Old Blue News July 2004
Since leaving CH Hugo Abreu (Ma B/Ma A 91–98) has become a successful Scratch/Battle DJ whose skills have taken him to Europe and San Francisco, while Davide Machado (Pe B/La A 91–98) has played DJ sets across London, Lisbon and Ibiza. With the assistance of Francis Thomas (Th B/Mid A 91–98) they have set up Gold Seal Recordings, a collective of musicians, artists and technical personnel based in West London, training young people “regardless of financial status or ethnic background”. On 15 March the Metro newspaper had an enthusiastic article about Gold Seal and its “alternative rehabilitation schemes” for young people from deprived backgrounds. “We figured that it benefited us to get these kids in and hone the skills they already have,” said Abreu. “We would have a ready supply of fresh talent; no one would have used them before. We get first pick, and instead of being on the streets causing trouble, they are in here, learning a skill.”
Dr Guy Rhodes (LHB/Pe A 80–86) has been in Vietnam as manager of the Landmine and UXO (unexploded ordnance) Impact Assessment and Survey run by the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation, and as chair of the Landmine Working Group in that country. He lamented the pitiful level of international support for demining in Vietnam compared with Angola, Cambodia and the Balkans. Guy has been involved in “mine action” for more than a decade, working in Angola (leading a team of 750), Mozambique, Thailand and Kosovo. His wife Meriel is Director of the US-based non-governmental organisation Counterpart International, and they have 2 sons born in Hanoi, Max and Luke.
Uniquely among opera companies, the widely admired “w11” casts only school-age singers for each of its professionally produced shows. The year’s, All In The Mind, was commissioned from Edward Lambert (Wright, Th A 61–70) who as well as composing symphonies, string quartets, vocal music and chamber opera has a long track record of encouraging young people to create their own operas (the Royal Opera House rewarded him with a commission for their first schools’ opera, The Button Moulder). All In The Mind is set several millennia from now and involves artificial intelligence and cloning. It will be staged at the Britten Theatre, South Kensington, on December 11 & 12.
Previously Chief Education Officer for Wolverhampton and then for Shropshire, Carol Adams (CH 59–65) has been Chief Executive of the General Teaching Council for England since 1999, and has written numerous classroom books on history and gender.
Dr Simon Groom (La A 77–84) is Head of Exhibitions and Displays at Tate Liverpool and the person who conceived its recent fascinating show, The Shape of Ideas: Models and Sculptures from the Tate Collection. He was appointed last year after three years as Exhibitions Officer at Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, before which he was co-director at E1 Gallery, London, and he has also worked at the Hayward Gallery and in Italy and Japan.
The government has thrown its weight behind the campaign to re-investigate the death of Jeremiah Duggan (Th A 92–99) (see last term’s Blue, page 57). After meeting Jerry’s mother Erica on 1 April the Foreign Office minister Baroness Symons promised to assign the family a specialist human rights lawyer who could help put pressure on the German authorities. The government is unable to apply direct pressure because it cannot interfere in the legal process of another country, but by deciding to assist in this way officials have sent a clear message of concern about the case. On the same day the Justice for Jeremiah campaign was launched at the House of Commons and was covered by BBC TV news; two days later Erica Duggan was interviewed on BBC News 24. The family has proposed that the last week in March should be used as a Cult Awareness Week in schools, universities and colleges, in memory of Jerry and to alert parents and students to the dangers posed by cults, political, religious or psychological.
William Nye (La B 78–83) has moved from the Treasury to be Director of Finance at the Home Office.
A new role for Rhodri Britton (Col A 71–78): he’s now Head of Music Staff at the Opera House in Dortmund, Germany.
Joe Sillett (LHB/LHA 83–90) has set up the Woodworm Cricket Company, with himself as managing director and Peter Wilkins (Mid B/Mid A 90–97) as operations manager. Mike Hiard (Col B 70–77, Governor) is also involved. Their revolutionary new bat, the Woodworm Wand, omits a vulnerable part of the blade and redistributes the wood into a larger and heavier hitting zone. “The wood is much better off in the right place,” says Joe. Earlier this year they signed Andrew Flintoff and Muttiah Muralitharan, both of whom will be modelling Woodworm’s new boots, developed in association with a leading manufacturer.
Delayed news: at the British Sports Journalism Awards for 2002 Mike Hewitt (La A 72–78) of Getty Images was the winner in the Sports Portfolio category.
An Old Blue who has risen high in the public relations world is Jon McLeod (CH 76–83/4), managing director of Weber Shandwick Legal for the UK, Europe, Africa and the Middle East. He spent six years in journalism before moving into Public Affairs in 1994. Clients since then have included the Meat and Livestock Commission, McDonald’s, Volvo, Panasonic and Vivendi. He is the principal political adviser to the Bar Council, for whom he acts as chief press officer, and he also advises leading law firms and chambers on media relations, marketing and litigation PR. Before joining Weber Shandwick Jon worked in government, spent three years as political editor of the Diplomat and a further three years with the lobbying firm Westminster Strategy.
Proprietor of Hatch Event Management, which offers bespoke corporate events (recognising that not all employees are single, play golf, love drinking and can stay out all evening), is Yemisi Mokoulu (Ba B 88–96).
Since qualifying as a solicitor in 1996 Siân Keall (3’s/Ba A 83–90) has specialised in employment law, with corporate immigration issues as a further string to her bow. Her areas of expertise include the new law on religious/belief discrimination, flexible working, maternity/adoption/paternity leave, and the Transfer of Undertakings Regulations. She was made a partner at Travers Smith last year and is a contributing editor of the Sweet & Maxwell’s Employment Law Manual.
In January Paul Uwemedimo (Pe A 75–83) was ordained Priest in the Roman Catholic Church in Manila, Philippines.
At St Andrews University the Divinity Faculty has its own college, St Mary’s, where Laura Nightingale (LHB/Gr E 99–01) is studying for an MA in Philosophy & Theological Studies. She says “the School is friendly and classes are small enough to allow interaction with the lecturers. All the staff are really approachable and after a short time it’s easy to feel very much part of the college.” She expects to graduate in 2005, pending which she is secretary of the university hill walking club and organises a monthly Taizé prayer gathering at the Catholic Chaplaincy.
TriNation Management and Development aims to become “the Number One real estate company in Romania.” Chief Executive Officer Michael Lloyd (Mid A 77–84) has been involved in the Romanian real estate market since 1992, originally as an advisor to the Presidents of the National Agency for Privatization and the Romanian Development Agency. In 1995 he started the full service office of Jones Lang LaSalle (formerly Jones Lang Wootton), for whom he specialised in development advisory and financial appraisal works. He has worked across both Eastern and Western Europe including two-year postings in both Warsaw and Prague.
Plus Two, based in Twyford, Berkshire, is a multi-media company offering expertise in on-screen media, live events production, website design and much else. David Kimmer (Th B/Th A 86–93) is its creative director.
Jon Considine (Ma A B/Pe B/LHA 80–87) has a degree in Computer Systems from Bristol University. After graduating he worked for Marconi designing security systems and radio and telephony equipment. Since 1997 he has been an independent software developer working on various projects including smart card systems for a major bank.
“Document S.O.S.” is Britain’s only fully comprehensive disaster restoration company for business paperwork, books and art damaged by flood, fire and explosion. It was the first to introduce business continuity management and training programs exclusively for hard copy; this department was set up by Leo Vesey (Mid B/Mid A 88–93) after he’d gained an International Disaster Engineering and Management degree at Coventry University.
Current and upcoming films include Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban for which Paddy Eason (Ma A/Ba A 78–85) was visual effects supervisor; Exorcist: The Beginning with James D’Arcy (La A 84–91); Atomik Circus, Drum and Comfortably Numb, all with Jason Flemyng (Mid A 78–83); and Sorstalanság (or Fateless), a version of Imre Kertesz’s Nobel Prize-winning novel about Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust, produced by Robert Buckler (Col B 59–65).
Peter Lee-Wright (Th A 61–68) is Senior Lecturer in Film and Video Production at Southampton Institute, the UK’s largest general college of higher education.
At Kimbells solicitors in Milton Keynes Hilary Norris (1’s/4’s 79–85) is Head of Employment. Previously manager of the employment unit at Taylor Walton, she has also worked for the Crown Prosecution Service and the specialist London employment practice Archon (formerly Langley & Co).
Professor Geoffrey P Summers (Pe A/La A 54–62) chairs the Physics Department at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
The Telegraph calls him the “face of BBC classical music”. Charles Hazlewood (La B/Ma A 78–85) was the creator of six films shown on BBC2/4 in March, collectively entitled The Genius of Mozart, for which he recorded all the music with his own orchestra The Mozart Collective. In April he presented the BBC4 series Early Music.
Barrister Dr Ian Budden (Pe B 58–65) has been Legal and Constitutional Adviser to the University of London since 1998. He has served the university in various capacities for thirty years.
George Philip (Mid B 61–66) is now Professor of Comparative and Latin American Politics at the London School of Economics.
At University College, London, Becky Hill (2’s 77–84) has obtained her PhD and is a Research Fellow in the Ergonomics Unit.
Henry Pim (Col A 56–65) is Head of Ceramics at the National College of Art and Design, Dublin.
Two of the three founders of JCL Burns Sheehan Ltd, which specializes in recruiting IT professionals in large financial/energy trading organizations, professional services, consultancy, retail and property clients, are John Cullen (Pe A 71–78) and Jonathan (Baz) Sheehan (Ba A 78–86).
Former Senior Grecian Geoff Hines (La A B 51–59) is based in Brisbane, Australia, where for the last ten years he has hosted and organized a regular Founder’s Day Dinner. Geoff has been operating his own executive search and selection company for twenty years, following a very successful human resources management career in major corporate organisations. In his Oxford days he gained two Blues for rugby football, playing in the Varsity Match in 1961 and 1962, as well as completing a chemistry degree and a Diploma in Education. He also played for England against the Rest in the final England Trial in 1962, and while teaching in Northern Rhodesia played for Rhodesia in the Currie Cup. Now see “Congratulations” below.
Gerard Gregg-Smith (Col B 70–77), whose background is in the pharmaceutical industry and healthcare investment banking, has joined the executive search firm Coulter Partners, one of whose specialities is leadership appointments in healthcare/life science companies.
In the year he left CH Jasper Griffin (Pe A 48–56) arrived at Balliol College, Oxford, and apart from one year in the States he’s been there ever since. In 1963 he became Tutorial Fellow in Classics, a role he kept when appointed Professor of Classical Literature and Public Orator of the University in 1992, required to make witty and pertinent Latin speeches on official occasions. For the last four years he has been Balliol’s Senior Tutor. He retires this summer after “a very privileged existence in a marvellous place doing what one likes doing.” It will, he says, be a relief to say goodbye to examining and to “all those meetings, which seem to make one so incredibly busy”, but “leaving my teaching room on Staircase XVIII, where I was unforgettably taught by Russell Meiggs [Ma B 12–21, Senior Grecian, Horsham Staff 20s], will be quite a wrench”. Asked which book had given him most inspiration for his hundreds of Latin addresses, he cited Plutarch’s Lives, adding that he hadn’t read Plutarch in Greek at CH because the writer’s post-classical Greek was thought “too bad” for schoolboys. “In those distant days the main point of reading the ancient writers was to acquire the skill of imitating their style in one’s own Greek prose and verse compositions.” After a short autumn cruise as a Swan Hellenic guest lecturer he plans to write a book on Tragedy and History, exploring the relationship between Attic tragedy (using mythical stories) and what was happening politically in fifth century Greece.
Birmingham University’s Institute for German Studies has been celebrating its tenth anniversary with a series of policy workshops co-ordinated by Ed (Owen) Turner (Mid B 88–95). While working at the Institute on a doctoral thesis on party coalitions and policy outcomes in the German Länder Ed has been active as a Labour member of Oxford City Council and was seeking re-election as we went to press.
The Edinburgh University Fives Club, founded last year by veterinary geneticist Chris Palgrave (La A B/Th A 91–98, Senior Grecian), gained a bronze medal on their first visit to the British Universities Sports Association Fives Championships and are tipped to host the event in the future. Their twenty players have enjoyed an ambitious programme of fixtures against local schools, clubs and other UK universities. Also in Edinburgh, Harriet Atkinson (Ba B/Gr W 00–02) has been performing with the University Singers.
Pia Abraham (Ba A/Gr E 00–02) and Dilip Abraham (CH c. 2000) have been playing squash (and Dilip seems to be organising it) for Oxford Brookes University. Elder brother Deepak (Ma A 95–97) was a star player at Harvard a few years back. Meanwhile Luke Stutchbury (OB, left 2003) has been rowing for Keble College, Oxford.
At Numerica, the entrepreneurial business service provider, the director of business recovery is Chris Laughton (Col A 69–76), who also edits Recovery, the quarterly journal of the Association of Business Recovery Professionals.
Dan Pedley (Th B/CA 77–84) plays cornet in the Riddings Band, an unsponsored First Section English brass band which originates from the Derbyshire village of Riddings and performs all over the country.
Since October John Kirk (Mid A 85–92) has been back at PMSI Consulting, developing management consultancy tools in Visual Studio.
Computer programmer and systems analyst Diana Awdry (née Scott, 7’s 53–60) and her husband Christopher now have their own publishing company, Sodor Enterprises, specialising in illustrated books for young people with stories by Christopher, who is best known for continuing his father’s Thomas the Tank Engine series. It was Diana who came up with the company’s name, alluding to the Island of Sodor where Thomas and his friends live.
The Observer’s magazine on 15 February talked to trainspotter Ian Allan – not an OB himself but a Governor, printer of The Blue and son of G A T Allan (CH 1890–96, Clerk c. 1941, President CH Club 49–52). He published his first locospotter-s guide in 1943 (it sold out immediately) and the Ian Allan Locospotters’ Club once had 260,000 members. These days he’s chairman of the Great Cockcrow Railway, Surrey – all two miles of it. His second favourite number, he says, is 913, the number of the Southern Railway Schools Class engine “Christ’s Hospital”. The Ian Allan Group is now run by his sons, but he’s still in the office at Shepperton five days a week. A full-page photo showed him, looking far younger than 83, astride the sort of small–scale locomotive Keith Stratton (Horsham Staff 67–93) used to build.
For the past two years Stuart Holland (La A 51–59) has been a Visiting Professor in the Economics Faculty at the University of Coimbra, Portugal.
The Brief Therapy Practice offers short courses aimed at giving experienced professionals extra skills. Its “General Practitioner – Survival Strategies” course for the seriously stretched GP is run by Dr Clare Thormod (4’s 75–82).
The Rev Geoffrey Roper (Mid A 50–58) is Chairman of the Churches (sic) Committee for Healthcare Chaplaincy.
At the age of eighteen Tony Teale (La A 79–85) “found his true love and life’s calling” when he joined the yachting industry. He went on to complete a degree in Yacht Design and has since raced and cruised – always on Swans – acquiring a thorough knowledge of the Caribbean, New England and the Mediterranean. Lately he has been working for Nicholson Yachts as captain of the seventy-foot luxury charter yacht Chippewa. “With Tony’s congenial, easy-going nature and broad experience you can relax and enjoy the exhilaration of sailing this high performance cruiser/racer.”
Andy Margrett (Ma A/La A 81–87) is recruitment manager for Aerosystems International.
“Currently retired from full-time employment”, Elizabeth Llewellyn-Smith (3’s 46–53) is a non-executive Director of the Consumers Association, a member of the Accountancy Investigation and Discipline Board and a Governor of Rugby School.
Jim Tamvakis (Horsham Staff 91–92, 94–96) holds the new post of Director of Boarding at “Churchie” (aka Anglican Church Grammar School, East Brisbane) and is treasurer of the Australian Boarding Staff Association.
At Repton School Jeremy Bournon (Pe B 63–71) is Head of Art.
Christian Ashby (Mid B 93–00) was technical director of a Cambridge production of Much Ado About Nothing staged at various venues around Europe during December, and has also been at the Aldwych Theatre as a deputy sound technician on FAME! The Musical.
From Australia comes an unusual CD, The Convict Harpsichordist by Elizabeth Anderson (Move MD3242). The convict is John Grant (CH 1785–90) who after shooting a London lawyer in the buttock and being sentenced to death at the Old Bailey was reprieved and transported to Australia, arriving there in 1804 with the country’s first harpsichord. Anderson’s answer to the question “What music did he play?” is a selection from Bach, Mozart, Handel, Scarlatti, Pietro Domenico Paradies and Padre Antonio Soler. There’s a bonus CD-ROM video section telling the John Grant story in words and music, a comprehensive illustrated historical booklet and a newly commissioned work by Ron Nagorcka, “This Beautiful Wicked Place.” Roger Wickins (Ba A 49–54), who sent this item, adds that Grant shot the lawyer because the lawyer had told Grant’s girlfriend that he (Grant) was gay.
Saga Magazine recently gave an extract from Dorothy Wordsworth’s journal for 1803, describing her visit to the grave of Robert Burns, who had died in 1796, and to the house (“dirty about the doors” and of “a mean appearance”) where his widow and children were still living. She noted that “Mrs Burns’s youngest son was in Christ’s Hospital.” This was James Glencairn Burns (CH 1802–09) who went on to become a Lieutenant Colonel in the army of the East India Company.
Carl Igolen-Robinson (Pe B/Pe A 84–91) is master in charge of cricket at Haileybury and has been playing rugby for Hertford.
In February Channel 4 showed the 1958 film I was Monty’s Double in which John Gale (Col B 38–46, Governor & Almoner) and Patrick Holt (P G Parsons, Ma A 22–28) both took part.
The Halstead B Vander Poel collection of English Literature, sold at Christie’s in March, contained a manuscript showing Robert Southey and Samuel Taylor Coleridge (CH 1782–91, Senior Grecian) collaborating on an anthology in 1799, including the supposedly unpatriotic “War Poem” that Southey felt obliged to cancel.
Alister Watt (Pe B 63–72) works at Radamec Broadcast Systems in Sunbury as a software engineer. RBS build robotic camera control systems for news/current affairs programmes and legislative bodies. At CH he was the nursemaid of the future West End star Roger Allam (Pe B/Th A 64–72) and “nearly met him at the NT, as I have worked there as a contractor on the power flying system.” He recognizes a couple of other names in the Blue Yellow Pages: Jeremy Harding-Edgar (Pe B 63–72) was contemporary with him in Peele B, while Crispin Southgate (Col B/La A 65–73) was a fellow member of the Faraday Club that Christopher Vincent-Smith (Horsham Staff 62–95) used to run. He says Chris V-S plays viola in the Horsham Symphony Orchestra, where Alister’s wife is a second violin; the orchestra has been conducted by Malcolm McKelvey (Horsham Director of Music 62–85, Governor) and Charles Hazlewood (La A B/Ma A 78–85). Alister shoots at Bisley with the OB rifle club every July.
When a woman’s arm is outstretched, why does it bend backwards from the elbow unlike a man’s? This query in The Times was answered by Dr Phyllis Hoffman (3’s 49–56, Governor) who said the obtuse angle thus formed was known as the “carrying angle” because it ensured that any object carried could be held clear of the female’s hips, which are wider than the male’s. She added that in 1958 there was a question on it in the exam for membership of the Society of Radiography. “I trained at Guy’s and had never heard of it but the students from the Middlesex Hospital were able to enlighten me – after the exam was over, of course.”
The Telegraph noticed Margaret Clayton (5’s/8’s 52–59) speaking at a Farriers’ Company ceremony at St. Bartholomew’s Hall in February, and the Rev John Morley (Ma A B 38–47) preaching at a service for the Parish Clerks’ Company at St Martin-within-Ludgate in May.
In the Christmas newsletter of the Anglican Chaplaincy in Lyon, the chaplain Chris Martin (La A 59–63) mentioned sending Christmas cards to “a couple of my friends from school: one a professor of Linguistics in Paris, the other running a vineyard in Somerset.” Any guesses?
The Royal Astronomical Society honours the memory of G J Whitrow (La A 23–30), the mathematician and authority on time who died in 2000, with a biannual Gerald Whitrow Lecture on Cosmology.
Opened last year by Anglican Homes in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, The Edward Collick Home commemorates the remarkable Rev Canon E M Collick (2’s 1878–84) who ministered in the region for thirty years from 1894. It is said he so befriended Aboriginal people in the Goldfields that they thought “Collick” meant “priest”. Latterly he was Archdeacon of the Goldfields and Rector of Kalgoorlie before moving in 1924 to Fremantle where he served as Rector until 1950, dying in 1959 aged 91. There are many moving and entertaining stories of his life and work.
One of the five plaques on the Heritage Trail in Selsey, Sussex, commemorates Group Captain Teddy Donaldson (Ma A 1920s) who lived at Iron Latch Cottage in the High Street and broke the world Air Speed Record flying a Gloster Meteor in 1947.
CONGRATULATIONS
Sir John Daniel (Mid A 52–61, Governor) has been appointed President of the Commonwealth of Learning, an intergovernmental organisation created by Commonwealth Heads of Government to encourage the development and sharing of open learning and distance education knowledge, resources and technologies.
Dr W A B (Alec) Douglas (La A 38–47) has been awarded the Admirals’ Medal for 2003 in recognition of his long and distinguished career in Canadian maritime and naval history. A former Director-General, History, at the Department of National Defence in Ottawa, he helped to set up the Canadian Nautical Research Society and invigorated its journal, Northern Mariner; initiated the Official Operational History of the Royal Canadian Navy, recruiting and leading the research team and co-anchoring the project; and opened up opportunities for Canadian Forces people to do advanced studies, himself acting as supervisor for military students at several universities. The purpose of the Admirals’ Medal Foundation is to recognise the significant contributions of individuals to Canadian maritime affairs.
Dame Ruth Deech (née Fraenkel, 7’s 53–61) has been appointed as the first Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education, dealing with complaints and appeals from students in England and Wales, that cannot be resolved within the institutions of higher education themselves. In March she was a guest at the Buckingham Palace Women’s Lunch, which aimed to highlight the achievements and contributions of women across a range of fields.
Stephen Harrison (Col B 71–78) has been appointed Reader in Classical Languages and Literature at Oxford University.
Anthony Hart (La B/Th A/La A 94–99) is the proud father of Louis, “who at the time of writing is eleven months old and is as handsome as his father.”
Geoff Hines (La B 51–59, Senior Grecian) remarried in October to Meg Russell, a mezzo-soprano who used to sing with the Australian Opera Company. The best man was Michael White (Col B 46–54) who was in Australia for the Rugby World Cup – he and Geoff played many games together years ago for the OBRFC 1st XV. Geoff adds that Michael “came with us on the honeymoon and we played golf every day!!!!”
Squadron Leader Robin Miller (Mid B 49–54) has been awarded the Master Air Pilot Certificate by the Guild of Air Pilots and Navigators. One of the very few glider pilots to be so honoured, he earned his gliding wings while still at CH and spent thirty-seven years as a full-time gliding instructor in the RAF, latterly as Senior Instructor at its Central Gliding School from 1983 until 2004. He has completed 33,000 glider launches, accumulated 3,600 hours in motorised gliders, sent 2,100 air cadets on their first solo flight and trained more than 1,800 instructors.
David Norgrove (Th B 57–67, Senior Grecian) has been appointed a Trustee of the British Museum.