OT News 2018

OT NEWS APRIL 2018

CONTENTS 03

EDITORIAL

04

FROM THE CHALKFACE

06

WHAT TONBRIDGE MEANS TO ME

08

TIM HAYNES: THE Q&A

12

OTS AND THE TONBRIDGE SOCIETY

14

EVENTS

20

PROJECT HOPE

23

PHONING FOR THE FUTURE

24

ALL THINGS WINTER

26

THE LEGACY OF JOHN BETJEMAN

28

SPACE FOR GIANTS

31

NOTICES

32

OARDINARY BOYS

34

JOURNEY’S END

35

HILL SIDE: THEN & NOW

38

FREDDIE DE TOMMASO AT THE TENOR VIÑAS

39

THE ST ANDREWS MARTYRS

41

A HACKER EXPLAINS

43

OTS IN MEDICINE

50

AN INTERVIEW WITH VIKRAM JAYANTI

54

THE FUTURE IS SOLAR

56

‘IF….’: 50 YEARS ON

58

OT BOOKS

61

OT SOCIETIES

69

OBITUARIES

Director Andy Whittall arw@tonbridge-school.org

OT Relations Manager Rebecca Watson rga@tonbridge-school.org

Editors Katerina Ward kw@tonbridge-school.org John Gibbs jdg@tonbridge-school.org

Design Katerina Ward kw@tonbridge-school.org

OT News Magazine

TONBRIDGE SOCIETY Tonbridge School Tonbridge, TN9 1JP +44 (0) 1732 304253

E D IT O RIAL

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e are always in awe of the diversity of projects that Old Tonbridgians become involved in, and the passion and enthusiasm with which OTs of every generation devote to them truly is testament to the talent that passes through the School. Tonbridge looks to equip boys with the skills to be leaders in their chosen fields, to take on new challenges and to not fear failure, so it is extremely heartening to see how Tonbridgians continue to make their mark on the world.

Within these pages, we hear from Tim Haynes in his final year of Headmastership, as he reminisces over his highlights at the School and offers valuable advice to his successor, James Priory. Christopher Everett reflects on his own tenure as Headmaster and most recently, President of the Old Tonbridgian Society, a role that will be filled

by The Lord Lisvane KCB DL (SH 63-68) from September 2018.

Remarkable feats in the world of OT Sport include ‘Oardinary Boys’ George Randell and Oli Glanville’s record-breaking crossing of the Atlantic, Toby McBride and the team at Durham University Electric Motorsport have raced their ground-breaking solar car 3000km across the Australian outback, and Adam Kerr has climbed Mount Kenya’s 4,979 metre summit and canoed from Devizes to Westminster, all in support of Africa’s elephants.

In the world of literature, we bring to you new books from Jaya Ravindran, John Howlett, Hal Moggridge, Julian Keevil, Christopher Nicholson, Timothy DudleySmith, and Liam Porritt. Former Head of English, Jonathan Smith recounts how he

OLD TONBRIDGIAN NEWS

came to write two radio plays on the life of Poet Laureate, John Betjeman, which were sadly to be the final performance of distinguished OT actor, Ben Whitrow. We also feature an article by actor, Malcolm McDowell, written in memory of the celebrated OT author, David Sherwin who we also sadly lost in 2018; the year that marks the 50th anniversary of the film ‘If….’, which David authored and in which McDowell so brilliantly starred.

In a first for OT News, we’ve endeavoured to take a feature ‘digital’, and encourage you to read about the extraordinary careers of some of the talented Tonbridgians working in the medical profession on our website. We’ve included a taster in pages 43-49, with details of how to access the full feature online. You’ll soon be able to access content like this, and much more, on our new social networking platform, Tonbridge Connect, launching in 2018. A private online platform for the OT community, Tonbridge Connect will give you access to an international network of Tonbridge professionals, opportunities such as mentoring, jobs, internships and introductions, and social opportunities such as events, clubs and news from OTs and the School. We look forward to telling you more in due course!

We hope you learn as much from reading this edition of OT News as we did, thanks to the many fascinating and driven Old Tonbridgians that contributed. If you would like to share a story for a future edition of OT News, or our E-newsletter, please do contact us at: E: OTS@tonbridge-school.org T: +44 (0) 1732 304253

John Gibbs

03

Katerina Ward

FROM THE CHALK FAC E

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‘I’m afraid this essay was distinctly average.’

‘I’ll take average. Average plus inheritance equals great!’

T

his tongue-in-cheek exchange, which happened last year, does not typify most Tonbridgians’ attitude to work, though it does give a snapshot of the wit and ‘banter’ one enjoys on a daily basis. Indeed one of the reasons I enjoy teaching, and teaching at Tonbridge, is the opportunity to roar with laughter lesson-by-lesson, which must make it a unique profession. Happy, relaxed lessons, I think, make for a positive learning environment.

Of course, it is not simply a matter of entertaining the troops and the boys jumping through the dreary and serious examination hoops. It helps. The key to what I do lesson-by-lesson, to engage, promote thought and ultimately exam success, is inviting and asking questions.

As a Divinity teacher, over the years, I have been asked an array of bizarre questions ranging from ‘Did Muhammad have any pets?‘, ‘Are Muslims Christians?’ to (quite shockingly) ‘Is the Pope really Catholic?’ But others continually excel and show the boys’ depth of

interest and intellectual prowess.

For example, a few years ago in a philosophical discussion, one bright spark asked ‘Do you need language to think?’ which prompted a diversion into the mind and what constitutes thought.

provide important lessons - not only in religious epistemology but also in how and why arguments, belief and relationships are formed. Hopefully they have emerged a little less certain of their convictions.

One of the reasons Divinity has grown in popularity over recent years is the ability to ask questions that not only pose an intellectual challenge but also strike home.

As we work through a range of theological and philosophical topics, we touch on issues as diverse as personhood in the abortion and euthanasia debate to the historical worth of the Gospels. Recently with the LVI, the question under scrutiny has been, ‘Can religious belief be rational?’ For the majority of the boys in the class, paid up members of the New Atheist-DawkinsHitchens club, the answer is of course, no.

‘You’re not stupid, you went to the same university as my Dad. Why on earth would you teach?’ Exhausted on a winter Friday afternoon, one does indeed wonder; but only momentarily. The answer is always, I enjoy it and I enjoy making you think. As boys move on to university, and one expects to predominantly city careers, the ability to laugh and to question and speculate on answers, one hopes, will sustain and enrich.

But we also explore the likes of William James’ pragmatist argument, that our ‘passional natures’ validate our beliefs. We look at the likes of Kierkegaard, who argues that reason is dangerous to faith and that relationships

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JULIAN DOBSON HEAD OF DIVINITY

WHAT TONBRIDGE MEANS TO ME CHRISTOPHER EVERET T

S

ince 1975 (over half my life) Tonbridge has been close to my heart as Headmaster 1975-89, Governor 2000-07 and member of the Court of the Skinners’ Company since 1997. So I was honoured and delighted when I was invited to become Hon President of the OT Society for 2017-18.

In 1975, my first impression was the extraordinary range of achievement of Tonbridgians throughout the school in their academic and creative subjects, and the consistently high quality of all members of the Common Room. It was clear that scholarship, emotional responsiveness, respect for learning, openness to new ideas and critical enquiry, application and imagination were seen by boys and staff as central to the academic and creative curriculum.

The second impression was the importance of every aspect of the extra-curricular programme. The diversity of the programme was a key way of giving every boy the opportunity to pursue his own particular interest.

The third impression, in my view the essence of Tonbridge, was and is that every aspect of its activities is rooted in an outward looking and coherent community imbued with a whole range of living values and attributes

– generosity, faith in the future, tolerance, integrity, freedom, friendship, joy, laughter, a willingness to listen, and service to others.

Of course, the teaching staff are central to this, but the dedicated non-teaching staff in a less heralded way also exemplify its values.

The wider community also includes Old Tonbridgians, the Skinners’ Company and its feeder preparatory schools.

It is difficult to give precise evidence for the qualities mentioned in previous paragraphs.

I hope that the following random memories and reflections may give them some substance and help to illustrate the school’s commitment (underpinned by regular chapel services) to the broadest possible education and to the particular needs of every boy.

Tonbridge’s distinctively close knit community facilitates innumerable personal contacts. For my wife and myself it was a pleasure that our house, including my study and office, was at the centre of the school.

Over the years my secretaries became close friends. Skinners Library was the venue for meetings and events of every kind. In our early years two refugees from a fire in Ferox Hall’s roof slept in one of our spare rooms until their housemaster recalled them to the house, after noticing that we were allowing them to stay up beyond their prescribed bedtime. Later in our time,

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we regularly took senior students. Joining other members of staff as guests at house lunches on weekdays helped to establish informal contacts with boys, and the coffee offered afterwards by housemasters to their guests added informally to more formal contacts. Most years I taught Latin to one or two Novi sets and a Lower VI form as well as general studies to Oxbridge candidates.

This involvement in the classroom brought home to me the extraordinary dedication of every member of the Common Room.

With the exception of myself, all, including housemasters, taught a full 29-period week in addition to their other duties.

Throughout my time, the administration of the school was overseen by a number of committees including Housemasters and Heads of Department, and through almost daily contacts with individual members of staff, boys and governors. The result is to remember my years as a time of conversation and innumerable friendships.

The ideal of friendship was one of the distinctive features of the school.

My headmastership ended in 1989. In the ensuing years, the school has grown from 630 to 780 boys. The staff-to-pupil ratio has grown more than commensurately. The Head is supported by a significant senior leadership team. Each house now has an assistant Housemaster and two or

“

I remember my years as a time of conversation and innumerable friendships.

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three House Tutors. IT exists on a scale undreamed of in the 1980’s. All these measures allow for a wider curriculum and a greater focus on boys’ academic and pastoral needs. Strong local community activity now extends to sponsorship of the Marsh Academy in the Rye marshes, including mutually beneficial links between the two schools and to an incipient link with a charity in Sri Lanka, offering assistance to street children.

The establishment of the Tonbridge Society as an official part of the school’s administration and as the umbrella body for the OT Society, the Parents Arts Society and the school’s development activities, means that the OT Society now has an official place in the governance of the school.

a substantial extension of the school’s buildings ranging from the new School House and the rebuilt chapel in the 1990’s, through the EM Forster Theatre, to the complete renovation of the Smythe Library, reopened by Princess Alexandra in late 2017. In 2019, a complete new Science Centre will be opened on the site of the former one.

Paradoxically, despite all these enhancements Tonbridge remains in appearance and even more in spirit, the school that Old Tonbridgians of every generation will remember, and that I remember joining in 1975.

2017-18 is Tim Haynes’s last year as Headmaster. At the dinner given for him by the OT Society Committee I was asked to thank him for his outstanding headmastership. I stressed not just his

commitment to all round excellence but above all his gift for developing a community that radiates a sense of unselfish joy and care for others. It is a school imbued with these values that his successor, James Priory (currently Headmaster of Portsmouth Grammar School) will inherit in September this year.

As for my Presidency, I am grateful for the way in which my year is bringing me into contact with Old Tonbridgians of every era (do visit the school if you can) and reminding me how lucky I am to have been associated for so many years with a community whose hallmarks include great energy, a respect for diversity, a sense of service and, in the words of a longstanding supporter, profound loving kindness.

Q A

Matching these developments has been

The

&

T I M H AY N E S

This summer, Tim Haynes will retire after twelve years of service to Tonbridge School. In this time, Tim has led an ambitious transformation of the campus, championed a culture of giving at the School, and was recently named ‘Best Head of Public School’ at Tatler’s prestigious School Awards. What will Tim take from his time at the School?

Teddy Trenowden (HS5) finds out. ...

Going back to the very start, twelve years ago what drew you to Tonbridge, and what were your first impressions of the school?

I suppose my teaching career. The first major job I’d had was at St Paul’s in London, which is a high powered day school. I landed up being the Deputy Head there, and went from there to Monmouth on the border of England and Wales to be the Headmaster. Monmouth is partly day and partly boarding. As I went through that experience, I was still quite young. I was probably going to try and go to another school, and a major school; I needed to work out whether I wanted to go into a major day school like St Paul’s, or to a major boarding school. And the more I was at Monmouth,

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the more I loved the sense of community and the boarding ethos that was certainly a part of the school there. And so, that’s the direction I went in. And so here I am.

The other part of this is that by sheer coincidence some old friends of mine – two sets of very old friends from my teens and early twenties – both live and lived in this area, so they knew the school. In fact one of them had sent their boys here. So I had a bit of an inside track in the school – more than I might have done otherwise.

I think a lot of people reading this, whether they be boys or OTs, might not be quite sure what a typical day consists of for you as Headmaster? I know there seems to be

“ I’ve been thrilled every time I’ve looked to appoint teachers. I’m constantly stunned by the quality of teachers we’re able to attract at Tonbridge.”

something different going on every day at Tonbridge.

type role. How do you step away and relax a bit?

Well I suppose it’s a bit like your day or a teacher’s typical day in that it’s pretty packed. And whereas you’re having lessons or teachers are giving lessons, my typical day comprises endless appointments mostly of around roughly 40 minutes.

And they’re either seeing prospective families – and I probably see around 300 a year, so that’s quite a lot – or it’s seeing individual teachers, or groups of teachers in meetings, or being off site at meetings about other schools or about groups of schools, or with other Heads. So there is no such thing as a typical day in my life; one day is never quite the same as the next. But they’re pretty packed with meetings of one sort or another.

Well I’m not sure I’m very good at stepping away and relaxing. Although I think that as the years have gone on I’ve probably grown more relaxed in doing the job itself. But I suppose the way I relax is in the holidays. You know, it’s a wonderful privilege in this job to have long holidays, although I need to work for some of them. So I’ve loved being able to travel extensively with my family.

A potential downside of that is that it’s quite difficult to find time to reflect and stand back, because you’re so caught up in the pace of it all; and a really important part of my job is to give and have a sense of direction of travel for the school.

Well, as you’re saying about having a really packed lifestyle, and for anyone who boards or is around at the weekend, people see you cycling around going to matches and Sunday night Chapel. It’s a very full on 24/7

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I’ve been fond of old cars, and used to own a 1934 Alvis. These days I own a slightly more modern 1972 restored TR6. So that’s a bit of fun in the summer months. As you may know, rather like the school, I own a couple of beehives that are great fun to maintain. And I also, unlike the school, own a couple of chickens, which keep me in eggs. So I’m hoping the school will one day start to keep some hens.

So looking at your 12 years as a whole – I can imagine you’ve probably been asked this quite a lot as you move on – but what would you look back on as the biggest achievements, as the things you’ll remember the most?

I suppose the easy and boring answer is

“ I’m thrilled to have been a part of this amazing school, and I think it’s become, and will continue to get better and better, stronger and stronger.”

that the campus has changed quite a lot in terms of the facilities and the feel of it. So the governors set me the challenge when I arrived of raising sufficient funds to build the Tonbridge Centre that we now take for granted. The indoor sports facilities before were pretty dire. And that has made a huge difference. And now as I leave, we’re completing another enormous project in modernising the science facilities.

I’ve been thrilled every time I’ve looked to appoint teachers. I’m constantly stunned by the quality of the teachers that we’re able to attract at Tonbridge. It gives me great pleasure to appoint such an amazing calibre of people.

What are your top 5 moments across the 12 years?

Well, I mean perhaps predictably, every year I think that House Music evening just before October half term is fantastic.

And of course just recently, the concert at Cadogan Hall was out of this world. Just wonderful. So that undoubtedly is there.

And you may remember a few years ago when the entire school sang that piece – we had a whole school concert – that was also a really powerful occasion. The year that the CRAS was run in deep snow, which was I think before your time, was an extraordinary and memorable afternoon.

And I rather fear, but not for such positive reasons, that I’ll remember the coming CRAS in a few weeks’ time, having foolishly said I’ll be in it.

I’ve loved what you mentioned before: that routine of going round the fields on Saturday afternoon on the bike, watching a bit of this or that match. Chatting to boys, chatting to parents, chatting to other teachers and just seeing the school alive and the whole site being used is a wonderful thing.

As you say, all these things are presented by the boys, all these House music competitions, they’re pushed forward by the boys. I guess my next question would be, what in your mind are the key traits of a Tonbridgian? What sets them apart?

Well I’ve often said, and I think it is true, that there is in Tonbridge boys a quiet self-confidence. My sense is that, overwhelmingly, the boys are comfortable in their own skin. Also, very rarely have I heard Tonbridge boys accused of being arrogant. I think that Tonbridge boys jokingly often seem rather proud of the fact that they’re last minute merchants, and will take things to the wire. It’s not a trait I think is enormously helpful in

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life - that Tonbridge boys certainly seem to leave things until the last moment.

Whether it’s preparation for exams or other big moments in their school life.

So we’ve talked a little bit about joining the school 12 years ago, looking back at 12 years, but I guess I’ll ask you next, looking forward what are your plans post-Tonbridge?

So we’re going to move back to the Wye Valley where I lived before. That’s one big change. And I will be involved in education in one way or another, but not as a Headmaster. I’ve already landed up being Chairman of Governors of another large school, in fact the school I went to as a boy – Shrewsbury. We’re going to become trustees of a wonderful small African charity called Rwanda Aid, which I’m really looking forward to. We went and visited Rwanda and saw some of their work last October and it was very moving and humbling to see what was being done in a very poor part of a very poor country, which has made amazing strides since the terrible genocide of 94. And I’ll also become involved in consultancy, helping Heads in other schools.

So, much as you’re going to have a massive change in your life, there’ll be a big change in school life with the incoming new Headmaster. What advice would you give to him coming in?

I think it’s really important to be your own man, and look at the place with fresh eyes, and there are always things that can be made better. And I guess that I’d apologise for all the things I haven’t done and that I should have done during my time.

On that note, looking back at everything, is there anything that you would do differently?

I’m sure there are lots of individual small things I would have done differently. But overwhelmingly, I’m thrilled to have been a part of this amazing school. And I think it’s become, and will continue to get, better and better, stronger and stronger.

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THE OTS AND THE TONBRIDGE SOCIETY DAV I D WA L S H Chair man of the Old Tonbridgian Society

O

ver the past two years there has been a fundamental change in the way the Old Tonbridgian Society manages its business and its relationship with the School.

Constituted in 1886, the OTS operated through an Honorary Secretary until 2002 when it established an office within the School, managed by a part-time Secretary who soon became full-time. The increasing scope and diversity of engagement with all generations of OTs made this model increasingly difficult to sustain and finance.

Therefore in 2017 the OTS Committee agreed to integrate the OTS office and administration within the wider umbrella of the Tonbridge Society, set up under Tim Haynes’s initiative in 2006.

This integrated Tonbridge Society office now supports the work of the OTS, the Tonbridge School Parents Arts Society and the Tonbridge School Foundation. As a result, within the office team, we have been able to expand the number of people dedicating their time to OT matters. John Gibbs, our much valued Secretary, has been joined by Rebecca Watson as OT Relations Manager and Katerina Ward as Digital Content Officer. Andy Whittall, the Director of the Tonbridge Society, oversees all aspects of OT stewardship and there are others within the Tonbridge Society office team who help with OT events and communications.

This new administrative structure has allowed us to expand what we can offer OTs in terms of both events and communications.

The OTS remains a separately constituted body with its own agenda and priorities, and the role of the OTS Committee is to work closely with the office to oversee all elements of our programme and to prioritise what we want in our engagement with OTs. Our remit remains ‘the objects of the Society’ as set out in our Rules – promoting links and fellowship between OTs, promoting OT knowledge of and engagement with the School, and encouraging and supporting separate OT clubs and societies. The success of the latter characterises all that we seek to achieve and we are very grateful to those who run these clubs. If there are ideas for new club or society initiatives out there, we shall be happy to support them.

The OTS has benefited from the decision of the School Governors to set up a new sub-committee to oversee the Tonbridge Society on which we have direct representation, the first time OTs have been directly represented on any area of school governance. We are also in the process of moving towards greater inclusivity by phasing out the OTS life membership subscription, so that all boys who pass through Tonbridge School will automatically become members of our

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Society. In return for this loss of income to the OTS, the School has taken on all the costs of OT stewardship – people, events and communications – and gives us a grant each year to support OT clubs. Among the developments currently in train are the creation of a new online portal for OTs, which will allow the sharing of news, a one-stop shop for events, and connection with social media sites and other means of networking, including careers support and advice. Focus on our digital communications has also seen the creation of an OT E-News which can support this much valued printed publication.

The Old Tonbridgian Society retains its individual identity and will continue to promote ‘links and fellowship’ between OTs. Our President, Christopher Everett, has written movingly in this edition of what Tonbridge means to him, and he will be succeeded in June by Lord Lisvane (previously Robert Rogers SH 1963-8), a distinguished Clerk of the House of Commons. This summer we bid farewell to Tim Haynes, who has done so much to promote good relations between the OT community and the School. There are exciting times ahead and I hope that OTs of every generation will engage with their Society and all that it has to offer.

coming soon...

With over 9,000 OTs in over 150 countries, the OT community is a strong and growing international network.

A private online platform for the OT community, Tonbridge Connect gives you access to an international network of Tonbridge professionals, opportunities such as mentoring, jobs, internships and introductions; and social opportunities such as events, clubs and news from OTs and the School.

For more information, contact:

Katerina Ward

Digital Content Officer kw@tonbridge-school.org

+44 (0) 1732 304253 OLD TONBRIDGIAN NEWS

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OT EV EN T S

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S AV E THE DAT E 20 April

WHITWORTH OT SUPPER Tonbridge School 7.00pm Calling all Old Whitworthians - Join us this April for a Reunion Supper at the School. Whitworth House will be open from 6.15pm for visits, followed by a drinks reception and two-course supper.

Tickets: £35 per head RSVP: tara.biddle@tonbridge-school.org 24 April

TLS: DOMINIC CARMAN ‘HEADS UP’ Cawthorne Lecture Theatre 8.00pm From Eton, Westminster and St Paul’s to Wycombe Abbey, Tonbridge and Winchester, this talk tells the inside story of the men and women running England’s leading independent schools.

10 May

ANNUAL OT DRINKS Skinners’ Hall An annual drinks party held in Skinners’ Hall, London for all OTs. Traditionally this event brings together Old Tonbridgians from London and its surrounding counties for an opportunity to network with other like minds.

15 May

TLS: ROBIN MORRISH - EM FORSTER: Memories of one of our finest twentieth century authors at Cambridge Cawthorne Lecture Theatre 8.00pm Robin Morrish, a distinguished member of the English department at Tonbridge for thirty years, was a choral scholar at King’s College Cambridge, where he came to know E M Foster.

11 June

OT SUMMER LUNCH Skinners’ Hall Back by popular demand, the 2018 Over 55 Lunch will again be held at the Skinners’ Hall in London. Most years we see approximately 80 Old Tonbridgians join for this annual occasion not to be missed!

21 June

17 May

LUNCH FOR PAST PRESIDENTS OF THE OT COMMITTEE

TLS: PATRICIA FARA - A LAB OF ONE’S OWN: Science and Suffrage in the First World War

Tonbridge School

Cawthorne Lecture Theatre 8.00pm

Thanking all the Past Presidents of the Old Tonbridgian Society, we invite you back to the School for lunch with the Headmaster and the OTS Chairman.

2018 marks a double centenary: peace was declared in Europe, and British women won the vote.

This lecture reveals the untold lives of female scientists, doctors and engineers who helped win the War.

5 June

23 June

TLS: PHILLIP DEAKIN - A $2bn mistake: Why BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig blew up in the Gulf of Mexico Cawthorne Lecture Theatre 8.00pm In this interactive talk by Tonbridge School’s Head of Physics, the multiple failures that led to the disaster are explained and discussed; suitable for a technical and non-technical audience.

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OT CRICKET REUNION Tonbridge School For OTs who played in the 1st XI Cricket team in their time at Tonbridge between the years 1985 and 1989. We invite you back to Tonbridge School to watch the current 1st XI team play.

For more information, contact:

Rebecca Watson

OT Relations Manager OTS@tonbridge-school.org

+44 (0) 1732 304253 www.otsociety.tonbridge-school.co.uk/events

June TBC

27 September

17 November

British Columbia

Skinners’ Hall

Tonbridge School

Meet up with like-minded OTs living in Western Canada. This event is kindly hosted by John G. Smith (HS 49-54). All are welcome to attend.

The 2018 Annual OT Dinner welcomes our incoming OT Society President, The Lord Lisvane KCB DL (SH 63-68), who will Chair the dinner and give an opening speech.

Approximately 130 OTs take part in this annual dinner, each year.

We welcome all OTs from the 40s, 50s, and 60s back to Chapel, followed by tours and lunch at Tonbridge School.

June TBC

October TBC

24 November

New York

Tonbridge School

The AGM will be held at Skinners’ Hall. Attendance is open to all OTs.

Hosted by Dom McMullen (PH 9297) and Ignacio Jayanti (Sc 81-86) the 2018 Annual USA Dinner will be held at the Brook Club, New York City, USA.

For OTs who played in the 1st XV Rugby team in their time at Tonbridge between the years 1980 and 1984. We invite you back to Tonbridge School to watch the current 1st XV team play.

7 July

5-11 November

9 December

OT CANADA REUNION

OTS ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING Skinners’ Hall

SKINNERS’ DAY Tonbridge School OT parents of current boys are warmly welcomed to attend the School awards and leavers’ ceremony, followed by a programme of events across the day.

OT ANNUAL DINNER

OT WINTER LUNCH

OT ANNUAL USA DINNER

CENTENARY OF THE ARMISTICE

CAROL SERVICE St Augustine’s Chapel

Tonbridge School Marking the end of the First World War, 11th November 1918. There will be a events throughout the week in commemoration of the fallen, 100 years on.

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All OTs and Judde Society members are invited to attend either the 4pm or 7pm Carol Service and join us beforehand for a drinks reception at 5.30pm. For more details please email our office.

TONBRIDGE MUSIC COMES TO CADOGAN HALL N I C K E L LW O O D

More than a hundred boys from the school took to the stage to perform in a special concert at London’s Cadogan Hall on Friday 19 January.

The concert, Celebrating Tonbridge School Music, showcased the many diverse talents of boys, past and present. There were moving performances from an Old Tonbridgian Vocal Group and the Chapel Choir – the latter singing pieces by Parry, Mendelssohn and a work especially composed for the choir by the school’s Composer in Residence, Hywel Davies.

Members of the cast of this year’s school play, the musical Chess, performed a medley of songs from the production.

The Big Band brought the first half to a rousing finish with several well-known pieces including Blue Skies, Soul Man and It’s Only A Paper Moon. After the interval, the Massed String Orchestra and Symphony

Orchestra took their turns in the spotlight.

The Massed String Orchestra performe d Arvo Pärt’s Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten, while the Symphony Orchestra played the overture from Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet.

Mark Forkgen, Director of Music, said: “It was a fantastic opportunity for Tonbridgians from different eras to make music together, performing such a wide range with dedication and commitment.”

The Headmaster, who addressed the audience at the start of the show, added: “This unique event gave us the opportunity to celebrate the great and diverse musical talents we have at Tonbridge. It was a magical night that will live long in the memory, and is a memory I will take with me as I move through my final year at the school.”

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PROJECT HOPE J AYA R AV I N D R A N ( P S 8 3 - 8 8 )

“If your heart stops, we obviously won’t be resuscitating you” …I had discussed this situation many times before with my patients as a doctor but this was my first time as a patient. The irony and paradox didn’t really hit me at the time, it seemed surreal and distant, as I was still alive and well, although the leukaemia had a terminal prognosis.

T

he discussion continued but I was in the “de-personalised” zone: detached and drawn into this familiar vortex of despair and terror that I had experienced a few times since my diagnosis of leukaemia/lymphoma in October 2014. Then, as it was now, the fear and panic subsided surprisingly quickly, and I was reconnected with reality. I have reflected on my life story on many occasions during this rollercoaster ride of the last 3 years.

Tonbridge School, and my time there, is still vivid and fresh. The memories kept present by my long-term friendships with OTs Thoby Solheim (formerly Barlow, PS 83-88), Simon Mott (PS 84-89), Giles Pitman (PS 84-89), Denis Czech (WH 83-88) and James Price (SH 83-88) to name a few.

People say you remember the first and last days most clearly and this certainly rings true with me. I was pretty awestruck on the first day. The aura of tradition and history everywhere on boards, trophies and oars on the wall. The powerful organ in a vast chapel, and the organised procession of teachers and pupils in their gowns. I was acutely aware of my Indian-Malay heritage: another layer that perhaps separated me from my peers who already seemed to stride and converse with confidence.

Would I match up? The roll-call at tea time at Parkside didn’t help. I was self-conscious of my pre-pubescent voice amongst the

deep booms of those in the year above – they seemed like men to my childlike eyes.

It didn’t take long though, as we grew up together in the trenches of adolescence.

Traditions, hierarchies, rituals, banter and privileged opportunities in academia, sports music and art.

challenges. In this respect, Rheumatology with its fair share of rarities was a particular draw. I had always wanted to become a doctor: my mind is drawn fondly to those days of dissecting rats in Biology and exploding fume cupboards in the Chemistry department.

Overall, my reflection is that of gratitude to my friends and their families who looked after me as well as the teachers and my Housemaster. Boarding as a Malaysian in England had its pluses and minuses though I do regret that I couldn’t have a closerknit family life, being so far from home in a foreign land. My housemaster, Geoff Allibone, became very much a fatherfigure to me. I really enjoyed the unique friendships we forged which remain today.

Nothing since has matched it in terms of the strength of friendship. I personally enjoyed all the subjects I was taught by excellent teachers, though I was constantly hanging on to the coat tails of my illustrious scholarly peers.

I was married in 1998 and my daughter was born in 2006. Life was heading in a fairly steady direction until my diagnosis of leukaemia/lymphoma came out of the blue in 2014. I have had heavy duty chemotherapy and a fair share of complications, including: bleeding in the brain, infection requiring intensive care treatment with gangrenous toes and fingers, pneumonia and relapses. The last relapse after my bone marrow transplant in late Summer 2017 meant I had an incurable situation.

I left Tonbridge School with confidence, and a sense of discipline, determination and resilience. This helped me through my next phase of life at Medical School at Nottingham University. My subsequent path has been pretty well trodden: as a Medical Student to Junior Doctor, and finally Rheumatology Consultant, a post to which I was appointed in Coventry in 2004. I very much enjoyed the privilege and interest of being a Doctor, especially the diagnostic

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“Despite my terminal illness, I felt compelled to get my poetry into print, whilst at the same time to find purpose in my journey with leukemia.”

I remember clearly talking to my family. We were crying together but through the tears my daughter said to me “stop crying Daddy and be strong”. This was the switch to get my house in order, and also, for me to focus on a lifelong ambition of getting my poetry published.

I have been passionate about poetry since those Arcadian days in the English Department at Tonbridge with Jonathan Smith, and have been writing poetry since my medical student days. Despite my terminal illness, I felt compelled to get my poetry into print, whilst at the same time to find purpose in my journey with leukaemia, and raise money for two charities close to my heart: the Anthony Nolan Trust and Bloodwise. These combined ambitions have led to my setting up of Project Hope.

Through the process of raising money I have realised that dream of getting my poetry into print, alongside the captivating artwork of fellow doctor Darren Emillanos, a book that shares my journey from becoming a doctor to becoming a patient with cancer, the rocky road of chemotherapy, remission and relapse,

and the avalanche of heartbreak, terror and gratitude of my journey. I would be most grateful to all OTs who read this and donate to the project, and I would be thrilled to send you a copy of my poetry as a gift.

Not only have my OT friends been there supporting me during my cancer journey but they have helped me to realise my dream. My poetry is now in print, Project Hope is alive and well. Without Thoby Solheim’s help I would not have realised my project with its protean (and entirely foreign to me!) components of publishing, website-building, vlogs, crowdfunding and email campaigns. During this journey, I have also had the special privilege of reconnecting with other OT friends as well as my past Housemaster, Geoff Allibone.

I feel very privileged and grateful to have had the life I have had, and to have experienced the bond with my friends, bound by that golden thread of camaraderie forged when we were boys.

Tonbridge School has been very much central to this.

Find out more about Project Hope at: http://jayaravindran.com/ OLD TONBRIDGIAN NEWS

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PHONING FOR THE FUTURE Y VET TE YOUNG ED CULLINEY (FH 09-14)

2 weeks of calling

14 callers 439 conversations

L

ast year’s Telephone campaign was a remarkable success; engaging conversations, the exchange of college experiences, Old Tonbridgian careers and over £90,000 was raised to support current boys and future generations of Old Tonbridgians. The funds so generously donated by those we spoke with will go towards the Foundation Award programme and the new state-of-the-art Science Centre.

In addition to this support, the telephone campaign succeeded in engaging many OTs who have not been back to Tonbridge or involved with the School for many years. Our team of young OTs benefited from valuable advice and experience whilst also learning about the School’s past, and we hope that those they spoke to enjoyed learning about the School’s present and future.

One of our callers this year was Ed Culliney (FH 09 – 14) a final year History student at Durham University who has written about his experience of the campaign.

The training for the telethon prepared us for as many call outcomes as possible, from those who didn’t want to talk at all, to those keen to discuss their time at the school and their careers. After familiarising ourselves with the Excellence for All campaign we had practice calls with one another.

It could be hours or even days at a time in

For more information, contact: Yvette Young Development and Operations Manager

1500+ records updated

between successful calls, but the atmosphere among the fundraisers was very supportive.

We’d have challenges each day over getting through to someone of the same House or having a call for over twenty minutes. Over the course of the two weeks the team was able to raise over £90,000 thanks to the generosity of the OT donors. So despite some frustrations over getting through to people, we did have a very rewarding campaign.

I was fortunate enough to have some very illuminating calls with OTs and parents. I was able to call my old prep school Rugby coach and History teacher, having not spoken to him in several years, which was certainly a highlight of the campaign. It gave me the opportunity to thank him for instilling a love of history in me from such a young age. It was also great to be able to reminisce with OTs about the school and share with them the projects that the school was undertaking. The calls that led to a donation gave me a great sense of accomplishment made all the more satisfying by the conversation that preceded it. There were cases where people were unable to donate but were very interested to hear about the school today and happy to offer advice.

The campaign was beneficial for the fundraisers as well. As a student going into my final year at university it was great to gain some insight from OTs at different stages of their careers in

ydy@tonbridge-school.org

32% chose to support with an average gift of £230

the fields I’m considering. I learnt a lot from their experiences, which has certainly provided me with direction in what can be an intimidating period of trying to avoid looming unemployment.

It was a pleasure to return to Tonbridge and to give back in some measure. We were treated exceptionally throughout with meals provided by the Orchard Centre and even beer and pizza on our final day. It was a great experience for me and one that I am grateful to Tonbridge for giving me the opportunity to be involved in.

A big thank you to this year’s telephone campaign team and to all those who have taken the time to chat, and for all your generous support whether it’s financial or kindly offering careers advice.

We look forward to working with another group of recent leavers in future years and hope that you will take the time to speak with one of our callers and enjoy a conversation as much as our boys do.

“ As a student going into my final year at university it was great to gain some insight from OTs at different stages of their careers.”

+44 (0) 1732 304253

www.excellence-for-all.org

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ALL THINGS WINTER K AT E R I N A WA R D

L

ate in life, William Winter (FH 55-59) has embraced two things closely associated with the coldest season of the year, and with it, nominative determinism – the theory that people tend to gravitate to areas of work that fit their names. Carolling and skiing are two passions fit for someone by the name of Winter. But it’s only relatively recently that this has been on his radar.

“Until I was about 60 no one, absolutely no one, ever pointed out anything curious about my name. It is after all common in Hungary where my paternal grandfather came from. It was the Americans I skied with in Canada who first pointed it out.”

It wasn’t until reaching middle age that William began to pursue his lifelong enjoyment of skiing as a career.

“At the ripe age of 52 I became a ‘’rep’’ for the Ski Club of Great Britain. Early retirement at 61 allowed me to ‘rep’ for 3 months every winter and aided by my wife, we bought an apartment in Haute Nendaz, Switzerland so we could ski all winter, every winter.

I repped in Murren, Crans, Soell, Klosters, Sun Peaks (Canada - the best), Aspen and led holidays in Crans, St Anton (the most fun), Lake Louise, Fernie and Wengen. And my wife became an adept back marker, picking people up and telling me when someone was getting tired.”

William’s interest in skiing began during his childhood in Canada.

“My father went to Canada for 3 years when I was 12. I returned to school at Tonbridge when 14, a year ahead of my parents. I started skiing in Canada (Ottawa) in that period with no lessons, old fashioned lace up soft leather boots and wooden skis with no edges. Oh memories.

Oh yes, and only rope tows.”

“I didn’t ski again till after school and after Cambridge (lack of funds) and like to dream that if the funds had been there I might have won a half blue but they weren’t, and I didn’t.”

He now not only skis daily, but also regularly goes on adrenaline-fuelled heli-skiing trips, accessing remote terrain

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by helicopter in order to ski some of the hardest to reach slopes. His next trip is due to take place in April 2018, when he will be aged 77.

William has also brought with him to Switzerland a little piece of home, each year conducting English language Christmas Carols at the resort. “[When we arrived] we discovered that there was not a trace of traditional English Christmas available for tourists or property owners. So, 8 or 9 years ago, I started openair unaccompanied carol singing in English – all the traditional ones but limited to what people knew, and by how long people could stand in the snow.”

“Dr Bunney would have turned in his grave at the sound, but I think he would have approved. We had 30 singers that first year, 40 the next and 150 the year after. Now we regularly have 200-300 people of all ages and nationalities, but the carols are all still firmly in English, with French translations available, and the Tourist Office have adopted it as their own and provide nibbles and vin chaud.”

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THE LEGACY OF JOHN BETJEMAN J O N AT H A N S M I T H Former Head of English at Tonbridge School, Jonathan Smith’s radio plays, Mr Betjeman’s class and Mr Betjeman regrets were broadcast on Radio 4 on Christmas Day and Boxing Day, 2017.

The plays were the final performances of distinguished OT actor, Ben Whitrow (Sc 50-55), who sadly passed away in September 2017.

The following article was published in the New Statesman, 4 December 2017

T

he quickest way to start a punch-up between two British literary critics,” Philip Larkin suggested, “is to ask them what they think of the poems of Sir John Betjeman.” I know what he means. In 1960 I bought Summoned by Bells, Betjeman’s verse autobiography, and I placed the hardback proudly on the bookshelf in my undergraduate rooms. Everyone who came in pointed at it and laughed.

-Betjeman?

-Yes. -John Bet-je-man?

-Yes. -You’re not serious? Phone for the fishknives, Norman.

-What do you mean?

-You’re not saying he’s any good?

-I think he – -For God’s sake, Jonathan, he’s a joke.

-Is he? You think so?

-I mean, come on.

After a week of this I took down Summoned

By Bells and stuffed it in a drawer, under my socks and underpants, where even I couldn’t see it. It was that embarrassing.

For most of my life I have been “on” Betjeman, if mostly under cover. A few years ago in Cornwall, sitting in the St Enodoc churchyard where he is buried (near the lych gate), I started to re-read his collected

poems, all of them, which led me to his letters and finally to the biographies. Out of this long absorption came two plays, but I always knew who I wanted as Betjeman, and that was Benjamin Whitrow.

life. Not that it feels like that: it feels much more like falling in love over and over again. One day, without consciously looking for her, you come across a writer new to you, and suddenly everything is different.

Ben Whitrow “got” Mr Bennet in Pride and You catch her eye, you hear her voice, you Prejudice and he was the best Justice start to circle the table on which she lies, Shallow ever in Henry IV Part 2, and I knew, even the shelf on which she sits, and you if anyone could, he would be Betjeman. reach out. Yes, you like her. Yes, she’s got He would be funny, moving, vulnerable, it. And in no time at all, back you go to the understated, and mischievous: he allows same writer. You want more, she shakes the line, and he steals up on you. To my you up, you want to see her again, the way delight, and to his, late in September we happily met up in BBC Maida Vale studios the sun lights up the sky. She speaks to you like no one else. You want to be with her on to record the plays. the train, on the bus, in bed.

* * Read anything good lately?

At Tonbridge the other night I went to a lecture by Jeanette Winterson. It What a great start to a conversation that was uplifting. She talked of her life as is, even a chat-up line, and what a simple an adopted child, the violent domestic move towards the intimacy which two clashes, her refuge in her public library imaginations and a shared hinterland can bring. Asked the question, read anything in Accrington, her days at Oxford, her good lately?, I notice people come alive, sexuality and much more. But time and again she returned to books, books, books, their eyes spark up, and their voices gain and then, as I hoped she would, she read persuasive energy. from Why Be Happy When You Could Be Though it is often taken as a disparaging Normal? phrase, you could say I have led a bookish

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“ [Whitrow] would be funny, moving, vulnerable, understated, and mischievous: he allows the line, and he steals up on you.”

I do mean the whole bang lot, including Henry VI Parts 1,2 and 3, and my God they were heavy going. Some plays I tap into straightaway, e.g The Merchant of Venice and Henry V, while others are clearly great but somehow slip through my fingers, my fault I’m sure, e.g Measure for Measure and The Tempest.

When I was young I was all for tragedy.

If the play didn’t end badly I wanted to know why. In those days I looked down on comedy and particularly on musical “shows,” where you were obliged to leave your brain in the foyer, yet recently I sat watching Mamma Mia! on tv and singing along to the words at the bottom of the screen. O, what a fall was there, as Mark Antony said over Caesar’s corpse. But as there is now less time left I am looking, in Betjeman’s phrase, for the bonus of laughter.

* All was going well in the Maida Vale studios in late September, and we were three quarters of the way through recording the Betjeman plays, when I had a call at 11 pm saying that Ben Whitrow had had a fall at home. The next day, September 28th, he died. We met in the green room, shocked almost beyond words. Yesterday Ben was there, right there, with us, giving his final performance. Today he was gone.

In order to complete the second play, She did all this without once looking up Bruce Young, the director, has re-ordered at a screen, and without resorting to a the scenes so that it works when Robert powerpoint. Dressed in black, she walked Bathurst takes over being Ben being on stage and stood there and spoke Betjeman. without a note for over an hour. She held us as easily and naturally as she held the It feels as right as it could be. Ben Whitrow book in her fingers. She was profound and and Robert Bathurst were friends. Indeed witty, serious and playful, and you felt the they played golf together on the St Enodoc full force of her extraordinary mind. What course in Cornwall, where Betjeman an example to the world of teaching! I am The edition of Shakespeare I’m using himself occasionally played, and they liked still cheering. is a single volume with double column to quote bits of his poems at each other,

format, coming in at 1380 pages, which only a few shots from the churchyard * is effectively 2760 pages. The trouble is I where he lies. Near the lych gate. fell asleep the other night while reading As well as the Collected Betjeman I have Henry VI Part 3 and woke up at 2 am, dazed been reading someone on whom the and disorientated, with the book on my literary critics do agree. I am taking on, face. If it had been a rugby match I would for the first time, The Complete Works of have been taken off for a concussion Shakespeare. As a lifelong English teacher assessment. you might think this a bit late, and it is, but

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S PA C E F O R G I A N T S ADAM KERR (PH 79-84)

I cannot remember a time that I was not obsessed with elephants. Whether it was my cousins living in South Africa sending endless photos of elephants or the influence of watching Daktari or Life on Earth in my early years that created this yearning to spend time in Africa, I’m not sure.

B

ut my first taste of Africa wouldn’t be until university – a group of ten of us spent a month in Kenya, including a week on the infamous Turkana bus. An unforgettable journey to what seemed like the hottest place on earth, a magical lake in the middle of a moonscape of a desert, where the local people live in upturned wicker baskets. On our way back, we passed through Samburu where I saw my first glimpse of elephants in the wild, which is when the obsession really took hold.

Having completed my Land Economy degree, I got a job with Cushman & Wakefield in the West End of London, where I continued to play as much rugby as I could whilst holding down a job. My 3 years at Magdalene College had sparked a deep love of the game which largely ruled my weekly existence. I was almost qualified as a chartered surveyor when I landed a job with Knight Frank to set up an office for them in Francistown, Botswana. Interestingly, at the time I had become disillusioned with surveying and was considering a career change. I found my job unfulfilling and felt strangely trapped in a world with a narrow path to a limited horizon.

Moving to Botswana changed everything.

It was an unbelievable opportunity to run my own business at the age of twenty-four within the safety net of a large organisation. A baptism of fire in an environment completely unused to paying fees for property advice. Francistown was a dusty frontier town that had attracted an interesting mix of characters. It was also the gateway to the north, to the Okavango, Moremi, Savuti, and my favourite place, Chobe which was always teeming with elephants. It was also 80 kilometres from the Zimbabwe border and we frequently travelled to a number of their game parks, private lodges and Victoria Falls.

Rugby in Botswana was basic but strangely epic. Our pitch was a flattened dusty piece of bush with lime wash roughly painted in the dirt for lines, and played in 40°C heat.

Whilst I was there, we managed to fence the pitch, sink a borehole for irrigation and eventually we had a grassed surface! There were nine sides in the country, some two days drive away on the other side of the Kalahari Desert, where we played on a sand pitch with maize meal for lines. By halftime we had most of the local village’s sheep arranged up and down each line eating the maize – mayhem! A Botswana national side was created and I was lucky enough to be picked for their first ever International

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played against Kenya in Nairobi. We won 2725, slightly fortunately as they dropped the ball over the line twice in the last 5 minutes!

Over the last 23 years we have travelled to Africa almost every year, mainly to Kenya, where we have family (on my wife’s side) and many friends. Every time we have gone to Kenya we spend time in the bush, always aiming to spend as much time as possible watching elephants. It was this well publicised obsession that led to an invitation to the launch of a new elephant charity, Space for Giants, at the House of Lords about 6 years ago. It was here that I met the charity’s founder, Max Graham, who has since become a close friend.

Space for Giants protects Africa’s elephants from immediate threats like poaching, while working to secure their habitats forever in landscapes facing greatly increasing pressures. Their activities initially centred on the Laikipia region in Kenya, but have more recently expanded to run projects in Gabon, Uganda and Botswana. As around 100 elephants are killed every day across Africa, it is critical that charities like Space for Giants are empowered to safeguard this magical species. As human population is now growing exponentially, African wildlife and its natural habitat is under greater threat than at any stage in its history

“ African wildlife and its natural habitat is under greater threat than at any stage in its history, and many species face the prospect of extinction in our lifetime.”

and many species face the prospect of extinction in our lifetime. By protecting the rangelands that support elephants, you protect the natural habitat for the full range of African wildlife.

Over the last few years I have done a number of slightly bizarre things to raise money for the charity. It was one of Saracens’ chosen charities a few years ago so I raised teams to dress as elephants and rattle buckets at various matches. I also climbed Mount Kenya in an elephant suit with a few University mates where we collectively raised over £80,000. This feat was repeated a couple of years later for the charity by a team from Saracens who took the Premiership trophy to the top of Mount Kenya.

For the last two years, I have taken part in the Devizes to Westminster canoeing race to raise money and awareness for Space for Giants and raised a further £12k in the process. The race covers 125 miles on

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the water with about 25 miles of running around 73 portages over three days, camping by the river overnight.

I have also recently taken a two-month sabbatical from my job at Legal & General to work with the charity in Kenya, where I was involved in trying to develop ways in which the charity could take more of a hand in managing or owning land across Laikipia. This involved spending time in some of the most beautiful places in Kenya which happened to be teeming with elephants at the time. A nice change from my desk in the City!

I have been very fortunate that my three great passions of rugby, elephants (and the African bush), and the world of property have given me some incredible opportunities and experiences. However, above all, my time with the charity has made me realise that individuals, like Max, can make a difference to our world however daunting the odds.

JEREMY SKIPPER - has been awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List for services to agriculture in the East Midlands.

(MH 1949-54) JAMES WILLIAMS - has been awarded an MBE in the New Years Honours List for Services to the Shrievalty and the local community.

(Sc 54-59) PETER EAGLES - has been ordained Bishop of Sodor & Man. (Modern Languages 82-86) GUY NEWEY - has been appointed to her Majesty’s Most Honourable Privy Council following his appointment as Lord Justice of Appeal.

(SH 72-76) SAM POPE - has been cast as Steve Marriott, the lead singer of the Small Faces, in a musical about this iconic 60’s band.

The show ( All or Nothing) is currently touring and opened in the Arts Theatre in February 2018.

(SH 03-08) ANDREW ALLAN - has been granted a Commission in the Royal Artillery, having successfully completed the Commissioning Course at RMA Sandhurst.

(WW 04-09) JERRY CUMMINS - has been awarded a starred First Class degree in Human, Social and Political Sciences from Homerton College, Cambridge.

(WW 08-12) THEO DODDS - will be competing in the next Shooting World Championships in New Zealand, where he is the adjutant for the British under 25 team.

(WW 08-13) HARRY FOSTER-POWELL - has been made a Scholar of St John’s College, Cambridge for gaining a First Class result in exams. Harry is studying Maths and also has been awarded a College Prize and a Baylis Scholarship.

(CH 10-15)

KEITA KASHIMA- was awarded the top First in Classical Moderations at Oxford, winning the prizes for Greek, Latin and Comparative Philology.

(PS 10-15) BEN EARL- scored his first Aviva Premiership try in a match against Exeter Chiefs in March 2018. This year, he was also named in the England U20 squad for the second year in a row.

(JH 11-16) PAK HEI HAO- has been awarded a Shaw Lefevre Scholarship by Somerville College in recognition of achieving a distinction in his first public History examination.

(PS 12-16) DAN EDWARDS - is playing for Holcombe Hockey Club alongside the current England Captain and Nick Bandurak (Tonbridge Hockey Academy Assistant), who is currently the League’s top scorer.

(CH 12-17) OSCAR BURNETT - has completed his Gold Duke of Edinburgh Award.

(WW 12-17) ENGAGEMENTS SOUTAR The engagement is announced between William, son of Mr and Mrs Tim Soutar, of Tidebrook, East Sussex, and Imogen, daughter of Mr and Mrs Nicholas Harris, of Kingston Lisle, Oxfordshire (PH 02-07) GIBSON The engagement is announced between James, son of Mr and Mrs Derek Gibson of Herne Hill, London and Harriet, eldest daughter of the late Mr Clive Dennison of Hexham, Northumberland, and Mrs Brigid Dennison of Fenwick, Northumberland.

(Sc 03-08) BIRTHS CULLEN On 24th September 2017, to Nick and his wife Katherine, a daughter, Dorothy Rose.

(HS 02-07) SOLHEIM On 5th February 2018, to Thobias Solheim (formerly Barlow) and his wife Carla Solheim, a son, Hroarr Solheim.

(PS 83-88)

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N O T IC E S

OWEN CHADWICK - a memorial plaque in Westminster Abbey has been dedicated to Owen Chadwick and his bother Henry, in honour of their significant contribution to the study of Theology and the history of the Church.

(Sc 29-35)

“

We couldn’t really walk properly when we got to dry land as our balance had gone.”

PIC TURE BY BEN DUFFY

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Share yours with the OT Society OTS@tonbridge-school.org

OARDINARY BOYS PROVE EXTRAORDINARY N I C K E L LW O O D

O cross the Atlantic.

Ts George Randell (Sc 0813) and Oli Glanville (PH 08-13) rowed themselves into the history books as they became the second fastest pair in history to

As competitors in the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge, billed as the ‘world’s toughest row’, the pair took part in a 3,000 mile race which tested their endurance, spirit and teamwork to the limit over the course of 37 gruelling days at sea.

In an incredibly hard-fought battle, George and Oli – competing under their team name The Oardinary Boys – finished second to rivals Row2Recovery by just two hours. The winning team paid tribute by waiting for the pair to join them at the dining table for a first celebratory meal back on dry land.

At the same time as world records were being broken in the challenge, hundreds of thousands of pounds were also being raised for charities across the globe. George and Oli set themselves a goal of reaching £60,000 for their chosen charities, The Against Malaria Foundation and Alzheimer’s Research UK, and are close to achieving their target.

Oli reflected on the pair’s incredible adventure, which started in the Canary Islands in December and ended in Antigua on 20 January. The race saw them brave storms, exhaustion, seasickness and extreme danger – on three occasions their boat capsized in stormy waters. “It was a true baptism of fire in the opening days as we had no real protection against some serious weather that came our way,” he said. “The first storm was quite scary, but living in our wet clothes and having to plough on regardless was perhaps the biggest test of endurance.”

The pair operated a system of ‘two hours on, two hours off’ during their marathon row – one tried to sleep while the other sweated it out with the oars. And while they had been friends since childhood – a friendship then cemented at Tonbridge School – conditions also tested their team ethic. In the vastness of the Atlantic, they only had each other for company for more than a month. Their 24-foot boat offered just enough room to sleep inside, with extreme tiredness and hallucinations becoming commonplace.

“Looking back on it, we can’t really remember where the time went,” Oli added.

“We tried to keep each other’s spirits up,

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sometimes with word games and riddles, and other times with just enjoying the silence, looking at the sea and appreciating the whole experience.”

George admitted to feeling “completely broken” by having come so close to overall victory, but said he quickly came to appreciate how amazing their adventure had been. “We closed in on the winning team before they finally pulled away,” he said. “But I will take so many memories away with me, not least that we broke a previous world record. The scene as we approached the finish at Antigua, with the sun setting, was just beautiful. At first we couldn’t really walk properly when we got on to dry land, as our balance had gone, but our spirits soon recovered when we treated ourselves to some days on the beach.”

It is estimated that the pair lost 20 per cent of their bodyweight during their time at sea, burned 10,000 calories a day and took 1.5 million oar strokes. Just 500 people have previously rowed the Atlantic – more people have been to space or climbed Everest.

O Ts I N N E W F I L M A D A P TA T I O N O F JOURNEY’S END K AT E R I N A WA R D

O

Ts Nick Denton (WW 08-13) and Theo Dodds (WW 08-13) re-enact life in the trenches in new film adaptation of R. C. Sherriff’s play Journey’s End, in cinemas on Friday 2nd February.

This is the second high-profile World War One production the boys have been involved in since working as extras with a consultancy that provides historical military services for the film and television industries. The pair featured in Sainsbury’s 2014 Christmas advert, made in partnership with the Official Royal British Legion, and inspired by the extraordinary Christmas truce of 1914.

Following the success of the advert, Nick and Theo were recruited as extras in Journey’s End, and appear in scenes together, including a dramatic battle at the end of the film. “We’d wait around on set, just slightly out of view, and wait to be called in as extras and be placed in part of the trench or fill out a scene,” Nick explains.

Nick later became a continuity extra, regularly featuring in shots alongside the film’s main actors. “It’s kind of strange because you’re in the presence of people that you love, that you watched on telly, or that you’ve seen in other films,” he said.

“Just to work with those kinds of people in such close proximity and watch them at work as well, it’s just great to be honest.”

Set in the trenches near Saint-Quentin, Aisne, towards the end of the First World War in 1918, the film gives a glimpse into the conditions soldiers faced. “There was something very humbling about putting on the uniform and actually going out to these trenches,” Nick added. “It’s remarkable to think what men my age and younger would have gone through.”

Journey’s End was released in cinemas this February, 100 years after the events of the Spring Offensive.

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Then & NOW K AT E R I N A WA R D From Football to Facilities, Technology to Tradition, a lot has changed at Tonbridge since the 80’s. In this series, we bring together Heads of House, past and present to look at how life at Tonbridge has changed over the decades. First up – Head of House for Hill Side, Oli Ward (H5) meets his predecessor, Andrew Sturcke (88-93), and conversation quickly turns to that allimportant question – who had the better room?

A: My room was at the top of the stairs overlooking the gardens, which was great other than in the summer term when I was supposed to be working, and there were people outside in the sunshine, and I thought, ‘I’d rather be out there’. Where’s the Head of House room now?

O: So you walk down the hill at the side, come in the ground floor entrance, and then you’ve got the dining room right there, then if you turned right A: That used to be the PCR – the Praes Common Room – down there.

O: There was a school Praes Common Room? We need to bring that back.

A: Yeah you should. It sounds as though they’ve done something with that, and that’s now your room. There was a kitchen down there. When I say kitchen, I mean an area where you can make toast, cups of tea.

O: A brew room.

A: That was where we had an intercom.

O: An intercom?

A: Yeah. You had an intercom, and there

were designated people who had to make sure the PCR had milk and bread.

O: That’s awesome.

A: And if you ran out, there was this intercom, and speakers on every floor, and you’d just shout at whoever…

O: [Laughing] That’s so funny A: …whichever poor sod was on duty, and you’d shout for them, and the idea was that they’d come running. So that’s obviously gone?

O: That’s gone.

A: That’s all part of the vaguely indentured servitude that used to go on in olden times.

O: The hierarchical element has probably gone a bit compared to your day. The Novi still have to go in defence in the Orchard.

They’re not allowed out of defence.

But we’re not allowed to shout at them through an intercom and make them bring us bread and milk.

A: I was probably one of the last generations where you had initiations and

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hazings and things like that. I can’t quite remember what they were, I probably erased it from my memory. It was probably nothing too far removed from an I’m a Celebrity Bushtucker Trial, or something like that. Quite rightly I think they were starting to be stamped out in my final year.

O: There’s a big emphasis on that now. As in, making it sort of a great experience for everyone rather than for two thirds of people. * A: What’s the food like now, still stodgy?

O: Yep A: Good breakfast every day?

O: Of sorts. Not a proper full cooked breakfast. Something hot, but quite often it’s just a croissant.

A: Just a croissant? Unbelievable. * O: So there’s a tradition that’s just in Hill Side that the Head of House every year leaves something for the room. So it’s got better and better every year.

A: They leave something good obviously?

Not an old sandwich down the back of a

HILL SIDE HOUSE PHOTO, 1989. ANDREW STRUCKE STANDS IN THE TOP ROW, 5TH FROM THE LEFT

HILL SIDE HOUSE PHOTO, 2017. OLIVER WARD IS SEATED IN THE SECOND ROW, 8TH FROM THE LEFT

PIC TURE BY BEN DUFFY

sofa.

O: Yeah. So when I came into the room this year there was already an L-shaped sofa at one end, a fridge, a massive bean bag, a coffee table.

A: When you go into halls you’re going to be like, ‘my god, what’s this?’

O: I know. It’s better than my room at home. * A: Presumably you’re allowed phones and iPads? There’s no restrictions are there?

O: No. So you had the old prep diary right?

And you’d write down exactly what your teacher wrote down on the board as the prep. Whereas now it’s all completely online.

A: Oh ok.

O: So there’s like a… well, did you have the intranet?

A: No. Didn’t have anything.

O: Ok. It’s like a Tonbridge intranet, and everyone has their student log in, and all the teachers can then click on a set, type out their prep, give it a due date, attach a sheet or anything they want, and then you can mark them as done. They started a new initiative, I think two years ago, called BYOD – bring your own device – so everyone has to bring either a laptop or an iPad to lessons so that teachers can use new learning methods, using the internet or devices that aid learning.

A: Is there any restriction on when you can use them?

O: First and second years have to hand in their phones and laptops when they go to bed at 9:45-10:00. And then they get them back the next morning. After that you’re allowed it any hour of the day.

A: It was something some of the boys used to really struggle with. There was only one payphone in Hill Side when I was there. So if you wanted to talk to anyone, like your parents or something like that, you waited your turn, and there was a queue. And everyone was just there in the background. There was only one mobile phone, this was in 1993 so it was one of the giant old mobiles, which was illicit, and was obviously hidden away. And I think that from memory, it was only used in the toilet of the George & Dragon, and on Saturday night by its owner who used to talk to his girlfriend who was at Bedgebury.

* A: Is there weekly boarding now? As in literally Monday to Friday you’re at the school and then end of Saturday you go home?

O: You can be in school any time. Any boarder is allowed to go out. They have to be in school Friday night. I actually only live 25 minutes away from school.

A: So afterwards you go home?

O: Every weekend. After your match on Saturday. Go home Saturday night.

A: And if you go home do you then have to go to Chapel on Sunday?

O: Yeah. You have to go back for Chapel.

These days it’s mostly the people that live in London and the overseas boys that might not go home every weekend.

A: I tell you, the weekends could be really boring. We used to have a special treat Saturday night. Looking back now I’m amazed that this was allowed to happen.

Every Saturday night, the Upper 6th were allowed to go to the pub, without question.

O: Which pubs?

A: The George & Dragon.

O: Still there. And they still have the supporters club for the Old Boys, for the 1st team Rugby. It’s called the George Club.

So before every home game they all go in the George for quite a while, so they’re nice and rowdy on the touch line. * A: When I was there, rugby was compulsory for everybody in Michaelmas term. It was the only compulsory sport. And then in the Spring term, hockey was the team sport.

And then obviously cricket and athletics and tennis and whatever else in the summer. But there was no football when I was at Tonbridge. Is there football now?

O: Football is huge now. There’s been a huge shift from hockey to football. First term its football but, you can do football but it’s more a sort of social… the main sport is rugby. And even if you’re a serious footballer you would play rugby in the rugby term. And then second term there’s now proper football instead of hockey, and it’s got so much more popular in the last 10 years.

A: I played rugby in the Autumn but I think in the Spring I ended up doing cross country. But I wasn’t fast enough to be

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in the team so I basically had Saturday afternoons off, so we used to go down and watch Tonbridge Angels. I’ve got a feeling we weren’t technically allowed to.

O: Now there’s 4 hockey teams, and 8 or 9 football teams. So it’s completely switched. * O: So what do you miss about Tonbridge? … Chapel?

A: Do you know what when I was there, there was no Chapel. The old Chapel had burnt down, and they later rebuilt it. So for the entire 5 years that I was there they had ‘the Quad Chapel’, which was this massive pre-fab building in the quad. I definitely miss the facilities. From what I understand it’s even better now you’ve got the media centre.

O: It’s unbelievable. They’ve only had that for a few years, and they’ve just put in clay tennis courts, expanded the gym by a whole huge floor. It’s amazing.

A: I miss the sport. I mean, I don’t do any sport, but I always really used to enjoy it.

Once I’d extricated myself from hockey anyway…

O: It’s still a big part of life at Tonbridge.

A: And it’s one of those things again that with the benefit of hindsight you actually come to recognise how much talent there is there on the teaching staff and actually how urbane and… I mean it’s a mixed bag of course, but there were some who were just fantastically talented people. I mean, Sir Anthony Seldon, and some of the science staff too were just unbelievably good. * A: So have you got brothers and sisters?

O: Yeah, three brothers.

A: All OTs? O: So I’ve got three older brothers, all OTs, 3 at Hill Side, my dad, my uncle, also in Hill Side, and my grandad.

A: So it’s like a dynasty. If you have kids you’d better pray they’re not daughters.

FREDDIE DE TOMMASO WINS TENOR VIÑAS N I C K E L LW O O D

O

T Freddie De Tommaso (WH 0611) has taken a step towards stardom after winning one of the world’s most prestigious singing contests.

I’m thrilled for Freddie, who is the most modest, humble person you can imagine.

He has turned out to possess a quite supreme talent and this prize really is the most wonderful accolade.”

Freddie won the Tenor Viñas International Singing Competition, staged in January at the Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona.

Regarded as one of the most important in the world of opera, the competition recognises young vocal talents across the globe and is judged by a panel drawn from the world’s greatest opera houses, including La Scala, the New York Metropolitan Opera House and the Bolshoi Theatre.

As well as taking first prize in the Tenor Viñas, Freddie also won a special prize offered by tenor Placido Domingo to a tenor finalist, a second special prize for the best Verdi performer, and two further awards.

The contest was established in 1962

in memory of celebrated

Spanish tenor,

Francesc Viñas.

One of the youngest finalists taking part, Freddie competed against more than 500 singers from 60 countries who auditioned to reach the final stages. Toby Stafford-Allen was Freddie’s singing teacher for five years at Tonbridge, and continues to follow his professional progress.

“This prize is the best thing that could have happened career-wise for Freddie.

He’ll be set for life,” Toby said. “He’ll be able to take his pick of top international work and the world is now his oyster.

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“ This prize is the best thing that could have happened careerwise for Freddie.

He’ll be set for life.”

THE ST ANDREWS MARTYRS: THE REVEREND PROFESSOR IAN BRADLEY (WH 63-68)

John Gibbs writes: It was an early Sunday morning walk with my brother and Ben, his black Labrador, which resulted in my hearing Ian Bradley’s sermon from St Andrew’s on Radio 4’s Sunday Worship. His sermon was delivered in commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, and although I am not a historian, it seemed too good to be missed by other OTs. Ian reflects on the city’s turbulent past, when it was at the heart of the violent upheavals of the Scottish Reformation, as well as its vibrant present as a thriving university town.

I

n the middle of the cobbled pavement outside this Chapel the initials PH are picked out in stones.

They mark the spot where Patrick Hamilton, a young graduate of this University, was slowly burnt to death at the stake on 29 February 1528.

Today’s students carefully steer round the initials as stepping over them is regarded as bringing bad luck and specifically as risking failure in exams.

Hamilton, who was just 24 when he faced his agonising end, was the first martyr of the Scottish Reformation. He was far from being the only one. Here in St Andrews alone, three other men were put to death as heretics for their Protestant beliefs. They are commemorated on a stark obelisk erected in 1843 overlooking the sea and by the former Martyrs Church opposite this chapel which was recently turned into a University library.

There are other powerful physical reminders here in St Andrews of the violent animosity between Protestant and Catholic Christians in the sixteenth century. The massive Cathedral, once the biggest and grandest in Scotland, now stands roofless and ruined. It was first attacked by an angry congregation, whipped up by the preaching of the reformer John Knox in 1559. Nearby the former Bishops’ Palace is also in a ruined state having been stormed by Protestant

nobles who assassinated Cardinal David Beaton, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of St Andrews and hung his body out of the same window from which he had earlier watched one of the Protestant martyrs, George Wishart, being burned alive. Visitors have sometimes said to me that they feel the streets of our small and beautiful city are still haunted by the legacy of this bloody and violent period.

Why were men put to death by their fellow Christians during the time of the Reformation? The four St Andrews martyrs had all been deeply influenced by the writings and ideas of Martin Luther, the Augustinian monk whose statements and actions are generally taken to mark the start of the Protestant Reformation.

Luther’s followers were brought before the church authorities and condemned for propagating what were regarded as dangerous heresies, including reading the Bible in their own language rather than Latin and supporting the marriage of priests.

At the heart of what took these Protestant Reformers to the stake was their belief in justification by faith alone. This was the crux of Luther’s theology, a breakthrough which ended years of anguished agonising

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about his own salvation. It came to him while he was reading the passage in St Paul’s Epistle to the Romans that we heard this morning. Luther became convinced that salvation is not dependent on our own merits or on any works that the church does - rather God in his infinite mercy pardons our sins and welcomes us to eternal life with him, offering a new start and complete forgiveness – all we have to do is to respond in faith. In the words of Paul, the power of God brings salvation to everyone – the righteous will live by faith.

In the eyes of its opponents, the Medieval Catholic Church preached and practised a very different view of salvation which rested on the power of priests, on performing works to gain merit and on obtaining indulgences to reduce the time spent in Purgatory, that intermediate state between this world and the next where souls would be purged before the Last Judgement. The Reformers, by contrast, preached the priesthood of all believers and the centrality of faith alone in the attainment of salvation and eternal life.

And it was for holding and propagating these beliefs that the St Andrews martyrs were put to death. I am always struck by their huge age range – Patrick Hamilton

“ The streets of our small and beautiful city are still haunted by the legacy of this bloody and violent period.”

and I speak as a soon to be retired baby boomer. It is often said that our generation, which has had it so good, has left the young without the chances and benefits that we had. Perhaps the least we can do is share something of our dreams and visions with them and stand together across the generations, just as Patrick Hamilton and Walter Mylne did, not as martyrs, but in a shared hope and faith.

was just 24 when he died, Walter Mylne, the oldest St Andrews martyr, was 82.

Today St Andrews is a town similarly dominated by the young and the old. The two biggest groups in the population here are students in their late teens and twenties and retirees in their 60s, 70s and 80s.

For many years I have organised a walk of witness and prayer through the streets of St Andrews every Good Friday afternoon.

We pause to reflect and pray at several of the sites associated with our troubled religious history. Initially, this walk involved just the congregations of the Church of Scotland parish churches but some years ago I invited the local Roman Catholic priest to join us.

The prophet Joel spoke about a time when the Spirit will be poured out on all people and the young shall dream dreams and the old shall see visions. Peter repeated this prophecy at Pentecost, taken by Christians to mark the coming of the Holy Spirit and the birth of the church. There is a sense in which the young and the old still share a sense of idealism and are more inclined to dream dreams and see visions than those in the middle age groups who are perhaps more preoccupied with the daily grind of work and the responsibilities of family life.

We should celebrate the idealism of those of us reaching the twilight of our years,

Standing in front of the castle, the old Bishops’ Palace, scene of so much hatred and violence, he publicly apologised for the atrocities committed by the Roman Catholic Church against Protestants in the past, and spoke from the heart about the importance of people being able to follow their own consciences. I replied acknowledging that Protestants too had done some pretty terrible things in this period and asking for forgiveness. I think it touched all of us who were present, and it was certainly one of the most moving personal experiences I have had in more

than 30 years of living here in St Andrews.

It’s spontaneous ecumenical and eirenic gestures like these which begin to heal our wounds and bring us together as one in Christ. In nine days’ time there will be a service here in St Andrews commemorating the 500th anniversary of the Reformation and involving virtually every church in the town. We will pledge ourselves not just to work together, but to be open to the insights of others and to listen to and learn from one another rather than just condemn and judge. We will acknowledge the deeply held convictions of the past but look to the future, a future where, filled by the Spirit, the young will dream dreams and the old will see visions, joined together in faith, in hope and in love.

PATRICK HAMILTON BY JOHN SCOUGAL, C. 1645-1730

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A HACKER EXPLAINS: How to protect yourself against malicious attacks S E B M A LT Z ( P H 0 4 - 0 9 )

Since leaving Tonbridge in 2009 to pursue a degree in Economics, Seb Maltz’s career has headed in a vastly different direction. He now works as an Ethical Hacker for a company specialising in cyber security. Day-to-day, he could be hacking websites, writing code, or even operating under cover in your office, in attempts to test the security of corporate computer systems.

How did you get into the cyber security industry?

I discovered the industry after doing an internship at a large ISP (Internet Service Provider) in the UK, which happened to be at the same time as they were setting up a new cyber defence team. This piqued my interest and so I applied for a cyber security consultant role after university. There was a tough decision to be made because I was studying for a BSc in Economics, which I thoroughly enjoyed, so I also applied for an economist role in the Civil Service’s fast stream.

After the application process I was assigned to start at the Ministry of Justice, which would have certainly been interesting.

But, I am glad I chose the nerd route now!

Although perhaps I would be saying the same thing about being a government economist, who knows!

How did you end up becoming an ‘Ethical Hacker’?

After starting as a cyber security consultant in my first company, I was assigned into a risk management type position. However, with every horizontal movement across the organisation, I chose to do an increasingly technical role, because I found it more

interesting. I found myself constantly in a sink or swim situation and had to quickly learn to code, understand networking and use a Linux operating system.

some experience. Following this, I knew offensive cyber security was the area that I wanted to settle in, so I moved to a small specialist company.

The team that seemed to be doing the most exciting work were the ethical hackers or ‘penetration testers’ as they are known, and being paid to legally hack computers sounded like a fun job! So I tactically asked the team’s leader to be my career mentor, and agreed a path with some goals that I would have to achieve if I wanted to join the team.

What is your typical day like?

One of the challenges was to pass the Offensive Security Certified Professional (OSCP) qualification, where there was a training network packed full of computer systems, each with their own security flaws that needed to be found and exploited.

After becoming confident enough to take on the exam, a new network with a smaller number of machines is given, each with a point rating reflecting how hard they are to hack. There is a 24-hour window to gather enough points to pass, and another 24 hours to write a report on the methods used.

After achieving this qualification, I moved into the ethical hacker team, and gained

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It could be anything. Hacking web sites, attempting to gain remote access to a company’s network over the Internet, writing code to perform attacks, visiting a client’s office to hack from the perspective of a malicious employee or dropping USB sticks in a company’s car park maybe with the label ‘payroll’. If a curious employee were to plug a USB such as this into a corporate machine, it may be possible to take control of the computer and use this as a foothold into the rest of the network.

The goals of the projects vary between engagements, however primarily there is a focus on finding vulnerabilities that could be exploited by a nefarious actor, and informing the client of those vulnerabilities along with recommended mitigation strategies. Also, it’s not always electronic hacking; sometimes the engagements will be a physical intrusion assessment.

Physical intrusion, what exactly does that involve?

“ [I] started taking photos of pages using glasses with a hidden camera inside.

Then, suddenly, I was seized from behind by two people demanding to know what I was doing with the files.”

The primary objective for a physical intrusion test is to measure the strength of existing physical security controls and uncover their weaknesses before real malicious attackers are able to discover and take advantage.

On one occasion I managed to talk my way into a company’s office after posing as an employee from their ISP. After gaining access to the building I connected to their internal network and launched network based attacks from behind the firewalls.

After this I wondered around the offices, chatted to employees, had lunch with some staff members and even participated in the company’s charity table football tournament. There was even a photo of me posted on the company’s Intranet site with the caption “A big thank you to all staff that raised money during today’s charity event”!

Next I started looking through cupboards for sensitive data and came across a filling cabinet full of HR records. I carried a bunch of files over to a desk and started taking photos of pages using glasses with a hidden camera inside. Then suddenly I was seized from behind by two people demanding to know what I was doing with the files. My feeble response of “...is that…not…okay?” was met with a shout of “NO THAT’S PAYROLL INFORMATION”, as the files were snatched from me. This was followed by demands to know who I was and what I was doing there. At this point I had to produce a document signed by the company’s CEO to explain that I was in fact legitimately hired to perform the assessment.

The engagements are not always this smooth. On many occasions I have been left red faced and embarrassed after my pretence had been easily seen through. It can also not be so glamorous; sometimes I’m rooting through the rubbish bins outside a company looking for discarded

data that might be sensitive or confidential.

I usually wear a high-vis jacket while doing this, as people tend to assume importance or authority from reflective clothing.

Did your time at Tonbridge prepare you for this career?

I found the general standard of teaching at Tonbridge brilliant. Two teachers that particularly inspired were Mr Evans (English 05-06) and Ms Moxon (Economics 07-09). Playing sport nearly every day definitely taught me to work in a team and some leadership skills. However, I could not have been less interested in computers while I was at school. I had ICT classes until GSCE year and remember finding the lessons particularly uninspiring. I’m really pleased to hear that the IT curriculum has evolved to be more dynamic, now including aspects of programming, including game and app design, web development, computer science and even video production. It’s great to see the school recognise the global need for skills in this area.

Cyber security is a particularly good part of the tech industry to be working in. There has been a 0% unemployment rate across the sector for several years, possibly even since the industry began. In penetration testing, you can almost choose which company you want to work at, once you have the skills and experience. Additionally, because the industry is relatively new, you become thought of as rather senior in a relatively short amount of time.

There may be some people reading this who are wondering how they can protect themselves from hackers, can you give some tips?

It really depends on what data you want to protect and where it’s stored. If you are worried about data stored on your laptop in the event of it being lost or stolen, it’s best to enable full disk encryption.

This means if anyone finds or steals your laptop and it is powered off, if your password is long and random enough, it should not, in theory, be possible for anyone to view the data. On Mac OS this can be done by enabling FileVault in the system settings. On Windows, BitLocker can be used, although this requires an enterprise version of the operating system.

Additionally, software like 7zip can encrypt files, which can offer more protection when the device is powered on. For data stored on your phone, both android and iOS devices are now encrypted by default, as long as a passcode is used to unlock the device. However, when it comes to syncing data to the cloud, you are effectively giving

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someone else your data, so there are no guarantees that it will be kept from prying eyes.

In terms of online accounts such as email, social media, online banking and other payment services, my number one recommendation is to use a different password for every site. The most common way people have their accounts compromised is through a hacker finding a security flaw in a website and compromising the database containing every users’ email address and password.

These are then sold or leaked onto the internet. If you reuse the same email address and password, this can be used to access your other accounts. Password leaks happen very regularly, for example every password ever created on Yahoo! was leaked in 2017. An ethical hacker keeps track of public leaks and has created a website (https://haveibeenpwned. com/) where you can input your email address and see if it has been included in a password leak.

To protect yourself from leaks, you can use a password manager, like LastPass, which is a browser plugin and mobile app.

You login into the password manager and it generates a random password for all your accounts. This way you only need to remember one password.

Alternatively, create a system where a proportion of the URL is in part of the password. Therefore the passwords are always different and easy to remember.

Additionally, activate two factor authentication for important accounts, whereby in addition to a password there is also a push notification on your mobile that needs to be accepted to login, or by using a token that generates a number that changes over time. Avoid the SMS based systems as the cellular network has been proven to be insecure. For this reason, if you want to have a private phone call or send a private message, use apps that support end-to-end encryption like WhatsApp, Threema or TextSecure.

It is important to note the points mentioned above won’t keep anyone secure if implemented alone. The security of data is only as strong as the weakest link and therefore it’s more about managing risks rather than finding a silver bullet.

O Ts I N MEDICINE J O H N G I B B S & K AT E R I N A WA R D

Over the course of its history, Tonbridge School has produced many gifted scientists who have gone on to become prominent figures in their fields, and helped shape our understanding of the natural world. Among them are chemist and Nobel Prize laureate, Sir Derek Barton; the biochemist behind the development of penicillin, Norman Heatley OBE; the psychiatrist and neurologist, William Rivers, best known for his work treating First World War Officers suffering from shell shock, and whose most famous patient was the poet, Siegfried Sassoon.

The sheer volume of talented Tonbridgians working in the field of medicine in 2018 is testament to this tradition. We estimate that approximately 200 OTs are currently working in medicine. In this feature, we speak to some of the talented healthcare professionals who make up our thriving community.

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TONY JOY (CH 94-99) EMERGENCY MEDICINE

As a Prehospital Care Physician with London Air Ambulance, Dr Tony Joy delivers advanced trauma care to critically injured people in London, serving the 10 million people who live, work and travel within the M25. He was one of the first responders on the scene of the Westminster terror attacks in 2017, landing in Parliament Square within six minutes of being alerted to the attack – an event that he reflects on as “an awful day” but which reinforced that “it’s a privilege to do the job.”

Tony is also Consultant in Emergency Medicine at the Royal London Hospital, as well as serving as a Prehospital Care Physician with Essex and Hertfordshire’s Air Ambulance.

As a 5th former at Tonbridge I knew that I enjoyed Biology, and was particularly inspired by Paul Ridd. However, it wasn’t obvious to me that Medicine was the right career, and I entertained other sciencebased degree options such as genetics or natural sciences. After some work experience and some parental suggestion of the virtues of a vocational degree I applied for medical school!

I trained at Sheffield University where I had

5 incredibly happy years. I was a terrible medical student who wasn’t focussed on the course and failed lots of exams; instead I played loads of sport, made friends for life, and travelled every opportunity I could. I’m convinced that all of this made me a much better doctor in the long run!

Why emergency medicine?

Shortly after I qualified in 2004, the South-East Asian tsunami happened and I immediately found an opportunity to fly out to Sri Lanka and join a small team providing immediate medical aid to affected communities. It was the first time I felt ‘able’ and it gave me a taste for emergency work.

I moved to London and worked at the Royal London Hospital, where I started to train in surgery, but was always more interested by the ‘resus-room’ emergency patients rather than what was going on in the operating theatre! I decided I wanted to be a trauma specialist and help improve the outcomes for the most badly injured patients. I trained across a number of disciplines including Neurosurgery, Vascular Surgery, Orthopaedics, Anaesthetics, Critical Care Medicine, Acute Medicine, Paediatrics, Prehospital Medicine

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and of course Emergency Medicine.

What achievements are you most proud of ?

Working for the LAA (London’s Air Ambulance) and then becoming a Consultant in Emergency Medicine at the Royal London Hospital were both realisations of long-held career ambitions.

LAA is a world-leading trauma service and the clinical work is truly fascinating.

Performing open heart surgery in the street for a victim of a chest stabbing, or anaesthetising a badly injured child on the roadside after a car-crash requires strong team-work, rigorous training, tough decision-making, and composure. I was very proud to join this elite service.

I have played a role either at the scene or in the hospital during several of the tragic terror incidents of 2017. I have also led the development of a service called the Physician Response Unit which responds to 999 calls and aims to take the Emergency Department to the patient, working alongside the ambulance service to improve care in the community.

What has your job taught you about life?

“ Performing open heart surgery in the street for a victim of a chest stabbing [...] requires strong team-work, rigorous training, tough decision-making, and composure.”

A career in medicine can feel allconsuming but wonderfully rewarding. I’m fortunate enough to enjoy work enough not to feel the need to dissociate life and work all that much. I’ve also learnt how precious life is having witnessed so much tragedy and disruption to peoples’ lives through illness and injury – this always helps to cherish the most important things which for me are my wife (a brilliant GP who has a much harder job than I!) and two gorgeous young girls.

encourage anyone interested in medicine and healthcare to read them.

I’ve also learnt that medicine often doesn’t hold the answers to problems that patients hope it might do and so patience and empathy are needed when trying to help in many difficult situations.

Society has changed and the demands and expectations on health and social care have never been greater. The future of a successful NHS depends on depoliticising healthcare and developing longer-term strategies for mental health and social care.

What career interests you outside of medicine?

Are there any role models that you aspire to in medicine?

My role models are all those that keep fighting for their patients in spite of the challenges and frustrations that the system throws up. There are so many individuals that have been influential to me in my training, in particular those that see no task as too menial or ‘beneath them’.

Close team-work and a flat hierarchy are hallmarks of a safe and effective clinical team. I have been particularly inspired

by Atul Gawande’s books and would

What advice do you have for aspiring medics?

Consider patients as people: understand and be interested in who they really are.

This may sound obvious but healthcare fails when it doesn’t deliver a holistic approach that has the patient (person) at the heart of everything.

I love the idea of working in the hospitality industry: running a restaurant or a hotel perhaps. I also can’t help think that being a politician could be a hugely rewarding way of enacting positive change – although it’s hard not to be a little disillusioned about politics from time-to-time!

Any memorable Tonbridge School moments?

I still have unsettled nights fretting about a rugby match when I made a loose pass that was intercepted from outside-centre whilst playing on the Fifty in the House Cup final!

And being caught smoking in the attic at Cowdrey House when I was supposed to be on a music practice period! Tonbridge was a fantastic place full of opportunity and endeavour, and I look back very fondly on happy and formative years there.

D R T O N Y J O Y S P E A K S T O B B C B R E A K FA S T I N A F T E R M AT H O F W E S T M I N S T E R T E R R O R AT TA C K

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ALEX HUSSEY (WH 92-97) PA E D I AT R I C I N T E N S I V E C A R E

Unlike many of his peers, Alex decided on his speciality, Paediatrics, early on at medical school. Since qualifying in 2003, he has worked at leading children’s hospitals, including London’s Great Ormond Street, and has now moved ‘down under’, working as a PICU (Paediatric Intensive Care Unit) Fellow at Starship Children’s Hospital in Auckland, New Zealand. This year, he’ll be moving once again, taking up residency at Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital in Brisbane, Australia.

Why paediatric medicine?

All the way through my medical career I have enjoyed every post and seriously considered each one as something I might want to do long term. But I particularly enjoyed the challenges of paediatrics even when I was at medical school.

Paediatrics encompasses any patient from extremely premature babies up to adultsized sixteen-year-olds. There is a huge difference in physiology, anatomy and the types of medical conditions affecting each age group.

I began my career in paediatrics with a ‘non-training’ year post as a Registrar at the St Mary’s Hospital PICU in London. The post had a huge influence on my career. I had

not only returned to my alma mater but I had found a speciality I really loved.

PICM essentially consists of the organ support, investigation and treatment of critically ill children from any age up to 16 years of age. These are probably some of the most critically unwell children in the country. It can be a high pressured and unpredictable environment, which requires great teamwork, not just within the PICU staff but also with other sub-specialities.

It is constantly changing and evolving as research and technology develops.

But there are downsides with everything you do, and PICM has its share. First, are the emotionally challenging cases when patients do not do so well despite our best efforts. Thankfully that is a relatively rare occurrence.

Second, is that there are not many PICUs and they are based in large cities, which limits where you can work and live, and as it’s so competitive it can be hard to secure a job.

But the downsides are hugely outweighed by the benefits. The feeling you get in seeing a child recover against the odds from a life-threatening illness and the happiness you see in their parents’ face is

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“The feeling you get in seeing a child recover against the odds from a lifethreatening illness and the happiness you see in their parents’ face is indescribable.”

indescribable.

What are your career highlights?

A recent day springs to mind as a career highlight. Part of PICM involves intensive care retrieval. This is when yourself and an intensive care nurse act as a relatively selfsufficient mobile intensive care to stabilise and transport critically unwell patients from other hospitals and bring them back to your unit for on-going treatment.

Recently, I performed a retrieval of a premature baby with breathing difficulties from the small pacific island of Niue back to Auckland. This was a four-and-a-half-hour flight across the international dateline. In itself, this is a pretty unusual and exciting retrieval destination, but what made it even more special was that we were being flown there by the New Zealand Air Force in a Hercules aircraft. We had just two and a half hours on the ground to prepare the baby for transfer before the Air Force team would be grounded for the night. Let’s just say that it was not a straightforward retrieval, and that it was a little bit stressful for me. However we made it back to the airport with a minute to spare to fly back to Auckland.

What advice do you have for aspiring medics?

I have two pieces of advice. First, is to develop a passion. You can have more than one in your life. Not just a passion to get into medical school and a passion to pursue a certain specialty but also outside your career choice. This can be just keeping fit, taking part in a sport, music, or travelling. People recognise passion as a huge positive. It not only helps you achieve what you want to do, but also makes you more interesting and you stand out from the crowd. Second, is to take pride in your work. If you are conscientious then it speaks volumes about you as a person, inspires other people to do better and has more far-reaching implications in medicine with good patient care.

What other interests have you been able to develop during your career?

I have always done sport. I started rowing at Tonbridge and carried that on at a serious level at university for Imperial College. We trained, on average, eleven times a week, which makes a tricky balance with studies and exams. The main compromise was my social life, which actually revolved around the boat club, but my best friends are all those who I trained with in the boat club.

I stopped rowing at the start of my final year at medical school for the sake of passing my exams. It was an obvious decision to make but I felt like I needed to replace this huge chasm in my life. So, I swapped rowing for long-distance running and triathlons! Some would say my exercise is an addiction but I would argue it has helped give me self-discipline, good time management and most importantly extremely strong friendship bonds. I also find it is a fantastic stress-reliever and gives you time to relax and work issues from the day out... something I have certainly appreciated as a PICU doctor.

How does working in medicine abroad compare to working in the UK? In comparison between the three countries (Australia, New Zealand, and the UK), I would say the expertise and level of medical technology is very similar, but there is more availability for medications and development in the UK. However, in terms of working environment, Australasia comes out on top. It never feels like a battlefield as it is in the NHS where you are just running round putting out fires. Furthering medical education is actively encouraged through generous additional funding; almost unheard of in the UK. In NZ, resources maybe relatively limited in comparison to UK and Australia, but the general strength in enterprise and resourcefulness is impressive.

The exposure to different ethnic groups, in particular the Indigenous Australian, Maori and Pacific Islanders, allows you to manage unusual medical conditions, which is a huge learning experience. In the cities, a lot of money is ploughed into great medical services; hospital management and medical staff work well together; little issue with staff shortage; and general work-related happiness is much higher.

This final point is probably the crux of the matter. Health professionals in Australasia are allowed to get on and do their jobs, what they believe so passionately in and help people without too much interference by politicians. They very much value their down-time and make full use of that exploring their respective beautiful countries. It is a real ‘work to live’ attitude, which once you experience will be hard to not to have. Working in the NHS with the hours and conditions, the balance has gone the other way where people ‘live to work’.

In this part of the world I have always found it amazing how many British-trained

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doctors and nurses are working here and I know those numbers will carry on increasing. At times I have to remind myself that I am not back in the UK. In fact the UK doctors are considered exceptional in comparison to home-grown doctors as they work so hard without any complaint, as that is what they are used to. Some of these UK health professionals are transient and there to work for a year or two to a gain a different experience. Whilst some, like myself, decide to stay longer and some settle for the rest of their lives as they have found a much better life. It is definitely to the NHS’s detriment.

“People recognise passion as a huge positive. It not only helps you achieve what you want to do, but also makes you more interesting...”

MICHAEL OSBORN (Sc 84-89) PAT H O L O G Y

As a Pathologist at St Mary’s Hospital London, Michael’s work underpins every aspect of patient care. In 2016, he led the UK’s first ever televised post-mortem on ‘Obesity: The Post Mortem.’ After qualifying in 1995, Michael became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons in 2000 and a Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists in 2004. He runs a BSc at Imperial College, London.

Why Pathology?

I always thought about medicine. I was good at biology, and medicine is basically biology, so it seemed like a sensible option.

I chose Pathology because it’s a good mixture of everything. It underlies everything, so it covers a broad range of medicine. And there’s no ‘on call’.

I considered all sorts of specialisms before choosing pathology. Most people like a bit of everything, and enter a specialism by default. Lots end up in a field by chance, through an opportunity coming up.

What has working in medicine taught you about life?

I perform post-mortems and it’s meant

I’ve got to meet – although I suppose meet’s not quite the right word – people whose lives are vastly different from mine.

One day I might operate on a 19-year-old male prostitute who has overdosed, and the next day it could be one of the richest people in the world.

And nothing surprises me at all. At all. I’ve seen all kinds of things. People who work in A&E see all things from the sublime to the ridiculous. The only thing that could truly surprise me these days would be us getting an amazing deal in the Brexit negotiations!

What advice do you have for aspiring medics?

I would say that the job itself is very, very good, but the circumstances are getting much worse. This is going to sound really bad, but I would encourage anyone thinking about a career in medicine to have really serious thoughts about it beforehand - if you’re the kind of person that wants to have a Ferrari, at least. You’ll have to work far harder than most, and the monetary rewards are far less.

That’s not just the NHS, it’s public services in general – the army, police… The gap

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between the private and public sector is huge, and it’s only getting worse.

If you hadn’t become a pathologist, what career might you have considered outside of medicine?

I don’t know really. I never considered anything else. Being a diplomat would be nice, but I’d probably be terrible at it. Or maybe a children’s book author. That would be the perfect job. I could stay at home all day. I’m a bit of an agoraphobic.

What other interests have you been able to develop during your medical career?

Not many really. Medicine fills your life completely. It takes over everything. I’m interested in art, but it’s difficult to find the time to pursue it.

“ Medicine fills your life completely.

It takes over everything.”

ALI NOORANI (PH 90-94) T R A U M A & O R T H O PA E D I C S U R G E R Y

Ali Noorani is one of the UK’s leading surgeons, specialising in shoulder, elbow and upper limb conditions. He qualified in 2000 from London’s Imperial College School of Medicine, and completed his Orthopaedic and Trauma training on the prestigious Royal London Hospital rotation. His reputation has allowed him to work on some of the most famous shoulders in the world – from elite athletes to celebrities. He is a shoulder surgeon at the Institute of Sports Exercise and Health (ISEH) - the only International Olympic Committee recognised centre in UK, and is also the UK Team doctor for the NBA and orthopaedic doctor for the NFL. Why medicine, and specifically, surgery?

I guess the honest answer is that both my parents are surgeons, so I had a good exposure to the industry through them. I went into medicine knowing that I wanted to do it, but at the time, I couldn’t put my finger on why I did it. Because I know it was more than just my parents’ influence. It was only many years later when I became a consultant that I began to reflect on it more seriously. I figured out why I decided to go into medicine, and why I chose surgery in particular. The reason is relatively simple – it offered everything I wanted out of my career. Firstly, it offered financial stability. In medicine, you have a career that is relatively safe. You can always be employed as a doctor, if not in this country then, in most countries abroad, and you can make a decent amount of money doing it. You won’t be super ‘banking’ rich, but you’ll make good money.

So financial security was one of the factors.

The other one was that I wanted to find a career that I would truly enjoy. I wanted to be able to go into work thinking, ‘I really like what I do,’ and I think that’s quite rare outside of this industry. Perfect example is, today is my birthday, and I was allowed it off, but I said I’d rather be operating. And the third aspect of this is that again, if you

have a job that you really enjoy and that’s also making you money, it’s very rare that the job is about helping people. A career in medicine does all three.

I chose surgery specifically because I’ve always been very practically-minded. I always loved Lego and Meccano, as a child.

But apart from the practical nature of it, it is basically the outcomes that make it such a rewarding job. We help patients that are in pain, perhaps with a broken bone, a joint problem, and we can do something relatively easy to fix that wound, and relieve a patient’s pain and help them function better. So surgery, especially orthopaedic surgery, is a great career for having patients that have great outcomes.

One of the best aspects of the job is that I have a private practise in the Harley Street area, a private practise in East London, and my NHS practise is based in Royal London which is Europe’s biggest trauma centre.

So when I see patients, I see everybody, from absolutely every walk of life. Which is rare for most careers, right? I see 2,000 new people a year, that I’ve never met before. And they will be all the way from royalty and super stars to the average Joe, all the way down to people coming in in handcuffs! So it’s very interesting what I do.

I wouldn’t change it.

What has working in medicine taught you about life?

The most important thing is listening to the patient. The patient always comes first.

What are your proudest achievements?

I’m probably now one of the most wellknown shoulder and elbow surgeons in London. I’m only 5 or 6 years in as an Orthopaedic consultant, so hopefully I’ll get even better. But apart from my normal clinical work in the NHS and privately, I also have a joint-venture with a group of people

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that look into stem cells and regenerative medicine in orthopaedics. We hope this will be a game-changer for the future. I also have a company called Trauma SOS, and through it, I provide a trauma service for the rest of the world where people don’t have access to the great facilities that we have here in the NHS. We help people from all over the world with major injuries and that would otherwise not have a chance to survive, or be left with significant disability.

What has been the most challenging aspect of your career?

Clinically, the work I perform is really easy.

At least, I think it’s pretty straightforward.

We’re used to dealing with difficult patients and working with complex cases. That’s not the hardest part. I think the hardest part of the job is getting the balance right. Being able to look after one’s health, being able to see your family often enough. So the hardest part for me is having enough time to spend with my wife and children.

Do you have any advice for aspiring medics?

I think it’s a great career, and my advice is that if people want the job, where they get great job satisfaction and they feel great about going to work, and they want a good stable career, then medicine is a good choice.

C H R I S AY LW I N ( P H 8 7 - 9 2 ) T R AU M A & VA S C U L A R S U R G E R Y After leaving Tonbridge in 1992 and a gap year travelling the world, Chris started reading Medicine at the London Hospital Medical College in Whitechapel (now Barts and the London, QMUL).

Qualifying in 1999, he started training in General Surgery in London, and also spent a year in Cape Town learning trauma surgery. Chris is now a consultant Trauma & Vascular Surgeon at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust , and Head of Specialty for Major Trauma at St Mary’s Hospital, one of London’s four Major Trauma Centres. Remarkably, he is the second of our OTs interviewed to have played a vital role in the treatment of casualties during last year’s Westminster attack.

Why Surgery? Did you ever pursue or consider any other specialism?

As a medical student I was always interested in the more practical specialties such as surgery, cardiology and gastroenterology. It was always likely to be surgery though, especially after my first placement in Southend as a third year student. Living over there, we became members of the ‘firm’ and were treated like part of the team. We scrubbed up in operations, assessed patients in A&E, were encouraged to go to post mortems to learn, and most importantly were invited to all the social events!

After a brief flirtation with cardiology, my mind was made up in my final year, and a placement with the Professor of Surgery (later the President of the Royal College of Surgeons) who made incontinent patients ‘new’ bottoms (sphincters) confirmed my future. He also reminded me memorably that even the least academically-minded could make it to the top if they worked hard and had the right work ethic – using himself as an example, but with more colourful East End language.

Did you train at University, a Hospital, or both?

I started at one of London’s traditional Medical Schools. The London Hospital

was England’s oldest. With smallish yearly intakes, it was collegiate, friendly and fun. Life revolved around the Clubs Union and we tended to know most people in each year and bonded during the twice weekly big social events on a Wednesday and Friday. However, the medical college and hospital trust merged with St Bartholomew’s halfway through my course, and we became a bigger happy family within what was then Queen Mary & Westfield College. The medical students still kept together and new friendships made, although we never really integrated with the bigger university group.

“ I was in St Mary’s Hospital for both the Westminster Bridge attack and the Grenfell Fire Fortunately, we’d been preparing for this since 2005.”

I see advantages of both the medical school and university models and was able to have experience of both to a degree.

However in London, despite most medical schools now part of a bigger University (St George’s remains on its own), medics do tend to be fairly cliquey and stick together – I suspect that may be due to the different working times they have compared to other university students and the reduction in holidays once they go out to the wards in the hospitals.

incident and how my seniors co-ordinated the response. I was part of the surgical team who operated that day, and at one time was being prepared to take the lead in one surgery, until fortunately more experienced surgeons arrived. Tragically, two of our patients did not survive, but 196 made good recoveries, and it has been inspiring to see one severely injured patient make the Paralympic team in 2012.

What do you consider to be your career highlights, or greatest achievements as a medic?

The most memorable moments for me have been some of the most traumatic events in the country. I was a fairly junior surgeon, on the 7th July 2005. I happened to be off that day, and remember watching the news of the ‘power surge’ on the London Underground. When I saw people being brought out on stretchers that didn’t seem right to me, so I made my way the short distance to the Royal London Hospital, whereupon they were preparing for multiple casualties from suspected suicide bombers.

It was professionally a remarkable day, with the entire staff (medical, nursing, managerial, emergency department, anaesthetics and surgical) working rapidly to create capacity and then to treat the 198 patients we received that day. I was able to experience first hand a major

Fast forward 12 years, and I was in St Mary’s Hospital for both the Westminster Bridge attack and the Grenfell fire. Fortunately, we’d been preparing for this since 2005, and again the hospital response kicked in but this time I was no longer the junior, I was the co-ordinating trauma surgeon in the Emergency Department directing surgical teams and decisions.

For Westminster, the BBC happened to be in the hospital filming a documentary, which added a different dimension to the proceedings. However, we are very proud of our efforts once again. London was the first in the country to develop trauma networks, and the improvement in survival and in care has been amazing, not just for the high-profile mass casualty events, but also for any severely injured patient. I have been very lucky in being able to learn and watch this improvement, as well as having the opportunity to influence ongoing care for the future.

What has working in medicine taught you about life?

I tend to see people at their most vulnerable, whether that is after lifechanging injury or anaesthetised for planned surgery. Life has a habit of dealing googlies when least expected. I try not to worry about things I cannot control, and that work isn’t actually everything. I love coming home, and spending time with the family.

Are there any role models that you aspire to in medicine?

There have been three role models for me. One was the first surgical consultant I worked for as a third year medic in Southend, the second was the Professor of Surgery who I worked for as a student and as a House Surgeon on qualification.

However my biggest influence was the consultant who piqued my interest in Trauma Surgery, and inspired me (and a generation of other trauma surgeons in London) to be a trauma surgeon. What they all had was an absolute conviction in caring for their patients, and taught me that if every decision you make is based on what you believe to be best for the patient, you won’t go far wrong.

It’s hard work once you’ve qualified, caring for patients, learning and exams never seem to stop. But the satisfaction of doing your best, and watching someone come to you anxious and fearful, treating them and watching them walk away better, is hard to beat.

Make every decision in the best interests of the patient in front of you, and you will sleep easy, and make a difference.

What advice do you have for aspiring medics?

It’s a hell of a job. It’s hard work in medical school, watching school friends having long summer holidays whilst you are in hospital at 8am with the psycho surgeons.

CHARLIE RECORD (PH 78-83) GENERAL PRACTICE Charlie initially trained as a geriatrician, later working in Nepal, India, Africa and Central America before “seeing the light and settling as a GP in Bristol.” Unlike ‘career medics’ who know exactly where they are going in life, Charlie considers himself a ‘portfolio medic’ – someone who embraces the huge variety of opportunities available after qualifying as a doctor. For Charlie, General Practise has allowed him to be his own boss, maintain a work-life balance, run a business, be involved in NHS management, co-ordinate and work in a dedicated team, and go home every day realising how very fortunate most of us are.

come, when Mike Jenkins and I visited each medical school in turn. I initially trained in geriatrics but realised I wanted more autonomy and to run my own business.

There are many heroes and aspirational figures in medicine but I feel it is important to find your own style and manner - and just be yourself.

What do you consider to be your career highlights, or greatest achievements as a medic?

What advice do you have for aspiring medics?

When did you first begin to consider medicine as a career?

Delivering twins in Malawi, facilitating end of life care to nonagenarians and everything in between.

It’s a wonderful career and life, but try to maintain a work-life balance and choose a branch of medicine you love. Do not be afraid to change your mind and retrain.

What has working in medicine taught you about life?

What other interests have you been able to develop during your medical career?

I always loved biology at Tonbridge, and was lucky enough to be taught by Mr Briggs. I decided to give a presentation to the whole school about epilepsy. As I researched this, I realised how fascinating it might be to study medicine.

Working in general practice is a great privilege as we forge relationships with individuals and families over time, and gain an insight into their physical, emotional, psychological and social problems. Life is temporary and should be enjoyed and celebrated. One of the most rewarding ways to enjoy life is to help others, as part of a team, in a career you enjoy.

I trained at St Thomas’ Hospital, London as it had the best beer and the warmest wel-

Are there any role models that you aspire to in medicine?

General Practice allows you to develop lots of other interests. My love of sport (tennis, hockey, rugby, sailing, cycling, swimming, running and many more) has given me an interest in sports medicine within general practice. I also enjoy being involved in other businesses outside the NHS; and have enjoyed working in NHS management and I have still had time to see my family and children.

ED MACLAREN ( WW 94-99) OBSTE TRICS & GYNAECOLOGY

Ed left Tonbridge in 1999 to pursue a career in medicine, which he studied at Bristol University. It was while working in a maternity unit in KwaZulu, South Africa, that Ed decided to pursue his specialism of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.

He returned to the UK to complete his training at London’s Queen Charlotte’s & Chelsea Hospitals, before returning to Africa once more, moving with his young family to Maska, Uganda. After two edifying years, he returned to the UK and is currently a Consultant Obstetrician and Gynaecologist in Exeter.

When did you first begin to consider medicine as a career and for what reasons?

I think I was sitting in a PJB Biology class when he started talking about careers associated with biology when the first green shoots appeared. After that it seemed to just happen. But I do remember thinking that a career with the combination of a scientific base and a human touch with the option to work around the world probably wasn’t a bad shout. Ever since starting clinical work as a student I have never looked back.

Why obstetrics and gynaecology?

I chose to become an Obstetrician and Gynaecologist after working on a maternity unit in KwaZulu Natal as a junior doctor. I was struck by the excitement of helping women birth their babies whilst attending to their medical needs. It really is generally a happy specialty, with good outcomes involving medicine and surgery, and still to this day I’m amazed at the variety of cases that I see even down in Exeter. I did consider orthopaedics for a while but I found it all a bit repetitive.

What do you consider to be your career highlights?

I still feel a great sense of pride and

achievement when delivering babies – my non-medical friends feel it’s all a touch medieval but magical nonetheless!

From a career development viewpoint, I look back fondly on the past 2 years working in Uganda as an obstetrician and gynaecologist and obstetric fistula surgeon. In a nutshell, an obstetric fistula is a horrific childbirth injury leaving victims incontinent. Without treatment, these women become ostracised from their communities with no way to earn for themselves. I am always amazed with the incredibly upbeat attitudes of these women who have so little when they attend for surgery. I have learned more from them over the years about how to see the world and put one’s own life into perspective.

What has working in medicine taught you about life?

Wherever you are in the world, however rich or poor, we all deserve the same degree of access to healthcare rights. The inequalities that exist worldwide are stark, and no more than in medical treatment that is available. I feel we have a duty as global citizens to pursue more inclusive ideologies that aim to bridge these gaps and help raise life expectancy and health across the world.

Are there any role models that you aspire to in medicine?

I think that we all aspire to be a better version of ourselves and hold our own practice to account in order to adapt to the ever changing world of medicine. There have been many great scientists within the world of Obstetrics and Gynaecology but I have to take my inspiration away from my own silo but from public health and in particular Michael Marmot’s work on the social determinants of health.

Another aspiration figure in the field of global health who is sadly no longer with

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us was Hans Rosling. The man could make watching paint dry come to life!

What advice do you have for aspiring medics?

People will say do it, people will say don’t do it. It’s your choice not theirs. Medicine won’t make you rich (there are few exceptions), but it can make you happy.

If you hadn’t become a gynaecologist, what career might you have considered outside of medicine?

A sports commentator. Getting paid to watch sport need I say more!

Any memorable Tonbridge School moments?

There are too many - from great sporting tussles, to fabulous concerts in the chapel and lessons that came to life from Fred Marsden. I look back on my years at Tonbridge with great fondness but with a touch of sadness in having three daughters!

PAT R I C K H O Y T E ( S H 5 6 - 6 1 ) GENERAL PRACTICE

Patrick qualified as a doctor in 1966, and for the next twenty years worked in the Army and the NHS, in hospital jobs and in general practice. In 1984, he left clinical medicine to become a medico-legal advisor at the Medical Defence Union, assisting doctors with many different problems in their professional lives but primarily doing claims investigation. He developed an interest in medical ethics and got an MA, wrote numerous articles for medical and legal journals and books, and was regularly asked to lecture in the UK and abroad.

When did you first begin to consider medicine as a career and why?

I was originally planning to be a barrister but pupillage would have been too expensive for my parents to bear. Once

O-levels were out of the way, I decided medicine would be a better bet therefore, and switched to the science side for A-levels. There was no particular Eureka moment; it was much more of a pragmatic decision based on resources and my strengths.

Why general practice?

While in the Army, I did a lot of specialist work in obstetrics and paediatrics, but in the end, general practice seemed the best option because it dealt with real people and real problems.

What do you consider to be your career highlights, or greatest achievements as a medic?

DICK LIVERSEDGE (FH 54-58) M A X I L L O FA C I A L S U R G E R Y

Choosing a career is a big decision, surgery was mine. Thanks to my workshop master Mr Shirtcliffe, practicality was my metier.

Training for seventeen years at the Royal London and St George’s Hospital, I became a consultant Maxillofacial surgeon to the Middlesex Hospital.

Not all hard work, I represented Great Britain in the Winter Olympics, captaining the luge team in Sapporo and Innsbruck.

I have many professional memories; the man entering casualty wearing a top hat hiding a meat cleaver wedged in his skull, a seventeenyear-old boy, his face totally smashed after a motorbike mod-rocker dare. A career I have never regretted.

My successes in medical ethics where I became a national and indeed international expert, much in demand for articles and lectures.

If you hadn’t become a doctor what career might you have considered outside of medicine?

If not a doctor I would probably have become a solicitor because of the accent on case procedure and investigation. I could also have become an academic – I have done a history degree and written two history books since I retired.

DAV I D K E I T H ( J H 5 8 - 6 2 ) O R A L & M A X I L L O FA C I A L S U R G E R Y Born in Chelmsford, Essex at the end of WWII, David grew up in Redhill, Surrey where his father ran a large dental practice.

After Tonbridge, David followed in his father’s footsteps to Guy’s Hospital Dental School. He held House jobs at Guy’s, Birmingham Accident Hospital, and later, at King’s where he became Senior Registrar and Senior Lecturer. A three-month exchange program with the Massachusetts General Hospital took him to Boston, where he is now permanently settled. He lives with his wife in Marblehead, 20 miles north of Boston on the coast, and has two children and four grandchildren.

Having qualified as a dentist and spent 9 months in general dental practice, I realized that I was interested in surgery and pathology and enjoyed the more collegial atmosphere of the hospital environment.

I have been very fortunate to have been able to combine patient care, teaching and research. I have worked at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston for 45 years with a talented group of colleagues and an extraordinary cadre of students and Residents who have gone on to have wonderful careers of their own.

Academically I have been promoted to Professor at the Harvard School of Dental Medicine which is one of the premier dental schools in the US and the first University affiliated dental school in the country. I have done bench and clinical research. I have edited two text books on OMFS and authored over a hundred book chapters and papers on scientific subjects.

I have lectured locally, nationally and internationally. Most recently I was co-chair of Massachusetts Governors Working Group on Dental Education on Prescription Drug Misuse and I have lectured extensively to Dentists on Pain Control.

What do you consider to be your career highlights?

What has working in medicine taught you about life?

Why Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery?

The resiliency of the human spirit and its ability to overcome sometimes insuperable challenges. The satisfaction of helping a patient through a difficult situation.

What advice do you have for aspiring medics?

It is a privilege to be in the health care field.

Medicine is continually evolving so you will have to be a life term learner to keep up with advances in your field and hopefully you can contribute to the knowledge base of your speciality. Treating patients is an art that never becomes boring-every person is different and reacts differently-that’s the fun part.

What other interests have you been able to develop during your medical career?

I like music, opera and collect antique maps of South America and Antarctica.

CHARLES STILLER (Sc 67-72) CANCER RESEARCH I’m not a medic as such, but one of the multitude of non-medically qualified scientists working closely with the medical profession. I was introduced to the epidemiology of childhood cancer during my statistics master’s course – my supervisor had worked on the pioneering Oxford Survey of Childhood Cancers, whose main achievement was to demonstrate the cancer risk associated with antenatal x-ray exposure. When the opportunity arose immediately afterwards to join the Childhood Cancer Research Group in the University of Oxford, I never seriously considered any alternative career.

I stayed with the group for 37 years until

its dissolution, latterly as director of the National Registry of Childhood Tumours.

I’m now semi-retired and, following reorganisation of cancer registration, Lead on Childhood Cancer for the National Cancer Registration and Analysis Service within Public Health England. I also continue as Lecturer in Statistics at New College, University of Oxford, giving statistics tutorials to first-year psychology undergraduates there and at other Oxford colleges.

Career highlights Seeing the proportion of children with cancer who became long-term survivors

increase from below 50% to more than 80%. Being part of international collaborations documenting the worldwide burden of childhood cancer and the dramatic improvements in outcome for children with cancer.

Lessons from the job However impossible you think your deadlines are, someone else always has more of them, and worse.

A memorable moment Waking up one morning quite early in my first year to find that Tonbridge High Street was flooded, with boats the only viable transport.

M AT T H E W C R I P P S ( S H 7 2 - 7 7 ) GENERAL PRACTICE

Following stints of wanting to be a steam engine driver and then a bishop, aged 10 I eventually decided I was dead set on becoming a GP. I never wanted to be generically “a doctor” or a hospital doctor but always thought in terms of general practice and that stuck with me throughout my career. I think it was the width and variety of the job and a fascination with people. My Grandmother started at medical school after WW1 but did not complete the course for financial reasons. Her Grandfather had been an unqualified “doctor” as you could be prior to the 1858 Medical Act. For several years at school and at medical school I was on the Biomedical Sciences Section Committee of the British Association for the Advancement of Science and was thoroughly humbled to discover how fellow committee member and OT Norman Heatley was responsible for the development of penicillin.

I did my pre-clinical at UCL and clinical at Westminster Medical School (now Imperial) from 1978 to 1983. I had taken four years over my A levels (possible as I was 14 for my O levels) and astonished myself by not failing a single exam at medical school – perhaps due to the power of motivation.

In 1988 I was appointed to a singlehanded rural Dorset practice and ended up leading

a nine doctor practice including trainees.

I started with a pile of paper notes and about 1000 dusty tongue depressors and ended with premises that a visiting junior minister of health described as a polyclinic.

We had PRHO’s, foundation doctors, registrars, returners and remedial trainees.

A great joy of general practice then was that it could be very flexible and allow one to develop other linked interests and practical procedures.

Roles outside the practice included Clinical Governance Lead, Prescribing Lead, Appraisal Lead (& appraiser in Dorset and Jersey). Latterly as Chair of the county prescribing committee I managed a budget of £111 million but could never persuade anyone that the (typically) 3% annual savings should be invested in my bank account.

We had medical students for many years, usually final year and many stayed with us for their placements. Formally I was a UCL undergraduate clinical tutor. During postgraduate training, I gained numerous diplomas and membership of RCGP and then FRCGP By Assessment in 1996. This was the only higher qualification by peer assessment of a doctor’s actual practice.

My role models include Julian Tudor Hart for trailblazing general practice research and unequivocal views on inequality and

health, Peter Tate for his many editions of The Doctor’s Communication Handbook (which should be compulsory for all medical students), my longsuffering wife Joanna, also a GP in our practice, for being my inspiration and encourager. Joanna had been at Wally Hall, Benenden and Epsom College and seemed to know everyone I can remember from Smythe but we met at a training job interview…

I thoroughly enjoyed my career and can look back on it with some pride (“killed a few, probably saved a few more”) and would recommend general practice and medicine generally to applicants. However, I am not sure that I would recommend medicine in the NHS currently. I am delighted to be out of it and am not sure how long it will take to restore.

I retired at 54 and happily moved on from medicine – I am now enjoying diving (divemaster), skiing, travelling, gardening, art, music and stalking and deer management.

Memorable Tonbridge moment: Sitting in the leather armchairs upstairs in Waterstones in Bath reading T.S.Eliot poetry prior to purchase & recalling Geoff Allibone’s page in my final school report: “T.S.Eliot proved rather beyond his intellectual capacity”.

JOHN MEW (SH 42-46) ORTHOTROPICS

My father so obviously enjoyed dentistry that I always looked forward to joining him, even before I went to Tonbridge. I initially trained to be an orthognathic surgeon and then switched to orthodontics.

My greatest achievement as an orthodontist was creating a new specialty; Orthotropics. This is a process for correcting poor growth of the face, which I am sure will be broadly accepted one day.

My advice to aspiring medics is to look for contradictions and find a reason that explains them.

Working in medicine has taught me that there is a reason for everything.

DAV I D C AV E ( P S 6 0 - 6 5 ) GASTROENTEROLOGY

“ A career in medicine has given me the opportunity to develop my own ideas along with practicing medicine.”

David Cave’s remarkable career in Gastroenterology began with an inspirational lecture by Prof. Bryan Brooke at Tonbridge School. He has since worked at the University of Chicago, Harvard Medical School, Boston University, Tuft’s Medical School and is currently at UMass Memorial Medical Center working as a gastroenterologist and director of gastroenterology research.

realized that I could pursue my interests by switching to gastroenterology. That decision has served me well as I can do many procedures by endoscope, that used to be done surgically, and I was able to pursue an academic career without lifethreatening sleep deprivation.

From 2001 to 2012, David was on the board of directors of the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, a philanthropic foundation supported by the billionaire, Eli Broad that funded innovative projects related to inflammatory bowel disease. He remains clinically active, performing endoscopy, seeing patients, teaching medical students, resident, and fellows, runs an active research program, and has published more than 100 peer-reviewed journal articles.

A career in medicine has given me the opportunity to develop my own ideas along with practicing medicine. My PhD was on the concept that Crohn’s disease might be caused by a transmissible agent. At the time I was unable to prove this, but now, 40 years later, there is an intense resurgent interest in the role that the intestinal micro biome plays in the causation of Crohn’s disease.

When did you first begin to consider medicine as a career and why?

Prof. Bryan Brooke visited Tonbridge to give a lecture in 1963 and I had an opportunity to meet with him after his lecture and talk about a career in medicine. This proved to be a pivotal conversation. I was accepted to St. George’s Hospital medical school where he turned out to be the professor of surgery. I was able to rotate with him as a student on his surgical firm. Subsequently, I had the privilege of working with him as a Houseman and as a junior lecturer.

When I was a student on his firm, he had an 18-year-old patient with Crohn’s disease who had repetitive surgery and every time this world-class surgeon operated on him, the anastomosis failed to heal. At the time I knew nothing about Crohn’s disease, but this paradox triggered, what is turned out to be a career long interest in inflammatory bowel disease. Once I started working with him, he had just started using azathioprine for the treatment of this condition and we jointly published one of the first papers on the use of this revolutionary drug in the Lancet. I subsequently went on to do a PhD on this disease with him and Dr Donald Mitchell as my mentors.

Why gastroenterology?

I initially chose surgery because of the influence of Prof. Bryan Brooke, but after my PhD and visiting the United States, and talking to several very eminent surgeons, I realized that particularly in the United States academic surgeons exist on 2 to 4 hours sleep a night, which I, physiologically, could not do. I therefore

What do you consider to be your career highlights?

I was one of the first people in the United States, after the initial description by Barry Marshall of Helicobacter pylori, to confirm his observation that this organism caused ulcer disease and not acid spicy food or stress. This was amazingly controversial for nearly a decade but is now mainstream.

I worked on this organism for nearly 15 years.

I subsequently was one of the first physicians in the world to use video capsule endoscopy to investigate small intestinal disease. The small intestine had been a black box for decades since it could not be reached by conventional endoscopy. The video capsule is a pill -sized video camera that can be swallowed and that will visualize the entire lining of the roughly 20 feet of small intestine. This is completely revolutionized the study of the small intestine.

I am now trying to persuade the profession that the video capsule has a potential major role to play in detecting the source of acute gastrointestinal bleeding. The video capsule can be swallowed as soon as the patient reaches the emergency room and by the time the patient has a bed the gastroenterologist taking care the patient knows where the bleeding is coming from. He or she can then make accurate decisions as to how to manage the problem, instead of guessing.

Controversial, because it challenges the way gastroenterologists have managed this problem for more than 40 years. It is likely to take another 10 years to convince them that it’s cost effective, improves patient care, and patients love it instead of having a large instrument inserted into the body as part of a guessing game.

I have been able to publish more than 100 peer-reviewed papers nearly 200 abstracts, 30 book chapters and two books.

What has working in medicine taught you about life?

Don’t accept the status quo, ask questions, and don’t give up.

What advice do you have for aspiring medics?

Medicine is a wonderful career with a multiple range of career opportunities from clinical care to teaching, to research, to administration, innovation, and device development. It is hard work but the rewards beyond the financial are substantial. There is great satisfaction from helping patients recover from disease, teaching, getting students and fellow faculty involved in research projects, discovering new diseases, and traveling all over the world to conferences and meeting physicians of all nationalities.

What other interests have you been able to develop during your medical career?

In 1976, my wife, Anne, and I moved to the USA along with twin sons who were three months old. The twins and our daughter developed artistic skills, and all went to college at the Rhode Island school of design. My interests along with the family are in theatre, fine art, music, skiing, sailing, travel, and gardening. Sarah is in film production in Los Angeles. She works for Disney Marvel studios and has just published her first children’s book ’Alpha Robots-an alphabet for all ages’. Ben is a creative director for advertising in a large company, and his wife works for a large public relation company and is a semi profession opera singer. John works as a designer.

legendary Mr. Ford (he taught history, and on occasion had us stand on our desks and sing “Land of hope and Glory”. On other days, if he did not like our homework, he would toss our papers out of the window from the top of the tower where his classroom was located!!) allowed us – John Pook (PS 60-65) and Tom Walters, (PS 60-65) – to park an old van in his garden during the winter of 64/65.

We purchased this for £25, and during the summer drove it to Turkey and back. We sold it for the same amount of money as we purchased it. This served as a prelude to a trip in a similar vehicle a year later, after we had left school, to the Khyber Pass via Moscow and back!

Any memorable Tonbridge School moments?

The school allowed thought outside the box, and encouraged innovation. The

G R A H A M S L E AT ( P H 9 4 - 9 9 ) T R A U M A & O R T H O PA E D I C S Graham is a locum consultant in Trauma & Orthopaedics at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. His postgraduate training was carried out in East Anglia, London, Kent and the Thames Valley Region and he recently spent a year on fellowship in Vancouver, Canada specialising in Adult Orthopaedic Trauma Surgery. He lives in Buckinghamshire with his wife Emma, and their twins Daniel & Abigail, who are just under two years old.

When did you first begin to consider medicine as a career and why?

Although there was no eureka moment, I certainly knew I wanted to go into medicine before I started at Tonbridge.

Although my multiple injuries on the rugby field and elsewhere meant I spent an unreasonable amount of time at the Kent & Sussex Hospital Casualty whilst at Park House. My interest and affinity to medicine was borne out of family stories about my grandfather who was one of the first general surgeons in Singapore. But it was also fuelled by a fascination with how things work, both on a biological and mechanical level. One could say that I’ve found the perfect branch of medicine to meld the two in Trauma and Orthopaedics!

Why Trauma & Orthopaedics?

Early on in medical school and early postgraduate training I was interested in Emergency Medicine due to its immediacy of being able to make a difference to patients. However I soon realised that it is difficult to follow patients through their whole course of treatment and this was something I wanted to be able to do. I was exposed to Trauma & Orthopaedics early on in my postgraduate training and I particularly enjoyed its practical nature and ability to make an immediate difference to patients’ lives. This is particularly true of trauma surgery, my particular area of interest, as every day I have the enormous privilege of being able to operate on patients who have sustained injuries which are sometimes potentially life changing, and get them rehabilitating straight away and on the road towards returning to their previous lives.

What do you consider to be your career highlights?

The most unusual job (for a clinician) I’ve had so far was when I took a year out of training to work in the Department of Health as a Clinical Advisor to the NHS Medical Director. Spending a year away from surgery as a civil servant was a

refreshing experience, although I definitely missed the patients and operating. This experience exposed me to the policy development and management side of the NHS, and amongst other things, I was fortunate to be involved in the reconfiguration of major trauma services in England which is an area where the changes that I helped implement now affect me on a daily basis.

What advice do you have for aspiring medics?

If you are really inspired by a career in medicine go and arrange some work experience and see what it is really like and speak to those on the shop floor. Although you shouldn’t be put off by the constant doom and gloom in the media about the NHS as all industries have their ups and downs, it is vital to go into medicine with open eyes, as it is certainly not a career for everyone. However the breadth of different areas of work as a doctor is massive, and I certainly don’t regret my career choice one bit.

F E I Z A L FA K U R R U D D I N ( F H 9 7 - 9 9 ) INTERNAL MEDICINE

After years of practising and studying medicine in the UK – as far North as Dundee, to as far south as the Isle of White – Feizal now practises his specialism of Internal Medicine in Abu Dhabi.

Originally from Malaysia, Feizal was at Ferox Hall in the late 90’s, before moving to Scotland to read Medicine at Glasgow University. He later became a clinical lecturer at Dundee University.

When did you first begin to consider medicine as a career and for what reasons?

Was there a Eureka moment’ that inspired your decision?

I have always been fascinated with science.

When I was a young lad, I saw medicine as a scientific subject that encompasses the whole of science. I saw it as glamorous and a profession that attracts a lot of respect from the community, as being a doctor was seen (still is) as a very knowledgeable profession.

Why Internal Medicine?

I loved cardiology (especially paediatric cardiology when I was at University. When I did my medical rotation up in Glasgow (I know…) I did a lot of Respiratory Medicine, which I found to be a pretty neat subject. I loved Nephrology and also Gastrointestinal Medicine. As you can see I can’t decide and so opted to do all of them!

Did you train at University, a Hospital, or both?

I read Medicine at Glasgow University as at the time, they gave a very early exposure to the hospital wards in the early years of training. Loved the University and loved my training there!

What do you consider to be your career highlights, or greatest achievements as a medic?

I think after gaining my membership at the Royal College of Physicians. Also after attaining my MBA at Instituto Empressa (IE Bsuiness School) in Madrid.

What has working in medicine taught you about life?

Life is fragile. We have to love every aspect of life and what it brings. It is easy to lose perspective of life and what we really need as an individual. There is life outside work and your career. Enjoy the journey, not the destination. Above all - relax…

Are there any role models that you aspire to in medicine?

I am fortunate to have inspiring consultants throughout my career.

Collectively, they have given ample advice about life and career paths. It is important to find a mentor in your career. Thinking about it now, the advice they have given me are all about how to take time away out of medicine!

What advice do you have for aspiring medics?

Do what your heart tells you. Medicine is a great career but you have to invest a lot of time, money, effort (and a lot of broken promises) in getting there. You will commit yourself to medicine the day you applied to medical school. It is a long process and getting registered with the General Medical Council as a qualified doctor is only the beginning.

But it is great! It empowers you. It is one of the most, if not the most respectable profession and society respects you. Above all- It’s the passion that drives you forward.

What other interests have you been able to develop during your medical career?

Economics and research in general. I had a stint lecturing at Dundee University which was an awesome experience for me. In my free time I read up on watches and horology. I have completed my MBA and now just enrolled to the British Horological Institute and am training to be a watchmaker

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“ Life is fragile. We have to love every aspect of life and what it brings.”

JOHN CHILD (JH 89-92) M E N TA L H E A LT H

From the age of 18, John began to work over several Christmas periods in Crisis at Christmas homeless shelters in London, and with this grew an interest in working in the charity or social care sector, and in pursuing a career that would allow him to have an immediate impact on improving people’s lives.

After studying a degree in English Literature, John became a social worker, before moving into operational NHS management. He is currently the Service Director of Adults and Older People’s Mental Health services in Brighton & Hove, and East Sussex.

Why mental health? Did you ever pursue or consider any other specialism?

When I completed my social work training I knew I wanted to work with adults and not children and I was keen to work in mental health services. In part, this was because these services were linked with NHS services, and I found it fascinating working with psychiatrists, nurses and other mental health professionals. This resulted in working in an older people’s Community Mental Health Team. I became an Approved Social Worker which means I had specialist training in assessing patients under the Mental Health Act for possible admission to hospital.

After a few years I moved into managing a Community Mental Health Team. I then progressed through the operational ranks to become the Service Director. I spent some time working in NHS commissioning but decided to return to operational management; because I felt you have can have a greater impact on service improvement and patient care working for an organisation that provides care rather than commissions it.

I remain passionate about mental health services and providing services working

with patients at their most vulnerable. I remain convinced that providing services which are joined up - health, social care, housing, employment advice, welfare rights - is the best way to support patients with mental health difficulties and continue to strive to ensure mental health services receive parity within the overall NHS. Did you train at University, a Hospital, or both?

I did a degree in English Literature at Cardiff University and then after a couple of years working in homeless hostels in the Medway Towns and Brighton I completed my Masters in Social Work at Sussex University. I completed placements in fostering teams and a ‘wet’ day centre for street drinkers.

Since then I have completed my full Post Qualifying Award in Social Work and various leadership courses in the NHS. What do you consider to be your career highlights, or greatest achievements in the NHS? My favourite job in the NHS has been as the team manager of a Community Mental Health Team for Older People in Brighton. This is a team of psychiatrists, psychologists, nurses, occupational therapists and social care professionals.

Whilst this wasn’t without stress due to volume of work, funding etc. it was a pleasure to lead and manage a dedicated, innovative and dynamic team who did a great job for patients.

Before training, I worked for eighteen months in homeless hostels in the Medway Towns. This was my most informative professional experience to date, and I made lifelong friends with my colleagues.

Working here took me completely out of my comfort zone having just left university,

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and I was immersed into a very different environment working alongside multiple agencies to support a memorable group of clients.

What has working in the NHS taught you about life?

Working in the field of mental health and social care has made me fully understand the complexity of mental health issues and how it impacts 1 in 4 of the population.

It has made me appreciate how mental health issues can strike anyone regardless of background and how debilitating it can be. And most importantly how it is possible to recover and lead a full life.

Working in public service has allowed me to understand the extent to which both the NHS and social care are politicised, complex and intertwined.

What advice do you have for aspiring medics?

Consider working in mental health and stay in the NHS! If you hadn’t become a social worker or worked in the NHS, what career might you have considered?

At one time I was keen to become a farmer.

I looked round agricultural colleges and still hanker a longing for this line of work.

Being a chef or teacher have both crossed my mind.

Any memorable Tonbridge School moments?

House suppers, living out of the house above Pete Belbin’s house (semi-freedom), water fights on last night of term, drinking my brother’s home-brew amongst others – not all printable.

AN INTERVIEW WITH VIKRAM JAYANTI (Sc 68-72) K AT E R I N A WA R D

A

ged twenty, Vikram Jayanti (Sc 68-72) watched a film that changed his life. A single image in Werner Herzog’s The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser and Vikram suddenly understood that film was his calling: “There was one shot in it very early on which made me think, if you can do something painterly like that but with motion, then that’s what I want to do.”

Vikram is best known for his high-profile feature documentary portraits of cultural icons: usually individuals of extraordinary accomplishment, such as Abraham Lincoln, Muhammad Ali and Garry Kasparov – and sometimes characters of some notoriety, such as Phil Spector, Rolf Harris, and Uri Geller. His films have won two Academy Awards and two Royal Television Society awards for Best Arts Documentary at the RTS Awards.

His subjects are, in his own words, “larger than life characters, often geniuses, at a moment of tremendous stress in their lives” – an interest he believes stems from the extraordinary and often tumultuous life of his own father, Teja. “I wake up and I think, I’d like to make a film. And then half way

through making it, I realise why I’m making it.” [He pauses] “They’re usually about my father.”

The film that typifies this for Vikram is his documentary, The Man Who Bought Mustique. Its subject, eccentric British aristocrat entrepreneur, Colin Tennant Lord Glenconnor bought the Caribbean island in the sixties and turned it into a jetsetter resort for rock stars and royalty in the 1960s. Tennant eventually lost ownership of the island due to poor financial handling.

“He ran out of money. And he was heir to the ICI fortune, so that’s a lot of money.

He blew £150 million on his project… He was selling his 9 Lucian Freuds to keep going. He had to sell his ownership, bit by bit to these other guys like Mick [Jagger] and David [Bowie]. And the minute he had under 51%, they kicked him off the island!”

“They only let him own 5 acres of a swamp.

The one swamp on Mustique. And so, aiming to use my film to get him his revenge, he throws an outdoor lunch with Princess Margaret in this giant open-air tent he builds there. And Princess Margaret turns up drunk. It’s a hilarious sequence.”

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Like his father, Tennant too shares the characteristics of a Shakespearean tragic hero, with a flaw that will ultimately be their undoing. “Because of the way that [Tennant] destroyed all of the good things he had by being over-flamboyant, my family saw the film and said: “Wait. You’ve made a film about our father.”

“Well, he was a grand, larger than life character, who got in trouble. The things that got him in trouble were the same things that made him grand. And I think that at the end of this film with Colin Tennant, you actually think, boy, what a character. He made his own misfortune but the world is poorer for being without him.”

Vikram describes his father as a man of great enterprise and drive, whose exuberance and intellect secured him influence in the highest circles. “He was a particle physicist and an oligarch too, with his own shipping company, and I guess a poet. And he thought of himself as a politician. He had no lack of ambition,” he says. He was encouraged to learn about nuclear physics by none other than Mahatma Gandhi, who believed that the peaceful use of nuclear energy could be transformative for developing countries.

But he also suggested Teja learn the

“I sat there having suddenly become the most notorious person in the school.” fundamentals of capitalism: “The new India would need to know how it works.”

But Teja’s influence bred resentment. “He fell afoul of the Indian Prime Minister Indira Ghandi and had to become a fugitive, and so some of the countries we ended up in were as a result of him being on the run.”

Aged 12, Vikram left their US home for England, alone, whilst the rest of his family fled to Costa Rica, seeking political asylum in Costa Rica. “I wanted to go to England and get an education,” he says matter-offactly. “So, I went to Foyles and bought a book on public schools. I went to about six or seven of them and interviewed the Headmasters in my little tie and suit.” And Tonbridge became his first choice.

“Oh, I loved it. I mean it was home. I think I got the best of a boarding school.

I think that much of the eccentricity of 1960s vestigial Victorianism for me was anthropologically interesting. But it gave me a stable life. That’s specifically why I went.”

Teja spent much of the rest of his life at the European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN).

It was with fellow OT John Stroud, that Vikram began his first foray into film. “We sent letters to everyone we knew asking for money, and raised enough to buy a camera and set up an editing room. And we made a film.”

“Half way through editing, I saw Scorsese’s first film, Mean Streets, and rushed back and re-cut ours completely. I was at a party with Scorsese years later, and I told him that. And he said – Oh, so I’m responsible for this s**t? And I thought, that’s great.”

“John took his copy to London Weekend Television and was accepted into the Directors Programme. He went on to make the Harry Enfield shows and Spitting Image and stuff like that. I took my copy to America. I didn’t want to be wet and cold anymore. So I moved to LA.” He has since released more than 60 films, and in June 2013, was awarded membership of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences – home of the Academy Award. And thirty years after their first collaboration, Vikram and John Stroud joined forces again, to create the hit television series The Hairy Bikers.

As a director, Vikram is perhaps best known for his film for BBC Arena: The Agony and the Ecstasy of Phil Spector, about the legendary record producer’s murder conviction. The documentary paints the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame legend as both a musical genius and troubled individual, soundtracking the murder trial with Spector’s own music, from Be My Baby to Let It Be. TIME Magazine described it as: “The rare psycho-profile you can dance to.”

It was no small feat for Vikram to have convinced Spector to film with him, whilst in the midst of a murder trial, and when already infamously media shy. Uri Geller, also a subject of one of Vikram’s films, described it as being his ‘charisma and charm’ that gets people on board, and I’m sure anyone that’s spent time with Vikram would agree.

“What I do with them is I speak to them emotionally, and as an equal. I talk about myself a lot, which is always embarrassing for my editor. She hears me rabbit on with variations of the same stories she’s always heard. But that makes them share stories.

It’s a conversation, not an interview. And then once that happens, and so they get intellectually engaged, all the rest drops away. They stop being on guard. They stop trying to manipulate their image. They become who they really are.”

Despite the stability that Tonbridge offered, Vikram was never too far removed from his less than conventional family life.

“I spent a lot of time trying to be quite invisible. But during my first term there, the Indian Government having seized my father’s shipping company, and set fire to the fleet’s flagship oil tanker in the English Channel of the fleet. It was a fairly big ship in the English Channel. And I got called down to the Junior Common Room where we were allowed to watch television news, and there on screen was this oil tanker called the Vikram Jayanti, on fire, in the Channel, with Navy helicopters trying to put it out… And so, I sat there having suddenly become the most notorious person in the school… It made it hard to be anonymous for a while.”

Vikram’s Lower Sixth year at Tonbridge was spent fighting his father’s extradition to India, where he would eventually be incarcerated for six years. Upon release, VIKRAM WITH MUSICIAN, JACK WHITE IN NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE

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VIKRAM, AGED 17, IN SCHOOL HOUSE’S HOUSE PHOTO (1972 )

“I think that ultimately the film will help people think that, however much of a dingbat he is, he didn’t kill that woman.”

More cynically, he adds: “Usually the people who agree to do films for me are trying to sell something.” “[Spector] genuinely believed that he would get acquitted if I made a film for the BBC about him. And at that point I had two films that had won Oscars. So he genuinely thought that the combination of me and the BBC which he, and many people, regard as the world’s ministry of culture, would make the world realise he

must be acquitted. And in fact, I think that ultimately the film will help people think that, however much of a dingbat he is, he didn’t kill that woman.”

The honesty with which Vikram gets his subjects to speak can have negative consequences: “Occasionally they fixate on you afterwards and they won’t leave you alone for about 10 years.”

“I don’t think they think clearly about what it means to have a film made about them.

And I’m very upfront. I’m very clear with them about what I do and I show them my other work and stuff. But everyone has a film in their own head about themselves.

So they imagine if there’s a camera in the room, that it’s making that film. So you can’t tell them. You tell them, but they can’t hear you.”

As for Vikram’s current projects, he is currently working on a novel based on the life of his father.

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“I think his life had a tremendous schism between the pure scientist and intellectual, his ascetic Gandhian ideology, and then the luxury of the West, which he conquered in his own way having become fantastically successful and wealthy there.

They’re a completely different set of disciplines and I think they were at war with each other. And I don’t think he ever resolved it. I think that might be part of what the book’s about.”

He is also in pre-production on a film with ex-Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown.

“I don’t know if you’ve ever seen An Inconvenient Truth, the Al Gore film about climate change?” he asks. “I’ve never done a big political film. And I think inequality is as great a threat to the human experiment as climate change, so I got in touch with Gordon, and he thinks the same. So we thought we’d see if we can make a film. I want to make something epic.”

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THE FUTURE IS SOLAR TOBY MCBRIDE (SH 08-13) t.j.o.mcbride@durham.ac.uk @DUEM_Electric We are about to experience the single biggest paradigm shift in the history of motoring. Gone are the days of internal combustion. We are on the cusp of an electric revolution. Durham University Electric Motorsport (DUEM) is playing a vital role in this critical area. We are the UK’s most established solar car team. Founded in 2002, we’ve been pushing the boundaries of innovation in sustainable motoring for over 16 years.

What is a solar car you may ask? Essentially, it is an electric vehicle with the primary charging source being our sun. And yes, although Durham may seem ironic for a location to develop such a car (given our lack of sun), we are one of the best in the world.

Over four generations, we’ve continued our relentless push, designing and building lighter, faster and more efficient vehicles.

Our latest car is the culmination of this: it has a top speed of 100km/h, weighs just 250kg and when cruising uses 5 times less power than a Toyota Prius. This is thanks to a variety of innovations, from an advanced aerodynamic design, to our in-house developed in-wheel motor: 99% efficient and able to power us on just 1kW; that’s less than a domestic microwave!

We don’t just build these cars as a technical exercise. We raced this car on public roads in the World Solar Challenge last October, representing the UK on the world stage.

This is the third time we’ve entered this prestigious race, competing against 45 teams as we drive from Darwin to Adelaide entirely on solar power; a distance of over 3000km!

Our success and innovation makes us Britain’s most established and leading solar car team. But our future ambitions don’t stop there - we aim to take part in this year’s European Solar Challenge (in the sunshine capital of Europe that is, of course, Belgium!) and return to Australia in 2019 with a brand-new car; something we are already working on as we speak.

We also love to showcase our technology at world-renowned events. Whether it’s half a million people at Canary Wharf’s Motorexpo, showcasing to motorsport and real-life royalty at the London Motor Show, inspiring the next generation of students at the Science Museum, or whether it’s exhibiting at Goodwood’s Festival of Speed (twice!), the Marrakesh Formula ePrix or being the first ever solar in history to exhibit in front of world leaders and CEOs at 2 UN Climate Summits - in Marrakesh (COP22) and Bonn (COP23) - our marketing reach is substantial (over 100 million) particularly with such a unique product.

races, marketing events and expanding our STEM programme, there are a number of opportunities available should you be interested.

Whether it’s utilising our extensive marketing reach, connecting with students for graduate recruitment, using your technology in our car, or enhancing your CSR image through avenues like our outreach programme, we are very flexible and would be delighted to speak to you about this, on an individual or business basis.

Longer term, our solar car and its technology will continue to play a pivotal part in working against climate change. It provides the complete end-to-end solution - you never plug in your car to the mains to charge up. There’s no debate about the source of the electricity used to power the car, nor issues with range; theoretically ours is infinite.

Just a few months ago, we became a founding member of the World Alliance for Efficient Solutions. Signed at COP23, this landmark agreement puts DUEM on the world stage, connecting us with companies and governments around the world in promoting sustainable solutions.

We want to take this to the next level, developing the technology in the car to greater heights, patenting our innovative in-wheel motor design and one day entering commercial production; whether this is through licensing to major manufacturers or working on a solar car for the masses ourselves.

We are entirely funded by donors and partners from around the world, from Lord Sugar’s digital marketing agency, to the University and our technical sponsors and partners. We couldn’t do what we do without them. As we look ahead to major

That is DUEM. We are very excited for the future. If the past 16 years have been anything to go by, our future is decidedly solar. I guess you can say our other car really is a solar car!

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‘ I F. . . . ’ 50 YEARS ON 2018 marks the 50th anniversary of the film If...., and sadly also the passing of David Sherwin (Sc 55-58) who co-authored the play with friend and fellow OT, John Howlett (SH 53-58). The following article was written by the film’s star, Malcolm McDowell, in memory of Sherwin, and was published in The Guardian.

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T

he screenwriter David Sherwin was a special friend.

We went through many girlfriends, marriages, triumphs and disasters together. I even wore his father’s demob coat from after the second world war in the opening shot of If…. It was perfect.

It was my entrance into film. It has become a rather iconic image.

with the epic style of Anderson.

I remember writing scenes with him for O Lucky Man! and when we were finished we would read what was on the page and laugh about whether Lindsay would consider the writing “epic” or “mini”.

By Lindsay’s definition “mini” was unfocused and uninteresting, while “epic” had great style, was illuminating.

David and I had a unique relationship: my first film as an actor was his first screenplay. I met him in 1967 at the audition of If…. The actress I was playing with, Christine Noonan, punched me rather hard in the face. I was knocked to the floor, my script flew everywhere. There was stunned silence and my eyes welled with tears from the shock of being hit so hard. When I regained my composure the energy between us became electric. It made for good drama. Lindsay Anderson, the director, called for the audition to end. David jumped to his feet and shouted: “Lindsay, you have found your Mick!” Lindsay was irritated by his outburst and scolded: “That is not how you cast a film David, now piss off!” I was cast in his first film and mine. It started my career.

Our production company was called SAM Productions, for Sherwin, Anderson and McDowell.

With the Mick Travis trilogy, David wrote three amazing films.

Crusaders (which became If….) was David’s original idea, which Lindsay took and made mostly about his own life. Coffee Man (which became O Lucky Man!) was mainly my story. Britannia Hospital is more David’s. He had seen a newspaper article about England’s first heart transplant team. In the photos the doctors were wearing specially made neckties and blazers.

Photographed before they had done any successful surgery, they seemed to be waiting for some unsuspecting victim. This spurred his fascination with the National Health system.

The 50th anniversary of If…. falls this year. David helped change cinema as we know it. He was an extraordinarily good writer who was never given the credit he deserved.

He did major rewrites on Sunday Bloody Sunday, a significant film for its time, with its main homosexual character portrayed in a positive light, and it won a Golden Globe and a Bafta for best picture, but David was never credited.

He had a great talent; he would write lines such as, “Try not to die like a dog,” or “Watch out for her treacle tart, there’s many a fly got stuck in that.” Such vivid images – that was David.

His style was very much in keeping

Of course, Lindsay’s magic dust was sprinkled over everything but it was all very much a collaboration between three partners. Lindsay didn’t write; he dictated and shaped. David got it on the page.

I was shooting A Clockwork Orange and Lindsay and David were working on O Lucky Man! when I received a card from Lindsay that he had written from his mother’s house on the beach in Hyde, Kent.

It read: “Author drunk on floor, I don’t think we will ever make O Lucky Man!” A week passed – another card arrived: “Very fine work on the script! Things looking up … Looks like we will do the film after all!”

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“There was stunned silence and my eyes welled with tears from the shock of being hit so hard.”

Slow Growth On the Art of Landscape Architecture HAL MOGGRIDGE OBE (WH 49-54)

Alp Grüm

OT BOOKS

JOHN HOWLETT (SH 53-58) It is 1945. Victorious London and her country are exhausted; conflict and confusion dominate the ruins of Koln and Berlin, of Italy and fascist Spain; while a ruthless banditry will soon control the secret world in Washington’s Foggy Bottom - its tentacles to reach even the Vatican. Family and friends search for Harry Cardwell, alive or dead.

Harry’s son, Frank pursues justice or revenge for Nuremburg and the Judge Advocate General - but eventually, exhausted, chooses Opera Lirica where the red flag flies in Emilia. Frank, Helen and William with their children and children’s children will gather and return for Harry and the new Millennium - to the snows of Puschlav and Alp Grum.

This far-reaching novel questions the accepted origins and the conduct of that division, and witnesses in particular the ruthless stranglehold of American power and paranoia on the politics and life of Italy and of Chile.

This is the sixth book in the Harry Cardwell Series. Find them all at: https://www.fantasticfiction. com/h/john-howlett/

What is landscape architecture?

This book is a far-reaching answer to that question, from a renowned practitioner with deep knowledge and wide experience of the subject.

Its eleven chapters describe, through an attractive combination of illustrations and text, a satisfying career with talented colleagues and creating new and restoring historic, naturalistic landscapes.

The projects described range from industrial landscapes, quarries and artificial hills to parks and lakes, restorations of eighteenthcentury works, and new creations embracing reservoirs. Other chapters show a group of new designs based on the movement of people, and landscapes related to existing artworks and buildings.

The book ends with two chapters about cities, one analysing the conservation of urban skylines and views, the other discussing cities as urban landscapes, both in general terms and with examples of delightful small works created for the Inner London Royal Parks.

Among the Summer Snows CHRISTOPHER NICHOLSON (HS 69-73)

Ambrose & Dorothy: The Story of War and Love of a Royal Munster Fusilier JULIAN KEEVIL (JH 62-66) Letters he wrote home during World War One tell the story of Ambrose Keevil and the love of his life, Dorothy Andrews. The two met in 1910 and she became engaged to a good friend of his, a French cavalry officer named Georges, who died in 1914. Ambrose was there in spirit – via letters – to comfort the grieving Dorothy.

Their correspondence shares the romance that blossomed, leading to their marriage in 1918.

Enlisting in the Royal Fusiliers – and commissioned into the 6th Royal Munster Fusilliers as a second Lieutenant to the 10th Irish Division – Ambrose served in Serbia, Greece, Palestine, Macedonia, Egypt and France before the war was over. He and the division battled in Gallipoli and the Salonika Campaign, and he wasn’t unscathed, surviving wounds, being gassed and suffering from malaria. His gallant service led to recognition with two Military Crosses, and MBE, and a Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur, as well as being knighted by the Queen.

As the summer draws to a close, a few snowbeds - some as big as icebergs - survive in the Scottish Highlands. Among the Summer Snows is both a celebration of these great, icy relics and an intensely personal meditation on their significance. A book to delight all those interested in mountains and snow, full of vivid description and anecdote, it explores the meanings of nature, beauty and mortality in the twenty-first century.

‘A beautiful book about love and loss, fragility and chance, the wide world and the near world...

Full of intense light and colour, extraordinary glimpses, moving insights, and subtle humour.’

- Richard Kerridge, author of Cold Blood ‘This ravishingly lovely book is about thought-snow, summer snow, flight, falling, stillness, memory, loss, mountains, time, death, survival and everything in between. It is an intense scrutiny of minute worlds, a roaming gaze into the vastness of space, intimate, introspective and questioning.’

- Keggie Crew, author of Dadland

Winter CHRISTOPHER NICHOLSON (HS 69-73) In a pale November dawn, the elderly Thomas Hardy walks in his garden, his beloved terrier at his heels. Within the shadows of the house sits his lonely middle-aged wife, Florence.

Both await the visit of Gertie, the leading actress in an amateur production of Tess of the d’Urbervilles. But the arrival of this beautiful and ambitious young woman threatens the equilibrium of their reclusive life in the countryside.

In this delicately wrought novel set in the 1920s, inspired by the first English production of Tess, Nicholson presents three impassioned characters at a critical moment in their lives. A subtle psychological portrait of a great writer in the depths of old age, Winter is also a profound examination of love and desire, and their attendant hopes and disappointments.

‘A superfine, thistledown novel about a novelist, a place and about love and loss.’

- Guardian

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A Functional Art Reflections of a Hymn Writer

The Rules of Revision: 10 Successful Students Help You Achieve Outstanding Exam Results

TIMOTHY DUDLEY-SMITH (PS 40-44)

LIAM PORRITT (WH 09-14)

One of the finest and most influential hymn-writers of our age, Timothy Dudley-Smith has published around 400 hymn texts.

Educated at Cambridge University, Timothy was ordained in 1950 as assistant curate of St Paul’s Church.

In 1973 he became Archdeacon of Norwich and in 1981 Bishop of Thetford, retiring ten years later in 1991. In 2003, he was awarded an OBE for services to hymnody.

In this fascinating book, DudleySmith explores not only the writing of hymns but many other aspects including the study and singing of them.

It is not a history, a text book, or an academic treatise, but the personal reflections of an experienced practitioner who has been speaking and writing on this subject, on both sides of the Atlantic, for more than fifty years.

His armchair reflections draw freely on the writings of others, and in a discursive, almost conversational, style.

Beneath a Travelling Star 45 Contemporary Hymns for Chistmas TIMOTHY DUDLEY-SMITH (PS 40-44) Beneath a Travelling Star is a sparkling collection of new carols and hymns for the seasons of Advent, Christmas and Epiphany.

Characteristically elegant, concise and rich in theology, they originate in the Dudley-Smiths’ own Christmas celebrations; each was written for the annual family Christmas card, a tradition begun over forty years ago, and continued still.

The familiarity of much of the music also makes these hymns ideal for congregational singing in carol services and other festive occasions. Beneath a Travelling Star will provide fresh inspiration for worship and celebration at this joyful time of year.

Aged 22, Liam is studying French and Spanish at Trinity College, University of Cambridge. In his most recent exams, he obtained a First and ranked third in his year.

At Tonbridge, he achieved 12 A* GCSEs and 4 A* A-Levels.

His success, he insists, is not down to being ‘a genius’, but instead, achieved through smart revision techniques.

The Rules of Revision reveals the secrets to fruitful exam preparation and successful exam technique. It offers a set of rules that will ensure you maximise your potential by making your revision more focused and productive than it has ever been before.

More of Liam’s books and free studying resources can be found on the website of an organisation he has founded during his studies Exam Grade Booster.

Discover more at: www.examgradebooster.com

HILL SIDE HOUSE PHOTO, 2017. OLIVER OLD TONBRIDGIAN NEWS 70 WARD IS SEATED IN THE SECOND ROW, 8TH FROM THE LEFT

For all enquiries, including how to become a member contact:

mkhajehnoori@yahoo.co.uk +44 (0) 7887 523853

OLD TONBRIDGIAN LODGE MICHAEL KHAJEH-NOORI (HS 85 – 89) Drummond Abrams (SH 1947-50) took the Master’s Chair for a seventh time in his career in the year that marked 300 years since the world’s first Grand Lodge was established. Today there are over 6.5 million Freemasons worldwide.

“I have been a Freemason now for sixty years,” he says. “Over the years I have derived so much fun and enjoyment from my membership of two Lodges, one Chapter and two other associated orders and I have made many lasting friendships.”

“Yet there still seems to be questions about joining. Is it, for example, a ‘secret society’? Well, no it’s not. A society with secrets it is, no doubt, and I’m not going to tell you what they are! That’s all part of the fun. One thing though, is that in one of the many rather wonderful parts of our ceremonies we are exhorted to “Unite in the grand design of being happy and communicating happiness” and I take that to include having “fun”.

“I happen to believe that the spirit and principles of Freemasonry go back maybe two or three thousand years, and in those years are all the colourful stories we now have embedded in our rituals.”

“We meet four times a year (yes, just four out of 365) at 5.30 p.m. in London. We always have dinner together after the formal meetings. Good food, good wine and good company make for a great and relaxed evening.”

In addition to the four meetings, we enjoyed another line up of enjoyable social events during the year, when members met with masonic and non-masonic friends and families. These included a Tercentenary drinks party in May after our annual wine tasting at the local Majestic. In July some OTs joined masons and their families and friends in the company of the Metropolitan Grand Master, Sir Michael Snyder, at the Metropolitan Grand Lodge Garden Party in the beautiful grounds of Queensmere.

Also in July members and guests enjoyed

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lunch watching the Henley Regatta Finals in Phyllis Court Club. January saw belated Christmas dinner and drinks for members and guests at the Cavalry and Guards Club.

Masonic and non-masonic honours this year included Jeremy Skipper (MH 49-54) receiving MBE for services to agriculture and Past Provincial Senior Grand Deacon rank. Richard Higginson (WW 77-82) received Senior London Grand Rank. Both Michael-Mehrdod Khajeh-Noori (HS 85 – 89) and Victor Matthew OBE (Sc 75-79) received London Grand Rank. Our Tyler, Peter Comben, retired after many years of excellent service, replaced by his son, Richard.

Membership is open to OTs, staff and fathers of current and past pupils. If you would like to know more, contact our Secretary, Michael Khajeh-Noori.

For all enquiries, including how to join the club, contact:

art.cooper@btinternet.com

OT GOLF CLUB JIM LUDDEN (SH 78-82)

For the second year in succession, the OTs can point to some significant silverware this season.

Sadly, the school was unable to repeat its heroics of 2016 at the Halford Hewitt (more on that later), but there was a welcome return to form for the over-65 posse, who won the Senior Darwin at Woking GC to much rejoicing.

The first two matches were completed easily enough, against Clifton and Wellington, respectively. Radley posed tougher questions in the semi-finals but our men had the answers. The final against Eton was a proper examination.

Tim Jenkins (PS 61-66) and Andrew Sims (JH 64-69) won convincingly by 5&4, but the engine room of Tony Monteuuis (HS 60-65) and Johnny Hubbard (PS 60-65) sputtered to an unexpected 4&3 defeat. All relied on our final pairing of captain Peter Saggers (PH 61-66) and Miles Connell (PS 52-57). They trailed by one hole after the 16th, squared the match on the 17th and won it on the 18th as Eton cracked under the pressure. It was our first win since 2014, and for any stattos present, there’s something called the Anderson Scale that measures how good or bad a school is over the years. Over the past decade, Tonbridge’s old dogs are top of the pile with Charterhouse.

In the (more youthful) Bernard Darwin, we were drawn in a tough quadrant - all four were semi-finalists last year. And once again, those pesky Carthusians did for us.

As for the Hewitt, Tonbridge fell at the quarter-final stage to Ampleforth, one of several teams with an iffy golfing heritage to stun their more illustrious opponents this year. They also had one element of outrageous luck on the first extra hole in the key match featuring Michael Cox (PS 87-92) and Julian Spurling (JH 72-76). The Ampleforth drive went so far left, the ball cleared the rough and finished on the fringe of the 18th green with a perfect lie. Any other year, and they’d have been buried. Not so this time - they got down in four and our crucial putt lipped out. It just wasn’t to be.

Lest anyone think the society is all about the low handicappers hitting the ball to within three feet, it’s rather more democratic than that. We had our normal colourful palette of matches played on decent courses, always with good bonhomie and often with outstanding lunches to add to the afternoon challenge.

Among the season highlights, we made our debut in the Cricketer Cup Golf Day, narrowly failed to win the Hector Padgham, lost in the first round of Grafton Morrish finals and Johnny Hubbard took the Peter Bathurst Trophy for excelling at the Spring and Autumn Meetings. Oh, and he won the Summer Meeting too. Against the School, the OTs did a bit better than last year (not that that was particularly hard) but fell 3-2. Andrew Sims (JH 64-69) prevailed in the Annual Knockout after two successive losses in the final. Last year’s victor Mark Newnham (MH 78-82) was this

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year’s runner-up.

The premier OTGS event of the campaign took us all the way to Trevose and St. Enodoc in Cornwall for the ironically named, Spring Meeting. Spring only sprang when everyone was wending their weary ways back home on the M4, M5 etc. Still, it was a cracking couple of days on two challenging courses, and made all the more interesting by a densely plotted after-dinner speech by our captain Stephen Stowell (HS 59-64). The 2018 edition is in Aldeburgh and Thorpeness on the Suffolk coast and the drama may well have happened by the time you read this.

The OTGS is one of the best supported OT societies with about 400 members and it’s good to report that the future is looking bright. There’s been a healthy intake of Novi over the past year, thanks to the work of Ed Dickinson (HS 04-09) and Ed Short (FH 98-03). The Under-35s Tournament has bedded in nicely - Jim Baillie (JH 04-09) won the second edition of the Simon Ellis Trophy from Jimbo Hedges (WH 03-08).

We’re always looking for active young Turks to keep the dream alive. Details on how to join are available on: https://www.otgs.org.uk.

OT FOOTBALL CLUB GORDON RIECK (OH 06-08)

The 2017/18 season began with a change to the management structure as Sam Colley, the double winning captain of the 2015/16 season, moved to the role of Club Captain, with Alex Clarke taking on the mantle of Captain.

The season began brightly with a thrilling 3-2 victory over a formidable Old Etonian side through a last gasp goal secured by the final kick of the game. Top-notch football has continued with the side scoring three or more goals on no fewer than eight occasions at the time of writing.

This brand of attacking football has led the Old Tonbridgians to a record of seven victories and two draws out of the eleven games played, and has resulted in the

team being poised in second place, as we approach the ‘business end’ of the season and with much left to play for.

Away from the league, a tight and unconvincing 2-1 victory over the Old Malvernians in the first round and a less tight and more convincing 8-2 victory over the Old Aldenhamians in the second round has seen the Old Tonbridgians through to the quarter final of the Arthur Dunn Cup. This will be a tantalising contest against the Old Salopians who will be determined to avenge their defeat at the hands of the Old Tonbridgians in the 2015/16 final.

faces such as Ollie Turner (OH 12-17) and David Wilkinson (OH 12-17) joining us straight from school. If their performances are anything to go by, the quality of football at the school has increased dramatically since its first introduction. The Old Tonbridgian Football Club is currently in good health but it is only as strong as those that play and those that help behind the scenes. If you would like to play or be involved in any capacity, please get in touch with the Tonbridge Society at: OTS@tonbridge-school.org

The squad has been greatly enhanced this season by the introduction of some fresh

OT CRICKET CLUB JOHN GIBBS (FH 56-61)

For the past fifty years, the focus of the majority of OT cricketers has tended to be the Cricketer Cup. There is always a feeling of anticipation once the draw is made in September at the Cricketer Cup AGM, immediately all those likely to be involved will be pencilling the date of the First Round in their diaries. All is focused on the draw. Will we be playing home or away?

Will we be able to field our strongest team in the first round? If we win, are we playing away in the next round and so it goes on.

Teams often have one or two home draws, if they are lucky or a Southern school may well find their first-round match will be at Ampleforth, Repton or Shrewsbury. This can involve long drives, frequently after a tough league match on the Saturday.

Last year, we had an away match v Old Alleynians, and if successful we played at home on the Head and thereafter our next three rounds would be on the Head. This

proved to be an unhappy year. We played our first-round match away at Dulwich against Old Alleynians. Winning the toss, we decided to bat and made 262 off our 50 overs with our main scorer being Tom Elliott (74) and Olly Howick (64), while Ed Hyde (41) and Tom Coldman (24) also made their contribution. Old Alleynians had made 79 off their first twenty overs, but once Lawrence (56), Alleyn (32) and Braithwaite (39) had been dismissed, it was apparent that the Old Alleynians were unlikely to win and they were bowled out for 215 off 48 overs, with Marcus O’Riordan and Tom Coldman both taking three wickets.

Our second-round match v Old Wykehamists was played on the Head a couple of weeks later, but this match did not go our way. The Old Wykehamists won the toss, chose to bat and made 159 off forty overs.

This total would not normally have been

sufficient to have won the match. However, only three OTs scored double figures, and two of those were our opening bowlers.

Hugo Snape (31) and Toby Pettman (15) coming in at nine and ten. We eventually made 111 all out, which was 49 runs short.

The Old Wykehamist bowlers enjoyed themselves and eight OTs fell to catches. It was a disappointing performance.

We subsequently had a most enjoyable two days’ cricket with the Charterhouse Friars, drawing on the first day and winning on the second. We also won the Sevenoaks Vine Six-a-side Tournament. The new season will soon be with us and we will be playing the Repton Pilgrims in the Cricketer Cup on the Head on Sunday 10th June at 11.30am.

For all enquiries, including how to join the club, contact:

committee@otrugby.co.uk

OT RUGBY CLUB GEORGE MOSS (JH 04-09)

The OTRFC ‘Sticky Bandits’ finished the 2016/17 season in third position in the league, narrowly missing out on the chance for back to back promotions.

Consequently, at the start of the current season, ambitions were high, understanding most of what we would be up against in the London 2 South West (Level 7) League.

This season hasn’t quite gone to plan however. Having lost our first three matches, it was only at our first home game that we managed to put together some of the expansive play that we are notorious for, putting 41 points past opposition Andover. The rest of the season has seen some mixed results, but a couple of recent victories in close encounters looks to see us get the season back on track. In prior seasons, it is at around the halfway mark that the club really starts to perform. We will be hoping for a similar resurgence this year, putting less pressure on Rupert Harbig (CH 05-10) to seal the deal with a last-minute kick for posts, as has happened twice now this season.

The club is proud to boast a mailing list of over 100 players from seasons past and present, however at times this can lead to a lack of continuity in the selected squad, something the Committee is keen to amend. The past couple of years has also seen a slight changing of the guard with notable retirements from Freddie Russell Flint (PS 99-04), the club founder, along

with Charlie Young (PH 99-04), Sam West (HS 00-05) and Jamie Supple (Non-OT), who have all committed substantial time and effort to ensure the continuation of the club.

With these retirements, comes the need for new and hopefully regular playing stock.

We have been lucky to see some talent come through already from some younger OTs, such as Angus Ward (HS 08-13) and Jasper Smallwood (PH 08-13). Given the success of Tonbridge 1st XV rugby in recent years it would be encouraging to see a production line of recent leavers putting their hands up, not only to play but also to ensure the future of the club is in safe hands.

Understanding our audience, we do not train during the week and home games are still played at the Richmond Athletic Association, brimming with rugby history and a short train journey from some of the preferred OT haunts that South West London has to offer.

Finally, the club is grateful for the ongoing support from the OT Society and it is always a pleasure to see Gibbo on the sidelines. We are also grateful for the support from our two sponsors, Finura Partners (set up by Toby Owen-Browne (PH 99-04) and the Northcote pub in Clapham Junction, without whom the club would struggle to exist.

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OT RIFLE CLUB WILL KEMP (WW 85-90)

Following the unexpected passing of our Club President, Chris Boucher, in January 2017, I am delighted to report the decision at the AGM in March to appoint David Stevens MBE (PH 5459) as our new President. David was Club Secretary for 25 years and has an unsurpassed wealth of knowledge of the club.

Chris had previously arranged the annual Fletcher Cup entry, which is a postal small bore (.22) competition, and this duty has now been taken on

by Ben Meredith (WW 84-89). Last year under Chris’ management we came a very respectful 8th, missing out on a medal by only ten points. This year we managed 9th, despite a last-minute rush. All credit to Ben for organising it, and thanks to Tim Blackwell at the School for his support.

The small-bore match in March against the School, which took place after our AGM and lunch in the Lowry Room, was very well attended by the OTs. We fielded twelve, including a couple of relative newcomers: Blaise Fenn (CH 10-16) and Nick Hemming (SH 95-98), both of whom we warmly welcomed.

The top ten OTs managed a total of 423, with a top score of 47 from Blaise. The School however managed 442, and won the day.

Sadly the proposed clay shoot on the 6th May was postponed once again as the School entered into the Schools Clay Championships in Bedfordshire

on the same day. Given that they are good enough to enter the championships, it is probably just as well – the OTs might want to get a bit of practice in beforehand.

Having said that, we pride ourselves on not requiring practice, which might explain why we keep losing. However, on that note…

The match against the School at Bisley, along with the Kent County Rifle Club, took place on a sunny Saturday afternoon in June. Shot over distances of 300 and then 600 yards, the top six scores were counted out of the nine OTs present. Happily, the OTs beat the Boys for once, with a score of 526 against the Boys’ 469. Top score went to Mark Taylor with a very impressive 47.5 at 300 and a 47.6 at 600.

The Veterans match, which takes place at Bisley on Ashburton Day, Thursday 13 July, is always tricky to attend for many given the mid-week timing. Nevertheless, a team was entered, and included a Father and Son in the form of Henry (PS 70-75) and Theo Dodds (WW 08-13). A valiant attempt, but sadly the good conditions favoured all teams, and we didn’t do quite enough to beat eventual winners, the Old Guildfordians, who achieved 250 / 250 and 44 V-Bulls. The OTs scored 221 and 17 V-Bulls which placed us in 36th position.

Speaking of Theo, we must congratulate him on his new position as Master of Shooting at Sevenoaks School. It is a perfect role for him while he prepares to represent Great Britain once more, and we are hoping might strengthen ties between

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the two schools, which is never a bad thing.

The annual club dinner took place on 16th September at the Army Rifle Association Clubhouse at Bisley and was the usual blend of comradery, culinary delight and carousing, before the long distance shoot the following morning. We mustered on the Stickledown Range firing point at 1000 yards. This year, like last, we were unable to hire a butt marker, so we decided to use the new electronic targetry available. On the whole, it worked rather well. However, some of us experienced a couple of inexplicable misses which were chalked up to an error in the system rather than an error of the firer.

The fun shoot held at Tonbridge before the Christmas break is always a wellattended and enjoyable affair, although it was particularly enjoyable this year as the OTs won for a change. I know! Twice in one year. Much thanks must go to Tim Blackwell, Larry Thornbury and Russell Freeman for hosting us all so well. There were thirteen OTs shooting, and through sheer force of numbers we were able to beat the school once more. Now if only we could translate that into a win in the .22 match early next year!

Any member who uses Facebook is welcome to join the Club’s Facebook Group, entitled OTRC. (There are two groups called OTRC, we are not the Official Turtle Respect Club, we’re the other one!)

OT HOCKEY CLUB STUART FLINT (PH 04-09)

2017 marked the first season for the Old Tonbridgians Hockey Club having joined the Higgins Group London Hockey League. The squad includes a variety of day and boarding houses and ages with leavers ranging between 2007 and 2014 representing the school. After scheduling pre-season fixtures against two Division 1 sides the OT’s were able to prove themselves and permitted by the league to start in Division 2 taking over from the recently disbanded Guildford Men’s 2nds.

Playing home fixtures at the school the OT’s welcomed London Wayfarer’s Vikings to Tonbridge for their first game of the season. After racing to a 2-0 lead the game was poised at 3-3 going into the final few minutes. A late counter attack led to Marcus O’Riordan scoring a stunning solo goal and Old Tonbridgians started the season with a 4-3 win.

The perfect start to the season was sadly short-lived as the OT’s lost 2-1 to the current unbeaten league leaders Old

Loughtonians on home soil. A penalty flick in closing plays of the game making the difference.

A memorable fixture followed soon after as due to unforeseen circumstances the OTs were left without a goal keeper on the day. Deciding to play with 11 outfield the OT’s started the match with great intensity and were 2-0 up after 15 minutes.

Inevitably with an open goal beckoning the opposition made the most of it and the game was tied at 3-3 heading into the final 20 minutes. Despite courageous defending the lack of a keeper took its toll and stretched trying to win the game the opposition used their advantage to find the open goal with the match finishing 5-3.

Although rallied by the moral victory to have pulled off a commendable result without a keeper the decision to not train, an early recruitment incentive, was becoming apparent. Several new rules changes that have come into play since the majority of the OT team last played hockey

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had also made an impact. With league umpires quick to brandish their cards many an OT has been left sitting on the side-line rather confused.

We knew going into the season with the starting line-up changing weekly it was going to take some time for the team to gel. Seemingly enough time had passed after the first quarter of the season and the OT’s began to put in some great performances. The final game before Christmas saw the OT’s play their first return fixture coming up against London Wayfarer’s Vikings away from home. A 4-3 result in the previous meeting suggested another tight game was ahead but a great team performance saw the OT’s put 5 past their opposition without conceding.

Going in to the second half of the season in January the OT’s sit only 4 points behind 5th place, with a game in hand and growing confidence.

For all enquiries, including how to join the club, contact:

otsailing.sec@gmail.com

OT SAILING CLUB NICK TURNER (CH 09-14)

The Arrow Trophy is a yacht racing event in the Solent, open to crews of alumni of Independent Schools. This year, 24 boats took part – providing adequate competition for our Tonbridge yacht. We had a mix of crew on board, stretching from novice yacht sailors fresh out of dinghies to experienced racers who’ve been sailing since the ‘70s.

We gathered at Portsmouth Harbour on the eve of the event, a nervous excitement took hold of some of the crew; others drunk on the sea air (or the Peroni). Passing through the mouth of the harbour, we felt rather inadequate next to the £3bn aircraft carrier ‘HMS Queen Elizabeth’ (yes, that one with the leak!). Our spirits lifted – speeding past the other teams’ yachts on our way to Cowes, our superior sailing skill showing

its colours (that, or the fact that we were the only boat using both sail and motor power).

We were up early on Saturday morning for the 1st day’s racing. A quick few jibes to the starting area, and we were ready - gelled as a team. We came 9th, 11th, 9th & 13th in our first day’s races – the 13th place sadly the result of an altercation on the starting line, Alistair Impey’s ‘opportunistic’ skippering landing us on the wrong side of a potential rule break. As we escaped the situation swiftly two boats collided – we took a cautionary 720o penalty-spin, hoping the impinged boat to be distracted by the hole in their hull.

Dinner at Cowes Yacht Haven was welldeserved. Still elated after our good

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performance; the photo slideshow displaying embarrassing snaps did little to dampen spirits. The abundance of ‘table wine’ ensured a relaxing sleep for all.

Our performance on the 2nd day eclipsed our first – achieving an 11th place as well as a 3rd place! Tonbridge’s only (or should I say ‘first’) ever podium race result. Both days considered, we came 10th place, our best performance yet!

If you are a budding sailor, experienced crew or looking to relive your glory days of yesteryear, please let the OTSA have your name as soon as possible. It is a popular weekend and one which sees many return for more!

For all enquiries, including how to join the club, contact:

gordonaylward@btinternet.com

O T S Q UA S H CLUB G O R D O N AY LWA R D ( S H 5 6 - 6 1 )

OT Squash is modernizing. In this 13th season since its current incarnation, OT Squash’s organiser is retiring and making way for the playing generation to develop and upgrade the Club. A new Committee of 7 players will modernise the administration and power up the Club for even more enjoyment and success.

The main enabling centrepiece is a free web-based team-organising system (https://www.pitchero.com) being worked up by Mark Aylward (SH 89-94) and David Nix (FH 82-87). It will allow players to book directly the matches they wish to play, see who else is playing, receive reminders and view results. Match captains will finalise their own sides. Alex Judd (Sc 00-05) is already in place as Treasurer. A new Chairman will encourage and sign off development of the fixture list, website,

OT Grant, Londonderry Cup, social matters and link with the School (Chris Battarbee is in place as both School supremo and OT player).

The number of matches played has settled recently at 25-30 between September and April, about one game every available week. Although all games are ‘friendly’ (except for the Londonderry Cup) and more emphasis is placed on enjoyment than results, it was interesting that for the first time we were undefeated in the autumn half.

The OT side of Charles Fuente (Sc 73-78), Alex Melkonian (Sc 03-08), Jack Shields (Sc 04-09), Jonny Maltz (PH 07-12) and Mark Aylward easily defeated Old Reptonians 5-0 in the Cup’s 1st round before Christmas.

The team delivered a similar knock-out to

ORs 2 years ago; ORs somehow still remain our good friends. The 2nd round result will be added here if it has been played before this article goes to press. Our opponents?

The tough proposition of the Cup holders, Old Norwich.

Come in and don’t lose your shirt Much will be changing and improving for OT Squash. There are around 30 OTs of all standards who play occasionally or regularly and more are always welcome.

Look at how we operate on the School’s website (http://www.otsociety.tonbridgeschool.co.uk/affiliated-groups/ot-sportingclubs/ot-squash-rackets-club/). You can even buy your squash shirt (with Boar’s Head and ‘Tonbridge’ logo in black) by mail from the School Shop; it’s of excellent quality and great design.

For all enquiries, including how to join the club, contact:

george.nodder@gmail.com

OT REAL TENNIS CLUB GEORGE NODDER (PH 03-08)

The 2017/18 Real Tennis season is well underway and the OTs have had a successful start.

Richard Dalzell (HS 54-58) and I played in the Brigands handicap doubles tournament at Hardwick amongst peripatetic clubs at the end of September.

We topped our group in the round robin stage, defeating the Bar and Hong Kong along the way; we then played well to beat a strong Jesters pair in the semi-final to find ourselves facing an odd couple representing the Ladies Real Tennis Association in the final: a lady Oxford blue and an injured lady’s boyfriend who

started the day as a novice but got better and better to reach his peak in the final, so we finished as runners up for the second time in this tournament.

Towards the end of January, we played handicap doubles at Queen’s against the School, represented by Charlie Elmitt PH 5 and Jack Atherton MH 5. After a very good and competitive match, the OTs came home 6/3, 6/3 6/5. This was good practice for the School pair who are due to play in the Inter-Schools Doubles in February, against the likes of Canford, Clifton, the Oratory, Radley and Wellington, all of whom have their own Real Tennis courts.

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Further fixtures are scheduled for Friday 9 March against Queen’s, with Michael O’Dwyer (MH 82-85) as match manager; Friday 23 March against Hong Kong with Chris Gook (WH 78-83); Friday 20 April against The Skinners’ Company with Richard Dalzell (HS 54-58); and Sunday 22 April at Petworth with Charles Fuente (Sc 73-78).

We are always keen to hear of new players so, if you would like to join our merry band, please get in touch.

TROST, John William Died in January 2018 at the age of 99, in his 100th year.

(JH 31-36) BENJAMIN, Richard Peter Died on 20 January 2017 aged 97.

(JH 33-36) HILLS, Horace Frank Died on Sunday 7 May, aged 97.

(SH 33-37) WALKER, Hugh Murray Chatham Died peacefully at home on 7 October 2017, aged almost ninety-eight. Much loved husband of Phoebe, loving Dad to Tom, Becky and Sophie, and loving Grandpa to Will, Phoebe, Louise and Amy. (FH 33-37)

OBITUARIES

BROWN, William King, (Bill) Died peacefully in his sleep, in hospital, on Friday 2 June, aged 96. He will be greatly missed by his nephew Iain Kirkman, Gillian Kirkman and their family, and his many friends at Tonbridge School. David Faithfull writes:

Bill Brown maintained strong links with Tonbridge school ever since he left in 1939, and in recent years was a regular and well-known visitor. He would come two or three times a year, staying in School House (where he had been as a boy) and visiting various departments, where he would captivate staff and boys alike with his stories of his time at Tonbridge, and of his service during the second world war.

Bill studied Physics at Cambridge, and after the war worked as an engineer and latterly as a government scientist in Naval Intelligence (a role which, true to his establishment loyalty, he refused to talk about right until the day he died).

So it was natural that the department of Design, Technology & Engineering (DTE) would become one of the essential stops on every visit, and it was as his DTE guide that I first met him some seven years ago.

After enduring the obligatory show-casing of the department, Bill would join me in my office where we would sit and chat until it was time to take Bill to his next ‘appointment’.

We talked technical, of course; but we also talked about his exploits during the war. Bill was a Mosquito pilot with 142 squadron, Pathfinders, based at Gransden Lodge in Cambridgeshire. Their role was to carry out advance bombing raids and drop flares to identify bombing sites for the heavy bombers that were to follow. I had often heard – and occasionally used – the term “man and machine in perfect harmony”; but here was palpable evidence that it could really happen. The way Bill talked about flying his Mosquito (call sign “K-King”) showed that they must have operated as one, as a single entity, each acutely sensitive to the status of the other.

In his consistently self-effacing way Bill never claimed to be doing anything other than “his job”, and the notions of bravery or heroism were anathema to him.

After the war, following a stint as a flying instructor in California, Bill worked for a company specializing in fuel systems engineering, and his extraordinary memory meant that he was able to talk me through, in detail, some of the complex research investigations that he took part in.

After many successful years there he was recommended for, and took up, a position with Royal Naval Intelligence, the bit of his life that none of us know anything much about. All Bill would tell me was that his work was “to do with the cold war”.

Bill had a cheeky sense of humour, and a tendency to make very non-PC remarks.

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I would often tell him “Bill – you really shouldn’t say that!” at which point a knowing grin would appear, the effect of which was to immediately dissipate any awkwardness on the part of the quip’s recipient.

For some six months before he died, Bill and I spent a good deal of time together in conversation, and during these sessions, often serenaded by Viennese music – which he loved – playing gently in the background, I learned considerably more about the man, the RAF officer and the scientist. He had a tremendous stock-pile of stories in all three areas, and a great deal of knowledge about almost everything (though his close friend in Rustington, where he lived, told me that she did occasionally have to bring his knowledge up to date somewhat).

In the middle of June, a few days after my last, very brief chat with Bill, he died peacefully in hospital in Worthing at the age of 96. Bill’s only close relative (his nephew) and family, will miss “Uncle Bill”, and so will his many friends in Rustington.

So too will all those at the school who were fortunate enough to meet him, or just to see him in his very old gabardine raincoat being taken round the school which he loved so much.

To say that Bill was unique would be a bit meaningless; we all are. But Bill was a very special blend of intelligence, humour, dedication to duty, scientific accomplishment and – sorry Bill – bravery.

(Sc 34-39) HOARE, John Hereward Passed away peacefully at York District Hospital on April 28, aged 96. Dearly loved husband, father and grandfather.

(SH 34-38) HILL, Peter Gerald, Group Captain, RAF Retd Died peacefully on 28 April 2017, aged 95.

Much-loved brother and uncle.

(PH 35-40) STAINFORTH, Peter Terrick Died on 13 December 2017, aged 96. Chris Davies writes: Peter Stainforth was born in Tunbridge Wells on the 8th July 1921, the only son of Archie Stainforth, MC, a distinguished military officer and colonialist, and Hope Glover, the daughter of the famous missionary, A.E.Glover. When Peter was young it was considered normal for the children of parents, whose colonial duties

kept them overseas for long periods of time, to remain in England, under the care of family, friends and schools which exercised varying degrees of care. Peter was such a child and, while his peripatetic life might have made him the resourceful, robust, self-reliant young man that he grew into, his sensitive nature never really adjusted to the years he spent missing his adored parents. However, there were highlights and, as a nine-year-old, Peter was very proud to have been invited to sit in the cockpit of his uncle George’s Supermarine S6B in which he, as one of the RAF’s foremost pilots of the time, had been a member of England’s Schneider Trophy team between 1928 and 1931 and who, famously, broke the world flying speed record (at 407.5 mph.) In his later years one of Peter’s proudest duties, annually, was to present the “Stainforth Trophy”, an interStation competition instituted by the RAF in memory of his distinguished uncle.

Peter attended Fernden Preparatory School in Haslemere before moving on to Tonbridge School in 1935. He was noted for being a conscientious student and a good all-round performer in gymnastics, boxing and cricket. He was also a promising artist, a skill he pursued as a hobby into adulthood with some merit. Indeed, his Impressionist version of paratroopers descending through flak in Sicily would adorn a wall in the War Office for many years after the war.

Having set his heart on a career in the Royal Engineers he passed for “The Shop” in 1939. However, the Second World War had already begun and he embarked upon the “Wartime Short Engineering Course” at Cambridge, beginning in October 1940. He was finally commissioned into the Corps in February 1942. Full of youthful zest and determined to do his bit, it was not long before he volunteered for the embryo Airborne Forces. Four days after his 21st birthday he qualified as a parachutist at Ringway and joined The 1st Parachute Squadron Royal Engineers.

As a section officer in B Troop of The Squadron, he was soon on his way to North Africa with the rest of the 1st Parachute Brigade. His troop supported the 2nd Parachute Battalion which was commanded by Lt Col (later Maj Gen) ‘Johnny’ Frost. It was with this Battalion that he took part in the parachute assault on Depienne airfield, then the forced march to Oudna where the Germans were present in strength, reinforced by tanks. There followed a gruelling, five-day withdrawal in contact to regain the safety

of Allied lines at Medjez-el-Bab. Of the six hundred officers and men who set out on 29th November only a quarter of the force stumbled battered, bruised and exhausted into Medjez on 3rd December. For Peter and his Airborne comrades it was just the start of the Tunisian campaign and a winter of hard fighting before the campaign was victoriously brought to a close in April 1943.

Peter had been wounded in March 1943 but he was fully recovered by the end of April and back with The Squadron for its recuperation and re-training for the invasion of Sicily on 12/13 July.

The Squadron’s mission here was to assist with the capture of the Primosole Bridge and, specifically, to remove the demolition charges from the bridge to prevent the defenders destroying it. In the event, parachutists and gliders were dispersed widely and Peter was one of very few parachutists who formed a disparate group of Brigade Headquarters, the Defence Platoon and half a dozen Sappers to press home the attack on the southern end of the bridge. They were successful and, immediately, Peter and his men secured the firing point at the north end of the bridge and removed the demolition charges from it. Thereafter this tiny element of the 1st Parachute Brigade held out throughout a long hot day under intense artillery and armoured attack.

Finally, at dusk, when the defenders had run out of ammunition and the Allied ground forces had failed to reach the bridge, the order was given to abandon the position. The survivors were to make their way back to Allied lines in small parties and Peter successfully led a group of Sappers, Signallers and Infantrymen on this gruelling withdrawal.

After a short recuperation period in North Africa, and nine months of intensive training in Donington, Lincolnshire, the 1st Parachute Squadron RE descended upon Arnhem in September 1944 as part of the 1st Airborne Division’s famous Bridge Too Far battle. Despite fighting with a fierce courage that remains an inspiration to modern Airborne Forces, the Division was overwhelmed. Peter was badly wounded and spent the rest of the War as a PoW in Germany.

After the war, Peter wrote a comprehensive and compelling account of his wartime career with 1st Parachute Brigade in the acclaimed book Wings of the Wind.

In civilian life he spent many satisfying years as a designer for the Plastics Division of ICI in Welwyn Garden City. He was

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particularly involved with the machinery developed to handle the new man-made fibres, Nylon and Terylene. It was exciting pioneering work and Peter loved it, travelling widely to share his expertise with others. His marriage in 1948 to June Spink, [daughter of Harold Spink, chairman of Spink & Sons] was rewarded, on the 12th of November 1949, with twin boys, John and Gordon, who clearly inherited their father’s love of challenge and the outdoors – and a remarkable ability to survive all dangers - by successfully tackling some intrepid mountain climbs together in their postadolescent years.

This was also the time when Peter developed Gypsy Cottage as the family home in Hertfordshire: a labour of love that gave him so much pleasure for more than 60 years. Very sadly, June died of cancer in March 1966, leaving Peter bereft. Much later he told how this bereavement did have one positive outcome. On the day of June’s death, quite suddenly, he overcame the debilitating stammer that had plagued him since the unpleasantness of his early schooldays. It was so typical of Peter to find even the most slender of ‘silver linings’ among the ‘darkest clouds’ that occasionally invaded his life.

Happily, in early 1970, Peter met Dorothy Snoxell, a BBC Production Assistant on television documentary films. They clicked immediately and were married in September of that year. It was a gentle match made in Heaven and one which endured very happily until the end of his life.

For over 70 years Peter was a stalwart of the 1st Parachute Squadron RE Club and, every year in September, he joined other veterans at Donington to recall their youth, their wartime exploits and to pay their respects to their fallen friends.

Peter’s charm, loyalty, sense of humour and intense pride in having been one of The Fighting First was the unique ‘cement’ that held them together as, inevitably, the ranks thinned with the passing of time.

His final years were spent, most contentedly, in the company of the lovely Dorothy in a delightful nursing home in Hertfordshire where, typically, he retained a warm interest in the welfare of his friends, despite declining health, until his peaceful passing on the 13th of December 2017.

At his death, Peter was one of the few remaining members of a generation that has all but disappeared and taken with it a set of values and experiences that are

very different from those of the current generation.

and New Zealand. When the tour was over, John chose to remain in Oz.

Peter is survived by his adoring wife, Dorothy, sons John (HS 63-68) and Gordon (HS 63-68), and grandchildren, Debby, Laura and Tim. He will be remembered with much affection and respect by all who had the privilege of knowing this brave, charming and quintessentially English gentleman.

(HS 35-40)

We all miss him so much.

(Sc 37-40)

HAWKINS, John Sefton Spencer Died peacefully on 18 July, aged 94. A much loved father to Nigel and David and grandfather to Matthew and Melanie.

(HS 36-41) HOARE, Geoffrey Edward Died on 27 September 2017, aged ninetyfour. Soldier, businessman and Quaker.

(FH 36-39) MARWOOD, David Christopher Laborde Passed away peacefully at Wadhurst Manor, aged 94. Loving husband of Fiona, and formerly of Jean for 54 years. Beloved father of Philip and Richard, and devoted grandfather and step grandfather. Retired Company Secretary ICL. (WH 36-40) BARNARD, John Philip Died on 8 August 2016, aged 92. His wife writes: My lovely OT, my husband John Philip Barnard, died last year, twelve days shy of ninety-three. I am his second wife, and we had thirty-three wonderful years together.

John and I found it amusing that one of his family monikers became OT for a different reason to being an Old Tonbridgian. When our youngest grandchild aged three at the time asked his Mum what ‘old’ meant she explained that his beloved Granddad was rather like the wise Old Turtle in one of his DVD’s. So Old Turtle stuck for a while.

He recalls in his memoir his time at Tonbridge, and was hardly out of school before joining the RAF and becoming a wireless operator in WW2 including three years’ service in India. John was a highly intelligent, warm kind man who had a very full, creative, inspiring and vibrant life.

He was the son of a successful British character actor Ivor Barnard. John joined the Old Vic Tour with Sir Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh as a junior member of the cast of that famous 1948 Tour of Australia

SHARP, Thomas Michael Budworth CBE (Michael) Died peacefully on 1 September 2017 after a short illness, aged 93. Beloved husband of the late Ellen. Much loved and respected father, brother-in-law, father-in-law, grandfather, godfather and friend.

(MH 37-42) GARRETT, Charles Geoffrey Blythe, Dr (Geoffrey) Died on 8 April 2017, at the Hamptons Centre for Rehabilitation and Nursing in Southampton, USA. He was 91 and had been ill for five weeks. He is survived by his partner of 56 years, Jacques Henri Peltier of East Hampton.

The following obituary was published in the East Hampton Star: Charles Garrett, a physicist, author, and educator in scientific research and a 47-year resident of Fithian Lane in East Hampton, died of cardiac failure on Saturday at the Hamptons Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing in Southampton.

From 1952 to 1954, Dr. Garrett was a member of the technical staff at Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, N.J. From 1960 to 1969, he led its optical-electronics research department and technical staff.

He then went on to the position of director of AT&T Bell Labs, until 1987 studying semiconductor surfaces and advocating presciently for the belief that optical fiber cables were the way of the future. Dr. Garrett lived in New York City from 1970 to 1987, when he became a year-round resident of East Hampton.

Charles Geoffrey Blythe Garrett was born in Ashford, in the county of Kent, England, on Sept. 15, 1925, to Charles Alfred Blythe Garrett and the former Laura Marie Lotinga. He grew up there, attending Tonbridge School. In 1946, he received first class honors in part two of the Natural Sciences Tripos at Cambridge University.

He went on to engage in research in lowtemperature physics at the Royal Society Mond Laboratory. He earned a Ph.D. in physics from Cambridge in 1950.

He moved to the United States that year, following an invitation to join the faculty at Harvard University. There, he served

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as an instructor in physics. Dr. Garrett’s work focused on the thermodynamics of magnetic cooling experiments, thermal conductivity of paramagnetic salts, nuclear hyperfine structures, specific heat, and critical field effects in magnetic orderdisorder phenomena. His department was responsible for many significant developments in laser research, and he collaborated in the experiments that first extended laser techniques to the far infrared.

He was chairman of the Gordon Research Conference on nonlinear optics and wrote the books “Magnetic Cooling,” in 1954, and “Gas Lasers,” in 1956.

Dr. Garrett also played the piano, harpsichord, and carillon, and was a member of the Guild of Carillonneurs in North America. With then-President Lyndon Johnson in attendance, he performed a solo concert of carillon at the National Episcopal Cathedral in Washington, D.C. He was also passionate about antique Bentley and Rolls-Royce automobiles, as well as the early-18thcentury houses of East Hampton. A preservationist, he spent many hours restoring his own East Hampton residence.

He became an American citizen in 1989.

(JH 38-43) DUMBRECK, Ian Robert, Cdr RN Died peacefully at home with his family on 27 January, aged 90.

(HS 39-44) SYMONS, Edward John ( John) Died on 9th July 2017, aged 91.

Born in 1926, John lived in Tunbridge Wells with his parents and two sisters, one older and one younger. He attended Rose Hill prep school from the age of five and it was here that his love affair with boats and sea began since there was a replica of a fullsize tug boat in the school grounds with mast, rigging, dingies, a bridge and a brass binnacle he had to polish.

In 1939, he joined Tonbridge School as a day boy, cycling the five miles trip every day. It was here he met his lifelong friend Malcolm McNicol, and discovered his love for maths and accounting.

In 1944 he joined the Royal Navy, serving on HMS Diamead for his national service and became a meteorologist. He adored clouds and weather systems which underpinned his love of sailing in the later years.

After he was demobbed in 1949, he and Malcolm McNicol worked together in the wine trade, but then John qualified as an accountant and he joined the British American Tobacco Company in 1951 as a travelling auditor, mainly in the Indian subcontinent and Far East, which he enjoyed enormously.

wrote a book about school cricket – “The Story of Tonbridge Cricket 1900-2000”.

He was appointed to the BAT Board in 1970 with a wide range of responsibility and subsequently in 1975, he became Senior Finance Director and a year later Deputy Chairman. From 1980-82 he was also director of the Wiggins Teape Group.

After 3 years in the army – he never saw active service – he studied law at Cambridge, and in the course of his studies was tutored by a certain Professor Ziegler who said to him “Ah, Bathurst! You know no law but I think you will make a good solicitor – you have a good bedside manner!” Indeed he went on to pursue a career as a Country Solicitor in Hampshire but he always said that of far greater importance to him than his degree was his Golf Blue which he was awarded in 1950.

In May 1984, aged 58 and after 32 years at BAT, he decided to take early retirement to spend more time with his family and enjoy his love of travelling and sailing. During his years in BAT, vital pre-tax portfolio grew to eight times their 1970 level. He made a great contribution to the company that enjoyed such success.

His Blue allowed him membership of the Oxford and Cambridge Golfing Society which became a major part of his life, playing in the President’s Putter at Rye 46 times and serving as Captain in 1972-73.

In 1997, with the late John Behrend, he co-authored the O&CGS’ centenary history – “100 Years of Serious Fun”.

In 1958, he married Mary and they enjoyed family life together for fifty-one years until Mary’s death in 2010. He loved his family dearly, and set a real example of what it means to have a family. He adored taking the family on holidays to the West Country and his ideas, adventurous stories and experiences were endless, exciting and fun.

Not surprisingly, Peter played an extremely active role in Old Tonbridgian golf, serving as Captain and President of the OTGS and played 26 times in the Halford Hewitt, making his final appearance as a player in 1976. In the years after, he was an enthusiastic supporter and enjoyed success with the OTs in the Bernard Darwin at Woking, a tournament he loved dearly.

He encouraged the family to experience all that life had to offer, but also to treat people with kindness, respect and care, to make time to listen, to support and to love.

(SH 39-44) HALDANE, Jack Passed away on the 9 June 2017, aged 91 after a very short illness. He is sadly missed by everyone that knew him.

(MH 40-44) BATHURST, Peter John Roper Died in July 2017, aged 91. The Bathurst family writes: Peter Bathurst, who died in July at the age of 91, was a Tonbridgian who arguably exemplified the Corinthian spirit as much as any amateur golfer of the last 60 years. A talented two-handicap player in his prime, Peter also loved watching golf, loved reading and talking about it and loved writing articles about it.

Born in 1926 to Madeleine and Philip, himself a Tonbridge housemaster, he attended Yardley Court before Tonbridge and was there from 1939-1944 during which time he proved a useful 1st XI left arm medium pace bowler. Much later, he

He was also a member of the Royal & Ancient Golf Club and the Senior Golfers Society, but his home club from 1957 until his passing was his beloved Hankley Common in Surrey, where he was a past Captain and an honorary life member.

Although Peter thrived on competitive county standard golf he derived just as much, if not more, pleasure from club competitions and golf with his family and friends, especially if it was windy and wet with a card and pencil in hand and the promise of an enormous helping of toasted cheese and poached eggs to follow. Nothing annoyed him more than fair weather golfers, apart perhaps from people who enjoyed four balls. Aside from the Putter and Halford Hewitt his favourite event was the Father and Son Foursomes at West Hill where he played first with his father in the 1940s and latterly for 30 consecutive years as a father, strictly alternating two of his three sons as partners.

Peter will however be remembered as much for his kindness and ebullience - he was a vintage ‘glass half full’ man - as for his many achievements on and off the golf course. He had an amazing ability to

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engage with different people on different wavelengths, always sensitive to the thoughts and feelings of others.

Peter’s prodigious memory not only served him well as a lawyer but allowed him to indulge his love of cricket, recalling, if given a number, who had scored that number of runs in a first-class match, where, and when, for whom, and against whom. At Peter’s Thanksgiving Service in September, his eldest son David recalled: “His attention on at least one occasion wandered during the sermon when he started jotting down the hymn numbers and who scored that number of runs in a first-class cricket match. Up there was 216, Rejoice The Lord Is King in the then current Ancient & Modern Hymn Book, but recorded by Dad as the number of runs scored by E Paynter for England against Australia at Trent Bridge in June 1938”.

He was known by Tonbridgians, affectionately, as ‘The Boomer’, with his stentorian tones intimately recalling the finest details of any round of golf in which he had participated or watched. He bubbled with enthusiasm for the game he so loved. At an OT Spring Meeting at Princes in the 1970s, the gales and rain were simply dreadful and those few brave enough to play again in the afternoon heard through the lashing elements from afar “Marvellous. Terrific! Who would want to be in an office on a day like this?”

Away from golf and cricket Peter was a huge fan of Amateur Dramatics, most particularly Gilbert & Sullivan opera, and he was a regular feature of the annual G&S production with both the Farnham and the Godalming Operatic Societies. In 1997 he was thrilled to be offered the part of the Judge in Trial By Jury with Godalming Operatic, at the age of 70.

Peter married, first, Mary Butler (herself a former pupil at Wadhurst College) in 1957.

They had three sons and a daughter. After Mary’s death from cancer in 1980, Peter had two further marriages and is survived by his third wife Christine, who Peter married in 1990.

(PS 40-44) LUCAS, Michael Owen Died in December 2017, aged 91.

(SH 1940 / JH 40-44) O’NIANS, Henry Melmoth Died on 28 July, 2017, aged 94.

(SH 40-42)

CRAWFORD, Hugh Fleming, Dr Died on 6 September 2017, aged 90. Much loved father, grandfather and brother.

(JH 41-44) BROWN, Gerald Nigel Died in January 2018, aged 88. Father to Richard (PH 72-76) and David (PH 79-84).

(MH 42-46) HARKER, Martin Died on 4 February 2017, peacefully at home at the age of 88 years old.

(Sc 42-45) PINKESS, Michael John Died peacefully on 14 July 2016, aged 87.

(Sc 42-45) BURT, David Lyndon Died peacefully on 7 April 2017, aged 87.

(MH 43-48) MAYMAN, Ian, Major D.L. CStJ Died peacefully at home in Cornwall with his family around him on 12 December 2017, aged 90. Loving husband of Polly and much loved father and grandfather.

(JH 43-45) TURK, George Michael Dean Died in January 2017, aged 87.

(FH 43-47) BILLIGHEIMER, Rudolf William Passed away on 14 February 2017, aged 86.

(PH 44-49) NEWCOMB, John Stuart Died on 16 November 2016, aged 85.

(SH 44-50) MOORE, Peter James Matthes Peter died in 2017 at the age of 86. Peter leaves his wife Elizabeth, his son Nicholas and daughter Fenella, and four much loved grandchildren. His wife, Elizabeth writes: Peter joined Tonbridge School in 1943 from Yardley Court School. He spent the year before coming to Tonbridge being treated at home in a chalet in the garden for Pulmonary Tuberculosis. It is a testimonial to both Peter and his treatment that he ran for the school’s cross country team. He gained a place at Seale Hayne Agricultural College where apart from getting a degree in agriculture, he enjoyed playing for their 1st XV for five years.

He built up a herd of Jersey cows at Hambleton Hall farm in Rutland, but only sadly to see the herd wiped out by Johne’s disease.

In complete contrast he joined the family firm of printers in the City of London between Barts and St Pauls. His hobby during this time was collecting cyclamen seed from Greece and the Greek islands.

Cultivating cyclamen became an all driving hobby. He made a study of their genetic makeup and was the first in the world to cultivate many new hybrid species. Hobby took over from his newly discovered species from the western Mediterranean.

He became the Chairman, and in due course President of the Cyclamen Society.

(WH 45-49) RYE, Anthony Beloe Died peacefully at home on 27 February 2018, aged 86. Much missed father of Jeremy (PH 73-78), Tessa and Georgina, and grandfather of Oliver, Toby, Clement, Thomas, Marigold and Elizabeth.

(PH 45-49) TABERNER, John Pinder OBE Died on Friday 9 June, aged 85. Beloved husband, father, uncle, grandfather, and great grandfather.

(Sc 45-50) WALTON, John Stanhope Died on 12 March 2018 aged 86. Husband to Anne and father to Robert (PS 75-79) and Gillian. Twin brother to Vivian Walton.

(MH 45-49) WALTON, Vivian Haigh Died peacefully at home on 19th December 2017, aged 85, after a long illness. Beloved husband of Anne and the late Janetta, father of Catherine, Jane and David and much loved grandfather.

(MH 45-50) CLAYTON-JONES, Robert Edward, Dr Died on 1 December 2016, aged 83.

(SH 46-51) PLOWMAN, John Richard Died on 24 July 2014, aged 81.

(SH 46-51) BENSON, Charles Gilbert Died on 21 June 2017, aged 83. He leaves behind his wife Janet Benson and his son Robert (PS 82-87). Charles’ elder brothers Richard Robert (FH 38-40) and Philip Francis (SH 41-45) were also Old Tonbridgians. The Benson family writes: Charles died on Midsummer Day this year after a long period of ill health. He was a man of wide interests, which was reflected in his consuming passions for collecting. He was very sociable, and loved prowling round every type of antique

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shop. Dealers would have experienced his love of negotiating ‘a bargain’, his fund of anecdotes and his sense of humour, which could sometimes be misinterpreted.

Charles was directly descended from an influential line of artists, clerics and schoolmasters, including William Gilpin, originator of the theory of the picturesque, and James Bourne the 19th century landscape painter. He was proud to own a number of their works.

His father was also a painter, who, after the First World War, took up his award of the prized Prix de Rome. In Rome he married a beautiful model, much to the horror of his stiff upper lipped English family. Charles was the youngest son, his first language Italian. The family wintered in a studio near the Spanish Steps, but spent the summers in the fashionable artists’ village of Anticoli Corrado, until the outbreak of the Second World War. The family was comfortably off, as Charles’ father had benefited from an inherited portion of the profits from the famous advertising company of SH Benson Ltd (Guinness is Good for You, etc.)

During the 1930s, the painter Joseph Moore, brother of the poet Sturge Moore and the philosopher George Moore, took up permanent residence with the Benson family, and became the major influence on Charles’ early life, directing his interests in natural history, bird photography, music, and poetry.

In 1940, the family settled permanently in Southborough, Kent. Charles attended Yardley Court preparatory school, proceeding to Parkside in 1946. He had happy memories of his schooldays, being a keen sportsman, and kept in touch with a number of his old school friends, regularly attending reunion lunches.

After Tonbridge, Charles read biological sciences at Imperial College, followed by four years of entomological research.

The threat of military service provoked a change of career to schoolmaster, an occupation that he loved. Charles took early retirement which freed him to pursue his many interests, whilst working as part time teacher and interpreter for Customs and Excise.

He held a couple of exhibitions of his bird photographs, appeared a few times on television, talking about glass collecting, fine books and manuscripts, coloured prints and antique boxes, also regularly attended opera – Wagner, Puccini and Verdi. He lived most of his married life in a Victorian country rectory with plenty of

space to accumulate collections of glass and other antiques, in particular his everexpanding book collection and over 400 original manuscripts, a number dating back to the 14th Century.

In his later years, he would sit happily surrounded by his collections and looking out at his country garden, commenting on how lucky he had been in life. He leaves a wife, son and two grandsons.

(SH 47-52) HERTEN, Walter Michael Died peacefully at home on 24 May 2017, aged 83. So dearly loved husband of Judy, father of Brigid, Hugh and Edward and grandfather of Joanna, Sam, Marloe and Aura. ‘A full life, well lived.’

(PH 47-52) STAMFORD, Michael Geoffrey Russell Died on 23 April, 2017, aged 85.

(PS 47-50) TATCHELL, Keith Reid Died on 19 April 2017, aged 83. Keith’s two sons write: Keith Tatchell died aged 83 on April 19th, after a short illness. He enjoyed his time at Tonbridge in Parkside and sent both his sons in his footsteps (John PS 75-80, Colin PS 80-84). The two Tonbridge stories he told were being a fag for Paddy Mayhew (later Lord Mayhew of Twysden) and having a role in a possibly apocryphal event where a belisha beacon was placed on the pepper pot on top of Big School on the night before his final Skinners’ Day. After Tonbridge, he joined the Marines for National Service where he contracted TB and was invalided out after spending two years in hospital and having half a lung removed. He then went up to Queens’ College, Cambridge and gained an M.A. in Natural Sciences. He proposed to Eileen, his long- term girlfriend, on Graduation Day, and during a marriage of fifty-nine years they went on to have three children, Susan being the eldest. Keith had a successful career in several capacities as an industrial chemist before taking early retirement in 1990.

In his free time he continued to gain several language GCSEs as well as enjoying travel in France and Spain, and took to cruises in later life. He had a strong Christian faith throughout his life and spent several years in leadership roles within the Baptist and non-conformist churches they attended. He left behind his wife Eileen, his 3 children, 8 grandchildren

and 2 great-grandchildren and will be greatly missed for his intelligence, wit, happy smile and generosity.

(PS 47-51) TURNER, Nigel Jeremy Bunting Died peacefully in Luxembourg at the beginning of February 2018, in his mid-80s.

(Sc 47-51) STUART-SMITH Joseph Merriam ( Joe) Died peacefully at home on Friday 20 October 2017, aged 82.

(WH 48-52) AUSTIN, Robert Edward Died on 3 September 2017, aged 92.

Formerly of Tonbridge, much loved husband of Valerie, father of Tim and SarahJane, father-in-law of Megan, Grandad to Jen, Kate, Alison and Dave, and ‘Gogo’ to his many great-grandchildren.

The following article was written by Barry Orchard for the Tonbridgian upon Robert Austin’s retirement: Thirty-eight years. That takes us back to 1949 when this School was a very different place, as was this country, as was the world for that matter. The post-war years had a serious purposeful feel to them.

There was a Labour Government that at least seemed to base its policies on ideals and to be guided by principle. Sartre and Camus were at the height of their powers, existentialists were philosophers rather than long-haired weirdos hanging about in night clubs, television was still in its infancy, the Beatles were little boys whom no one had heard of and the film ‘If’ had not even been thought of. In the Spring of 1949 Lawrence Waddy, the newly appointed Headmaster of Tonbridge School, before officially entering upon his duties, made his first appointment to the Staff, and the young man he chose was a Scholar of Queen’s College, Cambridge who had never got less than First Class Honours in the Modern Language Tripos, Parts I and II – French and German. His name, Robert Austin.

You might think that a man who has lived through these years without learning to drive a car must be something of a fuddyduddy who has failed to adapt to modern conditions. Nothing could be further from the truth. In many ways, Robert has been something of a pioneer. When Lawrence Waddy, in one of those attempts that Tonbridge Headmasters have made down the years to counteract the overpreponderant prestige of games players (a

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task that must resemble one of those bad dreams when one is trying to run away from a pursuing bear), founded the Athena Society in order to raise the status of those boys who were merely intelligent and went in for thinking rather than scrummaging, it was Robert who helped to guide and foster the new Society.

Like many a young Tonbridge Master, he found one day that he had been chosen to produce the School Play. He broke with tradition doubly, by choosing to put on a play that had not been written by Shakespeare and by (wait for the shock) actually including some girls in the cast.

I hope you have not got the impression that the young Robert was some pale and willowy intellectual; that would be totally inaccurate. For one thing, he was an officer in the CCF – nothing remarkable about that of course, when every boy in the School had to belong. All the same, he was something of an exception. He had served in the RNVR during the War, but he found himself in khaki here and, on one occasion, in deep snow, on an expedition in the hills of central Wales during the first ever arduous (as it then was) training week undertaken by Tonbridgians.

Then again, he was an important part of the Rowing Club. Indeed, for two years he found himself actually running it, in conjunction with Gifford Wood (and both of them were Housemasters at the time).

And what Tonbridge Master can escape blowing a whistle on a rugby field? In those days, the bottom game, S5, used to play on some ground known (I am told) as Shipbourne fields. This land was later sold to property developers who proceeded to build the houses in Chiltern Way, in one of which Robert now lives. From time to time he must enjoy the thought that his house stands on the spot where many years ago, he used to referee the fainthearted struggles of S5.

No account of Tonbridge in the 50’s and 60’s would be complete without mentioning the Tonbridge School Employees’ Social Club, which Robert started up in 1954, and to which he and Valerie devoted so much of their time and energies; and perhaps nothing illustrates more vividly the changes that have occurred in society and in this School.

Who in the frenzied rush that passes for living these days would see the need for the numerous activities that Robert used to organise? Yet they were always well attended and, I am sure, it was because of them that Tonbridge School was

characterised by such a strong feeling of community.

In January 1962 Robert and Valerie moved to Hill Side. They took over two terms early because the previous incumbent had been ill; a Tonbridge Housemaster cannot afford to be ill… Between them they ran Hill Side quietly, efficiently, successfully, for the next 15 years. 1962 to 1976 is a span of time that saw four different Headmasters at Tonbridge; it also saw the changes that have transformed the School from the reality only slightly characterised in the film ‘If’, to the School as we know it today. I should imagine that those four Headmasters, when, in reviewing the state of the School, they turned their thoughts to Hill Side, felt a certain confidence and relief that the House was in such capable hands. I am certain also that the many Hill Siders who sang “Austin (oft in) danger, Austin woe” with such frequency and gusto at House prayers really felt, and still feel a deep affection and respect for both of them, even though these feelings may not often have been given the symbolic, almost sacramental, manifestation that a certain Indian boy demanded. The day after the end of term Robert was woken at 5.00 in the morning by Ramesh Bhura who asked him to bless him for his journey.

While Robert sprinkled some yellow powder over his head, Ramesh kissed Robert’s feet, saying: “You are my father” …

on them). We also have a new Head of Department. That sounds like irony. It is not meant as such. The point is, as I am sure the new Austin will be the first to admit, that it is only because Robert is the way he is, that the changeover has been so smooth.

Well, for many years, I had a classroom next to Robert’s. At the end of a day’s teaching, one feels in need of reassurance, at least I do. What more reassuring sight than Robert’s upright figure and twinkling smile? The world cannot be that bad a place, I say to myself, while there is someone like that about in it, someone you can be sure of, someone who is not out for himself, someone who has given his prodigious talents in the service of the School for the last 38 years.

Like the serious 40’s there is something inherently serious about Robert, but recently it seems to me that there has been a brighter than usual twinkle in the smile, and jauntier seat on the bicycle. Perhaps it is the joys of retirement that beckon.

We have been more than lucky to have had Robert with us for all this time, so we cannot complain that he leaves us now; and did not the Headmaster say something about making calls on his services? Thirtyeight years, but my guess is that they are not over yet…

(Housemaster of Hill Side and Head of Modern Languages 49-87)

Above all, however, Robert saw his main role here, believe it or not, as that of a teacher, and always gave his teaching the highest priority. He combined the best traditions of meticulous scholarship with a readiness to adopt new techniques and adapt to new requirements. He was as painstaking and effective in his coaching the high-flyers of Oxbridge as in teaching the weaker brethren for GCSE. He was among the first to see the advantages and to make use of the Language Laboratory, overhead projectors, video recordings.

CANN, Christopher Richard Died on 9 February, aged 82.

(JH 49-54)

In 1979 Robert took over the Modern Languages Department. This was another hard assignment fraught with difficulties.

Yet during the six years he ran it, with hardly a ripple disturbing the calm elegance of Old Judd, the Department was transformed as though a most dynamic whirlwind had been at work. We now have link schools in Evreux, Madrid and Hamburg; we have permanent, native speaking assistants in French, German, Spanish and Russian; we have a Language Laboratory that works; we have a well organised office with teaching materials methodically filed (‘til I get my hands

ISAACS, John Kenneth, Reverend Died peacefully with faith unwavering in Addenbrooke’s Hospital on 11 September 2017. He was aged 81.

CHAPMAN, Richard Hereford, Dr Died on 14 May 2017, aged 81 in Kambah, Canberra, Australia.

Dr Richard Chapman BVSc MRCVS attended Tonbridge School in the early 1950s and then graduated from Bristol University Veterinary School in 1958.

(JH 49-53)

John was born on 23 July 1936 in Teynham, Kent to Dr Kenneth Isaacs and Gladys Isaacs (née Jones). He grew up in Southborough with his younger brother David and, after attending Yardley Court, was at Tonbridge School (Welldon House) from 1949 to 1955. In 1967, John returned to the School Chapel to marry Phillis Jane Bird, also from Tonbridge.

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During John’s National Service, he was seconded to the East African Rifles and, on his return in 1957 went up to Magdalene College, Cambridge where he gained a Master’s Degree in English and Theology. This was followed by a year in Sikkim (North East India), where he was Companion to the Prince and helped with Tibetan refugees.

In 1961 he joined the renowned lutemaker, Ian Harwood in Ely, Cambridgeshire and for the next 10 years the firm of Ian Harwood & John Isaacs specialised in the construction of early plucked instruments.

It was during this period that much of the research was done into early instruments, their manufacture and music, and adapting an ancient craft to modern production methods. When Ian Harwood left the partnership, John continued to produce lutes and the firm had a world-wide market and reputation. During this time, John also lectured in Early Fretted Instruments at the London College of Furniture, Department of Musical Instrument Technology and was recognised in Who’s Who for his contribution to early music. Later in his career, the lute rose provided John with the inspiration for a new jewellery business, Kithara Jewellery, which involved pioneering work in the use of photo etching in silver.

John was also an accomplished musician and played the viol professionally with various Consorts. With the Jaye Consort of Viols, his work included numerous concert tours, broadcasts and recordings as well as research into early music and performance techniques. In addition, John taught the flute, clarinet and recorder and would play as part of an ensemble at concerts.

In 1983, John was ordained priest and his first position was Chaplain at King’s Ely where for 10 years he reinvigorated the spiritual life of the school with his enthusiasm, wisdom and faith. During this time, he was also appointed a Minor Canon of Ely Cathedral and took services at Ely parish churches. This was followed by ten enjoyable years as Priest in Charge of four rural Norfolk parishes, and later he went on to become Dean’s Vicar of Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge and Chaplain to the Diocesan Mothers’ Union.

John spent his lifetime highly respected by colleagues and friends and this was reflected at his Service of Thanksgiving in Ely Cathedral where several hundred people came to celebrate and remember an inspirational and spiritual man. His gentle kindness, quick wit and knowledge will be greatly missed by all who knew him

and particularly by his wife, Philly Jane, their daughter, Rebecca, son-in-law, David, and two granddaughters, Serena and Elysia.

(WH 49-55)

a car window, Whitrow picked up the drink and threw it back through the sunroof of the vehicle, splattering the offenders with the viscous pink liquid. A high-speed car chase across London ensued.

WHITROW, Benjamin John (Ben) Died on 28 September 2017, aged 80.

Ben was one of the much loved and most acclaimed actors of his generation. He was best known for his portrayal of Mr Bennet in the BBC production of Pride and Prejudice.

Benjamin John Whitrow was born in Oxford in 1937 into a family with Irish and Scottish ancestry. His father, Philip, was a teacher at St Edward’s school in the city, and his mother, Mary, a former nurse. His uncle Ralph Whitrow was an Anglican clergyman who was killed in June 1944 while ministering at the Guards’ Chapel when it was hit by a V1 flying bomb.

The following obituary was published in The Times: The BBC’s celebrated 1995 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice is best remembered for a rugged Colin Firth diving into a lake and Jennifer Ehle’s raised eyebrow as a particularly spirited Elizabeth Bennet. Through it all, Benjamin Whitrow provided a masterful foil as Mr Bennet, sighing behind a copy of The Times and occasionally looking wearily over his round spectacles, though not without affection, at his five “very silly” daughters.

When Mrs Bennet threatens never to speak to Elizabeth again after she refuses her absurd cousin Mr Collins’s offer of marriage, Whitrow looks grave, but has a just-perceptible twinkle in his eye as he adds: “Well, there you are, Lizzie, an unhappy alternative is before you. Your mother will never see you again if you do not marry Mr Collins and I will never see you again if you do.”

Whitrow’s mellifluous performance was nominated for a Bafta — arguably a career highlight for the actor, who was discovered

by Laurence Olivier in 1960. Other cameos in British films attested to his versatility.

He was Mr Fulford, the long-suffering employer of Jimmy the wayward mod in Quadrophenia, a gentleman caught with his trousers down in Personal Services and an old rooster who claims to have fought in the Second World War in the animated hit Chicken Run. His greatest love was the Bard and Whitrow was a stalwart of the National Theatre Company and the RSC over many years.

Tall and thin, he had a graceful presence on stage; he was brilliant as Malvolio in Twelfth Night.

The real Benjamin Whitrow was a gentlemanly, if quirky character. His honesty could sometimes be too refreshing and his dispensing of vigilante justice would land him in trouble. Once, after observing youths throw a milkshake out of

Though naturally shy, Benjamin developed thespian ambitions because of the antics of his older brother, Henry, a natural show-off.

Watching James Stewart and Humphrey Bogart at the cinema inspired him further.

Treading the boards in school productions, he found that he felt more at home being somebody else.

After leaving Tonbridge School, he felt compelled to pursue acting against the wishes of his father and gained a place at Rada in London.

Still held back by painful shyness, he was not a success. He was on the verge of being thrown out of the course when he was called up for National Service in the King’s Dragoon Guards in Malaya in 1956.

His predilection for quoting Shakespeare did not go down well with the sergeantmajor. On one occasion he was given a “beasting” after getting drunk one night and reciting verse in the mess, at which point his trousers fell down. Having faced down the sternest possible critics in the army, he was far more robust when he returned to Rada in 1958 and started to win awards.

His big break came when he went for an audition for Olivier’s National Theatre Company at the Old Vic. Olivier cut it short, before adding: “Nab him.” Whitrow spent the next few years honing his craft alongside John Gielgud, Peggy Ashcroft and Ralph Richardson. When he blackened his face to play a chimney sweep, Olivier passed him in a corridor and roared: “Marvellous make-up.” Whitrow treasured the compliment for weeks.

It broke his heart that his father, with whom he was close, was never fully reconciled to his choice of profession, even though he had taught Olivier at St Edward’s School.

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In 1972 Whitrow met a young nurse called Catherine Cook at a party. They married two months later and settled in Wimbledon, south London. They separated after 20 years of marriage, but remained close friends. She survives him with their children, Hannah who works in PR and marketing, and Tom, who works in television as an executive producer.

Whitrow went on to have an unconventional relationship with the actress Celia Imrie, fathering the child that she longed to have. “I told Ben that, although I never wanted to take that step [marriage], I did want a baby, now more than ever, before it was too late,” Imrie said in 2011.

“As long as he understood I would not ask for anything, I wouldn’t want to live with him, or marry him, would never ask for money for the child and I would be responsible for choosing and paying for the child’s education, accommodation, clothing — everything.

“If Ben could take all that on board, I said, then his offer to fulfil my wish for a child would be wonderful. He has proved to be a marvellous father to Angus.” Angus Imrie, who is now 23, is a promising actor.

Whitrow was an avid book collector, and liked nothing better than rummaging through secondhand bookshops, junkshops and car boot sales. He once acquired a first edition of Dracula for small change, but, feeling hard up, promptly sold it.

He also loved playing bridge, having learnt the game at the Old Vic on a table in the wings. “It was fun to play until you heard your cue, did your bit and came back.” That was until he found that someone else had played his hand and messed things up.

In the week before he died he was playing John Betjeman in a new radio play about the poet’s life. He had only one day of recording left and it is hoped that the production can be salvaged.

Whitrow’s only regret as an actor was not playing King Lear in a big production, although towards the end there were plenty of Learish moments. Whitrow spent his 80th birthday this year in hospital. He was an irascible patient, but the nurses still loved him and presented him with a cake before singing Happy Birthday. On being discharged, he went to live in the actors’ retirement home, Denville Hall, in Hillingdon. He discharged himself after

a few days: “I couldn’t stand it there. Too many old people.”

(Sc 50-55) STRICKLAND, John David Died two weeks before Christmas 2017, aged 80.

(FH 51-54) NORWOOD, Robert William, The Reverend Died on 29 July 2017, aged 79. Philip Petchey writes in The Church Times: The Revd Robert Norwood, who died on 29 July, aged 79, was evacuated as a very young boy to Stow on the Wold, where he enjoyed going to church with his aunt.

Back home in Norbury, south London, he attended services at St Olave’s, Mitcham, which was distinctly Anglo-Catholic. As a pupil at Tonbridge School, he came under the influence of the Chaplain, the Revd Francis Henry Gripper, who was of the same churchmanship.

Robert never deviated from the principles he adopted then. After National Service in the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC), he went to Keble College, Oxford, to read English, but was ploughed after failing a paper in Anglo-Saxon. For the next few years, he taught in schools in London, often church schools in Anglo-Catholic parishes; he received training at Sidney Webb College.

In the late 1960s, he returned to Keble, to read theology, this time successfully; he was always grateful for the support of the Warden, Austin Farrer. After Oxford, he went to take charge of the first form at Chigwell School, and he remained teaching there until retirement. He was an outstanding schoolmaster in an oldfashioned way: devoted to the interests of his pupils, learned, and good fun.

For as long as he could remember, he had always felt a vocation to the priesthood.

Despite this, he was rejected several times.

Like the importunate widow, however, he never gave up, and, in 2003, he was ordained to a title at Holy Cross with St Jude and St Peter, St Pancras.

The decision of Bishop Chartres was to be amply justified. Robert blossomed as a priest. His kindness and generosity of spirit found an outlet in helping the disadvantaged. He loved the celebration of the Eucharist at St Mary and Christ Church, Wanstead, where he lived; and he helped to ensure the maintenance of the liturgy in many of the surrounding parishes. For

several years, he served as a locum in Tangiers, Morocco, enjoying Anglicanism in that exotic location, but not failing to minister to the English who were serving long sentences in prison.

He had a fund of stories, starting with his time in the RAMC, where, accorded greater responsibility than is normally the lot of a corporal, he met many senior generals; his accounts of a deaf Fr Royle presiding at St Matthew’s, Westminster, were memorable.

The tales were delivered in a distinctive, gravelly, voice, deadpan and with many pauses for effect. He also was an early historian of the Malines Conversations, for which work he received a Lambeth diploma.

It is impossible to know how Robert’s life would have developed had he become a priest as a younger man. What one can say is that, sustained by his faith, his life yielded the fruits of the Spirit in the manifold circumstances in which he was called upon to serve God. His ashes are interred in the churchyard of St Edward’s, Stow on the Wold, where he had been baptised as a boy.

An obituary by Father Michael White can be accessed at: http://www.otsociety.tonbridge-school. co.uk/news/obituaries-of-ots/article/ date/2018/03/robert-william-norwood/ (WH 52-56) ROSE, Peter, Dr Died on 6 March 2017, aged 78.

(MH 52-55) SEYMOUR-URE, Colin Knowlton, Professor Passed away peacefully on November 18, 2017, aged 79. He was one of the world’s leading scholars of political communications and mass media, and helped found the British Cartoon Archive.

they had a place in a medium that claims to value accuracy. “They assert opinions, generally critical and often emotionally, alongside editorials using reasoned argument,” he wrote, although he also added a note of caution: “Cartoons have the potential to cause offence: a joke may be taken as an insult; a pinprick as a stab.”

He also considered the problems that cartoonists encounter, reporting how Nick Garland had a cartoon turned down by the The Daily Telegraph in 1980 because it showed Margaret Thatcher with her underpants around her ankles (The Spectator published it instead), while Steve Bell had to negotiate with The Guardian about the acceptable number of turds to have splattered around a lavatory on which crouched George W Bush. He started at nine; the paper accepted six.

Seymour-Ure not only studied cartoons, he also studied cartoonists. In 1985 he and Jim Schoff published a biography of David Low, the New Zealand-born cartoonist who drew Colonel Blimp. Low was known for his savage satires of Stalin, Hitler and Mussolini and had the distinction of being banned by the fascist dictators.

The book included 150 of Low’s drawings, many of them warning of the rise of fascism, and was described by The Times as “an eloquent testimonial to the power of the voice of sanity”. In the book, Seymour-Ure pointed out that the cartoonist’s strongest weapon was deflating mockery, rather than malice.

“Low’s good nature flowed out through his brush,” he observed, a point that Low had made himself, saying: “The immoderate exaggeration inspired by malice is apt to become as tedious as too much slapstick in a farce . . . brutality almost invariably defeats itself.”

Colin Seymour-Ure enjoyed the fact that people often leave cartoon anthologies in the lavatory, suggesting that by doing so they were paying a perverse tribute both to the cartoons’ entertainment value and their power to cut public figures down to size. “Lavatories are a reminder of our common humanity,” he said.

As a founding member of the School of Politics and International Relations at the University of Kent, Seymour-Ure was one of those who helped to ensure the survival of earlier political cartoons. Although no cartoonist himself, he and his colleague Graham Thomas recognised their importance and started the Centre for the Study of Cartoons and Caricature at Kent, which later became the British Cartoon Archive. Today it holds more than 200,000 images and enjoys an international reputation.

In Pulling Newspapers Apart (2008), edited

by Bob Franklin, Seymour-Ure discussed the role of newspaper cartoons and why, with their exaggeration and distortion,

Seymour-Ure was also looking ahead.

In a paper published in 2001 he posed the question: “What future for the British political cartoon?” After tracing its history,

The following obituary was published in The Times:

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he examined some recent themes, such as Bell’s underpants motif in Guardian cartoons of John Major, and Peter Brookes’s use of animals in his Nature Notes series in this newspaper, before concluding that their “unique quality — the ability to convey the unspeakable through graphic images — remains undimmed”.

In another paper, entitled Farewell, Camelot! and published in 2007, he discussed how British cartoonists’ portrayal of the US since the Watergate affair in the early 1970s had evolved from being “the saga of the good guys” to a style “which was more often critical, contemptuous, emotive and outrageous”. He drew attention to a cartoon by Chris Riddell in The Observer in 1997 of Tony Blair poking out of President Clinton’s fly like a penis, adding that others had followed Riddell in their depictions of American political affairs and “were ready to wallow in filth: vomit, turds, arses and rats — the iconography of sewage”.

Colin Knowlton Seymour-Ure was born in Barnes, southwest London, on Armistice Day 1938. His abiding interest in the press and its relationship with politics and government was attributed to his father, Philip Ure, who had been held prisoner for two years during the First World War and served as a Times war correspondent in north Africa 25 years later.

During the Second World War Colin’s mother, Nancy (née Cowhurst), took him and his older sister, Jean, to live in Pangbourne, Berkshire. Described as a shy, playful boy, full of energy, Colin was educated at Tonbridge School and Magdalen College, Oxford. He took an MA at Carleton University, Ottawa, and in 1962 returned to Oxford to work for his PhD at Nuffield College, taking a year off to teach at the University College of Nyasaland (now Malawi).

In 1963 he married Virginia Crowe, the granddaughter of Sir Eyre Crowe, a British diplomat who in 1907 had warned that Germany’s intentions towards Britain were hostile. She survives him with their daughter, Kirsty, a book editor and author of Dog@Home who lives in Italy, and their son, Bruce, an IT consultant in London.

When Kent opened its doors to undergraduates in 1965 Seymour-Ure was appointed lecturer in politics and government, teaching the first course in Britain on politics and the mass media.

His earliest months were taken up with a heavy administrative load and dealing

with student troubles, but within three years he had published The Press, Politics and the Public, which examined the role of the national press in the British political system. It was followed by The Political Impact of Mass Media (1974), which included examples of how the media had made a direct impact on British politics.

That year he was part of a group that presented a working paper to the third Royal Commission on the Press, which was considering how to exercise control over reporting standards without restricting the freedom of the press. The commission’s report recommended for the first time a written code of practice for journalists.

He was appointed professor in 1980 and later contributed to government inquiries into the role of the Downing Street press office and parliamentary lobbying.

He also wrote The American President: Power and Communication (1982), which, even in the days before the White House incumbent had access to Twitter, discussed how communicating with the public had a greater level of importance for a US president compared with a British prime minister.

The government’s use of “war cabinets”, notably during conflicts in Korea, Suez and the Falklands, formed another area of interest. Writing in the journal Public Administration (1984), he considered how the respective prime ministers at the time of these conflicts surrounded themselves with a small group of ministers rather than deferring to the entire cabinet or even to parliament. He highlighted two risks of doing this, namely “the dangers of tunnel vision among the decision-makers, and the dangers of military professionals dominating the politicians”. Although he accepted that “luck and extemporisation are intrinsic to crisis management”, he concluded that “for the political control of limited wars in a cabinet system, war cabinets, natural or not, do seem an uncomfortable arrangement”.

Seymour-Ure retired in 2002, but continued writing. Prime Ministers and the Media: Issues of Power and Control (2003) considered how occupants of No 10 dating back to the 1960s had tried, and sometimes failed, to get their message across to voters. “It increasingly dawned on politicians from the late 1960s that the television studio was as much a debating chamber as the House of Commons and a far better way of reaching voters,” he noted.

Outside academia he chaired the Independent Television Commission’s committee responsible for advising on

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ITV’s advertising rules. He was a member of the court of the Skinners’ Company and chairman of the governing body of the Judd School in Tonbridge.

Students found him helpful and thoughtful, a valuable guide during their studies. However, one former student noted that Seymour-Ure never bought a drink, while another commented that, as a supervisor, he was so laid-back that the student had to set him deadlines.

Philip Cowley, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, described him on Twitter as “old-school — dapper, drove a sports car, the nearest thing I’ve ever met in academia to TerryThomas [the comedian] — but wonderful company . . . and always worth reading”.

(PH 52-57) COLEMAN, Barry Died on 4 October 2017, aged 77.

(WH 53-56) FOSKETT, John Herbert, The Reverend Canon Died on 6 July 2017, aged 78. Geoffrey Shaw (HS 53-58) writes: I first knew John in those early days in Hillside. We grew up together and from the very beginning he had an influence on me. Through him I was introduced to the religious experience which has never left me to this day and I am grateful to him for this. We had a mutual love of cricket – a passion in both of us – he had much more natural skill than me but he gave me the privilege as a young boy to play in his local village cricket club team in the holidays at Tadworth, where when I was there I was welcomed by his family.

Following gaining a degree at Cambridge and Theology in Chichester, he went to his first curacy in my home area, first in Old Malden, and then in Kingston-on-Thames.

It was there that he began to develop his considerable counselling skills to become the first full-time chaplain of the Maudsley and Bethlem hospitals, a job he did for 18 years until ill health forced him to leave a job he loved. He became godfather to my eldest son. He was honoured to be appointed as a Canon of Southwark Cathedral, and so it was very appropriate that a service of Thanksgiving for his life was held there on 14 November 2017.

From the very beginning, he had this extraordinary ability to have a sympathetic rapport with anyone he met, and this has carried through his whole life – in his work as a priest and counsellor, the relationship

with his family and friends – those he met in the sport he loved. He always made you feel that you were special to him and that moment so I can see why he was so successful at Maudsley with the mentally ill, why he was sought out for advice by health professionals and fellow clergy, and why he was so loved by his family and the church in Dorchester where he and his wife, Mary, lived following the diagnosis of his illness.

Above all, he was a pioneer in clinical pastoral education, a creative force with those around him, a persuader who made one feel whatever he advocated was the way to go. He had a deep and passionate commitment to help the disenfranchised and disempowered and he was a respected author in the field of mental health.

He had this extraordinary ability and the strongest of faith to see beyond death into the next world. He talked about passing the baton as he finished the race and encouraged those around him to follow their dreams. This became more poignant as his health deteriorated, for he never wavered in the way he behaved, setting up courses which he called ‘Grave Talks’ to try to get those in his local parish to talk about death and dying, and what would be experienced beyond. I love the image suggested by Sully, his grandson, that his grandad would come back to us a bird so that he could visit us in our different places in his own time: he might be closer than you think.

Sometimes one says of someone we no longer see that they were a thoroughly ‘good egg’. I would say that he was a thoroughly nice man to all he encountered and I was lucky to have known him.

(HS 53-57) LEASK, David Lewin Died on 14 May 2017, aged 77, after a long illness.

(MH 53-57) ARMSTRONG, Peter John Died on 2 August 2017, aged 77.

(Sc 54-58) De MALAMA, Peter, Baron Died on 10 July 2016, aged 77.

(PH 54-57) SMITH, Martin Graham Milner, Dr Died on 22 March, aged 75. The following obituary was published in The Times: Consultant physician renowned as a formidable cricket and rackets player.

Martin Smith’s steadying presence as the medical director of Royal Surrey Country Hospital in Guildford belied his ferocious competitiveness. He played numerous sports as an amateur masquerading as a professional and always refused to leave the court, pitch or course through injury.

Not only would he slow down a round of golf by hanging on the branch of a tree to straighten his troublesome back, but he would also issue challenges to contest a game of squash at 3am. He even once ordered Colin Cowdrey to run on the cricket field, a quite unthinkable command.

Smith’s intellect was such that he found simple bridge conventions too restricting – to the extent that his friends had to invent terminology to keep him entertained.

This included an illegal and pointless convention whereby the sole purpose was to hope a mistake was made and money forfeited to each of the other three players.

Other additions to the customarily well constricted rules of bridge included saying: “Have you been on a cruise recently?” This meant that his opponents were getting too close to look at his cards. This ruse was never identified.

He won squash and rackets half blues at Cambridge and, at the advanced age of 38, became captain of Guildford and Godalming Rugby Club. Sport provided an outlet away from his medical work, which included management of liver failure and research into immunology when transplantation began in the early 1970’s. He then founded the first hepatitis C clinic in Surrey, having become one of the youngest hospital consultants in Britain, with a particular interest in gastroenterology and liver disease, when he was 33.

King’s College London, where Smith was based after qualifying as a doctor, was the focal point of liver transplants. “Martin was a senior registrar and lecturer and was selecting patients from all over the world. It was very technically demanding work and set his career up well,” said Mike Bailey, his first houseman. Not the least of the difficulties Smith faced was in coping with the number of patients who suffered rejection of organs.

“Martin was a rounded, multitalented person, observant of people and events, happy in his own skin. Everything came easily to him, including sport and playing the piano. If people were being pushy or above themselves, he would make a comment through his cynical sense of humour, which set others laughing. He did

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not suffer fools at all and could see through pretence,” Professor Bailey said.

“Even when he was dying, he was humorous about not wanting to go into intensive care. ‘You don’t want to go in there,’ he said ‘you might not come out.’

Shortly after admission to hospital he had a fall and bruised his forehead, promoting him to ping a texted photograph captioned ‘Gorbachev.’ He knew how ill he was and ended his own treatment,” Bailey said.

Martin Graham Milner Smith was born a son of a lawyer who became town clerk of Lewisham. He was educated at Tonbridge School, where he excelled at all sports, and at St John’s College, Cambridge, where he studied medicine and was a contemporary and friend of Mike Brearley, a future England cricket captain. “He was a very attractive man, racy, with a quick intelligence and a disarming chuckle,” recalled Brearley. “Martin came to my family home in Ealing more than once and pointed out to me how small it was, how close-knit we were; I remember how asthmatic he was and I think he found it hard to breathe there.”

Nevertheless, Smith’s sport was unaffected.

He and Richard Gracey, his rackets partner, won the British amateur doubles championship five times, while Smith won the British amateur singles in 1970 and 1971.

They also played for their old boys’ cricket XI, winning the Cricketer Cup in 1984 and celebrating raucously on a day out given by the sponsors, Moët & Chandon, at their chateau in Épernay. He and Gracey, finding that the portentous cricket writer EW “Jim” Swanton had left his brown hat on a peg outside the dining room, filled it with urine.

Smith liked nothing more than pricking pomposity.

“I remember Martin drank a gallon of champagne on the private plane going over – and was so drunk he could not make his speech as captain,” David Frith, the cricket historian, said, “Not that the hosts noticed as his brother took his place.

He was two people in one: this highly regarded physician whom everybody spoke well of at Guildford – and then this wicketkeeper shouting every time a ball was bowled in club cricket and who seemed to think it was his job to inflict migraines on the batsmen. It was verbal clatter. I can only assume his work left him with a lot of pressure that he needed to release.”

Nor were eminent cricketers spared.

Cowdrey, a revered figure at Tonbridge School, was never the slimmest of sportsmen. He would field in the slips and leave running to the boundary to others, but Smith, who was leading the Tonbridgians, was having none of that.

“In this form of cricket, Colin, we chase after the ball,” he told the former England captain. Even Fred Trueman had not addressed him so robustly.

“Martin was larger than life: difficult, cantankerous, argumentative, irreverent, childish, endearing, compassionate, caring and extremely talented. He loved life and lived at three times the normal speed of mere mortals,” said Dr Charles Godden.

He was certainly not inhibited by sensitivity, and his sense of competitiveness could extend even to his family. Smith was playing beach cricket on the Isle of Wight with some of his children and grandchildren, a year after his diagnosis of the lung disease from which he eventually died, and had to be transported by helicopter to hospital with breathing problems after attempting to run out a grandson with a pick-up and diving throw. His explanation was, “Well, the little devil tried to take a short run to me at cover, I wasn’t going to have that!”

When on a cricket tour of Sri Lanka, Smith – who was never averse to a challenge – took a flying leap into what, unknown to him, was the shallow end of a swimming pool, and broke his leg. He declined any treatment in Sri Lanka and, after hobbling around for the final days of the tour, returned home in some considerable pain and discomfort. He wanted the leg to be re-set only by his trusted and known colleagues at the Royal Surrey County Hospital.

As medical director at Guildford he developed a good working relationship with management, despite his somewhat irreverent perspective on career pathways.

He would challenge the chief executive to a game of squash in the early hours: the next day neither could remember who had won.

Smith met his wife, Judy Haslam, when she was a trainee nurse at St Thomas’ Hospital and he was a junior doctor at Lambeth Hospital. They were married in 1967 and had three children: Jake, who is an insurance executive; Thomas, a finance director; and Peter, who works in the financial services industry.

He was fiercely loyal to his friends and fellow sportsmen. On one occasion, he took a day off to give a character reference for a member of his cricket club near Guildford who had been caught burgling a local property by the police. Smith’s concern was not only for the waywardness of a team-mate but, he privately admitted, his motivation was also to keep him out of prison because he was a decent off-spin bowler.

(MH 54-60) LEA, John Edward Passed away on 30 November 2017, aged 75. He leaves behind his loving wife Sheila.

(Sc 55-59) SHERWIN-WHITE, David Nicholas Died on 8 January 2018, aged 75. The following obituary was published in The Times: When Malcolm McDowell was auditioning for the role of Mick Travis, the lead part in Lindsay Anderson’s classic 1968 film If. . . ., David Sherwin was so excited by the unknown actor’s performance that he jumped to his feet and shouted to the director: “Lindsay, you have found your Mick!”

Irritated by the outburst, Anderson turned to his scriptwriter and scolded him. “That is not how you cast a film, David. Now piss off!”

Yet, he was forced to concede that they had found their man. “However much he poured scorn on me, he always trusted my instincts,” Sherwin said.

McDowell was cast in his first screen role in the searing, spirit-of-the-age movie and went on to reprise the role of Mick Travis in O Lucky Man! and Britannia Hospital, which were also directed by Anderson and scripted by Sherwin.

The heated exchange during the auditions for If. . . . was characteristic of the rancorous but hugely creative relationship between director and scriptwriter. The tone was set during their first meeting in the Pillars of Hercules pub in Soho to discuss Sherwin’s script, which had the working title The Crusaders. “I was greeted by this charismatic gnome-like figure, who said, “Well the script is very bad, isn’t it,” the writer recalled.

When he had the temerity to stand up to Anderson’s bullying and insist the script was “bloody brilliant”, Anderson replied: “Is it?” — before he agreed to make the picture.

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Sherwin described their partnership as based upon “vast affectionate scorn”. When Anderson rang to ask how much progress his scriptwriter had made, Sherwin would splutter: “Everything’s going brilliantly, Linds.” To which Anderson would reply: “That nervous cough in your throat, I know you’re lying.”

On one occasion when working on the script for O Lucky Man!, Sherwin opted for honesty and admitted that he had only written “a bit”.

“A bit? That’s no f***ing use, you lazy c***,” Anderson screamed before slamming the phone down. Minutes later they were back on the line as if nothing had happened.

They convened for an intensive writing session at Anderson’s mother’s house in Rustington on the Sussex coast, where Sherwin spent much of his time drinking Gold Label Barley Wine and the director downed copious amounts of malt whisky.

Cast in the lead role again, McDowell recalled receiving a postcard from Anderson saying: “Author drunk on floor, I don’t think we will ever make O Lucky Man!” They sobered up, thrashing out script ideas by “walking up and down a freezing pebble beach”. A week later McDowell received another card: “Things looking up . . . Looks like we will do the film after all!”

Sherwin’s original script for what would become If. . . . was a savage satire based on his time at Tonbridge School. It was written with John Howlett, his friend and fellow old Tonbridgian. Their witty but withering portrayal of the English public school system as brutal, anachronistic and elitist was dismissed by one producer as “evil and perverted”, and another opined that the writers should be horsewhipped. It took five years before the script reached Anderson, who as a socialist was not blind to its potential for baiting the establishment.

He demanded an extensive rewrite, which took 18 months to complete, and got his scriptwriter to incorporate some of his own bruising experiences from his time as a pupil at Cheltenham College.

Charterhouse and Cranleigh refused to allow them to film on school premises after they discovered the nature of the movie’s subject matter, but Anderson tricked the headmaster of his alma mater by showing him a dummy script, complete with fake title, and was granted permission to shoot at Cheltenham College.

Anderson told Sherwin that he was only making the film “for a few friends in Cannes”, to which his scriptwriter grandly replied: “And I’m making it for the world.”

Both men achieved their ambitions in their different ways. If. . . . won the Palme d’Or at the 1969 Cannes Film Festival and has since featured prominently in “best movie” polls, including the British Film Institute’s list of the greatest British films of the 20th century, in which it was ranked 12th.

Among the film’s fans was David Cameron, who was asked on BBC Radio 4’s Today if he thought McDowell would be a good choice to play him in a biopic — a reference to the actor’s portrayal of the public-school cad Flashman in the 1975 film Royal Flash.

The prime minister neatly sidestepped the unwelcome analogy by expressing his admiration for McDowell’s performance in If. . . . an improbable endorsement of a film best noted for its incendiary critique of the class system.

Despite their verbal sparring, Anderson proved to be a loyal and supportive friend through the personal problems that at times dogged Sherwin’s career.

He struggled with alcoholism and his mental health, and wrote at least some of the screenplay for the 1982 film Britannia Hospital while sectioned in a south London hospital. Sherwin discovered that the director was someone to whom he could always turn in need. “I would almost use the word priest,” he said.

His first marriage, to Gay (née Conolly), ended in divorce in 1974. Three years later he married Monika (née Hayden), who worked as a receptionist for a physiotherapy practice near the family home in the Forest of Dean. She died last year after becoming Sherwin’s carer as his health declined.

From his first marriage he is survived by a son, Luke Sherwin-White, a copywriter, and from his second, by a daughter, Skye Sherwin, who is an art critic at The Guardian.

He was born in Oxford, the son of dons.

His father, Nicholas Sherwin-White, known by the initials AN, was a fellow of St John’s and a noted historian of ancient Rome. He worked in Naval Intelligence during the Second World War and his demob suit was worn by McDowell in the opening scene of If. . . .

His mother Marie (née Downes), taught Latin. After boarding at Tonbridge, Sherwin

read English literature at Oxford. By then he was already writing the script that was to become If. . . ., a distraction which, to the disappointment of his parents, contributed to him failing his first year exams and being rusticated.

While he hawked his script around, he worked briefly as a writer for an industrial film unit. By the time he met Anderson he was making a decent living as a commercial photographer. “I gave up being a swish-fart overpaid photographer with a silver Porsche and became an underpaid scriptwriter with a Citroen 2CV,” he noted wryly.

After the success of If. . . . Sherwin’s screenwriting skills were in demand, but he seemed blighted by bad luck.

He comprehensively rewrote John Schlesinger’s Sunday Bloody Sunday, which won a Golden Globe and a Bafta for best picture, although his key role was not fully reflected in the film’s credits, which merely noted that “the producers gratefully acknowledge the assistance of David Sherwin during the production of the film”.

Other projects on which he was employed included a remake of Camille for Franco Zeffirelli and a version of Robin Hood with the actor Jon Voight, who asked him to create parts for Muhammad Ali and Bob Dylan. Neither film was made.

With McDowell and Anderson, he formed the production company SAM and revived the character of Mick Travis in O Lucky Man! Adapted from an idea by McDowell and with a soundtrack by Alan Price, Sherwin described its surrealist allegory as “the hardest thing I’ve ever done”.

It won two Baftas and was nominated for a Golden Globe but Britannia Hospital, the third part of the Mick Travis trilogy, fared worse. A black comedy about the hypocrisy and post-imperial decay of modern Britain, it appeared at the height of the Falklands War. When it was shown at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival, the UK delegation walked out.

Anderson and Sherwin were “chased down the street for being anti-British”, McDowell recalled. Sherwin was delighted. “We’ve achieved what we set out to do,” he said.

“An assault on Thatcher’s Britain that hurts.”

However, the film’s commercial failure did little for his career. By 1985 he was on the dole. There were more thwarted film projects, including a plan to put his 1996 memoir, Going Mad in Hollywood, on screen.

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He at least had the consolation of some stellar reviews for the book. JG Ballard praised his writing as “witty, shrewd, and unflinchingly honest” and described the book as “the best script that David Sherwin has yet produced”.

(Sc 55-58) ADDEY, Edward James Beaumont Died peacefully on 10 September 2017 from cancer, aged 74. Husband of Pascaline and father of Richard and William.

(JH 56-61) LITTLE, Brigadier Peter Anthony, CBE Died on 31 January 2018, aged 75. Much loved husband of Penelope for 49 years.

Proud father to Patrick (Sc 83-88), Jason (Sc 85-90) and Edward (Sc 93-98). Devoted grandpa ‘Sparkle’ to seven grandchildren.

(SH 56-61) ANDERSON, Neville Maxwell, Major, Queen’s Own Hussars Passed away on 15 July 2017, aged 73.

Beloved husband of Mary, much loved father of Oliver and Ruth and Grandpop of Hannah, Matthew, Nicholas and Zoe. (Sc 57- 62) PAYNE, Robert Michael Died 27 August 2015, aged 73.

(JH 56-69) BENNETT-LEVY, Michael Esmond Died on 28th September 2016, aged 70.

Michael died peacefully at home surrounded by his family (wife Zoë, sister, brother James (JH 67-71), two sons, one daughter and three grandchildren, his nephew and niece). He died as he lived, on his own terms.

For 40 years, he had been an antiquary and antiques dealer and specialised in rare and sought after “Early Technology”, the name of his business. He advised and sold to collectors and museums all over the world.

He was a noted restorer of scientific instruments. Latterly he was asked to restore the remarkable 18th century Grand Orrery at Dumfries House by the Great Steward of Scotland’s Trust. It is now one of the most popular exhibits at Dumfries House.

He looked back at his time at Judde House with fondness and was Head of House in his last year. He attended Edinburgh University where we met and achieved two degrees - BSc and BCom which he always said fitted his future career very well.

(JH 60-65)

SMITH, Richard Michael Died at the beginning of 2017.

(WH 61-65) FRANCIS, Timothy Donald Died on 23 February 2018, aged 81.

(Director of PE 63-70) STREETEN, Anthony David Friend, Dr Died on 29 July 2016, aged 62.

Archaeologist, antiquarian and accumulator. Husband and best friend to Siriol, dispenser of wisdom to Charles…

(SH 68-72) COX, Paul Graham, The Reverend Canon Died on 6 November 2017, aged 76. Paul came to Tonbridge in 1970 as Head of the Economics Department. Keen to increase the size of the department, he also soon became involved in other aspects of school life: drama, the Parascending Club, rugby and hockey, as well as being a popular tutor in Ferox Hall. However, Paul had now found himself called to ordination, and Martin Francis and Edward Turner shared in Paul’s preparation to become a parish priest. Paul also attended weekend sessions up at Cambridge and completed the course with a Lent Term at Westcott House, and after his ordination he began to take on some responsibilities in the parish of Kemsing.

In 1980 Paul was appointed Headmaster of St Michael’s in Otford, and in this role he was able to combine his pastoral role with that of being the Headmaster. By 1990 he had doubled the numbers in St Michael’s to around one hundred. He now moved to the Hastings and Leigh parishes near Canterbury before becoming Rector of Biddenden and Smarden. He became involved in helping to prepare Lay Readers’ selection and training, and it was no surprise when in 2007 Paul was made an Honorary Canon at Canterbury Cathedral.

After retirement, he and Jenny moved to Heathfield where they already had a house. Paul also became assistant Director of Ordinands and his contribution during his final years in that parish was greatly appreciated.

(Head of Economics 70-80)

WATSON, Victor Robert (Vic) Died on 12 August 2017, aged 48.

A Facebook page has been set up in his memory: https://www.facebook.com/awalkingbeer/ (JH 82-87) DOGGART, Simon Jonathan Graham Died peacefully at home in East Wittering, surrounded by his family, on 23 July 2017, aged 56. Adored husband to Antonia, much loved and inspiring father to Clare, Charlie and James and beloved son and brother.

(History and Classics 85-88) FREEDMAN, Andrew Charles Passed away on 4 June 2017, aged 45.

(FH 85-90) STARMER, Ian Nicholas Died on 15 July 2017, aged 38, after a long illness.

(JH 92-97) HART, Ray Edward Earl, Air Commadore OBE JP Died peacefully in Hospice in the Weald on 7 November, 2017. Adored husband to Angela, devoted Dad and dear Grandad.

(School Bursar 94-08) LATTER, Matthew Douglas Died on 18 April 2017 peacefully at The Hospice in the Weald, aged 35. Much loved son of Julia and the late Christopher, stepson of Denis Cruse, brother of Thomas and Edward, and father of Harry.

(FH 96-00) WILLETT, Robert Maxwell (Max) Died unexpectedly in Toronto on 20 July 2017, aged 33. Brother to Daniel (HS 95-00).

(HS 97-02) RUSSELL, Alasdair Cairns Died in Florida on 31 March 2017, aged 19.

Much-loved son of Kathleen and Graeme and much-loved brother of Cameron (FH 08-13) and Lindsay.

(OH 2014-16)

CHAMBERLAIN, Richard Maitland Died suddenly at home in Hindolveston, Norfolk, on 28 February 2018, aged 52.

(Sc 79-83)

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A LEGACY TO TONBRIDGE. YOUR LEGACY, THEIR FUTURE. Since Sir Andrew Judde’s legacy in 1558, legacies and bequests have played a vital part in the success of Tonbridge School and have also enabled us to benefit generations of talented students by offering scholarships and bursaries.

The Judde Society was formed to recognise those Old Tonbridgians who have remembered Tonbridge in their will. OTs who inform the school of this intention will automatically be invited to become a member of the Judde Society, will receive a Judde Society tie, and will be invited to special events at the School throughout the year. Members are not requested to reveal how much they have pledged.

Legacies are also advantageous from a tax perspective. Tonbridge School is a registered charity, and all legacies made to the school are exempt from UK Inheritance

and Capital Gains Taxes. HMRC guidance states that a bequest will either: • be taken off the value of your estate before Inheritance Tax is calculated • reduce your Inheritance Tax rate (from 40% to 36%), if more than 10% of your estate is left to the charity.

By way of example, for a UK Legator who has an estate of £500,000, a donation of £17,500, diminishes the remaining estate by only £4,200.

Our new Judde Society Manager, Tara Biddle, would be happy

“

to provide you with the latest information about including Tonbridge in your will. Making a will is an important step and it is recommended that you seek independent professional legal advice.

Your support will be greatly appreciated and will help us uphold our traditions and realise new ambitions.

For more information, contact: Tara Biddle Judde Society Manager tara.biddle@tonbridge-school.org +44 (0) 1732 304253

I promise to continue to make the most of the opportunities available to me, because I will always be grateful for the superb education I was afforded at Tonbridge.

ALEX MOEN FOUNDATION AWARD RECIPIENT

For more information, contact: TONBRIDGE SOCIETY Tonbridge School Tonbridge TN9 1JP OTS@tonbridge-school.org +44 (0) 1732 304253 www.tonbridge-school.co.uk www.excellence-for-all.org