A M D G

 

BEAUMONT UNION REVIEW

SPRING 2025

 

Be prepared for the unexpected . Over the years, for the vast majority, we have found this to be true. Three years ago, we didn t expect anything untoward to happen in the small world of St John s. Then from out of the blue came the resignation of Giles Delaney as headmaster a man who had followed in the footsteps of Dermot Gogarty to make the school the great success of recent years. A new temporary headmaster was parachuted in and we had the Remembrance Sunday lunch debacle. Then a chance remark at a dinner soon after to Richard Sheehan sent alarm bells ringing and with 65 always in our memory the gang of 4 was formed in case action was required. It certainly was! Confidentially, we were informed that St John s was on the market and bids were invited. We backed one that was being made by a new catholic education group - Concept Education organised by a group of OSJB and OS several of whom were known to us. However, it soon became apparent that there was a Jesuitical Stich-up as they had already decided upon Intellego who had been advising The Society and the Governors for some time. We held a meeting at Farm Street to stress our concerns followed by another with Dr Stephen Spurr the Chairman of Intellego and whose record in education is most impressive: although not a catholic, he is married to one and their son had been at the school. For the most part our minds were put at rest except that the leading Catholic prep-school in the Country would pass into non-Catholic ownership. What was to be the religious status? With only 20 -30% Catholic boys was a non-denominational status a possibility. We asked for re-assurances and a discussion held with Bishop Moth of Arundel & Brighton. What transpired was that since the school was passing out of Catholic ownership, it could no longer be considered a Diocesan responsibility though it would receive support and the ethos remain.

The Lawyers took a further 18 months to agree the terms before we could inform you of a satisfactory conclusion. Stephen Spurr is determined that the school will prosper and will invest in its future. I think you can rest assured that The Beaumont Heritage is secure and will continue into the future.

You will be interested in what Intellego have written on their Website:-

Founded in 1887, St John s is the oldest purpose-built preparatory school in the UK. St John s stands on a foundation of educational excellence and has sent over the past 5 years more than 60% of its pupils on to Eton, Harrow, Winchester, Wellington, The Oratory, Tonbridge, St Paul s and Stonyhurst. One in three of these pupils achieved a merit-based scholarship.

Enriched by its Catholic ethos, SJB instils in day and boarding pupils a shared moral compass one that values kindness, compassion curiosity, respect, and service to others. In SJB s 75 acres of historic, natural beauty, boys and girls discover that tradition is not something confined to the past, but a guiding light for the future.

 

NEWS

80^th Birthday Celebration.

To mark his big day, Bertie de Lisle (63) is driving to Ukraine with his son Ed bringing in much needed humanitarian supplies. BUT they need money we can help by clicking on the Justgiving.com link below. Allez, allez, allez Bertie + Ed .

 

 

Help raise 5000 to help MedivactruckstoUkraine buy aid to fill a vehicle with medical and humanitarian aid and drive it to Lviv in Ukraine in May 2025 justgiving.com

(CLICK ON THE JUSTGIVING.COM above and follow the link)

Ed's story

In May 2025 we are joining a MedivactruckstoUkraine humanitarian aid convoy driving from the UK to Lviv in western Ukraine. The Ukrainians more than ever need our help and we need yours.

My father and I are hoping to raise 5,000 to fill a vehicle we have already donated with high quality medical items and humanitarian aid which has been specifically requested by MedivactruckstoUkraine s contacts in Ukraine. If, as we hope, we raise more than our target, the team will buy additional trucks and deliver more aid.

The trip in May will be their ninth mission, with the team having previously raised over 875k and delivered 54 pickups an ATV and an ambulance. Aid priorities change from month to month but as well as the vehicles and donated NHS kit, they invariably include the following items: SAM junctional tourniquets; CAT Tourniquets; Israeli Bandages; Vented chest seals; Abdominal emergency Bandages; Celox gauze; Soft Stretchers, Generators; Ecoflow Power banks; Food pouches; Cookers; Medic Rucksacks; Sleeping bags and Generators. Full details of aid supplied can be found on the website.

In January 2024 two hospitals treating both military and civilian patients were added to those we are helping by supplying ultrasound, ventilators and defibrillators and in February we supplied an ultrasound scanner to the ophthalmological surgeons at Lviv Hospital.

We have absolutely no administration or overhead costs and all our travel and accommodation costs and cost of diesel will be funded personally by us.

If, like us, you've been wondering how you could provide some practical support to all the Ukrainians who continue to care for the injured and those in peril from Russian attack, then please donate to our page.

We are in constant need of pickups such as Mitsubishi L200, Toyota Hilux, Ford Ranger, LR Discovery and LR Freelander. If you have such a vehicle past its prime but roadworthy that you would like to donate, please e-mail Anthony White: leckhampstead@gmail.com

To learn more about MedivactruckstoUkraine and this initiative have a look at the website: medivactruckstoukraine.com

Thank you.

Ed de Lisle and Bertie de Lisle

EDITOR: I know we have many calls for assistance but if you can make a donation every penny helps!

"Slava Ukraini"

THE BEDFORD GROUP

The Bedford Group held their annual Christmas lunch at Boodles on 13^th December. Eighteen members attended with Mandy as the principle guest and we were also joined by Gerard, Squire de Lisle.

I found it fascinating that in the course of conversation new family information came to light about wartime activities of SOE. I have previously recorded the activities of John Wolff s Uncle Jack who as it so happens was an original member of this lunching club. Jack operated in France , Belgium and Holland working with the Resistance in advance of the Allied Armies. At the end of the war he went to Norway to hunt down Quislings. This brings me to Stephen Crompton s wife Jules s great uncle James Chaworth -Musters who an operative in Norway and although little known in this country is revered for his activities in Norway. I had asked Stephen why he had not been at the B U Lunch, thinking that he had been basking in the sunshine. In fact, he and Jules had been retracing Chaworth-Musters escape route in 1940. Stephen has also written the biography of the man The Naturalist who joined the SIS and SOE. To add to this Nigel Courtney passed over to me details of a cousin - Lilian Rolfe. She was a wireless operator for the Historian Network based in Orleans. After four months of work in France, she was captured by the Germans on 31 July 1944. She was executed in Ravensbruck along with Violette  Szabo GC and Denise Bloch in late January 1945. You may recall that I have previously written about Yvonne Baseden ( sister and mother of OBs) and Colonel Remy s two sisters who also were in that notorious camp.

I write in further detail about these remarkable people later in The REVIEW.

At the end of lunch, we departed our many ways: John Wolff and Mandy Bedford were long haul to Australia as was Stephen Crompton to Aspen USA for some skiing. Dereck Hollamby was contemplating Thailand and its many attractions. France beckoned for Patrick Burgess, Richard Sheehan and John Flood. Guy Bailey home to Monte Carlo and myself to the Italian Dolomites. Like a good many more OBs we remain a community of travellers physically and spiritually.

Footnote.

For the first time at Boodles we sang the Carmen and the Pater Noster ( we could be described as similar to the Irish Rugby Team we have two anthems).

Our voices drifted out into St James s - you couldn t help but feel that a little bit of history was being made.

OBITUARIES

I regret to inform you of the following deaths:-

Michael Lazar (62). In Sydney Australia: Born and raised in Kenya, a useful Bat and a Colour.

David Bulfield (55) Legendry cricketer taking all 10 wickets at Lords. Unsurpassed in Test, County, Club or School Matches. Played for Dorset. Master at Downside.

Patrick Farrell (54). Younger of two brothers. Trained as a metallurgist and worked in the Steel Industry. Lived in Glasgow, Member of the BU but not in touch for many years.

Kevin Scanlon (66) was in the first group that went on to Stonyhurst. He got a degree in English at Oxford University and eventually found a career as an English language tutor for overseas business people and the like. His task on one occasion around 1990 was to hold a three-hour conversation with a certain Vladimir Putin. He and his wife had three children but they divorced and Kevin went to live on his own in Bexhill, where he spent most of his time in his great passion of painting.

Colin Russell MBE (62) Brother of Cyril (42) and Fr Alastair (46) and son of Gerald (12). Captain of The School. To University College Oxford ,B.A then M.A and was the last of the Beaumont Russells to join the family firm of Charles Russell as a solicitor in 1970. Senior Partner Cheltenham Office. He was appointed MBE in 2002 for Legal services. He was married to Jessica Rainsford-Hannay daughter of The 15^th of Kirkdale of that Ilk. He also had a son Richard Elwes by Jessica Elwes (related to both Denbigh and Sykes families). He lived near Cirencester.

Alan Mitchell (65) son of Dr Mitchell. He had two elder brothers Antony and Hugh at the school.

John Flood writes:

Alan was one of 7 children, having two brothers who went to Beaumont, Hugh overlapping with us as he left in 1961, as Alan arrived. He never married. He did business studies at the Regent's Street poly and at that time shared a house near Ladbroke Grove. Alan worked in IT at a London hospital.  The tributes which were paid to him indicated that after his father died, he looked after his mother, I believe for many years. He had an interest in cars and played squash. Amongst the tributes paid to him at the wake were references to his dependability, practical and welcoming nature, his smile, his fun and his sense of humour. 

Paul Reynier (65)  we heard of Paul s death as The Review was going to press .

 

A Formal Obituary for David Flood and Alan Mitchell to be found in the Obituary Section of the Website.

ED: I always welcome A life remembered if anyone would like to make a contribution.

In Memoriam

The untimely death of 60 s icon Marianne Faithful reminded me that Nigel Courtney brought her to Lords for The Oratory Match. I sent a commiseration to Nigel to which he replied

Memories,  memories yes, but it was a long time ago. 

And after all, Tennyson s It s better to have loved and lost was written In memoriam .

ED: Yes, and we also lost the Match!

 

NOTICES - LIVERYMEN

Confirmation of the arrangements for the next Blandyke Dinner.

This year's dinner will be held at the Guildhall on Tuesday 16th September 2025.

We have invited Fr Mark Vickers as our guest. Fr Mark is a priest in Hatfield, Hertfordshire and a former lawyer. He studied history at Durham University and theology in Rome. He is the author of several books, his most recent; God in Number 10: The Personal Faith of the Prime Ministers, Balfour to Blair. He has been a Freeman of the City for over twenty years.

 

Could you please give me an indication if you are able to attend on 16th September - I know this is some way off but we think this event may be popular and we wish to book the most appropriate dining room.

As always, if you know of any others Members of Livery Companies with Jesuit connections and who may be interested in joining us, please just let me know

 

Steve Hodkinson (Mount St Mary s)

Past Master

The Worshipful Company of Plumbers

Carpenters Hall

1 Throgmorton Avenue

London

EC2N 2JJ

T: 07801 397 799

 

 

ST JOHN S

Understandably there have been a good number of comments made by members on the sale of St John s whether they went there or not. Below are a few of those John Flood and myself have received:-

From Stephen Crompton

Dear John

Firstly, please pass this on to Robert Bruce, for whom I do not have an email address.

Secondly, many congratulations and thanks for securing such an excellent outcome.  I suspect that many like me, not being alumni of St Johns , will hugely appreciate what you have done.

I do understand the motive behind the Jesuits severance with Beaumont and now St John s, but personally adhere to the counter- argument that someone has to educate the potentially leading cohort of Catholics in this country and who better than the Jesuits?  What they gave me astonishes me to this day.

In the spirit of sad, but so be it I remain .

 

From James Sweetman

John,

 Thank you for sending me the e-mail with Robert s letter re St John s.

 My initial comment is  Oh !

 St John s has changed immensely since I was there. I found break time activities of basically running around a tarmacked football pitch in hob nailed boots   pretty uninspiring. We had no hobby clubs or anything one expects to see in prep schools today. 

I hope the new scheme works. Retaining the Roman Catholic ethos is particularly important, and I am disappointed to see that there will no longer be a chaplain on site. Knowing how busy Parish priests are, I fear that the Parish Priest of Englefield Green may well not be able to give the day-to-day attention needed  in a catholic school today. Are any of the teaching staff Lay Deacons in the Roman Catholic church? In the absence of a priest that would be a good start.

 I fear that most members of the Beaumont Union are now getting too old to be really active at a time like this. I am not clear what commitment the Society of Jesus  is making to ensure St John s maintains its catholic and Jesuitical heritage.

 Well done to those of you who have been involved with the Negotiations . 

 

From Konrad Wallerstein

Dear John,

thank you for the update and working hard to preserve the Beaumont traditions.

I had not realised such a small proportion of pupils at St John's were Catholic.

While it has been fashionable for some time to focus on the needs of the poor, and probably easier, are the rich not more in need?  "It is more difficult for a rich man to go to heaven than for a camel to go through the eye of the needle."

with my support.Tradition is not the love of ashes but the preservation of fire.  Gustave Mahler

 

 From Fr Kevin Fox SJ

Dear John, Robert & Robert and Richard

Thanks, John, for copying me in on the note about St John's and Intellego; and thanks to all for the friendship and hospitality  both personally and from the BU as a whole over many years. As you say, the news is no surprise - indeed it was from yourselves. a couple of years ago at the Army & Navy Club, that I first heard the name of Intellego and their interest in St John's. And how, with you again, I join in prayers that all goes as smoothly as the signs suggest.

With my very best wishes, and renewed thanks, to you all.

 

From Patrick Agnew

Dear John, and B.U. Committee,

Thank you for your work and concerns, and for informing me.

I think my younger brother IAN was a contemporary of Robert Wilkinson. Also, Ian would have been among the last to be at Beaumont before it closed.

 I have many clear memories of my 5 years at St. John (Berchman) s, mostly good, and perforce, some not so good; as a boarder from 8.

A past era, and the good Fr. Thomas Dunphy, et al.

 

From David Collingwood

Dear John,

Thank you for this and in particular for all you and the team have been doing in the interests of keeping St. John s fundamentals of well grounded spiritual education that we of my generation were all so lucky to experience despite all the huge cultural changes since then.

With my best wishes and thanks,

From Peter Savundra

 

Dear John

As always,  many thanks to you and now to the committee for what you have done to try to nurture and perpetuate what was best from our Jesuit-filled days.

In the context of Jesuit priorities, I know nothing about Ignatian Spirituality, but what I learned was the importance of decency and contributing to the welfare of the poor, the destitute and the deprived, and battling with injustice, not just in the UK but worldwide. Many Jesuits and BU alumni died for this. We are the lucky ones.

The best way of helping in the short term for us lay people is to be successful, so we need excellent education, not just with academia but with sports etc. Obviously, St Johns is already doing this, but to keep alive the memories of those who gave so much and who have left us, is very important, in the context of, what I take to be, Jesuit values.

 

From Hugh Dickinson ( OBSJ & OS) CEO of CONCEPT EDUCATION the underbidders to take over St John s.

Dear John et al,

Very good to hear from you and thank you for sharing this with me. It is extremely kind of you to keep me updated.

It is heartening to say the least to hear of the excellent work that your gang of four have done over the last two years to ensure that St John s will continue to flourish embracing the future but with links to Beaumont and as a Catholic school in the Ignatian tradition. Very well done indeed.

The winds of change are blowing through the independent sector and whilst the future of St John s is secure, we are working on an ambitious plan to set up a charitable trust to take ownership of and secure the future of the remaining Catholic schools. Of those schools mentioned in your letter, four are facing an existential crisis with the recent tax changes being the final nail in coffin for most of the Catholic independent schools sector bar the very few who are financially secure.  I would be very happy to provide you with an update of our plans separately.

 Thank you very much indeed again and I look forward to being in touch soon.

 

A FINAL SUMMARY

From John Marshall

From an old St. John s Beaumont boy perspective, the Jesuit Ethos included:

Preparatory, Elements, Figures!
Romans and Carthaginians
Victory walks

Homework marked as victories out of 10
Blandyke
Apostleship of Prayer
Morning and night prayers from the Manuel for Youth

Three Hail Marys in the chapel after weekday lunches
Daily Mass
Benediction usually twice a week
Retreats once a year for Figures with spiritual reading during lunch and supper for those two days
Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament - two boys at a time keeping watch dressed in cassock and cotta
Stations of the Cross each week during Lent
Salve Regina every Saturday evening after night prayers ( after having one s hand shaken by the headmaster
Confessions on Thursdays with boys reading spiritual books while waiting ( in the study place)
By heart catechism every week day learnt in the thirty minutes before classes started
The Angelus on the stroke of 12 noon every weekday and we would then recite it

Two or three masses on All Souls Day
Latin Orals

Shrove Tuesday sweets thrown along the gallery by BU members!

Use of the word corridor !
Mission Fair to raise money for Jesuit missions

BU Play and 

Faith of Our Fathers hymn ( honouring Catholic martyrs)

Yaks & Tigers Count up!!

 

I forgot to mention

 

Mr Clayton and the weekly singing practices in the chapel and the concerts

also the ferulas.

PBS = Page of the Blessed Sacrament

And 

KBS = Knight of .

And I also forgot AMDG at the top of every theme

And LDS at the bottom

 

In 1966 Fr Boyle addressed us Higher Line Sodality at the end of Scout Jamboree of sorts in the Beaumont grounds and asked us whether we really approved of a whole lot of heretic scouts attending an ecumenical service in the Beaumont Chapel!!

 

How much of the above remains even now before the change of ownership of St John s.

 

PS try to read The English Jesuits by Fr Bernard Basset SJ ( 1968 Herder & Herder, New York)

 

From John Joss (in response)

 

As a St. John's attendee (April 1942 to July 1946)

and Beaumont OB (September 1946 to July 1950)

I am stunned at this remarkable summation by

John Marshall and offer my profound thanks.

I would comment that Fr. Basset's most engaging

book is The Noonday Devil. I will never forget his

profound influence on my life as a writer. RIP, to

a great and holy Jesuit and man, who came to

my home town, Los Altos, to visit the Jesuit

retreat house there, and came to my home.

LDS

John Joss (now in California)

 

 

OTHER SNIPPETS

Books

 

As mentioned above, the book by Stephen Crompton on James Chaworth- Musters:-

 

 

 

James Lawrence Chaworth-Musters is a name well known to Norwegians, but it holds no recognition in the UK. Stephen Crompton paints a fascinating picture of an English gentleman with a love for Norway, a man who was a dedicated naturalist and a special operations agent who played a large part in organising key raids and actions during the battle against the Nazis. Daring escapes, capturing Enigma machines, sabotaging key installations, the race for heavy water , and a love of knitting this book has them all.

Available through Hatchards, Amazon etc

 

Stephen writes: - I came back from Norway realising how little justice I had done to Jim - genuinely famous throughout Norway.  How many people have statues erected to them in foreign countries?

 

Also new to me were the extraordinary bond between Norway and the UK and just what their contribution had been in WW2 - of which they are rightly proud to this day.

 

So I have ended up being very grateful to Jim for causing me to learn so much of so many very admirable people!

 

I am now embroiled in the background to the Telemark raids - in part inspired by the excellent Oppenheimer film and a great background book. Hard work!

 

Writing Thoughts.

I came across a quote from Norman Lewis, the British author who mainly wrote about travel and his experience in the Italian Campaign of WW2. In his book Voices of The Sea , he tells of fishermen who would touch their testicles and spit into the wind when they passed the village priest as they believed it would ward off bad luck. I couldn t help but wonder what would have happened if we had tried that particular gesture during our school days. Somehow knowledge of folklore wouldn t have saved one from a visit to the First Prefect. However, if anyone would like to try it out today on their unsuspecting Parish Priest, I would be interested to know what good fortune it brought them.

 

BOOK REVIEW.

Francis Beckett sent me a review he wrote for the New Humanist on Mark Cleary s book that I mentioned in a recent B U REVIEW. Now you may or may not agree with Francis but I m certain you would concur with me that he has the right to his views, indeed I always thought one of the strengths of the Beaumont system was that our masters encouraged debate and opposing views to be aired. ( even if having expressed them you were still beaten!)

Creating a Catholic elite

Educating in Faith: A History of the English Catholic Public School (Sacristy Press)
by Mark Cleary
Reviewed by Francis Beckett

My Jesuit public school, which was called Beaumont, liked to tell impressionable parents that it was the Catholic Eton . I am oddly disappointed to learn from Mark Cleary s new book that four other Catholic public schools have also laid claim to the title: Ampleforth, Downside, Stonyhurst and the Oratory.

It ought not have surprised me, for Beaumont was the most snobbish and class-conscious environment I have ever been in. This book makes clear that the Catholic public schools project was, right from the start, obsessed with wealth and social status. The idea was to re-establish a Catholic elite which could take its place alongside the existing Protestant elite, and join it in governing the country. The schools became possible towards the end of the 18th century after public opinion moved decisively towards Catholic emancipation. The House of Commons supported it and eventually the King and the House of Lords were won round. In 1778, parliament voted to allow Catholics to own property and to inherit land, so long as they swore an oath renouncing Stuart claims to the throne. And in 1782, an Act was passed allowing the establishment of Roman Catholic schools. The 15 Catholic public schools founded in the next century or so were to be places where the old recusant families those of the landed gentry who had remained faithful to Rome could send their sons, to be trained up as English gentlemen. The recusant families brought gentility and antiquity, but there were not enough of them to sustain the schools. Alongside them, and soon outnumbering them, came the converts of the 1830s and 1840s, brought to Catholicism by the so-called Oxford Movement, who were socially and politically well connected, and often very wealthy. Apart from Henry Newman, its leaders included Ambrose Phillipps de Lisle, a descendant of whom was at Beaumont in my time.

The Catholic public schools consciously aped the existing Protestant ones and competed with them for grandeur. Their focus, writes Cleary, was unashamedly elitist, with a desire to ape the non-Catholic public school, and thereby to create a new Catholic elite.

When Beaumont was founded in 1861, it explicitly sought a much more aristocratic, international and socially influential clientele than existing Catholic public schools. Its heads liked to tell the possibly apocryphal story of how the rector (headmaster) wrote to introduce himself to the headmaster of Eton, a few miles down the Thames. The Eton head wrote back: Harrow we know, Winchester we know, but what is Beaumont? The rector replied: Beaumont is what Eton used to be a school for the sons of Catholic gentlemen. (When Eton was founded, in 1440, it naturally taught only Catholics.)

It s understandable that, as soon as it was permitted, Catholics would seek to entrench their faith by creating their own schools and they founded Catholic schools for the poor as well as the rich. What s less forgivable is the way they replicated the class system, dedicating a huge proportion of the Church s resources to educating its richest adherents and making them fit to rule. Why, as Cleary puts it, did they place such a premium on creating expensive, socially elite and tradition-bound public schools?

Cleary himself went to one of these schools Ratcliffe College in Leicestershire. Unlike me, he kept the faith, and refers to the schools throughout the book as our schools . Nonetheless, this is an authoritative and readable account, and Cleary is clear-sighted about the schools failings, and also about the strange priorities of a Church which poured its limited human and other resources into elite institutions from which all but the rich and powerful were excluded.

These schools are now in decline. Many of them have closed (Beaumont in 1967) and those that remain have lost their principal distinguishing features. Their teachers and heads are no longer priests, because ordinations have gone into freefall. They admit girls and have more day pupils than boarders.

But perhaps the most important factor in their decline is that they facilitated an appalling catalogue of child abuse. With uncharacteristic circumlocution, Clearly reflects on how a school environment characterised by isolation, rigid structures of authority and automatic deference may have been conducive to the perpetration of abuse.

It may have indeed. The fact that Catholic public schools insisted that the Church alone should inspect them may also have been conducive to abuse, along with the deference the Church still encourages towards its priests.

I have to say, in fairness, that I am not aware of any child abusers among the priests in my time at Beaumont. But if you lock up a few hundred teenage boys, and a few dozen technically celibate men, and leave them to stew together for months at a time, uninspected, the beneficiaries are likely to be the child abusers among the men, and the bullies among the boys. That is what happened in the Catholic Church s public schools, and the Church has still not faced its responsibility for it.

 

New Humanist | Spring 2025

Teaching VLAD a Lesson.

Tom Scanlon sent the following concerning his late brother Kevin.

Both attached documents were sent to Tom by one of Kevin s friends and former colleagues at the language school.

 

 

THE DAY I MET VLADIMIR PUTIN

I taught Vladimir Putin English in a hotel suite just off Oxford Street in London in the late 1980s.

I was filling in for the regular teacher who was unavailable that Saturday morning. I knocked and a tall blond man opened the door and the short man standing behind him the future Russian president, then in his late thirties shook my hand and offered me white wine from a bottle ready in an ice bucket on a table. It was only 9 am, so I declined, as did Vladimir. I fleetingly wondered if it was some kind of test.

The tall blond man spent the three hour lesson time wandering around the suite flicking through magazines. Now I realise he must have been a minder from the Russian Embassy.

Vladimir was a good student, a fast learner, attentive and respectful of his teacher. He wanted a conversation lesson, intensive speaking practice, so that is what we did.

He told me he had just left Dresden in East Germany, where he had been in his words in Military Intelligence , a KGB officer probably involved in many covert and advisory activities. He was now based in St Petersburg, and was taking a four week intensive English course in order to advance his increasingly senior KGB career. It was a time when KGB and new business men were forming alliances. I was in fact witnessing the first steps of his dizzying climb up the political ladder.

 

I remember he had a persistent little cough. I jokingly asked him if it was from breathing in the lignite brown coal fumes in East Germany to which he replied with a small, deep toned, polite laugh.

I also brought up the subject of the Lubyanka, the infamous, and beloved of spy novels, KGB headquarters building in Moscow. Given the fact I had already seen and felt a coldness and a kind of shrewd cunning in his eyes, maybe I shouldn t have done but he took it in his stride batting the subject away.

Even though Vladimir was polite and cooperative, I got the distinct impression of a very dangerous man who would find the means one way or another to get what he wanted and to remove anyone or anything obstructing him. I remember saying to myself at the time that I would not want him as an enemy, he would certainly get rid of me.

I ve taught hundreds of adult students over the years, and his cold and cunning face and controlled demeanour was one I would never forget.

So when in 2001 I saw President Vladimir Putin on television with President George Bush, I realised that this was the same small man with deep set eyes that I d had a three hour lesson with in that hotel just off Oxford Street.

 

OTHER NEWS (The B U was represented)

Thousands of people braved cold temperatures and the aftermath of a snowstorm Wednesday to honour and pay their respects to former President Jimmy Carter as he lay in state in the U.S. Capitol.

The line of mourners stretched beyond the Capitol to the outdoors and included Richard Shullaw, a 78-year-old Army National Guard veteran, who has made a habit of bidding goodbye to the nation s leaders at the Capitol. He went to see Sen. John McCain, President George H.W. Bush and President Gerald Ford when they lay in state, and he was not about to miss the send- off to Carter.

It s very moving, it s very impressive, he said of the display at the Rotunda.

Shullaw of Alexandria, Va., vividly remembers Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, breaking with tradition in 1977 by exiting their motorcade car and walking the path of the Inaugural Parade on foot. It left a lasting impression on him.

He was an honest and honourable man, he said. It was really neat seeing him walking down Pennsylvania Avenue.

Carter, who served as president from 1977 to 1981, died last week at age 100 and was delivered to the Capitol by a horse-drawn caisson after a ceremony at the U.S. Navy Memorial on Tuesday recognized his service as a naval officer and submariner.

RESURECTION AGAIN.

From Nigel Courtney:-

As you ll recall, after the BUGS tournament last May the assembled company decided we should bring proceedings to a celebratory and happy-ish end. It was hoped that thereafter, players might invite each other to their clubs for the occasional round. John Flood talked of setting up a WhatsApp group to coordinate things.

So far, for example, Chris Tailby invited me to play him last autumn at his club, Effingham. Rupert Lescher ditto at Royal Wimbledon. Mark Addison has invited me to visit him at Littlestone all equally lovely venues. In each case we agreed to fix a return visit to Westerham during this Spring/Summer. 

Then I had an idea perhaps we could form a 4-man BUGlet group and compete in the Westerham Vets Captain s Charity Day team event on 19^th June 2025.  I m delighted to report that Chris, Rupert and Mark immediately jumped at the chance.  I am now ready to submit our team entry but we must choose a team nom de guerre.

Traditionally these tend to be biographical or location-centric or whimsical. I sought suggestions from our team: Old Windsor Old Boys was thought to hint at Eton; a name including Beaumont was preferred.

Robert, as the non-playing captain of the non-playing BUGS, do you think Beaumont Casuals would do the trick? 

Ed: Before I had a chance to make some erudite choice, the Team Members opted for The Beaumont BUGS. So, another resurrection or reincarnation. It might not be The Hewitt but one is delighted that yet again a Beaumont Team will take to the field .

Nigel added -

Yes, to misquote Mr Twain, Reports of the demise of the BUGS were slightly exaggerated .

 

 

ARTICLES

The romance of Stanislaus de La Rochefoucauld OB and Alice Coc a,

By C de Vidal Hunt.

The romance of the two beauties the young man and woman who are considered the handsomest pair of lovers in all France if not the world promises to triumph over the innumerable difficulties which have been thrown in its way from the start.

Although class prejudices and parental pride are still doing everything they can to prevent the match, there seems to be every likelihood that between now and New Year s the young Count Stanislaus de la Rochefoucauld will succeed in marrying Alice Coc a, one the greatest beauties on the French stage.

The young man s father Eduard de la Rochefoucauld, Duc de Bisaccia, recently sought to obtain a court injunction against the marriage, but Cupid won temporarily.  It was the first open attack of the combined forces of the aristocratic de la Rochefoucauld family to prevent what they feel would be a blemish on the fairest name of France.  The next move will be an appeal to the higher courts on the ground that Count Stanislaus has not yet attained his majority.

But love laughs at all this.  Count Stanislaus is convinced that his parents will relent when they see the girl of his heart s desire.  The trouble is, however, that the parents refuse to see the girl and have threatened to disown the last of the de la Rochefoucauld if he carries out his matrimonial intentions.

On the other hand, the fiery Count Stanislaus has notified his parents that he will advertise his beautiful bride on every theatrical placard of Paris as Alice Coc a, Countess de la Rochefoucauld, and be proud to do it, if they continue to interfere with his love.

This terrible threat on the part of his son was almost a mortal blow to the pride of Edouard de la Rochefoucauld, Duc de Bisaccia.

In vain did he conjure before his son s mind the greatness of his ancestors, the deeds of Colbert and Louvois in the reign of Louis XIV, and the fine diplomacy of Sosth ne de la Rochefoucauld, Duc de Bisaccia, who was ambassador of the French Republic to the Court of St. James during the Presidency of General MacMahon.

Many other means of persuasion used by the elder nobleman have left young Stanislaus just as obdurate.  Even the entreaties of his mother, who was Camille de Colbert, before she became a de la Rochefoucauld, were of no avail.  Stanislaus declares he is in love as he never can be again and will marry the woman of his choice in the face of all opposition.

The beginning of the romance goes back two years, when young Stanislaus, then just twenty, was an attach at the French Embassy in Rome. He had been appointed by M. Poincare in recognition of his worth as a linguist and writer. But it was his name that brought him invitations to the palaces of the rich and to great entertainments at court.

One day Count Stanislaus was asked to attend a dance onboard the yacht of a Spanish Grandee, Alonzo de Corrego, in the port of Naples.  It was hot in Rome and the invitation came to Stanislaus as a welcome excuse to spend the weekend on the blue waters of the Mediterranean.

When he arrived at Naples, he was greeted by one of Corrego s men and escorted to the launch that was to convey him onboard the yacht.  Everything went well until Stanislaus started to climb out of the launch and up the ladder.  He slipped and fell into the sea, taking with him his suitcase that contained the only change of clothing he had taken with him.  The sailors helped him up and one of them volunteered to lend him one of his uniforms.

Stanislaus gladly accepted the offer and a quarter of an hour later joined some of the crew in the quarters below deck.  The situation was very much to his liking.  He sat swapping stories with the men until midnight and came very near forgetting the brilliant society that made merry to the sound of jazz and the popping of champagne in another part of the great sea-going yacht.

It finally occurred to him that he must take a look around, anyway, but his dinner clothes were still soaked, with salt water and quite unpresentable.  What could he do, but go up as he was, a sailor, and see what would happen?

One of the young officers onboard met him a little later and wanted to take him to Senor Corrego at once, but the young nobleman insisted on being left alone.  It was a beautiful night, mellow in the light of a full moon, and in the veins of Stanislaus beat the blood of the great ancestor whom he revered most of all, the man who had written the celebrated Rochefoucauld Maxims.

He thought of him as he stood silently against the railing of the afterdeck.  The gay laughter and the sound of a tango came to his ears as from a great distance and did not disturb his meditation.

Presently he noticed someone near him. It was a woman who had come from the brilliantly illuminated decks forward, evidently to breathe the fresh air of the night.  Stanislaus could not see what she looked like, whether she was young or old, but there was something in her attitude and the line of her silhouette against the purple background of the sky that held his attention.

Presently he noticed that the woman had seen him, too, and was coming closer toward him.  Presently she talked to him.

Excuse me, she said in French, but could you get me a glass of real fresh water?

Stanislaus noticed that her voice was wonderfully melodious.  He set out at once to get what the lady wanted and when he handed her the glass a few moments later, he saw that she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

Merci beaucoup, she said with a smile that seemed beatific to the young nobleman.

Stanislaus looked at her long and intently, but when she met his gaze again he lowered his eyes as if to apologize for his rudeness.

Is there anything else I could do for you, Madame? he asked presently.

The young woman seemed struck by the accent in his voice.  She leaned a little forward and looked closer into the sailor s face.

Never in her life had she seen such a strange contrast.  It was a face of almost womanly beauty, pale in the moonlight, a face that did not seem to fit at all with the rough clothes of a sailor.

Yes, she said in a puzzled tone, you may sit here beside me on these coils of rope and tell me something about yourself. Undoubtedly you have a dear mother or sister somewhere along this coast to whom you would go this moment rather than do watch duty onboard his yacht.

Count Stanislaus is a quiet youth, but in a moment like this he found he could be very bold.

Indeed I have, Madame, he said, but there is no place in the world I would rather be than this deck just now.

The beautiful lady laughed her melodious laugh again.

Very pretty, she said. What is your name, Mr. Sailor?

Count Stanislaus hesitated ever so slightly.

My name is Roche, he said.

A very nice name, said the lady, rising. I shall inform Senor de Corrego that he has some very gallant men onboard his ship.  Good evening, Monsieur.

For a long time the young Count de la Rochefoucauld sat where the lady had left him so abruptly.  Her face haunted him and her voice was ringing in his ears like a soft Andalusian melody.

Who was she and where had he heard that voice before? He knew he had heard those musical notes somewhere. Was it Rome? Was it Paris? In vain did he try to recollect.  The sounds and the vision of her were too elusive to be grasped by mere mortal hands.

When Stanislaus finally rose from his seat, most of the guests had departed.  He borrowed a suit of clothes from one of the officers and asked to be taken ashore rather than pass the rest of the night onboard ship.

He hoped he would see his beauty again at the Royal Hotel at Naples.  But his hopes were not realized.  The hotel porter told him that a lady of that description had arrived with her mother and sister the day before, but that the three had taken away by some friends to one of the villas just outside the city.  So there was nothing to be done but go to bed and try to sleep.

However, luck was with young Stanislaus.  Two weeks later he saw her again. It was at a garden party in the French Embassy grounds.  In her light summery frock the girl looked more bewitching than ever.

She was talking with Signora Mussolini when young Stanislaus first saw her.  He himself was standing a few steps away and was partly hidden by a large garden parasol.

Suddenly it happened.  Signora Mussolini saw him.  She smiled and nodded in is direction and there was no way of avoiding the inquiring look of her companion who had turned her fair head almost at the same instant.  The Count advanced, blushing with confusion and the terrific emotion that gripped his throat.

May I present my dear young friend, the Count Stanislaus de la Rochefoucauld? said Signora Mussolini.

And with a gesture toward her companion she added:

Of course, you know Mademoiselle Alice Coc a, who created the role of Astasia in Phi-Phi and who will soon create another at the Pontiniere?

It was now the turn of Alice Coc a to blush and look uncomfortable.  But she quickly regained her poise.  With an amused twinkle in her eyes she held out her hand to Stanislaus.

Mais oui, she smiled, we have met before.

No one that day could learn where the two had met before.  All they knew was that the celebrated Alice Coc a and the young attach became inseparable friends and that Stanislaus gave up his job when Alice went back to Paris to begin rehearsals for her new play.  It was only after they got to Paris that the young Count told Alice Coc a of his love for her.

I loved you the moment I saw you in the Naples moonlight, he said, and I adored you the moment I heard your heavenly voice.

I knew it, she said.

And I want you to be my wife, he pressed.

But Alice Coc a shook her head sadly.

I have my career, she sighed, and you have your family.

The girls objections did not discourage the young count.  For more than a year he fought his parents, swearing he would renounce his patrimony rather than give up his love. And now his hopes are about to be realized.  He has decided to marry the beautiful actress in spite of his parent s opposition.

There are only a few of the old French nobility that are on the side of the parents in this controversy.  The majority are with Stanislaus and Alice.  Love wins.

But if the marriage of the Count de la Rochefoucauld and Mlle. Alice Coc a takes place this month, as almost everybody in Paris expects it will, it will not end the bitter quarrel between Count Stanislaus and his proud, tradition worshipping family.

As has already been told, the Count is threatening to punish his relatives for their opposition to his marriage by advertizing his bride on the billboards of Paris as the Comtesse de la Rochefoucauld.

And, at the time these lines are written, it seems quite likely that he will land another body blow on the family pride by going on the stage himself appearing as a co-star with his bride in a play of which she is the author.

The play is called Our Souls, and a very remarkable drama it is.  Its theme is the actual romance of Mlle. Coc a and Count Stanislaus and it undertakes to trace their love affair not only through the stage with which the world is familiar but through three previous incarnations which the author imagines them to have had.

This play is already in rehearsal and the Count is throwing himself into the hero s role with all the zeal and artistic skill of a veteran actor.  To see the way he carries off the difficult scenes nobody would ever suspect that he had not had years of experience on the stage.

Mademoiselle Coc a declares that her genius is inspired by the fire of her lover s acting as it never was before by any man playing opposite her.  It makes her more in love with him than ever and more reluctant to quit the stage after she is married.

The play and the prospect of the Count s appearing publicly in it have stirred his family to still deeper resentment.  His relatives are reported to have employed Dr. Metchnikoff, a well known psychoanalyst, to examine the text of the play and see if the enacting of the hero s role by a young man of Count Stanislaus age and temperament may not exert a powerful hypnotic influence on him especially when his sweetheart has the heroines role.

If the psychoanalyst thinks this is the cause undoubtedly a move will be made to have the Count s expected marriage annulled.  And a suit of this kind would start a legal controversy that would probably last for years. 

Alice Coc a, the French actress and singer was born the daughter of Romanian General Dimitrie Cocea

 

 

She was married in 1926 to Count Stanislas de la Rochefoucauld, Duke of Bisaccia; the marriage ended in divorce in 1931. In 1932 her fianc , Lieutenant Victor Point, a French explorer killed himself when Coc a declined to marry him; he died after shooting himself in the mouth. They had been involved for three years, and she had promised to become his wife once her divorce from Rochefoucauld had been settled. Coc a announced her retirement shortly after Point's death, stating that she would join enter a convent. She did not return to the screen until the 1960s.

She was the mistress of Roger Capgras, a shady figure who rose from being a vegetable dealer to head of a major newspaper during the Nazi Occupation and later a Fascist -leaning theatrical figure.

During World War II, Coc a was arrested as a Nazi collaborator  and later released. Her memoirs, Mes amours que j'ai tant aim es ("The Loves I So Loved"), were published in 1958. She died 12 years later.

Ed. Note.

When Stanislaus married the actress Alice Cocea it resulted in his father giving him a cheque and showing him the door. The marriage was melodramatic, and on one occasion to make his wife jealous, Stanislas spent the night at the residence of Yvonne de Sergys known for her magnificent intimate entertainment . As a joke, Yvonne stole Stanislas s clothes and he was forced to leave the house the next morning attired only with an inadequate tiger skin to cover his modesty. He was witnessed by all the residents of the Av. Henri Martin as he desperately tried to find a cab. He was the gossip of the Paris Boulevards. It would seem that marriage to actresses proved to be an unhappy experience for most OBs.

 

Biplane fighter aces

Commonwealth

Wing Commander George Victor Wildeman 'Jimmie' Kettlewell, RAF

30 January 1916 16 August 2007

Jimmie Kettlewell in Greece in spring 1941.

Born on 30 January 1916, 'Jimmie' Kettlewell joined the RAF before the war, and was commissioned in July 1937, serving initially with 29 Squadron as a Pilot Officer.In early 1938, he was posted to 80 Squadron, accompanying this unit to Egypt in April of that year, where in January 1939 he was promoted Flying Officer. When the war started in North Africa on 10 June 1940, 80 Squadron was commanded by Squadron Leader R. C. Jonas and based at Amriya. It had 22 Gladiators (mainly Mk.Is) and one Hurricane Mk.I (L1669 nicknamed Collie s Battleship) on hand. Its main role was the defence of Alexandria. During the opening weeks of the war with Italy, Jimmie served in the unit's Hurricane flight, but reverted to Gladiators prior to the departure of the squadron for Greece in November.

At 07:55 on 3 November 1940, three Gladiators from 80 Squadron were sent out to attack a motor transport concentration near Garn in North Africa. Two of the aircraft, Squadron Leader Hickey and Flying Officer Kettlewell attacked. The attack was most successful and much damage was done. Kettlewell reported that he suffered stoppage to two guns.

On 31 January six Gladiators went up to patrol over Corfu, but nothing was seen and on return Flight Lieutenant Kettlewell s aircraft overturned after hitting a soft patch on landing, suffering severe damage. Kettlewell survived unharmed hanging upside down in the safety straps.

9 February 1941,

The Squadron was on patrol and just before midday five CR.42s were seen far away off the port beam followed by many more, 30-40 being reported. In fact, there were just 16 fighters of the 150^o Gruppo, led by Capitano Edmondo Travaglini, commander of the 365^a Squadriglia. The Italian pilots also overestimated the opposition, identifying the eleven Gladiators as 20 strong.
Many individual dogfights developed and the Squadron returned to claim four definitely shot down and three probables, but the Greek authorities provided confirmation next day that seven had crashed, and victories were credited including to Jimmy. In fact, Kettlewell force-landed Gladiator N5858 some 50 miles north of Base due to lack of oil pressure, but with his aircraft undamaged. Both returned to the airfield aided by the Greek army.

Seated doing some flight planning

80 Squadron was now verbally promised eight Hawker Hurricanes and Kettlewell flew down to Athens on 11 February to be ready to test fly these when they arrived.

During the middle of February 80 Squadron s Gladiators continued to operate from Yanina and on 17 February they were joined by 80 Squadrons six new Hurricanes, led by Flight Lieutenant Kettlewell.

During February 1941 he returned to Egypt to ferry one of the first Hurricanes to be sent over to Greece, and during the fighting here, was to claim five victories. In April he became a flight commander.

During the day on 20 April they were almost under constant attack but in the afternoon there was a pause in activity, which allowed a little time for the ground crews to bring the maximum possible number of Hurricanes up to readiness state.

It was decided that if no further attack had developed by 18:00, all available Hurricanes would undertake an offensive sweep in an effort to raise morale amongst the civilian population of Athens and the surrounding areas, and as a boost to the defenders of Eleusis as well as to the pilots themselves.
However at about 16:45 a formation of 100 plus Ju 88s and Do 17s, escorted by Bf 109s and Bf 110s was reported approaching Athens.

An air battle commenced in the course of which Jimmy arrived on the scene just in time to see the demise of his gallant Squadron leader who went down in flames. He and attacked one of the two Bf 110s responsible, shooting this down into the Bay also. He claimed a second Bf 110 before he too was attacked by yet another Bf 110, and was forced to bale out when his plane was badly hit. A large and solid man, he landed heavily, cracking two vertebrae in his spine and spending several months in a plaster cast as a result.

Jimmy was subsequently awarded a Greek DFC, he took command of 213 Squadron in the Desert in January 1942, leading this unit until May. He ended the war with 3 biplane victories and a total of 5. On 1 July 1945, he was promoted to Wing Commander.

He retired on 1 April 1959 becoming The Beaumont Bursar. He died on 16 August 2007.

Ed: I recall one memorable interview with the Wing-Commander. It was noted that the pie we were served with at lunch was green at the edges and I led a deputation of complaint to the Bursar. Having gained entry to his office and explained the situation, I placed the offending item on its plate on his desk. With that the Wing-Commander picked up the knife and fork and tucked in. The evidence and our complaint rapidly disappeared with the words Well Boy, that was an exceptionally good pie . I reported back the failure of the mission and if we had known the Wartime record of our Bursar and that compared to badly made Kreatopita , our pie was delicacy indeed, we would have thought twice about raising the matter, as it was we had no lunch!.

 

 

GISS - GOSS

GISS GOSS is THE REVIEW gossip column with tittle-tattle gleaned from various sources.

CENTENARY

American conservatives are commemorating the birth of William Buckley, arguably the most influential of post war OBs. From what one has read he would not have been a supporter of Donald Trump.

 

Hero remembered

Jack Wolff (34)

The Daily Telegraph 10th November 2004

SOE operative who fought behind enemy lines in northern Europe and also took part in the Normandy landings

Jack Wolff, who has died aged 88, joined the SOE from the Intelligence Corps and operated behind enemy lines in the Second World War.

Wolff enlisted in the Special Operations Executive in 1943 and was responsible for SOE and French Resistance units in France, Belgium and Holland. Promoted major the following year, he was second-in-command of an SOE unit at the D-Day Landings.

Wolff went ahead of the Allied advance to link up with Belgian and Dutch resistance fighters whom he brought back to Army HQ and worked closely with. Shortly after his parachute drop at Arnhem, he returned from addressing the forward troops to discover that the lorry which served as his office had received a direct hit from a shell. It was burnt out, and the duty sergeant who had been sitting there was killed. After the German capitulation, Wolff and his detachment of special forces moved to Norway, where he worked with the Norwegians in the task of hunting down quislings.

Jack Clifford Wolff was born in Hong Kong on March 9 1916 and educated at Beaumont College. He learnt French in Paris before starting work with the family firm, Rudolf Wolff, the oldest and largest firm of metal brokers in Europe. His grandfather was a founder member of the London Metal Exchange.

At the outbreak of war, he returned to England to enlist. He heard a radio appeal for foreign language speakers and was taken on by the Field Security Police (FSP), a counter-espionage organisation. The training, at Mychett, near Aldershot, was based on First World War practices. One of the operations that he studied was the Dames Blanches organisation in Brussels. This consisted of a number of Belgian ladies who counted the passing troop trains as they knitted at their windows, thus providing material for estimating the strength of the German forces moving to the front. Malcolm Muggeridge was a fellow member of the FSP at Mychett.

Wolff rose to the rank of sergeant-major and went to France as second-in-command of a small unit equipped with motorbikes. He was recommended for officer training and so was not involved in Dunkirk. After returning to England, he was commissioned in May 1940. He transferred to the newly formed Intelligence Corps and was posted to HQ Southern Command where he was based at Wilton House, near Salisbury, the home of the Herbert family. In 1942 he embarked on the troopship Otranto and took part in the invasion of French-occupied North Africa. As the landing craft approached the beach, he leapt from the lowered ramp shouting to his men, Follow me! before disappearing beneath the waves. Dripping with seaweed, he struggled ashore, where his men, dry shod, awaited him.

Wolff was put in command of a lorryload of soldiers and ordered to take them to Maison Blanche Aerodrome near Algiers. They were stopped by a detachment of Vichy French whose allegiance was in doubt but they arrived without being fired on and secured the airfield for use by Blenheim light bombers.

Shortly after Wolff was appointed ADC to General Jumbo Maitland Wilson, Churchill arrived and addressed the troops at the Roman auditorium at Carthage. Wolff recalled that the Prime Minister was then driven to a villa where he was to have lunch. There he changed into a bathrobe, waddled down to the beach, stripped off and paddled naked into the water. The assembled generals and staff officers looked questioningly at each another for a moment and then followed suit.

After the end of the campaign in North Africa, Wolff joined SOE and served with them until the end of the war. For his service at Army HQ, he was appointed MBE and received the Belgian Croix de Guerre with palm. He was also appointed an Officer of the Order of Leopold II and an Officer of the Order of Orange Nassau.

Wolff was demobilised at the end of the war and joined Associated Lead. When the London Metal Exchange reopened in the 1950s, he returned to Rudolf Wolff as a partner and director, and worked in the firm with his brother, Freddy, the chairman of the Exchange, until his retirement.

He was a handsome man of great charm who was always very modest about his achievements. At the time of his death he was the oldest surviving Captain of Sunningdale Golf Club, where he played regularly until he was well into his eighties. For the last 20 years of his life he was a trustee of Windlesham Arboretum Charitable Trust.

Jack Wolff died on September 16. He married, in 1943, Mary Clifford, the elder daughter of the 12th Lord Clifford of Chudleigh. She predeceased him, and he is survived by their two daughters.

FAMILY SNAP

On Board SS Otranto 1933. Gus, Jack --- Freddy

Jill, Lilian, Joan, Bibby.

Lady Jane Brideman

Heroine Remembered.

Liliane Rolfe (cousin op Nigel Courtney (63)

Secret agents played a significant role in liberating Europe during World War Two. Many suffered terrible consequences.

Born in Paris but holding British nationality, Rolfe was dropped into occupied France in April 1944 with the aim of supporting the French Resistance and reporting German troop movements back to London.

Less than a year later, she would be dead. But her daring and courage were later recognised, with France posthumously awarded her the Croix de Guerre, a French military decoration to reward feats of bravery during the war.

On Friday (May 19) she will receive further posthumous recognition when Paris mayor, Anne Hidalgo, unveils a plaque commemorating Rolfe at her family s former home in the French capital.

Secret agents among bravest of World War Two
On July 16, 1940, as Luftwaffe bombers stepped up their attacks and Britain prepared its defences against the threatened invasion, Prime Minister Winston Churchill - anxious to hit back and show the country was not defeated - ordered the establishment of a special covert unit to infiltrate occupied territories and set Europe ablaze!

The highly secret  SOE was formed less than a week later to undertake reconnaissance, espionage and sabotage operations in occupied Europe.

SOE conducted hundreds of highly effective sabotage and covert actions to disrupt enemy activity and were especially important in their operations disrupting enemy reaction to the Allied invasion on June 6, 1944.

By the very nature of an organisation of this kind, its operatives could be ruthlessly tortured or executed if caught, and their members were among the bravest individuals of World War Two.

The first SOE agent was parachuted into occupied France on the night of May 5-6, 1941.

Rolfe would not arrive for another three years.

Born and educated in Paris, she moved with her family to Brazil in the mid-1930s. Aged 25 at the outset of World War Two, she was working for the British embassy in Rio de Janeiro.

But she was keen to play a more active role in helping Britain and free the country of her birth. In 1943 she left Brazil on a passenger ship chartered to collect hundreds of people in South America keen to join the Allied cause.

Arriving in the UK, she volunteered for the Women s Auxillary Air force  before later becoming a wireless operator.

In December 1943, she confided in a close friend that she had volunteered for special duties and had been accepted.

Arriving in occupied France, an aeroplane dropped Rolfe near Orl ans in occupied France in April 1944. She first found her way to Ch teauroux to meet with her designated contact before moving on to Saint Gaultier to see her commanding officer, George Wilkinson ( No relation of ED), who was being sheltered by a shopkeeper called Monsieur Dappe in the town.
Only an hour after Rolfe and Wilkinson left Dappe s house, Germans raided it and arrested the shopkeeper after someone at the town s mairie denounced him for helping Allied agents.

Ms Rolfe moved on to Saint-Hilaire, where she was accommodated by the owner of a garage. She stayed for little more than two weeks but made a lasting impression on her hosts.

There, she started transmitting messages to England and received replies often throughout the night. As time permitted, she would also cycle about the area to note what the German forces were doing in the locality and, if considered important, report their activities back to England.

Lilian s stay there came to an end when a German direction-finding car - used by the Nazi secret services to track down enemy clandestine radios - stopped one day outside the house.

Wilkinson happened to be visiting Rolfe and together they took up arms and awaited what they expected to be the inevitable assault on the house. But, perhaps because there was only one German in the car, it drove away.

Not taking any chances, Wilkinson immediately arranged for Rolfe to leave, moving her on to gry, where she was to support the activities of Pierre Chari , a wine merchant who was also the regional organiser of several maquis Resistance groups.

Her commanding officer Wilkinson was arrested on June 26, 1944. With the Germans seemingly closing in, Rolfe was ordered to move on every couple of days. She had done just that - to the home of two school teachers, Jeannette and Maurice Verdier, in the village of Nargis, some 15 kilometres north of Montargis - when her luck finally ran out.

Bad luck or betrayal?

On July 31, 1944, a stranger appeared at the house but having given the correct password, he was admitted. It triggered a Gestapo raid that netted Ms Rolfe, her bodyguard Fran ois Bruneau, and the Verdiers. Bruneau, though handcuffed, managed to escape and made his way on foot the 16 kilometres to find Mr Chari and warn him of her capture.

Sadly, it was later realised that a strong maquis Resistance unit had been close at hand to the location where Lilian was arrested, but because of the security measures in place in Chari s organisation, Bruneau was unaware.

Two theories were later to emerge as to the cause of Rolfe s arrest. One is that she was simply caught through bad luck that the Germans were looking for someone else and came upon her by chance.

The second, however, centres on the use of the Resistance password by the stranger who called at the house. The source of this password was later claimed to be Annick Boucher, alias Yvonne Tessier, and known locally as la belle Annick or la grande blonde .

Nominally a member of the Resistance, Boucher was also allegedly the mistress of a number of German officers, including the second-in-command of the Orl ans Gestapo. She is believed to have been in the pay of the German security services and it is this connection that led to suspicion falling on her for Ms Rolfe s arrest.

Mr Chari began planning a rescue attempt for the young woman. Knowing that she had been first taken to Montargis, he anticipated that she would soon be transferred to captivity in Orl ans, before being sent to Fresnes Prison and questioning in Paris. He, therefore, arranged for his maquisards to attack any enemy car leaving the Germans prison in Montargis.

But the enemy, perhaps realising the importance of quickly trying to coerce Ms Rolfe into continuing radio transmissions to England, had already transferred her to Fresnes prison on the outskirts of Paris, from where it can be presumed she was taken for interrogation.

Lilian Rolfe (left) outside a safe house with the daughter of the owner of the property 1944 Credit: Allied Forces Heritage Group

Final days

After interrogation in Paris, Rolfe was transferred to Ravensbr ck Concentration Camp in Germany, along with two other SOE members, Denise Bloch and Violette Szabo.

She was then sent to work at Torgau in north-western Saxony. On the journey there, she befriended a Frenchwoman, Jacqueline Bernard, who post-war said Ms Rolfe had told her the Germans had attempted to make her transmit to London as a double agent. She had refused to do so and had withstood interrogation which had sought details of the SOE s French section.

Ms Rolfe was not well on the transport to Torgau and was found to be suffering from a bout of fever. Regardless of this, she had to endure a long walk in hot weather from the station to the work camp, only managing to do so with the help of several other women. On arrival, she fainted and was admitted to the camp s hospital where she was permitted to stay for the entire three weeks that she, Ms Bloch and Ms Szabo were at Torgau.

In early October, Rolfe was sent to work at K nigsberg in East Prussia - modern day Kaliningrad, a Russian exclave. She was ill again and this time a sympathetic Polish nurse exempted her from working. It was fortunate since the women still only had light dresses amid snowy and bitterly cold conditions.

She remained cheerful In the hospital, she befriended another Frenchwoman who later described how Rolfe s health deteriorated at this time. She had difficulty digesting food and became very thin and weak. What nevertheless continued to impress all who knew her at that time was her spirit and morale, she remained cheerful and relished the occasional news of Allied advances.
Rolfe was recalled to Ravensbr ck in January 1945. She was first held in the punishment block. By now, Rolfe was too weak to walk and after three or four days she was moved again into a solitary confinement cell in the Zellenbau, a segregated semi-bunker block that could not be observed from within the camp.

She was never seen again by any of the other prisoners in the camp and while there were rumours that she had been released and been seen back in France, the true circumstances of her fate were not discovered until Vera Atkins s investigations in 1945 and 1946 into the fates of SOE s missing agents.

Ms Rolfe was believed to have been executed between January 25 and February 5, 1945.

Reports suggest she was still so ill that she had to be carried on a stretcher for even the short journey from her cell to the adjacent yard where Ravensbr ck s camp commandant, SS-St rmbannfuhrer Fritz S hren, was waiting to read out the execution order.

SS-Sturmann Schult (or Schulter), then shot her through the back of the neck using a pistol. Her body was immediately burned in the camp s crematorium, only a few metres away.

This article is an edited version of one published by the Allied Forces Heritage Group. Credits: Author: Paul McCue.

 

MEDALS and MARCH PASTS

From Oliver Hawkins (62)

This may be of interest:

On my retirement from the board of a family company I was presented with the medal, below, that my cousin Tom Eden had spotted in an auction. Tom was in the group of Beaumont boys shipped off to Stonyhurst, which rather soured his schooldays, but he knew how much I'd like the memento. He is an eminent dealer in coins and medals, and reckons the Beaumont medal was made some time in the 1880s or 1890s, as a prize.

What he didn't know was that I in fact had something of a claim to the medal. In 1961 my good friend Mike Morris urged me to go in for the Heathcote Essay Prize, on the basis that if not enough people went in for it they might not award the 10 prize, which he was confident of winning. Spurred by this I cobbled together a cringe-worthy piece on a Victorian lady poet, and won. When I went up to collect the prize the Chairman, Leo Burgess I think, said 'Sorry it's only cash; it used to be a medal.

Oliver sent more information

Further to the Beaumont medal - The case gives the name Wyon, at 2 Langham Chambers, indicating that it's by one of the Wyon dynasty of medal sculptors, probably Allan Wyon, who used that address from 1886 to 1902 (courtesy of my numismatist OB cousin Tom).

Here's the entry for it in The Architectural Medal; England in the Nineteenth Century, by Jeremy Taylor.

It seems the British Museum has another Beaumont medal (sadly not illustrated on its website), a great big iron one weighing almost 1500 grammes, 94 mm across. I'd love to get hold of one of those!

 

BRITISH MUSEUM DETAILS

 

Die (Body marked with an incised vertical line; base marked with 1516)

Object Type

 (Body marked with an incised vertical line; base marked with 1516)

Museum number

HARR.419

Title

Object: Object: Die of [Bicknell - Beaumont College 1894]

Description

Shield with beacon and termites surmounted by a vizor and a dragon

Producer name

Issuer: Franklin Mint 

Production date

1894

Materials

Iron

Dimensions

Diameter: Diameter: 43 millimetres (face) (face)

Height: Height: 94 millimetres

Weight: Weight: 1456 grammes

Inscriptions

Inscription content: CARMINIS ANGLICI PRAEMIUM INSTITUIT HERMAN KENTIGERN BICKNELL IN COLL BEAUMONT AS MDCCCXCIV Banner with SURGE BICONELL

Bibliographic references

Harry 2002-2003 Catalogue of Dies and Matrices in the British Museum.

Location

Not on display

Condition

Good condition

Department

Money and Medals

Registration number

HARR.419

 

I wonder if there are any other Heathcote Memorial essay winners among our congregation .

 

 

Next UP

 

Chris Tailby was sorting out some of his Father s old photographic slides which he has transferred to digital ( some more successful than others).

The Band 1963 with Patrick Burgess as Drum Major

Fifes not McNamara s band again!

 

The CORPS Medal.

It might be somewhat extraordinary but it seems we had a Corps Medal. The only regular army regiment to have its own gong is my own The King s Royal Hussars which we inherited from the 14^th/20^th King s Hussars on amalgamation . It is awarded to any member of the Regiment who has contributed to the military efficiency or military honour of the Regiment. I cannot ascertain the reason for the Beaumont Medal but this one was awarded to Cadet R Prendergast and is inscribed on the reverse. The other oddity is that our light blue looks distinctly yellow/cream more Old Salopian ( Shrewsbury) than our own colours.

 

Richard Prendergast , was at Beaumont from 1918 -29 leaving for Trinity Cambridge and the University of Fribourg and was called to the Bar from Middle Temple. In 1938 he married Ida Hunter Christie at The Brompton Oratory and on the outbreak of war did a short course at Sandhurst before Commissioning in the Irish Guards, As a Captain in the North Africa Campaign he was badly wounded in the legs . He died in 1965. Richard was in constant pain from his injuries after the War. He was one of those who gave their lives except theirs was a lingering death.

 

Killing VICTORIA

Paul Burden writes: Thought this might be worth a reference in your next Beaumont round-up. Found it by chance on BBC So

unds. I think that many of your readers will be familiar with the legend that some Beaumont boys assisted in the arrest of the would-be assassin of Queen Victoria. This half hour programme doesn t mention them but puts into context the several attempts to kill the Queen. There were seven.

 

Here s the note which I sent to Bob Nicholson, Lecturer at the University of Edge Hill and narrator of the series which tells the story of all seven of the attempts on the life of Queen Victoria

 

I have just listened with fascination to Episode Seven - The Wanderer. I wondered how I managed to miss this series when it transmitted and astonishingly it appears never too have found its way on to the schedule. A pity. Speaking as a former Beeb Person, I judge that it merits a wider audience. Whatever .

I was also drawn into this episode because I have a very faint connection with the event. I went to school a long time ago at a Jesuit Boarding school, Beaumont College in Old Windsor. One of the school s legends was that some Beaumont boys who were at the station at the time of the attempted assassination help to apprehend MacLean, though it was two Eton boys whose role was more widely reported. Confirmation of this story is that Queen Victoria shortly after visited the school to express her gratitude. This was not insignificant at a time when anti-Catholicism was still a considerable force in British politics. Queen Victoria confined herself to coming by carriage to the school and then remaining in it as the boys cheered. The connection with the crown was renewed in my time when in 1961, the anniversary of the College s foundation, the Queen paid us a visit, inspected the school Cadet contingent and had tea with the Jesuit priests. Ironically five years later it was decided to close Beaumont. Recruitment into the ranks of the Jesuits (the Society of Jesus) had dwindled and they no longer had the manpower to maintain all the schools in their portfolio.  

Synopsis:-

 

ED

Bruce Geddes noted that the assassination attempt anniversary was recorded in The Times but only Eton was mentioned as saving the day.

My take on this was that although both Eton and Beaumont boys were present at the assassination attempt, but Eton got the credit in the press mainly because we wore Etons in those days and no one could tell the difference. However, it was noted in The Household and it resulted in QV s first visit to the school.

 

 

From COUNTRY LIFE

 

 

Alec Guinness father of Mathew (58). Battersea: Giles Gilbert Scott (98)

 

Clifford History

-A history of Pardons.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

\

 

At least two Baron Cliffords of Chudleigh were at Beaumont

 

 

CRICKET ARCHIVE

 

Tom Scanlon asked who else from this 1950 St John s First XI were still with us.

The answer is with the loss of David Bulfield just Jeremy Gompertz, Anthony Hussey and Michael Stickney.

 

Tom then added further to my previous, I got into statistics mode.

David Bulfield s bowling figures that day at Lord s in 1954 were 29.4 overs, 7 maidens, 78 runs, 10 wickets. Extraordinary.

To add insult to injury, Bulfield then top-scored in the whole match with 69 not out!

More research into Beaumont v The Oratory matches amazingly revealed that two other Beaumont cricketers had actually taken 12 wickets at Lord s: P.S.Burns in 1942 and D.C.Kingsley in 1945. However, these feats both occurred in one-day fixtures in which The Oratory batted two innings, much as my own team had to do in 1962.

Cheers.

Tom

P.S. 100 years go this summer, Beaumont beat The Oratory at Beaumont by 4 runs. The first three Beaumont batsmen were Russell, Russell, and Russell.

The first game at Lord s took place the following year.

 

And, not to forget about the batsmen, in 1943 Basil Berkeley, opening the batting, carried his bat to a wonderful 154 not out.

 

Robert .and more I couldn t resist more delving! Please add the following:

 

Scoring a hundred at Lord s must be every batsman s dream; apart from Basil Berkeley, there were at least two other Beaumont centurions: Harry Hewitt hit 110 not out in 1930 and Brian Baker out for exactly 100 in 1958.

 

*Robert, the website I got this from does not cover some of the later and last matches. Would you be able to find out about anything from 1963 to the end 1967, I think?

I have an idea that, in one of these games, Paul Kinsella might have got a ton .

By the way, I was surprised to find that the 1931 match was played at The Oval, not Lord s.

Cheers.

Tom

ED NO. Paul scored 69 in a great 8 wicket win! The 1931 match was at The Oval as the only date Lords could offer fell in the middle of exams!

 

History Lesson

From John Marshall:-

 

Forgive me if you have read this and if you have shared any of it with OBs. I discovered it on the shelves of the university library where I used to teach but now just volunteer.

I m going to give you some quotes and page references maybe not just one email

 

Writing of the opening of Saint Anna wishes College in 1859, an unnamed Jesuit sums up the situation thus:

 

At the moment there wasn t an all Glasgow, a single Catholic school of higher class than the ordinary, poor schools, and yet there was a catholic population of more than 100,000 being 1/4 of the whole population. Only 25 boys presented themselves and several months elapsed before their number had increased to 50. It was at once apparent that the demand had to be created after the supply had been provided; there was much talk among the people of their wish for education, but it was speedily discovered that it was accompanied by little real desire of instruction and training of their children, That the ambition of the majority did not aspire to more than the ordinary elements taught in a poor school. If we can inspire the parents with a little higher ambition and lead these to secure for their children, the goods of education, as well as those of fortune, They will be well able to take rank as gentlemen in Glasgow and the church will no longer be in the extraordinary condition in which it now finds itself, when almost the entire catholic population belongs to the lower and uneducated ranks of life. Page 400

 

The next two paragraphs put everything into perspective.

 

In every part of industrial Britain in the 1850s Catholic parents were too poor to want to keep their children at school. Wages were more important to them than higher education and few were able or willing to meet the very moderate fees. Both in Liverpool, and in Glasgow and the Joshua effort nearly met disaster; in London two attempts were made to found a college of Saint Ignatius, but both failed. In 1825 a handful of children came for a time to 85 Norton St., Marie Labone; a much larger house was acquired in Marleybone new road in 1833. Fr Randall Lythgoe himself served his headmaster, assisted by two young Jesuits. This missionary College of Saint Ignatius closed its doors in 1836 and its short life. It produced one devoted and distinguished alumni, the well-known punch cartoonist Dickie Doyle. The school at Marleybone had only three classes; on Sunday evenings, the Jesuits went around the London churches canvassing for boys. (Page 401)

 

When Fr Randall Lythgoe found himself provincial, he re doubled his efforts to establish secondary schools. His determination and courage seem the more outstanding when set beside the resources at his command. When in 1842 he opened his colleges at Liverpool and at Mount Saint Mary s, the English province boasted only 151 members; 17 brothers, 52 students and 82 priests. Commitments, outside Stonyhurst itself, with its three departments, included some 60s small missions dotted around the country, many of which were now expanding into large industrial parishes. Yet in 1845 answering an appeal they sent the first English Jesuit to Malta to serve as a headmaster for the small school open there. ( page 401)

 

Lythgoe himself never lived to see the extent of his success. By 1905 the English Jesuits administered large colleges in many places and under a wide variety of titles: Stonyhurst 1593, Mount Saint Mary s 1842, Liverpool 1842, Glasgow 1859, Beaumont 1861, Preston 1865, Grahamstown 1876, Malta 1877, Georgetown 1880, Wimbledon 1893, Stamford Hill 1894, Bulawayo 1896, Leeds 1905.

(Page 401)

At the start and for a considerable number of years, the Jesuits posted to such colleges had enjoyed no teaching experience outside Stonyhurst. They brought with them the old class, names, elements, figures, rudiments, grammar, syntax, poetry, and rhetoric, academy days, Stonyhurst textbook, the inevitable Classics, Bona Mors devotions, Romans, and Carthaginians. The great Saint Omers machine was set in motion in Calcutta, Georgetown, Grahamstown, and Malta, not to mention the Cowcaddens and Salisbury Street. Indeed, in the opening years both at Mount St. Mary s and in Glasgow boys who had reached a certain level passed on to Stonyhurst. Later, such transfers would be much resented; great rejoicings were reported from Mount Saint Mary s in 1880 when the school was judged fit to open its own school of rhetoric. ( page 403)

 

Certain features are common to all the early colleges, the most striking of which is poverty. At Beaumont, the boys carried their chairs from place to place and a visitor to the college, found the small community seated on the floor.(page 402).

 

WEATHERING the STORM

We normally associated hurricanes and stormy weather with The Carrabean and the Florida coast. Some will recall the late Tony Newling-Ward s home ion the British Virgin Islands being flattened a few years ago. Now it is closer to home. Richard Sheehan writes:-

 

It was actually a force 3 Hurricane in our area [West Connemara] and all power was lost on the night of Thursday 23^rd January 2025.

The experience was significant because it brought home some important lessons, particularly the need for power.  So, this is an extract from an email sent to a friend who has a house in our part of Connemara, though he was then in England.  It brings out a number of points including the importance of maintaining power.

This was written after nearly a week when our house still has no power / internet, however one can reflect upon the situation and indeed be grateful for various factors and learn from others.

We had no lighting anywhere except for a few torches.  Initially we had a good supply of candles but over several days these reduced in numbers.

We re fortunate that our Aga has a capability to very slowly drip feed the oil on which it operates - so we could (gradually) heat water and we also have a gas burner although unfortunately it did not last long.

We had wood and turf so we could have a fire, but that was our sole means of heating and only in one room. So, the rest of the house remained cold.

Since we get our water for the house from a lake on the hill above us, which gravity feeds the tank, we are fortunately independent of the need for the electrical power otherwise necessary to obtain water from the mains, which would not have been possible without electrical power.

Although we lost tiles and guttering, the house was otherwise structurally unaffected.  We are fortunate to be protected by trees from the westerly winds.

However, we lost many large trees, one of which blocked the drive for a couple of days but fortunately that was chain sawed by a friend [my chain saw is electrically operated and therefore did not work].  So, eventually we were able to get the car out to the road. 

In terms of getting around of course many garages were closed with no power ---so no petrol. Even where they were operating it was cash only because card machines couldn t function.  We take so much for granted!!

We had food but cooking was a challenge. We have a large freezer but that requires power to remain effective.

One of our large trees landed on the power line to the local area fortunately an Electricity Supply Board team came and released the tree.  However, the power was still not back on after a week and no date is currently in prospect for our area.

All that said however, one way or another we re very fortunate. So many people are much worse off without power and water and we heard that several houses at the end of the peninsula lost their roof and have collapsed. They certainly have our sympathy.

As you may imagine there s a huge amount of work to be done and we need to keep the diary free till we know when we can get over to Connemara again - and how long to allow for the work required [e.g. we had the odd perimeter wall damaged and of course at least 20 very large broken trees everywhere]. We lost slates and guttering but the house itself seems ok. As you ll appreciate it won t be me up the ladder but one needs to be on hand.

Apart from the comments about the storm damage, I think that the main theme is the need to maintain power which has a significance that one often overlooks. It is only when it s forcibly brought home just how important that resource is to our modern world, that plans need to reflect on the possibility that otherwise everything stops. 

One reason why I came back now is because I have bronchitis and remaining in a cold house with no certainty of the return of power soon, was a bad idea.  Indeed, I went to the local town last Saturday to see the doctor but they were closed (no power for their system) so it was Monday before I could be seen.

Whilst in the long term therefore solar and wind power are a very good idea these structures will take a very long time to become functional, yet there are more traditional resources which are being by passed or even jettisoned such as oil and gas [c.f. recent announcements in Scotland and comments such as No faith in fossil fuels, let s stop new oil and gas in 2025 ]. 

However, living without power for heating / communication / the supply of food and water for a week and beyond, then one will see how long our civilised society will last.

Instead, a planned phasing in of the new resources to adequately replace traditional power sources is what s needed.  When one is forcibly confronted with a dramatic loss of power that lesson really hits home. 

Ed. I very much sympathise with Richard, living in Third World Surrey I have to have a generator connected to the house to cover for the electricity cuts that occur at least five times a year ( even Christmas Day). Regular burst water pipes ( Thames Water) requires me to keep at least a week s worth of bottles in the garage. ( Though I admit I m quite happy to drink Tullamore without it).

Who is Richard Elwes?

Besides being the late Colin Russell s Son.

Richard Elwes does things with maths. I write  about it, research it, talk about it, and teach it. Once in a while I do other things too, such as play the piano and sit in trees. I am an Associate Professor at University of Leeds, and a Holgate Session Leader for the London Mathematical Society.

I have written 5 books, listed at the top of this page, with a sixth in the works. If you would like me to come and talk to your class or group, start with this page.

If you want to get in touch, then please email r [DOT] elwes [AT] gmail [DOT] com, or pick a social medium on the right-hand side of the screen.

And now for a potted biography of my education and academic positions in reverse chronological order

2011 Teaching and Researching at the University of Leeds

I work at the University of Leeds as an Associate Professor, where I have taught courses on Geometry, Number Theory, Algebraic Topology, Combinatorics, Logic, History of Maths, Computational Mathematics, and Discrete Mathematics. In terms of research, I am interested in the evolution of complex and nonlinear systems, and in models of random networks.

2009-2011, Visiting Fellowship at the University of LeedsI primarily worked as a mathematical writer, and occasionally speaker, largely aiming at the general public rather than specialists. In what time I had left, I did some research in Model Theory, an area which bridges mathematical logic and algebra.

2008-2009, Postgraduate Certificate in Education (with Qualified Teacher Status)I obtained a PGCE (with QTS) in teaching secondary mathematics at the University of Leeds School of Education. During this year I taught at Dixon s City Academy in Bradford and Calder High School in Mytholmroyd, of both of which I have very fond memories. Over this period I also coached a student for UKMT competitions, and wrote several staggeringly tedious pedagogical essays.

2006, Postdoctoral Scholarship at Albert-Ludwigs Universit t In the beautiful surroundings of Freiburg in the south of Germany, I did some research in Model Theory with the group led by Martin Ziegler.

2001-2005, Postgraduate Student at the University of LeedsMy PhD Thesis is entitled Dimension and Measure In Finite First Order Structures (pdf if you re really interested) and was supervised by the delightful Dugald Macpherson

1997-2001, Undergraduate Student at the University of OxfordMMath, 1st Class Honours, and I had a lot of fun doing it. Amongst many inspirational teachers were Peter Neumann, Martin Edwards, and Richard Earl.

What else can I tell you? I ve acted in 3 plays during my adult life (evidence), and was the president of the Oxford University Jazz Society for a year (1999-2000). I play the piano to a moderate standard, and occasionally the bass, as well as singing when I can t find a stand-in. I speak Japanese at what is euphemistically termed an intermediate level, and have a certificate from Leeds Metropolitan University to prove it. My Erdős number is 3. My mathematical genealogy traces back to Leonhard Euler apparently! I m a vegetarian and a teetotaller, for unrelated reasons. I don t like cricket, I love it. I was born in 1978, grew up in London and am now settled in Leeds in the UK, where I live with my wonderful wife and three children.

Ed: on his mother s side Richard is the great -grandson of Sir Mark Sykes (94) of Sledmere and best remembered for the Sykes/Picot agreement that carved up the Ottoman Empire at the end of WW1. The consequences of which we live with today.

Winter Review 64

ED: I forgot to include it in the last Review)

Ex Cathedra.

The School re-assembled 22^nd September with 271 Boys, 107 in Higher Line and 164 in Lower Line.

Johnnie Johnson was smitten with pneumonia and had to be admitted to Windsor Hospitalk the first time he had been ill in over 50 years: He fully recovered!!.

Class plays have been replaced as the standard has steadily dropped .

Group 11 French went to see a performance of Moliere s Les Femmes Savantes at the French Institute.

Rhetoric guests included Edward Cussen ( Judge and MI5 in WW2) Sir John Summerson ( leading British Architectural Historian, who worked for Sir Giles Gilbert Scott OB)

Oxford Awards.

Brian Bell Open scholarship in Natural Science Worcester.

Andre Geddes Open Scholarship in Natural Science St Catherines.

John Hadden Open Exhibition in Natural Science Worcester.

Jarlath O Neil- Dunne. Open Exhibition Natural Science - Balliol.

Cambridge

Nicholas Patterson. Open Scholarship in Mathematics Trinity Hall

Fr Joseph Dukes RIP. He first taught at Beaumont in 1923 -6 as a scholastic then 1931-37 as senior science master. He returned in 1961 as Spiritual Father ( he also was responsible for The Centenary Lists)

CORPS.

The Contingent has been reduced by the MOD to 140 cadets. 69 Cadets took their Proficiency Certificate 11 failures at Victoria Barracks.

Captain Kelly has been appointed Yeoman Bed Hanger of The Queen s Bodyguard.

Corps of Drums

Did very little in the line of music during the term .

 

SOCIETIES

H L Debating.

PM: Mr J Devaux. Deputy: Mr R DeCock.

Leader of The Opposition: Mr S Potter. Deputy: Mr M Newton

Sergeant at Arms: Mr A Tussaud.

Hon Secretaries: Mr J Rogers, Mr P McNamara.

Deplorably low membership at the start of the term

Debates:

Business as usual is no longer the maxim of the British people . Carried

All over the World it would back the classes against the masses . Defeated

The re-introduction of National service would be reprehensible . Carried

:The adaption of airport buildings for use in and around public schools is deplored . Defeated

( the motion was brought about by the new building in St Joseph s quadrangle did not conform to the rigid standards expected.)

The prize statement was made by Mr Flanagan from the crossbenches that Beaumont is what London Airport used to be

The final meeting of the term was the Charge of Impeachment against the Member for Cold Wrath on a charge of trying to gain favour with the Party Leaders by offering his vote for favours : Guilty.

Current Affaires.

Chairman Mr B C Bell ( in whose commodious chambers we convened for an afternoon)

The most select of the select societies with only eleven members selected from the cultured and erudite applicants.

The first soiree saw Mr Greenfield give a disquisition on The Evolution of Man . with wit and decorous appreciation of the codes of the Society.

Another of note was the talk on Non-Music by Mr Francisco d Almada e Castro an authority on the subject.

Quodlibetarians

Entertained three distinguished guests:- Mr Roy McGregor-Hastie from the United Press spoke on the menace to our over-productive society.

Mr Desmond Fisher, Editor of The Catholic Herald

Professor Cleanth Brooks Professor of English at Yale and Cultural Attach at the US Embassy who read and explained two poems by Robert Frost and W. B. Yeats.

Music

A particularly rewarding term. Mr Allen gave an enlightening talk on Das Rheingold.

An expedition to the Albert Hall to heat Britten s War Requiem a performance that lacked atmosphere .

Jazz concerts thrived and overall we hope to see our library increase to a size worthy of its participation in the battle against Philistia.

Scientific

With the comfort of good financial backing an interesting programme was arranged. 15 films were shown and various experiments took place in the Laboratories. A film on the Two-stroke Engine was very informative as was that on the Kariba Dam on the Zambezi. Fr Boyle also gave a lecture on the Church and Science .

At Blandyke a visit was made to ICI s General Instrument Laboratory at Pangbourne.

Zoological

The first term for this fledgling society. Accommodation has been provided for the new residents that include Gerbils and rodents, various reptiles and amphibians including Sebastian a Nile crocodile who thrives on Beaumont beef. his outing s on the cricket field often met with dismay by visiting teams!

More animals are expected and we are grateful to the Zoological Society of London for their assistance.

 

ENTERTAINMENT

H L PLAY A Man for All Seasons

Robert Bolt s interpretation of the life of St Thomas More is an excellent choice for a school play. A play of words rather than action though in this case interest was always maintained even if pace was not always as fast as might have been desired. Diction without exception was excellent and stage management were to be congratulated on the ingenious use of an all-purpose set. Acting was of a high standard and reflected the excellent casting and attention to detail of Fr Dooley.

Principle parts.

Anthony Arnoux; The Common Man outstanding and sympathetic

Christopher Garrard: Sir Thomas More never strained and brought out the dignity and moral steadfastness of the part.

Anthony Tussaud: Master Rich - brought out the weakness and ambition of the character.

Simon Potter: Norfolk - A natural actor ( both on and off stage) well suited to the bluff Duke.

PANTOMIME - Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs.

Producer : Fr Boyle

Script : Potter, Craig Waller, Stevens, Russell, Hayward, Greenfiels and Scheybeler.

Choreographer; David Allen

With Potter s demoniacal cackle still ringing in our ears it is difficult to judge the panto objectively. but who would or should? This great Beaumont tradition should not be judged with the cold critical eye of a Fleet Street hack , but more by a bloodshot one, protected by the rose-tinted glass of the tavern in Burfield Road. A time for a good natured comment on the school establishment and a frivolous distortion of a well -known theme, the pantomime is a healthy outlet for end of term spirits.

Considering there was only one week of rehearsals and the orchestra and the chorus were only learning the music/songs on the final day it all went off remarkably well. Impossible to mention all the excellent performances by such a large cast. The importance of this event is that it offers the opportunity for all the actors to shed their inhibitions and the opportunity for hitherto unrecognised and strange talent to Flourish. David Allen was to write That helping with the Panto was exhausting but a great pleasure.

 

SPORT

 

Rugby 1^st XV.

 

Taken at face value this could hardly be called an exceptional season. It started in fine fashion with the first 7 matches without defeat but this was followed by 5 games lost from which the team never recovered. In the Beaumont tradition the team worked hard and an excellent spirit maintained even in defeat.

Results;-

B U Won 17 16

KCS won 10- 8

Guy s Hospital won 11 9

Douai Drawn 9 9

Oratory Won 14 5

Stonyhurst Wanderers won 17 -8

Reading won 40 6

London Irish lost 6 - 15

St Benedict s Lost 3 - 18

Wellington Lost 11 = 8

Blackheath lost 3 -17

Merchant Taylors lost 17 -3

 

The 2^nd XV had a reasonable season winning 3 of their matches and losing 3.

The 3^rd XV the relaxed approach produced only one win the solution is unremitting toil and unrelenting determination

The Colts - a truly remarkable season of 11 matches won and the last only lost by the smallest of margins. Victories included Harrow, Radley ,Wellington and Merchant Taylors

 

BEAUMONT UNION

The Dinner was held at the Hyde Park Hotel with Colonel Herbert Purcell in the Chair ( Commanded 3^rd Ghurkas and hunted with every pack in Ireland) . 110 members attended.

A Dinner was also held in Dublin.

Edward Cussen (23) is now senior Prosecuting Counsel at the Old Bailey. One of the Juniors is John Mathew ( 44).

Reg Carlton- Morris is currently in the RAF .Gordon Geddes with the Colonial Police in Rhodesia. Barrie Martin with an Honours degree at TCD is entering articles with Charles Russell & Co. John Paton Walsh is already there. Shane O Dea is reading for a General degree at St john s Newfoundland. Peter Peake is learning the hotel trade from the sink upwards. Bernard Pearce is at Henlow waiting to go to RAF Cranwell. Hugh Ross -Williamson now uses the stage name Guy Ross. David Collingwood has been commissioned from Sandhurst in The 15/19 King s Royal hussars and Graeme Grant in The Royal Scots. Both John Lightfoot and his brother David are now farming in Cornwall. David recently was married and there was a special meet of The Tetcott Hunt to greet them after the service !

Hatches

Sons: Willy Brenninkmeyer, Andrew Clasen, Lawrence Dowley, Alvaro Holguin, Peterr Horsfield, Bernard Kilkenny, Keneth Luscombe -Whyte, John Mitchell, Christopher Cafferata.Daughters: Peter Flaherty, John Pritchard, Roger Unwin.

Matches.

Meredith Daubeny, George de Trafford, Gordon Geddes, David Hiscocks, James McAleer, John Sulman.

Marriages,

Timothy Davis, Richard Pennington, David Lightfoot, John Lightfoot.

Dispatches.

Leo Classen (23)

To Brasenose Oxford, Luxembourg and European businessman. WW2 Political Intelligence Department. Director of the UN Industrial Rehabilitation of Europe Organisation. Industrial and commercial advisor to the Luxembourg Government.

Richard Prendergast (29

To Trinity Cambridge and then Fribourg. Called to the Bar Middle Temple. WW2 Irish Guards. Badly wounded in the Deser campaign when leading his company in battle. Wounds from which he never recovered.

 

June 65 (From The REVIEW)

Easter term started with what might be called an epidemic of appendicitis no complications and all recovered. However ,The Beaumont Surgeon Mr J M Browne died , of other causes in May.

January 30^th Mass for Sir Winston Churchill and the school watched the funeral on the Television.

Archbishop King of Portsmouth died - he had been our bishop for 25 years. And a great supporter of the XI after saying Mass on one visit he didn t wait to get out of his vestments and went straight to The Pavilion to preside over the rast of the game .

The Choir sung and recorded Bach s St Luke s Passion. Under the direction of Mr Atkinson.

Rhetoric Guests included Group Captain D P Tich Hanafin (31) Captain B Lewis RN and Air Vice-Marshal P C Fletcher (Later Sir Peter Carteret Fletcher, KCB, OBE, DFC, AFC, FRAeS.)

Mons. Jean Mouton from the French Embassy gave a talk to Group 11 (French) on Contemporary French Litteratue .

Group 11 ( Spanish) went to a production of Lorca s La Zapetera Prodigiosa .

Among the gifts to the school were a New Taberrnacle and Altar for the Community Chapel by Emil Savundra.

 

LOURDES

Our HCPT Groups flew but not without drama - one flight didn t touch down till 2,30 am.

Moments of amusement included Fr Brogan being embraced and kissed on both cheeks by A French Foreign Legionaire, an altercation between an officious official with Patrick Burgess Qui Commande ici, vous ou moi well since you are asking .. and in one homily when we were told we really didn t know how to pray , one child shouting out Well, I DO .

Beaumont Groups were led by Freddie Wolff, John Bedford, John Wolff, and Patrick Burgess. John Haddon had flown from Hong Kong to join the throng. Others included Michael Burgess, Michael Bedford, Philp Ortoli, Ian Bangham. Also Richard Cree, Edwin de Lisle, John Flood, Kenelm Hall-Patch, John Marshall, Chris Newling-ward, Terence O Brien and Michael Wortley. A happy and rewarding time was had by all.

CHOIR

The highlight wasa the performance in the Chapel of Bach s St Luke s Passion. The main parts were sung by Rev Gerry Hughes Evangelist, Soprano Wendy Blamire ( from the BBC). Jesus: - David Allen. Pilate M Newton, Penitent -T Martin, Impenitent M Russell.

Board Examinations included Pianoforte Final Grade V111 d Almada with distinction.

CORPS.

The whole contingent bar one have their Profficiency Certificate. All 9 Signallers passed their Classification Exam and N Cawthorne passed the the particularly difficult Morse Code Test.

The Main contingent is now divided between the Corps of Drums, The First Aid Section and two training platoons

N Kennedy was the winner of The Dixie Cup which entitles him to the Ox & Bucks L .I .Lanyard

Field Day was spent with the First Aiders and Signallers at the R E Depot at Chatham. The remainder at The Guards Depot at Pirbright - Ranges and Battle training .

 

SOCIETIES.

H L Debating.

Numbers have increased to eighteen. The Main debate of the Term was that against the BU with the motion that It is the opinion of The House that Censorship is incompatible with Freedom . The Bu were represented by Quentin de la Bedoyere, Michael Tussaud ,Vass Anderson and Martin Churchill. All of whom displayed the verbosity and adiposity one expects from B U speakers. They won the debate. At the Annual; Schoolsa Debating Final wew were placed third behind Eton and Bradfield. We were represented by Messrs Devaux and Martin who made speeches of both quality and finness. The last debate was led by the increasing bulk of Simon Potter on a motion close to his heart Exercise of the mind is of more importance than exercise of the body.

Current Affaires

Speakers include Paul MacNamara on the voting inclinations of the populace of the Emerald Isle. Cedric Scheybeler on the plight of pro-British Citizens in anti-British Gibraltar laced with stories of the average Spanish peasant. Finaly Raymond Parish presented his lordly disposition on Lunar derangement casualty- a study into the subconscious of the human mind and its connection with the fringe occult .

Quodlibetarian

Three meetings were held. Mr Sullivan SJ addressed the Society on Politics Today and its relevance . Gillibrand gave a talk on The evolution of the Politico-Military Strategy and Tactics of the Twentieth Century including a solution to the Vietnam War. Finnaly Dr Usher from Royal Holloway presented a pater on Xenophon .

Scientific

Shrovetide visit to Battersea Power station. Grubby outside filthy inside! A Lecture from Mr Deare from the Research Station at Harwell Power generation and the Atom and Dr Martin from Balliol on Metals were two highlights of the term. Apart from that various films were shown especially interesting was that on floating Oil Rigs. Reynier and Russell investigated the workings o=f the Laboratory Steam -engine unfortunately on re-assembly they had forgotten to tighten a screw on the big end. A large bang ensued!.

Music.

The supposed highlight was a visit to the Festival Hall to hear Victoria de los Angeles; regretably she was indisposed at the last moment - John Ogden stood in and gave sparkling interpretations of Lizet s first piano concerto and a couple of pieces by Busoni - But it was not what we had come for ! A student s concert was arranged which include a Guitar solo by Mr Battine ( one of the music masters) . Hope remains that a permanent orchestra will be established at the school.

Zoological.

Not so many animals about this term though Cleo the Persian Gerbil remained the main character - not so the nameless African spiny mouse who seems to enjoy the taste of human flesh. The only death this term was a neurotic hamster. With new spacious wall gages installed we now have resident cut-throats, waxbills, mannikins and zebra finches. The main problem seems to be the deplorable condition of those animals purchased from dealers that is not acceptable. A visit was arranged to the London Zoo to see efforts being made to keep the inmates ion as natural conditions as possible.

Photographic

Increase in membership means that the Dark Room has to be booked in advance. The recently established studio continues a brisk trade in passports and portraits. . An expedition went to the Royal Photographic Society s HQ to see much of their display collection. The Christmas Competition results were a first for M Russell for Landscape and P Evelyn for Portraits.

Green Room.

The theatre has been equipped with new red curtains and a cyclorama curtain . Challenges include a rippling Thames for a Man for all Seasons and reversible sets for the BU play.

 

PLAYS

B U - Reluctant Heroes

There in nothing like a Whitehall Farce to bring out the acting ability of Gus Wolff and especially in the military role - His own wartime experiences came to the fore. It must be said that nearly the whole cast had spent time in uniform and could play their roles with sound knowledge A story of National Service which brings together people from all walks of life and background . key supporting roles were played by de la Bedoyere , Cumming and Tussaud but with important cameo parts for the Churchill brothers and the one professional actor Vass Anderson. The Girls, this year were in supporting roles but mention should be made of Diana Nicholas s Gloria - everyman s wildest dream.

The whole production was a huge and most enjoyable success and the question one has toi ask is why should the Beaumont Union be so good at Farce?

Lower Line The White Sheep of The Family.

a reliable runner from a good stable might sum up this plot about charming crooks with a witty , brisk dialogue. The actors played it at a lively pace and it never dragged and the diction was good. Four of the roles called for female interpretations and these were played with conviction and confidence : never easy. Key parts were played by Allardice, Sproule and Muir. All in all a very enjoyable production.

 

SPORT

Boxing

For the first time in many years a disappointing season. Of the five fixtures two were cancelled, two were lost and only one victory.

The Epsom Match was close but we were thrashed by Haileybury but at least we won the Wellington contest.

Sevens

The correspondent detailed the problem of putting the side together, the results, but failed to tell us what competition they were playing in ! I gather they beat Felsted 18 -8 in the first round but then lost to the eventual runners- up: Ipswich 10 -3 in the second round.

At the Reading Event for the first time in five years we were neither amongst the Winners or the finalists.

Hockey

Only two victories against Worth and the BU but this was a young team and most will be available for next season. It was noted that many schools had abandoned rugby and soccer in favour of hockey to preserve the character of the boys kissing and hugging and lack of decorum after scoring was quoted as the main reason!

Cross Country

The races were held at the end of March

Results: Higher Line- H Haywood . Lower Line - C Newton- Carter 3^rd Playroom S Fea Winning house : Chichester.

Rowing

Three of our VIIIs took on Eton Excelsior in a Lock to Lock race but were all beaten likewise in a race against St Edwards.

At Reading Regatta the B VIII rowed extremely well for the third fastest time for school second VIIIs.

 

B U NEWS

Major General Basil Eugster ( 33) late Irish Guards is to command London District at the end of 1965

Major Tony Weir RE (37) has been MID for distinguished service during the Cyprus Emergency.

Beaumont s representation in the Dail has been cut by half following Noel; Browne (34) losing his seat in Dublin South East. Gerald Sweetman (24) held his in Kildare.

Robert Condie (44) with British American Tobacco seems to spend time in areas of revolution from Libya to Venezuela in 1958, Bolivia messy one last year to a mild one at present in Brazil.

Michael Eisdell (30) has been in contact from Sydney wanting a Shjield for the Schools club in the city.

Ed: Attached is a profile of Michael who died in 1985

 

Michael was the son of Hubert Mortimer Eisdell, the English tenor and internationally renowned Australian pianist and composer Katherine "Kitty" Parker, from Longford, Tasmania. After finishing his schooling in England he returned to Tasmania and soon after that began working at the ABC in Hobart. He married Doreen Mary Taylor, of Hobart, in 1937 before moving to Sydney. He later remarried Peggy Davis. A descendant of Joseph Leary MP and Hugh Vesty Byrne, the Irish rebel, Micheal Eisdell was a fifth generation Australian. He left behind three children and six grandchildren.

Ronald Bird (37) has retired from the Colonial Service In Nigeria and has moved back to Dublin.

Peter Brindley is now a lecturer of Law., Richard Bellamy (58) of Campion Hall has been awarded the Heath Harrison scholarship.   Gordon Geddes is with the British South Africa Police. Adrian Naughten (59) is with the Royal Irish Fusiliers as is Nigel Magrane (50) at Celle on the North Germain Plain.

Richard Shullaw is at Georgetown University,

Ed: Richard s CV He v is a seasoned professional with extensive experience in homeland security and government contracting.
With a strong educational background in history, government, and economics from Georgetown University, 

Shullaw has honed his skills in program management, policy, and emergency management

Throughout his career, Shullaw has held key positions in the federal government and private sector, 

including Principal at SRA International and Program Manager at the U.S. Senate/Sergeant at Arms.

Thierry de Galard (61) is finishing this year at the same University before National Service in the French Army. Also, there is Charles Cate (62) studying law.

 

.

Ed: Charles became a well-known Tax Attorney in Washington. Also served in Vietnam and awarded The Bronze Star.

 

ANNOUNCEMENTS.

HATCHES

Fatherhood: Ronald Bird, Peter Drummond-Murray, Christopher Dunn, Patrick Farrell, Nigel Found, Pat Merton. Antony Paton Walsh, Richard Pemberton, Maqlcolm Pritchett, Christopher Tyler and John Wolff.

MATCHES

Proposed: Peter Bicknell, Jeremy Cuddigan, Philip hinds, James Rait, Francis Walsh

Completed: Christopher Dickens, James McAleer

DISPATCHES

Capt. Charles Moore CVO MC. (98) Son of Count Arthur Moore of Mooresfort, Co Tipperary. WW1 Captain Irish Guards. Married Lady Dot Feilding MM, daughter of The Earl of Denbigh. Irish Cricketer, appointed Royal Stud/ Racing Manager George V, George VI and Elizabeth 11. Member of the Irish Racing Board Also JP and DL, Knight of Malta, Papal Privy Chamberlain. Father of Arthur ( 47) Grandfather of Patrick and Ian Agnew.

Lt Colonel Pierce Joyce CBE, DSO. of Mervue. (96) Connaught Rangers. Best remembered for his part with T E Lawrence in the Arab Revolt and actions against the Turks in WW1. It was one of those injustices that he never received the credit due for what he achieved in that campaign. Later Advisor to King Faisal in Iraq.

Bernard de la Torre (12) died at Punchestown races. Born Paris, Christ Church Oxford. Served WW1 and 2. RAF . Chairman company of Stokes and Quirke, auctioneers and surveyors Clonmel Co Tipperary.

 

Philip Stevens (63) Continues his MEMOIRE:-

Chapter 16 Thoughts of Interview Technique.

By our first strange and fatal interview.. John Donne on such events

One of the many UK entrepreneurs of great success and very low profile had asked Nicky and me to visit his home, ostensibly because he needed someone to witness new Wills that his wife and he had drawn up. In reality it was also a job interview, and a very short while later he asked me to take over managing the major part of his family assets. Amada and I drew up the necessary paperwork, and on one Friday evening I had been to his home for all to be signed. That weekend I was very pleased that this significant figure had appointed me as his adviser. I had been appointed to manage the most significant family assets of my experience. I arrived in the office on Monday morning, in time to receive an urgent phone call from the family solicitor; my brand- new client had died over the weekend.

The loss of the client who never was , whom I had liked, was a disappointment. Nicky and I went to his funeral, a deeply religious Jewish ceremony in a private cemetery, with the family tomb among those of the greatest names in British Jewry. Like all the men at the service, I rolled up my sleeves and assisted in shovelling earth back into the open grave. We made our Shiva call as ritual prescribes, prayers followed by a symbolic small piece of fruit cake and a thimbleful of whisky. A few days later, I received a call from the family solicitor. The family had decided that what had been found good enough for the patriarch, was good enough for them. We were to take over management of large assets for various members of the family and their trustees. They remained clients, and became friends, in former capacity until I retired, in the latter afterwards.

Another family sent for me, and I attended a family meeting. The atmosphere was distrustful, and several family members actively hostile. It was an unusual reception from people who had instituted a meeting. Eventually it was so bad that I was looking out of the window, seeing a beautiful garden. Inspiration came to me, and I changed tack. Clearly we aren t getting anywhere. If you were interviewing me as a possible new gardener, you would ask about my gardening skills and how I would want to work in the garden with you. Could we not try that approach with this meeting? At once the floodgates opened, and the reason for their hostility was revealed. They were getting rid of their present manager in a state of panic as their funds were gradually whittled away by appalling performance. As the story unfolded, they wondered what to do. Should they sue the recent incumbent? I thought they should not: going to law over investment performance is always risky, and the cost of losing the case is colossal.

Despite the initial reception, and the unpalatable advice about going to law, Amanda and I were appointed to take over care of the diminished assets. As we got into the detail we realised that the previous mismanagement was beyond poor, it was preposterously bad. We went to see the family to discuss things. We explained what we thought and that we wanted them to reconsider going to law. Our suggestion was straightforward. In order to get sufficient information to decide on whether to go to court, the family should commit 75,000 to preliminary forensic research. There would be no reconsideration of the ultimate plan until that process was complete. If the result would be that there was a case, the family would commit 250,000 to taking the case

to court. Again, once started there could be no going back: the other side would fight right up to the court steps, only offering a settlement literally at the very last possible minute. The family wanted to know what we thought it would cost if it all went wrong, and what they might recover it they won their case. We took a stab at answers, and were sent off to find the right solicitor.

Everything now began to move, very slowly and methodically. It became clear early on that the American bank opposing the family were on thin ice, because their legal agreement with the clients was based on US law and defective in the English jurisdiction. At the first review point, some family members were nervous about having already spent their share of the preliminary 75,000 with nothing to show for it. However, father, who had made all the money, had the bit between his teeth and demanded that they hang together and commit to going all the way. Mother supported father, gradually the meeting decided that they would indeed meet the Americans in court. It became apparent that the majority of the bank s English clients could have used the argument about jurisdiction to achieve a similar result, and the result of a court case could have brought down the entire business, hence our increasing confidence that all would be well. Exactly as predicted, the solicitors met, literally in the court building on the morning of the first day set aside for the case. The Americans made an offer, more than we expected, not as much as we had hoped. However, always mindful that going in front of the judge is an unpredictable affair, father decided to take the offer, slightly adjusted, and the family went home, having recovered the many millions that the Americans had cost them. In due course, it was no surprise to Amanda and me that the American bank failed in the Financial Crash and had to be taken over, the shareholders in the bank having lost the entire value of their firm.

The family became committed clients, and father made sure that many of his equally successful business friends became aware of our work for his own family.

We had achieved the ideal situation. As a team, Amanda, Sue and I enjoyed our work together. We had a client list of manageable numbers and we generated a valuable amount of income for Lazards. Most importantly, we had good relationships, with our clients appreciative of our work for them.

One of my earliest clients had benefitted greatly from my work, and Nicky and I had benefitted from her hospitality. She had often reciprocated invitations to Convent Garden, her annual 5 November fireworks parties were legendary, we had stayed in her castle in Tuscany, and had journeyed through the Caribbean as her guests. Entry- level superyachts were a bit larger now. Early in that trip she asked the skipper why we were motoring along and not sailing properly. He suggested that it was a bit too windy for guests comfort. She wanted none of that nonsense. Our crew, all very experienced sailors, many with Whitbread Round the World Race experience, set about putting the boat through her paces. For the rest of the morning they had the vessel running flat out, heeled at a very jaunty angle, running at speeds that touched 14 knots. All of us, passengers and crew, had the most wonderful time as we flew northward, perhaps faster than that boat had ever moved before. Our hostess enjoyed it more than anyone else.

 

Christianne B,

 

Some several months after we got home, she took me out lunch. Early on, she put her cards on the table: You re not happy at Lazards. Where shall we go?

Gradually, thought of leaving Lazard sooner rather than later, so carefully placed by that client, took root in my mind. It was increasingly clear that our business was growing despite Lazard, not because of it. The private clients department was simply inadequate in terms of its own personnel and in the context of the overall malaise of starvation of resources. The balance of choice between staying, largely left to our own devices, or moving somewhere where we could be integral, was shifting. Above all, the prospect of staying at Lazard until retirement in a dozen years time was losing its allure. I needed to consult three people, Nicky, Amanda and Sue. Nicky thought it a good idea, Amanda thought it essential for her own, my and our clients well-being. Sue was not keen.

Amanda and I decided discreetly to look around to see what might be on offer. All things considered, the job market was more interested in Amanda s employability than in mine, but it was quickly understood that you got both of us or neither. Many invited us to meetings that might lead to our moving shop. However, we were planning to leave on our terms, to a place that offered what we wanted for our clients and needed for our own futures. Few of our interviews led to any thought that we were likely to have found the right balance.

An interview in London led to a flight to Zurich, and a meeting of minds with a very smart general manager of UBS, the recently created result of a merger between Union de Banque Suisse and the Swiss Bank Corporation. Neither was well-represented in the London wealth management market, and the new business plan had great ambitions there. Veit very quickly took our measure and we certainly liked the vision that he laid out for us. Would we be interested in coming in on the ground floor of this new venture? We had found our new business home.

Given that we had a relatively good profile in the business, and that we felt no need to be very discreet about our thoughts, our nearly-head boss at Lazard soon got wind of what was in the air. I was out of the office visiting clients on Thursday and Friday, but received a message that I was, without fail, to be in the office at 5.00 p.m. on Friday. Forewarned being fore-armed, I cancelled my arranged meetings for Friday and took myself off to see a much-recommended young solicitor. Mary s advice was simple. Attend the interview, and if they fire you, say nothing substantive. What a surprise. or I m not sure what to think. were the sort of statements that would suit the case. Under no circumstance, regardless of pressure to the contrary, was I to sign any paper or agree verbally to any proposal.

I arrived at the arranged time. The head of Lazard s investment business and the head of private clients were joined by somebody from Human Resources. A letter passed across the table. The first sentence was all that mattered: Your contract with Lazard Asset Management has been terminated. A second letter offered inducements to sign various contracts that would protect the bank s interest in the clients arrangements. Riding under orders, as it were, I was surprised and unsure what to say or think. The conversation now developed beyond parody:

We need your car keys.
That s fine, but as it s my car and not yours, I m not sure why.
(Quick check by HR person leads to embarrassment by Lazard people.)
Well, we do need your mobile phone.
That s fine, but as it s my phone and I don t have a company one, I m not sure why. (Quick check by HR person leads to further embarrassment by Lazard people.)
Do you have any Questions?
Yes, two things to say. Firstly, I do have a company American Express card. Do you want that? Secondly, as my contract has been cancelled, I presume that my company life and accident insurance are no longer in force. You will realise that I would now leave this building uninsured and having had no time to make alternative arrangements, especially at this time on a Friday night. I think that I should stay here, in this room, under escort if necessary, until Monday, when I will be able to arrange replacement insurance.

In the chaos that followed, the HR person was able to leave the room, and return half an hour later with news that cancellation of the insurance arrangements had been rescinded for a minimum of three months or until I had time to make other arrangements. On this note, the meeting ended and I left the premises. The letter to protect Lazard s interest in the clients had been totally forgotten in the embarrassment of the car keys, mobile phone and insurance.

I walked round the corner to see Mary. She took little time to read the two letters and said that all had worked out perfectly. The payment in lieu of proper notice was adequate, although she could get more if she pushed. However, the ley was the other letter. If I signed it I would l be paid a very decent cash sum but lose all possibility of approaching clients to move with me, but as I had not signed, I was free to approach all or any of them. She then pointed out a fact of human nature: at this hour on a Friday night it was most unlikely that Lazards would be contacting the clients. If I decided not to sign the contract, I would have a whole weekend in which to contact the clients and make the case for them to move with me. The decision was very easy. I d take my chance on the clients wanting to come with me. I knew that transferring to a very large and well-resourced Swiss bank would appeal to most of them.

All that decided, another short walk took me to a local wine bar, where Amanda, Sue and I recognised that nothing except champagne was worthy of the moment. Lazards had extricated me from their employment without protecting their interest in the clients.

That weekend, I was on the phone. Clients reactions were beyond expectation: almost every client whom I thought might come to UBS was unhesitating in their support, knowing that whilst I was preparing the way at UBS, they were in Amanda s safe hands at Lazards. Not one had heard a word from Lazards.

At 9.00 a.m. on Monday I was ready to resume my telephoning. Before I could do so, the phone rang. It was the client who had first told me it was time to move. She had just that minute put down the phone after a call from the head of private clients at Lazards. She was incensed: it had been indicated that I was an uncontrolled maverick, quite probably mentally unhinged, which was why they had reluctantly let me go. I must do something, what was my plan? Easing her off the phone, I rang Mary the solicitor. She was ready for this development. I sat at home and waited. About twenty minutes later the phone rang again. It was Sue on the line, from the little area where Amanda, she and I had shared our space. A few minutes ago, the head of the investment division had literally run down the office, to my former desk, where the head of private clients was sitting, on a call to another client. Without ceremony, the head of investment management took the phone and cut off the call. What the Hell had the head of private clients been saying to the clients? He, the head of the business, had just received a call from my solicitor. It had been described, he said, as a courtesy call to advise Lazards that the litigation department of the solicitors was just finalising arrangements for an emergency application to the High Court to take place that very morning. It would seek injunctions, against Lazard s in general, and the heads of the investment division and private clients in personal capacity, to stop them slandering me by referring to my state of mind.

At home, another call, this time from Mary. She had agreed with Lazards that no calls would be made to clients until she had agreed with them a form of words that could be used in telling clients about my departure. Regrettably, she anticipated that it might take a full week to agree on the wording of a suitable statement, during which time clients would hear nothing from Lazards. They had forgotten to ask for reciprocation, so I was free to carry on the telephoning.

I took a short holiday, with no requirement about gardening leave, another clause in the letter that had been forgotten, unsigned, in the panic over insurance. All in all, it was now very clear that the implications of unilaterally terminating my contract were coming as a shock to my former colleagues. Within a couple or so weeks I was settling into the nascent wealth management division of UBS, in smart new offices in Curzon Street in London s West End. It took little time to understand who was there, very few people, and what resources were available, little beyond vast amounts of money to be spent. I began to prepare the way for transferring a list of clients who were about to form the basis of the UBS wealth management business in London.

A few weeks later Amanda resigned from Lazards, and for various reasons, perhaps oversight or perhaps the belief that she was unimportant, it was found that she had no contractual arrangement that prevented her from joining UBS just one month later. In the period that began with my leaving Lazard and Amanda s joining UBS, every single client, except one, who had offered us their support had already moved to the latter bank. We were up and running in a new environment on terms that more than justified the move for ourselves and offered far more by way of stability and opportunity for the clients.

As seems so often to be the case, there are two last parts of this story. The first part is that Mary s bill for her work was large, but she billed Lazards and not me. The second was pure schadenfreude. The head of the business and head of private clients, the moving spirits behind my most satisfactory defenestration, had been totally unaware that, very discreetly, I had been managing family affairs for some very influential figures in the Lazard hierarchy. These figures had heard nothing of the plan to remove me, and were not pleased. It was probably only coincidental that both my former bosses found themselves job-hunting shortly after I had been.

I suffered an early disappointment at my new home in Curzon Street. One Lazard client, whom I had really wanted to join us at UBS, felt unable to come with us. He had reasons that he was not free to explain. However, we remained in touch, and in due course he asked a favour of me. He was going to see his bank in Switzerland, was unhappy with their performance and wanted a fresh eye to look at the relationship. I accepted, and to my embarrassment found that I was sitting with my former client and his business s chief financial officer in the offices of UBS in Geneva. Opposite us sat the client s group of advisors at the bank, supported by some managers and more senior managers. The client explained his worries, the bank explained their process. The client expounded the philosophy of a business career that had made him successful and very rich. A Swiss team member leaned forward: I have to say, that if you think that is how money works, you do not understand money. The interview ended at once. The client left the building and I stayed behind to say goodbye less abruptly to my new UBS colleagues. Business cards were exchanged. One of the

Swiss group escorted me to the door. I think the client has found this a useful meeting, Yes?

I joined the client at the airport; we were booked on the same flight to London. We commented on the remark that ended the meeting. I asked the client what he thought he should do about it. What am I going to do? I ve done it. A brief letter had already gone to the bank, terminating a relationship that went back over twenty years. Within a week, over 100 million had gone from the bank. Stupidly, I did not ask him to give me the care of it, and I am still sure that Ask, and you shall receive would have been the result.

Back in London, I had taken on looking after one of the few clients that pre-dated our arrival. He was a particularly senior figure in the bank. He knew I had been on my trip to Switzerland and asked how it had gone. Not well I said, and suggested that he look into the results of the meeting. Over the next month or so, I found myself shredding one after another of the business cards that I had collected on my trip to Switzerland. Not one person attending that meeting had survived.

The Swiss were always looking to acquire a well-established business. The senior figure, way closer to the centre of the universe than I, asked a favour. He was in final discussion with the founder chairman of a globally famous asset management firm. A sticking point was that the senior people were reluctant to take their planet into the UBS orbit. Would I mind meeting the founder at his home, where he would invite a few of his more influential colleagues to meet over drinks? I was to reassure them about their founder s plans being good for the business.

I arrived at the agreed hour, to be met by the chairman, and we sat together in his study, drinking a glass of champagne before his colleagues arrived. As he talked, my eye took in a picture on the wall behind him. I cannot recall much of the conversation, the people who arrived, or even whether we bought the business or not. The picture was overwhelming:

Francis Bacon, Second Triptych

It was in this house because Bacon had fallen out with the gallery that had represented him for all his career. The artist had planned that the Tate Gallery would receive the painting without his gallery s involvement, and my host was effectively care-taking it in the interval. No picture that I have ever seen, especially in such a small setting, has had the impact that the Triptych delivered.

For the next two years, UBS Wealth Management was in the business of building a business. Amanda and I effectively controlled all the client revenue, managed all the investment process, and interviewed hundreds of people for jobs in the fledgling wealth management business. As new colleagues arrived, most with no experience of private client work, we also found ourselves as nurse-maids of relationships between these colleagues and the clients that they managed to sign up. The large floor set aside for our business became a cramped area, and our team of three grew to be a team of ten, among half a dozen similar teams. A key recruit was needed. Although to be billed as team secretary, the job was more important than that title suggested. The HR department drew up a shortlist and Amanda and I interviewed everyone. In Swiss style, every interviewee was a graduate, most with years of highly relevant experience. One was altogether less obviously in the Swiss style, experienced but not qualified by university or business school. I had asked why she was on the short list. You ll see. Intrigued, we left her interview to last. Towards the end of the allotted time, we asked her what she wanted to know about us. She delved into her bag, produced a substantial notebook and pen. She had a dozen questions already written out, with spaces after each for our answers. The remainder of the meeting was clearly our being interviewed as to our suitability to deliver what she expected of this stage of her career. We had to get her to join us, we knew that clients would take to her positivity and forthright style. Within no time after joining, many clients had adopted Lisa-Marie as their regular point of contact with the team. Perhaps it is no coincidence that she came from the same part of London as the hard-driving kartist, Debbie of Lazard days.

As an aside, I mention that Nicky and I were guests at both Debbie s and Lisa-Marie s weddings, treated as special guests. Both were happy days, and we were privileged to have been there.

Our client revenue was no longer the only visible means of the department s support. A reasonable investment management core was becoming supported by some better than reasonable specialists, in commercial property, in specialist financial assets, investing in alternatives and the like. Above all, a very remarkable new boss arrived, a respected investment banker who knew nothing about private wealth management. Liz was a leader as well as a manager and she radiated self-belief and self-confidence. Young, clearly Australian in voice and attitude, she inspired or terrified according to her perception of colleagues commitment or ability. Early on, she perceived that the little team that Amanda and I led was a centre of experience and professional excellence. She liked to know what we thought about her ideas, and wanted us to offer our own ones.

It helps if the new leader of a fast-growing business is a party animal. Liz tried to give a departmental drinks party two or three time a year. She had an aide whose several roles included organising the parties. He did everything; she turned up first on the night, and was the last to leave. She tried to chat with everyone, and her aide s job

was to ensure that she always had a cigarette and a drink to offer to those around her. As a means of keeping a finger on the pulse it was unrivalled, and just as I learned during smokers as a young platoon commander, she would learn all about everyone s hopes and worries.

Sometimes, the strain of being an assiduous hostess would show on the following day. After one such party we had a meeting of her management group. It took the usual form of such affairs. People raised pet thoughts; people spoke up so as to justify being present. Liz sat quietly, looking at the papers in front of her. Eventually, looking up: Guys, has anyone got anything actually worth saying? I ve got a terrible headache, and I want to go home. Actually, she didn t say terrible but was a great deal more Australian in expression.

One year, the bank had not generated the expected profits, so pay rises were reduced and bonuses likewise shorn. Liz decided to break the news to each of her management team and junior managers personally. Predictably, there was much anger and disappointment. Amanda and I shrugged our shoulders; we had the good times, we should accept the less good. I can only say that the attitude paid off as time went by. However, it was a different story a couple of years later. New arrangements meant that somebody else dealt with Amanda s and my annual pay matters. He was nervous, despite his claims to having had a high-flyer s military career. He sat in interview with Amanda and told her what was on offer. She sat silently. Amanda, have you nothing to say? - Yes. I m not a fucking charity. The man was gun-shy around her for the next several years, and I thought it improbable that he had ever seen active service during his self-proclaimed high-flying military career.

A duke came to see me perhaps he thought I was still at Hambros. He had inherited his title and an enormous estate but no money. He and his wife wanted someone with whom to exchange ideas. His family trustees were not congenial to them, and a mutual friend had suggested that I might be a helpful sounding board. I met them in London, and went to stay at the ducal seat. We drove around the estate, which took a long time, then visited the state suites and rooms. The picture gallery put me in front of some world-famous pictures. We chatted over lunch. The duke s father had never liked commercialising his estate s non-farming potential, so look there first. The new owners recognised that they could either bring the seat back to life or turn it into a museum. They preferred to try the first option. What did I think?

There seemed to be so much potential, it was difficult to get the ideas in order. The estate shoot, hitherto the private resource of the family and their personal guests, was on the very grandest scale, a keeper and five under-keepers could hold two shoots on the same day without either group ever being aware of the other. The historic state bedrooms needed to be used in order to be able to fund their overdue reinstatement to former glory. My first idea was therefore simple. Why not combine the house and grounds? Sell utterly privileged private shooting parties, offering a stay in the state bedrooms, dinner in the state dining room, hosted by the duke and duchess, followed by a day of exceptional shooting. Charge absolutely enormous prices and watch the money flow. They were sceptical, but I offered that to set them up, I d buy the first two events, and use them for entertaining the most important of the UBS private client connections.

Next day, back in London, I raised the idea with Liz. Perhaps she was grateful that we had been understanding about the pay and bonuses crisis, but whatever the reason, she gave me a large chunk of her hospitality budget, and our shooting parties were a reality. For the next five years, Amanda and I hosted a couple of events every year, taking a couple of our own guests each time, and allowing one or two colleagues to do likewise. It was wildly expensive, but it gave access to potential clients who were not normally accessible. The only downside was that some of our colleagues were somewhat weak on shooting etiquette, a couple including the military high flyer - were dreadful shots. The standard of experience offered by the keepers was the highest, so we insisted to colleagues that their guess be very experienced, especially after one guest was heard to say to her loader, I shouldn t be here, this is way beyond my level. After one of these parties, with this thought in mind, I declined a reciprocal invitation to be a guest at what I knew to be one of the very grandest formal shooting estates in Europe. My knowledge of the Battue at that level was and is extremely limited.

The duke, duchess and I discussed other ideas. Open-air concerts, country fairs, restore the historic gardens, create a polo ground, use a discreet field or two for a camping park. As the years have passed, I have seen, from a distance, many of these ideas come about. I never thought to suggest taking a royalty for the success of any of the ideas we raised together, but I was just glad that I d helped an historic estate to think its way forward.

Having suggested polo, I had the idea that our part of UBS should try to create a single summer event to take over the growing number of piece-meal activities that were springing up. Simultaneously, my cousin Henry and I met at a family party. He was very involved in polo at Cowdray Park, where they were thinking about a summer one- day festival of polo, centred on a new trophy. I took the idea to Liz, and she gave yet more of her budget, and the UBS Cup for high-goal polo was born. For the next several years colleagues, clients and other connections enjoyed the day at Cowdray, the sun always shone, the polo was always exciting, and guests felt that treading-in gave them a stake in the day. It was an idea good for a few years, but the polo world never really supported it; we depended on one patron who always put out a top-rated side and persuaded others to provide his team with opposition. I always looked forward to the day out, because I would be guaranteed to meet people whom I knew from that world. The event died out, the certainty of its ending being cemented by young colleagues who had not yet learned the perils of confusing champagne with soft drinks.

In due course Amanda and I found ourselves instructed to undertake the largest single transaction that ever had been, or would be in future, part of our work. We discussed our plan for it with the family lawyers and other advisors, received the go-ahead and put stage 1 in place. At once we were inundated with objections from the UBS investment bank. The task was beyond our capability, experience or department s capacity. Complaints reached Liz s ears, and she asked whether we were confident in our plan, and asked that the main external advisor be re-consulted. He spoke, Liz spoke, the head of the investment bank listened to his former protégée, and that was the end of the attempt to take over the transaction. In the end, our simple way of completing the task cost the family about one twentieth of the cost of doing it the way

wanted by the investment bank. We certainly received confidence from the clients, but none from our thwarted colleagues.

I was leading a team of many people involved in marketing the bank s offering, mentoring people who had never done this sort of work before, managing the ones who were happy to take the rewards without producing the necessary results, getting involved in the sort of work that is best left to those with ambitions on the greasy pole. All the while, we had our own growing and happy semi-detached business within a business. However,lookingaround,itwasclearthatthebusinesswastop-heavywith managers. These climbers considered that all I had ever learned about private banking and wealth management was less important than internal politics. Amanda, Lisa and I had a radical solution, to opt out and run our client book on our own. As I suspected she would, Liz took the idea and improved on it, persuading one or two others to join an independent group of senior people who wanted to be bankers rather than managers. Over time, most drifted back into the mainstream, and we three were left to ourselves.

The business grew and grew. Liz very wisely returned home to Australia. If you have ever seen the film Margin Call, you will know Jared Cohen, the ultra-Teflon man. He had arrived to take charge some time before. He understood the Swiss overlords. There was money to spend, and the Swiss wanted an acquisition. There had been a small acquisition, a matter of a group of about a dozen professionals and their support team, which seemed to have gone well. However, ambition for growth had produced a really substantial amount of money for something altogether more ambitious.

Rumours began to circulate. Depending on whom you believed, we were in the market for at least half the wealth managers or private banks in the UK. To my disbelieving ears, one name seemed to be taking on an air, initially of possibility, then probability. I took the Teflon manager on one side. Explaining that I had known much of the unhappy story of the relationship between this firm and its previous owners, I suggested that the ancient maxim, Caveat emptor, Buyer beware, would be apt under the circumstances. We had a short conversation about my reasoning, ending with; Philip, I think you can trust us to know what we re doing. It was pointless to reply that knowing what you re doing is not the same as knowing with whom you re doing it. In due course, the purchase of the business went through, and our London wealth management business more than doubled in size overnight.

The senior people in the new arrival were all tied in with three-year contracts, so I made a mental note that trouble would begin in about two and a half years time. My timetable was hopelessly faulty: trouble began almost at once. A get-to-know-you meeting was held at the top of some Swiss mountain in a delightful resort. It was rumoured that the resort s hotels were in financial trouble after some seasons of very poor snow, and that the bank was using it to host conferences and seminars as a way to keep the town afloat without having to lend more money. The existing UBS wealth managers and the new arrivals met in joint forum followed by lunch, as an early part of integration. The new arrivals made clear that they were certainly not going to integrate; they had a settled plan, which seemed to be exactly as I forecast: sit out three years, take the final instalment of their pay-offs and leave to start all over again.

That evening, several of my longer-standing colleagues gathered. Over a few drinks, they concluded that they would take their fears to the senior levels of the bank. They wanted the new-comers plan nipped early in the bud. I kept my own counsel, apart from suggesting that they do nothing, because they could make no difference. I kept to myself the knowledge that a family friendship had long existed between the respective parents of the Teflon manager and the head of the newly bought business. As I forecast, the malcontent colleagues achieved nothing but irritation.

For the next three years, much management time was absorbed in the development of a slow-starting civil war. Relations between old and new were never good, but they were perfectly able to get worse. It was literally a marvel to see the way in which the plan of the new arrivals was allowed to proceed unhindered. In due course, after three years of denigration of UBS, its people, its computers, its products and its Swissness, the majority of the new arrivals became ex-colleagues. Having never integrated their new clients either, UBS found them leaving in droves.

One side-effect of this civil war was that, during these three years, Amanda and I had nobody to undertake our annual performance review and financial outcome. We ignored the review process and told the finance people what we had awarded ourselves. Nobody noticed so long as the right boxes were ticked in some Swiss computer.

At the end of the three years, with no sign of Teflon-man in the vicinity, it fell to a thoroughly decent and honourable man to try to right the ship. Peter thought that the three of us, in our little corner, could help in the task ahead. He would work on the assumption that the former new arrivals who remained were probably willing to integrate into UBS at last. Perhaps Amanda, Lisa and I would be the right people to woo them into the Swiss fold. We did want to help Peter, he deserved support.

 

Approaching the age when the pipe and slippers appeal, I was also aware that staying at UBS held little appeal for any of us. Peter could offer the opportunity of one last Hurrah for me and rewards for all of us, but he understood that we had a deep commitment to our client base. Perhaps he was already aware that, in that world, the relationship between clients and their advisor does not belong to the bank if there are no restrictive covenants, and the legal training in Amanda s background had protected us from them. He already knew that we protected our relationships and our clients affairs ferociously when necessary.

Caught in a business in crisis, under some pressure to help with a fire-fighting job that we thought already lost, it was time to think of other options for the future.

The end of the civil war has a twist, so extraordinary that I had to re-check my facts before writing this paragraph. Having successfully set up the new business, my former colleagues sold it within five years. It seemed to be exactly three years after that when Press reports noted that the founders had fallen out with their new owners and had resigned, planning to set a new business that would more suit their clients needs. One of the founders had fallen foul of the late Robert Maxwell early in his career and come off worst. It seems as though he had early decided that such a thing would never happen to him again.

 

FURTHER CORRESPONDENCE

From Tom Scanlon

I m sorry to hear about Colin Russell. Was he the school captain in our last year? Or was it Mike Morris? I was interested our jazz band The Virginia Creepers and Colin made a recording but I never heard it, perhaps a good thing!

I played alto sax, Roger Johansen the trumpet, Robert Wilkinson-Latham the clarinet, Doug Bellamy on drums and Roger Stowell on 2-string bass. All good fun. We once did a charity concert in the hall charging three pence entry. I think we made about 40, but I can t remember for which charity.

 

NO, NOT THE B U REVIEW

Back in early January I was enjoying a leisurely breakfast ( as one does) when the house telephone sounded and I went through to the hall to answer it.

This is the Surrey Police, someone has just made an emergency call to this number was it you?

Cagey as it might be a scam, I replied No, certainly not . However, the caller persisted was there another occupant in the house .

Yes, my wife .

May we speak with her?

I Call to her: Darling, you are wanted by the Police! (seemed rather apt).

Answering their summons my wife was asked if she was alone ( possible coercive husband). Yes, (to the former) and in reply to their question no, she had not made an emergency call.

Meanwhile I returned to my breakfast and in doing so passed one of the dog beds and noticed that together with the incumbent, it contained a telephone ( obviously thieved from another console). Picking it up and noticing the teeth marks I called to Annie: I have found the culprit Boysie . My wife reported that Boysie had made the call (crunched the numbers). We would like to speak to Boysie came the police response. You can try but he s a 7month old Whippet puppy .

You cannot be serious what do we put in the report I suggested a K999 .

We felt it was better not to mention that Boysie was recovering from a visit to the vet having had certain appendages removed and might be feeling that blatant abuse, rights etc had occurred .

End of not so shaggy dog tale.

 

L. D. S.