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BEDFORD SCHOOL ASSOCIATION The Office team (left to right): Hugh Maltby, Gina Worboys, Clara Policella and Bev Marshall.
What an extraordinary year! As the noise of party revellers subsided last New Year’s Eve, who would have foreseen the year we have endured? The year we had ahead? At a time of crisis, it is heartening to see so many of our extended community step forward to support and help each other through these tough, challenging times. Yet, despite the doom and gloom, there have been examples of laughter and comradeship in abundance. None more so, than when the community came together to support the Capt (Sir) Tom Moore card-opening operation in the Great Hall. In March, the school transformed itself into a ‘virtual’ institution, evoking memories of 1979 when, following the great fire, the school showed immense fortitude in the face of adversity and came together to ensure it was ‘open for business’ – the same characteristics exhibited by the class of 2020. The BSA team have had to adapt to a new way of working involving the use of Zoom and Microsoft Teams, two products
we’d never even heard of six months earlier! Our autumn series of online lectures has attracted huge audiences from across the globe engaging OBs who would ordinarily not have been able to travel to physical events. Our new digital networking platform Eagle Connect went live last December. We already have 1,400 members actively using the app on a regular basis to make connections and help one another. While we can’t physically meet, we will endeavour to have a full virtual’ programme on offer with something to suit all tastes. Can I ask that you regularly refer to the school and BSA online calendars, which are constantly updated on the website. I look forward to seeing you at a ‘virtual’ or ‘physical’ event in the near future. ■ Hugh Maltby (73-83), Director, BSA and Old Bedfordians Club
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Richard Banks Simon Briggs
This year has been a year like no other for the Bedford School Association (BSA) and whilst the pandemic has brought a whole host of challenges to the individual organisations that make up the BSA, and in particular Hugh Maltby and the wonderful BSA staff, the way in which those challenges have been met has been extraordinary in my view. Adversity can bring out the best in people and I have great admiration for the way in which the whole of the BSA has adapted and been exible in continuing to maintain the strong community that is a particular strength of Bedford School. Whether this has been in providing on-line events for people to attend, keeping the nearly new shop open or being part of Captain Tom’s birthday celebrations, helping opening the thousands of cards and assisting in arranging the display, it has been a great example of the community spirit that typifies the BSA and the School. Whilst physical events and activities may not have been in as great a number as previous years, people have worked just as hard and in many cases much harder and I would like to thank all the volunteers and staff for their very hard work in this challenging year. We look forward to a return to a more recognisable normality but much of what we have learnt and experienced in this year will be used in the coming years to maintain the wider community that is the BSA. Whatever your connection with the School, I hope you will take the opportunity to experience the wider school community for yourself in the future, whether this be virtually or in person. Simon Briggs (77-82) Chairman, BSA Committee 104 THE OUSEL 2018-2019
Past Parents’ Association
It has been a strange end of term for this year’s leavers and parents, with everything ending so abruptly. All those long-term relationships that have been forged at the side of a sports pitch, concert or social event seem like distant memories. Hopefully, that’s where the Past Parents Association can step in and help maintain your connections with the school and other parents. We always describe ourselves as the final piece of the jigsaw, keeping past parents involved with sporting, musical and such other events. Prior to lockdown, we held a Bedford School and friends bike ride taking a not too strenuous route out to the study centre at Ickwell. The event was well attended with a mixed ability group of riders ranging from the serious, to the enthusiastic and those who were just looking forward to a chat, a cake and a cup of tea at Ickwell. There is another social bike ride planned, involving a brewery stop off’, when we are out of current restrictions. Past parents also turned out in force for the OB Careers Fair, offering their time and experience to give career guidance to over 200 boys and girls from Bedford School, Bedford Girls’ School and Bedford Academy. In today’s challenging job market, I would encourage all past parents to sign up, along with their boys, to Eagle Connect - which is driven by Hugh Maltby and his team. It is in addition to the OB network but connects the wider school community for advice on all aspects including mentoring, internships and potential job positions. In summary, the school wants to maintain and cultivate the ties and connections made to keep your whole family involved within the school community. Richard Banks Past Parents’ Association
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Nearly New Shop can be found on the Parents’ Guild Website (via the School website), on Classlists and in the regular weekly parents’ email from the School. I’d like to offer a huge thanks to all the Guild members who have assisted in last year’s events and to all those parents who volunteered to assist in the Guild Shop over the summer. I would also like to thank all parents for their ongoing support”. Emma O’Dell Chairman, Parents’ Guild
Emma O’Dell
Parents’ Guild
Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, and the restrictions it placed on all our lives halfway through the academic year, the Parent’ Guild has continued to support the School and parents throughout the year. Historically the Prep Guild has organised the Macmillan Coffee morning, however, this year the Parents’ Guild were more heavily involved. This allowed the event to go on longer which resulted in the Guilds raising £870 for the Macmillan Charity. Held in the Café Bar, this is always a popular event with parents enjoying coffee and cake and a catch up with other parents, whilst having the opportunity to wander around and browse the many stalls. November 2019 saw a Guy Fawkes Feast, a bonfire themed night with dinner and a guest speaker. This was the first time that the Guild had run this event, but it was hugely popular. Many thanks to OB Max Williamson (05-16) who, spoke about overcoming cancer whilst in the 5th Form and of his experiences studying at Oxford University. As well as being a wonderful evening, the event raised £800 for the boys’ Movember charities. The Guild organises the annual Tug of War for the Movember Charity, which has become an important date in the boys’ diaries. In 2019, it was held on a dry day, an achievement in itself for such a wet autumn. The ground looked a little worse for wear after the event as did many of the boys who, despite their best efforts, ended up in the mud. Great fun was had by all and Crescent / Pemberley were triumphant receiving the coveted trophy. There were further events planned for the year, a BBQ and Boogie and The Upper School Ball, however both had to be cancelled. We do hope to reschedule these once restrictions have been lifted. The Guild also provides a Nearly New service from the Guild Shop. With all the COVID-19 restrictions in mind, volunteers moved all the shop stock to the Langham Pavilion during the summer and then offered a pre-order uniform service to parents. With over 80 customers, the effort that went into making this work was well worth it! Trialling new ways of doing things is quite common now and the Guild continues to look at how it can offer a cost-effective way of recycling clothes whilst helping parents. Details of all Parents’ Guild events and information on the
Lance Feaver
Bedford School Foundation
What an unusual year for us all! Despite this, we are extremely fortunate to have such a loyal community and the history of generosity from OBs and others has meant that the Foundation has been able to continue helping the school with both capital projects and with bursaries and scholarships. The need for this will be even greater over the next few years, and I would encourage those who would like to help and become a member of the Foundation, to contact Hugh Maltby or myself to discuss possible ways in which this could be achieved. For those who have already contributed, whether large or small, our sincere thanks. As I have said before, you know who you are! Earlier in October, we celebrated the Commemoration of Founders and Benefactors, but for the first time this was, as with so many things, a virtual event. I would urge you to watch the event online on our website (bit.ly/F-B2020); I hope you will agree that this captures the essence of what the celebrations are all about. Although we were unable to meet together, it is still important to take the opportunity to re ect on how fortunate we are to be part of this wonderful institution and to mark its heritage and the generosity of a large number of benefactors over many generations. Another first for the Foundation, will be a virtual AGM later this year and we hope to be in touch again soon with more details. As always, my thanks go to my fellow Trustees, and Hugh Maltby and his team, for all their hard work and efforts supporting the Foundation. Lance Feaver (69-74) Chairman, Bedford School Foundation
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ob club
A WORD FROM THE PRESIDENT AND CHAIRMAN and are constantly producing interesting pro ects in these di cult times, including the current series of Zoom talks. We are lucky to have you. Finally, all stay safe and let’s get back to normality as soon as possible. David Murray (1969-76) President, Old Bedfordians Club
David Murray, CCF 1973 (see arrow)
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hat to say? Here in London we are going into a tighter form of lockdown from tomorrow evening. So, despite all our previous hopes in connection with the annual OB dinner and other events, we do not seem much further forward than when I wrote my piece for the Review back in April. So no old friends met at Henley to report on, no stories emerging from the At Home in July…….. Instead, here is a conversation piece. I found an old photograph from the Bedford Record (now no more!) of the oyal aval section of the chool CC on its annual field day activity back in November 1973. About 30 of us are stood along the deck of HM Llandaff in Chatham oyal dockyard (now long since ex-RN), under the leadership of (then) Lieutenant PA Young and Cadet PO Coxswain Chris Johnson (66-75), in the new section uniform of blue sweaters rather than proper Naval rig. What did we think we looked like with that ridiculous 1970s’ hair, sort of short back and sides grown long, occasionally shaped with the assistance of a mirror and a pudding basin, occasionally chopped out of the eyes? No wonder the Lords of the Admiralty decreed that school CCFs should thenceforth wear a uniform that allowed them to be properly distinguished from the real thing! That said, at least four of those photographed had careers in the forces. Chris Harvey ( 3 ) finished as a Ma or in the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment, as well as captaining the combined services XV against Australia, Dominic Rudd (72-76) fought in the Falklands with the Royal Marines, Kevin Ryan (71-76) was in the Royal Green Jackets for a stint, and I believe that Adam Streatfield-James (72-76) went on to become a aval cer , presumably with a proper uniform….and a haircut. So this was not a bad crop (to use an inappropriate pun in this case) for HM Forces. We all have memories of our old class mates. Thank you all for your support for the OB Club, and thank you to Hugh and the team at the o ce, who do a remarkable ob to find new ways to engage with our members
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lot of troubled water has passed under the bridge since I last wrote my piece for The Ousel. In a year that the Old Bedfordians Club would normally en oy appro imately 70 events, reunions and gatherings, both sporting and social, it has been reduced to ust a handful of physical events due to the pandemic. Despite this, OB Club Director, Hugh Maltby, and the team have been working hard to find creative and meaningful ways to engage and support OBs of all ages throughout this di cult time. “Eagle Connect” has continued to grow with over 1,400 members and is our main networking platform. The Bishop Memorial und has supported over a do en s in financial hardship and the OB Club team have organised a full programme of virtual reunions and talks, which we hope you have en oyed and will continue to en oy over the coming months. Talking of “troubled water”, I have been passing some of the lockdown hours by trawling through the school archives and was amused to come across what were considered grave misdemeanours at Bedford almost a century ago. Apparently, quite a dim view was taken of boys, “wearing loud socks”, “wearing plus-fours during term time”, “wearing chocolatecoloured flannel bags on unday” or even wearing a grey tie”. Equally serious transgressions included, “posting a libellous notice to the detriment of two monitors in a public place”, “holding a long conversation with some girls in Russell Park”, and my personal favourite, “sitting on a fence with a girl on a unday afternoon”. hether this latter offence was a literal or a figurative one is not entirely clear. h, how times have changed Moving on, we are continuing to encourage all OBs who haven’t already done so to become “Eagle Supporters” and sign up for subscribing membership. enefits include an exclusive networking platform, discounts to special events, OB publications and careers support. All this for less than the cost of a cup of coffee a month etails on the Club website or (bit.ly/OBClubMembership). Please support your club. I will close by wishing you all the best for a very merry Christmas and a festive and en oyable ew ear. Let us all hope that 2021 will prove to be a better year for us all. Craig Mitchell (64-74) Chairman, Old Bedfordians Club
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VIRTUAL events David Hockney As I Have Known Him
We have taken advantage of everyone’s newfound familiarity with technology and organised a series of free online events - enabling the school community from across the globe to come together, making us all feel a little closer. The first event was a highly entertaining talk by accomplished art historian and lecturer Peter Webb (54-59) about David Hockney. We’re thrilled to report that this was an outstanding success with over 50 OBs and members of the Bedford School community joining him for an evening of art appreciation. Entitled ‘David Hockney as I Have Known Him’, Peter took us through the various styles of David’s art and showed us how he has developed over the years to establish himself as one of the world’s foremost living artists. Peter has known David since 1970 and it was fascinating to hear about his personal connection with the artist, adding anecdotes from his various meetings with David which really brought the whole subject to life. A particular highlight was his insight into ‘Boy Doll’ which was inspired by Hockney’s admiration of Cliff ichard. The picture contains many hidden references to the singer which Peter was able to share with us. Mr Michael Croker, Director of Art at Bedford School, said, “Peter’s lecture was enthralling and provided an excellent and comprehensive overview of Hockney’s extraordinary creative versatility and range. Peter’s enthusiasm was totally engaging and entertaining and his personal connection to Hockney provided a real insight into his personality and working process.” Following on from this success, we have created a series of virtual lectures / events to keep you entertained. The aim is to provide something for everyone and we are continuously looking for new and interesting topics. Please do get in touch if you have any suggestions…we would love to hear from you!
VIRTUAL REUNIONS 1964 1st VIII
On Thursday, 27th August the 1964 School 1st VIII had its first ‘virtual’ reunion. Members of the eight are spread across five separate continents Mike Goodfellow (61-65), Hugh Maltby which necessitated (73-83), David Warbrick-Smith (59-65), a 10pm start to Tony Joseph (60-64), Andrew Peake the call. Despite (55-65), John Beresford (59-64), Richard Harrison (59-64) and Michael being separated by Harper (60-65). thousands of miles, the camaraderie was soon evident with the night spent reminiscing and catching up on each other’s news. As you can imagine, the topic of Covid-19 was high on the agenda and it was fascinating to hear how each country has dealt with the crisis. As the laughter and enjoyment extended into the early hours, it was agreed to get together again at Christmas.
1983 1st VIII
‘Meeting’ for the first time since they competed in the Bedford Sprint Regatta on 10th July 1983, the 1983 1st VIII held a virtual reunion on Thursday, 24th September. Although several decades may have passed, it didn’t take long for the playful banter to start as the crew rolled back the years. BSBC 1983 1st VIII Competing at the Head of the River Race, London Mark Davies (78-83) is the only crew member who can still be found on the river, regularly competing for Sammamish Rowing Club, Washington, USA where he has won several national masters titles. Phil Dunne (76-83) and Pete Hopkisson (75-84) have continued to compete against each other, albeit ‘virtually’ on their ergos. Whilst, Simon Hemsley (79-84), Paul Birch (77-83) and Hugh Maltby (73-83) can still be spotted donning their best lycra, having swapped oars for two wheels. David Jones (73-83), whose son is now in the Upper School, can be found on the touchline shouting encouragement. As everyone reminisced and caught up on almost 40 years, they raised a glass in memory of their crew mate Ian Rowe (73-84), who sadly passed away last year after a long battle with cancer. Also missing from the reunion was Mark Johnson (73-84) who was unable to join them for the evening. Remarkably, five of the crew had been in the same class in the Inky! Do you have a sporting, musical, arts or drama group that you would like to reconnect with? If so, do let us know and we will help co-ordinate a reunion.
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DVP Events THROUGHOUT the World
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NEW ZEALAND (June)
BEDFORD, UK
It was wonderful to see OBs, who left the School 60 years apart, coming together for a catch up in Auckland, New Zealand. DVP Ted Shorrock (44-50) and his wife Charia, joined Callum MacFarlane (03-10), Chris Sansome (78-83), Marc Proctor (75-85), John Wellingham (60-67) and Paul Thompson (64-72) at the Galbraith Ale-House where they chatted over a few beers. It was a welcome return to relative normality after many weeks of uncertainty.
SINGAPORE (August)
With lockdown easing slightly in Singapore, DVP Russell De Chernatony (98-03) seized the opportunity to organise a dinner for local OBs. They had a great evening and were very happy to be able to see each other after so long. None of them could have imagined
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e are tremendously proud of our network of District Vice Presidents (DVPs), who volunteer as representatives for the Club across the world. Not only do they act as local contacts who can provide advice to visiting OBs, but many also organise local gatherings...which are always good fun! All DVPs and their contact details are listed on the OB Club website so do get in touch with them (or us) if you’re moving to a new territory and would like a friendly point of contact. We are always on the lookout for proactive individuals who would like to join our fantastic network, so please do let us know if you’d like to be involved.
On Friday 11th September, OBs joined our DVP for Bedfordshire, Dr Jason Reddy (7984), for an informal get together in the Bedford Blues Beer Garden. The event was particularly special as it was the first time we had been able to meet physically since March. There was a real sense of camaraderie and, although socially distancing measures had to be observed, it was a great evening with brilliant company.
what was going to happen when they last met at the end of 2019! Along with Russell, Wayne Fozzard (77-79), James Woodrow (74-84), Chris Rodwell (83-88) and David Wilson (79-84) attended the dinner. We think you’ll agree that they look delighted to be back together.
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NEWS OF OLD BEDFORDIANS Alan Broad’s (37-46) writing as Tim Topps, has published a new book, ‘Yes, Lad, But Byways’ a full life memoir dedicated to GroseHodge, the first half of which is nearly all about his time at Bedford. The hardback edition came out on the 18th October – his 93rd birthday!! ‘It is the small incidental, personal things and odd ideas which we are most likely to recall fondly in our dotage. This is a lifelong 92year autobiography, full of light-hearted glances back, and the book’s title is a gentle swipe at Housman and his “blue remembered hills.” Alan’s natural wit radiates from the pages of this insightful memoir.
Andrew later risked the gardener’s wrath on the lawn of his brotherin-law’s house with his 1934 Aston Martin. Stuart Wilkinson (59-66) has been taking driving lessons of a different sort he has been learning to drive a 2 year old ERF 18 tonner!
Richard Shorrock (45-53) has been awarded The Shining Star for his work with the Multiple Sclerosis Society. More than 30 years ago Richard’s wife, Brenda, was diagnosed with MS and since then Richard has given of his free time and worked tirelessly as a member of their local committee. He has not only raised funds but also sourced many wonderful ra e pri es for their events, including free entry to venues and tea for 4, as well as short stays and a week’s holiday. Silver tongued Richard found that not many could turn down his requests! Former Private Eye and The Observer investigative journalist, Jack Lundin (49-54), is still doing major pieces for Noseweek, an investigative monthly in South Africa, including his bittersweet memoirs of his days in a bizarre Rhodesian bush school that he entered on leaving Bedford after Vth form. At last, some fun in the sun during lock down! Andrew Randall (61-66) held a ‘socially distanced’ mini ‘pre-War car’ party in June at Penshurst Place, Kent.
History was made this year, as the School did their first ever Speech Day virtually. Prizes were ‘presented’ from the comfort of their own homes by Simon Chandler (62-71), Richard Hext (67-74), Will Gompertz (78-81), Andrew Manze (7582), Hugh Elliot (73-83); Al Murray (77-86), Martin Bayfield (80-85), Vicram Sohal (07-13) and Michael Talalay, nephew of Paul Talalay (34-40). A gathering of ex-pats living in Normandy, France led to a chance meeting for two OBs - Jonathan Crowe (71-75) and Mark Scrivens (67-76) - where they discovered that they had been living within 5 miles of each other for several years without ever realising it! After reading history at university and attending the Drama Studio, London. Jonathan spent 30 years in the world of theatre as a scriptwriter and in marketing before moving to Normandy in 2013 to set up his own business as a tour guide focusing on the D-Day landings and other Norman history. Mark joined the Britannia Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, directly from school and spent 10 years
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at sea, during which time he saw action during the Falklands
war in 1982 whilst serving in the frigate HMS ALACRITY. On leaving the N he worked in the field of family law for many years before moving to France in 2005 to assist his wife in her French antiques business.
Congratulations to Sean Costello (78-88) who has been promoted to Colonel, Royal Armoured Corps Reserves, which is a Corps Colonel appointment on the General Staff. Rob Morgan (84-89) held the inaugural reunion for OBs in Bermuda when his son Ellis, a current pupil, and he met up with new islander Henry Banks (01-11)
Charles Blacklock (70-78, staff 88-16) has now retired from the Royal Air Force and has become a Civilian Instructor for the Bedford School CCF. l-r David Maslen, (77-83) Hugh Maltby (73-83), Neil Dawson (78-83), Greg Eckersley (78-83) and Mark Fancett (79-84) met up in October in Harpenden for an uno cial ‘bookclub’ gathering.
Guy Riley (81-91) found a passion for wine when he went travelling on leaving School. 20 years later he is still in the wine industry and works for the Crittenden Wine Estate on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria, Australia. www.crittendenwines.com.au Having announced in the OB Review that Chris Cottam (82-92) had been nominated for a BAFTA for his TV series The Misadventures of Romesh Ranganathan, we are delighted to announce that he won! James Brodie (77-88) and Andrew Murphy (75-86) completed the Club to Pub swim at Henley, swimming 1.6 km in open water downstream – followed by a well deserved pint at the end!
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Charles Turnham (03-93) and his wife Trish are delighted to announce the arrival of their first child Christian ohn Sang born on 11th July 2020. Chris Bolton (88-95) has been taking part in the Run Around the World 20 challenge in aid of the mental health charity, Mind. He joined a virtual team and the challenge was to cover as much of the distance round the world (40,075km) as they could in one month! Chris added 222 km to his teams’ total. Well run Chris! Toby Bailey (8595) is the National Performance Coach for Cricket Scotland responsible for developing players to compete at international level as well as being a national selector. David Massiah (94-96) has taken up a new post as Headmaster at Dulwich College Yangon in Myanmar and is looking to introduce IGSEEs and the IB Diploma Programme. Phelan Hill (87-97) joined Sir Matthew Pinsent as a guest speaker at the Henley Royal Regatta “At Home”, which took place in the absence of this year’s regatta. Phelan shared his insights of the 2015 Grand Challenge Cup where his Great Britain crew defeated the all-conquering German eight, a feat they repeated the following year at the Rio Olympics, where he became Olympic champion.
James Gooch (90-01) is to be seen regularly in BBC’s The Bidding Room, a show that features a cast of dealers who go head-to-head in a bid to buy extraordinary items from the public. James originally worked in TV but gave it up to pursue a love of antiques first working in antique shops, before setting up his own store, Doe & Hope. His antique treasures are also often used as props in many large film and T shows including Game of Thrones.
Congratulations to Tom Abrahams (92-03) who has just been promoted to Squadron Leader TAT BA RAF. Tom is currently posted as an Air Staff O cer embedded in 1st Artillery Brigade at Tidworth. Stephen Elms (95-03) changed direction with his music merchandise company, Pacewell Entertainment, to rise to the challenge with the Covid19 pandemic and evolved to supplying PPE. His fianc e, Sharna Laidlow, is the 2020 UK Karaoke champion. Henry Vann (99-04) and his wife Eve McGrath are proud to announce the birth of their son, Frankie Patrick McGrath-Vann on September 30th, 2020. Adam Park (9705) was on top of the world, literally, when he proposed to his fianc e eanne Chen. The couple became engaged whilst climbing Mont Blanc. Adam is a Principal at Boston Consulting Group and recently returned to London from California, whilst Jeanne is VP Portfolio Group at Bain Capital, London. James Richardson (94-05) married Megan Evans at the Fitzrovia Chapel on Sunday 30th August 2020. James works as a Financial Planner and Analyst for Capita and Megan works in procurement for Danone, the French dairy company. The couple met in London when introduced by a mutual friend.
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Lawrence Coward (98-08) and his Australian fianc e, Alexandra, have had to put their wedding on hold due to Covid-19. The couple met in Dubai where Lawrence is Business Development Manager at Transguard Workforce Solutions and Alexandra is a Manager for Apple. The couple now plan to marry in October 2021.
match against Glamorgan putting Northants on top, 29 runs ahead of Glamorgan. Northants came 4th overall in their group. Charlie has now signed a 2-year contract extension with Northamptonshire. Philip Barnes (06-15) recently completed a massive bike ride where he cycled to each place at which he had studied, from his Lower School in Westoning, to Bedford, to the University of Nottingham, then on to the University of Birmingham, finishing at LI EWI E in Silverstone, his first job in his marketing career. The ride was a practice for his planned cycle from London to Paris in 24 hours next year.
Senior Auditor for KPMG Henry Banks (01-11) has been finding it tough to acclimati e to his new posting in Bermuda! Henry Wellbelove (00-11) took part in ITV’s Who wants to be a Millionaire with Jeremy Clarkson, in September. Digital project manager Henry won a cool £32,000 having answered the £64,000 question about chemical elements and radioactivity, incorrectly. Colin Baker (staff 97-16) would, no doubt, have been shouting the answer at the screen! Anthony Tai (15-17),who is in his 3rd year studying architecture at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, has been awarded the Bartlett Gold Medal for his ‘Coworkers Café: An Architectural Hack for Surveillance Society’, an internet café veiled in skins of digital glitch anonymity. Actor Alistair Bourne (02-13) featured as Steve in Gangs of London on Sky in 2020. Josh Jackson (06-13) has started a new health and fitness supplement business, Hakamount. The brand focuses on providing premium supplements without the unnecessary filler ingredients’ in order to help individuals make the most of every day. Charlie Thurston (07-14) scored a maiden county hundred for Northamptonshire CC in their Bob Willis Trophy 112 THE OUSEL 2018-2019
Jack Murphy (08-18) is making a film entitled ‘Show Me the End of Time’, starring Matt McClure, which is due to be released by the end of the year. Set in a punk dystopian world where it is possible to extract memories, a callous and cold-hearted man involved in the memory industry, all of a sudden, comes across his own memory which awakens him to what he has become. Oliver Graham (07-18) composed the music for the film. Ed Blythman (09-20) returned to school in September to collect the Guy Fletcher Prize for sportsmanship. He represented the school in a vast array of sports and excelled in Athletics, ‘where his dedication to training was nothing short of outstanding’.
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Ultra Trailblazer! W
ho do you think of when you picture running legends? Some common names that spring to mind are those larger-than-life characters such as Usain Bolt, Mo Farah and Bedford’s very own OB Harold Abrahams (08-13), 100m gold medal winner in the 1924 Olympics. Arthur Hamilton Newton might not be a household name today, nevertheless, he remains one of the greatest runners of all time. Regarded as the ‘father of modern ultra-running’, he was not only a prolific runner but also became an accomplished coach later in life, with his coaching techniques still in use today! Educated at Bedford School, in 1901 Arthur travelled to South Africa and, after a short stint at teaching, decided that it was not for him so purchased a farm in the province of Natal, South Africa. Life as a farmer was not easy and he faced many struggles, however, his fighting spirit and determination kept him going and propelled him to become a running legend! Although he had run occasionally when he was younger, Arthur restarted his running career on 1 January 1922 at the age of 38. Just 20 weeks later, he competed in his first Comrades Marathon as a publicity stunt. Newton believed that a good performance would make him popular with the public, and it gave him the opportunity to publicise what he perceived as ‘gross injustices’ being perpetrated by the South African government in connection with his land disputes. His victory and subsequent success surprised him and set him on a new career path as a professional athlete and then as a writer. Between 1922 and 1935 Arthur accumulated 103,000 miles in training – he was a rare talent who had world-class ability in nearly all the ultra-running disciplines - from 50 miles to 24hour races. His dominance in the early years of the Comrades Marathon (54 miles) helped the race get off the ground to become the oldest and largest ultramarathon in the world. On 4 April 1931, in an attempt to break the 24-hour world record of 150 miles set by Charles Rowell in 1882, Arthur organized his own event, in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. With the Great Depression raging around the world, Canada was initially affected less and many of the elite ultrarunners went there to compete. When time was called, Newton had set a new world 24-hour record of 152 miles, 540 yards. His record would last for 22 years until broken by South African Wally Hayward. But Arthur’s best distance was 100 miles. With few 100-mile races in which to compete at the time, he resorted to participating in highly monitored solo events to prove that a farmer from Africa was the best in the world, and he certainly was! 1928-Start of 100-mile race with relay runner
Arthur first set the 100 mile record of 14h 43 min whilst living in Rhodesia (now Kenya). In 1927, he returned to England and set the record of 14 hours 22 min 10sec on the Bath to London route on 7th January 1928. Fellow Old Bedfordian, Harold Abrahams was at the start to watch him begin and a crowd, estimated to be 10,000, greeted him at the finish in London. He achieved the record despite suffering from physical ‘running problems’ and there being adverse weather conditions. He made two further attempts in fairly quick succession in 1933 but was unable to complete the races due to his ongoing injuries. By 1934 he had made a complete recovery. He logged a total of 1918 running miles between January and May and 629 running miles in June (an exceptional training mileage 75 years ago!) and decided he was ready for another attempt at the record. He again found the heat troublesome and had stomach problems at around the 70 mile mark. On 20th July 1934 Arthur set the 100 mile road running ‘world record’ running from the Bear Inn near Bath to Hyde Park Corner in London with a time of 14 hours 6 mins. He was 51 years old and it was to be the last record he set before his eventual retirement from competitive road running. Later in 1934, after having broken his final record, Arthur announced his retirement from competitive running. He had run more than 100,000 miles during his career. Although he no longer raced, he continued to give back to the sport through coaching, writing books, and helping other ultrarunners break records: “There remained only one useful alternative, and that was to put my experience at the disposal of other athletes so that they could carry on where I had left off.” Arthur dismissed the then-current ideas on long distance training and was an early pioneer of the concept of high mileage training at relatively slow speeds (later called long slow distance). He wrote an autobiography and several books on his training methods, which are still available. Although written over 85 years ago, his ‘nine laws of running’ still provide excellent advice that holds true to this day: Today, the 5 times winner of the Comrades Marathon is still remembered in the race. Legend has it that runners who greet him and place a flower 1. Train frequently all year round in Arthur’s Seat 2. Start gradually and train gently (reputed to have 3. Train first for distance (only later for speed) been his favourite 4. Don’t set yourself a daily resting spot) will schedule (rather a weekly one) enjoy a successful 5. Don’t race in training and run second half. ■ time-trials only infrequently Thank you to 6. Specialise Davy Crockett 7. Don’t over-train ultrarunninghistory. 8. Train the mind com for photos and 9. Rest-up before the race help with research.
Newton’s Nine Rules of Training
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Bedford All Stars A History of Football at Bedford School W
hen England won the FIFA World Cup in July 1966, it inspired many of the boys to take up an interest in soccer. Such was the enthusiasm that very quickly several teams were created, each formed of eleven players and based on their boarding house. Kirkman’s Athletic, Redburn and Talbot’s were three such teams. Other sides in those early days included Parkside Albion, Sunday United and the Comets. Informal games were arranged and generally took place in Bedford Park on Sunday afternoons, after the local league games had finished. We’d then take over the pitch until the Park Keeper or Groundsman would come round and remove the nets. If we got kicked off’ the pitches, we might migrate back across the road and continue play on the rugby pitches, which, of course, made goalkeeping that much more of a challenge! By the time the 1969/1970 season came around, the fixtures began to get more frequent but my team, Bedford All Stars, had also started taking on non-school sides. Of course, as we had no suitable home pitch, by necessity, these were all away fixtures. It didn’t help that they were all located in villages surrounding Bedford. Of course, none of us had cars and we were too young to drive anyway, so would cycle to the matches. It seemed that the exercise to the matches was a great way to warm up in preparation for the match. The first of these teams was in Cople. Over the three years we played them, our worst result was a win by two goals to one. Like Coarse Rugby, these games didn’t always have 11 players each side. I think on that occasion we only had nine! It wasn’t just other school teams or local villages we played against. The records show that, on Sunday October 5th, 1969, we played our first match against a team of School Masters. We lost that game by seven goals to three. The Masters turned out to be our most formidable opponents. That season, we shared the spoils with two wins each. We used to cycle quite some distance to get to some of the matches. Gamlingay Dynamos turned out to be one frequent opponent, as did Stevington and Ickwell, but only once did we not come away as victors - when Stevington held us to a fiveall draw. 114 THE OUSEL 2018-2019
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Half Time against Denbigh Wayfarers
In the hope of finding other challenging games, I advertised for fixtures in Charlie Buchan’s Football Monthly, the premier soccer magazine of the time. Only a single game resulted against Starborough Liege of Luton. Obviously too far to cycle, this time we took the train and walked to the pitch. The journey was worth it as we ran out winners by seven goals to one. I became aware of a new nationwide competition sponsored by the Daily Express. It was the Under 18, 5 -a -Side tournament, with the finals being played at The Empire Pool in Wembley. In order to enter, we had to be registered with our local football association. I duly sent off the registration fee and club details and, a couple of weeks later, we were notified that we had been accepted. Bedford All Stars was an o cial soccer team. With that in place I posted our competition entry form i off to The Express, and we were in the game. Our qualifying round was played one Sunday afternoon in Luton, so we were able to get there by train. I can only remember a few things about the competition. We had been pretty successful, and found ourselves in the semi-final against Bedford Falcons. We knew that they would be a tough team to beat as they had been an established team in the Bedford League for some time. So, it was a real pleasure to beat them fairly comprehensively (3-1, I think) and I was fortunate enough to score one of the goals. We then found ourselves in the final against a team from ettering with an evenscore right up until the last few seconds. We lost by 2-1 having been only the width of a post away from going all the way to Wembley. The rest of the 1970-71 season was similar to the previous year, though we did finally get the edge over The Masters, winning three games to their one victory over us. Most of the team had left school in 1971 but, in 1972, we once again entered a team into the Daily Express event. As I was no longer eligible to play, I coached instead. This time, it was played up at Northampton College of Technology. We beat the hosts in our first-round game but lost
to Denbigh Wayfarers in the second round and that, unfortunately, was that. My father had died that January and I remember that my mother was good enough to drive a portion of the team to the venue. What we had started in 1966 developed over the next few years into an unstoppable force to legitimise soccer as an acceptable game for Bedford boys. In my final year, it climaxed when a school team was trained and played its first inter-school game against Pilgrim School. The squad from which the team was selected had a nucleus of players from both Bedford All Stars and Bedford United, one of the better other boys’ teams we played. Sadly, we lost the first match against Pilgrim five-nil, but as far I am aware, it was the first time there had been a proper soccer pitch at the school with proper goal posts. The game has not looked back since. Between 1970 and 1972, a few of us also played soccer for one of the local Saturday League sides, Queens Athletic. Chris Hartop (61-70) and I did, and I was very happy to win both a league and cup winners’ medal with them in 1972, even managing to score a goal in the quarter final. ■ Paul Thompson (64-72)
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A Conventional Hero -
Though Still a Rebel O n November 11, 1918, one of the deadliest con icts in human history came to an end after four horrifying years. My great-uncle, Ian Hastings Webb Carter, fought in the Great War but, alas, did not get to see its end. His story is a rather unusual one, as my cousin, Digby Carter, who has researched and written about him, discovered, “Ian was an enigmatic type, being rebellious in a strict Army household.” He was the last of four brothers who studied at Bedford School (two went elsewhere) where he remained from 1903 to 1904 and then again from 1906 until 1908 when he left ‘by request’. Whose request is unknown! We have no idea of what happened in the intervening period; however, this was not the only time Ian ‘evaded’ attention. We do know that, during his time at Bedford, he served in the OTC, the forerunner of the CCF. Ian’s brothers all followed their father into the Army, except for my grandfather who was in the Merchant Navy. However, Ian wanted to follow a career in the arts and act on the stage. After leaving school, we know that he spent much time mixing within the artistic community in London and even gave himself the stage name of Christopher Arthur Valentine. We don’t know the origin of his chosen stage names but they did remain with him until later in life (as you will see). During this period, Ian did not live at home as he was refused entry until he stopped his artistic endeavours, which he fiercely refused to do. Although Ian did not want to pursue an Army life, in 1914 Ian Hastings Web Carter Faubourg d’Amiens British Cemetery, France
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he signed up as a 2nd Lieutenant. He does not seem to have enjoyed the military too much and indeed, resigned his commission after a series of dishonoured cheques were identified. This escapade had to be hushed up’ because his father was a colonel at the time (subsequently becoming Paymaster General and some of his brothers were also O cers in the British forces. Su ce to say that his father paid up but at this juncture, Ian went off campus’ having submitted his resignation. The Army, police and indeed the family, all rallied to try to find his whereabouts. We have no record of where Ian was from February 1915 and can only assume he was ‘artistically’ occupied. However, he did surface in December when he enlisted as a Private in the 5th Cameron Highlanders with his stage name, Christopher Arthur Valentine. He joined his battalion in France and was quickly promoted to Corporal and then to Sergeant. He was awarded the MM in 1916. Sadly, his life was cut far too short when he was killed in action on 3rd of May 1917 at Arras. His name appears in the School Memorial Hall (as I.H.W. Carter) and on the Arras War Memorial in the Faubourg D’Amiens Cemetery (as Valentine CA). In summary, Ian was born into a strong military family, he rebelled against his parent’s norms and values to aspire to a life onstage. World events intervened, reshaping his life (as with so many others of his era), and brought it to an all too premature end. He died as a conventional hero - though still a rebel. ■ Hugh Carter (48-57)
A Salute A century ago upon this day A soldier who was not a soldier died; A name that was no name was set aside; The errant son gave all just to obey.
Arras War Memorial in the Faubourg d’Amiens British Cemetery, France
A hundred years ago upon this day He wrote his no-name into Hist’ry’s Guide. In life his kin the despaired; his death brought pride; His own rebellious self he did betray. Iconoclastic, tragic run-away, Who in your final act identified With all that you had formerly denied We honour and remember you this day. Digby Carter
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The flying kestrel T
he Flying Kestrel is a project my father and I have embarked upon as a part of our family business Brookfield Drinks.’ The goal is to transform a dilapidated 19 iley estrel barn find which nobody wanted to buy or restore into a UK Land Speed Record car, capable of speeds of over 200mph. The vehicle is powered by a custom made 900bhp, 2.5 litre turbo charged 5-cylinder engine – so
Joel McNally, Rachel Riley and Nigel McNally at Santa Pod Raceway
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definitely not the original 9 bhp engine! The project is being filmed by multiple production companies for T release around the world and also involves Countdown star, Rachel Riley.
The Story So Far
The Flying Kestrel began after my father (Nigel McNally) and I had a conversation about committing to doing something truly unique for the Kestrel Brand and to give focus to our marketing activities for the upcoming year. Kestrel beer is the fourth largest British lager brand in the UK and is being exported to countries such as Italy, France, Holland, Africa, USA, China and India. We wanted a project that would connect with our loyal beer drinkers worldwide. After some weird and ridiculous suggestions from both parties, we decided we would take on the challenge of restoring a 1935 Riley Kestrel car. I returned to university to find my father had sent me a link to a dealership in Brummen, Netherlands, called ‘Gallery Aaldering’. The link took me to a ‘car’ that could literally be described as a pile of parts on four wheels, but I fell in love with it immediately. It was like something out of The Wacky Races! In my eyes it was a blank canvas – which would give us the opportunity us to create something truly special and unique. After several phone calls and brainstorming ideas, we decided to travel to Brummen to see the vehicle in all its glory. On the journey, we discussed what we would do with the car – including potentially creating the fastest Riley in the world (70+ mph). Whilst this would be a great achievement, it still didn’t quite have the ‘WOW!’ factor we wanted our project to have. Upon arrival, our contact Danny Buitelaar drove us to a large warehouse, which held the most incredible collection of classic cars anyone could imagine. Why on earth they would have such a dilapidated shell of a car amongst this amazing collection was beyond me. I literally had to be dragged away
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from the array of Ferraris I had been drooling over…and there, standing before us, was the Riley Kestrel. It was exactly what we expected, parts piled into the car, three at tyres and no real idea of what we were potentially dealing with. Danny explained that the car had been shipped from the UK and left in a barn for 54 years. It had been untouched since 1965, but still had all the paperwork, giving the car a unique history. After inspecting our new ‘project’, we were taken to the main dealership a few miles away to discuss purchasing the vehicle. We got down to the nitty gritty…negotiating the price and made arrangements for the vehicle to be shipped over to the UK the following month. Back in England, after I’d made the point that perhaps we should aim to make the car as fast as possible, rather than just the fastest Riley, my father found an engineer who was up to the challenge. Based at Santa Pod, Jon Webster at Webster Engineering is acclaimed for designing and building bespoke drag racing and other race-winning vehicles at his state-ofthe-art workshop and holds records in virtually all national race car events. When we first visited him, I was ama ed by his sheer knowledge on every vehicle he was working on (from 300bhp to 8000bhp!). He suggested that, with the right engine, we could go in for multiple UK Land Speed records – this was precisely the ‘WOW!’ factor we had been looking for! So, we set ourselves a challenge – for a Riley Kestrel to break the outright 207 mph record amongst other records whilst still maintaining the original look and feel of the car (as well as preserving as much of the original ash frame as possible). As Jon started working on the car, we began filming for the documentaries and the ‘behind the scenes’ for “The Flying Kestrel” journey. With lockdown restrictions earlier this year, we feared we may have to interrupt our project, however, Jon put all the right social distancing and timing measures in place, allowing him and his team to continue work on the restoration as soon as it was deemed safe to do so.
The Flying estrel was finally unveiled for the first time on 0th July by Rachel Riley, best known for Countdown, at Santa Pod Raceway. We felt she was the perfect person for the job due to both her penchant for cars and, of course, her name! Seeing the transformation and hearing the roar of the engine made the day truly unforgettable for everyone there, especially the team behind the scenes. On the 3rd of August we travelled up to Elvington Raceway in Yorkshire to attempt to break the records; however, what was supposed to be the big record-breaking day unfortunately turned into a testing day due to adverse weather conditions. We hit speeds of over 160 mph with plenty of spare engine capacity left to get us to the record of over 207 mph, but unfortunately the wind at Elvington Track caused some aero dynamic issues which impacted the safety of the car. We will be running wind tunnel aerodynamic tests to ensure it can withstand high speeds whilst ensuring we have not detracted from the original shape of the car. Although disappointed we were unable to break the records on the day, it does make the documentary far more entertaining for viewers and we did get the car up to some fantastic speeds with plenty more to come!
What’s Next?
It’s full steam ahead at team Kestrel! Once the necessary alterations are made, we are determined to hit our recordbreaking goal in the summer of 2021. We then plan to take the Flying Kestrel on tour, visiting Italy, USA and China where we are also selling our award-winning Kestrel beers allowing people in those countries to see the incredible car in its full glory! I will personally continue to push things forward whilst also completing my final year at Nottingham Trent Business School. It’s been such a fantastic opportunity which has enabled me to put into practice what I’ve been learning at university, as well as spending some real quality time with my dad. For further updates on this hugely exciting project check out our website and social media channels...watch this space! ■ Website: www.theflyingkestrel.com Joel McNally (07-18)
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Pedal Me in Covid Times A Startup Story
Pedal Me can deliver pretty much to the door.
P
edal Me, which launched in April 2017, brands itself as a cycle logistic’ firm that allows customers to book a taxi in the form of a cargo bike in central London whilst also offering companies the ability to order one of the specially designed bikes to carry large loads of deliveries. We speak to Ben Knowles - Pedal Me Rider / CEO and OB about his start-up and how he adapted in response to the global pandemic We started in 2017 with 2 of us working part time. By February 2020 we’d grown to 55 employees - providing employment to people from a huge range of backgrounds; from homeless people that we’d supported to get off the street, to former transport planners, from data scientists to astrophysics grads. As far as we know, today we’re the largest cargo-bike only logistics eet in the world usually companies use a mixture of cargo bikes carrying much less ambitious loads than us, plus vans - we use high capacity cargo bikes, and paired with 4m long trailers we have enough capacity to do house moves more
Fellow OB, Neil Dawson (centre) is working with Pedal Me to highlight the potential for advertising on Pedal Me’s bikes
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cost-effectively than could be done by van . Then Covid hit! Our traditional business based work (carrying people to business meetings; delivering to restaurants; delivering for reprographics companies; very large hot food deliveries to businesses) virtually disappeared over the course of a week. With 95% less work, but only slightly reduced expenses, we were facing bankruptcy within months.
Covid Response
Our immediate response was to put as many staff as possible on furlough; and then get to work ringing everyone we could think of - former clients, anyone who’d ordered a job - desperately trying to work out where the work could come from to keep us a oat. We asked all staff to rack their brains and put out feelers for work that we could be doing. We have a training team who normally train new riders to ride to our standards (our training team includes fellow OB Roy Ashman (96-02)), delivering an externally assured City and Guilds qualification of our own design. So we set them to work designing and delivering hygiene protocol to comply with new government guidance. Many of the companies, that we delivered for were small companies, delivering to the restaurant and bar trade – suddenly, they had no market; and we had no work. So we set up our own supermarket (supermarket.pedalme.co.uk - now closed) and used our social media following (follow us @pedalmeapp) to leverage sales; buying at trade prices and selling at retail with next-day delivery all across London. We now needed warehousing, sorting and packing procedures – which we developed on the y. One of the clients we called gave us wind of a tender (an invitation to bid for work) that was being put out by Lambeth Council - delivering to shielding and sick (with Covid)
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Pedal Me carry out a wide range of jobs - this was one of the more unusual!
individuals. We put in a bid, low-balled the price and won the work. Initially, we were due to have 200 drops a day, every day but, due to the non-linear spread of viruses, it didn’t quite pan out that way. Cases were doubling every few days, meaning there were far more people who needed deliveries than had been anticipated, and we peaked doing over 400 deliveries a day. This was a huge amount of work - each delivery weighed 15kg and needing to be delivered in a plastic, specially sealed box to keep both clients and riders safe. We think that this might have been the single biggest e-Cargo bike operation to date in the UK. In total, we delivered 10,000 packages weighing a total of 150 tons, covering 20,000km. Packages were packed into ip top plastic crates by volunteers in full PPE. We were sent a drop list the evening before delivery and created optimised routes and logistics. For this, we had to develop new tech tools - previously we’d been handling deliveries of up to 15-20 drops which could be manually optimised - 400 drops is too complex to optimise by eye; so we generated new tech integrations and worked to improve e ciency as the project went on. You can read more about the Lambeth project on our blog: pedalme.co.uk/blog As the level of infections peaked and fell, so did the volume of work on the project and we started winding down. This presented some financial challenges as we’d
Delivering for Little Village a charity providing support to new parents who don’t have resources to purchase nappies, cots etc
unfurloughed our staff. Only those who had been registered under the furlough scheme before 30th June could then be subsequently furloughed so, as work levels fell again, we had to ask people to work reduced hours or take a pay cut - over 50% of the company’s employees agreed to this which gave us some breathing space.
Green Shoots
As businesses started running again in London, our traditional markets slowly picked up. Covid has made us stronger in a number of ways - we have new tech tools, which allow us to optimise routes for large numbers of drops far more quickly and e ciently than we could before; the breathing space given to us by the slump in demand allowed us to rethink how the company works, and get a new HR company in to make us more e cient. Our supermarket project has made us realise that there’s huge potential in warehousing and fulfilment - holding client’s products, then picking, packing and distributing - so we have a , 00 square foot warehouse on the way. It will be the first of three spread around London coming on line over the next 6 months - as long as we get the investment we need to implement these - which seems highly likely given our current trajectory. We’re working with Neil A Dawson Ltd (run by Neil Dawson (78-83)) - looking to sell advertising space to companies with aligned interests and su cient status to lift the brand’s reputation. We’ve also taken on an additional Director who is going to be huge for strategic direction of the company, as well as providing leadership on sales. We’ve just acquired a huge contract working the Lime ump bikes - redistributing, fixing, and swapping batteries to keep their bikes rolling in a far more eco-friendly way than using vans. We’re recruiting and growing again - which is what we’re set up to do. In London, for now, but I’ve heard there are a few other cities that could use us too. Let’s hope that the state of the economy allows that to continue on this trajectory! ■ Ben Knowles (96 - 01)- Pedal Me Rider / CEO
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Adventures in Aviation
T
his book describes many adventures that I experienced in forty, varied and exciting years as an aviator. I grew up in Bedford and attended Bedford School leaving in 1960 with little idea of what I wanted to do. After a brief irtation with farming and helped by the School’s careers master, I got a job at RAE Bedford as a Scientific Assistant. That introduced me to sea trials in aircraft carriers and brought a few ights in military aircraft. I soon decided to become a pilot and joined the RAF in 1962. After training, I was posted to Singapore in 19 4 to y fighter ground attack Hunters during
the Confrontation between Malaysia and Indonesia. Then, after a brief spell as an instructor at the Hunter Operational Conversion Unit at RAF Chivenor, I was sent on loan from 1968 to 1970 to the Sultan of Oman’s Air Force (SOAF) during the little-known Dhofar War. There I ew many operations in ground attack, supply dropping and casualty evacuation roles in piston and jet aircraft. I had to make two emergency landings in a Strikemaster jet after being hit by ground fire. I was awarded the Sultan’s Commendation Medal. The 1970s brought six years as a fast-jet instructor in Gnat, Hunter and Hawk aircraft at RAF Valley, interspersed by two years with the Royal Norwegian Air Force as an exchange pilot on a Northrop F5 squadron. My second time at Valley included a leading role in the introduction of the Hawk to RAF service. During that period, in 1977, I had to Available from the publisher, Pegasus, or most major retailers RRP £14.99
Author (Back Row Middle) And Graduating Course, Church Fenton, August 1963
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Author with RNoAF F5
Carib Express BAe 146 with Happy Captain & Crew
make a di cult forced landing at Llanbedr in a Gnat after the aircraft suffered a total engine failure, with complications! For that, I was awarded a Green Endorsement to my ying log book. In 1979, I was decorated by HM the Queen with an Air Force Cross for my services to RAF advanced pilot training. I finished my AF service on the iconic Harrier as O cer Commanding Operations at RAF Wittering from 1982-84. Civil aviation brought wide experiences, as a British Aerospace airline training captain, examiner, test pilot and project manager in the ATP and BAe 146, including in China, Bangladesh, the Caribbean, Indonesia, Turkey and New Zealand. For my work as project manager during the introduction of the new four-engined Avro RJ aircraft to the Sabena subsidiary, Delta Air Transport, I was given a BAe Chairman’s award for innovation before retiring in 2000. ■ Wg Cdr Roy W Gamblin AFC (56-60) THE MAGAZINE OF BEDFORD SCHOOL AND THE OLD BEDFORDIANS CLUB
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POETRY
We'd like to share these wonderful poems we have received which have been written by some talented OBs.
BEDFORD SCHOOL – FARRAR’s HOUSE More than seventy years have passed but still I can recall the thrill of my arrival there: Farrar’s House on Pemberley, foursquare.
Mr Sutcliffe: Sooty behind his back. Patrician nose, eyes black as night; but Greeting each boy with a smile. No cane In sight but none could doubt that he might bite. Mrs. Sutcliffe: perfect foil, small, quick to embrace; A smiling face and voice as smooth as runny honey. Mr. Pybus, house tutor: unsuited to unruly boys, try As might. Penny Blacks his true delight. Matrons: three in all. One short, one plump, one tall And she the fairest of them all. But each much loved. Bancroft would be a friend. Aged nine, already a doctor in his Mind, he’d cured the world of all known ills. Our dorm: well lit and warm; each iron bed with coloured Spread. Dinky Toys were allowed and no one scowled at bears. And laughter echoed on the stairs. Eggs for breakfast, kippers for tea. And one whose name I’ve quite forgot who never failed to eat the lot: a fish’s Head would disappear to our delight. Three times a week in winter time, we scrummaged and ran. Fierce tackles brought us down to ground and muddied limbs Were all around. Wynn-Williams always scored a try. We worshipped England’s cricketers; our roll of honour known By heart: Edrich, Compton, Bedser, all were special names. And Hutton always guaranteed a splendid start. The Common Entrance loomed: doomed to leave Bedford unless We passed, it marked the end of childhood. Charles Gorer (47-50)
Charles – 3rd row back, 2nd from left
EIGHTEEN
Now at last you’ve reached eighteen, Yet still you’re somewhere in between A boy, a youth, a man. Your childhood and the early years, With all their joys and sometimes tears, You’ll remember every one. But now that they have passed you by, You have to look life in the eye. It’s time the way ahead to plan. Use well, and make the most of time, Especially that hill to climb From eighteen up to twenty-one. And take good care when choosing friends. You’ll realise that in the end, There’ll be few you can rely on. Your way in life you have to make, Much of a lifetime it can take. Your education’s just begun! For though you may have finished school Never let yourself be fooled By thinking that all learning’s done. You’re taught to work, also to play, So try to live your life that way, Or you may lose your sense of fun. Sometimes you’ll challenge what you’re told By others, who may oft seem old, With wisdom greater than your own. But if you shun their good advice, Then you may have to pay a price By losing what you could have won. You know you’ll never know it all, But youthful pride can bring a fall So learn to walk before you run! A life’s experience it can take To learn to profit from mistakes. Take heed, therefore, of every one. Those lessons learned along the way You’ll surely put to use one day, And then you’ll know your youth has gone! Brian Saville (40-48) A young Brian Saville
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Burnaby House with House Master, Tim Machin
who was burnaby?
F
ormer Burnaby Housemaster, Tim Machin staff 0-0 , pictured in the photo above, has recently written a book on Colonel Frederick Burnaby, A Great Victorian Eccentric. An OB who lived from 1842-85, little is known of him today. However, he was a larger than life character who packed a huge amount into his 42 years, so much so that during the 1870’s to his death in 1885, he was rarely out of the news. To understand Burnaby one must realise that he had three dominant qualities; firstly, as a friend said about him I have never come across anyone else who was so completely Colonel Frederick Burnaby
devoid of fear”; secondly he was very obstinate and single minded, and lastly he had immense determination. Burnaby seemed to thrive on danger. During his time as a soldier in The Blues and Royals (Royal Horse Guards) he had the reputation of being the strongest man in the army – and at 6ft 4”, weighed over 17 stone. Burnaby could never resist a challenge. He was an author who still has books in print today, a balloonist who was the first man to cross the Channel solo, a linguist who spoke seven languages, a Tory politician, a war correspondent for the Times, and that merely scratches the surface! His death at Abou Klea in the Soudan, was met with much public grief and the Times wrote a 5000 word obituary. Even the circumstances around his death were full of controversy. He fought uno cially in three campaigns, the Russo-Turkish war, Available from Amazon in Egypt at the battles of El Teb, and even in his last campaign, he was o cially an intelligence o cer , even though, in reality, he was in a trio of o cers in command of the battle. When asked about what inspired him to write the book, Tim said: “I had written two books on the 1st World War and had the idea of writing about Burnaby some time ago but it was my partner writing novels that made me proceed.” For those wishing to purchase a copy, the book is available on Amazon in both Kindle and paperback versions. Happy reading! ■ Tim Machin (staff 70-05)
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KEEP SINGING! T
hose first four notes of Beethoven’s Fifth. You know them, right? Ba ba ba baaaaa! I was in Avignon, a beautiful old Roman city in the south of France, conducting the Orchestra of Avignon for the first time, in a series of concerts of my own music and the likes of Beethoven and Britten, and with an ensemble called Apollo5. We knew lockdown was coming when the audience didn’t turn up for the fourth performance. It was supposed to be an audience of students from four different local schools, but schools had closed that morning, so we played the concert one last time to an empty hall, filming it on three iPhones. A sign of things to come. The name of the group I founded with my brother Barney 9 -02 is OCES8. For the last fifteen years, we have built a choral music foundation around this ensemble called the VOCES8 Foundation, and before 2020, we had spent the last decade touring the world, giving concerts in the US, Asia, Europe, Africa, (and even sometimes in the UK!), and leading workshops with about 40,000 students every year. For many Barnaby and Paul Smith
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of those years we’ve been coming back to Bedford as well. I think a large part of the reason for the very existence of VOCES8 comes from our time as students at Bedford School, and in particular, from the House Singing competition. Barney and I had been choristers at Westminster Abbey, but it was the Part Song element of House Singing that really got us into a cappella, and we’ve loved it ever since. It’s hard to imagine that, 20 years after leaving Bedford (I left in the year 2000 with that Pulp song still ringing in my ears!), we would have a career in music which takes us all over the world, but we do, or at least we did. 2020, the year of Covid19, has changed everything for all of us. Schools closed, shops closed, no travel, families and friends forbidden from seeing each other, concert halls closed, sports arenas closed. So… what are we going to do next? That’s the question that Barney and I asked ourselves, and then asked our team, and then asked our industry. Our answer was a new digital festival called ‘Live from London’. Over the last six months (I’m writing this in October), we’ve turned the space that we run in London (an old Wren church next to St Paul’s Cathedral) into a broadcasting studio of sorts for choral music, filled with all sorts of tech that allows
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us to make super high quality productions, and we’ve set up a digital series of concerts by small vocal ensembles like ours. The response has been amazing, and we’re so grateful to everyone who has supported us. The idea is simple really. Each Saturday through August and September, at 7pm UK time, we broadcast a live concert by one of the top professional vocal ensembles in the UK. People around the world buy a season ticket, and they can watch the concerts at any time, (they were available On Demand until the end of October). Amazingly, we’ve managed to do the equivalent of selling out the Royal Albert Hall nine times across the series! We have viewers with us each week from 2 different countries, and all of the artists involved have been able to earn income at a time when the arts is struggling more than ever. ‘Live from London’ has been about something incredibly important – it has been about artists standing together, working together and finding strength and success through collaboration. The series has raised more than £300,000 for arts organisations around the world and, just as importantly, has given people who are missing live music the chance to be part of a new community and feel connected to each other at a time when we are all struggling to realise that sense of connection in our lives. Alongside ‘Live from London’, we’ve also just launched a digital academy. The VOCE8 Digital Academy is designed to support all schools that are struggling to continue choral music as they normally would. It’s an incredibly tough year to be someone who loves singing in a choir, and we are doing what we can to share a positive message of hope, now more than ever. But what next?
Well, we’re doing it again, but bigger! This December (2020), we begin ‘Live from London – Christmas’. This time, alongside concerts broadcast by VOCES8, Apollo5, the Tallis Scholars, I Fagiolini and the London Adventist Chorale from our home in London, we’re involving groups like Take 6 from the US, Amacord from Germany, Anuna from Ireland and The Gabrieli Consort and Players is going to broadcast the Christmas Oratorio from St John’s, Smith Sqaure. Our team has really developed its skills at packing our cameras and gear into a van. We were in Canterbury Cathedral with the Cathedral Girls Choir just yesterday and we have a full orchestra coming into our Centre as I finish this article! You can join us online until mid-January. We’d love to see you there. None of us can predict what 2021 will look like, but we hope that live music will once again ring through the concert halls of the world, and that audiences will return to enjoy that music. Even when that happens though, I think we’ve been able to find new ways to engage with audiences online this year, and that will certainly help us as we head further into the next decade. We want to share music with you somehow, sometime, in the near future. Paul co-founded VOCES8 with his brother Barnaby and is author of the OCES8 Method. You can find out more at: www.voces8.foundation/livefromlondon ■ Paul Smith (95-00) Chief Executive Officer VOCES8 Foundation
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OLD BEDFORDIANS SPORT Christian Davis (07-11) has also taken a more prominent role as Director of Cricket and, as well as setting their sights on winning the Cricketer Cup, the Club has outlined ambitions to engage a wider range of OBs than ever before. Plans for the 2020 season had included staging a new event in June – an evening T20 match in central London against another old boys team, combining a relaxed match with the opportunity to network, meet old friends and make news ones. We hope this event will be possible in 2021. Will Aitkenhead (04-09) remains Club Captain and along with Christian and former Northants and Glamorgan opening batsman, James Kettleborough (00-11), will look to assemble a squad that can win the prestigious Cricketer Cup for the first time. If you are interested in playing cricket for the Old Bedfordians, please contact Will Aitkenhead willaitkenhead@gmail.com or 07878 416 221. Will Aitkenhead (04-09)
GOLF SOCIETY cricket club
ecent world events meant that, for the first time in living memory, there was no Old Bedfordians cricket played during the summer of 2020. The OBs had been drawn at home to ugby but the competition was cancelled for the first time in its history and thoughts instead are focused on 2021. Prior to the pandemic, the Club had been quietly developing some exciting plans for the future with George Wood (83-92) taking over as Club President after Pip August (56-67) retired following many years of loyal service.
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Never before has the first OB Golf Society event of the year been the Autumn Meeting. The new normal? Let’s hope not; despite Tim Henderson missing a hole in one by six inches on the 3rd, Stan Lersch’s 10 on the 1st seemingly set a more appropriate tone for many, and by the looks of the scores, all of the ten players assembled had spent lockdown doing anything other than playing golf! The 2020 OBGS Autumn Meeting and AGM came to the Dukes course at Woburn, bathed in sunshine and made di cult by exceptional putting surfaces and a particularly slow member’s medal out just before us. As is now the norm for Woburn fixtures, 18 holes singles in the afternoon followed a delicious – albeit socially distanced – lunch of steak & ale pie and cheesecake, with all four trophies on offer.
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Tennis
Boys v School Tennis, 2018
The annual OB vs School tennis fixture is usually held in early July and is always great fun. It consists of a lunch followed by five teams playing in a round-robin against the Upper School boys. Whilst we were unable to hold the tennis matches this year, once the initial lockdown restrictions were lifted, tennis courts around the county reopened. I have managed to play more than usual at my local club and so will use this year as a year’s preparation for next year’s annual fixture. I know many of the other members of the OB team have been playing regularly so the boys better be ready for us next year! Regular players for the OB team are Graham Saunders (5864), Sam Carter (88-97), Gavin Howard (77-87), James Morris 81-92 , Geoffrey Farr 0- , Duncan Maclaren 1- 8 , Jonathan Ellwood (71-81) and Arif Hakim (74-84) and myself. Their enthusiasm for the game hasn’t waned since their days
at the school and, like me, they still have that competitive streak that motivates them to beat their opposition. One of our regular players sadly passed away over the Christmas period last year. Stuart Endersby (62-69) was a keen tennis and fives player. For nearly 40 years he showed up for matches against the school. He will be sadly missed by us all. If we have enough interest, we would like to make use of the school’s facilities and hold more OB matches. If anyone is interested in playing, we would happily welcome new players, please contact me (Toby) via the OB Club. Toby O’Dell (78-86)
ob sportsmen roundup
It has been a very dry year for sports fans across the nation, whether you usually participate or spectate, this has had a huge effect on the wellbeing of many. However, with the easing of lockdown restrictions in September, it was uplifting to see some of our favourite sports being played once again and Old Bedfordians getting straight back in the saddle – leading the way in their respective sports, both on and off the field. Benedict Eggeling (14-17) of RC Favorite Harmonia was in the German gold medal men’s eight in the European Rowing Under 23 Championship held in Duisburg, Germany. In calm conditions, Benedict’s crew established a strong rhythm to take an early lead in a competitive field, beating the omanian and Italian crews into silver and bronze by over a length in a time of 05:44.40.
Photo credit: Detlev Seyb / @meinruderbild
An extremely brief AGM was held, during which the Secretary was unable to provide a summary of the year’s fixtures there haven’t been any. Given the write off of the year, the Secretary proposed all o cials serve a further 12 months in their respective roles which was unanimously agreed. Having won the Scratch Trophy in 2019 with probably the worst score in OBGS history, Tom Langley-Poole trumped it with an even worse score, 85. The Medal Salver was more deservedly won by James Lawson with a net 78. With only two players eligible for The Junior Trophy – one of whom being James Lawson – Charlie Wren was delighted to claim it by default to the amusement of all, also with probably a record low score of 21 points. Surging back into the realms of respectability, the Senior Trophy was won by Chris Johnson with 29 points. Here’s to hoping for a more ‘normal’ 2021! Attendees: Tom Langley-Poole (96-06): Captain & Secretary, Tim Henderson (64-71): Vice-Captain, Simon Kimber (58-65), James Lawson (61-66), Stan Lersch (81-88), Chris Johnson (66-75), Charlie Wren (95-06), Seb Wren (0212), Ben Garrett (04-15) and Jim Black (73-82) For further details on the OBGS and how to join, please contact Tom on Tom.Langley-Poole@eulerhermes.com Tom Langley-Poole (96-06)
Ethan Vernon (07-18) represented Team GB at the European Cycling Championships in Plouay, France. Taking part in the Under 23 individual time trial, over a distance of 2 . km, he finished 14th with a time of 1 mins 28 secs, with an average speed of 47.3km/h! If that was not enough, he then competed in the Road Race, covering a distance of 136km. Unfortunately, the onset of cramp, while in the leading group with 10km to go, robbed him of a high finish. He now has his sights set on the 2021 Olympics in Japan having been selected for the team GB Olympic cycling quad.
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It is not often that you find four Old Bedfordians playing in the same squad. Emilio Gay (1118), Alex Wakely (96-07), Charlie Thurston (0714) and Harry Gouldstone (12-19) are an integral part of the Northamptonshire County Cricket team and were showcasing their cricketing prowess over the weekend of 5/6 September. Emilio, Charlie and Harry all played together against Gloucestershire in the Bob Willis Trophy match. Unfortunately, play had to be abandoned just before lunch during the first session of play, when it came to light that a non-travelling member of the squad had tested positive for COVID-19. Completing the Old Bedfordians cricketing foursome, Alex played in the Vitality T20 game for Northamptonshire Steelbacks, seeing them through to a four-wicket win over Glamorgan at Edgbaston. Emilio Gay
Not forgetting, of course, Kayde Sylvester (17-19) who, fresh out of the Upper Sixth, joins the Saints’ Senior squad.
For all those armchair sports fans enjoying live sport again, we have seen a whole host of Old Bedfordians in the commentary box exhibiting encyclopaedic knowledge in their chosen sports. Ned Boulting (78-86), known to legions of British cycling fans for his work covering pro cycling for ITV, was the lead commentator on this year’s Tour de France on ITV4. Ned has covered every Tour de France since 2003, along with a host of other live sporting events. Ned Boulting (78-86) interviewing Chris Froome, four-time winner of the Tour De France
Sir Alastair Cook 98-0 has finished a strong season scoring consistently for Essex County Cricket Club in the Bob Willis Trophy competition, which they went on to win. We were delighted to see him named as the Cricket Writers’ Club Bob Willis Trophy Player of the Year! George Furbank (13-15) and Fraser Dingwall (13-17) have once again been selected for Eddie Jones’ England training squad and continue to be an integral part of the Northampton Saints team, regularly taking to the field in the Gallagher Premiership campaign. Both recently renewed their contracts with the club. George was further selected for his international debut against France in the Six Nations.
Those of you who enjoy triathlons may have heard Matt Chilton (76-81) commentating on the recent Triathlon World Championships held in Hamburg. Matt has also been the voice of skiing on British television for the last decade and a half, and is currently the lead commentator for Ski Sunday. Former England and Lions rugby international and broadcaster Martin Bayfield (80-85) has worked as a presenter and reporter across the Heineken Champions Cup, Challenge Cup and Premiership Rugby Cup, and regularly presents the weekly live debate show Gallagher Premiership Tonight. Recently, you may have seen him as the Gallagher Premiership Rugby anchor man for BT Sport. Those of you who regularly tune in to the Premiership may have also spotted fellow OB and current Teacher of English in the Prep School, Sam Roberts (85- 96), commentating on various games. The need to comply with the myriad of rules and regulations associated with the return of sport has shone a spotlight on sports governing bodies and administrators. Mark Darbon (8797), CEO, Northampton Saints and George Wood (83-94), Swim England, Sport Development Director, have both been involved in the safe return of their respective sports. ■
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OBITUARIES E C L ‘Terry’ Allen Born 11 June 1936 Died 16 May 2020 - Aged 83 At Bedford School 1947-1954 - Paulo Pontine After Bedford Terry went to Downing College, Cambridge, to read Law, following, and followed by his brothers Dick (43-52) and Michael (52-59) respectively, and gaining a Boxing Blue. During one match against Oxford, he fell into conversation with a ‘dark blue’ boxer, discussing what they would do after leaving university, Terry shared his plan to work for an International company; the Oxford opponent declared that this sounded far too much like hard work .... he was off to Hollywood and did indeed achieve fame there, being ris ristofferson - much to Terry’s amusement. Times at Cambridge were also hard though, and stories were shared about the necessity of putting his laundry on a bus from Cambridge to Bedford where his mother would meet the bus and return the laundered clothing to him the same way (all without a mobile phone!). After his two years of National Service as a pilot o cer in the RAF in Germany, Terry joined Shell, where he stayed until his retirement in 1993. During this time he worked in Nigeria, the Cameroons, Zambia, Ibadan, Lagos, Hong Kong, London, Manchester and Taiwan, marrying Pat early in his career to ensure a beautiful companion on his travels. Terry’s parents lived in Renhold so there was always a link back to Bedford and his three children, Clare, Edward (72-82) and Lucy all boarded in Bedford with the girls at Bedford High School and Edward at Bedford School. Terry was always a modest and sel ess man whose main pleasure has been in doing things he feels would benefit others. He was also a very compassionate man, which was particularly highlighted shortly after he left Taiwan. He had moved back to work in London when there was a terrible boating accident in Taiwan during a company event, where members of staff and their families died, including his successor’s wife and son. The remaining staff requested the possibility of Terry returning and, without hesitation, he was on the next plane out to Taiwan where he spent the next few months helping devastated staff through a very di cult time. When Terry retired it seemed the most natural move was to return to Bedford with family close by. Although Terry’s retirement appeared to be anything but the quiet life as he became involved with many varied charities and committees. He sat on the board of the Biddenham Council, was a member of RELATE, the Fredrick Ray Trust, St John’s Trust, the Biddenham Millennium committee beside Dudley Peacock and the Biddenham Pond committee to name but a few. He was very much ‘hands on’ with all these commitments from helping to arrange a new stained-glass window for the Church
to wading into the pond to clear the reeds. He was an active member of Biddenham Church before moving into Bedford itself where he joined the St Andrew’s Church community with the Church being very conveniently placed across the road. He was awarded the Paul Harris Fellow Award by The Rotary Foundation. He enjoyed his garden and his enthusiasm over the years even made a budding gardener out of Pat. He had, sadly, less gardening success with his children where their interest was quite strong but their abilities fairly weak! Terry is survived by his wife Pat, 3 children and 6 grandchildren including Jack Melville (99-10) and Hugo Idle (06-12). Dr Ray H Andrews Born 4 October 1918 Died 23 June 2015 - Aged 96 At Bedford School 1930-1936 - Crescent Richard Arnold-Roberts Born 18 April 1940 Died 30 November 2019 - Aged 79 At Bedford School 1948-1956 - Bromham Martin C Austin Born 14 July 1952 Died 27 July 2020 - Aged 68 At Bedford School 1960-1969 Ashburnham Nick R Ayrton TD Born 2 June 1934 Died 29 January 2020 - Aged 85 At Bedford School 1943-1952 - Pemberley Nick loved Bedford School and rowed for the 2nd VIII, played rugger in the 2nd XV and led the school shooting team. He remained involved with the school via the Old Bedfordians Club until his death. Nick had wanted to be a soldier from early on and was a prize winning Sergeant in the Combined Cadet Force at school. He joined the Regular Army from school and entered Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst. He was discharged from RMA and returned to the rank of trooper in the16th 5th Lancers the day before his passing out parade. He was told that his record would not disclose it but it was largely due to him marrying whilst an O cer Cadet and without permission, but, a practical joke that went wrong with a thunder ash under the General O cer Commanding’s car probably didn’t help! The MoD almost immediately reckoned that he ought to be commissioned after all and recalled him to Land Forces (TA), gazetted him, and commissioned him in March 1956, posting him directly to the egular Army eserve of O cers. After a few years with Beds & Herts he transferred to 4th /5th Northamptons – and posted to ‘A’ company it fell to him to play a material part assisting his fellow ‘Saturday Night Soldiers’ into the infantry role, for they originally trained as
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gunners in the Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment, which had its roots in the old 4th Northamptons in 1937. Nick was a good shot collecting many a silver spoon on the ranges both with Beds & Herts, and with the Northamptons and was a bronze medal winner in the National Small-Bore i e Association contest. He was awarded the Territorial Decoration in 1967. The same year his employers moved him back to Bedford. MOD funding meant they were reducing numbers and they would not allow a transfer back to the Beds & Herts so, after a short time with the Army Cadet Force, Nick resigned. He became a well-known and well-respected member of The Royal Anglian Regiment Association. It is clear to those of us who knew him well that not being able to follow the original military career he intended had a lasting effect on him. He was not proud that, as he put it, he ‘blew’ the start of his military life, but it made him determined to succeed both as a businessman and as a TA soldier. As a full time civilian job Nick joined Perkins, the Peterborough diesel engine manufacturer in 1955 and in 1957 he went to work for Ford Motor Company. He was there for some time before he joined a London City Commercial Finance House, finishing up, after several years, as a company director. He did a lot of seconded work in many fields all over Britain including agriculture, the motor industry and the caravan industry. In 1985 he was head hunted into a position on the Board of a substantial leisure company and moved to Anglesey. When the company moved to Chester he resigned and he and his second wife Marion formed their own company, Teamwork, which acting as an agent, ran the largest Trade and Public Exhibitions for Caravan Manufacturers in Europe. In 1999 they sold out and retired. Nick always maintained that success in his business career was in large part due to the skills he learned during his military service. Nick had been a senior member of two masonic lodges and was twice a Grand Master; it saddened him that in his later years he was unable to attend a masonic lodge. He spent his retirement trying to find time to sail his boat, ride his motorbike and spend time with family and friends when not involved with charity work – especially the local Cancer Unit and the R.N.L.I. of which he was the branch Treasurer. He was also Secretary of his Parochial Church council for many years. Nick loved to sail and had a boat from his 30s, when he sailed with his eldest daughter, Jane, and then with Marion until in his 70s when he bought a motor home instead. He spent many years, firstly with Marion and their beloved dogs, and then on his own with the dogs, going off to France and Spain for a couple of months. In 2011 after 34 years on his beloved Anglesey, Nick was advised by the medics that he should move near to his family in Hampshire. He had had a busy and fulfilling life on the Isle of Anglesey with many local friends who were so kind and helped enormously when Marion died in 2010; he was never quite the same after that. Nick did adapt pretty well to the move but always missed Anglesey. In 2016 Nick took his motorhome to France where he collapsed on the street and ended up in hospital, had to be repatriated by air ambulance and was then in hospital in Basingstoke for 3 months. He eventually beat the infection that nearly killed him but it weakened him and coupled with 132
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an inoperable heart condition life was getting harder with each passing day. The last 5 months of his life were a struggle that on the whole he bore stoically. He is survived by two daughters, a stepson and step daughter, 9 grandchildren and 3 great grandchildren. We shall all miss the kind and generous man that he was. Dr W Joseph (Joe) Baker Born 1 November 1939 Died May 2020 - Aged 80 At Bedford School 1950-1959 – Glanyrafon After Bedford, Joe studied medicine at St George’s, London. David G Bates Born 4 October 1942 Died 1 August 2015 - Aged 73 At Bedford School 1950-1959 - St Peter’s G Ewan Bayley Born 28 August 1930 Died 22 December 2016 - Aged 86 At Bedford School 1944-1948 - St Peter’s Charles R C Bevis Born 28 April 1930 Died 10 March 2020 - Aged 88 At Bedford School 1939-1950 - Crescent Robert J Blore Born 17 August 1970 Died 2 January 2020 - Aged 49 At Bedford School 1984-1987 - Kirkman’s Adapted from the Eulogy given at his funeral by Rob Morgan (84-89) Today brings one of those occasions that we are all destined to attend one day, that we fear, but hope will never arrive. My part, this time, is one that I accept with great honour, but which I would never have wished for nor even contemplated having to fulfil. It is particularly hard to perform for someone so young, with so much left to offer the world, and who I know, if fate had reversed our roles, would have done a much better job. Rob was my best friend and my best man, and I was his. I remember well the day that I asked him. He was so pleased. In fact, I’d go so far as to say he was overjoyed. Of course this was for all of the sincerest of reasons that you might expect on such a happy occasion, but also because, as he put it, “I’ve been planning this for years!”. He’d already written half of his speech, planned what he described as my “demise”, and had just been waiting for his chance. Such was the mischief of the man, I couldn’t help wonder why on Earth I’d handed him first-mover advantage again in the ongoing game of one-up-
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man-ship that punctuated our lives. ob was deeply loyal, confident, funny and incredibly competitive: even something as simple as lunch could turn into a contest, when he was involved. I’ve lost count of the times that he’d order the finest wine on the menu, have us plough through seemingly endless amounts, and then, when our faculties were at their lowest ebb, insist that we all spoof for the bill! Rob was an original, one of a kind, and a maverick: he loved to irt with convention, controversy, the rule book and of course pretty girls. For all the trouble that this could have caused him, his charisma seemed to ensure that in all these scenarios he nearly always ended up on top! I first met ob in September 1984 at Bedford School in a dormitory that we were to share with twelve other scruffy teenagers, many of whom went on to be lifelong friends. It was an inauspicious starting point for adventures that eventually took us all over the world: Vancouver and New York, Bermuda and Miami, Hong Kong….and Stoke-on-Trent. For all the glamour of these places, it was his company that mattered and that I remember most: you just never knew what was going to happen next when Rob was around, but you knew there would always be a great story to tell afterwards. His time at Bedford was briefer than most, but he made his mark, and it didn’t take him long to become well known in the upper echelons of the School. In the company of many other strong personalities, he still stood out as a leader, he captained our rugby team to an unbeaten season, and led it utterly uncompromisingly from the front. He became well acquainted with Bedford’s headmaster, who must have so looked forward to their weekly “chats”: 8am on Monday morning was always kept free for Rob Blore and our friend, contemporary and equally spirited, Rich Allen. A few years later, and for different reasons, I used to have weekly meetings with the headmaster as well. Occasionally I’d mention Rob, as I often spent weekends in Northampton with him. Although he would never condone all of the rules that Rob fractured, he admired his spirit, and knew that he would leave a positive mark on the world. I could also tell that he was ba ed by our friendship: how was it that we could be friends, when seemingly I always remained inside the line, and Rob was always some way over it. I put it down to Rob’s competitiveness: he always wanted to win, and one of his specialities at school was getting caught! Next stop, Hurtwood House, suited Rob better: it was outcome oriented and seemed to be totally devoid of any rules. The absences of these seemed to help Rob focus and he got his academics back in line with his considerable intelligence. He also began to show one of his greatest gifts: bringing people together. Entering student life, it was always Rob’s plan to head to Oxford Poly, as it was then known, to study surveying and head into the property industry. Had he done so, I suspect my career might have suffered considerable disruption, as I had ended up at a place just down the road. As it turns out, and as Rob would gladly tell anyone that would listen, he sel essly let go of his Oxford ambition to save my career, and took the lesser trodden path to North Staffordshire, where he came across the merriest and most electric bunch of reprobates that I’ve ever had the privilege to meet!
Remarkably, all of this proved to be the perfect foundations for Rob’s future career, upon which he soon embarked under the guidance and support of those who recognised early Rob’s talents in communication and entrepreneurship. Whether by luck or judgement, Rob picked his career perfectly: the property industry must surely be the last that hasn’t yet fallen to political correctness and bureaucracy, in which unashamedly authentic personalities like Rob’s could ourish and succeed. Rob went on to work for Hill Welsh, Colliers and eventually his own firm, Stirling Blore and during his career, ob continued to surround himself with colourful personalities, and he loved his job: true to form he seemed to have found a way to turn work into fun. Rob’s world was a melting pot of effervescent characters that he had brought together, re ecting his ability to connect with people from all walks of life. I feel fortunate to have shared his adventures, his friends, and his family with him, and I will miss him terribly. Rob is survived by his 2 sons, Buster and Brodie, and by his mother and father, Gillian and David, and sister, Helen. David C Boyde Born 12 March 1940 Died 17 November 2016 - Aged 76 At Bedford School 1953-1956 - Crescent During his working life David was heavily involved in the Oil Industry and amongst his many pursuits he obtained his Private Pilot’s and Instructor’s Licence; he also had a deep love of steam locomotives. This unrequited love for steam meant that shortly after he retired David joined the Bedford Model Engineering Society to ‘play trains’. He married Anne Evans in 1960 and he and Anne passed this love on to their children and grand children. David was a great organiser and joined the Committee of the Bedford Model Engineering Society, where he became Treasurer. He was heavily involved in the Club becoming a Company Limited by Guarantee, the new fifteen-year lease and the development of the entire current infrastructure including the new Clubhouse. In preparation for the new Clubhouse David took personal control of the funding negotiations with the Green Sand Ridge Organisation, a task which was tortuous in the extreme. During his time with the club David owned a number of 7 ¼” locos which, whenever possible, he drove for passenger hauling tasks. He also developed the Haynes End signalling system, a task that apparently required David to spend many hours on his knees at the track praying to things called ‘treadles’. Once he had stopped driving David spent many hours running the signal box and the Haynes End platforms. David’s health started to fail and he retired from the Treasurer’s role in 2014. He came to the railway whenever he was able but passed away towards the end of 2016.
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Dennis J Buck Born 29 April 1929 Died 17 March 2020 - Aged 90 At Bedford School 1940-1947 - Ashburnham Dennis was born to Aubrey and Violet Buck in Bedford where he and his younger sister, Joyce, grew up. Right from a very young age Dennis was a joker, always playing tricks on people. He won a scholarship to Bedford where he was ‘wellmannered and polite; and always tried his very best’. He was good at rugby, rugby sevens and athletics during his school years. In 1947 Dennis joined the army and was in the last intake of conscripted troops. His particular role was to escort POW’s to and from Ireland. He worked in London until 1952, at which point he wanted to join the Indian Army. Instead, however, he travelled out to Africa, sailing on the Union Castle Line to Cape Town. There then followed a 4-day rail journey to Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) to work on a copper mine, Mufulira, which was named after the town in which it was situated. Here he worked on first generation computers. On his first day in Mufulira in 19 2, he went to the Recreation Club for a beer and whilst there saw a young lady with lovely legs playing badminton! He soon found out about joining the Badminton Club so he could meet that young lady, Ida. They married in 1954, spending their honeymoon at Cathedral Peak in the Drakensburg Mountains, Durban and Scottburgh in Natal; and thus began the 65 very happy years they enjoyed together. Home was a two-bedroomed bungalow owned by the mine. The next big event in their lives was the arrival of their children, Keith who was born in 1962 followed by Karen in 1965. Dennis was a keen golfer and he and Ida enjoyed fishing and ballroom dancing, and they would go to the Recreation Club every Sunday evening to dance, followed by the weekly cinema show. In 1965 Dennis was transferred to Ndola to work for the Rhodesian Selection Trust as a Senior Programmer/Systems Planner in their Central O ce; and was promoted to O ce Manager in 1968. In 1971, the family left Zambia and moved to the UK so the children could get a better education. Once settled Dennis took a job in London as an O ce Manager with a firm of Chartered Accountants, (originally called Whinney Murray and now known as EY and remained with the firm until he retired in 1992. For his own part Dennis enjoyed reading, fishing for salmon, playing golf and going on holidays. He and Ida enjoyed their Spanish holidays as a family; and in later years, as a couple, seeing many wonderful places, snorkelling in the Maldives. Golfing and fishing in South Africa and Canada, Lanzarote, Australia and New Zealand and safaris in Zambia and latterly cruising. A true gentleman, Dennis was someone who always thought of others. He was always proud of his children’s achievements. G R Clive Burton Born 17 December 1935 Died 24 February 2011 - Aged 75 At Bedford School 1948-1953 - St Peter’s 134
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Peter M Camfield Born 10 November 1953 Died 22 January 2020 - Aged 66 At Bedford School 1962-1969 - Bromham Robert (Bob) G Caple Born 8 December 1939 Died 28 December 2019 - Aged 80 Bedford School staff 1967-1997 Bob was born in 1939 in Chiswick, left school at 15 and joined the Lord’s Ground Staff in 19 , having impressed in school, club and county youth cricket. His stories of life as a Lord’s Nipper are legion and hilarious; and he would tell of the actual spots where the scorecard-buying gentry were eeced, the carriages paraded on Eton v Harrow days and some poor victim was tied to a medical trolley and sent hurtling towards the Grace Gates 40 years ago by the youthful Bob! Bob made his first-class debut for the Marylebone Cricket Club against Oxford University in 1958. This was Bob’s only appearance for the Marylebone Cricket Club. In 1959 Bob joined his home county of Middlesex, making his debut against Oxford University. He played a further match for Middlesex in the 1959 season against Cambridge University which marked his final appearance for Middlesex. In 1961, Bob joined Hampshire, where he played a single match for that seasons County Champions against Oxford University. He next represented Hampshire in 1963, where from 19 to 19 he represented them in a further 4 firstclass matches. He played his final first-class match for them in the 1967 County Championship against Leicestershire. Cyril Fitt 2 - , Staff 1- 9 was responsible for bringing Bob to Bedford in 1968; he was recommended by Lord’s and contacted while coaching that winter in South Africa. When Bob married for the first time, he sought full-time employment at Bedford in 1970; fortunately, the boys were spared culinary upset when the then Head Master asked ‘Can Caple cook?’ and the answer was firmly negative! Instead, Bob initiated the Bedford School shop, selling cricket boots from the kit room in the pavilion, and worked part time on the grounds. In 1972 the School provided him with some space on the present School shop site and the business blossomed into a thriving concern from which mothers emerged carrying far more than they had ever intended to buy. Bob finally sold the shop in 1982, after returning to Christmas holiday coaching in South Africa and meeting his second wife, Jenny. Summer months at Bedford dovetailed with winter months at St Alban’s College, Pretoria. Bob had always been an immaculate cricketer: beautifully turned out, the straightest of bats and the naggingest’ of lengths as an off-spinner. He was very competitive; his temper and ferocity were matched only by his dog, Rags, who delighted in ambushing unsuspecting postmen and headmasters around the school. Bob was a neat golfer and a mean snooker player, especially at 3am. He enlivened many a cricket festival during his time at the School at Stowe or Wellington with midnight fielding practices and always seemed to recognise a likely winner in the 3.30 at Doncaster! His organisation of the
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pavilion kit room and his maintenance of the grass net area was a hard act to follow. He had endless patience with Prep School boys and ran the Easter holiday coaching course for a number of years with great success and enjoyment for the boys. On leaving Bedford in 1997 he and Jenny retired to South Africa. Olly V Chapman Born 5 April 1966 Died 6 January 2020 - Aged 53 At Bedford School 1979-1984 - Kirkman’s Olly started at Bedford School in the Autumn term of 1979, joining Kirkmans as a boarder. Olly proved to be a popular member of the house with his ability to soak up the usual mickey taking and to give it back in good measure. His smiling face was always very much in evidence around the house especially after he discovered that Kirkmans’ location at the top of De Parys Avenue was ideal for venturing into Bedford Park to promote good relations with other Harpur Trust students of the High School and Dame Alice. The Army CCF became a great interest at Bedford, inspired by the R.S.M. However Olly also found that he excelled at Hockey and benefitted from a teaching group at the school who had played at a high level and were excellent coaches with a passion for the game. Chief highlights of Olly’s Bedford hockey career were playing at Lords before the Varsity match and two trips to the German hockey club Mulheim where, for his first tour as a 1 year old squad member for the higher age group colts, he was part of a team, who were taught a hockey lesson on how to play on first generation astro by a technically proficient opposition, but who managed to get their own back in the bar afterwards! The ex GB Hockey Captain, Bernie Cotton Staff -8 , commented in his end of season Colts Ousel report that Olly “could be a top class right wing – he has pace, timing and a subtle change of direction”. Olly was not your standard right winger as instead of crossing the ball after beating a few defenders he would rather fancy his chances of shooting himself from improbable angles. Despite the law of probability not being one of Olly’s strong subjects he was remarkably successful with his acute angles. After his second year in the School 1st XI most teammates had realised that if Olly did not score then they could benefit. The ’84 team broke the scoring record, and the top scoring left winger was especially grateful to Olly! After leaving Bedford and enjoying travels and adventures, Olly found time to gain a degree in Estate Management and excelled in the territorial army with The Honourable Artillery Company. As he set continuing personal challenges for himself he then applied to join Two One Special Air Service Regiment – passing the gruelling SAS selection process. Olly loved adventure – he ran the 250km Marathon de Sables across the Sahara, as well as the outdoors in general – whether stalking in Scotland, walking in Brecon Beacons or exploring New Zealand in a camper van. He also loved sport
playing golf with the same determination and improbable optimism as his hockey shots on goal. He was never one for a chip back onto the fairway. In 2003, surrounded by many friends and family, Olly married Jo in Franschhoek, South Africa – the scene of many long, sunny holidays over the years; together they had three boys Ned, Milo and Luke. The boys provided a source of great pride for Olly, he loved watching their achievements from the school theatre to muddy rugby pitch. Olly had been involved in film and television production for many years, travelling the world as a producer for advertising agencies and two years ago he set up the London o ce for Los Angeles based production company Furlined. He had many friends in the industry, just as he had in every aspect of his life, he was straightforward and direct whilst being engaging and amiable. After Olly’s sudden passing in January the many facets of his life were brought together for a celebration of his life – as family met the worlds of the military, advertising, Bedford School and of course the many other people whose lives he had touched. Nobody really understood just what a varied life he had lived but as friends gathered from the country and the world the stories of his generosity, friendship and sense of fun were shared and enjoyed. Derek Eales (79-84) and Stuart Lucas (79-84) Tim D Clifton Born 25 December 1960 Died 29 August 2019 - Aged 58 At Bedford School 1972-1978 – Bromham From his early days at Bedford School, it was clear that Tim had a brilliant intellect and that the future would offer much. At school, he was fast streamed and achieved top grades before going on to Oxford to read history at New College 19 9-1982 . Graduating with first class honours and demonstrating his ability to cross boundaries with ease, he moved from ‘arts’ to ‘science’ and joined Prime Computers in Bedford. However, he soon began to develop a thirst for adventure, love of risk, and a desire to seek new challenges that would lead to a somewhat restless life. After a few years with Prime, it became clear that a nine-tofive o ce job in Bedford was not for him, so he took the civil service exams and entered the Foreign O ce. His first posting was in war-torn Ethiopia during the famine in the mid-80s. He then started moving steadily up the ranks and had postings in Angola and Serbia. Finding himself in disagreement with o cial policy concerning the rights and wrongs of the war in ex-Yugoslavia, Tim left the o ce and began to work with the European Community Monitor Mission in Bosnia. After the war, he again proved his ability to successfully cross boundaries and he began a business career in mining and oil. This took him to many places, notably sub-Saharan Africa and India, and he worked for various companies including BHP-Billiton. With the slump in the oil market, he set out as an independent consultant and, as a display of his wide ranging interests and abilities, he also started studying for a
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Ph.D. in wine marketing at Stellenbosch University in South Africa. Tim was working on a large hydro-electric project in Angola when he contracted malaria and died in August 2019. He married twice, and divorced twice. He is sadly missed by his family and friends. Paul E Coles Born 16 April 1905 Died 12 May 2020 - Aged 87 Bedford School Staff 1965-1988 Paul Coles worked in the Bell Room for over 20 years from 1965, seeing many pupils and staff pass through the door. There were many changes during his time there, one of the biggest was following the fire of 19 9 which led to a total restructure of the entire school, not just the Bell Room. He not only saw the School as a place of work but got fully involved in the community, which was made easier by the fact that his wife, Margaret, worked in the Preparatory School and they both enjoyed their time at the school. Paul took part in a wide range of extracurricular activities. He helped run the Young Farmers Club, organising trips to many farms and agricultural shows although these might have been an excuse to visit Jordan’s Mill as often as possible and pick up his breakfast cereal! He also set up and ran the Archery Club for many years and spent many a happy day at various tournaments with the team, including an annual archery darts match against his local pub darts team. He enjoyed his time managing the school’s bee hives which meant he had honey to go with his breakfast cereal. He thoroughly enjoyed taking part in the Choral Society concerts, two in particular stuck in his memory – Beethoven’s 9th and Handel’s Messiah. Following his time at the school, Paul and Margaret moved down to Sussex. Once again, he set about getting involved in the local community, helping run a museum in the village windmill and carrying out voluntary work on the common around their cottage, a nature reserve. Possibly his proudest achievement was being chairman of the Sussex Branch of the Royal Air Force Regiment Association, involving the annual Remembrance Day celebrations at The Cenotaph. As well as enjoying the work and social sides of his time there, he was also very proud to have been involved with Bedford School and always remembered his time there with great pleasure. Richard S Dawes Born 31 July 1942 Died 11 January 2020 - Aged 77 At Bedford School 1949-1961 - Bromham Richard had a strong association with Bedford School. As well as attending the school himself his grandfather (R J A Dawes 1889-1892), father (A G Dawes 1918-1927) and sons (William (82-87), Philip (84-89) and Tim 136 THE OUSEL 2018-2019
(89-94) also attended, so there has been a longstanding family connection. It was at school he developed lifelong friendships, a love of rowing, sailing and fencing, and it is perhaps no surprise that he returned as a School Governor. On leaving school, he joined the family firm Dawes Puckle, and quickly developed a successful career as a stockbroker, eventually taking senior roles within much bigger international companies, such as Credit Lyonnais Laing and then as a fund manager at Mercury Asset Management, where he set up the High Net Worth team within Mercury Asset Management Private Investors. During this time, he also became a Non-Executive Director of Adam and Company, originally a private Scottish Bank, a role that suited him well. He was very well known in the City for his humour and sense of business acumen. During this time, he often returned to the school to give the boys lectures on careers in the City as well as providing work experience through various internships. A close friend and colleague from the Mercury Asset Management days said “He was a great stock-picker but definitely didn’t go by the book and he most certainly did things his way. He was loveable and had the best sense of humour - we laughed A LOT!” On retiring from a successful career in the City, he kept his hand in and sat on various Boards as a non-executive director and his interest in the City remained until the end. Outside his career he had numerous interests and on leaving school he was a member of the Honourable Artillery Club in B Battery and spent some very sociable weekends on Salisbury Plain and enjoyed fencing at the Lansdowne Club. Fishing in Scotland with friends and family was a real passion, particularly the social element. He spent many years sitting as a Justice of the Peace on the City of London bench and subsequently returning to sit on the Milton Keynes bench. However, his real passion was farming, particularly Redpoll cattle, where he was chairman of Redpoll Cattle Society and contributed hugely to the breed and well as developing his own herd of Redpoll Cattle in north Buckinghamshire, where he and his wife, Virginia, farmed when he retired. Whilst Chairman of the Redpoll Society he even personally presented H H The ueen with several heifers, fine additions to the Sandringham herd! Richard is survived by his wife, Virginia, three sons, Will Dawes (82 – 87), Phil Dawes (84 – 89) and Tim Dawes (89 94), his two brothers, Simon Dawes (52-62) and Chris Dawes (55-65) & 6 grandchildren. Stuart J Endersby Born 15 January 1951 Died 2 January 2020 - Aged 68 At Bedford School 1962-1969 - Paulo Pontine Stuart was one of the most talented Fives Players ever to represent the school. He took to the game early in his career at Bedford School and went on playing on the school courts through Colts, 1st IV and the Old Bedfordians Club for more 50 years. A natural left hander and powerful striker of the ball, he was a talented singles player and a brilliant doubles partner. In 1967 he won the West
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of England Colts Singles and, with his partner David Lindsell, also captured the doubles championship in that same tournament. In 1969 and 1970 he was runner up to Wayne Enstone in the National Schools Championship. Enstone went on to become the National Open Champion for 23 out of the next 24 years. In practically any other era Stuart would have been one of the very few repeat winners of the National Schools Championship – alongside the only 3-time winner Peter Mellor (57-62). Along with Graham Saunders (58-64), Stuart was a faithful and passionate driver of the OB Fives and shared that passion with the generations of boys that succeeded him. He was a most convivial person with whom to share a drink, with an easy-going sense of humor and a ready laugh. It was impossible not to see the world as a brighter place after being in his company. He leaves behind his dear wife Gale, and children, Debbie, Emma, Tristan and Jen. R Michael Evan-Jones Born 23 June 1944 Died 2019 - Aged 75 At Bedford School 1958-1962 - Sanderson’s The Revd Brian G Felce Born 31 January 1930 Died 7 May 2020 - Aged 90 At Bedford School 1943-1948 - Sanderson’s Pauline Fletcher Born 8 April 1905 Died 13 February 2020 - Aged 95 Bedford School Staff 1965-1977 My mother, Pauline Fletcher, died in February at the age of ninety-four. In 1949, she had married my father in All Saints Church, Kempston who, in the following year, was to join the staff at Bedford School. Second only to her family, the school became, and was to remain, the major love of my mother’s life. In particular, she relished her time in Redburn, where my father was housemaster from 1965-1977. The cheerful and caring way in which she supported the boys on their journey into adulthood will be remembered by all those for whom the boarding house was a second home. David Fletcher (58-69) John C M Franklin Born 22 March 1930 Died 4 December 2017 - Aged 87 At Bedford School 1943-1949 - St Cuthbert’s David J Fuller Born 9 May 1945 Died 18 April 2020 - Aged 71 At Bedford School 1958-1965 – Bromham On leaving Bedford David joined the Metropolitan Police for a short service career. He would regale his friends with his Kray Brothers’ story. He later lived for a period in the West Country
before finding employment, until he retired, in the motor racing industry. In his early years he was a tremendous athlete, with those long legs of his, and a great tennis player. He adored sport. He loved history, sporting history and memorabilia; but particularly he adored sport, and especially tennis & rugby. Much of this love was for Bedford Blues Rugby. He was there at Twickenham in 1975 when Bedford, captained by Budge ogers beat osslyn Park in the final of the nockout Cup at Twickenham 28–12. He was also very proud, that items he co-owned, with his brother Robert, are on display at the RFU museum at Twickenham. He was a very interesting and very talented man. In retirement he took to walking a great deal and immersing himself in his many interests. He greatly enjoyed his last years. Brother Robert (59-68), and his wife Irene moved to France, and at times, it seemed, that David had too. He kept reappearing though. He watched a lot of rugby over there and was full of stories of how he enjoyed France so much. David also took up umpiring cricket. A very brave thing to do. He went on a course and then seemingly went full time with Sharnbrook & Bromham CC, which has a big tie with Bedford Blues. Many Blues players and fans play for them. He adored it. His loyalty was such, that he would forgo holidays to enable the club to have an o cial. He was a very loyal man. Our condolences and sympathies go to his bother Robert and the greater Fuller family. Bedford has lost a lovely man and a great servant. (Adapted from Howard B Travis’s tribute) Peter A Gair Born 30 November 1931 Died 5 January 2020 - Aged 88 At Bedford School 1942-1950 - St Cuthbert’s After Bedford Peter went to Jesus College, Oxford and then qualified as a solicitor and worked for many years with Benning, Hoare & Drew (now Knowles Benning LLP). F N W (Bill) Gamman Born 14 March 1936 Died 14 April 2020 - Aged 84 At Bedford School 1944-1953 - Crescent Bill’s father and namesake ran the family firm of house furnishers in the High Street founded by Bill’s greatgrandfather (another Francis Gamman) in 1872. He entered the Inky as an 8-year old day boy in 1944, walking in each morning from his parents then home in Ravensden. On leaving Bedford, Bill was articled to a local firm of Solicitors (an unpaid position as was the case in those days) and after some years of intensive study qualified as a solicitor in 1959. There followed a long and unusually varied legal career, comprising service with a Midlands Local Authority and in private practice with law firms in Northampton, Norwich, Leicestershire, London (both centrally and suburban , Sussex and lastly Surrey, until final retirement in 2004. In 1977 Bill married Frances O’Reilly, of Mullagh, Co Cavan, Ireland. For nearly 0 years they lived at Smallfield, Surrey,
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serenely untroubled by the overhead roar of aircraft taking off and landing at nearby Gatwick Airport, until increasing infirmity obliged them to enter a care home at Horley, where Bill died. A man of upright character, firm principles and oldfashioned courtesy, Bill joined the Roman Catholic Church in 1958 and was sustained throughout his adult by a deep Catholic faith. Gerry G Garner Born 27 August 1939 Died December 2019 - Aged 80 At Bedford School 1946-1955 - St Peter’s Gerry was born in Bedford, the youngest son of Robert and Violet Garner. He had two brothers, Trevor and Nigel. Gerry started at Bedford School in 1946, and enjoyed 9 years at School until he left in 1955. After School he went straight to work, and joined a local accountancy firm called Northwoods. He worked there for a number of years and progressed to become senior partner. The business moved to Goldington Road in 1981 where it remained until Gerry started a new firm in 1991 called Garner Associates. Throughout these years Gerry became a very prominent businessman in the Bedford area, and played a big part in local charitable work as a member of the Bedford Rotary Club. Gerry was married four times, and had four children. Portia (DAHS), Matthew (76-86), Toby (82-91) and Rosie (DAHS). He also had seven grand children, with all three grandsons currently at Bedford School, this means that William, Jake and Olly make up the third generation of Garners to attend this great School. On the 21st February 2020 a memorial service for Gerry was held in the School Chapel. This was a wonderful celebration of his life, attended by all his family, and many friends and colleagues. Carl J Gissinger Born 22 October 2003 Died 19 July 2020 - Aged 16 At Bedford School 2018-2019 - Redburn John McGavin Gordon Born 10 April 1925 Died 19 December 2019 - Aged 94 At Bedford School 1934-1942 - Talbot’s Born in the Philippines, with family there, in Spain and in Scotland, ohn attended the Inky and finally left the school in 1941. During the war, in 1941, the BBC symphony orchestra was evacuated to Bedford and the school’s Great Hall was used intermittently by them. It was during this time that ohn first made contact with the orchestra and their conductor, Sir Adrian Boult. It was 138
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this great English conductor who offered ohn his first job with the BBC and he was unusually young when he joined their music department in 1942. John was drafted into the Army and completed his National service in Palestine. He re-joined the BBC again in 1949, becoming one of their first Studio Managers and continued to work with Sir Adrian Boult. Also known as John McGavin Gordon, John was an ABC and ATV London announcer in the 1950s. He had always harboured an ambition to become an actor and went to drama school. He started using his middle name, McGavin, as his stage name in the 1950s, both in his acting career and later at Southern Television to avoid confusion as there was another actor and transmission controller with the name John Gordon. John re-joined the BBC and produced plays and arts programmes for the African Service, also spending time in Africa, including Botswana in the 1960s and Ethiopia in 1971. The BBC had sent him to Addis Ababa at the request of the Ethiopian government which was concerned about the quality of the country’s radio service. It was a six-month assignment and John returned to London just before Haile Selassie was deposed as emperor. As was commented at the time, the two events were not connected! Back in London he returned to news reading at the BBC World Service and over the years interviewed many fascinating people, including Vivien Leigh while she was married to Sir Laurence Olivier, whom he also knew well, and the well-known Norwegian opera singer Kirsten Flagstad. John remained at the BBC World Service until, in his words, he was put out to graze in April 1986. John passed away in Twickenham in December 2019. He used to walk down the hill every day to buy the newspaper and suffered a sudden heart attack in his favourite coffee shop. At 94 he was cheerful to the end, with regular visits to West End theatres, and this is the way he would have wanted to go when the time came. When I first met ohn about 40 years ago, though we had left the school just over twenty year apart, we marvelled at having had so many of the same masters, he at the beginning of their career and I toward the end, including O.V. Bevan, Jack Carlton, Rhodes-Harrison, Ted Amos, Dalzell among others. Together with other OBs I remember fondly John’s lively attendance at several OB events in Washington DC and New York, where he maintained a at, as a pad from which to visit plays and concerts there and in Philiadelphia. John will be dearly missed by his friends in Bedford and beyond, not without a smile for his elegant diction and sometimes naughty humour. Finn Longinotto (57-62) John H Goulden Born 18 December 1927 Died 5 February 2019 - Aged 91 At Bedford School 1942-1945 - Sanderson’s John was a Solicitor in Kent and was also a Freeman of the City of Canterbury. He is survived by his wife Sarah and their 3 daughters. Donald S Gray Born 10 August 1937 Died 12 April 2020 - Aged 82 At Bedford School 1948-1956 - Ashburnham
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G Barry Greaves Born 12 October 1936 Died 13 May 2020 - Aged 83 At Bedford School 1944-1954 - St Peter’s Professor Anthony (Tony) A Greenfield Born 26 April 1931 Died 19 March 2019 - Aged 87 At Bedford School 1944-1949 - Glanyrafon Tony was a man of many talents. He was creative, an enthusiast who was interested in everything and everybody. His passion for maths and statistics was matched by his love of language and adventurous travel, Tony was born in She eld in 1931. He remained a proud Yorkshireman all his life. He became a boarder at Bedford towards the end of the Second World War, leaving the school in 1948 with a passion for Science and Rugby and a love of learning. From school he went to the Royal School of Mines, leaving early to do his National Service in the army. According to Tony he spent most of his time as barman in the o cers’ mess. By this time he had realised that his real interests were his love of language and writing. So on leaving the army he went to the Regent Street Polytechnic to do a Diploma in Journalism. For several years he was a reporter in London for the Sunday Express and the Sunday Mirror and then, having returned to his roots, the She eld Telegraph. A major step in his career followed. Increasingly turning to scientific journalism, he went to work for British Steel. His role was to work with researchers to write papers which could be understood more widely, not just by the small circle of the writer’s colleagues. He was now in a world of maths and statistics and decided that he needed qualifications. Working in the evenings he took his first degree in maths and statistics, followed shortly afterwards by a PhD. The title of his thesis was ‘The Automatic Design of Experiments. Some Practical Algorithms.’ He later became head of Process Computing and Statistics at BISRA, British Steel’s research association in She eld. He was made redundant when the research department was closed but was soon invited to join the team at She eld University which was part of a multi-centre cot death study. Tony was an active member of the Royal Statistical Society SS and was their first editor of their newletter, News and Notes’. He was awarded the Chambers Medal for outstanding services to the society. The SS awards the Greenfield Industrial Medal, every three years, for contributions to the effective application of statistical methods in the manufacturing industries. For several years he represented the SS on the Parliamentary Scientific Committee. In 1980 Tony moved to Belfast to be Professor of Medical Statistics and Computing at Queen’s University. His inaugural lecture ‘Computers and Health’ was about the use of computers in the diagnosis of illness. While he was there, he co-wrote in 1985 (with Rutherford) the government white paper on seat belts. The medical effects of the Seat Belt Legislation in the United Kingdom’. He found working in Belfast at the height of the troubles extremely stressful and
took early retirement, shortly afterwards starting his own business as an industrial research consultant. Throughout his career Tony’s passion was to persuade statisticians to communicate in a language that could be understood widely and not just by the small number of people who were working in the same field. After he retired, he wrote a seminal paper ‘Communicating Statistics’ which was published in the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society and ran courses on the subject here and abroad. He frequently quoted W B Yates. ‘Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people’. Tony was a founder member and past president of ENBIS, the European Network for Business and Industrial Statistics. The aim of ENBIS was to stimulate the application of statistical methods in business and industry across Europe. He was active in the organisation, giving papers and presentations at their annual conferences in many European cities. He edited the ENBIS newsletter for several years. ENBIS awarded him the George Box medal for outstanding contributions to industrial statistics. In his acceptance speech Tony issued a challenge. ‘Tell the world, outside your circle, of work you have done, and done successfully because you used statistics.’ ENBIS supported by Wiley, the publishers, took up his challenge and a pri e for the Greenfield Challenge is awarded each year. He wrote several books and published many papers. He contributed to and edited ‘Research Methods for Postgraduates’ which is now in its third edition. Tony loved adventure. He was particularly excited by the jungles of South America. Sometimes he travelled on his own but often with one or both of his sons. They went deep into the jungles of Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador. His great regret in the last few years of his life was that he hadn’t fulfilled his ambition to explore Venezuela. He was particularly interested in the Mayan Indians, studying their architecture, their maths and their language. Tony had four children. He challenged them but supported them, helping them in every way he could, especially in their academic studies. He was rightly, immensely proud of their achievements. Tony’s last years were very di cult. He had severe Parkinson’s and was almost blind. However, he never gave up his desire to learn. A few months before his death he was asked by doctors whether he wanted to be resuscitated. ‘I certainly do’ he replied, ‘I’ve got three books to write!’. Elizabeth Greenfield (BHS 1946-1954) Michael G Hearth Born 5 November 1939 Died 3 October 2020 - Aged 80 At Bedford School 1953-1957 - Pemberley Michael was born in Leicester but spent most of his formative years at Spalding in Lincolnshire. His father was an executive in the hosiery industry and his mother was part of her family’s Agricultural and Engineering business. After leaving Bedford - where he had a distinguished cricketing career - culminating in being awarded his 1st XI colours - and
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being invited to play for the Leicestershire Young Amateurs - he joined a Leicester-based company, Loweth Wools, who were in the Knitting Wool industry and they felt that Michael would benefit from joining a year course at the Bradford College of Technology. Loweth Wools was run by 3 brothers who all retired together and invited Michael to run the company, which he did successfully for many years until he sold the business. Michael mainly lived in Leicestershire with his wife, Anne, but in recent years they also enjoyed spending time at their house in Norfolk. Michael was a huge worker for many charities including the RNLI, for whom he was the organiser for recruiting about 30 annual volunteers for the Market Harborough RNLI Flag Day and he is a past Chairman of the Gweek Seal Sanctuary in Cornwall. He was very much a ‘sporting’ person who was a past Captain and past President of the Leicestershire Golf Club. Michael and his wife had 2 daughters who lived nearby and he had six grandchildren who gave him an enormous amount of pleasure regardless of whether they were playing Cricket, Rugby, Hockey, Netball, Lacrosse or taking part in school Amateur Dramatics. He loved playing golf with his grandchildren, and it was only recently that he had to admit defeat with his efforts to beat them - youth had come to the fore! Peter Hearth (56-60) Richard G C Hill Born 15 April 1937 Died 1 May 2020 - Aged 83 At Bedford School 1944-1956 - Bromham Peter M Howlett Born 16 August 1937 Died 12 December 2014 - Aged 77 At Bedford School 1951-1956 - Burnaby Major Derek W Huff Born 6 December 1923 Died 7 January 2019 - Aged 95 At Bedford School 1936-1940 - St Cuthbert’s Derek left school in 1940 to re-join his father in the Indian Army and eventually was an o cer in the Mahratta Light Infantry. He served in Baluchistan and the Burma Campaign in the Arakan, and later in Malaya. After ‘Independence’ he took a degree course at Chelsea Art School (47-52) and married in 1953. He had 2 sons, his eldest son being awarded a Queens Award for Industry in 2011 and is the Director and Founder of Integrated Design Ltd. The Revd Martin C Hughes Born 25 February 1940 Died 31 January 2020 - Aged 79 At Bedford School 1947-1958 - Bromham Robert W E Jackson Born 7 December 1936 Died 4 July 2019 - Aged 82 At Bedford School 1947-1954 - St Peter’s 140
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Anthony J T Jaggard Born 5 June 1936 Died 10 October 2020 – Aged 84 At Bedford School 1944-1954 – Sanderson’s He trained as an architect at Liverpool. His projects and consultations have included Lulworth Castle, Dorset, among many, and his work at the Roman Town House in Dorchester received much acclaim. Chris J R Kettler MBE Born 5 September 1939 Died 5 November 2019 - Aged 80 At Bedford School 1946-1958 - Redburn Chris Kettler was born in Bedford four days after the start of the Second World War. His father Hans had been born in Hagen to German parents who had moved to Bedford and subsequently became naturalised in 1926. His Mother Sally Rossiter, a native of Cambridge, had met his father whilst they were at Cambridge University. He spent his childhood in Bedford and started in the ‘Inky’ in 1946. Shortly after his Father’s work as a British Army Intelligence O cer took the family to Germany and so Chris became a border in Redburn where he would remain until he left Bedford School in 1958. He attributed his success as an adult to his experiences as a child and particularly the independence and confidence he developed as a border. From the age of eleven he would draw cash from the House Master and walk into Bedford to the travel agent to book his journey home for the school holidays. He would then write to his parents to inform them of the travel arrangements and would undertake the journey on his own. He talked fondly about the boat train from London to Hamburg or checking in for a Heathrow ight at Paddington Station. After much success at school he attended University College Hospital (UCH) Dental School from 1958 to 1963, and then went onto the Eastman as a postgraduate orthodontic student. During his studies he met his wife ‘Tally’ Talbot, a nursing student and the daughter of a schoolteacher from Gloucestershire. At university he was a keen oarsman and rowed and coxed for the University College Hospital Eight. He completed his formal postgraduate training in Orthodontics at the Royal Portsmouth Hospital which was regarded as one of the most prestigious training jobs at the time. Having passed the Faculty of Dental Surgery he decided to go into specialist practice – an unusual thing to do at the time, but he didn’t care for the politics of the hospital service and wanted to have responsibility for his own clinical and managerial decisions. And so, in 1968 he returned to Bedford and after a period working for the Bedfordshire School Dental Service started an orthodontist specialist practice in which he ran for 37 years before selling the Practice to his associate Helen Turner. He duly become her associate and continued to deliver clinic care until just short of his 75th birthday. When asked why he was still working in his seventies he would simply remark, “because I enjoy it!” He built a local and national reputation for high quality clinical care - ‘high treatment standards for his patients has been at the forefront of his working life’ Passionate about his profession, he entered orthodontic
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politics in 1982 and held various posts continuously in the British Society for the Study of Orthodontics and then in the British Association of Orthodontists as Secretary. When he entered dental politics there were three things he wanted to see realised. The first was the unification of the five separate professional orthodontic societies. In 1994, in significant part due to his commitment and efforts, the societies merged, and he became the founding Secretary of the British Orthodontic Society. Secondly, was an enduring commitment to supporting the professional development of the ancillary orthodontic staff with the ultimate goal of the creation of orthodontic therapists. He chaired the working group behind the initiative and when the orthodontic therapists profession was created he was invited to became their first President. Thirdly was recognition of orthodontic specialists who were underrepresented in the UK and internationally. He became involved in a number of national groups working with the Chief Dental O cer and was the British representative to the European Federation of Orthodontic Specialists. Chris was also instrumental in shaping the future of the NHS’s approach to orthodontics and contributed both to Lord Bloomfield’s inquiry and the House of Common Select Health Committee into improving NHS Dentistry. He subsequently co-led the Personal Dental Contract Pilot which would see an overhaul of the fee structure for NHS dentists. He received a number of awards over his lifetime including the British Orthodontic Society Special Services Award in 1999, Life Membership in 2002 and the President’s Cup in 2008. He was appointed MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2011 for service to orthodontics; the first specialist orthodontist practitioner to be recognised as such. He was and will always be a Bedfordian: born in Bedford; schooled in Bedford; he raised his family in Bedford; started and ran a successful practice in Bedford and died in Bedford. A huge supporter of the Town he enjoyed Bedford’s diverse community, often vocal about the huge benefits of a multicultural society. He was a shareholder and season ticket holder of the Bedford Blues and a long serving member of the Bedford Rotary Club, becoming its President in 201X. As a natural conservative voter, he even once admitted to voting Labour in a General Election because it was the right thing to do for Bedford! Having treated thousands of the Town’s children over a period of four decades he became very well known around the town, regularly bumping into current and former patients. He remarked with pride at seeing a beaming Paula adcliffe on the front of a national newspaper – ‘I am responsible for that smile’ - this was typical of his dry sense of humour. As a father, despite juggling a busy professional life he was always keen to get involved, be it watching rugby matches, regattas or attending the Sunday Chapel Service – all three of his sons were choristers in the Chapel Choir. He adored his three grandchildren, with the first being born on his 67th birthday. He loved the children’s jokes and despite being quite vocal about the harm of sugar would always have a grand selection of sweets and puddings for the kids. After his first grandchild was born, he was unsure what he should be known as - he didn’t want to be plain Grandpa but wasn’t quite ready to be just Chris. The solution was Grandpa Chris, but little did he know that his Grandson, like many young children couldn’t pronounce ‘Chr’, and so instead would pronounced it ‘Grandpa
Piss’, which is what he became fondly known as, and even signed himself off as such in their birthday and Christmas cards! James Kettler (76-85), Charlie Kettler (77-87) & Richard Kettler(80-90) Gerard M A Kinneen Born 31 October 1956 Died 24 December 2019 - Aged 63 At Bedford School 1968-1974 – Crescent Gerard won a scholarship to Bedford School and, despite being the youngest pupil in his year, he thrived academically and became a gifted pianist. He studied accountancy at Southampton University before embarking on a career in that field, going on to manage his own successful consultancy business. He loved fine cuisine and even finer wine, but was most passionate about classic cars, spending many years lovingly restoring his E-type Jaguar, Sunbeam Alpine and Sunbeam Tiger. Unfortunately, he suffered a serious stroke in his mid forties and although he battled tirelessly to overcome this setback he never truly recovered from this blow. He passed away last December following a short illness, leaving a loving and caring partner, Moray. Ross A Lee Born 15 October 1947 Died 30 October 2019 - Aged 72 At Bedford School 1959-1965 – Crescent Ross won a scholarship to Bedford School. By the time he had reached the History 6th form he had established himself as a leading personality in the Debating society and also discovered the value of the local records o ce for any student with a serious interest in historical research. His ability to make firm friends was also evident at this early stage, at least half a dozen of Ross’ school friends remained in close contact with him for the rest of his life. Not least amongst those Schoolday friends was one, Clare Phillipson, who, in 1974, was to become his wife. In 1966 Ross went up to New College to read History and, once again, to meet a number of people with whom he formed enduring friendships. Studying Modern history at Oxford enabled Ross to display his obvious enthusiasm for the subject. Throughout his life he pursued a strong interest in local and English history, in his spare time engaging in research especially in relation to his home county, Bedfordshire. He was a recognised and published authority on the English Civil War, 1642-1651. After graduation there was a brief, but highly significant
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episode in the Ross’s life. He became a hospital porter at St Bartholomew’s Hospital . Ross’ research had informed him that if he worked as a staff member for a minimum of 9 months he would be entitled to a private operation on his troublesome knee joint. A previous operation had failed but this time it all went according to plan and with the unforeseen consequence that Ross’ already developed concern for humanity was rea rmed by the fears, triumphs and tragedies that he was to witness on the wards. He often said the lesson that ‘Life is a lottery’ served him well in his later days as a Barrister. However, oss’ first career decision was to train to be a teacher. He became Head of the History department of a comprehensive school and his enthusiasm for his subject was such that for several years 2 or 3 members of his sixth form got into Oxbridge. One would imagine that success such as that would have delighted the School’s Head but, in this case, it was so unexpected that it merely provoked jealousy and Ross became deeply unhappy. With great support from his wife Clare, Ross quit teaching to retrain as a lawyer. This was no easy decision. There was a considerable drop in income and Ross entered a world where his fellow pupils were some ten years younger than he was. But he made it. Completing his pupillage in Chambers and called to the Bar as a member of Gray’s Inn in 1987, he subsequently became a founder member of York Chambers in 1990. He practised across the spectrum of general common law, enjoying working for people who often felt powerless in the face of the legal system. Ross, after all, had seen enough of life to lend them a sensitive ear. He was an advocate for inclusivity and was particularly supportive of his younger colleagues. He went on to serve as Secretary of Chambers. Ross will be remembered for his warmth, loyalty, generosity in giving his time and expertise to help those who needed it, and his unwavering support to friends, colleagues and above all, family. Ross died unexpectedly on October 31st, 2019, at the age of 72. He had been happily married for 45 years. C Derek Lester Born 29 October 1921 Died 26 December 2018 - Aged 97 At Bedford School 1936-1939 - Bromham After serving in the Royal Navy in WWII, Derek emigrated to Calgary, Canada, in 1952 to work in the oil and gas industry. In Calgary he met his wife Shelagh and derived great pleasure in acquainting Canadians with all things English. He was a member of the Marylebone Cricket Club and used to come over to Lords every 4 years for the Ashes. He was also an Honorary life member of The Canadian Cricket Association and both the Ranchmen’s and Glencoe Clubs in Calgary as well as an Honorary Life President and Board Member of the Calgary Homeless Foundation and the Alberta Director for the ‘Forum for young Canadians’. He was also a proud parishioner of Christ Church, Calgary. Derek is survived by his wife of 63 years, Shelagh; his 3 children Brian, David and Alison; and 3 grandchildren. 142
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Richard H C Lindley Born 25 April 1936 Died 6 November 2019 - Aged 83 At Bedford School 1945-1954 - St Cuthbert’s Richard was born in Winchester, Hampshire, to Guy Lindley, an army lieutenant colonel, and Penelope (nee Hatchell). After Bedford he did National Service and served with the Royal Hampshire regiment in what was then Malaya during the so-called emergency. He then studied English literature at Queens’ College, Cambridge, where he chaired the film society. His television career began in 1962. He joined ITN, working as a war reporter in Africa, Asia and in the Middle East. He had approached his early assignments at ITN for ITV news and current affairs programmes with some trepidation and compared covering events in what was then Rhodesia following the 1965 unilateral declaration of independence by its prime minister, Ian Smith, with his days as a second lieutenant leading a platoon through the Malayan jungle. “Somehow, I managed to convert a potentially paralysing fear of failure into action,” he said. “And it’s been the same on every story I’ve ever covered. I always have to use my fear of failure as the spur to get me out and about in an effort to survive the latest test. The tests were many, high-profile and sometimes shocking. During the Biafran war in eastern Nigeria (1967-70) he was a familiar figure tall and slim, reporting the horrors with a cut-glass English home counties accent as gunfire raged around him and, away from the action, telling the stories of the con ict’s young orphans. As one of the first journalists to enter the conquered Biafran territory at the end of the civil war, he interviewed Igbo women who claimed to have been raped by federal soldiers. Later in Dhaka, at the end of the fighting between India and Pakistan that saw the creation of Bangladesh in 1971, Richard showed a quality that marked him apart from some of his war correspondent colleagues. Presented with the chance to shoot exclusive television pictures of a guerrilla leader having prisoners tortured, he and his team walked away, fearing that their presence was encouraging the violence. Two stills photographers who captured the subsequent bayoneting to death of the prisoners won a Pulitzer prize, while ITN had no coverage of the shocking climax. This moral awareness, along with his modesty, reserved manner, and integrity, made Richard revered by those who worked with him. Yemen, Vietnam and the six-day war between Israel and its Arab neighbours were among his other battlegrounds before he left ITN in 1973 to join the BBC and Panorama covering current affairs. He examined race relations in 19 , the return of Ayatollah Khomeini and nuclear power in 1979 and interviewed Margaret Thatcher shortly after the start of the Falklands war in 1982. When he took over as presenter
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of Panorama that year, one TV critic described Richard as “a cross between Barry Norman and Sir Alec Douglas-Home”. Rhodesia and its transformation into Zimbabwe spanned much of his television career. For Panorama he interviewed in 1975 a white farmer and black barrister, asking whether all the races could ever live together, before returning five years later to look at the prospects for the country after independence. He was in South Africa in 1992 for IT ’s current affairs programme This Week, reporting on the establishment of an Afrikaner whites-only homeland in the Northern Cape. He was the first western television journalist to interview Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi dictator brought into the world’s spotlight following the Israeli air strike on an Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981. ichard remained with Panorama for fifteen years before, in 1989, being appointed as a television regulator at the Independent Broadcasting Authority, forerunner of Ofcom, regulating the accuracy and impartiality of ITV news and current affairs. Then, in 1992, he re-joined ITN as presenter of its World News, and from 1995 was again regularly seen on British national television with special reports for News at Ten, until the programme was cancelled in 1999. Richard wrote two books about the history of television journalism: ‘Panorama - Fifty Years of Pride and Paranoia’ was published in 2002; ‘And Finally…? The News from ITN’, his account of the news service on commercial television in Britain, in 2005. A past President of The Media Society, he wrote about broadcasting and chaired debates on media matters and issues of public concern. He was Chairman of a housing charity, the St Pancras Almshouses. He was latterly lead governor for Royal Free Hospital and was appointed Chair of Voice of the Listener. Richard married Clare Fehrsen in 1976, with whom he had 2 children and later married to the broadcaster Carole Stone in 1999. Richard was appointed MBE in 2017. A year earlier he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease; his death came a month after sustaining multiple injuries when he was run over by a lorry. Richard T Lines Born 3 September 1940 Died 17 February 2020 - Aged 79 At Bedford School 1954-1957 - St Cuthbert’s Richard lived his whole life happily in Hillesden, farming where his ancestor had lived since 1630ish. He was married to Margaret for almost 55 years and had 4 children. Frances Litchfield Died 24 December 2019 Bedford School Staff 1987-2009 Frances joined the school in 1987, originally to do lunchtime cover in the Library, and continued with parttime hours. She worked with four librarians over the years and saw four Headmasters come and go. In 1987, the library was housed in the Memorial Hall where the staff Common oom is now located. At that time, the upstairs area
was a silent working area, supervised by a teacher, and the library itself was used by individuals and groups who wanted to use the resources. Always at the cutting edge, the library even had an automated library system in 1987 when most other school libraries were still using manual card indexes. The greatest change that Frances experienced was the move from the Memorial Hall to the new library building. Two years from the laying of the foundation stone in 2002 until the final opening in 2004, this move was a big project that changed the library environment for both staff and boys. Frances had to develop and learn new skills as the library has become more IT based and she did this with great confidence. She was popular with both boys and staff and was always helpful, courteous, and patient, whether she was trying to find a book or sort out a paper jam in the printer! Her experience of the school and library was invaluable, and she made a significant contribution to the changes that have taken place in the past two years with the introduction of new resources, including digital media. B Howard MacNay Born 1 May 1923 Died 18 May 2020 - Aged 97 At Bedford School 1936-1941 - Paulo Pontine Howard was born in Middlesbrough. He often reminisced with pleasure of the summers when he used to stay with a maiden aunt in Goathland and roam the moors. He came to attend Bedford School, aged thirteen, after his mother met the headmaster. It may have been unusual in those days for a Yorkshire lad to go to a school in the Midlands, and when he first arrived, he was teased for his accent. While at the School, he excelled at cross-country running and boxing, taking part in the uadrangular Competition in his final year. With the War having started while he was at the School, he became an apprentice at Rolls-Royce in Derby. It was only after he died that we learned that he had been a Private in the Derby Home Guard—our own Private Pike and we did not know it! In the early 1940s, his father died, aged 55; he had been Managing Director of the family firm, Macnays Limited, which produced nuts and bolts, later acquired by Guest Keen & Nettlefold. Later, Howard went to the Agricultural College at Silsoe, where he met Pamela. She was living in St Neots, where her father had set up in the motor trade; at one stage his was reportedly the second largest Ford dealer in the country. Having qualified as a Chartered Mechanical Engineer, Howard set sail for South Africa in 1948 on a Union Castle Line ship. Shortly afterwards, Pam joined him, ying by South African Airways to Johannesburg, a journey that lasted some forty-eight hours. Howard was immediately in trouble when she arrived: he was viewing the cars in a nearby MG showroom instead of being at the airport to greet her! They married straightaway and lived in the Witswaterand goldmining area near ohannesburg. Their first child, Marcus, was born in November 1949. Sadly, he survived for only 10
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months. Bill was born in April 1951. The family returned to England in 19 , living first in Middlesbrough, where Joanna was born, in February 1955, then brie y in imbolton, where Pam’s parents were living. The family finally settled in Abergavenny, and Stella was born in September 1962. Howard was working for British Nylon Spinners in Pontypool, a company later taken over by Imperial Chemical Industries. In 1970 he took a post in the group’s headquarters in Millbank, London. This entailed a move to Leatherhead, where he and Pam were to remain. Pam died in 2009. Howard always missed her, particularly, we think, her attempts, not always successful, to rein in his youthful exuberance. In his late eighties, he suffered a severe attack of shingles, which affected him for the rest of his life. In 2016, he experienced the sadness of losing Stella to cancer. His philosophical outlook on life helped him through the di cult times. His final nineteen months were spent at eigate Grange, where he enjoyed chatting to the other residents. When he began to make use of a wheelchair, he was banned from keeping it in his room after using it to do wheelies down the corridor. For us, Howard’s Yorkshire accent was only discernible in certain vowel in ections, although he took to saying Ee bah gum’ frequently in his final years. He continued to practise certain Yorkshire traditions, such as eating his Yorkshire pudding before the beef, and having Cheddar with his mince pies. His ability to consume large amounts of food without ever carrying any surplus weight was legendary in the family and left people who did not know him awestruck. We were told often of how his mother would frequently exclaim, ‘Ee Howard, not another course.’ It became customary for him to do a headstand on his birthday and at other family celebrations, until the one he performed on his 80th had an effect which made him decide to give up that activity. When he was 86, two of his grandsons were married in Italy, one in Tuscany and the other in the Alps. He gained renown amongst family and friends for his skinnydipping exploits at both celebrations, the second being in a freezing-cold mountain stream. At the Alpine wedding, he also impressed the Italian contingent with his enthusiasm for descending a luge course on an in atable rubber tyre. At one stage, he was a keen collector (and, of course, drinker of fine Clarets and Burgundies, and he had lifelong interests in stamp-collecting and steam trains—he was a regular contributor to the construction of the Tornado locomotive. In passing away shortly after his 97th birthday, he couldn’t quite match his mother, who reached 99¾, or his eldest cousin, who made it to 101. We remember with affection a modest man who was determined to live life to the full and enjoy himself, someone who delighted in his four grandsons and one granddaughter, and his seven great-grandsons and two greatgranddaughters; someone who was, as one of his former neighbours put it, ‘his own man’. Bill MacNay (60-68) and Joanna White (née MacNay) Frank R Mears Born 21 July 1932 Died 2020 - Aged 88 At Bedford School 1943-1949 - St Peter’s 144
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Major Christopher (Dusty) D E Miller Born 29 April 1932 Died 2 December 2019 - Aged 87 At Bedford School 1941-1950 - St Peter’s On leaving School David joined the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment. In later life he volunteered with the charity: Royal Commonwealth and Empire Ex-Servicemen. David had particular responsibility for Somalia where he was stationed in the 1950s. He was awarded The Most Blessed Order of Stia Negara Brunei in 1966 whilst serving with the Royal Brunei Malay Regiment. He is survived by his wife Edith. Ali I Mills Born 4 May 1948 Died 13 May 2020 - Aged 72 At Bedford School 1961-1967 - Kirkman’s Ali’s father ran the chemist shop in Lower High Street, Harpenden. At School Ali excelled at boxing and swimming and was a member of the 3rd XV. A former estate agent, he latterly, together with his exwife, ran a chain of homes for the elderly in Harpenden. He was also lead singer in a School group and continuing with his music, played with a band regularly in pubs round Harpenden, his pièce de resistance in his later years being ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ (Procul Harem). Whilst at School he seemed to light the fire of every teen-aged girl in Bedford. Ali was a ‘convivial chatterbox with the most tremendous sense of fun’. Tribute from Old Albanians RFC where Ali had been President. ‘It is with great sadness that the Club announces the passing of Ali Mills, a man whose stature belied a great heart and a giant personality. There are those amongst us who go through life in an almost placid fashion, happy with rules and content not to pass an opinion on any subject which might be deemed controversial. Our numbers include many who, like a becalmed vessel, leave little trace behind them regardless of the effort they expend. Such was never Ali’s destiny and so many of us in OARFC and friends in untold other Rugby locations are proud to have shared even a little time with him. So much of his life involved humour, his laugh was typically infectious and his sense of comedy was never absent for long. His long-time friend and colleague, the late lamented Tom Howard, often mused on his erstwhile half-back partner’s abilities, (like the fact that Ali was a useful boxer in his youth); but he was not slow to point out certain shortcomings when he felt the need arose. One such was Tommy’s a rmation that his scrum half was the inventor of the Barnes Wallis pass! His career at OAs lasted from the 1960’s despite previously being a pupil at Bedford School. He played in every side Albanians fielded and I was privileged to keep him company in at least four of them from 1983. To say he was a noted tourist is like saying St Paul’s Cathedral is a Chapel and it is certainly true to say that his colleagues, whenever OAs ventured to other clubs (or distant
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shores!) regarded him as a lively source of mayhem. Whilst he may never have been a great example…he was indeed a terrible warning! He was one of those people who made folks smile even at the mention of his name. Music played a big part in his life and he brought his enthusiasm to the clubhouse every season. The Ali Mills Night was always a gig which filled Beech Bottom or Woollams to the rafters and seemed to get better as the years rolled by. I remember meeting him at a training session at Westminster Lodge and I asked him why he was there; after all it had been many years since he’d needed to train! He said “I’ve been given the greatest honour of my life! I’ve been asked to serve as Club President and I’m desperately trying to come to terms with that!” Ali was a worthy President for many years, guiding through some turbulent times but never losing sight of the fact that the players were, and always will be, the mainstay of our organisation. Not for him a lengthy coach journey to a distant opposition ground perched at the front of the bus; Ali was always to be found at the back, with the players, asking questions and joining in the fun. He will be especially remembered for that. Ali had heart problems for some years but that did not stop him playing in the last match at Beech Bottom, Us vs Them! I was delighted to referee the game and, it has to be said, there was no evidence of a bouncing bomb that day! Ali passed away in hospital after a short illness. He leaves a son, Jonathan, and a daughter, Amy, whose grieving will surely be alleviated by so many memories of a delightful Dad.’ Brian Quinn. Christopher P Money Born 5 March 1947 Died 27 February 2020 - Aged 72 At Bedford School 1954-1966 - Crescent Jim R A Muller Born 05 April 1934 Died 16 February 2019 - Aged 84 At Bedford School 1946-1952 – Glanyrafon Jim served in the Royal Air Force when he was called up, before taking his place at Corpus Christie, Cambridge. He switched courses from Classics to gain his degree in chemistry. Whilst at Cambridge he rowed for his college, and later for Marlow Rowing Club. His working life was spent at the ICI Paints Division in Slough. Initially he worked in Research and Development and latterly on computers in the Paints Planning Department. At one point he spent six months in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) commissioning a plant for ICI. Jim met his wife, Judy, in 1964 at the Marlow Operatic Society singing Gilbert & Sullivan. Together they performed in almost all the G & S operettas and also in Die Fledermaus, the Merry Widow and Carmen amongst others. On taking early retirement from ICI Jim took a Royal Horticultural course in garden design and worked in people’s gardens (as long as he could have input – he didn’t want to just weed or mow lawns!)
and was commissioned to design a Memorial Garden in St Mary’s churchyard in Beaconsfield. On relocation from Beaconsfield to Llangadog, a Welsh speaking village in Carmarthenshire Jim and Judy restored and lived in a farmhouse which had not been lived in for 100 years. They had nearly two acres of land bordered by the iver Tywi, so were self-su cient in fruit and vegetables. im made and sold walking sticks, having first found the tree and cut the wood, and he took an active part in community life. They both learnt Welsh and were members of the community choir. Jim was the treasurer of the village Film and Supper Club, of which they were both founder members. Jim was a lifelong bell ringer and former Tower Captain. His other interests included calligraphy. photography, cooking, wine making from his own produce, and marmalade and jam making. He was fascinated by language. He enjoyed sailing and once, when on board the Tall Ship Sail Training Association Ship, Stravros Niarchos, he climbed to the top of the crow’s nest - when the ship had returned to port – there being no chance to do so at sea! ‘All of us who knew Jim will remember his quiet, polite and gentlemanly personality and disposition. It is not surprising that, wherever he went, he acquired the title of ‘Gentleman Jim’. He is survived by his wife, Judy. Edward J R Noy Born 21 May 1927 Died March 2020 - Aged 92 At Bedford School 1941-1943 - Pemberley Surgeon Colonel J P Anthony Page RAMC Born 9 June 1937 Died 9 December 2019 - Aged 82 At Bedford School 1945-1955 - St Cuthbert’s After leaving Bedford Anthony went up to Gonville and Caius College at Cambridge University to study medicine. After qualifying he went to Canada for a short while to work as a junior doctor at a children’s hospital in Toronto. On his return to the UK he joined the RAMC in 1964 and joined the Blues & Royals of the Household Cavalry as their permanent medical o cer. He served at home and abroad as well as looking after the soldier’s families. Anthony rose to the rank of Surgeon Colonel staying with the regiment for many years. From 1992 he worked in Saudi Arabia for two years then on his return he worked for the Ministry of Defense as a civilian doctor in Osnabruck, Germany. In 19 2 he married his first wife and had four children. He married Alison his second wife in 1981 and they had three children. They were married for 38 years until his death. He leaves behind thirteen grandchildren. Anthony retired to Caithness in Scotland in 2002 where he
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enjoyed plenty of fishing and was there up until his death. He will be remembered as a man who always had time for other people. David Parker Born 2 August 1930 Died 1 December 2016 - Aged 86 At Bedford School 1940-1949 – Sanderson’s Brian Parkinson Born 1 December 1935 Died 8 January 2020 - Aged 84 At Bedford School 1947-1954 - St Cuthbert’s Ken Parkinson Born 28 December 1936 Died 24 June 2020 - Aged 83 Bedford School Staff 1978-1996 Born in Lytham, Lancashire, he moved to Manchester University where he accumulated a degree in Botany and Zoology and a pressed ower collection which has held spellbound successive generations of Biology staff at Bedford; it may well be the finest specimen of its type this side of the River Ribble. Having sampled the many-faceted delights of Wellingborough, he arrived at Bedford School in September of 1978 and in rapid succession became Head of Biology and then Housemaster of Pemberley. During his, and his first wife Enid’s, time in charge, Pemberley developed a reputation for being a relaxed and safe boarding house and Ken’s down-toearth style and un appability were greatly appreciated. Ken was deeply involved in School sport and, even though his ability to hit a ball with a racket was rudimentary to say the least. He refereed rugby for his entire School career and was for many years coach to the 2nd XV. As the years took their toll, and when other staff would be thinking of taking things easy, Ken, now head of the Royal Navy Section of the CCF, taught himself to sail, gaining his Coastal Skipper’s Certificate, and introduced the sport to numbers of boys both in the Corps and outside it. Sailing was to become significant in his personal life as well. Ken was also involved with the establishment of the Field Centre at Ickwell Bury, was Senior Housemaster and a member of the Senior Management Team. Following his retirement from the School, Ken and his second wife Jenny, moved to Christchurch where they spent many happy years sailing along the south coast. Peter J Payne Born 31 August 1924 Died 28 October 2019 - Aged 95 At Bedford School 1939-1942 – Ashburnham Peter Payne was the only son of the late George Payne and Annie Payne (née Dyer) and stepson of Florence Payne (née Young). A much respected and admired early Computer Scientist in 146
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Cambridge, he was one of the leading computer scientists of the post-War era. Peter was a man who changed the world we live in. It is not often that this can truly be said of someone; but in Peter’s case it really is true. Peter was such a modest man that he barely ever talked about his achievements, still less boasted of them; indeed, it was not really until last year, when I bumped into one of his former colleagues, that I really started to appreciate the significance of what Peter did. As a child I was always fascinated by the things Peter could do with the rather basic home computers then available; on one occasion, I remember that he managed to scan a drawing I had made of a cartoon mouse and turn it into a brief animation. Peter was not born into the Young family, and yet he was grafted into the Youngs when his father George married Flo, my great aunt. George Payne died in 1950, but Peter often said that his father was even more talented than he was – an engineering foreman at W.H. Allen so skilled that he was the only worker permitted to use the most sophisticated cutting machines. Peter inherited his father’s gift for working with technology – but unlike his father, Peter had the opportunity to receive a higher education, and became one of the leading computer programmers of the post-War era. Peter was always a man ahead of his time, and this was why I always enjoyed visiting him. He seemed to see further than the rest of us, and his was an intellect focussed on the horizon of the future. Indeed, while the work of many researchers soon gets supplanted and fades into insignificance, Peter’s pioneering programming for the design and manufacture of three-dimensional objects is much more important now than it was in the 1960s. It will be still more important in years to come. 3D printing technology, the technology of the future, is dependent on programming developed by Peter Payne for W.H. Allen, British Airways Corporation, Clark’s Shoes and others. In 1972, Peter was the first person in the world to demonstrate that a computer program could be used to cut a three-dimensional object. That moment was, in effect, the birth of all D computer-aided manufacturing, including 3D printing. In 2018 I met a gentleman called Ernest Warman who worked with Peter in the ’60s and ’70s, and remembered him as both a legend and a visionary genius of computer-aided design. Ernie remembers Peter working through the night to design the nose-cone of the BAC111 aeroplane, a type of short-haul jet that remained in service from the 1960s until the retirement of the last plane as recently as May of this year. Peter showed that he could accomplish in one night what would have taken a conventional team weeks to complete. On another occasion, Ernie remembered someone asking if a program could be developed to design shoes; Peter took off one of his own shoes there and then and used it to write a program that would create templates for shoes. There was no fa ng about with Peter! He subsequently worked with Clark’s Shoes, developing a computer-controlled shoe last that is now on public display in the Whipple Museum of the History of Science in Cambridge. The programs he developed were probably used to create the shoes you are all wearing today. Believe it or not, even the humble snap-shut spectacle case was developed by Peter’s team. Peter’s work bridged the worlds of engineering and academic research, and he worked both in Cambridge
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University’s Engineering Department and in the Mathematical Laboratory, the predecessor of today’s Department of Computer Science. The area in which Peter excelled was creating programmes that could deal with complex, curved 3D surfaces – something that, when Peter started, no-one thought a computer could do. But the more challenging the problem, the more eager Peter was to find a solution. Indeed, a preoccupation with the three-dimensional spilled into Peter’s hobby of stereoscopic photography, while his brilliant spatial sense was no doubt the secret of his gifted coaching in snooker (Peter was a coach at Greyfriars Snooker Centre in retirement). The life of Peter John Payne is a reminder of how much a single modest and unassuming human being can contribute to the world in ways that seem small at first, but in the perspective of history may be huge. The work of pioneers of computer science, of whom Peter was one, now dominates all our lives in ways they could not have imagined. Peter himself started to feel as early as the late 1990s that he no longer understood modern computers. But in truth we do not yet know the true significance of Peter’s work, as the technology made possible by his vision is still being invented. Peter was one of the last surviving pioneers of the first age of computing that followed the Second World War. I don’t know why Peter was so modest about what he accomplished. Perhaps he felt that the credit should go to the team in which he worked, rather than to any one individual. But above all, I think Peter understood that it was his quiet work as a mentor – whether to young engineering students, to young snooker players, or to members of his own family – that mattered most. His kindness, his patience, and his ability to inspire inquiry have left a legacy that I think Peter would have considered just as important as his scientific contribution. Because Peter was always able to see more than one dimension. By Francis Young J Michael Peacock Born 18 June 1922 Died 17 June 2012 - Aged 89 At Bedford School 1930-1940 - Crescent Michael left in the summer of 1940 at the height of the invasion fear during the Second World War, which interrupted his planned university admission. He was the son of a dental surgeon who had volunteered for active service in the Boer War, serving as a cavalryman in the Imperial Yeomanry and taking his own horse to South Africa. After being commissioned into the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, Michael himself saw active service in the Far East. He was a member of a cloak and dagger organisation (Combined Operations Pilotage Parties) that swam ashore from submarines to reconnoiter beaches for future invasions against Japanese-held Burma. On one such mission he became separated from his party, who assumed he had been swept out to sea. He spent the rest of the war as a prisoner of the Japanese, who could not understand why a naval o cer should be in the jungle. ept away from other allied prisoners in Rangoon jail and unable to communicate with them, he was nicknamed the Admiral by the British soldiers. Weakened by recurring tropical disease, he was unable to stand upright for long periods but kept his
mental agility by scratching long division sums on his cell wall. As his wife later recalled he was eventually repatriated to England and discharged from the navy while still suffering from malaria, beriberi, and dysentery. The London Gazette records he was awarded a Mention in Despatches for ‘bravery and enterprise in reconnaissance operations’. After the war, Michael initially struggled to gain admission to a veterinary college until new government regulations assisted ex-servicemen. He was accepted as a mature undergraduate to the Royal (Dick) (Edinburgh) and he graduated in 19 0. After graduation, he went first into practice in King’s Lynn before setting up his own plate in Bedford. Bedford at the time had three veterinary surgeons and practitioners, none of whom apparently spoke to the others. Michael visited each to introduce himself and found that for a number of years he was the only conduit for communication between them. With hard work and because of his tireless devotion to his clients, he developed his home-based practice into a thriving concern. Although it was a genuinely mixed practice that provided for small animal, equine and farm clients, his heart always lay with large animals and in his specialism of pig medicine. Michael was always fiercely proud of his Edinburgh education and preferred, whenever possible, to recruit Dick men to his practice. His wife Sheila, who died the year before him, supported him throughout his career and later life. Together they raised a family and ran the practice from the building next door. Sheila was a leading member of the Bedford Medical Wives’ Club and wrote an amusing recollection of their life together entitled Wife to the Vet. Michael was a true gentleman of the old school who spurned the business side of his chosen profession and who was always prepared to dedicate plenty of time to clients and treat them with compassion. I remember being told, forcibly, that it was the overriding duty of a professional man to make his business a success solely so that he could continue to practise his profession for the benefit of others. His devotion to his vocation was inspiring. I, and I suspect, many other visiting students learned much about the art of veterinary medicine from him, and observed the skills he used to communicate so effectively with his varied clientele, be they the hunting set, the bitch breeder or the gnarled farmer. Our thoughts and sympathies go to his children, Nicky and Stephen. Jeremy Mantell (63-70) David C F Phillips Born 18 August 1947 Died 27 January 2020 - Aged 72 At Bedford School 1961-1966 - Talbot’s David joined the Royal Engineers on leaving School and later became an Accountant. He is seen in the photograph saluting the Admiral of the Fleet, Sir Varyl Begg, in Gibraltar in 1969. He is survived by his wife Florence.
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Crumbs Aloft I see the fisherman’s oat Here and there a passing boat But life is calm in waters deep This is my house where I slumber and sleep But wait! Behold! What can I see? A splash in the water; some food, maybe Perhaps it is bait for the fisherman’s line Or else it is crumbs that are sure to be mine I study the crumbs. Now where is that hook? I won’t be too fast - I’ll have a good look One fish in a hurry grabs at the crumbs A ick of the rod and out he comes But I have more sense Than to eat up those crumbs I don’t want to end up In somebody’s thumbs There’s bound to be trouble So I sit all day long And listen to the brook As it sings its sweet song By David Phillips, aged 10 J Richard Probert-Jones Born 25 May 1933 Died May 2016 - Aged 83 At Bedford School 1940-1951 - Paulo Pontine J Michael Ramsden Born 2 October 1928 Died 28 July 2019 - Aged 90 At Bedford School 1941-1945 – Burnaby Mike was born in Blackpool. His father was Jack Ramsden, who worked for British Movietone News and ew during WW2 on operations with both the RAF and the USAAF. The family moved south to Edgware around 1937 and Mike was sent to Bedford as a boarder, his father having heard good things from Old Bedfordians. There he joined the Air Training Corps, having always been interested in aeroplanes, attending many air shows of the Cobham variety. In 1943 he went to Hatfield with his father who was filming the then-new ampire. In conversation with his father and unheard by Mike, Geoffrey de Havilland r said words to the effect that if your lad is interested in aircraft then he couldn’t have a better start in life than joining the de Havilland Aeronautical Technical School” (DHAeTS). Mike had been destined to read classics at Oxford, but his school friend Michael Spanyol (42-45) had planned to become a Rolls-Royce apprentice and initially Mike thought of joining him. In the end both went to DHAeTS. He was a member of the Wasps Rugby Club, whose ground at Sudbury (Wembley) was near his home. He also played for the Tech School team. Mike’s first known journalism 148
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appeared in ‘The Pylon’ during his apprenticeship. He coedited several issues and contributed articles and cartoons Towards the end of his apprenticeship he became interested in and involved with the work of the Public Relations Department. It was there that he met Angela Mortimer. On completion of his apprenticeship, he joined the PR Department. His engagement to Angela was announced at Christmas 1952 and they married in 1953. Mike saw and participated in first the Comet glory years and latterly the disastrous year of 1954 when all examples of the Comet were withdrawn from service due to structural defects. With the Company at a low ebb, he left in 1955 to join Flight magazine as a journalist on the air transport team. He learnt to y so that he could participate in the various visits to factories along with photographer and artist – Flight was renowned for its cutaway drawings. A talented artist, he raised money to pay for his ying lessons by selling watercolours from a stall in St Albans market. It was in January 1958 that the then editor, Rex King, agreed to Mike’s proposal of a diary column. Rex chose the name Straight and Level and the byline Roger Bacon, saying that Friar Bacon the 1 th century scholar was the first Englishman to say anything sensible about aeronautics. Mike gleefully recounted clangers and lampooned those in power (‘the neddies’), also delighted in interpreting ‘yuckspeak’, e.g. Our high-capability facility offers optimum rectification work = we do repairs’. ‘And By and By a Cloud Took all Away’ was Mike’s choice of heading for Flight’s wonderful aviation photo archive. Mike became editor of what by then was Flight International in 1964. As a trained engineer, he helped to establish Flight’s reputation for technical expertise and coverage of aviation safety, reporting on accidents and their investigations, and advocating advances in training and oversight. In 1976 he published ‘The Safe Airline’, a scholarly analysis of the entire topic, all of which is every bit as relevant today as it was then. It won an award from the Flight Safety Foundation. He had a front row seat for many of the major aerospace events of the late 1960s and 1970s, including the Apollo programme and the inaugural press ight of Concorde. His poetic way with words in capturing the poignancy of a historic moment became a trademark. In 1981 he became Editor-in-Chief and in 1989 he left to become Editor of Aerospace, the journal of the Royal Aeronautical Society, and Head of Publications. He retired from the RAeS in 1993. The Honourable Company of Air Pilots (incorporating Air Navigators) in 1980/81 awarded Mike The Cumberbatch Trophy for ‘an outstanding contribution to aviation safety’. In 1988 he was awarded the Royal Aeronautical Society’s Wakefield Gold Medal for his continuing and effective campaign, exercised through his writings, to improve further standards of air safety’. Mike campaigned against an RAF verdict of gross negligence by the pilots of Chinook ZD576, which crashed into a hillside on the Mull of Kintyre in dense fog on 2nd June 1994. This was a cause into which he threw a huge amount of his time and energy. He was much obstructed and was warned off’ by the Top neddies. The verdict was eventually overturned, much to the delight of Mike and his many fellow campaigners.
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Another campaign was the response he led to the infamous Channel 4 programme ‘Comet Cover-up’ in August 2002, which alleged wrong-doing by de Havilland in the design of the Comet. After much effort, Channel 4 was forced to broadcast an apology in December 2003 and to publish it in the Daily Telegraph. In the 2016 Aerospace Media Awards, he was recognised with a long-overdue Lifetime Achievement Award. Every colleague and contemporary in the room was on their feet applauding, as if to say, “Yes. About time!” In the world of aviation journalism and publishing, he was one of the greats. Mike was a Chartered Engineer and Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society, and President of the Hatfield branch until 2018 when he retired due to ill health. He continued to write in his retirement, in particular a biography Sir Geoffrey de Havilland – A Life of Innovation and Leadership’. Mike was a trustee of the Sir Geoffrey de Havilland Flying Foundation, and a founding trustee of the Mosquito Appeal Fund, which became the current de Havilland Aircraft Museum. He painted throughout his adult life, also enjoyed classical music, particularly Mozart. He leaves his wife Angela, son James and daughter Annabel. Charles A Randall Born 16 November 1948 Died 31 January 2020 - Aged 71 At Bedford School 1962-1966 - Pemberley Known as Charlie, he began his career at the Herts Advertiser in the 1970s before joining the Telegraph in 1979 where he stayed for 32 years as their cricket, rugby, bowls and hockey writer. He reported on county cricket for several decades before covering hockey for three years at the paper. He also reported on school’s hockey for The Hockey Paper and was elected chairman of the Hockey Writers’ Club. Close friend Ivo Tennant wrote in a tribute on the Cricket Writers’ Club site: “He was slim, wiry, seemed to eat and drink little, did not smoke, and, as he once demonstrated when covering Hampshire at Bournemouth, had evidently been a fine club cricketer for many years. “He collected the ball on the boundary and, to the irritation of the fielder who had pursued it, fi ed it in over the stumps and into the wicket-keeper’s gloves. So his death from pneumonia, when only in his early seventies, comes as a shock. I happened to be in the press box, the old – and preferable – box at Lord’s with Charlie in 1989 when he was relatively new to cricket writing. It was early season and Yorkshire were giving a debut to a young fast bowler called Darren Gough, who took three Middlesex wickets for 44, coming on first change. Neither of us had heard of him. Charlie, diligent and polite as ever, asked the travelling White Rose correspondents – at least four in those days – if they could fill him in as he had a lengthy piece to write. “It was, I think, John Callaghan, who mischievously informed Charlie that Gough was ‘the son of a Barnsley rat-
catcher. Given Charlie had been a sub-editor, and no doubt respected for his accuracy, his description was not queried. His lurid words were duly printed!” Away from his journalism he joined the Honourable Artillery Company (HAC), an army reserve regiment, part-time in 1968 and maintained this connection into recent years as President of the HAC football club. A long-term resident of Radlett, Herts, he was a member of Porters Park Golf Club for 55 years and a member of Radlett Cricket Club for a similar length of time, playing league cricket until he was 64. His interests included collecting records for his Rockola Max jukebox, chess and drawing. He leaves a wife Kate, whom he married in 1979, two children Nicole and Simon and five granddaughters. Sports Journalists Association John M Read G.I.Mech.E Born 18 October 1934 Died 11 April 2020 - Aged 85 At Bedford School 1947-1953 - Pemberley Rev Anthony F Richards Born 4 December 1926 Died 6 March 2016 - Aged 89 At Bedford School 1934-1945 - Paulo Pontine On leaving School Anthony went into the Royal Navy and then to both Oxford and Cambridge. He joined the Ministry and became Vicar of Christ Church, High Wycombe (1959-63); Curate-in-Charge (1963-67); Vicar of Terriers (1963-73); St Stephen’s, Cinderford (1973-80); St Paul’s, Clacton-on-Sea (1980-93); New Zealand (1988-89) Christopher A Rosevear Born 3 September 1947 Died 5 September 2019 - Aged 72 At Bedford School 1955-1965 - Paulo Pontine Chris was the son of Don and Gerda Rosevear, who often became effectively foster parents’ to boys attending Bedford School as day boys whose own parents could not at that time look after them from their local home, usually due to the parents spending most of the year working abroad. Clive Beeley (56-59) recalls that Gerda was a fabulous cook and Don was always keen to push them all on getting their homework done properly and would test them on it in the morning whilst he was shaving/dressing and would generally try to expand their knowledge not just of their school subjects but the wider world as well. In August 1957, the family and Clive all went on a carefully planned month-long tour/holiday in Germany with Don driving in his super black Humber Hawk car which performed without fault over many hundreds of miles in those weeks. They were treated to tours of famous tourist spots like Neuschwanstein Castle, Oberammergau, Bayreuth Playhouse and Nuremberg. Don would keep an immaculate daily diary of all the events, adding some hand drawn pictures to embellish it!
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After leaving Bedford School in 1965 Chris attended Christ’s College Cambridge and read Modern & Mediaeval languages. He then went to the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration to read Economics. He joined Data Base Unlimited working as a consultant in automating treasury management and specialising in database implementation within the financial services industry and became Senior Partner. After 24 years with them he became the Director of International Affairs for DO Co in Moldova and then European Commercial Director for WMB Agency, Moldova. He was also the Former Senior Consultant at the International Economic Advisory Group, World Bank, and Former Head of Treasury Management EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) at Citibank. Chris married Kate and the couple adopted 2 sons, Josh and Louis. Chris and Kate were animal lovers and their home in Winchfield, Hampshire would be filled with many dogs, cats, cockerels, hens, and several other animals all competing for their attention! Chris was an accomplished musician and played the piano and oboe to a good standard. He also master-minded the Winchfield Music Festival every 2 years around une time and was able to attract musicians of International standard such as Peter Donohoe (Piano) and Jennifer Pike (Violin). Kate died in late December 2017, but Chris still spent a lot of time in Moldova and suffered a heart attack there in September 2019. He is survived by his 2 sons, Josh and Louis. B N ‘Rusty’ Rustomjee Born 7 August 1934 Died November 2019 - Aged 85 At Bedford School 1944-1952 - St Peter’s Rusty was born in Bedford, the son of a Doctor. On leaving Bedford he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Corps of Royal Engineers. He played rugby for the Engineers as well as playing rugby and cricket for the Bedford Lions. Rusty joined Air India in 1960 and married Khorshed in 1961 in Bombay and they had 2 children, Tina and Neville. He was posted to Geneva as Manager in 1975 and retired as a Deputy Commercial Director. Rusty lived in Switzerland, Beirut, Hong Kong, London, and Cairo and retired to Mumbai, India, where he was a member of the Gymkhana Club. He died in Bangalore and is survived by his daughter Tina, a vet in Bombay and son, Neville, an Architect in the US. His son Neville told us that even at the age of 85 before his death, he often recalled his fond memories of Bedford School and his childhood days in Bedford Michael I Skeggs Born 13 March 1961 Died 5 March 2019 - Aged 57 At Bedford School 1974-1978 - Burnaby Lt Cdr John A Smart RN (Rtd) Born 26 August 1929 Died 19 November 2019 - Aged 90 At Bedford School 1940-1947 - Crescent Joined the Royal Navy and served in Hong Kong and Japan. 150
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Jack Smith Born 7 March 1936 Died 1 May 2020 - Aged 84 At Bedford School 1949-1954 - Paulo Pontine Together with his twin brother, Peter, Jack was a member of the 1st XV and the 1st XI. Following School Jack played for the Bedford Blues as Full Back and made 343 appearances for the Club between 1953 – 68. He was also chosen to play for the Barbarians in 1965. Jack was also a very talented cricketer and first played for the county in 1959 and his last appearance was in 1975. He was captain from 1962 until 1973 and it was under his bold leadership that Bedfordshire lifted the Minor Counties Championship in both 1970 and 1972, the only two occasions on which the county has been outright winners of the title. Jack himself played a big role in these successes. His accurate off-spin made him the perfect partner for leg-spinner Graham Jarrett and between them they took 97 wickets in 1970 and 74 in 1972. With Trevor Morley taking 40 wickets in each of these seasons, Bedfordshire boasted a formidable attack. As a captain Smith was a born gambler and on most occasions his tactics paid off. One time when things went spectacularly wrong though, was in a Gillette Cup match when, with drizzle in the air, he sent Hampshire into bat after winning the toss, and saw his bowlers slaughtered by Roy Marshall (140) and Barry Reed (112) who set a new competition record for the first wicket. In all he played 147 games for Bedfordshire and took 493 wickets. He was also twice chosen to play for the full Minor Counties representative side against the tourists. Against the Australians in 19 4 he recorded the ama ing figures of 21.1-11-22-3, capturing the wickets of Bill Lawry, Wally Grout and Alan Connolly. A year later he played against the South Africans when Colin Bland, Tiger Lance and Dennis Lindsay were his victims. Jack’s son Simon (77-82) also played for the Blues, making appearances at y-half from 1981-8 . William S Smith Born 27 November 1937 Died 18 June 2020 - Aged 82 At Bedford School 1948-1954 – Crescent William, fondly known as “Bill” was born in 1937 in Hull. He was the eldest of two sons of Sidney and Agnes Smith (nee Bambrough). After leaving Bedford, Bill completed his National Service with the Royal Tank Regiment. His hard work earned him a commission and he went on to become a Second Lieutenant. After completing his military
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service, he trained as a Civil Engineer for Bedford Council. His working career took him overseas to Sierra Leone and Zambia (to name but a few places), and it was whilst in Zambia that he met the love of his life, Valerie. They got married in Lusaka registry o ce in 19 0, and had two daughters, Louise in 19 2 and Alison in 1974. In 1977, Bill and his family left Africa for good, and returned to the UK. They settled back in Bedfordshire and Bill worked for Kier International until his retirement. In 2013, they moved to be closer to family in Bedale, back in Bill’s beloved Yorkshire. It was during his time at Bedford, that Bill developed his lifelong love of rugby and rowing. Rugby, in particular, was his greatest passion and long after his playing days ended, he continued to follow the sport. He was an avid Saracens fan and loved watching England play in the Internationals. He was one very proud Grandad, when his two grandsons decided to follow in his footsteps. Bill was a larger than life character. He touched people with his warm kind heart, generous nature and infectious sense of humour. Straight talking, greatly respected, and dearly loved and adored by his family. Bill is survived by his wife Valerie, his daughters, Louise and Ali, and two grandsons, Jack and Harry. Hugh A W Southon Born 13 October 1927 Died 27 July 2020 - Aged 92 At Bedford School 1934-1945 - Ashburnham Hugh died peacefully in Batemans Bay, Australia. The family moved to Bedford in 19 4 to benefit from the excellent Harpur Trust School. Hugh entered the ‘Inky’ a month before his 7th birthday. In the Upper School, his extra-curricular activities were ‘rugger’, rowing, Scouts and the JTC. An avid birdwatcher, Hugh once surprised a policeman at 4am en route on his bike for a ‘hide’ in Stagsden, in time for the dawn chorus! National Service in the 14/20th Kings Hussars was followed by a degree in Zoology at New College, Oxford. He married Ruth (‘Biddy’ Sturton. BHS) in 1954 and appointment as an entomologist with the East African Trypanosomiasis and Tsetse Research Organisation took the couple to Tanganyika (now Tanzania) and, later, Uganda. After 10 years the family returned to London where Hugh worked for the International Biological Programme for another decade. In 1975 the family emigrated to Australia where Hugh became Executive Secretary of the Australian Academy of Science in Canberra for a further 12 years. Retirement followed in an idyllic spot on the south east coast of New South Wales, where Hugh and Ruth were deeply involved with their community. Attendance at u3a (University of the Third Age kept them mentally stimulated. Hugh final few years were spent, with Ruth, in a care home. The couple had 2 sons and 2 daughters. Their elder son Michael, was at Bedford from 1971-1974 Mrs Elaine Boxhall (sister)
Colonel Roger Squires OBE TD JP DL Born 12 April 1934 Died 4 December 2019 - Aged 85 At Bedford School 1945-1952 - Talbot’s Roger was born in Luton in where his family owned a hat manufacturers. His Bedford school days were due to start on the 8th May 1945 but this was delayed by two days “for the first day of term was in fact VE Day. And so, instead of coming back to school, we celebrated each in his own way, the victory upon which the School, like every other free institution depended for its hope of survival” (from the Ousel July 1945). Roger’s school days passed happily enough. He captained the school boxing team and represented the first for rugby; always preferring sport to the academic side of life. In later years we hosted the OB gatherings in the North West and attended those held by other Old Bedfordians, where all the OBs would delight in reminiscing and hearing news of the school from the current headmaster. On leaving Bedford in 1951 he commenced National Service at Oswestry and from there to O cer training at Mons where he was commissioned into the Royal Artillery. On passing out he joined the 1st Singapore Regiment RA and this positive experience of army life led to him joining the Territorial Army on his return to England. oger spent his working life with Laporte Chemicals, firstly in Luton and then to London and finally Widnes in Cheshire. During those years in Luton his weekends were taken up with playing rugby for Harpenden where he captained the team, and serving with 100 Regiment RA. The move north in 1968 meant leaving the Herts & Beds Yeomanry (100 Regiment) and joining 103rd (Lancashire Artillery Volunteers) Regiment Royal Artillery. 1974 was a special year, Roger took command of the egiment, the first Territorial Army O cer to do so and a month later was married to Jocelyn. They found a house, which had to be within commuting distance of the Batteries based across the north west, their three children were born at intervals so as not to coincide with the Annual camp and family life fitted around the demands of work and the Regiment. In 1978 Roger was promoted to Colonel and was ADC to HM Queen Elizabeth 11. In 1983 he was appointed a Justice of the Peace. From 1985- 1992 he was Honorary Colonel of 103rd Regiment and in 1993 became a Deputy Lieutenant of the county of Cheshire. Having taken early retirement from Laporte he had time to give to other community causes. He was Chairman of the Bench, involved with his village Scouts and Secretary of the village hall. He also maintained his military links by chairing the Friends of the Chester Military Museum. He was a liveryman of The Tallow Chandlers Company and regularly attended Company events in London. Any other spare time was taken up with gardening and travelling. Roger thoroughly enjoyed life and although his health deteriorated in the last 2 years he still managed to attend
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social gatherings. The annual St Barbara’s Dinner, (St Barbara is the patron saint of Gunners), is a major event in the north west TA calendar. For many years he was responsible for the organisation, so it was fitting that it was this dinner that he attended 4 days before he died on 4th December, St Barbara’s Day. He is survived by his wife Jocelyn, 3 children and 6 grandchildren. John Stanton Born 2 May 1935 Died 21 April 2020 - Aged 84 At Bedford School 1948-1953 Pemberley Robert (Bob) W Street Born 22 October 1935 Died 8 July 2020 - Aged 84 At Bedford School 1946-1954 - Paulo Pontine Bob passed away in Douai, France on 8th July 2020 in the presence of his much-loved wife, Jacqueline and their children. He had been unwell for some time but had borne his illness with his normal stoicism and humour. Bob joined the School in the Inky in 1946 where both his intellect and sporting ability were quickly recognised. In the early 1950’s Bob was a popular and successful captain of the 1st XI cricket team and also a member of the 1st XV rugby team. After National Service as a Pilot O cer in the oyal Air Force, Bob went up to Exeter College, Oxford to study Modern Languages. His subsequent teaching career took him to Dulwich, Stowe and High Wycombe. He continued to play cricket and it was with some satisfaction that he scored a century for every club for which he played. On retirement Bob and Jacqueline moved to Douai, Jacqueline’s hometown. With his cricketing days over, Bob was able to pursue his other passions, especially singing and Bridge. For many years he was a member of 2 choirs and of his local Bridge Club. Bob retained happy memories of his days at Bedford and regularly attended the Old Bedfordian ‘At Home’ reunions, where his and Jacqueline’s presence will be sadly missed by his many friends. Major Alan R Taylor RE Born 14 August 1927 Died 16 November 2019 - Aged 92 At Bedford School 1937-1943 - St Cuthbert’s After matriculation Alan immediately enlisted in 1945 and went on to become a Major in the Royal Engineers. While at Sandhurst, as a part of his training, he spent a year at Keble College, Oxford, where he was awarded his Oxford Blue for boxing. He married Joyce Marshall, daughter of Frank Marshall who was Bursar at Bedford School for some years. After 17 years in the British Army Alan demobbed and emigrated to Australia arriving in Perth, Western Australia in 152
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1961. After a few jobs as an engineer he became a teacher at Hale School, the oldest Private School in Perth. He was a teacher there for 20 years and was a house master and senior science master, before retirement. He is survived by his 5 children, 16 grandchildren and 8 great grandchildren. John B Tennant Born 7 October 2020 Died 17 June 2020 - Aged 67 At Bedford School 1963-1971 – Ashburnham John was born in Portsmouth to Jim and Ruth Tennant. Known as JBT to many of his friends he was a keen sportsman, playing rugby in the Colts XV and then the 1st , also playing fives and athletics at school. He was also a Monitor and Head of Howards. After school he trained to be a Chartered Surveyor whilst working at Mellersh & Harding in London as well as attending Caulden College, Stoke on Trent, qualifying in 1978. He then went on to work for Fox & Sons in Southampton. Sadly he had serious mental health issues in his late 20s from which he never fully recovered and had to give up work. He then lived in London, occasionally writing poetry and enjoyed music and going to live concerts. He helped Marjorie Wallace to set up her charity SANE designed to improve the life of people with mental illness and also worked as a volunteer for the Rethink mental illness charity in London. John had a great sense of humour and was always laughing and joking. He was intelligent, honest, loyal and very competitive. He will be sadly missed by his sister Susan and his nieces, Joanna and Sarah and his great nieces, Alicia and Sasha on all of whom he doted. Tim R Thom Born 20 May 1940 Died 30 March 2020 - Aged 79 At Bedford School 1948-1958 - Talbot’s Tim was born in Bombay, India where his father worked in banking. He was the second son and, after early schooling in India, joined his elder brother at Bedford in the Inky as a boarder, initially at Farrars and then Talbots. He excelled at sport playing for the 1st XV in his final year. He was a Monitor and Head of St. Peter’s. Leaving school in 1958, he was articled to Price Waterhouse PW in London and qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1964. He worked on audits and investigations at many well-known multinational and national listed companies, travelling widely in Europe on special assignments, before becoming a partner at their Leicester o ce in 19 . He moved to the Bristol O ce in 19 8,
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becoming Managing Partner in 1983. He was involved in the otation of South West Water when the water companies were oated by the Government. The Times reported in its financial column that PW in Bristol had joined up with the local radio station GWR (now called Heart) to promote the Company by words of wisdom from PW’s Groovy Guru and Senior Partner Tim Thom answering questions on any financial matter – just tune in at 5.45 pm on Wednesday afternoon – and to everyone’s amazement they did! In 1991, shortly after the Kuwait war ended, he was appointed Managing Partner of PW’s Middle East practice where his skills as a banking specialist were recognised. Tim worked for Price Waterhouse all his working life until his retirement in 1996. Tim’s outside activities included being a Justice of the Peace and trustee of many Bristol charities such as St. Monica’s Trust, Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and St. Stephen’s Church Ecclesiastical Trust. In 1984, he joined the Council of Bristol University as a lay member and started a 25-year association with the university. He stood down for his final 2 years in the Middle East but re-joined the Council on his retirement, becoming Honorary Treasurer in 2000. He was actively involved in restructuring the university’s finances which are well placed to continue its ambitions in the core areas of research and teaching. In 2008, he was made an Honorary Doctor of Laws for his services to the university. On retirement, besides his charitable work, Tim took up one of his early loves, golf, and played regularly to a respectable handicap. Another enjoyment was watching and helping his grandchildren grow up. He was always interested in their achievements and was delighted recently when his South African granddaughter came to Bristol to further her legal qualifications. Tim is survived by his divorced wife, two daughters, six grandchildren and by his partner of 25 years. Anthony P Thomas Born 31 October 1931 Died 15 October 2018 - Aged 86 At Bedford School 1944-1948 - Sanderson’s Sue Tomlin Born 23 February 1946 Died 13 July 2020 - Aged 74 Bedford School Staff 1983-2006 Sue joined the nursing profession in 1967 having qualified as an S N in Liverpool where she worked, firstly, in men’s surgery and casualty, then in midwifery and, ultimately, as a casualty sister until 19 2 when her first son, Tim, was born. Son Nic was added in 1974 and Sue joined the BNA as a part-time industrial nurse until her enrolment at Bedford School in 1983. Sue oversaw the move from the old establishment in Glebe Road to the present, more spacious and better-equipped centre in Burnaby Road. She was a wonderful wife, she was good looking, thoughtful, never put herself first, full of life, generous,
superb host and never missed a birthday. One of life’s born communicators. If you made friends with Sue, you made a friend for life. A very loyal and honest person. She loved good food, coffee, walking holidays, theatre, music, concerts, the gymnasium, gardening, tennis, chatting, watching Wimbledon and Strictly. Sue developed Major Cancer 7 years ago and had a Mitrofanoff Operation at ing Edward II Hospital in London. A complicated and di cult operation. Life was almost normal after the operation and she continued her busy lifestyle. She took an active role in the Mitrofanoff Society. We attended many bi-annual events and Sue attended the lectures and mentored people thinking of having the life changing operation, occasionally relating her experiences to the society. Tragically the cancer returned and she entered hospital where she further contracted Covid-19 and died in July. She is survived by her second husband Mike, 2 sons, a stepdaughter and 2 grandchildren Mike Tomblin Richard J Wallis Born 23 January 1931 Died 21 August 2019 - Aged 88 At Bedford School 1941-1949 – Ashburnham John was born in Southend-onSea. His father had run away from an insecure home environment at age 14 and worked the Arctic convoys to Murmansk, chipping ice off the mainframe in free ing temperatures to avoid the ship capsizing. By the time John was born he had become a civil Richard on right servant. John’s mother worked in an accounts o ce, where she was renowned for her arithmetical skills. John won a scholarship to Bedford. Three aspects of his time there stood out in his memory: the negative one - that the pupils were divided alphabetically by surname as to whether they did German or Geography - remained a source of abiding regret, since it apparently closed down for him the opportunity to apply for a languages degree at university. More positively, he thrived on the sporting opportunities at school, captaining the rugby team and being prevented only by injury from enjoying a full season in the cricket 1st XI. He also recalled his Bedford headmaster (or tutor?) arranging his place at Cambridge to study History by telephoning a don he knew at the university. John was the first in his family to go to university, and those years proved to be the best of his life: the university air squadron, college sport, enduring friendships and ‘hearty’ times in The Little Rose. Despite all that, he got a II.i and then a job at De la Rue, parking his car for the day on Regent Street just where it curves towards Piccadilly Circus. He met his first wife Jean when both were promoting formica at The Ideal Home Exhibition in 1956, their son Robin being born in 1961. His adventures around the world as a marketing director from the mid- 0s to the mid-90s - selling first hospitals and later architectural glazing - were chronicled in a mémoire entitled ‘Oiling the wheels’. It was a work of its time, full
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of insight and daring. Much of it covered his endeavours as a one-man o ce promoting South African-made specialty glazing at a time when trade with that country was problematic. The memoir could have entertained a wide readership had it been published. However, despite his uency as a writer, ohn struggled at times with the practical side of life - in this case, the need for a good editor and agent. He spent his last 30 years in Walton-on-Thames, with his second wife Margaret until her death in 2013. Golf, cricket and rugby remained his abiding passions, and he chose a prayer of thanks for sportsmanship to be read at his memorial service. His son and grandson both followed him to Cambridge - the former to read languages, in which John greatly encouraged him. John leaves one son and four grandchildren. Robin F W Watkin Born 28 March 1944 Died January 2020 - Aged 75 At Bedford School 1953-1961 - St Peter’s Mike J Watt Born 1 October 1947 Died 10 February 2020 - Aged 72 At Bedford School 1956-1965 - Crescent John F Webb Born 24 December 1937 Died 6 April 2002 - Aged 64 At Bedford School 1953-1955 - Pemberley Lt Col John C Weston MC Born 4 November 1928 Died 27 March 2020 - Aged 91 At Bedford School 1942-1945 - Sanderson’s On leaving School John joined the Royal Marines, following in his father’s footsteps, Eric Culpeper Weston, who had served during the Second World War as a MajorGeneral in the Royal Marines. An ancestor was Thomas Culpeper, accused of having an affair with Catherine Howard, 5th wife of Henry VIII and beheaded. John was on amphibious training exercises in 1950 when he was urgently recalled to Eastney Barracks to take command of a detachment of bewildered marines. They were isolated in secrecy before being dispatched with sealed orders to Devonport, to join the frigate Austell Bay, whose captain seemed equally confused. Leaning over the bridge he called out: “Who the hell are you and what do you want?” After the orders were opened the ship sailed two hours later for the Falklands, to deter one of the first post-war Argentine threats to invade the islands. On arrival in Port Stanley, John was presented with a white charger by a welcoming committee who thought this was the proper way for an o cer to lead his men into town. ohn was the intelligence o cer of 4 Commando, oyal 154
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Marines, when it made a first-ever heli-borne assault from the sea at Suez, On November 5 1956, as the dust and noise of the helicopters subsided to reveal the De Lesseps statue alongside the Sue Canal, a British fighter delivered a devastating attack, killing several marines and wounding others, including ohn and his commanding o cer. John was swiftly evacuated to Malta where an accomplished surgeon reconstructed his right arm, though it never regained full mobility. Subsequently he held the rare privilege of saluting with his left arm. Later he met the pilot, who insisted that he had attacked only after several protests to the forward air controller had been overruled. In September 1966, John was commanding C Company, 40 Command in dangerous jungle along the border in Sarawak. Locating an enemy platoon, he executed a textbook pre-emptive strike, using lethal firepower and sound tactics, before withdrawing successfully and without casualties. The citation for his MC identified his calmness under fire during an intense engagement in which some 30 enemy were killed: “Weston who, although severely handicapped himself by an arm badly wounded at Suez, never spared himself and has set a magnificent example to his men. During service in Borneo (1963-66), John started a collection of wild animals, including two honey bears, a giant hornbill, several mongeese, a vicious monitor li ard and five pythons. Covertly shipped to his next posting, Singapore, one of the bears broke loose, but John managed to thrust the animal into the back of his car and, with a shaken young daughter beside him, sped off to his quarters at ohore Bahru while the bear rampaged on the back seat. His arrival coincided with a truck carrying the rest of the collection: “It’s OK, darling, I can explain everything,” he told his wife. John subsequently served in the Admiralty, with the USMC in Virginia and in Scotland, and was universally popular and respected. In 1978, however, he took early retirement to assume a management role at the Design Council in London. For almost 30 years he lived in Liss Forest where he was an active member of the community. A rare blood infection led to the amputation of both legs, which he bore courageously, while insisting that he should live at home to the end. ohn married, first, in 19 1, Pamela Bowden. She died in 1997 and he married, secondly, Jean Bruce, the widow of a brother o cer and a former House of Worth model known as “Rowlande”. She died in 2013. He is survived by a son and two daughters. Adapted from The Telegraph Grant B Williams JP Born 31 December 1932 Died 21 February 2020 - Aged 87 At Bedford School 1943-1951 - St Peter’s Grant was Consultant Urologist and Transplant Surgeon at Charing Cross Hospital from 1968-1988 with his speciality being vasovasostomy, the reversal of vasectomy. R M Roy Wills Born 23 October 1930 Died 5 August 2017 - Aged 86 At Bedford School 1942-1947 - Paulo Pontine
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David R Wynn-Wiliams Born 21 March 1934 Died 12 September 2019 - Aged 85 At Bedford School 1947-1952 - Talbot’s David did National Service mostly in Egypt after Bedford and then worked for Regent Oil in the north of England where he played rugby for several of the big clubs. He worked his way up the oil trade and worked for BP in London and continued to play rugger for Richmond. He lived in Essex, then London where he met and married Susie and went on to work for an American company and then finally for Petrotrade, an Arabian company. When he retired from the oil industry, he moved to Dorset with his wife Susie in 1988, where he devoted his time to golf, dogs, gardening, bridge and watching sport on television. He managed to see the World Cup cricket and the Ashes in his final weeks but timed his death from cancer badly, as he missed the World Cup Rugby. David died peacefully on Thursday 12th September 2019 aged 85 years. He was a accomplished sportsman and played in the 1st XI rugby, the 1st XI cricket, was Captain of Fives, played at Junior Wimbledon and was a good golfer. He played rugby for the East Midlands, Cheshire and Richmond amongst others. He thoroughly enjoyed going to the OB lunches in Bournemouth to hear news of the school and where he met John Moule, the Headmaster at the time and renewed his acquaintance watching cricket at Radley where David’s grandson was a pupil and John Moule, the new Headmaster. David loved his time at Bedford but as his Headmaster wrote in his report when he was 15 “ I hope David will take his mind off the sports field if he is to pass his exams and have any future prospects.” David leaves a widow, Susie, two daughters, two stepchildren and five grandchildren and all of them enjoy sport. Phillip A Young Born 1944 Died 7 July 2020 – Aged 76 Bedford School Staff 1966-2004 Phillip was born in Southall, spent his early childhood in Cranford and was educated at Latymer School in Hammersmith between 1955 and 1962 where he proved to have a talent for rowing. He then moved onto She eld University leaving with a degree in chemistry) and undertook a year’s teacher training before joining Bedford School in 1966 as a chemistry master and tutor to one of the boarding houses –
Kirkman’s. This was where he met Margaret who was at that time, the matron. They subsequently married in 1969 and had a son, Matthew (78-83) in 1971. Margaret went on to teach piano in the school. Phillip spent his entire teaching career at Bedford School. His responsibilities gradually developed beyond chemistry master to housemaster of St Cuthbert’s, coaching the 2nd rowing VIII and running the Combined Cadet Force (he reached the rank of Commander in the Royal Naval Reserve). And, in the latter years of his career taking on sailing instruction and overseeing the UCAS university entry system. This last responsibility meant he (and the family) lost the last two weeks of the summer school holiday as he dealt with getting boys into their places of further education as well as giving blunt but kindly analyses of a boy’s choices to over-expectant parents. He excelled at all these different responsibilities. This was achieved alongside becoming Head of Chemistry just before retirement. Outside of school he was a very knowledgeable amateur historian and was revered for his powerful and vivid lectures. He was known as a hard but fair schoolmaster and was well respected by his pupils. He was also a mainstay of the common room, sometimes adorned in a lurid blue wetsuit after an afternoon’s sailing! On retirement, Phillip and Margaret left Bedford for Whitstable in Kent. Phillip had a long association with Whitstable as he would normally spend his summers there as a child because of the amount of family in the town. His mother moved from London to Whitstable after his father’s death and lived there until the end of her life. A part of each summer would be spent with his family and his mother where they would enjoy the beach and seaside. On retirement, he and Margaret chose to make this idyllic area their home. Once moved, Phillip took up his serious hobby of astronomy, creating a makeshift but very functional observatory out of an old shed in the garden. He was an active and respected member of SEKAS (South East Kent Astronomical Society) and participated in many cold night meets in and around Dover. He continued his night vigils in the observatory until it became too di cult or the temperature got too low! He was also a talented calligrapher and the house is adorned with many of his projects. He was a member of the local calligraphy club and was well respected not only for his skill but for his kindness and encouragement to others. He carried on these activities while fighting his illness. In 2015, he was diagnosed with Bowel Cancer and went through three major operations and many chemotherapy sessions and was for a while, cancer free. Sadly, it returned, and he stopped treatment at the end of February 2020 when it was clear that his condition was terminal and advancing quickly. His health continued to decline with increased rapidity until his admission to the Pilgrim’s Hospice in Canterbury in the second half of June. He died on the morning of the 7th of July. Throughout his illness he maintained his dignity and humour right up until the end and bore what is a terrible disease bravely and only rarely with complaint. He is greatly missed not only by his immediate and extended family, but also by those who at some point had had the pleasure of his company, wit and wisdom. ■
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OLD BEDFORDIAN NOTICES 2021 HAPPY 1ST BIRTHDAY
Eagle Connect! We’re thrilled to report that a year after launch, we already have over 1,400 members on Eagle Connect our online social and business networking hub, Designed to bring the Bedford School community closer together; it enables willing OBs, past and present Bedford parents, grandparents and staff to stay connected and support each other in all aspects of their life. It differs to other social networks, as all members have a shared affection for Bedford School, enabling us to create a highly engaged and supportive online community. In collaboration with the school careers department, we will also use Eagle Connect to support the careers programme for current boys and OBs; encouraging them to start stretching their horizons, understand the value of building a network and help them to build a set of skills that will ensure their employability in the workplace of the future. Join via our website: bit.ly/BSEagleConnect
Save the Date
Saturday 4TH July 2021 OB Club At Home Join us at Bedford School for this very popular event, with tours of the school buildings, House receptions, the ‘At Home’ Drinks Reception and a three-course lunch in a marquee on the playing fields. As we were unable to host an anniversary reunion in 2020, we will be welcoming Leavers from the Classes of 2010, 2000, 1990, 1980, 1970 and 1960 to join the 2011, 2001, 1991, 1981, 1971 and 1961 Leavers for a bumper Anniversary Reunion! Further details will be available on our website at: bit. ly/OBEventsCal
Update your contact details Support your Club and become an Eagle Supporter
All OBs are invited to become Eagle Supporters and take advantage of the benefits of this additional level of membership – all for £25 a year, that’s less than the price of a cup of coffee per month!
WHAT YOU RECEIVE:
A hard copy of the primary annual OB communications, the Ousel magazine, full of School and Old Bedfordian articles, news, event write-ups and photographs. Discounts to some key Club events, such as the Annual Dinner and ‘At Home’ lunch. Access to the school Heritage site, enabling you to search through digitised Ousels dating back to 1876. Become a member online: bit.ly/OBSubscribingMembership
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• DO WE HAVE YOUR CURRENT EMAIL ADDRESS? • IF YOU GAVE US YOUR WORK EMAIL, HAVE YOU SINCE MOVED TO A NEW JOB? • HAVE YOU SWITCHED BROADBAND PROVIDER AND CHANGED YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS IN THE PROCESS?
Most of our communications are now done via email so please keep us updated if you would like to keep receiving OB Club updates, event invitations and news. You can also update your details by visiting: bit.ly/OBConnect
Bishop Memorial Fund The Bishop Memorial Fund is for OBs, former staff and their dependants who may be in financial need. For more information please contact the OB Club Director, Hugh Maltby. Please draw the existence of the Fund to the attention of anyone who may qualify for help. Find out more on our website here: bit.ly/BishopMemFund