THE DOVE 2001

John Ackerley (left 1953) John was one of a dozen OA’s whose reports I found under a layer of dust in the cellars of Abbotsholme and forwarded. I print John’s thoughts and observations with his permission.

"As a seeker and hoarder of family documents and self-appointed recorder of our family history this, on first inspection, looked like gold dust. I sank into a reverie as I skimmed through the ink entries, initials and names from the past, my father’s comments, exam results, forgotten subjects and more, a whole childhood in fact. Faces slowly formed to fit the signatures – the rumbustuous Nature teacher, the hormone enhancing nurse who I wishes would teach me about nature, the unsmiling Latin teacher who droned and bored (regretfully) the language into oblivion, the Art mistress who I wished could be my proxy mother in my real one’s absence, the two Music masters – the one sadistic who killed my desire to play an instrument, and the other an extrovert man-of-the-world who kindled and inflamed in me what was to become a lifelong love of music, the con-men teachers who were eventually exposed by the boys themselves, the diligent Woodwork craftsman, the Bailiff, the Housemasters – stern by day and fatherly by night, and so many, many more. So many experiences. So long ago.

Slowly, however, the true significance of these Reports filtered through, confirming what I had always felt; I had been neglectful at school, my formal education somewhat wasted. The overwhelming number of teachers’ comments can be exampled by such as ‘the boy lacks interest’, ‘slow progress’, ‘a lazy pupil’, ‘apt to evade his personal difficulties’, ‘his attitude needs adjusting’, ‘poor exam marks’ and so on; all these only partly offset by the occasional ‘a charming boy’ and ‘reliable’.

However, a second and more detailed reading of the Reports, free from the initial nostalgia they had provoked, provided some consolation as it slowly dawned upon me that the teachers seemed keen to highlight one’s failings and shortcomings but markedly less enthusiastic about highlighting the subjects and interests where their extra help would have broadened one’s horizons and repaid their humdrum basic input a hundred times over. C. Arthur Humphrey’s comment, in reply to a query from my father, that exam results are extraordinarily unreliable guides to individual progress can be interpreted to suit. What was progress? We all obviously had different ideas about this. Cecil Sharp’s instructions (one whole page, neatly gummed to the inside front cover) as to the manner in which each member of staff should complete the Report stressed that it was intended as ‘a confidential file for the assistance of’ the subjects development. Too confidential it would appear; in fact, so confidential that my development was left much to myself. I was happier damming dingles, slipstreaming lorries to Uttoxeter on my bicycle, skipping across the roofs of the main buildings, canoeing the floods, exploring the then overgrown and nearly lost Marie Celeste world of Alton Towers, working in the theatre and on the farm, and much more, ‘progressing’ my ‘development’ but without the ‘assistance’ of the ‘confidential file’.

Time passed. The certificates, diplomas and the degree duly arrived, not at Abbotsholme nor immediately after. But better late than never. Today, as a Governor of the School, it is my wish to see that every child at Abbotsholme is given the benefit of the ‘confidential file’ and thereby the maximum opportunities to discover and develop their particular strengths, interests and futures. Schools are increasingly judged by their relative positions in tables and rankings, the pity being that more than just a few have sacrificed so many childhoods on these altars. Rankings, yardsticks, tables, grades, percentages – they all have their place and rightly so, but they must never be allowed to drown the individual, to force conformity, to close off those side roads that every child at some time wants, and needs to explore. Abbotsholme has always encouraged the individual to be him/herself and the rich diversity of occupations followed by ex-pupils shouts the success of this policy. We need to reinforce this policy by encouraging our pupils to take the side roads, to explore and widen their horizons with the active participation and help of all the teaching staff. The School’s image in the market place will not be damaged by this approach and, more importantly, youngsters leaving our green acres will be better prepared than those from any other schools to use the multitude of talents they have discovered for their own development, their present and future families, and the communities within which they will eventually make their homes. Abbotsholme’s forte is its knack of turning out good citizens. The routes to this desirable and enviable goal are many ; long may the School encourage their discovery."

Miriam Faulkner (n¾ e Aguma) (left 1988) was married last April 29^th. Her husband, Mark, is a purchasing manager working in Essex and travelling back to Cheshire for the weekends. OA brother Peter gave her away at the wedding. To fill her evenings she is learning British Sign Language (Stage One) and Tai Chi.

Jeremy Alkin (left 1983) lives in Australia. He was married last July 15th in England to Tania. They have one daughter, Rebecca Rose, who is about 1½ . Keith Chow was at the wedding in London. He’s been in Australia for nearly 12 years the first half of which was spent in Sydney before moving to Melbourne. He has been involved in various businesses, mostly sales and marketing. A year ago he was starting on a new venture involving a range of very unusual dog cosmetics. They have two dogs of their own, a German Shepherd and a Rottweiler. Jeremy is also in touch with George Kirkbride.

Fay Bagshaw (left 1994) moved to Bristol a couple of years ago. She graduated from the University of East Anglia with a degree in French, Russian and Management. She joined the Police Force and is now working in South Bristol doing what she considers is the best job in the world.

Paul Bagshaw (left 1974) is married to Aileen. Paul still cycles and celebrated the Millennium with a 2000Km series of rides with the long distance cycling club, Audax UK. Just five rides, 200Km, 300Km, 400Km, 500Km and finally one of 600Km. Needless to say he is very fit.

Jonathan Bailey (left 1980) He tells me that after leaving Abbotsholme in 1980 he did a BSc and then a PhD in Biochemistry, before working as a post-doctoral scientist for just over a year. He then changed direction and moved into the airline industry. So far, he has spent a fascinating and enjoyable 13 years, first with British Airways and then with Virgin Atlantic, where he was responsible for International and Government Affairs. Since 1998 he has been living in Dubai, working with Emirates – the international airline of the United Arab Emirates, in a similar role. He married Ren¾ e, a fellow biochemist, in 1985 and they have two lovely daughters, Sarah, aged 10 and Alice, aged 6. They enjoy living in the Gulf but sometimes miss the British countryside and even the rain!

Mark Bailey (left 1985) has e-mailed to up-date me for ‘The Dove’. He graduated from Sheffield University with a degree in Botany in 1989 and ‘ploughed’ his way through a number of financial services companies and jobs, working mainly in northern cities. He married Joy, who he had met at Sheffield, in 1995 and their first child, William, was born in December 1998. (When he wrote in November 2000 number 2 was on the way!) He had a brief stint in the world of management consultancy, including a period in Zurich, he was appointed to the Board of Countrywide Property Lawyers as Customer Operations Director. CPL is a young and rapidly growing company, which he says ‘is absolutely fantastic fun to work for’. He is still playing competitive hockey for Bolton HC 3^rd XI, though he admits to slowing down a little.

Robert Bailey (left 1982) has recently been working in Switzerland. Robert was managing director of a subsidiary company of Swissair while his wife, Felicia, worked for Goldman Sachs Bank in Zurich. Both their children, Sasha, aged 4 and Matthew, almost 3, were born in Zurich. They thoroughly enjoyed their life in Switzerland. His company was bought by Galileo International, a company he had previously worked for, and he came back to the UK. He ran the 8 European Business Units owned by Galileo from their European HQ, here in the UK. He says that coming back to the UK was a bit of a shock – no ski-ing, no vineyards – and so on! He has recently moved jobs again and is a director of a global telecommunications and IT company which has its offices near to Heathrow.

Antonia Baker (left 1992) e-mailed me last July having just arrived in New Zealand after a brief spell in Asia. Before that she had, for two and half years, been on the marketing side of an IT company. Still she wanted a change, and where better than twelve and a half thousand miles away! Her initial impressions of New Zealand were very promising and now I hear that she thinks NZ is phenomenal! She has a job with Foote, Cone & Belding, one of the top 10 advertising agencies in the world. She thinks it is fantastic but is going to give it another six months before finally making up her mind. In January she was entertaining her parents with a mix of visiting lots of ‘sites’ and ‘blobbing out’ on the beach.

Kai Bandilla (left 1990) I was delighted to hear from Kai of his marriage to Constanze Dany on May 27^th 2000. Very best wishes to them both.

Alison Barber (left 1995) is now nursing at St. Thomas’ Hospital in London having obtained her B.Nursing at Birmingham University. She is still a keen concert go-er and is involved with the hospital orchestra.

William Barber (left 1998) is at Reading University reading surveying. He still plays some rugby there and is thoroughly enjoying the course. He is lucky in that each holiday the firm of surveyors in Stoke who he was working with as part of his HND before going to Reading are only too happy to employ him.

Michael Barker-Benfield (left 1971) started searching for OA’s on our website. It gave me his e-mail address and I was able to make direct contact. It was good to hear from him again. He has visited school only once in the past 27 years; he only gets back to the UK for funerals! On that occasion he met Philip and Elspeth Knight on his way to visit Adrian Fidler. He has been living in California since the fall of 1981 and has been married to Debbie since February 1982. Debbie comes from California but they met in Vancover. They tried living in London for a while but were not impressed with the English weather. They have two sons. Matthew who is 14 and Daniel who is coming on for 12. Matthew celebrated his Bar Mitzvah last Summer and Michael found it very inspiring passing the Torah to him during the ceremony. Matthew is the sportsman and very self-assured while Daniel has all it takes to sell snow to the Eskimos. They live some 35 miles North East of Los Angeles in the small town of Claremont in the foothills of the San Gabrielle Mountains. He has just bought and is renovating an old Orchard Grove house. There’s lots to do but the garden still contains peaches, apricots, figs, lemons and an avocado tree. He is still in the film industry though no longer in the editing room. He now works for Paramount Pictures in the Digital Mastering department, which means he makes/remakes tape masters for Domestic and International Home Video releases and other outlets. It is, he says, very exciting work on the edge of new technology. Away from work and home he loves backpacking in Joshua Tree National Park and exploring the canyons around Santa Barbara. He also loves fishing still.

Ross Barlow (left 1993) regularly communicates with me from America. Often he sends me his thoughts on life or some little tale with a meaning, sometimes a good joke. In the first half of 2000 he wrote a wonderful diary of his hitch hiking journey from Mexico City to Los Angeles, a journey of about 1900 miles – and back!. It made terrific reading. Perhaps Ross should go in for journalism. I haven’t got room for it all. It includes wonderful scenes of going wherever transport would take him, sometimes many hundreds of miles out of his way, getting tipsy and wandering off into a desert and only just finding his way back, hitching a lift with one driver who stooped and asked him whether he had a driving licence and on hearing a positive reply said ,"Right, you drive, I want to sleep.". He met with all sorts of people and groups, stayed out all night and slept by day. He tried to go North from Los Angeles to San Francisco but soon ran out of lifts. After trying for an hour he decided that perhaps God didn’t want him to go to San Francisco. He crossed the road and the first passing car stopped and took him back to Los Angeles. After some weeks he took the Greyhound bus back to the Mexican border, hitch hiking with a friend he had picked up all the way back to Mexico City. Last April he was doing fashion shows again and he’s still working on advertisements for Nescaf¾ .

Debbie Bell (left 1988) helped to get an excellent group of her friends to the Dinner in 2000. After school she did a BSc in Environmental Earth Sciences and then worked in London for a firm which carried out contaminated earth surveys. After two years she moved to work, voluntarily to start with, at the Environmental Investigation Agency. EIA carries out undercover investigations into the illegal trade in wildlife parts, such as tiger parts, rhino horns and ivory. In the Spring of 2000 she spent a month in Nairobi at the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species trying to ensure that international trade in elephant products is illegal. She says she absolutely loves her job. In September 2000 she married her partner of 10 years, Mark. Mark works as a computer contractor for the major banks in the city of London. They met hitch-hiking in Paris!

Mandy Bell (left 1973) has in fact been living in the States for the last 20 years and has recently re-married. She has lost touch with her Abbotsholme friends but is hoping to re-establish links. The last person she was in touch with was Linda Burton about two years ago. She works at the University of California in Los Angeles for the Chair of Chemistry and Biochemistry. (She hopes Mr Price would be proud of this!) She has been in the department for 19 years. Her family still lives in Kenya and she manages to visit them every couple of years. Her husband, Eugene, works for TWA, but unfortunately they don’t fly USA to Kenya, otherwise they’d be able to go much more often.

Guy Beresford (left 1977) worked as a stockman in the outback after leaving school but is now an earthworks foreman with a civil engineering company in Queensland, Australia. He and his wife, Karyn, have two children, Sarah, aged 8 and Nick, aged 5.

Henry Beresford (left 1977) is still a policeman living in Manchester. He has the ju-jitsu bug and loves throwing his friends around. He particularly enjoyed the 2000 Dinner which he attended with his brothers Rupert and Guy.

Rupert Beresford (left 1973) runs a taxi company, Fareways Taxi company in Congleton and Haverfordwest.

Ruth Whitehouse (n¾ e Berger) (left 1972) has been married for 22 years. She and her husband, Graham, run a Training and Development Consultancy specialising in Sales, Management and Call Centres. They have recently moved and are busy converting some old stables into a Training Centre. They have two children, Leah, aged 19 and Daniel, aged 15.

Lisa Bettson (left 1992) has been working as an air hostess operating from East Midlands Airport. When I saw her she was busy planning a spell in Australia.

Richard Bettson (left 1990) is still working on the family farm just outside Kingstone, near Uttoxeter.

Piers Bickerton-Jones (left 1982) married Lindsey Baker in January 2000. They now live in Burton on Trent. He is busy restoring classic cars.

Jan Bladen (left 1987) has sent me details of his family life and career work. In the ‘hurly burly’ of work he misses the environment of Abbotsholme and has happy memories of his four years at school. He lives in an old restored farm house in the countryside about 25 miles outside Geneva, with his Swiss wife, Nicole, and their daughter Tania (the most beautiful 3 year old daughter in the world, he says). He travels an enormous amount; over one hundred flights in the last twelve months. Since his father died three years ago he has managed to keep the family business going, a second full time job! From 1988 to 1999 he was Manager of Agdojav1 (UK) Ltd, a Spanish based logistics and transportation company. He was involved in several consultancy tasks during this period on business plans. In February 1998 he was appointed an Assistant Manager of Price Waterhouse Coopers in Geneva. He became manager in January 1999. He is also the youngest President of Executive International, a Swiss organisation which organises conferences and meetings to encourage networking amongst the Swiss international business community. He still loves the outdoors and in last September/October went to the Kingdom of Bhutan on a trek called the ‘Lunana Snowman Trek’. It is, he says, described in the Lonely Planet Guide, as ‘the most difficult high altitude trek in the world’. He loved it – 40 days away from home – 29 days camping over 4000m – 12 passes – 4 peaks over 5000m – 418 Km. They took a surgeon and supplies, yaks and porters, but were still very much in the ‘lap of the Gods’ as Bhutan has no helicopters to bale you out. He’d love to do another expedition but it sounds as though he has got the family thumbs down for a couple of years.

Sasha Bladen (left 1990) has been living in Paris since she left school in 1990. For the past six years she has been working with a chain of shops selling second hand CD’s. Each shop in the chain specialises in a different type of music. She is in charge of one of them. She had a partner for six years but it didn’t work out. She has a lovely flat near the Latin Quarter which she shares with her cat, ‘Pepsi’.

Andrew Bostock (left 1996) got a first in Mathematics at St John’s , Cambridge. He still plays rugby, squash, skis and climbs etc. Spent the Summer of 1999 in Greenland with his sister, Helen, and three others. He works for HSBC as an International Manager, based overseas a good deal.

Helen Bostock (left 1995) has started a PhD in Geology at the University of Canberra, Australia. She has spent recent winters working as a ski guide for the Ski Club of Great Britain.

Alan Bosworth (left 1975) wrote to me asking for information about some of his old Abbotsholme friends. For the last 5 years he has been running a bar at Heathrow Airport. For 2 years before that he was on the commercial staff of Brentford Football Club. He says he really does not envy 14-16 year olds today. Life, he thinks, was far less complicated in the 1970’s. Now there is too much interference, it is taken too seriously and depends too much on qualifications rather than personality.

David and Anne Bothwell (ex-staff) celebrate their fiftieth wedding anniversary in April 2001. Congratulations. I think there will be quite a lot of Abbotsholme talk at the celebration. I will report next year.

Rebecca Brian (left 1990) says that she has recently moved to North London and is deciding what to do. She wants to set the world on fire? Any sensible suggestions – ring 020 8446 4159!

Tim Brindley (left 1967) I had dinner with Tim last Spring and he tells me that he lectures at de Montfort University in Milton Keynes. His wife is the Director of the British Library.

Jeremy Broun (left 1963) is actively pursuing his career as a woodworking craftsman and lecturer. You can see his work, and purchase it, and on an excellently designed website at www.broun-design.fsnet.co.uk .

Simon Brown (left 1989) is still working at Marks and Spencers in the City of London where he has responsibilities for Health and Hygiene.

Daniel Burrows (left 1987) is editor of the snowboarding magazine, ‘Onboard’. He lives in Chamonix. He is hoping to go free-lance again. He enjoyed the freedom!

Hugh Burton (left 1950) is to be congratulated on running in and completing the Berlin Marathon last September. He still works part-time in Brussels but has also bought a pied-´ -terre in Newbury, Berkshire.

Beate Busch (left 1977) has had her own home in Munich since 1984. She has two jobs. Half her time is spent as a physiotherapist in a neurological clinic. The other job is private practice doing foot reflexology. But the real fascination lies in craniosacral work. She loves to travel and says her favourite place is the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, South of Monterey, in California. She says it’s a very powerful healing spot.

Mike Butler (left 1978) has been found by Fiona Harbot and Hugh Wheatcroft. He says that he is working in Information Technology and is still living in the same house in London since 1983. He has just bought a house around the corner which he is decorating. When he has finished he will move in with his fianc¾ e, Deborah Harry, and their daughter, Minette Scarlet. He enjoys ski-ing, gliding and golf. He sends his regards to all who remember him.

Darrell Buttery (ex-staff) has anyone noticed his name in the ‘credits’ as an advisor for the ‘Antiques Road Show’? No surprises there.

Alex Byworth (left 1988) still lives in Notting Hill in London. He is still dancing and finished The Sonic Video which was Number 2 in the UK for 3 weeks in early 2000. He says his brother, Dominic, is married and lives just outside Bristol with wife Lena and their two children Alex and Liz.

Stafford Cant (left 1988) owns and is Managing Director of an extremely successful Business Development Consultancy, Global Development Network. He is based in Cyprus, where he moved after an MBA at Stirling University. He has developed some 60 offices throughout Eastern Europe, The Arab World, Central Europe, Africa, with one in Thailand and one in Australia so, he says, his suitcase is pretty worn! In the next 12 months he hopes to move his headquarters to Dubai and, if all goes well, go public in 2003. Outside work he has a two year old son and still enjoys acting. In July 1999 he had the part of Feste in Shakespeare’s ‘Twelfth Night’. It was played outdoors in an amphitheatre in Limassol to an audience of 12,000 over three nights. Because of work commitments he has had to turn down the lead in ‘Hamlet’, but hopes to continue with his acting which he much enjoyed at school. On the issue of school, his memories are very fond, despite freezing when sailing or canoe capsizing in Wales, cross country running, rugby, getting up a 7 am, the meals, midnight fire drills at Millholme, morning cleaning, miserly pocket money, the fear of his name being read out in morning assembly, the bloody bell…….oh and Physics! But there was nothing he hated at Abbotsholme and hopes to get back in touch with some of his old friends.

Will Carr (left 1979) has been headhunted by Oracle and now lives in Rutland. He has two sons; George, aged 6 and Barnaby, aged 3. Last Summer he enjoyed an afternoon’s fishing on the Dove around the Games Field.

Keith Chow (left 1983) is moving from Italy for a couple of years to work as Project Manager for a high Tech. Firm in Cambridge. He started in February and the rest of the family follows in the Summer. He and his family attended Jeremy Alkin’s wedding London last Summer.

Adam Clifton (left 1987) We congratulate Adam on his marriage last August 12^th to Ellie. They were married at Eaton, near Grantham. Damian Myles and Alex Mak were amongst OA’s who were invited to the wedding.

Johnny Coates (left 1937) came to the 2000 Dinner. There was a table of leavers from the 1930’s. John continues his studies in Komi-Zyryan literature. The Komi are Finnish people who live North West of the Urals. The little known language belongs to the Finno-Ugric branch of the Uralic family of languages. There, now you know! John and his partner, Frances, also continue with their Welsh studies.

James Cooper (left 1971) is finding that even if the textile industry in Australia is on the down turn his gliding certainly isn’t. He has just broken the Western Australia goal record. That is where you fly in a straight line for as far as possible. He managed 700 Km. Unfortunately his pick-up vehicle broke down and he had to wait 24 hours to be collected – not much fun with daytime temperatures reaching 45°C. He had taken a couple of good books and some truckers stopped by and gave him food and water!

George Crane (left 1985) was married to Vicky in the Summer of 1999 and they now have a 1-year-old, Archie. George has an internet design business in Leicester.

Harry Crane (left 1982) has announced his engagement to his long standing girlfriend, Melissa. He gets married on August 29^th thus remarkably sharing a wedding anniversary date with brothers Matthew and George, both of whom also ‘tied the knot’ on an August 29^th.

Matthew Crane (left 1980) was until last October with Safeway where, he says, he reached the heady heights of non-board Director responsible for the store build and refurbishment programme. He is now Marketing Director of Eastern Energy. Their children are fantastic, Tobias, 4 ½ and Louis, nearly 2. He has moved down to the South Downs and has a house in the middle of a garden. He has replaced the windows, roof and much of the floor and is getting to grips with the kitchen and bathrooms.

Tom Crookes (left 1995) has had two years making music and living in Camden. He and his group Karman produced a commercial ‘single’ called ‘Breakdown’. He has now picked up on his studies and is busy on a three-year Design course at de Montfort University.

John Culling (left 1982) has moved to Cardiff. In 1998 he took up an appointment as Lecturer in Psychology there. Much of his work, and he has published an enormous amount, deals with sound and hearing. He is a member of the British Society of Audiology and of the Experimental Psychology Society.

Guy Davis (left 1961) has not been in the best of health and is semi-retired and selling his business, Crown Gold Blocking Ltd. He had an operation in the early part of 2000 and when recovered looks forward to visiting the school, perhaps for one of the reunions. He admits to enjoying his 5 or 6 years at Abbotsholme and reckons the experience stood him in good stead for the real world.

David and Valerie Dean (ex-staff) write every Christmas to up-date us on their work. They have two excellent youngsters and are very active at home where they run a super bothy, Lazy Duck. David still regularly travels to Russia to work with their educationalists on projects for inner city groups. Valery has been very much involved with the Disability Access Panel for their district.

Jeroen de Boorder (left 1978) e-mailed me with his news as it is a long time since he left Abbotsholme. After leaving school he took a B.Sc. and then a Doctorate in Veterinary Medicine, which he finished in 1987. He spent nearly a year in Mid-Wales before departing for warmer climes in Tanzania. He spent four and a half years there working for an Irish sponsored dairy cattle project. There he met his wife and, because of the unstable situation, decided to return to Europe. 1994 brought him two years in Cambridgeshire working as an animal pathologist for a pharmaceutical company and then four more doing the same thing in France. He says he is not happy working in a laboratory all the time and is in the process of moving back to Holland to work for the civil service there. He feels happy with life; he and his wife have celebrated their tenth wedding anniversary and they have two children, a girl, aged 8, and a boy aged six. He tells me that they speak four languages at home! He does lots of running, preferring 15 and 21 KM distances, cycles and enjoys hiking.

Marike de Boorder (left 1980) has e-mailed saying that she hopes to move out to Australia with her family and regrets not having brought her two children, now 11 and 12½ to see Abbotsholme before she leaves. Last year she and her husband and children went to visit her sister, Sabien, in Sydney. They so fell in love with the city and the country that they decided to apply to move there permanently. She hopes to have moved by the time we go to press. They just loved the space there and the people and everything. She is hoping to make contact with Franziska Flowers (n¾ e Trede) when she gets out there – they shared a study in the Lower Sixth along with Jo Hollis.

Sabien de Boorder (left 1980) has been in touch and is very much looking forward to having her sister with her in Sydney, especially as she is expecting their second baby in June. She is still hairdressing a couple of days a week and the rest of her time is spent looking after her daughter, Tori, and her husband, who is an electrician. They have just bought a new house, still in Sydney, so there is masses to do to the new abode.

Richard de Costobadie (left 1983) is now working for a small publishing company called Zone. One of their portfolios is cricket on Channel 4. Nothing could please Richard more. It took him out to Australia in the Winter to cover interviews in the Australia – West Indies series. He and his wife have two children, Sam, aged 3, and Anna, aged 1.

Erica Verkerk-Dodd (n¾ e Dodd) (left 1980) We congratulate Peter and Erica on the birth of their second son, Stuart, on December 5^th 2000, a brother for Nicholas.

James Dodgson (left 1992) is at present living in Banbury but is hoping to move to Oxford. He is very well and very happy and rushed off his feet. For those who remember him at school it will come as no surprise that his life is completely bound up with music. More amazing is the list of credits. His recent compositions include the music for the RNT’s "A Midsummer Night’s Dream", the RSC’s "Woyzeck", "The King of Prussia" at the Chichester Theatre and "As You Like It" for the RNT’s International Tour. He was Associate Musical Director for the Royal National Theatre’s production of "Oh What a Lovely War" at the Roundhouse and "The Villains Opera" at the Olivier Theatre. For the Royal Shakespeare Company he has been Musical Director for over twenty five productions in Stratford, at the Barbican, on tour with "The Cherry Orchard" at the Albery and "Richard III" at the Savoy in the West End. He is currently Assistant Musical Director for "The Secret Garden" at the Aldwych Theatre in London’s West End. And there’s more that I haven’t put in. No wonder he’s rushed off his feet.

Catherine Doll (left 1972) is a social worker living in London. She has one daughter, Jessica. She and Nick were the first brother and sister at Abbotsholme.

Nicholas Doll (left 1972) did Medicine at Newcastle and became a GP in that area but says he soon became more interested in wild water kayaking, starting several clubs and an adventure sports charity. Nick has written ‘A Canoeist’s Guide to the North East’, published by Cicernone Press. He has kindly sent a copy to the School for the Outdoor Education Department. In the front he has written – To all OA’s, ‘Keep kayaking, it’s the only way to keep warm and dry in the cold and wet!’ Through canoeing he met his wife, Helen, a haematologist, they now have two young children. He says that those OA’s who remember him as a keen member of the ‘bughouse’ will not be surprised to hear that they keep a few exotic animals in the house as well as ducks, rabbits and a horse.

Ayley Donkin (left 1992) As I reported last year Ayley was at Queen Ethelburga’s College. She had been there for four years and had worked her way up to Yard Manager in their Equestrian Centre. It has a very impressive double storey indoor school, with 2 outdoor schools, a gallop track and a cross country coures and 185 stables. Recently she again road for Zambia, this time in the Samsung International Dressage, and came second. She is now engaged to her long time partner John and has moved on from Queen Ethelburga’s, but is still working with horses. John works on the Sales side of Haven Parks. They have just been taken over by Bourne Leisure so they might be on the move. During the Summer of 2000 John came home after seeing some clients at one of the parks and said he had just seen a really good cabaret run by a dancer called Heath. It turned out to be Heath Hunter. They went along the next night and met Heath after the show. Small world!

Myles Dove (left 1944) very kindly sent obituaries of Rayner Unwin from the national press. He also tells me that he qualified as an architect after National Service, mostly in India with the RAF. He worked in London and married another architect. They had three children, all of whom have done very well. Keep your eyes open for the middle one. He, Jonathan, is a composer of quite outstanding brilliance especially in the field of modern opera. Perhaps the seed of music in Myles was sown with the compulsory After Dinner Music. It was so much hated by many pupils at the time, but has been so much appreciated since as the motivating force that gave them a love of music for the rest of their lives

Afi Dwipayana (left 1981) is another of our Indonesian OA’s to get in touch after we had lost him for many years. He tells me that after he graduated from local college he started a security firm in financial services. That was in 1990. The firm, which he owns is the largest of its kind in Indonesia and, I am told, has been very successful. He is still in touch with Eddy Mulyadi and Tanto but not so much since he got married about 5 years ago.

Dominic Edward (left 1997) graduated from Leeds with a 2 : 1 in Microbiology with Immunology last Summer. He joined Sandhurst for the Rowallan Company, a starter course and passed. Now he is into his first term of a one year Officer Training Course there and greatly enjoying it. This Summer he hopes to do some canoeing in Spain as part of their adventure training. His motor cycle is part of the past at the moment.

Keiran Edward (left 1996) is a chef in Derby at a ‘trendy’ caf¾ bar. It seems to bring out the artistic talent in him! He is still contemplating a University course.

Sheridan Edward (left 1999) is reading Publishing at Oxford Brookes University. He still loves his music and is singing with the Corpus Christi Choir. He is also involved with other choirs and is in an orchestra. He is a member of the ‘musical fortune’ group.

Howard Elliott (left 1990) worked for a while at Principals in Huddersfield and played hockey for Huddersfield. Then he moved to Leeds and worked for British Gas for three years. At present he is working for Privilege Insurance in Leeds, Privilege is an off-shoot of Direct Line Insurance.

Ian Falkingham (left 1981) came back to Abbotsholme last Summer with his wife, Sharon. Ian is still farming, as is brother, Andrew. Ian was best man to Patrick Harrison when he got married in 1994, and Andrew was an usher.

Alistair Farrant (left 1991) has announced his engagement to Caroline. She is a dentist spending part of the week in a practice and part in a children’s Dental Hospital. She recently graduated with her Master’s degree and Alistair saw Michael Mookerji collect his Masters degree in Law at the same ceremony.

Niall Flynn (left 1988) has moved to Canada and applied for residency there. The good news is that he got married to Christine in April last year. He works for a software company and reckons the skills he has picked up should be transferable to anywhere in the world.

Rosie Flynn (left 1989) sounded very settled with Salomons Merchant Bank when she got in touch with me in March 2000. She was working in the Market Data Department. She had lost touch with all her school friends until she met Jake Nartey who worked in the same building. Jake has moved on and when I last spoke to Rosie last October she had also left Salomons and was looking around for another challenge.

Daniel Foster (left 1993) has, for the last three years, been Assistant Manger of a ten pin bowling and leisure centre. He thoroughly enjoys his work learning to administer the centre and organise the workforce.

Sammy Sinclair (n¾ e Foster) (left 1991) was married to Paul Sinclair in London on June 11^th 2000. Paul is a barrister and Sammy is in the Civil Service working in the Department of Health. She is working directly for the Minister of Health, Alan Milburn.

Katie Fox (Left 1995) When I last heard, just before Christmas, Katie had nearly finished her training as a solicitor with Hacking Ashton in Newcastle under Lyme.

Marie Fox (left 1992) is Marketing Manager for the Hotel and Restaurant section of Wedgwood, the pottery giant.

Wendy Franklin (left 1992) is working with Condor, a public relations firm in London. She says she loves working there, but finds it less enjoyable living in London. She plans to move to Brighton to live with Nicola Gobat and commute each day. She’s still in touch with plenty of her year.

Martin Gee (left 1951) tells me that he spent 18 happy years working with the Milk Marketing Board as a Livestock Officer. He was responsible for buying all the bulls needed to maintain the AI Stud. Beef bulls were purchased dependent on their own growth rate figures, but all Dairy bulls were bought via a contract mating scheme. He identified and approved superior cows, arranged a mating and agreed to buy any subsequent bull calf. All these young bulls were then progeny tested, their daughters milk records kept, and each daughter inspected during their first lactation, to decide which single bull out of roughly ten tested, was good enough to return for widespread AI use. Later he also visited South Africa, Zimbabwe and Zambia, initially selling semen, but later training Classifiers. After retirement from the MMB he travelled with his wife Pat as a volunteer with BESO (British Executive Service Overseas). Like me he is learning to master the computer. He has many memories of times at school. One particular memory is compulsory after dinner music. He is convinced he says that having to listen introduced him to good music, a pleasure that has remained ever since.

Kyla Gill (left 1994) announced her engagement last Summer to Martin Bennett. Martin is an engineer. They get married on July 28^th at Abbotsholme. Kyla is still teaching at Bishop Stortford College.

William Gillis (left 1986) Congratulations to William who was married to Heidi Bergquist on October 21^st last at St. John’s Church, Hyde Park Crescent, London.

Reg Glover (ex-staff) Good news came from Reg to say that he has re-married but is still living in Worthing. He revisited school in the Summer of 2000 and met a few old friends. A year ago he went on holiday in France and Spain, firstly to Lourdes and then on to Tossa in Spain where he developed food poisoning. After a £65 taxi journey, a specially booked flight and three weeks in hospital in Worthing he was back to normal, but was left with the impression that Saint Bernadette of Lourdes had decided he was a sinner not a saint! He was recently visited by a representative of the Mayor of Caen for services with the 51^st Highland Division in and around Caen during the Second World War. He still enjoys numerous visits to plays and concerts especially at Chichester Theatre.

Adrian Gobat (ex-staff) is now running St. Aubyn’s Preparatory School in Sussex.

Nicola Gobat (left 1991) has had a series of jobs but has yet to settle to anything permanent but might be working for a PR company in Brighton.

Joe Godfrey (left 1978) now runs his own computer consultancy company, Linzells Limited ( www.linzells.com ). He is also a qualified Level 1 Coach and Level 1 Umpire in Hockey. He and his wife, Alison, keep hoping to come to one of the OA Dinners but have not made it back for a while.

Andrew Goold (left 1982) I have had a series of interesting e-mail conversations with Andrew this year. When he left Abbotsholme he lived in Algeria for a year and then went back to Southern California for University. He has lived and worked in the city of Pasadena from 1983 to 1999. There he worked for 10 years for a small commercial property firm. In February 1997 he started to work for a national ISP. He designed and had built a network operations centre which monitored the network. In November 1998 he was asked by Cable and Wireless to participate in the build of a global fibre optic ring and internet protocol network, which is what he is currently doing. He hoped to meet Crispin Hughes on a working visit to London last Summer. He says he learnt to appreciate the outdoors at Abbotsholme and loves hiking and cycling. He takes advantage of the wonderful outward bound programme in California, Oregon, Colorado, Utah, Arizona and Virginia. Last heard of attempting Mount Langley (14,026 ft) in central California. The latest news is that Andrew is probably going to move to Belgium this year and hopes that he can make it over to Abbotsholme while there.

Tony Gomme (left 1939) was another of the 1930’s group at the Millennium Dinner. Tony has two daughters and a son and now 4 grandchildren. His wife is very active with the WI. The Norfolk group haven’t done a calendar yet! He enjoys Morris Dancing and English Country Dancing.

Emma Goude (left 1988) works as a TV Documentary Director. She is still single…..and hoping for the right person to come along and sweep her off her feet. At the end of last August she was disappearing to New Zealand and possibly China. I have not heard any more. I hope she’s OK out there.

Melissa Donald (n¾ e Greenbury) (left 1982) has given a run-down on what’s happening to her. Still Married to Kenny, they have a hill farm in Ayrshire where they farm sheep and cattle. They have a small pedigree herd of Limousin cows and some commercial beef Suckler cows and about 1200 Scottish Blackface ewes. Their two children, Sarah, aged 12 and Stuart, aged 11, are, she says, incredibly independent. They are looking for a foreign exchange for them in France for 6 months – anyone able to help? Melissa has a veterinary practice which does farm and pet animals. She has two assistant vets as well. She is training for a 10 Km ‘Fun Run’ in May in aid of Heartstart. Other than that life is quiet! Any OA in the area or even going to Arran (the ferry is only 20 minutes away) would be welcome to come and say Hi! She is still in touch with Carolyn Appleby, Emma Freeman, Kate Godfrey and Kate Wood.

David Greenhalgh (left 1971) tells me that he is married and has settled on the Isle of Mull and would welcome visitors. He has various jobs on the island looking after many animals and this includes an angora rabbit farm which is open to the public.

Amanda Gronau (left 1980) Lives in Italy, having inherited her grandmother’s house just outside Florence. She has lived there for twelve years with her partner, Roberto, an architect. They spend much of their time repairing the house. She hopes they are winning as the house is very old. She started work in the paper making industry and really got to love the noisy old machinery and the best of papers. Later she ‘fell into’ the electronics industry and now co-owns and edits a trade magazine for the European electronics manufacturing industry called ‘Printed Circuit Board Europe’. It is ideal, she says, as she can work a lot from home. She is in touch with Erica Dodd and hopes to meet up with Sheba Posnansky in America.

Charles Gronau (left 1988) is Manager of Courts Furnishing Stores in Dartford.

Matthew Gronau (left 1985) is working in the Czech Republic but I have no other information at present.

Max Gronau (left 1982) is married to Mariola and is in the commercial production video field. He makes TV commercials. He has recently worked in exotic locations in New Zealand and Barcelona. He seems to move from house to house after doing them up and presumanly selling at a profit.

Nicki Miller (n¾ e Gronau) (left 1979) Is still working as a vet part-time, on small animals, in the Wirral. Her husband, Graham, has been very much involved with the launch of the latest Jaguar saloon car this year. They have three children Abby, aged 8, Will, aged 6 and Toby, aged 4. They have bought a 300 year old house and are renovating it. Despite wonderful views across towards the Welsh hills it still suffers from damp and plumbing problems. Old houses are all the same. Nevertheless they are winning!

Tom Gronau (left 1984) is married and has a son aged one. He has been married to Sylvia for three years. He works for Mercedes UK on the sales side. Sylvia is a student still.

Stephen Grundy (left 1967) joined Elizabeth and me for supper at a pleasant hotel in the New Forest last Summer. We had a lovely evening talking about lots of things, mostly but not exclusively, Abbotsholme based. Stephen is in the property business, not in a big way, but buying a small number of properties, doing them up, and renting them.

Alastair Guthrie (left 1974) is now known by his real name Alex. He is married and they have two boys aged 10 and 6. He works in the IT Industry in London for a Korean Global company, in their European section.

Becky Bland (n¾ e Gutteridge) (left 1988) was married in Scotland in March 2000 to John Bland. She had a great 18 months travelling, Australia, New Zealand, South America and back. She spent six months with her sister Sarah in Sydney. She worked for General Electric for two years in London and then joined Geocapital Limited again, in London. It is a Venture Capital Fund which invests in technologies/internet. She still keeps in touch with quite a few OA’s and Ali Thompson went to her wedding.

Sarah Courtney-Jay (n¾ e Gutteridge) (left 1986) has e-mailed me her family news. She and Frank have two children, Chloe who is 7 and Jamie, nearly 4. They have moved closer into the city of Sydney as Chloe is now going to school. Sarah works for a Venture Capital Company, looking at new investment opportunities and assisting with start up business. Life, she says, is always busy. Frank is written up separately.

Arshad Habib (left 1994) is at Manchester Metropolitan University taking a Masters in Business Administration. He will return to Pakistan when he finishes this Summer.

Zeeshan Habib (left 1995) was awarded his BSc at UMIST last Summer and has spent this year taking an International MBA at Manchester Metro. It will involve three months in Paris and three in Prague, which he is looking forward to.

Gwyn Haines (left 1993) has changed his name to Tim. He says the vast majority of the world can neither spell not pronounce Gwyn. After Abbotsholme he had a very happy Sixth Form at Gordonstoun. He had a gap year working in Australia as an outdoors instructor. He had a good season climbing in the Alps and then went up to Reading University to read Politics and International Relations. He was awarded his degree in 1999. He now lives in Cairo, studying Arabic and trying to break in to free-lance journalism.

Stella Krain (n¾ e Hall) (left 1987) has got a family website. All I can see at the moment is baby Rebekah at www.krain.co.uk A very early C.V. !

Fiona Harbot-Beadman (n¾ e Harbot) left 1980) is now happy with her computer. She is still doing her Beauty Therapy treatment work from home part-time and also works part-time for an American owned mail order company selling Ladies and Gents clothes in this country. She’d love to hear from anyone who remembers her at school. She and her husband, Richard, have two children. Georgina, who is 8 and Tom, who is 5. Her children go to the same school and those of another past pupil, Nick Houghton. She tells me that Nick is into Formula One side car racing.

Miles Harbot (left 1983) has announced his engagement. He has known his fianc¾ e since Prep School days. He tells me he proposed to her on the top of Glastonbury Tor!

Vicky Harmston (left 1993) got married on October 7^th 2000 to Jim Barr. She had met him while working in Florida. They had the wedding ceremony and the reception on the beach at Boynton Beach, Florida. Diana Lane and her husband, Michael, were able to join them from New York. They took their honeymoon early and spent it on a clipper ship sailing around the Windward Islands in the West Indies in August. So after the wedding it was straight back to work, but not before she e-mailed me some stunning photos of the wedding.

Jeremy Harrison (left 1988) is still in the farming business and is married to Sara. They have a three year old son, Toby.

Patrick Harrison (left 1985) married Zoe in 1994 and have a three year old son, Henry. He and his brother, Jeremy run the family farming business along with a small haulage company

Jenny Henbest (staff) We congratulate Jenny on the birth of a son David Patrick Merriman on July 30^th 2000.

Aylisia Hetherington (left 1987) is another who found us on the internet. She has only recently acquired a computer and was playing around on the internet and….bingo! Abbotsholme. She says she had a strange few years after leaving Abbotsholme, moving to London and working as a buyer. Then she went back to University to study French with Education. During her year out in France she met her boyfriend and decided to stay. She continued studying at a French University but switched to English. She obtained an M. Phil. in English and started to teach English as a foreign language to adults and is now also in charge of the translation and interpretation section of the language centre where she works. It is the sort of job that gives her plenty of time to look after her year-old baby, Joey-N¾ ot.

Steve Higgins (left 1971) says that he scraped together some O and A levels and a computer degree and then travelled the world for three years. He returned, settled, married, had kids, got itchy feet and set off again. This time he worked for the newsagency, Reuters, and spent many years in Asia and Europe. The family are now back in the UK and he is setting up his own company riding the internet roller-coaster. He’s not sure what the future holds in that area. He lives in London.

Michael Hill (left 1974) e-mailed in June 2000 asking whether I knew the whereabouts of a cricket bat he left at school in 1974 ! He lives in South Manchester with his wife and two children, Stephanie who is 14 (Going on 18!!!!) and Matty, who is 11. His career took him into the Heath Service where he became a staff nurse on an acute medical ward at Wythenshawe Hospital, and then moved into Sales and Marketing, still within the healthcare and pharmaceutical environment. He decided to take a post-graduate degree in marketing. He found it pretty tough but graduated 5 years ago and is now Business Manager with a pharmaceutical packaging company in Cheshire. His passion remains football. He and his son are season ticket holders at Manchester United and he runs a youth side in the Altringham Sunday League.

Philip Hill (left 1972) Runs the family business in Nottingham which is a factory making men’s underwear. He is still playing a lot of sport.

Matthew Hodgkinson (left 1997) is an award winning student and has been made an apprentice at the Lichfield based building and construction firm, Linford Group. He won the Philip Alan Garnham Memorial Cup whilst studying at Burton Technical College. He is being sponsored to attend Weymouth College in Dorset learning new skills in stonemasonry and carving.

Paul Holland (left 1979) is married to Derina and they have three children. Ben, aged 15 and Toby, 14, are at Lancing College in Sussex. The youngest is Polly, just 7. Paul has several business interests covering such diverse areas as property speculation and re-development, care-home ownership and electronic component distribution and, of course, looking after grandad, Reg Glover. All this work is necessary he say to keep his family in the manner to which they have become accustomed.

Greg Hollis (left 1982) is a very proud father (see Angela Kay) and is busy setting up a new removal business and has also moved house. Angela is helping with the business when she has a free moment!

Nick Hopkinson (left 1968) joined me at a cricket match at The Oval last Summer when Derbyshire were playing Surrey. We had the pleasure of chatting to the Surrey President, the Rt. Hon. John Major M.P. This year’s Surrey President used to be Nick’s boss, so he might get there again. We had dinner together in the evening with lots of talk of times past. Nick is still in the Publishing business editing magazines within IPC.

Sebastian Horsley (left 1978) keeps appearing in the Press. Most recently a Sunday colour supplement featured him as one of Mariella Frostrup’s friends along with George Clooney, Brian Ferry, Mick Jagger and Salman Rushdie. Last Summer he was painting ‘The Crucifiction’ and decided to travel to the Philippines to be crucified so that would understand more about the experience! I haven’t seen the result, but he’s a much talked about painter and writer recently described as an ‘old style dandy artist about town’. Oh yes, he’s a columnist for the Erotic Review.

Ian House (ex-staff) spent the first seven months of 2000 in the Czech Republic. He taught in Prague for six months and then had a month travelling around the country. He described his flat in Prague as ‘grotty’ but Prague itself a beautiful city, with concerts, operas, food and beer all still very cheap by Western standards.

Richard Howard (left 1993) has been offered a position with the Corporate Tax Consulting Division at Arthur Andersen, the international business consultants, in London. He hopes to start in September or even earlier.

Mike Hulme (left 1967) works for an oil company and feels more secure now that oil is $30 a barrel than when it was $10 a barrel. His daughters aged 15 and 16 are/were into adolescence in a big way, perhaps, he says, he should have sent them away to Abbotsholme. He has happy memories of PE lessons and especially ‘Tarzan’.

Andrew Hunter (left 1988) Congratulations on getting married in October 2000. I am trying to find out more details. Phil Wilson was best man and Stewart Mee was also there.

Heath Hunter (left 1986) has developed a remarkable career in dancing. After Abbotsholme he spent three years at the London Studio Centre studying dance and choreography. He then went on to the London Contemporary School of Dance. Spells in New York and London then led to him forming his own company ‘Dancersice’ He took the techniques to Germany before going into the music industry as a recording artist. His single ‘Revolution in Paradise’ reached No 1 in Finland and No 8 in Germany. His recording contract is with Warner Brothers and he travels the world with his band and dance group. Most of his band are Brazilian and Heath is fluent in Portuguese and German. Heath and his partner, Zoe, are based in Hamburg. Zoe teaches at the Berlitz School of Languages. They have had their fisrt child last Summer. Anyone remember him in ‘Bugsy Malone’?

Frank Jay (left 1983) is now Asia Pacific Product Marketing Manager with an IT company based in Australia, Witness Systems. He travels a great deal. While relaxing in the bath one morning the phone rang and to my surprise it was Frank on a few days conferencing in London. It was great to talk. More recently he e-mailed me to say that, he, Sarah, Helen Bloor (now Thompson) and her husband, Richard, and Paula Sheppy had all met up for a dinner on the harbour front in Sydney. They had a wonderful evening reminiscing.

Kate Powell (n¾ e Jeffery) (left 1974) writes to say that their twins have both left home for University now. So she has taken in two kittens to compensate. She is also taking a city and Guilds course in Computer Applications. There should be plenty of help from Peter. (See Peter Powell)

Greg Jervis (left 1997) is in the second year of a BA Hons degree course in Interactive Multimedia at Staffordshire University. It is a 4 year sandwich course and he hopes to take a year in industry next year.

Nicola Jervis (left 1998) is in her final year of a dregree course in Chemistry and the Visual Arts at Keele University.

Richard Johnson (left 1982) has travelled the world teaching English as a foreign Language but has now settled in England and is working for Employment Zone in Brent, London. Basically he is aiding the long-term unemployed to get back into work. He commutes each day from Ely. Two and a half hours there and two and a half hours back! His wife, Tiffany, runs a play group in Ely. To keep their hands full they have three children aged 9, 7 and 4.

Shelley Grimshaw (n¾ e Johnson) (left 1990) is married to Chris and they have two children ; Jack, aged 6 and Rachel, aged 3. She is presently doing nursing training.

Simon Johnson (left 1980) has e-mailed me from America with his news. He is married and back living in Cambridge, Mass. After Oxford he went to Graduate School and finished with a PhD in Economics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He had a 2-year post-doctoral fellowship at Harvard and did a lot of work in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union shortly after the Berlin Wall came down. Then he worked at Duke University setting up a new department before returning as a professor to MIT where he teaches applied economics and corporate strategy in the Sloan School of Management, with a particular focus on developing countries.

Stephen Johnson (left 1989) has now signed a full-time contract with London Electricity. They work him pretty hard. He recalls how much more free time he had when he was working for SWALEC in Cardiff. He says his job is still proving challenging, sometimes a bit too challenging – he’s still learning and that’s main thing.

Tiffany Johnson (n¾ e Nickell) (left 1982) sounded very happy with life when I telephoned but she obviously has her hands full. (See Richard Johnson)

Tim Johnson (left 1959) found us on the internet, not having been in touch for many years. His first career took him to Technology Correspondent for the Sunday Times. But he left to start his own company, Ovum. Times were hard and he had to put that on hold and go to work for Logica. Seven years later he restarted Ovum on his own. He was later joined by four colleagues from Logica and now Ovum is a very successful company doing market research and consultancy in IT and telecoms. He met his wife, Vicky, forty years ago and have a son and daughter and recently became grandparents. He is still in touch with Robin Weiss and, of course his brother, Nick. He and Robin walk together sometimes on Sundays – a far cry from his expedition at school where he reached the top of the Grossglockner, led by Robin Hodgkin.

Clementine Jones (left 1990) has joined the OA Committee. She works at the London Guildhall University in the offices of International Recruitment and Erasmus Exchanges. She took a degree in Communication Studies at Guildhall when it was City Poly. Whilst there she has met Sarah Foley and Colin Radcliffe but has yet to meet Sundeep Maini. She says she’s always glad to meet OA’s.

Laurence Jones (left 1983) is now working as a driving instructor and lives with his girlfriend at Church Broughton near Burton on Trent. He plays lots of tennis, horse rides and excels at amateur dramatics according to his sister, Lorna.

Lorna Jones (left 1988) got married on August 19^th 2000 . Her husband, Joe. Is a Naval Barrister and says, Lorna, they hope to start a family soon. Joe spends some time at sea and Lorna works as an oil trading lawyer for an energy company called Enron. She was surprised to meet Rebecca Millerchip at work one day and found that they both worked for the same company. She would love to move back down to the South West.

Stephan Juliusburger (left 1973) e-mailed in from the oceans. He was racing a maxi-yacht in the Millennium Cup in New Zealand before watching the finals of the America Cup. Back in Bermuda he is still the Executive Chef at the Sunesta Beach Resort. He was planning to take a Masters degree in Education through Pennsylvania State University, with the entire course on the internet. I haven’t heard how that is progressing yet. He is still in touch with Justin Skrebowski, Martha Chapman and, of course, Barbie Shanks who is also in Bermuda.

Bob Jung (left 1971) has been in touch with me. He took voluntary redundancy from Amerada a couple of years ago. He spent a year travelling around the South Pacific learning to scuba dive and ride motor bikes and having a wonderful time. When I last heard he was back in London, job-hunting. That was in November so I expect he is all sorted out by now.

Tanya Kalina (left 1981) has written in to say that she has moved into a much bigger house in Hammersmith with three bedrooms, two reception rooms and a garden, the space is HEAVEN and she has a front and a back door. The drawback – it is rather ‘Outer London’. She has had a steady partner, Nick, for over five years. She is still in purchasing. After leaving General Electric she has worked for Racal (now Thompson CSF) and controls a small team. She enjoys walking in the hills in Wales, the Lake District and Derbyshire and is still in touch with quite a few OA’s.

Adam Kassab (left 1980) says that life in Japan is hectic, the pace of life in Tokyo takes some keeping up with. Summers in Tokyo are long and hot and he loves them. Nevertheless he still remembers vividly the beautiful setting of Abbotsholme and the fresh, clear, long Summer days. Sometimes he takes a train out of Tokyo; within an hour, he says, you can be surrounded by mountains. Japan is surely a country of contrasts.

Jenny Katzoff (left 1988) Jenny has, as ever, been incredibly busy during the period running up the elections in America. I don’t think I can print her views on the outcome. She did send me a marvellous piece of verse on the winner which made her position very clear. She says the inauguration was ‘interesting’. She was flown down for the parties beforehand and had the opportunity to meet the new Attorney General, John Ashcroft. She has changed jobs recently and is now the Associate General Counsel for the Interactive Digital Software Association. It is the trade association representing over 90% of video game publishers/creators. She says her new environment is quite diverse as are her responsibilities. It also allows her the chance to meet quite a lot of Republicans which, she adds, is an interesting change.

Angela Vacca (n¾ e Kay) (left 1979) has set up home with Greg Hollis. Their first baby, Joshua, was born on January 9th 2000. They have quite a house full as they also have Angela’s three children by her previous marriage.

Roger Kay (left 1975) has moved from Dubai to Sharjah where he is a successful Director of a Company. He is also, his sister tells me, Captain of the local Polo team.

Andrew Keir (left 1990) is still thoroughly enjoying University and is hoping to do well enough to be able to be able to take a ‘Masters’ afterwards. He writes about Computer Programming and the various software that he uses. I fear much of it is ‘double-dutch’ to me !

Richard Kennett (left 1963) has been seconded from teaching to the Justice Department of the Province of Winnipeg. He is Manager of the Lighthouse Programme which provides funds for community groups to hire a co-ordinator to work with youth outside school hours on crime prevention and recreation activities. The Government wants to spend more money in providing positive environments for youth and less on incarcerating youth for having committed a crime. He loves his new work and is fascinated by the complex labyrinth in government that has to be negotiated to get anything done.

Michael Keong (left 1973) Michael has been in touch for the first time for a very long time. He lives in Singapore and is regional manger for Levi Strauss & Co, the USA jeans and casual wear company. After school he graduated at Leeds and then took a Diploma in Business Administration in Singapore and later a Masters at Curtib University of Technology, Perth, Western Australia. He travels a fair bit and still keeps in touch with classmates, Andrew Sandford, Bill Robinson, Peter Mountford and John Tangye. He is married with two children, a daughter aged 14 and a son aged 10.

Colin Kershaw (left 1961) went on from school to qualify in medicine at St. Andrew’s University. He met his wife, Jill, in Dundee and then settled in North Yorkshire where he took up General Practice. They have a son and two daughters with one grandson. They have both recently retired and enjoy their shared interests of walking and music. Colin says he gained his love of hill walking at Abbotsholme from the Headmaster, Robin Hodgkin, and his Housemaster, Ken Lock, and also a great deal of musical knowledge and love of singing from Gordon Clark. He and Jill have decided to climb all the Wainwright’s in the Lake District (They are about half way through) and have done some of the Munro’s in Scotland as well.

Matthew Killingley (left 1987) is now married. He and his wife, Joanna, have a 2 year old daughter, Polly, and are expecting a second. They live in a fallen down farmhouse in the village of Eyam. They are slowly renovating the property. Matt is thoroughly enjoying running the family business. In his spare time with his family sailing a Tempest on Carsington Reservoir, shooting, fell running and occasionally sailing in Brittany and walking in Scotland. He would welcome visits from OA friends. He says he’s got plenty of room, although conditions are not luxurious !

Ayeau King (left 1976) lives in New York. He was tracked down by another OA and phoned me ‘out of the blue’ very recently to up-date me with his life and to give the addresses of his brothers Mich and Nils. Ayeau has hankered after running his own business for many years. Having followed the ‘corporate’ track for a long time he broke free and at present runs a nationwide company in America, servicing parts of the retail trade. He employs about 50 people and is able to work from home.

Michael(Mich) King (left 1977) has e-mailed me from Norway with his news. He is married to Trudi, a lawyer, and they have two children Max-Emil, aged 11, and Emma, aged 7. He started a graphic design firm 10 years ago and it has gone well. You can find out lots about it at www.kingdesign.no ,especially if you speak Norwegian! I have seen pictures of his offices and they look splendid. Do visit his site. They are having company celebrations at the moment to mark their tenth anniversary. It all coincides with his 40^th so there is double the reason to celebrate. Out of work he keeps a 1975 Triumph T160V (Trident) motorcycle and although it has a nasty misfire it does keep him busy during the Summer months. He and his family do lots of ski-ing during the Winter – ski-ing was something he learnt to love on a school ski-ing trip to Saas Fee in the 1970’s. Anyone else remember those trips?

Nils King (left 1977) has lived in America for the last 16 years and is a self employed Computer Consultant specialising in the needs of Direct Marketers which includes, ..wait for it,…Date Conversion, Network Support, Website Management, Software Development, Database Marketing, Data Mining, Customer Profiling, Customer Relationship Management, List Hygiene and Computer Qualified Bulk Mail Delivery Optimization. Yowee! And I thought I’d come a long way since the OA’s gave me a computer as a retiring present two and a half years ago. Nils has been married to Marie for 11 years and they have a daughter, Ariana, aged 8.

Nina King (left 1986) dropped out of work to go back to University. Her endeavours were rewarded with a BSc in Geography at Huddersfield last Summer.

Ted Koppell (left 1953) is not a member of the Club. He was at Abbotsholme from 1950 to 1953. He was quoted recently in an American magazine, ‘Modern Maturity’. He said that he had a solid education at a boarding school called Abbotsholme and by the age of twelve was taking English History, World History, Geography, Algebra, French, Latin and English. But he recalls it as a very grim, Victorian place. The windows were kept open Winter and Summer. He has no memory of warm water. It was, he said, as cold as a well digger’s posterior! He is now the senior interviewer and anchor man for ABC Television Network in America. His son, Andrew, visited Abbotsholme with a friend last Summer, to see what ‘dad’ made such a fuss about. Andrew seemed impressed but we have heard nothing since.

Tim Lane (left 1964) has been put back in touch though David Straker. After leaving school he did ‘A’ levels at Derby Technical College followed by 3 years at the Royal Agricultural College studying Estate Management. He saved up enough to travel in an old Land Rover to South Africa. He had always, he says, wanted to be a game warden. He took his girl friend with him and she could not work in the bush, so they finished up working in Durban before returning home via India. He took a teaching certificate and taught for 3 or 4 years before starting his business, TL Motors, restoring old cars. 15 years ago he achieved fame by restoring a wartime fighter aircraft to flying condition. He also runs holiday flats and lives close to his three children, two boys and a girl. His latest project is to modernise a complex of derelict barns which stand on a hillside overlooking Weymouth Bay. They will eventually be holiday lets but will be able to accommodate school parties.

Alison Kent (n¾ e Law) (left 1977) is now Director of Communications in Graduate Studies at the University of California, Davis, where she oversees the writing, editing and design of all print and electronic publications. She and her partner, Allan, recently completed their first century on their tandem bicycle and she reckons to have spent about seven times more on bicycles in the last year than she paid for her car! The invention of ‘Second Skin’™ means no blisters as they tour the Sierra Nevada. She has also recently learnt to score at baseball. She says it’s more ‘loosey-goosey’ than cricket which she still follows on the web. Partner Allan is doing a post-doctoral fellowship at Davis in biogeography/geographic information systems.

Andrew Lee (left 1984) went to Agricultural College at Cirencester after school and then spent a year travelling around the world. He met his wife-to-be in Australia and arrived back in England in 1989. He worked for his father for 18 months, got engaged, went out to Australia to marry his wife (she comes from Bristol!) and returned to work in partnership with his parents from 1991 until 1999 when they sold their farm. Andrew now works in the Agricultural Supply Industry, designing, installing and building grain stores and grain handling equipment. They have two children, Vanessa, 8 and Fiona 7.

Jenny Corden (n¾ e Lee) (left 1987) is now a full time District Nurse now that her twins are at school. They are six years old. She still keeps in touch with Lisa Thompson. Her husband works for Aspinwall Enviros, an environmental engineering company near Shrewsbury.

Sally Lee (left 1993) took a degree in Mathematics and Statistics at Imperial College, London. Following that she was awarded an MSc in Sociology at the City University. Now she is reading for her PhD in Epidemiology and Public Health at University College, London. Further plans revolve around post-doctoral research or work with a pharmaceutical company.

Sarah Lee (left 1994) lives with her sister, Sally, in London. She obtained a B. Eng. in information systems engineering at Imperial College and then stayed there to do an MSc in Communications and Signal Processing.

Hilary Lewis (left 1982) I have not heard from but Tanya Kalina is in touch with her and tells me she is happy and working as a lab. Technician.

Andrew Lowe (left 1991) is in the farming business and is Manager at a local feed mill near Okehampton.

Edward Lowe (left 1990) is doing a degree in agriculture at Seale Hayne. He would like to trace school friend Robin Perry. Can anyone help? We have lost track of Robin, Simon and Sarah.

John Lowe (left 1961) is still farming sheep and cattle in the heart of Devon countryside.

Jonathan Lux (left 1969) took part in the Argentinean ‘Mille Miglia’, a classic car rally, in November 2000 to raise finds for the Human Rights Institute. In 1997 he raised £25,000 for HRI as a result of his 18,000 Km 45-day drive in the Peking to Paris Motor Challenge. Jonathan became a partner in Ince & Co in 1983, a leading firm which specialises in shipping, international trade and insurance advice and litigation. With an increasing number of disputes involving ship’s bunkers, he has become a leading expert in this field. Last year he travelled to China to Chair a session of the China Maritime Law Association conference and then travelled on to address the Hong Kong Shipowners Association on ‘Alternative Dispute Resolution’. All good stuff! He has published numerous books on aspects of Maritime Law. After Abbotsholme he graduated with an LLB(Hons) in 1973. There followed a period of study in France and he qualified as a solicitor in England in 1977 and in Hong Kong in 1986. He is a Freeman of the City of London, a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Solicitors and a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators. He is Chairman of the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institutes’ Committee on Trial Observations and Interventions. He is obviously a very busy person. He has sent me a fine photo of his car rallying high up in the Andes last year. It was a gruelling rally and he was pleased to be one of the 170 to finish out of 250 starters. If any OA’s would like to support his fund raising efforts for the HRI he would be glad to hear from them.

Alex Madge (n¾ e MacNab) (left 1984) enjoyed the last Year Book and sent in her latest news. She works in the centre of Bristol and last March had just taken up the post of Manager at the Corn Street branch of Lloyds TSB. She says the building is awesome.

Jaiten Maini (left 1991) went to college in Cyprus after leaving Abbotsholme but is still in Kuwait looking after the family business (automobile parts and accessories) since his father passed away in 1997. He does visit England and has an apartment in London. He got married in January 1999 and has bought a house in Toronto, Canada. He and his wife have applied for immigration to Canada as business is not easy in the Gulf these days. Once in Canada they intend to open a restaurant or go into the outside catering division.

Alex Mak (left 1987) e-mailed with a lovely picture of beautiful house he has bought in Randolph, Massachusetts. He had just been over to this country for Adam Clifton’s wedding and sounded very happy, BUT, he didn’t actually say what he was doing. Anyway he is coming again in April 2001 for another wedding and I hope to catch up with him then.

Ben Marsh (left 1995) spent three years at Rodbaston agricultural College after leaving Abbotsholme and is now settled in Preston and working full-time for the RSPCA.

Dan Marsh (left 1994) spent a year in Switzerland working as a Lab. Technician after Abbotsholme. Then a further year was spent in Scotland with Ben Davies at the Nansen Society. He went to University at Bangor and was awarded a First Class honours degree in June 1999. He is currently studying for a PhD at Bangor, researching the development of a fibre optic sensor for hydrocarbon fuels. His research is sponsored by Pinacl, a fibre optic cable manufacturer.

Louise Mason (left 1990) is still with Cable & Wireless but has been promoted to Project Finance and Measures Manager. When I saw her last summer she was busy revising for four Accountancy exams. I haven’t heard the result yet.

Peggie McAdoo (ex-staff) has become a Schools Inspector and did her first inspection in November 2000. She is very busy with teaching swimming and taking a collage course in floristry. Elizabeth and I had a lovely stay with her last Summer when Derbyshire were playing cricket against Somerset.

Andrew McDowell (left 1991) has asked me to say that I got his write-up slightly wrong last year. He was last April back in Bosnia for the third spell and was editing a magazine for the local population. Last July he was expecting to be posted to Kosovo for the rest of the year and then come home for Christmas with the family for the first time in five years.

Jonathan Miles (left 1979) writes to update us with his news. He worked as a Police Officer for Gloucestershire Police Authority until 1987 and then for the Ministry of Defence in Oxfordshire and Nottinghamshire until 1996 when he returned to full time education at the University of Derby. In January 2001 he graduated with a First Class BSc (Hons) Degree in Information Systems and now works for the MoD again at the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA) in Malvern as a Scientific Engineer. He has a daughter, Natasha, in the Third Year at Abbotsholme.

Peter Miller (left 1971) found the school while surfing the web and has e-mailed me to say that he is now working for Shell Iran Offshore Ltd in Dubai on a two year posting. He and his wife, Lisa, are thoroughly enjoying the wonderful climate. By e-mail he still keeps in touch with old Abbotsholme friends. He travels to Iran on business but the best thing has been just enjoying their new surroundings. They have been out into the desert and to Oman besides the Straits of Hormuz, swimming and watching dolphins and turtles over the coral reefs. The people are friendly and the schooling is good. They have two children, a daughter aged 11 and a son aged 9. Before he left Aberdeen he worked with Mike Hulme (left 1967). He still remembers playing rugby amongst the cowpats on Childerholme, by the bridge. He noted on the news picked up in Dubai of flood warnings on the Dove in Autumn 2000.

Rebecca Millerchip (left 1987) was ‘found’ when Lorna Jones passed her on the stairs and realised they both worked for the same company! She graduated from the University of Wales Swansea with a joint honours degree in Modern Languages and Business Studies. This was followed by a course in Export Management and 4 years working for the Centre for Applied Language Studies in Swansea as Office manager. She decided she needed a change and now works for Enron Global Markets, an American energy company. She has been promoted to Manager of Settlements and Co-ordination with world-wide responsibility for these two departments. She says it sounds grand but what it really means is spending her life travelling between Houston, Panama, London, Finland, Italy and Singapore, but she has great teams in each of these centres. Her parents still live in Italy. She lives with her partner, David, near Hampton Court. (No wedding bells yet !)

David Millward (left 1952) organises a fantastic OA weekend every year with a dinner, last year held on May 20^th 2000 at Stourport-on-Severn. Those OA’s and Staff present were:-

John Boheman, Roger Bolam, Colville Coulthard, Michael Denny, Martin Gee, Philip Hingley, Andy Hurst, George and Joan Ladell, Edward Newman, John Phillips, John Prew, Max Reekie, Jim Rees, David Rubra, Marshall Strong, Anthony Taylor and Peter Teed. They obviously had a super time together last year. David wishes it to be known that the next get-together of the 1951/52/53 leavers will be at the same venue on May 19^th 2001. Do give him a ring on (0113) 268 1737 if you want more information.

David Milne (left 1969) A few years ago we reported that David was in ‘plastics’. He is actually a very successful Managing Director of Clearway Plastics just outside Portsmouth. He thoroughly enjoyed the golf afternoon the day before the OA Dinner in 2000. Perhaps this golf get together should be an annual event.

Jane Morgan-Brown (n¾ e Morgan) (left 1980) met David back in the mid eighties and they were married in 1998 and moved to Bradford on Avon from London. There were lots of OA’s at the wedding, Wallers, Ditchfields, Pearsons and Annie Norman. It sounded a wonderful reunion. Guy Pearson’s band played at their wedding and was absolutely fantastic. Apart from a hectic social life Jane doesn’t say what she is doing. Does she realise that Enid Bemrose also lives in Bradford on Avon and that it was in her husband’s memory that the courtyard at the rear of the school was named. Keep your eyes open, Jane!

Kit Morpeth (left 1962) is another who found us on the internet, having been ‘lost’ for a long time. He still lives in the North East. Most of his working life he has been in manufacturing and computers. During the last two years or so he has been working as a manufacturing consultant with Origin UK Ltd. Prior to that he worked for 15 years as manufacturing and IT Manager for a local electronics company. He describes his married life as ‘a bit wobbly’, but he has four super children, the eldest recently married. He and his partner have been very happy together for the last 11 years.

Francis Morrall (left 1971) went on to Loughborough after school and did teach PE, English and History at the Dragons School in Oxford for three years. He loved sport but never felt fully at ease teaching. Thus he joined Wedgwood in their Industrial Relations Department as a graduate trainee and spent the next six years wrestling with trades unions and bosses. Next he joined the British Ceramic Confederation as its Industrial Relations Officer and has since moved up to his present position as Employment Director. His job is to represent the industry to Government agencies both at home and abroad, on all matters relating to employment. He finds it interesting and challenging. He is married to Judith and they have two boys, both of whom are studying engineering at University. They are keen mountain walkers in the Abbotsholme tradition and Francis plays squash once a week. (All this news came to me because Michael Barker-Benfield tried to find Francis on the OA website!).

Gavin Morris (left 1993) is working for a company called Eclipse ITR in Derby. They are an IT recruitment company and are used by some very big names, Vodafone, Orange, Virgin and British Airways. His job entails long hours and hard partying and most of his exercise is taken in the Gym. He lives near the centre of Derby but is looking to move towards the countryside. He is still in touch with quite a few OA’s.

Eddy Mulyadi (left 1983) went to the University of Surrey when he left school and obtained a degree in Mechanical Engineering. He had planned to go on and take an MBA. He went back home and started working as Plan Manager in the Automotive Industry, in charge of assembling and purchasing. The company was owned by Tanto’s father. General Motors approached the company with a view to a Joint venture. Eddy was part of the negotiating team. The new company was set up in September 1993 with Eddy now as Material Management Director of GM Indonesia. He does a lot of travelling, Japan, Germany, Austria, Turkey, Australia and of course to Detroit (USA) the home of General Motors. He got married to Evy Iriany in 1990 and they have three children, daughters Lashca, aged 8 and Sashkia, aged 2 and one son Gazade, aged 7. He looks forward to making contact with some of his old school friends.

John Naish (left 1933) in a letter recalls that Abbotsholme was a paradise for the budding ornithologist and remembers yellow wagtails, winchats, sandpipers, redshanks and tree pipits were amongst comparative rarities whose nests he found on the estate. He also tells me that he has made two New Year resolutions, never to fly in an aircraft again and always to refuse admission to hospital!

Robert Naish (left 1969) went for one year to Clifton College after Abbotsholme and then did two years at medical school before discovering that his real interest was languages, thanks largely to the teaching of Stan Miller. A degree and a PGCE in French followed, then a Master’s in Linguistics and various other qualifications. By this time he had taught for a couple of years in France and Italy and had caught the ELT bug. This led on to a DipTEFL and to a variety of language teaching and teacher training. Two years ago he took voluntary redundancy from a large College of F.E. and set up a small ‘Language Services’ agency, Avon Language Services based in South Gloucestershire. He has two ‘children’, one adult, one nearly. You can find his work at www.top-ten.co.uk/avonlanguage .

Jake Nartey (left 1989) has moved address but more importantly he has moved from Salamons to Goldman Sachs. Keep your eyes open for Julian Trott young man, he could be your boss!

Gareth Neal (left 1989) is still living in Wilmslow and has had a variety of jobs since being a fireman.

Kate Turner (n¾ e Neal) (left 1990) is married with one son, Kaspar, aged two. She works at an Accountancy Recruitment Agency placing Accountants all over the country.

Samantha Neal (left 1989) is an antiques dealer running, with her partner, two shops. One is in Bath and the other, called Helios Gallery is in Notting Hill, London. You can see Sam and their catalogue and much else about their business at www.heliosgallery.com .

Barry Nelson (left 1980) started moving around and got himself onto the ‘lost’ list. Good detective work by Fiona Harbot-Beadman tracked him down and we are in touch again. He and Val are busy setting an in-house studio for their Geode recordings. A new album is due out shortly. I haven’t heard what it is going to be called but Val tells me it will be mainly mellow, acoustic music. Listen out for it!

Cathy Ness (left 1981) has had her third child who is about two years old when you read this. She is an osteopath living and working in London. Most of the work she does is private but she does do some work for a local GP practice, treating their patients on the N.H.S.

John Newmark (left 1930) is an excellent correspondent. He tells me that he and his twin brother have a book going onto the internet. It is entitled "Two by two to London Zoo" and follows on from their first, "To the Zoo in a Plastic Box". Both were published by Routledge & Kegan Paul in the 1960’s but are, sadly, now out of print. I had mentioned the Arts Society in one letter to John and he recalls a school trip to Manchester in the late 1920’s to hear Fritz Kreizler and the Hall¾ Orchestra. One letter ended saying he… ‘must dash as he has to visit an ingowingtoenailologist’. I knew exactly what he meant even if it wasn’t in the dictionary!

Alan and Chris Oatway (ex-staff) We congratulate them on celebrating their 25^th Wedding Anniversary in 2000. They have two grown up children. The son, Robert, is working for DERA in Malvern , so watch out Jonathan Miles, if you read this. Their daughter, Carolyn, is at Sheffield University.

Hazel O’Dea (left 1989) obtained her degree in Health Studies from the Manchester Metropolitan University in 1994 and then worked briefly for the Family Health Services Authority in Manchester before becoming Finance Officer at Grendon prison. Needing a change she left the prison service and spent six months travelling overland across Africa where she met her Dutch boyfriend. They decided to settle in Holland. Various jobs followed as she learnt Dutch and found her feet. She now works full-time as the System Administrator for the Computer Services Unit at ISNAR (International Service for National Agricultural Research) in The Hague.

Bruce On (left 1995) was married to Noelle last December. They are both students at the Brigham Young University in Salt Lake City. They live at Orem, just south of the City. They will graduate in December 2001, Bruce in Finance and Noelle in Public Relations. Bruce hopes that his future work will bring him to live in England again at some stage.

Howard Orme (ex-staff) is an HMC schools inspector but much of his time is spent sailing off Greece in the Mediterranean. His wife, Margery, has been teaching in the Junior School at Abbotsholme in the Autumn Term 2000. He has just gone on line so you can e-mail him.

Matthew Orton (left 1990) is a gaming machine consultant? Network administrator. He reports that his sister, Jo, is now Mrs Foster and has had a baby, now aged about 1 year. Good luck Jo, we look forward to hearing from you !

Alex Parks (left 1993) lives in Windsor and is a petroleum engineer moving from country to country. He just makes surprise visits home.

Chris Parks (left 1996) is currently a 4^th Year medical student at Imperial College, London.

Roy Perkins (ex-staff) is close to retirement after an outstanding career as a Mathematics teacher. He is Head of Mathematics at Reading School who came top in the GCSE mathematics tables for the country. Roy is also a Governor of the Reading School. His wife, who also taught briefly at Abbotsholme as Elizabeth Short, has her own business, called Art Matters, selling art products. You can view her work and business at www.artmatters-uk.com .

Richard Perrott (left 1983) spotted the school’s website and sent in information. He left, he says, with just 5 ‘O’ levels but worked his way through eventually to University and obtained a BSC (Hons) in Computing at De Montfort University (Milton Keynes) in 1999. He is presently working as a VB/OOP programmer in a retail consultancy and hopes soon to branch out into e-commerce work. He says he’s grateful for the start Abbotsholme gave him, even if it was hard at times. The state sector, he reckons, would have left him for dead.

Caroline Zijlstra (n¾ e Pickard) (left 1992) got married last year. Kate Elliott and Bianca Shevlin were at the wedding. I haven’t got her husband’s first name and I struggle a bit with their married name! (Mind you less than 1% of the population pronounce Sederman correctly). They live in The Netherlands. She feels she has really found a job that suits her and is with the Credit Group, Cisco Systems as Office Manager in their Amasterdam office.

Sue Pitt (ex-staff) has written after Arthur Humphrey’s death. I think Sue must be entering her 90’s but she is still in touch with Robin Guy and his wife, with Jim Rees and Delphine Snell. She says she is no longer mobile as a result of a sponsored cycle ride in aid of Norfolk churches!

Ian Ponsford (left 1939) was sorry to read the obituaries of some of his contemporaries in the last Year Book. He has moved to Hungerford in Berkshire presumably after retiring as a Solicitor. He finds it very encouraging to still be in touch with school as he is ‘one of the ancient ones’.

Keith Ponsford (left 1935) Keith has been ‘found’ through a series of odd circumstances and we find him in Australia still. He lives in Rockingham in Western Australia and says that as he is well over 80 feels it an honour to be ‘found’. He quite often thinks about school, mainly about the wonderful countryside and the river swims with dives off the banks, just for the joy of it. He keeps in touch with a few of his friends, both pupils and staff. He particularly remembers sloping off early on Sunday morning with John Naish to watch and listen to birds on the estate. John, he says was a great one for picking out birds by their songs.

Michael Ponsford (left 1962) is the son of Keith and now is developing a vineyard in the south of Western Australia. He is working 24 hours a day to get it going.

John Powell (left 1942) very kindly made a donation to the Club as he couldn’t attend the Millennium Dinner. We have purchased a gavel and board and had a suitable inscribed plaque mounted on the board. It will get its first outing at the OA AGM and Dinner on the 23^rd June.

Peter Powell (left 1973) was for many years the Abbotsholmians’ Club Treasurer and was responsible for setting up our membership database on a computer. He has had a successful year with his computer programming consultancy business, but is also starting an on-line business in the hope that he can spend rather more time at home. His on-line site is www.photos2cd.co.uk

John Precey (left 1964) has written saying that he has returned from Malaysia. He has been there for a few years and is involved in Plant Management Software Installation.

Matthew Precey (left 1984) has been appointed Deputy News Editor with Channel Four and lives in London.

Alex Price (left 1993) has brought me up to date on his movements. School was followed by an HND in Materials Science at Sandwell College. He did two years of a Metallurgy course at Birmingham before drifting away from University. He worked at shops on the campus for a while before moving back out to the States. He is doing a lot of voluntary work while he awaits his work permit. He’s been feeding rescued animals and is a fire-fighter and has taken a course as a Preliminary Emergency Medical Technician which he describes as an Ambulance Driver with frills! This he hopes will lead to becoming an Ambulance Paramedic. For relaxation he has begun sky-diving and he is restoring a 1978 Honda CB750 motorcycle which he will then ride down to Santa Rosa to gain his Open Water Scuba certificate.

Tanto Probosutedjo (left 1980) has been back in touch with me and has sent me his new address. He is married and has three children. He works in the family organisations and companies. He is still in touch with Eddy Mulyadi, Avi Dwipayana and Dewanta Manik.

Charlie Pryor (left 1990) When I last heard in October 2000 from Charlie he was planning to close down his landscaping business but wasn’t very sure what lay ahead of him next. He has had some excellent days out with Paula Sheppy.

Suzanne Perry (n¾ e Quint) (left 1976) has been in touch because she needed a reference from school to start a nursing course in her home town of Columbus, Ohio. She has been married to Mark, an architect, for eighteen years. Mark travels the world working on large commercial projects. They have two daughters, Nicole, who is nearly 16 and Kristine who is nearly 13. Suzanne has worked in banking since 1986 doing mortgage loans but has always longed to be a nurse. Now she is applying to go to Nursing College to train. She feels she can do this now that her children are a little older. She is still in touch with Ayeau King, who lives in New York City and Helen Curran who teaches in France. She can’t believe that Peggie McAdoo is only 50 and her husband is 52! She has very kindly put us back in touch with Ayeau King and his brothers.

Zara Radford (left 1989) lives with her partner Mark in Manchester working as a development chef. She travelled for three years in South Africa before doing training as a chef for three years and then went to Manchester Metropolitan University where she obtained a degree in Hotel Catering Management. She first worked as a Pastry Chef at ‘Mash and Air’, one of Oliver Peyton’s ‘new wave’ eateries. Then she spent time at Bibendum and Quaglinos in London before returning to Manchester to work as Head Pastry Chef for Malmaison Hotels. At present she is a development chef for a large company whose majority business is Marks & Spencer. She says they are thinking of starting a family in the near future.

Clayton Randall (left 1976) married Helen Wilder (left 1979) on March 17^th 2000. They had moved from Teddington to Tewkesbury in 1999 to help Helen’s mother move. Then realised that a Barn attached to her mother’s house could be converted in a proper house, so they decided to stay. The conversion won’t be ready to move into for a little while yet, but they are in rented accommodation while the building goes on.

Clayton works as a facilities manager at Vodafone in Newbury. It is a long way to work and back! Still he is actually self-employed and his workdays are very flexible. They are still in regular touch with Guy Pearson and Karen Mayatt and will be meeting up with Gina and Richard Waller soon. Please read Helen’s piece as well.

Stephen Remington (left 1962) I have not heard from Stephen but Robert Wilson reports that he did a good few years in the Royal Navy and came out as a Chief Petty Officer. He now works in Plymouth. He is married with a daughter who now serves in the Royal Navy.

Stephen Samuel (left 1969) who has organised all the ‘Golden Oldies’ cricket matches is married to Angela. They have two boys. Nicholas, the elder, is nearly at the end of his third year at Southampton University where he has been reading Geophysical Sciences. Jeremy is doing an Outward Bound Course. Angela acts as Chair of Governors at two local schools. Stephen has worked for Abbey National for nearly 29 years and is Bank Manager at their Newport branch. He still plays plenty of cricket.

Andrew Sederman (left 1989) was married to Miranda Griffin on August 12^th 2000.The day coincided exactly with Andrew’s parents 35^th wedding anniversary and Miranda’s parents 33^rd wedding anniversary, some party! Miranda is a Junior Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. OA’s Tom Howard and Steve Johnson were both at the wedding.

Ann Sederman (left 1988) has announced her engagement to Andrew Dalgleish. Andrew, a Scotsman, who works all over the world carrying out food production audits from a base in Birmingham. They plan to marry on September 1^st 2001 with the reception at Abbotsholme.

Richard Sederman (left 1997) is now back at Birmingham University reading Psychology. He still thoroughly enjoys playing the saxophone and tried his hand at busking with three other saxophonists in the city centre before Christmas. The experience was good, the takings just about paid for the car park and a warm drink afterwards.

Michael Sharp (left 1973) is still on the Isle of Man working as a civil servant in the IoM DHSS (Hospitals) on the Information/Accounting side of things. He is also part way through an MSc on Managing Change. They have two daughters, Jennifer who did very well at GCSE and is well on her way to A levels and Miranda who Mike thinks is biologically attached to her ‘gameboy’ or TV. He is in touch with Robert Kidd and Carl Stephenson.

David Shepherd (left 1962) was at St. John’s College Durham from 1962 to 1965 and took an MA in Yugoslav History and then an M Litt. He was a probation officer from 1965-66 and was at Edinburgh Theological College from 1966-68. He moved to Dundee in 1968 and worked there until 1979 when he was a Curate and Anglican Chaplain to the University of Dundee. In 1979 he took over St. Magdalene’s Church in Dundee since when it has become the leading church in Dundee. He has been in charge of the diocese finance since 1984. He is married and in his spare time he writes detective stories and I think six have been published so far, the first in 1989.

Paula Sheppy (left 1985) has had a very exciting year. She now travels around Australia occasionally as part of her job which enables her to enjoy the marvellous National Parks and meet more people. Last year she did masses of sea kayaking and she met up with Charlie Pryor who also lives in Perth and they had a few expeditions together. I don’t think he was too keen on the seas kayaking though. She has walked in the Australian Alps and visited the Queensland rainforest hinterland. Both were absolutely breathtaking. Then she met up with Helen Bloor, now Thompson, and Frank Jay and his wife, Sarah Gutteridge, for dinner in a restaurant in Sydney’s Darling Harbour; and no-one took a camera. Helen she, says, is pregnant and wears that enigmatic, blissful smile that pregnant women seem to wear! She has sent me some fantastic pictures of her treks, one with her atop Mount Feathertop in the Victorian Alps. She has been invited to trek in Nepal at the end of the year to visit Makalu Base Camp. Makalu is the fifth highest mountain in the world. She is planning to go on after to do a solo walk either to Everest Base Camp or do the Annapurna ‘circuit’. Solo, that is, with a porter and guide. As I write she is busy taking masses of exercise to undo the damage of stuffing her face his lots of chocolate etc. at Christmas.

Robin Sibley (left 1995) graduated at Exeter in 1999 and moved on the University of Lancaster. He was worried about his results at the end of the year but was rewarded for his hard work with an MSc (with distinction) in Operational Research. He is now working in London for a derivatives consultancy company providing software for Stock Markets and e-traders throughout the world.

Emily Singleton (left 1999) has been in touch to say that she is back from her work in Tanzania and has thoroughly enjoyed her gap year. She is now in her first year at the University of York.

Siddharth Sinha (left 1991) has taken a break in work to return to study. He now attends the University of Berkeley, California as a full-time MBA student. He says it is hard getting back to doing homework and leading a starving student’s life. He had worked with a software company, Microstrategy, and before that with KPMG Consulting.

Garn Siributr (left 1980) found us on the internet, having been ‘lost’ for many years. After graduating in the UK he returned to Thailand in 1984 to do his national service. He only did 6 months and rather enjoyed it but was not allowed to stay on as his spoken and written Thai were not up to standard! He finally got a job with an advertising agency and has stayed in this field ever since. He is at present a freelance Film Producer/Production Manager for local companies producing TV commercials. He is still single, which is not surprising looking at the list of activities he gets involved with. He took up scuba diving and is now an NAUI scuba instructor. He plays quite a bit of tennis but prefers driving and his most recent passions have been ‘enduro’ (off road work) and high speed road riding on motorbikes. He is an active member of RAT (Riders Association of Triumphs) in Thailand, organising trips and track days for riders of the new generation Triumph and Ducati bikes. The latest addition to his activities is golf. He always has a lot of work to do. He says he has fond memories of Abbotsholme and will try to contact some of his old friends. He was very shocked to hear of the death of Alex Turner. He is meeting with ‘lost’ OA’s Ing and Oy Kanjanavanit and will try to put them back in touch with us.

Charlie Sloan (left 1981) lives on the outskirts of Burton on Trent. He is now married with three children and works in a dual role with a local firm as financial controller and IT Manager.

Ian Small (ex-staff) who is Headmaster of Bootham School, York, and a Governor of Abbotsholme, has been elected Chairman of the Headmasters’ Conference Coeducation Group of Schools. He looks forward to an interesting two years on the Headmasters’ Conference Committee. He has been granted a sabbatical term in the Summer and is planning to spend some of it in California. California OA’s book him now!

Rebecca (Bex) Machin (n¾ e Smith) was married to Julian on January 20^th. Bex is a nurse. Kyla Gill was there and also Caroline Klink. Bex and Julian left for a honeymoon in Thailand the following day.

Anne Spragge (left 1979) stayed at our cottage in Wales for a week last Summer with her husband, SÝ ren and their three sons. We visited them for a day and had a pleasant walk in the hills followed by a BBQ. It was great to see them as Anne is very distantly related to us. She is still teaching English and is planning a study tour to Dublin in October and hopes she might be able to meet up with Jeanette Versey.

Peter Spragge (left 1981) e-mailed me in September. He and his wife bought an old house about 18 months ago and they have spent much of the last year overhauling it. His wife works at a research institute in Copenhagen trying to establish the links between diet and coronary thrombosis. Peter, himself, is a research engineer developing nozzles for agricultural use for Hardi Intern, the biggest producers of field sprayers in the world. Their elder daughter, aged 6, started school last August and the younger one, aged 3, goes to a day care centre.

Carl Stephenson (left 1972) left Abbotsholme and went on to Loughborough College to Study Ceramics. His love of motor biking took him far and wide through Scandinavia. He worked in St. Moritz and then finished up back in London working for Sotheby’s. Further wild trips took him across Canada and the States, then down to Peru and the Amazon basin. In 1980 he started a company in Seattle, designing and producing items for the gift industry, mostly ceramics. Production is mainly in Asia and sales are mostly in the USA but some goes to Japan, Europe and Australia. He sends best wishes to all who knew him at Abbotsholme.

Kim Stephenson (left 1968) has been in the photographic business for the last 25 years. He is based in Southern California, and has a son, aged 16, who loves surfing. You can find his wonderful work at: www.kimfoto.com

Hugh Storrs-Fox (left 1965) lives in Matlock. He has two children and now works part time with the heath service.

Patrick Storrs-Fox (left 1961) took early retirement from teaching German five years ago. After a spell in the civil service, he is now selling books. I remember his enthusiasm for old books when he last visited. He is married with two grown up children.

David Straker (left 1966) has been pretty much living in Brazil since 1971 where he says he arrived from Hong Kong having got on the wrong plane. He meant to go to Peru and has never made it there since. Much of his time has been spent teaching English though he did have a spell in the Amazon looking for oil and some time on off-shore oil rigs near Rio. After school he spent some 5 years or so travelling around South East Asia before settling in Rio. He is divorced but hasa son aged 18 with whom he has travelled a bit. They went round the world in 66 days, and got lost in Borneo and attacked by a tiger in Northern India. Two years ago he went to New Zealand via Easter Island and Tahiti. He took flying lessons, did sky-diving, scuba-diving and all the right sports for 50-year-olds! He speaks Portuguese, some Malay and a little Cantonese. He is still in touch with Tim Lane and would love to hear from any of his class-mates who read this.

Else Rasch (N¾ e Strom) (left 1975) It was lovely to get an e-mail from Else as the school has had such a strong link with her family for many years. She works for Xerox in Norway. She is the Logistics Cost Analyst for Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland. She is also the co-ordinator for internal controls within Xerox Norway. She is President of Xerox Norway’s Sport and Social Club, organising their social events and the bookings of the company’s holiday cabins. She represents Xerox at a European level. She is married to Trond, who is a Fireman. They have two children, Alexander, who is nearly 11 and Christine, who is 6. They do hope that one holiday they will be able to visit Abbotsholme again.

David Thompson (left 1953) tells me that he left the World Health Organisation in 1995. (They have a fixed retirement age) Since then he has been kept very busy with various publishing, editing and translation jobs, mostly for international organisations. He lives in a small French village in the foothills of the Jura about 20 minutes from Geneva. He is thinking of returning to England to live towards the end of 2001.

Polly Thompson (left 1975) wrote to me last Summer to say she had been appointed Professor of History of Science and Women’s Studies at the University of Harvard. Congratulations!

Alastair Torrance (left 1972) has written most graphically about the Sydney Olympics. He took his family to numerous events but the highlight was an evening at the main stadium opening with the women’s Pole Vault at 6 pm through to the men’s 800m semi-finals which finished at 11.20 pm. Best of all was the women’s 400m final. He says you could have heard a pin drop at the start and then an incredible wave of noise as 110,000 people willed Cathy Freeman on to win. I am sure everyone who had time to watch the Games will have been impressed. Alastair still plays a little cricket.

Julian Trott (left 1983) and Helen Trott (n¾ e Boorer) (left 1985). Belated congratulations on the birth of their first child, a son, Ludo, on November 16^th 1999. Julian still works with Goldman Sachs.

Mila Turajlic (left 1997) has e-mailed me from New York with news of an incredibly busy and successful life. She is in the third year at University doing Film and TV Production at Belgrade and Politics and International Relations through the London School of Economics External Programme. In the Summer of 2000 she was sponsored to go on a tall ships race in the Baltic, then she went to the European Debating Championships where she came first in her group, on to the English Speaking Union Debating Championships where she came second and won the Audience Award. She was a monitor in the Yugoslavia elections. Towards the end of 2000 she was given leave from her department to spend the Autumn in New York, where she is being tutored in the use of the media as an instrument for social change. She’s taken the opportunity to visit Universities in the States to lecture on the political changes in Yugoslavia, the resistance movement and the events of the past ten years. She is spending Christmas with Melanie Cheadle.

Jake Tyshow (left 1991) has sent me news of his career so far. After A levels, he enlisted in the US Army as an infantry soldier. He served honourably for two and a half years in Fort Benning, Fort Carson and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Four months in Mexico taught him Spanish and, he says, a few other things. He returned to England and in 1999 graduated from the London School of Economics with a first class honours degree in International Relations. He was also awarded the Sir Huw Wheldon Prize for academic excellence. Presently he is half way through a three year course at law school in the University of Virginia. He is specialising in International Law and hopes to work in that field for the State Department or in the private sector. He adds that I will be glad to know that he’s still getting into trouble on occasion, although its all in good fun!

Tim van Someren (left 1988) is currently a freelance studio director working for BBC and MTV. He wants to catch up with some of his OA contemporaries.

John Vickers (left 1965) It was very good to hear from John again. He is currently working for a sub division of Coca Cola and he is a food service director. He hopes to work his way to the independence of self employment. He has one grown up daughter. He is thinking of buying some rental properties in his home town of Knightdale, in North Carolina and branching out in that direction. He has bought one already and is waiting for his Real Estate Licence. He still keeps in touch with Nick Clarke.

Nick Vidal-Hall (left 1979) The eagle eyed amongst you might have spotted the name in a national newspaper last May when two 13 year-olds won a talent spotting competition organised by the Disney Channel. The prize is to have their story, "Jake of Diamonds" made into a Disney cartoon. One of the two was Arran Vidal-Hall, Nick’s son. Nick, a homeopath, has moved from London down to Devon where he and his wife, Sam, have taken on the education of Arran at home. Nick explained in the newspaper article that they had taken this course following his own experiences at an independent school.

Wolfgang Viragh (left 1980) phoned me last Autumn when he was passing through England on the way from Austria to New York, where he now lives, and followed it up with a newsy e-mail. He and his wife, Alexis, who he describes as a new age artist specialising in digitalised photocollages, have two out-going and fun-loving children, Anthea, aged 7, and Xenia, aged 4. Wolfgang has been with Citibank since 1992 and based in New York since 1997. He is a Senior Banker within the Global Corporate and Investment Bank, handling US based multinational corporate accounts. He hopes to bring his family to show them Abbotsholme before too long.

Emma Padmore (n¾ e Vodden) (left 1975) is still running, with husband, Chris, Bank House Farm in Glaisdale which is owned by Giles and Mary Heron. As well as work on the farm and selling produce she has also had a part time job in Whitby helping adults with learning difficulties, but that has finished now. Her two boys are growing apace, Joe, aged 10 and Sim, aged 8.

Sarah Baskerville (n¾ e Vodden) (left 1975) sold her cows five years ago, just in the nick of time, she says. They built stables for a livery. It is full with 50 horses. She runs a small but very busy soft furnishing business. Looking after husband, Tony, and two children, Samuel, aged 16, and Ella, aged 4 fills in the rest of the 25 hours each of the eight days a week.

Enno von Bodecker (left 1993) found us again on the internet. He had been ‘lost’ for a few years. After Abbotsholme he went to the University for the West of England in Bristol and read Computing and Spanish but after two years was called up by the German Army for national service. He actually did humanitarian work instead working for the hospital service. When that was completed he did a course in Business Advertising but he really didn’t enjoy it very much so he’s back studying computers again. He loves IT and feels it is the right thing for him to continue with. In his free time he plays a lot of squash, watches Formula One racing and designing web pages for friends.

Ellen Walford (left 1996) has written to tell me that she has now graduated from Aberdeen University with a 2:1 degree in Tropical Environmental Science. January 2001 she plans to go out to Africa working on conservation projects in Garonga Safari Camp, a private nature reserve West of the Kruger National Park in South Africa. She will be a volunteer to start with but hopes she will gain employment.

Michael Walker (left 1974) is still on the move but the present address should get to him. After Abbotsholme he completed his BA degree in Fine Art (Painting) at London University (Goldsmiths College) in 1978. He graduated from the Central School Goldsmiths Art and Design with a Postgraduate Diploma in Printmaking in 1983 and a Masters Degree in 1986. He practised art as an illustrator and printmaker for 5 years and exhibited prints in group exhibitions in London and Europe. From 1986 to 1991 he became very active as a Buddhist practitioner in London. Here he met Ellen Johansen, an artist and councillor. They moved to San Francisco in 1991. His work has changed greatly and he took a PhD in Psychology and has almost completed his training to be a Psychologist in California. His research speciality is the psychological impact of physical sexual disability resulting from injury or birth defect.. He has written various works on this subject. He and his wife, Ellen, have recently bought a Bed and Breakfast Inn north of San Francisco in the Point Reyes National Park. You can see it at:- www.ridgetopinn.com . It looks wonderful. He is still in touch with Tim Brown.

Roz Walker (left 1984) e-mailed me with her news just after the last Year Book went to the printers so this is over a year out of date ! Their vineyard was going through times of change with their original partners leaving. The new wine maker joins with an excellent reputation. Roz is still working in Wellington three days a week and commuting from Martinborough. Their wine had a great review last year in a much respected magazine last year. She has heard that Caroline Ditchfield has had her third baby. (I must follow that up for the next Year Book.) Roz and family built a straw bale house and moved into it in August 1999. She says it has a lovely uneven quality and good insulation. (Just as well, not quite the place to have a roaring fire!) Incidentally if you want to purchase any of their wine, if available, by the case from the importer who can be contacted at Margaret.Harvey@btinternet.com .

Mark Waller (left 1991) is now living in Bristol. He is married to Kate and they have a baby daughter, Josie, who is just over a year old. Mark now has his own company which he set up with some friends. They create software for designing computer chips. His company is called Pulsic Ltd and can be found at www.pulsic.com .

Rupert Warne (left 1992) has been in touch because Charlie Pryor asked for information about Rupert, Martin Lau and Howard Elliott. It was good to hear from him. Rupert graduated with a BA in Theology and Religious Studies from Bristol University and then spent 4 months in India and Nepal on an expedition to study the snow leopard amongst other things. In 1998 he was awarded a scholarship to take an MA in Buddhist Studies. He gained his MA in 1999 and decided against a PhD for the moment. At present he is working as a Research Assistant at the Department of Social Medicine at the University of Bristol. As for the future? He would like to continue with studies in Buddhism, possibly the study of Pali in Sri Lanka, but who knows. He loves England but not the weather.

Hugh Wheatcroft (left 1976) has managed to find Mike Butler for me. Hugh tells me that his hockey playing days are over, though he remembers his days at Derby Hockey Club with great affection. Brian Murrell was in the same team as him. He still goes ski-ing once a year but has really got into golf and spends as much of his spare time as possible on the golf course. He’s still in touch with half a dozen OA’s. For work, he is a National Account Executive for a coffee and hot beverage company based in Derby.

John Whitehouse (left 1946) has been ‘found’ thanks to Alex Barfield (left 1946), who is still in contact with him. He has lived in Canada for many years. He has moved from Parry Sound, where the Winters sound pretty bleak, to Oakville in the suburbs of Toronto. He is enjoying retirement after a career in Management Accountancy. Unfortunately he had a fall three years ago and after spinal fusion is confined to a wheelchair. He last visited England in 1999.

Helen Randall (n¾ e Wilder) (left 1979) I got a lovely card from Helen and Clayton announcing the birth of their daughter, Phoebe, on April 20^th 2000. Congratulations. They send their very best wishes to all who remember them and hope to make it back to another reunion before too long. Read Clayton’s piece as well.

Charles Wilford (left 1984) and his wife, Jo, are expecting a second child in June. Charles works in Birmingham and has moved from London to Warwickshire. He is a partner in a firm of chartered surveyors dealing mainly with pubs, theme parks and other ‘leisurely’ work.

Kate Thompson (n¾ e Wilford) lives in Oxfordshire with husband, Simon. They were blessed with a baby daughter last November.

Tim Willoughby (left 1965) dropped me line to say that he has moved back into Venton Manor. The Manor is a residential therapy centre, a charity, and he’s involved again in the whole process of keeping it going and seeing if it can survive. He tells me that his brother, Nick, is in Canada and has two daughters each of whom has two sons. So Nick is a grandfather four times over.

Phil Wilson (left 1988) is still ‘lost’ but I gather from Stewart Mee that he joined the army about eight years ago and married Wendy five years ago. He is serving in Hannover in Germany at present. He was best man at Andrew Hunter’s wedding.

Robert Wilson (left 1963) has moved to a listed Devon long house with 24 acres of land to look after (He says he must be mad.). It is just on the northern edge of Dartmoor, so if you get lost, you know where to head for! He has kept in touch with Stephen Remington over the years.

Oliver Wintringham (left 1947) was pleased to be able to receive by e-mail an address list by year left which helped him to pinpoint those whom he knew at school. Oliver had fun trying to download some of our Access database. He is a programmer and consultant for ‘MEGA Learning’ www.megalearning.com He writes and markets Business Simulations which are used to teach managers and executives how to run a company without risking the real one !

Sebastian Witkowski (left 1997) met Veronica Oakshott and Nicky Spencer-Jones in Warsaw by pure chance. They were a bit concerned to hear this rather handsome chap try the ‘haven’t I seen you somewhere before’ line. But it turned out to be genuine. Sebastian is studying at the Karol Adamiecki University of Economics in Katowice (the same as Lucasz Zientek). He is also studying Law at the Silesian University. He was awarded a Scholarship to study in Sweden for a term in 1999. He hopes to obtain his Masters degree in Management and then work for a firm of Management Consultants in Warsaw or maybe London.

Sir Alan Muir Wood (left 1939) has written very nicely to excuse the Club from omitting him from their records for so long. He says of his ‘nominal’ retirement that his main professional activity is that of expert witness in court and arbitration. As an engineer he is more interested in getting things right first time but, he says, it is extraordinarily interesting to have the opportunity to investigate prime causes of disasters. He believes that design is crucial in good construction. He has sought to define design and to show that a lack of it has been a major barrier to success. His particular specialist field has been tunnelling. He has recently published a book on this theme enticed "Tunnelling: management by design."

James Woodward (left 1977) is still single and living in Mickleover. He is a senior systems analyst for a Derby based computer firm.

Chi-Kong Yeung (left 1990) has had a spell at the Max Planck Institute doing polymer research in Autumn 2000. He has now taken up a post with the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA) in Dorchester. He is continuing to work on Biosensors and Neural Networks.

Cissy Yeung (left 1991) came to the Millennium Dinner with her brother. She has been working in Tokyo for the last 2 years after finishing her degree at Reading. In the Summer of 2000 she started working for a start-up Internet Company as an International Business Manager.

Lucasz Zientek (left 1999) met up with Veronica Oakeshott and Nicky Spencer-Jones in the Summer of 2000 when they were travelling through Poland. He is reading Economics at the University of Katowice . When he graduates he hopes there might be a chance of doing a Masters degree in the UK. You can find him on his website at: www.republica.pl/zientek (only in Polish when I tried!) He hopes to visit England and Scotland in 2001.

Marianne Zoega (left 1988) is working from home doing English-Swedish translations. She has a boy, Ben, aged three. She has spent quite a bit of time in Thailand in the last six years as that is where Ben’s father comes from. Debbie Bell and her husband are Godparents.