-1952) Congratulations to Tony and Sue Wardale who celebrated their Diamond Wedding Anniversary in September with a lunch in HMS Collingwood for friends and family. This was a double celebration as Tony also had his 80th birthday this year.

On leaving PGS Tony entered BRNC Dartmouth as a Cadet in the Electrical Branch, he then went up to Trinity Hall, Cambridge where he read Engineering. After some years in submarines he went into the surface ship part of the Navy, retiring as a Captain in 1988. He finally worked for a submarine rescue company, retiring in 2007.

He and Sue enjoy sailing and Tony is off skiing with friends in the New Year. He has many happy memories of his time at PGS and is particularly grateful for the support and guidance from Bill Willis, whom he regarded initially with awe and later as a friend.

Laura Willans (1998-2005) Laura works as a Programme Officer in the Humanitarian Department of Save the Children, where she helps manage the entry-level trainee schemes, which are part of a wider push by Save the Children and other organisations to raise the standards of responses to emergencies across the humanitarian sector. In June, she went on a monitoring and evaluation visit to Lebanon where Save the Children had three trainees working in child protection, logistics and education on the charity’s response to Syrian refugees living there. She also joined a team distributing vouchers to the refugees that are then redeemed in local DIY shops for tools and construction materials. In this way, refugees are enabled to choose themselves what they need most. This approach also supports local traders, which can contribute to reducing tensions between the host and refugee communities.

Since leaving PGS, Keith graduated from the University of Southampton with a BA (Hons) in English. He then worked in banking before qualifying as a teacher of English in 2012, first teaching at Upper Shirley High School in Southampton and now at Bottisham Village College in Cambridgeshire.

Andrea graduated from Warwick University in 2008 with a first class degree in Ancient History and Classical Archaeology. She then completed a Masters degree in Ancient Visual and Material Culture, also at Warwick, before moving to Cambridge to train as a teacher of Classics, qualifying in 2010. Since then, she has taught Classics in Cheshire, Suffolk and most recently, Cambridge. Andrea has also completed a Masters in Education with Distinction at Cambridge University.

Keith and Andrea have been close friends since they met in Sixth Form. Their relationship was the subject of witty remarks from staff and students alike, including some who predicted in their yearbooks that they would one day marry!

Guy COCKCROFT (1990 – 2003) Guy married Hayley Saunders in Braunton, North Devon, on 26 May 2013. The wedding took place at The Hunters Inn, a beautiful, traditional inn in the Heddon Valley on Exmoor.

This was a very special place for the happy couple as Guy proposed to Hayley on the beach at nearby Heddon’s Mouth. The three ushers were Oliver Richardson, Henry Lewis and William Nicol, all OPs. Guy and Hayley met in 2010 in North Devon District Hospital where they were working as junior doctors. They are both now on the GP training scheme and Guy is in his final year of training. They live in Hayley’s home village of Braunton, North Devon, with their cat ‘M’! Guy still enjoys hockey and now plays for North Devon.

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Emma FARNAN (1999 – 2004) Emma and Richard Le Neve Foster were married at St Peter’s church in Stockbridge, Hampshire in January 2013 and now live in Buckinghamshire.

After leaving PGS Emma took a GAP year and taught English in Ghana.

On returning to the UK she worked for Conway Consulting in London for almost four years as an executive headhunter for management consultancies before embarking on the Graduate Teacher Programme. Emma now works as a Religious Studies and Philosophy teacher at an all-boys school in Buckinghamshire which she enjoys thoroughly and she attributes this to the inspirational teaching of the Reverend Grindell and Dr Richmond at PGS.

Sam MOFFITT (1996 - 2010) Sam graduated from Brasenose in Oxford with a 2:1 BA (Hons) degree. He is now studying for an MA in Trumpet Performance at the Royal Academy of Music in London.

Andrew PAYNE (2003-2010) Andrew graduated from Queens’ College, Cambridge, this summer with a Double Starred First in History. He was also awarded the Morgan Prize, following on from his success in receiving the Phillips Prize for History in 2012.

Michael RUSBRIDGE (2003-2008)

Alexandra Stevenson (1995-2002) Alexandra married Tim Clifford Hill at Portsmouth Cathedral on 1 November in a true family wedding. In the absence of Alexandra’s late father (who was very much there in spirit), the couple were married by the bride’s brother, Rev. James Stevenson (OP 1995-1997), with her sister, Kitty Price, giving the address. Alexandra was given away by her brother-in-law, David Price and Tim’s grandfather, a retired clergyman, celebrated the Eucharist. They enjoyed a feast of music from a choir of friends and a group of instrumentalists which included at least two OPs.

ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENTS With the school’s new strategic plan placing a heavy priority on ‘Excellent Teaching and Learning’, this year’s clutch of outstanding degree results shows that academic excellence continues long after pupils have left PGS. We offer our heartfelt congratulations to each and every one.

James ASPDEN (2002 – 2009) James has graduated from King’s College London with a 2:1 in Languages and now plans to spend a year (or more) in Madrid teaching at the school he spent time at during his GAP year.

Michael graduated from Loughborough University with a 2:1 (Hons) degree in Mechanical Engineering, during which he also undertook a year in industry in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. He has now started a project management role at a company called Pendennis who build and carry out refits to super yachts.

Charlotte SAUNDERS (2008-2010) Charlotte has graduated from Queen Mary College London with a First Class Honours degree in Biomedical Sciences and is now re-applying to study medicine.

Crispin SMITH (1996 – 2010) Crispin has graduated from New College, Oxford with a First Class Honours degree in Egyptology and Near-Eastern Studies. He will be continuing his studies at PhD level.

Rob SMITH (2002 – 2009) Rob graduated from University of Durham (St Chad’s) with a First Class BA (Hons) in History.

He is now at Wolfson College, Cambridge, studying for an MPhil in Medieval History in which he will be examining ‘The interaction between Norse Paganism and Germanic Christianity and its impact on conversion and Christianisation.’

Will SWIFT (2000 – 2010)

Abi HARRIS (2005-2010) Abi has received a First Class Honours degree in Natural Sciences from Selwyn College, Cambridge and is continuing her studies at Oxford.

Will has received a First Class Honours degree in War Studies from Kings College London.

OPUS • Issue 9 • Winter 2013

The Portsmouth Grammar School • www.pgs.org.uk

In memoriam OPUS is saddened to report the death of the following Old Portmuthians and colleagues Charles Bromley-WEBB (14/12/1927 – 11/04/2011)

Our thanks to Charles’s son Nicholas for this appreciation of Charles’s life.

Charles Bromley-Webb, who died at home on 11th April 2011 at the age of 83, was born and brought up at Locksway Road, Portsmouth, within sight and sound of Fratton Park, home of his boyhood footballing heroes. He was himself a keen footballer and cricketer, and played for both his primary school (Milton) and PGS where he was a pupil from 1939 to 1946.

When war broke out he was, along with the rest of the school, evacuated from the city, first to Northwood Park, a country house at Sparsholt near Winchester (one of his favourite stories was how the boys had to sleep on straw-filled mattresses in an outbuilding), and then soon afterwards to Bournemouth/Christchurch. The Webb side of the family had in fact originated from Sparsholt and the other villages around Winchester.

On leaving PGS Charles went to Birmingham University to read Chemical Engineering, and this led to his career in the atomic energy industry, most of which was spent in Lancashire, firstly for the UK Atomic Energy Authority and latterly for British Nuclear Fuels at the Springfields plant which served the network of nuclear power stations around the country. In the rural Fylde district of Lancashire he and his first wife Margaret brought up their two sons, and, despite the distance, maintained links with Portsmouth, visiting his parents in the city and latterly at

Titchfield Common and enjoying holidays in Hampshire and the South Country.

Retirement to the idyllic seaside village of Arnside on Morecambe Bay in 1984 enabled Charles to develop his interests in walking, countryside conservation and wildlife, especially wild plants. Indeed, though a scientist by training, he had an interest in many subjects and activities, the list of which continued to expand throughout his life. He had a real thirst for knowledge, a logical mind and a fantastic memory. Being widely read meant that he was well-informed about current affairs and politics. He continued to read scientific journals well into retirement, but he was equally likely to be wading through heavyweight classics of English literature - he had from early on a special liking for Dickens. Another of his early loves was listening to music, at first New Orleans jazz and later on a wide range of classical music.

After his first wife’s death in 1990 Charles was lucky to meet Margaret Bromley, and together they enjoyed happy years together, having married in 1995. Charles’s long and rich life was above all based on an interest in other people. His generosity and humour were infectious and these were never lost despite having to battle with Parkinson’s in the last years of his life.

He was fortunate to have the devoted care of Margaret in these difficult times. He is missed by all who knew him.

Malcolm Gordon HOARE (02/03/1932 – 09/07/2013)

Malcolm was both a PGS pupil (1943 – 1951) and teacher (1957 – 1965). After leaving PGS as a pupil he studied for a BSc in Physics at Sheffield University and qualified as a teacher in 1955. Before returning to PGS he taught physics at Penistone Grammar School near Sheffield for two years. He was a valued member of the PGS staff and was remembered not only for his effectiveness as a physics teacher, but also for supervising cross-country runners on their long runs up and down Portsdown Hill in the middle of winter. He left PGS to pursue a career as lecturer.

Peter Anthony MAW (10/01/1925 – 18/08/2013)

Peter was born in Southsea and attended PGS from 1936 to 1942. During WW2 he was evacuated to Bournemouth where he joined the Joint Training Corps and rose to the rank of Lance Corporal.

After leaving school Peter worked in his father’s accountancy business for a short time before joining a mountain regiment of the Royal Artillery. He was posted to Scotland for training with the demountable artillery and then to India to prepare for the invasion of Malaya. The operation never took place as the war ended and Peter returned to Southsea to continue his career as an Accountant. He became a Chartered Accountant and later, Senior Tax Director until his retirement in 2000. Peter married Laura Hulme in 1960 and they had three sons, Andrew, David and Ian. In 1987 Laura was diagnosed with cancer and, sadly, died that year. continued...

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OPUS • Issue 9 • Winter 2013

In memoriam Peter was actively involved with the church and also Portsmouth United Nations Association. In 2011 he was awarded the UNA UK Award for Distinguished Service for his outstanding contribution. He was also an accomplished table tennis player and putting his deep Christian faith into action he would go into Kingston Prison as a volunteer and play table tennis with the inmates. Peter died peacefully of pneumonia at Poole General Hospital on Sunday 18 August 2013.

Keith William PALMER (12/04/1927 – 21/08/2013) Keith attended PGS from 1937 to 1939. He died suddenly in his sleep at home aged 86. He was a devoted husband to Jean, loving father of Hilary and Jonathan and their partners Kevin and Louise, adored by his grandchildren and fondly remembered by dear friends. Keith had been a director of Flowerdown Property Management Company, Winchester, since 2001, after his retirement.

Sidney Cayley PARKER (15/10/1923 – 13/07/2013)

When war was declared, Sid was evacuated to Bournemouth with the school and at the end of his schooling in 1942 he joined the RAF. Being wartime it was deemed too risky to train in this country, and he travelled in the newest liner, the Queen Elizabeth, sailing out from Greenock at full speed to outrun the U-boats all the way to Halifax, Nova Scotia.

After 35 years of happy marriage sadly Rosemary contracted Parkinson’s disease, and after caring for Rosemary for a few further years, Sid became a widower.

He was taught to fly a variety of aircraft and took on aerobatics, formation and night flying. At the end of primary training, a week’s leave gave him the opportunity to go to Hollywood and visit the famous Hollywood Canteen to meet the famous film stars such as Spencer Tracy, Shirley Temple and Deanna Durbin, who, with others, took turns to be on duty there to meet and entertain the servicemen.

Geoffrey Hugh PECOVER OBE (08/04/1929 – 06/08/2013)

To his huge disappointment just two weeks away from receiving his wings he was transferred to the Navigation Course in London, Ontario, and then sent back to the UK for an Advanced Navigation Course in Cumberland. He came top in his final exams and in consequence was invited to join the crack Pathfinder Squadron.

The war was coming to its end but he took part in a number of operations, bombing ahead of the German lines as the Allies advanced. He was also on the famous raid on Hitler’s hideout Berchtesgaden in Austria.

At the end of the war, code and cipher officers were urgently wanted in India and he flew out to Karachi, eventually ending up as Camp Commandant at Group Headquarters in New Delhi.

We are grateful to Sidney’s brother, Chris, for the information included in this appreciation of Sidney’s life.

Sid followed our elder brother Rod to PGS in 1934 and was subsequently followed by myself. We were both compared unfavourably by various teachers to our elder brother, who was a hard act to follow, and I was compared unfavourably eventually to them both.

After being demobbed Sid decided to teach and started his career at Front Lawn School, Leigh Park. He met another teacher, Rosemary Fleetwood, and they were married at Portsmouth Cathedral in a ceremony conducted by his old PGS teacher, Canon Heritage. Sid became Head of George Street Junior School (later Northgate) and then Head at St Jude’s School in Portsmouth. He did much charity work, which included raising money for the Samaritans, and he was greatly involved also in the refurbishment of the Theatre Royal.

He leaves a son Andrew, daughter Annabelle, six grandchildren and one great grandchild.

Geoff attended PGS from 1940 to 1944 and was evacuated to Bournemouth during the war, where he shared a billet in Stamford Road with his brother Bruce, Ian Dallison, Ken Bailey, Mike Roberts and David Harle.

He went on to pursue a career in the Foreign Office. He joined the Diplomatic Service in 1966. In 1986 he was awarded the OBE when working at the British Consulate in Dusseldorf. He attended a PGS reunion in 2008 where this photograph was taken.

Donald Walter Paver THORPE (26/09/1924 – 22/02/2013)

OPUS • Issue 9 • Winter 2013

We are grateful to Donald’s son, Andrew, for the information included in this appreciation of Donald’s life.

Donald was a pupil at PGS from 1936 to 1942 and was evacuated to Bournemouth during the war. He is pictured here as a member of the 1st XI football team in 1942.

After leaving PGS he studied at Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge, where he joined the University Air Squadron and then joined the RAFVR. After completing his flying training in Canada he was posted to 62 Squadron in SE Asia where he remained until VJ Day, flying Douglas (DC-3) Dakota transports, frequently over enemy lines.

He returned to the UK in 1947 and, on disbandment of the RAFVR, joined the TA. In 1948 he married Pauline, elder sister of his school-friend, Dennis “Paddy” Smith (OP 1936-43), and they moved to Reading where Donald took a post-graduate degree in Modern Languages at the University.

He decided on a career in teaching and taught at a number of state schools in Portsmouth, becoming a Deputy Head at Priory School.

He was a fluent French and German speaker, an active member of the Portsmouth Teachers’ Association and a member of the Portsmouth branch of the Burma Star Association. Politics was an interest in later life and Donald became actively involved at a low level in Conservative Party ward and constituency matters.

The Portsmouth Grammar School • www.pgs.org.uk

Colin was born in North End and won a scholarship to PGS in 1950. He left PGS in 1955, aged 16, to work at the Portsmouth Evening News.

After completing National Service in the Army, he spent 18 months as a PA reporter before joining The Times. Colin became news editor of The Times before editing the Cambridge Evening News for eight years.

He was then recalled by The Times as the paper’s Deputy Editor, becoming one of the most influential figures on the paper.

He was the much-respected Editor of the Press Association from 1986 to 1995 and successfully steered the agency through major technological advances. He will be remembered for his determination to ensure that the Press Association kept abreast of and ahead of the rest of Fleet Street and provided customers with the finest and fastest news service possible.

In 1992 Colin was given an honorary fellowship at the University of Portsmouth.

He and his family moved to Chichester, where he became a reader for the diocese of Chichester.

He is survived by his wife Maggie, two sons and a daughter, a grandson and three granddaughters.

Ronald Sanderson YOUNG (18/05/1917 – 25/07/2012)

He is survived by his son, Andrew, daughter, Caroline and grandchildren.

Colin Thomas WEBB (26/03/1939 – 18/05/2013)

Our thanks to Ronald’s son, Nick, for this appreciation of Ronald’s life.

My father, Ronald, was born at his parents’ home in Southsea, Portsmouth on 18th May 1917. He developed a great love of the sea and the Royal Navy through my grandfather, who was an Engineering Officer in the RN. Upon leaving PGS my father was unable to find any

openings within the RN due to the “Great Depression” military cutbacks and instead, joined the Portsmouth City Police Force.

During the Second World War, he was able to volunteer and joined the Royal Navy Reserve, serving in the conflict, primarily on the North Atlantic convoys and also participating in the D Day landings.

Unfortunately, in February 1941 my grandfather was lost when his ship, HMS Exmoor, a convoy escort, was torpedoed by a German E – Boat and sunk off Lowestoft.

This was a loss that profoundly affected my father for the rest of his life.

Post war my father continued to serve in the Royal Navy Reserve, being attached to HMS Wessex, Southampton and HMS Fort Southwick, Portsmouth. He also qualified and worked as a teacher, going out of his way to assist those who needed extra help and guidance.

My father always had a great interest in nature and the outdoors since joining the Boy Scouts at the age of ten. He helped establish the 1st Warblington Scout Group, which my brother and I became members of. He then served for many years as the local district chairman for the Boy Scouts.

Ronald and Lya (my mum) married in 1954 and set up home in their current house in Berkeley Square, Havant. My brother Tony was born in 1955 and I was born in 1958.

Our father was always a very caring and understanding person, who was there with help and guidance when required. We will always miss him very much.

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OPUS • Issue 9 • Winter 2013

INSIDE TRAVECTEKRINARY SURGEON The latest OP to be in the spotlight for Inside Track is Stephanie Davies (OP 19942005), who is in the early years of her career as a vet.

When did you realise you wanted to be a vet?

I was always one of those little girls that said that they wanted to be a vet. When I turned sixteen and still gave the same response I think my mum finally started to believe me! I briefly considered teaching as another option but really I always wanted to work with animals and the idea of surgery really appealed to me.

What qualifications did you need to get into university? Did you have to go for interview?

I needed two As and a B at A-level to get into university. The other main thing that the university wanted was work experience which was squeezed into every school holiday from the age of 16. I chose and went to Liverpool – a great city to live in. We did have interviews - it is part of every application for vet school.

And the worst?

Exam time was always the more interesting time of year – particularly finals and the realisation of revising five years’ worth of knowledge – but it was worth every second.

Did any teachers particularly inspire you?

How did you choose what to specialise in?

All of the teachers at PGS actively encouraged me to pursue the career and were very lenient with allowing me to undertake work experience and miss weekend duties.

I’m specialising in small animals – cats and dogs.

I chose it for the better opportunities with surgery and not having to be on farms on windy and rainy days!

What was the best thing about studying to be a vet?

How difficult was it to get a job?

Finally getting to rotations in fourth year and getting to be hands-on with the animals, helping with some very high-end surgeries at the university and getting to go to South Africa for four weeks for an elective and playing with cheetah, rhino and lots of different antelope.

Initially looking for jobs was difficult with everyone looking at the same time but after taking a few months out to go travelling, I was then very lucky to find a job at a vets that I had already seen practice with whilst I was a student.

What was the most surprising thing about starting full-time work?

At university we’re taught the best treatment to give for each diagnosis but in the real world you realise that most people have a limited budget so that’s something which I’ve had to consider a lot more than I would have realised at university.

Have you got any funny stories?

Laughing seems to happen most days either when someone leans in something which they really don’t want to lean in, or from watching some of our in-patients tangling themselves into knots with their drip lines or finding new tricks such as opening their carrier doors when you’re not watching. I think we get a slightly strange humour in the profession.

The Portsmouth Grammar School • www.pgs.org.uk

Get involved & share Keep up with all the news from the OP community online:

www.facebook.com/groups/PGSALUMNI

www.linkedin.com/groups/ Portsmouth-Grammar-School-OldPortmuthians-3796965

www.twitter.com/PGS_1732

www.youtube.com/PGS1732

Have you had to deal with any particularly difficult situations?

Learning to communicate with the general public is something which university didn’t really prepare us for but which is something you learn very quickly. For example, trying to explain that brother and sister cats don’t understand that they’re brother and sister can be slightly difficult when the sister is pregnant.

What’s your greatest career ambition?

Digitised Portmuthians now available

I’m still learning every day and I want to keep taking on more complex surgeries and to one day specialise either in exotics or to tackle animal welfare problems in another country.

Old Portmuthians are able to purchase digital copies covering the time they were at PGS, and relive memories of what were hopefully happy school days!

If you had one piece of advice for someone considering a career in vet med, what would it be?

If you’re considering being a vet then the best bit of advice would be to go to a vet practice and see what it’s all about. It may not be entirely what you expect; I was a little surprised initially. If you want to work with animals or if it’s your dream then I’d follow it, I’ve never regretted it and really love the job that I’m in.

Good quality digital copies, which include all text, photographic and illustrative content, will be copied on to a 2GB PGS branded memory stick. (£12 inclusive of postage and packing, regardless of how many Portmuthians were published during your time at PGS). The files can be copied to your PC, laptop or tablet, and the memory stick reused.

Please contact the Development Office for further details. development@pgs.org.uk or tel: 023 92 681385 www.pgs.org.uk/pgs-association/archive/

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The Portsmouth Grammar School High Street, Portsmouth, Hampshire PO1 2LN Telephone: 023 9236 0036 | development@pgs.org.uk | www.pgs.org.uk