Seniors' Supplement 2020

Supplement

2020

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Contents

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WELCOME

PAGE 4

EVENTS

PAGE 12

THE INTERVIEW

PAGE 18

FEATURES

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CIRCLE NEWS

PAGE 50

OBITUARIES

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DIRECTORY

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Contents

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Welcome

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Welcome

Source: Wycombe Abbey Archives

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Welcome from the Headmistress

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he 2019-2020 academic year has been an extraordinary one for everyone within the Wycombe Abbey community.

Having taken up post in September 2019, I was anticipating challenges and preparing to navigate them as I settled into my new role as the eleventh Headmistress of Wycombe Abbey. I was not, of course, anticipating a global pandemic!

However, I have been heartened by our community’s response during these challenging times.

We were delighted to host over 100 Seniors on site for Seniors’ Day in September 2019, and for the Seniors’ Lacrosse match and Carol Service in December. In March 2020, the reality of the coronavirus pandemic hit the UK and the country went into national lockdown. School closed and our pupils returned to their homes across the globe and our beautiful School estate became eerily quiet without the sounds of girls voices in the corridors and classrooms.

Pupils attended classes daily in the Summer term through our remote learning programme. Pupils, staff and Seniors have all shown great determination throughout this period, and I was proud to see them contribute towards their own communities in a plethora of ways. As a School, we offered boarding Houses as accommodation for key workers, we donated lab coats and goggles, and staff and former staff came together to make visors for the NHS in our Design and Technology workshop. On Thursday evenings, resident staff came together with the rest of the country, to show appreciation for those working on the frontline and we raised money for a local charity supporting the homeless. The School’s Pandemic Response Team was set up to make decisions and guide us through this unprecedented time, first closing the School and then reopening it. The first proving to be much more straightforward than the latter.

I have been impressed by the way Seniors have adapted to the new social and economic climate and different ways of being and doing. Seniors in the healthcare sector have

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treated patients on the frontline in Covid-19 wards, and they have shown compassion and resilience as they care for others in their communities. The Circle News section provides an insight into some of these activities.

We have seen innovation and perseverance from our pupils, who, despite the disruptions to this year’s public examinations, were awarded impressive GCSE and A level grades with 98.7% A*-A GCSE and 90.2% at A* at A Level. We are extremely proud of how they have responded, through the challenges this year and the difficulties of being apart during the Summer term.

Our Seniors’ Office has been hard at work connecting alumnae across the world and I have been impressed to read about Seniors’ achievements in the new Dove digital magazine and our Seniors’ Spotlights. Among the many ways we are inviting Seniors to become involved is through the new Seniors’ Mentoring Programme which we have launched this year as part of the Carrington Award. I would encourage you to get in touch if you’d like to support our Fifth and Sixth Form by becoming a mentor and providing insight, experience and challenge for the girls as they consider their futures beyond the School. Please contact the Seniors’ Office for more information.

I hope that you enjoy reading this year’s Seniors’ Supplement and I hope to see you at a Seniors’ gathering soon, be it virtual or in person.

Jo Duncan MA (St Andrews), PGCE (Cantab) Headmistress

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Report from the Development and Seniors’ Office I

t is our pleasure to present the 2020 edition of the Seniors’ Supplement. Following this extraordinary year, with the full effects of a global pandemic continuing to impact our daily lives, we are delighted to bring to you news of Seniors around the globe. The 2020 Seniors’ Supplement hosts new features for you to enjoy, such as the introduction of Seniors Spotlights and a new headline feature, The Interview.

In these pages we aim to celebrate the diversity and vibrancy of Wycombe Abbey’s 4500-strong Seniors community and display just a few of the ways in which Seniors have contributed to and supported their communities during the last year.

We are a new Development and Seniors’ Office team, and it has been a privilege to have had the opportunity to meet so many Seniors and Honorary Seniors over the last year. The coronavirus pandemic disrupted our programme of physical events, however we have enjoyed seeing Seniors, albeit virtually, at a number of occasions during the course of the year.

Wycombe Abbey celebrates its 125th anniversary in 2021 and we are looking to the future with a clear vision: to be at the forefront of girls’ boarding education and recognised globally as a world class school. We are delighted to announce that the School’s strategic plan has now been launched, and we welcome Seniors to view these plans on our website - www.wycombeabbey.com/strategic-plan/.

2020 saw the introduction of new platforms for Seniors to share news and notices, including the launch of The Dove a sustainable digital magazine in the summer and a regional newsletter for Seniors in China, Hong Kong and Southeast Asia to complement the work of the Wycombe Abbey Hong Kong Foundation. The breadth of Seniors’ talents and life experiences in these publications are testament to the uniqueness of our global Seniors’ community.

This year, more than ever, we wish to say thank you to the many Seniors and Honorary Seniors who continue to support the School’s Bursary Fund and Development programme. Wycombe Abbey simply could not offer the level of support it does to Bursary pupils, or develop our magnificent 170-acre conservation-listed site, without your support. If you’d like more information about the School’s Development priorities, please do not hesitate to contact Clare Flynn-Scarcelli, Director of Development and External Relations, at flynnscarcellic@wycombeabbey.com.

Over 150 alumnae signed up to a new Seniors mentoring programme launched in School last autumn, providing one-to-one and small group sessions to current Sixth Form pupils. We are very grateful for the generosity of our Senior mentors in giving their time to support pupils via this programme. Please do get in touch if you would like to hear more. The number of Seniors registered on the Seniors’ website has grown during the course of the year, providing the opportunity to connect with alumnae, create events and groups, view images from the School’s archives and read about recent Seniors’ news and activities. A new Seniors’ Twitter account, @WycombeSeniors, is also gaining a steady following so do tune in.

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Welcome

The Seniors’ Office is here to support all Seniors and we would be delighted if you were to stay in touch and tell us your news. Please do email Katie Tyler, Seniors’ Officer, at seniors@wycombeabbey.com or write to the Seniors’ Office at the School address. Thank you to the many of you who wrote or emailed in with your news and notices this year.

We hope you enjoy the Seniors’ Supplement 2020 and our very best wishes for a healthy 2021.

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Clare Flynn-Scarcelli Director of Development and External Relations flynnscarcellic@wycombeabbey.com

Katie Tyler Seniors’ Officer seniors@wycombeabbey.com Katie Tyler 033

Rebecca Conroy Communications Manager communications@wycombeabbey.com

Anna Wood Development Officer development@wycombeabbey.com

Yael Marwah International Executive Coordinator marwahy@wycombeabbey.com

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Welcome

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Welcome from the Chair of Seniors’ Consultative Committee

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s I write this, it feels like a great deal has changed over the preceding 12 months since I wrote my piece for the Supplement last year. There have been many important personnel changes at Wycombe Abbey and new people with whom we, as Seniors, will have contact. Clare Flynn-Scarcelli arrived as the Director of Development and External Relations in September 2019 and we welcome her to the School and thank her for everything she has done to look after our Seniors’ community.

I would also like to welcome Katie Tyler who I am delighted is now in post as our Seniors’ Officer. I am sure that we will all get to know her well as our key point of contact for managing events and maintaining records.

I have also been very grateful to Suze Stevens-Wood for all her work to co-ordinate applications and interview candidates for the Seniors’ Travel Awards. It would be wonderful if we could increase the size of the travel fund to enable us to offer more generous awards in the future. Please do get in touch with the Seniors’ Office if you would like to contribute.

In December 2019, Seniors young and old gathered in their usual substantial numbers for the Carol Service. Earlier in the afternoon a number of us watched and applauded as a Seniors’ Lacrosse team took on and then triumphed over the School’s first team. This was a magnificent achievement, particularly as just a few months later the Wycombe first team performed amazingly by finishing first in Nationals.

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The Carol Service continues to be a powerful occasion, bringing back memories of school through familiar readings and music. We are grateful to Wycombe Abbey for their hospitality and welcome.

We are grateful to Wycombe Abbey for their hospitality and welcome.

It has become something of a commonplace to talk about the incredible effect of Covid-19 on all our lives, and the fundamental changes that have occurred since March in how we meet or communicate with one another. Our newest cohort of Seniors left school abruptly and prematurely, and have not been able yet to enjoy all the usual rituals of leaving, including signing the Seniors Roll. We welcome them all as Seniors and look forward to seeing them at events soon. In the

meantime, as we have all come to realise how much can be done online and therefore how important it is to maintain our details, can I urge you to ensure that the School has your up to date contact information and preferences?

Finally, my usual reminder about bursaries. If you know of girls who would thrive at Wycombe Abbey but whose families are unable to afford the full cost or would need help with partial funding of the fees, please do encourage them to apply for a bursary. Details are available from the Admissions Office at the School or in the Admissions area on the main website.

I hope you enjoy this issue of the Supplement and I look forward to catching up with as many of you as possible as soon as the Covid-19 restrictions allow.

Amanda Gibbon (C149) Chair of the Seniors’ Consultative Committee

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Who’s Who? SENIORS’ CONSULTATIVE COMMITTEE Chair: • Amanda Gibbon (Owen, C149) Seniors’ Travel Awards • Suze Stevens-Wood (Hon. Senior) Committee Members: • Caroline Ames (Buttle, C141) • Sue Cameron (C100) • Felicity Conway (Harris, C160) • Looby Crean (Roswell, C138) • Elizabeth Duignan (Player, C169)

Dates for the Diary Saturday 12 June 2021 Seniors’ Day 11:00 Wycombe Abbey Please check the Seniors website at www.wycombeabbeyseniors.com for details

• Jane Gould-Smith (Morris, C127) • Caroline Griffiths (Newman, C127) • Clare Middleton (Campbell Golding, C166) • Fiona Robinson (Johnston, C145) • Susannah Saary (C170) • Anne Walton (Felkin, C79)

REGIONAL REPRESENTATIVES • Derbyshire: Jill Harrison (Lilley, C76) • Hampshire: Penny Cullis (Mudd, C127) • Manchester: Louise Rhodes (Melene, C107) • Merseyside, Lancashire & Cumbria: Katy Marsh (Cameron, C82) • Northern Ireland: Audrey Macafee (Wilson, C94) • Scotland: Vacant • South West: Sue Cameron (C100)

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Regional Representative in Scotland Thank you to Catriona Brown (C119) for 10 years of service as the Seniors’ Regional Representative in Scotland.

Catriona is stepping down from the role and we wish her all the best.

We are looking for a new Scotland Representative to help as a contact for the School and someone who would be willing to facilitate occasional activities in the area. If you would be interested in the role, please contact Katie Tyler, Seniors’ Officer, at seniors@wycombeabbey.com.

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Lost Seniors – Can You Help?

The Wycombe Abbey Seniors’ network is a global family with over 4,500 members. Over time, we have lost touch with a number of you, but we would love to reconnect with any ‘Lost Seniors’ and ensure that everyone has the opportunity to be involved and kept informed of news and events.

How you can help Do you know anyone in your Circle, or any other friends from Wycombe Abbey, who may no longer be in contact with the Seniors’ Office? If so, please encourage them to get in touch and opt in to receive emails.

Please contact us by emailing seniors@wycombeabbey.com or by calling 01494 896309.

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Seniors’ Website Stay up to date with friends on the newly updated Seniors’ website - Seniors Connect.

If you are part of a society, keep in touch with members via our group tool. Seniors Connect is the perfect way to plan (virtual) reunions and events and stay connected.

Careers • Find a mentor • Post a job vacancy • Search for positions • Meet other people in your sector • Support other Seniors and pupils as a mentor Events • Register for upcoming events • Share and view photos Connect • Search a directory • Connect and message friends • View a dedicated group area for your Circle • View group areas for your region Sign up for an account here:

wycombeabbeyseniors.com

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Events

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Events

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Reunions 40-year reunion – Class of 1979

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nspired by my husband’s organisation of many successful school reunions, I set about finding my year. Sheena Lloyd (Fagan, C141) was the only one I had kept in contact with, but I luckily saw Catherine Wray’s (Rawson, C142) sister on the Wycombe Abbey Facebook page and managed to get in touch with her. She was able to provide most of her House, Butler, and critically Suzette Peake (Mitchell, C140) and Pippa Hart (Segrove, C141) who between them provided many more contacts.

Over a period of 18 months, our year magically reappeared. Tracing people proved easier than expected, a perfect example of networking at its best, and my thanks to everyone who contributed, thereby avoiding trawling the dreaded social media platforms.

By summer 2019 we had traced 59 Seniors dotted around the UK, and as far afield as Hong Kong, New Zealand, Seattle and Los Angeles.

The great day arrived, 10 October 2019. I chose the Bluebird Café in London because the King’s Road was an old haunt to many who escaped School on exeat weekends. We had the Bluebird room to ourselves with drinks and plenty of delicious canapes.

Despite not seeing each other for 40 years, we were all instantly recognisable. More importantly, we all chatted easily, making the time-lapse immaterial. Some had travelled from

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Sarasota, Italy and all corners of the UK. There were over 20 notes of thanks and I quote a few: Rowena Carr (Hill, C140): “A massive thank you for organising yesterday’s get together - it was an incredible turnout and such a lot of fun. The Bluebird was a super venue too and the staff couldn’t have looked after us better or been more helpful. Your few words were just the ticket and very sensitive to mention those that aren’t with us anymore.”

Amanda Worrall (Briggs, C141): “I really enjoyed myself. As with most of us, there were friends I’d kept in touch with, but the majority I’d not seen since leaving School. Even after 40 years most of us haven’t changed that much! Thank you for giving us a day to remember.”

Joy Tacon (C140): “The lunch went so well all thanks to your organisation.

It was really fun to catch up with everyone and go down memory lane.

Thank you for all your hard work and perseverance finding the emails.

I hope some of us meet up outside of the reunions as we all have this history together which I did enjoy.”

As the above indicates, these reunions are well worth the effort.

We all shared our formative years, which bond us. We were all fortunate to have benefitted from an excellent education and being part of the drive for equality that women enjoy today. On the day, 40 attended.

The missing 18 were all mentioned and tribute to the three who are no longer with us was made. Until the next time and in appreciative memory of my mother…

Laura Vaughan (Baxter, C141)

Professional photos kindly supplied by Pippa Hart

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Anglesey Reunion Paula Parry (C101) wrote to the Seniors’ Office to detail her most recent reunion and frequent contact with Wycombe Abbey friends: There are about seven Wycombe Abbey girls who live locally, which is quite a high percentage considering we are a small village in Anglesey. I live on the same road as Jenny Stott (C88), and we have a Wycombe drinks do every August. Each year I see Pippa Hunter (C88), Jessamy Alexander (Owen, C106) Melissa Hatton (Alexander, C183), Di Scovell (Scott, C124) and Rima Martin (Glazebrook, C76) who has since returned to Kent to live near her daughter.

Back row: Jessamy Alexander (C106, Airlie) Jenny Stott (C88, Airlie) Paula Parry (C101, Rubens) seated Rima Martin (C76, Rubens) Front row: Pippa hunter (C88, Rubens), Kate Hunter (C127, Airlie), Melissa Hatton (C183, Airlie), Di Scovell (C124, Rubens).

Postponed Wendover Reunion Diana Emmett (McInroy, C112) had planned to organise a reunion in May 2020 for Wendover Seniors who attended Wycombe Abbey from 1964 - 1967. The reunion was sadly postponed due to Covid-19.

Diana writes that there is not a new date for the reunion at present, but potential plans are still being considered.

If you are a Wendover Senior who left Wycombe Abbey between 1964 and 1967, please get in touch with Diana Emmett via email on dianaemmett@hotmail.com.

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International Events Water Sustainability Talk Debra Tan (C169)

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n May 2020, pupils in the Upper Fifth were given the opportunity to listen to a talk by Debra Tan, Wycombe Senior and Founder of China Water Risk. Pupils Alyssa and Hilary (UV) reflect on the experience:

constantly consuming our limited water resources. Debra shared a striking statistic with us; the average American uses 21 bathtubs of water per day, a shocking increase from the recommended two litres of drinking water per day.

The talk entitled ‘Bathtubs, Rivers and Ice - What you need to know to save our waters’, was an insightful discussion into global water consumption and how human activity has heightened water risk, with a specific focus on Asia.

The devastating impact of climate change indicates its urgency; not only to the surrounding cities, but to the countless provinces, countries, and individuals who are at immediate risk from the melting of Himalayan glaciers, which currently serves as one of humanity’s most crucial sources of water. Although the global pandemic has helped to reduce emissions, the dire need to drastically alter our lifestyles is apparent, as a further increase in

The thing that struck us the most was the sheer amount of water used in our everyday life. From food, clothing and electricity, to simply watching YouTube and Netflix videos, we are

temperature of 1.5 degrees would inflict irreversible damage on the Earth and the human population.

Though the harshness of this glaring reality may be uncomfortable, Debra has ensured that the Upper Fifth will be more conscious of our own complicity, and advocate firmly for a radical change. When jumbled with all the injustices and crises in the world, the issue of water sustainability can often be overlooked. Thank you to Debra for inviting crucial and honest conversations, inspiring us as individuals and as members of society to realise that the time to change is now.

Alyssa and Hilary UV

Wycombe Abbey School Hong Kong School Campus Tour

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n 5 November 2019, Seniors were invited for drinks and a private tour of the vibrant new campus of Wycombe Abbey School Hong Kong. The private tour showed the stunning school building, equipped with state-of-the art facilities and apparatus to provide an outstanding primary school experience. Seniors enjoyed meeting with senior staff of the school and it was lovely to see so many of them together in the space.

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Events

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School Events

Seniors’ Day 2019

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n 29 September 2019, we were invited to the School to celebrate Seniors’ Day. This was also an opportunity for us to meet Jo Duncan, Wycombe Abbey’s Headmistress, in her first few weeks in the role. Jo gave us all a wonderfully warm welcome and spoke after lunch to tell us a little about herself and her initial impressions of the School. Seniors toured the World War II bunker which, as I wrote last year, is definitely something worth seeing, if only to satisfy your curiosity about what exactly was behind that fence!

I am immensely grateful to Jo Duncan, Clare Flynn-Scarcelli, and all the staff who organised a successful, happy day and made us very welcome, especially as the event happened so soon after they had both started at Wycombe Abbey.

During Seniors’ Day, it was also a great pleasure to hear from Kay Hudson about her time doing charitable work in a school in Uganda. This was a trip that was part-funded with a Seniors’ Travel Award: you may remember her report and her splendid photos in the Seniors’ Supplement 2018. Kay has developed longstanding links with the Ugandan school and continues to support it from the UK. The Seniors’ Travel Awards are a valuable way in which we can support younger (usually, but not necessarily!) Seniors to undertake charitable work abroad, to contribute meaningfully and to gather first-hand experience of other cultures and other lives which will live with them forever.

Amanda Gibbon (C149)

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Seniors’ Lacrosse Match and Carol Service 2019

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ust before the UK went into lockdown to contain the coronavirus pandemic, we were lucky to host Seniors in person at School for the annual lacrosse match and Carol Service. The match broke a new record with a complete Seniors team of 12 to play against the Wycombe Abbey first team. The day was a magnificent success for the Seniors, who won the match 10-7, aided perhaps just a little by a member of the Seniors’ team having played for the England lacrosse team! The Seniors challenged the Wycombe Abbey Firsts, and just a few months later, the Wycombe Abbey first team went on to achieve acclaim by becoming Under-19 National Schools Champions.

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The lacrosse match was followed by a much-anticipated Wycombe Abbey afternoon tea, and guests proceeded to Chapel for the Carol Service, led by Reverend Penny Nash. The Chapel Choir, Chancel Choir and Holst singers all gave beautiful performances. Several Clarence girls also had the opportunity to sing solos at what would be their last Carol Service before becoming Seniors.

The event was wonderful and warmly enjoyed by all.

Katie Tyler Seniors’ Officer

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The Interview

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The Interview

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The Rt Hon Lady Justice Carr (C151)

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ame Sue Carr attended Wycombe Abbey from 1976-1982 in Barry, going on to study Modern Languages and Law at Trinity College, Cambridge. With an illustrious career in Law, Dame Carr was appointed to the Court of Appeal of England and Wales in July 2019 and formally took up her position when she was sworn in in April 2020. Sue served as a Governing Council Member of Wycombe Abbey for 13 years, stepping down in June 2020.

Have you enjoyed your time as a Member of Council?

Headmistress. They really are an inspiring collection of people.

Yes, very much so. Being on Council has been highly rewarding. Council is made up of an impressive and stimulating group of individuals with different skills and experiences so as to be able to cover the many varied aspects of school governance. So, there is representation from the educational, financial, estates, medical, religious and legal sectors, all carefully calibrated. There is also normally representation from the cohort of Seniors and School parents.

The responsibilities of a governor are now so much wider ranging than they used to be, including on important matters such as safeguarding, mental health and welfare. Members of Council volunteer huge amounts of personal time to support the School, working alongside the

I have particularly enjoyed being a Member of Council as a Senior and for a while also as a parent of a pupil in school. Whilst it was always necessary to separate the roles, it enabled me to bring insight from my own direct experiences to discussions not only on high-level strategic decisions but also on practical matters, such as new bathrooms and eating facilities.

What does Wycombe Abbey mean to you?

Wycombe Abbey has been part of my life for a very long time: I was a pupil between 1976-82, my sister went there, and my daughter and nieces have also attended the School.

I have been a Member of Council for over ten years, having stepped down in June 2020 and during that period I was also Vice Chair of Council for two years or so.

On the one hand, Wycombe Abbey evokes a combination of personal emotions and memories: my friendships and very happy years as a pupil myself, and then going on to watch my sister, daughter and nieces thrive and enjoy (different yet still similar) experiences themselves. Some things never change – the sound of the School bell between classes, the view from Fisher Library, the steps up and down to Chapel from Barry, Lime Avenue, the smell of dirty lacrosse boots... I could go on! From a different perspective, the School means something more objective: an exciting focus of educational excellence and opportunity for future generations of women.

Continued...

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The Interview

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Can you name your most proud moments as a Member of Council?

In terms of personal contribution, I like to think that because of my long-standing connections, I have managed to provide a link between pupils, past and present, and Council.

Having been a member of Council whilst also a parent, and a pupil myself, I understand the heartbeat of Wycombe Abbey, its values and ethos. I have tried to ensure that these values are protected.

I also hope that I have contributed to the huge strides that have been taken to increase the focus on the girls’ welfare and mental wellbeing. We also continue to work hard to improve our bursary provision, something which I have always considered to be a key priority.

One of my proudest moments as a Council Member was to be able to stand in for the Chair of Council and deliver the keynote speech at Leavers’ Day. I spoke about the inter-relationship between success and happiness. I wanted to tell these gifted young women that one should

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The Interview

do in life what one truly wants, not what others expect. To me, feminism is having that true freedom of choice.

Sometimes the burden of potential is a heavy one and it is all too easy to go down a certain career path because it seems to be what is wanted of you. So perhaps you could be Prime Minister, but if actually you

I understand the heartbeat of Wycombe Abbey, its values and ethos.

really want to be a painter or teach riding and your circumstances permit it, then that is what you should do.

What were your passions and interests at Wycombe Abbey?

I did really enjoy my favourite subjects, in particular the Arts, and I am not ashamed to say that I worked hard academically. Beyond that, I threw myself into everything that I

could. I played lots of sport (including first team Lacrosse in my last two years). I enjoyed music, playing the piano and viola, and singing. I was not gifted in any way, but I managed to get reasonably proficient through practice. I chose the viola because I worked out that it would maximise my chances of getting into the School orchestra, something which I was keen to experience. It proved to be a canny choice. Despite my lack of talent, I ended up in the front row pretty quickly! I was appointed leader of the choir in my last year. This led me briefly (and mistakenly) to believe that I was actually good at singing.

Expecting to be in the front row on the first day of my new role, I was disappointed to see that I was firmly to be positioned in the back stalls.

I realised quickly that I had been chosen not for my singing ability, but rather for my organisational skills.

I also did lots of acting and debating.

I was someone who enjoyed the opportunity of doing everything, and was lucky enough to get into the top teams and organisations without being particularly good at anything I had a go and worked hard, with a lot of fun along the way!

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I am a firm believer in single sex education. Amongst other things, it provides girls with the opportunity to thrive without falling victim to gender stereotyping.

I am very pleased to see that this sort of approach continues to be encouraged at Wycombe Abbey.

I went to the Highlights dance show a few years ago. Clarence put on a brilliant performance – all in the same (ridiculous gold and silver) leotards, just going for it to very loud music without any inhibition and irrespective of talent. It was just girls having an absolute blast. I thought that it was funny and gutsy – a celebration of friendship and energy - and simple fun in the girls’ (otherwise pretty intense) last year at School. The attitude was much more important than any underlying ability.

can and do still have rich and varied social lives.

Do you feel that this attitude is unique to and a benefit of single sex girls’ education?

– by reference to concrete achievements and milestones. It is now a much more nuanced concept for me. Success in small things can be much more important than headline successes. If I have managed to help somebody by giving some useful private advice, or have mentored someone in a way that makes a difference, then I feel successful – it gives me as much pleasure as would delivery of a great judgment or an impressive lecture. As I have already

I am a firm believer in single sex education. Amongst other things, it provides girls with the opportunity to thrive without falling victim to gender stereotyping. There are also now so many outside opportunities to engage with other school communities, and with the omnipresence of social media, girls

mentioned, I align happiness with success. It is a question of finding the right balance in life, according to your real wishes.

What does success mean to you?

What success means to me has changed over time. I (unimaginatively) did use to measure it in stark terms

You have achieved much in your professional life – is there something that you have earned which you feel reflects your personal values and what you wanted to achieve in life?

I have found mentoring other women very rewarding.

In July 2019 I was appointed to the Court of Appeal. This is a major milestone for me and certainly, once I embarked on a full-time judicial career, something to which I aspired.

The opportunity to serve at this level, sitting alongside some of the finest legal minds in the world and addressing a vast variety of different legal issues in different contexts, is a genuine privilege. Ensuring that everyone who comes before the court is treated fairly and respectfully, and that the issues are explored thoroughly and impartially, are achievements reflecting my personal values.

On a more personal level, I would say that I have found mentoring other women very rewarding. Diversity and Continued...

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The Interview

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gender equality are matters close to my heart. I am proud that my husband and I have both worked full time at demanding levels in fulfilling careers and at the same time managed to raise three pretty happy and healthy children.

Where have your sources of inspiration come from in your life?

myself and was a fantastic person to have in my life. Another source of inspiration with a Wycombe Abbey connection is Elsie Bowerman, who attended the School in the early 1900s under Dame Frances Dove.

She survived the Titanic, was a friend of the Pankhursts and an active Patricia Lancaster

I start with Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who sadly died in 2020. She was a liberal icon, US Supreme Court Judge and former academic. She started out at Harvard Law School as one of nine women in a class of 500. She was also a devoted wife and mother.

She pioneered for women’s rights and equality more generally throughout her life – a truly incredible and inspirational woman.

Moving closer to home, I turn to Patricia (Pat) Lancaster, who was Headmistress during my time at Wycombe Abbey. She had a natural poised formality (and had a wonderful collection of fabulous long necklaces) but it came with great kindness. She pushed me to push

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My children and their friends have also been truly inspirational to me.

My daughter’s principled approach to life sometimes takes my breath away – I often turn to her for guidance and advice. The children’s friends support each other in everything they do with unerring generosity. Their generation is resilient and resourceful. Their brave response to Covid-19 has been remarkable. I take my hat off to them right now.

What role did your school education play in preparing you for your future?

Suffragette, witnessed the Russian Revolution, was the first woman barrister to appear at the Old Bailey and the first head of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.

It instilled discipline and the ability to work hard, both of which have been the bedrock of such success as I have had. I also learned how to fail (or, perhaps better expressed, I experienced disappointment).

That is key: the sooner you have a disappointment in life, the better.

It means that you are able better to withstand the later disappointments that are bound to come down the road in life at some stage.

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What does the future look like for young women today?

There will be opportunities rising out of the Covid-19 disaster. I think that it will be a bright, if complex, future for young women. There is a much healthier understanding of diversity issues; the challenge is to put all the good intentions into practice.

What advice would you give your 15-year-old self?

Life is a marathon and not a sprint.

What would you say to your former class mates?

I hope that each of them recognises how brilliant and special she was.

I am not sure that they all did realise it at the time. In my day, I felt that the focus was very much on those at the top of the achievement ladder, and perhaps not enough on those below, each of whom was of course talented in her own way. I am glad to say that this potentially unhealthy focus very much does not exist anymore.

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Would you say there are linking values and ethos among Wycombe Abbey women?

There is a common ground, a shared experience at a very deep level.

A couple of years ago I attended a reception where I was to receive an award for European Business Woman of the Year. I was standing in a room with no one to talk to. I went over to talk to two young women who looked interesting and we got chatting. We got on like a house on fire. About 25 minutes into the discussion, I asked where they had gone to school. They each answered “Wycombe Abbey”. Total strangers but we had had an immediate connection. For whatever reason, there are Wycombe Abbey traits that never go away. There is a positivity, confidence and intelligence carried by Wycombe Abbey women that reflects having been at this incredible school.

I think that it will be a bright, if complex, future for young women.

The Interview

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One Year On I

can’t quite believe it has been an entire year since saying goodbye to the Wycombe walls. I certainly didn’t think I would be looking back 12 months later amidst a global pandemic. Following the business of a post A Level summer and jumping into university, I never had the chance to reflect on my seven years at Wycombe; lockdown was the opportunity to do so. The nostalgic days at home reminded me of just how much I grew up at Wycombe surrounded by the most amazing teachers, Housemistresses and ultimately life-long friends who became my support and positive light during the long hours inside.

Rewinding to September 2019, I started my first year studying History at the University of Oxford. The first term was a whirlwind of eight weeks. From handing in my first ever essay to strolling to the pub with unfamiliar new friends, I found myself constantly taking comfort in the confidence and resilience Wycombe instilled in me over the years. Starting university is not easy. It was a big, new environment with lots of new faces and a blank timetable that made free periods at Wycombe feel minuscule.

Halfway through my first term I reached out to another Wycombe Senior at my college and asked to go for coffee.

That was probably the best decision I made. The family you create at Wycombe is eternal and it follows you, supporting you when the extra hand is needed. It wasn’t long before I found my feet and began playing lacrosse for the university (another daily reminder of Wycombe roots). Although my

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first year at Oxford was cut short, it has been without a doubt the most exciting year of my life so far. I ended up learning lots of British Medieval History taught by some incredible tutors. Every day feels like a lifetime in the best kind of way. It is a rollercoaster of thrill, risk, freedom, work ethic and reward. Bumping into familiar Wycombe faces was always the best respite from the intensity and newness that is the constant. Seeing your Wycombe friends will always feel effortless because we grow up together.

I consider myself fortunate in being halfway through the first year as coronavirus took hold. I was thinking of all the Wycombe girls planning on taking exams and celebrating after an official deadline. Especially for 2020 leavers, don’t forget that the Wycombe family spreads far and wide and we are all linked by the time we shared there.

I wish everyone and all families good health and happiness going into the next year, whatever it may hold. I am looking forward to coming back and saying hello!

Jade Yarrow (C320) Head of School 2018/2019

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Seniors’ Travel Award 12 Jobs in 12 Months

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he Seniors’ Travel Award fund was set up by Senior, Vera Gordon, aiming to give alumnae an opportunity to apply for a funded programme to facilitate travel plans that include a charitable element. The Travel Award is available to all Seniors and girls in Clarence.

Mika Alvarez Nishio (C320), writes about her year abroad:

For months, jobs nine and ten seemed dauntingly impossible to achieve, “Explorer” and “Teacher”, respectively. So, when the opportunity arose to travel to Tanzania, live in a remote village for three months and facilitate a Business and Entrepreneurship Program, I jumped at the chance. After several weeks of fundraising, training and desperately trying to locate summer t-shirts in January, I packed my repurposed D of E rucksack, donned a pair of “Gap Yah” trousers and switched my Oxfordshire village for one in Tanzania.

As a Wycombe girl, it’s easy to feel immense pressure to know exactly what you want to do with life age 18, to leave school with a million and one A*s to your name and If you search for “Magozi” on Maps, as several panicked to roll into university or at least a well-planned year out relatives did upon discovery I was no longer in the practically the day A Levels end. So, country, no reassuring red pin pops when I found myself not ticking a up. And, if you Google “Magozi”, the single one of those boxes, the closest correct result you’ll find is I accepted my fate and adventure of the so-called an out of date PO Box for a now decided to use this year “spontaneous gap year” began. non-existent neighbouring village. So, to tick the first box: A week of guilt-free long lie-ins later, in today’s world of hyper connectivity, I was bored. Unsurprisingly, several you’d be forgiven for thinking I’ve figuring out what panicked “I’ve made the wrong made this place up. Yet, if you drive I wanted to do with decision” days followed. However, 16 hours from Dar Es Salaam, a my life. quickly realising there was now no further four on a disintegrating mud alternative, I accepted my fate and track from Iringa Town and finally decided to use this year to tick the cross through a couple of supposedly first box: figuring out what I wanted to do with my life. impassable rivers, you’ll find a village of the best people in I found a childhood list I had written of 12 things I wanted the world, and the place I came to call home. to be when I grew up and set myself the challenge of My team was made up of six UK and six Tanzanian actually doing every single one of those jobs in the next 12 volunteers, each split into pairs and living with a different months. An undoubtedly bizarre idea but it gave host family in the village. We had no running water, no me somewhere to start. For the next few months, electricity and no phone signal. We ate rice for every meal, I found myself doing everything from pulling pints in a a banana if we were lucky and had forgotten what a fridge pub to milking cows on a farm at 5 am. It was exhausting was by week two. We laughed, we cried and we never but unquestionably fun. Upon reflection, I think it’s safe stopped reminding each other just how hot it was. At times to say I won’t be pursuing a lifelong career in farming it was tough but it was glorious nonetheless. Our working or bartending or the majority of the other jobs I tried; days were filled with teaching sessions, 1-to-1s with but, with the help of a Seniors’ Travel Award, I did find entrepreneurs, community action days and business a passion worth pursuing.

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showcases. We wrote grant pitches, gave speeches and attempted to learn Swahili. Upon returning home, I felt extremely privileged to have been able to help a community in such a professional and long-lasting way. And indeed, this programmatic aspect was central in inspiring my interest in a future in development and the charitable sector. But just as my best memories of Wycombe consist of laughing uncontrollably in the snow with my friends rather than endless History coursework, it was the people rather than the program that made my time in Magozi so special. I will always remember the feeling of Charles (my TZ counterpart) waking me up at 5 am to put buckets out to catch the first rain of the season. I’ll remember the smell of burning firewood as I cooked with Mama, and the stinging of the smoke in my eyes. I’ll remember the baking hot sun in the morning, the cool relief of shade and the impenetrable stillness of the night. I’ll remember the taste of fresh papaya, the sound of gospel coming from the church and the colours of my first Tanzanian sunset. But beyond anything, I’ll always, always remember the time the

two little girls in my homestay first called me “dada”, because it means “sister” and because from that moment on, I felt truly at home in Magozi.

Ostensibly, my time in Magozi was just jobs nine and ten mixed in with a bit of “Gap Yah” travelling. Indeed, it certainly started off that way. But in the end, it became so much more. I learnt far more than I taught, and I settled in long before I thought my “Explorer” period would end.

I discovered a hidden love for rice and beans, developed an impressive t-shirt tan and learnt that there is always time to stop and greet everyone you pass. Best of all, I found a community waiting to welcome me with open arms and a family who, for that brief moment in time, made me one of their own. I discovered a piece of home on the other side of the world, and I will always be grateful for everything and everyone that got me there.

Mika Alvarez Nishio (C320)

The Seniors’ Travel Award

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he Travel Award fund was established by Senior, Vera Gordon, and applications are available to all Seniors and girls in Clarence House.

To apply, applicants must complete the Travel Award form, providing full details of their plans, including costs, which must include a charitable element. The applicant must be proactive about raising most of the money herself. This will be followed by an interview with one or two members of the Seniors’ Consultative Committee.

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The award is usually in the order of a few hundred pounds.

The successful applicants will be expected to write a full report of their travels for the next Seniors’ Supplement, and preferably include some photographs. There have been some fascinating accounts in previous Supplements over the years.

For an application form or further information, please email the Seniors’ Office at seniors@wycombeabbey.com.

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A Year in…New York City O

tti Zwillenberg (C321) took a gap year after leaving Wycombe Abbey, with internships lined up at top news companies in New York City, San Francisco and Washington D.C. However, Otti found herself stranded abroad and alone when news of the coronavirus pandemic hit.

At the beginning of February, I set off on a plane for what I thought would be a two-month internship at MailOnline in New York City, the first of three internships I had organised in the US. When I arrived in the States, coronavirus was barely a threat.

As an intern at a news site, much of the day was spent reading and discussing the latest stories with my colleagues. Slowly, the discussions became less about showbiz and more about the impending threat of Covid-19. At first, I welcomed the news because I could actually join in, rather than feeling like a fish out of water whenever the talk was about American Reality TV. But the coronavirus stories grew. Alongside updates to the ‘Cult Mom’ case came

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news about cruise ships and rescue missions, then, Patient Zero was found in New York and the virus began to spread quickly.

I distinctly remember the moment when I checked my phone and saw that the White House had declared the coronavirus a pandemic.

I had been interning for about a month when the work-from-home order began. This meant I had to cancel my other internships and remain at MailOnline, where I would stay for six months. Every day I woke up in my tiny flat, doing spreadsheet work and uploading clips from DailyMailTV to the website.

I would stay inside my shoebox of a flat for days at a time. My daily grocery visits turned into a weekly

shop, I converted my flat into a home gym and I occupied my free time reading and watching TV. Unfortunately, my plans to explore New York ended abruptly.

I had just begun to feel settled in my quarantine routine when George Floyd was brutally murdered in Minneapolis. Almost instantly, the whole atmosphere changed.

Throughout the day, I heard the drone of helicopters, the sirens of emergency vehicles, and the chants of protesters.

Despite my sympathy with the cause, at night I found it terrifying; watching outside my window as fires were lit, rubbish bins were toppled, cars were broken into, shops were looted, people ran around the street shouting and screaming. Mayor de Blasio’s

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curfew only made the riots of the night start earlier.

After five months alone in NYC, I left to go home. I would not have been able to survive alone in NYC as long as I did during the pandemic and protests if I wasn’t as fiercely independent as I am. Yet, no matter how well I could survive by myself, it was time to come back.

My gap year has been full of challenges but I will go to university much better able to tackle whatever comes my way. If my gap year has shown me anything, it has shown me just how strong I actually am.

Otti Zwillenberg (C321)

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A moment with…

Chrissy’s Kitchen Christiana Florman, Founder and Head Chef of Chrissy’s Kitchen Christiana Florman (Shelburne, Class of 2010) established her catering company, Chrissy’s Kitchen, in 2017 after qualifying from the world-renowned Ballymaloe Cookery School (BCS) in Ireland.

How did you begin taking your passion and developing it into a business?

After university, I worked at Marie Curie in their Special Events team where I learnt to plan high-end charity events. This inspired me to go to BCS to take my passion further. After three months there, Chrissy’s Kitchen was born. Ballymaloe taught me not only how to cook but an appreciation of where our food comes from and has inspired many of our seasonal menus.

Where did your passion for cooking begin?

I grew up in a Greek and Swedish family, so celebrating events with a special meal has always been important. I enjoyed selecting the food for our events and influencing different flavours. My experimentation began with canapes and these are what I really love to create.

What products and services do you offer?

Chrissy’s Kitchen specialises in canape parties but our portfolio ranges from intimate dinner parties, drop-off catering, birthdays, weddings, and

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large corporate celebrations. We have done anything and everything including hen parties, book launches and political dinners. Our deliveries range from brownies, picnics, tarts and main meals.

Do you enjoy owning a business?

I love the freedom to make my own decisions and take risks. With each success or milestone that the business reaches, I have a huge sense of pride – in myself and in my team!

How have you adapted during lockdown?

All our events for the rest of 2020 were postponed or cancelled. We started offering freezer meals to give people a break (cooking 21 meals a week for your family is a lot) and this developed into a gift box. We offered healthy tarts for lunch as an easy alternative that required almost no preparation. Our brownie boxes were sent to friends and family as a little present during the lockdown, with many boxes being donated to our wonderful NHS staff. Our ‘Little Bit of Luxury’ gift box contains nibbles,

a main meal, pudding and drinks, and was designed to give people a night off or a Date Night.

Since the launch of the Picnic Boxes at the start of June, we have sold over 100 and have been featured in The Londonist, The Resident and Hot Dinners to name a few. The picnic boxes have been very popular as presents, with friends sending each other a box as a care package.

What do you see for the future of Chrissy’s Kitchen, post lockdown?

I see various strands of the business continuing post lockdown; with the success of the Picnic Boxes, I definitely want to broaden this gift box element. I feel there is real scope for this type of gift delivery, and this is something I would like to expand.

One of the criteria for a successful business is being able to adapt to circumstances, and we have certainly had to do that. I would encourage any Wycombe girls to consider running their own business: it is hard work but enormously rewarding.

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Wycombe Abbey During Lockdown 2020 has been justly termed ‘unprecedented’. Along with schools across the United Kingdom, upon the instruction of the UK Government, Wycombe Abbey closed on 20 March 2020, for the first time since 1942, in order to contain the nationwide outbreak of Covid-19.

All pupils were asked to adapt to online learning in a matter of weeks, and staff spent the Easter holidays assessing their subject areas and the possibilities of using new technology platforms to deliver lessons and study materials.

Within boarding, Housemistresses explored ways to reach out to their girls, now scattered across the globe.

The girls adjusted admirably, and, despite the inevitable teething problems, teaching and learning successfully moved online for the summer term. Virtual baking competitions and online hot chocolate evenings took place across the various Houses, alongside pupils entering their beloved pets into a School-run virtual pet show!

This was only the beginning of the journey. The next months revealed new uses of technology and stories of innovation and creativity

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as girls and staff not only adapted to the new environment but found different, interesting and exciting ways of virtually connecting with their teachers and peers. The Headmistress’s Big School address and Chapel Service were streamed online every week; School societies flourished; high-profile speakers broadcast lectures in real-time across time zones. Co-curricular life at Wycombe Abbey thrived, with school societies such as MUN and Public Speaking continuing to meet weekly via video calls, and over 100 girls and their families competed in a weekly Friday Night Quiz, run live over MS Teams and Zoom.

This was a remarkable time during which the School’s values and sense of community were never more in evidence. We heard stories of pupils’ activities, raising money for charity and sewing face masks. Seniors sent

in news of caring for others in their communities and of new charity initiatives to recognise those on the frontline in the fight against the pandemic. Current and former staff raised money for local organisations and gave up their free time to design and make protective equipment: over 200 pairs of goggles, 150 lab coats and batches of self-made visors were donated to local hospitals.

During this period of hardship, the lockdown and the way the School has adapted has helped to support the pupils’ friendships and connections, and enhanced our sense of community, both within and beyond the School.

To view the Head Girl Team’s video diary of a week remote learning during lockdown, please visit www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOJfGm PxWIE&feature=emb_title.

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Seniors during Lockdown

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ycombe Abbey Seniors have been going above and beyond throughout the coronavirus pandemic, supporting their local communities. It is wonderful to see the alumnae community coming together, sharing their resources and offering their skill sets to those in need, demonstrating resilience years after their time at Wycombe Abbey.

Victoria Young (C158) and her daughter Marnie (UIV) responded to the ‘Scrub Up!’ campaign, sewing scrubs for the medics at Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital.

Jane Makower Mather (C151) and her husband used their home as a delivery hub for 20 local households to distribute milk, bread, fruit and vegetables every Wednesday to those in isolation.

Evelyn Booth-Clibborn (C291) has been running an initiative named ‘Fuel the Fight’, a campaign aiming to support struggling restaurants all over London and our healthcare heroes on the front lines. The initiative has provided as many meals to London-area hospitals as they can, from as many different restaurants as possible. By the summer, Fuel the Fight had already raised over £30,000, partnered with 18 restaurants, and provided 4,400 meals to workers across ten hospitals.

Gloria Smith (C293) qualified as a Doctor this year, placing other career It is wonderful to see goals on hold to volunteer as a Junior the alumnae community Doctor at the Whittington Hospital, coming together, sharing London, on the frontline in a Covid-19 ward. Gloria commented, “starting their resources and work on the wards earlier than offering their skill sets expected in a global pandemic was to those in need. daunting, but the resilience and positivity learned at Wycombe Abbey have been invaluable to me in this Alex Martin (C155) performed a valuable service experience, and of course the support every step of the on the frontline of the UK’s Covid-19 effort. Alex way from my lovely Wycombe friends!” is a Consultant Surgeon and the University of Bristol’s Academy Medical Dean at Weston General Hospital.

We thank all Seniors and the wider Wycombe Abbey Recently, she has been working in the intensive care community for their support and efforts during the palliative care unit. ongoing fight against coronavirus.

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SPOTLIGHT ON:

Zoe Barber (C233) Z

oe Barber left Wycombe Abbey in 2003 to read Medicine at St Edmund Hall, Oxford and has since been completing her surgical training. After having her driving license revoked after an eclamptic seizure following the birth of her twins, Zoe undertook research to change national guidelines to help other women in a similar situation.

Zoe explains more: In April 2019, my husband and I welcomed our twin girls into the world. Whilst 28 weeks’ pregnant, I took the FRCS (Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons) examination and was awarded the ASGBI (Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland) Gold Medal for the highest marks in the examination. I had the pleasure of being invited to the ASGBI Annual Conference when the twins were five weeks old, and I took them with me on stage to receive my medal.

Women are very much still the minority within surgery so it was wonderful to be able to show my daughters that they can achieve anything they wish to.

Unfortunately, when the twins were born I suffered an eclamptic seizure, and as a result, I had my driving licence revoked on medical grounds for six months. (Eclampsia is a condition associated with pregnancy and can lead to dangerously high blood pressure and in extreme cases, seizures). With new-born babies, it was devastating: without being able to drive, I felt incredibly isolated.

I decided to use the time to do

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something positive and reviewed the medical literature, publishing a systematic review and meta-analysis of the data to quantify seizure recurrence rate after a diagnosis of eclampsia. This, fortunately, is well below the DVLA’s safe threshold for driving. I presented my research to the DVLA who have, as a result, changed their national guidelines so that no other eclamptic woman will have her driving licence revoked. I was so pleased to be making a difference and helping other women.

I have been back at work since October 2019, enjoying juggling life as a mother and surgeon. I am delighted to have recently been appointed as a Consultant Breast Surgeon at the Princess of Wales Hospital in South Wales.

Work now has changed greatly due to the pandemic. I was moved to a hospital with the highest Covid-19 rates outside London, dealing with cases at a very serious stage and adapting to performing surgery in new PPE equipment, and breaking tough news to families via virtual communication. However, despite the many negatives of coronavirus, there have been positives. We have learned innovative, efficient ways of providing safe and effective patient care that will continue when we get back to our ’new normal’. We have experienced fear, hardship and death in some awful circumstances, but we have done so as a team to provide care and dignity in some of the most challenging settings. On a personal level, I have been reminded of what truly matters. My shift pattern has

actually allowed me to see more of my beautiful babies. Watching them grow and develop, and their joy and delight in the simplest things has been a wonderful distraction from work.

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Wycombe Abbey School Hong Kong (WASHK)

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ycombe Abbey School Hong Kong opened its doors on 5 September 2019.

The new co-educational school offers a quintessentially British independent education for primary aged children. The school provides a curriculum that combines the National Curriculum for England and Wales with an extensive Chinese language syllabus drawn from the Chinese National Curriculum.

WASHK emphasises the importance of learning outside of conventional classroom settings: Drama, Music, Art, Science, Physical Education, iSTEAM and a wide range of carefully selected extracurricular enrichment activities which widen pupils’ curiosity and interests.

The School campus hosts state-of-the-art facilities, including 24 general purpose classrooms and dedicated classrooms for speciality subjects, a four-story indoor rock-climbing wall and a new 20,000 square foot outdoor rooftop garden. This new facility includes an artificial turf play area and an exercise track.

For more information please visit www.was.edu.hk

The Wycombe Abbey Hong Kong Foundation The Wycombe Abbey Hong Kong Foundation was set up in 2016 with the aim to support Wycombe Abbey, advance its strategic development priorities and to bring together Seniors, parents and donors in the region. Three Trustees of the Foundation are Wycombe Abbey Seniors with strong ties to Hong Kong.

Wycombe Abbey benefits from a dedicated and longstanding network of alumnae and supporters in Hong Kong. The Wycombe Abbey Hong Kong Foundation enables members of the wider Wycombe Abbey

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community in the region to support School with tax-effective donations towards the School’s strategic development priorities.

In May 2020, the Foundation organised an opportunity for Upper Fifth and Lower Sixth girls to learn more about water conservation and sustainability in a TedTalk style webinar from Hong Kong-based Senior, Debra Tan, who is Founder and Director at China Water Risk.

In line with the values of Wycombe Abbey, the Foundation is building

links in the local community in Hong Kong with Wycombe Abbey School Hong Kong, and a charity local partner, Kids4Kids, which inspires young people in Hong Kong to take action and make positive social impacts in their community.

If you would like to support Wycombe Abbey by donating through the Wycombe Abbey Hong Kong Foundation, please contact our Director of Development, Clare Flynn-Scarcelli, by emailing flynnscarcellic@wycombeabbey.com

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SPOTLIGHT ON:

Sue Jenkins Former Shelburne Housemistress Mrs Sue Jenkins joined Wycombe Abbey in 1992, and served an impressive 23 years in role.

Now an Honorary Senior, Sue fondly recalls her time as Shelburne Housemistress and the triumphs and tribulations that took place during her time at the School.

What were your first impressions of Wycombe Abbey?

When I arrived at Wycombe Abbey for my interview in June 1992, I was in awe of my surroundings, the beautiful buildings, wonderful grounds, and the warm reception I received. I was given a tour of the School and after an interview with the Headmistress, Mrs Goodland, I knew immediately that it was the school I wanted to work in.

What were the different roles you held during your time?

My main role was as Shelburne Housemistress; I always tried to make sure that my girls, their parents, and the staff who worked with me came first. Alongside my role as Housemistress, I later became Daws Hill Coordinator, Resident Tutor Coordinator and then Senior Housemistress. I also assisted the Head of Boarding with the pastoral welfare of the girls, parents and colleagues.

When were the most challenging times as a Housemistress?

When I had to support the families

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and girls who had faced bereavement, separation or other serious issues.

These occasions, thankfully few, affected our whole community and it was important that we stood by each other and supported one another. I was constantly amazed by the strength and resilience of the girls.

I always tried to make sure that my girls, their parents, and the staff who worked with me came first.

Another challenge was the arrival of modern technology. Gone were the days of phone boxes in Houses, when girls would line up for hours to ring home or friends, and in came mobile phones, iPads, laptops and all the huge concerns of being able to ensure safe access to the outside world for the girls.

What was life in House like?

Shelburne was a happy House run on trust, and if that trust was broken it affected us all. My door was always open, and I loved it when the girls came home from School and tumbled into my study to share their day with me. I used to organise year group dinners where the girls chose the menu and cooked the meal and I was provided with a shopping list. I was blown away by what good cooks some of the girls were. On Shrove Tuesdays, I always made pancakes for the whole House, and at Christmas time, each year group were invited into my flat to sit around the Christmas tree to have snacks and drinks.

House Orders provided the opportunity to share important information and congratulate the girls on their achievements. The highlight of these meetings was the traditional way that Shelburne celebrated birthdays.

The girls would all sing Happy Birthday at the top of their lungs, while at the same time banging their fists on a table and ending with a thunderous For She’s a Jolly Good Fellow.

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What were your favourite memories of your time at Wycombe Abbey?

My House winning the Sports Trophy for the first time was incredibly special. Other highlights include the House Christmas party, which always ended with a very loud rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody. House outings at the end of each term were also hugely successful – especially the year when a parent organised a surprise party to celebrate my 20th anniversary in Shelburne.

If you could relive one moment from your time at School, what would it be?

The reunion/leaving party that my Assistant Housemistress arranged for me, which replaced our normal Parents’ Day. A marquee was set up in Daws Hill and we had our normal annual barbeque – with the important addition of a chocolate fountain. The party was shared with over 200 girls’ parents, old and present, plus family, friends, and colleagues. It was wonderful to share memories and to hear what my old girls had been doing since leaving Shelburne.

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Why did you decide to leave Wycombe Abbey and what have you been up to since?

Well, at some point, everyone has to retire! On the first morning of the Autumn term, after I had retired, I woke up at 7am and asked myself, “What am I going to do until I go to bed this evening at 11pm!” I just could not imagine life without Wycombe. However, shortly after I left, I used my knowledge to become the Safeguarding Officer for all five of my parish churches. I continue to be a member of The Ladies’ Ski Club of Great Britain and worked as Director of Boarding and Pastoral Care at a summer school for International Students in Sussex. Since then I have been helping part-time with pastoral House cover at Tudor Hall School. It was fascinating to see how a horizontal boarding system worked, which provided an interesting contrast to Wycombe.

There will always be a special place in my heart for all those girls who went through Shelburne and my wish, as it has always been, is for their good health, success in their careers and most importantly their future happiness.

I would like to thank all the girls, parents, colleagues, friends and particularly my family who supported me during my 23 years at Wycombe.

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2020 Leaver Mia Rogers signs Professional Cricket Contract Mia Rogers (C329) attended Wycombe Abbey from 2013-2020 in Airlie. Mia recently signed her first professional cricket contract for the Sunrisers, to play in the Rachael Heyhoe Flint trophy televised on Sky Sports.

Following the news, Mia comments: “This is super exciting for many reasons!

Most importantly it is for the game – and the start of turning the domestic women’s structure in the UK pro, which is really promising for the future development of Women’s cricket.”

What was your first memory and experience of playing cricket?

My youngest memory of playing cricket is at my local club, Henley CC. Most sessions would involve some sort of catching competition where you were eliminated if you dropped the ball. Apart from my competitive nature loving anything that I could win, my favourite part by far was the look on the boys’ faces when they were eliminated before the only girl there, and the stick they would get from their friends for doing so. I started cricket because my brother and dad are also both keen cricketers, we now all play together for the village team – which often turns out teams comprising of only four families.

How did you participate with cricket whilst at Wycombe Abbey? Were you in any WA teams/matches?

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There was no cricket club at Wycombe when I joined. I played all my cricket outside of School, training late in the evenings after School commitments. However, there was one term where the front of the School diary had a black and white photo of girls playing cricket in skirts on Midget Pitch from decades ago.

So, with massive help from the PE department, when we started the

It was quite a surprise to be included in the Sunrisers squad and I just can’t wait to experience what sport at the next level looks like.

Wycombe Abbey Cricket Club in 2019 it was really ‘re-starting’ it. We had our first incredi-ball match against Wycombe High, where I umpired in a white lab coat borrowed from the Chemistry department on a rather questionable wicket created in the middle of pitch five.

What has been your biggest cricketbased accomplishment so far?

My biggest cricket accomplishment so far is the contract I recently signed with the Sunrisers to play in the Rachael Heyhoe Flint trophy. This is my first

experience of playing professional sport and it is really exciting as it is the start of turning the women’s domestic cricket structure in England pro, helping to increase the competitiveness and standard of women’s cricket in England.

The final will be on Sky Sports and some of the country’s biggest cricket grounds are being used throughout the tournament – Headingley, Trent Bridge, Edgbaston and the Ageas Bowl (a real shame no crowds are allowed due to Covid-19). It is a real testament to how big the women’s game is becoming.

I have played county cricket since UIII, and really appreciate how lucky I am to be the right age just as the women’s game became more popular, creating opportunities such as this one. It was quite a surprise to be included in the Sunrisers squad and I just can’t wait to experience what sport at the next level looks like.

What would you like to accomplish in your cricket career next?

I have deferred my place at university to have a year where more of my time is devoted to playing cricket. Fingers crossed; I will get the opportunity to play in Australia over the winter, but current travel restrictions may prevent this. My dream would be to play in the Hundred Ball competition next summer, or even the Big Bash in Australia.

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SPOTLIGHT ON:

Lucy Jarman (C233) L

ucy Jarman (Butler, Class of 2003) studied Human Geography at Aberystwyth University. Lucy recently responded to an early call for the Oxford Vaccine trial during the pandemic and volunteered as an active listener for The Samaritans phoneline during lockdown.

My lockdown has been spent (other than working and finishing my counselling diploma) doing various types of volunteering. I have been a Samaritans listening volunteer since 2013, and our branch started putting measures in place before the lockdown was announced in March.

Some volunteers started isolating, and we reduced the number of people on shift at any one time – with these types of things being replicated in branches around the country, wait times for callers increased. The government classed us as essential workers early on in lockdown so we were able to travel to the branch to continue listening.

For me, living on my own, it was lovely to go in and have some company, keep up a routine that was otherwise dominated by working from home and daily exercise. I did more night shifts than usual, but it was most noticeable travelling to the branch during the day when the streets were empty. Nearly everyone mentioned the lockdown and the impact it had on their daily lives – living with people they didn’t want to live with, feeling lonely, scared about their future education or jobs, and without the normal coping mechanisms that they normally

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would have. It always felt like a privilege to listen to callers, but during this time, it really felt like our service was more important than normal.

I did more night shifts than usual, but it was most noticeable travelling to the branch during the day when the streets were empty.

I responded early on for a call for volunteers for the Oxford vaccine trial, thinking that, other than to maybe be part of something to help bring all this to a close, it would be a fun thing to do! The criteria were quite restrictive, not least living in the OX postcode and being able to get there without public transport or taxis. I had a thorough medical screening and then, early on in May,

was vaccinated as part of the trial. It has been relatively straightforward – monitoring my temperature and the vaccination site for the first week, then doing a weekly exposure survey for six months. Seeing the preliminary findings that were released in July was exciting, knowing that I had played a role in it. Having never been involved in a vaccine trial before, I did not really know what to expect and I did enter it with a certain degree of trepidation, but the staff were always very reassuring.

As restrictions ease, and things change again, bringing new and different challenges, I continue to go into Samaritans, just with more people on the streets as I drive to the branch, and continue to monitor my weekly exposure for the vaccine trial.

I hope before long that the caller wait time will reduce as more volunteers are available and that the vaccine will work - and while life won’t be the same as it was before, that these particularly challenging times will come to an end.

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Wycombe Senior and International Campaigner, Lady Jessie Street

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ady Jessie Street – dubbed “Red Jessie” by those who opposed her activism – was one of the 20th century’s most prominent international advocates for women’s rights and equality. Her international campaigning led to gender equality being recognised in the Charter of the United Nations and a constitutional amendment to eliminate discrimination against Aboriginal people in Australia.

Fifty years since her death in 1970, we celebrate this Wycombe Abbey former pupil, who studied alongside Elsie Bowerman. Today, it seems fitting that Wycombe Abbey hosts the largest Model United Nations (MUN) programme in the country, which acts as a forum for girls to debate the themes of equality, non-discrimination and universal human rights that she devoted her life to achieving.

Travels with her parents first fired Jessie’s interest in women’s rights. Visiting New York, she took a break from the holiday to volunteer at a home for young women arrested for prostitution. She was an early pioneer in the promotion of sex education and was instrumental in the establishment of Australia’s first contraceptive clinic in Sydney in 1933. During the Second World War, she opposed government regulations that meant women suspected of infecting servicemen with venereal disease could Jessie’s greatest cause be summarily arrested. if measured by her

influence today was the rights of the Aboriginal people.

An Australian folksong telling the story of Jessie’s life describes her upbringing as a “high-born lady from the gentry of the land”. She attended Wycombe Abbey from 1904 to 1906 before emigrating to Australia to study for a degree at the University of Sydney. Dame Francis Dove’s firm belief that girls should be able sportspeople certainly had its impact, and Jessie became captain of the university women’s 40

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hockey team, competed in the first women’s inter-state match and was president of the women’s sport association.

However, it was women’s right to economic independence that became Jessie’s principal cause, describing equal pay as the “very foundation of human liberty”. She campaigned for the right of married women to work, for child support to be paid direct to mothers and for maintenance grants for divorced women. Her activism soon attracted international attention as she lobbied the League of Nations in Geneva to provide greater recognition of women’s economic rights in its treaties and resolutions.

It was Jessie’s international reputation that led her to be appointed as the only woman in Australia’s first delegation Prev

to the United Nations in 1945. Jessie was determined that the organisation’s new charter should recognise the right of men and women to hold any role at the United Nations on equal terms. Her lobbying led to the adoption of Article 8 in the Charter, which states that “The United Nations shall place no restrictions on the eligibility of men and women to participate in any capacity and under conditions of equality.”

Jessie’s work at the United Nations reunited her with another Wycombe Abbey Senior, Elsie Bowerman, and the two former classmates worked together establishing the Commission on the Status of Women – the United Nations body that has become the driving force behind international efforts to achieve gender equality. When, on 25 February 1947, 16 leading women from across the world met in the Commissions first ever meeting, two participants were Wycombe Abbey Seniors: Jessie as Vice President and Elsie as Secretary.

Jessie’s greatest cause if measured by her influence today was the rights of the Aboriginal people. Alarmed by their lack of political voice, she supported Aboriginal leaders in becoming politically organised and wrote a report for the United Nations on their plight. Jessie drafted an amendment to the Australian Constitution to remove discriminatory references in 1956. It took more than a decade of campaigning to achieve its confirmation by referendum in 1967.

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Jessie’s life was the embodiment of Dame Francis Dove’s vision for Wycombe Abbey: creating young women with deep understanding and empathy for the needs of others. It is a vision that lives on in many aspects of Wycombe Abbey life, including through the MUN programme, where issues of equality and human rights are regularly discussed in a setting promoting consensus, cultural empathy and understanding of the viewpoints of others. Her contribution to the early days of the United Nations is recognised in the Bowerman-Street Prize: an award given to the best team at the annual WASAMUN political and international affairs conference hosted at the School.

Jessie is celebrated in a song by the Australian folksingerturned federal judge Judy Small AM, which ends with the lyrics: “You were an inspiration to the women of your time. Jessie Street, you’ll always be a heroine of mine”.

Jessie’s devotion to championing the rights of others certainly justifies her status as a heroine for past and future Wycombe Abbey girls.

Dr Alistair Goddard Director of Co-Curricular Activities

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SPOTLIGHT ON:

Alice Loxton (C293) A

lice Loxton (Pitt, Class of 2014) studied History at The University of Edinburgh. Alice currently works in TV production and edits one of the most successful history podcasts History Hit with over three million listeners.

A week of the life of History TV production can be pretty hectic… filming with Dan Snow in the House of Commons, dropping into Shoreditch House to interview Sam Mendes and watch the preview of 1917, going to press previews of the V&A, presenting a documentary in the National Army Museum stores, and visiting Fitzroy Square for a talk with The Georgian Group.

So how did I reach this point since leaving Pitt in 2014? After Wycombe I found myself studying History at the University of Edinburgh, a playground to try anything and everything the Athens of the North had to offer. Although I dabbled in academia, I really thrived in the extra-curricular. I joined the Army and Navy units which took me camping out in the Pentland Hills, trekking in Iceland, partaking in Baltops (NATO’s operations in the Baltic) and cooking meringues on a P2000 engine.

I dabbled in a Gilbert and Sullivan Opera, tossed a few balls on the cricket and lacrosse pitches, and perhaps my proudest achievement, set up the Edinburgh meme page. In my third year I spent a semester abroad at Georgetown University in Washington DC, the stepping stone for students who wanted to seriously make it big in American politics. Singing Handel’s Message pronounced “Waanderful,

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Caaaounselor!” was hilarious and unsettling in equal measure.

I also developed the satirical history magazine I set up at School, The Plague, which has since won awards, and took a one-woman historic satirical show to the Edinburgh Fringe, News@1066. All in all, four years in Edinburgh was a wonderfully rich experience where the world was my oyster.

Since October 2019, I have worked for History Hit, a Netflix-type subscription channel for history set up by Dan Snow.

I started off writing history articles and researching for documentaries sometimes looking through hundreds of hours of archive to find the perfect shot (I’ve seen enough videos of Princess Margaret at the races to last a lifetime).

During lockdown, I edited Dan Snow’s History Hit podcast, one of the most successful history podcasts with three million listens a month. With seven podcasts to turn over a week, I’ve fine-tuned my editing skills and become well-acquainted with the Adobe Creative Suite. I’ve also developed a new podcast on the channel about Historical Fiction, which involved me virtually interviewing authors across the country from the attic of my parents’ house.

I also created two documentaries over lockdown in places which I could visit as part of my ‘daily exercise’ allocation.

They delved into the secrets of the Battle of Edgehill (the first major civil war conflict) and the Rollright Stones (the ‘Stonehenge of the Cotswolds’).

Now I’m leading the way for female presenters on the History Hit channel,

which is tremendously exciting.

History Hit has just been acquired by Little Dot Studios, meaning we are moving to the centre of trendy Shoreditch: The Old Truman Brewery on Brick Lane. A new wardrobe is required, I should think!

History Hit has been a fantastic starting point, a testimony to what working in a small, creative company can give you in terms of variety and responsibility in a very short space of time.

On the side, I’ve been writing for The Telegraph and I’ve got all sorts of plans in the works once normal life resumes - making films for The National Trust, possibly presenting for Classic FM, and writing a book on James Gillray for a top London publisher.

Of course, I am indebted to a wonderful bunch of teachers at Wycombe, who I’m sure have inspired me for life with our jovial discussions and shared passions in Music, Art, English and History (Dr Tullis, Miss Merry, Dr Lorimer, Mr Tubb, Mr Rob, Mrs Chaffey, Miss Bowen, Miss Clark, Mrs Evans, Mr Evans, Dr Moodie and many more I’ve missed). Dr Tullis even came to support me at my Fringe show - quite the compliment!

I am always looking for a chance to write, present or hear about whatever quirky, thrilling projects people are working on. Do get in touch at alice@aliceloxton.com, follow @history_alice on Instagram/Twitter or have a look at my website www.aliceloxton.com. As the old adage goes: like, comment, subscribe…

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SPOTLIGHT ON:

Charlotte Willis (C202) C

harlotte Willis (Pitt, Class of 1996) studied Business Systems and Information Technology at Northumbria University. After undergoing critical surgery as a child and receiving an organ donation for a kidney transplant, Charlotte’s personal journey led her to become a board member for MedicAlert, a charity providing jewellery which provides immediate access to an individual’s medical information in an emergency. She writes: As I look back over my achievements, I am very aware that most of these moments nearly never happened: after a really great first year in UIII at Wycombe, I was unexpectedly diagnosed with end stage renal failure after a routine blood test and told I probably had about two weeks to live.

The only option was a kidney transplant. I was admitted to Great Ormond Street Hospital, started dialysis and was put on the organ donor register. At that time (1990), I was told that the average wait for a kidney for a child was approximately a year, but incredibly, a suitable match came up only six weeks later and the transplant went ahead. It was a donor kidney from a similarly-aged child who had tragically died in a car crash and the brave parents had made the heartbreaking decision to donate his organs.

I am forever indebted to them for the choice they made as it saved my life.

I was able to go back to School, re-join LIV and get on with my life. My life looks exactly the same as everyone else’s apart from I take a small handful of pills twice a day. I was given a second chance when I had my transplant:

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someone else made a decision that allowed me to carry on living when their son couldn’t and I am grateful for that every single day. Their child’s kidney enabled me to become Head of House, learn Cantonese in Hong Kong, graduate from university, travel the Trans-Siberian railway amongst many other things. Sadly, I can’t change their story but they were able to change mine. Because of their gift, I was able to complete one of my greatest achievements - sailing a quarter of the way around the world in a global yacht race in 2015, despite the fact that I’d never sailed before I signed up. I have always loved adventures and travel, so deciding to enter the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race was the way to learn to sail! I have also been able to tick off the London Marathon, the London Triathlon and travelling to 57 countries around the world, as well as living in Amsterdam and Sydney.

After my surgery, my parents sought support from MedicAlert, a charity providing Medical ID services to members. I became a member at 17 and began to wear a bracelet with a small disc on it, containing my MedicAlert membership and phone number, meaning that if I were ever unable to speak for myself and needed medical attention, anyone could call MedicAlert from anywhere in the world and quickly gain access to those vitally important medical details which could be life-saving.

When the opportunity came up to join MedicAlert on their Board as a Non-Executive Trustee, I jumped at the chance. I have now been a Board member for three years and chair the Board’s Governance sub-committee

as well as sitting on the IT Committee. I am so proud to support such a worthwhile charity that provides such reassurance and peace of mind to its members in life-saving situations.

There are many reasons why someone may need to provide their medical details: in an emergency, for example for someone with an allergy, an ‘invisible’ condition, or a medication they take, or even for someone with Dementia or Alzheimers to alert their next of kin if they become lost or confused.

How can Wycombe Abbey, parents and girls support MedicAlert?

As a Registered Charity, MedicAlert relies on donations to be able to fund its charitable projects. To make a donation, follow this link: www. justgiving.com/campaign/WycombeAbbey-School-MedicAlert or search Wycombe Abbey School - Supporting MedicAlert on JustGiving.

If you or someone you know is interested in becoming a member, sign up here (https://www.medicalert.org. uk/create-account/), using the special Wycombe Abbey code: WASMA I am a living example of just how life-changing and successful organ donation is. My own life was saved because of someone else’s incredible generosity in a time of great grief and I will forever be grateful for that.

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SPOTLIGHT ON:

Jada Poon (C221) J

ada Poon (Pitt, Class of 2001) became a celebrated photographer after deciding to leave behind a career in law. Jada details more information about her exhibition ‘Not a Superwoman’, and why she chose to change professions to develop her passion for photography.

What is your favourite memory of being a pupil at Wycombe Abbey?

I was 12 when I arrived at Wycombe Abbey, and it was the best year of my life. Studying in Hong Kong was an isolating experience whereas Wycombe was the exact opposite.

I relish the memories of living in the 9-12 pupil dorm rooms, running around after lights out, and hanging out at the art studio and painting for hours.

What was the inspiration behind ‘Not a Superwoman’?

There were two key messages I wanted to convey. The first was that behind every seemingly ’successful’ person are fears and insecurities, hopes and desires, falling and restoring - manifested in different forms and stories. In a world that is so divided and filled with judgment, I hope we can try to see the humanity in each person we encounter around us. The second message is that vulnerability is a strength, not a weakness.

How did you develop an interest in photography?

I have been fascinated with storytelling since I was a child. I started drawing and painting and

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would make up stories and personalities of the ‘characters’ that I drew. As I started working as a lawyer, I had less time to paint but began taking photos when I was travelling. It very quickly became my new channel to tell stories.

Growing up, I was handed down a definition of what success means.

I wanted to redefine my own success and let people know that it is possible to break out from a traditional view.

Everyone around me objected, thinking it was a waste of my legal education. Yet how can I say it is a waste whenever I see the impact my photography has? Much of the joy that I derive from life comes from knowing that I can use the voice and skill that I have been given to help others.

What is the most rewarding part of your profession?

I began to realise the power of it to draw out the brave and sensitive soul of each woman that I photograph, to let them see through my eyes a side of them that they perhaps have pushed aside, or never believed they had. I, as the photographer, am responsible for creating a perfectly styled and posed image but also for defining who that woman is in that moment. When I connect with the people I photograph and am able to capture that, it is the most rewarding part of my work.

See more of Jada’s photography www.jadapoonphotography.com

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SPOTLIGHT ON:

Alison Thistlethwaite (C120) A

lison Thistlethwaite (Barry, Class of 1970) grew up with art in the family. Following a career in music therapy, Alison returned to art, painting abstracts and running art and creative workshops. Alison tells us about how she came to be invited to exhibit at York Minster cathedral.

My favourite teacher at Wycombe was my Art teacher, Miss Tilbury.

She demonstrated the way to paint the colours of sand as the tide goes out: those beautiful colours seen immediately after a wave. Another special memory was when the Art teachers told me I could use an old gardeners shed below the Art department to do some work with clay. That helped me enjoy many hours of free time in peace and quiet. That experience resonates with how I paint now, with my own quiet place.

My Geography lessons also had a great influence on me. Miss Tate was outstanding and her descriptions of Peru and the Andes had a powerful effect, so in 1978 I travelled (alone) through much of South America.

For three months, I saw those beautiful rugged mountains and met many people including relatives in Argentina.

When I think of that trip I often think of Miss Tate. I do think that when we look back, we find people have blessed us deeply without knowing it at the time.

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When my family moved to the Cotswolds in 1999, I began experimenting with abstract painting and loved the freedom and pleasure of putting colours together. I was influenced by Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko, while still enjoying the Old Masters and the PostImpressionists. We built a large studio in the garden that has been used for some exhibitions, classes, and therapeutic art days, as well as for our own painting.

One visitor had a look at my paintings and suggested I apply for a Cathedral exhibition and, for fun, I applied to York Minster. To my amazement, I was invited to exhibit 40 paintings in the Nave. Some of my paintings are very big, but even the largest looked tiny in such a vast space. Visitors to the Cathedral came from all over the world, and I enjoyed explaining the meaning of some of the paintings to a group of Chinese students.

I have had several more exhibitions in Cathedrals, including Wells, Worcester and Peterborough. The latest was a second exhibition at Bradford Cathedral: ‘Encounters with Jesus’. We had just set that up when coronavirus hit, so the exhibition lasted only a short time. That was disappointing but does mean that I have a number of new paintings ready to exhibit.

Looking back on my memories of Wycombe has reminded me that much I use now was instilled in me at a young age and that the teachers who encouraged me the most have left the most enduring legacy.

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SPOTLIGHT ON:

Karen Crawford Clarke (C151) K

aren Crawford Clarke (Cloister, Class of 1982) has enjoyed a distinguished career as a General Practitioner for 25 years. She describes how her life changed after the sudden death of her son. Karen continues to play an important role as a GP during the pandemic and describes how her job has adapted as a result of coronavirus.

I had already decided that I wanted to be a doctor when I arrived at Wycombe Abbey in 1976. I constantly wanted to make the most of my time at Wycombe, as my parents saw the importance of my education and made huge sacrifices to give me the opportunity. So, I filled my time with as much as possible. Pat Lancaster, our Headmistress, was an incredible role model, and as I march down the corridor at work to call my next patient, I often remember the sound of her confident footsteps as she strutted down the aisle each morning for Chapel.

I have been a GP in Henfield, a village in West Sussex, for 25 years this year, totally immersed in this vibrant community. I am responsible for over 1,000 patients, and in 2013, I took a four-month sabbatical and went to work in GP practices in France and Bermuda. What an amazing experience it was, and fascinating to work in two different health systems.

I came back to Henfield with renewed vigour and a determination to fight for our precious NHS. Then, tragically, our eldest son Paddy was killed in a car accident in 2015, aged

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22, having just started his dream job as a graduate engineer. I took six months out to grieve, but came back into general practice knowing that I had to find meaning in my life and doing my best to safeguard the NHS was my goal. It was my way of showing my patients that I could live again after such a tragedy.

When the country went into lockdown in March 2020, we shut our doors and had to manage the health of our patients differently. The pace of change was rapid and relentless. We had moments of being scared for our own safety, frustrated by technology, confused by rapidly changing laws, and we were challenged to practice medicine in a completely different way.

We had to deal with 95% of patients on the phone or by video consultation, and only brought patients into the surgery if there was no other option. Sometimes it felt like we were at war, but with an unknown enemy. We no longer wore smart, professional outfits, and instead wore scrubs, masks, aprons, gloves and visors, and cleaned everything regularly.

We improvised and saw patients in a gazebo in the car park. The patients rallied round and made a steady supply of facemasks, caps, gowns, and visors for us. When the first batch of facemasks was delivered, it was a huge boost for morale.

My leadership experience as Head of Cloister House has stood me in good stead! I had to chair meetings on Zoom to quickly set up a ‘hot hub’ that could be accessed by five surgeries in rural Sussex to see possible Covid-19 cases.

The village community was amazing

and very quickly established a hotline for vulnerable patients and an army of volunteers to do the shopping, collect medicines and answer phone calls. When a local nursing home was badly hit, within days many of the local groups in the village were making gifts and children were writing letters to provide moral support. We GPs started providing weekend support for nursing homes via telephone on-call, something GPs had not done since 2004.

I believe this pandemic will change forever how we function in general practice. Online access to GPs, ‘e-consult’ is here to stay, as is telephone consulting and ‘total triage’, which means that patients speak to a clinician before being given an appointment. This is all very well, but the most rewarding consultations are still face to face in the surgery. The leap forward we have made in technology means that our workforce can be a bit more flexible, sometimes working from home. It is wonderful that my years working in general practice meant that I had a wide network of contacts in the community and we could respond so rapidly to this pandemic, for the benefits of patients and staff.

Read more about Karen’s journey on her blog: doctorabroad.wordpress.com

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The Dove-Bowerman Society

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ny institutional success requires strong foundations. Our vision is predicated upon the need to maintain and enhance the very substantial infrastructure Wycombe Abbey has developed throughout its history. Philanthropy has paid an important role in the development of School throughout the last 125 years.

Elsie Bowerman joined Wycombe Abbey in 1901 and led a remarkable life. After surviving the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, she witnessed the Russian Revolution at first hand in 1917 before becoming the first female barrister at the Old Bailey in 1924; she later went to the USA to help set up the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women in 1947. After the death of this extraordinary woman in 1973, Elsie Bowerman left the majority of her estate to the Dove-Bowerman Trust which supported the education of young women at Wycombe Abbey for over four decades.

Benefaction helps to secure the long-term vision of the School. By remembering Wycombe Abbey in your will, either with a lump sum or all or part of your estate, you have the capability to contribute to School’s ambitious plans as they evolve over time.

“I’d like to encourage Seniors who have similarly good memories of Wycombe to join the Dove-Bowerman Society. The Society provides support to the School in all manner of areas and in recognition of the fact that I was a grammar school girl who, in 1963, was very fortunate to be given a bursary by the Middlesex County Council, the last offered before that excellent scheme was closed.

Attending Wycombe has been of such unquantifiable benefit, I’d like to think my gift might go towards helping another pupil whose parents need financial support, a means-tested bursary, in order that their daughter might also reap the same, lifelong benefits of an education at Wycombe Abbey.” – Trish Walker (C118)

The School’s current strategic priorities are raising the level of support for means-tested support through the Wycombe Abbey Bursary Fund, and a transformational site development plan across our 170 acres of magnificent conservation listed grounds. All those who pledge to support Wycombe Abbey in their will are invited to become members of the Dove-Bowerman Society, which gathers annually at the invitation of the Headmistress. For a confidential discussion about leaving a legacy to Wycombe Abbey, please contact Clare Flynn-Scarcelli, Director of Development, at flynnscarcellic@wycombeabbey.com.

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This year, the Seniors’ Office was delighted to present the first issue of the interactive, digital Seniors’ magazine, The Dove, a publication filled with current news from Seniors around the world.

We were proud to document Wycombe Abbey’s alumnae activities which included Spotlights on Seniors and interviews to shine a light on the diversity of the Seniors community.

If you would like to receive the latest edition of The Dove and upcoming issues, and are not currently opted in for email communications, please email seniors@wycombeabbey.com.

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Circle News

Please note that the publication of content in the following sections does not constitute an endorsement by Wycombe Abbey of any of the products, services or opinions of the individual.

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Circle 76 Judy Andrews (McCarten) Jim damaged his spine in a life-changing accident and Judy can still just see out of the one eye she can use, but they still sound positive.

Jill Askew (Parker) Jill is still living in the same place but slowing down and not able to drive these days.

Veronica Mellish (Bagot) Veronica’s plan was to spend the winter in London and return to the States for the summer. They are not sure how this will plan out with all the present travelling restrictions.

Betty Heath (Taylor) Bernard now has dementia but is in a good care home just five minutes away and comes home on Sundays - or did.

Betty was upset that she has been unable to visit him properly since the shut down in March.

Anne Wade (Smith) Anne is very glad to be living in the country and says she thinks she has had more contact with the family during the lockdown than usual! She hears from Jill Harrison (Lilley).

Marion Campbell (Circle Sectary, 76)

Circle 77 Philippa Langdon (Sandford) We moved to Hemyock on the edge of the Blackdown Hills in September. My family have been marvellous at visiting me. Piers and Liz, my eldest son and his wife, still give me a home and care for me. I occupy myself by writing stories for my great-grandchildren, telling them of the marvellous life I have led in Ethiopia and here in the UK and the great trips I have made and the people I have met.

I don’t find travelling very easy so probably won’t come to any Seniors meetings or get-togethers soon. I still keep in touch with Marion Campbell. With best wishes for the future to the Wycombe Abbey Seniors.

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Gill Foster (Fletcher) Last year I sold my house in Orpington after 57 years and moved to Willingham, a village near Cambridge where I have a little bungalow-overlooking the village green and 200 yards from my eldest son! If there are Seniors in the area, it would be great to hear from you.

Last September, I spent a week with Meryl Brand on a river cruise on the Douro in Portugal. Lovely weather and country, and we learnt a lot about Port!

Ann Huckstep (Macbeth) I am sure that most Seniors share my view that the Supplement is a great way of catching up with news of contemporaries. I always look forward to its publication.

My ‘news’ is very family-orientated. My six grandchildren are all following various university courses in cities across Australia. One grandson, who was on a university exchange in London, had to return to Sydney in March because of Covid-19.

As for myself - one of the sad features of the present situation is the lack of social contact for our generation, as all classes and get-togethers have been cancelled. It’s not the same online somehow! I am fortunate that two of my three children and their families live fairly nearby in Sydney.

I try and keep fit by walking as much as possible.

Clare Spring (Thistlethwaite) In this unpleasant year, I’ve been fortunate thanks to the phone, and less often my tablet, I’ve been keeping in touch with many friends and family. They are resilient and often glad to catch up. In Circle 77, I have spoken to our indefatigable former Circle Secretary, Gill Foster (Fletcher), now outside Cambridge, and Lady Michaela Reid (Kier).

I was sorry to learn she had lost her husband. I keep in touch with Jo Pelly (Hirst, C80) and Susan Kuti (Spike), who has had a hard time with health recently.

We seem to have good families. My eldest is in a bubble with me but has just endured all employees having to reapply for their jobs, CV and online interviews. I am so thankful he has been kept on as he retires in three years.

He and his youngest brother are helpful. My middle son, lecturing in Dubai, books cheerful 30-minute phone calls as Skype is not allowed.

Zoom is most helpful. My husband’s family invite me in, local societies have kept going with lectures, and the In and Out have provided excellent speakers for the ‘Fireside

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Chats’ in the early evening. Add Radios 3, 4, 4extra and sometimes 5 and I am very occupied. Not by TV: no set and no licence. Nor good sight. I miss my choirs. Any chance, I sing with the radio.

I look forward to singing again; I miss my two choirs. I have good and friendly neighbours. My eldest son is 20 mins drive away. I’ve lived on my own for 25 years but have kept in touch with a wide range of friends and family (who invented the horrid term ‘loved ones’?). I have been contacted through WASS by one of the final groups of Middlesex award-holders. We had a long, fascinating phone call. She put together the excellent film shown at the Glenn Miller anniversary Seniors’ Day. Meeting her eventually is one of the many things which I look forward to when at last we can do so. In the meantime, I don’t fret about when the virus will end. Just as in WW2 we had to wait until peace arrived, it’s the same now. We couldn’t know then it would be 1945!

Circle 78 Elisabeth Parker-Jervis (Morgan) Well not much here for obvious reasons. I did miss the Cheltenham Music Festival and I think our Literary Festival is in doubt too. I keep in touch with Margaret Hopkinson-Woolley (Twining) as she follows my horses. I have a quarter share in Eclair On Line with Charlie Longsdon. He is only six and hasn’t done anything yet but hope he lives up to his name.

I am still playing croquet but not competitively and it was a great joy when Cheltenham CC reopened with all the rules introduced for social distancing and hand-sanitising.

I am getting used to manoeuvring balls with the feet but all hoops scored have to be on paper as we are not allowed clips. It is lovely to get out and enjoy a game with friends.

Kay Huffner (Seymour) I’ve rather enjoyed the lockdown - a dog is a great help and an empty Hyde Park was perfect space for the various members of the family who came to walk. Spring was exceptional and beautiful.

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Anne Boult (Collett) We are lucky to live surrounded by large, lovely gardens and countryside which made isolating easy as we could be outside whenever we liked. Also, with food delivered by local shops and our daughter, Nicky Huish (C133), life was quite simple although it did begin to get tedious not going anywhere. We are still being careful but have ventured out a bit recently and have seen various members of the family often in the garden.

Robina Brand It has been a quiet few months self-isolating, but now being let out at the end of July. I have kept well and walked the dog regularly, and have accompanied a friend in car shopping. The local Dartington W.I. have been marvellous keeping in contact, shopping and even sending flowers and updating newsletters. Have also done a lot of sorting out.

The Animals in Distress Rescue Centre has been closed as well as all their shops but we have still rehomed and taken in a few animals.

I am going to stay with my sister Rosemary Pudsey Dawson (Brand) for a few days at the beginning of August.

Have kept in touch by email with Gillian Foster (Fletcher) and may have plans to meet up later. Devon is such a long way from everywhere.

Circle 79 Margaret Hopkinson-Woolley (Twining) Just before the coronavirus spread, I had a replacement knee operation on 17 February. I could hardly walk for several months but was so glad to be able to exchange my knee for a new one. Our local hospital was wonderful in every way. Everything worked like clockwork. The old knee was never right after I hurt it at Wycombe when I was 15. It served me well all these years but, in the end, I had to see it go.

My husband is writing a book based on St John’s Gospel and often asks for my opinion. I agree with all he is writing, which is lucky. He hopes to have it printed by the end of August. In the last few years, I have been researching our family trees. This is such a fascinating hobby. I discovered that our neighbour in Shrewsbury, who became a great friend, is a distant cousin of my husband. Memoirs have now been written and Wycombe Abbey is mentioned over those five happy years I was a pupil.

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Circle 82 Cicely Taylor (Tomlinson) I have retired from Tour Leading and live in London and Somerset where I take an active interest in the Somerset Gardens Trust. Marian Gresswell (Boyd) is also a member and Buzz Cripwell (Overton) joined us on a trip to Herefordshire gardens a couple of years ago.

In London, I belong to an Art Club, along with Beverley Segal (Hilton) who was in Barry with me and Catherine ThompsonMcCausland (Smith). We go separately to an art exhibition and meet once a month to discuss what we have seen.

I’ve been to stay with Judy England (Sugden) in Yorkshire and visited some of the wonderful houses up there. I’m in touch with Anne Barnes (Mason), Belinda Shand (Hobson), Jackie Kingsley (Schofield), Micky Reid (Kier) and Sue Cameron.

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Circle 84 Joan Reynolds (MacDonald) My husband David died on 8 July 2020 aged 89.

We had been married for 59 happy years, which we celebrated on 24 June 2020.

I have a wonderful loving family who is supporting me at this very difficult time.

Circle 88 Jenny Stott As a lot of the sailing events have been cancelled this summer, Jenny will see less of her family and Wycombe friends. Jenny celebrated her 80th birthday, pictured with her brother below, in the autumn (2019) with all her family. They took over a hotel in Portmerion for around 35 of them.

Jackie Kingsley (Schofield) During lockdown, I failed to sort and identify my photographs, tidy the kitchen dresser, clean the garage, sort the toy shed. However, I was lucky that my daughter, Veronica (also Barry) was here for nine weeks doing the shopping, cooking and gardening.

Marian Gresswell (Boyd) Marian during a Somerset Garden tour of Herefordshire gardens.

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Joanna Sanders (Harrison) Joanna writes that she also celebrated her 80th birthday in November with a family and long-term friends lunch party for 35 at the pub in the village and another party in the Church after the service the next day, which was shared with a friend and around 80 people attended.

Jenny and Joanna had booked to go to the Passion Play in Oberammergau, Germany, (done every 10 years) in July 2020 but it was postponed for two years. Joanna says if you were a boarder in the 1950s, lockdown did not come too hard – just rather like a long term. Joanna says she is very content still to be living in the house she and William bought in 1967 for £9,000, although William died of Parkinson’s in 2017, and she had to be in the hospital for around five weeks giving some cause for concern, so not the best year. Her son and family have been very supportive over lockdown with James ringing daily.

Joanna is in touch with her first cousin Jane Phillips (Harrison, C151) – sadly her husband Roy (who was 85) died earlier in 2020. She has a son Jason now 17.

Alison Rand Peter Rand wrote to tell us of the sad news of the death of Alison in June 2020.

Cherry Aston (Wheeler) Cherry is very happy living back in the Chilterns.

From time to time she sees Liz Prowting (Mobsby).

Mary Fluehr (Nicholas) Mary writes from the Monterey Peninsula in California saying it is a blessing to live there. They have 10 grandchildren but her travel business has been severely curtailed and holidays postponed during lockdown.

Patricia Thompson (Henchley) Patricia writes that she has also celebrated her 80th birthday and they had a winner at Cheltenham just before lockdown. She has achieved about half her ‘to do’ list during the lockdown and she and her husband were glad to hear of the Government’s grant to the Arts with which they are involved in, namely the National Theatre and the Royal Albert Hall. They are also pleased that racing has recommenced albeit behind locked doors at the time of writing.

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Circle 89 Sheila Knauer (Tennent) Celebrated my 80th birthday with a Viking trip exploring the Amazon. Much appreciation to Miss Tate, Geography Teacher, who sparked the travel interest. Highlight of the trip was being in the forest up 60 feet or so, on a walkway above the forest floor, hearing and seeing the colourful birds. Our guide used his iPhone to call the birds and they replied!

Circle 93 Alison Cooper I have previously written two novels featured in the Directory section of The Supplement, The Rapallo Legacy, and Adrian’s Journey. For some updated news, I am busy writing my third novel: Harriet’s Viola.

I have also written four short stories, at various times.

I wrote one of them, UMBRELLA, for a local Limehouse, London competition - it won second prize, out of eight submissions! I am hoping to write more short stories when I have time. At the moment, I’m dealing with the disposal of my brother’s house and possessions as he has vascular dementia and is living - very happily and comfortably - in a lovely care home.

If you would like to read one of Alison’s short stories, please contact her on alisonhcooper@hotmail.com

Circle 95 Jean Barnes (Ashworth) It is a lot more than 40 years on since I left Wycombe Abbey! I still stay in touch with two lifelong friends I made when I was 12, Patty Hopkins (Wainwright) and Diana Catto (Brown). I have also met, at Patty’s house, Fiona Mellor (MacCarthy) who sadly died earlier this year after a distinguished literary career. I live near my grandchildren in East Sussex who are going through the state system.

To see what goes on, I volunteered to help with reading in the primary school, and reading and scribing for disadvantaged children for A Level exams in the secondary

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school. I was interested to see they still do Macbeth for A Level, which we all did (shades of Miss Flint - probably the best and most inspiring teacher one could hope to meet), but, I don’t think they do the Tudors twice in history which happened to me! The wonderful thing about going to school locally is that most of your friends are local, so there is always somebody to play with in the school holidays, but it is hard work for parents (and grandparents) ferrying the children to the after-school activities. I play bridge at the Tunbridge Wells Bridge Club. The coronavirus has currently put paid to that, but I play online. I write grant applications for repairs to the local church and take the minutes for the Parochial Church Council meetings now on Zoom. The minutes seem to be full of Health and Safety, and Risk Assessment concerns which seem to take up a large part of the time.

I wonder when we will feel safe travelling again? I have a daughter living in Washington state on the USA west coast. Luckily, we can Facetime and Zoom but I am longing to hug her.

Circle 97 Mrs Marjorie Pattle (Whitter) Wycombe Seniors learning Latin and Greek in the late 1950s and early 1960s might like to have news of Marjorie Pattle, known to us then as Miss Whitter.

Since last autumn she has been living in a truly delightful care home in Salisbury, where – now in her mid-nineties – she is well cared for and looked after. Her change of address and the new situation has led to renewed and happy connections between myself and several other Seniors, who have kept in touch with Marjorie over the years since leaving school: Mary Ader (Atkinson) who lives in Chicago, Jane Warren who lives in the Channel Islands, Gillian Lowther (Savage) from London and Susy Ellis (Barber) from Wimborne Minster, as well as a couple of members of staff, namely, Dr Beckett and Miss Long.

Happily, her care home is now virus-free and life is slowly returning to normal. I would be happy to pass on any further good wishes to Marjorie from any other Seniors who would be glad to have news of her and wish her well whenever I go for one of my regular visits to see her.

Helen Jeffries (Beaver) In 2019, my daughter, her husband and two boys from Australia had a three-month sabbatical in Europe, to spend a lovely hot Easter in Templand with my son who had met them off the flight. He kindly lent us his car so five of us, plus the dog, could go to Orkney in June after a 75th Birthday in Germany, I then went on to join family in Italy. Very thrilled to visit some of the famous places - Pisa and the Leaning Tower, San Gimignano and Florence on the way to Venice - all new to me. On return to the UK, we went on my narrowboat to Llangollen. We spent a wet ramblers weekend in Fort William and then went on a tour to India. Another fascinating experience. Whilst there my house was sold and I quickly found a home in Alton and moved on 20 December.

I now live 200 yards from the town centre yet in ten minutes can be walking in lovely countryside. So, it has been a great place to be in lockdown. Since moving, I had been out with local ramblers a lot as dogs are allowed.

Also, Scottish dancing in Guildford but no tennis yet.

On a recent trip to my boat, I had tea with the Rhodes family - Louise and Bess in Knutsford and picnicked with Rosemary Harley (Carroll) on the way home.

Circle 101 Bridget Blackburn (Collett) Like our friends and relations both here and in England, we are sheltering in place and limiting our exposure as I have diabetes. Jim, my husband, has COPD which puts him at extreme risk. We have outdoor meetings with our son David, his wife Kourtney and our two youngest grandchildren, Zoey and Norah, who will be two at the end of August. At first, New York was hit hard with coronavirus, particularly New York City. We are in upstate New York and, so far, the numbers are looking better but people are now visiting the bars and beaches and not always social distancing and wearing masks.

Thanks to Miss O’Brien, I am now making a second batch of masks from Liberty material which was part of an old skirt. Miss O’Brien did more for me in my career and in life than any other teacher.

- Revd Tresna Fletcher (Russell)

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Paula Parry (Williams) I am now living in Wales, having moved from Liverpool in 2014 - the best move I ever made. Having survived three different types of cancer, a heart attack and a triple heart bypass, I am now waiting for a new knee. I am paying the price for all the sport at School!

Susan Ciancio (Runeckles) I spent lockdown in Tuscany. On 6 March we moved from Rome with our two grandchildren for a long weekend as the schools had closed. We returned two and a half months later! Our daughter joined us the following week as her office in Rome had closed. She was working from home which proved to be complicated as we are not covered by broadband in the country. However, after a few days, she had organised her office/bedroom.

Her husband who is in NATO in Brussels was, of course, not allowed to join us.

Everyone was so kind and made us feel welcome at all times. After a few fraught days, we settled into a routine.

But the most amazing sense of solidarity came via emails from my WA friends from Rubens: Roz, Anna and Suzi with whom I am still in touch but normally only at Christmas and Birthdays and my Circle Secretary, Jan Pearce Higgins. Covid-19 seemed to hit Italy before the UK, but before long it was just as bad in England. I so appreciated their concern for me and my family, I consider ourselves very fortunate not to have been locked down in a city flat.

And all through those weeks, I thought of our School motto ‘In Fide Vade’. It couldn’t have been more appropriate!

Joan Gilbert (McKenzie)

We live outside a tiny village with no supermarket. The little shops were amazingly helpful. We telephoned our grocery order in the evening and they arranged delivery from a table outside the shop the following morning.

The butcher was open, as was the baker, chemist, and newsagent. The police patrolled regularly. We had to wear a mask at all times. The weather was fantastic. This enabled us to be busy clearing branches and having bonfires every day for three weeks plus organising the vegetable garden. Every Sunday we went for a long walk and had a picnic lunch.

Then came Easter. We found a few chocolate eggs for the hunt in the morning and coloured the eggs for our traditional antipasto as usual. On Good Friday, I copied out the 14 Stations of the Cross and fixed them to the outside wall of our house. As darkness came we lit a candle each and processed round reading the story of the last week of Christ. I thought we needed to remember what Easter is really about!

I taught the family We’ll Meet Again...which we all sang loudly and we all watched HM The Queen’s inspiring TV broadcast.

The only thing that caused considerable stress to both mother and children was the school homework. Partly because the children thought they were on holiday and partly because the absence of WiFi made downloading and reloading in the evening a problem. The newsagent in the village helped printing off as we had no printer here and not enough laptops, tablets, etc. to go around.

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When I left Wycombe in 1963, I read with interest and admiration the news from the eldest Seniors, their achievements and how they kept in touch with others for so many years. Well, incredibly to me, nearly 60 years later, I’m now joining their ranks so I thought I would offer similar news.

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As a recent achievement, I would like to mention my week’s e-bike ride last year along the banks of the stunning Danube - Passau to Vienna - with my everpatient son. Carrying my own luggage for a week in bike panniers was a liberating experience, as well as a lesson in minimal packing! I hadn’t cycled for many years, and a little more practice beforehand would have been helpful.

Nevertheless, it was an unforgettable ride.

As to Seniors, I’m delighted to report that I’m still in very regular touch with Paula Parry – along with her lovely daughter Phillippa (my god-daughter) and Rubens Seniors, Suzy and Liz. Before lockdown, it was great to have lunch at the British Museum with Mary Stacey, Anna Hoysted (Duncan) and Ros McMillan (Harris). I’m also in touch with Sue Seddon (Crouch), Penny Barham, Amanda Skillington, Val Holden (Carter Shaw), Bobbi Mitchell (who lives in Italy) and Susy Ellis (Barber) who like me, lives in Dorset.

Circle 102 Elizabeth Barrs (Mitchell) It is always good to hear from Circle members, even if they have no news for the Supplement, and I would like to thank all those who have responded. It was especially good to talk to Angela Colhoun and put her in touch again with Liz Jones (Ramsay). Angela writes that she is a trustee of her local Camphill community in Northern Ireland she also enjoys her golf.

John and I celebrated our Golden Wedding anniversary on 14 February in between the storms and the start of the pandemic. We had a happy luncheon party in Bucks. Ann Alderson (Wickenden) most kindly offered her beautiful home as a venue. Amongst our guests of family and friends also from Wycombe were my sister, Ann Williams (Mitchell) and Jackie Eatock Taylor (Cannon Brookes) who were both bridesmaids, Jean Outram and Liz Jones.

During lockdown, we kept busy with lots of gardening and walks to the beach and across the local marshes and of course lots of telephone calls to friends and family.

Persis Adajania (Batlivala) Hello from Mumbai! Yes, the situation here has been disastrous and inhumane for daily wage earners, but a lot of financial aid was poured in by NGOs and personal

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donations, be it for food, transport and medical aid. Things have improved, but the Covid-19 cases have spiralled, which was expected. When one has a population like ours, along with poverty, it is next to impossible to adhere to social distancing. We, as a minority, are the fortunate ones.

I am staying with my son and family at his country house in a place called Alibag - it’s about a three-hour drive from Mumbai or a 15-minute ride in a speed boat across the harbour. The sea route is closed during the monsoon season. All is well here - I spend my days swimming, reading, doing yoga and gardening - weather permitting.

Don’t watch or read any news - quite happy being ignorant of the going’s on around the world.

My two grandsons have online schooling. Life has changed.

I think when things get under control it’s going to be a changed way of living. I am very much in touch with Jan and family and with Carol Carey-Brown.

Stay well and stay safe - one day the sun will shine again and I hope we as humans appreciate what we have and what we’ve been through and learn from it. Love and hugs.

Circle 107 Louise Rhodes (Melene) My daughter Bess Rhodes (C233) published Riches and Reform, an account of the disastrous economic effect of the Reformation on St Andrews, the ecclesiastical centre of Scotland in Catholic times. Since lockdown, she has been back in Cheshire on furlough and writing her next book - a great joy for us to have her home for so long.

Anyone who can’t get out to historic sites in these difficult times might enjoy visiting some virtual reconstructions Bess has worked on.

Edinburgh in 1544: smarthistory.co.uk/Edinburgh1544 Abernethy Round Tower and Monastic Complex, c. 1072: vimeo.com/331193784 Finlaggan on Islay in the 15th century (centre of the Lordship of the Isles): vimeo.com/337511074 St Andrews Cathedral, c. 1318: vimeo.com/259182783

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Circle 109 Jacqueline King (Crill) Still in touch with Janet Rayner (Gilchrist), Sarah Nicolson (Carnegie), Debbie Uttley (Praat) and Louise Melenie (Rhodes). Really enjoyed a trip to Edinburgh in October 2019 to stay with Janet and Jim and to meet their children again. Louise and Ken very kindly put me up in Knutsford when I was on the way to a business meeting and it was good to catch up. Debbie and Mike live near me in Somerset, and usually organise a brilliant croquet competition, sadly cancelled this year for obvious reasons.

Lockdown was cheered as I and many others took part in a Mass Observation Diary. In all the awfulness of isolation, it was fun to detail the growth of sweet peas and so on.

I felt that my Wycombe Abbey education helped a great deal as I re-read old classics (thank you Miss Flint) and sketched (thank you Miss Hugget). Also, we were trained to be so resilient at the School during the early 60s, weren’t we? That also helped. I can live on every kind of food and make my own entertainment. All learned at School...

It was sad that my book launch was cancelled, but I did have a touching mini launch in Jersey three days before lockdown, and was so glad to meet Occupation Veterans who had witnessed what I had tried so hard to capture in my book. Despite the cancellation, it seems to be going well, with good reviews on Amazon.

Our generation has been so fortunate to live freely with relative comfort - remember those currant buns for break, everyone? Furthermore, we have never experienced a terrifying knock at the door. The islanders, my relatives, were not so lucky.

Thank you again, the wonderful Miss Flint, for honing my grammar, teaching me the rhythms of Shakespeare and Milton, and who said I must not write ‘Mere Narrative!’

Now, with Wycombe Abbey backbone, I battle on with a possible sequel.

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Circle 111 Liz Fleming (Lattimer) 2020 started off with a very exciting trip to Western Australia as a nephew of mine was getting married there on 4 January. It meant leaving the UK on 26 December in the deepest winter and arriving for New Year’s Eve. Celebrating this in a Hotel in Freemantle with a Cuban buffet and band was an experience not encountered before. The wedding was at Albany on the north west corner of Western Australia. We spent a few days celebrating with family and then had two weeks to explore beautiful WA. This all seems like a dream now as soon after our return the pandemic struck and like most people of our generation we took the threat seriously and are only now beginning to surface - rather gingerly. I tried, especially during the first six weeks, to keep in telephonic communication with friends who have been shielding or live alone.

I have been very involved with music locally since returning to the violin a good few years ago now. I was taught by Miss Barraclough at Wycombe and had to attend quartet sessions on a Wednesday afternoon when everyone else was allowed free time. Some of you will also remember the Junior and Senior orchestras (the latter often called the squark!) I am afraid when I left School the violin did not figure in my interests but during a life change in 2000 I was persuaded to pick it up again, and I have really taken off with the instrument thanks to two excellent teachers. My symphony orchestra and string orchestra have been holding regular Zoom rehearsals and I’ve even participated in a charitable event for Mind during the summer. This was a play through over several weeks of all the Beethoven’s Symphonies. I provided musical entertainment for our neighbours during a ‘clap for carers’ evening and also on VE Day to accompany the toast at 3pm.

We are lucky to live in north Wiltshire on the edge of the Cotswolds, so have spent a lovely summer enjoying our locality - all the local walks and since some release of the lockdown - visits to various National Trust Properties and Westonbirt Arboretum.

Family visits have been sadly curtailed, but the last few weeks have enabled us to meet up. My youngest grandchild Harri is now 18 months and a very energetic little boy and loved by his older cousins. I am attaching a photo of my five beautiful grandchildren of whom I am so proud.

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learnt so much in such a short amount of time. I am now a dab hand at teaching classes online using Teams and getting all the girls to hand in their work via OneNote!

One of my girls actually said that she was so proud of me for learning everything so quickly. The girls were very good at doing their work each lesson, which of course meant masses of marking after every lesson! We went back to school for the last three weeks of term – it was so good to see the girls back at school, although the atmosphere was weird. Staff were only required at school when we were teaching, so the staff room was so quiet.

The whole school smelt of sanitizer and if you stayed still too long, you were sprayed by the maintenance men.

I must admit I am really hoping we don’t go into lockdown again and have to do online teaching in term three.

Sadly, our follow-up Wendover reunion in May, following on from the great success of last year’s, had to be cancelled but will take place in 2021 I am sure.

Circle 116 Anne Hutchinson (King)

I must admit it has been such a weird few months. Australia has been fairly isolated from the rest of the world with regards to Covid-19. We watch with horror the news every night and see the terrible toll in Europe and America.

However, cases are on the rise again, especially in Victoria as we have had some bad decisions from the government regarding returning travellers and testing restrictions, which were easing, are now tightening up.

We went to online teaching from the end of term one.

I have never worked so hard in my life, and I have never

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I was meant to be taking a group of senior French students up to Byron Bay for a week-long French immersion course, but of course, that was cancelled. I really missed my annual week of warmth and wonderful French conversation!

The twins were happy to get back to school. They had only had seven weeks of school and then lockdown. Maddie thought that school was finished forever once she had done the seven weeks and was surprised to have to go back!

Christina Thomson Jones

In 2019, I had two amazing examining tours, one to Thailand in June/July, and the other one to Calcutta in Bengal October/November, finishing up in the foothills of the Himalayas in Sikkim. Both were intensely interesting and thoughtfully organised with some travelling involved, and then free time there to explore, which I did with alacrity.

Sometimes the travel in between venues does not go as planned, as when the driver got lost in one of the Thai national parks, and the expected four and a half-hour car journey turned into seven hours…there was a certain sense of deja vu at one point. It all adds to the special atmosphere I experience on these tours. There is often an

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element of surprise! The people have always been so very grateful and welcoming. In these countries, they work so hard with so much enthusiasm and often poor resources and very inexperienced teachers, who are also keen to improve. I have so enjoyed it, even if it has sometimes been in retrospect.

The coronavirus has been a complete disaster for musicians. Life is hard enough anyway, and uncertain at the best of times, but I fear this will be the end of our marvellous classical music tradition, certainly as we have known it, and take for granted. I have had tours to Malaysia and China cancelled this year, and don’t know when, or if, they will start again, sadly. I do not want to fully retire yet. I hope you have all survived and kept in good spirits. Do get in touch if you are in Yorkshire.

Anne Smart (Noble) We’ve been enjoying life under lockdown, apart from the terrible things on the news - I think the uncertainty about Covid-19 gives us all an underlying anxiety, for most of us that’s dwarfed by concerns about the future of the planet.

I’ve become more active in a local environmental group called Abingdon Carbon Cutters. We’re collaborating with the town council and other groups, to encourage more people, especially school children, to walk or cycle in the town. Richard and I have been surveying some cycle routes to see where improvements are needed. We enjoy exploring the routes, but putting things onto PowerPoint and a Google map is proving beyond us!

A sub-group is involved with reducing single-use plastic and we are currently designing a poster to encourage people to wear cloth masks rather than disposable.

Another initiative is ‘Cosy Homes’ - you can apply for a home assessment to find out what retrofitting measures are needed to reduce the carbon footprint of your house.

If others in our Wycombe Circle are involved in things like this, I’d love to hear and learn from them.

Circle 117 Elizabeth Breeze Members of our circle are approaching 70, so not in the designated vulnerable age group, but 70 is not a cliff-edge age for vulnerability so I think many of us were going

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cautiously to avoid Covid-19. Also, some of us have other reasons to be careful. Many of us are grandparents and were deprived of the physical interaction with them which gives such pleasure to both but some of this can, at the time of writing in summer 2020, be renewed.

For me, one of the main messages arising from this pandemic is the exacerbation of inequalities. Wycombe alumnae have a role to play here; our privileged education may give us some influence in how these inequalities are handled at local, regional, or national level. If so, we should use it to reduce them. We need hope and must not give up but should also be realistic and realise that the virus is here to stay.

Liz Landers (Denlegh Maxwell) What is super-memorable is my husband Brian publishing four spy thrillers in six months! Two were published this June and July 2020 and two more to come before Christmas. We had unexpected fun in May as an article about our ‘romance’ was published in the online versions of both The Sunday Mirror and The Daily Mail. The idea was to promote the book, as the heroine is roughly based on me i.e. she went to Wycombe Abbey. The first book’s first draft was written over 40 years ago, just after I had broken off our engagement, and then resurrected once we remarried four years ago. The newspapers scarcely mentioned the spy series so I don’t think we sold any books as a result.

My personal effort at fame has been far less erudite. I was asked to video my daily life over a period of ten days; it’s supposed to encourage others who have the same leukaemia as me (CLL). So I filmed putting on my fake tan (as not allowed in sun anymore) and trying (and all too often failing) to do energetic (i.e. kicks, knees up, various arm exercises et al) walking exercise at home - as well as the complexities of preparing to go out (face shield and mask, sanitiser, tissues, outside shoes, the ‘handy dolphin’ so I can open doors, press buttons etc without touching anything else, the list goes on).

Thank goodness for Zoom. Our Research Ethics Committee (REC) has carried on working; it aims to safeguard the rights, safety and wellbeing of participants in medical research. There’s not a lot one can do to ‘volunteer’ when shielding. But I’ve dutifully filled in the ‘Covid-19’ app which asks us daily how we are and have we had a test yet. The research papers and webinars which are the outcomes of three million of us filling in this information has been riveting. Equally so have been our

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REC meetings which have had urgent Covid-19 research fast-tracked through us.

Brian’s books have triggered a load of contacts from Seniors and staff at Wycombe which has been a joy even as the School has had to grapple with Covid-19. I was working at Wycombe when SARS was the fear; I worked very closely with a couple of superb Hong Kong medics who were also parents. This year, the advice which has flowed from the Boarding School Association seems to me to have been superb - but the sharp end of managing the boarding environment is a Herculean epic struggle.

Victoria Baxter (Granville) Last October, I started a record of all the Sevenoaks shops, businesses and people who work in them. I was fortunate to collaborate with a brilliant photographer who is also a professor of Social Geography. Between us, we’ve produced a mass-observation of life in the extraordinary year of 2020. Before lockdown struck we had 130 brilliant images of happy people outside their shop windows and doors - a record of contemporary brands, taste and fashion set within the enduring architecture of the town.

After lockdown the shops were unpeopled, many shuttered, and a few sadly closed forever. An exhibition of the large-scale photographs will be on in the local gallery in Sevenoaks, and we’ve also produced a rather wonderful book of the images.

I continue to serve as a Town Councillor. Apart from that, I’m still producing local walking books, run a fair amount, and have spent some lovely times with my five sisters.

Penny Schwaner (Granville), who was in Campbell in the 60s with me, celebrated her Golden anniversary on 1 August. Like everyone else we continue to pray that this testing time will end and that we’ll all find a new co-operative perspective politically and globally. I would love to be in touch with other Wycombe Seniors in Sevenoaks and around.

Circle 118 Trish Walker What an appalling time we have all had since March 2020 and are likely to have for who knows how long? Rhetorical question. I was lucky to be able to complete a (two years in the making) refurbishment project, seven days before lockdown. Unfortunately, a consequent, similarly large

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project has been postponed till ‘sometime’ year 2021.

Here’s hoping year 2021/22 will – globally – improve for us all.

May/June last year was a bit of a learning curve, pulling together previously unknown contemporaneous film footage of Glenn Miller’s last open-air concert which took place at Wycombe Abbey on 24 July 1944. Whilst copyright lies with WAS, both the Glenn Miller Family and the USAAF were very pleased to have the link to that clip for their archives.

The GlastonAbbey Concert held on 22 June 2019, featuring the current Glenn Miller Orchestra together with music performed by current pupils/their bands, was Excellent with a capital ‘E’.

Circle 119 Catriona Brown (MacLeod) During what has been such a strange and unsettling year across the world, I have to admit that so far, we have escaped very lightly. We have spent more time in the house and garden than we normally would, and haven’t ventured very far at all. We are lucky to have lots of fresh air here in Scotland, long summer days, and a park and golf course within walking distance. Keeping healthy and avoiding putting a strain on the NHS does limit what we feel we want to do, and I suspect that we will continue to restrict our activities for quite a long time to come. I do dread continuing confinement in the winter months, but I guess we will have to develop our IT skills and enjoy more virtual activities.

As in other communities, we have benefited from increased neighbourliness with people doing shopping and chores for each other and generally keeping an eye on one another. Even before the lockdown, I had been thinking about simplifying life and extracting myself from one or two responsibilities. I am delighted that Jenny Garland has agreed to take over as Circle 119 Secretary, and hope that the School will be able to find someone to take over from me as their link person in Scotland. If you live north of the border and would like to help, please contact the Office, and I will give you any support that I can!

Caroline Habershon (Jacobson) My mother, Moyra Lister (Harvey, C67) sadly died in August 2019. She was 94, still living in the family home in

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Beaconsfield; she was active right up until the end of her life and enjoyed playing bridge and driving. She was always very proud of having been to Wycombe and was so pleased that my sister, Fiona Mortimore (C124), and I were there, followed by three of her granddaughters, Tamsin Marsh (C185), Rosemary Hughes (C227) and Laura Mortimore (C231).

My mother had a lovely home in Beaconsfield to which many Wycombe friends of the family were welcomed over several generations, and many enjoyed spending exeat weekends there when they couldn’t get to their own homes. I keep in touch with Angela Fielding (Stokes), Penny Bell (Jeffreys), Carole Mitchell-Heggs (North), Isobel Woolf (Taylor) and Georgina Hall out in Australia.

Jenny Garland In 2019 I followed my usual habit of fitting in as many holidays as I could. In July 2019 I stayed in Cheshire and visited a variety of places of interest there and in North Wales - Chester, stately homes, castles, industrial archaeology and beautiful countryside. Later in the month, I went to Northern Germany, an area I didn’t know at all, on a tour about the Hanseatic League. In September 2019, I went to the strip of coast in north-western Italy called the Riviera di Levante, from Genoa to Pisa.

The weather was glorious and the area full of picturesque and historical places to visit (and good food too). Lastly, in October 2019, I went to Cyprus. I’d been there before, in the 80s, and the changes were startling (and rare improvements). But it is a beautiful island, with lots of archaeological and historical sites, and the weather and the company were good too.

rather enjoyable - apart from missing seeing the grandchildren. The weather was glorious with the bluest of skies and the fluffiest of clouds!

I discovered that there was a thriving WASS Golf Society up to the 70s, but after that, there is no evidence of any gatherings. I read in a 1972 Seniors’ Supplement (when I first became a Senior!) that the WASS Golf Society had their fifth meeting in October playing for the Sheila Perkins trophies - big silver platters! I am sure Maggie Boyd set up the Society but did any current Senior ever play in it? Does anyone know where the trophies are lurking at the bottom of a trunk in someone’s attic?

I hope that we can get it going again.

I was looking forward to playing in the Silver Tassie at The Berkshire Golf Club as it was great fun last year, despite the ghastly wet weather. Jo Chatwin managed to muster two WASS teams to take part in the annual Independent Old Girls’ Independent Schools’ Competition. Sadly, it was cancelled this year. We decided that it would be good to try to play again during the year so last September, Kate Rowe kindly organised a wonderful round at her club in Woking, with Hilary Wynter (Ohlson), Sue Herald and me. The oldies just won but no silver salvers for us.

Circle 121

Over the winter I visited friends, exhibitions and places of interest nearer home, culminating in a culture frenzy at the beginning of March 2020, just before lockdown.

Since then, like everyone else, I’ve been at home, doing lots of gardening and odd jobs and wondering where the time has gone.

Circle 120 Penny Kent (Bevan) We are just getting through the strangest four months of lockdown as a result of Covid-19, but whereas many people’s lives were changed or ruined, my life was actually

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Alison Gore-Randall (While) Like everyone else, I have been at home during the lockdown and as lockdown eases. I took this photo of a neighbouring field ‘Condicote poppies’ mid-June – the field became a local attraction.

My past PhD students have kept in touch and reported the pandemic struggles in their home countries; it has not been easy anywhere. I continue as chair of the Council of Queen’s College, London and have been busy supporting

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the heads of the two schools as they transferred all education online almost overnight and navigated the Government guidance for re-opening. I am thankful that Queen’s only runs day schools rather than a boarding school, albeit, all our pupils and staff arrive by public transport. Contributing to the end of summer term events using Microsoft Teams was very different from the usual events marking the end of the academic year. Hopefully, we will be back at All Souls, Langham Place next summer.

I am looking forward to resuming visits to museums, galleries and other sites, and travelling again when it is safe.

Caroline Banzsky (While) What an extraordinary period! I feel sure boarding school from the age of seven years helped to prepare me for lockdown in London. I have shared lockdown with my daughter and her family (including nanny) who returned from Hong Kong in January and moved in with me while their house is refurbished. Having hardly seen them for seven years, once or twice pa, during lockdown it was full on or, in current parlance, full immersion, and it has been a wonderful opportunity. I did the cleaning but shopping and cooking was a rota. My significant other is a farmer in Norfolk who stayed there with its poor internet connection and his farming commitments including my small beef herd, busy with his usual schedule and hardly effected. London is a completely different matter, and we stuck with the rules/guidance for 11 weeks which was tough. A litter of puppies arrived and went in that time!

I am a Non-Executive and Chair of the Audit Committees of three listed companies, all of which have announced their financial results during the lockdown. It has been an interesting and challenging time. We have been faced with unforeseen/unplanned situations. Returning to partly working in offices and the adaptation of hospitality arrangements presents other challenges. Like everyone, I spend considerable time conducting meetings virtually and I do miss the informal side of life hugely.

After a full-on four months, I am looking forward to my staycation and plenty of relaxation in my house in Gloucestershire in August. I now fully appreciate how lucky I am.

Barbara Steadman-Allen, a vicar outside Guildford, has been brilliant in providing ‘kit’ on YouTube for Sunday worship etc. She is a friend and a contemporary at WAS. Her Easter Service was fabulous, I shared it with my granddaughter. Unlike most vicars, she does the music too, but then she is a fabulous musician.

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Circle 146 Rowena Pullan (Flux) We still live in the US on our horse farm with eight equine pets, plus dogs, cats and chickens. 2019 saw the whole family become dual citizens of the USA and UK. The other big change for me as I took early retirement from Pfizer and joined a start-up called CH4 Global. The company’s vision is Zero Methane Agriculture because cutting agricultural methane emissions will slow short-term global warming.

Methane emissions are 30-80 times more warming than CO2. CH4’s focus is to commercialise a sustainable, globally-scaled supply of a unique seaweed product. This special seaweed, Asparagopsis, has over ten years of research behind it and has shown effects of 60-90% reduction in methane emissions from both dairy and beef cattle as well as sheep, goats and other ruminants. A very different challenge that I am enjoying tremendously.

Circle 183 Holly McComb (Peryer) It’s been 27 years since I left Wycombe. (Crikey, do you ever get used to saying something happened several decades ago?) So surely, I must have something to tell you.

I’m living in Edinburgh after returning to my university city and settling here once my family came along. I’m married to Stuart and we have two boys, Flynn (11) and Rowan (8), who are sports mad, rough and tumble boys. I’m CFO for a tech startup that’s developed an ad tech platform for TV advertising and spend most of the time trying to attract investment to help us grow.

Pre-Covid, I travelled a fair bit for work, and have really appreciated staying still for a few months and not having to rush to keep up with colliding work and home schedules that were never achievable anyway. I’ve also loved our street WhatsApp group that we set up at the start of the pandemic and getting to know my neighbours at last.

We’ve transitioned to working from home and keeping up with home-schooling, so not much time for much else, apart from very welcome walks with our vizsla, Ruby.

The friends I made at Wycombe remain my closest friends today. We’re in different cities and different countries, but when we speak or get together it’s like months and years have never passed.

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Circle 208 Sarah Roberts (Crawshaw) I’ve decided to take a break from teaching and am in the process of setting up a travel guidance and bespoke planning website, www.accordingtothelist.com. It allows me to do what I love best - planning and talking about holidays! It seems like a long time ago, but just before lockdown, my husband and I were lucky enough to get away without the kids and had a fabulous week in the Maldives to celebrate our 40th birthdays. Sadly, we had to postpone our big glamping meet up with the families of Nicole Randall, Emmy Kennedy, Carita Thomas and Becky Lewis, but we’ll hopefully be able to do it next year to celebrate our 41st birthdays instead!

Circle 222 Emily Fletcher (Clarke) Emily is still living in Balham, working at BlackRock and happily married to Jon. Her youngest, Nathaniel, started school in September which feels like a significant milestone.

Sara Crystal Sara is still a solicitor practising insolvency law and lives in London. She has a three-year-old daughter, and loves catching up with her Wycombe friends.

Natalie Warne (Duncan)

Circle 209 Yee Ling Chan In 2019, I invested in and co-founded CAREhER, a company based in Taipei, Taiwan. CAREhER aims to create a community for working women in APAC - to recharge, connect, seek mentorship and build one’s support net.

Apart from the focus on career advancement and continuous learning, at CAREhER we place great emphasis on wellness and mentorship. We host podcasts with leading women in their field, and through these conversations we hope to share their stories and experiences, allowing for our listeners to learn from their failures and successes. At our events, which are typically held monthly, we invite some of these leading women and thought leaders to be the keynote speaker or run workshops, where our members will have the opportunity to interact with them and each other on a more intimate level. At CAREhER, we want to help all women be the best that they can be in all aspects of life, and to achieve this with a balanced, practical and harmonised approach.

It would be great if alumnae based in APAC could reach out if they would like to get connected to the CAREhER community, share their experiences/stories with us via podcast, or be a keynote speaker at our events.

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Natalie is enjoying family life in Hertfordshire with her husband and two children Molly (3) and Brodie (1). She is a marketing director at an advertising agency and spends her spare time writing about motherhood, balancing careers, and parenting. She has her first children’s book currently in production.

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Maria Gibson In Singapore from 2015, Maria worked as an event manager organising corporate conferences across the APAC region. She recently returned to New York City and currently freelances in real estate and is co-producing a podcast hosted by an American game-show personality.

During Covid-19 she has arranged popular virtual trivia nights generating an alternative source of income for her extended network in the F&B and hospitality industry many of whom were furloughed.

Sian Keys (Halliwell) Sian is still living in Auckland, New Zealand, with her husband, Elliot, and their two daughters Nia (4) and Seren (1). Having started playing lacrosse in 1995 (LIV, Cloister) she is still playing 25 years later. She has played in four World Cups: representing Wales in 2005, 2009, and captaining New Zealand in 2013, 2017. She is currently in training for World Cup number five which is due to be held in Maryland, USA, in July 2021. She runs a business from home selling lacrosse equipment across New Zealand and Australia (Lacrosse Down Under) and has recently returned to a corporate role at Royal Canin Pet Nutrition.

Circle 233 Bess Rhodes This has definitely proved a year of two parts. Winter and early spring 2019 saw lots of travel with work trips to Japan, the Faroe Islands, Shetland, and Germany, and a brief holiday with friends in Copenhagen. I was also lucky enough to see the publication of my new book Riches and Reform, which explores the fate of Scotland’s religious capital of St Andrews during the upheavals of the Reformation.

In common with so many other people, my life took a major turn at the end of March when I became unwell. I am now much improved and have spent the last few months with my parents in Cheshire where I have been rediscovering the delights of gardening and working on my next book. It has been the longest stretch I have spent in one place since I left Wycombe, but I have been very fortunate to spend this strange time with my wonderful family.

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Lucy Jarman (Young) This last year has seen me move to north Oxford and I’ve been able to explore the delights of Port Meadow, and I enjoy wild swimming in the Thames in the early mornings. While still working at the University of Oxford, I have qualified as a counsellor and I am working in the evenings at an agency in Reading that specialises in counselling for young people. I am still an active member of the Oxford branch of the Samaritans, and have continued to go in weekly during the lockdown as a listening volunteer.

Circle 251 Izzy John The last year, in particular, has been a wonderful mix of strangeness, adventure, new horizons and homeliness. In July 2019 I left teaching, having taught in three challenging secondary schools over seven years. Although I intended to find a new (if temporary) path in the charity sector, ultimately the pull of the classroom was too strong and in November 2020 I took up a new post at a lovely girls’ grammar school - very close to Wycombe. This will coincide with my girlfriend and I moving into our first house together - albeit rented, it will be a wonderful step for us before dogs and children come along.

I have greatly enjoyed the year off after eight intense years of rewarding but challenging work in education, and I feel very privileged to have spent more time with my family and friends during this time. A bout of illness at the start of the year saw me staying at my parents for a while: a great opportunity to garden, keep my teaching skills sharp with private tutoring and train as an ESB examiner. My main hobby - roller derby and commentating on the game (including on BBC Sport) - has taken me to Helsinki, Barcelona, Amsterdam and Scotland over the last year or so. When training resumes post-Covid I will be incredibly excited to get back on track and on the mic.

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In Memoriam Pamela Winifred Basner (Tucker) Circle 62, Class of 1938 Clarence 4 May 1921 - 19 December 2018 Rosalind (Ros) Evans Circle 107, Class of 1965 Rubens Peacefully in Sussex on 12 June 2020 aged 73

Katherine Nichols (Lambert) Circle 113, Class of 1967 Peacefully at Tresithick on 3 September 2020 Alison Rand (Jones) Circle 88, Class of 1956 Shelburne 1 June 1039 - 22 June 2020

Mona Helen Margaret Blair Bandeen CM, MA, MBA 1934 - 2020 Mona Bandeen was a lady and scholar who was determined to make a difference in the world and who succeeded brilliantly and beautifully in all regards.

She died in Toronto on 23 March from complications brought on by what was presumed to be auto-immune encephalitis. She was predeceased by her husband of 52 years, Robert (Bob) Angus Bandeen (OC), her son, Mark Everett Bandeen, and her brother, Sidney Robert (Bob) Blair (CC). She is survived by her sons and their families: Ian Blair Bandeen and his wife, Elizabeth Armitage and their children, Robert (Ridge), Grace, Spencer and Darcy; Mark’s children, Bradford and Blair; Robert Derek Bandeen and his wife, Bonnie Miao and their children, Kelsey, Jesse, Jeffrey and Luke; and Adam Drummond Bandeen and his wife, Elizabeth O’Connor and their children, Kismet, Cassius and Duvessa.

She is also survived by her cousins; David and Hugh Gentleman, and Anne Wallen; by her brother’s children, Megan Roughley, Jamie Blair, Bob Blair, Martin Blair, and Charlotte Blair; and by her brother-in-law’s children, Barbara Bandeen, Brad Bandeen and Janice Eales.

Mona was born in in Watford on 6 February 1934 to Janet (Nettie) Russell Gentleman and Sidney Martin Blair, who were then living in London where her father was among the first Canadians to become involved in the emerging

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international petroleum industry. At the outbreak of the Second World War, the family left Europe via Genoa aboard one of the few boats to survive the last convoy of passenger ships heading to the United States. They settled in Rye, NY where Mona attended Rye Country Day School and her father continued to manage the sole refinery producing the high-octane gasoline needed by the allied air forces. With peace restored in 1945, Mona returned to England for her high school years at Wycombe Abbey, graduating in 1949 at the age of 15.

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In 1949 the family moved back to Canada and Mona spent a year at Bishop Strachan School before moving on to Trinity College at the University of Toronto. Upon graduating she wanted to pursue an MBA, but there had not been any women graduates of the program in Canada and at 19 years old she felt a bit too young to be a trailblazer. Mona was offered a grant by the University of Toronto to earn her Master’s degree in Histology, which she received in 1955. Upon graduation she was offered a medical research position at McGill University which would allow her to continue her research in her field of interest for two years before she joined the research department at CIL, then one of Canada’s largest chemical companies.

In early 1957 she met her future husband, Bob Bandeen, who had just finished his PhD at Duke University and was working for the Canadian National Railway. She would often say that she knew they were destined for each other when she first heard his voice. They were married the following spring and settled in Montreal where they raised their four sons. As the youngest was finishing high school, Mona returned to her academic career and earned her MBA from the University of Toronto in 1983.

During the years of looking after her young family, Mona realised it would not be feasible for her to raise the boys, travel with Bob (who rose to become President and CEO of the Canadian National Railway and then Chairman and President of the Crown Life Insurance Company) and hold a full time job. Instead she chose to channel her considerable talents over the decades towards serving as a member of more than 30 boards across a wide variety of institutions, organisations and corporations.

In addition, Mona developed her own consulting company specialising in new product development and served as Chair of a privately owned fragrance company.

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A strong advocate for women in leadership roles, Mona was invited to set up the Women’s Entrepreneurship Program at the Rotman School of the University of Toronto in 1990. The program was designed to stimulate the Canadian economy by nurturing women’s entrepreneurial skills and encouraging small business development. The program specifically recognised and addressed the problems facing women who run their own companies. This quickly led to the recognition of the need to promote women entrepreneurs on a national level and the creation of the now named RBC Canadian Women Entrepreneur of the Year Awards in 1992.

In 1996 Mona was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada and in 1997 was honoured as a Woman of Distinction by the YWCA. She was also a recipient of the Queen’s Jubilee Medal in 2002.

In her personal life Mona was a thought-leader and unflinchingly loving supporter to everyone in her family.

Throughout her life she set a sterling example, led the life of a true lady and inspired all those privileged to have known her.

Following cremation, her ashes will be buried with her husband in the Bandeen ancestral plot at Duart, Ontario and scattered at the family’s beloved Highland Farm. For those wishing to make a charitable donation, please think of providing support for the brave nurses and staff of the 5B Neurosurgery/Neurology unit at the Toronto Western Hospital (www.tgwhf.ca/tribute) who worked so tirelessly and brought comfort to Mona’s final days. Condolences may be forwarded through www.humphreymiles.com.

R. Derek Bandeen

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Margaret Bryer (Bowyer) Circle 98, Class of 1960, Airlie 1942 - 2020 Margaret was a distinguished social worker and a tower of strength to clients, friends and family all her life.

She worked for the London Borough of Wandsworth first as a Child Care Officer, then a Senior Social worker and later as the Head of the Adoption and Fostering Unit. In 1988 she wrote a definitive guide ‘Planning in Child Care’ published by the British Association for Adoption and Fostering, and in 2015 a history of the International Social Service of the UK ‘An Imaginative Cooperation’. Indeed, she became an acknowledged expert in international adoptions, recognised - to her delight - when she was able to advise the ‘Call the Midwife’ team on the story of the adoption of a girl from Hong Kong and persuaded them to change the typecasting of the social worker from a dragon to someone with common sense and humanity. Of the many warm tributes from former colleagues, one said ‘I am one of many who owe my career and social work values to Margaret and her inspirational leadership’. Another told a lovely story of Margaret’s down to earth approach: “the mother of a large, high maintenance family, who she was working with, rang her in some distress. ‘Missie Bowyer, Missie Bowyer, I’ve dropped my (birth control) pill in the baby’s milk!’ ‘Well’ Margaret said ‘I suggest you drink the baby’s milk’!” She continued to support several of the most vulnerable children from that time to the end of her life; for one man, in particular, she was the only person he has known and trusted since childhood, throughout a lifetime of difficulties.

Margaret started school at an amazing dame school next door. She went on to Croydon High School and from there to Wycombe Abbey, both times with a scholarship. I followed her two years behind - always trying to grow into her shoes (and not just figuratively since our parents believed in hand-me-downs!). We had grown up with stories of how wonderful Mother had found life at Wycombe; she revelled in the influence of Miss Stonedale, Airlie Housemistress, and some very able friends as well as freedom from a rather Victorian childhood.

At Wycombe, Margaret enjoyed a range of subjects – Maths, Languages and the arts - and became Head of Airlie and a very brave goalie. She went on to the University of London, first to Westfield College where she made many life-long friends, and then to Bedford College for a postgraduate Diploma in Applied Social Studies.

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She married David Bryer in 1980 and moved to Oxford where she worked as an independent social work consultant and trainer and supported a team of Guardians ad litem. In 2001 they moved to Geneva, where she became a volunteer member of the team running International Social Services, later in London becoming a trustee of its British branch: Children and Families across Borders. In 2004 they retired to Malvern and she maintained a strong, active interest in the welfare of prisoners, asylum seekers and children leaving care.

Margaret suffered a very sudden stroke in early March and was admitted to the Worcester Royal Hospital, where they gave her, and us, the most wonderful care. Sadly, she could not be saved, but we were so grateful that it all happened just before lockdown. She had been entirely well and was walking on the much-loved Malvern Hills the day before.

Family has always been Margaret’s first priority. Recently she and David finished a wonderful, detailed history of the many branches of the Bowyer family, unearthing details of ancestors back into the early 1700s in remote parts of Aberdeenshire and East Anglia. The whole extended family will treasure the book and the care which went into it.

She was fiercely proud of David’s work as Director of Oxfam and then in the Henry Dunant Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue in Geneva; she was interested and knowledgeable about the many countries and people they visited together. Her children, Helen and Nicholas, gave her ongoing delight at every stage, and she was thrilled when they married Mark and Tara. Her great ambition to be a grandmother was finally fulfilled in 2018 when Sophie arrived: she would be over the moon to know that there are now two more babies on the way.

Jean Brown (Bowyer) Airlie Class of 1962

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Rosemary Hamilton Circle 83, Class of 1955, Barry 1937 - 2020 Rosemary sadly passed away 8 April 2020.

Rosemary was always known as Rose, and we arrived at Barry together in September 1950, delighted to find that our mothers had been in our House a generation earlier. We began a lifetime’s friendship, and she was a bridesmaid at our wedding and godmother to one of our sons. She loved her time at Wycombe, sister Jane following and, much later, her three nieces. She kept up to date with the School news as well as being an interested and conscientious Circle Secretary.

When she left Wycombe, she went to Mrs Hoster’s secretarial college in London, and afterwards spent two years travelling round the world with a friend, working in places on the way to subsidise their travel. She was always interested in interior design and her career took off after a boyfriend asked her to do up his cottage. She used to say that she didn’t get the man, but got the job. She set up on her own company and went from strength to strength, living in a house in Pimlico and selling antiques from the ground floor while her office was in the basement. Commissions came through word of mouth, among them some London clubs, and houses in India and the West Indies.

She was generous with decorating advice to friends and even friends of friends and she offered Jackie Kingsley’s granddaughter work experience and took a huge interest in her.

She was a long-time member, and later president of the British Institute of Interior Design and in June 2015 received the highest accolade - the Institute’s Award of Merit. Although Parkinson’s and dementia were advancing she was not only able to be present at the ceremony but also to make a speech of thanks.

It was immensely sad to see her going downhill in the Care Home she went to soon afterwards, but she was well looked after and visited regularly by her family and friends.

She was gentle and sensitive, modest and unassuming, loving and loyal to her friends and those who knew her at School won’t be surprised to hear that she looked elegant and beautiful until the end.

Cicely Taylor (C82)

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As part of its Annual General Meeting (AGM) held at RIBA’s HQ, London on Thursday 18 June, the British Institute of Interior Design (BIID) revealed that Rosemary Hamilton was the worthy recipient of its prestigious Merit Award.

Each year members of the BIID nominate a fellow member they believe has particularly exceeded in three key criteria: excellence in interior design practice, a contribution to the development of the Institute, and a commitment to the wider field of design education. The awards committee unanimously agreed that the winner of this year’s award, Rosemary Hamilton, has excelled in all three areas.

Before her recent retirement, Rosemary had an illustrious interior design career, working for loyal clients both in the UK and abroad, on a huge variety of projects from boardrooms to drawing rooms. She started as an Architect’s assistant before branching out on her own.

From her eponymous shop and studio in Pimlico she grew into a renowned designer, included in House and Garden’s Top 100 Decorators.

She joined the Institute in 1980, in its former incarnation as the Interior Designers and Decorators Association, and quickly became further involved in volunteering. She made history in 1996 when she became the BIID’s first female President. In her two-year term as President, and as Past President, Rosemary was one of the driving forces behind the landmark merger of the IDDA with the UK chapter of the International Interior Designers Association which resulted in the formation of the British Interior Design Association.

After Rosemary stepped down from Council she continued to volunteer on behalf of the Institute right up to her retirement. In addition to serving on the International Committee for many years, Rosemary was a longstanding membership interview panel member and is remembered by BIID members for her calm and patient presence across the table.

Daniel Hopwood, President of the BIID commented ‘We are delighted to honour Rosemary with our Merit Award this year, to recognise her longstanding dedication and

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leadership of the Institute at a pivotal period in its history. Not only has she worked incredibly hard in her professional achievements and her work with the Institute, but throughout her career, Rosemary has devoted many hours of her time to mentoring up and coming designers. Rosemary really epitomises one of the most wonderful aspects of the BIID – the camaraderie and support we give each other. I am honoured to present her with this well-deserved award.’

Commenting on her award, Rosemary said: ‘I am so pleased and grateful to be the recipient of the Institute’s

Award of Merit for 2015. I have been associated with the Institute and its predecessors for several decades – indeed, getting on for its full 50 years of life. I am thrilled to see what our little Association of the 1960s has become by 2015. Today we have in the BIID an important and successful Institute which is going from strength to strength and represents all that is good about the British interior design profession.’

Jackie Kingsley (C83)

Barbara Mary Dyson (Smith) Circle 69, Class of 1944, Shelburne 1926 - 2018 Barbara sadly passed away on 14 December 2018, aged 92. She was so proud to have attended Wycombe Abbey and spoke throughout her life of the times she enjoyed at the School. She told me of stories of evacuation to St Paul’s School during the war, of the arrival of the US forces to take over the School and I believe made mention of a dashing Malcolm Sargent walking through the School grounds. Never an academic but a keen sportsperson, Mum married my father Geoffrey Dyson, the Windsor

jeweller whose father, in turn, had been mayor of Windsor in the coronation year and was knighted by Her Majesty.

She was a party girl with a wicked sense of humour. My mother never recovered from my father’s early death and struggled with dementia towards the end of her life.

She leaves two children, four grandchildren and four great-grandchildren (with one more on the way).

Timothy Dyson

Angela Bates Honorary Senior | Wycombe Abbey Chemistry Teacher and Housemistress 1985 - 1994 1933 - 2019 She died peacefully at home in October aged 85.

Angela had a strong Christian faith and was involved with church life and the community in Pluckley who must be missing her greatly. She cared about what was happening in people’s lives and was always interested in how work and commuting were going for me. I admired her for forging a career at a time when it wasn’t easy for professional women. She taught Chemistry at two prestigious girls’ schools: Benenden and Wycombe Abbey.

In 2004, the National Jane Austen Society had their conference in Derbyshire. Angela expressed a desire to go and intersperse some of the planned excursions with visits to some places she Next

had known as a child. She wanted to take her own car but did not want to drive there alone so asked me and Bridget Duckenfield (who sadly also died in 2019) to accompany her knowing we usually booked on the conferences. So, we three trundled up to Derbyshire in Angela’s small car, and trundle it was as Angela did not want to travel on any motorway.

It was quite a road trip with me trying to navigate and Bridget chatting happily in the back! Angela found the places she wanted to see so it all worked out. Happy times.

Very fond memories of a truly lovely lady. I know you are at rest and at peace, dear Angela.

Louise Irving Obituaries

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Elizabeth Kerr Honorary Senior | Music Department 1964 – 1988 1928 - 2020 Elizabeth sadly passed away on 9 March 2020.

‘Gentle and fierce, fun and disciplined’. In these words, Eleanor Robbins, formerly Head of Art History at Wycombe, provided an instantly recognisable verbal portrait of Liz Kerr as she is remembered by colleagues and friends. Those who knew her as their teacher have offered other perspectives, two of which are quoted

by Margaret Beckett in ‘Wycombe Abbey: Revisited’ ‘A force of nature, inspirational’, said one (Lucinda Marchessini); ‘always very kind, always open to debate’, said a second (Harriet Huxley). Another pupil and friend, Alexandra Adam, at the time of Liz’s death, described Miss Kerr as ‘remarkably calm, gracious and unflappable’. Alex summed up her experience and others of Liz’s teaching: ‘That was her skill – to nurture the tiniest seed of learning, or to develop already relatively advanced abilities’. She concluded, ‘Some people leave a long-lasting influence.

Liz Kerr will have made her mark in many memories’.

By the time Liz took up a teaching post in Wycombe Abbey’s Music department in 1964, she had gained considerable experience, teaching at other English schools including Roedean and Headington. But her formative years had been spent in Scotland, and her home was always there. Born in Edinburgh, Liz attended St Leonards in St Andrews, the ‘mother’ school of Wycombe Abbey.

Her first degree, in Music, and her MA in English Literature were from the University of Edinburgh. It was in Edinburgh too that her lifelong interest in art history began, at the Museum of Modern Art and the Scottish National Gallery, to be fostered later when she attended

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painting courses at the Leith School of Art. Visits abroad, to France, Italy and Austria, followed. Unsurprisingly, it was with Liz Kerr that Eleanor Robbins invented a new A Level: Art and Music, an exam-free course covering works of art alongside contemporary pieces of music.

For almost a quarter-century, Wycombe Abbey benefitted from Liz’s gifts, personal and professional.

As a leader, she was firm and calm, as a team member, dependable and enthusiastic. And she was creative. It was she who in 1979 convinced the Headmistress (Patricia Lancaster) that younger girls would benefit more from doing music than from being passive consumers of it. The result was the tradition of UIV musicals, with casts of 90.

Liz herself directed the first eight productions with flair.

She was the musical director for other productions too, selecting, conducting and on occasion composing pieces that enhanced the Director’s vision. Anyone who was at Wycombe in 1973 might recall an extraordinary feat of hers for that year’s Clarence Play. Using vocalists and instrumentalists, playing instruments that they had made under her guidance, Liz recreated as live music (with permission from the National Theatre) the NT’s own score for The Royal Hunt of the Sun. In her last year at the School, after years of trying, I finally persuaded Liz to direct a Clarence production herself. She accepted only because she knew she could never be asked to do it again. The result was a magnificent West Side Story.

Julia Hart Honorary Senior, Former Clarence Housemistress 1970 – 1975 then 1978 – 2001

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Jill (Dilly) Leon (Fletcher) Circle 94, Class of 1958, Pitt 1941 - 2019 Dilly, Veryan Thompson (Jameson Evans, C94) and I were the only new girls in Pitt in September 1954 and remained close friends for 65 years, although we all lived far apart with Veryan being in Texas. Dilly and I shared flats in London till I got married and moved to north Wales. She married Mike and they had two sons, Nicholas and Richard, and spent most of their married life in Bovingdon. There she worked tirelessly for her local community and the list of her good works is very long involving the local prison, the church, supper clubs, guiding at a stately home and numerous voluntary organisations.

She was also a very good Bridge player, winning trophies at the local club.

11 years ago, she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and went through several periods of treatment and remission with a wonderfully positive outlook. Only in the last six months did she become really ill, ending up in the local Hospice which cared for her in a dignified and loving way giving her a pain-free and peaceful end with her family around her.

She will be greatly missed by her family, friends and the local community as the packed church for her memorial service in October 2019 showed.

Rosemary Griffiths (Collins, C94)

Val Odling (Driver) Circle 69, Class of 1944, Airlie 1927 - 2020 Val Odling died peacefully with her family on Wednesday 17 June 2020 aged 93. She was staying with her eldest daughter, Sue, in Dorset through lockdown.

Val was the younger sister to Pat Riley (C68), and aunt to Pippa Barnsley (Riley, C117). Val followed her sister first to Godstowe and then to Wycombe Abbey. Her time at Wycombe was cut short because of the Second World War and she finished her education at Overstone School.

She had many happy memories at Wycombe making lifelong friends. I remember attending the Wycombe Abbey Centenary with both my mother Pat and my Aunt Val, it was a memorable day, both relating tales and anecdotes to me and my youngest daughter Rosie.

Val was brought up in Leicester. She trained as a physiotherapist at Kings College Hospital in London.

She had a very happy and loving family life with her husband Mike and four children: Sue, Lal, Sarah and Nigel.

Most of her married life was spent in Sevenoaks, Kent.

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Val was a keen gardener and enjoyed her Art classes.

Among her other interests, she enjoyed opera and her annual family visits to Glyndebourne, playing the piano and visits from her grandchildren.

Pippa Barnsley (C117)

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Ruth Emily Taylor (Bailey) Circle 132, Class of 1976, Airlie 1957 - 2019 Emily and I first met in September 1970 on our first day in Airlie. We became best friends immediately and stayed that way for over 50 years.

After her degree in Environmental Science at Soton, Em’s interest in politics led her into a career in international relations. First at the British Atlantic Committee in London, promoting the cause of NATO to schools and the media. Then to New York working at the UN for the International Peace Academy and then back to London for a brief stint at the House of Lords. She went to Southampton again, working for international relations think tank The Mountbatten Centre, where she organised conferences all over the world.

Much of Em’s work involved travelling and she was a host of adventurous stories: flying over Africa with a bishop, riding bareback with cowboys in Venezuela, sleeping alone in a tent on a glacier in India’s Zanskar Valley, and one I especially remember laughing about – riding a moped from Southampton to London in the deepest snow, wearing a mini skirt.

In 1999, Em married Theo and set up their very happy home in Hemel Hempstead, becoming stepmother to his children Sam and Julia, and mother to her beloved daughter Isabella. After a few years, she returned to work as a lab technician at St Albans School. When Isabella was diagnosed with dyslexia, Em decided to take a course in special educational needs (she later told me she was certain she’d had dyslexia herself, but in those days, it wasn’t recognised). After qualifying, Em became the school’s dedicated and caring Special Educational Needs Coordinator, a job she loved.

Outside work, Em was great fun, with a wicked sense of humour. She adored card games, board games, party games, puzzles and quizzes. At the annual family holiday in Cornwall (a huge event involving dozens of Baileys – including Em’s 32 nephews and nieces) she organised

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legendary seaside scavenger hunts. Forget seaweed and shells, Em was far more creative. One year the list of items to find started: 1) The Lifeguard’s star sign. 2) Someone on the beach called Kevin... cringingly embarrassing for the players but hilariously entertaining for Em watching from the sidelines.

Em was endlessly thoughtful and put so much effort into everything. Birthday boys and girls always had a homemade cake with bespoke decoration, as well as a vast roast dinner with at least six vegetables and a proper pudding afterwards. She was exceptionally kind and sympathetic – the person everyone wanted to turn to in times of trouble. She was stunningly beautiful but not the slightest bit vain. I never remember her ‘treating’ herself to anything, like a new handbag or a facial; she was only interested in making other people happy.

Em was strong-willed and very brave. She passed away peacefully at home after a two-year battle with brain cancer, which she fought valiantly until the end. She will be desperately missed by everyone lucky enough to have known her.

Katharine ‘Tooky’ de Vall (Rendel)

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Enid Foxall (Hawley) Circle 66, Class of 1941, Butler 1924 - 2020 Enid passed peacefully on 3 September at the age of 96, in the presence of family; much loved by all those she held dear. She will be sincerely missed by sons Jim and Tom, together with Enid’s daughter-in-law Barbara, her grandchildren, great-grandchildren, nephews, nieces, cousins and her many friends who will remember her, particularly for her kindness and magnanimity.

Enid was well respected in the area, having been Chair of the Little Gaddesden Parish Council and of the Berkhamsted Rural District Council, a JP, President of the Wycombe Abbey Seniors’ Association, a Governor of Berkhamsted School and of Lockers Park School. She was

an enthusiastic producer of drama in Little Gaddesden and, latterly, in Castle Village, Berkhamsted.

Donations in her memory, if desired, can be made to: The Hospice of St Francis at Malcolm Jones & Metcalfe’s www.dignityfunerals.co.uk/funeral-notices/03-09-2020enid-joan-foxall

Lucy Durbin Honorary Senior | Head of Modern Languages 1973 - 1987 1929 - 2020 We are saddened to report the death of Miss Durbin, Head of Modern Languages at Wycombe Abbey from 1973 to 1987. Under Miss Durbin’s leadership the department more than doubled in size and Modern Languages became a major subject option, culminating in a long run of Oxbridge successes.

Following her retirement, Miss Durbin remained involved in School life, attending Seniors’ events until fairly recently.

She was extremely proud of her time at Wycombe Abbey, valuing both the achievements of her pupils and the lifelong friendships she forged with many members of staff.

Miss Durbin enjoyed a long and fulfilled retirement.

She chose to remain in Marlow where she was actively involved in the local community, in particular the town twinning with Marly-le-Roi and leading the French conversation group for more than 20 years.

Christine Eddison

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SERVICES

Fed up of searching the internet for holiday ideas?

Hi, I’m Sarah Roberts. I attended Wycombe Abbey from 1991-98 (C208).

I’m a busy Mum who loves planning holidays. Are you travelling with kids and looking for guidance and help with planning?

I’ve set up this website to provide you with all the answers you need so that you don’t have to spend hours of your precious time hunting around.

Your perfect holiday is all laid out for you here: https://accordingtothelist.com/travel-guides/

Frost Travel: Bespoke Cycling Holidays I have been running a very successful luxury bridge holiday company for the past 10 years and using all the expertise, experience and contacts gained, I have now set up a sister travel company, Frost Travel, specialising in tailor-made cycling holidays (road, mountain and e-bike). I have been living in the beautiful southern French Alps for the past 20 years and together with my husband, Philippe, a bike guide, we are running tours from our home town, Briancon, Serre Chevalier, a paradise for all things bike. Come and join one of our organised holidays or, if you are in a group of 4 or more, we can run a tour to suit you. Contact me to find out more.

We can offer all Seniors a 10% discount on any of our holidays.

Contact: Claudia Stocken (C169) Address: Kemp House, 152-160 City Road, London, EC1V 2NX Telephone: 0033 663999289 Email: claudia@frosttravel.com Website: www.frosttravel.com

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HOLIDAY COTTAGES

Clapton Manor This Tudor Grade II listed house is in the heart of the Cotswolds perfectly placed for walking, and visiting gardens and villages.

Contact: Karin Bolton (Beck-Andersen, C129) www.claptonmanor.co.uk

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HOLIDAY COTTAGES

Forest Cottage, Loch an Eilein, Rothiemurchus, Scottish Highlands Amongst the pine, birch and bracken on the wooded shore of Loch an Eilein, in Rothiemurchus, one of Scotland’s most picturesque Highland estates, sits an enchanting picture-perfect red-roofed cottage. It has been beautifully restored as a luxurious and cosy forest hideaway for two, with features to make its guests feel completely at home and welcomed into its atmosphere of homely warmth.

Contact: Judith Thurlow Tel: 07984791623 • Email: info@forest-cottage.co.uk

LUXURY CHALET IN MORZINE Les Roches Noires is a large, contemporary, 5 bedroom chalet sleeping up to 12 (10 adults 2 children).

All bedrooms have en-suite bathrooms. The chalet is located in the centre of town, very close to restaurants and other amenities and just a 2 minute walk from the Super Morzine lift. The chalet was built in 2015 so is very well-equipped and is exceedingly spacious. The open plan living space is at the top of the chalet with commanding 360 degree views. Morzine is part of the vast Porte de Soleil resort that caters for all standards of skiing. The town and surrounding region also offers a variety of activities in the summer, including hiking, cycling, tennis, swimming and horse-riding.

For more information www.lesrochesnoires.eu Contact Andrew and Map: mapxblack@gmail.com

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LES ROCHES NOIRES

LES ROCH

LES ROCHES NOIRES

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Join us on a Safari for the soul Award-winning Samara is a 70,000-acre piece of private wilderness in South Africa’s Great Karoo. Described by the Financial Times as ‘heart-stoppingly beautiful’, this passionate conservation undertaking has been run by the Tompkins family (Isabelle Tompkins C273, Sienna Tompkins C283) for the past 21 years.

Their vision for Samara is to build a living legacy in the region by restoring fragile Karoo ecosystems, generating sustainable jobs and creating South Africa’s thirdlargest protected area.

30 guests can stay in two lodges: Karoo Lodge, a renovated farmstead overlooking an amphitheatre of mountains; or The Manor, a villa with private pool, chef, butler and ranger, which can be booked on an exclusive-use basis. Activities on offer include tracking wildlife on foot (cheetah, rhino, elephant, giraffe, aardvark), Big Five game drives, photography, birding, mountain hikes, indoor & outdoor dining, picnics, luxury star bed sleep-outs, conservation projects and more.

Samara also runs a volunteer programme for enthusiastic nature lovers aged 18 and older. No prior experience necessary - the only requirements are a sense of adventure and a desire to contribute to Samara’s conservation vision.

For more information visit www.samara.co.za or email isabelle@samara.co.za

Perfect for a golf or seaside holiday!

The house, which is Historic Environment Scotland listed, lies at the edge of Gullane, a coastal village just 20 miles east of Edinburgh. It overlooks Gullane No1 golf course and has wonderful views of the hills to the south.

The county of East Lothian has 22 golf courses, 5 of which are in Gullane.

A 10-minute walk takes you to a wonderful, long sandy beach, and Aberlady Bay nature reserve is nearby. Neighbouring North Berwick offers boat trips to the Bass Rock, and the Lammermuirs and Pentlands aren’t far away for keen hill walkers. There is a large garden set mostly to lawn and plenty of space for car parking on the drive.

Having recently been completely redecorated and refurbished the house can comfortably sleep up to eight with four bedrooms and four bathrooms. The house provides an extremely comfortable base for a golfing foursome and there is a heated, secure golf room complete with trolley charging points.

Contact: Fiona Stephenson (Malcolm, C145) Mobile: 07800 589490 Email: fionastephenson01@gmail.com A Dropbox file of photos and more details are available on request.

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The Tobacco Barn – An idyllic countryside getaway

HOLIDAY COTTAGES

The Tobacco Barn – An idyllic countryside getaway

The Tobacco Barn at Le Serpen is a recently renovated self-contained barn conversion in the beautiful Dordogne countryside with exclusive use of a secluded pool and deck area. The light and airy property is ideal for four adults with children up to a total of eight people. (Please note that the accommodation is not designed for eight adults.)

Explore the many delights of the local area: vineyards, historic chateaux, and markets. Or relax at the property, BBQ in the sunshine and sip a glass of wine by the pool.

The Tobacco Barn at Le Serpen is a recently renovated self-contained barn 150€ per night. Minimum stay of five nights. Limited availability for 2021.

Taking bookings use for 2022. conversion in the beautiful Dordogne countryside with exclusive of a Please see our website for further details: www.leserpen.info secluded pool and deck area. The light and airy property is ideal for four Adrienne Terblanche adults with children up to a total of eight people. (Please note that the Honorary Senior accommodation is not designed for eight adults.) Head of Classics, Wycombe Abbey 2004-2014

The Tobacco Barn – An idyllic countrys

Explore the many delights of the local area: vineyards, historic chateaux, and markets. Or relax at the property, BBQ in the sunshine and sip aThe glass ofTobacco Barn at Le Serpen is a recently renovated se wine by the pool. conversion in the beautiful Dordogne countryside with exc

secluded pool and deck area. The light and airy property is of eight people. (Please n for eight adults.)

150€ per night. Minimum stay of five nights. Limited adults with children up to a total availability for 2021. Taking bookings for 2022. Please accommodation is not designed see our website for further details: www.leserpen.info

Adrienne Terblanche, Honorary Senior Explore the many delights of the local area: vineyards, Head of Classics, Wycombe Abbey 2004-2014 markets. Or relax at the property, BBQ in the sunshine

by the pool.

LITERATURE

150€ per night. Minimum stay of five nights. Limited availa Taking bookings for 2022. Please see our website for furth details: www.leserpen.info

A Cake For The Gestapo Adrienne Terblanche

By Jaqueline King (C109)

Honorary Senior Head of Classics, Wycombe Abbey 2004-2014 Slotting in beside THE MACHINE GUNNERS and WAR HORSE, A CAKE FOR THE GESTAPO tells the story of a fictional gang of kids in Jersey during the German Occupation in WW2, weaving in very real islanders’ own stories of the Occupation at its core - A history that has never before been told in children’s literature. June 1940. As World War Two rages on, for Joe, Spinner, Ginger and Clem, life continues as normal on the small island of Jersey. Dealing with school bullies and angry parents, none of them really believe the enemy will invade. That is until the island is bombed and Joe is injured. Outrage turns to terror. The grownups avoid the Germans, but the gang have a plan. Playing tricks on the soldiers, they trip them up in their every move until their plan lands them and the whole community in terrible, mortal danger. The threat of starvation begins to hang over the islanders as the German occupiers tighten their grip, but the gang refuse to give up. What if they could take down one of the German’s most dangerous leaders? What if they could defeat the cruel and terrifying Viktor?

Available on Amazon

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LITERATURE

Forbidden Wife: The Life and Trials of Lady Augusta Murray

By Julia Abel Smith (C164)

On the night of 4 April 1793, two lovers were preparing to compel a cleric to perform a secret ceremony. The wedding of the sixth son of King George III to the daughter of the Earl of Dunmore would not only be concealed - it would also be illegal.

Lady Augusta Murray had known Prince Augustus Frederick for only three months but they had already fallen deeply in love and were desperate to be married. However, the Royal Marriages Act forbade such a union without the King’s permission, and going ahead with the ceremony would change Augusta’s life forever. From a beautiful socialite, she became a social pariah; her children were declared illegitimate and her family was scorned.

In Forbidden Wife Julia Abel Smith uses material from the Royal Archives and the Dunmore family papers to create a dramatic biography set in the reigns of Kings George III and IV against the background of the American and French Revolutions.

Available on Amazon

Human Time

By Duncan Forbes

As some of you will remember, I was Head of English at Wycombe Abbey from 1996 to 2009, when I retired from full-time teaching. Since then, we have moved back to Cheltenham and I have been an RLF fellow at Worcester University. I continue to write and publish poems and my latest collection called Human Time is just out. Please spread the word. I have gone indie and published it myself under a new imprint, Voicemail Press. Further details appear on the newly updated website www.duncanforbes.com Human Time is the first new collection of poems by Duncan Forbes since Vision Mixer was published in 2008. They are all more recent than those included in Lifelines, a Selected Poems published by Enitharmon in 2009. His work has now been published or anthologised by Faber, Secker, Penguin, Bloodaxe and Enitharmon, as well broadcast on radio in the UK and the US. He has performed his work widely and his poems have won various awards and prizes including a Gregory Award and The Times/Blackwells prize. He has twice won a Stephen Spender prize for a poem in translation.

Mixing free and formal, seriousness and humour, the current collection is also much concerned with mortality, impermanence, memory and time passing.

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LITERATURE

Riches and Reform: Ecclesiastical Wealth in St Andrews, c.1520-1580

By Bess Rhodes (C233)

In 1559 the small Scottish city of St Andrews witnessed a revolution.

A popular uprising transformed St Andrews from the nation’s Catholic religious capital (once praised as the second Rome) into a proudly Protestant community. Yet religious change was accompanied by economic crisis. With the removal of the Catholic leadership, one of Scotland’s richest urban centres rapidly sank into ‘poverty and decay’.

In Riches and Reform Dr Bess Rhodes explores the unintended consequences of the Scottish Reformation, revealing how an apparently thriving city could tear itself apart within a generation.

Further details available from Brill at: https://brill.com/view/title/35029

The Rapallo Legacy Hardcover

By Alison Cooper (C93)

The Rapallo Legacy is a compelling tale of crime, revelation, and self-discovery, as the newly-widowed Diana Motcombe leaves her comfortable life in England to investigate her late husband s extraordinary bequest.

As the truth unfolds, the story moves to Geneva and the Italian coastal town of Rapallo, where she finds her moral and emotional boundaries profoundly challenged.

Passion, loyalty, betrayal and personal renewal are the themes of this novel by Alison Cooper.

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Adrian’s Journey

By Alison Cooper (C93)

Join Adrian on his journey from easy-going teenager through to manhood, as he searches for his birth mother. Where is she? Why did she abandon him? Adrian’s Journey begins with scenes in England from his comfortable family life and his activities with his fellow first-year university students. But the focus moves inexorably to the twists and turns of Adrian’s quest as he grapples with life’s complexity, juggling its demands, and with his experiences in colourful and troubled Beirut. Adrian’s Journey is not only a tale of a young man trying to discover the identity of his biological mother; it is also a reflection of the human condition, and of how people are shaped by their experiences in life. Readers may identify with the questions asked and the decisions made, yet the story is far from predictable in its course and outcome. Compelling yet familiar, Adrian’s Journey will hold the reader’s interest until the very last page.

This Time Next Year

By Sophie Cousens (C214)

Quinn and Minnie are born on New Year’s Eve, in the same hospital, one minute apart.

Their lives may begin together, but their worlds couldn’t be more different.

Thirty years later they find themselves together again in the same place, at the same time.

What if fate is trying to bring them together?

Maybe it’s time to take a chance on love…

Available on Amazon “It has been an exciting journey to publication as the rights to the book have been sold to the US, Germany and even Russia, so the book will be published in languages all over the world. This means I have quit my day job and am now a full-time author. I am currently working on my next book for Penguin which will come out in 2021. Who knew, as I sat in Miss Mallard’s A Level English class all those years ago, that one day I would be a full-time novelist myself.”

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FASHION

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Do you have an inspiring story to share?

If you have an interesting story to share about your life since your Wycombe Abbey days, we would love to hear from you.

Seniors’ Spotlights are featured in a range of School and alumnae publications, and across our social media channels, covering a range of topics such as interesting and unusual careers, charity initiatives, achievements and awards, overcoming challenges, unique hobbies, staying resilient and much more – if you would like to feature in the next Spotlight please do get in touch with the Seniors’ Office.

We would also love to hear from Seniors who would be willing to speak at one of our events, with backgrounds in sustainability, technology, engineering, entrepreneurship, diversity, equality and inclusion, creative arts, and media.

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Wycombe Abbey High Wycombe Buckinghamshire HP11 1PE seniors@wycombeabbey.com wycombeabbey.com Registered Charity No. 310638

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