OS Newsletter - July 2013 (59)

Old Suttonians Newsletter July 2013 1

A member of the UnitedWestminster Schools’ Foundation

Registered Charity No. 309267

Founded in 1576 by William Lambe

InformationFor information about Sutton Valence School, please contact:

• the Admissions Office at Sutton Valence on 01622 845206 or email [email protected]

• Sutton Valence Preparatory School on 01622 842117 or email [email protected]

I went to Sutton Valence at 13, as a full boarder,in Sutton House, knowing I wanted eventually tobe a doctor.

OLD SUTTONIANSNEWSLETTER

July 2013 N0. 59

In this issue:

Reunions Page 6

DoE Dinner Page 13

Marriages Page 36

Film and Media Page 16

Careers Focus Page 22

House Focus Page 24

OS News Page 26

School News Page 48

I knew entry to medical school wasquite competitive and spent a lot of mytime at School getting stuck into asmany extra-curricular activities as Icould fit in; Choir in my lunch breaks,the School paper, and depending on theseason, either on the netball courts,hockey pitch or rounders.

I started CCF without much expecta-tion but it was the only way I could doshooting, something I had rather en-joyed at Prep School. Brian Miller andMrs Wilkinson nurtured CarolineWoods 2001 S), Katie Gornall (2001 V)and me on the shooting range just off

Continued on page 2

OS InterviewsColette Davey (2001 S)

Colette from the observation tower at FOB

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Old Suttonians Newsletter

the back of School Lane. We spent aweek at Easter hiking from theBlencathra Centre in the Lake Districtduring CCF adventure training, week-ends on Hythe, Lydd, Ash and BisleyRanges at various shooting competitionsand a week at the start of each summerat Summer Camp.

‘Work experience’ week at 16 almostended my medical career. Having beenthoroughly uninspired by those I workedwith, I knew I had to find a way to en-sure I didn’t follow down this path ofdisillusionment that the doctors I shad-owed were travelling. I applied for andwas successful in getting an Army Schol-arship for my sixth form years and thisconverted to a bursary when I was ac-cepted to university to study medicine.

Edinburgh University was great fun.A beautiful city, breath-taking country-side, galleries, restaurants, bars, andmany flat parties, with a great group offriends, including Sophie Thomas (2001S). I still did the odd bit of the OfficerTraining Corp in my first two years, en-joying two winter ski trips and a furthertwo pretty memorable summer camps.By my third year, other interests tookthat focus and I obviously had my degreeto study for with clinical years beingmuch more intensive. I applied and wasawarded my Commission into the RoyalArmy Medical Corps just before mythird year at university and spent sixweeks in Malawi over that summer,through the OTC, building a school,scuba diving, hiking the Mulanje Massifand kayaking up the lake.

The final three years of universitypassed in somewhat of a blur and I grad-uated in June 2006 with a Bachelor ofMedicine and Surgery (MB ChB). Imoved to Frimley Park Hospital for twoyears of foundation training, living in theOfficers Mess in Aldershot, with otherArmy Junior Doctors. It was an emo-tional couple of years with a steep learn-ing curve proving that five years learningat medical school was only an introduc-tion.

Up until this point, my education andcareer had mimicked that of a civilianmedical trainee - same schools, sameexams, same jobs.

In September 2008, after six weekstravelling and scuba diving in CentralAmerica, I went to the Royal MilitaryAcademy at Sandhurst to learn how tobe an Army doctor. The next six

months, I worked in an army GP role atthe Royal School of Signals in BlandfordForum, whilst preparing to deploy onoperations.

In September 2009, we flew to CampBastion, Afghanistan, and after an ini-tial introduction I flew on to my ownForward Operating Base. It was a par-ticularly difficult tour for the Battle

Continued from front page

Colette with two of her Commissioning Class

Colette out on patrol in the Greenzone Helmand

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Group, to whom I was attached in San-gin District, Helmand. As the doctor formy 250 soldiers, I supervised five com-bat medical technicians and I managed awide range of problems for medicalcare, health promotion, logistical resup-ply, medical planning, risk assessment,casualty evacuation and the psychologi-cal management of my soldiers. Mybiggest fear had been expectation oftrauma, and whilst this was visually andemotionally disturbing, the incredibleset up to manage these events on thefront line, in addition to the slick evacu-ation via MERT helicopter, meant we

were able to deal with the high level oftrauma we saw. I was constantly hum-bled by the efforts, skills, courage andresilience of the soldiers I was workingwith, some only 18 years old.

These experiences changed my career.I returned and spent a year working withthe Helicopter Air Ambulance at TheRoyal London Hospital and also a stintin Intensive Care Medicine, but I missedmy role as a GP and medical officer tothe soldiers and swapped from my in-tended Anaesthetics training to GeneralPractice.

It’s fitting that a formerpupil who achieved somuch during his time atSutton Valence, went on toearn a distinguished warrecord, and then helpedpioneer initiatives in thefield of voluntary workand social care, shouldnow have added one fur-ther notable claim to hislife story – as the oldest liv-ing Old Suttonian.Bob Chaundler, 98, arrived at SVS in

the winter term of 1929, and over thenext four years progressed academicallyand on the sports field, becoming headof house at St Margaret’s. He was Com-pany Sergeant Major in the OfficerTraining Corps, and represented theschool or his house at rugby – he wasvice captain of the 1st XV - fives, athlet-ics and shooting.

I started GP training in August 2011and work in a civilian practice in Lon-don. This August I move back into themilitary arena, undertaking a ClinicalFellowship in Academic General Prac-tice for the military up in Birmingham. Iintend to CCT (certificate of completionof training) as a fully qualified GP in twoyears’ time, when I will be posted as aRegimental Medical Officer and my‘proper Army career’ will begin!

Major Colette MT Davey MB ChBDRCOG

“It was a bit of a shock coming to Sut-ton Valence”, he recalls, “because I’dhad a sheltered upbringing in Norfolk.But it was a fairly friendly school, and ithelped that I enjoyed sport”.

“Mark you, it was a pretty rigorousregime under the headmaster, the Rev.W. W. Holdgate – I think he wanted atough, physical school”.

“So, even if it was snowing, we wereout on the rugger field, the dormitoriesall had to have their windows opened re-gardless of the weather, and we had acold bath every morning!”

There were other challenges too. Asixth former called Carslaw enlisted thenewly-arrived Bob as his fag. “The trou-ble was he was an identical twin, and Inever knew which one I was faggingfor”.

A contemporary of Bob’s was thegreat Sydney Wooderson, who went onto become the world record holder forthe mile, half mile and 800 metres. SaysBob, “I spent quite a lot of time chasingWooderson on the athletics track. I waspretty good at the 440, but even at thatdistance, I never got near him”.

And he fondly recalls summer sailing

holidays on the Norfolk Broads organ-ised for some of the senior boys byEdward ‘Tubby’ Craven.

In 1933 Bob went up to New College,Oxford where, in addition to studyinglaw, he represented the university at sail-ing, gaining a half Blue, and met his wifeIrene, also an undergraduate, whomatched his sporting excellence, repre-senting England and Oxford Universityat lacrosse.

After earning his MA in Law, Bob leftOxford in 1936 to join the RoyalArtillery, embarking on a 26-year

Col Bob Chaundler OBE (1933 M)

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military career, which ultimatelybrought him the rank of Colonel andtook him all over the world, fromDunkirk to India, Paris to Kenya,London to North Africa.

He married Irene in 1939, and withinthree days found himself posted to theBelgian-French border as a young sec-ond lieutenant, the beginning of a seriesof World War Two encounters whichearned him three Mentioned inDespatches commendations.

As adjutant of his regiment, Bob wasone of the last soldiers off the beachesat Dunkirk. “It was awful seeing allthese chaps trying to get onto the boats”,he recalls. “Finally, I remember runningflat out down the quayside towardsHMS Windsor and thankfully we got allour men back to England.”

“I joined our CO in the captain’s cabinof the ship, and we were given a bottleof whisky. I don’t remember much be-fore disembarking at Dover”.

Bob was also involved in two of WorldWar Two’s most famous actions. Thefirst, with the 46th Division, was Opera-tion Torch – the Allied landings in NorthAfrica in 1942. The second was when hewas posted, at very short notice, to HQAirborne Corps for Operation MarketGarden, the airborne landings inHolland in 1944 to liberate key bridgesleading up to the Rhine, and finally theArnhem Bridge over the Rhine itself.

Bob was among the British and Polishtroops packed aboard the heavy-dutygliders used in the landings. “It was anextremely unpleasant experience”, heremembers. “Our glider was towed by afour-engined Lancaster bomber, and thenoise and exhaust fumes were terrible.”

He successfully landed nearNijmegen, linking up with Americanforces, but the Arnhem initiative ulti-mately failed in its objective, althoughhe managed to get back to England.

Bob finished the war with a posting toIndia, where he was on the planning

staff for the airborne landings to liber-ate Singapore. Fortunately, the Warended before they took place, and hewas then posted to New Delhi to joinMountbatten’s staff in the planning forIndian independence, where he was

joined by Irene and their two youngsons, David and John.

But, in keeping with the rest of his mil-itary career, he was soon on the moveagain, taking up a post with the War

Bob and Irene’s wedding

1st XV Rugby 1932

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Office in London, followed by a postingto the British Army of the Rhine andthen to Kenya during the Mau MauEmergency where, again, he was Men-tioned in Despatches.

Then it was back to the War Office inLondon and on to Paris as part of thetop-secret ‘Live Oak’ unit, analysing mil-itary strategy in the event that theRussians again threatened to take overBerlin.

In 1962 Bob retired from the Armywith the rank of Colonel, and took a job,which could not have been a greatercontrast - as Administrator for the Na-tional Council of Social Services inLondon (now the National Council forVoluntary Organisations).

The Council’s main role was to bringvoluntary organisations and charities to-gether and into a closer relationshipwith the government. Bob was amongthe delegates who helped persuadeChancellor of the Exchequer AnthonyBarber, and subsequent Chancellors, toprovide tax breaks for charities.

By the time he finally retired in 1980,the Council was about to be re-namedthe National Council for Voluntary Or-ganisations (NCVO), and has becomeone of the country’s most importantbodies supporting the voluntary andcommunity sector. Bob was awarded anOBE for his services.

In recent years, Bob has taken greatpleasure in his ever-growing family – hehas six grandchildren, 14 great grand-children “and one on the way” – and hasalso served as chairman of the parishcouncil at Crondall, Surrey where helives. He still drives and enjoys a gameof bridge.

So, if those cold baths and freezingdormitories at Sutton Valence School in1929 helped form the character and dis-tinguished career of our oldest OldSuttonian, perhaps they weren’t so badafter all……..

Interview by Richard Harvey (1963 C)

Request for EmailsMore and more OS prefer to receive letters, newsletters etc. by

email; not only is this more convenient for them, but also enables theDevelopment Office and the OSA to contain our costs. If you havereceived this newsletter by post and would prefer to receive it online,please send in your email address to Rebecca Riggs [email protected]. After the summer issue, Sutton Views will only besent by email as a link to a digital book, unless you have requestedotherwise, but it is also available online through www.svs.org.uk.

LinkedInWe are in touch with over 700 Old Suttonians through the website

www.linkedIn.com. This site will enable you to network with yourpeers, contact other OS in your industry and beyond, or catch up onnews. To become part of the group you need to register on the site,if you haven’t already, then ‘request’ to join the group Old Suttonians.You will also see that we have seven subgroups for OS in the UnitedArab Emirates, China, Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, USA andGermany.

FacebookAn Old Suttonians page has been set up on Facebook. Please ‘like’

the page so that we may keep you informed of current news andevents.

Old Suttonians Webpages

Awards 2012/13

More information on events and communications can also be foundthrough the School’s website: www.svs.org.uk. You will find the linkto the Old Suttonian pages at the top of the page on the main title bar.

Atchison BequestOwen Moulding (2012 F)Elizabeth Bailey (2012 H)

Bennett-Hunting MemorialJoshua Chacksfield (2012 Cl)James Costin (2012 H)Nanki Dogra (2012 F)Charlotte Hollingsworth (2012 H)

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ReunionsBoarding Centenary CelebrationSunday 1st July 2012

Four generations of Westminster Housemasters: Nick Gorman, Chris Parkinson,Graham Able and Bob Carr

Over 100 Old Suttonians and guestsattended the Boarding Centenary cele-bration in July 2012. The celebrationwas held in recognition of 25 years sinceSutton House opened, that Cornwallisand Valence were once boarding housesand that the houses that we now knowas St Margaret’s and Westminster, wereopened in 1912.

To mark the occasion, informal drinksand a bbq were held on Prefects’ Lawn.There was also the opportunity to tourold boarding houses and view an exhibi-tion of boarding and School life over thepast 100 years.

A time capsule was buried by RaySabine in Sutton House. Julie Stanford,who was retiring after 11 years asHousemistress, gave a speech.

“The School has been open since 1576and it has seen many Headmasters.However, it has taken over 400 years tointroduce girls and according to severalOld Suttonians (no names mentioned)who were boarders in Westminster, itwas the best thing Sutton Valence everdid!

“Sutton House has been opened as agirls’ boarding house for 25 years. RaySabine was the first Housemaster of Sut-ton House and ever since then, theboarding house has continued to grow.

“I have had 11 very happy years hereas Housemistress, with my family. I feltit has been a privilege to be part of thisfamily community and to feel that I mayhave been able to have a small influenceon the girls’ lives. The boarding staffand I have tried to make Sutton Housea happy house and as much as ‘homefrom home’ as possible.”

“When the parents arrive in Septem-ber with their daughters, one of thethings I always told them was that theirdaughter may arrive crying but they willalways leave crying too. Firm friend-ships are made in a boarding communityand many last for life. As Nina

Romacikova told me (current Head ofHouse at the time) the girls feel that inSutton, we are a fellowship, and to quotefrom The Lord of the Rings: Here at laston the shores of the sea, comes the end ofour Fellowship. I will not say do not weep,for not all tears are an evil.”

Julie Stanford, ex-housemistress, Sutton and family

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Boarding bbqRay Sabine, first housemaster, Sutton. Time capsule being buried

Sutton boarding celebration

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OS Sport and Family Day Sunday 2nd September 2012Approximately 90 Old Suttonians and their families enjoyed a day of watching hockey, swimming, playing on bouncy castles

and having a BBQ. Final scores of the hockey:

OS Ladies V School Ladies 3-3

OS Men V School Men 6-3

Middle AgedSpread In September 2012, the Middle

Aged Spread reunion was attendedby over 60 Old Suttonians.

Bruce Grindlay, Headmaster,gave an update on the School’sachievements and Richard Harvey(1963 C) responded with a speechpeppered with amusing stories ofhis peer’s time at the School.

Leslie Edwards (1961 L), Roger Kojecky (1961 L) and Richard West (1964 L)

Stephen Bottomley (1972 W) and Samer Taki (1978 W)

Old Suttonians Hong Kong ChristmasDinnerAfter the success of the last Old

Suttonian reunion in Hong Kong,another get-together was held forChristmas Dinner on 28th Novem-ber, at the Hong Kong Club. Weare grateful to Neville Sarony andStephen Bottomley for organisingthe dinner.

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Michael Wong (1983 C), Ted Ho (1983 C), Stephen Bottomley (1972 W), Neville Sarony (1958 M), Dannis Cheung (1978 C), Samer Taki (1978 W), Philip Chui (1985 C), David Wong (1985 C)

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The OSA Annual Dinner2013This year the special guest was PhilipNew (1978 W) who is the CEO, BP Bio-fuels. He entertained us with a lively andinteresting account of his life as ‘a bit ofa maverick’ and the positive role that theSchool played in developing his attitudesto life and his resilience to life’s regularsetbacks.

A good dinner was enjoyed by all, and itwas great fun for the older generation toentertain, and be entertained by the cur-rent cohort of Prefects. The food was, asever, excellent. The evening was a greatsuccess but, as the only dinner run by theOld Suttonian Association for all OldSuttonians, it would be improved ifmore OS attended, and even better ifeach came as part of a small group ofpeers and friends. Holding the Dinnerat School has great benefits, not least inbeing able to contain costs, but the com-mittee is aware that the timing and thelocation provides problems for some.We welcome constructive suggestionsabout the future of the dinner.

CelebratingWilliamLambeOn 9th February, a small gathering ofOS met in ‘The Lamb’, Lamb’s ConduitStreet, to toast the founder of the Schoolon the 437th anniversary of the grantingof the charter. The lunch-time sessionwas a great success, so much so that thescheduled one and a half hour sessionoverran by three hours! Those who metpledged to return next year and to en-courage their contemporaries to comealong as well.

Linda DayRetirement Linda retired early this year after overforty years of service to the School.

Linda Durnford came to the School in1970 and began her life here as an assis-tant to the caterer.

Her ebullience and cheerful spirit soonattracted the attentions of a recently ap-pointed head of Modern Languages(Brian Day). They married and theSchool quickly realised the union’s po-tential for pastoral care.

Brian became Housemaster of HoldgateHouse (Junior Boarders) and Linda itsMatron (1978-1990). She was a motherfigure, but one who was rigorous in en-couraging self-reliance, self-confidenceand personal pride in appearance andgood manners. One ex-headmaster hassaid he could always tell which sixthform boy had previously been inHoldgate and which had not. Indeedmore than one rose to become head boy.

After Brian’s untimely death, Linda’scontribution to boarding ceased (for awhile), but ever the enthusiast for help-ing the School she took on a role helpingwith the tuck-shop, then a busy socialplace (in what is now called TC’s).

Then, once again, pastoral care wasneeded; this time in Beresford Housealong Chart Road. (2000-2013) Lindarose to this new challenge and it is quiteclear, by the deeply felt testimony of itslong-serving housemaster Graham Al-derman, that in the passage of timeLinda had lost none of her skills in giv-ing confidence to the youngsters, en-couraging their ‘togetherness’ as aboarding unit, being both self-reliantand mutually-supportive of each other.

We shall miss her ever cheerful no-non-sense approach to community life andwe wish her well in her ‘autumnal years’as she spends more time with her chil-dren and grandchildren.

London ReunionsA London and Home Counties grouphas begun to share convivial, quarterly,gatherings in pubs, in London. Olderand younger members alike share somevery informal sessions. It is good to seethat our lady members are beginning toturn up in greater numbers at theseevents. At the latest, with all sittinground three tables shoved together in abeer garden, much lively chat and banterensued. Keep your eyes peeled for newsof the next one.

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Captain Sergison joined Sutton ValenceSchool CCF in 1951 and left in 1974,after 24 years service. The trophy waslast awarded in 2006.

The wonderful weather promised for theMay Bank holiday didn’t happen asMajor Prem pegged his gazebo downagain to protect his BBQ from the windand the rain. He produced large quanti-ties of wonderful food and everyone waswell fed. Major Millbery, Sub Lt Horleyand Flt Lt Kitchen helped and managedto stay awake having completed theovernight, 21 miles Edinburgh Chase at7am that morning.

We were thrilled to welcome staff, par-ents and Old Suttonians for what prom-ised to be a close competition. IanCrump (1967 C) and Roger Baker

Linda with present and past Matrons Kathy Webster, Ros Dines, Christine Pickard, Linda Day, Beverley Spencer, Pam Morrill, Sue Grainger, Julie Excell, Debbie Aiston, Gayle Hatcher

Sergison TrophyShooting Competition

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(Bisley Cadet 100 – 1968 F) kept every-one entertained with their memories ofthe School. Leslie Edwards (1961 L)also attended as a spectator. Roger de-cided to shoot using a sling and after adisappointing first card, became verycompetitive and all realised why he hadbeen Captain of Shooting. The Shoot-ing team became coaches for the parentsand their younger brothers and therewere some great scores but one memberwas heard to say to his father “a perfectshot, but next time could you put it onyour own target.”

In first place was the Shooting team –average 95.7, second were the Staff – av-erage 93.2 and in third place the Parentsand OS – average 89.6.

I hope you all enjoyed it and look for-ward to seeing you next year.

Lt.Col A Wilkinson.

Roger Baker (1968 F) and Leslie Edwards (1961 L) with Lt Col A Wilkinson, Flt Lt Kitchen and Colette O’Neill

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On 22nd March, over 40 OS attended adinner to celebrate 50 years of theSchool becoming a Duke of EdinburghAwarding Authority. Presentationswere given, along with quizzes and com-petitions.

David Lovelock was one of the first fromthe School to have received DoE Gold,his book having been signed off for theaward by Headmaster C R Evers on 11December 1964. He remembers hisgroup being despatched to a very coldand snowy Dartmoor in early April (withsome pretty basic gear) and seeminglyleft to get on with it; risk assessmentsbeing still some decades away. Theyused their initiative to find a barn toshelter in on the final night, as they wereextremely wet and cold, neverthelessDavid started to feel very poorly on thetrain back home and had to spend sev-eral days in bed recovering. He re-members the others on the expeditionbeing David Simpson (1965 M), J IanKellie (1964 W), Douglas Johnston(1965 W) and David Molyneux(1964 C).

Charles Bazzard (1964 L) sent in the fol-lowing photographs. Also one of thefirst to participate in the Duke of Edin-burgh’s Award Scheme in 1963 atSutton Valence, he felt that it undoubt-edly influenced his life in many ways.

Duke of Edinburgh Award Dinner

Ellie Sagrott and Anthony Bromley, current pupils receiving their DoE Gold Certificate from David Lovelock (1964 W).

Lovelock, Simpson, Kellie, Johnston - Holed up for the night

Within the expedition, were his friends, Robert Lynden-Bell (1965 L), Jonathan Sewell (1964 L), Geoffrey Edwards (1964 L), Philip Blaine (1964 L), Stuart Murray (1964 L).

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Charles Bazzard’s second expeditionwas in 1964, 34 miles in the Headcorn,Rolvenden, Rye area. One of the grouphad a girlfriend at Benenden (close towhere they camped) and he hoped topay her a late night call. At that timePrincess Anne was a boarder at theSchool. Charles can’t remember if hisfriend ever made it up to the dormito-ries, but they all kept watch for securityas he tried this daring visit!

Charles tried for the Gold Expeditionon that first 60 mile expedition on Dart-moor. Geoffrey Edwards and Charleshitch-hiked from Dover to Exeter; theywere wearing their CCF uniforms, nothaving other expedition clothes. Theuniforms proved a boon for hitch hikingand they were lucky enough to get fromDover to Exeter in a single day. It wasaround midnight when they arrived andwithout money for accommodation, theyspent the night in Exeter Railway sta-tion. Next day they made the trip to ayouth hostel on Dartmoor for the startof the expedition. In those days choreshad to be done at a youth hostel and thisincluded peeling potatoes for a large in-coming group. They were outside in astone courtyard peeling spuds in thesnow! Their first day went well, despiteterrible weather they made camp ren-dezvous. Next day was worse. In themiddle of the afternoon, Charles slippedwhen stepping on stones to cross a smallriver. The weight of the backpack maderecovery impossible, so he ended upthoroughly soaked. Temperatures werebelow freezing and it was snowing hard.His CCF uniform froze like a board.Fortunately, there was a cottage nearbyand two kindly ladies thawed him out.Geoffrey called Mr Porter, who came tothe cottage. He allowed Geoffrey tocontinue with the expedition, but in-sisted Charles go home by train the fol-lowing day. He was very disappointednot to have completed that gold expedi-tion.

Since then, Charles has had many ad-ventures hiking and camping and feelsthat the spirit of exploring was foundedin his Duke of Edinburgh experience.

A small group of 13 OS met at Green’sCornhill in London on 30th April, or-ganised by Richard Craven (1960 W).

Back in 1985, Richard Craven (1960 W)organised a 25 year lunch for the“Pont’s” prefects who had left in 1960 orjust before. Richard states, “The ideawas to see what dire changes had oc-curred to our physique etc… All werepretty much recognisable.”

Nothing then happened until this year,2013, when Craven suggested that theyhad missed the 50th Anniversary, butcould have a 53rd, if anybody was inter-ested. Those who attended were DavidDavies, Michael Crutch, Peter

Wooderson, John Hardy, Tim Archer,Raymond Smith, John Cairns, ChrisArchbold and David Watkinson allturned up and they had a hilariouslunch. “Well worth doing and an actionreplay may occur in 2015.”

The people who expressed enthusiasm,but could not make it were: Nick Harris(South Africa and a long commute),Bob Moulton, Brian Pennington,Maurice Hills (working still). Richardstates, “It was a great lunch and ourthanks go to SVS for their helping hand.If you have not seen your fellow prefectsfor 50 years, think about it, false teeth,hearing aids, waists et al…..”

1959/1960 Leavers Reunion

John Allen, Robin Hollingsworth, DavidHarverson, Peter Knight and KeithGilham were reunited for the first timethis April, after joining Bennett Housesome 60 years ago. They met for lunchat a pub just outside Oxford.

They were to be joined by RobinPalmer, Tony Ruffell and Chris Quinton,but they were unable to attend.

The reunion was a great success and agood opportunity both to exchange rem-iniscences and catch up on our respec-tive lives. As John said, “it was amazinghow much each of us could recount and

what an impression the School made onus.”

It was agreed to try to repeat the eventat a future date and try to include someabsent St Margaret’s friends as well.They would particularly like to hearfrom Brian Wells, John Power andMichael McLaren if anyone has contactdetails.

Also, if anyone is interested in a roundof golf to be played in the Oxford area,please contact, David Harverson,[email protected]

Bennett Reunion - Oxford

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Building upon the success of the re-unions at the Haynes Motor Museumand Duxford Imperial War Museum, agroup of 10 Old Suttonians and part-ners, met up in Stratford-upon-Avon.

The group enjoyed a guided tour of thetown, listening to fascinating stories offires, flooding, plague, old-fashionedsayings and history, with a littleShakespeare. The tour finished withlunch at the Shakespeare Hotel.

Regional Reunion, Stratford-upon-Avon

Colin Hasson (1949 M), Steve Hasson (1974 F),Thomas Hasson

In May 2013, Old Suttonians met fordinner in the Headmaster’s House forthe William Lambe Society Dinner.Again, we would very much like to hearfrom any OS who have made a provisionof any kind for the School in their wills,so that we may include them in the nextinvitation to dinner.

Please contact: Helen Knott, Development Manager,[email protected] 01622 845271

WilliamLambe Dinner

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Old Suttonians in the Film and Media IndustryATIENZA, Edward (1942 W)

Edward nowlives in a nursinghome in On-tario, Canada.

In the early1950s, Edwardwas an actor inStratford-upon-Avon. He touredwith a company

and later worked in the United States.In 1973 he went to Canada, specificallyto Stratford, Ontario to perform theFool in King Lear and Touchstone in AsYou Like It. According to various re-views, these performances were highlyregarded. He went on to work at theStratford Festival Theatre until the mid1990s. He also performed in many the-atres across Canada.

BAULF, Jeremy (1976 C) Jeremy is developing a multi-channel"Sportal" on UK Freeview HD.

BOYLE, Francesca (2005 L)After leaving Sutton Valence, Frankiegraduated from Brighton University in2010 with a 2.1 degree in Three Dimen-sional Design. From university, she in-terned in the field of lighting designwhich led her into TV lighting, a by-product of which was one of Frankie’suniversity graduation products being putinto development.

From working in lighting, she found herway into the world of television art de-partment and stage management, whichis an area she discovered a real passionfor. She progressed her way throughmany shows and events such as the Clos-ing Ceremony of the Olympics, art di-rected two of the BBC broadcast boatsfor the Diamond Jubilee River Pageant,

Strictly Come Dancing, BBC’s newdrama The White Queen and many oth-ers.

Website - www.francescaboyle.com

BROWN, Ben (1978 F)Foreign Correspondent, BBC.

BURGE, David (1977 F)David is Controller of Operations, Tech-nology and Platforms at ITV PLC, pro-viding interim operational managementsupport across various scheduling andcontent management areas.

COBBALD, Louise (1991 S)Louise recently stage managed the UKTour of Dirty Dancing at The MarloweTheatre, Canterbury.

COURT, David (1983 W)David is the owner and co-founder ofSupajam Ltd and Director and co-founder of Addicted Films Ltd.

David, along with his business partner,has created a music discovery formatthat successfully combines online, liveevent and TV elements into a unique,compelling entertainment offering, thatreaches young people across multipleplatforms.

In November 2012, commissioned bySony Pictures Television in Los Angeles"Breakout" launches in its first territoryin Brazil before rolling out across Sony’sglobal TV networks.

FAIRLEY, Peter (1948 M) (died 1998) After Sutton Valence, Peter attendedSidney Sussex College, Cambridge. Hewas then the science correspondent forthe London Evening Standard andmade numerous radio broadcasts in the1960’s. He was also a familiar face toITV's younger viewers, with regular ap-

pearances on Magpie and the children'sscience fiction series Timeslip, as well asscience articles in ITV's children's mag-azine Look-in, and writing books onpopular science. His name became syn-onymous with ITN's extensive live cov-erage of the Apollo moon landingmissions.

HOPKINS, Stephen (1975 L)

Stephen is a film director and is wellknown for his continuation of the Night-mare on Elm Street franchise with ANightmare on Elm Street 5: The DreamChild and the Predator franchise withPredator 2. His highest grossing film,however, was the 1998 film adaption ofthe TV series Lost in Space. He is mostfamous for Dangerous Game (1987).

In 2004, Hopkins directed the contro-versial biopic The Life and Death of PeterSellers, which raised the ire of the actor'sson Michael Sellers.

Stephen was a co-executive producer forthe first season of the Fox action drama

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24, and also directed half of the season'sepisodes, including the first and lastepisodes.

HOPPE, Michael (1963 W)

Michael Hoppe is a Grammy nominatedcomposer with an exceptional melodictalent, and distinctive evocative style. Hehas an extensive background in both popand classical music which his recordingsreflect.

Hoppe’s music is performed and heardinternationally including HBO’s ‘TheSopranos’, Oprah Winfrey Show, MichaelMoore’s documentary ‘Sicko’, DavidVolach’s ‘My Father’, ‘My Lord’, ‘Misun-derstood’ (starring Gene Hackman), andthe multi-award winning short ‘Eyes ofthe Wind’, which reached the Oscarnomination short list.

His music is extensively used by suchrenowned authors and teachers as thecelebrated environmentalist JaneGoodall, Julia Cameron (The Artist’sWay), Sarah Breathnach (Simple Abun-dance), Robert Cooper (The EmotionalIntelligence), and others, in their work-shops.

Hoppe’s music has been recorded by avariety of singers and instrumentalistsincluding Vangelis, the Prague Sym-phony, Tim Wheater, Martin Tillman,Zamfir, Frank Mills, Eliza Gilkyson, Ce-

cilia, Louise Di Tullio, Lou Anne Neill,Eugene Fodor, Lily Haydn, Heidi Field-ing, Dwain Briggs, Alyssa Park, LibbieJo Snyder, Mitsuki Dazai, Joe Powersand others.

His endeavours in the music industryhave brought him several gold and plat-inum records, and The Yearning won“CD of the year”, and Afterglow wasvoted ‘Best Album’ at the Indie 2000Convention (AFIM Awards). Also TheLover won the Visionary Award, andHoppe’s Grammy Award nominatedCD Solace was featured in Clint East-wood’s ‘Flags of our Fathers’ documen-tary.

After How Do I Love Thee?, an album oflove poems narrated by Michael York,Hoppe recorded Requiem, a solo pianoalbum Romances, and Nostalgie Ro-mances for Harmonica, featuring JoePowers.

Hoppe has performed in Korea severaltimes, and recently performed his Re-quiem in Prague.

He scored the multi-award winningshort film, Nous Deux Encore(www.nousdeuxencore.com) which wonBest Score Award at the InternationalMonaco Film Festival. It features Mit-suki Dazai, the virtuoso koto player,with whom Hoppe has produced FarAway… Romances for Koto.

Recent releases include Tapestry andPrayers - A Personal Selection (AudieAward nomination) read by MichaelYork, and Café Champagne, Hoppe’scompositions arranged and performedby Scarlet Rivera and Tommy Eyre.

Previously, Hoppe founded InterCon-nection Resources, a music businessconsultancy. He was also a senior exec-utive at PolyGram, responsible for sign-ing such diverse talents as Vangelis,Kitaro, The Who, Jean-Michel Jarreand ABBA to the label.

Website – www.michaelhoppe.com

HUDSON, Peter (1968 C)

Peter’s love of literature and theatre wasdefinitely largely influenced by formerteacher, Chris Oliver, who taught himEnglish in Lower and Upper Sixth.

Peter recalls, “His first lesson on Othellois still in my mind. He had a great giftand ability to communicate his passionfor literature. He also encouraged us toput on plays outside the annual produc-tions and introduced me to Pinter,whose plays I have often worked onsince and whom I met on one or two oc-casions.”

Chris Oliver, along with John Mc-Cormick, used to take pupils to the the-atre in Canterbury. Peter hasmaintained contact with John over theyears and John still sends him books thathe feels he would enjoy (and shouldread)!

After Sutton Valence, Peter went on toExeter and East Anglia universities(French comparative literature and aDiploma of Education to become ateacher). He became a secondaryteacher of French and English beforeaccepting a post as reader in English atthe CRDP (Centre Régional de Docu-mentation Pédagogique), in Paris. Hislink with France became permanent andhe realised that teaching was not his call-ing.

His attraction to the theatre and actingled him to find an agent in Paris, wherehe had a one line role in a ClaudeLelouch film, Viva la Vie, before decid-ing to seek an agent in London.

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Regular film and TV work began, inEnglish and in French, particularly inCanada, where he filmed on several se-ries, notably in the role of James Hor-ton, a recurring villain in Highlander.

He now works regularly with directors ofrenown, in very different styles: AlainResnais, Luc Besson, Norman Jewison,Mathieu Amalric, Paolo Barzma.

Peter writes a great deal, has directedseveral times in theatre, notably thework of Samuel Beckett, and has oneshort film in 35mm to his name.

He is based in Paris and has four chil-dren, three of whom have "left the nest".He is active in the Human Rights andthe Environmental arena.

Peter has finished his novel, after twoyears of steady work. He's now lookingfor a publisher.

Website – www.peter-hudson.com

HYLANDS, Peter (1968 F)

A working lifetime of content-making inthe media industry internationally and alifelong interest in art and culture andnatural history have come togetherthrough the development of the com-pany Creative cowboy films (co-foundedby Peter and Andrea Hylands). Peterworks in some of the remotest places onearth and with some of the world’s mostsignificant artists.

Peter Hylands says, “It struck us that wecould use technology and new media totell the stories of creative people around

the world, if you like, a creative eye on acreative world. In doing so this led usstraight to indigenous or tribal culturesin the Asia Pacific and Africa, in placeslike the Torres Strait, Aboriginal Aus-tralia and to Arnhem Land and thedeserts of Central Australia and to theRift Valley and its tribes. This in turnmade us look very closely at what is hap-pening to indigenous people around theworld, that is, loss of language and cul-ture, destruction and theft of land andenvironment, rapidly changing climatesand the loss of traditional food sources,among many such things. The idea thatindigenous people are our barometer,what happens to them will one day hap-pen to us, remain foremost in my think-ing”.

Recent films with Indigenous people in-clude Zugub, the mask, the spirits and thestars (Badu Island, Torres Strait); Thesea, the feather and the dance machine(Erub, Torres Strait); Bush Plum: thecontemporary art of Angelina Pwerle(Utopia, Central Australia); The brushsings (Arnhem Land); Rock art and Yin-gana (Arnhem Land); Knowledge paint-ing and country (Arnhem Land); Wewalked on a carpet of stars (Tasmania);Film essays of Maasai life (a series of sixfilms about Maasai society today includ-ing Birds sing and lions roar and Keepingknowledge).

All this of course means that they arevery close to nature indeed, elephants,kangaroos, lions, Nile and saltwatercrocodiles, hyenas, giraffes, birds of allkinds, turtles, sharks, dugongs, lizardsand snakes goes the list. All of naturebeautiful, and much of it being de-stroyed.......and so they will tell thosestories too.

In 2010, Creative Cowboy Films won thebest contemporary art film award inMontpellier (France) for a potters filmabout the life and work of the artistpotter Gwyn Hanssen Pigott (solo exhi-bition Tate, St Ives 2004).

Peter’s films are broadcast on television,shown at events and by major institu-tions, galleries and museums and usedin education. In 2013, Creative CowboyFilms will launch an online televisionchannel of its own.

Website - www.creativecowboyfilms.com

JANSEN, Peter (1961 F)

This New Year’s Eve, OS Peter Jansenwill be celebrating 50 years as a profes-sional musician, a career which has seenhim rub shoulders with stars such asDavid Bowie, Jimi Hendrix, Marc Bolanand The Supremes, and has taken himand his wife Mary around the world.

Peter with his son

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But then it was always a good bet thatPeter (1954-1961) would choose enter-tainment as a career after he learned toplay the banjo and guitar while at SuttonValence, and spent several years in theSchool’s original Boy Band! Well, jazzband actually, playing regular shows inthe school hall during the late ‘50s andearly ‘60s, alongside Stuart White (trum-pet) Graham Foulkes and Jay Holt(sharing clarinet duties), Bruce McDon-ald (drums), Chris Welch (trombone),Alan Noah (piano) and Peter Matthews(bass).

After several years leading a trad jazzband, Peter switched genres and formeda rhythm and blues outfit called Band 7.Renamed the Manish Boys, the bandwas subsequently joined by a skinnyyoung singer and sax player calledDavey Jones. However, the hugely pop-ular pop group The Monkees had a leadsinger with the same name. Peter, withothers from the band, dropped into TheGiaconda one day, a London coffee barfavoured by young musicians, and cameup with a new name for their singer –David Bowie. And the rest, as they say,is history……

After Peter left the Manish Boys, he andother fellow musicians took off for Eu-rope, playing for service personnel atNATO bases. As Peter, Jan and Jon theyalso recorded a song called ‘MountainBoy’, which reached number 28 in thecharts.

Back in the UK, times were tough – butthings took a turn for the better when hebegan playing as a session musician,backing artists including reggae starPrince Buster, and writing jingles fordisc jockeys on Radio Caroline.

In 1974, Peter found himself inBermuda, where he teamed up with avocalist and guitarist called Mary Kings-ley. They accepted an invitation to go toCanada in 1975, initially for a six monthstay.

Today, 39 years later, Peter and Maryare still there, having forged a success-ful career with their enormously varied

and versatile act. They have an aston-ishing repertoire of more than 3,500songs, and can switch from country duoto classic rock singers, vaudevillians tomediaeval troubadours, frequently withtheir own compositions, some of whichhave charted in several countries. Maryis also known in her own right as an ac-complished ventriloquist.

They have performed right acrossCanada and the United States, on cruiseliners, and at festivals, exhibitions andfairs. Peter has received several Cana-dian awards including the EmeraldAward for individual commitment to en-vironmental excellence. For 15 years heco-ordinated the Earth Day Festival inhis home city, building it to be thelargest in Canada with attendance of upto 32,000 in one afternoon.

Speaking from their home in central Al-berta, Canada, after returning from a26-date tour of the southern UnitedStates, Peter admits that, aged 70, he’snow considering trimming the couple’sexhausting schedule. “We’re probablydown to about 150 performances ayear!” he says.

Website – www.peterandmary.net

Interview by Richard Harvey (1963 C)

KIRRAGE, Paul (1973 L)After leaving Sutton Valence in 1973,Paul worked back stage at the famousLondon Palladium for nine months,where he gained valuable experience inand knowledge of the different craftsand skills involved in entertainment pro-duction which were to help him in lateryears.

In 1974, Paul joined Thames Televisionas a trainee cameraman. In those daysthere was only the BBC or ITV, of whichThames was the major production com-pany, and vacancies for trainees werefew and far between and hotly con-tested. Paul spent fifteen years as a cam-eraman with Thames working on everyconceivable kind of show from majordrama and light entertainment produc-tions to sports and special events and

even a Royal wedding or two! Duringthis time he was lucky enough to workon some of the shows and with some ofthe artists and performers who have nowbecome legendary in terms of televisionhistory.

By the mid-eighties Paul had set hissights on becoming a director and in1989 he managed to persuade the thenhead of entertainment at Thames Tele-vision, John Howard Davies, to let himdirect a series of the fledgling panelshow ‘Give Us A Clue’ under the watch-ful eye of a senior director and pro-ducer. It must have gone well becauseJohn Howard Davies offered Paul workas a director in the entertainment de-partment at Thames, which meant himgiving up his staff position as a camera-man and taking the plunge into the un-certain world of freelance employment.Having recently married and acquiredhis first mortgage it was a big decisionfor Paul, which was thankfully to workout well!

Between 1989 and the present day, Paulhas gone on to direct some of the biggestshows on British television working withmany household names and interna-tional stars along the way. Some careerhighlights include when working withCelador Productions, being part of thecreative team and the original directorof ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire’. Theshow’s innovative visual style combinedwith its brilliantly simple format wasground breaking at the time. WhenABC bought the format, Paul directedthe first episode for the USA, hosted byRegis Philbin, and the show went trulyglobal with the option to buy the formatbeing taken up by broadcasters in overeighty countries and has become themost successful television game showformat of all time. In more recent years,Paul was part of the creative team whodevised the ITV show Dancing on Iceand he directed the first six series, win-ning for himself on two consecutiveyears the prestigious Royal TelevisionSociety’s craft award for multi cameradirecting and was nominated for aBAFTA along with the rest of the pro-duction team.

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In the last couple of years Paul has di-rected a wide range of shows, mostly forITV, including music “specials” withartists such as Rod Stewart, Westlife andSimply Red, the Piers Morgan’s Life Sto-ries series, The Pride of Britain Awards,The British Comedy Awards and in 2011,The Royal Variety Performance.

LE FORT, Anthony (1961 M)Anthony is working in the entertain-ment industry in Los Angeles.

LYNE-PIRKIS, Johnnie (1977 W)

John trained at the Bristol Old Vic The-atre School. Shortly after graduating, hejoined a circus company, touring Medi-aeval Jousting Tournaments aroundGreat Britain and Europe as both theEarl Marshall (Ring Master), and vari-ous combative knights. For over thirty years since, John has appeared interna-tionally on stage, and on screen. Featur-ing in many established British TVDramas, including House of Elliott,House of Cards, Spooks, and playing,Freddie Chalk Marshall, opposite HughLaurie in two seasons of the award win-ning, Jeeves and Wooster.

More recently, he has featured in thefeature films, ‘National Treasure II’ and‘Young Victoria’ opposite Emily Blunt asher uncle, Duke of Cumberland, Earl ofDerby. His theatre credits includeShakespeare, Chekhov, Oscar Wilde,Bertolt Brecht, Nick Ward, Jean-MarieBesset among others, on London's WestEnd, and throughout Great Britain andEurope. John also studied with the

Meisner Centre in Los Angeles and atthe Université De Montréal.

After running two theatre productioncompanies in London from 1998 to2001, in 2002 John co-founded themulti-award winning, Theatre503 inLondon, the home of cutting edge new writing, and afforded the title, ‘Britain'smost important little theatre’. For this,John received recognition as one of thetop 100 people to have contributed themost to British theatre in the twenty-first century in The Stage Top 100 Listfor 2003. In 2010, Theatre503 rockedthe theatre world by receiving an Olivierfor Best Play, for Kartori Hall's, Moun-tain Top, which subsequently transferredto the West End the same year, and toBroadway in 2011, with Samuel L. Jack-son and Angela Bassett, directed byKenny Leon. He is also on the board ofdirectors for Simon Usher's theatrecompany, Presence. Their most recentwork being N.F.Simpson's last play, IfSo, Then Yes....

Since 2011 John has resided in Los An-geles, where he continues his work asboth actor and an ambassador for The-atre503. Married to the French film di-rector and actress, Cécile Delepiere,John produced their first film togetherfor his wife's company, Dollkiller Films,the short, Almost There, which they shotin Paris and Los Angeles last year, andwas officially selected for the Los Ange-les and UK Film Festivals for 2012. Hewas also Associate Producer on theaward winning, pilot for the cult web se-ries, Seriously Wounded for Develop-ment Hell Productions. He took a leadrole in the independent feature, EchoDrive, due to be released in 2013.

Website - www.johnpirkis.com

MANSFIELD, Alex (1997 W)Alex produces radio programmes aboutscience and technology for the BBCWorld Service and Radio 4, includingsuch strands as ‘In Our Time’, ‘Click’,‘Material World’, ‘The Life Scientific’ and‘The Infinite Monkey Cage’. In 2011, heran the BBC’s Domesday Reloadedproject in partnership with The National

Archives and The National Museum ofComputing.

MORLING, Rupert (1992 F)Rupert currently heads MBC Action -The world’s largest free to air entertain-ment channel targeting men - out ofDubai.

Throughout his career he has workedwith Granada, ITV, UKTV and the BBC- managing a variety of functions, butspecialising in channel management.Prior to MBC Action Rupert was theVice President of Scheduling and Pro-gramming at MTV UK (Edinburgh TVFestival channel of the year), followedby Discovery UK.

His last role based in the UK was VicePresident of Programming and Strategyfor Discovery Networks International -leading their digital editorial strategyand all new channel launches interna-tionally.

He is happy to offer advice on formatdevelopment, how to pitch programmeideas in both the traditional and digitalworlds, as well as offer any advice andsupport on TV globally and specificallyin the Middle East.

NELSON, David (1966 C)David left the School to go to Manches-ter University where he read Englishand History of Art and became involvedwith the University Film Society. Hethen managed to get a place on one ofthe very first media courses in England,the Radio, Film and TV ProductionPostgraduate certificate course atBristol University. From here, hestarted work at BBC Pebble Mill as astation assistant, moved up to Assistantproducer and finally ended his career asa Producer in the News and Current Af-fairs department, making half-hour re-gional TV documentaries on almost anysubject you can care to name. He alsomade a couple of programmes for net-work BBC, namely ‘Jailers ‘about prisonofficer training, ‘A Drop in the Ocean’about plastic surgery in Sri Lanka and‘Death March’ with Auschwitz survivorKitty Hart-Moxon which involved a trip

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to Poland and Germany following in thefootsteps of her death march in 1945.

He left the BBC briefly in 1976 andspent two years travelling, ending upworking for a year with the RhodesiaBroadcasting Corporation. He left theBBC in June 2002 and since then hasbeen a TV Journalism trainer with theThomson Foundation, getting work inIndia, Malawi, Botswana, Qatar andMalaya. He effectively retired from TVproduction after a year teaching MediaStudies at Bournville College and isshortly moving to Florida.

POLYCARPOU, Peter (1975 C)Peter’s work in movies include Evita(alongside Madonna), Oklahoma! andDe-Lovely. On stage, he was the firstactor to play the role of John in the mu-sical Miss Saigon in London. He was anoriginal cast member of the musical LesMisérables, and has played The Phantomin Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantomof the Opera. He has also appeared inthe UK première of The Woods by DavidMamet at the Finborough Theatre, Lon-don. Television work has included TheBill, Holby City, Casualty and Waking theDead.

In February 2006, Polycarpou appearedin EastEnders, playing Yannis Pappas,father-in-law of character Carly Wicksfor 3 episodes. He played a leading rolein the movie O Jerusalem, released in2007. He also starred in a short filmBroken alongside Michelle Collins, play-ing the leading role of Solomon. Thefilm, about a Greek-Cypriot immigrantfamily in 1960’s London won several in-ternational awards. He wrote and co-di-rected his own short film Mad George,with ex-musician and long-time friendJohn Hoare. The film has shown at sev-eral International Film Festivals.

Recent work includes playing Gash inBryony Lavery's play Last Easter, di-rected by Douglas Hodge, at the DoorTheatre in Birmingham, and the leadingrole of Daniel Warshowsky in the musi-cal Imagine This at the New LondonTheatre in 2008.

In 2010, he starred alongside Sean Beanand Charlotte Rampling in the terroristthriller, Cleanskin which was releasedlast year. He also appeared in the eighthseries of Hustle for BBCTV directed byactor Adrian Lester.

Between 2010 and 2011, he appearedalongside Emma Williams and MichaelXavier in the Chichester Festival The-atre's Love Story. It later transferred toThe Duchess Theatre, where it had ashort run.

He also worked at Chichester FestivalTheatre playing Beadle Bamford inSweeney Todd (alongside Love Story pro-ducer Michael Ball as Sweeney Todd).

Website - www.peterpolycarpou.com

REVEST, Phillipa (née Le Grys) (1995V)

Phillipa is a Producer and Agency Ac-count Manager at The Creative Part-nership, one of the most highlyrespected film marketing companies inthe UK.

Her work covers theatrical and homeentertainment releases, across all gen-res, for clients, such as 20th CenturyFox, Sony, Universal and ParamountPictures.

Notable releases on her CV includeAvatar, Slumdog Millionaire and most re-

cently The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,Arthur Christmas and The Amazing Spi-derman.

Website www.creativepartnership.co.uk.

SANDEM, James (1993 W)After selling his company, SuperVisionManagement Group, in April 2012,James is now running Red Light ArtistManagement's UK office, based inShoreditch, London EC2. Red Light isone of the most successful independentcompanies in the music business world-wide, managing acts including AliciaKeys, Alabama Shakes, and DJ SteveAngello. He has continued to enjoy suc-cess with his own roster, British bandThe Vaccines scoring a #1 album thisyear with Come Of Age, and KaiserChiefs, Franz Ferdinand and CrystalCastles all doing well in 2012.

James and his wife, Nanna live in Ken-tish Town, North London with their 3year old son, Linus.

SCHMIGE, Maximilian (2002 M)

Max is a Director of Photography andFreelance Cinematographer, located inLos Angeles. Originally from WestBerlin, Max grew up in Germany, butcompleted his schooling at Sutton Va-lence, before moving to the US in 2003.

He trained as a cinematographer at theprestigious American Film Institute.His work has been seen on national tel-evision such as the Oprah Network andHBO. His documentary work is seen atfestivals all around the world.

Schmige has shot music videos for sev-eral artists including Superbus, IRMA,Leslie and Meaghan Smith. Addition-ally, he has worked with actors RogerGuenveur Smith (from American Gang-ster), Russell Hornsby (from Grimm),Michael Harney (Deadwood), and TomKiesche (from Breaking Bad).

Max was awarded the Hollywood For-eign Press Award for his extraordinaryachievements as a director of photogra-phy. His films, such as Salvation Road,

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which starred Russell Hornsby, MichaelHarney and Roger Guenveur Smith, areFujiFilm, Caucus and DGA Award win-ners.

Under German cinematographer Karl-Walter Lindenlaub (ASC), Schmige wasmentored by one of the best directors ofphotography in the industry. At theAmerican Film Institute, Schmige hadthe honour to meet and learn frommany more great cinematographerssuch as Roger Deakins, Robbie Green-berg, and Jacek Laskus.

Max is an experienced water photogra-pher and certified scuba diver withPADI. His passion for film has allowedhim to work on various projects thatbrought him to many different placesand cultures in the world.

Max studied film history and theory atthe University of California Santa Bar-bara before gaining his Masters at AFI.Outside of production, he acted as ajudge at the Shriekfest Film Festival inHollywood and the Camerimage inPoland. He actively served in the Finnishmilitary before pursuing a career in film.

Website - www.maximilian-schmige.com

SEN, Jith (1980 L)Director at Partisan Pictures Pty Ltd.Director of recent films, including thethriller A Perfect Life.

WARD, Merlin (1968 W)Merlin left Westminster House in 1968at the age of 16 and almost immediatelyentered another school called AlbionHouse. During the summer holidays,Merlin auditioned for a role in AlanBennett’s first play, ‘Forty Years On’ andwas fortunate to land a speaking partplaying in scenes opposite Sir John Giel-gud, Paul Eddington and Alan Bennett.The play ran for 15 months in the WestEnd of London and during that timeMerlin shared a dressing room with An-thony Andrews (actor) and George Fen-ton (composer). Following ‘Forty YearsOn’, Merlin was lucky enough to landwork in TV, film and another West Endplay set in a school called ‘Child’s Play’

starring Laurence Harvey and RupertDavies. During the 1970s, Merlinworked with many notable performersincluding Ronnie Barker, Ronnie Cor-bett, David Jason, Dick Emery, NigelStock and Noel Gordon – in the summerof 1977, Merlin played a principal rolein the soap, Crossroads, appearing inover 70 episodes and making him ahousehold face if not, exactly, name!Unfortunately, ‘Crossroads’ became a bitof a cross to bear and despite a few rolesin films, such as ‘The Stud’, Merlin’s act-ing career was in a downward spiral.One of his last acting roles was in the TVseries The Love Boat, playing in a sceneopposite the screen great, TrevorHoward. Merlin played a film director,a role he was to play for real years laterwhen he directed his first feature film,‘Out of Bounds’, which was set in a girls’boarding school. The film starred CeliaImrie, Sophie Ward and Sophia Mylesand enjoyed good TV exposure through-out Europe, the Far East and on BBC1,where it has been screened three times.When writing the script, Merlin imag-ined the location to be Sutton ValenceSchool and was thrilled to find a locationnear Watford that offered the same styleof building and clock tower.

Since shooting ‘Out of Bounds’, Merlinco-produced another film called ‘Within’that has subsequently sunk from viewwithout a ripple. A third feature wasdue to be shot in 2010, but when Merlinwas asked to sell the script for a goodprice he accepted the offer. He has sub-sequently rewritten the story as a stageplay, which is to be produced by TalkingScarlet Productions in June 2014 – along way ahead, but that is typical of thetheatre. Apart from writing drama,Merlin also makes his living from writ-ing copy for the internet.

Websites - www.merlinward.com andwww.merlinward.co.uk

WIGHT, Fiona (1995 V)Fiona’s career has included being leadsinger in Riverdance, Lord of the Dancewith Michael Flatley, Excalibur, hit vocalgroup Anuna. She is also a former BBCUK Choirgirl of the Year. She had her

voice “auctioned” by Sir Terry Wogan aspart of Children in Need and appearedwith Sir Cliff Richard at the Royal Al-bert Hall and sang with Boy George atthe Houses of Parliament. Fiona'sgroup Legend, has released a charitysingle Gaudete, in aid of Help the Hos-pices.

Website - www.fionawight.com.

WILMSEN, Viola (2002 S)After finishing school in Germany, Violastarted to study music at the Universityfor Music in Lübeck, Germany. As a stu-dent, she won the competition for theposition of solo-oboist of the GermanOpera of Berlin ("Deutsche OperaBerlin"), started there in January 2010,underwent her exams in Lübeck inMarch 2011 and changed to the"Deutsche Symphonie Orchester Berlin(DSO)" in September 2012, as well asthe solo-oboist.

Website - www.violawilmsen.de.

Are you able to help with work experi-ence or mentoring?

In order to give our pupils and Old Sut-tonians the opportunity to compete ef-fectively for the more highly regardeduniversity places, or to get a first foot onthe employment ladder, the School con-siders it most important that a youngperson gains work experience. However,they need the contacts to be able to dothis. Sutton Valence Sixth Form pupilsand other younger Old Suttonians couldgreatly benefit from the network of Old

Careers FocusCareers Networking

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July 2013

Suttonians employment knowledge andexperience, whether it is providing workshadowing or sound advice in the formof mentorship.

If you are in a position to offer workshadowing to a Sutton Valence pupil oranother Old Suttonian, please emailRebecca Riggs on [email protected] ortelephone 01622 845258 specifying yourprofession or area of expertise. Any con-tact will be made through the Schoolonly.

BiologistHUNT, James (1993 M)

James attended Sutton Valence Schoolbetween 1988 and 1993. He went on totake a BSc in Ecology and an MSc inGeographical Information Systems atEdinburgh University.

Since leaving university, James hasworked for a charitable organisationcalled The Tweed Foundation, which isresponsible for protecting and enhanc-ing the economic and social value of thefishes in The Tweed District. This isachieved through the study, mainte-nance and restoration of their popula-tions, ecosystems and habitats and theencouragement of wider participation inangling.

The Foundation is regarded as being atthe forefront in bringing a more profes-sional, scientific approach to salmonid

management. It is engaged in an exten-sive program of biological research,monitoring and habitat enhancement,with the aim of protecting the Tweed’svaluable fish stocks and maximising theriver’s natural productivity. The Tweed’ssalmon fishery has the highest rod catchin Britain (around 20,000 fish at pres-ent), with an economic benefit to thelocal economy of around 17 millionpounds.

Why I chose a career in fisheries man-agementWhile I never quite knew where Iwanted to end up for a career, I wasquite clear that I wanted do somethingrewarding and interesting - ‘Making adifference' rather than making money!Finishing up at Edinburgh University, Itook up a summer post at The TweedFoundation based in the Scottish Bor-ders and I have been there ever since. Ihave always had an interest in fishing, soto work on the premier salmon river inBritain, was an opportunity that Icouldn't pass on.

A typical dayMy work is very seasonal. Through thesummer we are out in the field collect-ing biological data, particularly for juve-nile salmon and trout in the differenttributaries of the Tweed. All very pleas-ant in a dry summer ... In the autumn,with the main runs of salmon and troutcome into the river, I will be busy run-ning fish counters and traps to monitorthe adult fish populations. Through thewinter time and into spring there is a lotof report writing, data analysis, meetingsand giving talks to various people andorganisations.

Advise for pursuing a career in BiologyThe field of Biology is highly diverse,ranging from the molecular to the land-scape and ecosystem scale and can bepurely academic, or have practical uses.Genetics is a particularly relevant sub-ject at the moment, given the recent ad-vances in technology and practical usesto conservation management. Manyuniversities offer biological degrees thatallow students to become more spe-cialised through the duration of their

course, so you don't have to make anyspecific decisions yet. With the currenteconomic climate, getting a job in theenvironmental sector is particularlychallenging at the moment. My advice isto get as much work experience as youcan while at university and perhaps in agap year, which isn't easy for many stu-dents who now need to earn money topay for their tuition fees. Dedication,single mindedness and maybe be a bit ofluck will get you a long way!

VeterinarySurgeonKNOWLES, Simon (2000 F)

Simon attended Sutton Valence Schoolbetween 1993 and 2000. He went on totake a degree in Veterinary Science atBristol University and is currently a sen-ior assistant veterinary surgeon, in abusy practice near Canterbury.

After graduating in 2005, Simon startedwork in a mixed, predominantly largeanimal practice in Somerset. The work-load was varied and busy, seeing mostlycattle and horses, with a smattering ofsheep, dogs, cats, rabbits and exotics tokeep things interesting. In 2007, he

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moved back to Kent, working in a mixedpractice in Sandwich, and then to hiscurrent practice in Bekesbourne, nearCanterbury. In the five years he hasbeen there, he has built up a large loyalfollowing of clients and finds the job ful-filling, busy and constantly different.

Why I chose a career in veterinary med-icineSince the age of about six years old, Ihad my heart set on becoming a vet. Ithink it may have had something to dowith the large number of science and an-imal related books I was raised on as achild, including the complete works ofJames Herriot; read practically back toback… All the way through secondaryschool, I had the goal of getting into uni-versity to study veterinary science and Iwas thrilled to be offered a place at Bris-tol, after leaving SVS. Being a vet islargely about caring for the animals, butI believe that the main skill is dealingwith people. Owners provide you withnearly all of the information about theirpets, they make huge decisions based onhow you communicate with them andoften see you as a confidante and thera-pist. All of this makes the job busy, de-manding and at times high-pressured,but always varied and rewarding.

A typical dayMy work day is quite a long one! We typ-ically start at 8:15am, seeing clients whoare dropping off animals for operationsand procedures. These are short consul-tations, outlining the treatment plan anddiscussing any concerns that the ownersmay have. From 9am until 2pm, I per-form operations and surgical procedures– this range from routine neutering op-erations to mass removals, dental pro-cedures, orthopaedic operations andwound sutures. The afternoon is thentaken up with two periods of consulta-tions until 7pm. In between, we try andfield phone calls for advice, completepaperwork and write up clinical notes.Lunch breaks are often a rarity!

Advice for pursuing a career as a Vet-erinary SurgeonCompetition for a place at university tostudy veterinary medicine is high, as

there are only a small number of univer-sities that offer the course (currently 7,taking up to 150 students per year). Itcan seem like a really daunting prospect,but if you feel passionate about veteri-nary science as a career, then don’t letpeople dissuade you. To get consideredfor interview, you typically need at leastAAB at A Level, with a compulsory A inChemistry. In addition to this, all of theuniversities will expect a significantamount of work experience, in as manyareas as possible (lambing, dairy work,riding stables, local vet practice), toshow that you understand what the jobentails and have the dedication to workhard during holiday time, as you willhave compulsory placements duringyour university holidays too.

Simon is happy to talk to and advise any-one who is thinking of applying for vet-erinary science; his email address can beobtained through Rebecca Riggs:email: [email protected].

(See photograph on next page)

Sue Jones (née Kohli), Abigail Dale(née Cooke), Ana Buisman, KrystynaBielecki, Lucy Gostelow (née Slater),Josieanne VilchezGayle Yun, Leigh Styant, Melissa Al-bentosa, Emma Russell (née Richards),Joanne Richardson, Natasha Anslow,Helen Sladen, Orlanda Hutcheson,Anne-Marie Evans (née Colthup)Lynne Ferguson, Dr Anne Bowker, MrsAnne Hughes (née Didier), Dr RaySabine, Mrs Pam Morrill, Mrs D Gen-erowicz, Erica SmithCorinna Reynolds, Ruth BieleckiNames in bold = no contact details

Members of the first intake at SuttonHouse were asked to share their memo-ries with the Old Suttonians Newsletter.

ANSLOW, Natasha (1990 S) “Looking

at this photo brings back so many mem-ories, the first set of girl boarders, andfor me, being the only girl boarding inmy year, brought quite a lot of attention!It meant I had lots of friends both olderand younger and it made Sutton like afamily, with Dr Sabine very much beingthe head of that family. I remember firstlooking around the boarding house withmy parents and being slightly puzzled bythe chains on the windows, although myfather seemed to be more approving ofthem! Having been a day girl for a yearalready and with the help of goodfriends, such as Jo Richardson, settlinginto boarding life was never a problem.With sport being my first love, organis-ing training runs at 7.30am to get thehockey team fit, seemed a lot easierfrom the boarding house, although Ithink the day girls in the team were notso impressed at having to be at school soearly.”

BOWKER, Dr Anne (Ex-Staff 1987-1993) “There was the time a student ranaway from home to Sutton, which toldthe lie to Shakespeare’s famous quoteabout school, and I think says a lot aboutSVS.

There was something distinctive aboutthe smell of toast being cooked at theevening break (8-8.30) that I loved.Prep started almost immediately aftertea, at 6.30, as I recall. At break, stu-dents were allowed to go to the quad buthad to be back by 8.30. There was thefamous '6" rule' - students of the oppo-site sex were not allowed to be closerthan 6 inches which, in conjunction withthe mere 30 minutes break including the5 minute walk to and from the quad, inthe cold, tended to reduce any possiblemisdemeanours that would worry par-ents and others.

Fundamentally though, students werekindly at SVS, across the school and atSutton, where students were naturallymore homesick when they arrived (or insome cases, arrived back from Exeats).

RUSSELL, Emma (née Richards) (1991S) “It was September 1985 and ThePower of Love and Money for Nothing

House Focus Sutton

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July 2013

were at the top of the charts. In Amer-ica, Cagney and Lacey and The CosbyShow picked up Emmy Awards andPresident Reagan ordered sanctionsagainst South Africa. Closer to home, ina small village in Kent, a brand new girls’boarding house was welcoming its firstboarders. A trickle of young girls, manyof whom had never been away fromhome for any meaningful amount oftime, were being shown to their dormsand shows. After our parents had left westarted the bonding process and friend-ships were formed, of which many havelasted to this day.

We were very much a novelty at first. Iremember walking to the refectory andbeing overwhelmed by the smell of af-tershave and hundreds of well-groomedboys just watching us as we nervouslyjoined the queue to get our first break-fast. Within about a week, the aftershavehad vanished and the ‘just out of bed

look’ was now being sported by the ma-jority!

Dr Sabine was our housemaster. Therewere 3 in all during my 5 years in Sutton,which I think speaks volumes aboutwhat it must have been like to look afterus girls! We did get up to all sorts, andmust have been rather ‘trying’ to lookafter! I remember the smell of DrSabine’s pipe wafting through the housewhen he was on duty, which served as anearly warning signal for us to start be-having; his nickname was after all prettywell justified. Whenever I smell a pipenow I smile as the memories comeflooding back.

Sutton wasn’t particularly competitiveon the sports field, but the house spiritwas one of ‘let’s try our best and have agreat time doing it’. Competitivenessseemed to be, sadly, more on the socialside with the girls in Valence, but both

houses set aside any teenage pettinessand pulled together when it came toplaying fixtures against other schoolsand some of the funniest times were onthe minibuses coming back from thoseevents.

Looking back at my time in Sutton, I re-member fondly the house plays, the mid-night feasts, watching ‘Neighbours’ onTV at lunchtime and having my bestfriends with me 24/7. Sutton was a housefull of laughter where we really caredabout each other, it had a warm, homelyfeeling, it had that ‘special something’.It was a mixture of Malory Towers with asmattering of St Trinians’ thrown in forgood measure, they say your School daysare the best days of your life, I have tosay I’d find it hard to argue with that!”

Sutton House 1987-88

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News of Old SuttoniansANDERSON, Keith (1979 L)Keith found himself on our missing list

and got in touch. He moved back toKent some years ago and now lives inAshford.

BARNES-PHILLIPS, Jim (1966 M)Whilst on holiday in Paphos, by pure

chance, Jim and his wife were in discus-sion with a couple on their first evening,Robin and Maureen Jackson. RobinJackson was in the SVS Music Depart-ment from 1976, eight years after Jimhad left and they had several chats aboutstaff members they both knew.

BEADON, Colin (1948 L)

Go to Colin Leslie Beadon on Face-book and see a lot of what he writes,what he photographs, his family, friends,where he has been, where he goes, whathe thinks, etc. This is a recent self-pho-tograph. Colin is trying out a camera re-mote trigger (in his right hand) and hewrites “attempting to look as young and

handsome as he might have been once,long ago.” The other photo is from hishouse, looking down from 700 feet,across the Barbados Woodbourne valleyand out to sea.

BENNETT, Nell (2008 S)Industrial Design Engineer, website –

www.nellbennett.com

BENTLEY, Bill (1950 W)Bill recently visited the School with his

sister and her grand-daughter. It was along awaited opportunity for Bill to re-fresh happy memories and to clothe inreality tales of years gone by.

BETTE-BENNETT, Jim (1965 M)

Jim and his wife have set up a charityshop in Brittany. Palliative care is notyet established in any francophoneAfrican country. With the proceeds ofthe shop they financed a 5 week coursepresented in Cameroon by trainers fromHospice Africa in Uganda in April/Maylast year. They had 14 participants from4 francophone countries and will con-tinue to support them in establishingpalliative care in their countries. Jimwas lucky enough to participate in thefirst two weeks. As an accountant, hetaught basic financial and fundraisingskills. The course was held atMutengene Baptist Hospital and thechoir welcomed them on the first morn-

ing. When not teaching, Jim sat at theback of the class and learnt far morethan he ever wanted to know about howit is to die of cancer in rural Africa.

BRADLEY, Jonathan (1981 F)We have re-established contact with

Jon. After leaving Sutton Valence, hepursued a career involving his passion ofthe time… Cars. He trained and quali-fied as a vehicle technician while work-ing for a Mercedes commercialworkshop.

From there, he worked in a variety ofpositions varying from Technician toWorkshop Manager in franchised deal-erships including Rover, Landrover,Nissan, Mercedes, Subaru and Toyota,eventually moving from the commercialworkshop environment to teaching me-chanics as a Civil Servant for the RoyalEngineers in Chatham in 2004. Thisrole was outsourced to a new company,namely Mid Kent College Training Serv-ices in 2009 and his employment wastransferred to them, which is where heworks to this day as a Technical Instruc-tor.

Jon is also an Assessor and InternalVerifier for non-vocational qualifica-tions (NVQ's), as well as a member ofthe Institute for Learning and hadQTLS status awarded in August 2011.

Alongside this he had a successful ca-reer in the Territorial Army for 18 years,retiring in 2005 as a Sergeant in theREME.

BREWER, David (1959 M)David married in 1972 to Sarah St

Joseph and has four children, 2 sons and2 daughters all privately educated andwith degrees from Cambridge, York and

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July 2013

Southampton. He also has six grand-children. He started a private architectpractice in 1974 and partnership from1983 to 2005. David now runs a holidaylet on his home site.

BROOKE, Alice (2007 H)Has qualified as a doctor and started

her final year in Brighton. CharlesBrooke (2007 M) is reading AmericanStudies and History at Dundee. Hecompleted his second year in NorthAmerica and has started an internshipwith Microsoft for a year, returning tofinish his degree after that for one year.William Brooke (2007 H) continues atthe Glasgow Academy.

BURNS, Robin (1941 M)

Robin remains well and takes hisgrand-daughter's Cairn for a daily walk,if it is not too hot or raining. He cele-brated his 90th birthday in Novemberlast year, so a 40-minute walk dailyaround the neighbourhood is prettygood. He is fortunate to live in an areaof the city which is well trod and pleas-ant for walking. In the morning's paper itreported that the Economist Intelli-gence Unit ranked Vancouver as the

world's third most livable city, after Mel-bourne and Vienna. Vancouver proudlyheld number one spot for nearly adecade and last year slipped to numberthree. Surprisingly it lost marks forcrime rates, lack of availability of qualityhousing and congested roads. Robin stilldrives his car (cautiously, and not in therush hour), but usually goes down townon the bus. Robin leads a reasonably ac-tive life and is never bored.

BURTON, John (1949 DB)John is a Knight of the fourth degree

and the Grand Knight of the Knights ofColumbus which oversees his Council #9447. This and his other local commit-ments keep him out of mischief.

John hopes that his two strokes of2011 are behind him. He states that hedoes have some memory loss (mainly inthe spelling area - but his wife quickly as-sures him that he was never too good inthat area).

BYNG-MADDICK, Christopher(1963 F)For the past 30-40 years Chris has

worked as an architect, for a number ofLondon practices. Towards the end ofthe 1970s he joined a practice calledD.E.G.W., where he became a Part-ner/Director, when they incorporated inthe 1980s. Christopher set up a practiceof his own after leaving D.E.G.W, whichlasted for 15+ years, but in 2004, he suf-fered a stroke, which effectively endedhis working life. He now spends most of

his time being an artist/painter and alsowriting and researching the story of howhis ancestor, Admiral the HonourableJohn Byng, came to be executed by fir-ing squad at noon on March 14th 1757,for the loss of Minorca, which event pro-voked Voltaire to write in his novelCandide the famous lines....."from timeto time the English like to shoot an ad-miral pour encourager les autres." Hisartwork can be seen on his Facebookpage.

CAIRNS, The Very Reverend Dr John(1961 M)Dean of Her Majesty’s Chapel Royal

in Scotland, gave one of the biddingprayers at the Queen’s Coronation 60thAnniversary at Westminster on 4th June2013.

CHANCE, Veronique (1986 V)Veronique ran in the London

Marathon and raised £1,500 for thecharity MIND. In September, last year,she ran in the Berlin Marathon, spon-sored by an organisation that helps dis-abled children. In April this year,Veronique was appointed Senior Lec-turer and Team Leader in Fine Art atAnglia Ruskin University, Cambridgeand she has recently completed the ParisMarathon.

CHEETHAM, Michael (1954 W)In 2008, to mark his 70th year,

Micheal walked the length of theThames Path from the source to theBarrier (approximately 200 miles).Since then, he has walked part of thePembroke Way, then most of the GrandUnion Canal towpath and then the Ken-net and Avon Canal towpath. Michaelalways walks alone.

COLES, Keith (1954 W)Apart from various domestic matters,

Keith’s main interest at present is family

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research, which so far has not thrown upanything alarming. It has left him re-gretting not asking elderly relativeswhen they were alive to give him somuch information which is now hard tofind. However the two strands of thefamily that he is following has taken himback to the late 1600s, so far.

CONINGSBY, Andrew (1979 W)

Andrew now lives near Banbury inSouth Northamptonshire, amidst thefine, rolling countryside thereabouts -the “broad, sunlit uplands” thatChurchill evoked so well!

He has three children with his wifeTamsin, Hal aged 21, Louis aged 19 andImogen aged 14.

Andrew continues to run the illustra-tion and graphic arts agency Début Art(which he founded in 1985) and alsoThe Coningsby Gallery (which hefounded in 1994). Both businesses arebased in the heart of London’s WestEnd. He meets fairly regularly for wineand ‘song’ with fellow 1974-1979 West-minster compatriots, David Swarbrick,Nathaniel Harrison and John Lyne-

Pirkis. He has very fond memories of theexcellent forge that SVS was in my earlylife – not that he’s too antique just yet,he hopes!

CRANMER, Steve (1979 C)Steve visited the School in May whilst

over from New Zealand. He had a greatfew weeks back in the UK, seeing thefamily and re-familiarizing himself withlife in London too.

DENDY, Mark (1978 M)We have re-established contact with

Mark. He has been living in ChiangMai, Thailand for the last 12 years.

DOVETON-GERTY, Chris (1955 L)Chris recently sent in an update telling

us that it has taken him many years torecover from the loss of his wife, froman illness she was diagnosed with tenyears before her death in 2003.

He has returned to Bath, where hewas brought up, after an eventful jour-ney which took him to South Africa, be-fore becoming a boarder at SuttonValence and to Spain.

His Spanish journey prompted him tobecome a writer. His first novel, pub-lished in 2012, ‘The Spanish Dream’, abusiness thriller, gives an insight into thecorrupt property market in Spain. Thereviews on Amazon and sales have beenencouraging.

Chris is now writing his second novelwhich has an international flavour, fullof love, mystery and drama. ‘The returnof the Prodigal son’ has been meaningfulin many ways. He is a Steward/Guide inBath Abbey, involved with tours and isa sidesman and a reader in the Abbey.He is also becoming involved in be-reavement counselling and is a volun-teer in the Day Care Unit of a local

hospice and sings in two choirs. In 2014,he will be going to India to sing Handel’sMessiah.

Chris states that he has a “busy andenjoyable life.”

DYKE, Simon (1991 F)

The last 18 months has been quite ajourney for my family and me – trying toresurrect memories of a school experi-ence that started 29 years ago, and fin-ished seven years later, is quite a task!

I have always been keen on cricket. Icaught the bug from my grandmother,who was a Somerset supporter, andwaxed lyrical about Ian Botham, VivRichards and Joel Garner back in theday. But without doubt, it was my timeat SV that developed that interest into atrue love of the game, without having torun around a sports field – always some-thing of a bonus.

Through my SV years, I was scorer forthe U13s and U14s for a season each(who can forget the goat in the over-grown garden adjacent to Upper), andthe 1st XI for four. During those fouryears with the 1st team, if memoryserves, we lost only twice to school op-position. I’d like to think my scoring du-ties were the main reason for thisunprecedented success, but a team con-taining Yakesh and Dipak Patel, at leastone Barr at all times and players such as

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July 2013

Jamie Cowell, Richard Girling andmany others was always a tough propo-sition on the field. The influence of suchmasters as Bob Chance and DavidPickard helped develop my appreciationfor the game and, to this day, their in-fluence on me is something for which Iam truly thankful. My most vivid mem-ory of the 1st XI was an all-day matchagainst Dover College – starting at11:30am and finishing at 6:30pm. Doverchose to delay their declaration until5pm, leaving the school just 80 minutesto score 210 to win. DP managed tosummon up some willing boundary rid-ers from the School to return the ballquickly and avoid delays – we finishedon 190-1, and the Dover teacher scoldedhis captain after the match, and washeard to say “I told you that you de-clared too early”.

I left the school in the summer of1991, but it was not until 2000 that I fi-nally found a route into the professionalgame. In the intervening years I hadbeen involved in my local village cricketteam, and we were fortunate to welcometo our Sunday team a former AustralianTest Cricketer, David Gilbert, who wasdeputy Chief Executive of Sussex CCCat the time. We stayed in touch, and atthe turn of the millennium an opportu-nity arose; I joined Sussex and moved tothe south coast. I stayed at Hove untillate 2011, but in the intervening yearsthe Club won its first three CountyChampionships, among a haul of ten 1stand 2nd team trophies. Much of mytime was spent in the Cricket Office,working as the behind the scenes manfor the coaching and playing staff. Thiswork involved, amongst other things,processing work permit applications,sourcing playing kit and equipment,booking team hotels and travel arrange-ments, and researching and analysingdata and statistics to help match and tac-

tical planning. In late 2005 – just twoyears after our first ever Championship– the Head Coach asked me a simplequestion “how can we win the Champi-onship again?” That winter I buried my-self in scorecards and averages,produced a strategy… and Sussex wereChampions again in 2006 and 2007. Iwas fortunate to meet many amazingpeople in that time, and on two occa-sions was a member of the party that vis-ited Buckingham Palace, to be officiallypresented with the Championship tro-phy by the Duke of Edinburgh.

In late 2011, budget cuts at SussexCricket resulted in me being made re-dundant, but this presented me with anopportunity to explore new avenues andchallenges within the game. In early2012 I started working for Opta Sports,a company who had obtained the rightsto recording the scores from CountyCricket matches on behalf of the ECB.This involved ball-by-ball scoring ofCounty games, which for me includedhome matches for Surrey and Sussex. Avacancy became available in May 2012to work for the MCC, based at Lord’s,my main role being to assist in the ad-ministration of the Laws of Cricket, andmost of my time was spent fieldingqueries from across the globe, askingwhat should happen in a myriad ofmatch situations, often fabricated andinvariably complicated! During thatsummer, I was also fortunate to volun-teer at London 2012 as a Games Maker,and spent two weeks working at theIOC’s hotel on Park Lane – an amazingonce-in-a-lifetime experience.

In January 2013 a position arose inDublin, working for Cricket Ireland. Aspart of Ireland’s drive for Test status anda place at the top table of cricket’s worldgame, the organisation had securedfunding to introduce a new domestic tier

of the game – akin to County Cricket inEngland – and needed someone to turna largely blank piece of paper into aworking competition. I was successful inbeing appointed to that role, and thefirst match was played in early Mayunder cloudless skies, and was won by anunbeaten century from internationalcricketer Kevin O’Brien.

So from humble beginnings at SV Ifind myself in Dublin, via Maidstone,Hove, Crawley and NW London, helpedin no small part by those summers onthe Upper recording every dot ball andrun scored. It’s amazing where life canlead you.

EDMONDS, Richard (1956 M)Richard’s life and career has been

recorded by the British Library Life Sto-ries Boodle’s An Oral History.

FAY, Julian (1963 F)Julian is living in Kenya and owns a

casino. He was good friends with an-other Old Suttonian, John Bowyer (1943DB), who was a long-time resident ofKenya from the early 60s. John was alawyer who represented Jomo Kenyattain the run-up to Kenyan independence.Sadly, John passed away a few years ago.

GAMMIE, Michael (1959 M)We have re-established contact with

Michael. He is a music professionalbased in London.

GEDNEY, Felix (1985 F)Felix is now living in USA and is serv-

ing in Afghanistan with a US Division.He continues to hear news from SuttonValence as his nephew and niece, Tomand Ellie Benson, are currently at theSchool.

GIRLING, Richard (1989 M)Richard is studying to be “Master of

30


Wine”. He has been working at John EFells since 1998, running the LondonTrade Team, supplying wine into theprestige restaurant and hotels in Lon-don for 8 years. He is now buying andtrading wines and hosts wine educationwine evenings. Richard travels exten-sively in Europe visiting wineries andbuying on behalf of the company.

HAKIMNEJAD, Goodarz (1964 L)

Goodarz went on to LoughboroughUniversity to obtain a Bachelor degreein Production Engineering and Man-agement. After university, he returnedto Tehran in 1969, for military serviceand then to work with his father in theirmanufacturing company called Aabsalplc. They manufacture water evapora-tive air coolers, room gas heaters andwashing machines. Goodarz has beenmarried for forty one years and has twosons, Rino and Nima who both attendedSutton Valence. If any other OldSuttonians are visiting Iran and theyneed help in any way, they can emailGoodarz ([email protected]).

HAMBOURG, Grégoire (1994 W)

Grégoire married in 2006 and is livingin Hong Kong with his wife. He has 3children, Armand born 2010, Maelysborn 2011 and Faustine born 2012. Hecreated his company in 2007, whichmanufactures medical devices for hospi-tals and nursing homes for the elderly.

HARRIS, John (1966 C)John wanted to pass on his regards to

Bob Chance his English teacher, whowas inspirational and also to Tim Paine,with whom he briefly shared in 1969, thefirst floor prefect's show in Cornwallis(then an "end-show" or sub-prefect)until he relinquished this in favour ofESU American student, Steve Miller.John’s non pop-up toaster would havecaused many activations of a smoke de-tector had there been such things in thelate 1960s!

After A levels, John studied Gas En-gineering at Salford University, wherehe gained his first degree. In the 1970she was heavily involved in thechangeover of industrial plant in theSouth East from town gas to natural gasand later ran the South East Gas Tech-nical Consultancy Services.

John took an MSc in Fuel Technologyat Portsmouth in 1976 and later, around1990, an MBA with the Open Univer-sity.

In 1981, he married and moved toSomerset to manage his family's prop-erty business. John has two childrenand, now retired, enjoys golf, photogra-phy, driving (he was chairman of thelocal RoSPA Advanced Drivers' Groupfor 10 years), gardening and study. Hehas taken several interesting courseswith the Open University and Open Col-lege of Arts including Imaging, Com-puting, Oceanography and Ecology.

HATCHER, Mark (1973 L)Mark, a former Governor of the

School and now a Trustee of the UnitedWestminster Schools Foundation, wasordained a Deacon in September. Hecompleted a three year part-time courseof theological training and was awardeda degree by Christ Church CanterburyUniversity in the summer. He has beenappointed a non-stipendiary, AssistantCurate at St Saviour, Brockley Rise inthe Diocese of Southwark. Amongthose present at Mark's ordination werethe Chairman of the SVS GoverningBody, Bryan Baughan and fellow Gov-ernor, Eric Watts, and representing theUWS Foundation, the Reverend CanonDavid Hutt. The School Chaplain, FrPaul Kish also attended. Mark is con-tinuing his work as Director of the BarCouncil, the governing body for barris-ters in England and Wales.

In April 2013, Mark was elected aBencher of the Middle Temple. He wascalled to the bench at a ceremony inMiddle Temple.

HAYMAN, David (1995 M)David recently moved to the USA to

take up a David H Smith Fellowship at

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July 2013

Colorado State University, USA, havingspent over 5 years working at CambridgeUniversity, on West African bats andtheir infections. Also, he was awarded aPhD by Cambridge University in 2011.He was also awarded his MSc by Uni-versity of Kent in 2005, and his veteri-nary degree by University of Edinburghin 2002.

HEMSLEY, Richard (1973 W)

George McRae (1973 W) trackedRichard down and stayed for a couple ofnights in June. They spent a day atCanterbury catching up whilst watchingKent CCC play Glamorgan. Georgewent into international developmentplanning and has travelled widely oftenin less prosperous parts. His home is inhis native British Columbia, Canada.

HOLLOWAY, Christopher (1950 M)Christopher has just completed a

ninth edition of his textbook ‘The Busi-ness of Tourism’ which has sold over150,000 copies and has been translatedinto 7 foreign languages. He would bepleased to hear from Old Suttonianswho live locally or around Bristol, or StIves in Cornwall, where he has a secondhome.

HUGHES, Gary (1973 F)Gary has worked as a moderator for

National Exams Board for South WestEngland and now works as a freelanceartist in Cornwall.

HULL, Peter (1952 M)Peter’s book ‘Glucose Syrups, Technol-

ogy and Applications’ was recently re-viewed: “This book is an excellentreference source for degree level stu-dents in food technology and teachingstaff and the detailed applications makeit a useful manual for culinary studentsand those engaged in product develop-ment.”

ISMAIL, Reza (1985 M)We have re-established contact with

Reza and he is working as Managing Di-rector for a pharmaceuticals company inMalaysia.

KILLIN, Lewis (2006 Cl)Lewis completed an MA in Psychol-

ogy in 2010 and an MSc in Human Cog-nitive Neuropsychology in 2011 atUniversity of Edinburgh.

KOJECKY, Roger (1961 L)Roger Kojecky is Secretary of the

Christian Literary Studies Group andEditor of its journal, ‘The Glass.’ He isamong contributors to the Oxford Dic-tionary of National Biography and theDictionary of Biblical Imagery (IVP),and has lectured recently at universitiesin Krakow, Olomouc, Toronto andBeijing. Roger has recently published abook. Details may be found online:http://www.c-s-p.org/Flyers/Visions-and-Revisions--The-Word-and-the-Text1-4438-4332-6.htm

KUNG, Leo (1976 W)Leo found himself on our missing list

and got in touch. He subsequently metup with Mike Witt (1976 W) andStephen Bottomley (1972 W) for dinnerin Hong Kong.

LONSDALE, Peter (1950 M)Peter is a retired person and his daily

life changes quite a lot. He has defec-

tive sight which restricts activities. Con-versely, having a vision disability, he hasbecome involved in the blindness sectorsuch as the Durban Society for the Blindand, for sport, blind lawn bowls.

This gives Peter a great opportunity toexperience life from another angle andhas many rewards, something he mightwell have missed if he had normal eye-sight.

Peter wonders if maybe we can openanother OS group called "Blind and vi-sion impaired OS - Where are they?"

He celebrated his 80th birthday in De-cember last year.

MACFARLANE, Ian (1962 M)

Ian has a new book ‘The Kelly GangUnmasked’ which was published by Ox-ford University Press in November 2012.

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A review written by a retired Chief In-spector states “The author uses originalsource material to present the facts ofthe matter. In doing so he brings intoquestion the entire myth of poor Ned, acountry lad forced into a life of crimeand bloodshed because of harassmentby thuggish and corrupt police. “I foundit to be a compelling read and I highlyrecommend it”.

MACKENZIE, Michael (1966 W)We have recently been contacted by

Mike. He is an egg producer at HoadsFarm in Sedlescombe.

MILLER, Robert (1995 F)We have re-established contact with

Robert. He is Chief Executive Officerfor a healthcare company in London.

MOYCE, Jonathan (2005 Cl)

Jonathan plays for Ealing TrailfindersRFC. In April 2013, they won NationalDivision 1.

MURPHY, Spencer (1996 F)Spencer was third place in the Taylor

Wessing Portrait prize and received£2000 for his photograph of Mark Ry-lance. His portrait of the actor was com-missioned for the cover of the TelegraphMagazine to mark the actor’s return tothe Globe to play Richard III. This wasexhibited at the National PortraitGallery in London.

Murphy says, “I’ve always enjoyedworking with actors as there’s no awk-wardness or discomfort in front of thecamera and they are able to understanddirection and react to it very easily.Mark was no exception.”

The recipient of many awards andshortlisted for the Sony World Photog-raphy Awards in both 2010 and 2011,Murphy’s work has been exhibited in-ternationally. His work has been exhib-ited as part of the Taylor WessingPhotographic Portrait Prize six times.

MURRAY, Alan (1971 C)In May, Alan returned to the School

whilst over from Australia. Alan said “Iwas so impressed with everything I sawand am delighted that the school isdoing so well in these difficult times.”

ORRINGE, John (1951 W)John still remains in contact with his

School friends, Richard Johns (1951 W)and David Baron (1951 W), they havebeen firm friends for 65 years. He hastwo children and five grandchildren.

PAIN, Timothy (1966 C)

Tim retired from the Isle of Man civilservice in Sept 2009. He had beenworking there for six and a half years asa health and safety inspector, havingpreviously been an inspector with theHealth and Safety Executive in Norwich,dealing mainly with farming and thefood industry. Joining the HSE in 1993was a total career change, having beenfarming in partnership with his fatherDenison (also an OS) from leaving New-castle university with BSc Hons in Agri-culture Economics in 1970, until 1985.Tim carried on enjoying playing rugby atUniversity and then for his local club,Launceston in north Cornwall for sev-eral years. He moved to France in 1985to a small farm in the Gers (GasconySW France), with wife Janet and daugh-ter Kary in tow. After several years, theyrealised that the farm was not economi-cally viable and decided that the timewas right for a total change, joining the"other side" to try and persuade farmersthat being healthy and safe made eco-nomic sense and had to admit that attimes some of the things he did as a

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farmer were far from safe, if not down-right dangerous. It turned out to be agood career move as he was able to keepin touch with farming and go back tofurther education in the form of a postgrad diploma in Health and Safetythrough Aston University, an alarmingprospect at the time, after over 20 years!

They became grandparents in April2008. His daughter, Kary had a daugh-ter Amelie.

Since moving back to France to an oldhouse near the Pyrenees in the depart-ment of the Haute Garonne, which theyhave owned since 1991 after selling thefarm, they have been restoring anotherproperty which has kept them busy forthe past three years. It has a couple ofacres, so of course he had to have a trac-tor, a mower etc, once a farmer...Theylike walking in the mountains and Timis a keen skier, so for him winter is thebest time of year.

PALMER, George (2004 W)

George has recently started a newbusiness. If any Old Suttonians are get-ting married or having a big party, thenGeorge could potentially provide themwith a photo booth for hire.

The idea is that guests can go in the

photo booth at any point over the courseof the day/evening. They have theirphotos taken, then immediately the pho-tos are printed out. One copy the guestskeep and the other copy goes into aguest book (similar to the one seenabove) which the guests can then writea little comment next to. Then at theend of the evening the bride/groom orparty host has a book full up of photosand funny/touching messages which theyget to keep as a momento from theirday.

Website:www.youbeautyphotobooths.co.ukFacebook:

www.facebook.com/pages/You-Beauty-Photo-Booths/551386234894855Email: [email protected]: 07753 261 613

PHILLIPS, Anthony (1958 H)We have re-established contact with

Anthony. He is the proprietor of a de-sign company based in Shropshire.

RIKHY, Naveen (1984 L)Naveen only spent one year at SVS,

but enjoyed it thoroughly. He had toleave as his parents moved countries.He went to a new school in India, wherehe did his Os and As. He returned tothe UK and went to Kingston Universityand got a BA(Hons.) in Accounting andFinance, and subsequently went on toqualify as a Chartered Accountant fromthe Institute of Chartered Accountantsin England and Wales (ICAEW). He hasstayed in the accounting industry and iscurrently based in New York City, since2001, where he is a Senior Directorworking at KPMG, and works on USand cross-border acquisitions for corpo-rate clients and on capital market trans-actions involving debt and equityfinancing. He has also worked inKuwait, London and Tokyo prior to NewYork.

Naveen married in 2008 to wife, Shel-ley, and has two twin boys, who are nowtwo and half years old.

He has not been in touch with anyonewho was in School with him, but wouldlike to get in contact with AlexanderHolland (1988 W) and Simon Jones(1998 W).

Even though he spent just one year atSVS, he has strong memories of thattime, he wishes he had stayed for a fewmore years. Naveen writes, “Lookingback, SVS offered an all round educa-tional and developmental experiencewith a bunch of very likable and talentedstudents. I never had that at the otherschools I went to afterwards.” His fa-vorite teacher was Mr. B.R.D. Day, whotaught French. He states, “I was uselessat his subject (well, I did learn enoughto order a meal in Paris and impress mywife!), but his classes I would look for-ward to, they were outstanding; sadly, Ilearned he passed away untimely severalyears ago.”

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STEVENS, Chris (1971 W)Chris lives in Australia with his wife,

Lin Lin and their 9 year old daughter,Rebecca. He works 4 nights a week andplays the Stock Market.

STEWART, Robert (1975 F)Recently found Old Suttonian, Robert

Stewart, is now based in Devon and isDirector, Naval Core Training Streamand Captain, Admiralty Interview Boardat the Royal Navy.

PEDGRIFT, Stephen (1966 L)Stephen worked in finance as a Char-

tered Accountant for a multinational inSwitzerland from 1972, until recent re-tirement. Now enjoying the newly dis-covered free time.

POLLOCK, Alastair (1982 C)Is qualified as a Town Planner and

currently works as a Housing StrategyCoordinator in the Thames Gateway,South Essex sub-region. Alastair hastwo boys, Angus, 10 years old and Jamie7. He lives in Hollingbourne and whilstworking still enjoys windsurfing onCamber Sands or watching cricket atLord’s Cricket Ground, where he is for-tunate to be a full member.

PATEL, Yakesh Shanti (1990 C)Yakesh is living in Tanzania and CEO

of 2F Company Ltd (trading) and Pro-Signs and Prints Ltd (manufacture ofsigns and printing). He played cricketfor Tanzania and East and CentralAfrica from 1990 to 2002 and repre-sented East and Central Africa in 1994(Kenya), 1997 (Malaysia) and 2001(Canada) in ICC Cricket Mini WorldCups.

SAREMI, Kevin (1978 W)Kevin’s website is up and running

www.futurehealth1.com.

SARONY, Neville (1958 M) Dan Shepherd (1994 B), Leo Kung

(1976 W) and Dr David Wong (1985 C)attended Neville’s book signing for his

first published work of fiction TheDharma Expedient at Dymocks Bookstore in the International Finance Cen-tre, Hong Kong in December 2012. Thebook is also for sale through Amazon.

SECRETT, Mark (1936 M)On leaving Sutton Valence at 18 years

old, Mark soon found something thatneeded doing on his 112 acres of rentedfarmland, his place of birth, Richmond,Surrey.

The fields were to be laid out to growvegetables for the London market. Themove was from a small market-gardenalongside Mitcham Common. His elderbrother, Francis Secrett (1933 M) wasalready busy there. One of three sepa-rate growers, his Father (the Governor)had a stand in Covent Garden Market.They supplied wholesalers there daily,using their own lorry.

Later, they moved, bit by bit, to a farmgrowing principally strawberries. Hisbrother, Francis moved to farm inWales. WW2 Surrey War Agric Com-mittee put Mark in charge of 16 acres ofundeveloped farmland. This was an op-portunity to start on his own. He dealtwith a nearby wholesaler and also part-lorry loads for Covent Garden. This was1950 and quite a venture. Geologically

Neville with Dan Shepherd (1994 B), Polly and Elliot

Neville with Dr David Wong (1985 C)

Neville with Leo Kung (1976 W)

Dharma expedient

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July 2013

dry, the ‘stream’ did not flow much insummertime (at this lower Bourne vil-lage) – whereas water once poured upfrom a manhole at the most useful cen-tre of the farm. His two workers lived inSchool Road which bordered Mark asdid the primary school itself.

Stream Farm played its part in the wareffort. On the biggest field he grew fineleeks in quantity that just struck theLondon market right. At this time, hischildren, Susan and Jeremy were bornand he made good friends there too.

He then moved to Essex, Hill Farm, of80 acres not far from his wife’s parents’corn-growing holding, where he tried hishand at growing wheat and briefly cab-bage for seed for nearby producerSeedsmen.

TASSELL, Nicholas (1990 W)After a law degree and law school

Nick has been in various roles and cur-rently works for a private equity firm inLondon. He moved to Kingston-upon-Thames 20 years ago and somehow hasnever left! He has a seven year old sonJoseph who keeps him more than busy!Nick keeps in very close touch with LizPerks (nee New) (1991 V) and CharlesEvans (1991 L).

TURNER, Alex (1987 L)

Alex is still an in-vestigator for thepolice. He lost hissight two and a halfyears ago and isabout to start clini-

cal trials to find a cure for a particulareye condition.

USENDORFF, David (1982 L)David now lives in South Africa and is

a PGA golf professional. He is also the

editor of Corporate Golf, website -www.corporategolfmag.com.

WILD, Samantha formally CrispinNAISMITH (1967 W)

After 45 years of receiving the OSNewsletter, Samantha thought it abouttime to update her Old Suttonian pro-file.

She recalls the last thing the thenHeadmaster, C R Evers said to her was“off to join the Rolling Stones now areyou Naismith?”

Samantha writes: ‘Whilst I didn’t jointhe Stones, I might argue that my lifewas somewhat more unconventionalthan most. After being persuaded byanother OS that Sandhurst wasn’t reallyfor me and thereafter enjoying a briefspell at Harrods Estates, I went on toread law and estate management atLondon University. In the late ‘70s I setup a successful engineering company, fi-nally selling out in 1983 after becominginvolved with the aviation industry. Thistook me to Africa and the Middle East,where I became interested in commodi-

ties and finally ending up in Dubai,which was then a small town full of op-portunity for a budding Arabist entre-preneur. Through a chance meetingwith a VIP, I became involved with Iranand was subsequently invited to join theboard of a Norwegian oil company,where I spent some eight years beforebeing seconded to live in Geneva as ad-visor and confidant to the sister of KingFahd bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud; verynearly ending up as a member of theSaudi Arabian royal family.

In 1995, I resigned and after returningto the UK I undertook a dramaticlifestyle change becoming Samantha“Crissy” Wild, which was a somewhatcontroversial, complex and dauntingmove in those days. As a woman andpart time mature student, I decided togo back to University in 2001 where Igained a BSc First Class Honours inBusiness Information Technology, aPhD offer and a brief interest in politicsculminating in my candidature for Con-servative Member of Parliament, until Ibecame disillusioned. Along with someformer colleagues from other industriesand backgrounds, I established CWCGulf Consulting, which has been suc-cessful in identifying and developingmajor project opportunities for clients inthe Middle East and beyond. I have alsodeveloped a keen interest in writing po-etry, some of which may be found on-line.

Recently visiting the Swan Inn at Sut-ton Valence and chatting innocently asone does to an OS who happened to bein the bar, I mentioned I was visiting myold school and we went through a num-ber of names we both knew from the pe-riod. When I left he was most perplexedand said whilst scratching his head, “butthey didn’t have girls in the school atthat time”. To which I simply smiled.

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I shall always be grateful to the Schoolfor some of the most important things itgave me… confidence, a belief in one’sself and always to be a free thinkingspirit.

WILLDRIDGE, William (2001 L)

William is currently serving in theBritish Army with 2 Royal Anglian. Inthe photograph from left to right:

Katie Willdridge (William’s wife),Paul Phillips - holding daughter Ella(2001 L) and married to Alexa Philips(née Carmichael) (2001 C), CharlotteLyon (née Foreman) (2001 S), AndyLyon (2001 F), Rob Hunt – holding babyDylan (2001 W), Mara Hunt, DavidMartin (2001 M), Sarah Johnston, SteveJohnston – holding baby Josh (2001 M),William Willdridge (2001 L).

WILLIAMSON, Richard (Dick) (1950M)Dick has just published a history of his

home village, Ramsden, on the fringe ofthe Cotswolds, which has been inhabitedby 300-400 souls for over 2000 years. Acommittee, which he has chaired, hasbeen working on this for over 12 yearsand their average age has been nearer80 than 70. Dick was the editor, re-searched and wrote a number of chap-ters, and ended up being the publisher.The book has received excellent reviewsand has more than paid for itself.

WINWOOD, Mark (1979 F)After graduating from Canterbury Art

College in 1983, Mark spent 20 years inLondon as a graphic designer. Mark re-ceived a D and AD Award in 1986 andset up a design consultancy 'The ThirdMan Ltd' in 1987.

Preferring to get out a bit more, in2000 he became a freelance photogra-pher. His client list ranges from the BBCto Dorling Kindersley and from HestonBlumenthal to the RHS. His photogra-phy goes all over the world: from Amer-ica to Kazakhstan.

Mark moved back to Kent in 2005 andlives in Stone in Oxney with his wifeLizzie and her son Hugo, where theyhave a small holding. Spare time re-volves around music and movement.Mark keeps in touch with a number ofOld Suttonians: Andrew Waters (1985M), Jim Cooke (1979 M), William Gal-ton (1984 M), James Hodges (1980 F),bumping in to many more along the way.Mark would like to say “hello” to An-drew Croucher (1978 F).

WU, Ronnie (1987 M)

Ronnie is married with 3 children,aged 3, 5 and 7. He lives in Hong Kongand is in the asset management industryand travels quite often.

BirthsASUR on 1st May 2012, to Timur

Asar (1993 M) and Kelly Asar, a girl,Orla Jasmine Asar.

BILLS on 18th March 2013, toNicholas Bills (1992 W) and CharlotteBills (née Bashham) (1992 S), a boyGilbert Thomas Kenneth Michael Bills.A brother to Jacqueline, Megan, Angusand Isabelle.

EASTER on 14th October 2012, toGilly and Rupert Easter (1981 W), a girl,Cleopatra Cordelia Easter. A sister forWulfstan and Dorothy.

HINCHEY on 10th October 2012 toDarren and Janine Hinchey (née Taylor)(1991 V), a girl, Lara Elizabeth Hinchey.

JOHNSTON on 6th April 2012 toSteven Johnston (2001 M) and SarahJohnston, a boy, Joshua Arran Johnston.

WEST on 20th June 2012, to PhilippaWest (2000 V) and Robert Henderson,a girl, Isabelle Lily.

MarriagesGIRLING-HOUGH in September

2009. Richard Girling (1989 M) toMelissa Hough.

JOHNSTON-RITSON on 1st May2010. Steven Johnston (2001 M) toSarah Ritson. Steve met Sarah at Uni-versity. (see also births).

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July 2013

From left to right: Alexa Phillips (néeCarmichael) (2001 V), Edward Boyle(2001 F), Kirsty Gillies (née Johnston)(1999 H), Gordon Griffin (1999 L),John Arthur (2001 W), Steven Johnston(2001 M), Sarah Johnston (née Ritson),Andrew Lyon (2001 F), Charlotte Lyon(née Foreman) (2001 S), David Martin(2001 M), Robert Hunt (2001 W),Catherine Birch (2001 V), Paul Phillips(2001 L), Katie Gornall (2001 V), So-phie Sleeman (née Moore) (2001 V).

KNOWLES-FENNELL on 4th August2012. Simon Knowles (2000 F) to LucyCharlotte Fennell. Michael Knowles(2001 F) and Richard Bradstock (2000L) were Best Men. Also, attended byWilliam Richardson (2000 F), HollyFletcher (2000 V), Stuart Watson (1998L), Becky Watson (née Pragnell) (1998H). Marquee and hire equipment pro-vided by Tom Brooks (2003 G). Thewedding took place at the Great Barn,Rolvenden, Kent.

DeathsATKINSON, Cedric (1963 M), died

16th November 2012.

BEDFORD, Alan Geoffrey (1944 W),died 30th March 2013.Alan died peacefully on 30 March

aged 85. Entering Lambe's in 1937, hemoved to St Margaret's in 1940 and leftSchool in 1944. He will be particularlyremembered at School for his numeroussporting achievements in a wide range ofsports. He was awarded 1st XI cricket,1st XV rugby, and Athletics colours, andalso played rugby for Eastern CountiesPublic Schools. He started work for thePrudential in 1944 before undertakinghis National Service as a subaltern withthe Essex Regiment from 1945 until1948. He returned to the Prudential andremained with them until his retirementin 1988, and all this time he retained alove of sport being captain of S Wood-ford RUFC and also representing Essexand E Counties at rugby, now at seniorlevel. It was at the Prudential that he

met his wife, Pat, whom he married in1954. Work with the Prudential involvednumerous moves around the country,and whilst living in the SE he gave histime to local issues, being a councillorwith Chislehurst and Sidcup UDC andhe also acted as a governor for localschools there. He lived the last 16 yearsvery happily in Marnhull, Dorset. Heremained passionate about gardeningand the state of English rugby right tothe end! He is survived by Pat, and theirchildren Nigel and Susan.

BETTS, James (1948 M), died 17thMarch 2013.

BUDD, Roger Francis (1952 M), died11th April 2013.Roger went to St John’s Cambridge

(Robins Exhibition) where he studiedRussian and French. After NationalService as a sub lieutenant in the Navy,he went briefly into the Colonial Servicethen worked for ICI, but he spent thebulk of his working career in the serviceof the British Council. That took him allover the world, mostly in African coun-

Johnston - Ritson wedding

38


tries, but also in Asia. He was in chargeof the British Council in Pakistan for awhile after 1985.

BUTLER, Alan Burr (1948 W), diedMarch 2013. Alan’s grand-daughter andwidow visited the School in April.

DANIELS, Leslie (1953 F), died 23rdAugust 2009

At a recent ceremony in Headcornparish church, a Sacristan’s Chair wasdedicated as follows:

In grateful memory of Leslie JamesDaniels 1936-2009, who for over 60years served God and his fellow parish-ioner’s in this place.

ERICSON, Carl (1956 L), died 10thFebruary 2013.

“I first met Carl when he attemptedto form a Glee Club at Sutton Valence,although pressure of his work took overhis activities. In later years, we stayedwith Carl and his wife Penny in Londonwhen they came over to attend an exhi-bition given by his daughter, Juliana.Everyone should know a Carl Ericson.Always interesting, kind and thoughtful.Good company and a good man. I feel

most fortunate to have known him.”Written by John Johnson (1956 W)

Carl earned a PhD. from Queen MaryCollege (University of London, Eng-land). He moved from San Diego, Cali-fornia in 1966 to become a member ofthe History Department at the Univer-sity of New Brunswick where he taughtEnglish Legal History, The History ofThe Tudors and Stuarts, as well as, TheHistory of Music. He retired from UNBin 1999.

Carl's avocation had always beenmusic. He minored in music at the East-man School of Music at The Universityof Rochester, where he earned his Bach-elor Degree. He augmented his knowl-edge of music as a Visiting Fellow atHarvard University. Although an organscholar in his youth, he spent the major-ity of his life singing tenor. He studiedwith the Tanglewood Festival Chorus(home of the Boston Symphony Orches-tra) for three summers and later movedto join The New Philharmonia Chorusin London, England. In NB, he spenteight years singing with the chorus inLameque at the International BaroqueMusic Festival. In Fredericton, he was asteadfast member of the choir of ChristChurch Cathedral. Carl's commitmentto music included service with Commu-nity Concerts, Music on the Hill, and theNB Summer Music Festival.

Carl was an Officer of the VenerableOrder of St. John and was awarded theSt. John Ambulance Long ServiceMedal, as well as, the Queen ElizabethGold Jubilee Medal in 2003. He enjoyedthe fellowship of The FrederictonGarrison Club and The Golden Club.

HANWORTH, Bob (Ex-Staff)Mr R H Hanworth, who passed away

recently, was known universally by boys

and staff alike as Bob Hanworth. Hecame to Sutton Valence School in c1955as the new Head of the English Depart-ment and he stayed for a further tenyears or so. Throughout his time at theschool he was a breath of fresh air com-pared to the rather austere conditionsthat prevailed at that time at SuttonValence, as in other public schools. Agood all-round games player, Bob wasimmediately put in charge of U16cricket, U16 rugby and U16 hockey. Hisfirst love was squash, which he may havelearnt as a boy at Brentwood School andwhich he would have certainly played atSidney Sussex, Cambridge.

Bob is often remembered for the qual-ity of his teaching which was rated thenand now as exceptionally good. His les-sons were non-threatening and comfort-able. Listening to him talk and learningfrom what he said was largely effortless.He knew his subject extremely well. Hewould sit on the edge of the master’sdesk, normally dressed in a short sleevedpullover, and show us how to analyse aline of prose or poetry, and where nec-essary, how to analyse a single word. Hemade it all seem easy. It was of coursenot so easy when we, his students, had todo it on our own! He particularly en-joyed looking at various plays with us,such as Shakespeare’s ‘Coriolanus’ orthe Restoration comedies. His interestin drama meant he was very supportiveof any dramatic production at SuttonValence and eventually, in 1960, he be-came the producer of the annual schoolplay, something he continued to do athis next teaching appointment, MalvernCollege.

Bob’s involvement in the life of theschool went further, for he was AssistantHouse Master in St Margaret’s and acommissioned officer in the CCF andmany of us got to know Bob in these two

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July 2013

capacities as well. Always professionalin his manner in the classroom andaround the school, Bob had an easy stylenevertheless which made it easy for boysto speak to him. His love of laughterwas never far below the surface andthose of us who were Prefects inSt Margaret’s got to know him especiallywell for occasionally, at the end of theday, as we went between the LowerDorm and the Labs, we would meet himcoming out of his flat and he would askus how our day had gone, and some-times he would tell us something of hisday, such as a round of golf, or an inter-view he had attended. He in fact re-minded us of the wider world outside –something it was easy to forget in thosedays in a boarding school. I also got toknow Bob because my last appointmentin the CCF was Sergeant in charge ofSchool Drill, and I reported directly toCaptain Hanworth. He was alwayshelpful, but was never over-bearing.Once he saw that I knew what to do, hewould leave me to it.

A number of us knew Bob, not onlybecause we studied his subject at ‘A’Level, but because he invited us to jointhe Lit Soc (The Literary Society) whichmet on a Sunday evening in his flat,where we would look at poetry, proseand plays. We would always end up witha glass or two of cider and chocolatewholemeal biscuits. An even smallergroup met on a Thursday evening inBob’s flat, during Second Prep, for hehad invited us to attempt the ‘S’ Levelpaper in English. For those of us in theLower Sixth and still in the Dayroom, al-beit the Senior Dayroom, as a result of alarge year group and a distinct shortageof Shows, these extra English sessionson a Thursday or a Sunday were a realtreat, for Bob’s flat had a carpet, a sofaand a gas fire! It is interesting to notethat, to my knowledge, no one ever mis-

behaved on a Sunday evening, despitethe glasses of cider, or on a Thursdayevening, or indeed in an English lessonin the classroom, and I put this down tothe great respect we all had for Bob andthe fact that we greatly appreciated allthe help he was giving us with ourEnglish. No one would want to lose allthat. As with other students I am sure,Bob encouraged me with my academicstudies by entering me for ‘S’ Level Eng-lish, by encouraging intellectual curios-ity and by creating the right atmospherefor learning and study. In a way, he gaveus a taste of university life and let us feelit was something to which we could as-pire.

My wife and I visited Bob at his housein a village just outside Malvern a fewyears ago and it was a joy to find himlooking so young and fit, for he was justcoming up for 80 at that time. His lighttouch and ready laugh were very muchin evidence, even though his memorywas not so good. He had a great impacton my life at Sutton Valence and with-out his influence and encouragement, Idoubt whether I would have gone to uni-versity. I was so glad to have the oppor-tunity to tell him all this – at last – whenmy wife and in saw him in 2008. By Richard Mant (1961 M)

LAWMAN, Peter (1933 W), died 23rdNovember 2011.Peter had a distinguished career at

School, rising to become Head of Schooland being the winner of several prizeson Speech days. Despite being princi-pally an academic, he competed in ath-letics for the School and most sports forhis house, but his favourite was shoot-ing. He was a sergeant in the CCF.

After school he went into the RoyalNavy (Fleet Air Arm), in which servicehe served in WW2 and afterwards, ris-

ing to the rank of Commander. Hisyounger brother Michael was killed inthat conflict. After retiring in 1965, hestarted a second career in the Civil Serv-ice, before retiring to Tenterden.

MACILWAINE, Frances (Ex-Staff),died peacefully 17th December 2012. Frances Daly was the Sanatorium Sis-

ter in the sixties before marrying PatrickMacIlwaine, Housemaster of St Mar-garet’s in 1968. She much enjoyed hertime at the School and maintained an in-terest right up until her death. After thedeath of her second husband Patrick in1992, she donated a cup to the Schoolfor success in Hockey. Patrick had for along time taken a keen interest inhockey at the School during his time asa master.

NEAL, Stephen (1969 L), sadly passedaway 8th June 2012 after a short illness.

After leaving Sutton Valence, Steveattended Swansea College of Art, andthen subsequently gained a teachingdiploma, in order to teach art at a localsecondary school.

After a year of teaching Steve realisedhe would not be truly happy unless hewas immersed in art as a full-time ca-reer, and although he continued to workas a supply teacher for a short period, heleft full-time teaching to develop hissculpting skills.

40


He continued his work as a sculptor,and in 1976 he also bought an art shopand gallery in Bognor Regis, which heran successfully for 26 years. In 2002 hesold his shop, to concentrate on devel-oping his painting skills, and, from hisworkshop at home, he also ran a fram-ing and art restoration business.

Steve became a talented painter, ex-hibiting and selling his work in many gal-leries throughout West Sussex andCornwall. His later years were doggedby ill-health, but it was a shock to all whoknew him when he died following a briefillness.

His daughters, Harriet and Charlotteheld a memorial exhibition of Steve’swork in Chichester, West Sussex.

PITT, Peter (1971 C), died 1st March2012. Peter was series producer of‘Close Up North’ (Leeds) and BBCSouthampton.

POTTER, Kenneth (1931 DB), died8th March 2012.

Lt Col Kenneth Potter MBE, the sonof a Royal Naval officer, was born atGravesend, Kent on June 20 1915 andgrew up on his grandfather’s fruit farmat Ulcombe, Kent. At School, he wasonce told by his Latin master that hewould never be able to grasp the lan-guage, so was sent to extra wood andmetal work classes instead. This nodoubt developed his early interest in en-gineering and mechanics.

In July 1940, Potter volunteered forservice, having returned from Francewith the 98th Field Regiment. In Feb-ruary 1941, with a workshop increasedin manpower and equipment, Potter leftNairobi for Mogadishu and beyond. AtHarrar he was given the job of startingup a small Ordnance Depot, re-equip-ping some of his own units, togetherwith repairing and evacuating largenumbers of captured enemy guns andsmall arms. By mid-May in 1941, withfour European NCOs and a handful ofAfricans, he was supplying the whole ofthe East African forces in Abyssinia.

Arriving in Addis Ababa later thatyear, he was tasked with combining theresources of the three other mobileworkshops with his own, to form a baseworkshop for the entire Force in theNorthern region. It was here that Potterdesigned a mounting to enable capturedItalian 20mm aircraft cannons normallyfitted into the wings of the Italian fight-ers, to be used against the German divebombers in the Western Desert. This re-quired much inventive engineering sincethe guns had no stocks. His guns weresuccessful, however, and he wasawarded the MBE.

In May 1943, at the age of 27, he wasappointed Commander East AfricanElectrical and Mechanical Engineers,promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and

joined the 11th East Africa division. Fol-lowing extensive jungle training in Cey-lon, he then served in Burma with thatdivision for the rest of the war.

Discharged from service, in October1946 Potter joined Regent Oil Com-pany, thus beginning a 34 year career inthe oil industry. In 1960 he joined theContinental Oil Company of Delaware(later to become Conoco) in their newlyformed London office. At his interview,when asked what languages he couldspeak he replied, “reasonable French,Spanish, a little Italian and of course,Swahili”. The Managing Director re-sponded to him in Swahili. Rather takenaback, but after only a moment’s hesita-tion, he confidently replied. Needless tosay he got the job and saw the three manBerkeley Square office expand by theacquisition of Jet Petroleum.

In retirement he worked as a consult-ant in the LPG field, travelling toYemen, India and Sudan. A member ofEffingham Golf Club, he played until hewas 90 and was a past Captain of the OilIndustries Club Golfing Society.

He enjoyed an active life and in hislater years took up painting and wood-carving and developed his keen interestin gardening.

In 1995 he wrote his war memoirs fora BBC project commemorating the fifti-eth anniversary of the end of World WarII, which makes fascinating reading andcan still be found online.

RAMAGE, Donald (1949 M), died23rd September 2012. On leaving theschool he became a trooper in 1st RoyalTank Corps, then went on to work forthe North Thames Gas Board (where hewas office manager).

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SCOTT, Paul (1945 M), died 16th Oc-tober 2011.

SOLOMON, Godfrey (1964 M), died20th June 2011. Godfrey was at theSchool during the war and rememberedthe New Zealander Rugby players help-ing with the coaching, as they were sta-tioned nearby. He was having breakfastone morning, in Lambe’s in those days,when he returned to his room he foundthe ceiling on his bed. A doodlebug hadjust exploded near the strawberry patch,now the Astro.

After National service, during whichhe was in charge of German prisoners ofwar clearing up bomb damage in Ham-burg, he went into the family businesssupplying marquees and event planningto such prestigious customers as Buck-ingham Palace and Royal Ascot. Hemarried Norunn, an air stewardess, andthey spent a great deal of time travellingthe world on their holidays, especially onthe great Liners. When retired, he gavehis services to the community, workingfor the local Citizen’s Advice Bureau,but he always retained time to play golfat Burhill, where he was a member since1969.

THOMPSON, John (1938 M), died24th July 2012 after a short illness.

John lived a full, active and happylife. John was a keen sports person play-ing cricket and rugby for the School, healso demonstrated excellent potentialfor athletics. On leaving school, Johnjoined the Hampshire Athletics club,where he excelled at long jump.

John had a passion for aeroplanes andenlisted into the RAF in 1940, such washis determination to fly that he wentthrough his medicals without wearingglasses. Later, this was realised, howeverthe eager candidate was allowed the op-portunity to fly with close monitoringfrom the MO, as a result, other menwith glasses were eventually trained aspilots.

During service, John flew a wide rangeof aeroplanes in a variety of squadrons.In August 1941, he was ‘reported miss-ing’ following a forced landing inPortugal, en route to the Middle East.John escaped with the assistance of theRoyal Navy and returned to the UK.Following this incident, all future flyingtrips had to be limited to within ourshores. In the UK, John continued to ex-perience an array of duties and ex-panded his pilot’s skills on furtheraircraft. Eventually, he became a testpilot for Westland, testing a combinedtotal of 770 Spitfires and Seafires.

After his demobilisation in 1946, Johnwas instrumental in establishing thePortsmouth Aero Club and continuedworking in the aeroplane industry. As avolunteer, he spent 23 years piloting theRed Devils Parachute Team around thecountry and inspired others with his pas-sion as an officer with the RAF Volun-teer Training Reserve. John retired in1986, having spent 22 years at HawkerSiddeley in Hatfield as a flight Opera-tions Officer. During this period, hetravelled extensively and demonstrated

the HS 125 at Air Shows.

Upon retirement, John returned toHampshire and continued to benefitfrom an active, eventful, healthy andhappy family life with his wife Joan. Heembarked on numerous adventures andparticularly enjoyed sharing his aircraftknowledge and assisting numerous indi-viduals with their aviation research ref-erencing WW2 incidents and airplanes.

John leaves a wife, 3 children, 2 stepchildren, 10 grandchildren and 5 greatgrandchildren.

THORPE, Peter (1936 W), died 11thNovember 2012.

Peter was in the Officer TraineeCadets while at Sutton Valence and afterleaving the School, he joinedWestminster Bank in Battle and, in hiswords, earned the princely sum of £5 permonth.

He enlisted at the start of the war as aprivate in the Royal Artillery. He wasinitially on a gun site in the Thames areaand then went to the Middle East andNorth Africa. Peter was selected to takepart in a highly secret mission to removeKing Faruk, who was somewhat partialto the German cause. He also fought inthe battle of El Alamein and the siege ofTobruk. After 7 years’ service, Peter leftthe army in 1946. He never spoke abouthis war years.

Peter then joined the United AfricaCompany on the British Governmentsponsored ground-nut scheme inTanganika. It was here that the wrongtreatment of a sore on his leg resulted inthree years in and out of hospital inTanganika, France and England. Whilein hospital in England, Peter met hiswife, Jean and that was the beginning of

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a relationship that was to result in 61years of happy marriage.

Peter was only in the UK for a shorttime and left his wife in England to havetheir first child; she joined him inBasutoland when the child was only 10weeks old. Peter met her off the shipand they travelled the 2000kms over 3days by steam train to their first home,which was a rondavel. A rondavel is atraditional round stone hut with a grassor thatch roof, with no running water.

In 1967 after the declaration of UDI,onto South Africa where they lived inKwa Zulu Natal for 30 years, and hadtheir own business. Finally as the windsof change that blew down the Africancontinent reached South Africa, Peterdecided in 1997 to make one final move,after a total of 53 years in Africa, thistime to his beloved England.

Peter lived his life by a set of princi-ples and under that gentlemanly smilingexterior was a strong willed man whoseprinciples and values were immovable.Truth, loyalty, hard work and re-spect......overlain by a wonderful senseof humour.

There was however a certain stub-bornness, which resulted in part to hisZulu name. Amongst the Zulus it is anhonour to be given a nickname, butwhich to them is a mark of respect. Oneof Peter’s sons, Mike was Igelegehle,which is the boy of the weaver birds.Peter’s wife was Mpookenyoni, whichmeans bushbaby and another son wasMkulu Mahlebe, which is the one withthe big ears. Initially his son was deeplyoffended by this because he felt that hisfather’s ears were much bigger than hisbut no, Peter’s Zulu name wasMbongolo which means Donkey. A fineset of ears, stubbornness, dependability

and loyalty are what earned him this.However, he also had another namewhich was Nkulu or Baba Nkulu, whichis the ultimate respect and endearmentas the Great Father or the Great One.

Peter was intensely loyal to hisbeloved England. A few years ago,when his son was visiting, he expressedamazement at how well they had settled.Peter’s response was, "The weather isdamnably awful, but I am so happy to beback amongst my own people". Peterhad been repeatedly described as thePerfect English Gentleman. He was wellmannered, and had utter respect for hisfellow human beings, no matter whattheir background or circumstance.Hardworking, kind, generous and godfearing.

TURNER, Peter (1940 W), died 3rdOctober 2012.

Peter Turner attended Sutton Valencefrom 1938 to 1942, winning a scholarshipto the School from St Bede’s Prepara-tory School, Eastbourne, and joinedWestminster House.

His family have sent us a number ofpictures of Peter from his time at SVS,including a Westminster House photo-graph from 1938; pictures of an open-airdrama production on Prefects’ Lawn;and Peter in Cadet uniform, on guardduty, outside the fully sandbaggedshower/changing rooms of WestminsterHouse, from around 1940.

Following his time at SVS, Peterjoined the RAF, originally hoping to be-come a pilot. However, a previously un-known eye condition prevented this, andinstead he became a sergeant mechanic.He was based for most of his time in theRAF Lossiemouth and Kinloss airbasesin Morayshire, servicing heavy bombers,such as Lancasters and Stirlings.

After the war, he joined the family lawfirm, Kingsbury and Turner, with offices

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July 2013

in Brixton, Clapham and latterlyBeckenham; following in the footstepsof his father and grandfather. He qual-ified as a solicitor in 1950. In the sameyear he married Muriel Fell, known asMim, and they went on to have threechildren, Anne, Penny and John.

John followed in his father’s footsteps,attending SVS (Westminster House, ofcourse!) from 1973 to 1978, also winninga scholarship from St Bede’s, and thenqualifying as a solicitor in 1984 and join-ing his father in practice for two years,before moving to Manchester.

In 1986 Peter retired from full-timelaw practice and became a consultantwith the firm of Tinklin Springall inBeckenham, and then in 1995 he andMim moved to the village of Myddle, afew miles north of Shrewsbury, to becloser to their children’s families.

A lifelong Rotarian, Peter was a mem-ber of the Brixton club for many years,holding the office of president on twooccasions – as his father had done be-fore him. A family record which it is be-

lieved is unique in the annals of Rotary.After moving to Myddle, Peter joinedthe local Probus club in the nearby townof Wem, and was President of the club afew years ago. The Rotary motto of“Service above Self” could have beenwritten for Peter, and he lived his life infulfilment of this ideal, which was obvi-ous to fellow professionals, business col-leagues, clients and friends, many ofwhom have sent warm tributes to thefamily on his death.

Sadly Mim died very suddenly in 2005a few weeks after her 80th birthday. Al-though devastated by this loss, Peter re-mained true to the promise they hadmade to each other and continued toenjoy his dancing, Probus and other ac-tivities, and visiting and being visited byhis six grandchildren.

He died peacefully in his sleep on the3rd October 2012, after a few months’illness

Peter was an enthusiastic supporter ofthe School and kept in touch with SVSand with OS events throughout his life,particularly when John was at theSchool. His favourite blazer proudlybore the SVS crest on the breast pocket.The family were delighted to inform theSchool that Peter has left a legacy in hisWill for the benefit of the WilliamLambe Society to provide bursaries forthe sons of Old Suttonians attending theSchool.

One of the most fitting tributes toPeter came from his nephew, himself asolicitor, who described him as “one ofthe last of the generation of the greatgentleman solicitors”, and as his daugh-ter Anne summed up in her address atthe memorial service, he was “a truegentleman and a gentle man”.

WARD, Herbert (1924), died 2001.

WATTS, David (1931 M), died 28thJanuary 2013

David Watts with a School plaque onhis 100th birthday

David celebrated his 100th birthdayon 23rd December 2012, where closefamily gathered and then with a muchlarger group on 6th January. His familyand David were overwhelmed with vari-ous items that the School put togetherin a parcel for him.

He received a telegram from theQueen and many other cards and thelarge card that was signed by staff andpupils of Sutton Valence, took pride ofplace alongside the Queen’s.

David attended Sutton Valence from1926 - 1931, coming from KingsmeadSchool, a prep school in the Wirral. Hewent on to St Peter's College, Oxfordand eventually taught for many years atBishops Diocesan College, Rondebosch,Cape Town. He became something ofan authority on the geography of SouthAfrica. Maths and Geography were, hissubjects, and wrote the entry for Cham-bers Encyclopaedia on the Geography

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of South Africa around 1950. He wassubsequently elected as a Fellow of theRoyal Geographical Society. He becamean authority on South African birdsong,in particular, making many thousands ofrecordings from the earliest days of taperecorders until the 1980s. His extensivearchive is now in the National SoundArchive at the British Library, and theyhave released a number of his record-ings on the 'Beautiful Birdsongs of theWorld' series - whilst researchers con-tinue to use his material.

He left Bishops in South Africa in1948 having spent the war years in theRoyal Navy in Durban. He returned tothe UK to become the Headmaster ofKingsmead School in the Wirral, aschool founded by his father ArthurWatts, in 1904. David Watts was head-master of Kingsmead from 1949-1979.He lived out his retirement in NorthWales, sorting through his tapes (hewent on safari to South Africa every fewyears to build up his work there) and inthe last five years he lived in Halifax.

He was a very good sportsman whenyoung, representing the School at bothrugby and cricket, in which latter sporthe excelled, scoring a hundred against astrong OS side, and keeping wicket veryproficiently. He played a season aswicket keeper for Cheshire CountyCricket Club. He was a good player in aweak School Rugby XV. Inevitably itwas his good defence which shone,though he did score some good tries.He retained his interest in sport afterSchool in the UK and in Cape Town.

His family told us that David ab-solutely loved his time at Sutton Va-lence. His younger brother Ian alsoattended the School, dying in 1997, atthe age of 90.

Our centenary year, well the centenaryof Cricket Week, was, as we all know,one of the wettest since, funnily enough,1912. The Times of 27 August 1912thundered, “we shall in due course ob-tain full and accurate records of thiswretched August” and it was in factrecorded as being the coldest andwettest on record. So much for thoseglorious summers of our youth, whenthe sun always shone.

As it happened, the weather had rela-tively little effect on OS cricket this year.The match against the School was calledoff about dawn with conditions unlikelyto dry sufficiently. The much anticipatedsecond tour of Somerset will remain an-ticipated in 2013. In spite of RichardBradstock’s heroic promptings, only 8players made the commitment, and itwas called off about a week beforehand.Reasons not entirely clear, possibly theOlympics, or recessionary hard times,but let’s hope it can happen in 2013.

So we moved straight into the Week.And remarkably not a minute was lost tobad weather. The first match was our oldfriends the Scorpions. Nigel Wheeler al-ways says it’s a struggle to get a side to-gether but invariably turns up withenough stars to put us in our places. Al-though, sadly, as noted below, he hasnow decided that time is up, and theScorpion has stung its last victim(groan).

The wickets this year were slow, testi-mony to the regular drenching, and al-though a score of 261-3 looks quitecommanding theirs was a gently paced

affair, only liven up at the end by a rapid66 not out from their number 5. Scorpi-ons included their former Zimbabweaninternational, Andy Waller, again thisyear and although he underperformedwith the bat (a mere 36), he, along withanother wily old spinner Paddy Butlerput a stranglehold on the OS innings. Anumber got started but no-one stayedlong enough and we subsided to 197. Itwould have been rather less but for a re-markable cameo from Ben Bardsley atnumber 11. Remarkable for one simplereason. Ten weeks earlier he had beenshot and then airlifted from Afghanistanin a coma, and was, in truth, lucky to bealive. Little short of miraculous that hewas able to play sport so soon after-wards.

On the Sunday we celebrated the cen-tenary of the Week with a gentle 20/20match in the morning, followed by aBBQ lunch and some presentations. Wehad hoped to play another match in theafternoon, along the lines of over 30 vUnder 30 but a number of dropouts inthe days before left numbers short,which was a great pity. However, themorning match was great fun. We endedup with 13 a side as players kept arrivingand played it as pairs, with each pair bat-ting for 4 overs and runs being deductedfor wickets taken. The 13th man battedon his own with a runner.

The intention was for the bowling tobe matched to the batting, but this didn’tlast long. In fact not as long as the firstover, Henry Macdonald and RichardMemmott (combined age not muchshort of 140) were confronted byRichard Fetherston who seemed keen toprove a point and bowled Henry severaltimes that over. It was extremely amus-ing, if you weren’t Henry. Subsequentchallenges included Andrew Scott andBob Chance facing the bowling of Philip

Report on OSCricket 2012

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July 2013

Another century by an opening bats-man the following day as Braddersblazed his way to137 against PeterDavies’ XI. The opening partnership puton exactly 100 of which Matthew Day’scontribution was 21, and when the sec-ond wicket fell at 176 it was Braddershimself. No reflection on Matthew, orMichael Coles at number 3, as they lethurricane Bradstock get on with it. Wecalled time at 263-7. In previous years ei-ther Dave or Sean Charlton (sons of OSPhilip) have done a Bradstock on us, butSean wasn’t available this year and Davesuccumbed rather early, which unfortu-nately meant that the only issue at stakewas what time we would get to the pub.

And so to The Dragons. Traditionallythe strongest opposition of the week,they have lost the last few and wereclearly determined on revenge. For thethird day running the batsman receivingthe first ball of the day hit a 100. On aflat track and fast outfield (at last) Drag-ons declared on exactly 300 after 50overs, having gone into lunch at a mere196-1. They declared well before thehalf way point, which gave us longenough to go for the runs, and but alsolong enough for them to bowl us out.Supporters of limited overs cricketplease pay attention here!!

Lots of outcomes possible, but thisturned out to be one of the best gamesplayed on Upper for some time. Sufficeto say that it ebbed and flowed. PatStileman and Chris Vernon put on 183for the first wicket in a patient 36 oversto give us time and wickets to reach thetarget. But we then lost three wickets(including Pat for 122) with the score on228 and it started to look a bit morechallenging. George Palmer andMatthew Day got us within sight of vic-tory, but then a further wobble, leavingIan Harrison at number 9 having to go

in with the scores level, and 8 balls left.He played out the over, leaving MatthewDay to hit the winning boundary with 3balls to spare. Fantastic match, greatdeclaration, right spirit, mutual respectbetween teams, cricket was a winner, etcetc.

A postscript to the game. TheDragons arranged a combined teamphotograph at lunchtime, which we as-sumed was simply for them as a souvenirof their tour. But no, at the end of thematch the photographer reappearedwith it framed, and it was presented tothe OS. Nice touch, and much appreci-ated.

As I write there are plans to give it aprominent spot in the Pavilion so hope itwill be there for all to see in 2013.

Also as I write is some news just in.Marden have indicated that they mightnot renew the fixture next year, becauseof the difficulty in raising a side. Thedays of the local farmers taking time offfrom harvesting have long gone. Thishas been raised before. We have playedthem since 1957, and given the stronglinks with the club, whether cricket orhockey it will be a sad loss if it happens.

And to compound it, as noted above,Nigel Wheeler, the founder, chairmanand organiser of the Scorpions CC haswritten to David Bunker informing himthat he has decided to declare time after46 years, mainly because of the difficul-ties in raising sides.

Nigel, Edward Craven’s nephew, wasstill at School at Lancing in 1967 whenhe brought a side to SV to play theSchool in their cricket week at the endof term. The team became theScorpions and in 1970 they started play-ing against the OS as well. Nigel has col-

Higgins and Tony Rutherford. Fortu-nately the scores were not recorded forposterity, but all agreed it was good fun.

At lunch there was a presentation cer-emony to mark contributions to OScricket, based loosely on appearances,runs scored, wickets taken, catches andstumpings. Each individual received aglass plaque inscribed with theirachievements. The full list is reproducedbelow. Over 80 OS and family attendedand there was some excellent reminisc-ing.

On the following day we were at Mar-den, a fixture that seems to have gonewith home advantage for the last fewyears. This year it looked no differentwith OS 32-4 (with OS Sam Courtleydealing with both openers) chasing 166.Fortunately Bradders was in a belliger-ent mood and with help from Tim Wattsfor most of the way steered us home, al-beit with a couple of late scares courtesyof Mr Courtley again.

The Mote match, originally scheduledas an 11.30 start, became a 40 over af-ternoon affair. Both teams struggled toget full teams out so it became 9 a side.The 9 OS looked a pretty strong line upand all the batsmen chipped in to get usto 209. Mote galloped to 60 after 10overs but a great spell by Michael Colesreined them in. As often happens wick-ets fell at the other end and we ended upwinning by 49 runs.

On the Friday Blair Hart’s East KentAll Stars XI was, once again, a bit toostrong for us, and although Chris Ver-non recorded his second 50 in two days,and James Watson weighed in with 86,we still fell 22 runs short. When I sayBlair’s XI was too strong, strictly thatmeans their opener Ben Easton, whocontributed a handy 150 out of 261.

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that they want to do so, but without acore of people playing regularly it will behard to maintain.

For 2013 the Dragons would like tomove the match to be the first day oftheir Tour, which would be the first Sun-day of the Week. The likely outcome isthat we start that day, hope that Mardenreconsider, then play Roffensians on thesecond Sunday. But we do need to be onthe lookout for new fixtures and thatneeds to come from the current crop ofplayers.

On the support side Philip Higgins didpretty well all the umpiring singlehand-edly (including standing at both ends onoccasions), and Ian Avery and hisgrounds team prepared wickets as wellas the vile weather in the weeks before-hand had allowed and our continuing

thanks to them. For the first time formany years members of the Bunker andHigh family were unavailable to do thecatering and fortunately John Devineand his team from the School were ableto step in.

And a particular thank you this year toSimon Dyke for updating all the recordsand establishing the landmarks for thepresentations.

Finally, as ever, thanks go to theHeadmaster for making Upper availableto us. Fortunately he has agreed to do soagain next year. Let’s make sure that thestandard and quantity of OS does thevenue justice.

Desmond High (1973 F)November 2012

lected Scorpions from a variety ofplaces, starting at Lancing, and includ-ing, but not confined to Cambridge (firstdegree), Oxford (Post grad) and East-bourne College where he was master i/ccricket for 20 years or more. A few OShave also played for them, notablyNeville Harrison, Andrew Scott, DavidBunker and Desmond High, and Nigelalso guested on a few occasions for theOS. As for the cricket, it has been un-failing cheerful and good humoured,and generally a pretty good standard.

So where does that leave us for thenext 100 years of OS Cricket Weeks? Wehave struggled to get sides out, as havemost of our opposition, and it is sad toreflect that many of our current stars,excellent cricketers in their 20s and early30s, are turning up for OS Week to havetheir first game of the season. It is great

11 August Scorpions 261-3 dec Lost by64 runs

13 August Marden 166 (N Richards 4-42) Won by5 wickets

15 August OS 209 (C Vernon 51) Won by 49 runs

16 August Blair Hart All Stars XI 261-7(Easter 150) (46 overs)

Lost by22 runs

17 August OS 266-7 (45 overs) (Bradstock137)

Won by 138 runs

14 August Dragons 300-5 dec Won by 3 wickets

OS 197

OS 170-5 (R Bradstock 77no)

The Mote 160

OS 239 (J Watson 86, Vernon )

P Davies XI 128

OS 304-7 (Stileman 122, Vernon 77)

2012 results in summary. Won 4, Lost 2. Oddly enough the matches had identical results to 2011.

Michael BeamanPeter BoormanRichard BradstockDavid BunkerMatthew Day

Andrew DixonDavid FosterPhilip GoddardNeville HarrisonRobin Hearn

Philip HigginsDesmond HighRupert HumphreyPaul LathamNeil Richards

Tony RutherfordJames Sandbrook-PriceAndrew Scott

Awards went to:

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July 2013

Nigel Wheeler’s letter to David Bunker

Dear David

I write very reluctantly but with clarity of mind that the Scorpions must declare their innings closed.

For 46 years I have brought sides to Upper for fixtures and there have been some tremendous days, lots of fun and good laughs. We have seen Dixon and Scottie in their prime smite our bowling all over the field, we have watched “The Judge” struggle for those wickets, Glover crash the ball (and smash his car) we have seen class players and cheerful “also rans” play for both sides. We have tried all kinds of playing rules, we have watched rain fall and sunshine beam. We think of Uncle Edward, of Charlie, of players since gone from the game and some of course soldiering on most impressively even into their seventies.

It becomes harder to enjoy producing sides. The panic and frustrations always occur but the end product is always also a pleasure. I feel that younger players need to be almost bribed to play and understandably they don’t have the same feel for the club and the need to standby commitments as was the case in former days.

I can think of a side or two who may replace us….. younger OEs [(Eastbournians] who have set up a couple of their own clubs; you may have obvious candidates to fit in instead of us already.

It is sad for me to write this letter. OS v Scorpions has been a major part of my cricketing life. The first game in 1967 was an N L Wheeler XI v The School and for a few years we played both the boys and the Old Boys. We made friends and have managed to wheel out some of our older folk on occasions but I feel that now is the time to close the book.

Enormous thanks to you and to Des especially for your hospitality and generosity over the years. No doubt we shall meet up soon.

Very best wishes

Nigel

Congratulations to the Old Suttonians Cricket teamwho beat the School team in June 2013. Old Suttoniansbatted first, made 247-3 with superb hundreds from HarryBee & Ben Leale-Green, then the School scored 139 allout after good bowling from Chris Vernon (3-19), BenPrice (3-39), Ben Regan (2-9) and Sam Courtley (1-8).

OS v School Cricket

An OS and Parent Golf day was held in October 2012.Two teams of four OS played Stableford format at ChartHills Golf Club.

OS and ParentGolf Day

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Through Linkedin, Facebook andphysical, rather than ‘virtual’, get-to-gethers, we have seen an increased num-ber of Old Suttonians this year and, incollaboration with the Old Suttonians’Association, hope to expand the numberof these opportunities over the next yearor two.

Many Old Suttonians and parentshave also given to the Annual Fund, forwhich the School is very grateful. Dur-ing the summer break, the PreparatorySchool will gain an outside classroomand the Senior School, shading over theseating area outside TC’s.

In the penultimate week of the sum-mer term, I, along with many other staff,joined parents and the Upper Sixth atthe Leavers’ Service. Watching the con-flicting emotions of both parents andstudents as they realised that they wereactually leaving this place, I was struckby their strong sense of family and fel-lowship. Amongst their tears, yet ea-gerness to be off, many vowed to stay intouch with staff and to return to School.And I hope they do.

In Stratford–upon-Avon recently, Re-becca and I met OS and their familiesfor a tour of Shakespeare’s town, fol-lowed by lunch. We were pleased to seeold friends, but also to make acquain-tance with several new ones. All were inagreement that regional reunions servea very valuable purpose. Not only dothey provide a more local venue for

those unable to travel far, but they alsobring together more diverse groups,united by their interest in the place wevisit and the fact that it is an ‘OldSchool’ event. That tie and familiarityensures that whoever is there, whatevertheir age, there will always be someoneto talk to who has shared similar experi-ences.

Much of our activity in the Develop-ment Office is about encouraging thissense of belonging and a pride in havingcome from an institution that has servedOld Suttonians well, and is still doing sofor current generations.

Floreat Suttona

News from the School Goat has grazing rights on School lawn

Development News 2013

No-one at theSchool can re-member it hap-pening before,but on the daythat the UpperSixth Form stu-dents left to goon study leavefor their A Lev-

els, the three Heads of School exercisedtheir alleged ‘right’ to graze a goat onPrefects’ Lawn.

In common with other independentschools, Sutton Valence has several ap-parent privileges given to the Head of

School, though some believe them to beapocryphal: being allowed to smoke apipe (now completely against theSchool’s standing as a ‘no smoking’ site);being allowed to grow a beard (clearly inplace before the School became co-ed-ucational!) and the keeping of a goat.

Watched by their peers and otherpupils, Sophie McGannan, Hugo Pear-son-Wood and Lewis Burnham, calmlywalked Alice, a pygmy goat, onto theusually prohibited Lawn situated in themiddle of the School, and waited to seewhat would happen.

Inevitably, Headmaster Bruce

Grindlay, got to hear about the strangegoings on and approached the party onthe Lawn, congratulating them on theiringenious way of celebrating the end oftheir formal time at Sutton Valence.“No longer an urban myth”, he laughed,“now every Head of School will have toconsider purchasing a goat!”

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July 2013

To me, feeling that you are making adifference is true job satisfaction.Nowhere is this more obvious to methan in our improving and deeply im-pressive external examination resultsthis year. This year, yet again, when theenvelopes were nervously opened in Au-gust, the GCSE and A Level results hadsurpassed previous years and were ourbest grades ever. In 2008 at GCSE weachieved 27% A*-A grades and 46% A-B grades at A Level. Last summer ourcohorts managed 41% A*-A grades atGCSE and 63% A*-B grades at A Level.

As you are aware, for me the impor-tant measure is how much we can im-prove the perceived academic profile ofour pupils. It is this measure, what iscalled “value added” in educational jar-gon, that Durham University measuresfor us. The gap between what the datatells us a pupil should achieve and whatthey actually go on to achieve is their“value added”. This year, the differencewe are making has been ranked byDurham University as “truly significant”not a statistical anomaly, not a fluke or ablip, but truly significant – I congratulateall of the pupils and thank the staffwholeheartedly for making this differ-ence.

Whilst I could lean back in my swivelchair and admire these successes, I donot intend to as there is always morethat we can do. We are currently rankedin the top 20% of Schools nationally forthe value added we bring to our pupils’results. However, I want us to move thatto being in the top 10% of Schools na-tionally within five years.

To aid this and to further strengthenour academic provision, I am delightedthat we have appointed Mr AdrianWyles to the newly-created position ofAcademic Deputy Headmaster fromSeptember and I thank the Governorsfor understanding what I am trying toachieve and aiding me in this vision.

This year 94% of our Upper Sixthhave applied and an impressive 45%have received Russell Group offers in-cluding Cambridge, King’s London, Im-perial, UCL, Bristol, Durham, Exeterand Liverpool. [Note: This is up from38% who went to Russell Group univer-sities in 2012, better, as a broad intakeschool, than any of the grammar schoolsin Kent.] We also have two industry-sponsored pupils going to Loughbor-ough and two who have managed tosecure places to read Medicine.

SV pupils have undertaken sportstours to Biarritz and Paris; charity workin India and charitable fund-raisingacross the south of England, throughour intrepid cycle ride to Land’s End.We have participated in exchanges withschools in Chicago, Spain, France andMartinique and taken academic trips toSt Petersburg, the Isle of Wight andWales.

As well as this, The Combined CadetForce and our Duke of Edinburghscheme have taken pupils on SummerCamps, to Bisley, Blandford, the LakeDistrict, and in a week’s time an intrepidcohort will be on its way to Brunei.

The high point for me of this year’s

CCF Biennial Inspection at Crowbor-ough was not the fact that I beat the in-specting officer, Colonel Hulme MBE inan archery competition, but the reporthe submitted to the MOD – I quote:

“I note an especially strong bond be-tween the School and its pupils. I haveno doubt that the CCF adds immensevalue to the development of the youngadults which form its core.

Overall this is a CCF detachmentwhich is performing very well and trulyadding value to the lives of its cadets. Imust compliment the pupils of theSchool, all of whom were thoroughlypleasant to talk to, articulate and ex-tremely engaging – a credit to the CCFand the School.”

I couldn’t agree more!

We have seen some real sporting highsthis academic year.

The Michaelmas Term saw our Rugbymove back up a notch led from the frontby an extremely successful 1st XV. Atone point the School was ranked sev-enth in the country and indeed deservedthis accolade for the attractive rugby itwas playing. However, instrumental inthe sports success were the 2nd and 3rdXVs and all of the year groups.

It was another remarkable season forGirls Hockey as the 1st were crownedCounty Indoor Champions, John TaylorRegional Champions and finished a verycommendable third in the regional finalsof the National Indoor competition, aswell as winning 70% of their regularblock fixtures.

Come the Lent Term and the boystook over the astroturf winning 59 oftheir 103 hockey matches. The 1st XI

Extract from the Headmaster’sReport: Speech Day 2013

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clocked up some impressive wins overHurstpierpoint, Eastbourne and King’sCanterbury, but it was the U13As whostole the show notching up an 88% winrate and being crowned the JohnMaylem County Champions.

Meanwhile, the girls enjoyed an excel-lent Netball season where the 1st VIIachieved an 83% win rate and enjoyed aEuropean flavour with fixtures againstthe British School of Brussels and acompetition at Disneyland Paris. Againour Second Form demonstrated howdeep their talent runs as the U13B teamwon the Weald of Kent Tournament.

Thankfully, the weather has allowedus to play more sport this summer thanwe managed in 2012. Our tennis teamshave done well at all levels and it is won-derful to see so many younger playersemerging. In Rounders the first teamhas notched up an 88% win rate with theintermediate teams recording thebiggest differentials this season inmatches against St John’s, Leatherhead,where the U15s won 33 to 9.5 and theU14s 22 to 8.

In cricket, with Warmlake up and run-ning as well as a new square at the topof BM, we are now capable of hostingfive home fixtures on grass wickets. Thenew nets near the astro have been ahuge benefit and all teams have pro-gressed nicely with some excellent crick-eters emerging throughout the yeargroups.

This year we have also managed tomake greater use of our fabulous athlet-ics track, not only in curriculum time,but also through hosting two athleticmeets at U14 and U15 levels againstKing’s Canterbury and King’sRochester, both of which we won.

Swimming continues to grow with clubsessions being run on a Monday eveningand Thursday lunchtime and we hope toextend this further in September. Thenumber of children training is growingand they are getting better with each ses-sion. The same is true of our seniorgolfers who are truly becoming a forceto be reckoned with.

Of course, sport is not the only activitypursued by SV pupils outside the class-room. This year, Drama has focused onmurder, corruption and uncontrolled as-pirations. December saw a wonderfulperformance of Macbeth. Henry Farmerwas magnificent as Macbeth, while therole of his queen was shared by EveGalpin and Georgina Poplett. All threeimpressed with the intensity of their per-formances and their clear and passion-ate delivery of Shakespeare’s lines.

More “bloodshed” – well “splurge-shed” for the pedants amongst us – fol-lowed earlier this week with the musicalBugsy Malone. This junior productionsaw William Grabowski, Sam Gray,Annabelle Blake and Eliza Lewis play-ing the leads in a hugely frothy show in-volving over 60 pupils from the firstthree forms.

In October, the Chapel Choir under-took a very successful tour of Cologneand the Michaelmas term was cappedoff with three truly wonderful CarolServices.

But it is our string players who havereally shone this year: Annabelle Pullargained a place to study violin at theWelsh College of Music and Drama;Anya Livtchak won two competitionsand was runner up in the Maidstone Ro-tary Young Musician of the Year. Butfor me the summation of all that hasbeen achieved musically this year was

the Lent concert.

This term the School has been review-ing its vision, mission and ethos state-ments to ensure that they aptly describewhat we are trying to achieve as a com-munity. After several drafts, our ethosstatement, explaining the special cultureand atmosphere we try and cultivate atSV simply reads: A community whereeach cares for all and individuality ischerished.

Adding value and making a differenceare all about caring and recognising anindividual’s particular quirks and pecca-dillos.

But, if all your attempts to make a dif-ference fail, perhaps resort to moderntechnology, ignore political correctnessand tell it as it is, as this well-publicised,fed up and despairing English teacherdid:

“Dear Pupils,

Having reviewed your essays, yet againI need to tell you this: A good rule ofthumb for essays is called the “mini-skirtrule” – they should be long enough tocover what needs to be covered andshort enough to be interesting. Formany of you, your essays were morecomparable to an “elderly, overweightman in Speedos” – too short, didn’tcover enough, indecent, sad and pa-thetic - whilst leaving nothing to theimagination!”

I thank you for listening and wish youa wonderful Summer.

Bruce Grindlay MA Cantab MusB FRCO CHMHeadmaster

If you wish to read the full content of Mr Grind-lay’s speech, this is available on the School’s web-site: www.svs.org.uk

51

July 2013

Sutton Valence is now in the top 20%of schools nationally for adding value toa pupil’s results. Having taken part inDurham University testing for severalyears and based on their thirty years ofdata, we are able to predict on entrywhat each child should be able toachieve at GCSE and A Level. By gen-tly raising the bar on successfully reach-

ing each target, pupils are able to exceedthese predictions.

On average the School adds 0.7 of agrade, per subject, per pupil, virtuallyensuring that they get better grades atSutton Valence than they would else-where. This is across the board, so notonly do our brightest children do well,

but the less able also achieve.

Last academic year, the grammar-equivalent set (many of whom have notpassed the 11+) gained 92% A* and Agrades at GCSE, beating all but themost academic grammar schools inKent. Similarly, at A Level the top setachieved 98% A* - B.

Academic

A summary of some of the highlightsthroughout the School year

A* - C 92%

A* - B 68%

A* - A 41%

A* 15%

A* - B 63%

A* - C 84%

Grammar-equivalent set gained 92% A* and A grades at GCSE30% of candidates achieved 6 or more A* and A gradesA* grades increased by 150% over 4 years

Grammar-equivalent set achieved 98% A*-B grades at A-Level13% of candidates achieved all A* and A grades58% improvement in A* to C grades in 6 years12% A* grades against a national average of 8%36% of students took up places at Russell Group universities

GCSE 2012

A Levels

SportSasha Erander, Upper Sixth, was se-

lected to represent the South East in anU18 Three Day Event.

The U16 girls’ hockey team reachedthe final of the Kent U16 Tournament.

Edward Bower and George Poland,Lower Sixth, were selected to representKent in the U18 rugby squad.

Henry Overy, Second Form and DanTeare, Third Form have been selectedfor Kent U14s.

The 1st XV rugby team recorded a 53-0 win over King’s Rochester.

Guy Thomas represented the KentSchools Athletics Team in Race Walkingand has gone on to receive two Englandcaps and has qualified for UK champi-onships.

Peter Bannister won two gold, two sil-ver and one bronze medal in the U18 Na-tional Kayaking Championships. He alsocame second in the National Marathon(13 miles running and kayaking).

Jamie Bryant represented the KentSchools Athletics in the English SchoolsCross Country.

The SVS Show Jumping Team wonfirst place at the Kent Inter Schoolscompetition in the team events andpicked up a 2nd place and two 5th placesin individual events.

The U16 netballers joined 50 netballteams at an International Netball Festi-val in Paris and managed to reach the fi-nals. They were given training by

52


England netball coaches and in theevenings were able to enjoy Disneyland.

The cricket teams have performedwell with a fine win over King’s Canter-bury and a draw with the MCC.

The School had an excellent showingat the Public Schools Fencing competi-tion. Over 130 schools took part, withnearly 1400 weapon entries.

After the first pool, Charlie Gellet,Fifth Form, was seeded number one inthe Junior Sabre class, as he had not hada point scored against him. Tim Feiner,Lower Sixth, also did very well, but wentout in the fourth round, ranked twenty-first.

Music

Annie Pullar, Upper Sixth, was madeLeader of the 2nd Violins in the KentYouth Orchestra.

William Moore has been selected forthe Kent Youth Wind Orchestra.

The Music Concert which included theSenior String Orchestra performing Vi-valdi’s Concerto for Four Violins, theChamber Orchestra performingShubert’s Symphony No 5 (FirstMovement) and the Chapel Choir per-forming Handel’s Zadok the Priest andMendelssohn’s Hear my Prayer, was ahuge success and of a very high standard.

Anya Livtchak (2nd Form violinist)won the Hastings Music Festival and wasrunner up in the Maidstone Young Mu-sician of the Year competition.

Six of the School's more advanced vi-olinists had the opportunity to play in aMasterclass with Professor NicholasMille, a well-known chamber musician,

who teaches violin at the Royal Acad-emy of Music.

CCF At Bisley this year the team had their

most successful year ever, winning allteam and individual competitions. Atthe bi-annual inspection the reviewingofficer Col S J Hulme MBE said “this isa CCF detachment that is performingvery well and truly adding value to thelives of its cadets. I have no doubt thatthe CCF is a central and integral partthe School; it is extremely well sup-ported and adds immense value to thedevelopment of the young adults whichform its core. Morale was extremelyhigh and I note an especially strongbond between the pupils and the School

James Aburn, Upper Sixth was se-lected to be the Lord Lieutenant ofKent’s Cadet of the Year, having re-ceived his Silver Wings and being askedthe Air Cadets National Concert Band.In recognition of his outstandingachievements he recently received theGeoffrey DeHavilland Flying Founda-tion Award.

Community

Sponsored Walk raised a very success-ful sum of just over £3,800, which wentto M4S (Maidstone Charity) and theLEAP schools.

Ten Fourth Form pupils went to Indiain the Easter Holidays, mixing workingwith underprivileged girls at a school inJaipur with exploring the famous goldentriangle and visiting the Taj Mahal.

Lower Sixth Form student, NicholasCain, worked at Sutton Valence PrimarySchool and in the words of the class

teacher, Mr Ben Mehrabian, ‘is a bril-liant young individual’. “Since I havebeen working here, we have had manyvery good students from Sutton Valenceworking with us,” he said. “But I havenever seen one quite so fantastic asNicholas.”

Lauren Cansick was a 2012 LondonAmbassador.

Dance, Drama and Art

Oli Dillon, Third Form, has playedFelix in his second series of The Sparti-cle Mystery, for the BBC, as well as anepisode of Casualty. Oli has Cystic Fi-brosis and is supported by the Schoolwith a reduced curriculum.

Olivia Humphrey, Upper Sixth, was afinalist in the Mid Kent branch of theNational Association of Decorative andFine Art Societies competition foryoung artist and photographers in theMaidstone area.

Dates for your diary

13th September 2013Prefects Reunion (leaving dates 2011-2013)

21st September 2013Yuppies Reunion (leaving dates 1981-2008)

1st-4th October 2013OS Battlefields Tour

11th October 2013OS Golf Day, Chart Hills Golf Club

17th October 2014100th Anniversary of CCF

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OS Newsletter - July 2013 (59)

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