OH Magazine2014

www.oldhonitonians.com

Running a reunion

PAGE 28

Why next year is a big one

PAGE 6

Welcome to your 2014 MagazineI hope that every OH and friend of the school will find something interesting in these pages. If not, let me know.

Better still, write something better and send it in! Thank-you contributors, including Rosemary Sidwell, Arthur Dimond and those who wrote to Aunt Agatha. I have yet to meet AA. Former second master Derek Blooman always looks a bit confused when I ask where she lives. But I do know that Derek and our webmaster, Nigel Giles, will somehow relay your missives to this mysterious woman. The magazine has grown over the years but for me AA is still the best part. Those have always been the pages I have turned to first, for news of what my peers have been up to. Good old Aunt Agatha! Being editor has enabled me to meet some of the marvellous people who now live in the mansion at Rousdon and who have restored the building to Victorian splendour. They’re too polite to say so but I get the impression that their privacy has been intruded upon by one or two OHs. For club members, Rousdon is our former school, and its current owners are certainly interested in that period of the mansion’s history. But they are probably more charmed by the estate’s earlier role as a palatial residence. Most important, it is their home now, and a home where they have collectively invested great effort and time. If you visit Rousdon, I would urge you to keep a considerate distance. I’ve already photocopied and filled-in the Standing Order on Page 9 and sent it to the treasurer. Now I’m going to try tracking down old chums for the form on the top half of that page. It may take a bit of detective work to trace lost OHs but I expect it to be an adventure with a happy ending. I hope you have a go.

George Hayter, Editor 8 Nichol Road, Eastleigh SO53 5AS

2 www.oldhonitonians.com

OH CommitteePresident:

Roddy Long

Vice-Presidents:

Tim Birmingham

Sebastian Warner

Hon Secretary:

Alec Crawford

Hon Treasurer:

Robin Grey

Members:

Myfanwy Adams

Diana Davis

George Hayter

Patrick Musters

James Rowe

Michael Shaw

Peter Sloan

Richard White

Hon Life Vice-Presidents:

Derek Blooman

Brian Clark

Alec Crawford

Nigel French

Richard Le Fleming

Andrew Moore

Rosemary Sidwell

Brigadier Nigel Speller MBE FCIT

Philip Tuck

Gen Sir Roger Wheeler GCB CBE

London Social Secretary:

John Clark

West Country Social Secretary:

Richard Bean

Contents Page

President’s letter 3

Secretary’s message 3

Honiton Museum 3

Rousdon rocked 4

Coming events 5

Mirror image 5

Ties and cuff links 5

500 celebration 6

Contact details please 8

Standing Order ditto 8

AGM and party 10

Financial accounts 12

Shooting 12

My worst day 13

Where the blazers 13

Documentary fee 13

Nice number 13

West Country luncheon 14

Richard Bean 16

60s boys reunion 17

70s girls reunion 17

Golf 18

What to see in Honiton 20

Headmaster’s daughter 22

Remembrance 24

Church rescue plan hope 25

Newspaper cuttings 25

Peter Laurence 26

River walk 27

Organise a reunion 28

Obituaries 30

Bell ringing 31

Inside Rousdon 32

Tennis 34

Aunt Agatha 35

Final helping hand from student awardsAllhallows Churchill Bursary

These year’s awards for university students with OH parents or grandparents are likely to be the last. The very generous fund originated by an OH in the early 1960s has almost run out. There is just a small amount of interest remaining and the Trustees will decide how that is best used when the last payments of the 2013 awards are due in 2016. The Trustees received four very strong applications for the 2013 Bursary and were pleased to announce two awards:Benjamin Hammond, son of Tom (M 66-70), has just started to read Astrophysics at Sussex.

Ben went to St Aidan’s C of E School in Harrogate, obtaining A-level Maths, Further Maths and Physics.A keen outdoor sports person, he has

completed a BSAC course in scuba diving and is on the way to completing his Gold Duke of Edinburgh Award. Daisy Patsianas, granddaughter of Giles Blomfield (C 53-57), is reading Maths at Cardiff. Daisy gained A-level Art, Psychology and Maths at Esher College, Thames Ditton. Sports captain at school, Daisy has undertaken voluntary work with physically and mentally challenged

people and has taught herself to play piano. A gifted artist, Daisy combined art and maths in her final art project describing how “I explored where science and nature meet, combining mechanics inside insects and how the structure of their lives can be modelled through mathematical equations.”

Secretary’s MessageLast year we had more than 50 magazines returned by the Post Office, most

marked “Addressee gone away”. By various means we managed to trace some 30 but there were still 20 or so that I have had to delete from the magazine mailing list because we do not have a current address. During 2013 I received nearly 100 changes of address or, more commonly, changes of e-mail address. However we still have far too many members for whom we have no contact details at all. If we are to communicate with as many members as possible it really is important that you complete the form on Page 9 and return it to me – or send me the details by e-mail.

President’s LetterA warm welcome to all OHs!This time, as Christmas approached, it was George

Hayter who reminded me to please write the president’s letter before the magazine went to press. As usual, I’ve just managed to do it in the nick of time, and now I’m looking forward to reading George’s first edition as editor. Many thanks to him and the contributors who make the magazine and the website the important link that they are with OHs worldwide. OH Magazine is far above the quality of most other periodicals for school alumni, and our website reports events and activities within days of occurrence, often with pictures. It would be marvellous to see more OHs attending the many events that occur during the year. The calendar on Page 5 sets out the dates clearly, with contact details of the organisers. St Michael’s, the Honiton church which houses treasures from our school chapel,

will probably not be refurbished in time for the popular memorial service in November. However, we will be at the splendid parish church of St Paul, in the town centre. At last year’s memorial service, for the first time for ages, we had a trumpeter – Patrick McCaig OH –and Anthony Lovell-Wood is now seeking bell-ringers to complete the OH ensemble who officiate at the service. Our thanks again to Brigadier Nigel Speller for conducting the service, and to Vernon Burchell, our organist. I am delighted to welcome Patrick Musters and Peter Sloan to the committee. Our thanks go to John Harper, who is stepping down after running the golf section for many years. It is heartening to see so many events and reunions being organised, as these are the seedbed of the club – as are the sporting events of golf, tennis and shooting. Hopefully in 2014 the two shooting events will be better attended, to compliment the efforts and generosity of Richard Clist and Jim Rowe. I dislike the idea of promoting appeals

but I would urge everyone to complete the form on Page 9, giving contact details for themselves and others. We want to get in touch with as many OHs as possible before next year’s big event. The team set up to organise the 500th celebration is working hard. The Wikipedia website is informative if not conclusive as to the exact date of the founding of the school but 1515 is our best guess. The celebration lunch in September next year will be the most important gathering of OHs for many years. Do apply for a ticket if you would like to be at the grand occasion. The second appeal on Page 8 highlights our finances for the longer term. We no longer have the income from leavers. Many OHs have modest standing orders which they may wish to review in favour of the club. I wish everyone a happy and healthy 2014, and I look forward to meeting many members at club events. If you’ve not been before, put one or two in your diary!

3www.oldhonitonians.com

Roddy Long

In this electronic world it is perhaps not surprising that a growing number of OHs are reading the magazine on the OH website www.oldhonitonians.com. Your committee has decided that we will continue to publish the hard copy magazine for as long as it is needed. However if you are happy to read it on the website and not receive a hard copy, please do let me know. I receive fairly frequent requests from OH ‘A’ asking for contact details of OH ‘B’. Perhaps erring on the side of caution in respect of Data Protection rules, my practice is to contact OH ‘B’ and ask him/her for agreement to give his/her mailing and/or e-mail address to OH ‘A’. My understanding is that I would need the specific agreement of individual OHs if I was to have authority to divulge contact details without going through the process that I presently follow.

If we were to consider either publishing an OH members list with addresses etc or to have an online members list, restricted to members only, such individual agreements would be required. Next year, 2015, will be one of celebration of the 500th anniversary of the establishment of Allhallows, as detailed elsewhere. It is not that far away, tickets for the celebration lunch are on sale and already more than 25% of the places have been taken up. Do not delay! Apply now!

Alec Crawford (OH)

The Old Smithy, Oakfordbridge, Bampton,Tiverton, Devon EX16 9JA.Tel: 01398 351304. Mobile 07785 221252.email: ohclub@btinternet.com

See inside the old Allhallows at HonitonHow can I do that? By going inside Allhallows Museum at Honiton. That museum used to be the school.What? The whole school fitted in that little museum? Yes, more or less. When the school started, all the teaching was done in the one main room of today’s museum.What is there to see these days? Allhallows memorabilia and photos, and loads of exhibits about Honiton, including an impressive display of the intricate lace for which the town is famous.Has the building changed much? The school desks have gone. When the school

built a new schoolroom in 1892, the building became the school dining room. Finally, in 1903, it became the school chapel. That’s when intricate religious paintings were added to the ceiling.What else is there to do in Honiton? Exploration of the town which was home to Allhallows, and there are nice places to have tea. One of the pubs – The Holt – is run by OHs.Is it easy to find the museum? Very easy. It’s in the High Street, under the church tower at the very centre of the town.When’s it open? March 31st till October 31st.What times? Monday to Friday 9.30-4.30

and Saturday 9.30-1.00. Closed on Sundays.Any exceptions? In October it closes up to an hour earlier.How much to get in? It’s free.

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My heart is still in the GrotBut I never saw it in the school magBy Bill Scobie (V 64-67)

I’ve looked through old school magazines and found endless references to rugby and drama,

academic success and military parades, but no mention of one of the school’s greatest centres of excellence. Now I feel it is time to tell the story, or at least my story, of the Grot. For those who were not at the school in the ’60s, let me explain. The entrance was behind a strange, half-height black door situated on your left as you walked into Chapel Quad from the cobbled square at the bottom of the ramp. Once inside the wardrobe-size space behind the door, you descended via an iron ladder. It was down there, in that windowless former boiler room with walls of painted brick, that musicians flourished. I think it was autumn 1965 when I had my first experience of the Grot. I had already met Tony Lloyd (M 62-67), who played drums. Our paths crossed in the music school, where I kept an acoustic guitar. I often took refuge in one of the tiny practice rooms there and played blues. Tony was two years older than me but music is a great leveller, and my junior status didn’t matter, because I could hold my own on both guitar and bass. Some days later, Tony saw me outside the dining hall and told me that there was a bass guitar down in the Grot. “Go and see,” he said. Arriving cautiously at the bottom of

Bill in the 1960s

Bill playing at the Crawley Arms in Oxfordshire last year

The Grot may not have been mentioned in the school mag but there were articles on a school carol service and a performance at an old folks home in Seaton, both involving Bill on guitar or bass. The January ’67 edition even had a fan letter about the carol service, from RS MacCurrach (V62-67), mentioning Walsh, Lloyd, Scobie and Mr James by name.

Dougie as the only guitarist and, when Dougie left at the end of summer ’67, I took over on guitar and Roger Buxton took up the bass role.In Aunt Agatha recently I read about Mike Walsh playing in the Grot before embarking on an illustrious career in classical music. Mike carried on playing (superbly) in bands with Tony and me until he left the school. Often I think how fantastic it would be if Jon Tox could be resurrected for one night. I still put stuff together with Tony – who now plays guitar and bass, as well as drums. We bat tunes back and forth across the Atlantic, so that part is there. Other things I remember about the Grot include classics master Alwyn James (64-68), a great blues lover, singing Muddy Waters’ Got My Mojo Workin’. I remember the wall-mounted electric fire that ran 24 hours a day to stop the damp destroying everything, and the chimney that had a strong up-draft where you could blow your cigarette smoke. Most of all I remember the feeling of all being there for the same thing – love of music. Oh, and I seem to remember that we were pretty good players too.I went on to earn my living away from music but my heart is still in the Grot. Right now I’m off to play guitar with my band, East42ndStreet. No, we’re not famous and, yes, the venue will be small, but I will forget any troubles, regenerate my soul, and entertain an audience. You can’t beat it. I can thank the Grot at Allhallows for something that has been with me ever since – the golden ability to express myself confidently in music.

the Grot’s ladder, I was amazed to find a full drum kit and a large bass speaker cabinet. There was also a weird valve amplifier, the likes of which I had only seen in the pages of Exchange & Mart. It was encased in a mini-cage and was made by long-forgotten Stroud Audio, as I recall. To either side were matching speaker cabinets on long legs that made them look like furniture from somebody’s drawing room. Then I saw the bass – a red Hofner which belonged to a guy called Sorensen (Sh 64-68). Eventually I was to buy it from him. I picked it up and played the opening riff from Keep on Running by the Spencer Davis Group. Then I put it down and left, feeling that I should intrude no longer. That initial reluctance was not to last. There were soon two groups down there. The main players up till then had been bassist Bob Mulcaster (M 62-66) and

guitarist Mike Walsh (M 61-67), as well as Tony on drums. Presumably somebody sang but I don’t remember. That group was joined by a younger band featuring Simon Young (C 65-69) and Dougie Read (St 64-67) on guitars, Roger Leaver (M 64-67) on vocals, my late dear friend Neil Whitaker (V 64-69) on drums, and me on bass.We were called The Ollusion. The spelling error may or may not have been intentional but we figured it was cool. I soon became the resident bassist and played with both the Ollusion and with Mike and Tony under the band names The Loaf and Jon Tox. The Ollusion became a four-piece with

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A silk OH tie with a shield design is available from the club by post and costs just £13.50.

A silk striped tie is only £12.50.

Polyester striped tie: £10.00.

Box set of cufflinks with the Allhallows crest: £8.00.

Add £2.00 post and packing for each item.

Make out cheque to “The OH Club” and send to Robin Grey, 3 Snows Hill, Tisbury, Salisbury, Wiltshire SP3 6RY.

Make clear which item or items you would like and remember to include your address and phone number.

Also available for purchase by OHs!

Attention non-OHs ...

Need a presie for an OH?

OH Events 2014 Golf matches Spring, summer and autumn

We would love to have more players, not least because more players often means lower course fees! We’re a social bunch and all our events include dinner afterwards. Please join us! See Page 19 for our fixture list, including four days of competition in our mid-June Golf Week. Contact me, Richard White, on

07768 560221 or richardjamesonwhite@btinternet.com

Tennis Tournament Saturday 10th May

The OH Wimbledon Warm-Up! A fun tennis day for all abilities with Pimms and strawberries and cream. Come and play or come and watch. Families welcome – children’s supervised sports. All in the beautiful grounds of Leweston School, near Sherborne, Dorset DT9 6EN. 10am-4pm. For details/entry form/accommodation

list phone me, Myf Adams, on 01963 210717 or email myfadams@gmail.com

West Country Luncheon Saturday 17th May

Buffet in one of the finest hotels in the West Country. Just along the coast from Rousdon. Guest speaker: naturalist Mark Tatchell OH on “Spectacular Antarctica”. Noon for 1pm at the Belmont Hotel, Sidmouth. Come as an individual, or reserve a table and bring a group of friends. Tickets and table reservations:

Richard Bean, Nilgiris,10 Marlborough Close, Musbury, Axminster EX13 8AP. Phone 01297 55391. Email rcbean@madasafish.com. Cheques payable to “The OH Club” (price tba on the website)

Rifle and Clay Shooting Two Sundays in autumn

Two events this year. Rifle shoot in the impressive former road tunnel at Target Sports Centre, Charmouth on Sunday, 6th July at 11am. And Clay pigeon shoot on Sunday, 5th October at 10am, at Southern Counties Leisure, Evershot, Dorchester. Contact Jim Rowe on 07831 727886

Burnham Beeches walk Saturday 20th September

Four-mile hike through ancient woodland in Buckinghamshire. Open to all OHs, associates, friends and family. Starts 11.30am at the Blackwood Arms (satnav SL1 8PP), near the town of Farnham Common. Finish back at the pub in time for lunch. Details from Jeremy Harding at jer.harding1@virgin.net or 07770 634256

Remembrance Service Saturday, 1st November

Poignant ceremony recalls OHs who died in the service of their country. Sermon by the Bishop of Crediton, Rev Nick McKinnel (pictured). Preceded by buffet lunch at Hare and Hounds at Gittisham Common, 12 for 12.30pm. Service at 2.30 in St Paul’s Church in Honiton town centre. Tea served afterwards. More details from Richard

Bean OH, on 01297 553917 or rcbean@madasafish.com

AGM, reunion and party Thursday 27th November

Give your views on what the club is doing and then meet OHs in a convivial atmosphere over wine and canopes. Entry still an absolute bargain at £15, including the refreshments! Held at the stately RAC Club in Pall Mall, London at 6pm. Details from Hon Sec Alec Crawford, at ohclub@btinternet.com or 01398 351304

Sir – Looking through your last issue I noticed a photograph I had taken myself while at Allhallows. The picture, which accompanied an article about Pogues bass player Darryl Hunt, was taken in 1968 with a camera lent to me by Derek Blooman, who was my housemaster. It shows Daryl running past some cars parked by the cricket pavilion during a cross country race.Scrutinizing the magazine, I was fascinated to see a grainy image of myself actually taking the photo – because I am reflected in a wing mirror of one of the cars. The camera was mounted on a tripod and focused on a point so that when the runner reached that point I pressed the shutter. Mainly thanks to generous Derek, I went on to pursue a photographic career, working at the Victoria and Albert Museum for 35 years. Yours etc, Dominic Naish

The photo was supplied to us by Darryl. Please approach him, Dominic, for your copyright fee. We can’t afford to pay (see Page 8).

Letter to the editor

A tiny look back

6

A feast for five centuries

It will be a grand occasion to salute all that Allhallows and its people have stood for since the school was founded

in Tudor times. Come and help us celebrate at a special luncheon on Saturday September 19th 2015 – about 18 months from now. The venue will be Painters Hall, in the ancient City of London. General Sir Roger Wheeler OH is a Past Master of that august body, and it’s through his good services that we have the use of this wonderful facility. It’s an enormous credit to those running the OH Club since the school’s demise that it is still an active and energetic body, able to organise this memorable occasion. There will be a table for past presidents of the club, and another for past heads of school. And we have several table captains who will encourage their year groups to come and sit together and reminisce. OHs can apply for tickets through John.Clark@grosvenor.com. We will announce a guest speaker early this year and will put more details on the OH website. There are only 180 places for diners at Painters Hall, so unfortunately the event is strictly for OHs – without wives, husbands or other halves. At the time of writing, nearly two years before the event, over 25% of the tickets have already been sold. We expect the lunch to sell out in the first quarter of 2014, so book now to avoid disappointment.

By Nigel French

Chair, 500th committee

Tradition: An OH reunion dinner in Mackarness Hall, part of the school at Honiton

What are we celebrating?Our school was founded in Honiton

around about 1515, probably as a chantry school. The idea would have been for priests to teach boys to read Latin so that they could sing in the choir. Later it became a grammar school for the sons of the local gentry. Its origins in Honiton are the reason former pupils are still known as Old Honitonians, or OHs. The school was named after its neighbour All Hallows, a roadside chapel for travellers built some time before 1327, and now the oldest surviving secular building in Honiton.

By the 1930s there was an increase in traffic through Honiton, which lay on the main route to Cornwall. The flow of vehicles became a serious hazard to the school, which had premises on both sides of the road. The headmaster of the day, George Shallow, found a new site in the shape of a large Victorian country “house” with over 350 acres of land on the coast at Rousdon, a few miles west of Lyme Regis. This edifice stood on the cliffs of what was later called the Jurassic Coast, now a World Heritage Site. The house had been built in the 1870s for Sir Henry Peek by architect Sir Ernest George, who also built Southwark Bridge in London. (Among Sir Ernest’s pupils was the even more famous architect Sir Edwin Lutyens). In 1870 Sir Henry purchased the village of Rousdon, rebuilt the church and built the village school. He then commissioned Ernest George to design a mansion to take advantage of the superb position 500 feet above the sea. Being a distance from the nearest town, the house had to be self-sufficient with laundry, coach houses, harness rooms, wine cellars, bowling alley, rifle range, china stores, bake houses, larders, museum, observatory, walled garden, tennis courts, farm buildings and numerous cottages to house the estate population, which at the end of the 19th century extended to about 600.

The venue: A banquet in Painters Hall

7www.oldhonitonians.com

James Verner Furniture

www.jamesverner.co.uk | james@jamesverner.co.uk | 07796 991606

Classic, contemporary furniture made to commission from native hardwoods

Provisional timetable• Noon arrival for Champagne and

canapes in the Court Room and the adjacent Court Reception area.

• Lunch at 1.30 in the Livery Hall.

• A cash bar will be open from after lunch until 5pm in the Court Room, to allow us all to circulate and catch up with friends who may not have been seated nearby at the lunch itself.

All drinks at the reception and selected wines at lunch are included in the price of the ticket.

Tickets £90 Apply to John.Clark@grosvenor.com

Table captains please make sure John has your numbers

Sir Henry was a governor of Holloway prison, which had been founded in 1852. It began as a mixed prison before becoming for women only in 1903. Many of the floors at Rousdon were inlaid with mosaics created by Holloway inmates. Sir Henry’s famous collection of stuffed birds reputedly had an example of every bird to have landed on the British Isles. The building was a few hundred yards from the cliff-edge overlooking the massive landslip of 1839. It had extensive grounds, even if the location was remote. Inevitably not all necessary facilities were there and, though improvement work started, it was brought to a halt by World War II. The school was not to acquire a proper gymnasium, swimming pool or cricket pavilion until many years after the war. In the two decades after the war, Allhallows gained a national reputation for shooting. The school attended the national ranges at Bisley on a regular basis and won the inter-school Ashburton Shield several times. This was largely thanks to the work of James Turner who had been a pupil at the school and, after university, joined the staff as chemistry

master. During the war he had worked on ballistics and he used that knowledge to train a series of first-class shots. The young marksmen knew absolutely nothing about ballistics, but they could point a gun with devastating accuracy. James stayed with the school all his life, ending up with a short spell in the headmaster’s chair, then in retirement focusing on raising funds. He was one of several masters who devoted their lives to the school. Another, after World War I, was GS Napier, or ‘Nap’, who spent over 100 terms there. Around 1970 Allhallows became one of the first public schools to admit girls, and it prospered into the 1980s. But in the 1990s it went into a decline, with the number of pupils decreasing from almost 300 to fewer than half that number. One reason may have been the school’s remote location, at a time when parents expected to see more of their children than had been traditional in the old public school era. The lack of a nearby main railway line or motorway contributed to the isolation. Much of the information for this quick run-through comes from The History of Allhallows School by JRW Coxhead.

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Ever get the feeling you’re out of touch? Some of us in the club have been feeling that way. And with good reason. We know the addresses of only about two thirds of our members. Membership currently stands at 2,894 but we have a current address for just 1,823. And we have an email address for less than half. So the OH committee is asking you to help reconnect the membership by filling in the form opposite. In recent years there have been pleas for members’ contact details made through the magazine and through OH events, but now it’s time for No exceptions. Even the committee will be filling in this form. “But if they’ve sent me this magazine,” you might think, “surely they have my address already.” Yes, but we don’t know if you’re getting the magazine, and we may not have your phone number or email. And this time we’re asking for additional information – about

other OHs who may not be getting the magazine, and may be among the thousand with whom we’ve lost touch. So please give details for the OH known to you who you think is least likely to be in contact with us. Phone that person for their details if you have to – but don’t leave it to them to send the details to us! Naturally we will check the accuracy of third-party details sent to us, by contacting the OH concerned. Fill in the form after cutting it out or photocopying it. Or you can email us if you prefer. Smoke signals, pigeon post – we’ll take anything. Write on the back of an old Tesco till receipt if you have to. Lastly, the form asks for contact details for all the OHs you know. We’re hoping every Allhallows old boy and girl will complete the form as fully as possible. This is something we can all factis, to extendere our famam.

1

Like any organisation, we want to make sure our finances stack up. Many members have responded magnificently to previous appeals for cash, and the club is hugely grateful. However, despite that continuing generosity, inflation means that our funds are, in real terms, still shrinking. That’s because the club has received no income from life membership subscriptions for the last 15 years. When the school closed in 1998, that source of cash dried up forever. Until then, the club had enjoyed a constant stream of life subscriptions from new members leaving the school. In four out of the last five years we have been fortunate to receive a large donation, so our reserves do not appear to have gone down. The £22,106 we have now is broadly in line with the £19,218 we had a decade ago. Inflation over the last 10 years has pushed prices up 40%. Despite that huge hike in the nation’s costs, the committee has managed to keep the club’s costs level, at around £7,000 a year. Last year was a particularly bright spot, when this magazine’s then editor, Giles Blomfield, sold increased advertising space, at the same time reducing printing costs in a business deal with Martin Boulden OH.

The free magazine – the main way the club keeps in touch with the membership – remains the club’s main expense. The other major cost is the important AGM and associated popular party at the stylish RAC in London. We’re particularly appealing to OHs who left after 1990. When earlier appeals were made, they were still launching their careers and perhaps had modest means. But the club hopes that OHs of all ages who have not donated before will now rally round, by setting up a Standing Order. Can you afford to give, say, £10 a year? However much you sign for, we will print your name in the next edition of the magazine (unless you tell us not to). Most of us would probably agree that the world would be a poorer place without the club and its events, its website and its magazine. So why not cut out or photocopy the Standing Order form opposite and reach for your pen? Please do it now.

Two small ways to be a BiG help

A pRoBLeM We hAVe To AddReSS

The oLd MoneyToniAn AppeAL

9www.oldhonitonians.com

✁

To (Your bank or building society name)

Address

Name of account Account number Branch sort code

Please pay the sum of £ to the credit of Old Honitonians’ Club (account 01622398),

Lloyds Bank, South Molton branch (sort code 30-90-49), 122 East Street, South Molton, Devon EX36 3DA

on the day of 20 and annually thereafter until further notice under reference of ‘OH Club’.

Signed Date

Please provide your full postal address for acknowledgement by the OH Hon Treasurer. Thank you very much.

Your name Your address

Phone number Email

Please send this half by post to Robin Grey, OH Club Hon Treeasurer, 3 Snows Hill, Tisbury, Wiltshire SP3 6RY

Your full name House Dates

Your address

Your landline number Mobile number Email address

The last booklet showing members’ contact details was published nearly 10 years ago. In case another one is forthcoming, sign here to give permission for your details to be included

Name of one other OH House Dates

Their address

Their landline number Mobile number Email address

Please use remaining space for contact details of other OHs you know. Continue on separate sheet if necessary.

Please send this half to Alec Crawford, OH Club Hon Sec, The Old Smithy, Oakfordbridge, Tiverton EX16 9JA or ohclub@btinternet.com

✁

oLd MoneyToniAn AppeAL STAndinG oRdeR

A pRoBLeM We hAVe To AddReSS

10

Minutes (draft) of the Annual General Meeting of The Old Honitonians Club Held on Thursday, 28th

November 2013 at the RAC, Pall Mall, London.

1. Present: Vice Presidents, Hon Treasurer, Hon Secretary, Committee members and some 35 OHs.

2. In the Chair: Mr Giles Blomfield took the chair in the absence of the President, Roddy Long, who sent his apologies.

3. Apologies: Apologies had been received from 23 OHs.

4. Opening Remarks: Giles Blomfield, in sending best wishes on behalf of all present to Roddy Long for a speedy recovery, read the text of what Roddy would have said if he had been present...

2013 had been a busy year and Roddy thanked John Harper for organising the golf and welcomed Richard White who had taken over from John; Myf Adams for organising the first tennis tournament, enjoyed by all; Jim Rowe and Richard Clyst for organising clay and target shooting and he particularly urged support for the target shooting event held at Charmouth Tunnel following a very low turnout this year; Nigel Speller who again had taken the Annual Remembrance Service in Honiton and Tim Birmingham for his role in upgrading the OH website, the new version of which will be launched shortly. In particular Roddy thanked Giles Blomfield, who is standing down as editor of the OH Magazine, having worked so successfully in improving this vital contact with members. Giles is also standing down as a Vice President. George Hayter has taken over as Editor and Roddy was confident that the high standard would be maintained. Finally he thanked the Hon Secretary, Hon Treasurer and all committee members for their work in the running of the Club.

Roddy particularly mentioned the 500th Anniversary celebration luncheon in September 2015 in The Painters’ Hall, London, tickets for which are available from John Clark. He thanked John and Nigel French who is in charge of the organisation.

5. Confirmation of Minutes: Proposed by Roger Wheeler, seconded by Michael Shaw, the Minutes of the Meeting held on 29th November 2012 were approved unanimously and signed by the Chairman.

6. Election of Honorary Life Vice President: Proposed by Roger Wheeler and seconded by Andrew Moore, Brigadier Nigel Speller MBE OH was unanimously elected as an Honorary Life Vice President. Alec Crawford, in recalling Nigel Speller’s distinguished Army career, said that he had gone on to a second career serving the church as a Lay Reader for the last 25 years as well as being involved in many aspects of diocese and parish life. Nigel Speller had officiated every year since 2000 at the Allhallows Annual Remembrance Service following the dedication of the chapel in St Michael’s Church, Honiton and, for a number of years before the school closed, had been a Governor.

7. Elections of Officers and Committee: In noting that he himself was standing down as a Vice President and John Harper was standing down from the Committee, the Chairman explained that, following the introduction of the new Rules of the Club in 2012, it was only necessary for James Rowe to stand for re-election having completed a three year term. Giles welcomed Patrick Musters and Peter Sloan, who were standing for election to the Committee.

James Rowe Proposed by Alec Crawford Seconded by Robin Grey

Patrick Musters Proposed by Myf Adams Seconded by Giles Blomfield

Peter Sloan Proposed by Giles Blomfield Seconded by Myf Adams

Were elected unanimously to serve a three-year term.

8. Treasurer’s Report: (See accounts on Page 10): The Hon Treasurer, referring to the accounts for the year ended 31st May 2012, highlighted a substantial donation made by an OH, and noted that the cost of the magazine had fallen by some £1,500 largely due to the efforts of Giles Blomfield in securing a good printing price and also advertising. He also noted that the West Country lunch auction and the tennis tournament organised by Myf Adams had contributed usefully to the profit for the year. However, in making a plea for members to review their Standing Orders, Robin pointed out that annual income from Standing Orders had declined from £6,174 in 2007 to £4,702 in 2012.

Proposed by Patrick Musters and seconded by Richard Le Fleming, the accounts were approved unanimously and signed by the Chairman.

9. Allhallows Churchill Bursary: Alec Crawford reported that four applications had been received and two awards had been made in 2013. An award had been made to Ben Hammond, whose Father, Tom Hammond, had been at Allhallows (M 66-70), reading Astrophysics at Sussex University and also to Daisy Patsianas whose Grandfather is Giles Blomfield and who is reading Mathematics at Cardiff University. Alec explained that these were the last awards to be made under the Bursary scheme as the bursary fund would be exhausted in 2016 after the last payments of the 2013 awards had been made. There is likely to be a small amount of interest remaining in the account thereafter and the Trustees will decide at the time how best to use the amount available.

A busy year ■ Website revamp imminent■ Brigadier honoured

■ Two committee recruits■ Stumps drawn on OH cricket

Richard Baker-Howard (B 77-82), James Pigg (Sh 82-84) and Aneke Hamilton-Smith

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10. West Country Report: The Chairman said that whilst OH Golf was going very well with a full schedule of matches in 2014, Richard White was appealing for more OHs to participate as there could never be too many. Unfortunately it had not been possible to raise a cricket team in 2013 and it was therefore concluded that OH cricket had succumbed to the ageing process. Following the successful event in 2013, Myf Adams was organising another tennis tournament for 2014 and clay pigeon shooting would again take place at Evershot. Giles expressed his hope that there would be more support for the target shooting day in July 2014 which Jim Rowe and Richard Clist organised so well at his Charmouth Tunnel range. The West Country luncheon had again been a success. However consideration is being given as to whether in 2014 it should take the form of a buffet style rather than a silver service The Allhallows Remembrance Service in November had been well attended and Alec Crawford told members about developments related to St Michael’s, Honiton which, it is hoped, will see the church back in full use, although it was too early to say whether the 2014 Remembrance service could be held there.

A full list of events in 2014 will appear in the magazine and on the website.

11. OH Magazine: The Chairman recorded that George Hayter had now taken over as Editor but he, Giles, would continue to assist with advertising and production.

He stressed the importance of advertising in keeping down the overall cost of the magazine and asked for members’ assistance in approaching potential advertisers.

12. Website: The Chairman thanked Tim Birmingham for his work in respect of the updating of the OH website which, it is hoped, will be running in its new format early in the New Year.

13. 500th Anniversary: In the absence of Nigel French who is chairing the organising committee, the Chairman said that the Anniversary luncheon would be held on Saturday 19th September 2015 in The Painters’ Hall, London. Places were limited to 180 and therefore at this stage tickets were only being sold to OHs. Already there had been a healthy demand for tickets, available from John Clark.

13. Date and Place of the Next Meeting: Thursday 27th November 2014 at the RAC, London (subject to final confirmation).

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Chloe Deacon (nee Vernon) (95-96), Victoria Berry (95-96) and Jamie Jemmeson (M94-98)

Daisy Anderson and Paul Anderson (V 79-84)

Giles Blomfield, who built up the magazine at the same time as cutting the cost of its production, received a presentation at the party after the AGM. He was thanked by Hon Sec Alec Crawford (left) on behalf of the club. Giles’s wife, Gru (rght) also received a token of gratitude, for her support

Tessa Eveleigh (71-73)Tim Huxtable (V 93-97) and Colin Mortimore (M 94-96).

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Income & Expenditure Accountfor the year from 1st June 2012 to 31st May 2013

2012 2013

£ INCOME £

Donations:

300 Single 3,677

4,842 Annual 4,772

112 Gain on sale of ties 75

6 Interest received 7

94 Commission received 78

205 West Country Lunch 1075

1110 Magazine ads 1355

nil Sundry 649

6,669 Total Income 11,688

EXPENDITURE

4,805 Magazine, printing, postage 3,336

nil West Country Lunch 1,184

270 Events 86

1,989 AGM 2,005

332 Accountancy 36

18 Subscriptions 28

35 Data Protection 35

327 Website 343

nil O.H.500 371

200 Rousden Memorial nil

43 Sundry 302

8,019 Total Expenditure 7,726

-1,350 Surplus (Deficit) 3,962

6,669 11,688

Balance Sheet as at 31st May 2013 2012 2013

£ £

19,494 General Fund, opening balance 18,144

-1,350 Surplus (Deficit) 3,962

18,144 22,106

This amount is represented by:

2,007 Current Account 3,473

14,929 Deposit Account 17,686

905 Stock of ties 734

403 Funding – Allhallows Register 213

-100 Creditors nil

18,144 22,106

Shooting organiser Jim Rowe said a recent run of success in the club’s clay pigeon shooting was reminiscent of

the Allhallows Ashburton triple victory of 1963-64-65. Well maybe, but no-one is claiming that winning the Tory Shield clay shoot three years on the trot is quite as prestigious as coming out on top three years running in the famous Ashburton Shield. Still, the decisive victory of the OH Club over Bryanston old boys in October 2013 did complete a hat trick – of a sort. The present Tory Shield competition has a fragmented history, with absenteeism featuring almost as much as marksmanship. In 2012, when our opponents were old boys from Millfield and Milton Abbey, the main reason that Allhallows won was that no-one from the opposing teams turned up. Victory was ours by default. The year before that, the situation was rather the reverse, with our opponents that year, Milton Abbey, turning up in force while we fielded but one man. That was Jim Rowe himself, who scored 22 points. The five men from the Abbey averaged 18.5 so Jim was declared to have won single-handed. For the latest Tory Shield clash, things were a bit more normal, with Allhallows and Bryanston both fielding a team of five. It was a sunny Sunday morning at Southern Counties Shooting, a huge facility near Yeovil. For the third

The victorious OH team (with scores): James Gates (31), Canish Pope (27), Zoe Future-Pope(Coach), Mark Sienesi, (38) James Eyre (44) and Hamish Eyre (27)

year running, the OHs’ opening tactic was a full English breakfast. The heavy meal seemed to increase their appetite for victory, and they duly helped themselves to a massive win. Allhallows scored 167, versus just 69 from Bryanston. The top score, with 44 out of a possible 64, was achieved by former Dorset champion shot James Eyre (V 86-92), who was captain of clay pigeon shooting at Allhallows in 1990, 1991 and 1992. James has shot for Dorset and England at down-the-line clay and is now pursuing a Team England spot in pistol shooting. A three-strong Allhallows B Team also shot at the OH event: Richard Clist (28), Jim Rowe (19) and Roddy Long (17).

Hotshots trigger

hat trick

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How tight is your squeeze?Have you got an Allhallows blazer? More to the point, can you still get into it? OH president Roddy Long is proud of his ability to still do up the buttons of his ‘purple glory’. That was the name given to the purple jacket which holders of Allhallows sports colours were entitled to wear. Last summer Roddy wore his purple glory to the OH tennis tournament, where he found that Giles Blomfield OH was similarly dressed. A photograph was taken of the purple-attired pair and, when the president saw the picture later, he wondered how many other OHs might still have a school blazer. A blazer is defined as any bright or boldly coloured jacket, usually associated with sport and usually fitted with brass buttons. However tight your squeeze, have a photo taken of yourself wearing your Allhallows blazer and send it The Editor, OH Magazine, 8 Nichol Road, Eastleigh, Hants SO53 5AS, or email it to ghayter@hotmail.co.uk.

My worst day at school

About four of us boys set out for the landslip that sunny afternoon in 1982. All aged 14 or 15, we made our way to the top

of a cliff above the beach, where we liked to cook beans and sausages on a fire. Finding we needed more firewood, we headed down to the shore to see what had been washed up. At the top of the cliff you had to jump and turn. I’d done it many times. We all had. As you jumped off the clifftop, in order to land on a rock you had to twist yourself. We didn’t really think about it because you couldn’t see over before you made the jump. That day I slipped and went off the edge. There was nothing I could do. I fell all the way. I was so numb, I don’t think I could feel the pain. It was a long way down and there was a lot happening on the way. I was trying to grab onto things but there was nothing to grab. I think I slid and then rolled, slid

more and then rolled again, till I landed on a ledge just above the pebbles. I was in shock. James Verner and Jamie Pickford were with me that day and, I think, Simon White. They got me up to the school. I was in the san for three days. No-one normally falls off a cliff without breaking a leg or much worse. A cyst came up on my side but I had nothing particularly wrong with me. My friends described how bad the fall was. They said they were amazed I was alive. That made me even more shocked. Surviving that day made me take life as it comes. I joined the Merchant Navy when I was 19 and, when our ship called at Beirut during the troubles, I was the only person who went ashore. I walked round the kidnap-ravaged city listening to a Walkman, perhaps thinking that I was fated to survive. I don’t think I’m so daring now but I’ve believed in fate since I slipped on the landslip over 30 years ago.

Described by Henry Tolley (St 80-82)

School’s 15-second film role raises £100Film footage of Allhallows is to feature in an Irish TV documentary applauding the achievements of 1980s English artist Neal McGregor. Soilsiu Films, which is making the biography, has been unable to find 1960s footage of Shoreditch College in Surrey, where Neal studied. Instead the company will use 15 seconds of amateur footage shot at Rousdon. The idea is to convey the atmosphere of the period. The end-credits of the 90-minute film, to be called The Stranger, will name Allhallows. Soilsiu’s £100 payment for using the 8mm footage has been donated to the club.

Very Important Plate

This eye-catching registration number was spotted in the West End by Richard Anderson (pictured). “We’d just rolled out of the party after the AGM when we came across this top-notch number,” said Richard (M 67-71). “It was on a very stylish Merc, just round the corner from the RAC club.”

Giles Blomfield and Roddy Long

Brian Ware Left: Claudius Agar’s 1948 shooting colours blazer is admired by the club’s top brass

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Vintage magazines, an auction and a brewerWest Country Luncheon

Forty-six OHs, wives, husbands and partners sat down for an enjoyable West Country lunch at the Belmont Hotel in Sidmouth

on Saturday 18th May – a day of sunshine and wall-to-wall blue sky. Richard Bean had organised a display of Allhallows school magazines from the 1960s, 70s and 80s which enabled many OHs to recall events in their past. In welcoming everybody, club president Roddy Long drew attention to the brochure on every place setting, giving details of the 500th anniversary luncheon to be held on 19th September 2015 at the Painters and Stainers Hall in London. The guest speaker was Patrick McCaig OH, marketing director of the family firm Otter Brewery. Patrick recalled his earliest brewing experience whilst at Allhallows which resulted in a disgusting-tasting liquid and which could have had serious consequences. One of the collaborators suffered the effects of carbon dioxide coming off the fermenting concoction stored in a cupboard at the head of his bed. Going on to more serious matters, Patrick provided samples of types of brewing barley and also of American hops and took us through the whole brewing process. Otter Brewery is at Luppitt, which is near Honiton and close to the head of the River Otter – the source of the water used in the brewing process. A feature of the lunch this time was an an auction of lots arranged by Giles Blomfield and covering horse racing, golf, shooting, food and drink. Jim Rowe demonstrated his professional expertise as auctioneer, squeezing extra pounds from willing bidders. Some £430 was raised for club funds. The Belmont Hotel has again been booked for the West Country lunch this year, on Saturday, 17th May.

Nick Kettlewell (M 45-51), Dick Sidwell, Rosemary Sidwell, Roy Frith (Sh 45-48), and Tom Hembrow (B 49-53 )

Brian Ware (B50-53) and Margaret Ward

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Posh nosh: Diners find their places in the rarefied atmosphere of the Belmont’s exquisite dining room

Elsie Collier, Mandy Setter, Sharon Chatting and John Collier (M 50-52)

Patrick tipped samples onto each place setting, for his audience to savour the aroma of quality hops and barley

Tom Hembrow, Richard Bean, Nick Kettlewell and Mandy Setter

Bob Morton (V 64-67), Peter Read (C 64-67) and Chris Hole (St 63-68)

Me, my education and my beerExcerpt from Patrick McCaig’s after-lunch speech

Eventually we made it to the point where we had to put it in bottles.

We went down to the tuck shop, bought about 20 bottles of Coke and kept just the bottles. Later, we went down to the basement while the school was asleep. I was busy struggling down to the toilets there with a bin full of brew. My accomplice, Lee Mayor, was busy hobbling his way down with 20 empty Coca-Cola bottles and a long hose. We had set the alarm for 3.30 but it didn’t go off. Now it was 5.30. Lee was in one toilet cubicle and he had the tube going from the bin, up over the cubicle partition and down on the other side. I was on the bottling side, so I sucked the beer through, thinking: “It’s disgusting but it’ll get better I’m sure.” This process took ages. It must have been 7.30 by the time we finished and we had to get back to the dormitories. We had to walk out of these loos and try and get away with it, him clutching a bin, me carrying 20 bottles and a long hose. The head of Baker came down. He saw us. We turned and fled. We hid in one of the drying rooms at the top of the passage. That’s where the bottles remained for a long time, because we could never get at them. Eventually we did drink them and it was absolutely disgusting. But that was my first experience of brewing and it’s great to say it was done under the roof of Allhallows, and we didn’t get expelled.

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History in the making: Richard Bean (M 50-54)

For any OH, the enormity of the task that he completed is humbling.

Richard Bean OH has listed every boy and girl who was at the school during a 107-year period. There were over 5,000 of them and alongside each name he has recorded every documented fact about that pupil’s time at Allhallows. The results are available in a 474-page book called Allhallows School Register and Record, which covers every pupil who arrived at the school between 1885 and 1992. Richard toiled alone on the project for two hours every day for five years, starting just after the school closed in 1998. “The first thing I did was get hold of the headmaster’s registers,” he recalled. “They were hand-written ledgers – big thick books – and they were all still at Allhallows. Derek Blooman and I salvaged them. “That gave me the names, their dates of birth, when they came to the school and when they left. I wrote all those details in note form on sheets of paper.” Richard and Derek also managed to retrieve all the school magazines dating back to 1910. Laboriously Richard went through each magazine cover to cover, even scouring the small-print match reports, and he jotted down the name of everyone mentioned. “It was page by page, each magazine,” he said. “There were blinking hundreds of them.”

Richard’s record feat has got you registered

About the author: Richard’s own entry

“And for some OHs I was able to write down when they died, because there were some obituaries in the magazines.” Then, for each pupil one by one he trawled through his pages of notes, gradually assembling information about exams alongside each name, together with their games achievements, CCF ranks, and the houses they were in. Once he got into the swing of it, progress accelerated. “I soon learnt what to look for.” He accumulated most information about pupils from the 1960s and 70s, because the magazines from those years tended to report school events in more detail. There had been four previous editions of Allhallows School Register and Record, the most recent covering 1908 to 1932. Richard was gleaning so much historical data from his analysis of the magazines that he decided not to carry on from 1932, but to start his book way back at 1885. For the years from then until 1932 he copied the data from the older editions and added the fruits of his own research. Eventually he composed the entire book in handwriting. “Then I copied it onto the computer using two fingers. That took me three and a half years.” The club paid for the print run of 250 and now, 12 years later, there are just 70 left in stock. After happy days at school, Richard (M 50-54) went to the Royal Agricultural College at Cirencester and got a diploma in Farm Estate Management. “Then I joined

the police for some reason, in Bristol, but after three years I got fed up with the police and joined Bristol fire brigade.” One of his first call-outs was in the famous cold winter of 1963, to a big warehouse fire that went on for four days. “There was ice everywhere. The hose pipes were freezing up.” Retiring from the fire service as a training officer in Buckinghamshire, he became hon sec of the OH Club for a year and continues to serve the club today as West Country secretary. He admits that, in a sense, his Register and Record task is unfinished, because the book does not cover those who joined the school in its last few years. “I could produce a supplement from 1992 to closure if I had access to the leaving records. When Derek and I got to the school to salvage stuff, all the leaving records and other paperwork to do with each pupil was in bundles and they all went off to some warehouse. “I’ve tried to get access but they say it was all taken away by the receivers.”

For your copy of Allhallows School Register and Record, make out a cheque to ‘The OH Club’ and send it with your address to Richard Bean OH, Nilgiris, 10 Marlborough Close, Musbury, Axminster, Devon EX13 8AP. Enquiries: 01297 553917. Prices: £15 if collected, £18.50 including UK post and packing, £21.81 including overseas post and packing.

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It was an off-on reunion at the White Horse in Hampshire. Then it was off

and on all over again. At the start of last year, the pub’s affable landlord, John Armstrong, intended not to hold one of his annual OH dinners in 2013. He wanted a 24-month gap, in case the get-togethers were becoming too routine. But by June several OHs had got in touch, so John relented and announced that the event was on. But few OHs booked, and in September he sent out a second email, saying: “I feel that it might be better to put this off for another year.” That brought a deluge of pleas to

run the event, and eventually John and his wife, Gaye, found themselves with 26 booked for the £25 three-course dinner, held in the ancient Ampfield inn on Saturday, November 2nd. The gathering was centred on leavers from the late 1960s and their partners. Pictured kneeling are (from left) John Armstrong, Mike Walsh and Dudley Hopkins. Standing: Tony Hamilton-Hunt, Nigel McMullen, John Husain, Nigel Fawcett, Hugh Ellicomb, Roger Buxton, Christopher Goddard, Peter Read, David Richardson, John Bridger, John Pagliero and David Boorman.

new girls returnEight OHs who had arrived at Allhallows 40

years earlier celebrated the anniversary on the Rousdon estate, with highspots including a visit to the Ladies Walk and a swim down on the beach. The eight were all women who had joined Allhallows in 1973. Six rented Middlemist Cottage, in the shadow of the clock tower, and two had accommodation in Lyme. The two other members of the group, which reunites regularly, were unable to make it this year. Two further girls were particularly missed, because contact with them has been lost since school. If anybody knows the whereabouts of Fiona Darbishire or Heather Lloyd, please email the group at jenphil@btopenworld.com. Pictured at Rousdon are (maiden names, from left): Jo Grimwood, Ali Bailey, Karey Taylor, Jane Booth, Jennie Spurgeon, Rosie Coates. For more photos and inner thoughts, internet-search “swallowcliffe acquaintance” for Jennie’s excellent blog.

decidedly on

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Rampant golfers in full swingOld Honitonians Golf Week June 2013By John Harper

What a difference a year makes! Last year we pitched up at Lyme Regis

to play our opening game, and the Lyme Regis version of the famous Rousdon mist had descended, causing us to mill about for an hour or so while we waited for clear skies. In the end we had a few wet holes and retired to our hotel in Lyme, where we limbered up for an evening of what Ian Botham calls ‘rehydration’. This year the weather was kind and 13 of us enjoyed a Stableford competition amongst ourselves, in the absence of our opposition, which Hamish Macgregor won with style and panache. The views along the coast were stunning and we felt fortunate to be able to enjoy the Jurassic Coast at its very best. Some of the golf was also enjoyable! In the evening we met at the Harbour Inn in Lyme for a dinner, originally ordered for 12, but which finally ended up attended by 16 people. The staff at the Harbour handled the whole evening

with quiet efficiency, and we all got fed and watered. After our meal, where we welcomed Giles and Gru Blomfield and Mike Ray-Hills and his son Tim, some of us headed back to the Royal Lion for nightcaps. Some of us found ours a little tight so we seemed to have headaches the following morning. A restful night followed by a good

English breakfast saw us on our way to Bridport for our annual golf day competing for the Peter Ward Trophy. Last year’s winner –Hamish – left home with strict instructions from Janet not to win it again as it is rather large and their baronial mantelpiece does not have sufficient space to house it. Roger

Hopkins did the decent thing and won the competition, and the great pleasure of transporting the huge bronze figure of a rampant golfer in full swing back to his unsuspecting wife. Longest drive went to Richard Heard, who later told me he was pleased that the “wretched White wasn’t there to interfere this year”. It is good to have some friendly rivalry amongst our players, but we were sorry not to see Richard White, who is a stalwart of our golf days, who had to allow his work to interfere with his golf. Kit Magrath won the Nearest the Pin, with a fine drive on the picturesque sixth hole. After dinner at the club, we were back to Lyme for further rehydration and a comfortable night before heading on Thursday to Exeter for our annual match against the Devon Dumplings. Some of the opposing team were in fact cricketers, but in the main it was a team

19th hole, left to right: Roddy Long, Kit McGrath, David Danskin, Mark Hunt, John Pagliero

Roger Hopkins, 2013 winner of the Peter Ward Trophy), flanked by John Harper (right) and Hamish MacGregor, the 2012 winner

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assembled by Mike Maynard, an old friend of Don Palmer, and we had an enjoyable competition ably organised by Mark Hunt on behalf of the OHs. The fine parkland course was a challenge for many of us, but we ended all square at three matches each. Friday saw us heading to Taunton to play against the Old Tauntonians. Once again, OTs were thin on the ground, but the many Taunton and Pickeridge players in the opposing side enabled us to play at guest fee rates. We halved the match, even though Richard Jowett, who gets the OTs together, played on his own in the absence of sufficient numbers. Next year we must find an alternative to this

afternoon game on a Friday, when the roads are busy and many of our players are heading back up the M5 and M4, leaving around five. Those of our number who travel across from Kent have a particularly long journey and deserve a pat on the back for coming so far. It is pleasing that we get attendance from such a wide area, from Scotland through Leamington Spa, Maidenhead and London across to Canterbury and Deal and along the coast to Chichester. The feedback I have had is positive, and I was pleased to see a new arrival in David Reynolds who is from our younger members, and enthusiastic to introduce more of the younger set to our games.

Richard’s backThe OH who started the club’s busy golf section is back in charge. Richard White, who founded the Golf Society in 1997, says he is happy to be at the helm again. Richard said: “I’m looking to grow the attendance at events and bring some younger club members to the Golf Society.” He takes over from John Harper, who has “so successfully run it for the last four years,” said Richard (Sh 79-84). He married an OH, Cathy Harris (Sh 78-83), and now lives in Surrey with her and their four daughters. Richard says he keeps in touch with OHs across many years.

Match v Royal Hampshire Regiment

High Post Golf Club, WiltshireWednesday, 23rd April

Match v Tortoises Golf SocietyTemple Golf Club, Henley Road, HurleyThursday, 22nd May Match v Old TauntoniansTaunton & Pickeridge Golf Club,TauntonMonday, 16th June

Peter Ward TrophyBridport Golf Club, West Bay, Bridport Tuesday, 17th June

Match v Devon DumplingsExeter Golf ClubWednesday, 18th June

East Devon Golf Day East Devon Golf Club, Budliegh SaltertonThursday, 19th June

White Pairs CupBetchworth Park Golf Club, DorkingThursday, 24th July

Guests Day – The Bowden Trophy North Hants Golf Club, FleetTuesday, 2nd September

Puttenham DayPuttenham Golf Club, SurreyTuesday, 14th October

Fixtures for 2014

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An oh Guide to honiton

Allhallows LodgeSgt Major Harry Aggar, the popular groundsman, gym tutor, marksman and OTC/CCF instructor, lived here while the school was at Honiton, and again after his retirement from Rousdon

PavilionBuilt 1889 ■ Thatched ■ Backdrop to countless team photos ■ Still standing!

Playing fieldsLand acquired gradually ■ Cricket enhanced by the beautiful backdrop of St Cyres Hill ■ Now the town rec, owned by the council

River OtterName inspired a symbol on the school crest ■ Before the pool was built, deep section known as “The Pit” used for swimming

Site of swimming poolBuilt on this sharp corner in 1912 ■ Was hidden behind a high wall ■ Was next to thatched OH clubhouse which was a mini-version of the pavilion.

Walpole HouseLater renamed “Stanton”. ■ Consisted of four terraced houses ■ Identifiable through the squat spire which tops each bay window ■ Off aerial photo, in New Street at Marlpits Lane

Headmaster’s House and dormitoriesHM’s house now an estate agency ■ Two rows of terraced houses at rear are former dormitories ■ Baker House, with its common rooms, studies and dormitories, once adjoined the side alley, now called “Old School House Court”, where it joins the High Street

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Mackarness Hall“The Big Schoolroom” ■ Built 1892 Big step forward for the school ■ Funded by donations and the headmaster’s own money ■ Main room 60 feet by 25 ■ Stage at one end ■ Used for everything from prep to prize-giving, as well as communal lessons involving the whole school except juniors ■ Juniors taught in separate room on east side ■ Stained glass window dedicated to John Mackarness, a previous headmaster who became a bishop

Main photo: Stephen Bath OH

Much left?Half the buildings that Allhallows accumulated at Honiton have since been demolished, and many of those that haven’t have been altered. Finding those that do survive isn’t easy, because the fabric of the school was always mixed in with the houses and shops of the townspeople. This attempt to pinpoint major school buildings is far from complete. If you weren’t at the school when it was at Honiton, why would you want to go there? Seeing how the school was squeezed in there will give you a new perspective on what Allhallows became at Rousdon. You will appreciate the contrast between the tight urban site where the school developed and the remote cliff-top on which it ended. Honiton is only 16 miles from Rousdon. Pop in and have a look.

Hot historyBack when it was horribly mis-spelt in Domesday Book, Honiton huddled around what became St Michael’s church. A century later the local landlord booted the population a mile down the hill and started the village all over again. The cunning new site was on the old Roman Fosse Way – the A30 of its day. It was a great place for passing trade, and the medieval equivalent of tills began to ring. Honiton boomed as a centre for the cloth trade and built a national reputation for exquisite lace. Queen Victoria’s wedding dress was made of Honiton lace, and the Christening gown used by the royals today is a copy of a Honiton design. Fires were another Honiton specialty. In the 18th century fires destroyed many of the town’s oldest buildings, and in 1919 St Michael’s church had to be rebuilt after that became toast. Three years later the Allhallows chemistry lab went up in smoke only a year after it was built.

Site of playgroundClassrooms built here in 20th century ■ Demolished and now “Newlands” and “Tucker Court” housing ■ To counter growing traffic danger, school built wooden footbridge over Silver Street and tried to concentrate activities here ■ Changing sheds and wooden gym main features at first ■ Bigger gym and a chemistry lab built 1900 ■ Library and six classrooms followed

School HouseVaguely Tudor style but, though parts may date from 15th century, has been damaged over the centuries, so what we see today may be newer ■ Main use: boarding ■ Together with chapel, formed the familiar face of the school as seen from the High Street

Dining HallLinked mediaeval chapel to School House ■ Built 1903 ■ Allowed chapel to resume its use for worship, after serving as dining room for 11 years ■ Now forms an annex to the museum and used to display Honiton lace

ChapelThe heart of Allhallows ■ Medieval ■ By far the oldest building ■ Probably where the school started five centuries ago ■ For most of the school’s history, all teaching was done here, in one room, for all ages at the same time! ■ Only surviving part of a larger medieval chapel which was almost all demolished in 1835 ■ Everything changed in 1892, when a replacement schoolroom, Mackarness Hall, was erected on the far side of today’s parish church. So chapel demoted to role of school dining room. Remained for dining till 1903, when it returned to use as school chapel. Then actor-manager Arthur Chudleigh OH lavished love and cash on brightening-up the chapel’s forbidding interior ■ Became town museum as soon as the school left for Rousdon.

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By Jo James, who was 19 when Gethyn Hewan arrived at Allhallows for a nine-year stint in the top job. Gethyn was a Cambridge and Yale mathematician who brought co-education and built the Lillies Building and the Bruce biology lab. His time at Rousdon is widely seen as a golden era.

My Dad died 25 years ago last summer. We in the family were taken aback

by the number of people who came to the funeral. I remember the police turned out to control the traffic and the village came to a standstill. A coach came up from Allhallows with so many wonderful friends. It was a gorgeous day and we all went back to the house. People spilled out into the garden, drinking whisky and water (Dad’s favourite). It was a joyous celebration. He had touched the lives of so many people. Anyone who remembers the Christmas variety show in the Great Hall in 1965 will know that Dad was a skilled and funny conjurer. I can reveal that he was also a superb participant in charades, and an endlessly patient and skilled dry-fly fisherman. Dad loathed rudeness and dishonesty and had a firm Christian commitment. He was utterly honest and believed each person had enormous talent and potential. Many readers will be aware of his sporting and academic excellence, but few will know of his many other abilities. He had amazing recall of names

Pictured 60 years ago, during their time in Sydney, Australia, is the Hewan family. Left to right: Gethyn, Jill, Tim, Peggy and Jo

and faces. When I moaned that I lacked that ability, he told me it was because I wasn’t interested in the person. I still have Dad’s black leather address book, which is crammed with contact details updated in his neat writing. While it was Mum who wrote letters, Dad kept in touch by phoning and visiting. We grew up knowing that he and Mum believed in sharing. All sorts of people lived in our houses over the years. At the old Headmaster’s House on the main road at Rousdon, we shared with bachelor masters and then the first girls. When the girls moved in, all the big bedrooms upstairs were changed, and they had the big downstairs room as their sitting room. I still have our family sideboard with the marks made when the girls were a little careless in putting the knives and forks into the drawer as they tidied up after meals. You can see the little pittings on the polished wood. It’s nice - part of the history of that piece of furniture. In those early years I would come back for weekends – on my own and later with my former husband Alwyn and our children – and we’d be helping with cricket

suppers, or tea after the annual carol service. I remember well helping Mum cook egg and chips at the café started in Green Lane at Rousdon and run mainly for pupils, and getting involved in renovating and furnishing Cliff Cottage. Mischievous boys once took our family car and drove it down the drive and left it in the forecourt. Dad was very amused rather than angry because there was some witty and inventive aspect to the stunt which I can’t recall.He and Mum cared a lot about the other members of staff and continued to stay in touch with them all after they left Allhallows – even those who had moved on to other schools in other countries! Dad never talked to me about his strict anti-smoking campaign in the school; he gave up late in life but he’d smoked since he was a young man. I’ve got a photograph of him at Cranbrook School in Sydney on Anzac Day. He’s walking out with Robert Menzies, the Prime Minister of Australia, to inspect the cadets lined up and he’s in his academic gown, and in his hand is a cigarette! It just shows how fashion and habits can change radically.

My dad, the headmaster

23www.oldhonitonians.com

Gethyn Hewan as he left the school in 1974

I should add that I did smoke but gave up, and none of his children smoke now. Dad’s grandfather was a Jamaican/European mix and born a couple of years before the full emancipation of slaves on the Jamaican plantations. Someone did his doctorate partly on Dad’s grandfather and his role as a surgeon missionary in Calabar, Nigeria. I haven’t researched it properly but he was referred to as a ‘free Jamaican’ and the family tree goes back to Archibald Stirling, the owner of a major sugar plantation in Jamaica. I don’t remember my parents ever having an argument, which is frightening, because I grew up thinking that was what all marriages were like! I think Dad practised far-sighted ideas; he was ahead of his time. He knew that girls in the 6th form was the next step and he believed that headmasters should go on specific preparation and training courses before starting their jobs.

When Dad retired from Allhallows, he and Mum bought a house on the 15th fairway of Worplesdon Golf Course in Surrey. Then they moved to Horsell, which is only a spit away, just outside Woking. Dad loved his golf. He was still secretary of Surrey County Golf Union the day he died. As he grew more infirm, he got one of those three-wheeler motorbikes with big tyres and carried it on a trailer behind the car. He charged round golf courses on that motorbike, day in, day out, ensuring competitions and events started on time and all was correct. A great stickler for accuracy, his administration skills were amazing. I loved my father deeply and, as I’ve grown to understand him with the passing years, I see what he brought to Allhallows almost half a century ago. He had taught in top schools and had already been a headmaster. He and Mum had achieved huge amounts in their lives and so, at ease

with their place in the world, their time and energy were directed toward others. They gave themselves to Allhallows, its staff, the boys and girls, their parents and guardians. He truly cared about each and every one of you – what you did, what you could do, your ideas, and your hopes and dreams. Jo was the middle of three children. When her father came to Allhallows, she was a secretary but she went to university at age 35 and got two degrees, in Economics and then Defence Studies. She became a defence and strategy expert, lecturing and doing research for universities, government, the churches and Nato. Then she switched to major-gift fundraising for universities and hospitals, working internationally again. Now she and her second husband spend much of their time cruising England’s waterways on a narrow boat.

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At the latest Allhallows Remembrance Service it was the first time for at least

a decade that the sound of brass rang out. Patrick McCaig OH arrived with his trumpet and sounded the Last Post and a thrilling Reveille at the November 2nd service, in the heart of Honiton.Patrick’s skilful playing brought a fresh poignancy to the annual ceremony, which also featured, for the seventh year in a row, the lively playing of organist Vernon Burchell OH. The highly emotional service got off to a rousing Allhallows-style start with the congregation in lusty voice for the popular hymn Praise My Soul the King of Heaven. Before the Saturday afternoon ceremony, many OHs and their spouses and friends enjoyed an excellent lunch at the Hare and Hounds pub near Gittisham, before travelling the four miles to the church. The service was at St Paul’s, the parish church which stands next door to Allhallows Museum, which was once the school chapel. Conducted by Brigadier Nigel Speller

Trumpet honours our fallen

Vernon Burchell and Patrick McCaig in the organ loft behind the congregation

Some of the OHs who met for lunch before the ceremony

Pictured at tea after the service is John Colmer (M 44-48), who wore a helpful name badge that he had made

OH, the service remembered those whose lives are commemorated on memorials now in St Michael’s Church, on the hill above the town. The 14 OHs and friends of the school known to have died in the past year were also remembered. The Lessons were read by the Deputy Mayor of Honiton, Peter Halse, and by the President of the OH Club. In his sermon, Brigadier Speller suggested that a good way to live is to enjoy the memories of the past, the adventures of the present and to consider what can be passed on for the future. He said there is much knowledge and experience from the past which should be passed on. Not least is the furniture and memorials in the OH Chapel in St Michael’s, for which there is now hope that the Chapel can again be put into use for special occasions, whilst at other times being cared for by the users of the church. Our national life would be poorer if annual Remembrance services at cenotaphs and memorials throughout the

land were to cease when the memorials no longer had living connections or families to care for them. Brigadier Speller asked the younger ‘old’ generations to look again at the storehouse of their memories and see what they might pass on. We must continue to rejoice in the past, the present and the future, he said, whatever changes take place in our lives, in society and in Allhallows as originally known. We should remember that God remains the same as said in Hebrews Ch 13 verse 8: “Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, and today, and tomorrow.”

• Speaking after the service the President, Roddy Long, said that it was very much hoped that the annual Remembrance Service would return to St Michael’s in the near future.

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Rescue plan for chapel church • Hopes high for St Michael’s

• Vibrant congregation with helpful plan

• Future brighter for school memorials

St Michael’s is the home of the Allhallows Memorial Chapel, which

houses the altar, memorial boards and plaques taken from the chapel at Rousdon when the school closed in 1998. The annual Allhallows Remembrance Service on the first Saturday in November traditionally takes place in the Chapel but, because St Michael’s has been closed in winter for the last two years, the service has had to be held in St Paul’s, in Honiton town centre. There were fears that St Michael’s might close for good and so club president Roddy Long has been leading the search for a new home for the altar and other artefacts – but without success so far. But there now seems a good chance that St Michael’s can be saved and put back into full use year-round. St Leonard’s Church in Exeter is hugely popular and draws its congregation from an area which includes Honiton. A proposal is being drawn for St Michael’s to

become a daughter church of St Leonard’s. The proposal is progressing through various diocesan bodies and it is hoped that St Michael’s will be handed over to St Leonard’s by mid 2014. The ‘St Leonard’s Group, consisting of members of the St Leonard’s congregation who are leading the plan, have had a full survey of the church and drawn up a scheme to ensure the buildng will be safe, dry, warm and equipped with parking. Whatever they do, the group has promised not to alter the Chapel without consulting the club. St Michael’s needs a lot of work and the first-year spend will be over £100,000 – all to be found from voluntary donations. Although the annual Allhallows service cannot be held in the chapel this year, the St Leonard’s Group would very much appreciate any donations that OHs give towards the cost of work to the church. The cost of making all windows good and water-tight will be about £25,000 and, as good windows are so important in ensuring that the Allhalows treasueres are not damaged by damp, it would seem a sensible plan that donations from OHs go towards the window work. Those that have attended services in the chapel will

be pleased to know that a new heating system is high on the list of work to be done! Cheques should be made payable to “OH Club St Michael’s Appeal” and sent to Alec Crawford, Hon Sec, OH Club, The Old Smithy, Oakfordbridge, Tiverton EX16 9JA.

St Michael’sHigh on hill overlooking Honiton

Side chapel houses Allhallows treasures

Currently closed all winter and rarely used in summer

St Paul’sAt the centre of Honiton High Street

The parish church, open all year

Stands in the midst of what used to be Allhallows School at Honiton

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‘Pete would have loved the idea of us meeting up’After Peter Laurence died of cancer last

year, his old school friends knew they had to do something to celebrate the life he had lived so enthusiastically. So they organised a lunch which reunited his school mates and raised £600 for the hospice where he died at age 47.Most of the money came from donations but £100 came from auctioning a drive in a Lamborghini. The dozen or so OHs at the September 21st lunch recalled that Pete (C 81-85) had been a warm and friendly character who had excelled at cross-country running, water sports, arts and invention. He became head of his house, despite a love of beach parties and dormitory high jinx. The lunch, at the Mandolay Hotel in Guildford, was organised by Martin Boulden (St 81-83) and Simon Lynes (C80-85) with Marcus Baldwin (C 81-84), who had remained a close friend of Pete’s after school. Guests included Tony Wells, who did not go to Allhallows but had been a close friend since he and Pete had been infants. Tony said his adventures with Pete included competing in the 50-mile Round the Island yacht race six times. “He was a lot of fun but I understand that he was, like most of us, anxious at home about things,” Tony said. Three years ago the two old friends competed together in the gruelling

London Triathlon. “He had only tried his wet suit by swimming in a tank for five minutes.” Martin reminded diners that the lunch was being held 12 months since a get-together which had reunited 15 OHs and their contemporaries, including Pete, for the first time in 30 years. A poignant reminder of Pete which confronted OHs at the lunch was a photo of him with his wife and children, printed on the paper place mats. The one-hour drive in the £325,000 690-horsepower Lamborghini Aventador was provided by Claus Andersen (C 79-84), who runs a luxury car dealership at Pangbourne in Berkshire. The lunch continued till mid-afternoon. Afterwards Marcus said: “Pete would have wanted to be here. He would have loved the idea of us meeting up.”

Peter was a top windsurfer at Exmouth, capable of tackling Force 10s and hitting 30 knots

Peter Laurence1966-2013

At the funeral, in the village church at Clyst Hydon, close friend Marcus

Baldwin recounted how he first came across Pete. “I met Peter when we were 13 in the study of our new housemaster, Derek Blooman, at our new school, Allhallows. “I was struck first by his curtain-style centre-parting, and by how friendly and good-natured he seemed. “And I discovered to my delight that he was also an avid Kate Bush and AC/DC fan.” “His good grace made him popular with masters and pupils alike but it was his understated charm and good looks that made him a hit with the girls. His insistence on calling them ‘young ladies’ always pleased them.” His stamina at cross-country earned him the nick name “Duracell Pete”, after 1973 adverts for long-lasting batteries. He once stunned class colleagues by producing a mini-calculator that had just been invented. That presaged a lifelong interest in gadgets from mobile phones to a self-made device for remotely videoing his boat from a camera at the top of the mast. The son of a chartered surveyor, Peter was born near Bristol before moving to Devon. After school he got a BTEC in Art & Design from South Devon Technical College and set up as a polo photographer. “He would go to polo matches with his long lens and his four-wheel drive, taking photos and selling them,” Tony said.We worked with an uncle who was a stonemason and later co-founded the Sidmouth building firm The General Maintenance Co. He is survived by his wife Kate and three children.

Affable and easy-going, rather like Pete. Pictured outside the Mandolay Hotel are (left to right) back row: Tony Wells, Andrew Appleyard, Charles Osbourne, Chris Watts, Nick Tadd and Enis Miftari. Middle row: Marcus Baldwin, David Shaw, Martin Boulden, Henry Bowers-Tolley. Kneeling: Simon Lynes, Chris Redmond, Robert Hescroff, Chris McCaig

27www.oldhonitonians.com

Pausing for breath outside the St Cross alms houses complex are Jill Matthews, Charles Matthews (St 65-69), Myf Adams (M 69-71), Gru Blomfield, George Hayter, Mark Tatchell (V 66-70), Dominic Naish, Katie Owen, Michael Shaw (C 57-61), Jeremy Owen and Giles Blomfield (C 53-57)

Bubble of Time A light-hearted fantasy novel by R.J. Trivett OH.

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Going with the flowAn OH ramble along a Hampshire river

brought two flashes of nostalgia. The ramblers found themselves reminded of their days at public school in an unexpected way. Their six-mile route took them along the banks of the Itchen Navigation, and they soon found themselves in the midst of a lesson, with boys in sculls being taught rowing by a master on the bank. The boys were from Winchester College - said to be the oldest public school in England - which lies close to the river. When the convivial ramble continued

to St Catherine’s Hill, the OHs were again reminded of their schooldays, when they were passed by two streams of Winchester College cross-country runners haring up the 200-foot hill. The OHs and their companions were impressed by the manners of two Winchester pupils in particular, who turned round and dashed back to hold open a gate for some walkers. Some OHs wondered if they had themselves been as polite when they were that age. The September 14th expedition, from Shawford station to a Winchester pub

lunch and back, was organised by Dominic Naish (St 63-68), who in 2010 organised an OH walk along the Kennet and Avon Canal near Bath. The route this time, taking in a medieval alms house and an Iron Age hill fort, was devised by George Hayter (V 65-70). Among the participants was super-fit Myf Adams, who carried a 48-litre backpack throughout, as training for a hiking expedition in Italy. Myf denied the bag was full of rocks. Everyone got on well and, most important, no-one fell in the river.

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How to organise a reunion

SOME years have ’em, some don’t. You’re lucky if you left in ’66, ’71 or ’83 because that means you are in a core year for which reunions have been held recently. But organisers often welcome leavers from adjacent years, or even leavers from several years away. It’s quite possible to go to a reunion with people who you knew only as 6th formers, and where they only knew you as a pleb (if they noticed you at all). Most of us were at Allhallows for five years. If your year is separated from an established reunion by more than that five-year generation, and you want to be united with former colleagues, someone is going to have to initiate a completely new reunion. That someone may have to be you. If you’ve got as far as thinking about getting your old Rousdon companions together, you’ve taken the first step. Don’t turn back now. You’ll be wondering what you can learn from people who have already acted as reunion ringmaster. OH Magazine asked six accomplished organisers for their advice.

Come dine with meJohn ArmstrongSince 2009, gourmet John has held five get-togethers in his pub, the

White Horse at Ampfield in Hampshire, each event based around dinner with a designer OH menu, and each one attracting dozens of people paying a modest charge.John’s top tip: You’ll need determination because, when you look people up and send an email, 90% seem to ignore it.Target: OHs who left any time in the 1960s, and wives or partners of either sex. It started as a dinner with four of us. We all said: ‘Let’s get some other people to come to one of these.’ Sometimes I’ve felt too much that I was chasing people to come back to me with answers and sometimes I have felt I was being too pushy. I don’t want people to think it’s an old school-tie job. It’s not about old fogies going over their schooldays. It’s about a group of people who shared something extraordinary. For five years that school was our home.

We were all going on a summer holidayJohn HarperAs well as organising OH golf for years, John

organised a small reunion four years ago.Top tip: You have to choose a venue convenient for everybody, somewhere with a central location.Target: Former companions from an expediton in 1963. It was just four of us, and we met at The Holt, the OH-run pub in Honiton. As soon as we left school, all four of us teamed-up for on an expedition from England to Greece by Land Rover. One of us, Philip White, wanted to go to Greece to see Delphi etcetera. I still knew two of them, and it wasn’t difficult to track down the third. He called back straight away. He was very happy to talk. We had a nice lunch at the Holt, just us four old guys. It was interesting to see what they’d all done, and to see what they looked like. People do change over 40-odd years! It was fun.

Something for a weekendRichard AndersonWith Peter Sloan, Richard has organised biennial reunions almost

since he left school in 1971. The weekend-long events organised by the two men are the envy of OHs from other generations.Top tip: Avoid cup final day or Wimbledon. November is easy for most people.Target: His year, other close years, and ex-staff. The key to it is to get two guys together – not five or six, just two of you. Decide what you’re going to do and then tell people that’s going to happen. They don’t want to make decisions themselves. If you have a committee, you’ll have 101 different plans. We used to book a hotel. We found a good one in the New Forest which we used a number of times. Book two nights, so you do a whole package. Most hotels won’t accept a large booking for just Saturday night. They want you staying Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights, but you can usually get away with just Friday and Saturday.

Some people think: “I don’t want to do a whole weekend, I just want to meet for an evening.” So some do come along just for that, but most find that a weekend package is attractive. On one, Myf Adams organised a treasure hunt. On the Sunday we all do a long walk with wellie boots and end up in a pub. Once we went out on a boat, and one year we drove round on a double-decker bus. We’ve done all sorts of things.

People are nervousPeter SloanPeter has been joint weekend reunion mastermind with

Richard Anderson (see above) since they were in their early 20s.Top tip: People need a lot of prodding if they’re going to reply to your emails on time.Target: Leavers within a year or two of 1971. We’ve never wanted to restrict it to one year, although that’s how it started. Now it includes people a couple of years above us or below us, or whatever. There’s always a common denominator, and that’s the school. People who first come are often nervous. They’re thinking: “Oh God, do I really want to spend two days with these guys?” But they just slip into the conversation. I remember Brian Levet (S 66-71) a few years ago. I hadn’t seen him for years. He’d been living in Australia. Within 10 minutes it was as if nothing had changed. We were back at school and it was 1969 or something. Although you might be a bit nervous the first evening, by the next day you really get a chance to talk to some of these people. And once you’ve got to know them, that makes the next time easier as well. It’s very rewarding, getting together people who sometimes haven’t seen each other for years. “I’m organising a reunion”

29www.oldhonitonians.com

Short is sweet Jennie Walters(nee Spurgeon)Leading role in annual reunions which began in 2010.

Top tip: Keep it short and sweet and don’t have partners along. If you invite partners you’ll worry about how much they’re enjoying it.Target: Girls who left in 1975. Quite a few of us met through a sad occasion. It was the funeral of Johnnie Cooper (C 70-75). He was such a lovely man. We arranged a meeting in London which was great. We’ve had two reunions in people’s homes and one in a restaurant, and this year we went back to the school. That was the best one so far – to actually be there! We found we represented the girls we used to be. For example, the girl I used to share a room with – other people would see her as a 57-year-old woman but we were back at school and I was seeing her as a 16-year-old.

My brush withsainthoodMartin BouldenIn 2012 Martin organised a one-day reunion with an

optional overnight hotel stay. It was the first time his year had been reunited. Since then he has also organised a commemorative lunch following the death of Peter Laurence (C 81-85).Top tip: If you want 15, invite 25.Target: His year, who mostly left in 1985. A friend and I planned it over dinner and we found it easy using Facebook to find friends of friends. A few months later we all met in front of the forecourt gates at Rousdon. Allhallows is a good place for a first reunion. After walking round some of the school grounds, we had lunch at the Hix Oyster & Fish House, a stunning restaurant which overlooks the Cobb in Lyme. The whole day was seriously moving. People were walking on air for the next

two or three weeks. I didn’t stop getting phone calls. I was almost appointed a saint! It was a brilliant event, a brilliant day. Some people hadn’t seen each other for 28 years. My main piece of advice is very simple. Don’t put it off until you’re any older. Someone’s got to step up and say: ‘Let’s do this.’

Running a reunionAnd they’re off! Our front cover shows the brilliant 2011 reunion for 1971-ish leavers, when eight OHs aged about 58 completed a steep 5K cross-country race starting at the former Shallow house. Left to right: Peter Rooke, Nigel Clist, Steve Bath, John Campbell Clause, John Anderson, Jeremy Best (obscured), Claire Anderson, James Campbell Clause and David Viccars.

Allhallows Watercolour Prints

The above print is of the finest quality on watercolour paper, as the original painting, offered as a signed limited edition available in two sizes to fit, when mounted, a frame size of either 22” x 15” or 30” x 20” at £40 and £60 respectively.

The Mansion print is still available as a signed open edition in the smaller size at £30. Prices include P&P. Please send your order enclosing a cheque, payable to Michael Stride, to: North Lodge, Rousdon Estate, Lyme Regis, Dorset DT7 3XW or bank transfer to M. D. Stride, Account No. 51020637, Sort Code 60-13-57 emailing the details. E: stride@ic24.net T: 01297 443718 www.michaelstride.co.uk

Following Michael Stride’s watercolour print of the Mansion being well received, he is offering a second, featuring his watercolour of the main drive in winter.

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ObituariesThe Club has learnt of the deaths of the following OHs and associates of Allhallows. The club extends its condolences to families and friends.

John Eames Bevis (C 34-37)

Shaun Stephen Blatcher (B 75-77)

John Ravenhill Hulbert (B 46-56)

Peter French Laurence (C 81-85)

Jacqueline Margaret Parkes (Sh 79-81)

Maurice St Clair Holly Whitehouse (M 35-40)

Paul Lindsay Wilson (St 70-74)

David John Goddard (C 38-44) died at home on 9th August 2013 aged 87. John was a school prefect, played for the 1st XV and captained the cross country team. On leaving Allhallows he enlisted in the Army and was sent to Northern Europe. He served in Germany, Malaya, Singapore, Hong Kong and Aden. He was also a British military attaché to the Sultan of Oman and the French Army in Indochina. Having initially joined the Royal Engineers, John graduated to the Parachute Engineers and finally the Gurkha Engineers, where he rose to the rank of major. His friends and family continued to regard him as a military man long after he had retired. In retirement John acted as an advisor to shipping companies dealing with relocation. He is survived by his wife Bano, son Tariq (Sh 88-91), and grandchildren Lola and Spike.

Richard Desmond Green (B 61-65) died on 3rd August 2013 aged 68. Richard qualified as a chartered accountant and worked for Methuen publishers for many years. He called Winchester his

home for 40 years and took a very active role in several organisations. In 1974 he joined Winchester Dramatic Society, now known as the Chesil Theatre. There being close links between the dramatic and operatic societies, Richard both acted with the Chesil and sang in the chorus of the operatic society. He was also treasurer of both. A stalwart Rotarian , he organised for many years the annual carol singing in the High Street. Richard loved Winchester Cathedral and paid for a camera in the organ loft, enabling audiences to see the organist during recitals. In 2004 Richard

published a history of St Peter’s Church – the building which became home to the Chesil Theatre in 1966. The proceeds from the book went to the Chesil Development Appeal. In 1986 Richard married Maggie Christie, also a member of both the dramatic and operatic societies. In 2011 Richard and Maggie filmed their reminiscences for the Chesil Archives. Richard ends with the words “Happy times. I would not have missed it for the world.”

Graham George Prosser (St 42-49) died on 21st March 2013, aged 82.Described by one of his contempories as one of the finest rugby full backs produced by Allhallows, Graham was a member of the 1948 1st XV which was unbeaten. A very highly resepcted vet, Graham practised in Kingsbridge for many years.

John Alexander Robson (St 77-82) Born 17th June 1964, John sadly died in June 2013 just after his 49th birthday, of a brain haemorrhage. John was a very keen hockey and cricket player, playing for Richmond Hockey Club and Old Actonians Cricket Club. His love for both sports emanated from his time at Allhallows, especially playing in Derek Blooman’s seconds cricket team. John was a school prefect and was promoted to sergeant in the Army section of the CCF. After Allhallows John went to Sheffield University, where he was head of the Student Union and came away with an Ancient History degree. In business John worked for the CBI and various blue-chip companies – Ford, DHL, Dell, Global Crossing and Panduit. An avid sports fan throughout his life, he supported QPR and Bath Rugby. And he supported England in most sports, especially cricket. John was a great fan of music, books and films. His untimely death meant he missed attending his first Glastonbury Festival, the Lions beating Australia and Andy Murray winning Wimbledon, all of which would have brought him huge satisfaction. John was never married and is survived by his mother Jill and brothers Andrew (St 78-83) and Simon.

Fiona Judith Alison Scott (nee Booth) (C 72-74) . The Club only learnt earlier this year that Fiona died on 6th July 2012, aged 55. After leaving Allhallows Fiona did a teacher training course at Bishop Otter College, Chichester. Subsequently she ran children’s playgroups and worked with children in the Oxford area, living in Eynsham, Freeland and Long Hanborough.. Fiona had three children,

described as a credit to her. Her husband died in 2006.

David John Addison Turner (B 46-49). David Turner died in February 2013, aged 80. From Allhallows he went to Seale Hayne Agricultural College and subsequently worked as a farm manager in Essex. Later he travelled the world, representing the tractor division of David Brown. Following a period with British Leyland, David, who was single, came back to Devon and grew flowers on a commercial scale.

Gerald Patrick Anthony Turner (M 46-51). Tony Turner was born in Rabaul, New Guinea in 1933. He grew up there and in Hong Kong, Manila, Sydney – where he went to Cranbrook School –

and in the UK. He was head of school in 1950-51 and won 10 academic prizes.He went up to Keble College, Oxford and, apart from two years National Service in the Royal Engineers, spent his working life with ICI as an industrial chemist. Not only did Tony have a near fanatical love of, and interest in, cricket but he was also a renowned poet, having started writing poems while at Allhallows. After retirement from ICI in 1990, poetry-writing – along with cricket – became a major part of his life. His poems were published in more than 20 poetry magazines and anthologies, as well as in five collections, Some I did earlier (1996), Reading the signs (1998) Where was I? (2000), Belief in something better (2003) and How far away Australia is (2005) .Tony was married with two sons and a daughter.

Philip Griffin Tyler (M 33-37) died on 1st December 2012, aged 93. His six brothers also went to Allhallows, where their father had been a master. Phil went on to Exeter College, Oxford before being commissioned in the RAF in 1939. During World War II he served in France, North Africa and Italy, and was twice mentioned in despatches. After the war Phil served in the UK, Germany and the USA, and was appointed OBE in 1965. Retiring from the RAF in 1973, he joined the Planning Inspectorate for the Department of the Environment, from which he finally retired in 1986 as senior planning inspector. Married in 1946 to Birgitta Wickstrom, Phil moved to Alveston, Bristol after his

Richard Green

Tony Turner

31www.oldhonitonians.com

wife’s death in 1990 and subsequently to his native Monmouth area where he became a patron and tireless fundraiser for the disability charity St Briavel Centre for Child Development.

Winifred Mary Webber, or ‘Winnie’, as she was always known, died on 30th May 2013 aged 91. Married to George Webber who for many years took great pride in looking after the gardens at Rousdon, Winnie worked in various roles at Allhallows, latterly assisting Jack Jarchow in the school shop. It was praise indeed when Jack was heard to say: “If Winnie is there everything will be all right”

James Andrew Yearsley (St 54-59) died on 17th April 2013 at his home in South Africa. Andrew was a noted cricket and hockey player at school. He worked for accountants in Southampton for a short time but then went to Northern Rhodesia and joined the police. He stayed there for many years after independence, when the country became Zambia. Then Andrew, with his wife Liz and children, moved to Phalaborwa in South Africa, where he worked for the local copper mining company in public relations. After retirement Andrew printed a magazine for the local town. One of his friends said: “He was always on the end of the e-mail to have a laugh and a joke with.”

For 25 years a go-ahead teacher and coachRichard Ambrose (Master 68-93). It was with great sadness that literally hundreds of OHs who knew him learnt of the death on 24th March 2013 of Richard Ambrose. Richard and Shirley Ambrose retired in August 1993 after nearly 25 years of devoted service to Allhallows. They made an immense contribution to the life of the school. DJB recalls headmaster Gethyn Hewan saying in 1968 that he had appointed a Loughborough rugger player as Head of Physical Education. The new appointee had acquired an impressive reputation at Newbury Grammar School. Shirley had taught games at the nearby top-rated Downe House girls school, and it was obvious the moment they arrived that much could be expected of the talented couple. Richard directed a small but admirably efficient PE department, to which he brought new ideas. For many years he coached a series of highly successful Ist XVs. Together with Keith Moore, he trained strong athletic teams, which enabled Allhallows to compete with bigger schools, and which

maintained the high standards of his predecessor and Head of Geography, Colin Harrison. When Richard became Head of Geography, again he introduced the latest methods, with the ‘new’ Geography. Practical surveys were undertaken in Exeter, on the landslip and in the Axe Valley, and Allhallows collaborated with Blundell’s and Exmouth School on GCSE courses. Regular visits to Coblenz with A-level geographers and skiing visits to Switzerland and Austria with boys and girls from different levels of the school and other members of staff took an increasing toll on Richard’s time. He became an acknowledged expert on Geography expeditions, and indeed planned them for travel companies and pupils in other schools. It will be as house parents of Venning and then Charton that boys and girls in their charge will chiefly remember Richard and Shirley. Positive, decisive and always caring, they complemented each other perfectly. After they retired in 1993 they made their home in a small village in Shropshire. (DJB & NJG).

Can you help to ring some changes?By Anthony Lovell-Wood (St 60-65)

For years I have wondered how many OHs are, like me, a campanologist.

Please get in touch if you, too, are a bell ringer, so that we can hopefully arrange to ring at Honiton and possibly even at a City church in London. I took up the challenge of bell ringing in 1975, when I moved to Sturminster Newton in Dorset. Since then I have promoted bell ringing whenever I could and I’ve participated in all the activities it offers. Now living in Tisbury in Wiltshire, I am honorary secretary of the Salisbury Diocesan Guild of Ringers, and have been for the last 15 years. I’m also a member of the Central Council of Church Bell Ringers, the international organisation for associations of ringers. Each year OHs gather in Honiton for an Allhallows remembrance service, and I believe a peal of bells would attract more. Our president, Roddy Long, has expressed delight that the Allhallows service is in the hands of OHs – since the officiant, organist and trumpeter last time were all OHs.

Like me, Roddy would love to hear OHs ring the church bells too, although that possibility will depend on which church is used. Another possibility is presented by the 500th anniversary lunch in London next year. It would be good to ring a quarter peal on the bells of a City church near the venue. A quarter peal usually takes between 45 and 60 minutes. Some of you may have learnt to ring in your youth and may not have rung a bell since. You might be surprised to find

that you haven’t forgotten as much about ringing as you thought. Try again and get back into practice. Your tower needs you, as do we in Honiton. If you have not tried ringing before, go along to your local tower to see what it’s all about. It’s never too late to start if you’re reasonably fit and healthy. Ringing is a pastime that will keep you trim. If you’re a bell ringer please email me at woodringer@btinternet.com or phone 01747 871121.

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Mr Hill and Mr Hewan, Mr Mathewson too, as well as Mr Larkman, and Mr

Moore – all must have savoured many challenges and triumphs on being at the helm of Allhallows School. But when they retired to their study, none were able to enjoy the degree of comfort the room offers now. Like the rest of the mansion at Rousdon, the former headmaster’s study has been richly refurbished (See picture above). The first-floor room is now part of the luxurious four-storey, seven-bedroom home of Judith and Warwick Bergin. Called “Middle House”, their home is one of the five separate properties resulting from the division of the main building. The couple bought the house in 2002, after Judith had sold her advertising and communications business. She was the first person to move in after the school closed in 1998, and after the building had been empty for years. She employed renovation experts and Middle House, consisting of the mansion’s sunny south-west corner, is now a palace of refinement. The basement includes a wine cellar and a garage.

A water-powered lift, boarded up and largely forgotten during the school’s time, is back in motion, now pushed by a hydraulic ram embedded 20 feet below the basement floor. Judith’s enthusiasm for Rousdon has extended to buying two other segments of the mansion, and she now rents out both. Peek House, the former servants wing and later home to much of Middy, is now

a lavish seven-bedroom holiday let with

prices starting at £2,550 for three nights.

Billiard House, at one time the heart of

Baker, is now a three-bedroom pavilion of

luxury going for as little as £650 for two

nights.

Judith has returned her parts of the

great house to gorgeous style. Sir Henry

Peek and his inspired architect, Sir Ernest

George, would congratulate her.

Inside Rousdon today

Former classroom and Baker junior common room, now part of Billiard House

33www.oldhonitonians.com

Familiar mosaic on the first floor

Formerly parts of Middy, these two stylish rooms are now for rent as part of spacious “Peek House”

Take yourself back to school for a week or weekend with yourfamily and friends - by renting any of these 3 luxuriously furnished properties with sleeping accommodation from 3 to 30. Step out and enjoy the new Rousdon estate...what a way to have a reunion and celebrate with memories from the past!For further details Contact Judith Ellard

email:judith@peekhouse.co.uk | Tel No. 01297 444734 | Visit our website www.peekhouse.co.uk

PEEK HOUSE

CORONATION HOUSE

BILLIARD HOUSE

1015 ALLHALLOWS ADVERT_Layout 1 26/11/2013 10:49 Page 1

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She almost won her own tournament

organiser Myf Adams (M 69-71) not only arranged the first OH tennis event to be held for many

years. She also played so well in the tournament that she finished as runner-up. Or rather, joint runner-up. It was a doubles tournament and super-fit Myf was teamed up with nimble Yvonne Henderson, who is her sister-in-law. The mixed pair who took first prizes were powerhouse Ted Sandbach and athletic Nicci Humphries. Wine connoisseur Ted (St 67-71) was an outstanding all-round sportsman at Rousdon, being awarded his triple colours as well as becoming head of school. Nicci (C 72-74), nee Thurgood, is a third-generation sporting OH. If Myf had won, there’s no doubt her victory would have been applauded by everyone there. She had organised the one-day fun tournament with meticulous energy. Everything ran like SW19 clockwork, despite a low temperature, a keen wind and a shower of rain. There was a huge feeling of bonhomie among the 20 players and the same number of spectators. Readers of last year’s magazine may remember that the mid-May event was billed as the “Wimbledon Warm-Up”, and the promotional material employed a picture of Morecambe and Wise in tennis shorts. That light-hearted approach was carried through on the day itself. Myf had to put up with good-natured heckling when she delivered a speech of welcome,

which listed facilities from strawberries with cream to a scoreboard with an official scorer. “But where’s the St John Ambulance tent?” one wag wanted to know. Tournament manager Patrick Musters (St 66-70) kept all matches running strictly to a 25-minute duration, as well as providing humour. One of the most amusing incidents came in the first round, when Patrick bent down to do his shoe lace and accidentally zeroed the stopwatch in his pocket. So he had to guess how long people had been playing. One competitor later harangued him, complaining that her match lasted so long she was exhausted. The venue was a complex of six outdoor tennis courts set among the 46 stately acres of Leweston School, near Sherborne in Dorset. The Catholic boarding and day school, for boys aged 2-11 and for girls aged 2-18, generously provided the courts free of charge, along with other amenities – including a tent which provided a vital refuge when the shower arrived. To see a group photo of just about everyone who was there, including a dog who was distinctly un-cooperative, see the News section of the OH website. We’re not sure if it’s because she’s a born organiser or because she wants another crack at winning, but Myf has agreed to hold a similar tournament this year. You hardly need know one end of a racket from another in order to play. Just book your place as soon as possible. Winners: Nicci and Ted

Organiser: Myf, with Roddy and orchid

Strict timekeeper: Patrick

OH Wimbledon Warm-Up 2014

At lovely Leweston

Saturday, 10th May

Spectators welcome

Stylish refreshments

Details: Page 5

35www.oldhonitonians.com

OHs of a certain age will remember Dr Alex Fernandez, who died in Lyme Regis on 14th October. ‘Ferdie’ was for many years the school doctor, coming to administer to those in the san as required. Always well dressed and usually with a rose in his button hole, Ferdie could often be seen on the touch-line watching school rugby matches. The club’s condolences are extended to his five surviving children.

A book about an OH who played a key wartime role in British Naval Intelligence has recently been published. Charles Julian Thoroton (1885-1890) lived from 1875 to 1939 and attended Allhallows in Honiton before joining the Royal Marines Light Infantry in 1893. From 1901 to 1904 he was the Officer Commanding Ascension Island. During World War I Thoroton was in Gibraltar as senior naval intelligence officer in the Mediterranean Theatre. He worked closely with Winston Churchill, who stated in his book The World Crisis 1911-1914 that our information about German naval movements was principally obtained from the reports of secret agents in neutral and enemy countries, and from a special study of the German wireless. Thoroton was awarded the Legion of Honour, the Order of the Crown of Italy and of Ouisam Alaonte of Morocco. He also received the Order of St Michael and St George in 1917. Retiring from the Royal Marines as a colonel in 1919, Thoroton then served for five years as Madrid commissioner for the former Federation of British Industries. His granddaughter, Kay, was at Shute School, Axminster, with Rosemary Sidwell (née Shallow) in the 1940s. Kay married Philip Vickers and they now live in France. The book, by Philip Vickers, is Finding Thoroton (ISBN 978-1-908123-06-0).

Sean Day-Lewis (M44-49) phoned Derek to ask him whether he would give a talk to a local branch of the Devonshire Association on Allhallows and the Rousdon mansion. Derek said he would be delighted to do so. OHs may have read an article in the Daily Telegraph on November 20th 2012 headed: ‘Take poet’s advice and walk away, head tells pushy parents’. Christian Heinrich, the chairman of the Boarding Schools Association, urged parents to heed the advice of Sean’s father, Cecil Day-Lewis, later the Poet Laureate, in his famous poem Walking Away, when he left his son at Allhallows. Sean worked for many years on the Peterborough column for the Telegraph and later as the paper’s TV critic. OHs may also have followed the news of Sean’s half-brother Daniel, who won his third Oscar for his performance as Abraham Lincoln.

After receiving the 2013 OH Magazine, John Dame (C 44-51) wrote to say that he is very glad that he is still on the Club books as he thought that he had severed links some

time ago. He says the magazine evokes many memories and he hopes to attend the Allhallows Memorial Service in November.

David Bewes (Junior House 45-48) recently wrote to the Hon Sec providing an email address and saying: “My father Arthur Bewes and two of his brothers, Cecil and Anstis, were educated at Allhallows at Honiton, when my grandfather, Canon Thomas Bewes, was vicar of St George’s, Tiverton. I was born in 1937, and went to Allhallows in 1945, aged about 8, in Junior House, which was in the Dower House at Rousdon. When George Shallow ceased to be headmaster and moved to the Downs School at Wraxall in 1948, I was one of the young boys who went with him. The intention was that I would return to Allhallows in 1950, at the age of 13. However my parents opted to send me to Clifton College in Bristol instead. With the benefit of hindsight, I have often thought that we got it wrong, and Allhallows would have been the better school for me. I remember my three years at Allhallows with some nostalgia and affection, and I also remember many of my friends there, many of whom went with me to Wraxall and then returned to Allhallows to complete their school education.”

Dr Michael Hawkins (C 45-50) lives in Thailand and fears that he is not able to attend the OH functions details of which details are sent to him. However Michael and his wife, accompanied by her sister, recently took part in a ceremony at Lampang to plant teak trees, sponsored by Her Royal Highness, Princess Srindhorn. The OH tie was to be seen!

Brian Clark (V 45-53), former Hon Treasurer of the OH Club, tells me that in the summer of 2012 he walked with fellow OHs the demanding undercliff path from Lyme Regis to Axmouth and finished with the traditional pub lunch at the Harbour Inn, where they were met by the ladies of the party.

The OH Club president received a card from David Hillier (M 46-50), thanking us for remembering his 80th birthday, and Roddy sent him copies of various stories. Apart from ‘decorating’ the card with pinups he related a few stories of his own! He suggests that Stuart MacGregor was the best captain he played under and apologises for his fielding; he remembers his opening partnership with Giles Blomfield. The then coach told David that he should not be concerned about how many

runs he scored but more with the score of the opening partnership! He proudly recalls being in 51 century opening partnerships in his career. Off the field, he thanks Giles for his comments about the au pair whom he remembers with enormous pleasure; apparently there is a lot we do not know!! Hopefully David will be over here at some time in 2013 and he really did appreciate our birthday wishes.

Ron Barr (M 47-51) lives in Rhode Island and says it’s a little difficult to get to meetings. If the meetings were in January or March, when he’s in transit to his winter haunts, usually in Asia somewhere, he’d love to make it. Last year he was in Burma – where his father was in WW2 – Cambodia, Thailand, Laos and Vietnam, with a stop in Shanghai on the way back to visit relations. This year it is southern India, Jordan and Israel, with a few weeks in the UK at either end. At his annual hunt breakfast he was served kippers. That reminded him that at Allhallows he was served kippers for breakfast every Tuesday and can recall trying to eat them only once. Fortunately his tastes have matured and he even had haggis in Scotland last year, and almost enjoyed it! Newport, Rhode Island is a wonderfully active place with plenty of activities to keep the brain young. The oldest library in the country, the Redwood, has a regular “life of the mind” series. The Naval War College offers weekly lectures by military writers and professors, Salve University has an international humanitarian series, and of course there are the well-known music festivals, both classical and jazz, and so on. It’s a small place but gets quite filled in the summer with tourists and, especially in the autumn, when cruise ships unload thousands of people it seems, many of them Brits. Rod says any OHs who happen to pass his way are more than welcome. He would conduct a tour, or if anyone is interested in a longer stay he would be happy to talk about it. He is in the phone book and of course can be reached by email.

Tom Hembrow (B 49-53) has presented a handsome OH Shooting Cup, known as the Hembrow Cup, to the OHs and Jim Rowe says it will be used as a trophy for a fitting OH competition. Tom says his great hobby is now collecting 18th century Old English Porcelain (pre 1780).

Mike Clark (Sh 50-54) recently bought an OH tie and cufflinks and made a generous donation

Aunt Agatha items received 2012-2013

Who is AA? Our auntie’s identity is of course absolutely top secret but we do know two people who can get your news to her. Write to Derek Blooman, Coach House, Clappentail Lane, Lyme Regis DT7 3LZ. Or email Nigel Giles at njgiles@btinternet.com

36

to the club. After serving in the Devonshire Regiment, Mike went to agricultural college and then farmed for more than 20 years. Having sold his farms, he became head groundsman at a large prep school for boys, until retiring in 2002. For more than 40 years Mike has been voluntarily looking after the two grounds at his local cricket club, Overstone Park Cricket Club in Northamptonshire, and in 2012 was selected for the NatWest Oscars awards at Lord’s for services to cricket.

Jeremy Parrett (M 58-63) and Jane have moved from Canada to their new home in Vero Beach, Florida. Maybe Jane and Jeremy will be able to come over for the 500th!!

Michael Fanner (C 51-56) sends his sincere apologies for his very long silence. He tells us that he is retiring from his dental practice in the Cathedral Close at Salisbury, in order to move to Seaton in January. He hopes to be able to attend OH events in the future and sends his very best wishes for the New Year.

When clearing out a filing cabinet, Giles Blomfield (C 53-57) came across a newspaper cutting from 1979 describing a cricket match at Old Deer Park between teams from Pagoda Avenue and Selwyn Avenue, Richmond. Giles, a noted batsman at school, playing for Pagoda Avenue, is recorded as having taken 8 wickets for 9 runs! At a subsequent OH cricket week, Giles showed the cutting to the captain, Stuart MacGregor (V 47-54). He gave Giles the ball but after one over Giles was taken off! Another notable cricket feat that has also come to light involved Hubert van Weelde (C 75-78) captain of cricket in 1978, who in 1977 achieved the remarkable feat of taking 9 wickets for 16 runs, including a hat trick against the Free Foresters. Hubert still has a bat signed by the team to mark his feat, which was mentioned in Wisden. Hubert is managing director of Victory Shipping in Rotterdam.

Anthony Pollard (M 55-60) was Professor of History at Teeside University and his books include Richard III and the Princes in the Tower and Warwick the King Maker. Anthony wondered whether an Allhallows foundation deed had been discovered, when he read on our website that the club intended to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the school. Derek replied that the Allhallows Charity –founded on 20th July 1524 by Sir John Kirkham, Knight, and Elisene Harding, Clerk – was intended to repair the Allhallows Chapel and the school house, which indicates the school was already in existence. Anyway it’s a good excuse for a party. Allhallows probably started when the priest of Allhallows Chapel taught the children of Honiton townsfolk. That is how many grammar schools began, though this is not to say that the first OHs fought with Henry V at Agincourt.

Chris Hulburd (B 55-60) with his wife June called on Derek in Lyme Regis when they were touring the West Country. Chris holds the school high jump record and was for many years an

estate agent in Canterbury. He asked after Nigel French (C 55-60), star hockey player and a leading light of the OH Club, who had some harrowing experiences in the floods at East Pennard. Chris’s parents used to live at the bottom of Clappentail Lane in Lyme Regis – near Derek.

John Court (B 56-62), high-powered accountant, enjoyed the 2012 West Country Luncheon in Sidmouth and says he will be delighted to be involved in helping to secure the future of the Allhallows War Memorial Chapel. His son David is reading English at Leeds University.

Anthony Vosper (C 58-63) and his wife Felicité, who retired to Sherborne, stayed at the elegant Hunter’s Moon Hotel in Sidmouth when they came to the Belmont lunch. Anthony said he had heard from David Hayes (Sh 67-71), who was in the Ghurkhas and now hopes to contact Dr Tom Bigge (St 59-63), and also to visit Mark Williams (St 70-75), who runs that well-known hostelry The Bird in Hand at Henstridge in Somerset.

Dr Tom Bigge (St 59-63) who played with Roddy Long in the 1963 Hockey 1st XI and was also a star of the 1st XV, says that he had recently retired as a GP and lives happily with his second wife at Marwood House near Barnstaple. They have seven children between them, and 15 grandchildren. Tom enjoys tending his magnificent garden, works for charities, still plays golf and tennis and sails. Tom hopes to walk the strenuous undercliff path between Lyme Regis and Axmouth, to attend an OH event soon and to call on DJB. Tell Peter (V 63-68) to send some news.

Hugo Tyler (C 60-63) spent most of his time at the University of Exeter playing bridge. He was captain of the university team and president of the bridge club. However, due to an administrative error, his degree certificate reads Mathematics. After a few years as a computer software developer, Hugo retired at age 29 and went to live on the small Greek island of Symi, near Rhodes, where he reads, writes, walks in the mountains, listens to classical music and generally enjoys himself. There he met his wife Argyro (universally known as Sylvana) when she came down from Athens on holiday. Their daughter Arwen (½ Greek, ¼ British and ¼ Swedish) MSci, MRes, PhD is currently with the Membrane Biophysics Group at Imperial College London doing post-doctoral research courtesy of a prize fellowship from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

Derek Ridge (M 60-65) and his wife Alison invited Aunt Agatha to a delightful lunch during the July heat-wave at their fine Mill House, which Derek has built in local stone at Burton Bradstock. Derek will be remembered by his contemporaries as a devastating striker of short corners and indeed played for the Sussex County Senior XI. He provided photos of Allhallows Bisley shooters in the 1960s. Derek once ran a

trawler off West Bay and constructed trawlers in his back garden. His latest venture is producing suspension cables for tennis nets which are used worldwide – and this year at Wimbledon. He tells us his son is a top science boffin.

Gavin Galliford (St 61-64) has been out of contact for 49 years but was found through the LinkedIn website. For the last 35 years he has been a government lawyer and is now Legal Adviser, DfT Aviation and Competition Division. Gavin is married with three children and three grandchildren.

‘Just want to thank you for the emails you send that keep me connected to the UK and to splendid times gone by at Rousdon,’ writes Tony Lloyd (M 62-67). ‘Thanks so much for the email. Really cheered me up seeing the old and bold at John Armstrong’s pub – great pictures. Wish I could have been there.’

Charles Pipkin (St 62-67) is still working, unlike most of his contemporaries, though now as an ‘investment manager’ rather than a stockbroker. He’s fighting daily battles with ‘Compliance’, which didn’t exist when he started. Charles always looked forward to OH Cricket Week, and he remembers Giles Blomfield as a splendid cover point with a very quick and accurate throw. Hamish MacGregor and Ted Sandbach were the star batsmen and Richard Heard the best fast bowler. Charles sees Ted’s brother-in-law regularly at Liphook GC and hopes to play golf again with fellow Stantonite John Pagliero, and Roddy Long. Both Roddy’s son and Charles’s stepson were at Harrow.

Former Middy housemaster Geoffrey Johnston (H 63-77) wrote to say that he had a visit recently from Roger Lewis (B 63-67), now a churchwarden in Nailsworth. Geoff would have liked to come to the unveiling of the memorial plaque on the Old Pavilion, but it was perilously close to the marking of Singapore O-levels.

Colin de Souza (M 63-68), captain of tennis and winner of the Heard Trophy, who read English at UEA and lives in Norwich, says he uses any excuse to go to London and enjoyed the Freud and Picasso exhibitions and the Hockney, which he rates the exhibition of 2012, if not the decade.

Ian MacGregor-Scott (B 63-68) was sorry to hear of the on-going battle to keep St Michael’s Church open. It was Ian who, in memory of his OH father, presented the electric organ to the church, which is home to the Allhallows War Memorial Chapel. Ian still works for Universal Studios in California, though his wife has recently retired from her teaching job. Ian came with his great OH friend, lawyer Andrew Hamilton (B 66-68), to inspect the organ when it was installed.

Robert Morton (V 64-67) enjoyed meeting old friends at the Belmont and said he once worked for Stags estate agents. Justin James (St 66-71) is still with the firm.

37www.oldhonitonians.com

Peter Read (C 64-67) came to the Belmont lunch with his great friends Andrew Hamilton (B 66-68) – like Peter, a lawyer – and Nick Lerwill (V 63-68), who said he had sold his company’s printing business. Peter, a Law Society golfer, hopes to be playing Dutch lawyers in Amsterdam soon.

Alwyn James (H64-69), who taught Classics at Allhalllows and later at Glenalmond, kindly sent Derek his latest CD Unfinished Business, The Blues No.5. Alwyn will be remembered by OHs who knew him as a talented cricketer and pianist. He had a second career with his band Roll Wyn James. However, as he was about to tour France in 1995, he had a severe stroke. He was undaunted. With indomitable joie de vivre and with help from the members of his blues group – Paul, Chris and Kevin – he has now followed up the scintillating and highly original bluesmanship of the band’s first four albums with No.5.

After Allhallows, Roger Buxton (M 64-69) had a footloose start that included taking full advantage of the further education grant scheme and residing in Bournemouth, Brighton, London and Aghios Nikolaos, before eventually settling in Bristol. Roger pursued a career in the torrid field of HR, facilities management security and has been with his present company 30-plus years. The firm was formerly the historic Fairey plane-maker and is now under US ownership. He is enjoying it with perhaps an eye on semi-retirement and a second career in specialist employment law consultancy. Roger’s wife Chris lives in Dartmouth, and they spend as much time as possible down there Anyone is welcome to look them up there ‘particularly if you have a boat!’. Roger says the last few years at Allhallows hold good memories, from the Grot to an unbeaten season in the 2nd XV Rugby in 68-69 (who mentioned academia?).

Dr Jeremy Harding (C 64-69) was for many years a consultant psychiatrist and continues to do vital work. Jeremy came to the Belmont wearing his striking striped OH blazer, inherited from one of his great hockey-playing uncles. His uncle Ralph Harding (B 36-43) was at the Remembrance Service.

Gerald Classey (St 66-69) and his brother David (St 68-69) made a welcome appearance at the OH Reunion at the RAC Club and were in fine form. David is corporate planning and programmes director of Travelsport.

Graham & Mary Jones (H 66-92) recently visited their family in Montreal and came home via a long weekend in Halifax, Nova Scotia. There they met up with a granddaughter, on a term at Dalhousie University, but also took the opportunity to contact Tim Edwards (C 66-71), resulting in a most interesting and enjoyable conversation. It was Alan Thomas, in Ottawa, who put them in touch, and he and Tim intend to come over for the big 2015 reunion. Good wishes from Tim to Derek and Barbara Clark were duly conveyed on return.

Myfanwy Adams (nee Gregson) (M 69-71) always admired her late father, who escaped from a prisoner of war camp in World War II.

Last year, 70 years after his walk to freedom, Myf decided to retrace part of the perilous route that he had taken in 1943. Her solitary trek raised £3,500 for charities linked to war.

For nine days and nights, she hiked through woods along a ridge of the Apennine range that runs down the leg of Italy.

Weighed down by a 20-kilo backpack in the day, Myf spent nights alone in her tent.

But she was enveloped in love and warmth when she stayed with a brave family who had taken her father in and sheltered him from the Germans. Read Myf’s moving story on the OH website.

Graham and Mary Jones (H 66-92), are our resident experts on the history of Combpyne and Rousdon, and will have seen the excellent article on Charles Grover by Derek Stevens in The Marshwood Vale Magazine. Grover was resident astronomer to Cuthbert Peek, whose father Sir Henry Peek created the Rousdon Estate. An observatory was established on the estate in 1884. Grover lived with his family in East Lodge and had accompanied Cuthbert on his astronomical expedition to Queensland. OHs of the right vintage will remember the remains of the observatory at the end of the bowling green. Those remains were demolished when the Headmaster’s House was built. Sir Cuthbert was baronet from 1898-1901. Younger OHs will recall Henry Yool’s enthusiasm for astronomy and the Rev John Newton’s efforts to construct a reflecting telescope beyond the walled garden.

Paul Davis (C 68-73) joined Killick Martin after Allhallows and trained as a chartered shipbroker. Then he managed divisions for several shipping companies in the Far East and West African markets. In 1979 he established Paul Davis Freight Services, operating short sea routes via the Bristol port of Avonmouth with Northern Ireland, Eire and the CI, with 10 operating centres, one in Southampton. Paul regularly meets Will Codner (C 68-73) his best man and a geologist, who heads for Spain when he is not on oil rigs. He also sees Chris Kitchen (C 68-73) and his family. Paul was Chris’s best man, and also Nick Hamley’s (C 68-72) back in 1980. Paul has happy memories of sailing at Seaton with Bill Preston, and sailing is still a favourite pastime. He also fondly remembers Barbara Clark, a wonderful house matron.

Bernie Laudun (V 70-73) sent greetings from the USA and best wishes for the New Year to his British mates and former students and teachers from Allhallows, as he and his wife and daughter prepared for Christmas. He still gets his fix from the great British music of the late 60s and early 70s and has many of the LPs they played in Venning bedsits – Tull, Hawkwind, Genesis, Led Zep and Sabbath to names a few.

He has been enjoying Rowntrees Fruit Pastilles and Cadbury’s chocolate, while watching Man United score spectacular goals as they rolled to victory after victory.

Andrew Green (V 70-74), loyalest of OH correspondents, who regularly attends our events when he can, says he hasn’t much news, though he had an enjoyable dinner in New Milton with Peter Clegg (C 69-74) and his wife and was looking forward to a three-week holiday in Hong Kong. I expect he will be calling on his old friend John Wong (C 70-75).

Nick Lindo (H 70-76) taught English at Allhallows and became housemaster of Stanton, as well as coaching our 1st XI at cricket. Last summer he was over from NZ, where he taught for many years at Christ’s College, Christchurch. On his UK trip he was visiting old friends and family, and he kindly called on Derek. they were joined by John Cloke for a pow-wow on the good old days. Nick, whose house was damaged in the recent earthquakes, said that, like many residents, he is battling with insurance companies, but life in NZ still has much to offer. Nick continues to write a political column for the NZ press and he’s most grateful to Nigel Giles and the website for keeping him in touch with OH activities.

Peter Thompson (Sh 72-77), a former Captain of 1st XI hockey and talented artist at Allhallows, has been an architect for many years and runs his own firm from Wimborne. His business is focused on the restoration and the change of use of historic buildings. His speciality is slotting quality designs into sensitive areas. Peter is in touch with several OHs and often drives through the Rousdon Estate on his way to Cornwall. He says it was a great shame when Allhallows was closed, as it had given a fantastic start to so many people. Peter’s son Benjamin is 22 and in catering. His daughter is studying for A-levels and specialising in Art and Photography.

Russell Frith (V 74-79) is currently working for Wiltshire Probation Service, which has its challenges. He is still in contact with a number of his contemporaries. Quentin Sandell and

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family dropped in for lunch recently, and Russell is in touch with David Morris, Mathew Lilly, Tim Bourne, Edward Musto and Julian Howard. Russell has two sons. George will be starting his last year at Plymouth University in the autumn and Ben has just finished GCSEs, and is also an up-and-coming DJ. Russell recently took Ben to the Isle of Wight where he was performing at a festival but Russell ‘felt very old, as I met a number of well-known acts but had no idea who they were.’

Huw Williams (C 74-79), who resides at Penarth in South Glamorgan and runs a highway equipment company, sent a super Christmas card with sketches by his young daughters. On holiday this summer in Lyme Regis with his family, they met DJB. Huw said he was able to visit the Rousdon Estate and show his old school to the family.

Deborah von Bergen (née Bliss) (M 75-77) says she spent a happy four days at the rural nerve-centre of River Cottage restaurants. The River Cottage HQ is just three miles from Rousdon. Deborah was attending Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s cookery course. It reminded her of the wonderful education she had at Allhallows when education was about learning in the broadest sense, rather than the contained and restricted curriculum pupils follow today.

Mark Marshall (V 75-80), an accountant who will be remembered by many OHs as a top gymnast, took his motor-launch out of Axmouth harbour in September, with the help of David Crees (H 72-98) to negotiate the local hazards. Mark had a super summer holiday earlier with the family and his mother Helga Algie in Seaton.

William So (Sh 76-78) is moving back to South China with his wife, leaving their daughter behind in London. She is 24, working in the City as a trainee solicitor and welcoming her new-found freedom. We will be keeping William informed of future OH events. He will be visiting the UK at least once a year and hopefully he’ll be able to make it to OH events.

Mohammed Atri (C 77-81) phoned from Alpharetta, Georgia, USA, to say that he is still running his picture-framing business and that his parents reside in Canada. He keeps in touch with Andrew White (Sh 78-81) and Richard Baker (B 77-82), who hope to organise a ‘do-it-yourself’ get-together soon.

Graham Salter (H 77-84), former head of Modern Languages at Allhallows, tells me he is coaching three students for Spanish, among them the son of an OH, and two for French. Otherwise he sings with Newbury Choral Society, plays chess, and sits around in Caffè Nero reading the Telegraph. By now he should be back from a trip to Mexico.

William Thompson (B 76-81) writes from Vientiane, the capital of Laos, where he has been living for 18 months. Having spent the previous 14 years in London working as a teacher/lecturer/manager, William had plenty of experience. Since the mid-90s he has travelled extensively in south-east Asia and is now well versed in the politics, social conventions and history of the area. He speaks passable Vietnamese but his Lao still leaves room for improvement. William says that Vientiane is benefitting very visibly from the Asian financial boom and he reckoned that Laos must have more cafés, restaurants and hotels than any other place on earth, although it has less than one million people. He says it’s a relaxed and friendly country.

Farah Reynolds (C 78-80) became a theatre nurse at the BRI and has recently moved into sales in the south-west. She has three daughters, with the oldest married last year. Farah lives at Alveston, near Bristol.

Richard J Snow (St 78–83), where are you? Richard’s OH Magazine was returned as he has left the address that the club has for him, and we have no email address. However, the lady who returned the magazine wrote: “Mr Snow is no longer at this address, where his father was the farm manager for the previous owner. The last time we met Mr Snow was when we were visiting Salisbury Plain at the invitation of the MoD and Mr Snow was acting as an environmental adviser to the Defence Estates. I have enjoyed reading OH Magazine. So much more interesting than my old school, and it’s good to see that there’s such a thriving old boys network.”

Jeremy Willis (H 79-93) tells us that he is now the part-time chairman of the Newbury Weekly News, which gives him more time to ‘play’ with his amateur radio. He now has a 50-foot wind-up radio mast in his garden. He can talk to the world. His son Andrew is now the press manager of the NWN and daughter Beth is PA to

the GM of Donnington Valley Hotel, and will be getting married in May.

Claus Andersen (C 79-84) and his wife Rachel sent a super letter at Christmas 2012 and a spiffing card of their young children Ella and Frederik. Skiing holidays and another in Turkey saw Claus win a laser race and helped Rachel finish a book. In June, after working for Porsche since 1986, Claus left the company and has joined HR Owen as general manager of their Bentley dealership in Pangbourne. In November 2012 the family enjoyed a week’s holiday in Dorset with mixed weather from snow to warm sunshine. They send best wishes to all their friends.

Helen Bewsey (M 79-81) says that she is off to Singapore, having attended Richard Ambrose’s funeral in Shropshire back in March. Helen said that Shirley Ambrose did say how much she appreciated the emails and letters from OHs. Helen added: ‘We need to keep those coming, this is a special lady going through a difficult time.’

Soraya Reynolds (Ch 80-82) worked for Arthur Andersen’s in the City after Bristol Polytechnic, then relocated to Sydney, Australia and married an anaesthetist at Royal North Shore Hospital. They have two kids, Oscar and Boston, and live in Lane Cove. They have a passion for skiing. Boston represents Australia for junior fencing.

David Reynolds (Sh 80-85) sent welcome family news of his sister Farah and Soraya and his younger brother Peter. David studied Geology at Newcastle and played hockey for the university and county. He then worked for a commodity trading firm in London, followed by FX trading at a bank, before moving into recruitment. For the past three years he has had his own operation, Scott Reynolds, covering financial markets for banks and hedge funds. He lives in London with his wife and two children and played rugby through Jason Enticott’s (V 80-85) connections for Christ’s Hospital Old Boys and now coaches Rosslyn Park junior rugby.

Rob Tincknell (V 81-83) was flattered in a full-page article in the Business section of the Sunday Times. The feature, by Oliver Shah and published on June 30th 2013, explains that Rob is the front man for three Malaysian investors who bought Battersea Power Station and plan a huge development there. They intend to build 3,400 flats and houses, and more than 1m sq ft

An OH has celebrated his 60th birthday by running a marathon. Peter Sloan (B 66-71) and his son, Harry, raised £6,000 for charity by completing the New York Marathon in four hours and 20-odd minutes. Peter is well known for his athletic prowess but, after running the 26-miler, he modestly emailed OHs and other sponsors to say he had finished the course ‘without the need for oxygen or medical attention!’ He is pictured, in a green shirt bearing his name, on First Avenue in Manhattan, by which point he had already run 16 miles.

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of offices. The project depends on the extension of the Charing Cross branch of the Northern Line tube to Battersea. The derelict power station stands in an attractive area, adjacent to Clapham Common and Battersea Park with the site for the new American Embassy nearby. Rob has already pre-sold 866 flats. The article said Rob was at Allhallows and now lives with his wife and two children in Somerset, but has a flat in London. Well done Rob!

Andrew Greenhalgh (B 84-88), former head boy, is working for the pharmaceuticals giant GSK as a nation business manager in Oncology. Andy returned in September from a lovely holiday in Minorca with his wife Jackie and two children – James (11), a fly-half, and Kate (10), who enjoys ballet and horse-riding. Andy says he is currently in contact with Nick Mountenay-Smith (St 83-88) who works for Customs & Excise as a dog handler. Andy goes fly-fishing with him and sees Martin Jones (St 83-88), a nautical officer in the Merchant Navy, who will be taking up a shore-based job in Southampton. Andy’s brother Mark Greenhalgh (B 79-84) works in Atlanta in the hotel business, now in the corporate department. He married Chris, who works for the same company. They have three children: Ben, Sophie and Jack. David (B 82-86) works in Dubai, with his family in the UK.

Piers Motley (C 84-89) has been in touch and told us that three years ago he set up his own auction rooms in Exmouth, Devon, which he and his wife, Elizabeth Nash (C 83-88), run together. They have two children: Joss, who is 13 and is a keen musician, and Millie, who is 9 and at the local primary school. Piers is eager to make contact with contemporaries.

Amanda Prowse (H 84-93) was a peripatetic music teacher at Allhallows and left to go back into academia. Having gained her MA and then a PhD in Musicology, she is now living in the south of France with her nuclear physicist husband. There she is busy researching and publishing her work on socio-musicological issues, as well as co-editing a bilingual volume of papers on the theme of identity for the Ars Identitatis organisation in Paris. Amanda is also working as a French-English translator, and still does a little music teaching, in French and English, in France. Life is never dull! She still has a house in Sidmouth so it’s good to know of events in the Devon/Dorset area.

Samantha Gilson (née Birch) (C 86-89) has contacted us to say how much she appreciates being sent the OH emails. As she has been living in America for the past 21 years, Samantha says it’s great to feel so connected. Samantha’s wish is to one day make an Allhallows reunion. As she works at a school herself the timing is always hard for her, as she is restricted to flying home to the UK at certain times of year.

Richard Hoare (M 86-92) says that he doing very well considering, after his RTA, and hopes to get rid of the crutches and arm casts in the

next few weeks. His outlook is great. He says he has got so much to look forward to, with all the support and love his friends and family have shown. He says he is a very lucky boy!

Peter Reynolds (Sh 88-91) studied Electronics at Essex University, then moved to Oxford and worked with various IT firms before being offered a role with NATO in The Hague. Peter married recently and is enjoying life in Holland.

Kiran Morzaria (B 87-92) tells us that an article by Keith Moore in the last OH Magazine was a fond reminder of the undercliff. Kiran wants to pass on his thanks to Keith, who introduced him to a book on Biology which inspired him to take up the subject as a GSCE. That led to a BEng at Camborne School of Mines. He writes: ‘Without the quality of teaching and the wonderful geological environment at Rousdon – and a broken train stuck in Tsavo National Park (another story) – I do not think I would have followed this path.’ After several years in the field as an exploration and production geologist and geotechnical engineer, Kiran retrained in finance – and was involved in the acquisition of one of the longest-operated gold mines in the world. He now helps to run the mine, which employs 1,400 people and supports a community of over 7,000. Although he is the finance director he says he is involved in the mine’s geological development.

Marc Haslam (V 89-94) tells us that after 8½ years with HSBC and following a secondment to HSBC’s offshore bank in Jersey, Marc and Nichola, Oliver (3) and Amelia (4) have decided to go local and remain in Jersey. As a result he has completed his third career change and is now employed as a director of a fiduciary company. Any other OHs in Jersey?

Doug Crichton (V 90-95) sent a super letter saying that when he left Allhallows he read History at Kent University and then took an MSc in Land Economy at Cambridge. He qualified as a chartered surveyor with Knight Frank and joined the Grosvenor Estate in 2005, where he has worked with John Clark (V 82-87). So he expects to play OH golf soon. Doug married Alex in 2006 and their two children, Molly 4 and Charlie 2, keep them busy. They visit Doug’s family home in Jersey regularly, where Aden Hopkins (V 91-97) and several other OHs reside. Doug hoped to play tennis in the OH Wimbledon Warm-up near Sherborne, but it was rather too far to drive the family from Henley.

James Greig (M 92-95) tells us that his sister Lucy (C 93-96) is currently working in Dhaka, Bangladesh for the international school as a primary teacher. She was recently back in the UK for a summer break and she would very much like to stay in touch with all OH news.

Tim Banting (L 92-97) has been working for several years as a digital imaging technician for the Parliamentary archives at the House of Lords. Tim and his wife Emily recently celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary and have a

two-year-old son Bertie. Tim enjoys working for the H of L and finds that peers are always good company.

Fitness instructor Lucie Graves-Morris (L 93-96) met Derek in Seaton on one of the few sunny days in April and said she was pursuing her training courses. I must say she looked like an Olympic Athlete. She said Alex (V 94-98) had recently married and has a young son.

Rupert Duff (V 93-98) works in accounting and, having started with PWC in Jersey, moved to London in 2004 and is in the PWC banking and capital markets division, an interesting area in recent times. Rupert still finds time to play polo in the summer, usually at the Taunton club, which would have pleased Don Palmer. Rupert promises to urge his brother Daniel (St 87-92), who is in the Army, to send some news.

Not found much about people you know? MUCH MORE AUNT AGATHA ON THE WEBSITE

After our obituary pages had gone to press the club was saddened to hear of the death of a truly great school matron. Barbara Clark who was matron of both Chudleigh and Middy throughout her 25 years at Allhallows, died on December 11th. Serving the school from 1961 to 1986, Barbara was a hard worker who was always ready to drop everything to lend a sympathetic ear to a tale of woe from one of her young charges. Willingly she would sew on a button for a bachelor housemaster, or sooth the concerns of an anxious parent. She was wardrobe mistress to countless school plays, making some costumes herself. She even appeared on stage in a production of Oliver! On her retirement, housemaster Jimmie Bliss wrote a tribute in the school year book, saying that Barbara Clark had been “what every member of staff at a boarding school should be”.

Geoffrey Johnston former housemaster and head of English, died suddenly at the turn of the year in Gloucester aged 80. GKJ came to Allhallows in 1963 from Leeds Grammar School and, before that, from St Edmund Hall, Oxford, where he read English and took a Diploma in Education. His refreshing Yorkshire competence enabled him, in the Allhallows tradition, to wear many hats – all of them very well. He created an English department with outstanding A-level results, and his occasional theatrical productions included outdoor Shakespeare and a magical A Penny for a Song. Geoff was a major contributor to the school’s musical life as a baritone, as a French horn player and as Fagin in Oliver! It was typical of Geoff that, though no great athlete, he should turn himself into a first-rate rugby referee at school and club level. He acquired a press and taught himself and the boys how to print, producing everything from service sheets to fixture cards. As a photographer, his work is immortalised in team photographs and year groups. As Middlemist housemaster, he improved amenities, supervising the great move to the top floor. Geoff showed understanding to those temporarily out of step with society, often encouraging their creative aspirations.

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