The Salopian no. 145

WINTER 2009
I S S U E No . 1 4 5
School News
E D I TOR I A L
of tea ‘parties’ with the Taliban on his recent trip to Afghanistan.
Elsewhere in the issue Rob Wilson, a maths teacher like FMH
before him, describes the experience of taking Salopian boys to
Venezuela over the summer.
And what does all this show? Perhaps that despite the
apparent accessibility of all parts of the globe through the internet
and TV, the desire to go out and see the world for ourselves, learn
how others live their lives and how they view us from their
perspective is as strong as ever in the Salopian psyche. It is the
confidence to do this, the willingness to learn from the
experience, and the courage to abandon our own
preconceptions and prejudices, which must remain one of the
principal objects of the school which educated - or at any rate
hosted - Darwin.
A fifth former came into my study while I was writing this
editorial, asking for a suggestion for a poem to recite in next
term’s Bentley Elocution Competition. We carried out a sortes
Virgilianae on a handy poetry anthology, and the book fell open at
Tennyson’s Ulysses. A great Victorian poem about the spirit of
adventure written, as it happens, in the year that Churchill’s Hall
was built, this poem encapsulates perfectly the spirit of this issue:
Travel and adventure seem to be the theme of this winter issue of
The Salopian. As the wind and rain batter the Victorian buttresses
of Churchill’s Hall, the Severn overflows its banks and record
rainfalls threaten to flood the pitches and disrupt, for the second
year running, the eagerly-awaited end of term House matches,
reading through the proofs of this issue has transported me very
willingly to the warmer parts of the globe – Argentina, Venezuela,
even Afghanistan.
It is now nearly five years since the death of Michael Hall.
Outside the maths department he will be remembered by all his
pupils for Basic Year, and by a more select group for his biennial
‘Hall’s tours’, his unique brand of ‘unpackage’ tours to the remoter
and more dangerous parts of the world, where he practically
invented what has now become known as eco-tourism. Michael
was an organisational genius who planned meticulously and had an
uncanny knack of judging just how far off-piste it was possible to go
without falling off the edge, as it were - which would be much, much
further than anywhere our 21st century health and safety regime
would consider acceptable.
For many, the cover photo will no doubt bring back memories
of Basic Year, still going strong, though no longer compulsory as
it was when Michael Hall ran it. What does, however, remain
constant and unchanging is the beauty of the Shropshire
countryside. The centrepiece of this issue is an interview with one
of the greatest of modern travellers, Michael Palin, and the issue
closes with an almost surreal account by Mike Webb (S 2003-08)
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
EDITOR
Richard Hudson
Churchill’s Hall
Shrewsbury School
Shrewsbury
SY3 7AT
Tel: 01743 280630
[email protected]
ASSISTANT EDITOR
Annabel Warburg
OBITUARIES EDITOR
Richard Raven
Old salopian club
The Cottage
17 Ashton Road
Shrewsbury
SY3 7AP
Tel: 01743 280890
[email protected]
Cover photo: Salopians striding up
The Lawley. Photo by Mike Wade, to
whom we are indebted for many of
the photographs in this issue.
Masterclass with Julian Lloyd-Webber – Harry Sargeant (M) and a thoughtful John Moore,
Director of Music.
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School News
R E M E M B R A N C E S U N D AY 2 0 0 9
SHREWSBURY SCHOOL CHAPEL – SUNDAY 8 NOVEMBER 2009
ADDRESS GIVEN BY LT GENERAL SIR
PRESIDENT OF THE OLD SALOPIAN CLUB
CHRISTOPHER WALLACE, KBE,
would have the courage and steadfastness to do what they did and
are doing? I know I have. I have experienced danger and fear on
operations but never on the scale of those who fought in the two
world wars, neither have I been witness to such numbers of
casualties. My admiration for those who have endured the shell and
shock of war and whose resolution and spirit remained unbroken is
limitless.
But for me, there is more to Remembrance Sunday than
remembering. The Act of Remembrance provides opportunity to
reflect, and to remind ourselves of the horrors of war, and to commit
ourselves to do all that we can to avoid conflict. Furthermore, as
General Sir Bernard Paget said when addressing the School in
1948, “You could not have a better opportunity to learn to
appreciate the true values of life than you have here at Shrewsbury”.
Today, or on some other occasion, as you leave the Chapel
through the south door, you may care to pause briefly to reflect, for
what maybe the first time in your hurried lives, on the 321 names, to
your left and right, of the Old Salopians and Masters who died in the
First World War, including the School’s only two Victoria Cross
recipients. And when you next walk up Central, take time to examine
the same names on the base of Sir Philip Sidney’s statue and at the
wall behind recording the names of the 247 Old Salopians who died
in the Second World War.
Among them is M.H. Mosley, who was in Ridgemount as I was in
later years. Mosley, the only son of a bishop, was aged 27 when the
war began. He immediately considered it his duty to set aside his
intention to take holy orders and to join the Army. Two years later
Captain Mike Mosley MC of The Rifle Brigade was killed in action at
El Alamein in 1942. His body lies in the beautiful but dusty
Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery nearby. Most unusually, and
for reasons unknown, he shares a joint grave with Rifleman Tom
Wade. While Rifleman Wade was abroad his sister, Annie, used to
write to him on his parent’s behalf, presumably because they were
not literate enough to write themselves. When he was killed she
wrote:
As you would expect, I am delighted, as President of the Old
Salopian Club, to be speaking today in the School Chapel where I
sat and worshipped 50 years ago. I admit, too, that as a former
soldier, it has become something of a habit for me in recent years,
bordering upon the fulfilment of a duty to the fallen, to be standing
in a pulpit on Remembrance Sunday. However, I do not begin with a
biblical text but with a question.
Why do I – why do we – remember them?
Each one of us will have our own reasons. I am here, in particular, to
remember the three-quarters of a million British Servicemen and
women killed in the First World War and the quarter of a million in
the Second World War. I remember the 16,000 who have died in
conflicts around the world since 1945. I remember Gunner Utteridge
of the Royal Horse Artillery who, in 1984, was shot dead by an IRA
sniper in West Belfast while under my command. I remember the 94
killed in Afghanistan since the beginning of this year 23 of them
from my own regiment, The Rifles – the regiment whose cap badge
is, I hope, proudly worn by the School CCF.
But quoting facts and figures does not answer the question why do
I – why do we – remember them?
Gratitude and Respect immediately spring to mind. Gratitude that,
in this country’s hour of need in the countless conflicts in which we
have been involved since 1914, men and women of all
backgrounds should have taken up arms and, in many cases,
sacrificed their lives so that we should be free to govern ourselves
and not be dictated to by others. Respect because we owe it to
them. To forget – the opposite of ‘to remember’ – would, in my view,
be unforgivable. To quote from John McCrae’s evocative poem, In
Flanders Fields:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
As I am speaking, the crowds will be congregating in Whitehall in
readiness for one of the most important acts of Remembrance that
will occur today. When members of the Royal Family and others lay
their wreaths by the Cenotaph, they will be doing so not on their
own behalf but on behalf of the Nation – on behalf of us. It is we
who now carry the torch and whose responsibility it is “to hold it
high”. Those who died for us did so in full knowledge of Jesus’s
words as read earlier by the Headmaster, that:
A loving son how we miss him
None but aching hearts can tell
We have lost him
Heaven has found him
Jesus doeth all things well.
As I end my address, I would like to think that, in this troubled
world, Jesus will continue to “doeth all things well” and offer solace
to “aching hearts” by finding a place in Heaven for all those
servicemen and women who, in conflict, sacrifice their lives for
others. I would also like to think that if again the call to arms should
come, there will be many in this congregation, like M.H. Mosley,
prepared to put their lives on the line for their friends and our
Country. And should they die that we will not hesitate, individually
and collectively, to remember them.
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man
lay down his life for his friends
We were and are their friends and we should remember them.
But I believe response to the question why do I and why do we
remember them? stretches beyond Gratitude and Respect to
Admiration and Apprehension. Surely there can be few here today
who are not in awe of the bravery and professionalism of those who
have given their lives for our country and who continue to do so in
Afghanistan. But how many of us have questioned whether we
3
School News
E XTENDED PR OJECT
A LEVEL CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENTS
2010 sees the introduction of the A* grade in the Sixth Form, but
Max Emmerich (Rt) and Gessica Howarth (MSH) gained
Shrewsbury’s first sixth form A* grades a year early via the
Extended Project Qualification. The Extended Project was an
exciting new addition to our curriculum last year and carries the
same tariff as an AS examination. It was offered in the Lower Sixth
and allowed pupils to pursue an area of particular interest to them
beyond the curriculum, leading to the production of a 5,000 word
dissertation and a ten-minute presentation to an audience. The
dissertation provides a very effective vehicle for developing many of
the research and investigation skills which are valued by
universities, and the extended project also provides the pupils with
a specific area of expertise to talk about at university interviews.
Max’s dissertation was on the chemistry of aspirin, whilst Gessica
investigated the mathematics of music, and both produced work of
undergraduate quality and depth. In all, seven pupils took the
qualification and the other topics investigated were the chemistry of
wine, stem cells, treatment of arthritis, medical imaging and fruit
ripening.
The current Lower Sixth are starting to embark on this year’s
extended projects and the popularity has increased, with around
Max Emmerich (Rt) and Gessica Howarth (MSH)
twenty pupils undertaking research in a range of areas across
Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics, Physics and History.
Martin Cropper
A VE
Steve Biggins arrived as Master in Charge
of Football via a successful pre-season
tour to La Manga, Spain.
After completing his Further Education in
Sunderland, Steve spent two years
teaching at Shire Oak Grammar School
and played non-league football for
Hednesford Town. While at Hednesford he
was spotted by the manager of
Shrewsbury Town FC and joined them in
1977. The following year he helped them to
win the third division title. In 1984 he joined
Oxford United FC, once again winning the
third division. Another of Steve’s highlights
was knocking Manchester United out of
the FA Cup with a resounding winning
header. He finished the year as the Club’s
all time leading goal-scorer.
After two years with Derby County and
half a season at Trelleborg FF, Sweden,
Steve hung up his professional boots in
1986. He then went on to teach at The Old
Hall Preparatory School in Wellington for
the next twenty-two years.
Steve is an A Licence Football Coach,
and over the last twelve tears he has
coached many age groups at the
Shrewsbury Town FC Centre of Excellence.
He played for Shrewsbury Cricket Club for
many years and is a keen participant in
outdoor pursuits. His hobbies are
gardening, DIY and listening to jazz –
particularly when his daughter is singing!
He is married to Wendy and has a
daughter, Rebecca and a son, Daniel, who
is a former Shrewsbury School pupil (PH).
James Brydon joins the French Faculty
from Magdalen College, Oxford, where he
has been working on a doctorate on the
influence of World War II upon French
literature. Although this is his first position
in a secondary school, he has previously
taught languages in China and Hungary
and to undergraduates in Oxford.
His main interests are playing the piano,
racket sports such as badminton and
squash, and crosswords. He is one of The
Spectator’s four regular compilers,
freelances some work to other publications
such as The Guardian and The Times, and
remains hopeful of introducing a few
Salopians to the joys of cryptic
crosswords.
He is married to Danica, another
doctoral candidate, who is trying to teach
him Serbian.
The new Bordeaux Fellow, Virginie
Fiorucci, writes: “I was born and grew up
4
in Apt in Provence. I have two older brothers
and a little sister. My parents are retired now,
but my father was a pilot instructor and my
mother was a teacher. I have lived in
Avignon for five years, where I have been
completing my Masters degree in criminal
law and in the law of cultural heritage.
My aim is to become a judge specialising
in juvenile law in France. I have been living
in Bordeaux for the last year, studying for
the exam to enter the magistrates’ school.
Coming to Shrewsbury School is a real
chance for me to improve my English,
work with teenagers and finally live in my
favourite country. I already have a little
experience with children because I used to
be a babysitter in France and I was an au
pair in Sheffield last summer. But teaching
teenagers is a very different and interesting
experience, which, I am sure, will help me
in my future job!
I have played the piano since I was six
and I have also done jazz dance for five
years. I love to cook, especially French
pâtisseries and Creole cuisine from the
Reunion Islands, where my mother comes
from. I am very much enjoying life at
Shrewsbury, where making friends is really
easy and students are nice and so
talented.”
School News
Paul Greetham has been appointed as
the new Director of Sport. An interview with
him can be found on page 25.
Richard Johnson joins the Chemistry
Faculty and writes that: “After stepping off
the aeroplane in July to a gloomy British
sky, it was tempting to buy a next day
return back to West Africa, where I had
been teaching in a local school as a VSO
volunteer for eighteen months.
Apart from my time in Bolgatanga,
Upper East Ghana, my life seems to have
been a general drift northward. Born and
bred on the Isle of Wight, the salty air
became less evident when I studied
Medical Biochemistry followed by a PGCE
in Chemistry at the University of Bristol. My
next four years at Cheltenham College as
resident housemaster were a hectic but
enjoyable time. I came to appreciate the
boarding environment, organised and
involved myself with a whole range of
outdoor pursuits, was master i/c of
photography and developed my rowing
coaching to the 1st VIII level. All or some of
these will no doubt be called upon as my
time at Shrewsbury proceeds.
Outside the classroom I keep as active
as possible by cycling, running, climbing,
adventure racing and playing tennis but, as
a water baby, still relish the chance to dive
into the swimming pool, go for an early
morning scull or battle the fluky winds of
Lake Bala on my windsurfer. Luckily, my
girlfriend Sarah, a hydrogeologist, is more
likely to join me than offer up more sedate
alternatives.”
Anna Kendrick is the 2009/10 Harvard
Fellow. She has joined the English and
History Faculties and will be helping to
coach the girls’ rowing programme. At
Harvard, Anna was captain of the women’s
varsity rowing team, Radcliffe Crew, and
will wax passionately on the beauty of
Boston’s Charles River – whether at dawn,
under mist, in blinding afternoon light –
though she will be the first to admit that the
Severn does have its charm.
While working in England brings its own
brand of culture shock, Anna is no stranger
to living abroad. As an undergraduate, she
spent long stints in Chile, India and Spain.
This last experience, a semester studying
at the University of Granada, inspired her to
focus her academic work on the confluence
of poetry and politics in early 20th century
European literatures, specifically those of
Britain, Ireland and Spain.
Anna is keen to get out on her new bike
and explore the Shropshire hills, as well as
to venture further afield. During the
Michaelmas exeat, Anna attended a
conference on European expansion and
cultural exchange at Berlin’s Institute of
Cultural Diplomacy. Back at Shrewsbury,
having visited both the Shewsy and
Talargerwyn in her first month and
successfully completing the Tucks, she is
feeling well inducted into the life of the
School.
Jeremy Lucas is one of two new members
of the Maths Faculty. Having read Law at
Manchester University with an army
bursary, he entered RMA Sandhurst on the
graduate course and subsequently joined
his regiment, 16th/5th The Queen’s Royal
Lancers in Germany. After five years of
“learning how to run away from the
Soviets”, he then saw operational action in
the first Gulf War (1992), operating behind
the Iraqi lines, attempting to evade the US
planes whilst reporting on Iraqi troop
movements on the Kuwait/Iraq border
areas. Following the indulgence of this
taste for lunacy, he then transferred
regiments and spent his final six months
in the army serving in operations in
Northern Ireland, working with Special
Forces, Special Branch and MI5 (aka
Pol Pot).
Following his army career, Jeremy then
entered the highly dangerous profession of
accountancy. After training with Coopers
and Lybrand, he pursued a career that
combined financial, business and
operational management with companies
ranging from newspapers, advertising, the
Schools Inspectorate and project
management, resulting in the Finance
Directorship of a roofing company.
Deciding that the working hours in
commerce were too long, Jeremy then left
to pursue a third career as a schoolmaster.
His first position was at Dean Close
School, Cheltenham, after which he
moved to Trinity School, Croydon – a
boys’ independent day school – to teach
maths, tutor 20+ boys, take a bit of
games (hockey, rugby and cricket),
instruct some dinghy sailing and scuba
diving, command the RAF section (of 80+
cadets), and assist with some music
(jazz) and drama (as director). In his
spare time he played a few rubbers of
bridge with some of the junior boys at
lunchtimes.
Jeremy joins Shrewsbury with his wife
Domini, who is hoping now to see a little
more of him, and their dog Alfie, who has
become a regular visitor to the boys in
Moser’s Hall.
5
Jason Stanley has joined the Geography
Faculty. He writes: “I was educated at
Portsmouth Grammar School, where
alongside a burgeoning fascination for
people, places and features of the world, I
developed a passion for all things
outdoors, including the CCF, D of E (I’m
proud to say I gained the Gold Award) and
Ten Tors. So what better course to pursue
at university than Geography?
So I headed down to the South West
(Exeter to be precise) and spent a fantastic
three years studying for a BSc in
Geography whilst also being a fully paidup member of the University Boat Club
and Officer Training Corps. During this time
I was commissioned as an Officer in the
Territorial Army (in which I am still serving)
and was involved in expeditions to
locations as far south as Cape Town and
as far north as Reykjavik.
On leaving Exeter, I took a gap year
combining travel in Canada and work in
the insurance sector, after which I resolved
never to do a desk job ever again! All of
the above inspired me to do a PGCE at
Oxford University, which I completed in
July of this year.
Beyond my somewhat blatant
enthusiasm for the great outdoors and
sport (I’m really looking forward to
assisting with the CCF, D of E and the Hunt
at Shrewsbury), I have a growing interest in
politics, current affairs and travel literature.”
Mike Wade has joined the Maths Faculty,
having taken an unofficial sabbatical after
nine years at Sherborne School in Dorset.
He graduated as a Wrangler from Jesus
College Cambridge, stayed on an extra
year to do Part III Maths and then escaped
to Durham University for a PhD in High
Energy Physics.
At Sherborne Mike helped run the
Expedition Section of the Duke of
Edinburgh’s Silver Award, trained Ten Tors
teams for the boarding house where he
tutored, organised and participated in
numerous hiking trips for charity or just for
fun, managed the 3rd XI hockey and took
over 17,000 photographs of school
activities.
Mike has a passion for wild country and
likes nothing better than spending a week
or more backpacking in the mountains,
taking photos to make into landscape
panoramas. Recent trips have taken him to
the Rockies, the Southern Alps, the
Cordillera Real, the Pyrenees, Tasmania
and Corsica.
Mike is currently the resident tutor in
Oldham’s, helps out with Basic Year,
School News
assists with boys’ hockey and has already
taken over 1500 photographs in his first
half term. He has just volunteered to
organise some Silver Duke of Edinburgh
expeditions and would like to get the
Rovers going again in some form or other.
Nick Wakeling has joined the English
Faculty. Originally hailing from South
London, he was educated at Tonbridge
School and Trinity College, Oxford before
V ALE
spending a year in Bath balancing the
contrasting demands of property
development and an MA in Creative
Writing. He is a keen rugby player and is
looking forward to coaching next term. His
cricketing skills frequently fail to match his
enthusiasm for the game and he has often
found himself in the role of specialist
number eleven batsman and third man
fielder.
As someone who is particularly
interested in contemporary poetry and has
grappled with his own writing, Nick hopes
to help nurture the talents of any Salopian
writers inspired to follow in the footsteps of
Sir Philip Sidney. He has an active interest
in the theatre, having acted (badly) and
directed (very occasionally) at university.
He is enjoying getting to know
Shrewsbury’s latest generation of actors in
Third Form Drama sessions on Thursday
afternoons.
THE COMMON ROOM
Alan and Janet Hayes have worked at
Shrewsbury for thirty-five and twenty years
respectively.
Janet was for all that time Matron of the
Sanatorium, stand-by, helper, watcher,
carer; wakeful through the night, fostering
generations of Salopians back to health.
Alan spent his whole career at
Shrewsbury, teaching Mathematical
conundra and displaying a backroom
dedication that schools such as
Shrewsbury depend on for their depth.
Generous to colleagues, generous to
pupils, generous in the House – taking
Churchill’s boys on numerous trips; and
week by week with whistle in hand
managing those feisty Second XI
matches. For over 20 years he coped in
his mild unflappable manner with the
incredible obstacles posed by the
School’s timetable. Memorably, Alan is
one of the few surviving comrades of the
original Basic year – when Basic year was
the real thing – a close friend, faculty
colleague and fellow Churchill’s Hall tutor
with the legendar, Michael ‘Fred’ Hall,
never happier than when striding over
Cadr Idris in a storm or camping in the
Brecon Beacons in a July monsoon.
With Alan’s departure, the average
height of the Maths Faculty has fallen a
very long way. As the restoration of the
house in Grangefields Road continues,
lesser mortals whisper that this land was
once the haunt of giants.
.
One could easily write a book about Mark
Lascelles’s career at Shrewsbury. From
the confident deputy Head of House who
told Richard Raven, then the Second
Master, to ‘Naff off’ after a refereeing row
– to the young Durham graduate who was
persuaded by Hugh Ramsbotham to
come and teach for a term (and who
always maintained that he was going to
leave and study the law), Mark was taken
on by Gordon Woods, Head of
Geography. Together they built up the
Geography Faculty from a ‘mere upland
stream’ into a ‘veritable Ox-bow lake’ –
despite the fact that Mark himself does
not enjoy fieldwork.
Mark’s forthright approach and his
unwillingness to accept second best has
been hard to ignore – whether by boys or
staff. As Master in Charge of Cricket, Fives
and recently of Football, his contribution to
the School’s success on the national
sporting stage has been historic. Very few
football teams can boast of his record – not
least that of reaching the Quarter Final of
the ESFA last year. There were countless
victories too at the National Fives
Championships and in the Arthur Dunn
Cup – along with many others.
But on his appointment as Housemaster to the Grove, Mark vowed to
maintain the values of that House – by
focusing on its music and its drama. And
truth to tell, music and drama flourished
under his sensitive tutelage. But it was in
the games field where the Grove became
a mighty force. There were few budding
sports scholars who did not scorn other
more palatial dwellings simply to be with
the best known sporting housemaster in
England.
The announcement of Mark’s departure
has left such a gap that the School has
resorted to three new appointments in
order to fill it: a new Grove housemaster, a
new geographer and a new master in
charge of football. We shall miss those
Lewins ties and shirts and those volcanic
outbursts, which one could almost set
one’s watch by. Mark has left Shrewsbury
to take up the position of Deputy
Headmaster at King‘s School, Canterbury,
but knowing how much of Mark’s life has
been bound up with Shrewsbury School.
6
An extract from Mark Lascelles’s
leaving address is reproduced below:
‘It is difficult to know where to start and I
have no wish to drag you through a blowby-blow account of my life at Shrewsbury,
but I do think that I owe you all an
explanation for my behaviour over the last
17 years. It started though with Hugh
Ramsbotham and School House. If it
hadn’t been for him, and his
recommendation that I should head for
Durham University to read Geography,
and David Gee who tapped into the old
boys’ network and persuaded them to
take an unworthy candidate, then none of
this would have happened and I would
not have ended up teaching here. So, I
suppose that you should blame them.
Durham itself passed in a blur: no work,
great football and a viva at the end of my
time. You may be surprised to know that I
was not on the Ist/ 2i boundary; the board
stated: 2ii/3/RP and I will never forget my
inquisitor’s first line: “Well Mr Lascelles,
you write nicely, but it is quite clear that
you have done little, if any, work in your
time here. What have you been doing”.
“Football,” I replied, and we then
decanted to The New Inn for the second
half of my interview and it turned out that
he was a football fanatic. Without this bit
of luck, I would not have come here, so
you could blame him.
From there it was into the world of
employment and still I had no idea what I
wanted to do. Vague thoughts of the City
or law abounded, but the search for a job
was lent a little more immediacy by my
levels of debt, an inappropriate girlfriend
and the fact that I couldn’t face living at
home. And then the phone went and it
was that man Ramsbotham again:
“Would I like to fill in at Shrewsbury for a
couple of terms, coaching sport and
teaching a little Geography?” Two terms
School News
turned into two years, as Ted Maidment
offered me a job, and now I am in my
seventeenth year, still coaching sport and
teaching a little Geography. In fact, I must
be the only person who has ever been
promoted and ended up having to teach
more!
And the more I coached and the more I
taught the more I realised that teaching
was for me and that it is a hugely
rewarding profession.
I started at the bottom and when I
embarked on my first few terms here, I
little thought that I would move on from
coaching the U14B teams for football and
cricket to becoming Master in Charge of
Football, Cricket and Fives and that I
would coach the First team in all of these
sports. I never thought that I would move
on from being a School House tutor, to
assistant Housemaster under the guru
Giles Bell, who claims that he taught me
everything I know, to become
Housemaster of The Grove. I still
remember Peter Fanning’s face, unable to
hide his feelings of horror and despair
that the house famous for music, drama
and all things cultural was passing on to
someone who would transform the house
into a cultural desert.
Married in August 2003, we were in a
boarding house just a month later and I
am incredibly grateful to Amber for
making so many sacrifices along the way.
At times it has been tough, particularly
with Alexandra, affectionately known
around The Grove as ‘the little turd’, as
she just would not sleep, but we really do
feel hugely privileged to have lived in the
house and, whilst not all of you will have
appreciated Grove boys all of the time –
and neither have I – they have been great
fun.’
It is difficult to believe that the
irreplaceable Louis Dunn was only eight
years at Shrewsbury School. He was one
of the finest recent examples of a rapidlyvanishing breed of bachelor
schoolmasters who placed service to the
school community before any ambitions
for career advancement. A story is told,
apocryphal no doubt, but in essence true,
that Julian Walton, the then Head of
Chemistry asked who was the man
asleep on the Common Room sofa. He
was told that the man had come to
interview for a position in the modern
languages department, drunk a glass or
two too many the night before and was
now auditioning for the part of heir to the
late Michael Hall. And although their
characters were very different, he was in
many ways a worthy heir to the great
FMH, to whom he was a close friend in
his declining years: a planet-sized brain, a
polymath, capable of being enthused by
any subject, his conversation slipping
seamlessly from rugby to Dostoyevsky,
equally at home in Russian, French or
English – sorry, Scottish.
Louis was one of those larger-than-life
characters whose departure has in some
indefineable but palpable way robbed the
staff room of some of its colour. Accident
prone – on several occasions he tried to
run over Second Master, Stephen Holroyd
– a nicotine-stained polyglot (he speaks
fluent Russian) with an encyclopaedic
knowledge of most of Europe, he was a
champion of numerous French trips, a
wine connoisseur, daring even to raise his
eyebrows at Michael SchutzerWeismann’s choice of wines, loving to sit
long into the night with colleagues – or
boys – to discuss philosophy, ethics or
Scotland’s noble heritage; a much-loved
Oldham’s tutor, tireless rugby referee,
cricket umpire and coach, Louis was, like
Michael Hall, particularly good at
nurturing those less splendid boys who
might otherwise pass unnoticed – or too
much noticed – through the system. A
man of limitless humanity and kindness,
Louis gave his time to colleagues, staff
and boys at often the most unseasonable
of hours and in the most unfashionable of
causes. His work as the school charities
supremo, most particularly as ‘the
Shewsy’ link-man is one of the things for
which he will be most remembered,
sending regular parties of boys on social
studies trips, arranging reciprocal visits
and keeping the profile of this most
venerable, worthwhile and appropriate of
Salopian charities high against a rising
tide of perhaps more fashionable
competition. And which Salopian will ever
forget that highlight of the annual
Christmas dinner, the prize draw, when
Louis’ inexhaustible and glittering repartee
was seen to fullest effect as he handed
out the prizes, seemingly displaying an
encyclopaedic knowledge of the names
of every boy in the school?
In his last two years he took over the
rather thankless task of running the
weekend activity programme, to which,
despite the frustrations of getting boys to
stick to their commitments and turn up at
the appointed time, he brought his usual
imaginative flair and quirky good cheer.
How we shall miss those emails which
might have been written in Swahili –
7
‘Goon to the dogs – ahae – och noon‘
‘Snoon the wear at the CBSO’ – ‘who’s for
Haithrow jddtt?’ The Nutcracker, day trips
to Paris, the gee-gees, endless cinema
trips with pizzas – all delivered in that
wonderfully self-deprecating manner.
Schools like Shrewsbury used to be full of
such characters; sadly no more. Up in the
Highlands at Strathallan, whither he has
gone to head up the modern languages
department, folks will certainly get a better
understanding of what he is trying to say,
but will they understand what he is worth
and what he did for us all? We certainly
hope so. For in his departure, Shrewsbury
loses one of its most underrated servants,
a true friend of the Common Room and of
all Salopians.
Ben Evans inherited from his
predecessor, the retiring Head of
Chemistry in July 2004, some very high
standards to maintain. Exam grades were
excellent, the traditional department of
established teachers gelled as a unit and
all seemed set fair, requiring little. Yet his
selection had not been an accident. Ben’s
energy, innovative approach, quick
thinking and impressive chemical
knowledge (he became a Fellow of the
Royal Society of Chemists part way
through his tenure here) drove this
department rapidly forward. In the five
short years it took him to land the
prestigious post of Director of Studies at
Oundle, Ben got the department really
fizzing. He even left that time-honoured
hallmark of some promotees and many
retiring Headmasters: a new building
(well, a new laboratory).
Undaunted by the presence of some
senior and long serving figures, Ben set
about a programme of raising standards
to new heights, leading in every sense
from the front. New syllabus, new
expectations, new staff (in fairness, those
going were of retiring age! Valete PFC
and IJW, salvete GYYW and VLK, not
forgetting RDW’s positive impact over
three intervening years) – in short, some
well managed changes. In the sense that
a shake of the coals makes the fire burn
brighter, Ben not only stoked but fanned
the fuel with additional oxygen too, and
few were left unaware of his input.
Incidentally it was more than expectations
that Ben raised: he also, through his
racing green TVR sports car, raised the
power-to-weight ratio of the chemists and
their cars, leading as ever from the front.
As a former owner of an MG midget, I
appreciate this keenly. Consider: RDW
School News
and the Porsche – a close run thing
because of Ralph’s diminutive stature;
also the current Head of Chemistry who,
despite his best efforts with a 4-litre Jeep,
leaves it a hands down win to BJE.
Old dogs have some tricks, though,
and it was not without some concern that
Ben became increasingly aware of a
series of explosions and noises from a
certain laboratory: to his credit he
responded with enthusiasm. This
beginning of a mutual appreciation of
colour chemistry and hoisting charges led
to a some magnificent displays of
chemical firepower which, covered by the
all pervading Health and Safety, had to be
managed carefully. (In particular the RDW
variant: the gun-cotton and the
polystyrene canon-balls, to say nothing of
the mini jet engine which, though fully
functional, never quite found its way onto
the bicycle for which it may have been
secretly destined). Ben readily accepted
others’ enthusiasms and responded with
his own: although it was not my forte,
Heston Blumenthal and the ice-cream
recipe involving liquid nitrogen made a
lasting impression on both colleagues and
pupils on whom he tried it. The ‘show and
tell’ part of the departmental meetings had
a certain liveliness, as did the annual
chemistry show on Speech Day.
Sartorially attired in the style of, indeed
sometimes mistaken as a lookalike for,
David Tennant (though the paisley shirts
were either a blind or a distraction from
the theme) he played a major pastoral
role as Deputy Housemaster in Severn
Hill. Weekend cover and duty nights could
be left entirely in Ben’s capable hands.
The boys always knew when Ben was
coming on duty as he drove his TVR from
his house (all of 30 metres away) up
Porthill Road and into the school site. The
familiar roar of the huge engine was a
dead give-away and gave plenty of time
for any nefarious projects to be safely
stowed before his arrival.
His own tutees knew well of his
generosity and his knowledge of both
food and wine. Together with Kate, to
whom we also give our very best wishes,
Ben hosted many in Ridgemount Lodge.
As a talented cook himself he enjoyed
challenging them to a tutorial cook-off –
one can only imagine the subtlety of
conversation (do I mean satire?) on
judging the contributions from any
culinarily inept. His organisation of a
series of lectures each with a 5-star curry
afterwards, and (among others) a visiting
lecturer on ‘Wine Tasting’ illustrates his
desire to share the good things of life with
the department and its pupils. To which
end he also ran an oenology course for
pupils over a series of many weeks –
tutorials, tastings and terroirs became the
subject of many a conversation. However,
that cuisine should be part of an interview
process is questionable: the answer
‘scrambled’ to the question ‘how do you
like your eggs done?’ is recorded as an
integral part of an interview by Ben. The
candidate got the job (and is still here)!
Space prevents all except the briefest
mention of either his coaching of school
cricket and football or his involvement in
staff sports teams, the Eggheads team
and pub quiz team. In all, Ben lives life to
the very fullest. Some advice for the
Oundle staff: hang on to your hats! Good
luck, Ben.
The Summer Term saw not one but three
ex-Harvard men leaving the ship of state.
Having extended his tenure by a twelvemonth, the advertisement for Paul
Hamm’s replacement was said to run
‘Wanted: multi-disciplinary teacher; skilled
in History, English, Religious Studies,
Biology and Spanish. Must be capable of
coaching rowing to National Schools
standard.’
For disguised behind those mild
moustaches, like an extra from a Mexican
takeaway ad, Paul is a Renaissance Man.
His presence on the dance floor (enough
to make a wallflower of even Colonel
Jenkins) was only matched by the
seriousness and the brilliance with which
he dealt with a multitude of disciplines in
the classroom and a multitude of interests
out of school. His fine coaching of junior
crews, his mentoring of the gappers, his
approach to his tutees in The Grove – and
his handling of the cast and the director of
Petr Ginz – all witnessed a true
professional; sensitive, thoughtful,
engaged and utterly reliable. In short, a
born teacher. So the lure of home and a
job in Washington is Shrewsbury’s loss;
and a genuine gain for those over the
pond.
Ian White is one of those people who
kept the school together during his all-too
brief three years in the Biology Faculty.
Besides his very genuine love of teaching,
if you wanted a man to run the golf – or to
take a group of youngsters to a film – or
to turn up at a moment’s notice at a
house play and to produce a series of
striking actions photos the very next day –
then Ian was your man. He coached the
Under 14s in cricket and in rugby – and
with his unmistakeable rangy canine
companion, Woof, Ian was a well known
figure round the site and a man for every
season. For personal reasons, Ian has
now moved south, but his quiet,
supportive presence is likely to be much
missed.
STAFF BABIES
Many congratulations to Paula and Anthony Hough on the birth of Kai Ethan, born on 28th October and to Peter and Jenna
Middleton, whose daughter, Isla Catherine, was born on 3rd November.
8
School News
PRIZE WINNERS 2009
The Harvard Prize
The Dukes French Prize
The Bentley German Prize
The Bain Spanish Prize
The Moss Prize for Classics
The Cross Prize for Classics
The Marshall Travel Prize for Classics
The Philip Sidney Prize for English
The Bentley Elocution Prizes:
Sixth Form
Fifth Form
Fourth Form
Third Form
Theatre Studies Prize
The Senior Debating Prize
The Junior Debating Prize
The McEachran Prize:
Senior
Junior
The Bright Prize for History
The Murray Senior Prize for History
The Quinn Prize for Third Form History
The Dorothy David Prize for Religious Studies
The Robertson-Eustace Prize for Geography
The Lower Sixth Form Geography Prize
The Fifth Form Geography Prize
The Arnold Hagger Mathematics Prize
The Powell Mathematics Prize
The David Harrison Mathematics Prize
The Arnold Matthews Science Prizes:
Biology
Chemistry
Physics
The Darwin Prize for Science
The Astronomy Prize
The Hawksley Burbury Science Prize
The Rolls Royce Cup
The Business Studies Prize
The Ramsbotham Business Studies Coursework Prize
The Economics Prize
The James Meikle A Level Physical Education Prize
The Physical Education Prize
Art Prizes:
Sixth Form
Painting
Ceramics
Photography
The History of Art Prize
The Hill Art Prize
Music Prizes:
Senior Piano
Senior Brass
Senior Strings
Senior Woodwind
Senior Singing
The Graham White Organ Prize
The Russell Prize for Orchestral Playing
The Guyer Family Prize
The Woollam Family Prize
The Special Music Prize
The West Family Prize
D.A. Kell (SH)
S. Lawley (G)
J.M. Ellis (I)
T.J. McAlpine (Rt) & R.F. Griffiths (I)
B.J.R. Radcliffe (S) & W.H. Smyth-Osbourne (Rt)
A.L. Wenner (MSH)
B.J.R. Radcliffe (S)
B.J.R. Radcliffe (S)
E.R.P Bentick (Rb)
F.J. Ellery (PH)
F.C. Fullerton (O)
A.P.I. Rebecchi (Ch)
J.R.F. McLoughlin (Rb)
D.A. Kell (SH)
J.W. Flowers (I)
C.J. Jamieson (G) & C.M.O. Cox (M)
J.W. Flowers (I) & S.B.M. Lilico (SH)
C.M.O. Cox (M)
T.J.G. Lywood (Rt)
E.J.B. Lloyd (Rt)
S. Lawley (G) & M.J. Wright (Rb)
J.C. Baker (Rt)
A.L. Stewart (MSH)
T.D.H. Harrison (Rb)
P.J. Legner (O)
E.J. Elcock (Rb)
P.J. Legner (O)
C.S.W. Tham (Ch)
C.Y. Lim (SH)
P.J. Legner (O)
P.J. Legner (O
J.P. Richards (Rb)
D.A. Kell (SH)
M. Emmerich (Rt)
L.H. White (O)
J.H.G.A. Bracewell (SH)
J.J.D. Brentnall (I)
R. Alexis (SH)
A.L. Stewart (MSH) & B. Williams (Rt)
W.J. Boyd (Rb)
M. Degli Esposti (MSH) & D.T.F. MacCarthy-Morrogh (PH)
O.S. Back (Rb)
C.A. Styr (Ch) & D.J. Clark (Rb)
C.E. Goodfellow (MSH)
J.W. Rogers-Coltman (I) & B. Howard-Baker (Rt)
I.V. Grosse-Buening (MSH)
S.A. Craigen (I)
C.M.O. Cox (M) & B.A.P. Moore (M)
R.H.S. Collins (S)
B.A.P. Moore (M)
P.J. Legner (O)
C.M.O. Cox (M)
G.I. Howarth (MSH)
C.J. Jamieson (G)
S.P.J.T. Grainger (SH)
C.L.W. Finley (MSH)
9
School News
SIR JOHN BOWRING PRIZE
THE GLADSTONE PRIZE
Michelle Degli Esposti
became the first female
recipient of the Sir John
Bowring Prize awarded by the
Worshipful Company of World
Traders for a gap year project
nominated by the Headmaster.
To celebrate the occasion she
was invited by the Master,
Baroness Sue Garden to visit
and have lunch at the House of
Lords. She was accompanied
by her mother, Dr Christine
Samworth (staff), and Jeremy
Bretherton (OS 1943-47), the
Livery Company’s liaison
officer with the School.
In September Oliver Lyman
(Ch) was runner-up and the
happy recipient of a £100 prize
for his essay on Cleon and the
Radical Demagogues of 5th
century Athens in The
Gladstone Prize – the UK’s
premier essay prize in Classics
- following in the
steps of Bertie Radcliffe who
was runner-up in 2008 with his
essay on Bread and
Circuses, and of Rob Hughes
who had also been runner-up
with an essay on Virgil the year
before. Oliver is the son of the
first ever Shrewsbury School Harvard Fellow, R.J. Lyman.
I NTERNATIONAL
YOUNG PHYSICISTS TOURNAMENT
the speeches and general joviality we trudged gratefully to bed. I
had no idea of time zone or time or night or day. I wanted bed.
I barely touch the pillow before I’m up and ready for the
opening ceremony. Tianjin is sweltering in my suit – the ceremony
is enjoyable though, the demonstrations both impressive and
surreal. We are drawn against other countries, and released,
ready to begin the tournament.
“We challenge Team UK to present problem 16,
Electromagnetic Motor.”
Oh great. That’s one of mine. So off we go, the physics fight
begins. I explain my solution – the theory I revised tenfold, the
data which took forever to collect and collate. The Indonesians
hastily prepare an opposition.
The judges look morose.
Then the attack comes (forgive the hyperbole). I’m asked
questions – I reply feeling somewhat sure, hoping that I’m
correct. We discuss – debate – disagree – it’s the Spanish
Inquisition. The Nigerians conclude with further questions and
then review the entire process, and I ultimately give my feelings
on how I felt the debate has contributed to my understanding of
the problem, and how it has exposed flaws or weaknesses.
I feel that it has gone well. So when the judges give me six 7s
and a 5 (each out of 10) I’m feeling – well, put out. I blame it on
the language barrier. Grumpy. Mr Chalfin sympathises. Philip
redeems us with his opposition and review, buoying us up with 7s
and 8s. We leave slightly downtrodden. So when we arrive at
dinner and discover that we have managed to grab fifth place,
we’re pretty chuffed. Looks like it wasn’t too bad a score after all.
Yet there are four rounds remaining – everything to play for.
Yet it would be wrong to see this only in a competitive light. We
were marooned abroad, culturally humbled, and in the ideal
position to get to know people of all different nationalities, be
they Swedish, Australian or Kenyan. The competition was always
conducted with a spirit of geniality and respect. The French beat
us at basketball – fortunately we returned the favour at table
football. Gess shared a room with a Hungarian girl. And
through the power of facebook, we can – and do – keep up with
them.
Triumphant, we sat in TGI Friday’s, a Western oasis in this foreign
country. Chinese food had become too much. And when I say
Chinese food, I don’t mean chicken chow mien or duck wraps. I
mean spicy octopus; the enigmatic dumpling (always a different
surprise); the infamous, haunting sea cucumber. The cucumber
was especially... uuum ... challenging, proof yet again that
‘delicacy’ is usually synonymous with ‘putrid, squidgy, brown’.
Eating Chinese food – using chopsticks – was fun on the first
day. A week later – less so. After a tiring excursion to the Great
Wall of China, we needed something serious, overdone and
westernised. And so we sat in TGI’s, looking back on our time in
China.
“China is big. Really big. And Beijing closes at five o’clock.”
This was the simplistic conclusion Mr Chalfin, our (ex-)Harvard
Fellow and I came to. But why were we in China? Good question.
Well, an aeon ago, we started working on problems relating to
physics. ‘What causes the wave-like corrugations on roads?’
‘How can a skateboarder accelerate without touching anything?’
‘What conditions allow you to stop a drip from a bottle?’
Inoffensive looking, these took a huge amount of effort and
dedication to produce what would eventually become a
presentable solution. Complex theories, each thrown out in turn.
Intricate experiments, with the data discarded because we’d
forgotten to control a variable. Infuriating – aggravating – yet
ultimately satisfying, we managed enough solutions for the
national final to win convincingly. Anticipating far stiffer
competition in China, we finished the majority of the remaining
problems (though admittedly it required a considerable last
minute effort).
Managing convincingly to pretend not to have swine flu, we
arrived after a day of journeying in Beijing. China was very
different. Emerging from the airport, the air was literally thick with
hot smog. Beijing was buzzing with activity. Yet an hour later we
were driving through lush green countryside with the skeletons of
half-completed motorways stretching into the distance. Around
every corner signs of change, of progress.
It was weird. So I slept through it.
We were welcomed into Nankai University with a feast, yet after
10
School News
each country made an offering – here the UK was proud to
showcase its musical skills. We went out into Tianjin with other
participants, made friends, and it was with heavy heart that we
left Nankai University for the remainder of the trip.
“Since we’re in China, we might as well have a look round.”
Too right, Mr Adams. So we did. The Forbidden City –
Tiananmen Square (no tanks that day) – Bird Nest Stadium. Then
on to Xian by sleeper train for a few days of physics-free
enjoyment. We saw the Terracotta Warriors; there were lots of
them. Huashan mountain was truly glorious, humbling and aweinspiring. We cycled around a big wall whilst singing. Bought
loads of cheap tat. Ate dumplings. Watched a show. Bathed in
hot springs. Mr Balcombe took loads of pictures; I ultimately
ended up with about a thousand. We hit a drum. Lots. Generally
had fun. That is my attempt to summarise several days of
excitement in one paragraph.
Yet when Mr Chalfin walked away into the distance, off on his
journey back to America, we knew it was the end. After our 35hour return journey, we arrived back in Shrewsbury. Yes, we’d lost
our luggage in Paris. And yes, I was glad to have my knife and
fork back. Yet China had meant so much more. We had become
the outsiders, plunged into a multicultural and multinational
whirlpool with only one common feature – an interest in physics.
It was an unparalleled experience for us all, and one I doubt we
shall ever forget.
David Kell (SH)
We went through three more rounds, successively getting more
and more frustrated as we saw our efforts fail against indifferent
judges. Ben, Phil and I presented decent solutions, we opposed
admirably, reviewed effectively – the judges would have none of
it. We slipped two places to seventh, and soon realised that the
final was perhaps out of reach. Yet we would make a last push.
We would wear suits.
It was a huge, but necessary sacrifice.
So when we were challenged on Bouncing Drop, the panic
started. We couldn’t reject anymore, after the three in row we had
rejected the day before. Phil wanted to accept a point loss and
reject. We argued. We decided that was silly. He presented it,
defending it well against perceptive opposition.
The judges loved it. Maybe it was the suits, or maybe our
superb physics, but we had a string of 8s. Happiness. Charlie
and I gave a solid review and opposition respectively, and we
finished on a general high. Yet the pinnacle was yet to come, as
we discovered at tea that this heroic effort had regained us fifth
place (ahead of Germany, which Phil, as a native of that country,
was particularly pleased about). The competition, for us at least,
was over. We awoke jovially at 4am the next day for a trip to the
Great Wall.
Which brings me back to TGI Friday’s. As it happens, we still
had a week ahead of us to enjoy what China had to offer. We
watched the final – a standard far above anything we’d seen.
There was the closing ceremony, and the entertainment where
Back row (left to right): John Balcombe, Max Chalfin, Ben Powell-Davies, David Kell, Steve Adams; front row (left to right): Charlie Jones,
Gessica Howarth, Philip Legner (captain).
11
School News
A R GENTINE E XCHANGE
culturally eye-opening moments during the week were the
conversations and new friendships between young people from
opposite ends of the globe.
I know the pupils would agree that this is when learning
languages really comes to life and all the effort in the classroom
comes to fruition.
Mike Wright
Both the pupils from San Bartolomé in Agentina and our own
Sixth Form hispanists experienced an unforgettable and
enriching week of linguistic and cultural interaction last June.
Valuable links and new friendships have been formed with the
well known bilingual school in Rosario as we hosted seventeen
Latin American learners of English.
The week was packed with excursions, cultural activities,
lessons, sports activities and social interaction between pupils
from both continents. The group visited Chester and Manchester,
attended performances of Romeo and Juliet at Ludlow Castle
and classical music at Birmingham Symphony Hall. Our guests
took advantage of Shrewsbury’s facilities as their busy itinerary
included sports they had never tried before such as rowing, Eton
fives and waterpolo.
The Salopian hispanists also felt the unique benefit of this
exchange venture as they communicated in a mixture of Spanish
and English during evening barbeques and social excursions.
Besides the immersion in boarding school life and week of
activities, undoubtedly the most linguistically beneficial and
A return visit by Salopians to Argentina took place during the
recent October exeat. A full report on this visit will be found
on the School website www.shrewsbury.org.uk
I N T E R N AT I O N A L S T U D E N T B I OL O G Y S U M M I T
From 30 June – 2 July a series of lectures addressed Darwin’s
immense contributions to science and the impact of his powerful
and often still controversial ideas on society. Each day a panel of
experts sought to provide insight into a different aspect of
evolution. The first day focused on why the fundamental truth of
evolution is so widely accepted (ably conveyed by Prof Steve
Jones in his talk Darwin was right – an overview of the importance
of genetics in the modern world) and how the fossil record,
variation under domestication and DNA all provide overwhelming
evidence for Darwin’s theory. Human evolution and behaviour
were the main theme of day two, alongside an exploration of the
nature of evidence and the great potential of Darwin’s way of
thinking to tackle the problems humanity faces. Finally, slightly
‘fuzzier’ issues were on offer on day three: contemporary
evolutionary psychology, the relevance for moral and political
theory of an evolutionary understanding of human nature,
The last week of the summer term saw four Lower Sixth Form
biologists, accompanied by Head of Biology Andrew Allott,
depart for London as delegates at the 4th International Student
Summit on behalf of the British Council and the Natural History
Museum (NHM).
In 2009, the bicentenary of Old Salopian Charles Darwin’s birth
and the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of
Species by Means of Natural Selection, the legacy of the cofounder of evolutionary biology was going to be explored.
Dominic Byron-Chance (Ch), Max Emmerich (Rt), Dan Hughes
(R) and Tom Leslie (R) joined 56 other UK regional delegates,
70 students from London and 65 international students at the
Natural History Museum to hear about and debate the
background, impact and future of evolutionary science.
Shrewsbury School was the only independent school in the UK to
be invited to send delegates to the summit.
12
School News
and bird-billed otters that laid eggs. Another tour was an
exclusive backstage-pass to the workings of the new Darwin
Centre (opened to the public on 15th September 2009). This
building is a dramatic addition to the older, more traditional
building housing the public exhibitions. The Darwin Centre is a
state-of-the-art, eight-storey facility that also holds multiple
scientific research labs as well as holding the majority of the
museums’ wet specimens (somewhere in the region of 22
million). We were given a walking tour of much of the new
building including some, but not all of the labyrinth of the 27
kilometres of shelves! The highlight was a seven-metre long giant
squid in its equally giant jar
Having acquired many new insights, we could happily head
back to Shrewsbury, feeling most of all much more proficient in
evolutionary matters. But as one of the speakers put it: ‘Lots of
people, all too often its critics, think they’ve understood evolution.
Almost all of them have nothing but the most superficial
understanding of what they are talking about: the great theory of
life in all its complexity.’ But we felt a little cleverer nonetheless.
Andrew Allott
leadership from an evolutionary perspective and what light
evolution can shed on sex differences.
With the huge range of opinions, cultures and religions present
at the summit, heated discussion was of course inevitable and
eagerly anticipated! At the end of each day an hour was devoted
to ‘Question Time’, where students could delve deeper by
interrogating the panel of experts who had spoken earlier in the
day. Additionally, each student was provided with a ‘Quizdom’
handset to vote on how convincing the material presented was
deemed to be and there were frequent video-interviews by the
Nature Live team of the NHM of student delegates, including Max
Emmerich.
To contrast the lecture programme, several behind-the-scenes
tours of the NHM were provided. The Shrewsbury group was
allowed the opportunity to visit the rare book collection where
there was a special exhibition of paintings, drawings and books
depicting the first arrivals of the Europeans into aboriginal
Australia. It was explained to us that these illustrations also
showed the limited understanding that the early explorers held of
this strange new land, full of animals that jumped instead of ran
Y OUNG ENGINEERS
Electric Car Racing
By Easter, the car ‘Beagle’ was complete and ready for testing.
The speed bumps around the school caused problems as
“Beagle” has low ground clearance, so we arranged test
sessions at Shrewsbury Football Stadium car park. All went well,
the car topped 20mph so we were ready for racing.
In the Summer Term we tested at Darley Moor Circuit and
although it passed scrutineering and ran well in the car park, it
did not perform on the track. Back at school we changed the
gear ratios and made a few more adjustments ready for the
Midland Heats at Rockingham Raceway. It was a long hot day
Throughout last year on Wednesday afternoons, a small group of
Third and Fourth Formers spent their time in the workshops
building a racing car to take part in the Greenpower Formula 24,
Electric Car Races for schools.
The challenge appeared simple. Everyone was given the same
motor, four batteries and a set of regulations and the task was to
build a car to go as far as possible in four hours. The group was
supported by local companies, BML Hayley, RML Mouldings,
Dave Mellor Cycles and Corporate Togs. During the construction
of the car the boys learnt many new engineering skills.
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and after driving, some of the boys had to return early to take part
in the Junior School Play, but the race performance was again
disappointing.
At the start of term in September with two weeks before our
next race, Will Heyes (Ch) and James Kynaston (Ch) tweaked
and tested the car again and joined by Third Formers Will Speed
(I), Harry Flowers (I) and Jacob Owen (Ch) we set off for Aintree.
Racing against a field of 32 including some of the best cars in
the country, the boys worked well as a team, driving and
supporting each other as pit crew. As the final minutes of the four
hours counted down we were still going and Will Heyes in
‘Beagle’ crossed the line.
When the official results were published, the team finished in
14th place with a distance of 63 miles. An excellent result! This
lifted everyone’s spirits with a determination to build a new car for
next year’s races with the target of reaching the national finals,
which we missed this year by a distance of only three miles. As
we are the only Shropshire school taking part, the boys can be
justifiably proud of their achievements.
John Holloway
L to R: Will Heyes, Harry Flowers, Will Speed, Jacob Owen.
Driver: James Kynaston.
D ARWIN FRESCO UNVEILED
the route of the Beagle on a projection of the earth as viewed from
In August 2009 Slovenian fresco artist Maja Šubic spent seven
south of the equator, with about fifty of the animals that Darwin
days in the Biology Department painting a fresco to commemorate
encountered during the voyage spilling out from the Beagle. Also
the Darwin anniversaries of 2009. She was commissioned to do
featured are pieces of Darwiniana with special Shrewsbury
this in 2006, after showing smaller fresco panels at Rowley’s
significance. There are plans to produce a booklet to explain and
House as part of the annual Darwin festival in the town. It was
interpret these many details.
obvious that she combined deep interest in the great man’s work,
The official opening took place on October 21st, His Excellency
with that increasingly rare skill – genuine fresco painting using wet
Iztok Jarc, the Slovenian Ambassador to London was guest of
plaster. She was therefore ideal for the commission.
honour. Those who have not yet seen the fresco are invited and
The work was the culmination of three years of planning, with a
encouraged to do so, though it has to be said that there need be
series of draft designs leading to a full-scale cartoon on paper.
no undue haste. One of the reasons for choosing the medium of
Even before the artist had arrived, scaffolding filled the stairwell
fresco is its permanence. Pupils, staff and visitors to the school
allowing Barrie Morris and Mick Phillips, the school’s plastering
should be able to enjoy the Darwin commemoration for hundreds
team, to hack off an area of existing cement-based plaster and
of years to come!
Andrew Allott
replace it with a special cement-free coat or trullisatio. This needed
to be dryish, but not too dry for the fresco painting process.
Maja Šubic and her assistants started work at 5 am
each day. The first task was for the plasterer, who had
also travelled from Slovenia, to apply the thin top coat
of plaster, the intonaco, to the area being painted that
day. After about two hours this was solid enough for
incision – the transfer of lines from the cartoon, to lay
out the design and also allow sharp edges to be
painted. The remainder of the day was spent in the
actual painting of the wet intonaco, using pigments
ground from natural minerals. The artist herself
painted the animals and other very detailed areas and
an assistant artist helped with intervening parts. By
the following day the plaster is too dry, so each day’s
area had to be completed. Even with an assistant, all
of the days were long, with latest finish after midnight.
Maja’s interest in Darwin started at the age of ten,
when she was given a Slovene translation of his
diaries from the Beagle. She was fascinated and
determined to learn more about him and his work.
Over the years she has become more and more
expert and this has been reflected in her painting.
The design of the fresco is very intricate. It portray
Detail from the Darwin fresco.
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School News
C OMMUNITY LINKS
O R N I T H OL O G Y
Lower Sixth pupils are enjoying taking on the role of teachers and classroom assistants
each Thursday afternoon in an exciting new partnership with a local infant school. As
part of the School’s Community Service Programme, twenty pupils at Woodfield Infant
School come to Shrewsbury each week to take part in a programme of music and
biology lessons that the Lower Sixth pupils have planned themselves. At the same time,
four Lower Sixth pupils are also acting as weekly classroom assistants at Woodfield,
helping with reading, art, PE and with some filmmaking for competitions.
A vagrant Purple Heron (pictured below)
by a canal near Oswestry – the first in
Shropshire for a decade – in our first
week; a migrant Osprey successfully
hunting fish on the Mosses at Whixall in
the second week; a two-hour trudge
rewarded by excellent views of Red
Grouse on the Stiperstones in our third
outing: it has been a terrific start to this
year’s Ornithology.
We have seen over eighty species of
bird in the first six weeks and had great
success on our Field Day tour around
North Lancashire where – thanks to the
low water levels forcing elusive birds out
to the edges of the reed beds – we had
excellent views of Bittern and Water Rail.
In addition, we were fortunate to get views
of two Great White Egrets on the salt
marshes at Leighton Moss and, on the
reserve itself, Bearded Tits feeding from
grit trays.
Combined with sightings of birds such
as Dipper in the Darnford Valley beneath
the Long Mynd, it would seem that this
year, in which the Society is led by Ieuan
Fenton (Rb, U), we can aim to top the
record number of birds spotted during
Will Jones’s (Rt, 2002-07) year when 139
species were recorded in all.
Eleanor Hudson (MSH) confusing a least one of the Woodfield infants.
James Pullicino (Ch) looking at nasty things with budding Woodfield biologists.
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A N I N T E R V I E W W I T H M I C H A E L PA L I N
by Jo Allan (U6, R) and Eoin Bentick (U6, Rb)
On 1st October we welcomed Michael Palin (R, 1957-61) back to the School at
the joint invitation of the Old Salopian Club and the Geographical Association.
Speaking to his title From Shrewsbury to the World: a Debt to Darwin, Michael
entertained a packed Alington Hall (and, by video link, an overflow audience in
the Ashton Theatre) with wonderful – often hilarious – accounts of experiences
and encounters on his extensive travels. Of course, behind the humour lay a
deep, personal sensitivity to and appreciation of the astonishing natural beauty
and variety in places and people in the world, which hold fascination for him, as
for Darwin before him. The proceeds from the evening went to the Field Studies
Council Darwin Scholarship and Shrewsbury House.
world at the moment – everything from climate change to how we’re
going to deal with swine flu, epidemics, population problems and all
these sort of things – are things that geographers have to help us
solve. So it seems to me it’s still one of the most relevant subjects.
Although not at present preparing for another epic voyage across
the globe, Michael Palin is clearly a very busy man. It is June 2009,
and Palin has just added to his impressive workload by shouldering
the hefty title of ‘President of the Royal Geographical Society’. It is in
this capacity that he comes to Shrewsbury School in October to
give a lecture entitled “From Shrewsbury to the world: a debt to
Darwin”. Amidst all this he still manages to find to time to work on
his fourth fictional novel (not including various children’s books and
plays).
It was not without a certain degree of trepidation, therefore, that
we awaited his arrival in the roomy space of his manager’s office,
armed with a plethora of questions worthy of Parkinson and sweat
patches that were in danger of forming a Venn diagram. Would the
real-life Palin have the same effortless honesty and good humour
that is so appealing in the televised figure? Our worries were soon
put to rest when a familiar figure strolled through the door, his face
creased up in the warmest of smiles and with a cheeky glint in his
eye that harked back to his more absurd days (that clearly had not
deserted him). He swiftly put us at our ease and, over the course of
the next hour, proved himself to be well versed on such diverse
subjects as travel (although he has never been to Wrexham),
football (he was something of a Brian Clough in his day) and which
vegetable he would like to be and why...
On your travels, what was the most serious problem
you ran into?
Serious problems were usually natural and not human. Like how to
land on the North Pole when it’s just a floating block of ice that is
moving. As you land on it – which is truly terrifying – you think, why
am I doing this? Otherwise it was just occasionally getting into
situations when you just don’t know quite how people are going to
react. In sensitive places we tend to keep the camera well hidden
until we’ve got everyone’s agreement. But a crowd of people
attacked our car near Obdoman, which is near Khartoum in Sudan,
for no reason other than that our photographer had taken a photo
which they didn’t particularly like. They stopped and sort of pushed
the car about and demanded the film. It’s amazing how one
protester becomes twenty-odd, thirty or forty and then it does get
quite frightening.
There was a time when we were in Nepal filming a very remote
village. At the end of the day some locals – they would call
themselves freedom fighters – Maoist rebels, came in and said,
“We want to talk to you about what you’re doing”. The next thing I
knew, our protectors from the Gurkha regiment and their assistant
had just disappeared, taken out into the jungle. So we didn’t know
quite what was going to happen to them, and that was quite
alarming. Suddenly the atmosphere from the village turned from
being reasonably friendly to being quite hostile.
Your talk is entitled From Shrewsbury to the World, a Debt to
Darwin. Could you tell us a little bit about it?
I suppose it’s about the spirit of enquiry, about travelling and
learning and about how much there is still to know about the wider
world outside. That is what Darwin really represented. My viewpoint
isn’t quite the same because I’m not really a scientist. I’m more
interested in people and human life. But I do think Darwin’s spirit of
enquiry is really important; he’s a great Old Salopian.
Did the Ghurkas come back?
Yes, they were released about 48 hours later.
You have said before that your relationship with the crew you
travel with is one of the most important things. Do you think that
taking such a big group and having a camera with you and
being a Western comedy icon heightens your experience? Or
does it take something away from properly experiencing the
culture?
I think you have to realise that you’re doing a job – I’m out there to
produce a series of television programmes. But the way you do that
So are you inspired by a sense of curiosity, a need to explore?
Yes, I always liked geography as a subject. I had a very good
geography teacher at Shrewsbury, who got me through my A level
in half the time of a normal course. He was a bit of a rebel – all the
maps he had were German.
But there was a tendency to marginalise geography, make it
seem as if it was just for people who couldn’t do something like
Latin or history. And that’s so wrong. Actually the issues facing the
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attitude, the way we look at the world, has changed a lot. When I
was growing up, we had the Empire. We had chunks of the world
that we were administering. Now we don’t anymore. We have to
be friendly to everybody and treat them as equals.
But I think that transition is quite a difficult thing and it’s taking
quite a long time. I think our generation will have a completely
different attitude to the rest of the world than my father’s
generation might have had. And I think that it means we have to
listen a lot more. Going to countries and finding out what people
really think about us requires a certain amount of courage as
well. You have to ask the questions and be prepared to have
answers every now and again. I think it’s very important but also
something that requires time and can’t be rushed. You can’t just
say, right I’ve been to this village, I’ve summed up this country, off
we go. And I think that’s one of the problems with of a lot of the
journeys we did. We had to move very fast. Ideally we’d have
preferred to spend a bit more time.
job is very important. We tend to go places where I’m not
recognised, so I don’t usually get people in Nepal or the Philippines
coming up and singing the Lumberjack Song. But it is important to
try to avoid that, because I do prefer to be the observer rather than
the observed.
Does it help open doors though?
I don’t know if it has, but you can never tell. But what does help is if
people have seen the programmes before. When we were in China
and trying to get into Tibet, the authorities were very much against it.
I think what changed their minds was actually seeing Full Circle and
what I had done before. They said, oh well, he’s obviously well
intentioned. So I tend not go to places where I’m known and we do
like to work with as minimal a crew possible. You need one person to
be on camera and one to do the filming; you need the director to be
there and the assistant to be organising the trains or whatever. Our
only ‘luxury item’ – and I don’t think it is a luxury – was taking a stills
photographer. I think if you’re going to these amazing places and
especially as some of them are quite difficult to access, you might
as well bring back as much as you can.
I find that the benefit of travelling the way I do, with a film crew,
having to produce a programme, is that it does concentrate your
mind. Instead of a day of just wondering around with a tour group
looking at a temple or something, you’ve got to find out, in that very
short time, something more about the temple, or who lives there or
how it was built; you’ve got to do an interview.
With our crew, we very often go to places that you would never
think of visiting at all on a tour. So because I’m doing these
programmes, we have access to places that you wouldn’t normally
visit. For instance, when we went to Pakistan in 2004, we were
advised by the Foreign Office not to go up to the Northwest Frontier.
But we took independent advice and we went anyway. We were
fine; we got some incredible material.
Mind you, we’d never be able to go there now. The hotel where
we stayed has actually been blown up. In fact most of the hotels
we’ve stayed in have been blown up quite recently. I wouldn’t go on
the Palin hotel tour to India and Pakistan.
If there were one place you could go back to, where would
that be?
That’s hard because by saying one country I would be saying that
another would be less interesting. I would probably instinctively say
India because it’s such a diverse place. There’s such an
extraordinary amount going on, so many different landscapes,
different elements, different groups, different cultures. And yet it’s
also a place you can get round if you’re British and can’t speak any
other languages. You can probably find out more about India than
about somewhere like Russia or China. Also I just love going there.
They love to discuss, argue and talk about things. They’re very
open and curious.
South America is somewhere I’d love to do a bit more work on.
But every place you go to repays your study and the more you go,
generally the more you enjoy it. There aren’t any places, I think, that
I wouldn’t go back to just on principle.
Personal experience is very important. Forget history books and
guidebooks. Just try to take it all in. You need to have back-up, but I
think there’s no substitute for trying to just watch life going on and
it’s amazing how much you learn just sitting and having a cup of tea
and seeing how people are. Today, if we’re not careful, we tend to
put headphones on and stare at screens and just not see what’s
going on around us.
In many ways, you’re one of the main cultural envoys of the
world to Britain. Do you feel a great weight of responsibility?
No, I honestly feel I just have to do the best I can. I don’t feel this
cultural envoy thing really. Lots of people write about the rest of
the world – we’ve got the BBC World Service doing their work
every day. There are many, many travellers out there. Although I
believe there is always more to learn about countries and it’s
important that we do learn before we judge them. I don’t feel I
can do more than I do, but I try to keep the spirit of openness
and communication. On my travel website
[www.palinstravels.co.uk] I push the idea of going for yourself
and seeing for yourself, not being put off. The idea is about going
to meet people and not being told what to see, trying to get in the
back door and just talking to people. It’s not as difficult as you’d
think.
Do you find travelling life-affirming?
Yes I do on the whole. But I’ve always been an optimistic sort of
fellow anyway. I generally tend to trust people, perhaps more than I
should. I feel I could strike up a conversation with anybody. I find
that people do respond generally in a friendly way, unless of course
there is some sort of political agenda, unless their minds have been
closed or they were told not to say anything. As a whole, people
have been very friendly, and I would also say that that the poorer the
place you go to, the more people want to share with you, which is
interesting. If you go to somewhere like Beverly Hills, you won’t learn
much because the houses have all got bars over them and the only
people you meet are the people watering the garden. But if you go
to a little shanty town in Africa or South America, people are quite
curious. They’re getting on with their own lives but they’re quite
interested and generally friendly. They’re not defensive because
they haven’t got huge homes that need to be protected.
You have said that 80 days is the minimum time in which you
can travel round the world and properly experience it. Do you
still think that and do believe that the world is bigger or
smaller than when you first started out on your journeys?
Well, in some ways it’s smaller. You can get to places faster. So a
journey that would have taken six months in my father’s and
grandfather’s time can be done in something like six hours. But I
think in many ways our task is more difficult because our British
Do you find that the Michael Palin you present on your travel
programmes is the real Michael Palin or is it a facade, like the
sketches of Monty Python?
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for me. I’ve always felt it’s very important, as a traveller, that you
keep a record of what you’ve seen and done. Some people go and
take photos. I prefer to write things down and that’s my way of
remembering places. Literature isn’t really about recording; it’s
about noticing, it’s about curiosity, it’s about writing something
down that is interesting and different to the way in which anyone
else has written it and I think that appeals to me – not just as a sort
of utilitarian thing. It’s also good for your sense of the world, for your
imagination. It’s a way of being clear about what you’ve seen and
where you’ve been. Writing down is the best way to sort it all out in
your head.
Over the period of the programmes I realised that it was best to be
myself. When we did Around the World in 80 Days I thought I should
be like Phileas Fogg, and Phileas Fogg was the Frenchman’s idea
of an Englishman – slightly eccentric, a bit arrogant, somebody who
pushes Johnny Foreigner out of the way, gets his servants to do the
sightseeing for him, a slightly buffoonish character. I was thinking of
starting out sort of acting the whole thing. Then we did programme
three, and we were on a dhow crossing from Dubai to Mumbai. We
weren’t supposed to go on this particular dhow, it was pretty rough
and we were there for eight days, just with this group of local Indian
fisherman, everyone living on deck. By the end of that, I was being
me. There was no point in being a silly old bum.
As we’ve gone through the series, I’ve felt much happier being as
natural as possible. So we’ve tended to lose things like long
interviews with politicians or local figures who wanted to tell me
things about their country. I rely much more on encounters with
people in their everyday lives. For example, I’ll go up and talk to
someone milking a yak or talk to someone whilst they’re eating, just
to try to make it as natural as possible.
I don’t suddenly stand up and say, that’s the problem in this
country, these are the problems that these people have to face, this
is the future, these are the changes we can make – which politicians
and even people who run charities are expected to do. I just say,
these are the people you meet – there’s only a small selection, but
look at the way they talk, look how they react amongst each other,
look how they eat their rice and cook. That tells you a lot about
people. You find that there are basic universal, common interests:
food, humour, families. To bring those out, I just thought it was
better to be me.
Did you ever have any problems in your shift from Monty
Python to your travelling shows, from the absurdist comedy to
something with a bit more gravitas?
Well, it was an odd thing to do at the time, and I debated with
myself as to whether I really should be going off to do 11 weeks
filming abroad for a documentary programme when I’d just done A
Fish Called Wanda, Python and all that sort of thing. I was even
making fun of all these daft presenters when I was on Python. But
once I started to do it, I realised that I was really enjoying myself.
There were things I had to learn and I wasn’t very good on the
interview techniques. I tended to talk too much and it was quite
nerve-racking. But I realised that actually seeing the world was what
I really wanted to do, and so in my own mind there was no problem
doing the journey.
Do you still have that Python spirit in you, or have you lost it
because of the travel?
Oh no, I think Python is a way of looking at the world and I had that
before Python. When I was at Shrewsbury I could see the absurd
things in a situation whereas other people would see the serious
problems. Comedy’s always been a very big part of my life. The
way I look at life now is still much the same as when I was with
Python. It’s just that Python gave us a few years of being able to
express it on television. My priorities are slightly different now and I
suppose I do take things slightly more seriously than I perhaps did
at the Python time. But without a sense of humour, without the ability
to laugh at yourself, you might as well give up. And when the Python
You mention Phileas Fogg. To what extent would you say that
your love of travel is linked to your love of literature?
I think that the two are very closely tied together. When I was
growing up in Sheffield after the War, there wasn’t really enough
money to travel, no television either. So I depended on books to
learn about foreign places. I would read Biggles books – they’re
always set in the Gobi Desert or somewhere like that. Then there
was Conan Doyle and The Lost World, Rider Haggard, people like
that. So it was literature and books that really brought the world alive
All errors and omissions are the fault of Eoin Bentick (left) and Jo Allan (right).
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So perhaps it honed my humorous skills. I never felt at
Shrewsbury that I had to stop laughing. (Well, at some time you
have to stop laughing!) But I always thought that humour had very
much a place in life, especially in building relationships and
friendships. A lot of that came from Shrewsbury. So by the time I left
Shrewsbury, my sense of humour, if not stronger than it was before,
had much more material to feed it. So I learned a little bit about
looking after myself and being in an environment where you have to
think all the time about your relationships with other people. It was
probably more hierarchical than it is now. I learned then that it was
often better not to shout and seemingly that I wasn’t really for
coxing. Better to listen than to shout.
team does get together, which is not very often, the thing we do
best is to have a laugh. The world has got no less absurd than it
used to be.
I guess travelling must help give you a perspective on some of
the absurdities of Western culture?
What’s quite good about travel is that it gets you away from your
own country, and you can get a bit obsessed with being British and
analysing British-ness, hearing day in and day out the same sort of
British attitudes. It’s great sometimes to spend a few months in
Africa or the Himalayas or somewhere like that. You get a different
perspective. You see different people living different lives and
occasionally you get to understand their perspectives on your life.
So I think it’s quite good to step out sometimes.
Finally, there are two questions which, although they might
seem quite obvious ones, I believe need to be asked. Firstly,
you have been pretty much everywhere on the globe…
Well, not everywhere. I haven’t been to Wrexham.
I managed to have a little look at the log books from about
1957-61 when you were in Rigg’s. There are lots of very
impressive comments, mainly about your sporting prowess,
[belly laughter] but I found one or two that I thought you might
like which were slightly less positive. This about you coxing:
“M.E Palin: He’s fairly unsatisfactory. His voice is soporific. He
is timid and getting heavy. His steering is poor. Otherwise
good.”
That is brilliant; you must give me a copy of that. HAHA!
OK then, almost everywhere. But the question remains, what’s
the weirdest thing you’ve eaten on your travels?
The weirdest thing was probably insects – beetles and little
millipedes in Mexico. But they make them very nice – crunchy and
crispy. The restaurant were we ate them specialised in Aztec food
and there were chrysanthemums for your second course. So that
was pretty weird.
Also as head of Rigg’s football you wrote quite a forceful
polemic on what seemed to be a crisis of confidence. Right at
the end you said that, “the sense of pride in the House may
have been shaken but never destroyed”. Is that an early
example of some of the resolve that Shrewsbury instilled in
you?
Obviously, it is. I clearly believed in the organisation. Well,
throughout my life I’ve always believed in human potential. It’s really
important. I just like people doing things well, whatever it is. Even if
you’re just a boot polisher in the station or a banker or whatever, for
God’s sake, get it right! Do it properly and be aware of the people
around you, because no one’s an island and everyone’s
responsible for everybody else. So maybe I’m just thinking that I
don’t ever want to see Rigg’s football done badly. I was the Brian
Clough of my day.
The second of these questions is: if you were to be a vegetable,
what would you be and why?
[Laughs] Very good. [Long pause.] I think I’d quite like to be a
mushroom. I like the fact that they’re not huge. They just grow there
and everyone seems to like mushrooms. They’re quite herbal and I
love eating them. They can also be deadly. I quite like the colour of
the mushroom, the greys and the whites. I wouldn’t want to be a
carrot – that sickly orange colour.
Would you say that your particular experience of Shrewsbury
not only influenced the resolve in you but also your sense of
humour and ambition to get out into the world?
Yes, I do think it taught me a certain amount of self-reliance. I was
educated in Sheffield until I was thirteen and a half, so going away
to Shrewsbury seemed an odd thing and I remember thinking, what
am I doing? Why have my parents brought me here? (Well, I knew
why they had, because my father was an Old Salopian.) But it was
just really odd and quite difficult to start with and I didn’t really fit in
this strange environment. I remember finding it quite aggressive
and hostile. I think dealing with that was the start of it really. You say,
well, I’ve got to make sure I know who I am and sort it out because
no one else is going to do it for me.
I was very lucky because, being in Rigg’s, I was there with Hugh
Brooke who was a wonderful character and a very funny man. He
used humour a lot and so I learned from him. OK, he was a house
master, but he’d never make you feel frightened or intimidated. He
could put you down, but he did it with humour rather than anything
else. And of course in my first year there was John Peel – John
Ravenscroft back then – and they used to have wonderful banter
together. I remember thinking it was marvellous.
School decorators Merv and Colin admire the new Darwin fresco
and contemplate improvements.
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B U B B L E R E S U R FA C E S AT E D I N B U R G H F R I N G E
Potato option, strutting like Ziggy Stardust into rehearsals at the
good old Ashton Theatre.
The biggest surprise of a week of rehearsals was not that I
remembered all script and dance after so many years, moreover
that amongst actors some of whom were eight years my junior, I felt
welcomed, befriended, home. No longer was I Noah appearing in a
scout-camp production of Bugsy Malone. I was a Salopian again.
Any reservations and casually blasphemous biblical metaphors
quickly evaporated and I set to astounding my newly found
colleagues with my wealth of experience – not in singing or acting,
but in exceptional stage sweating.
Sweat is of course an Edinburgh staple – partly due to the
volcanic temperatures in tiny theatres (complemented by manic
nymphette dancing in authentic 18th century costume) but also to
the fact that the whole stay is a lengthy organised panic. During the
Festival, normal running equates to good-humoured acceptance of
frequent mishaps. The cannons of fate inevitably take pot shots at
the show; this year an absent drum kit (commandeered by
Salopians for a secret late-night jazz gig) and a poorly designed,
weighty gibbet with a penchant for falling on actors’ heads nearly
sunk us. But Admiral Fanning’s SS Panic sailed strong, with Blasé,
one of the most talented Shrewsbury jazz groups of recent years,
ebullient amongst the visiting hedonists, awash with both alcohol
and shortbread-scented Edinburgh rain.
Rain, shortbread or otherwise, is another Edinburgh staple –
fortunately, I enjoy wearing waterproof clothing, so Edinburgh in
August is a perfect holiday destination. Aquatic Edinburgh is even
more suited to frogmen and dolphins, many of whom can be found
slapping their flippers up and down the sodden Royal Mile, half-
‘No one can look back on his schooldays and say with truth that
they were altogether unhappy.’ The Orwellian sentiment is that
appreciation of one’s own education is an entirely retrospective
emotion; at the time, you’re too busy whining about how boring
reading George Orwell is to realise just how much fun you are
having. Details may soften and blur with age, but the warm feeling
of yesterday’s carefree adventure and opportunity remains defined
and constant.
Only a handful of people get to relive the vibrant pleasures of their
schoolboy life; indeed many of those that try end up being
investigated by the police or pilloried by the NSPCC. Being of
unsuspicious countenance and small enough to fit into a hand, in
March this year I was lucky enough to receive an offer to appear in
an updated version of The Bubble, Shrewsbury School’s eighteenth
century financial meltdown musical, in which I originally performed
seven years ago. I melodramatically jumped at the chance; only an
idiot would spurn the opportunity to revisit the uncertain thrill of
taking a school production to the cut-throat metropolis of the
Edinburgh Festival, all the while secretly buoyed by Shrewsbury’s
reputation for producing excellent musical theatre that surpasses all
expectation. More importantly, I was on the dole at the time, so for
three weeks I would effectively be a professional actor.
As a newly professional actor, I must admit that it is a sincere
honour to have been sought out. My selection confirms that either I
am one of the best performers to have passed through the school
in recent years, or the only Salopian sufficiently lacking in selfawareness to happily spend a sizable chunk of my twenty-fourth
summer horsing around dressed as a cross between Sir Walter
Raleigh and David Bowie. A modest type, I plumped for the Space-
20
School News
been a front for Nigerian bank-scammers), drowning in the terse
banter of fresh-faced 17-year-olds at early morning meetings,
smiling and laughing more regularly than wet weather should
permit, unrepeatable encounters with Midlothian drunkards,
wondering if 24 is too early to have a mid-life crisis, wondering if 24
is too early to have a heart-attack, wondering if 24-hour alcohol
licensing really benefits Scotland, plumbing new depths of
boredom and lazy stereotyping conversing with the American High
School Theatre Group and bilious but regular runs up Arthur’s Seat
that symbolised an official goodbye to the metabolism of my youth.
But, as I flagrantly exceed my agreed word limit, the above and a
host of other wordy anecdotes lie eclipsed by one overbearing
truth: Shrewsbury School keeps on giving. All this time after leaving,
the school still cares for me, and I for the school. You are only a
Salopian for five years, but you are an Old Salopian forever. As we
become Even Older Salopians, it’s certainly worth popping in to see
what we can do for the school, or indeed what the school can do for
us.
Murray James (Rb 1999-2004)
dissolved fliers in hand, keen to pull in punters for their shows. They
needn’t bother, for selling the show is where Shrewsbury really
stands many heads above the rest, like a hormonally imbalanced
Hydra. Facing the tricky task of convincing the public to come and
see a musical about finance, trademark Salopian wit and
conversation, reinforced by the newly founded Mary Sidney House
Eyelash Brigade, triumphs over the scattergun, smash-and-grab
approach adopted by many half-naked, attention-starved freaks on
the Mile. Salopians literally charm and flirt punters through the
doors. Whereas some shows play to just six people a night,
Shrewsbury push triple figures. Of course, charming eyelashes
aside, it certainly helps to be pushing an energetic, fresh and
dynamic musical rather than a transsexual body paint nailgun
menstruation extravaganza with audience participation and free
biscuits. There really is something for everyone at the Edinburgh
Festival.
For me, there was the backstage hubbub and nervous brouhaha
of knowing that the press are in tonight, the unbridled joy of glowing
5-star reviews (even though one publication might as well have
S H R E W S B U R Y S C H O OL OR G A N S C H OL A R S H I P
Peter Wagstaff has joined the School this
term as a Gapper with a difference.
Traditionally gap year students have
focused their time and energies on the
sports field, in the boarding houses and
on the river – and their work and
enthusiasm are greatly valued by staff
and students alike. But Peter is more likely
to be found in classroom, the organ loft or
the Maidment Building. With a place to
read Music at Cardiff University next year,
Peter has been appointed as an Organ
Scholar in a new joint venture with St
Chad’s Church.
His time and commitments are shared
between St Chad’s and the School. So in
addition to assisting with Chapel Choir
rehearsals, playing the organ for services,
helping students with aural training and
composition classes and generally
helping out in the Music Faculty, he is also
regularly playing for services at St Chad’s,
conducting the church choir and assisting
with concerts.
“It’s a spectacular mixture of teaching
experience and parish experience too,”
says Peter. “I’m enjoying the huge variety
– from helping with larger groups like the
choirs to working one-to-one in
Composition classes and Aural classes.
I’m preparing more than twenty people for
their Grade 7 and 8 aural exams, which
means having to learn lots of music for
accompaniment and demonstration. I’m
enjoying the challenge! I’m also enjoying
spending some of my time at Shrewsbury
High Prep at Kingsland Grange [formerly
Kingsland Grange], playing at assemblies
and helping with the trebles rehearsals.”
“I’m also being given free organ
lessons with Richard Walker, Sub-organist
at St Chad’s – thanks to the generosity of
an Old Salopian – which is fantastic. And
I’m also really enjoying having singing
lessons at the school.”
Peter’s musical training so far has been
from a mixture of sources. He went to
George Abbott School, a large state
secondary school in Burpham, north-west
of Guildford. “The school doesn’t have a
chapel or an organ, so I learned the organ
at Holy Trinity Church in Guildford High
Street, which has close links with Guildford
Cathedral. I used to sing with the Guildford
Opera Company too and a lot of the music
I’ve done in the past is opera-based,
including working as an opera critic.” He
hopes that this gap year will prepare him
well for studying for a B.Mus. next year.
“There aren’t many schools offering this
kind of experience,” says Kathryn
Burningham, Director of Chapel Music at
the School. “The majority of people who
go on to win Organ Scholarships have
come from public schools or specialist
music schools. This joint venture with St
Chad’s would be ideal for someone from
that background looking to gain extra
experience before taking up a place as an
Organ Scholar at university. But it is also a
wonderful opportunity for someone who
comes, as Peter does, from a school that
21
Peter Wagstaff
doesn’t have that tradition. Apart from the
experience that it offers Peter, he is also a
great person to have in the Department.
He’s fantastic in rehearsals and it’s good
having him helping with the singing as
well as playing the organ. He’s also been
brilliant at helping generally around the
Department and he’s giving lots of help to
the other students and is really inspiring.
“In the first instance, the School – for
financial and other reasons – decided to
trial this scheme for just one term only.
However, we very much hope everyone
will have been able to see the value of
having a gap year Organ Scholar, and
hopefully the School will feel able to
extend the scholarship to a year-long
placement on an annual basis.”
Annabel Warburg
School News
V ENEZUELA
HALl’s tours reborn?
During the summer before joining the staff at Shrewsbury I read
on the school website about the trips led to far flung corners of
the world by the late Michael Hall; I also read that these
“unpackaged” trips would be “difficult to imagine as possible in
the current climate (or indeed world situation)”. During this same
summer I was travelling with a friend in Namibia and met a
teacher from an international school in Hong Kong. He told me of
an organisation called World Challenge which organised monthlong Gap Year-style trips for schools; it seemed that trips akin to
those organised by Michael Hall might still be able to meet
Health and Safety standards.
So came about the World Challenge expedition to Venezuela in
July of this year. A group of fifteen boys and three girls from the
Lower and Upper Sixth signed up fifteen months before our
departure date, and were straight away set the challenge of raising
the funds for their own trip. Bags were packed in supermarkets,
some worked three different jobs over the summer holiday, and a
fundraising golf day was organised at a local course. This
responsibility for their own expedition is a major theme of World
Challenge expeditions. One student is responsible for the budget (a
task carried out with great care and diligence by Richard Mori, OS);
and each day one student took the role as the group leader, making
decisions about accommodation, buses, food etc.
The expedition was made up of four main phases: an
acclimatisation trek, a project, a main trek and a period of rest
and relaxation. Each phase was very different and presented the
team with different challenges. Below are detailed just a few of
the days of our expedition.
Day 2 – 8th July 2009
Whilst waiting for our bags to arrive we ventured into town to buy
a few essentials – deodorant, shower gel, and a spare t-shirt for
everyone. We also had the task of exchanging money. The official
exchange rate in Venezuela is US$1=2.5 Bolivars; but on the
black market it was possible to get over 5 Bolivars for your dollar.
So, with the help of our trekking agent a team was dispatched to
the back room of a jewellery store to literally “double our money”!
Day 5 – 11th July 2009
By far the longest day of our acclimitisation trek in the Henri Pittier
National Park. The trek notes indicated that today’s walk would
take over ten hours, we found out later that many teams have to
stop somewhere in the jungle and pitch an emergency camp. It is
to their credit that the Salopian team made it to the formal
campsite in ten hours and thirty minutes.
Day 0 – 6th July 2009
Today was build-up day at school. Rucksacks were packed, then
unpacked. Items were removed, then bags were repacked again.
This cycle continued for about an hour until there was space to fit
in tents and stoves. The coach arrived at midnight to take us to
Heathrow.
22
School News
Day 13 - 19th July 2009
The last day of our project in the village of Boca de Nichare. The
students shared gifts with the villages, and the boys continued on
their mission to introduce rugby to Venezuela. I think on reflection
that the local boys were more interested in American Football.
Tom Jones (PH) continued his English classes for the younger
members of the village.
Day 18 - 24th July 2009
Today was the day that we would face the ramp of Mount
Roraima. This is the only way up and down the mountain; little
more than a ledge that creeps at about 45 degrees up the side of
the cliff face. The climb was meant to take four hours, one group
we met took over six hours, the Shrewsbury team made the
summit in three and-a-half hours. On the barren landscape on
top of the tepui (table top mountain) there was a great deal of
celebration, with a fleeting feeling that anything was possible.
I am in the early stages of planning another expedition of this kind for the Summer of 2011. This trip will be open to members of the
current Fifth Form and Lower Sixth Form; further details should be available in the New Year. Anyone who wishes to express an
initial interest should email [email protected]
Rob WIlson
Cardinal Cormac MurphyO’Connor, who preached at
the annual St Mary’s Service,
deep in discussion with
School Chaplain Gary Dobbie.
Perhaps they are discussing
the Reformation?
NE W BOYS’ RACE
2009
The start. The winner was
Angus Hayward (Ch), wearing No. 104.
23
School News
T H E D U K E OF E D I N B U R G H ’S AWA R D
The relaunched Duke of Edinburgh’s Award programme is now in
its third year. So far 44 pupils have completed the Bronze section
of the Award, 18 have completed Silver and 23 have completed
Gold. Whilst these numbers are encouraging, there are still a
large number who begin D of E but do not complete. In this lies
the inherent value of the Award – it is a self-motivational
programme and those who achieve it have had to show
commitment to a number of activities as well as demonstrate the
competence, planning ability and resilience required to
successfully complete an expedition. What is not easily
measured is the extent to which teenagers, fickle as they can be,
have stuck with an activity or tried a new one merely because
their involvement in the Award has given them a reason to do so.
In cases such as these, the success of the Award goes beyond a
mere certificate. All those who have achieved Bronze, Silver or
Gold over the last three years are listed on the School website –
and well done to them!
Major Nick David
Gold D of E Expeditions
Meanwhile, Rowan ‘Pack Mule’ Stringer, Ed ‘Moaner’
Thompson, Will ‘Steady Eddy’ Briggs and Tom ‘Sat Nav’ Davis
explored the historic churches of the Peak District for their D of E
Gold Award Expedition, walking from Bamford to Crowden via
Bradfield, Ladybower and Edale and camping along the way.
During the summer, Charlotte Finlay, Emma Darrington, Harry
Putnam, Callum Harvey-Scholes and Sam Robinson clocked up
over 100km during their Gold D of E Expedition, sea-kayaking
around the Elaphite Islands near Dubrovnik, Croatia in glorious
sunshine.
Training for next summer’s Gold D of E expeditions took place
in force 6 winds and heavy rain during October half-term at Llyn
Gwynant and Lake Bala.
24
School News
S P ORT AT S H R E W S B U R Y
studying at AS-level and eleven working towards their A2.
The announcement that Will would be taking over as
Housemaster in Ridgemount from September 2009 was greeted
with general approbation, particularly among Ridgemountaineers.
This left a major question, however. Would the School ever find
anyone capable of filling his shoes as Director of Sport?
Enter Paul Greetham. His roles have included Head of Boys’ PE
and Games and Housemaster at Bromsgrove School over a tenyear period – an institution with a formidable sporting reputation –
and with fifteen years’ experience as a coach for Warwickshire
Cricket Board, coach for the Midlands U14 or U15s cricket team for
the last six years, a county and district level rugby coach, including
the North Midlands U16s, as well as coaching experience in hockey
and football, Paul’s sporting credentials for the job could not be
faulted.
Perhaps most reassuring of all was the fact that Paul and Will
have known of one another for a long time, having met on coaching
courses, and have built up a mutual respect and liking. “It is very
evident that Will has done a fantastic job in the last five years,” says
Paul. “He has been incredibly supportive and instrumental in the
In the last five years, Shrewsbury’s sporting profile has never been
higher, thanks to the commitment and talent of top-level coaches,
some fine appointments, and some major donations from wellwishers. In large part, however, it is due to our first Director of Sport,
Will Hughes.
Will has amalgamated the vast amounts of sport taking place
throughout the School into a structured and unified department. He
has also helped oversee a major new building and refurbishment
programme of many of the School’s sports facilities, including the
Neville Cardus Cricket Centre and the Gemini Swimming Pool. In
addition to strengthening the provision of the main core sports, he
has been keen to widen the choice of sports offered to pupils.
There are now more than twenty different sports listed on the weekly
Fasti, including trampolining, sub-aqua, taekwondo and fencing.
In an effort to ensure that the highest level of sports coaching is
made available to everyone, whatever their level of ability, all Third
and Fourth Formers now have weekly timetabled Curriculum
Games lessons when they are taught by the School’s top specialist
coaches. PE is now also taught as an A level subject and has
proved to be increasingly popular, with thirteen students currently
25
School News
The Initiative not only underlines the School’s commitment to
exercise and activity as part of a balanced and broad education –
sit mens sana in corpore sano – but falls in line with recent World
Health Organisation guidelines for young people and Government
strategies, including the ‘five hour offer’. It has been well received by
pupils and by staff. As Paul says, “Boys like structure. And at a time
when national obesity levels among young people are high, we
have an active and fit school.”
Minor as well as major sports have benefited. The School has its
biggest swimming squad for some time; all rowing coaches are fully
deployed throughout the week; there are four football squads in all
year groups so they can each field five teams; badminton,
basketball and squash have grown substantially; and numbers
across the full range of sports have increased.
Paul’s vision for the future of sport at Shrewsbury is shared by his
predecessor and the rest of his department. “We want to maintain
Shrewsbury’s profile nationally as a school for sporting excellence.
We want to continue to produce pupils who are potentially
professional sportsmen and sportswomen and also enhance the
academic provision of sport. And at the same time, we want to
enhance the sporting experience of all pupils and provide a good
standard of coaching and competitive opposition for all who wish to
take part.”
So rather than heralding a whole new gameplan and change in
tactics, the handing over to a new Director of Sport has instead
been a smooth baton change and a new injection of pace down the
second leg.
Annabel Warburg
handing-over process and we’ve been working very closely
together.”
Within days of Paul’s arrival, he introduced a new Sports Initiative,
making a minimum of five ‘changes’ (sports sessions) a week the
standard for all pupils in the Third, Fourth and Fifth Forms. “The
generally accepted advice for the first year in a new position is
‘don’t change anything’. I have to admit that I’ve gone against this,”
Paul confesses with a grin. “But the changes I’ve introduced are the
natural progression of the work Will has already done. They are
essentially formalising that has already been put in place.
“Pupils at Shrewsbury are offered an extremely broad choice of
sport, far more choice than at other schools. Those who are
motivated come regularly to all their sports sessions. There’s been a
concern, however, that the wealth of choice has meant that some
who are less motivated – particularly among the Fifth Formers –
have drifted off to do other things. Apart from the loss to those boys
concerned, this has also made it difficult for staff to plan and
resource some of the sessions. This new Sports Initiative therefore
introduces a more formal structure to how sport is run at the School
by asking pupils to choose their sports for each term and commit to
them. Registers are taken, and absences are noted and followed
up. There is some flexibility on a case-by-case basis for those who
are heavily involved in music, but essentially all members of the
Third, Fourth and Fifth Form now have to do a minimum of an hour
of exercise five times a week. And of course many do far more than
that. The system of each boy creating his own sports programme
for the week means that they can specialise if they wish, but they
also have a broad range of possible options.”
S P ORT S L E A D E R S H I P AWA R D S
Level 2 Community Sports Leadership Award is offered in
the Lower Sixth as part of the Complementary Studies
programme. In addition to the practical skills required to lead
sports sessions, students have to complete a unit on the
health and safety aspects of sports leadership, which
includes a first aid course. They are also required to do ten
hours of voluntary service in the local community. Some help
with Third and Fourth Form games sessions, while others
help at local sports clubs.
“We have a lot of boys and girls who are keen to take
part,” says Nicola Thomson, Head of Girls’ Games and in
charge of the Lower Sixth Sports Leadership scheme. “They
learn a lot of very valuable leadership skills and also about
how to organise not just other people but themselves too.
They’re used to a lot of things being done for them at school.
But part of the Sports Leadership programme is about
finding out how sport is run in the local community and how
to access it. So they’ve planned and organised trips off-site
to places like the Welti Tennis Centre, the golf driving range
and Laser Quest. It’s good for them to learn how to find out
information and how to organise something completely by
themselves, rather than sitting and waiting for someone to do
things for them. These are valuable lessons for life!”
Like most nine- and ten-year-olds, pupils at St George’s
Primary School in Shrewsbury look forward to their PE
lessons. But this term their Thursday afternoon games
sessions have had an extra buzz – they are being taught by
Shrewsbury Fourth Formers.
Thirty-six boys in the Fourth Form are currently working
towards their Sports Leadership Award Level 1. Run by the
Youth Sport Trust, the overall aim of the Sports Leadership
Award scheme is to build young people’s confidence and
communication skills in a sporting context. It is not necessary
to be particularly good at any sport – the emphasis is on
learning how to plan and lead sports sessions and how to
communicate instructions effectively to the people taking
part.
“The boys are really enjoying the time they’re spending at
St George’s,” says Clare Leake, who leads the Fourth Form
Sports Leadership scheme. “Having to deliver a 40-minute
game session to a group of excited Year 5s and 6s really
makes them have to focus on their preparation! They go to
the school in groups of twelve. Four of them lead a tenminute warm-up session, the another group of four lead the
main activity and the final four do a warm-down session.
They’re having fun devising simple games that the children
will enjoy and that will help them learn some basic skills.”
26
School News
T UCKS 2009
Alex Mackay (I), the winning boy.
David Gee (Master 1958-) about to
complete his 50th Tucks. He confesses
that he gave himself such an outrageous
head start that he had to wait to allow the
front runners to pass him!
The devil take the hindmost! Alex Mackay (No.174 pictured above) on the far right.
27
Peter Middleton (English department),
the outright winner.
School News
CCF
SUMMER CAMP
Twenty-seven boys from both the
Army and Royal Marines Sections of the
CCF took part in the CCF Summer Camp
at Longmoor, near Liss in Hampshire.
Activities included perfecting their field
craft skills in platoon level attacks and
ambushes, shooting practices, a
competition day, orienteering, a KataKanu
race across Hawley Lake, and seallaunching kayaks and canoes down a
specially built 20-foot drop-slide.
THE PRINGLE TROPHY
There are only eighteen Royal Marine
Combined Cadet Force Sections in the UK
and Shrewsbury is lucky to be one of these.
Each year eight cadets from these schools
compete in the prestigious Pringle Trophy –
a test of military skill, teamwork and
endurance at the RM Commando Training
Centre at Lympstone in Devon.
Shrewsbury has won the overall event
twice, so spirits were high when the team,
captained by Cpl Ben Spencer Jones,
made the long journey to the South West.
The team did very well overall, with high
scores in the leadership, camouflage and
concealment events and a second place
RAF CAMP
The RAF Section spent its annual flying
camp at nearby RAF Shawbury. Highlights
on the section attack stand. A highlight (or
is it lowlight?) of the event is the gruelling
endurance event: a speed march/run
across tracks, hills, streams and including
the full immersion of the infamous ‘sheep
dip’. Not an event for the faint-hearted. The
photo shows cadets in the early stages of
this event – before they were encrusted with
mud. Well done to them all!
included a Spitfire display during the
station’s celebrations of Veterans Day, livefiring at the shooting range, a closely fought
drill competition, and flights over the
Shropshire countryside – and the School –
in a Squirrel helicopter.
Restoration of Top Common, July 2009.
28
School News
Harry Yeoward (O, 4th Form) helming his Mirror to third place in the youth section of the World Mirror Championships.
TOUGH GUY
John Dempsey, who has just been awarded an All-Rounder
Scholarship and will join Churchill’s as a Third Former next
September, has already gained the official title of ‘Tough Guy’.
John is currently a pupil at The Ryleys, Alderley Edge. In
September he took part in the national Tough Guy challenge to
raise money for The Christie Hospital in Manchester, where one of
his teachers is currently undergoing treatment for cancer. The sixmile race, which is open to ten- to eighteen-year-olds from around
the country, included a commando-style assault course, complete
with walls, tunnels, trip wires and burning straw. John, aged 12,
achieved a very impressive second place. The winner was 15.
Tough Guy – John Dempsey
ALICE WALKER (U6) has been
selected from among hundreds of
hopefuls to join an elite British
Equestrian Federation Regional
Foundation Squad.
These squads give talented riders
support and access to top
equestrian specialists to help
prepare them for international
competitions.
29
School News
C RICKET
2009 season
HEADLINES . . . HEADLINES . . . HEADLINES . . . HEADLINES . . . HEADLINES . . .
Congratulations to the following for their selection and contracts: Joe Leach (Worcestershire CCC contract 2010); Alex Blofield
and Ben Williams (Midlands U17s); David Lloyd (West U17s); Stephen Leach and Jack Hudson Williams (Midlands U15s); Alex
Blofield, Stephen Leach and Jack Hudson Williams (Worcestershire Acadamy).
Silk Trophy 2009 – Shrewsbury won the Silk Trophy for only the 2nd time beating Elizabeth College Guernsey, Melbourne GS
Australia and Eton College. Joe Leach (capt) and Rory Griffiths played in both teams to win the trophy (2006 & 2009)
National 20-20 – Shrewsbury overcame Wrekin College, Ellesmere College & Oswestry in the regional rounds and then beat
Abingdon in the 1st round of the national stages. In the quarter final Shrewsbury eased past Huddersfield New College, but fell to
a very strong Millfield side in the semi finals. Millfield went on to win the final in style.
Lord’s Taverners U15 National KO – Shrewsbury beat Alleyn’s ( Staffs) and Bedford School during the summer term, but lost to
Oakham in the quarter finals – this proved to be the only match this group has lost in all matches in the past two years. (Played
45 won 44)
ESCA U15 20-20 Shrewsbury won the Daily Telegraph ECB/ESCA U15 National 20/20 at Headingley on Friday 11th September.
During a very exciting finals day, they beat Manchester GS in the semi finals by 30 runs and beat Whitgift in the final by 9 wickets.
Lord’s Taverners U14 County Cup. Shrewsbury beat Bridgnorth Endowed in the final played at London Road on Thursday 10th
September and now go forward to the Lords Taverner’s U15 National KO in 2010.
1ST XI RESULTS 2009
Wed 15 Apr
Marylebone Cricket Club (home)
Marylebone Cricket Club 176 for 4 off 49 overs,
Shrewsbury 177 for 8 off 48 overs
Sat 18 Apr
RGS Worcester (away)
Won by 108 runs
Shrewsbury 255 for 3 off 50 overs, RGS Worcester 147 for 10 off 45 overs
Wed 22 Apr
Shropshire Schools’ Cricket Association U17s (home)
Shrewsbury 171 for 6 off 45 overs,
Shropshire Schools’ Cricket Association U17s 120 for 6 off 45 overs
Won by 51 runs
Sat 25 Apr
King Edward’s School Birmingham (home)
King Edward’s School Birmingham 149 for 10 off 47 overs,
Shrewsbury 152 for 4 off 43 overs
Won by 6 wickets
Sat 2 May
Oundle (home)
Shrewsbury 175 for 7 off 50 overs, Oundle 132 for 10 off 50 overs
Won by 43 runs
Sun 3 May
Oswestry (home) (20:20)
Shrewsbury 247 for 3 off 20 overs, Oswestry 68 for 9 off 20 overs
Won by 179 runs
Sun 3 May
Wrekin College (home) (20:20)
Shrewsbury 183 for 3, Wrekin 91 for 7
Won by 92 runs
Sun 3 May
Ellesmere College (home) (20:20)
Won by 9 wickets
Ellesmere College 66 for 5 off 20 overs, Shrewsbury 67 for 1 off 20 overs
Sat 9 May
Trent College (away)
Shrewsbury 240 for 9 off 50 overs, Trent College 132 for 10 off 40 overs
Won by 102 runs
Sun 10 May
Worcestershire CCC Academy (home)
Worcestershire CCC Academy 250 for 3 off 50 overs,
Shrewsbury 247 for 5 off 50 overs
Lost by 3 runs
Wed 13 May
Wrekin College (away)
Won by 8 wickets
Wrekin College 116 for 10 off 50 overs, Shrewsbury 117 for 2 off 20 overs
Sat 16 May
Repton (away)
Shrewsbury 183 for 5 off 40 overs, Repton 57 for 4 off 18 overs (rain)
Drew
Thu 21 May
Madharau Academy Gwalior India (home ) (20:20)
Shrewsbury 168 for 7, MAG 94 all out
Won by 74 runs
Sat 6 June
Cheltenham
Rain
Fri 12 June
Abingdon (home) (20:20)
Shrewsbury 187 for 7, Abingdon 71 all out
Won by 116 runs
30
Won by 2 wickets
School News
Sat 13 June
Malvern (cancelled - swine flu)
NR
Fri 19 June
Huddersfield New College
Shrewsbury 191 for 5, Huddersfield NC 76 all out
Won by 115 runs
Sat 20 June
Manchester GS
Manchester GS 164 all out, Shrewsbury 132 all out
Lost by 32 runs
Sun 21 June
Free Foresters
Shrewsbury 178 for 6, Free Foresters 174 for 9
Won by 4 runs
W/T 23/24 June Uppingham
Uppingham 1st 102 all out, Shrewsbury 1st 411 for 2;
Uppinhgham 2nd 134 all out
Won by an innings and 175
Fri 25 June
Millfield (home) (20:20)
Millfield 194 for 7, Shrewsbury 154 all out
Lost by 40 runs
Mon 29 June
Elizabeth College (home) Silk Trophy
Elizabeth College 46 all out Shrewsbury 50 for 0
Won by 10 wkts
Tues 30 June
Melbourne GS (home ) Silk Trophy Won by 128
Shrewsbury 265 for 6, MGS 137 all out
Wed 1 July
Eton College Silk Trophy
Shrewsbury 217, Eton 116 all out
Won by 101 runs
Fri 3 July
Saracens
Shrewsbury 234 for 7, Saracens 217 all out
Won by 17 runs
1st XI AVERAGES 2009
Batting (150+ only)
J. Leach*
A. D. Blofield
D. W. Holden
D. L. Lloyd
B. Williams
T. J. Home
S. G. Leach
Innings
14
14
14
13
13
10
11
N.O.
4
3
1
2
2
1
2
Runs
586
290
508
391
287
227
411
Highest score
115
54
139
102
79
67
85
Average
58.60
26.36
39.07
35.54
26.09
25.22
45.66
Bowling (10+ only)
J. Leach*
H. R. C. Dawson
D. L. Lloyd
R. F. Griffiths
A. D. Blofield
T. E. Welti
Overs
142.2
76.5
80.8
81
110.4
67.2
Maidens
25
8
9
7
25
8
Wickets
35
24
12
18
22
15
Best bowling
4-12
3-17
5-17
3-4
3-6
1-2
Average
11.65
11.00
20.16
14.50
15.22
17.00
The outstanding season was a result of much hard work at the school over recent years and much credit must go to all the coaching
staff led by cricket professional Paul Pridgeon. The availability and quality of the Neville Cardus Indoor Cricket Centre has allowed the
cricketers at school to develop their skills throughout the year and thereby flourish in the summer. In addition the off season touring
programme (Australia December 2006 , South Africa December 2008 and Australia December 2010 (planned)) has enabled progress
to be monitored and assessed for the betterment of all involved.
National, regional and county success is very rewarding and highlights the progress made by the pupils at school. It is, however, not
the only criterion by which we measure the work done at Shrewsbury. It is our aim to produce more first class cricketers from the school
and hopefully add to the reputation enhanced by the recent successes of James Taylor (Leicestershire & England U19s).
1st XI REPORT
The superb season of 2008 was
followed by an equally and ultimately
more successful season in 2009.The
highlight for all concerned was winning
our 2nd Silk Trophy in the past four
seasons. In beating Eton College on the
last day of the festival, played on surfaces
of true quality and consistency, we
avenged the narrow defeat in a similar
position at Eton the previous July.
The outstanding Joe Leach who has
subsequently gone on to gain a summer
contract with Worcestershire CCC
captained the side with great intelligence
and no little pride.
In general terms the robust and positive
31
nature of our batting and the variety of our
bowling attack were key factors that
produced a great number of wins and
very few defeats. The number of high
quality batsman in the squad gave me
difficult decisions to make throughout the
season but to their credit all boys served
the team well wherever they were asked
School News
to bat. The bowling attack was strong and
very well balanced with three seamers,
two medium pacers, two off spinners, and
two leg spinners.
The three defeats suffered throughout
the season were an exciting yet frustrating
two-run defeat against a strong
Worcestershire Academy XI, a single
below par performance against a gritty
Manchester GS XI and a strong showing in
the semi-final defeat to Millfield in the
National 20-20 semi-final. These fixtures
apart, the side largely dominated matches.
One of the strongest performances of the
season and perhaps in the history of 1st XI
cricket at Shrewsbury School was the
defeat of Uppingham by an innings and
175 runs. Our run in the 20-20 competition
was our best to date. The encounter with
Millfield on a balmy evening in June will
long be remembered, by the large crowd of
supporters, for its true quality and intensity.
Joe Leach was an exceptional captain
and character within the team. During his
long career in the 1st XI, Joe has always
approached each mach with enthusiasm
and a level head. He has optimised the
way in which we play our cricket and I
thank him for his excellent service. His
innings in the final of the Silk Trophy in
front of a very large home crowd was a
fitting way to end his time at school.
Rory Griffiths who, like Joe, has shown
great commitment to the team over four
seasons has been the best fielder I have
seen at schoolboy level. He won his
second Silk Trophy in four years and
proved himself to be an excellent
batsman under pressure and a very
useful left arm spinner.
Tom Welti made significant progress as
an off spinner and was very often our ‘turn
to’ bowler. He provided consistency and
wickets throughout the season and
always threatened to provide an exciting
innings with the bat but was sadly
restricted in his opportunities. He really
did produce his best bowling in his last
year at school and was an excellent team
member.
Tom Home was ever-present in the
starting line up and never quite got the
rub of the green in 2009. Despite this, his
efforts were always team centred and his
contributions over three seasons have been
significant. His performances have
underpinned some of the most successful
teams the school has seen for many years.
Dion Holden was our stand out batsman
during the first half of the season. He
added consistency to his performances in
2009 and the team benefited greatly from
his increasing maturity at the crease. His
batting over two seasons has contributed
greatly to the strength of cricket at
Shrewsbury School but his innings of 132
against Uppingham in an opening
partnership of 212 with Stephen Leach was
sublime and memorable. He has now
progressed to Perth WA to continue
developing his career in grade cricket at
Claremont Nedlands.
Alex Sale served the 1st XI well and
despite his lack of opportunities gave his all
to the cause. His seam bowling was of the
highest quality but the balance of the side
often dictated the inclusion of another
spinner and Alex often missed out. His
performance in Paarl on the South Africa
tour will remain with me for a long time. His
confidence and excellent character were
essential ingredients that added to the
wonderful team spirit of the team of 2009.
Alex Blofield (captain elect 2010)
provided true quality with the bat
wherever he batted but his bowling gave
the team a real cutting edge. The
development of his bowling has been
outstanding and he will need to continue
that development in 2010. Significantly his
batting has also been a cornerstone of the
team’s success over the last two seasons
but in the coming seasons he will need to
provide major runs in what promises to be
a more settled batting order.
David Lloyd brought a new dimension to
our performances. His lively inswingers
often unsettled the opposition and in
partnership with Joe Leach rarely allowed
teams to get a start. His batting was
always vibrant and exciting to watch. The
true quality of his batting was never more
apparent than when he scored 104 n.o.
against Uppingham putting on 163 with
Joe Leach @10.4 per over. In the same
match he also took 5 for 17. I look forward
to even more mature and exciting
performances in 2010.
Ben Williams announced himself in
South Africa as a high quality, resolute
precise and determined cricketer keen to
perform at the highest level. His
thoughtful approach often allowed us the
32
edge over the opposition. His fielding was
sharp and concentrated whilst his bowling
evolved particularly in the 20/20 format
but his batting was always focused on the
job in hand. He was good at matching his
play to the requirements of the team. Roll
on 2010!
Ben Price was a key performer in 2009. A
wicketkeeper of the highest quality and
easily the best in the Midlands in his age
group, he raised the standard of every
fielding performance. His character and
energy lifted the spirit of the team
whenever doubt raised its head. As a
batter of real quality, Ben rarely got a
chance to shine but he did complement
the other batters in the side with one or
two real cameos. In 2010 more
opportunities will arise.
Henry Dawson was our best newcomer
and most improved bowler by far. His
performances were always exciting and
match turning. I have not seen such high
quality legspin bowling at this level for a
number of years. As a boy, Henry
matured throughout the season and grew
in confidence to such an extent that he
almost did enough in the 20-20 semi final
against Millfield to allow us a significant
win. He amply returned the faith we
showed in him and his departure leaves
the biggest hole in our plans for next
season. We all wish him well and respect
greatly what he did for the team.
Stephen Leach was outstanding in the
manner in which he fitted into the side
and greatly added to the strength of the
playing unit. As a left-handed opener he
often added balance to our batting lineup, but more that that he provided
stability at the top of the order in our
50-50 matches and also inventiveness in
our 20-20 performances when he often
batted in the middle order to great effect.
His place is now cemented and I am
confident that he can progress even more
to dominate at 1st XI level as he has
during his very successful career to date.
Jack Hudson-Williams played a
significant role in the successes of the 1st
XI and also helped the U15s to national
success. In making the transition it became
apparent that his quality and athleticism
would take him further in the game still. In
2010 Jack, as a significant all rounder, will
get the opportunity to shine and continue
his outstanding progress.
School News
SHREWSBURY WINS THE SILK TROPHY
FOR THE SECOND TIME
Eton started strongly but an aggressive new ball spell by Joe
Leach and David Lloyd checked their desire for runs and slowly
all the bowlers and fielders turned the screw and Eton were
dismissed for 116.
Shrewsbury School 1st XI won the Silk Trophy (1990-2009) for
the second time in the past four seasons and became only the
second team, apart from Eton, to win the trophy more than once.
After successes over Elizabeth College, Guernsey and
Melbourne Grammar School on Monday and Tuesday,
Shrewsbury played Eton College for the Trophy on Wednesday
1st July. Shrewsbury School batted first and were in early trouble
at 35 for 3. Joe Leach (captain) started to recover the situation
with Ben Williams before he fell to a boundary catch. Stephen
Leach (37) then joined his brother to establish a good platform
that enabled the school to finish strongly on 217 for 8. Joe Leach
finished on 116 not out.
FESTIVAL AWARDS
Batsman of the Festival: J Leach SHREWSBURY 116 runs
Bowler of the Festival: A.Blofield SHREWSBURY 8 wkts
Fielder of the Festival: R.Griffiths SHREWSBURY Outstanding
Catches
All Rounder of the Festival: J.Leach SHREWSBURY 116 runs 7
wkts
2nd XI REPORT
In the batting department, Jacob James led the way with 351
runs at an average of 39.00. His 107 against the Old Salopians
entertained a large crowd on the penultimate day of term and put
the 2nd XI in a winning position in that game. Rupert Salmon
scored 275 runs at 45.80, including 108* against the best
opening attack they faced. Ramith Abrol also scored 247 runs at
41.20 but must improve his concentration in order to go on to
play the big innings in 2010.
The bowling was led by George Barker and Peter SchützerWeissmann, who both bowled some hostile spells with the new
ball. Alas neither took the number of wickets they deserved often
bowling deliveries that were too good for the batsmen to edge.
Charlie Haylett also bowled well but was more effective in the
timed games than he was in limited overs matches.
Played 10 Won 5 Lost 3 Drew 2
Under new management (RHM), for the first time in many years,
the 2nd XI entered a new era in 2009. The nucleus of the side
was made up of the outstanding Under 16 A XI of the previous
season. In the event, they had a mixed season with a strong start,
a mediocre middle, an enforced mid-season break and an
outstanding finish.
Tom Shaw led the team, in the first half of the season and by
Ramith Abrol in the 2nd half. It was disappointing that Chris
Hughes decided to concentrate on his exams rather than lead
the side. In terms of results, the final analysis was won 5, lost 3
and two winning draws (against XL Club and the Old Salopians).
The three losses were due in the main to the absence of key
players through a combination of injury, illness and the curse of
coursework.
U16A REPORT
Played 7 Won 4 Lost 2 Tied 1
confidence and achieved creditable wins over Trent College 3rd
XI and Wrekin 2nd XI before the GCSE exams interrupted the
season. In the second half of term there were convincing wins
against Adams Grammar and Rossall 1st XIs.
After a disappointing start to the season, which saw losses to
Oundle and the Shropshire U16s, the U16A team grew in
U15A REPORT
effort. There were of course too some fine individual
performances. Stephen Leach was outstanding with the bat and
he started the season with an unbelievable string of scores. At
one stage he had scored 600 runs in 5 innings, being dismissed
only once.
There were also fantastic contributions with the bat from Jack
Hudson-Williams who played some domineering innings and
Henry Lewis who played the spinners quite superbly. Mark
Prescott also played some key innings and there were fine
performances from the mercurial Jack Bailey, plus Will Mason,
Harry Croft, Rory Mucklow and Sam Welti.
The strength in depth of the batting line up ensured that the top
order were able to play freely, safe in the knowledge that
numbers 7 to 10 could all score highly. Indeed when the batting
order was swapped around to allow opportunities for others they
responded by scoring runs! The bowling department was also
very strong, spearheaded by an excellent seam attack of Jack
Hudson-Williams, James Aston, Archie Darroch, Will Mason and
Played 25 Won 24 Lost 1 Drawn 0
The U15s had a simply outstanding season, winning 24 out of the
25 games, to take their tally over two seasons to an incredible 44
wins out of 45 matches. In a competitive team sport this really is
an incredible feat. The pinnacle of the season was winning the
National U15 20/20 competition at Headingley in September,
beating Whitgift in the final by 9 wickets. The team also won their
two games at the Millfield Festival, beating both U15 Lord’s
Taverners finalists, Oakham and Millfield along the way. This went
some way (though not entirely!) towards avenging our defeat at
Oakham in the Lord’s Taverners earlier in the season.
Captain Henry Lewis, who has a genuine empathy for the
game and an outstanding tactical brain ably led the side. His
calm authority made sure the team came out on top in a number
of close encounters.
The main season saw convincing victories over both county
and school opposition and this was achieved by a genuine team
33
School News
Will Leigh-Bramwell. All bowled with control and
aggression and gave the captain a fine arsenal of
pace options. The spinners also bowled beautifully
with off spinners Mark Prescott and Harry Croft
bowling with control and intelligence and
strangling the opposition middle order. The leg
spinners Stephen Leach and Adam Morris also
posed plenty of questions and produced some
excellent spells. Perhaps the Achilles heel of the
side was their fielding which was lack lustre and
sloppy at times, but could also be magnificent.
This is an area that all of the players can work on
in the coming months. Despite their achievements
to date, this group of players still remain hungry
and they must now push on to establish
themselves at higher levels next summer.
A big thank you to Andy Barnard for his support
throughout the season and to Paul Pridgeon for
continuing to stretch and challenge the boys.
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH
UNDER 15s 20/20 SCHOOLS
COMPETITION WINNERS 2009
Rory Mucklow fielding in the deep in the final.
RESULTS FROM HEADINGLEY –
Semi Final: Shrewsbury v Manchester Grammar
School
Shrewsbury 165 for 6 (J.Bailey 50, M. Gregson
40 J. Hudson-Williams 28)
Manchester Grammar School 139 for 6
(M. Prescott 4-0-17-0)
Shrewsbury School Won by 26 runs
Final: Shrewsbury v Whitgift
Whitgift 132 for 5 (J.Hudson-Williams 4-1-9-0,
J. Aston 4-0-23-0, W .Mason 4-0-37-1, M. Prescott
4-0-15-2, A. Darroch 2-0-10-1 H.Lewis 2-0-21-0)
Shrewsbury School 133 for 1 (H.Lewis run out 8,
S. Leach 56 not out , J. Hudson-Williams 52 not
out)
Shrewsbury School won by 9 wickets
Jack Bailey batting in the semi-final v Manchester GS
UNDER 14 REPORT
the board, but the lack of consistency is evident in the season
averages below. Without Gregon’s 690 runs over the season would
the boys have been as successful?
On the fielding side, however, this team continually showed that
they are top class. With a wide selection of excellent bowlers, the
boys were able to apply great pressure on the opposition, be it with
pace, spin or swing bowling – indeed with 9 bowlers going for less
than 4 an over, they never had to chase a high score. The accuracy
of the bowlers improved over the season, as did the superb
fielding. With plenty of time spent in practice on catching,
(especially after putting down 8 catches in our first game loss to
RGS Worcester!) the team really excelled in this area. A prime
example was the game against Repton, in which 8 wickets fell to
catches – a fine achievement.
Played 13 Won 11 Drew 0 Lost 2
It really has been a pleasure to coach the boys over the summer
term, as they have approached training and matches with a great
enthusiasm, and have developed well as not only players, but as a
team. That it was slightly disappointing to even lose a game this
season highlights the strength that this group has, and the heights
that they should push in the future – the Lord’s Taverners National
Cup next year will really allow them to put themselves against the
best in the country.
If the boys are to progress next year, then more work must be
done on the batting front. Too often concentration waned too easily,
leaving too much pressure on Gregson’s hard-hitting. There were
times when nearly every player in the team was able to put runs on
Fuller reports of all these matches are available on the School website.
34
School News
T ENNIS
something we need to work on further next season if we are to
attain better results. This will be achieved by scheduling more
inter school match play to enable boys to develop more self
confidence and self reliance. Apart from the regular school
fixtures we reached the 2nd round of the Glanville Cup before
losing to a very strong Ellesmere team, the consolation being an
excellent singles victory for Tom Morris-Eyton who beat a
technically more proficient player with heart and guts.
The highlight for the top tennis players is the Youll Cup and
Thomas Bowl for the top 4 players U19 and U15 respectively. Our
first pair (Tom Morris-Eyton and Will Briggs) in the Youll Cup
performed admirably winning three out of four matches but our
second pair (Tom Wordie and Tom Davis) lost all of their matches.
Will Briggs also performed well under immense pressure in the
deciding singles matches winning two out of his three matches.
These matches will stand Will in good stead for next year when
he will undoubtedly be called upon again to rescue the team. In
the Thomas Bowl the first pair of Kiran Morjaria and Will MilliganManby and second pair of Jack Carver and Simon Bunting were
knocked out early on by some excellent players. What was
particularly pleasing was that all of these boys acknowledged
their own deficiencies but were very positive about the challenges
of improving their games going forward.
In fact the top seven players in the 4th form this year have been
particularly keen and excellent in their attitude towards self
improvement. Whilst none of them are super talented all of them
work exceptionally hard and were a pleasure to work with. Worthy
of a special mention is Kiran Morjaria who came back from 6
match points against Idsall in the Aegon Year 10 National
Championships. Kiran was rewarded for this by promotion to the
1st VI in the last match of the season against Radley.
The efforts of the 4th form caused me to rethink the make up of
the Top Squad for tennis after half term. The Top Squad is now
made up of the best players from all of the year groups. This
change has enabled faster learning with the younger boys able to
observe the older boys and compete against them.
A final mention must be made of the two boys who were
awarded School Firsts. First, the Captain Tom Morris-Eyton who
has improved immeasurably as a player over the two years that I
have known him. He always gives 100% and was an excellent
example to the boys in the years below. Tom was probably the
4th best in his year when he came to the school but persevered
and trained hard on Sundays and Thursdays at the Welti and he
formed an excellent first pair partnership with Will Briggs.
The latter is a hugely gifted player who plays shots that most of
us can only dream about. If Will can improve his concentration he
can progress beyond Mr Clark’s assessment of him as the 5th
best player at Shrewsbury in the last 15 years. Will’s promotion to
Captain of Tennis next year provides him with the opportunity for
leadership. I expect him to excel in this role.
A final thank you to all of the coaches who gave of their time to
help the boys in their tennis this year. A particular mention must
be made of Mr Clark who was invaluable to me on the trip to
Majorca and throughout my first season as master in charge of
tennis. He has an unquenchable love of the game that rubs off on
the boys. It is a major reason why I am quietly confident about
the future of Salopian Tennis.
Myles Harding
The tennis season started for myself and Mr Clark with the now
traditional tennis tour to Paguera, Majorca. Eighteen boys came
on the trip and were able to spend more than 25 hours honing
their skills in preparation for the season. The trip to Majorca is
unquestionably important for grooving techniques and helping to
prepare mentally for matches.
The 1st VI (Tom Morris-Eyton (Captain), Will Briggs, Tom
Wordie, Tom Davis, Ben Jones, Fred Williams) had a reasonable
season winning half their matches. Some matches could have
been won if we had been mentally tougher. The weather had a
significant effect on the season leading to four cancelled
matches and a number of practices which prevented the players
from getting into a rhythm and gaining momentum in their
games. One area we need to improve in is the mental side of the
game: a few of the boys would comment after losing a set “we
were better than them but somehow lost”.
Technically we may have been stronger than some teams but
tennis is also a physical, mental and tactical challenge. As the
season wore on the players began to tough it out and became
more consistent but the process of becoming mentally tougher is
Tom Morris-Eyton, School Captain.
35
School News
R SSBC
throughout the season, and its members must feature
prominently in any discussion of the future of the Top Squad.
For three years now, Nick Henderson has centered these
successes and energies. The oarsmen and coxswains rightly
estimate that Nick is awesome. Most believe he will soon return
to the coaching of rowing.
During each of the previous three years (2006, 2007, 2008) of
racing for the Princess Elizabeth Cup at Henley, Shrewsbury
made clear its supremacy in British schoolboy rowing, racing
twice in that stretch against the Canadian champion (2007 and
2008) and once against the American champion (2006) and each
time recording results superior to those of all other British
schools. Naturally, our crews and their supporters much prefer
talking about the 2007 Henley, where Shrewsbury prevailed in the
outer stream against unlikely odds to win by one foot. But, this
past summer, we lost on the Friday to another British crew, just as
we had in 2005.
This article might praise the accomplishment of the crew in
making the final eight at Henley, throwing up the number of
entries and the like in order to establish for itself a form of
ultimate dignity. But, very simply, the crews, their coaches, and
their loyal supporters anticipate so much more, the strong
accomplishments of our crews now an expected norm.
In the meantime, the second boat qualified for the Temple Cup
at Henley, besting rival Eton’s second boat in the time trial, as it
had at Marlow two weeks earlier. The Temple Cup, heavily
populated by British, Irish, and American universities, offers an
extraordinary challenge for a school second boat; nonetheless
our second boat prevailed during the Friday afternoon time trial
for the third straight year, one of only three schools to have
second boats qualify during the past three years, in the process
arguably confirming itself once more as this nation’s best. This
young unit – half of them fifth formers – helped greatly by Phil
Lapage, established a record of surpassing expectations
James Scott (U6) was selected to represent Great Britain in the
Coupe de la Jeunesse (one level below the World Junior
Championships) this summer, in the coxless four. His crew won a
gold medal.
Sam Lapage (5th Form) was selected to represent Wales. At the
National Championships the crew won a gold medal in the J18
coxed fours event.
S H R E W S B U R Y P OL O 2 0 0 8 – 2 0 0 9
for without their extraordinary support none of this would ever
happen.
A more usual mixture of wins and losses marked the rest of the
season, both at the arena in the winter and on the pitches of
Longdole in the summer.
The junior teams acquitted themselves well and in Michael Davies
(M), Simon Jones (I), William Hunter (Rt) and Alexander
Montgomery (O) they will develop into promising players. The
intermediate teams, with Michael Houston (R), George Lane Fox
(Rt) and under Jamie Drummond Moray (S) whom the commentary
box relentlessly celebrated also gave good account of themselves
at the several SUPA events. Archie Smyth-Osbourne (Rt) carries on
the family tradition after his significant contributions to our third
place at the SUPA final in the summer where he lent fine support to
his brother William, the long-armed John Tavoulareas (S) and to the
outstanding Nicholas de Lisle (O) who leaves us after five years of
excellent play.
Under the captaincy of Jamie Drummond Moray, Shrewsbury, like
the Ruritanian Light Dragoons, are set fair to wave our gold-sashed
navy blue colours into 2010. It is encouraging that so many new
pupils, and from such a wide variety of houses, have taken an
interest.
Jim Sheppe
Something unusual happened on the way to the horsebox this year.
William Smyth-Osbourne (Rt), the team captain, offers direct
testimony of this in messages to the Headmaster:
“I have some rather surprising news to report. We are
on our way back from the SUPA [arena] polo
tournament at Longdole Polo Club with the first prize of
division two in our hands. A mighty triumph after a long
five years of waiting!”
That was in March. Then, in the summer season, after a rainsodden defeat at the hands of Stowe, William’s fingers typed out
the news of an unprecedented victory against Radley:
“I am just writing to inform you of another Shrewsbury
victory on the polo field. Although not quite so great as
the last it was a victory all the same.”
And we don’t look winning horses too closely in the mouth. In any
event, it was a fine day at Kirtlington near Oxford not only for the
result but also for the amiability of the event. Jonathan
Wolstenholme, the manager of the Radley side, was fulsome in his
praise of Shrewsbury’s “great and supportive parents”. Rightly so
36
Old Salopian News
N E W S OF OL D S A L OP I A N S
Ollie Clarke (PH 2002-07) is working at Rick Stein’s Seafood
Restaurant in Padstow as Demi Chef de Partie, whilst also
following a training course there. Having spent the first part of
the year on secondment to a hotel just off the Champs Elysée in
Paris, he recently found himself cooking for Heston Blumenthal
when he dined at the Seafood Restaurant.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR . . .
Dear Editor,
Thank you very much for the latest edition of The
Salopian…
Professor E. P. Hibbert (R 1951-56) has been made a Freeman
of the City of London.
I want to comment on the OS Musicians article. I realise
that the intended emphasis was on performers, but I would
like to pay tribute to the broader (maybe ‘deeper’) impact
that Shrewsbury’s music has had over the years. As
examples, a few that I know of personally:
Richard Hudson (M 1967-72) has been made a Freeman of the
City of London and a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of
Stationers and Newspaper Makers.
Gareth Stainer (DB 1954-58), for instance, runs the
Thaxted Festival every year and still plays a very mean oboe
in some extremely good chamber orchestras. I suspect that
he is typical of many of us who contribute on a local scale to
the musical life of the country. Following the death of my wife,
I sing regularly in three local choirs and am a Trustee/Director
of a small Opera company.
Richard Passingham (O 1957-62), Professor of Cognitive
Science at the University of Oxford, was elected to the Royal
Society in June 2009. He left Shrewsbury as a classicist.
Peter E. J. B. Stewart (SH 2003-08) has been awarded a Pope
Exhibition in Modern Languages (French) at Somerville College,
Oxford. This is in recognition of Peter achieving a distinction in
the Preliminary Examination.
My brother David Fallows (O 1959-64) is Professor of
Music at Manchester as well as a prolific author on
Musicology. He was for five years President of the
International Musicological Society and was a senior
consulting Editor on the latest edition of ‘Grove’. (He wrote
the gripping entry on ‘A’!)
The Reverend Canon Mark Rylands (Ch 1974-79), formerly
Canon Missioner of Exeter serving the county of Devon, was
consecrated as Area Bishop of Shrewsbury in Westminster
Abbey on 28th October 2009 and formally installed at a special
service in Lichfield Cathedral on 1st November. He was
welcomed to Shrewsbury at a service in The Abbey Church on
2nd November.
The late Christopher Steel (SH 1952-56) was not only
Director of Music at Bradfield (and I know inspired a lot of
local music and musicians) but his Mass in Five Parts as well
as other pieces may well outlive us all.
I suppose that my point is that Shrewsbury is about more
than performers. They are the froth on a great wave of love
and understanding of both Classical and Pop music (e.g.
Ravenscroft) that results from the work of particularly the
music department over many years and that comes from an
understanding that music is not peripheral, but central to life
and community. Few other schools seem to have achieved
this ethos.
So listing performers, although very interesting, is like
listing ordained OS as a measure of the Christian influence
of the School. Fine, but it ignores the hundreds who are
Church Wardens or Sidesmen or simply active members of
the PCC or congregation in parishes across the country. In
so many ways these unsung heroes seem to me to be the
essence of Shrewsbury.
Mark Rylands (right), the new Bishop of Shrewsbury, with the
Bishop of Lichfield and the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Some footballers will become goal scorers, but not without
a team behind them.
ENGAGEMENTS, MARRIAGES AND BIRTHS
Nick Barker (Rb 1991-96) and his fiancée Olivia Willcocks are
delighted to announce the birth of Max Anthony Watkin Barker on
2nd September 2009.
Floreat Salopia!
Christopher Fallows (M 1952-57)
Tom Copeland (M 1997-2002) married Emily Perks on 11th July
2009. They are now living in Cambridge. Edward Tudor (M 19972002) was Tom's best man.
Many congratulations to Michael Wedgwood (R 1922-27)
on his 100th birthday on 24th October this year. He is the
oldest Salopian with whom we are still in touch.
Christopher Gilbert (PH 1994-99) has married Zena Botfield.
37
Old Salopian News
N O T E S F R O M T H E S E C R E TA R Y
What a busy time since the last Salopian
was published. Thanks to the Sabrina
Club for the tremendous support they give
at Henley. Non-oarsmen are always
welcome too at the Butler’s Field car park
at 6 pm on the last Saturday of Henley. It
is just too early for the June Salopian so
put it in your diary now. This year it took a
glass of bubbly to put the results into
perspective. Shrewsbury is the crew that
everyone wants to beat and we look
forward to a great season next year under
Head Coach Todd Jesdale.
Then on to the Fringe for the so topical
‘Bubble’ which received huge critical
acclaim. Your Secretary managed to
choose a train to Edinburgh, distressingly
beset with technical problems, and arrived
as the curtain fell. The reaction of the OSs
we joined for a drink and dinner afterwards
was sufficient for me to book for the
Matinee performance on Saturday 9th
January at the Royal College of Music in
London. Then if the train breaks down
again I can see it in the evening! Read all
about it (including the reviews) on the
School website and on page 20 of this
issue.
The Young Members Gig at the
Halfmoon in Putney was a musical tour de
force in a great venue. The bands loved it,
as did the audience, but this was
disappointingly small. If you thought
about coming and didn’t, then please
drop us a line to let us know what would
have made you make that bit more effort.
We need to achieve a bigger audience to
make it worthwhile in the future.
From one extreme to the other, the
Michael Palin lecture ‘From Shrewsbury to
the World – a Debt to Darwin’ was sold out
within two weeks of its announcement in
The Salopian. In the end we ran an AV link
to the Ashton Theatre where Michael met
the audience before going across to give
his talk to the early ticket buyers in the
Alington Hall. Many thanks to Michael for
a memorable evening. It must be
daunting to keep on being told that you
are even nicer than you seem on the telly.
We raised nearly £3,000 for Shrewsbury
House.
Just the following week another influx of
OSs onto the Site heard Lieutenant General
Sir Christopher Wallace KBE (Rt 1956-60),
President of the Old Salopian Club propose
the toast to The School and the last reply at
an October gathering from the current
Headman. It was a happy gathering with
the school in good heart, and the
President’s warning that the Headman still
needs to watch that he doesn’t mess it up
was graciously received in the spirit of
friendship and humour.
Of course lunch at the Gathering is the
start of our dinner season stretching your
Secretary’s tailoring to its limits! At dinner
round a wonderful oval table at the
historical Tavern Club in Boston
celebrating 30 years of the Harvard
Fellowship, Andrew Hillman, our current
longest serving Governor, gave a real
insight into the Business of the School.
Then on to the Royal Vancouver Yacht
Club for great seafood, Alberta beef, and
Terry Milewski (I 1963-66) CBC’s senior
political correspondent in Ottawa giving us
the low-down on Canadian politics. And
by the time you read this Chris Sturdy (M
1971-76) Chairman of Asia Pacific for
Bank of New York Mellon will have told us
all about the economic situation in Asia at
our OS Dinner in Hong Kong.
We announced the London Drinks in our
last ‘Coming Events’, since it is unlikely
that The Salopian will get to you before the
event on 26th November at Vinopolis.
More of you may note our final event of the
year, Shrewsbury Drinks, Thursday 17th
December from 6.30 pm held this year on
the Site in Quod, the new Sixth Form
Common Room in the shell of the old
swimming pool. The Salopian spirit may
be alive, but the surroundings are much
more luxurious.
We wish the whole Salopian Community
a very happy Christmas and a prosperous
New Year.
Floreat Salopia!
Tony Walters
S H R E W S B U R Y S A R A C E N S D E V O N TO U R 2 0 0 9
The following toured: Ben Chapman, Tom
Chapman, Richard Mackay, Rob
Champion, Tom Williams, Ali McKeever,
Matt McKeever, Peter Nichols, Nick
Graham, Patrick Duncan, Scott Corbett,
Max Lilley, Mark Ferguson, Charlie Haylett,
Henry Eabelis, Ollie Wood, Tom Shaw, Tom
Cox, Chris Cook and Mark Williams as
umpire.
It was a real relief to play cricket on a
Devon tour. This has been a rare joy over
the last three or four years, but we
managed to get cricket in every day until
the opposition let us down in Taunton on
the Friday. Although I sense certain
members of the trip were relieved.
With a bigger squad than we have had
for a few years and a small input of youth,
the Saracens put in some excellent
performances on the field, which did not
reflect the ‘lost 4 won 1’ end of tour stats. To
finish one all with our hosts North Devon is
always the honourable thing to do.
However, our inability to defend 285 in 40
overs on the first day was more down to
our lack of quality in the field and a certain
Aussie who has oodles of quality. This was
a shame as we really should have won this
game, although it was a great innings to
watch.
We got our revenge on Day 2 with a
convincing and also fiery contest. It was
great to see the Saracens really care about
their performance and the outcome of the
game. Scott Corbett was the main
destroyer, scoring runs and taking wickets
to give us the much deserved and
comfortable victory. By the time we had
reached the bar, everyone was friends
again and another outstanding evening
38
was had.
Wednesday saw us visit the picturesque
Valley of the Rocks ground, where, despite
another contribution from Corbett and Ali
McKeever, the Saracens fell an agonising
ten runs short, having been set 290 to win.
After another sensational evening kindly
hosted by the Chapman family, we
attempted to win the Triangular Twenty20
Cup for the first time. It was all looking rosy
when the Chapman brothers saw us to 80
for no loss after 7 overs chasing 170. The
larger variety had set North Devon alight
with some hitting as monstrous as he is
large. Sadly, with ‘The Barn’ retiring to make
a hasty departure for a flight, it was not to
be. The Saracens capitulated from 125-1 to
165 all out in the final over. Despite the
result, the match showed that you do not
need to be in Mumbai or Durban to witness
Old Salopian News
the excitement that this form of the game
can produce.
Much thanks must be given to North
Devon CC who are so very good to us
throughout the week, but especially to
Helen and Mark Overton. It is such a
friendly place to come and play and I would
highly recommend it to anyone – cricketlover or not. (It even managed to put up
with our President for the evening – Nico,
many thanks for keeping your speech
short.)
If anyone is interested in coming on the
tour, which always takes place in the
second week of August, please contact
Ben Chapman on 07884 314567 or
[email protected]. You do not need to be
a cricketer (although if you were to be able
to bowl 20 overs into the wind on the
Tuesday morning that would help) as all
standards are welcome and there is plenty
of golf available nearby (just ask the Tour
Manager).
Ben Chapman
JAMES TAYLOR
James Taylor (R 2002-07) has been
notching up an impressive list of
prestigious awards after a prolific season
with Leicestershire CC in which he scored
1,177 first-class runs in 16 matches at an
average of 58.85. That haul included three
hundreds and six fifties, with a highest
score of 207 not out against Surrey at The
Oval in July.
James began the season by collecting
the Wisden Schools Cricketer of the Year
Award. During the summer, he notched a
number of career milestones, becoming the
youngest Leicestershire batsman to score
own awards night, where he won – among
many other awards - the Leicestershire
Supporters’ Player of the Year.
James has recently returned from a
week’s development coaching in India with
the Rajasthan Royals. He has now been
called up to the England Elite Programme
and is currently training with them in South
Africa.
Leicestershire’s senior coach Tim Boon
believes Taylor has all the attributes to play
at an international level. “The hundred he
made against Essex on a turning pitch at
Chelmsford against Danish Kaneria was a
world-class knock. He’s passionate and
obsessive about his cricket. He’s first in the
nets and, in the middle, he hates giving his
wicket away. He’s demonstrated maturity in
the way that he has set about compiling his
innings, assessing the pitch and the
bowling. From a tactical point of view I
would have to give him close to ten, and
technically I would mark him the same.”
Andy Barnard, Master in Charge of
Cricket, agrees: “James was at school, and
is for Leicestershire, a prolific batsmen
destined for the highest level of cricket. He
has achieved so much in such a short time
because his greatest attribute is his desire
and his skills are outstanding. All his
coaches and managers at Shrewsbury are
extremely proud of his achievements and
hopeful that he will soon be playing his
cricket in the international arena.”
For his part, James is keen to come back
to Shrewsbury as often as he can. “It’s
always nice to get back and see people like
Paul Pridgeon, Steve Gale and Andy
Barnard, people who have helped me. I
miss the place.”
James Taylor
1,000 championship runs, a championship
double century and a one-day century. He
also became the youngest Leicestershire
player since George Dawkes in 1938 to be
awarded his county cap.
In September he was announced as
winner of the Cricket Writers’ Young Player
Award. The award, which is in its sixtieth
year, is given to players under the age of
23. Former winners include Fred Trueman,
Peter May, Ian Botham, David Gower and
Stuart Broad, whom Taylor pushed into
second place in this year’s poll with almost
twice the number of votes.
At the Professional Cricketers
Association’s awards ceremony held at Old
Billingsgate in October, James was named
as the PCA’s Young Player of the Year and
presented with the John Arlott Cup. This
award is voted for by professional players
throughout the country. Recent winners
have all played for England this summer –
Ravi Bopara (2008), Rashid (2007), Alastair
Cook (2005 and 2006) and Ian Bell (2004).
He was also honoured at Leicestershire’s
O L D S A L OP I A N F O O T B A L L C L U B
We started the season with one very
simple aim – to get back into the
Premier League where we belonged.
Fortunately, we got off to a flying start in
both League and Cup, winning matches
with some ease. Before Christmas, our
most notable performances came in the
Cup when we defeated Chigwell 5-0 and
Malvern 2-0 to reach the later stages of
the Arthur Dunn. At the same time, we
managed to achieve similar success in
our League games, ensuring that by the
turn of the year we had lost only one
game.
The success continued after New Year
as we had more good results in the
League. Our only real disappointment
came at the hands of Charterhouse in
the semi-final of the Cup, when we lost
2-0 but again proved that we were good
enough to compete with the best teams
in the Premier League.
After going out of the Cup, we
focused our attention back on the
League. We not only gained promotion
but did so as champions of Division 1 by
a clear eight points (which must be a
record). It was, in all, a very successful
39
season and can be attributed in the
main to the benefits of having a
consistent and therefore confident team.
The football played by all was excellent,
but special mention must be made of
Hugo Duncan for his constant dogged
performances and of Dave Cookson,
our player of the season, whose goals
and runs from midfield helped to drive
the team forward.
Charlie Stockbridge
(1st XI Captain)
Old Salopian News
S ABRINA CLUB
Leander Club
(£125.00) in order to raise money to help fund the ongoing cost
of this project. Please contact Nick Randall.
Any Sabrina member wishing to know more about membership
of Leander Club should contact the Sabrina Secretary
[email protected], preferably with a brief rowing cv.
The Shrewsbury Room at Leander is available for booking by
either members or non-members
Atlantic Rowing Race 2009
Matthew Mackaness (R 1994-99/1st VIII 1999) and Charlie
Marlow (R 1995-2000) are competing in the Trans-Atlantic
Rowing Race this year. Members are encouraged to give their
financial support, the proceeds of which will be donated to
Shrewsbury House and Brain Tumour UK. Full details will be
found on page 55.
Shrewsbury Room (room 11) at Leander
Henley Royal Regatta 2010
This year, we were offered the exclusive use of the Shrewsbury
Room for the duration of the Regatta. Unfortunately, we did not
get sufficient notice to find someone to take up the offer. We
hope to have the same offer next year so if you are interested,
please register your interest as soon as possible and we will find
a way of ‘awarding’ the room early in 2010. It will be necessary to
take the room for the whole Regatta.
Shrewsbury Regatta 2010
Sabrina hope to host a lunch party on the Boat House veranda
along the lines of the successful Foundation party held there this
year. It would add greatly to the occasion if Sabrina members
who are not required by their club entered under the Sabrina
banner (entry fees paid by Sabrina/OSC).
Your President is sculling regularly and may be persuaded to
enter! Entries via the OARA system, for this or any other regatta,
will have to be made via the Sabrina Secretary (see below), but
paper entries can be made by the participants.
Sabrina Regalia
Members are aware that Sabrina ties, bow ties, blazers,
cummerbunds, braces and hat bands are available for sale (see
Sabrina website).
1st VIII blazers are now available from Walters and Co of
Oxford, 9-11 Turl Street, Oxford, OX1 3DN. Tel. Mr McLean 01865
241848.
1st VIII ties and a new bow tie will shortly be available in silk.
Please contact Nick Randall (telephone and email details below).
Ergo Room Project
The project has reached the stage where funding is in place and
work is expected to commence very soon. The aim is to
complete the work in time for the beginning of the 2010/11
academic year, with a view to arranging an opening ceremony
during the Old Salopian Weekend in October 2010. A more
complete report with an update on progress will appear in the
next issue of The Salopian. In the meantime, it is still possible for
more donors to make a contribution.
Those interested should contact the Sabrina Captain, Nick
Randall. Tel: bus. 01824-707953; mobile 07974-916589 Email:
[email protected]
John Alford exclusive Bumpers
print for sale
Senior Sabrina members will remember the painting by John
Alford of Bumpers 1965 given to J R Hope-Simpson, Headroom
and School Coach 1925-65, upon his retirement. The painting
was bequeathed to Sabrina Club by J R Hope-Simpson and is
part of a collection of pictures adorning the Shrewsbury Room at
Leander Club. As part of the extensive work carried out by
Sabrina Club updating crew and other related historical pictures
for the RSSBC Clubroom and the Shrewsbury Room, we are in a
position to offer a high quality framed copy of the picture
Sabrina regatta entries
We encourage people to enter regattas as Sabrina, but the last
pair to try to do so encountered difficulty with OARA (British
Rowing’s online entry system).
The answer is that only one
nominated person in a club will
have a password to get into
OARA. This would normally be
the club secretary but, for
administrative convenience,
we may alter this. In the short
term, please contact the
Secretary, Malcolm Davies, at
[email protected]
and he will sort it out. In
general terms, we would not
wish members to enter as
Sabrina to the detriment of
their own clubs.
Nick Randall,
Sabrina Captain
Bumpers 1965 by John Alford.
40
Old Salopian News
O L D S A L OP I A N YA C H T C L U B
disqualified in that second race, just pipped them by two points
to fourth place on Saturday evening. By then the wind had picked
up to force 7, and a compulsory reef in the mainsail had been
ordered by the organisers.
Shrewsbury B, a fine combination of experience and, well,
experience, were also performing strongly and did not disgrace
themselves at all by finishing in the middle of a very competitive
fleet. Although the Chairman of Trustees for the Foundation, who
damaged his knee whilst leaping around on the foredeck, may
not have seen it quite that way when he limped home early.
On Sunday the leading four boats go off separately for matchracing to decide the final medal order, leaving the rest of us to
carry over our results from Saturday with two more races to
decide the winner of the fleet racing. Shrewsbury A, who had
finished in fifth place and therefore at the head of the fleet racers,
were thus in a strong position to win the Charterhouse Bowl if
they could hang on to their lead. Their nearest rivals on points
were Rugby and Charterhouse. In the first race they skilfully
pushed Rugby off the course and then sailed clear of them. That
meant that in the final race they had to finish no more than three
places behind Charterhouse to win the Charterhouse Bowl – the
delicious irony of it. Charterhouse were tracked closely all the
way round and although they did get away at the final mark to
finish one place ahead, Shrewsbury had won their Bowl.
Shrewsbury B consolidated their position from the previous day
to finish fifteenth, ahead of last year’s winners Rugby. The lighter
winds on Sunday were compensated by the organisers allowing
the use of spinnakers, which of course simply adds a further layer
of complication and stress. I’m sure it was no consolation that
Shrewsbury B’s engine broke down on the way back to Portsmouth
and Shrewsbury A had to come to the rescue with a tow.
The Arrow Trophy is a well organised, thoroughly enjoyable event
and one of these years, with the right combination
of boat, crew and luck, there is no reason why
Shrewsbury cannot finish even higher than the
fourth and fifth we have achieved in recent years.
We would really be very pleased if you would like
to come and join in. Whatever your level of
sailing experience, please contact our organiser
David Richards on
[email protected] for more
information.
The OSYC will definitely be at the Arrow 2010
(9/10 Oct) and we are working hard at
organising some other events on the water
before then. Please register your interest with
David Richards as above.
Johnny Moulsdale
The development of the OSYC, formed last year with the idea of
promoting and coordinating sailing activities amongst the
Salopian community, has continued. The major social event of
the year was a dinner in London at the Royal Thames Yacht Club
– this will hopefully become an annual event as well as the AGM
of the Club. We are gradually developing a close connection with
the Royal Thames, who have been most supportive. All Salopians
with a sailing connection would be very welcome at the dinner,
even if you do not want to get involved with racing. Contact David
Richards at [email protected] for information.
Otherwise the Club has continued to attract new members and
we even have three of last year’s school leavers amongst our
ranks, which is a great sign for the future.
The Salopians again entered two boats in the Arrow Trophy,
held at Cowes in 37-foot one-design yachts in early October.
Only three other schools had two boats, which must say
something for Salopian enthusiasm. Altogether there were
twenty-three boats on the start line.
This year the forecast was for wind, and lots of it, unlike the
previous few years when lack of wind had turned some of the
racing into a bit of a lottery. Saturday dawned with a steady force
6 blowing from the West and the organisers decided to ban the
use of spinnakers to try and avoid too much carnage at the
marks. No one was complaining, as it seemed like survival might
be more the order of the day.
As it was, these conditions were much more to our liking and
Shrewsbury A, a fine combination of youth and experience, put
together a useful string of results which they thought might get
them close to the top four. They had an argument with Dulwich in
the second race, which ultimately had to be decided (in our
favour thankfully) in the Protest Committee room after the racing.
So it was somewhat ironic that it was Dulwich who, despite being
The crews for the Arrow were: Shrewsbury A:
Rupert Tildesley (helm), Johnny Moulsdale
(tactician), Tom Tildesley, Will Collins, Tim
Minns, Tim Becker, Nick Gillies, Matt Brien.
Shrewsbury B: Rod Hodgson (helm), Charles
Manby (tactician), David Richards, Andrew
Richards, Andrew Haining, Jon Prichard, Rob
Trevor-Jones, Peter Wood.
Shrewsbury A. (Photo courtesy of Hamo Thornycroft Marine Photography)
41
Old Salopian News
O L D S A L OP I A N G OL F I N G S O C I E T Y
his proposal to hold a matchplay knockout amongst OSGS
members in 2009. This attracted an entry of 77 members,
unearthing some loyal followers who had not appeared for many
a year – how good to see the names in the frame of Neil
Crawford, Donald Currie, Nigel Dace, Terence Dickinson,
Malcolm Hamer, Lee Jones, Dudley MacDonald. Bill Russell,
John Tuke, Robin Waters, Allan Wright and David Boult who
entered Rigg’s (where else?) in the year when Lewis TJ was born.
The final will be at Royal Birkdale on 12th November, when Robin
Humble will play Will Painter,
Our President, Ian Campion, has generously donated a trophy
not unlike the Claret Jug that, as Captain of Royal Birkdale, he
presented to Open winner Johnny Miller in 1976. May we thank
Ian for six years of President’s meetings at Royal Birkdale and
congratulate him on being elected Captain of The Seniors’
Golfing Society. This is a great honour, shared with the late John
Turner, the late Ian Hargreave and Robert Walker, the one and
only Salopian golfer picked to play for Scotland.
Tim Lewis
Membership stands at 364 members, with handicaps ranging from
1 (Edward Fenwick) to 28 (no names). Mothers, fathers, cricketers,
fives players, footballers and even oarsmen make up the numbers.
The latter bring weighty strikers such as Nick Bevan, Olympian
Donald Shaw, John Parker, Stephen Shaw, Martin Slocock (once
also a Huntsman), John Godby (once also a goalkeeper of
impenetrable reach, almost) and last but not least in love, Humphry
Ward, who is our best-dressed golfer.
Unsurprisingly we have a dearth of younger players. It is now
perilous if not impossible for workers to skive off for weekday
meetings. Amongst these in bondage are Charlie Wilson, Nick
Birkett, Phil Sutton, Edward Nottingham, Mark Schofield, Nick
Jeffrey, Sam Robertson, Charlie Stockbridge, Angus Findlay, Chris
Brierley, Ben Hughes, Nick Mackaness, Nick Davies, his cousins
Charles & James Dickson, Toby & Will Clowes, the three Duncan
brothers, Tom Corbett-Winder and Nick Burlington. They are
mentioned in despatches for staying in touch against all odds.
Within the South East, some older golfers have played host to them
for weekend golf at clubs of the renown of Denham, Royal MidSurrey, Hadley Wood and Rye. Our thanks go to Anthony Parsons,
David Broad and John Bolton for arranging such treats.
We held 20 OSGS meetings in all corners of the UK in 2009.
We played matches against The Schools, The Boys & Parents,
The Old Reptonians and The Old Malvernians (twice), winning all
matches.
A highlight of the year was the performance of our six-man
team in the Queen Elizabeth Coronation Schools Trophy played
at Barnton, the home of the Royal Burgess Golfing Society of
Edinburgh. This is a veritable necropolis for golfers from English
Schools. In recent years, we’ve managed to get through the first
round with the occasional bye. In 56 years, there have been only
two English winners.
All changed in 2009 when our new Captain, the incorrigible
Mark Ferguson, fresh from his triumph with partner Richard
Roberts in the Halford Hewitt at Deal against the hapless Malvern
second pair, mustered his age group, apart from the veteran
Jonathon Mawdsley. Mirabile dictu, we reached the quarter-finals.
Crushing Hillhead High School Former Pupils in the first round
3/0, we meted out the same treatment to the Morrisonians,
winners in 1999. Facing the Kelvinside Academicals, our top pair
Mark Ferguson and Edward Fenwick scalped a former Walker
Cup player and his Scottish International partner. Here were
shades of that immortal victory of Peter Broad and Anthony
Parsons in the 1983 final of the Hewitt against a Carthusian
Walker Cup player and his Scottish international partner (Benka
and Hugebum (nickname)).
In the third match, staggeringly, Sam Jarvis and Ben Chesters
never had much of a look-in. The decider came to the 16th, with
the Salopians two down and three to play. Winning the 16th,
Jonathon Mawdsley and Richard Roberts saw their opponents’
second hack on the 17th disappear into woods. Sad to report,
from the fairway, the Salopian ball unaccountably followed suit
and the Academicals extricated themselves for a bogey 5 for
victory, as the Salopian ball lay buried with our chance of entering
the semi-final. Thus ended a most gallant performance,
succoured by the boundless hospitality of Sandy Bell at Muirfield
that helped greatly with the bonding of our young men.
Another younger member, Henry Howard, should be lauded for
GL MELLIN TOURNAMENT: 2nd – 4th JULY 2009
This year’s Mellin tournament was a mixture of disappointment
and triumph; disappointment because Henry Rowe and
Christopher Wallace were prevented from playing due to illness
and Peter Worth and James Shaw were unavailable;
disappointment also because Shrewsbury were beaten in the first
round of the Mellin Salver for those aged 55 and over. Triumph,
however, resulted from a second successive win in the Peter
Burles Salver for the 65s and over, and the consolation of winning
the plate competition for the 55s and over.
There would have been no triumph, though, if reinforcements in
the shape of Will Painter, Peter McMullan and Robin Humble had
not arrived in the nick of time, if Ian Campion had not played like the
President that he is, and if Anthony Parsons had not shown the
courage of a lion by playing like one, although in extreme pain bent
in two on a buggy.
The team’s failure in the first round of the Mellin Salver is probably
best forgotten, attributable as it was to possible over-confidence
against a side who professed never to have progressed beyond the
first round and a surprisingly wayward second shot into the depths
of a rhododendron bush at the 18th hole in the deciding match.
Overcome by embarrassment, the team then pulled themselves
together, eventually coasting to comfortable wins in the plate
competition against, successively, Oundle, Lancing and Loretto.
The stars were Michael Brabner and Peter McMullan, who won all
four of their matches.
In the Peter Burles Salver, our team made good progress, beating
Forest, Downside and Mill Hill to be opposed by Cheltenham in the
final. Our second pair, Peter Jeffrey and Robin Humble, completed
four wins a row. The outcome all depended on Ian Campion and
Robert Lanyon in the top match. Defeated at the 16th hole, and with
the final resting at one match each, they began a play-off against
the Cheltenham pair. Proceeding down the 17th, Ian barely blinked
as he holed out from 3 feet for a half (some say it was 6 feet) and
then from 6 feet (some say it was 12 feet) at the 18th. This left
Cheltenham with a putt of no more than 18 inches to win the hole
and force a play-off. There followed a cry of disbelief among both
sides as Cheltenham missed the putt. Shrewsbury had won the final
42
Old Salopian News
by and very definitely against the head. Victory
tasted even sweeter because of it.
Finally, this year’s account would be
incomplete without mention of Robin Moulsdale
and Michael Tilbury, who, in the competition for
those aged 75 and over, amassed enough
stableford points in the qualifying round to finish
7th, but not enough to qualify for the semi-final.
Christopher Wallace
Mellin Salver Team: Anthony & Gerald Smith;
Will Painter & Anthony Parsons (Nick WaseRogers played instead of Anthony in the first
round of the plate); Michael Brabner & Peter
McMullan
Peter Burles Salver: Ian Campion & Robert
Lanyon; Peter Jeffrey & Robin Humble
Bunny Millard Salver: Robin Moulsdale &
Michael Tilbury.
The winning Peter Burles side. (L to R):
Robert Lanyon, Ian Campion,
Peter Jeffrey, Robin Humble.
T H E M I L E S C L A R K T R AV E L S C H OL A R S H I P F U N D
Dominic Gill, who cycled by tandem from the north coast of
Canada to Tierra del Fuego in over two years. Like Miles, they not
only had great adventures but chronicled them in various ways;
their published works are listed below:
The Fund was established in 1994 to commemorate the life of
Miles Clark (S 1974-78), distinguished sailor, photographer,
soldier, writer, explorer and mountaineer, who died aged 32. It
aimed to promote and nurture among Salopians the ideas of
travel, adventure, personal challenge and research, so important
to Miles, by helping them to travel overseas during the time
between leaving school and entering Higher Education.
Originally, the Trust, inspired by Richard Raven, who was Miles’
Housemaster at Shrewsbury, and driven on by Miles’ family,
Richard Field and Chris Conway, had hoped to raise enough
money for a single annual payment to send one Salopian on
such a journey. The response to requests for funds was, however,
so great that the Trustees have been able to fund grants from the
interest alone since its inception. In general, the size of grants
has increased in line with the cost of living. Last year, grants
ranged between £250 and £600. The Trustees would like to be
able, in time, to raise that sum, maybe even to £1000, to ensure
that Salopians can continue such adventurous and positive use
of their Gap Years well into the future.
There is no doubt that the scheme has been a great success.
This can be measured in terms of the number of Salopians
(nearly 150) who have gone abroad with help from the Trust since
1995. It has also, through the recent support of the Old Salopian
Club, been possible to widen the remit of the original Trust a little
to include supporting a limited number of exploits ‘in the spirit of
Miles Clark’, even if they did not entirely fulfil all the original
criteria.
However, the greatest plaudit must go to the handful of award
winners who have returned to travelling and adventure after
their initial Gap Year journeys and have taken the concept of
‘challenge’ to a new level. These include: Alastair Humphreys,
who cycled around the world for over four years; Robert Lilwall,
who cycled to England from Siberia for over three years; and
Alastair Humphreys (www.alastairhumphreys.com):
Thunder and Sunshine, Ten Lessons from the Road
Robert Lilwall (www.cyclinghomefromsiberia.com):
Cycling Home from Siberia (book); Cycling Home from
Siberia (DVD, produced with National Geographic for TV)
Dominic Gill (www.takeaseat.org): ITV4 production Take a
Seat. Book to be published in the New Year.
The Trustees are very happy with the way the Travel
Scholarship has developed and feel confident that it is proving to
be a very worthy continuing commemoration of Miles. The current
Trustees are: The Headmaster, Chris Conway, Martin Humphreys
and Thane Warburg (all currently on the staff, and the last two
being contemporaries of Miles at Downing College, Cambridge),
Richard Raven and Bruce Clark (Miles’ elder brother).
One more publication should be highlighted, perhaps the one
that binds everything together: Sailing Away – The Life of Miles
Clark, Explorer and Sailor by Wallace Clark, Miles’ father, who
himself is a great sailor and travel writer. This recent book about
Miles’ life contains details of the Travel Scholarship and it is
Wallace and June’s approval of and support for the scheme
which makes the Trustees feel that it is very much a fitting
memorial to Miles.
If anyone would like a copy of the book, please contact
Richard Raven at 82 Upper Road, Meole Brace, Shrewsbury SY3
9JP (01743 362896).
43
Old Salopian News
L IFE AFTER SHRE WSBURY
In our experience Old Salopians do
amazingly well at getting paid to do what
interests them, whether it is the professions,
the arts, or just making money. But, spurred
on by the current economic situation, we felt
that the Club should get more involved in
helping OSs (and not just the young) to find
jobs, placements and work experience.
Earlier this year we sent out a questionnaire
to Old Salopians to find out ways in which
they felt able to help. We were delighted to
receive nearly 500 replies.
As a result of this we have now developed
THE HEADLINES INITIATIVE
an easily administered system by which we
send very brief details of positions,
placements, etc sought by OSs to a large
segment of those offering to help. The aim
is that they can look down these ‘Headlines’
and ask for more information if they see one
of interest. We have had a few trial runs and
have had some responses to nearly
everyone who was seeking help. We’ve also
been able to sort out a few problems and
are now at the stage where we want to hear
from as many OSs as possible who are
looking for employment, so that we can give
our volunteers a good range to interest
them.
Some Old Salopians have volunteered to
help in very specific circumstances. This is
quite difficult to administer at our current
staffing levels, but we hope to move forward
on this as ‘Headlines’ settles down.
The message to all Old Salopians – and
particularly the young – is if you want help
with a job, a placement, or even just to talk
to someone about your career path, send
an email to [email protected]
P U B L I C AT I O N S
The West and Islam: Religion and Political Thought in World History
(Oxford University Press, 2008).
Archdeacons Afloat
Ostara Publishing
ISBN 978-1-906288-06-8
Cyril A Alington (Headmaster 1908-16)
This is a welcome republication of one of Alington’s detective
novels, originally published in 1946. It includes characters such as
Mr Birtley “a housemaster at the well-known school of Harchester,
who concealed beneath a somewhat pompous manner a keen
sense of humour, and whose love for clothing his opinions in stately
polysyllables gave much entertainment to the rest.”
Cycling Home from Siberia
Hodder and Stoughton
ISBN 978-0340979815
Rob Lilwall (SH 1990-95)
Rob’s account of his epic journey has received rave reviews.
“Rob Lilwall … has penned a two-wheeled classic. I wanted to rise
up singing and strap on my bicycle clips.” The Guardian
“Lilwall’s story is a remarkable one... enhanced by the fact that he
has a writer’s skill for conveying a sense of place.”
The Sunday Telegraph
“A rite-of-passage adventure full of thrills, excitement and
endurance... If you’re a cyclist – and even if you’re not – go for this
book.” The Irish Times
Signed copies are available from www.cyclinghomefromsiberia.com
Darwin, Creation and the Fall: Theological challenges
ISBN 978-1- 84474-381-0
Edited by R.J. Berry (ALB 1948-53) and T.A. Noble
The relationship between the scientific understanding of human
origins and the biblical story of human origins and the Fall raises
numerous questions. How does the Christian doctrine of humanity
as created yet fallen relate to the biologist’s account of the evolution
of the human race? If we accept the Darwinian picture, where does
that leave the Christian doctrines of the Fall and sin, ‘good’ and
‘evil’? What basis is there for ethics? And how does this affect the
problem of evil and suffering?
This book contains eight papers offered as constructive
discussion between science and theology. They are written by
Evangelical Christians – four theologians and four scientists (one of
whom is also a qualified theologian) – who accept both the authority
of the Bible and the contemporary scientific picture of the world.
They believe that, rightly understood, these are not in conflict.
The Missing Years – A POW’s story from Changi to Hellfire Pass
Rosenberg Publishing Ltd
ISBN 978 1877058 776
Stu Lloyd
This is the gripping story of ex-rubber planter Captain Hugh (‘Pilk’)
Pilkington’s (I 1918-23) disastrous Malaya campaign during the
Second World War, in which he was shot by a Japanese sniper,
survived the Alexandra Hospital Massacre, became a POW while
still hospitalised, spent time in Changi, then – with only one good
arm – was packed off to work on the Thai-Burma Death railway at
the dreaded Hellfire Pass.
Stu Lloyd, one of Asia’s most widely published travel writers,
retraces Pilkington’s steps using the memoirs he completed in 1945
while on a POW repatriation ship from Singapore to England.
A World History of Ancient Political Thought
Oxford University Press
ISBN 978-0-19-928169-5
Professor Antony Black (O 1950-55)
This is the first genuinely worldwide study of the history of ancient
political thought. It examines the political philosophies and
ideologies of ancient literate cultures, including China, Greece, Israel,
Rome, India, Iran, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and also early Christianity,
from prehistory to c. 200 CE. Each of these had its own priorities,
based on a religious and philosophical perspective. This led to
different ideas about who should govern, how to govern, and what
government was for.
Antony Black is Emeritus Professor in the History of Political
Thought at the University of Dundee. His publications include
Life Street, Death Street: Sketches of Spain,
Far from the Tourist Hordes
OCRE Editorial
Ivar Watson (M 1947-52)
Thirteen short stories about Spaniards of all classes, plus an
account of F.R. Leavis, who lectured at the University of Deusto in
1975 when Watson was Professor of English Literature and stayed
at his croft house.
Available from: [email protected] or online at
www.bookworldespana.com.
44
Old Salopian News
T E A W I T H T H E TA L I B A N
This September, Michael Webb (S 2003-08) travelled to Pakistan, where he spent time in Peshawar
and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), and Afghanistan, where he spent time in Kabul,
Bamiyan and Mazari Sharif. He was supported by a generous grant from the Old Salopian Club.
Walk through the Smugglers’ Bazaar on the
border of Pakistan’s North West Frontier
Province, past stalls selling World Food
Programme high energy biscuits (‘Gift of
Germany. Not for individual sale.’) and
British and American military uniforms,
some still displaying the name tapes of
previous owners, and you cross into FATA
territory over which the government exerts
no control, a safe haven for the Taliban,
where guns, drugs and ancient customs
reign. Just here, beyond the Bazaar, lies the
compound of Sikander Afridi, chief of the
Afridi tribe. His bodyguard shows me into
his office, which looks more like the sitting
room of an eccentric schoolmaster – with
its small colour television, Islamic prints and
prodigious collection of mugs, toys, picture
frames and magazines – than the
headquarters of a people’s supreme leader.
Only the vast array of pistols and
submachine guns in the corner tells a
different story. The chief himself is lying in
repose on a long sofa, overweight, sweaty
– despite the air conditioning, a luxury here
– and dressed in the traditional salwa
kameez (as am I). He gestures for me to sit
next to him, and explains, through an
interpreter, that he has stomach problems.
This is why it is OK for him to drink during
the day in Ramadan. He offers me a Nestlé
cereal bar: I am grateful for anything which
is not curried mutton with plain naan.
(‘Peshwari’ naan? It’s a myth.) “Look,” he
says, taking out his phone. He scrolls
through some pictures. “Look,” he says
again, “look, this morning.” He plays a
video. It takes me a few seconds to work
out what it is, but then I feel the hairs rise on
the back of my neck: it is an elderly man
lying prostrate on the ground, his head
dissevered and placed between his legs, a
pool of blood expanding rapidly around
him. “Taliban did this. Taliban this morning.”
He explains that the tribes have until now
accommodated the Taliban in their midst,
for his people never usually suffer at their
hands. This afternoon he will chair a tribal
council to decide what to do. As he tells me
this he takes out a white powder from his
pocket, pours some onto his hand, and
snorts it. “For the stomach,” his bodyguard
tells me, smiling.
Azam Khan is a local politician in Peshawar,
where he also runs a charity school. We
meet late in the evening to visit a lemonade
house. Muslim prints line the walls – I am
beginning to expect these in every room I
enter – and the only other customers are
five teenagers (all male, of course). It strikes
me just how much like a group of young
Salopians they look: the mischievous glints
in their eyes, the smirks, the ‘banter’. Then I
remember that these boys’ fathers eke out
a living repairing shoes and painting trucks,
and their city suffers suicide attacks every
single week. A genial old man enters and
orders them out: they leave at once. He
smiles toothlessly at Azam and me; stands
in silence for a moment, drawn up as tall as
his hunch will allow; and then slowly, softly,
begins to sing. An ancient Pashtun ballad,
Azam tells me: of such beauty, and
expressed with such tenderness! It is as if
he is gathering up all the troubles of his city
and, with some overpowering benevolence,
contriving to forgive everything, to put all to
right. At length he finishes and, having
engaged the shopkeeper, departs the café.
We later discover he has paid for our
drinks. “Is he a friend of yours?” I ask
Azam. “No,” he says. “He is just a good
Muslim. There are many good Muslims in
Peshawar.”
The next day Azam takes me to visit the
Taliban. “I take many journalists around
Peshawar,” he says. “But never to the
Taliban. You are the first.” A friend of his
drives us to the outskirts of the city, and we
hail a donkey taxi to take us the final mile.
45
The walls of the madrassa are
whitewashed, and the sun beats down on
us as we stand in the courtyard. About forty
young Taliban, fifteen to thirty years old,
quickly gather around us. They have been
expecting us, they say. An older one puts
his hand on my shoulder, and smiles: “We
are not terrorists.” I want to believe him.
Azam introduces me to the imam, a cold
man in his late forties who, like all those
sufficiently mature of his students, sports
an impressive beard. I bow my head and
put my hand to my heart in greeting; he
slowly bows to me. “Are you a Muslim?” he
asks, Azam translating. “No. I worship
Jesus.” A murmur goes up around us. “We
Muslims revere Jesus. We revere him much
more than Christians do!” I do not argue.
The imam leads me down some steps into
an underground classroom, where it is cool
in the gloom. Along with the forty Taliban, I
sit cross-legged on the floor. A man even
more senior than the imam has been
waiting for us. He is tall, wearing a black
turban and an enormous black beard. He is
not as friendly as some of the students.
Someone tells me he has recently returned
from Kandahar (in southern Afghanistan,
next to Helmand Province): nobody
elaborates. We sit and talk. The Taliban, I
learn, study the Holy Qur’an here at this
madrassa for eight years: some already
have the 6,666 verses completely
memorised.
They support the jihadis who mount
suicide attacks against coalition forces;
they say the Qur’an orders them to avenge
the invasion of Muslim soil by infidels; yet,
Old Salopian News
they suggest the ‘suicide bombs’ in
Peshawar must be organised by Americans
– for Muslims would never kill fellow
Muslims, would they? In fact, 9/11 was a
conspiracy by the Americans, was it not, an
excuse to invade Afghanistan? No, I cannot
persuade them otherwise: have I not seen
the documentaries, read the pamphlets? I
have been indoctrinated by my own
government. Now I am here, I will
understand the truth. Would I return that
evening, to eat with them?
I persuade a reluctant Azam that we
should take up the imam’s offer. Having
spent the afternoon visiting his school and
‘teaching’ some of his students – at a loss, I
tried the Editor’s beloved “had had had”
sentence1, to universal bemusement and
incomprehension – I walk back to the
madrassa with him. A boy no older than
twelve leads us up the stairs to the roof of
the main structure, and motions us to sit
down on some large mats. Many more boy
servants bustle about, preparing the feast
to come. Their prayers offered, the twenty
most senior Taliban come up and join us on
the floor. As always the fast is broken with
dates and water. My consumption of the
latter, out of politeness, will make me very
glad for the ciprofloxacin I have packed.
After everyone has taken their fill – not long
in my case, for my poor body is utterly
confused by the strictures of Ramadan –
the circle falls silent. A man I don’t
recognise from the morning leans forward:
“Why are your countrymen slaying our
Muslim brothers? Why do they trespass on
Muslim soil?” Suddenly, and with perfect
timing, a cloud covers the moon; a faint
breeze begins to blow. The Taliban sit very
still. The boy servants stand silently in the
shadows. I begin to wonder whether I
should have heeded Azam’s advice. I tell
them about 9/11; how the Americans
demanded the Taliban hand over Osama
bin Laden; how the Taliban refused; and
how we, with the Americans, therefore had
no choice. “Listen,” said the man, his fierce,
proud face framed by his black beard and
a prayer cap of pure white. “We are
Pashtun people. We live by the Pashtun
code. We are bound to offer sanctuary.”
The men around me nod in agreement.
“See, you are here in our house. You eat
our food. If your enemy came” – he
gestures towards the sky – “we would
protect you, with our lives. It is our duty.” I
am finding this difficult to take in. “So it was
when the Americans came for bin Laden.
The Taliban said, ‘Give us proof. If you give
us proof, then we shall hand him over.’ But
the Americans did not give the Taliban
proof. So it is our duty to protect him, as it
is our duty to protect you.” I wonder how to
respond to this, aware of my predicament:
defenceless, not twenty miles from the
lawless Afghan border areas. The wind has
died down, but the moon is still shrouded in
cloud. A solitary gas lamp hangs from a
wall fixture, and a boy stands in its eerie
glow. He smiles at me encouragingly, and
signals to me to answer. I smile back,
nervously. He looks away. “Well,” I say at
last, acutely conscious of the twenty Taliban
who surround me, hanging on my every
word. “That sounds to me very right, and
honourable, and just.” At this, they smile.
The imam holds up his hands, and begins
to speak. “He is praying for you,” says
Azam. “He is praying that you will go back
to your homeland, and tell your countrymen
this: that his people are right, and
honourable, and just.” I smile, and say that I
will. They do not let me leave until I have
embraced each one of them.
Afghanistan is assailed not just by enemies
present, but continues to suffer at the
hands of enemies past: hundreds of
thousands of landmines, dating from the
Soviet invasion of 1979 and since, lie
unmapped and undiscovered in all parts of
the country. Mine clearance is, therefore, a
major industry. The story of Princess Diana
– and associated conspiracy theories – is
well known, among Hazara herdsmen as
much as the young Kabul elite. “She was
murdered by your King,” I am told, “to stop
a Muslim from entering the Royal Family.”
Travelling throughout central and northern
Afghanistan, I see men and woman
struggling on crutches, missing arms and
legs; hundreds of buildings, fields and
hillsides marked with codes to indicate their
demined status; and, of course, thousands
of real, live mines. Perhaps most poignant
is the boy of six I come across when
walking one afternoon through the dusty
streets of Bamiyan. He has constructed a
plaything for himself, a wooden stick with a
disc strapped to one end: a toy mine
detector. I walk on, sincerely hoping he
does not try to imitate the HALO demining
teams I have seen standing regimented in
their rows of ten, their tools limited to simple
detectors, rope and hooks. Standing at the
foot of Bamiyan’s Buddha niches, site of
the two giant millennium-and-a-half-old
statues that were destroyed by the Taliban
in 2001, I spot a team at work, and
approach them warily. One man sees me,
smiles and waves me over. I am not to
worry: they have cleared this section, it is
safe. See, this man with the headscarf is
the section commander, he stands at the
back and directs the others. Yes, this is a
mine detector. Once a mine is discovered,
everyone moves back a safe distance,
apart from one man whose job it is to hook
the mine on the end of a rope and pull it
out. Yes, it is very dangerous. Many
colleagues have died. The section
commander comes over. “Why do you do
this?” I ask. “Out of duty, to help the Afghan
people,” he says. “It is a job!” interrupts
another. I hear the same answer when I
question an elderly man who is considering
joining the insurgency. The section
commander turns to me: “We are like
candles. We burn ourselves to light the
people of Afghanistan.” His words remind
me of a line of Thomas Hardy, which I recite
to him: “Great men are meteors that
consume themselves to light the earth.” He
smiles at me, bows, and puts his hand on
his heart. I do the same; turn to walk slowly
away; and pray that soon Afghanistan be
delivered from this, its “burnt-out hour”.
(article continued on Page 55)
The challenge is to find a way of punctuating the following (two) sentences so that they make grammatical sense: ‘James though
John had had had had had had had had had had had the examiner’s approval.
1
46
Old Salopian News
OBITUARY
A. R. Adams
(R 1937-40)
J. D. S. Ainscow
(I 1944-49)
J. S. M. Barlow
(I 1941-45)
A. De G. Benson
(DB 1934-39)
The Rt Hon. The Lord Blaker (JHT 1936-40)
R. E. Buckley
(SH 1940-44)
Lt Col M. F. Coutanche
(DB 1941-45)
Dr B. L. Day
(R 1935-40)
E. H. Dehn
(CWM 1929-35)
J. M. Dyas
(DB 1945-49)
Wing Cdr E. A. Fairhurst
(CWM 1932-35)
Lt Col N. J. L. Field OBE
(O 1931-35)
D. N. Haynes
(R 1945-50)
J. M. Heath CMG
(O 1936-40)
C. N. Henty-Dodd
(SH 1949-50)
C. M. S. F. Hodges
(SH 1950-55)
C. A. Hollings
(School Dental Adviser)
K.A. Hurst
(I 1929-31)
R. W. L. Lewis
(Ch 1932-37)
J. R. Lloyd
(I 1943-45)
J. S. H. Matthews
(JHT 1934-38)
R. E. Medd
(M 1948-53)
S. E. Mitchell
(S 1944-48)
J. T. D. Musson
(DB 1927-32)
I. C. Perrin
(SH 1947-48)
B. C. Pitt
(Staff 1964-68)
C. P. H. Ross
(S 1956-61)
W. R. Rowland
(SH 1953-58)
R. H. D. Sandford
(Ch 1937-42)
P. J. T. Skipwith
(SH 1929-33)
C. C. Steel
(SH 1952-56), in 1991
K B. Stoddart
(Rt 1933-38)
W. G. D. Thrupp
(R 1976-81)
D. F. H. Trangmar
(SH 1942-47)
R. G. Whittles
(DB 1934-39)
A. R. Wilson
(Rb 2003-08)
C. St J. Yates
(I 1957-62)
***************
Mrs Maud Childs
Mrs Janet Waters
J. D. S. Ainscow (I 1944 – 49)
John Ainscow was in Ingram’s when R.
Sale and J. M. West were Housemasters.
He kept goal for the Football XI for two
seasons, was in the Rugby XV and
Cricket 2nd XI and was a PT Special.
After National Service in The Royal
Corps of Signals, he trained as a
Chartered Accountant and on
qualification worked for several years as
an accountant in South Africa, Rhodesia
and London before returning to
Warwickshire. There he became a partner
in the prestigious accountancy firm of
Burgis & Bullock and in the years before
his retirement he was Senior Partner. He
worked unstintingly as Hon. Treasurer of
the Royal Agricultural Benevolent
Institution and served on the committees
of many other Warwickshire
organisations. In 1990 he was appointed
High Sheriff of Warwickshire. He retained
a life-long interest in all things Salopian
and numbered various Salopians of his
time, particularly Stuart Barr and Jim
Pfautz, among his most influential friends.
His interests, among others, were
gardening, fly-fishing, bird-watching, Test
Matches at Lord’s and, above all, his
family. His two sons, Stuart (1977 – 82)
and Rob (1980 – 85), followed him to
Ingram’s. He died in September 2009.
J. S. M. Barlow (I 1941 – 45)
John Barlow was in Ingram’s when R.
Sale was Housemaster. After school he
did National Service which he spent
mostly in Cyprus; there he learnt to ski on
water and snow and to sail, then
proceeded to Corpus Christi College,
Oxford to read Law. He joined his father’s
firm of solicitors (Butcher & Barlow),
qualifying in 1954, and spent all his
working life in the family business. His son
Charles is now the Senior Partner, being
the fourth generation of Barlows in the
firm. His two sons went to Radley, but
three of his seven grandchildren are or
have been at Shrewsbury. He and his wife
branched out into farming and had a very
successful Holstein herd, breeding many
show winners. He remained to the end an
active sportsman, snow skiing every
winter, water skiing in summer, playing
tennis and sailing at Abersoch and
hunting until over 80. He served on a
variety of committees – the Cheshire
Hunt, the local Conservatives, the local
CLA (Chairman) and the Bury Law Society
(President 1970). He died suddenly at
home on May 5th 2009.
A. De G. Benson (DB 1934 – 39)
Alan Benson was born in November 1919.
A year later, his father bought land in
Kenya from the Government on which he
developed a fruit farm. Alan learnt the
basics of his later engineering skills and
interest on the farm. He was tutored by
his mother, who was a gifted musician
and well-read, until he was sent off to a
boarding school in Nairobi, where the life
was challenging and the discipline very
strict.
In 1934, at the age of 14, Alan travelled
by ship from Mombasa to England to go
to Shrewsbury School. Knowing that he
might not see his son for many years, his
father told him: ‘When you come to think
of a career, consider law, medicine and
brewing; people are always in trouble or ill
or need a drink’.
47
Alan described his days at Shrewsbury
as some of the happiest in his memories.
He had been booked to go to School
House but because that was full he
became a Dayboy but lodged all his time
with a variety of hosts, starting with his
Housemaster Major West. Although not
physically large, Alan stroked the 2nd VIII
to victory in the Public Schools Challenge
Vase at Marlow in1938 and the next year
he stroked the 1st VIII at Henley. He was
also a Gentleman of the Runs and a
Praepostor and won a place at
Cambridge to read Engineering.
War broke out soon after Alan left
school, so he abandoned Cambridge and
enlisted. He was commissioned in the
Royal Artillery and served in Palestine and
North Africa, where he saw action at El
Alamein and Tobruk and elsewhere; he
took part in the invasion of Sicily and then,
being owed a lot of leave, managed to
cadge lifts with the RAF to Nairobi. From
there he made his way to the family farm
and ‘walked unannounced into the
grounds of the family farmhouse, seeing
his father for the first time for nearly ten
years and his mother for more than five.
You can imagine how emotional that
reunion was.’
After that, he rejoined his regiment in
Sicily and landed at Anzio beachhead in
1944 and was on his way to Rome. Alan
always stressed how very lucky he had
been to come through the war unscathed.
Later he contracted malaria and was sent
back to England; he chose the Royal
Shrewsbury Infirmary for his treatment;
there he was looked after by a nurse with
whom he fell in love at first sight. They
were married in May 1946 in St Mary’s
Church, Shrewsbury, just a few yards from
where they had first met, and completed
63 years of devoted married life, making a
very happy home for their family.
After the war Alan qualified as an
engineer and enjoyed a long and
successful career with the Aluminium
Company of Canada and subsidiaries. ‘His
forte was business development … and his
calm approach and expert knowledge led
him into the role of trouble shooter to the
company’s most demanding customers.
He was the person they always wanted to
talk to.’ He lived for 38 years at Longdonon-Tern, Shropshire, which he loved. He
died after a short illness, but he fought hard
to the end, as he had done all his life. A
Thanksgiving Service for his life was held in
the School Chapel on August 7th 2009.
The retiring collection was given to the
RSSBC.
Old Salopian News
P. A. R. Blaker (JHT 1936 – 40)
Peter Blaker was in Tombling’s (No. 6) at a
time when that house, though small in
numbers, produced a large number of
outstanding sportsmen and scholars. He
was in the Cricket XI of 1940. He was
born in Hong Kong, where his father was
later Chairman of HSBC. He took a 1st in
Classics at Trinity College, Toronto and
later a 1st in Law at New College, Oxford;
he served during the war with the
Canadian Argyll and Sutherland
Highlanders in Normandy and Northern
Europe and was badly wounded in 1944.
After being called to the Bar (Lincoln’s
Inn) in 1952 and practising for a short
time, he joined the Foreign Office in 1953
and served in Cambodia, Ottawa and with
the Levant Department. He then decided
to enter politics and was selected from
300 candidates to contest Blackpool
South, which he won for the
Conservatives and served there as M.P.
for the next 28 years. He had a series of
Government roles — briefly as a whip,
then as PPS to the Chancellor of the
Exchequer (then Anthony Barber),
Parliamentaru Under Secretary of State at
MOD and for the Armed Forces (under
John Nott) and Minister of State at the
Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
He took a tough line against Russian
expansionism and their invasion of
Afghanistan, and shared many of the
instincts of Margaret Thatcher, serving on
the Executive of the 1922 Committee for
four years. On the other hand, he was a
committed European, put the case for the
retention of a nuclear deterrent and
pursued a number of national and
international issues. Later he retired to the
back benches with a KCMG. He left
Parliament in 1992 and was created a Life
Peer in 1994. He married a New
Zealander, Jennifer Dixon, daughter of Sir
Pierson Dixon, and they had two sons
and a daughter. He died on July 5th 2009,
aged 86.
M. F. Coutanche (DB 1941 – 45)
Michael Coutanche was born into a
distinguished Jersey family; his uncle was
the Bailiff of Jersey during the German
occupation in the Second World War.
Michael’s father was a District
Commissioner in Nyasaland (now
Malawi). He spent his early years in Kent
and after Kingsland Grange moved to
Shrewsbury as a Dayboy but as one who
lodged locally. At school he was a
competent athlete and a keen cricketer
who played occasionally for the 1st XI. His
passion for cricket remained with him
throughout his life.
On leaving school he held a
commission in the Indian Army and was
posted to Bangalore. A posting to Malaya
followed. While back in England he
married Joanna Cadman and they had a
son Richard. Michael left the Indian Army
and joined the Royal Artillery in 1949 and
then in 1955 he transferred to the RAOC,
where he remained until he retired in
1971. His postings included three years in
Jamaica and a spell in Aden; he rose to
the rank of Lt Colonel. His enthusiasm for
sport remained and he was in the Royal
Artillery Motor Cycling Scrambling Team
and competed in athletics.
After retiring from the army he moved to
Dorset where he bought a village garage
in Mosterton. He sold the business in
1978 and spent the last eight years of his
working life as Bursar of Colfox School in
Bridport, Dorset. His passion for cricket
remained and he played for the local
team and when he was too immobile to
play he followed the Test Matches avidly.
Sadly, the latter years of his life were
plagued by ill health. In 2004 he entered
Broadwindsor House Residential Home,
where he spent his final years closely
attended by his son and daughter-in-law.
He died peacefully in his sleep on March
24th 2009.
E. H. Dehn (CWM 1929 – 35)
His daughter Nicola writes: My father
spent ‘the happiest of years’ at
Shrewsbury. He studied Classics,
inevitably, and won the 100 and 440 yards
at speeds which stood him in good stead
when withdrawing from the enemy in
1940. There were memories of brilliant
teaching from Jimmy Street and the
merrier, less academic, classes of Harry
Dawson (rockets being fired from the
classroom window on November 5th) and
a life-long friendship with George
Simmons. He maintained that his first
encounter with corporal punishment – for
being overheard saying ‘damn!’ on the
Common after missing a catch – certainly
ensured that he never used that particular
word ever again. Despite this, he became
a Praepostor in his last year. He gained an
Exhibition to Worcester College, Oxford
and switched from Classics to French,
obtaining a 2nd Class Honours with a
distinction in colloquial French. Much of
his time was devoted to running, acting,
becoming President of the JCR and
getting together a table-tennis team to
defend the University colours with a
48
certain unknown but very musical Edward
Heath. He was appointed to teach at
Bristol Grammar School in 1939 by the
Headmaster R.W. Moore, his past
classics teacher at Shrewsbury, but after
only three weeks of teaching he was off to
war.
His army service took him to Dunkirk,
by mistake into the 51st Highland Division
and to ultimate escape from France in the
ensuing confusion. He later became an
instructor of gunnery and served in the
Middle East, finishing the war with the
rank of Major. He received a postcard
after the fall of Tobruk from his
Housemaster at Shrewsbury, C.W. Mitford.
It said, ‘Lost House Swimming …. but
Stevenson was absent.’ Did he know that
war had been declared? More importantly,
on a return to Port Meadow, Oxford to reform and re-equip, he met up again with
Joan, cycling along the tow-path, who
was later to become his wife.
He returned to Bristol Grammar School
and was French Master, Housemaster,
and Head of Department from 1946 to
1976, providing entertaining and inspiring
teaching of the French language and
using his unceasing energy, warmth and
ability to push generations of boys to the
heights of achievement, whether it be
acting in French plays, swimming for
Dehn’s House, travelling on a French
exchange trip, participating in a debate or
golf match, or just passing an exam and
performing at an interview.
He lived life to the full in Bristol,
becoming Chairman of the Old Vic
Theatre Club and a popular broadcaster
on local radio and the BBC, participating
in Any Answers for many years. A
teaching exchange to Louisville, Kentucky
was the start of a long collaboration with
the English Speaking Union (ESU). He
became an active and inventive chairman
of the Bristol Branch from 1967 to 1982,
promoting and organising events,
overcoming all obstacles to take Bristol
students on the first of several exchanges
to America and using all his energy and
powers of persuasion to organise
Thanksgiving Dinners and Schools
Conferences to bring people together,
both young and old, from all walks of life,
with the aim of surmounting the barriers of
prejudice and creating channels of
communication. The Lady Marks McKay
lectureship from the ESU enabled him to
depart on a lecture tour in 1967, only the
start of witty, entertaining and informative
talks, where his sparkling humour hit
home from Fiji to Philadelphia. While not
Old Salopian News
as famous a writer as his brother Paul,
author of the Shrewsbury Masque to
celebrate the Fourth Centenary, he shared
the family gift for the written word in the
many, many scripts, articles and letters
that he published. He moved on to
become a Governor of the ESU from 1980
to 1993, receiving the Churchill Medal in
1997, and he remained an involved and
familiar President of the Bristol Branch
until he died. He was into his 80s before
he finally had to abandon golf – having
already achieved a hole in 1 – but his
regular outings to the Old Bristolians, the
Friendly Reading Society and the ESU
meant that he was able to pursue the life
he loved, meeting people and engaging
in witty and thought-provoking
conversations right up to the end. His
family, friends and neighbours will all miss
the sparkle in his eye and the warmth that
enabled him to bring out the funny side of
life, but he leaves his wife Joan, son
Michael, daughters Jakki and Nicola and
their families with many happy memories.
He died on August 4th 2009, aged 93.
J. M. Dyas (DB 1945 – 49)
John Dyas was born in Shrewsbury,
attended Kingsland Grange and entered
Dayboys in September 1945 under the
Headmastership of J. F. Wolfenden. After
Shrewsbury he did National Service and
was commissioned into The Cheshire
Regiment with whom he saw active
service in Egypt. Later, when he had
decided to make the army his career, he
transferred to The Royal Corps of
Transport. For the next 28 years he served
in Germany, Cyprus, Borneo, Malaysia
and Northern Ireland, as well as various
postings in England. His principal
expertise was in Air Despatch,
commanding not only a Regiment but
also controlling the training and
examination of UK and some
Commonwealth forces.
He took early retirement from the army
in 1978 and pursued a second career in
various civilian posts in industry and
commerce. In 1985 he was appointed
County Director for the Berkshire branch
of The British Red Cross and very much
enjoyed the next eleven years in that post.
He retired in 1996 and was then able to
indulge his hobbies of gardening, classic
cars and reading.
He enjoyed a very close family life with
his wife Thelma, one son (SH 1970 – 74),
two daughters and two grand-daughters
and lived in the village of Hurstbourne
Tarrant, Hampshire for 30 years. He died
on February 17th 2009 after a very short
illness and a celebration of his life was
held at St Peter’s Church, Hurstbourne
Tarrant on March 5th.
Wing Cdr E. A. Fairhurst DFC TD
(CWM 1932 – 35)
Tim Fairhurst died on April 25th 2009,
aged 91, and his funeral took place on
May 15th at Burton Leonard, Yorkshire.
After Shrewsbury in Mitford’s Severn Hill
he joined the T.A. with a commission in
the Leeds Rifles. With little activity at the
beginning of the war, he transferred to the
RAF to train as a pilot; he trained in
Lysanders working with Coastal
Command and was mentioned in
Dispatches, thence volunteering for the
Photographic Reconnaissance Unit (PRU)
and being posted to No. 541 Squadron.
This unit consisted of Spitfires with no
guns, no bombs, no radios and in the
beginning no cockpit heaters, just
cameras, oxygen and extra fuel in the
wings to give these aircraft the ability to fly
at high altitudes. In September 1942 he
navigated his squadron of three Spitfires
for some five hours 1600 miles from RAF
Benson to Vaenga which is 170 miles
inside the Arctic Circle. He made light of
the feat of navigation: ‘You just fly for so
many hours along this bearing, allowing a
bit for the wind and turn left at the White
Sea.’ The Spitfires were met at Vaenga by
an RAF ground party. His RAF squadron
operated there with red star markings in
place of RAF roundels. He flew many
long-range sorties over Germany and
Norway in his unarmed Spitfire, with the
main enemy being the cold. He once flew
for six hours and landed with only five
gallons of fuel left in his tank. On his very
first sortie flying out of Vaenga over the
northern Norwegian fjords he considered
himself lucky to have been able to return
with photographs of the German North
Sea Fleet ships, the Hipper, Scheer, Koln
and four destroyers which were lurking in
the fjords intent on attacking the precious
Arctic convoys heading for Murmansk.
Whilst in Russia he received his DFC and
read all of ‘War and Peace’, and returned
to Britain by sea. He was promoted to
Squadron Leader and sent to the USA as
a guest of Howard Hughes with orders to
help and instruct the Americans on the
importance of PRU, a skill and military
value that the Americans never really
understood at that time.
On his return to Britain he converted to
Mosquitoes and was posted to RAF
Benson as OC A Flight 544 Squadron. In
49
September 1944 he was posted back to
541 Squadron (Spitfires) as CO and
remained there until the end of the war, by
which time he had flown 109 operations.
As well as his DFC he was twice
mentioned in Dispatches and received the
Belgian Croix de Guerre avec Palme and
the Territorial Decoration. In old age he
was invited to the Russian Embassy to be
presented with the Arctic Star. After the
war he briefly returned to civilian life, but
rejoined the RAF and saw action again in
the Communist insurrection in Malaya in
1947. On further retirement he was a
security vetting officer with the MOD and
a circuit RAF Courts Martial Judge until
his final retirement. He then travelled
extensively and was a devoted family
man, with three sons and seven
grandchildren. His wife Wendy died in
1996. His interests included his garden
and cooking and a great love of birds; his
family nickname was ‘The Birdman of
Burton Leonard’.
Lt Col N. J. L. Field OBE (O 1931 – 35)
Norman Field was in Oldham’s in the late
years of J. B. Oldham and the early years
of S. S. Sopwith. He was Head of House
and a Praepostor, and he rowed in the 1st
VIII of 1935, being Vice-captain of Boats.
He was stepson of Dr C. C. C. Court (DB
1900 – 04). His own father, a Captain
serving with the RAMC, was killed at
Ypres in 1917; the only occasion when he
met his father was at his christening. After
school, he went to Sandhurst, became a
SUO and was on duty at the Coronation
of King George V1th. He was
commissioned into The 2nd Battalion, The
Royal Fusiliers, stationed at Shorncliffe.
With war imminent, he married on
September 1st 1939, although still a
Second Lieutenant, and left for France in
October.
Promoted to Adjutant, he was wounded
in the move back to Dunkirk in 1940. He
survived Stuka attacks while on board a
minesweeper in Dunkirk harbour and
eventually arrived back at Sheerness and
into hospital at Dartford. On board this
minesweeper was an Army Chaplain and
older contemporary of his in Oldham’s by
the name of Sam Woodhouse, later to
become Archdeacon of London and
Canon of St Paul’s. When he had
recovered from his wounds, he moved to
the SOE, the ‘secret army’ which was the
brain-child of Winston Churchill. As a
result, he was recruited on to the staff of
General Montgomery in 1941 and, now a
Major, was involved with the evolution of
Old Salopian News
airborne operations. Then he was Staff
Officer to General Browning in North
Africa, Sicily and Italy. In 1943 he was
recalled to England to help to plan the
airborne attacks on France and the D-Day
landings. By now a Lt Colonel, he worked
with the U.S. Army, being seconded to
General Ridgway’s staff for the crossing
of the Rhine, and was awarded the
American Bronze Star for his work in the
invasion of Holland; he was also
mentioned in Dispatches. Finally, he
became Senior Staff Officer to General
Richard Gale and was awarded the OBE
(Mil.). His distinguished army career was
brought to an end by a life-threatening
stroke in 1948, and he had to retire on
health grounds.
After seven years of civilian desk jobs
which did not suit him, he moved to
Bilting in Kent to build a mushroom farm.
For sixteen years of hard slog on his farm
he produced daily supplies for Covent
Garden and top London restaurants,
though there were also family holidays in
North Wales, with sailing, fishing and
painting. It was at this time that his artistic
talent emerged. He began with sculpting
in steel, people and birds and plants,
exhibiting at The City of London Guildhall
Art Exhibition; he gained a national and
international reputation with reviews in the
press and on a BBC art programme. He
later diversified into painting and was an
active member of his local Art Group for
many years. In 1997 he moved to a
smaller house in Wye, then in 2006 to a
Residential Home; he managed to lay a
wreath of poppies on behalf of the village
on Remembrance Sunday 2008. He died
on September 10th 2009 in The Chaucer
Hospital, Canterbury after a short illness,
and his funeral was in Wye church.
J. M. Heath C.M.G. (O 1936 – 40)
John Heath and his twin brother Peter
were in Oldham’s in the middle of S. S.
Sopwith’s time as Housemaster. John
won the Bright History Prize and an
Exhibition to Merton College, Oxford. He
often spoke of his debt to the inspiring
teaching of Frank McEachran.
On leaving school, he joined up in the
Inns of Court Regiment. By 1944 he was a
Captain and on the staff of 11th Armoured
Division in Western Europe and in 1945
mentioned in Dispatches. After post-war
Oxford he entered the Foreign Office, ‘one
of a talented generation entering the
Foreign Service after the war who had to
work against the background of the
gradual decline of British influence
overseas’. His first posting was to the
Office of the Commissioner General for
South East Asia; subsequent postings in
the next 25 years took him to Jordan,
Mexico, Afghanistan and West Germany.
He played an important role in the 1960’s
in running a big department of the
Diplomatic Service Administration Office,
tasked with welding together the three
separate Foreign, Commonwealth and
Trade Commissioner Services into a
unified Diplomatic Service. In 1975 he
was Consul-General in Chicago; the most
interesting and important part of his
career was as Ambassador to Chile (1980
– 82) ‘when his good judgment and sure
touch established working contacts with
the principal figures in Chile while
remaining at a proper distance from
President Pinochet’. As a result, Chile was
almost the only country in Latin America
which did not support Argentina’s
invasion of the Falkland Islands. During
his tours abroad, in particular in Mexico
and on the Afghanistan / Pakistan border,
he very much enjoyed exploring the wilder
parts of the countryside on foot and
communicating with the locals. He was a
natural scholar, a bibliophile, keen on his
family history and a philatelist who wrote
books about the early issues of Mexican
stamps. He died on September 13th
2009, aged 87, survived by Patricia, his
wife of 57 years, and their two children.
C. N. Henty-Dodd (SH 1949 – 50)
Cyril Nicholas Henty-Dodd was at
Shrewsbury for five terms under A. E.
Taylor as Housemaster. His father and
grandfather were also in School House
and maybe some other forbears of the
name of Dodd. His grandfather Cyril
Dodd arrived at Shrewsbury in
Michaelmas Term 1882, a magic moment
in the history of the school. Born in
Manchester in July 1935, he was the son
of a Lancashire cotton magnate but had a
troubled childhood, being brought up by
aunts from a young age. He joined the
RAF for National Service and was
involved with aerial photography at Suez
and with the British Forces Radio, which
started his love for broadcasting.
After that his life was nothing but a
roller-coaster. The highs were his time
from 1964 with Radio Caroline and, when
pirate radio was outlawed, with Dee Time
on Radio One from 1967. During this time,
as Simon Dee, he was a major celebrity
and his name was nationally known. He
used the name Simon Dee by combining
his son’s name with the first letter of his
50
surname. The lows were periods of odd
jobs and spells in prison for minor
offences. His personal life was no more
settled; he married three times and had
three sons and a daughter in all. He was
in many ways the epitome of his era; with
his fast cars and ladies he led a
glamorous play-boy type of life. In the end
he became a by-word for the fickle nature
of celebrity. He died of cancer at
Winchester on August 29th 2009, aged
74.
C. M. S. F. Hodges (SH 1950 – 55)
Michael Hodges died on March 17th
2009, very quickly after the discovery of
bone cancer with complications. He was
in School House under Messrs Taylor and
Chenevix-Trench and a contemporary in
the school of Willie Rushton, Richard
Ingrams and the Private Eye men. He was
a keen sportsman, playing in the Rugby
1st XV and for his house at most other
games. After school he continued to enjoy
village cricket and was a great fan of
Arsenal and Welsh Rugby.
He did National Service with The Royal
Welch Fusiliers when, as he said, his
education really began. The junior officers
were amongst the most gifted and
cultivated, as one would expect of a
regiment which spawned the great
movement of war poets inspired by
Siegfried Sassoon and Robert Graves. A
return working passage to New Zealand
followed. Soon after, by the gentle
reminder from indulgent parents that his
friends were working, he went into
commerce, starting off with British
Aluminium, followed by Horlicks, then in a
City publishing firm. In 1970 he went into
teaching, starting in the State sector,
moving into the opposite camp at a
school in Battersea for the last 13 years of
his working life, where he was Senior
Master. He was an inspiring teacher with a
unique sense of humour; one of his
colleagues wrote of him on his retirement:
‘He had the ability to raise the cultural and
intellectual, and thereby the academic,
horizons of all his pupils, which soon led
to excellent results. History, too, benefited
from his idiosyncratic but highly effective
contribution. Being modest, he never
broadcast that he had had textbooks
published and was one of the instigators
of the introduction of evidence-based
material into the teaching of history. His
childlike impishness and generosity have
been precious assets to hard-pressed
colleagues at those low moments that all
individuals and institutions experience.’
Old Salopian News
His publications include education books,
texts, an education magazine, and
numerous plays. He also collaborated
with Granada TV and Schools Radio on
history programmes. At the time of his
death Mike was writing a book on his
favourite squares in Europe.
He spent ten years with the London
Scottish Territorials, which he almost
considered as his London Club! His other
interests were enormous. He was an avid
historian, particularly of the American Civil
War; he had a great love of the English
language, hence his writings. Music
played a big part, too, particularly opera;
he managed to encourage his wife and
friends to accompany him to Wagner’s
Ring Cycle on occasions. Chess also
played a part in his life – with the
occasional glass of wine. He was very
much a family man, with his wife Gentian
whom he married in 1967 and their two
children. The whole family shared his love
of travel and camping in Europe. His
widow writes: ‘He was a man who loved
life and lived it to the full’. On his
retirement, a teaching colleague wrote:
Let us salute a kind and generous man
Exemplar of some charismatic plan
Whose value can be rated only thus
A golden star and alpha plus.
C. A. Hollings (School Dental Adviser)
Tony Hollings was School Dental Adviser
for more than thirty years, retiring in 1989.
He died in May 2009 at the age of 80.
Those Salopians who needed to consult a
dentist during those years will remember
the friendly, reassuring and positive
atmosphere Tony managed to create in
circumstances always trying for the
patients. He and Elizabeth had two sons
in Dayboys, Mark (1969 – 74) and Andrew
(1976 – 81), and they were good friends
to many of the teaching staff. He was also
well known in the town and county, both
as a Magistrate for thirty years and in the
forefront of establishing and helping to
maintain the Hospice. In each of these
tasks as Chairman his gifts as a leader
were evident: his ability to make people
believe in themselves, to trust them with
greater responsibilities, to see themselves
as part of a team and to make it all fun.
He was also a Deputy Lieutenant for
Shropshire.
Robin Moulsdale
K. A. Hurst (I 1929 – 31)
Kenneth Hurst, born in Sheffield in
February 1913, was in Ingram’s for just
over two years; he was a useful crosscountry runner, being thin and light, also a
cox. He was ‘mad about fast cars and
racing’, so he combined studying
Mechanical Engineering at Sheffield
University with serving his apprenticeship
with a local firm. He was then employed
by a sports - car firm and worked as
occasional mechanic for Prince Bira of
Thailand, a wealthy amateur who drove
ERA racing cars.
In 1939, as a member of the T. A., he
was called up immediately into the REME,
serving at Arborfield on the repair of
tanks. By now a Captain, he was posted
to Italy and in 1944 / 45 was responsible
for the recovery and repair of tanks; this
sometimes involved going out into noman’s-land under cover of darkness in a
Scammel tank transporter to recover
crippled vehicles.
After demobilisation, he returned to
engineering and fast cars, moving to
South Africa; there he worked for David
Brown, then as Managing Director for
Wright Boag & Head Wrightson, and
latterly on his own as consulting engineer.
Later he remarried and travelled widely,
finally settling in 2000 in the Cape, close
to the farm of one of his sons. He moved
to a Retirement Home and had to stop
driving at the age of 92. His whole family
gathered in South Africa for his 95th
birthday in 2008, for a great party, though
by now he was wheelchair-bound. He
died on April 13th 2009 in his 97th year,
survived by sons, grandsons and greatgranddaughters.
R. E. Medd (M 1948 – 53)
His brother Duncan (M 1962 – 66) writes:
Robert Medd (or Everett, as he was
known to the family) arrived at Moser’s
from his Derbyshire prep school,
Stancliffe Hall, in September 1948. He
had a wonderful time at Shrewsbury,
particularly on the games field. He was in
the Football XI for two years, the Cricket XI
and Fives IV for three years, then captain
of Fives in his last year, while he also
represented the school in Athletics and
Rugby. He was an Entrance Scholar and
a Praepostor.
During his National Service, much of
which was spent in Hong Kong, he served
in Malaya during the Emergency in 1954.
He then went on to read Physics at
Worcester College, Oxford, where he
continued playing cricket and fives. He
won a half blue for fives, and after Oxford
played for the Old Salopians and Jesters.
Robert loved skiing and, having learnt
before the advent of wide manicured
pistes, liked nothing better than to charge
51
off with friends into the white powder. He
played cricket for the Shrewsbury
Saracens, then for the Free Foresters for a
number of years and only hung up his bat
in his late forties. There is no record of
him venturing on to the river while at
school, but as a keen fisherman he was
lucky enough to live close to the River Test
in Hampshire and he spent a
considerable part of his retirement on the
riverbank.
He started his working career with
Phoenix Glass, then moved to Clarks
Shoes, and after a spell with Turner and
Newall he joined IBM, where he remained
until his retirement in 1989. He was
always eager to help and encourage and
for many years he was Chairman of
Governors at Cliffdale School,
Portsmouth, a school for children with
Special Needs.
Robert married Sarah in 1961 and they
had four children – Kate, Victoria, Andrew
and James. They in turn presented him
with a cricket team of grandchildren who
gave him enormous delight. Robert died
peacefully on June 2nd 2009, having
suffered poor health for a number of
years. A Thanksgiving Service was held
on August 8th.
S. E. Mitchell (S 1944 – 48)
Sam Mitchell was in Severn Hill during the
last terms of Tombling and the early years
of Childs. He came from a close family
living on the borders of Shropshire and
Staffordshire. His brother Charles
followed him to Severn Hill, also his
cousin James Adams (later H.M.
Ambassador to Egypt), and in due course
his son Ross and his two nephews
Jonathan and Julian. He was Head of the
House and a Praepostor and a good allround sportsman, enjoying boxing,
squash and tennis, with which he
continued for many years in later life.
On leaving school, he was
commissioned into the Royal Engineers
but suffered a serious leg injury in the
Middle East when his driver overturned
the 15-ton ammunition truck in which they
were travelling; he had a metal plate in his
leg for the rest of his life. After National
Service, Sam joined his father in the family
printing business Wood Mitchell founded
by his grandfather (and now chaired by
his son Ross) with which he served as
Director and Chairman for many years. He
maintained the firm’s national reputation
for superlative quality work, providing
brochures and advertising material for
Wedgwood and the other great potteries
Old Salopian News
and producing beautiful brochures for
stately homes like Chatsworth, Windsor
and Sandringham. He had a strong sense
of public service, being appointed a
Deputy Lieutenant in 1986 and High
Sheriff for Staffordshire in 1996 – 97.
He was also Chairman of the Beth
Johnson Housing Association, a governor
of Newcastle-under-Lyme School and a
Director of Stoke-on-Trent Festival Ltd for
many years. The later years of his life
were clouded by a severe car crash in
2003; throughout, he was supported by
the unfailing love and devotion of his wife
Ray, who was also badly injured, and his
immediate and wider family. At his funeral
James Adams spoke warmly of the joys
of family associations when they were all
young, also of his ‘charming and kind
elder cousin who masked his great inner
strength with a self-deprecating manner
and a keen sense of the ridiculous.’ Sam
was born on Boxing Day 1929 and died in
early July 2009.
J. T. D. Musson (DB 1927 – 32)
Joscelyn Musson, known as Joss, was
the youngest of three brothers who came
from a farming family in Yockleton, near
Shrewsbury. Joss followed his brothers,
Sammy (barrister and later Chief Registrar
of Friendly Societies) and Geoffrey (later
Sir Geoffrey, Adjutant General 1967-70
and President of The Old Salopian Club
1969-70), from Kingsland Grange to
Dayboys at Shrewsbury and then Trinity
Hall, Cambridge. At Shrewsbury he was
Head of House and a distinguished
athlete. At Cambridge he read Mechanical
Sciences and continued to distinguish
himself if the field of athletics; he then
went into industry. In the Second World
War he served in the Royal Navy, mainly in
destroyers escorting North Atlantic and
Malta convoys, rising to the rank of
Lieutenant Commander (E). After the war
he and his wife Bunty farmed in partnership
for fifty years in West Sussex, Hampshire
and Berkshire. Their three sons, Roger
(1955-60), Willie (1963-67) and David
(1965-68) were all in Ridgemount.
Joss’s great interests, apart from
farming and his family, were in owning,
riding and breeding thoroughbred
racehorses for National Hunt racing and
point-to-pointing and in mentoring many
young people seeking to become
involved in farming and many aspects of
horseracing. These include son Willie,
well-known Newmarket trainer, and Henry
Ponsonby (M 1961-66), the pioneer of
racehorse syndication.
Joss had an encyclopaedic knowledge
of form and breeding and perhaps his
greatest achievement was in breeding,
from a mare costing £150 and a stallion
whose stud fee was £25, Charlie Potheen,
one of the best steeplechasers of his
generation in the early 1970s and the
winner of the Hennessy and Whitbread
Gold Cups, two of the most valuable and
coveted steeplechases in the racing
calendar. Joss was delighted to learn, just
before he died in September, that of all
the fifty and more Hennessy winners they
could have chosen for their website,
Newbury Racecourse had selected the
photograph of Charlie Potheen to
promote this year’s Hennessy meeting in
late November.
B. C. Pitt (Staff 1964 – 68)
His widow Sarah writes: Barry started his
teaching career at Central Foundation
School, London teaching PE and
Geography after graduating from
Westminster College and Carnegie
College, Leeds. In 1963 he decided to
study for a Masters in Education at The
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,
a momentous year but with the security of
having already been appointed by Donald
Wright to teach PE at Shrewsbury ‘to
bring the subject into the twentieth
century’. After an amazing year in U.S.A.
we came for four years to Shrewsbury
which were some of the happiest years of
our lives. Barry’s Memorial Service in
Market Drayton Church and many letters I
have received bear testimony to the
friendships we made with many
Shrewsbury boys and staff. Barry, a fine
footballer and cricketer, undoubtedly
revolutionised PE at Shrewsbury.
Itchy feet dictated an M.Ed. at
Birmingham University; with a child aged
two and a return to teaching for me; it was
a difficult year, but the outcome was a
lecturing post at Madeley College of
Education, Staffordshire, which was
another very stimulating and satisfying
job. This entailed our move to Market
Drayton.
After Madeley College closed, Barry
was asked to work at Stoke Sixth Form
College, another rewarding challenge.
Retirement beckoned by now, but Barry’s
interest in education continued when he
became a Lecturer on the Education
Management Course at Keele University
and as a Governor of The Grove School in
Market Drayton. He was also elected a
Town Councillor, and this led in time to a
year as Mayor; this was a year full of
52
insights into local politics but also with
several positive outcomes. He also
gained hugely from working with
Shropshire Council, being involved in the
Education Service; a tribute for this work
was also paid at his Memorial Service.
Barry managed to combine all this with
a deep interest in his family and children,
much travel, theatre and cinema visits
and a happy social life. He died after a
short illness in September 2009.
C. P. H. Ross (S 1956 – 61)
Philip Ross died peacefully in hospital on
May 7th 2009, aged 66, after a long
illness and a courageous fight. Son of the
late Mr and Mrs Carl Ross of Grimsby, he
left a loving wife Ann and five children.
After Shrewsbury, where he was in the
Cricket XI, he trained as a Chartered
Accountant and first worked in London for
Peat Marwick Mitchell & Co. 1961 – 1965
before coming home to Grimsby to work
at Forrester Boyd 1965 – 68. He married
Pam in 1968, with his great friend from
Shrewsbury, John Ainsworth (S 1957 –
60), as Best Man; they had three
daughters, Rachel, Kate and Mandy. He
was a Director of Cosalt Ltd until 1975
and enjoyed his passion for racing and
horses with his family. Owning a string of
racehorses, his greatest win was in 1978
with Running Jump winning the William
Hill Gold Cup trained by his friend Bill
Watts. Philip was Chairman of Bristol &
West Cold Stores 1974 – 83.
Later, he married Jo and they had two
sons, Tom and Sam, and they moved to
Sandilands on the East Coast near
Mablethorpe and started an accountancy
firm Philip Ross & Co. in Mablethorpe in
1982, which he continued to run until his
death. He enjoyed his other great
passions of golf and football, following
Manchester United and Grimsby Town
with his sons. In 1995 he became a
Director of S. Cartledge & Son Ltd.
Philip was very much a part of the life
and soul of Sandilands, particularly the
Grange & Links Hotel and Sandilands Golf
Club; he became Company Secretary of
the hotel and golf club with his partner Ann
in 2004. They ran the hotel together and he
will be greatly missed by all the staff and
regular customers. He married Ann in the
last few weeks of his life with all of his
children with him in hospital.
Philip often spoke of his time at
Shrewsbury very fondly and always
followed any Old Salopian news with
great interest.
Old Salopian News
W. R. Rowland (SH 1953 – 58)
His daughter writes: Robin Rowland
followed his father and uncle in School
House. He told the story of how he took
part in boxing while at Shrewsbury. He
won his weight category by default as the
only boy of that weight – he was not the
largest of boys – but when it was
suggested that he might want to compete
at the next weight up he declined, saying
he was quite content with what he had!
While others at Shrewsbury were
studying for their university entrance
exams, Robin was studying for his first
actuarial exams. He started as an
actuarial trainee with Royal Insurance in
Liverpool at the age of 18 and qualified as
an actuary in 1963. He married Val in
1964, and their two children both followed
him into insurance, one as an actuary. In
1971 he also qualified as an accountant,
being the only person in the country at the
time to be a qualified actuary and
accountant. In 1975 he was appointed
Group Chief Accountant and held various
finance positions, leading to his
appointment in 1982 as Group Controller,
the most senior finance position in the
company. He was involved in the creation
of a new computer services department
which introduced PCs and email to the
business for the first time, not realising,
we are sure, quite how much he would
rely on email or that he would in later life
feel the need to save over 17,000 emails
on his PC!
By 1989 he had been appointed
International Director on the main board.
At this time he also became Community
Relations Director, which brought him into
contact with many people and projects in
the voluntary and social sectors. He was
inspired by many of these projects
including Bromley by Bow Community
Centre and the Passage in Victoria,
London. This sparked an interest in
helping people to help themselves, which
was to dominate his later life. By 1998
when he took early retirement from paid
work, having worked for the same
company, in its various disguises, for
nearly 40 years, he had held seventeen
different jobs at the Royal, including
responsibilities covering more than
10,000 people in over sixty countries.
He could have spent the rest of his life
pursuing his interests in gardening,
chamber music, travel, good wine and
food, but he soon became involved in
several different social/community
projects including Links Japan and The
Chiltern Society; in 2003 he decided to
pursue his dream to create a way of
connecting, empowering and informing
people globally who are working to
improve the lives of their community. So
he founded the charity Global Links
Initiative and devoted much of the last five
years of his life to that cause. He died on
March 27th 2009.
R. H. D. Sandford (Ch 1937 – 42)
His brother Stephen (SH 1948 – 53)
writes: For most of his life my brother
Dick, who has died aged 85, worked to
improve the livelihoods of farmers and
pastoralists in Ethiopia, for much of the
time in an exceptionally difficult political
environment.
He was born in Ethiopia and lived there
on his parents’ farm until the Italian
invasion in 1935. He came to Shrewsbury
in 1937, where he was Head of the School
and won a Heath Harrison Exhibition to
Brasenose College, Oxford. After school
he served during the Second World War
with the 6th Gurkha Rifles in India and
Burma, where he was seriously wounded.
He returned to Ethiopia to manage the
family farm for brief periods in 1946 and
1949 and spent time in the peasant coffee
sub-sector in Kenya.
His key work began in 1956 when he
was appointed UN Food and Agricultural
Organisation Livestock adviser in
Ethiopia. Except for short periods in
Kenya, Sudan and Syria, he devoted the
rest of his life to Ethiopian agriculture.
From 1980 until 2007, although living in
Shropshire, he was a frequent visitor to
the country of his birth.
Dick was one of six children. Our father,
Brigadier Dan Sandford had been
principal military adviser to Emperor Haile
Selassie. In 1946 our mother Chris
founded Sandford School, now one of the
best schools in Ethiopia, attended by both
Ethiopian and foreign children.
Dick, in turn, supported his Ethiopian
colleagues in four areas. Together they
mapped out the livestock sector (which
has the largest population in Africa), they
secured public investment in the dairy
and pastoral divisions, they managed
those investments, and they persuaded
the Derg régime, which ruled from 1974 to
1991, to involve non-government
organisations in the development of
agriculture, which continued under the
subsequent government.
After ‘retiring’ to Shropshire, Dick
helped various NGOs, in particular FarmAfrica and Sunarma, to carry out their
strategies in Ethiopia. He was generous in
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his help to his colleagues. Long before
‘participation’ became fashionable, he
stressed the importance of understanding
farmers’ views. His capacity for speaking
local languages, principally Amharic and
Oromiffaa, enabled him to communicate
directly with farmers.
His many nephews and nieces
marvelled at his ability to listen to people’s
ideas with interest but finally to say, ‘I
have just one question to ask’ and then
go straight to the heart of the matter. We
all, ruefully, remember his huge energy,
devoted in his spare time to horses and
walking impossibly fast over Ethiopia’s
mountains.
He is survived by his wife Anne, their
son Richard (Ch 1975 – 79), three
daughters and nine grandchildren. He
died at home on April 19th 2009.
D. F. H. Trangmar (SH 1942 – 47)
Derek Trangmar was in School House at
the end of the Hope-Simpson era and
was a member of the School Crews of
both 1946 and 1947. Brought up in
Manchester and Blackpool, he went first
to Arnold School, Blackpool where he
took Common Entrance for Shrewsbury.
He very much enjoyed his Shrewsbury
years, particularly the rowing, also the
Rover camps in North Wales and harvest
camps in Devon. For National Service he
joined The Royal Marines, serving at Deal,
Portsmouth and Lympstone and later
aboard the cruiser HMS Sirius visiting
Gibraltar. After a year at Manchester
University studying Civil Engineering, he
worked for The United Dominions Trust
and other concerns; he then decided to
emigrate with his wife and family to
Sydney, following an aunt and uncle and
cousins who had emigrated earlier to
Australia. He enjoyed fast cars and
sailing, held a variety of jobs and
eventually moved from the high-lights of
Sydney to Robina, Queensland. He died
on March 14th 2009.
R. G. Whittles (DB 1934 – 39)
Guy Whittles’ family were farmers at
Longdon-on-Tern in Shropshire. After
school, he managed the family farm,
called ‘Tern’, for over 20 years. His
particular love was breeding pedigree
livestock. His expertise in breeding
Hereford cattle led him to become
President of the Hereford Herd Book
Society, during which time he was asked
to lead the British Livestock Exhibition to
Moscow. He became a J P in 1966.
In 1969 he and his family emigrated to
Old Salopian News
Australia, where they lived happily for the
next 40 years. Early in his time in
Australia, he managed a large pig
production operation and then fulfilled his
dream by purchasing a 500-acre property
on the banks of the Lachlan River at
Gooloogong in the Central West of New
South Wales. He called the farm ‘Salopia’.
He took up golf later in life and when he
retired to the beautiful south coast of New
South Wales in 1981 it became a passion.
He became President of Mollymook Golf
Club and an active member for many
years, finally becoming Patron in 2002. He
played golf right up to the time of his
death from cancer on March 4th 2009. He
is survived by his wife Anna and four
daughters, eight grandchildren and one
great-grandchild.
C. St J. Yates (I 1957 – 62)
Christopher Yates came to Shrewsbury
from The Dragon School, Oxford where
his father Ronnie (I 1923 – 28) was a
Housemaster (and later Headmaster of
Abberley Hall). He went to Christ Church,
Oxford to read Modern Languages; while
there, he became fascinated by the plight
of the Tibetans in exile in India and after
Oxford he travelled to India and worked
with a group of Tibetan refugees for 18
months. Inspired by their patience and
ability to bear troubles he himself became
a Buddhist.
A further stay in India became unsafe,
so he returned to England to train as an
EFL teacher and to work for his PGCE at
Bangor University. He never returned to
India but worked in Western Germany and
Sweden; he started to develop teaching
materials for English as a Foreign
Language and joined the Oxford
University Press as an author, working
with them from 1970 to 1978. He then
bought out the OUP Development Unit
and ran it as his own business for nearly
twenty years. He wrote many books for
teaching English to foreigners, for schools
in Spain, vocational students in Germany,
students needing English for specific
professional purposes etc., and
contributed to two BBC series. His most
important work was to develop
‘descriptors’ for various levels of language
competence, both for professional people
and also for students aiming to work in
English, which in due course developed
into the IELTS tests which nearly all
overseas students now have to take to
qualify for UK universities.
His wife Sue also became a teacher of
EFL. Their two sons David and Tom
followed the family educational route to
The Dragon School and Ingram’s.
Christopher’s strongest connection with
Shrewsbury was as a member and then
Secretary of the Old Salopian Masonic
Lodge. He died on July 26th 2009.
**************
Maud Childs
Maud died on July 24th 2009, aged 98.
She was born in Oakham (Rutland), the
youngest of five children of an agricultural
merchant and a teacher of dairying skills.
She had married Patrick in August 1939
and after a honeymoon camping on the
west coast of Ireland (where it was some
days after the event that they heard that
war had broken out) she arrived at
Shrewsbury, where she joined her elder
sister Mary who was already married to
Tom Taylor.
She and Patrick settled happily in
Ridgebourne Road, where their three
children were born. In 1946 they were
appointed to Severn Hill, just when the
post-war shortages were at their worst.
Maud’s superb catering skills,
organisational ability and quiet but firm
way with domestic staff came into their
own. She ran the domestic side of the
house smoothly and with good humour.
She and Patrick made a good team. They
both cared deeply about the happiness
and success of all the boys and lasting
friendships ensued. They left Severn Hill
in 1960, a year before their time, feeling
worn out and having given their best.
Patrick continued to teach while Maud
joined the WRVS, where her energy and
expertise were quickly appreciated. She
gave cookery demonstrations in field
kitchens (not too difficult after the Severn
Hill kitchen?), was put in charge of the
furniture store and became Deputy
County Organiser.
The next move was to Plealey, where
she and Patrick quickly became valued
members of the village and Pontesbury
communities. They made a beautiful
garden and Maud was glad to make
hundreds of scones for the village fete
each year. They were committed
members of Pontesbury church, Maud
becoming a member of both the Deanery
and Diocesan Synods.
Patrick died in 1994, and by 2003 the
house and garden had become too much
for Maud to manage. She moved
reluctantly to Radfield Care Home on
Kennedy Road in Shrewsbury, but soon
made it her home, tending a small garden
54
and growing flowers and tomatoes galore.
She became a well-known figure walking
round the Common most mornings.
Although her last few months were
difficult because of failing sight and
hearing, she greatly enjoyed visits from
family, retired masters and ex-members of
Severn Hill. It was a great credit to her that
she was so much loved and respected by
those who cared for her at the end of her
life and that she coped with such dignity
and grace.
Jane Tupper (neice)
Janet Waters
Janet Waters considered herself very
much a full Salopian and adored
everything about Shrewsbury. She was
the fourth child of W. H. Moore,
Housemaster at No. 6 1918 – 29 and
author of the music for the School
Carmen, and of Dorothy, née Haydon,
daughter of W. D. Haydon, Housemaster
of Rigg’s 1900 – 32. Born in December
1919, she was christened in the School
Chapel by Dr Alington, Headmaster 1908
– 16 and by then Headmaster of Eton.
She often recounted tales of those happy
and carefree days spent on the School
Site, with summers spent in the family
home at Llandudno. When in 1929 her
father left Shrewsbury to teach at Bedford
School, Janet went to Bedford High
School, then to training as a nurse at The
Middlesex Hospital and The John
Radcliffe at Oxford and to tending
wounded soldiers at Oswestry
Orthopaedic. She married solicitor Hugh
Waters (O 1921 – 26) and became stepmother of Robin Waters (R 1951 – 56) and
later mother of John Waters (R 1965 – 70).
After five years in Calcutta, Janet and the
family returned to England, lived in Purley
and then retired to Cooden in East
Sussex. She particularly enjoyed hearing
Michael Palin, also of Rigg’s, singing the
Carmen on his travels in New Zealand,
also how the Carmen had been sung
gloriously at the great Mansion House
Dinner a few years ago. She suffered a
severe stroke in February 2008 and died
in her 90th year in September 2009.
A Thanksgiving Service for her life was
held at Pevensey, at which her daughterin-law Diane in her address said: Janet
had an excitement for life, always kind,
loving and thoughtful, always joyful and
positive, always full of warmth and
hospitality, always interested and
interesting, always pleased to laugh and to
giggle, always full of charm, elegance,
poise and grace and always mindful that
‘manners maketh man’.
Old Salopian News
As The Salopian was going to press, the School was shocked and saddened to hear of the tragic
death of Alex Wilson (Rb 2003-08). An obituary will appear in the next issue.
T R A N S - AT L A N T I C R O W E R S
Two Old Salopians are making a magnificent effort to raise funds for the
Shrewsbury House
Matthew Mackaness (R 1994-99) and Charlie
Marlow (R 1995 -2000) are taking part in this year’s TransAtlantic Rowing Race in support of Shrewsbury House and
Brain Tumour UK. The gruelling 3,000-mile race starts in the
Canary Islands on 6 December and finishes towards the end of
January 2010. Charlie and Matthew will be competing in the
‘Adkin Pairs Class’ in their newly built 26-foot boat.
Charlie and Matthew have been preparing for the race since
2007 and will encounter all kinds of ocean weather conditions,
including severe storms and 40-foot waves! They intend
to spend alternate two-hour shifts on the oars 24 hours a day in
order to help them make landfall in Antigua as quickly as
possible. They will carry all their supplies on board their spaceage rowing boat. More information about the race is available
on their website www.atlanticrow.com where you can also
follow their progress during the race. This terrific fundraising
enterprise involves courage, endurance and enterprise. It is
also a wonderful chance to raise the profile of Shrewsbury
House.
Needless to say, they are desperate for financial support.
Donations to Shrewsbury House can be made via the charities
page on their website www.atlanticrow.com or by sending
cheques made payable to ‘Shrewsbury House’ to Aketon
Lodge, Follifoot, Harrogate, North Yorkshire HG3 1EG.
Tea with the Taliban (continued from Page 46)
Five scariest moments
1. Arriving at Kabul airport and taking the
road into the city centre. That evening
the road was rocket attacked and the
next morning the airport was bombed.
2. The first night in Peshawar, ‘kidnap
capital of the world’. The local
newspaper had that day published a
story that Blackwater operatives were
holed up in ‘a guesthouse in University
Town’. I was staying in a guesthouse in
University Town. At 3am a man burst
into my room… to deliver laundry.
3. Driving up to a NATO checkpoint at
4am. Many people I had spoken to had
told me stories of how friends and
relatives had been shot dead by troops
at checkpoints for not stopping soon
enough, especially at night. My driver
was impatient and made to overtake
the car in front and speed through. I
had to scream at him to force him to
stop.
4. Admitting ‘Man az Inglistan hastam’ (‘I
am from England’) to a man in the
town square of Balkh, northern
Afghanistan. He gave me a mutinous
look and hurried away. ‘You should not
have said that,’ warned my driver,
Fahim. Apparently British troops did
some bad things in this town. ‘We need
to go now.’ We did.
5. Being driven through a minefield in a
beaten up Toyota 4x4 by a Mujahideen
commander who had just consumed a
great quantity of Uzbek vodka.
55
Five most surreal moments
1. Soaking in Rory Stewart’s private
bathtub in Kabul, reading Michel
Houellebecq’s ‘Atomised’ and listening
to gunfire outside.
2. Driving past endless Afghan road
construction workers – wearing Royal
Mail reflector jackets.
3. Renting a pink, swan-shaped pedalo
on the stunningly beautiful Band-e-Amir
lake, central Afghanistan.
4. Searching through my battlefield
trauma medical kit only to find that it
didn’t have a sticking plaster.
5. Hearing on the radio a Pashtun love
song that featured the line: “Your
eyelashes are like missiles in the
bazaar of my heart.”
Old Salopian News
C OMING E VENTS . . . . .
OS Football Club Dinner – Thursday 13th May at
The Prince of Wales, 138 Upper Richmond Road London
7.30 pm for 8.00 pm : More details available from Dave
Cookson, contact details from the office.
Shrewsbury Drinks – Thursday 17th December
in Quod 6.30-8.30 : Meet old friends and experience the new
VIth form Common Room (in the shell of the old swimming baths).
The Bubble – Saturday 9th January, Britten Theatre,
Royal College of Music, London SW1 : We are planning an OS
get together between Matinee & Evening performance of this star
rated production. So if you are coming phone the office for venue
details.
Henley Drinks – Saturday 3rd July : Drinks at 6.00 pm at the
marquee in Butler’s Field Car Park, space BB228 under the
cherry tree.
This Sabrina Club event is open to all.
For further details of any of the above events please contact Tony
Walters on 01743280891 [email protected]
The Blue Anchor, Hammersmith – Thursday 11th March :
Once again Old Salopians & parents supporting the school
oarsmen at the Schools Head of the River will be meeting for
sandwiches & a drink at this splendid venue. We have theupstairs
room overlooking the Thames & Hammersmith Bridge, open to
non-Sabrina OSs!
More details are often available in the Reunions section of
www.osclub.org.uk
OS Regional Gatherings
The President Hugh Ramsbotham very much hopes to attend as many regional gatherings as can be arranged, and keep the OS
October meeting at Shrewsbury as the main event. This latter, on Saturday October 9th, will be an opportunity for all Old Salopians
to give the new Headmaster, Mark Turner, a welcome to the Club. Regional dinners so far arranged are:
Birmingham. St Paul’s Club, Thursday 22nd April 2010 : In similar format to last year’s successful evening, good food, good
wine, and song. Final details will be sent to all those in the area, but if you don’t receive them please contact the OS Office.
Yorkshire. Rudding Park, Harrogate Thursday 29th April 2010 : A wonderful venue that has seen some splendid OS events.
Again final details will be sent to all in th area, but if you don’t receive them please contact the OS Office or James Crawford,
[email protected] The annual golfing visit of the OSGS to Alwoodley has been arranged for that day – so golfers
welcome to a fine round and a fine dinner.
Further regional events are planned at Liverpool/Manchester, Worcester, Wales, Scotland, London and the South West.
Details will be posted on the Reunions section of the website www.osclub.org.uk
Sixth Form Fashion Show in Quod. Lining up for the catwalk.
Printed by Creative Digital Printing, Shrewsbury (01743) 263030
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