A M D G
BEAUMONT UNION REVIEW
SUMMER 2024
A shorter REVIEW than usual but I have been busy on the behalf of others I was asked to write a book on National Hunt Racing that has kept me occiupied for the last few months. Excuses rather than reasons you might well say. I m not certain whether it is older age and retirement but OBs do seem to be putting pen to paper a great deal these days. In this edition, Simon Potter has his latest Pottbuster out and I have continued another chapter of Philip Steven s memoire. However apart from these, Francis Beckett is spending more time as a playwright but it is good to have a change from straight biography. His co-author Tony Russell has mainly concentrated on music. David Fettes has found time from wild life photography to writing novels and there is John Wolff s masterly biography of Br. Michael Strode. I heard from John Joss in California, who has written a great deal on various subjects, that he has a series out: five already published. Almost as prodigious is Nigel Courtney ( I always thought that he just played golf) writing on modern technology. There are probably others out there I haven t heard about. I don t think that any of us are about to receive a literary prize but I m certain the likes of Dinwiddy and O Malley would be chuffed that something had rubbed off . Writing concentrates the mind; my wife Annie said to me, You weren t even listening, were you. I thought to myself that s a pretty strange way to start a conversation .
ANNOUNCEMENTS
THE BU LUNCH
I m reminded by Richard Sheehan that our Lunch coincides with the Anniversary of the Battle of Lepanto. Who of us can forget learning Chesterton s stirring poem during our schooldays. Relevant to the BU today are these words;-
The last and lingering troubadour to whom the bird has sung,
That once went singing southward when all the world was young,
Before you get a full rendition s worth, may I remind you that as previously announced the LUNCH will take place at the Caledonian Club, Halkin Street, Monday 7th October. The Bar will open at Noon, Lunch at 1pm. Dress: Suits.
The Committee looks forward to seeing you all again. You may of course bring your sons and other male guests whose misfortune was not to attend Beaumont.
REMEMBER.
BACS payment preferred to Sort: 30-99-09. Beaumont Union A/c 02198243 with NAME as reference. The cost is 80.
There is no charge for members of the Clergy.
Cheques to The Hon Secretary at the address below. Alternatively, if you have paid electronically you must email to: amanda@mbarrington.net
Mrs A Bedford
94 Hurst Park Road
TWYFORD
Berkshire
RG10 0EY
Tel: 0118 934 2110
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Committee for Brother Michael's Cause (The Cause for the Canonisation of Brother Michael Strode OCSO KSG) |
Hosanna House, Bartr s
Following in the footsteps of Brother Michael Strode an opportunity to revisit Lourdes for 4 nights
Four years ago, perhaps in anticipation of Covid, on my 73rd birthday I completed s document entitled The HCPT Beaumont Legacy . It listed all those OB s, Jesuits and, since the closure of Beaumont, SJOB s who had travelled to Lourdes on the HCPT Easter pilgrimages, either as schoolboy helpers, chaplains, adult helpers, group leaders or HCPT trustees (including several chairs of trustees), since HCPT was founded by Doctor Michael Strode in 1956. Also included are OB s who have accompanied the BOF s, the group founded by Michael Bedford (63) which continues under Mandy Bedford s leadership to this day. All these together numbered no less than 135. Of these, perhaps as many as almost 100 are still living.
Those OB s who read the BU Review cannot have missed the existence of CBMC, set up a year after Doctor, then Cistercian Brother Michael Strode, died in December 2019, as the Committee for Brother Michael s Cause for his potential canonisation. In 2025, following 5 years elapsing since his death, that Cause is expected to be formally launched. In preparation for this, CBMC held a Retreat on Caldey Island overlapping with what would have been Br Michael s 101st birthday. This was a dry run for a similar and slightly longer Retreat to be held at HCPT s stunning Hosanna House near Bartr s, a few miles from Lourdes, starting on Tuesday 8 October the day after this year s BU lunch and ending early on Saturday 12 October. It will be led by former HCPT Trust Chaplain, Fr Perry Gildea CM and by John Wolff (58) and is based on Brother Michael s exceptional spirituality, as so brilliantly encompassed in John s book Who are you looking for? .
I had a friend who was Chair of the BMA in his retirement. He was at a very smart dinner where the rather stuffy lady next to him gave him a blow-by-blow resum of all the things she was doing in her retirement and eventually asked him what he was doing for his retirement. His answer was short and unexpected Preparing for my death he said, which successfully silenced her! So, it occurs to me that many of us are reaching that stage of life and, whether you would be revisiting Lourdes after a gap of perhaps over 60 years, or visiting it for the first time, there could be several OB s to whom this short Retreat might well appeal, with 3 OB s already amongst those registered to lead or attend it.
The latest CBMC bulletins provide all the details of the two Retreats. In summary to book you will need to:-
If you are interested, you will need to act quickly as there are a limited number of places available. Any queries email me ASAP. If you can t manage the dates or all the available places are taken but you would be interested in any repeat retreat in the future, do let me know and I will add you to the CBMC database so that you will receive the bulletins giving you advanced notice of the dates of future planned retreats.
If you are coming, please also let me know that you are booking with Hosanna House, so we can work out the best way for you to purchase a copy of John Wolff s book. All are welcome to acquire the book, irrespective of whether or not you are attending the Retreat. The CBMC website www.brothermichaelstrode.org includes many reviews of the book and so much else, including most importantly how you can support the Cause by writing a formal testimony, and perhaps financially visit www.brothermichaelstrode.org/how-you-can-help
John Flood (65) Secretary CBMC
E: secretary@brothermichaelstrode.org
REMEMBRANCE SUNDAY.
Although a few months away, please note Sunday 10th November. I will send out a Notice closer to the time.
OBITUARIES
Sadly more than usual but that is the nature of things:-
Canon Peter Madina Wilkie (47) Rugby XV and Cricket XI. Priest of The Portsmouth Diocese.
Dr Dominic Stevens (58) Eldest son of CP . Tried for a vocation then followed his father into medicine both overseas and general practise. RIP April.
John Christopher Ferrer (55) Rugby XV, B D S Birmingham University, Westminster Hospital, RN Surgeon. Home at Bishop s Waltham died on the Feast of Pentecoste.
John Boocock (54) Ordained priest for the Portsmouth Diocese, left the priesthood but remained involved in community and charity work. Died May 12th.
Barnaby Capel-Dunn (62) Cricket XI . Durham University ( Modern History). Lived in France. Freelance translator. Blogger The Subliminal Mr Dunn. Died November 21, 2023.
Paul Burrough (62) Rowing VIII, Hon Sec Boxing Club. One time farmer, then Estate Agent in Hungerford. Died 27 May.
Anthony Newling- Ward (67). Youngest brother of John and Chris, In the British Virgin Isles. One time RN Officer, Professional yachtsman. Died 31 May.
Simon Outred (54) Son of Frank (24), brother of Charles (59) and Tony (60). Solicitor, Capt. St George s Weybridge Golf Club.
Andrew Pace (67) insurance broker, Parish councillor, and countryman.
Peter Hamilton (57) twin brother of David. Merchant navy followed by a career in advertising. Retired to a home he built on the Lizard.
See OBITUARIES in the Dropdown
BUGS
Nigel Courtney writes:
An account of the 104th and final annual meeting of the BU Golf Society.
This report of our activities is a celebration tinged with sadness for it is now 57 years since Beaumont was closed. Your typical BU golfer has entered his 9th decade they need to slow down a little!
Avid readers may recall that in 2017 the Beaumont Union Golfing Society (BUGS) was revived from a long sleep. The idea was canvassed at the 2017 luncheon and in due course a panel of some 30 OBs was attracted, including former Beaumont golfing activists William Henry and Peter Flaherty. The BU s indefatigable archivist Robert Wilkinson stepped up as non-playing captain with Nigel Courtney as Hon Sec, ably assisted by Mark Marshall.
Over the next 8 years (the pandemic locked out 2020) the BUGS have played 14 very cordial but competitive matches.
A total of 17 amazing BU golfers took part. We started off with great aplomb, fielding 16 players over 2 matches during 2017, 15 over 3 matches in 2018 & 19; and 16 over 3 matches in 2021. We beat the OGGS 2, 1, 1 but lost to the BUCS 1, 0, 2. While our players were getting one year older each year they faced ever-more-athletic players from their opponents expanding OB lists.
None of us wanted to impersonate King Canute so it was reluctantly decided to make 2022 and future events only for BUs.
The result, of course, was that 2021 proved to be the high point. In 2022 we attracted 11 participants, including non-playing supporters. In 2023 it was 10. This year, last minute withdrawals reduced us to 5 players with non-playing supporters Robert Wilkinson, John Flood and Richard Sheehan dispensing potentially misleading advice
Nevertheless, your stalwarts conspired to make it a most enjoyable day. We enjoyed refreshments while exchanging news in Westerham s Sports Lounge before braving the elements (which were cool but kind). At the last minute both Mark Marshall (with buggy driver Susie) and Mark Addison had been forced to withdraw. So first off were Chris Tailby and Rupert Lescher.
They were hotly pursued by Patrick Solomon, Kevin McArdle, and Nigel Courtney.
Westerham s various lakes tend to gobble up the golf balls of the unwary. Chris and Nigel played shots that got wet on the 2nd, Patrick on the 3rd, and Rupert on the 18th. For their sins each was presented with a golf ball engraved with the advice: Play your Provisional ball first.
Happily, Patrick redeemed himself by achieving Nearest the Pin on the 11th and Kevin struck the Longest Drive on the 18th. They were rewarded with enamelled ball markers.
As usual, the competition for the Mike Bedford Claret Jug was a very close-run thing. Chris Tailby secured 3rd place; Patrick had to settle for a commendable 2nd; and this left Nigel to receive the treasured trophy.
After the post-match lunch your stalwarts decided to confront the reality of dwindling numbers. After due consideration they resolved that this would be the last formal BUGS event. In future, it would be up to members to arrange occasional rounds on an informal basis at their respective golf clubs. John Flood and Patrick suggested a WhatsApp group to facilitate such arrangements.
The era ended with Robert thanking Nigel for helping the BUGs on its way to amassing 104 years of camaraderie and healthy competition. All present then charged their glasses with Chateau Beaumont and drank a toast to The Spirit of Beaumont .
John Flood summed up with our thanks to Nigel:
Many thanks for this record of the BUGS activities and final winding up. All it lacks is sufficient tribute to you for your initiatives and perseverance and the pleasure this has provided to those who participated in the various games that you organised.
I know there were often frustrations for you along the way and I guess that the average age of the players will by the end have exceeded 80. It is remarkable that you achieved all that you did following your decision to reinvigorate the BUGS.
While I am disappointed that the BUGS is no more, I think you have more than earned your retirement from all the organisation that this involved. Meanwhile the BU is in good shape with 60 booked to attend the 2023 Caledonian lunch. I am sure there will be determination to keep it so for as long as possible which puts a responsibility on all its members to support it as fully as their health allows. We certainly all owe it to Robert to ensure his incredible investment of time and effort on our behalf is rewarded by sustaining the Spirit of Beaumont or the future in the way that we have so successfully done over the last 57 years, more or less to the day
Those who played 2017-2024
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Mark |
Addison |
Tony |
Loades-Carter |
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David |
Collingwood |
Mark |
Marshall |
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Nigel |
Courtney |
Kevin |
McArdle |
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Giles |
Delaney |
Tony |
Outred |
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Clive |
Fisher |
Patrick |
Solomon |
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Peter |
Flaherty |
Henry |
Stevens |
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John |
Flood |
Chris |
Tailby |
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David |
Hiscocks |
Martin |
Wells |
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James |
Ingram-Cotton |
Robert |
Wilkinson |
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Rupert |
Lescher
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HENLEY
Wetbob gathering; John flood ( Capt. 2nd VIII 65) Anthony Rogers (Capt. of Boats 64) Charlie Poels ( 1st VIII 61) Mike Wortley ( Capt. of Boats 65) Robert Bruce ( 1st VIII 64). Anthony was back at Henley for the first time in 20 odd years, he is currently Vice-President of the Hong Kong Rowing Association.
OTHER NEWS
Almost 100 years ago and with the Olympics in mind.
At the closing ceremony of the 1924 Winter Olympics in Chamonix, France, the 1922 Everest expedition's deputy leader Lieutenant Colonel Edward Strutt (91) received gold medals on the podium for the entire group, for Alpinisme by Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern games.
Bishop Jim.
Pope Francis has appointed Monsignor James Curry (Hon) as an Auxiliary Bishop for the Diocese of Westminster and Titular Bishop of Ramsbiria (Ramsbiriensis). Fr Jim as we knew him, in the past tense, as an Hon Member of THE B U. and has been the Chaplain of THE BOFS for many years now. He was the Parish Priest for Our Lady of Victories in North Kensington a Beaumont Church redesigned by Adrian Gilbert Scott after it had been badly damaged in the War.
Cardinal Vincent Nichols said:
I express my warmest thanks to Pope Francis for the appointment of Mgr James Curry as an Auxiliary Bishop for service in this Diocese. His appointment, I am sure, will be widely welcomed. I welcome it myself, with gratitude to him for his generous response. He brings to this role a long experience of life in the Diocese and the pastoral wisdom of many years of priestly ministry.
Please keep Bishop-elect Curry in your prayers. Appointment as a bishop is a call to service in a new and demanding way. Let us accompany him with our prayers as he prepares for his Episcopal Ordination.
Bishop-elect Jim Curry, who has been serving as parish priest of Our Lady of Victories in Kensington since 2008, said:
When I received news of my appointment by the Holy Father to serve in this new way my first reactions were of shock and surprise. Then the words of St Paul came to mind: Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.
I can t help but recall all those who have blessed my life and continue to do so.
My parents, now with God, and their resilient faith; my family in London, Ireland and beyond; my teachers and friends, long-standing and new; the staff and community of Allen Hall Seminary; the clergy, religious women and men who have graced my life; the parishioners, in their variety, I have been called to serve in my 38 years as a priest of the Diocese of Westminster. All these, and others besides, have enriched my understanding of God s loving kindness and purposes.
To all fellow-pilgrims and those of other beliefs, whose friendship, kindness and hospitality have left a lasting imprint on my life, thank you. I ask you all for your prayers; be assured of mine.
Information about the Episcopal Ordination, to take place in Westminster Cathedral, will be made available in due course.
Bishop-elect Curry joins Bishops John Sherrington, Nicholas Hudson and Paul McAleenan as an Auxiliary Bishop of the Diocese of Westminster.
Biographical Timeline
Born on 1 June 1960
Attended Cardinal Griffin/St Philip Howard School, Poplar
Studied for the priesthood at Allen Hall Seminary, London
Ordained priest by Cardinal Hume on 17 May 1986
Awarded STB (magna cum laude) by University of Leuven (1993)
Assistant Priest at Edmonton (1986-90) and Notting Hill (1990-94)
Private Secretary to Cardinal Hume and Cardinal Murphy O Connor (1994-2002)
Parish Priest of Chiswick (2002-08) and Kensington (2008-present)
Appointed Chaplain to His Holiness (Monsignor) in 2001
Chair of the Council of Priests of the Diocese of Westminster (2012-present)
Episcopal Vicar for the West London pastoral area (2013-16)
Chaplain to the Lord Mayor of London (2020-21)
Prior of the Westminster Section of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre KCHS
Trustee of the Friends of the Holy Land and Pilgrimage People.
Episcopal Ordination.
Bishop Jim s Episcopal Ordination took place on the 18th June in a packed Westminster Cathedral in the presence of two Archbishops, some 30 others and about100 priests together with representatives of the other Faiths.
The BOFS had reserved seating behind the family for what was a magnificent and moving ceremony and Mass. The BU were represented by Guy Bailey and Paula over from Monaco, Mandy Bedford, The Fitzgerald O Connors, The Sheehans, The Tailbys, Tony Outred and Yours Truly. Patrick and Maggie Burgess were in their Knights regalia of The Holy Sepulchre. Afterwards Mandy attended the Family Party before joining a few of us around at The Windsor Castle for celebratory drinks. We were joined by a group of Bishop Jim s priestly fraternity, several of whom had been HCPT Chaplains and a good party ensued including a rendering of Rise & Shine I for one was late for a supper party that evening!.
Richard Sheehan as a Frank Staples Trustee was sorting out his affaires and came across this photo in Lourdes a few years ago.
In full cry singing The Carmen at Midnight
Thierry de Galard, William Henry, Tony Outred, Robert Wilkinson, Patrick Burgess, The Baron, Bill Gammell ( conducting) Tim FitzGerald O Connor, Richard Sheehan, Mike Wortley, Frank Staples, Mike Bedford and John Flood.
ST IGNATIUS Mass
The following were present at the St Ignatius annual Mass on 31 July at Farm Street:- John Flood. Mandy Bedford, Jeremy Atlee, Francois Neckar, Duncan Grant. Felicity Ann Croft.
The event was in fact the 175th Anniversary Jubilee Mass of the opening of Farm Street Church and Bishop Nicholas Hudson ((OW) was due to have presided but had Covid and had to cry off. The music was magnificent and the Mass lasted 1 3/4 hours!
BOOKS
The latest from the pen of Simon Potter.
"Melyssa's Italian Project" - a romance with adventure. Might appeal to a Beaumont chap, but perhaps even more to the woman in the Beaumont chap's life! (Available from Amazon 6: 174 pp book, 2.99: Kindle).
JMPW NEWS
John s son Nick is himself News .
From: The Independent. 22 August
Russia opens criminal case against British journalist for reporting on Ukraine s attack across border.
Russia claims CNN journalist Nick Paton Walsh illegally entered Russia to document Kursk incursion. Russia has opened a criminal case against a British journalist and says it will seek his arrest over reporting on Ukraine s assault on Kursk. Nick Paton Walsh, CNN s chief international security correspondent, was said to have crossed the Russian border to film Kyiv s incursion into Kursk earlier this month. CNN, which on 16 August broadcast a report from Sudzha, a Russian border town currently under Kyiv s control, did not immediately reply to a request for comment. Russia s Federal Security Service (FSB) said it would issue an international arrest warrant related to Mr Walsh s case, as well as two other journalists believed to have travelled alongside him. The maximum punishment for anyone found guilty of illegally crossing the border is five years in jail, the FSB warned.
William Buckley (39) (new Documentary).
The most influential OB that Beaumont produced.
"Arguably the most important public intellectual in the United States in the past half century. For an entire generation, he was the preeminent voice of American conservatism and its first great ecumenical figure."
There are many words you could use to describe William F. Buckley, Jr., the genteel intellectual who defined and shaped American conservatism in the middle of the twentieth century. Provocative. Witty. Patrician. Expressive. Mischievous. Incisive. Self-satisfied.
A new American Masters documentary on him settles on one adjective in its title, The Incomparable Mr. Buckley, but not before first suggesting insufferable and crossing it out, in reference to a letter Buckley said he once received. Indeed, not many people like the through-and-through WASP Buckley exist anymore, with his transatlantic accent and commitment to high-minded rhetorical debate the latter as a decades-long host of the PBS show Firing Line and also in famous debates with James Baldwin and Gore Vidal. But then the conservatism Buckley trumpeted through his magazine National Review is also bascially a thing of the past, reaching its peak with Ronald Reagan and then declining into near disappearance in the decades after.
Buckley was a man of great integrity, a man of enormous sincerity in what he believed in, and God knows we re lacking that now. A person who treated his political and intellectual enemies with great deference and respect and affection even. He s a model for how to engage in political debate without vilifying the opponent.
Plus, he was just so much goddamn fun. Example : he was asked why he remained seated during his television addresses could he not think on his feet?
Reply: It s very hard to stand up, carrying the weight of what I Know.
William s son Christopher was asked what his father would think of Donald Trump.
It s tricky, channeling your father s ghost. But whatever Trump is, he s not a conservative he s a party of one.
There s no one on the political stage like him. This isn t intended as a compliment, but by way of saying that it s difficult to discern any identifiable ideology, philosophy, or politics behind his curtain; instead, only an insistent, clamant narcissism that one hopes will come to an inflection point and re-purpose itself in the service of those who wish to have him installed him at the center of our democracy.
Buckleyism and Trumpism have nothing to do with each other. Trump s brand of populist-authoritarianism is wholly at odds with Buckley s vision of a responsible, governing-minded Republican Party. Trump and his supporters reject key principles of Buckley-Reagan conservatism including free trade, restrained government and global support for democracy. Buckley consistently maintained that conservatism was the politics of reality, and it s hard to believe he ever would have indulged Trump s election denialism, let alone the pathological fantasies. In a 2000 essay, Buckley branded Trump a narcissist and a demagogue, and it s unlikely he would have revised that judgment.
ARTICLES
College buildings history
The focal point of the Beaumont Estate is the former Bowman s Lodge, a grand Italianate Baroque house, originally designed for Lord Weymouth by James Gibbs in 1705, but substantially redesigned and reordered in the late 18th century.
The history of the Beaumont Estate is however much older that the present buildings, with the first written reference to the Estate being in the early 14th century, at which time it amounted to 91 acres and was known as Remenham . The land was owned by a number of locally important families over the following centuries, with a succession of houses being built, before it eventually came into the ownership of Henry Frederick Tynne, Lord Weymouth, in 1703.
James Gibbs was in 1705 only just beginning his architectural career, having returned briefly to England from training in Academia across Italy. It would be another eight years before Gibbs began his seminal work on the City of London churches, and another 15 years before his own unique mix of Baroque and Gothic architecture would establish him as a high profile country house designer for those not wanting to pursue the more fashionable Palladian style.
Bowman s Lodge, now located at the northern edge of a large complex of buildings which today make up the Beaumont Estate, was therefore one of Gibbs earliest work. Designed during his period of training in Rome and Tuscany, it is understood that the design was Italianate Baroque in style, however unfortunately today much of what is seen is a late 18th century redesign so it is difficult to fully appreciate Gibb s design any longer.
Bowman s Lodge was renamed Beaumont Lodge in 1751, when it was purchased by the Duke of Roxburghe, establishing a name for the Estate which still remains in use today. Substantive changes would not however be made to the Lodge until the 1790s, by which time it was nearly a century old.
Bought by Henry Griffiths, a gentleman, in 1789, a local architect Henry Emlyn was quickly commissioned to comprehensively redesign and extend the house turning it into a nine bay, more classical villa. Emyln had pioneered the design of the Brittanic Order , characterised by double-thickness columns at the base of the shaft, which then split part way up the shaft to become two columns, with oak leaves and the Star of the Order of the Garter making up the column capitals. Very few examples of this Order now survive, which adds to the significance of the Beaumont Estate, though in this case the foliage is replaced with Prince of Wales feathers within the column capitals, with the Garter insignia instead being applied to large escutcheon shields attached to the columns.
Beaumont Lodge s function as a manor house ended in 1854, when the building was bought by the Society of Jesus as a training college, becoming a Catholic boarding school for boys, known as St Stanislaus College, in October 1861.
Map circa 1870
It was under the School s ownership that the Beaumont Estate site underwent its first significant phase of development. An equivalent three storey brick Chapel was built to the northeast of the house in 1870, executed in decorative Renaissance style to a design by Joseph Hanson. The interior was finished with a barrel-vaulted ceiling, with a mixture of Pompeian and Renaissance motifs used for wall and ceiling paintings. There are indications that Hanson also carried out adaptations to the house itself at this time, principally in relation to connecting it satisfactorily with the new wings to the southeast, which were also constructed in the 1870s/80s. (Refectory, Playrooms with classrooms and dormitories above). These south eastern extensions appear to have been designed in at least three phases, possibly four, based on their varying architectural design. Ultimately however they collectively create a large L-shaped extension range to the house.
It may be that parts of the L-shaped south eastern range were designed by Hanson as part of an ongoing design role at the site, recognising that some design details found in these ranges are consistent with those of the Chapel, notably the round-headed windows, evidence on this is not as yet conclusive however.
A rather pastoral 19th century image of Beaumont Lodge, with pupils of the College shown punting on the lake in the foreground
The collection of modest buildings found between the Chapel and the L-shaped range appear on mapping from the 1870s and comprised the service ranges of the School: laundry, kitchens, carriage-house and stores. The buildings on the east and west sides of the service courtyard appear on maps first with the Chapel being a separate, near stand-alone structure at this date. The modest brick service buildings had a grandiose classical stucco fa ade to the west, presenting an architecturally polite frontage to the main driveway approach to the 18th century Lodge. The Wessex Wing, a substantial three storey brick range located to the south of the earlier 19th century wings, first appears on maps in the dying years of the century.
Map 1896
Map 1899
The construction of the Wessex Wing, sometime between 1896 and 1899, necessitated the demolition of the two large glasshouses which had historically occupied this part of the site. The landscape and pathways in this part of the site were also redesigned to respond to the new Wessex Wing extension
The 1896-1899 period saw further notable extensions added along the east elevation of the College, with the space between the Chapel and the service courtyard also being infilled at this time.
National guidance identifies four features of value which may be embodied by a heritage asset: architectural; historical; evidential; and communal value. Beaumont Estate is considered to have the following heritage values/significance:
Historical The Estate has associations with a number of historical figures and institutions of interest, including the Lords Weymouth, the architects James Gibbs and Henry Emlyn, and the Society of Jesus;
Architectural The Beaumont Estate is made up of a series of development phases, each element of which has its own architectural character and level of significance:
The 18th century White House is considered the most architecturally significant part of the Estate, being a high quality example of classical country house design in this period, designed by one of Britain s most important architects. Executed with exceptional craftsmanship and detailing, which is in some cases unique (eg. the Britannic Order), this range is considered to be of high architectural significance.
The 19th century ranges, constructed over two phases in the 1870s and 1890s, transformed the site from a classical mansion set within parkland, into a substantial and sprawling built complex, whose architectural character was now more institutional. The 19th century extensions formerly accommodated a mix of classrooms, dormitories, school halls and service functions. The appearance of these buildings is as a result a mix of fairly standardised institutional brick buildings with a regular arrangement of sash windows and limited decorative detailing, and accent pavilion-type buildings characterised by ornate door cases and interesting roof profiles with tall chimneys. The 19th century ranges are considered to be of moderate architectural significance.
The remainder of the Beaumont Estate is made up of late 20th and 21st century buildings, typically of a pastiche traditional appearance. These buildings are not considered to have special architectural significance.
URQUHART Connections.
I m not certain why I often find Beaumont connections in the pages of Country Life. In one recent edition my attention was drawn to a visit made to the ghostly ruins of Urquhart Castle that sits beside Loch Ness. Francis Fortescue Urquhart of Braelangwell (86) was the 25th Clan Chief but is best remembered as the first Catholic Don at Oxford since the Reformation. Balliol college history puts it "he made no direct contribution of his own to historical scholarship". However, his legacy to the social History of the College and Oxford was considerable through his eleven photo albums of his life and times held in the Balliol archives.
More of this in a moment, but to start with Francis s background was somewhat extraordinary. On a plateau on the Prarion, one of the western foothills of Mont Blanc, there is a large, traditional wooden chalet set among larch trees, where summer walking and reading parties have been held since 1891.
The Chalet des Mélèzes, or Chalet des Anglais as it is now invariably known, was built in 1865 by Francis s father David Urquhart, a self-styled Victorian mover and shaker. Among his eccentricities was his belief that the human brain functioned better at low oxygen pressure, so when he moved to Switzerland in 1864 he resolved to construct a summer home above 5,000ft. Francis, was born in St Gervais les Bains, the town in the valley below the chalet in 1868, and spent his childhood summers there. His mother was Harriet Angelina Fortescue (1825 1889) a British writer on international affairs who came from an influential Irish family. She had married David Urquhart (1 July 1805 16 May 1877) a Scottish diplomat, writer and politician serving as a Member of Parliament for Stafford from 1847 to 1852. He also was an early promoter in the United Kingdom of the hammam (known to us as the "Turkish bath") which he came across in Morocco and Turkey.
Harriet s elder brother was Chichester Samuel Parkinson-Fortescue, 2nd Baron Clermont and 1st Baron Carlingford KP PC (18 January 1823 30 January 1898), a British Liberal politician serving Gladstone as Lord President of The Council and President of The Board of Trade. He married Frances, Countess of Waldegrave who had already been married a couple of times before. They had no children His elder brother was the 1st Lord Clermont a whig politician raised to the peerage. He was married to Lady Louisa Butler daughter of the Marquis of Ormonde but like his brother the marriage was childless and the title was inherited for a short duration by his brother Chichester before both titles became extinct without male heirs on his death.
When Francis s father died in 1877 he was only 7 and he then spent his formative years, not so much, with his mother but with his Uncle Chichester (Lord Carlingford) and it was he who sent Francis to Beaumont in 1881. (I don t think his father would have approved in view of his beliefs on oxygen levels with brain function). Francis left Old Windsor in 1886 for the philosophy course at Stonyhurst before gaining his History Exhibition to Baliol a couple of years later. It was at Oxford that he earned his nickname of Sligger . It is not clear when his love of photography started but it seems to have been a life-long hobby. The following article was published a few years ago.
Francis Fortescue Urquhart: Oxford Tutor and Amateur Photographer
by Sophie Lealan (Oriel College).
Francis Fortescue Urquhart: Oxford Tutor and Amateur Photographer
Life in Oxford during the First World War is presented to us vividly in Francis Fortescue Urquhart s eleven photograph albums, currently held in the archives of Balliol College. Covering the tumultuous period of 1914 to 1918, the seventh of these volumes begins with partying students and ends with uniformed soldiers. As part of the Oxford University Internship Programme I have been researching what this album can tell us about Balliol College and its students during wartime, and these will be the subjects of upcoming posts. Firstly, I looked at how Urquhart used his photographs to record and even constitute his role as an Oxford tutor.
Oxford, Balliol College Archives.
As was expected of a tutor during this period, Urquhart (nicknamed Sligger ) lived in college as a bachelor from his appointment in 1896 until his death in 1934, and dedicated his time to educating rather than researching. Indeed, he is often described as academically unremarkable but well-liked by his students, many of whom would gather in his rooms to talk late into the night. Although some, including Evelyn Waugh, criticised Urquhart for only associating with a particular type ( old Etonians), he became a friend to many students. Evidence of such close relationships can be seen in his numerous photographs of picnics, walks and days out on the river with the young men of the college. Photographs also show Urquhart s visits to students homes and former schools during the vacations, and even travelling as far as Italy with them.
Perhaps most indicative of the close, informal relationship between Urquhart and his students is the fact that he photographed them while participating in their social activities, not while merely observing them. Many images have been taken from within rowing boats and punts, including a series of three pictures which were clearly taken while Urquhart and two students passed the camera between them to take pictures of each other. He is frequently pictured sitting on the grass with students, and the low perspective in many of his own photographs indicates that Urquhart had placed his camera on the grass or on his lap while sitting down with those he was photographing.
This album also tells us about his more staged photographs. One image appears to show Urquhart in the act of taking a portrait. He is holding an object, possibly a box camera, in his hands and pointing it at a man in uniform, who poses next to a column that reappears in many of Urquhart s portraits. This picture could indicate that Urquhart s habit of photographing students had itself become a college institution worthy of being recorded. We can see another example of cameras being used in a photograph of two men in a punt, one of whom has a folding camera beside him.
Urquhart s collection of photographs was notable within the college. The walls and mantelpiece of his rooms were filled with photographs of friends, and large albums sat on top of his bookcase. Having one s picture taken by Urquhart and displayed in his rooms must have further strengthened the personal relationships between himself and his students. It is also likely that these photographs took on a particular significance during the war, as many of the young men pictured were enlisted. In an image of Maurice Jacks and his brothers, several of the portraits included in Urquhart s 1914-1918 album can be seen sitting in frames on the mantelpiece, including an image of Neville Talbot and Stephen Hewett. The latter had died by the time this photograph of Jacks was taken, and so the framed portrait of him acted a memento of someone who was no longer present, as indeed the whole album does today.
Oxford, Balliol College Archives,
Urquhart s photograph album of 1914-1918 narrates, in hundreds of small, sepia images, the transformation of Balliol College from a site of parties and fancy dress to one of officer training and uniforms. However, amidst these dramatic developments many of the traditions and rituals of college life proved resilient.
Oxford, Balliol College Archives.
The summer of 1914 has often been described as a Golden Summer , and Urquhart s photographs appear to testify to this. Students are shown punting and picnicking around Oxford, dressed in black tie for Eric Lubbock s Twentyfirster , or having tea in the college gardens while dressed in kimonos. Of course, these were only the occasions to which Urquhart was invited, or of which he had a photograph, but they illustrate the light-hearted atmosphere of the summer.
Oxford, Balliol College Archives,
As the album progresses to Michaelmas 1914 students still smile and appear relaxed for Urquhart s camera, only now they are dressed in army uniforms. Meyrick Carr is just one of the dozens of Balliol students Urquhart photographed in their new military outfits. In his portrait we can see a pile of dirty dishes on the ground, just within the entrance to staircase eighteen.
Like its students, the college took on new roles during the war. Balliol became a base for officer training programmes, and many of the resident cadets were captured by Urquhart s camera. In one image we see a queue of men in uniform, each holding a mug as they line up the stairs for hall. Another photograph shows a distant view of a soldier standing beside a blackboard, addressing a group of soldiers who are gathered around him in a semi-circle on the college grounds. Balliol was not the only college to become a form of army barracks and several others became hospitals for wounded soldiers. Indeed, the war affected the whole of Oxford, as Urquhart documented in a view of soldiers standing in formation across Christ Church Meadow.
Of course, the buildings of Balliol College stayed the same, and much of its architecture remained a constant feature of Urquhart s photographs. Subjects frequently sit on the walls of the Fellows Gardens, first as students and then as soldiers. Such images indicate a sense of continuity; whatever events might be happening in the world, the ritual of Urquhart taking one s photograph in this spot was constant. Signs of college life continuing amidst the upheavals of war are also evident in details such as the rowing crest chalked on the wall behind two students.
The ways in which students spent their free time was also affected by the war. With fewer students, sports continued at a greatly reduced level. Images of young men playing tennis and cricket or rowing in Torpids open the album but, after war breaks out, such images almost disappear. However, the cadets at Balliol also became involved in sports, as can be seen in several of Urquhart s photographs. One image shows Officer Cadet Battalions playing a game of rugby, whilst another image appears to show a tug of war between trainee officers.
Although visits to Urquhart s chalet in the French Alps were suspended, other aspects of college life continued in various forms. Punting reappears frequently throughout the album, but one can imagine that such activities took on quite different meanings for students returning from the trenches. Tea in the college gardens is also a common subject throughout the war years, including one image in which a uniformed student appears with his arm in a sling. Urquhart also photographed several students wearing graduation robes and hoods over their army uniform, one of the aspects of Oxford life that was modified but not ended by the war.
Francis Fortescue Urquhart s portraits of the various people housed by Balliol College during World War One record fragments of lives that sometimes went on to meet great success, but often were cut tragically short.
Urquhart was also able to capture the interactions and relationships between students. For example, one photograph shows Arthur Wiggin and future Prime Minister Harold Macmillan posing in their new officer uniforms. The sense of playfulness is continued in Urquhart s use of the camera, overlaying two portraits on top of each other as a double exposure.
Macmillan, of course, became a prominent politician, but many other subjects of Urquhart s photographs did not fare so well. Ronald Glover, for example, was killed at Ypres in 1917. He first appears in Urquhart s album posing in the snow-covered college grounds, and then sitting cheerfully on the wall of the Fellows Garden in his officer s uniform. Glover is one of the many students Urquhart documented before they left to fight and never returned.
Oxford, Balliol College Archives,
Whilst, as an amateur photographer, Urquhart s photographs sometimes lack in technical skill, they make up for this with the informal insights they offer into the lives of students. His portraits often show an intimate view of these young men, quietly studying or posing for his camera. One photograph depicts student Geoffrey Madan looking out of a window while sitting in Urquhart s room. The sheets of paper beside him, perhaps an essay, suggest that this picture might have been taken during a tutorial with Urquhart. Other photographs in the album show students sitting in this same window seat or on Urquhart s sofa with a book on their lap.
Oxford, Balliol College Archives.
In some cases, Urquhart had a direct influence on students military careers. Hardit Singh Malik was one such student. Initially rejected by the British air force because of his Indian origins, it was due to Urquhart s intervention that he was allowed to fly during the war. Indeed, Malik can be seen proudly wearing his R.A.F. uniform in several of Urquhart s photographs.
Urquhart s album tells us much about the man who took and collected these photographs. Whilst his images undoubtedly act as documents of the changing times he lived through, they are also records of who Urquhart spent his time with, how he spent this time, and which fragments of these events and people he wanted to keep in his album. My research has only been able to scratch the surface of what Urquhart s photographs can tell us about him, and about this period in Oxford s history, and I hope that future scholars will be able to pick up some of the threads I have introduced here.
The MALLORY of Everest fame connection.
Harking back to his birth place, Francis s father had long been dead and the family were making little use of the chalet. So, at the end of his first academic year at Balliol, Francis invited a group of university friends to stay there, beginning the tradition of summer reading parties from Oxford, which has continued to this day, save for the interruption of two world wars.
As the keen amateur photographer, he recorded particular his travels in France and his activities at the chalet. These photographs were preserved chronologically in albums, each carefully labelled with the date and place and usually also identifying the individuals who were shown. Study of them has uncovered a close friendship between Sligger and Everest pioneer George Mallory which has not previously been documented.
Mallory with pipe.
Mallory s first appearance in Sligger s albums occurs in a set of four photographs taken on May Day 1911 which show Mallory rowing on the Thames with Sligger and contemporaries from Balliol. Mallory was a keen oarsman, having captained the boat for his Cambridge college, Magdalene, so it was natural that, on what is presumed to have been Mallory s first visit to Oxford, Sligger should give him a taste of rowing there. Three shots show him in a static boat; the last is the only action shot of Mallory rowing that has ever come to light.
In the autumn of 1910, Mallory was appointed a teacher at Charterhouse, where one of his responsibilities was to teach history to boys preparing for scholarships. Sligger was history tutor at Balliol and it is likely Mallory was in contact with him to further his pupils chances of entering Oxford. An introduction may well have been provided by Mallory s Charterhouse colleague Frank Fletcher, a close friend of Sligger, who went on to become headmaster in 1911.
Although Mallory had other links with Oxford he visited the university mountaineering club in 1912 his next appearance in Sligger s records is the album entry for 1913, where a single photo shows him sitting in wistful mood in the bay window of Sligger s room in Balliol: see illustration. Among Sligger s shots, this is the strongest suggesting Mallory s fondness for being photographed and his readiness to play to the camera, seen later in photographs taken by his Everest colleagues.
There is confirmation of his visit in David Pye s 1927 memoir of Mallory. Pye records that after two years at Charterhouse, some time in 1913, Mallory wrote to an unidentified recipient reporting that he had recently spent five days in Oxford where Sligger had advised him to consider becoming a don. Sligger told Mallory that vacancies were arising from the departure of other history tutors but Mallory felt his position at Charterhouse suited him best.
The final set of Sligger s photographs dates from 1915 and records a visit to George and Ruth Mallory at their home The Holt in Godalming, a mile or so from Charterhouse, between 3 and 5 July. One of these, showing Mallory sitting on the loggia of the house, with the spires of Charterhouse in the background, has been widely published.
Their relationship was one genuine friendship, and Sligger, was generous in supporting those who became his friends. He was also an assiduous correspondent and maintained exchanges of letters with Mallory over the years.
EVEREST
Everest 1922: Mallory seated front first left. Strutt seated front black hat
Mallory honed his mountaineering skills in the Alps and it was here that he got to know the other members of the 1922 Everest Expedition of which Edward Strutt (91) was the climb leader . The expedition had to be called off after three attempts had been made. They were almost there on the second attempt and the third ended in disaster when an avalanche was triggered resulting in the death of 7 sherpas. Also on that expedition was John Noel the expedition photographer. John had been educated in Switzerland but his father Colonel the Hon Edward Noel, the younger son of the 2nd Earl of Gainsborough was one of the early boys at Beaumont leaving in 1866.
Mallory disappeared on the 1924 Expedition leaving behind the debate as to whether he made the summit or not; his body discovered in 1999
LEST WE FORGET
From The Irish Times April 2005
April 1945 was one of the turning points in the history of mankind's understanding of itself. That we are a despicable species has been known since Eden; no race anywhere is without a myth about a golden time before the Fall, for Fallen we certainly are. But our understanding of the scope of evil, and its spectacular depravity, could only be understood when unmitigated evil had its unmitigated way.
It had its way in Bergen-Belsen, liberated by British soldiers on a Sunday morning 60 years ago today. Two days later US troops liberated Buchenwald. On Thursday, April 19th, Churchill told a shocked House of Commons what allied soldiers had found. That night, government censors sitting in the three main newspaper offices in Dublin removed all references to Churchill's speech and the concentration camps from the next morning's editions.
Eleven days later, Hitler killed himself; and soon afterwards Eamon de Valera, though fully aware of what allied troops had found at Belsen and Buchenwald, offered his condolences to the German legate, Herr Hempel. A few days earlier, Brigadier Jerry Sheil DSO and Bar, from Co Meath, had been killed by a landmine in the Reichswald Forest. Government censors in The Irish Times duly removed from his death notice all reference to the fact that this Irishman, who had freely gone to fight tyranny, was a British soldier who had served in North Africa, Sicily, Normandy, Belgium and Germany. Instead, that past was utterly elided.
By this time, the world was learning a vocabulary of purest wickedness: Ravensbruck, Flossenberg, Sachsenhausen, Mauthausen, Belzec, Sobibor, Theresienstadt, Auschwitz and Dachau, each worse than the other. But Dachau was special unto itself. It was the first true concentration camp, and its slogan was uplifting and magnificent: "There is only one Road to Freedom and its Milestones are Obedience, Zeal, Honesty, Order, Cleanliness, Temperance, Truth, Sense of Sacrifice and Love of Fatherland"
It was opened on March 20th, 1933, seven weeks after Hitler came to power, and from its earliest days, its Nazi commandants behaved with unspeakable savagery. Its inhabitants wore coloured triangles to identify them by their taint: red for political offenders, green for "criminals", pink for homosexuals, brown for gypsies, and a yellow Star of David for Jews. Dachau thus became the template from which were shaped hundreds of other camps across the Reich.
Dachau was not an extermination camp, but a work camp: people were usually worked to death, not murdered, though of course many were. It was here SS doctor and homicidal quack Sigmund Rash experimented on prisoners, exploring the consequences of immersing them in liquid oxygen. And each camp produced its own variant of the Dachau franchise. At Matthausen in Austria, the SS had the "Staircase of Death", a 45-degree slope up which long columns of prisoners five wide were made to carry lumps of granite in hods on their back. Over the years, thousands perished on those evil steps, flogged to death or shot or crushed by toppling boulders from above.
It was in this camp in September 1944 that 47 captured allied airman were formally sentenced to the worst punishment of all in the Third Reich: to be deliberately worked to death. It was here also that the last commandant, SS-Oberststurmbannfuhrer Zieries, gave his son 50 Jews for target practice.
Dachau's inmates included tens of thousands of Spanish republicans who had fled to France at the end of the Spanish Civil War, and who were rounded up after the Nazi victory in 1940; only 3,000 were still alive in January 1945 and of these, 2,163 were killed over the coming months.
Such splendid detail! But of course, keeping meticulous records was something the Nazis did so well: Matthausen, for example, had 36,318 executions, and in Buchenwald, 8,483 Soviet prisoners were murdered by being shot in the back of the neck (which was indeed the preferred method of the NKVD at home, and which it had employed on the thousands of Polish officers at Katyn).
When US soldiers of the 45th Infantry Division liberated Dachau, they were confronted by the naked bodies of tens of thousands of dead and dying prisoners, and by the sight of the camp guards surrendering under a white flag. Forty guards were promptly bludgeoned to death by prisoners and 122 were shot out of hand by GIs.
The surviving 346 SS men were then lined up against a wall and systematically machine-gunned to death, while Technician Fourth Class Arland Musser photographed the entire affair.
Later, the US Army court-martialled eight officers and NCOs for their role in the killings. When General Patton, Military Governor of Bavaria, heard about the forthcoming courts martial, he sent for all the prosecution documentation and photographs and burnt the lot in his waste paper basket. The accused men all walked free.
If you think there is rough justice of a sort here, you are wrong. Most of the SS guards who were murdered were newly arrived conscripts, while many of the worst and most brutal villains had already escaped. Thirty-six of these were later sentenced to death, but because of the massacre of guards, all sentences were commuted.
Dachau in due course was owned by the Bavarian Interior Ministry for use as a police barracks. It was from here in 1972, during the Munich Olympics, that the German police launched their abortive operation to free the Israeli Olympics team captured by PLO terrorists, and during which nine of the athletes were killed: 27 years on, Dachau's final Jewish victims.
THE DIXONS
Oliver Dixon who was to send his sons to Beaumont was born on the 29th June 1869. He was the second son of Thomas Dixon and Ellen Staunton of Maltpool, Claremorris. The Dixon family had been connected with the horse business for generations. Even when he was very young he had a great interest in horses he rode his first winner in Ballindine when he was just eight and half years.
When Oliver was about fifteen his talent for judging a horse was spotted by Michael Donovan, a horse dealer who used to buy horses from his father. Michael originally from Cork brought him to England to work at his establishment in Reading. By the age of twenty-one he was foreman of his Michael Donovan s yard. They used to import 500-600 horses from Ireland annually at that time. In 1891 he married Michael Donovan s sister-in-law, a Lucy Connett from Shute in Devon, and got a share in the business. Shortly afterwards Michael Donovan died and he acquired the whole organisation.
Acknowledged as one of the finest judges of horses in his day, coupled with sheer hard work, he rapidly expanded the business. He moved the establishment to a site off the Wokingham Rd. outside Reading. His home Mockbeggar Whiteknights Road was adjacent to the yard. Oliver Dixon was a prominent horseman in England and won many prizes as a show-jumper rider. He judged the Hunter Classes at many of the big agricultural shows in the country.
In 1887 he was very successful with a pony called The Rabbit . He also rode Point-to-Point and Steeplechase with great success. His best known mounts were Bunthorone , Cusholoe , Mavouriline , Tatcho , and First . But his best horse was probably Master Rayston who won three point-to -point in one week. He used to ride most of his own horses.
In 1903 in the Open Race at Staff College Point-to-point and Steeple Chase meeting there were 20 starters of which five belonged to Oliver and they took the first five places. He had a magnificent selection of trophies. He won more than 30 cups at point-to-point meetings and a much greater number at shows in various parts of England. He attended the Dublin Horse Show as a buyer and bought several horses. One of his favourite purchases was Bubbles after it won the Dublin championship several years running. This horse was 22 years old when it died in 1933.
At the start of the First World War he supplied chargers to the War Office, later he supplied cavalry horses to the army.
Mr. Dixon sold horses to numerous well known stable owners throughout England and on the Continent. One of his most illustrious sales was made to the Queen of Spain who paid him a visit on the 19th November 1920. He also sold horses to the Crown Prince of Germany, the Duke of Windsor and Mussolini.
His Family
Young Oliver (06)
Oliver had three sons and one daughter, his oldest son Oliver Howard Dixon ( 06) inherited all his father s love of horsemanship. He won several open races on a horse called Alberta 11 with his father coming second on the horse Hop Rob.Oliver
His second son Thomas Joseph Dixon (06) rode several winners. He won the Sir Robert Wilmount Cup at East Becks Horse Show for the best rider under fifteen years for two years in succession. He went on to the Royal Veterinary College. A keen sportsman and follower of hounds, he enlisted in the Yeomanry and was mobilised in August 1914. In January 1915 the Yeomanry embarked for service in Egypt where it was absorbed into the Yeomanry Mounted Brigade.
As a fighting unit, they first saw action at Gallipoli, where they acted as dismounted Cavalry through the majority of the campaign. Remaining in theatre until the withdrawal of British and Commonwealth Forces, they returned to Egypt in December of 1915, having suffered significant numbers of casualties.
In 1916 the Hertfordshire Yeomanry was split up into its constituent Squadrons. Thomas with 'B Squadron' would return to the UK with the 11th Division. But he came home with pleurisy and tuberculosis from which he died 24 Nov. 1917 aged 23.
Returning to Oliver (senior) after his wife died his niece, Kathleen Dixon took charge of his house. Oliver died suddenly on the 2nd April 1939 at his residence Mockbeggar at the age of 69 years. He had attended at Aldershot point-to-point meeting the previous day where three of his horses won. His requiem mass was held at St. James Church in Reading. The large congregation were well represented by dignitaries of church and state, royal personages and military personnel.
His obituary in The Sporting Life (3rd April 1939) said No man had more friends and it can be truly said that he never lost one . He was a devoted Roman Catholic all his life and he maintained a Chapel in his residence. His generosity was legendary and he supported the local churches and many charities. He never forgot his roots and he had a deep lasting love for Claremorris, his home town. He donated the Oliver Dixon Gold Cup to the Claremorris Show in 1927 and it was valued at 16,000 in 1984 (present day value 80,000 euro). It is something that his relatives and community will always cherish in that area. Five months after his death World War II erupted and his establishment was acquired by the military.
The expert horsemanship continues among Oliver s relatives. His grand-nephew, Cormac Hanley runs Claremorris Equitation Centre and Cormac s son, Cameron Hanley is an international show-jumper who has represented Ireland on many occasions. Another son Carl Hanley has a Riding School in Dusseldorf.
Oliver s nephew Pat Dixon renowned US horseman dominated the open jumper division for three decades in America. His equestrian career was multifaceted. Although he was mostly known for his extraordinary skills in show jumping, he had hunted in Ireland, England and the United States; he rode point-to-point races; he trained horses for side saddle; he broke polo ponies and he drove four-in hand coaches.
Pat was idolized by child riders and was equally respected by his peers both in the United States as well as abroad. Pat s skill, determination and patience allowed him to leave a mark on the Show Jumping World as a Master of the Sport and an asset to the entire horse industry.
BIBA (Revisited)
An article appeared in Country Life ( where else) to coincide with an Exhibition at The Fashion &Textile Museum running until September 8th. Although it mainly concerns Barbara Hulanicki mention is made of her husband Stephen Fitz-Simon (54).
Twiggy wears BIBA 196
GISS - GOSS
GISS GOSS is THE REVIEW gossip column with tittle-tattle gleaned from various sources.
Flogging his wares
I noticed that Tony Outred had a stand at Treasure House Art and Antique fair in London with several full page adverts in Country Life. Tony tells me that they all sold: probably explains the new limo . He also received a write up in the magazine.
Gone before us.
A few memories .
Paul Burrough
There was a good turnout for Paul Burrough s requiem at Our Lady of Lourdes Hungerford on the 14th June: A church which Paul had brought to fruition.
Among the OB s present were Richard Ruane ( Captain of Boats 60), Charlie Poels ( 1st VIII 61) , Richard Sheehan ( Captain of Boxing 63), Tim Fitzgerald-O Connor (3rd VIII Stroke 60), Roger Darby ( Bow 2nd VIII 62) . Robert Wilkinson ( Captain 2nd VIII 62). Also, Sara Covernton, widow of Patrick (1st VIII 62).
Anthony Newling-Ward
Remembered as Tigger by his contempories and one of three Waddling-Nudes at the school . Chris Tailby sent through a photo from one of the last or possibly the last Senior Scouts time at Kandersteg. Tony is seen here with Fr Brogan and Bruce Geddes.
Bill Gammell
Bills funeral was at the Convent at Mayfield where many OB sisters and wives spent their early years. The Chapel was full of of Feltmakers, Catenians, Friends and a good contingent of OBs to include the Outreds, Burgesses, Floods, Bill s brother in law Ian MacGregor, Duncan Grant and the Editor. There were many others who would like to have been there but couldn t make it.
The youthful would be musician and the silver fox of later years
Barnaby Capel- Dunn.
I was in the same year as Barnaby but never got to know him well. He was in the A stream as opposed to myself in the B and played cricket rather than rowed. He was in the XI for two years as a bowler but never truly found his form. It seems that as a talented linguist he moved to France as a translator and settled in the Burgundy region.
Although we never met since school, we at last had something more in common a love of France and Barnaby lived in one of the great gastronomic areas. Not only the wine but poulet de Bresse and Comte chesse. I also note that he was a Director of Caspian Sea Caviar . As they say what is there not to like .
Barnaby was the son of Denis (21) and he spent a great deal of time defending his father s reputation. Denis was the Secretary of the Joint Services Intelligence Committee during the War and had considerable influence particularly in the Conferences such as Yalta. At the War s end he produced the report for the Future of Intelligence and its organisation and implementation which is still relevant today. He was then sent to San Francisco to start drafting the Charter for The United Nations. He was killed in a plane crash returning in September 1945. It was unfortunate that Denis had sacked Anthony Powell who had been attached to his staff in 1943. Powell took his revenge when writing A Dance to The Music of Time by lampooning Denis as Widmerpool fat, boring and displaying many of the worst traits of the British character. An easy target when you are dead.
END OF AN ERA
Cropredy the one time family home and racehorse trainer John Webber (42) is on the market. a man that represented the best traditions of steeplechasing and foxhunting as breeder, owner, trainer and amateur rider. He was remembered for his many quotes including; It s hard enough to win any race. My owners are my friends and, if they win at Towcester, they d be thrilled to bits to be given a rosette. Among those friends were members of the BU who had their horses with John. With the closure of Beaumont, his two boys went to Eton and both rode as successful Jockeys. Paul the elder, who inherited Cropredy also trained successfully from there, but has now decided to retire hence the sale. Seeing him at the races, he told me it s going to be a real wrench.
Tony O Reilly
Ever since 1953 the discussion has gone on as to who did or did not fail to tackle Tony O Reilly while he was at Belvedere. The great Irish and Lions player of the 1950s through to 1970 who still holds the record for the number of tries for a Lion s player. In the early 50s Tours of Ireland were a bi-annual event with return visits in the intervening year. The problem of dealing with O Reilly playing at centre was much discussed by Dinwiddy and the team. Only two members of those XV s remain Brian Arthur and Mark Embry and O Reilly died this May. It is worth noting that when Belvedere came over in December 1952 the Irish Ambassador Frederick Boland came down for the match and the teams presented. Boland (Clongowes) was later Irish Ambassador to the UN and held the Presidency when Nikita Khrsushchev took off his shoe and pounded the desk.
High Court ex-senior vice president slams Lord Sumption's op-ed piece as 'self-contradiction .
Our man in Hong Kong Anthony Rogers (64) has been in the news
From The Standard Hong Kong.
18th June 2024
The former Senior Vice Pres id ent of the Court of Appeal Anthony Rogers expressed his regret over an opinion piece written by Lord Jonathan Sumption - a British judge who recently resigned from the city's top court saying the rule of law in Hong Kong is in grave danger.
In a letter published in the Financial Times on Tuesday (Jun 18), titled "'Regrettable transgression' in judge's Hong Kong exit", Rogers said it is regrettable "a former member of the highest courts in England and Wales, and Hong Kong, should transgress the principle that comments should not be made about legal proceedings while they are still active."
He noted that the op-ed of Lord Sumption is "vulnerable to further criticism in confusing the correctness of the decision with his personal dislike of the relevant legislation."
Rogers continued slamming Sumption's article, saying that "the logic behind the opinion breaks down on analysis into self-contradiction."
He stated that a judge resigning rather than administering a law that is considered unjust "is right and proper", but those who administer that law "do not commit a breach of the rule of law."
Rogers was called to the English Bar in 1969 and was appointed Queen's Counsel in 1984. He had been in private practice in Hong Kong from 1976 until 1993.
Rogers joined the Hong Kong Judiciary as Judge of the High Court in 1993, and was appointed Justice of Appeal in 1997. He was appointed as Vice-President of the Court of Appeal of the High Court in 2000 and retired after serving the post for 11 years.
A BOY NAMED ROBERTSON
In the Beaumont lists there is a simple entry: Francis Cunningham Robertson 1879-88. Nothing further about his life until I received this article from a great- grand-son John Melville Smith. Robertson s only claim to fame was that he was one of the boys to present a bouquet of flowers to Queen Victoria on her fist visit. Why Francis was chosen is unknown. Unlike the others The Wood brothers were sons of Field Marshall Sir Evelyn and Frederick Fane, son of Admiral Sir Charles, GS of General Sir Henry and a nephew of the Queen s Lady in Waiting. Francis was from an ordinary background of no consequence. His life seemed to follow a similar pattern but for those interested in family histories, it is a tale worth recounting.
Francis Cunningham Robertson
By John Melville Smith.
Francis was born on 5 July 1871 in Kensington, the first-born of George Francis Robertson and Susan Elizabeth New. The 1881 census confirms that he was educated at Beaumont (and possibly subsequently at Stonyhurst) and Ann recalls being told that, while he was attending the former, Queen Victoria paid a visit to the school on what, records suggest, was probably Thursday 9 March 1882 . Francis had been selected to present her with a bouquet of flowers, from among the line of young boys lined up to greet her. As the Queen s lady-in- waiting stepped forward to receive the bouquet on behalf of the Queen, Francis is said to have refused to hand the bouquet over with the words: "They are not for you, they are for your mother."
Francis s lifelong career was in banking. By 1891, aged 19, he was living with his parents in Charlton, London and employed as a bank clerk. Sometime between then and 1894 he moved to Cambridge where he remained employed as a bank clerk at the date of his marriage to Blanche.
Francis Robertson Blanche Mary Lambert
Blanche was born on 8 November 1868 in Romford, the first born of five children of her parents, Francis and Josephine Lambert. Her mother died tragically young at 29, leaving her father to bring up five children aged from 10 months to 6 years as well as to progress what was clearly an increasingly successful career with the Inland Revenue which culminated in him being appointed the Chief Inspector of Taxes.
By 1881, the family had moved to Maidstone in Kent and by 1891 to Croydon9, Surrey.
1894 and thereafter.
Francis and Blanche married on 11 October 1894, in Cambridge, where Francis was living at the time. They do not seem to have lived there however, or at least not for long, and appear to have settled first in Lewisham, then Streatham where they remained in 1901, at the time of the census of that year. Francis appears not yet to have progressed much professionally, still being recorded as a humble bank clerk.
The couple had five children; in true Catholic tradition all four daughters bore the name Mary as one of their Christian names: Mary Winifrede, Mary Josephine Magda, John Francis Mortimer, Mary Angela and finally my grandmother, Monica Mary Dolores. Monica was born at St Winefride s in Heene Road, Worthing The road is pictured above in 1907 and the house, the number of which is unknown, was very probably named after their first- born daughter. By 1911, the family had moved to Sittingbourne in Kent and were living at Swanstree Lodge, pictured left as it appears today. The census records both Francis and Blanche as bank clerks and the family had a live-in general servant.
The 1921 census places the family in Banbury, and Francis as the manager of the town s branch of the London County Westminster & Parr s Bank , pictured right. It is clear that they occupied premises over the bank itself as Francis s place of work is recorded as being at home .
Daughters Mary Josephine and Mary Angela are recorded as living at home and presumably Monica was away at school on census day. It appears that the building was always a bank it certainly has that appearance - and remained one until very recently.
It is not known precisely when, but probably around 1928-1929, Francis left Blanche, seemingly for another woman following a work affair. Given both the norms of the time and the fact that both were from devout Catholic families, this would have been seen by everyone as a scandalous event and certainly I recall neither Granny Monica, nor Angela, nor even my own mother speaking of it and there is no evidence of a formal divorce having taken place. In any event, the 1929 electoral register places Francis in Harrow, living with Isabel Grace Morant, and the 1935 telephone book has Blanche living, apparently alone, in West Kensington . By the outbreak of the second world war, Francis described as a retired bank manager - was living in Ruislip, still with Isabel Morant, herself referred to, significantly, as a retired bank clerk. It therefore appears probable that they met through work and had an affair. In any event, by 1939 Blanche was living with her daughter, Angela, in Fulham.
Despite this, Ann understands that her grandfather remained very fond of his wife and used to go to see her once a week and take her flowers. For whatever reason, they just could not live together.
Nobody alive today remembers Francis Ann was 5 when he died but she is aware that he kept whippets, as evidenced by the photograph above right. He also appears to have been an avid reader, since two of the three photographs we have of him involve him reading a book.
Francis died in 1948 and his estate for probate totalled a paltry 213 . Quite why his estate was so small is unexplained but in any event, by a simple handwritten will, he left it entirely to his daughter Angela, on the face of it excluding his wife, Mrs Morant and his four other living children; recalling Angela as I do, it is likely that she was tasked by agreement with distributing the estate on a more equitable basis. Blanche died in 19624 and is buried in Brighton. Francis is buried alone in Hanwell Cemetery, a few minutes walk from my current home.
Francis and Blanche s children
Francis and Blanche s marriage produced five children:
Mary Winifrede Alix, the eldest, was known as Winnie, She was born in 1895 and educated at the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Roehampton. She married Robert Stanley Walters, a survivor of the first world war, in January 1919 and the couple settled in Brentford, West London. They had two children: Joan Mary Cecelia Walters, born in November 1919 and Robert. By 1935, the family had moved slightly north to Ealing . Mary died on 21 August 1973 and her husband, Robert, the following year . Joan married Peter Sands just after the second world war and the couple had one son, Michael. Robert married Sheila and they had two children: Diana, now deceased, and Ian, currently living in a care home in Wimbledon.
Mary (Molly)
Mary Josephine Magda Molly, as she was known in the family - was born in 1891 and like her older sister educated at the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Roehampton.
She married Hubert Algernon Walters, Robert s brother and therefore her brother-in-law, in September 1921 and also had one child, a son, Peter, born in 1923 who became a doctor.
Algernon (as he was known) died in 1964 and Mary herself died in 1984 . Son, Peter, married Anna Frances Morris, known as Frankie, and they had two sons: David and Nicholas.
John Francis Mortimer the only son was born in 1901 . He was educated at Downside between circa 1907 and 1917, where be clearly took an early interest in the navy which was to become his lifetime s career. He became a midshipman while at school (pictured right) and went on to complete his naval training at the Royal Naval College .
It seems that John joined the navy in time to serve at the Battle of Jutland and by 1921 he held the rank of Sub-Lieutenant. In around 1925, he joined the RAF temporarily in order to train as a flying officer, which he did successfully, being pictured overleaf just after take-off from an unidentified British aircraft carrier.
John reached the rank of Commander as a pilot in the Fleet Air Arm and flew out of airports including Malta, Kai Tak (the old Hong Kong airport), Colombo (Sri Lanka), Singapore and Bangkok and from
British carriers HMS Furious, HMS Hermes and HMS Eagle. Aircraft he flew included the Avro 504K, Snipe, DH 9A and Acro Lynx.
In July 1930, John married Miriam Helen Patricia Moore whom he had met in Malta while she was both visiting family and, it is said, searching for a husband. The marriage produced one child, a son, Ian but was otherwise not a success and they later separated. By 1947, John was living with Irene Phyllis Wilder - known as Renée - who in that year changed her name by deed poll to Robertson and they remained together until his death in 1973, albeit that John was married to Miriam throughout. Miriam refused to agree to a divorce by reason of her Catholicism and is said to have frequently commented, rather caustically, that the Robertson men are more faithful to their dogs than they are to their wives.
This latter comment can only have been a reference to both John and his father, Francis, who for a number of years must have found themselves facing much the same dilemma and it is interesting to imagine the conversations they might have had about how to resolve it. Uncle Robby , as he was known by my branch of the family, gave my mother, Jennifer, away when she married my father, her own father having already died.
John and Miriam s one child, Ian Mortimer Robertson, was born in 1931 in Southsea . Like his father, Ian was educated at Downside, also following in his father s footsteps into the military, in his case the infantry. Ian s childhood was a difficult one by reason of his parent s marriage but he loved school and flourished in the army, serving in Germany, Belize, Cyprus, Jamaica and Aden (from where he had to be evacuated following his name being found on a death list ), rising to the rank of Major before leaving in the late 1960s and moving to Scotland. Ian s post-army career involved the hospitality industry; he managed two military leave centres in Scotland - Douneside House and Alastrean House before going on to various enterprises in tourism and then the charitable sector. Ian died in 2018.
Ian married Maureen Wood and their marriage produced Fiona Caroline and James Francis who has his own Ancestry family tree and who has provided much useful Robertson family history and the photographs included particularly in this chapter. James married Corin Leatherbarrow, whom he met at Cambridge University and they have two children -Alexander and Zoe - the family being pictured(right). James spent thirty years working for the UK civil service in a variety of roles both at home and overseas, before following his father into the charitable sector. His wife Corin is a career diplomat, most recently serving as British Ambassador to Mexico and at the time of writing is the Chief Operating Officer of the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office .
A Chip off the Block
Leslie Violet Lucy Evelyn Wood was born on 28 January 1899. She was the daughter of Colonel Evelyn Wood (83) and Lilian Hutton. Evelyn was the eldest son of Field Marshall Sir Evelyn Wood VC. After Beaumont he was commissioned into the Devonshire Regiment and served in the Ashanti Warr and the Boer War where he was awarded the DSO. He then served on the General Staff during WW1 and was Honorary Colonel of The City of London Territorial Forces. He was further awarded a CB and an OBE.
Leslie was the second of Evelyn s three daughters and was born in January 1899. We don t know a great deal about her early years except that she married a William Balfour who had served in the 20th Hussars during the Great War. The marriage ended in divorce in 1939 when she remarried Sqn. Ldr. Harry Whatley. Just before that she had joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS). The ATS had just been formed and was made up from three organisations the Emergency Services, First Aid Nursing Yeomanry and the Women s Legion. All three were combined into one known as the Women s Auxiliary Defence Service, which was itself, absorbed into the Territorial Army. A decision was made to change the name of the organisation to the Auxiliary Territorial Service as it was felt that the initials WADS would leave the unit open to derisory comments. Leslie gained rapid promotion and by 1941 was the Deputy Director and in 1943 was appointed Director in the rank of Major General.
A desire to serve your country meant that by 1940, despite the resignations, the ATS numbered about 34,000. As a voluntary organisation it was not subject to military law in its first years. For example, desertion could only be punished by being thrown out of the service, which is almost certainly what the person would have wished for anyway! However, in 1941, the ATS was incorporated into army regulations. While this gave it a greater scope for military-style discipline, it was also a sign of the status that the organisation had achieved. After July 1941, all non-commissioned ranks could call themselves Auxiliaries as opposed to members .
Between 1941 and 1943, the service underwent major expansion. At the end of December 1943, there were 200,000 in the ATS with 6,000 officers taking part in more than 80 trades.
In 1944, it received a boost when Princess Elizabeth joined. This was important as to some, they were still a focus for ill-mannered comments. While the first few years may have been somewhat chaotic, the need for manpower shortages to be reversed was such that the ATS fulfilled this vital role. To a few, the women they were officers groundsheets" but to the large majority they had proved their worth and value by the time the war in Europe ended.
For her wartime service she was made a Dame Commander, Order of the British Empire (D.B.E.) in 1946, the United States Legion of Merit and Chevalier, Ordre national de la L gion d'honneur.
Retiring from the military, she was then appointed Director of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts in 1951 which she held till 1964. In 1965,
Dame Leslie of the then-Girl Guides World Bureau was awarded the Bronze Wolf, the only distinction of the World Organization of the Scout Movement, awarded by the World Scout Committee for exceptional services to world Scouting.
One incident that summed up Leslie s character was that in 1960, while Emperor Haile Selassie was on a State Visit to Brazil, there was a military coup in Addis Ababa. When the shooting broke out, there were about 900 British subjects in Ethiopia, the majority of them in and around Addis Ababa. The British Ambassador threw open the embassy compound to any who wished to take refuge there.
Among them - like characters straight from the pages of Evelyn Waugh's novel Black Mischief - were Dame Lesley Whately, director of the World Bureau of Girl Guides, Ruth Tomlinson, vice-president of the International Federation of Business and Professional Women, and Freda Gwilym, Colonial Office Adviser on Women's Affairs.
Together these redoubtable ladies kept an African Women's Conference going, unruffled by the bullets, one of which actually whistled through Dame Lesley's skirt. "A miss is as good as a mile," she said cheerfully. For a time, she and her husband farmed in Kenya during the Mau-Mau troubles. Leslie always carried a loaded revolver and slept with it under her pillow; she was by all accounts an excellent shot.
Her writings were published by Hutchinson Publishing in entitled As thoughts survive, with a preface by the then Princess Royal.
THE small WORLD
When I was writing my book or racing I came across a couple of Beaumont connections. (Are you surprised?) Lucy Snowden is the wife of Jamie Snowden who served in my regiment and trains my horses ( and The Queen s) in Lambourn and features in my writing. Lucy s grandfather was Brian Franks who commanded 2 SAS and is particularly remembered for Op Loyton in the Vosges in 1944. His Second in Command and good friend was Peter Lancelot Le Poer Power (29): I have produced an article on this remarkable operation in an earlier Review. Lucy was a successful amateur jockey and point-to-point rider and brought up on the Suffolk/Essex border and in the course of conversation I discovered that she kept her horses with my cousin Wilfred Tolhurst (62). Wilfred was Lucy s racing mentor, himself a one-time amateur, kept his own horses and some with another of our regimental trainers - Henry Daly. When the Snowdens set up their first training yard near Salisbury they pinched Wilfred s Head Girl to go with them: Wilf was very magnanimous about it Kate Robinson is still their Head Girl almost 15 years on. Wilf you may recall was sadly killed in a yachting accident in the Med in 2008.
PHILIP STEVENS (63) MEMOIRE continued
Chapter 14 Much Have I travelled
Much Have I travelled in the realms of gold - And many goodly states and kingdoms seen. Keats, On First Looking into Chapman s Homer.
As the end of my first year at Lazard came around, we were about to be caught in the crisis that became known as the Crash of 87. All around the world, stockmarkets had been rising almost without interruption for five years. Clever people had written computer programs that analysed trading patterns and automatically generated orders to buy or sell shares in companies, using analysis of trading patterns to decide whether the trades should be to buy or sell. Obviously, with markets approaching the end of another year of rising prices, most orders were to buy shares. Then, very suddenly, the real world intervened, and people who looked at basic things like the probable real value of shares began to sell their investments. In the space of a week, all the computers latched onto the trend, and changed from writing buy orders to writing sell ones. After a week of falling stockmarket indices, and much adverse Press comment over the weekend, the New York stockmarket opened on Monday. By lunchtime the total value of all the shares on US stock exchanges had fallen by 22%. The story was to be repeated all over the world, except in Japan, where a minor setback lasted for a few days before stockmarkets resumed their upwards march. The Japanese upwards march lasted for another two years, before their own catastrophic collapse, losing 75% of value in three years. As I write in mid-2020, the Japanese stockmarket index remains almost exactly 40% lower than where it stood exactly thirty years ago.
With the financial world in turmoil, a sorry business was discovered at Lazard. They had a small, unambitious business managing family wealth. One director was looking after a number of his own family and friends, more or less left to his own devices, particularly when his results were considered acceptable. Then it seemed that his success was less than reported, and even worse, this manager s particular interest was in shares of obscure companies quoted on frontier stock markets in cities like Vancouver. Many of the companies were downright fraudulent. As always, once the story began to unravel, it did so at accelerating rate. The manager s family funds had all disappeared, along with the wealth of his friends. He found himself in prison, and Lazard had a lot of fence-mending to be done. Looking for more than selling the unsaleable, I found myself working on this stabilisation project.
Not much later, two team leaders were head-hunted by a rival firm, to head up that firm s expansion plans. In the period of their extrication from their clients at Lazard, their desks were cluttered with brochures for their shiny new company cars and grand new houses that they would be buying with their success. Their stated leaving stance was simple: Goodbye, turkeys, we re off to fly with the eagles. It was inevitable that I would find myself involved now in more than stabilisation, taking on some of the firm s most valued clients and re-assuring them. The next several years were taking shape.
As a side note, the shiny cars and new houses turned into dust when the new firm collapsed and left my erstwhile colleagues by the roadside.
Early on, Sue had joined us as our team secretary, an important moment because she would manage my career very effectively for the rest of my time at Lazard. She was very good at the non-specific aspects of the role, and for a while she held the ship together. For some time I had been suffering from a worrying combination of sleeplessness, weight loss, temperamental ups and downs, but was probably the least aware of how this was affecting me, and was reluctant to do anything about it. Nicky thought she saw the last stages of some terminal disease as my weight fell below ten stones. David Browne s opinion of the Henderson years that I thought I was Queen Victoria or a teapot seemed to have some grounds for justification. In the end, and under protest, a visit to the GP led to investigations. He quickly identified thyrotoxicosis, a fancy name for an over-active thyroid gland. For the next several years, one medication treated the core problem and others treated the side-effects of the first medication. In reality, this condition had probably been around for much of my life, but the new treatment was to achieve erratic results and all the while Sue kept everything going at Lazard, whilst Nicky did the same at home.
Eventually, a visit to a specialist at Southampton Hospital was prescribed. His choices of remedy were clear. There were two options, surgery to reduce the size of the offending thyroid gland, or a dose of some radioactive juice that would have the same effect. Neither seemed appealing, so the obvious course was to ask what he would do in like situation. He explained that he could set out the options, but could not make a recommendation as to my choice. However, I have undertaken the surgical procedure many hundreds of times, and there is no possibility that anyone is ever
going to perform it on me. The radioactive juice was clearly the option for me. I sat in small treatment room for half an hour, to be joined by a person concealed behind an enveloping and clearly heavy apron, with face mask and other protection. This person carried a small flask, held in a pair of tongs about a yard long. I was to drink the juice, go home and avoid all human contact for two weeks, and then normal life could resume. So far, some thirty years later, so good.
Sue was a diplomat. One more than one occasion she would type up a letter or report that I had written, which was to go in the post that night. On the following morning she would produce the document. She had inexplicably forgotten to put it in the post tray, and perhaps a re-read before she sent it out would be helpful. The re-reads always led to a re-write, unless they led to complete abandonment of the document. In the end, she got her reward. I was invited to speak at a conference in South Africa, about which more later. Sue arranged all the travel details, hotel stay and so on. Some weeks later, as part of a marketing promotion, South African Airways invited Sue to a dinner in some smart London Hotel. After dinner, before the dancing began, there was a prize draw. All attending had received a ticket, and there was only one prize. Sue was the winner, so went up to receive her prize. A large gold-coloured box was opened, and a gold-coloured envelope taken out. The prize was a pair of club class tickets, return London to Cape Town. A second envelope, an invitation to stay at a well-known safari lodge. Third envelope, two tickets for the Blue Train from Johannesburg to Cape Town. Fourth envelope, some nights at the famous Mount Nelson Hotel in Cape Town. After a few more envelopes, it was clear that Sue had won, for herself and her new husband, a fortnight of that was good that South Africa had to offer. Nobody was more pleased than I.
After the years of being an uncommitted soldier, briefly a non-freemason fireman and a very relaxed salesman of life insurance policies, I was at last in the right niche, if only for half the time, managing money for wealthy families. The business environment was unambitious, but we cared greatly about our clients, and they appreciated our work for them. As part of the stabilisation process I took on relationships that dated back many years, in some instances several generations. Most of the wealthiest clients were indirect part-owners of the business, and a particular concern was to reassure them after the business of the wayward client director. It was good fortune that he had never been involved in looking after The Family . My part was to be defined by taking over looking after two female members of the family, sisters and central figures in their own ways, who were independently minded and wanted their relationship manager to be not associated with the other central figures of the family.
In this way, I entered into the strange world of The Suitcase. As a nod to family unity, client meetings were held in five separate groups, the least complex being a parent and spouse together with their children, their grandchildren s trustees and their family charitable funds. The complexities meant that we would deliver large and heavy books full of reports and valuations to each member of each group. Each book was different, even for people attending the same meeting. We had one clerk whose main role was the collation and binding of the innumerable pages of each book. On the day of a group meeting the suitcase was brought out and filled with perhaps a dozen of the heavy report books, and the junior of the Lazard relationship directors attending that meeting would lug the case into the car taking us to the meeting. Meetings lasted all morning, and the family peered over each others shoulders to see whether other family members financial affairs were progressing better or worse than their own. Often, the most important figure at the meeting was a matriarch, one or other of the clever, self-confident women who appeared in every branch of the family tree.
Over the next ten years, senior colleagues often decided that I was not the right person to look after the two key figures who had gravitated to my desk. Rationalisation of relationships was the usual declared reason. The actual reason always was that it was easier to take clients from colleagues than to find one s own. However, the two of them liked it where they were, not least because I had no conflicts of interest when working for them. They were not shy of making their preferences known, and were still with me when I left Lazard after ten years.
One of these two clients new to my desk wanted a meeting. Rather than come to London, she wanted me to see her new home, an historic Jacobean manor house in the Cotswolds. I arrived at 3.00 pm as arranged and we sat in the kitchen, papers spread all over the table. Soon the nanny returned from the school run, with six- or seven-year old daughter of the house in tow. Mother and daughter greeted each other like long-lost friends, but eventually mother told daughter that she had to get back to her discussion with me. Oh Mummy, I know. Is this the really boring meeting?
One fruit of my strange world of havering between the private client world and still nominally being sales director came about in the latter field. We had lost the director responsible for running our unit trust business, and I found myself in that role on a part-time and temporary basis that lasted for a couple of years. I met a director of the fund management arm of a large Austrian bank, Creditanstalt Bankverein. George ( S.H. Prince Georg Festetics of Tolna) was seeking a London house to provide portfolio management for his bank s retail funds, and we met as a result of his having attended a conference at which I had been speaking. We struck a deal, and suddenly I was creating and running the relationship between our fund managers and the Austrian bank s retail funds. This involved regular visits to Vienna and other parts of Austria, meeting the bank s sale force and larger clients, and once a year reporting to the bank s board of directors.
My first reporting visit created a problem. Language and my basic Sandhurst German were not the problem: every member of the board spoke perfect Queen s English, with an Austrian accent. The problem was that George wanted to introduce me as Herr Doktor Stevens. I protested; George knew well that I lacked any sort of academic qualification. Philip. You know this, I know this, the directors know this. But they will feel more comfortable. In Austria, under protest, I was Herr Doktor Stevens.
One early visit in March 1988 coincided with the 50th anniversary of Anschluss, the day when a referendum in Austria, passed by 99.75% of the votes counted, saw Austria integrated into Germany. That evening, there was to be no visit to the opera or to some pleasant restaurant. George firmly suggested that I should stay in the hotel, that watching the TV news might be instructive. The scenes that appeared for viewers were appalling; the neo-Nazi right in Austria was alive and, literally, kicking. It is worth adding that what was appalling then seems to be the norm for modern peaceful protests about anything from the history of slavery to the state of the planet.
Austria liked to recall its Imperial past. In April the following year, Vienna saw the last great Imperial funeral of the Great War of 1914-18. The ex-Empress of Austria, Zita, had died and received a suitable funeral. Her titles were recited:
and Royal Apostolic Majesty The Empress of Austria, Apostolic Queen of Hungary, Her Imperial Queen of Bohemia, Dalmatia, Croatia, Slavonia, Galicia, Lodomeria and Illyria; King of Jerusalem, etc.; Archduchess of Austria; Grand Duchess of Tuscany and Cracow; Duchess of Lorraine, Salzburg, Styria, Carinthia, Carniola and Bukovina; Grand Princess of Transylvania, Margravine of Moravia; Duchess of Upper and Lower Silesia, of Modena, Parma, Piacenza and Guastalla, of Auschwitz and Zator, of Teschen, Friaul, Ragusa and Zara; Princely Countess of Habsburg and Tyrol, of Kyburg, Gorizia and Gradisca; Princess of Trent and Brixen; Margravine of Upper and Lower Lusatia and in Istria; Countess of Hohenems, Feldkirch, Bregenz, Sonnenberg etc.; Lady of Trieste, of Cattaro and on the Windic March; Grand Voivode of the Voivodeship of Serbia, Infanta of Spain, Princess of Portugal and of Parma etc.
(Ed. Zita was to have married Prince Jamie de Borbon, Duke of Madrid ( OB 86) but this never materialised. The other connection is that Zita and the Emperor Karl were rescued from the Austrian Bolsheviks in 1919 by Colonel Edward Strutt (91)
It was estimated that over one million people, from a population of seven million, were on the streets of Vienna to see the funeral cortege of ex-Empress Zita.
Later in that same year, whilst arranging one of my regular visits, George found that we could not fit in all the visits to the regions and clients unless I stayed in Austria over a weekend. As a carrot he proposed that if Nicky flew over on the Friday evening he would try to arrange something good for us to do all together. That was a deal; his idea of something worth doing was never less than a visit to the Staatsoper or the Musikverein, where indeed I had heard live the Trout Quintet, played by a world- celebrated quintet, for the first time. We discovered our something special on the Saturday morning. Georg, his wife, young son, Georgl, Nicky and I climbed into his large Mercedes and set off East. We were going to Hungary, still a Communist state, but which had opened its borders to the West for the first time, that very week. George wanted to visit his family home, from which he had been rushed to Switzerland for safety in 1940, and to which this was to be his first return.
The border posed a problem. The border guards, trained to shoot people trying to get out of Hungary, were less familiar with trying to welcome people who wanted to get in. However, we got through and drove on south, almost the only car on roads where horse and cart still predominated.
We reached the village of Keszthely just before lunchtime. Nicky and I had no ideas of what to expect, but our speculations had never envisaged a civic reception, led by the local mayor, police chief, headmaster, parish priest and other dignitaries. A boy, about 12 years old, had read about the boy scouts in a western magazine and had formed his own one-person scout troop. Wearing his home-made uniform, he represented the youth of the village in this welcoming party. We left the car and were driven into the village in open carriages.
Our first destination was a civic lunch, in the village s smartest dining room, that of the holiday village of the Hungarian mineworkers union. Most of the room was occupied by miners on holiday eating a very basic-looking meal, whilst we ate a very different meal in a separate section. Then it was back into the carriages and time to visit the family home. It was not what Nicky and I had expected.
Schloss Festetics. Nicky with the prince who had returned home.
On the following morning we went to Mass in the parish church. Communism and the Catholic Church had co-existed uneasily, but this was different, Mass in a post- communist state.
After Mass we had another formal visit to pay. We walked from church to the cemetery, for the prince and his son to pay their respects at the mausoleum of their forebears. It had been fifty years since the previous head of the family had been able to do so. As we stood at the entrance to the mausoleum, the parish priest brought an old woman out of the crowd. It transpired that she had been a very junior maidservant at the palace in the 1930s, but never allowed back under Nazi and then Soviet rule. Devoted to the family, she had always hoped one day to see her family again, and she had spent parts of her free time for the last fifty years in keeping the weeds at bay outside the mausoleum, and the interior clean and tidy. Now that the family was back, her job was done. Not surprisingly, she, the family and most people there were very tearful.
To this day, I have no idea why we were invited to take part in this family s most personal and significant return home, as their only guests. Whatever the reason, it was one of those literally unique moments that occasionally come to very fortunate people.
As part of the Austrian contract I was in touch with a Dutchman, Henri, who had an ill- defined relationship with the Creditanstalt. He was a classic middleman, using a very well-filled contacts book to identify opportunities where he could bring financial organisations together to create business connections of value to both sides, and of course to himself in the middle. Henri had a client, a small family-owned bank in northern Spain. That country was in the stages of economic liberalisation following the Franco years, and many of the bank s clients were achieving levels of prosperity that enabled them to accumulate savings. The bank had set up, and was selling, savings funds linked to stockmarkets, but had no expertise in fund management. Henri approached Lazards, as a result of his awareness of what we had set up in Austria, and very soon I found that I had a second European bank s fund management business as a client.
Visits to Oviedo, in the Asturias northern region where the bank was based, were always a pleasure. Staying at the Hotel de la Reconquista was no hardship, despite its origins as pilgrimage hostel on the Camino route to Compostela. Once I was bumped out of my room at the last minute, on the flimsy grounds that the crown prince of Spain, the Prince of the Asturias, had arrived with a larger retinue than expected,
for his annual official visit to the region. Local restaurants provided wonderful meals wherever we ate. Sometimes my host was the eponymous chairman and owner of the family bank, and at others it would be a junior manager or official with whom I had been working that day. In reality it made no difference, and on more than one occasion a lunch that started with some relatively junior staff member ended up as a family party, joined by the chairman and his family who happened to be eating in the same place. Banco Herrero was a genuinely happy place to visit, although I never found the same family atmosphere when I had to visit the offices in Madrid.
In most years Christmas was a big event at Lazards. The entire bank s staff, and partners, attended a ball at the London Hilton Hotel in Park Lane. Most staff prepared busily for the event, and the discussions about what to wear occupied time in the coffee area for weeks beforehand.
One year, unusually, it fell to the private clients department, inevitably Debbie again, to be involved in preparations. Table plans were prepared, and as always, Table 1 was the chairman s table, in a central position. Table 2 was for the vice-chairman, alongside table 1. Numbering continued, based on seniority of the table host, radiating out from the centre of the ballroom to the edges. We booked a couple of rooms at the hotel for the night so that private clients department staff would have somewhere to get ready for the event. Room service delivered a couple of bottles of champagne. Just before the evening began, Debbie visited the ballroom to check that her planning had worked out as she intended. One change was needed. She found that her own table was sited in a distant corner of the floor. I m not having that, I ve done all the work for this ball, and I want a decent place. She picked up her table number card, walked to the centre of the ballroom and exchanged her card with that marking table 2. The beginning of the ball was marked, for those in the know, by the vice-chairman trying to work out why his table, contrary to protocol, was set amongst the backroom clerks and messengers rather than among the grandees. After dinner, and before the dancing began, the chairman always gave a short speech, about the developments in the bank during the year. As dancing got under way, we bet Debbie 5 that she would not ask the chairman for an early dance. She was up and at him before we could finish the offer.
Next year, at the ball, the chairman made his customary speech. He began; Last year at this ball, something most irregular happened. A member of staff accepted a bet that she would not ask me for a dance. I am particularly offended by this. I wish it to be known that in future I expect to be offered a 50-50 split of the proceeds of the winning bet.
This was all a diversion from the day-job, the stabilisation and development of the private clients department.
In this world of global connections, it became clear that the extraordinary Lazard network of relationships was capable of providing me with some private client work as well. That began with a chance meeting. This was the days before Chinese Walls, when directors of the asset management business shared a dining room with directors of the merchant bank. The rule was that on arriving in the dining room, one took the next vacant seat, regardless of who was already at the table. I found myself sitting next to a Swiss person, with no idea of who he was or why he was in our dining room,
with no obvious host. As we chatted, he explained the situation. He was chairman of a Swiss bank of which I had heard in a vague way, with which Lazard had some unrevealed relationship. He was in London for meetings in connection with that relationship. The next arrival at the lunch table was the head of the merchant banking side of Lazard, and it was clear that the two on either side of me had been in meetings all morning together. Rather than budge me along, the two entered into a conversation that revolved around the possibility of my working in a liaison role, for private clients of either party, who might have need of the services of the other.
So it was that a couple of weeks later, I found myself outside Basle railway station, ready to follow the instructions how to find the bank. They were straightforward until the last part. This described how I would reach a flower shop. The shop display would spill over onto the steps leading up to the door of an adjacent building. There would be no name-plate or other indication, but this was where I was to arrive. The arrival protocol was always the same thereafter. Admitted into the building, shown into a small waiting room with just two chairs, a brief wait there, then into a lift and up to the bank, and a second small waiting room. Eventually, the person I was to meet would arrive, and we d set off to our meeting. However, always, and first, a short visit to the chairman, the man I d met in London. He was old-fashioned enough to believe that a visitor from a bank with whom his bank worked should always be made welcome.
I learned two things from this arrival process. The first was that the bank was determinedly private, hence no name on the door. This extended to ensuring that no client would ever have to risk bumping into another in a lift or hallway, hence the moving from room to room as the huissier, doorkeeper, checked that the coast was clear for each stage of the journey. The second thing I learned was about service. The chairman once talked about this at length, explaining that whilst cost had to be considered, ability to provide extraordinary service had to be ingrained. His example was to say that if a client rang to say that he needed a roll of gold sovereigns delivered to his home or hotel, anywhere, within 24 hours, that would be done. It might cost a lot to do it, but it would happen. The lives of clients, in his time at the bank, had depended on ability to buy a passage out of one unsafe country into another, safer one. The memory of what had happened to the bank s clientele during the Holocaust drove that ethos.
The first, and most significant result of cooperation between the banks was an Englishman, living in Switzerland. The Swiss introduced him as a man who wanted a British portfolio manager. We met in London, and he told me of his story, a corporal who left the Army after the end of the war, found a little job that gave him big ideas and bigger opportunities. Now, with funds not needed in his business, he wanted to open an account with Lazard, if I would look after it. He suggested an opening sum of 1 million, if I would discount the fee rate. I suggested that if he had an account that was worth the discount, I d certainly give one, but that opening amount was not it. I d look again if the account reached five times that figure. He was not discomposed, and agreed to open at the lower figure, on the full fee rate.
This new client was determined that, like all his advisers, I would understand his life and circumstances. Almost as the account opened, he invited Nicky and me to go on holiday, with his wife and himself. He owned a large boat, and was going on holiday in the Bahamas in a couple of months time. His wife then telephoned Nicky and we
all four went out to lunch, to get to know each other before the holiday. He wanted to stress that although he was going to pay every penny of the cost of the holiday, it would be improper to pay for our air fares. However: Ring this number, mention my name and they ll make sure you get a good price.
We arrived in the Bahamas, the last leg of the journey in a hopper from Miami. The immigration officer was suspicious, we only had one-way tickets. Were we planning to stay in the island? Just passing through to join a yacht? What yacht? I told him the name. Man. I did see dat boat! You be welcome. Our host met us in a battered taxi, and as we rode down to the dock, he turned in his seat: There is one rule on my boat. No business is ever discussed. And so, for the first time in our lives, Nicky and I entered the world of superyachts. In the 1990s, that meant anything over 100 feet long.
For the next fortnight we sailed through the Bahamas, meeting the swimming pigs of the Exumas, paying out $10 for life membership of Staniel Cay Yacht Club, sharing one shore visit with aggressively territorially-minded marine iguanas, another with an aeroplane, and all the while fortified by a flow of champagne that began at 11 every morning and lasted thereafter for the entire day. Our host and hostess knew exactly how to make such a holiday a success, and we soon felt as though we fitted in well.
Gitana
Our last nights on the boat were enlivened. A new guest and his wife had arrived, for a weekend, and the plan was that they would take the last leg of the trip, back to Fort Lauderdale. The couple were young, he perhaps thirty-five, she younger. They were newly married and much in love. The gloss of this romance rather faded when we learned very soon, they talked about themselves incessantly, that this was his fourth marriage, and her third. Their motto seemed to be Marry early, Marry often. Oddly, our host and his wife found it necessary to leave the boat before we set off for the journey to Fort Lauderdale, leaving us to the company of this couple.
In Fort Lauderdale, we took a taxi to stay in a local hotel for a couple of nights. Our host had recommended a Hilton as inexpensive, so we had booked there. As instructed, we told our Hispanic taxi-driver to take us to the Hilton Hotel, and naturally he took us to the one he knew, a very down-market version of Hilton in the Hispanic part of town. Apparently, the other Hilton would have been cleaner and less run-down. The only highlight of our 48 hours in Florida was that we celebrated St Patrick s Day there. The Hispanic interpretation was in the US tradition, with leprechauns and ginger false beards everywhere, the beer a sickly green colour. Then it was for home and back to work.
Things went well with this new client for the first year, and he added to the account. We had lunch together, I always tried to pay in London, he always paid anywhere else in the world. The account had passed the important 5 million threshold. Had I discounted the fee rate? I said that the rate had changed and that I d ring his office that afternoon to confirm the new rate that had been applied. After this, and by interpreting his investment philosophy in a way that he appreciated, we managed to do well with his money, and he added more and more to his account. A few years later, the sum had swelled to over 40 million, and we had another of our frequent lunches. He had a question: Fee rate still fair? I said we had indeed adjusted it properly, and I d confirm details to his office that afternoon. Don t bother, I know you ll have done the right thing.
60 Years ago from The Beaumont Review.
Ex Cathedra
Fr T P Dunphy installed as Rector 24th July following 15 years at St John s.
Fr J P Costigan left to be Rector of St Aloysius, Glasgow - He had been Rector during the Centenary Year and the Visit by H M The Queen.
Fr Boyle, one time Rector and Provincial returns as Spiritual Father.
Mr Clayton retired after 54 years of Music Master to be succeeded by the very able Mr Atkinson.
To keep up with the school expansion Higher line will be divided into 3 sets as will the Lower line each with their own Master and playroom a more civilised and attractive place for free time. There will also be a new S stream for the brightest pupils to take O levels early.
In future the A stream having taken O levels in Grammar and Syntax and a two year A level course. The B stream would take O lels as at present in Syntax.
The C stream must aim at a good general education with sound qualifications for a non-academic career. As Latin is beyond most of them their time will be spent on other subjects most will only spend 4 years at the school.
"If these things will be carried out we will be able to feel that we are making some small contribution to the future of civilisation."
Building work commenced for the new classrooms in the Walled garden: further expansion is necessary.
Ed. I note the Prize lists were all in Latin including the names of the winners: I presume the C stream would not understand!
ESTABLISHMENT.
The Choir
There was a BBC Overseas Broadcast by both Choir and Congregation which was warmly praised especially the unaccompanied motet .
Disaster the Organ was flooded with considerable damage.
There has been a considerable increase in demand for instrument tuition - particularly string ( Guitar is suddenly very popular) Ed The times they are a changing Bob Dylan.
Corps.
Because of inclement weather the General Inspection took place in The Ambulacrum.
Defence cuts. The Corps is to be reduced the Under 14 and 15 no longer parade and it is to be optional for Upper Poetry. Of the 47: 20 have volunteered to soldier on.
Corps of Drums: with the CCF reduction it will be difficult to avoid extinction but hope remains high as was the standard of both Drill and musical repertoire.
Senior Scouts.
The Troop went to Spain Picos de Europa a mountainous region some 20 miles inland from the Basy of Biscay on the borders of Santander, Leon and the Asturias.
Travel there was by train and then a battered 40 seater coach that would cover some 1200 Kms with the intrepid travellers. First stop was the coast on the Feast of St James, a mixture of gay seaside resorts and fishing villages. All 36 were entertained to Lunch by the Nicholson Family home ( Paul was on the expedition). Then off to the mountains and first camp at Lake Enol to practice Climbing and abseil skills before attempting Pena Santa the highest and toughest mountain in that part of the range: it was hot. After a rest day it was the 3 day hike for the Duke of Edinburgh Gold award. First night was spent in a hay loft above the cows ( which snored) but better than the second when half the party had to sleep outside a small cabin on the high pastures among the invasive cattle . The next day a small party led by the mountain guide attempted the llambrion 9000ft a difficult and arduous climb successfully accomplished. Then off to the high valley of Aliva and a stroll up the final peak the Pena Vieja. The Bus, except for a breakdown took the party down towards the sea once more: the last few miles all our kit including tentage had to be carried on foot. Finally, the coach journey to Loyola to pay respects to St Ignatius. The rigors of camping continued with having to cook in the dark and spend the night in a stubble field and it rained!. It seemed the Saint was giving a lesson in fortitude.
Overall a great time had by all. Led by Fr Brogan QM was Mr Hughes who did wonders teaching the art of Spanish cooking and they managed to get through the whole camp without recourse to tinned Squid.
Beccles.
The traditional fare of swimming in the Waveney, hiking, raft building , obstacle course and cooking. Worthy of mention, the frozen chicken reduced to carbon, the under cooked porridge, the raw pork chops but no food poisoning during the fortnight! Standards did improve. Highlights include a joint Camp fire with Harrow who were camped not far distant their ideas seemed more sophisticated with TV, Electric lighting and communal cooking! During patrols pity was taken on us by Lady Somerleyton provision of drinks and a feast from no less than Field Marshall Auchinleck - The Auk. The increased delectable heights of Fr Sass s brew of cocoa.
A camp marked by its happiness and generosity. The only drama was on day one when the Station master at Beccles informed Mr Newbury that the camp equipment had not yet arrived! Eventually sorted. Ed Whatever happened to the old horse box?
H L Debating.
With exams looming there were only three debates:
This House approves of the censorship in times of peace . Motion carried
Public schools are worth their position in society . Motion defeated
This House has nothing to learn from European culture . Motion carried.
Prize Debate winner; Anthony Andrews.
SPORT
Cricket
1st XI. In all 15 matches played. Clubs 3 wins against the BU, Emereti and Phoenix ( from Holland). 3 Drawn Lords YPs, MCC and the Buccaneers. 1 lost against Windsor Home Park and Incogniti had to be abandoned.
Schools 3 wins against Aldenham, Douai, and Reading. 3 lost at Whitgift, KCS and
Lords. Nerves were the problem: Oratory bowling made early inroads into our batting which on any other day would have been murdered by our batsmen. We struggled to a safe total and then ran out of time to bowl out the opposition.
2nd XI. Disapopinting losing 7 of 11 matches
Schismatics. Their usual cavalier attitude paid off this season with 4 wins, 4 draws and 2 losses. A new Golliwog mascot was presented to the side.
BOAT CLUB
2 new clinker VIIIs were presented by Fr Costigan, one named for himself the other for Corpse Johnson.
1st VIII
Not a successful crew Keen but not fanatical, detached without a trace of indifference .
Results: Twickenham Regatta lost to the eventual winners.
Lost to Balliol ( not a disgrace as they were 6th in the Eights this year)
Lost the Eton ( but only length)
Reading Regatta ( success against a Thames Crew)
Henley Regatta ( Lost to Oundle 2. 1/2 Lengths)
Colours all round.
Mr Scott Organised the British schools entry( Shrewsbury) for the Cinq Nations in Switzerland.
2nd VIII
Started with poor material But with enthusiasm managed a fair amount of success including beating Teddies 2nd VIII, at Oxford Regatta reaching the semi-final beating Monkton Combe and Teddies going down by feet to Magdalen College School. The rest of the season disappointed.
Tennis
Membership of over 100. At 5/- a piece so on a firm financial backing. Matches won against Worth and William Borlaise. BU result not given and the Ascot and Farnborough Matches had to be cancelled ( Ed. That must have been a loss of incentive!)
B U
All the Cliffords had been in touch. Fr Sir Lewis from Rhodesia, Twins Roger and Charles in New Zealand ( Roger succeeded Fr Lewis to the baronetcy). It was noted that there is a sign at Wharekaka that the first sheep farm in the country was established in 1844 by Charles Clifford, William Vavasour and Henry Petre all of whom sent their sons back to Beaumont for education.
Lewis Hugh Clifford (34) has just succeeded as 13th Baron of Chudleigh. Their home Ugbrooke had been made over to Lewis in 1951 to avoid Death Duties but there are still further tax to be made on his father s death. Both tax and death are unavoidable.
Chris Hope (25) has visited the school from Argentina and was gratified that Albert the Tailor remembered his number and was greeted by a member of Staff who had taught him. Chris s brother Eduardo (27) captained the first Argentinean 4 man Bobsleigh To compete in the Winter Olympics 1928: they finished 4th just outside the medals.
Michael Campbell-Johnson was Ordained for the Society in Mexico
Basil Bicknell (48) and his brother Peter( 55) are sailing back from the UDSA on the Queen Elizabeth. Peter has just completed three years as ADC to the Governor of Nyasaland ( now Malawi).
Hon Robert Stonor according to the press has been on a world tour with his friend Crown Prince Birendra of Nepal. They met up in Switzerland before Russia, Austria, Greece, India, then a stay with the King and Queen in Katmandu before flying to America.
The Sunday times had an article on William Buckley (39) editor of the National Review, we gathered that his father the oil tycoon is worth over 110 million dollars. Apart from being quick talking and hard hitting on the right of politics, he is an ocean racer, glider pilot, skier, horseman and clavichord player. We also learnt that while at School he wrote to the King demanding that England should repay its first world war debts forthwith.
Eric Cooper-Key (35) retired Lt-Colonel MBE MC, now manages Security Express apart from the 600 special vehicles for carrying cash and bullion he is now employing helicopters in special cases.
Eric played junior tennis at Wimbledon, Cricket for the MCC and Captained the Army side. He is a well known figure at both Ascot and Goodwood.
Lt Colonel Herbert Purcell (29) gave a dinner in Dublin for OBs. There will be a more official dinner in December.
Tony Russell, Patrick Burgess, Anthony Dearing and Jonathan Martin went to Greece on an expedition or party during which Tony broke a leg but is on the mend.
Simon Palmer has started life as a tea planter in Assam and has been given his first garden with 3,500 workers: they and he are at it from 4.30am to 10pm. So much for the leisurely life.
Bernard Leach (03), the acclaimed potter helped launch the Craft Centre in Berkeley Square the equivalent of the Arts Council.
Reginald MacDonald Buchanan (15) received the personal Knighthood in the Birthday Honours- KCVO for services to racing: He and his wife won the Derby in 1941 and has served as Senior Steward of The Jockey Club. He is also Captain of the British 12 m Yachting Association.
Walter Goldsmith (37) has been excavating the tudor cellar at his home at Salisbury Hall near St Albans and discovered two renaissance carvings lost for 300 years. The stone busts are those of Faustina wife of Marcus Aurelius and the other of Emperor Titus.
The Duke of Edinburgh opened the Delarue Centre for Spastics at Tonbridge . Dr C P Stevens (29) the Society Director was in attendance.
Hal Dickens is to be made a Freeman of the Borough of Kensington for his 30 years as Alderman. The last recipient was Winston Churchill.
From RMA Sandhurst Guy Chamberlain has been commissioned in The Royal Dragoons, Richard Wilkinson The Blues and Robert the 11th Hussars.
Golf. The Halford Hewitt
Under the Captaincy of Lionel Gracey ( Cambridge Blue) the side beat Trent in the first round. Noted for Jack Wolff s use of a special club called an exploda for getting out of the rough. 2nd round was against Old Merchant Taylors who we had beaten in the past: They had vastly improved to win by 4 and 3.
Cricket. The Pilgrims
Statement .
The Pilgrims existence is as short as the may fly. A brief flutter of the wings at the close of the College season. The four games we play do not make the headlines. In fact, the Press, national, normal, local and cricketing remain oblivious of our performance never a mention in the smallest of type. The tactics and strategy of the captain are not the subject of public controversy, and marathon innings for slow runs are never tolerated. Though preferring to win, we judge success of a game on the cricket produced and not on the result. For the avid collector of statistics, who feels unequal to the task of disentangling the results from the rest of the report, we state the bare facts that we won one game, drew one and lost two.
Old Oratorians won by 2 wickets Michel Tye 88. Stephen Crompton 5 for 57
Old Amplefordians - Match drawn. Crompton 58, Dillon 50 and Sinclair 58.
Old Wimbedonians Lost 145 runs Melville 4 for 62 .
Stonyhurst Wanderers lost by 3 runs! Ian Sinclair 66 not out.
Hatches, Matches, Dispatches
(ED. You would have thought the J s would have put Matches first)
Daughters; Robert Schulte, Ian Brotherton, Paul Bedford, Christopher Noble, John Langham
Sons: James Pound, Joseph Pegum,Edmund Smith, Peter Johansen, Charles Crouch, Howard Lyle, Philip Collingwood, Marin Wells.
Matches
John Wolff, Edward Winfield, Richard Pemberton, Ralph Bates, John Prove,
John Bokor-Ingram.
Dispatches.
Allan MacDonnell. A descendant of the Glengarry MacDonnells founding fathers in Canada. To Jesus College Cambridge and a life fruit farming.
Air Marshall John Breen. ( Father was Inspector General of The Fleet) Capt. of the School 1914 to Trinity Dublin, RMA Sandhurst and The Royal Irish Regiment. Transferred to the RFC in 1915. AOC No 1 Bomber Group 1940. Director of RAF Personnel until 1944. Retired to Co. Wicklow.
David Hetreed. Became a solicitor but best remembered for motor racing. Killed on the Nurnburgring with his Aston Martin.
Stephen White Left in 1894 at the age of 20. Lloyds Underwriter .
Alban Woodroff MBE KCSG. Wealthy landowner in Argentia before settling in Dorset . High Sheriff 1918, Alderman 1928, Mayor of Lyme Regis and J P.
Brigadier General William Segrave DSO & 2 Bars. Left 1893. Commissioned into trhe HLI and first DSO as a newly joined Officer in Crete WW1 awarded two further DSOs. Retired in 1929. Married an Admiral s daughter.
Lt- Colonel John Francis Crimmin OBE.(24). Son of Colonel John Crimmin VC CB. To Sandhurst. Commissioned Indian Army 20th Lancers. Transferred to 6th Duke of Connaught s Own Lancers when his Regiment was mechanised. Remained horsed Cavalry till WW2 . John was at El Alamein and then in Burma . MID Retired to Farm near Framlingham. Instigator of getting the local Church built.
CORRESPONDENCE
From John Marshall
It is wonderful! Thank you from us all, dear Robert.
Fun for Chris Garrard, Peter Hammill and me who were all in the same class at St. John s and were first second and third in the Common Entrance of 1961. And we are all contributing to this Review.
While in UK I attended The Rag AGM. I ve never attended before but I rather enjoyed it. Two interesting issues - one, to what percentage can non military background be admitted to the committee? And two, brought up by a young serving officer should they have flown the rainbow flag ( acceptance of LGBTQ+)? On whatever day it was in June that we celebrate diversity. On the latter issue, the Chairman accepted full responsibility and was motivated by discovering that other clubs on Pall Mall had done so and he did not want to be the oddball. The officer was annoyed not that they put that flag up but that they put it up and took the Rag flag down to accommodate it. It was agreed that in future it will be made possible to fly two flags at the same time!
Would Captain McHugh, Major Bruce and Captain Hayward care to comment.
Ed. Comment
I find it sad that The Rag feels it has to follow the sheep and fly a Pride flag in case some poncey member might feel upset and throw a tantrum what more do these people want. They have a whole month when we are supposed to bend over backwards to support their perceived grievances when as a group they offer nothing to society. I feel it strongly that we have one day to show appreciation for our armed forces but 30 for people who should keep private what they do in their own homes. I m glad to say the Cavalry & Guards did not succumb!
Back to John:-
National Geographic ( Library periodical)
This dates from my last term at Beaumont and I discovered it yesterday in a bookshop at Cal State University Fullerton where I used to teach but now volunteer.
First article is entitled
CALIFORNIA
The Golden Magnet
Part 1 The South
By William Graves
( here are some quotes)
Will Rogers, the much beloved humorist, once attended a meeting of the old settlers of California no one , he wrote later was allowed to attend unless he had been in the state 21/2 years
Will s settlers were fictitious, but he made his point: California is a land of many newcomers. A friend of mine in Los Angeles recently put it another way. Californians are people who were born somewhere else and then came to their senses
The writer then goes and visits Julie Andrews at her home in Coldwater Canyon, a wooded section above Beverly Hills
She told him this:
The beauty of Los Angeles is what I would call pulse that wonderful steady beat of energy. You feel it in the early morning, when the sun is barely up, the air is cold and quiet, yet there is already a hint of excitement. Then you drive down into that busy life and you can t help thinking it s gonna be another wonderful day. What more can anyone ask of a city?
The writer continues:
One morning along Sunset Strip, the famous entertainment section of Sunset Boulevard, I passed a sign that read budget Rent-A-Car system. Beside it stood two gleaming Rolls-Royce silver clouds, each worth about $18,000 for hire. Fascinated I stepped into the office and asked the clerk if anybody could rent one of his Rolls Royces. naturally, he replied with dignity. and what would it cost? I asked. actually it s quite a bargain $75 a day and a modest $.25 a mile. He held up a warning finger. of course, sir, you understand that at that rate you must furnish the petrol yourself.
Los Angeles, like many Giants often suffers the taunts of a world built to a slightly smaller scale. Even Californians make fun of their colossus. Los Angeles speaks unkindly of San Francisco, but San Francisco never mentions Los Angeles at all. Runs the quip.
The writer visits the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on Wilshire Boulevard. ( long before LA got the Getty museum of course) He talks to Mr Richard F Brown,the director at that time. I remarked that the museum certainly should settle any doubts about Los Angeles love for the arts. Mr. Brown shook his head. There shouldn t be any doubts at this late date. Los Angeles has valued great art for years and attracted it with any number of fine institutions, - the Henry E Huntington library and art gallery over in San Marino for one. And that s not just a native Angelino boasting, he said with a smile. I am an immigrant from New York myself. but the main thing about our new museum is that it s supported by more than just a handful of great fortunes. Today we have some 30,000 dues-paying members - school children, dentists, bus drivers, carpenters. He gestures around him all Los Angeles helped to buy what you see here.
when I bought my first parcel of land here 40 years ago, a friend in the real estate business told me, it was $10 down and $10 when they caught me. I should ve bought the whole city.
I don t care if you have the great pyramid of Cheops on the acreage I want. I ll take the land and move the pyramid anywhere you say, free of charge another developer said to me.
( as a young man) I arranged a one day job through Herb Steinberg, a friend at Universal the huge movie and television studio just north of the Hollywood Bowl. don t look for glamour! he warned me ahead of time. Making movies is 50% backbreaking work and 50% waiting around to do it over again. Out of eight hours shooting on a major film. We re lucky to get three minutes of final footage.
Herbs warning proved the understatement of the year: I did the same thing not twice but 13 times. The casting office had signed me for The War Lord, an 11th century adventure story starring Mr. Charlton Heston. ( El Cid , I think is what he is talking about) With 20 other extras, dressed as Norman cavalry and Cross Bowman, I rushed into make-believe battle.
Rushing into battle with cavalry and crossbow can be almost as fatal as battle itself, especially when one happens to be nearsighted. The wardrobe department tactfully pointed out that my eyeglasses would hardly lend authenticity to an 11th century epic. Off they came. After an hour of racing half blind past the camera, along with 10 Horses and my fellow bowmen, I had multiple shins scars from flying hoofs and a dozen bruises from flailing bows. The only reason I m alive today is that Norman Crossbowmen wore helmets. Our director proved a hard man to satisfy. After half a dozen unsuccessful takes, he called a five minute break. I noticed Mr. Heston in costume beside the camera and I asked him a question that had bothered me all morning. No one had told me whose side I was on. You re on my side, one of the good people, Mr. Heston explained, smiling. It s gonna be a tough battle, but we win it. The director called us back and ran the scene seven more times. Finally, it began to rain and we stopped so I never took part in the battle. I didn t regret it. considering the wounds I got, just running onto the field, I m sure they would ve carried me off it.
And to think if I had gone into the Beaumont Library in May 1966 I might have read all this. But instead I was swotting for my A levels in my beautiful New Wing room!!!!
From John Joss
Thanks for the word on Quentin, much appreciated. Your book adventures sound like fun (for you, and later for us, your readers).Quant a moi (forgive lack of accent on the 'a' my email system doesn't 'do' them), I've just completed a five-book series under the pen name of a Cambridge woman. Had to use the pen name--dangerous subject. The sixth is well along, and the seventh outlined.
Ed:- John might like to comment on John Marshall s piece on Los Angeles.
From Henry Hayward
I might have remembered incorrectly but I seem to recall Ching's mother
was a friend of my mother and that she lived in the Burford area where,
when widowed, she had remarried a Baron von Kast(e) who amongst other
talents was an artist. No one alive that I can check with. I think
that Alastair sailed a great deal and made his home with his mother.
Our intentions of meeting up never came to fruition.
'morning Robert,
Henry s brother, Wellington educated, wrote:
I regularly think of Theo Kast [Theodore, Baron Kast von Eckleburg or
something similar] as his picture of Shilton, as below, hangs next to my
mirror in Hereford and my eye often wanders to it when brushing my hair,
wishing I was as subtly colourful as his painting.
He did indeed marry the widowed mother of the two Chings, Betty, who
lived in Swan Close. Not that it would help finding the boys, Betty and
Theo's first meeting is one of the most romantic I know of: she was
visiting Vienna with her sister and while going round a gallery bumped
into a well dressed Austrian. They were married within the year, I
believe!
Ching is a more difficult name to research even than Hayward: the only
long shot of a connection, other than Beaumont itself, I can think of is
that the woman who from day 0 always organised everything at Burford
church was still very active last summer and recognised me when William
and I went to mass there in June, before he flew back to Cyprus on crab
air. Assuming Betty's funeral was there, the old lady (probably c85 now,
but very on the ball) might have access to the records and thus be able
to dig out some reference to who organised it, hopefully one of her
sons.
From Michael Bourke
I remember while at Beaumont in the early 1960s that at morning mass we would serve priests saying mass in the small side chapels simultaneously. I remember Father Weld an elderly retired Jesuit who I served on several occasions. Then recently there was an article in our weekly catholic newspaper in British Columbia. Most interesting as it was to publicize that Thomas Weld was appointed to be the first cardinal of Canada in 1820 which is not generally known. Following was an account of this old and distinguished english catholic family.
Thinking of my own family, an ancestor Sir John Bourke (Lord Brittas) was martyred by being hung drawn and quartered on the gates of the city of Limerick in 1607 for not signing the Act of Succession in the reign of James 1st. His castle was then blown up. His wife escaped to France and founded an order of nuns there. Some members of the family became protestants in order to keep their lands. Others kept their faith but had to endure the penal laws.
From John Wolff
I was at a fund raising function at the House of Lords last night a man on my table said is that a BU tie
It transpired he was called Peregrine Heathcote, quite a well -known painter by the price of his pictures. His father is Dudley Heathcote who left the year before I went to Beaumont. He is now 90 and frail. Did he come to BU functions when he was younger? It a well known Beaumont name. I think Fr Heathcote gave his name to one of the Houses.?
Ed:
Small world - Peregrine came to lunch with us when we were in France - he was staying with some friends of ours. Dudley (51) a bit wild at school but I got to know him when I was serving in Cyprus in the early 70s. He and his wife Leslie gave marvellous parties either at their home or on the beach and were the centre of social life. He was part of the overseas Civil Service. Leslie was quite 'glam' I can see where Peregrine gets his "Vettriano" style of painting from. He went to Harrow I think because of Beaumont's closure. Dudley was much involved with the Knights of Malta back in England but then moved out to France. Sadly, Leslie died relatively young from cancer. He is a great nephew of Fr Sir William (OB) and Rector.
LADS of LETTERS
Robert Fettes enquired whether I had news of his old chum Hubert de Lisle as he had not replied to various missives. I replied that Hubert s wife Mainick has not been well.
RF
Thank you for the update; it was, and is, what I had feared would be the situation. Philip Sidney (Penshurst Place) will also be most concerned. I first met Philip when he visited my flat, at the time I lived in Sydney, and was working for a stockbroker. His father had been Governor General of Australia. In later years, Philip's father made a tour of Papua New Guinea, then an Australian Protectorate, and my boss for who's family I worked managing their plantations, hosted Lord De l Isle. Little did I know then of Philip's home; a magnificent country seat in which he is now living. I did learn, some time ago, from Hubert, that Philip is himself suffering the consequences of a stroke or some other malady.
RW
I have never met Philip but I think he and Hubert served in the same Grenadier Bn. My parents knew Philip's parents and my father invited William to be the Hon Colonel of his TA Regiment back in the Fifties. Growing up the Eridge used to have a lawn Meet at Penshurst - quite a setting. So, a small world.
R F
It is indeed! In Australia, whilst commuting across the harbour to the stockbroker's office overlooking the harbour, I suddenly noticed a very familiar profile; one of the Cronleys, Maurice I think, though my memory could well be playing tricks. I think you are correct re Hubert and Philip in the same Bn. I always admired the way Hubert entered the Army via Mons. He then went on to a stint in Northern Ireland, where he was involved in a close call with a bomb, and later to the French military academies in Paris; I believe it was Sancere (spelling?) ( No that s the wine Saint Cyr -French Military Academy) . He took me to N. Bonaparte s HQ, and in particular, his office. Cheekily, I lifted the garrison Commander's cap off his head, donned it and sat on NB's chair! There are, still bullet holes in the walls from the time of the Revolution. Altogether a wonderful visit to his family. Thomas and Geraldine (children) were of course very young at the time. H & M were wonderful hosts.
Maybe I ought to put some notes in a book!!
RW
Maurice's elder brother John lives out there so could have been either. Yes get writing!!
RF
Firstly, apologies for swamping you with an avalanche of mail. Since recently starting to dwell on past times, I have other snippets, re mutual acquaintances and OBs. Possibly the main reason Philip visited my chummery in Sydney, was that one of us three, Dominic Warre was a God-son of one of the Astors at Hever.You may also be acquainted ? The third was a noted film director; His name is Mark Egerton, who now has his own photo gallery in Yorkshire. His father was Clerk on one of Yorkshire's race courses. One other of my contemporaries was Shaun Murphy. When I was working for King Ranch on Brunette Downs Station, Shaun was a horse breaker on a neighbouring Station which I think was Alexandria Downs Station; sadly, I was never able to meet up. After I had to act as pallbearer at a funeral in Tennent Creek, (a very smelly ceremony!) the manager suggested I go to their then HQ property near Bowral; Milton Park and Retford Park, not far from Sydney, the old family seats of the Carr Hordern, my later employer.
When I first decided to emigrate to Australia for the princely sum of 10, a number of other East African expats also decided to leave as well. We all went and worked for Hugh Hefner, at his relatively new Club. My then girlfriend s (Antonia Stevens; (Philip's younger sister) Mama was horrified to learn this! It was a tremendously fun way to kill time whilst waiting for my passage to Australia, which was for about 4/5 months. Quite an education! Anyone who was of notoriety and wanted to be seen visited the club. I do have one photo of me with a group of the famous girls. Staff were V strictly off-limits; They were the sole reserve of the then manager, Victor Lownes These facts have never been included, for obvious reasons, on any Curriculum Vitae! As and when other fact/details of past OBs crop up, I will pass them on. Plenty for the moment, I think.
RW
No problem over swamps. Mention of the Astors - no longer at Hever but Brother Richard (62) served with Johnny (Life Guards) in the Mounted Regiment in the '60s together, and my daughter Rachel knew him well when she worked as Black Rod's 'Rottweiler' in the House of Lords. Playboy Club - my brother Christopher (54) was an early member and I spent some good evenings playing the tables. He even took my parents there for dinner. Pa thoroughly enjoyed it! I had some 'Bunny' cufflinks which Chris gave me and my daughter now wears.
Misspent youth.
RF
A true story which might amuse you. An army officer, on leave, came to Scotland to fish for Salmon; possibly the Spey. His only real concern was being smothered by midges. As is the case with the military services, midge repellent was provided
from large containers for use by personnel. The only useful container he had was an empty Johnny Walker bottle. Once into the river he felt that the heavy bottle was interfering with his casting and movement, so he quickly asked the Ghillie to hold the bottle for him. The hapless Ghillie, thinking he was being offered a swig, immediately took a gulp; the colour of the repellent was not very dissimilar to Scotch. Must have tasted awful; the only remedy would have been a large draft of
real Whisky!
MORE LADS chatter
From Tony Waldeck:
Yesterday I attended the memorial service for Peter Hamilton. It took place in a very charming small church, nestled in a wood near The Lizard. It was extremely well attended.
The Hamilton twins went to St Johns before Beaumont (where they became my contemporaries). During the eulogy mention was made of their friendship with sons of Air Chief Marshal Sir Basil Embry whilst at school. Well, that must have been at St Johns - because there were no Embrys with me at Beaumont. Any info about that?
Ed: No problem over the pestering! 2 Embrys Mark my eldest brother Michael s best mate left in 53 captain of most things. Paddy was only at St John s leaving in 56 to emigrate with his family initially to New Zealand before eventually settling to farm in W Australia. Paddy was a chum of mine and stayed with us before getting on the plane. He is still involved in politics and apart from being a Senator in the State parliament represented the State at Cricket we could have done with him at Lords! Trust you are keeping well in this so-called summer we have had.
TW: Robert - aka Mr Reliable. Many thanks for filling me in on my enquiry. I had looked up Paddy Embry and seen his distinguished career in Oz, both in politics and cricket. The Air Chief Marshal was quite a man! When I served in the Air Force at 38 Group the head honcho was Air Marshal Mickey Martin (an Australian) He was a flight commander on the Dam Busters raid and later acted as the tech adviser on the film (comes up as Flt Lt in the credits). The reason I mention him is that he had a DSO which was hidden from view by its 3 rosettes! I thought he had been the only man to have won 4 DSO's but I've now learned that ACM Embry also achieved that distinction. Thanks for kind enquiry and reference to "summer 2024". I actually had heating on some nights in July! Nevertheless, this sleepy hollow corner of Cornwall is a happy place!
ED: I hadn t realised you were a crab ! First of all I have to correct you in that the highly decorated Mickey Martin had a DSO and one Bar but a DFC and 2 bars plus an AFC. Embry remains the only 4 DSO Officer of the RAF. The only soldier with the same distinction was Major General Sir Douglas Kendrew. He was later Governor General of Western Australia and my late brother in law was his ADC. Michael said it was an extraordinary sight to see Embry and Kendrew together on the occasions when medals were worn with the 8 DSOs between them.
I have a problem with Boyup Brook, population 500 ,where the Embrys live. Years ago, I met a man in a pub and we got chatting he was over from Australia and I asked where from. He replied he was a Doctor who had a practice in Perth. I asked that perhaps he knew my Uncle who was surgeon at the main hospital he did but then said he had moved south from Perth to a little town called Boyup Brook. I said good Heavens you must know the Embrys of course I m their family doctor.
Years went by and I was chatting to our then Australian Horse Vet at a party and asked what she was doing for Christmas going back to Australia. Where? To a little town about 150 miles from Perth. Out of interest what is the name Boyup Brook. Well you must know the Embrys . Of course and Paddy is my God father.
Talking to the Chef d Equipe of the Chinese Polo Team a couple of years ago who was Australian, I said well you must come from around Melbourne their polo heartland . No, he said actually I m from Western Australia. I said Don t tell me you re from Boyup Brook. No, but from another sheep station 40 miles away.
I NEVER ask Australians where they are from I already know!!
TW: How extraordinary that my memory of Mickey Martin is so wrong. Ho hum - but then, don't ask me what I had for breakfast! Martin was an unforgettable character. His chauffeur would deposit him in a large black limo at the main entrance to 38 Gp HQ. Underlings (ADC etc) would greet him and salute which was amusing because usually a string of airmen who'd been given a lift exited before the great man! He had a strict policy of not to be disturbed during afternoons - because he was watching the racing!
He flew the lead Phantom in a fly-by celebrating some royal occasion. Otherwise, he died following a serious fall on the steps of St Martins in the Field. Rather ignominious for such a distinguished warrior. Best etceteras,
ED: Tony , I wouldn t say that your memory is wrong possibly misplaced but not wrong - Martin had three bars but spread over two medals an extraordinary man.
NO, NOT THE B U REVIEW
I am sometimes asked as to why I ended up living in France for many years to which the answer is Karma .
My story begins at Beaumont when I was in Syntax 11 and I had the delightful Fr Leslie Borrett as my French Master. Up until then I had Flown by the seat of my pants through the two previous years of French study but it was now crunch time and the O level year. Fr Borrett , as many will recall, believed that exam failure was brought about by stupid mistakes and he dealt with them in our homework in rigorous fashion. In his devilish humour two piles were produced one pile were those that passed, the other contained Traffic signals . Well, I always knew which pile I was in and in the Borrett highway code there wasn t a warning sign just an order sign with a figure in it: figures= ferulas. A visit to the 1st Prefect were as regular as a Fling special in the tuck Shop. A system which worked for many but not for me and French was not on my list of O level passes.
You have to admire the Jesuits for sheer persistency or bloody mindedness for I returned the following term to find I was on the French A Level course. Despite my remonstrances that it was a waste of my time this continued until Mr Haywood threw both my brother and myself out of the class for a practical joke we played on him; never to return.
The French language then did not come to the forefront of my mind until at Sandhurst I was interviewed for the academic courses I should follow. Wilkinson we note that you have studied French at school and we have put you down for the French Military course. My protestation that I hadn t even passed an O level were disregarded. Needless to say, I failed my French Military exam and went out to join my Regiment in Germany. A couple of years passed and I had a call to the Adjutant s office: Robert, we have the French Chief of the General Staff visiting next week, the Chief Clerk tells me that according to your documents you are a French interpreter and as our only one you will have to field him. I don t speak French. Tough you are all we ve got.
All I can say is that afterwards the Colonel said to me Robert, I think there were one or two major misunderstandings to say the least and I think the General was left totally bemused. Colonel, I did warn you that I do not speak French and that any reference to the language should be expunged from the records.
So, the years passed and I eventually decided to part ways with the Army but I was left with a quandary as to how I was to keep wife and family in the style to which they had grown accustomed . I was at a loss.
I was invited to a trustees meeting in London, where it was put to me that matters could be re-arranged to ensure our standard of living, BUT it would require us to move abroad. I asked where and the reply was needless to say - FRANCE.
Coming home on the train that day and I could not help but feel that there would have been a smile on the face of the late Fr Leslie Borrett S.J. The wonders of a Beaumont education!
L. D. S.
