1993 Leavers Come Back to School
Anna Crawford always had lots of energy. At school, in the CCF, medical degree then army career beyond. She certainly needed it and all her sense of humour when trying to liaise with a good number of her year group, the King’s Head, and me. The simple plan was to have a tour of the school then repair to the King’s Head for refreshments and ultimately a buffet supper. After what felt like a thousand messages on the Facebook messenger thread, all was set for the Saturday. But Anna found herself on Friday night in a broken-down car in Yorkshire, which put paid to her attendance. The group photograph on the chapel steps shows 15 OWs who left a mere two and a half decades ago. We had assembled at ‘The Holly Bush’ (now a lowly yucca).
GBB, Sarah Wray (Davies) (still known as Sid), Rachel Brazier (Meister), Emma Lawrence (Holland) (who has taken over her mother’s bakery – it was always good to have a Holland in your class as the cakes were amazing at the end of term), Liz Parkins (Stephens) (who had come all the way from Cornwall, as smiley as ever for the visit and has been using her A level French in her children’s school), Sarah Seaford (Helier) (who apologised unnecessarily for leaving after the fifth form), Andrew Grimbly (who helps in rail management in the north west), Louise Peirson (Cordy) (who works and lives locally with her family), Jeremy Laight (formerly of School House and still looking cool with his characteristic smile), Helen Ward (who is now an educational psychologist and hasn’t lost any of her sense of fun), Alwyn Morris (polymath English teacher, writer, musician, property developer), Gwen David (now a Clinical Fellow at the University of Edinburgh, having also taught at Dundee), Kip Morton (former RAF fighter pilot and now barge restorer and proud father of the one toddler on the tour), Giles Meehan (who now teaches maths locally), Dan Webster (who used his A level French when driving round France sourcing oak beams from the 16th or 17th centuries). Actually one OW left more recently than the rest but Chris Ward (1997) on the right, came along to support big sister Helen and see her old school mates again. He has gone in to construction after a career in the RAF.
There were endless reminiscences about queuing for lunch, the changing rooms, how Boarders managed to gain entry to the music school at the weekend and of course the Cedarwoods (where generations of first formers started their school career under the stern eye of Mrs Nicholls). They were happy to discover that a part of the Cedarwoods still stands by the Dome (to house drama costumes), where they remember having RE lessons with Mr Kelly in a Portakabin.
Having toured the whole site, and thoroughly chilled down, we repaired to the King’s Head, which many had not been back to since school days. The Barrack Room filled up with 16 more of the year group: Stephen Hudson (who was the only one of the group to have attended the OW Dinner and who had joined the Royal Anglian Regiment after university), Will Penkman, still a serving officer, Adam Lawson (still working in the City), James Heathfield (who became a consultant engineer after a degree at Cambridge), Polly Durrant (Hardiman) (who is expanding her empire from the Ufford Crown in conjunction with her husband and her brother, OW Will Hardiman), Adam Barlow (now distinguished in the world of conservation biology having picked up a relevant PhD on the way), Lizzie Ferguson, Karen Virr (Haynes) (who knows the school of today very well), Rob Leith, Seth Lord (glad of his GCSE French as he is restoring a property over there), Faith Manning, Fiona Mullins, Charlotte Ridout (I think my only tutee to have attended university in my home city of Dundee), Graham Tollit, (who is back in London after working in Singapore), Stephen Walker (who I was glad had managed to be persuaded to attend) and Hannah Wilson (having arrived just in time from Glasgow, where she is completing a language teaching diploma and putting her French and Italian to good use as well as possibly her English language skills…)
Some staff joined us for the evening. Hannah brought her mother, Mrs Wilson who knew a lot of the year group from their teenage years and who used to be matron of Queen’s House when it was a girls’ boarding house. Miss Theasby, formerly Head of Classics was also in attendance as was Mr Garfath-Cox who had taught many of this year group for maths. Miss Gill who is still at the chalk-face as Head of Geography also joined in the jollities which went on till late in the evening. OWs always like to meet up with staff who had taught them; there were so many memories shared of sport, CCF, lessons, field trips, the Norway trip and life in the boarding houses. Photos of this year group reunion are on the new OWNetwork.
