THE WYKEHAMIST Winter No 1465

Transcription

1 THE WYKEHAMIST Winter No

2 Editorial 2 Front Cover: Peter Eugene Ball The Scholar Christ Above: PEB Exibition in Chantry DEMOCRACY COMES AT A PRICE Three of the five plays put on this half have had a central theme of the perils of totalitarianism. We have witnessed at QEII the Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, Animal Farm (the Hoppers house play) and the Third Wave (the Furley s house play); all received rave reviews. They epitomised the dangerous appeal of radical ideologies, and reminded us of the misery which inevitably follows social experiments of these kinds. The horrors of Stalinism and Nazism, when remembered or re-lived through the medium of theatre, should be enough to make us vigilant in protecting our own fully-fledged democracy in Britain, which is not as robust and indestructible as we might assume. Universal suffrage is a relatively new achievement in this country, yet it is yet to celebrate its one centenary. We should not assume that democracy is guaranteed to be a permanent fixture in this country. So-called civilised democracies have throughout history shown an infatuation with authoritarian strong men and radical politics: witness the appeal of Marxism to intellectuals and academics such as George Bernard Shaw and Ralph Miliband; and even fifth-century Athens, the Victorians shining beacon of civilisation, succumbed first to the mass populism of the demagogues and then to an oppressive oligarchy. Totalitarianism is still very much a reality in the 21 st century: one only has to look at the current Hungarian government s selective amnesia regarding the Second World War and its attempts to rewrite the Hungarian constitution, the kleptocracies of Putin s Russia and the Politburo s China, and Egypt s relapses into Islamic and then secular dictatorships, to see an alarming trend in Eurasia towards dictatorships. In Britain our main concern is the growing national contempt for our current cadre of politicians. This is epitomised by the BBC s Jeremy Paxman, who takes pride in regularly humiliating our political leaders and pouring scorn on the establishment. In a recent interview with the comedian/ actor Russell Brand, he admitted that he does not vote. If this nation s self-appointed grand inquisitor does not wish to take part in the social contract at the heart of our democratic system, then how are we to interpret his scathing contempt for our embattled leaders? When Brand came to speak to five hundred Wykehamists in New Hall four years ago, the only thing I now remember him saying is that we all have a duty as citizens of this country to vote. We must be wary of jumping on the populist bandwagon and of chastising our democracy, for it is not as immovable as we might think. We are fortunate to live in a tolerant, liberal society, and those of us privileged to be at Winchester are members of a free-thinking and intellectually vibrant community. We must embrace our mass-participatory democracy and all its inclusive faults, for as this country s finest Prime Minister remarked, democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried. GOOD TEACHERS Recently Nick Clegg and fellow Liberal Democrats have questioned Michael Gove s free school policy, on the grounds that it allows the employment of teachers who have no formal teaching qualification. Clegg objects to employing such people because qualifications help guarantee minimum standards. Introduction of such standards would be a return to New Labour s supposed standardisation and centralisation in state education, which can be considered as a threat to scholarly learning in school. Teachers should be judged on their ability rather than their qualifications. Clegg should know this as well as anyone, having benefited from sitting at the feet of unqualified but scholarly and inspiring teachers at Westminster. The qualification might be helpful but it should not be essential. The whole point of free schools is for them to be free from inhibiting protocols and centralisation. Clegg s ideas are another attack on the revolution in state education that is needed. It should be learning that should taking precedent, not government targets and minimum standards. Instead of looking to shore up minimum standards in schools, our government should be aiming for the promotion of learning. With its free school project the state education system is finally moving away from education where targets are more important than the learning experience. There should be interchange of ideas between the state system and the independent schools. The ethos at schools like Winchester, where targets and league tables are less important than the quality of teaching measured by scholarship and lively presentation, is the one the Government should encourage. Schools should not be stifled by restrictive curricula, but should be places where wide learning flourishes. We are fortunate at Winchester because we are in an environment where the intellectual is not stifled by cliché. Div is the most important factor in providing such a context and it is one of the things that makes 3

3 Winchester an independent bastion of educational thought. To build and work towards the Winchester ethos in the state system would liberate heads, teachers and pupils. The free school project would be greatly improved by the adoption of an unexamined subject where wide learning and not statistical targets is the New Hall under construction aim. This would assist the Government s project of making more schools into places of learning rather than factories churning out examination statistics. Our school proves that a school works better as a place of free thinking rather than centralised targets. Our Government would be foolish not to take this into account. The Wykehamist EDITORIAL FEATURES 6 Recitā Patrick Chambers 8 Winchester, Home of Scholars & Angels Benedict Maciejewski ARTS 9 Biloxi Blues Christopher Troop 10 QEII this Half Sam Groom 12 The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui Tom Howard 13 Glee Club Will Nestor-Sherman 15 The School Concert William Ashford WICCAMICA 16 Berlin 2013 Sam Groom 17 Look Richard Ibekwe 19 How It All Fits Together The Head Man 21 The New York Marathon NAS 23 Ladakh 2013 William Ashford 26 Freden 2013 Sam Groom SPORT 27 Golf Jack Keating 28 Archery Charlie Peters 29 Soccer XI Alex Sachak THE REGISTER SHORT HALF Vale PSAT Thomas Yarrow 31 Vale RSS AJPA & KMP 34 Vale NF PJMC 37 Societies Diary 38 Music Diary 41 Sports Diary The Wykehamist Editors Michael Askins Tom Howard Features Richard Ibekwe Theatre Sam Groom Tom Howard Music William Ashford Sport Charlie Peters Alex Sachak Wiccamica William Ashford Michael Askins Patrick Chambers Benedict Maciejewski Photography Patrick Beddow Don in Charge RDT Correspondence to vgr@wincoll.ac.uk Musa Talking: picture by Dominic Rae 4 5

4 One of the beauties of poetry is that it is, like all art forms, subjective. Thus it is no surprise that the reading aloud of poetry is equally contentious and when a competitive element is added it seems there are always differing opinions. The adjudicator of this year s Recita, the poet Stephen Boyce, had a hard task in choosing his top three from both the junior and senior sections, and broke from the norm by starting the competition off with the recitation of his own poem, Soundless. Alexander Ind (H) started with Epilogue to Asolando by Robert Browning, bringing out the colour and interrogative aspect of it well with a very clear voice. Harrison Taylor (D) followed with Kate Donovan s Yearn On ; despite lacking in clarity at points, he evoked both a naive aggravation and a melancholy aching. This close engagement with the poem captivated the audience and he appeared touched by what he was saying. Henry Grandage (G) filled School with childish wonder during Blackberrying by Sylvia Plath, and this curiosity, combined with a fast-paced delivery, made it a joy to listen to. Henry Lloyd s (A) compelling rendition of The force that through the green fuse drives the flower by Dylan Thomas conjured up the poem s dynamism with the aide of an upright stance and some well-placed diminuendos. Harry Berry (B) recited a speech from the film V for Vendetta by the Wachowski brothers, and was remarkable! He was a demagogue, displaying both a comic and evil side, and inhabited the character of a man vying for what he thought was justice and individual responsibility. Alec Younger s (F) Oh Come all ye faithful also elicited a few laughs from the audience, though he seemed to focus on the poem s irony, rather than its pathos (which weakened his performance). Tom Steward-Smith s (A) interpretation of Emily Dickinson s difficult poem Because I could not stop for death had a true melancholia to it, despite being rather overridden by the rhyme scheme (which detracted from the poem s power). It was clear that Alexander Butcher (A) understood his poem, The Burial of Sir John Moore after Corunna by Charles Woolf, and his strong voice and balanced tone aroused the feeling of patriotism and the turmoil of losing a fellow soldier. Tobias Schroder s (Coll) interpretation of Digging by Seamus Heaney was very matter-of-fact and lacked the reverence and resolution that are integral to the poem s meaning. In 6 RECITA 2013 Patrick Chambers (B) was there. contrast to this, Toby Philip s (G) recitation of Wind by Ted Hughes was masterly: he caught the sound of the booming hills and his enchanting voice helped the words flow like the wind which they describe. He gave the impression of being both fascinated by and in awe of the poem, and it was a delight to hear him. These ten poems made up the junior section of the competition and Stephen Boyce was pressed to choose three. He put V for Vendetta in third place owing to its great demonstration of the menace involved and Oh Come all ye faithful in second for its fine illustration of humanity. Mr. Boyce had been listening to Dylan Thomas on his way to the competition and thought that Henry Lloyd s performance was a skilled one which did not imitate the poet at all: for this The force that through the green fuse drives the flower won the junior section. Zachary Tiplady (Coll) began the Queen s Silver Medal with a confident delivery. His change of voice was effective and the emphasis of the word locked was dazzling; he portrayed both the ironic and pathetic sides to Dockery and Son by Philip Larkin. My last afternoon with Uncle Devereux Wilson, by Robert Lowell and recited by Ivan Kirwan-Taylor (F), was if anything even more breath-taking: this was spellbinding, and with a fluent voice evoked both childish enthusiasm and nostalgia for a deceased uncle. He took over the role of this young boy with skill and maintained the poem s energy right until the end. William Nestor-Sherman (B), arriving with seconds to spare (having just played in a guitar ensemble) offered a speech from Shakespeare s Richard III. With hand on heart, he occupied the persona of a tormented man and appeared close to tears at points; it was a dramatic and moving spectacle. Youth s Testament by Mickael Lermontov was recited by Tom Shaw (A), who brought calculation, combined with an undertone of bitterness, to the poem. His change of voice in the last section brought out the antagonism to the female neighbour concerned. Edward Sweet-Escott (G) gave a section from England s Standard by Lord Macaulay a profound rise and fall, with some of the impassioned lines exclaimed at the top of his voice. Friday. Wet Dusk by Christopher Logue, performed by Jamie Onslow (A), evinced in a vivid register the idiosyncrasies of three men in an Indian restaurant. He delighted in each word, whilst at the same time displaying disgust towards these obscene men. Ben Chua s (E) recitation of T.S. Eliot s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock was confident and fluent and lacked emotion. He sacrificed colour for pace and was matter-of-fact in a poem that is so focused on human decay and life s hundred indecisions. His voice was flat and at times seemed to slip into melodrama. How to treat the House Plants, written by Kit Wright and read by Jonathan Hedley (F) was the most humorous performance of the evening. He exposed the irony in being rude to plants for their own good and his ability to shift from the voice of husband to wife was very comic. This contrasted with Sam Groom s (Coll) Goodbye by Alun Lewis which was delicate and touching; he evidently felt the poem s implication and caught its grace well. Jack Bolton (E) followed with a resolute and personal speech by George VI on the outbreak of World War Cloister Inscription in War Cloister War II, and Sasha Reviakin s (H) lovely voice did not take away from the darkness that emanated from his poem, The Moon and The Yew Tree by Sylvia Plath. Mr Boyce said that anybody could have won and emphasised the importance of not just understanding the words, but what the poem means for you. Dockery and Son was awarded third place, recognising Zachary Tiplady s interpolation of character without any sense of falsity. The adjudicator liked Tom Shaw s intimacy with the audience and hence Youth s Testament took second. That left the winner: Ben Chua was awarded the Queen s Silver Medal because of his ability to let the words of T.S. Eliot s masterpiece speak for themselves. It was an excellent evening, the standard higher than ever. 7

5 WINCHESTER, HOME OF SCHOLARS AND ANGELS This term Winchester had the privilege of showing some of painter Iain Vellacott s latest and finest works. The exhibition appeared in Art School s Angelus Gallery from 16 to 29 September. This exhibition held a rare appeal to Wykehamists. The painter himself is an Old Wykehamist and thus is able to get inside the Winchester psyche. The paintings have a definite warmth to them. This is created both by the scenes illustrated and by the loose brushwork deployed in depicting them. This loose brushwork also plays a very useful role in enhancing the viewer s sense of perspective and adds to the painting as whole. I felt that this was particularly evident in the painting entitled School. It is the superb use of light that draws me to this painting. The late autumn evening is captured brilliantly. The scenes depicted were astutely and adeptly chosen. One got the feeling that the entirety of a Wykehamist s life at school was at some point captured on canvas. The scenes illustrated include cricket, Chapel Choir, Winchester College Football and meal times. It is the simplicity of these scenes that allows the exhibition and the artist to encapsulate the feel of a Wykehamist s life. It was this encapsulation that made the exhibition so special. While the exhibition was on I was pleasantly surprised at the enthusiastic reception that it received around the School. It was widely acclaimed a great success and the consensus was that the Benedict Maceijewski (K) reviews two Angelus Gallery provided the perfect setting. On show at the same time was work of the renowned sculptor Peter Eugene Ball s work. His exhibition entitled Scholars and Angels provided much food for thought and was very impressive. It took place from the 15 September to the 3 October. The setting for this exhibition was also very well selected. It was displayed in Chantry, an ideal setting. This exhibition succeeded in combining its two main themes, academe and divinity. Forty figures, angels and scholars, were shown. These contrasted and played against each other very nicely. Some were devotional pieces, some were irreverent; some grave, some whimsical. While Peter Eugene Ball is more widely known for his religious work he also completes a large amount of secular work. What really struck me about the exhibition was the vibrancy with which the sculptures spoke. The materials of seasoned wood, copper, enamel, gold leaf and patterning in various colours are characteristic of Ball s work. The School is fortunate to possess several of Ball s pieces, in Chapel, Chantry and Michla. One striking piece depicting a Winchester Scholar is currently on loan to Moberly Library. During the course of the exhibition Ball gave a question-and-answer session to divs, revealing his skill, wit and humour. Div and History of Art sets were streamed in and out of Chantry to admire and enjoy. Members of the public had plenty of access too. Simon Taylor s last play at Winchester in Cloister Time 2013 had to have everything. After 23 years of service spearheading Winchester drama, the anticipation for this play was colossal and it did not disappoint. Jointly cast and co-directed with Jack Cammack (A), the play had all the aspects of a typical PSAT production: a fusion of the School s very best acting talent, a striking set, bursts of emotion and engagement from the audience and a typical PSAT find among the cast. The find was Jack Keating (C), who captivated the audience with his extremely convincing rendition of Eugene. There was an endearingly genuine feel to his performance. There were laughs, there were tears, and there was almost endless applause. It was a wonderfully entertaining and heartfelt production, tinged with the sadness of knowing that we were never going to be treated to that PSAT touch ever again. It was a fitting send-off. The first scene of Biloxi Blues introduces the cast of army recruits on their way to a remote training camp in middle-america, Biloxi. This serves as a comprehensive introduction to most of the cast. Every one of the army recruits was acted to a very consistent standard, though the parts vary considerably in characterization. What is more, each character in the group was portrayed as attractive and likeable, adding agreeably to the general flavour of the production. William Ashford (D) complained and battled his way through adversity as Epstein, apart from Eugene the only Jew in the group. Fergus Bentley s (G) faux-terrible singing delighted and endeared us to him as he punctuated the beginning and end of the production with badly-remembered forties show-tunes. Alex Swanson (B) was hilarious, encapsulating Boston cockiness perfectly as he told inane anecdotes, while Junaid Belo-Osagie (A) bullied his way entertainingly through the play, memorably drawing special attention to his flatulence. Harry McWhirter (K) also deserves a lot of credit for how bravely his role as the soldier accused of being gay was portrayed, especially by a man in the third year. What struck me about this ensemble was how the trivial could switch to the serious very quickly without missing a beat; a testament to how expertly it was directed. BILOXI BLUES Chris Troop (Coll) reviews PSAT s final Mayne s Toomey was as entertaining as he was intimidating, a true example of a character the audience loves to hate. His character assassinations were timed perfectly for maximum effect. The climax of the play, as he emerged drunk and gun-wielding, was shocking and moving. His fall at the hands of his greatest rival, Epstein, commanded unexpected sympathy. There was also a small but delightful Peter Symonds contingent represented in Biloxi Blues by Miranda Gamble and Matilda Bedford. Miranda s role as Rowena, the only prostitute in the town of Biloxi, was a memorable cameo appearance. Simple and carefree, her calm contrasted hilariously with Eugene s awkwardness. Matilda, playing the role of Daisy, Eugene s sweetheart, delivered an innocent and sweet a character too. The couple s interaction felt appropriately genuine and heartwarming, as together, they presented a model of subtle stage romance. Over the years Simon Taylor has touched the hearts of many in his productions. This last one was a special triumph. In his retirement he has left behind him a lasting deposit of theatrical know-how, wisdom and love that will nourish Winchester drama for many years to come. This play marked the end of an era, and the dawn of a new age. To this man who has been so generous with his time and care, all Wykehamists who were directed or taught by him say Thank You. Laura Ellen Bacon: Willow Sculpture see page 33 Special mention must go to Charlie Mayne (A) for his excellent portrayal of the psychotic Sergeant Toomey; many of his mannerisms referred to Christopher Walken s famous interpretation of the character in the 1988 film. Uncompromising, unfair and macabre, Laura Ellen Bacon: Willow Sculpture 8 9

6 QEII Short Half 2013 Sam Groom (Coll) is politically challenged. Hopper s House Play Animal Farm; The Coarse Acting Show; Furley s House Play The Third Wave faulty props, inept technicians and the aforementioned collapsing scenery. The cliché runs that comedy is the hardest theatre to produce, and the farcical comedy of things-going-wrong-on-stage the very limit of licet hair-tearing for a company. This in mind, Jennings large-cast show was brilliantly bad, and deserves whatever sort of praise we judge appropriate. Maybe it was MDH s new management, or maybe the drive and verve of certain individuals (looking at you, SA and Kieran Tam (A)). Certainly Joe Cunio had a lot to do with it. At any rate, compared with precedent, or at least with our unfair conception of the precedent, this term s House plays have looked fantastic. Hopper s had a few impressive pieces (windmill!) while remaining tastefully sparse; Furley s went all out, completely creating an A-block classroom and then draping it with Nazi-esque banners. The Coarse Acting Show is left off this list because it was not good enough, but then it was not supposed to be good enough. Hugo Jennings (C) and his team did a perfect job of making a throwtogether falling-down set that screamed AMATEUR PRODUCTION, for such was the intended nature of his farcical show. Indeed, it may have seemed more like a House play than the others - but more on that later. The others were both very professional. Despite the perennial struggle to find a whole cast within a single House, there were no weak links in Hopper s Animal Farm. (We can overlook the odd quirk, like the fact that Adam Wordley s Napoleon, a powerful performance, was the tallest man on stage, because they were funny.) People like Tom Howard, Scardino and Alex Beeton stood out, and we were even treated to performances from directors George Allen White and James Vickery - lucky us. Nothing was unclear, diction-wise, and technical tricks abounded, most memorably the back-lit screens upstage that created silhouettes at certain chilling moments. Putting across a message in a theatre production is harder than you might think. One has to sustain an appropriate mood throughout and it is very dangerous to laugh at oneself. Hopper s took this step, making a joke, for instance, of all the times the characters say No animal shall wear clothes. Wryly raised actors eyebrows abounded, and some couldn t keep straight faces. Such self-referential moments not only broke the illusion of reality-on-stage (just as when George Herring s Old Major addressed us, the audience, as he lectured on the evils of human beings ), but also complicated the general mood of the play. Was it a comedy, or serious political allegory? The play s direction (White, Jeremy Choo et al) decided, it seems, that the message of the book/play is so well known that it did not need to be driven home, and the company could afford lightheartedness here and there. That said, there were hilarious moments the gossiping of Hens Byers, Tellwright and 10 Vickery mi. comes to mind that still kept the integrity of Orwell s idea. Here, the Hens innocence makes us pity them more when they are ground under the wheels of Animal Farm, and therefore compels us further to hate the regime. Of course, to ask a House play for 100% of the deadpan (death-pan?) would be unreasonable. One wonders, though, if Animal Farm is suited to this kind of production. It was, that said, undoubtedly Hopper s through and through, Hopper s humour and Hopper s hearts; and this is what we came for, after all. Furley s put on The Third Wave, the play of the true story of a Californian school that is best known via the film Die Welle, and made it their own in another way. Namely, director LMG edited the script to move the action to Winchester College, and all the schoolboys (who are most of the cast) were re-cast as Furleyites. In this way, though dozens of boys trod the boards, there were only two actors, Jamie Onslow (history don Ron Jones) and Ed Horrocks (variously Jones s future self and the play s narrator, Jones s girlfriend, his boss, his parish priest and a war-veteran grandfather of a class member). All the others played themselves. This made, for those in the audience who knew many or all of the boys, for a bizarre experience which, although not truly theatrical in a sense, eventually, in my opinion, made the message of the play stronger; i.e. anyone can be seduced by fascism, even you and your friends at your 30,000 p/a public school. Onslow was a solid centrepiece. He held the play together admirably and illustrated Jones s struggle to remain detached from his experiment and not enjoy his new-found power. On the other hand, Horrocks, or possibly the director, had taken the opportunity to perform a kind of Horrocks Variations in which this man represented as many genders and classes as possible within a seventy-minute production. This was certainly funny, but one couldn t help wondering whether A House had run out of actors. Every time I have tried to compliment a member of the Coarse Acting Show company on their hilariousproduction I have felt as if I am putting them down. Say not That went smoothly, which would mean they missed the point entirely; but can I really say Well done, that was a complete bloodbath? For the programme consisted of three short plays, each of which was put on by an amateur company, and each of which was plagued by amateur companies problems: actors out of action, with stage fright or forgetting their lines, The Head Man s house through South Africa Gate 11

7 The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui Tom Howard (I) reviews the first play of the year. Glee Club in Cathedral William Nestor-Sherman (B) was in the eye of the storm. Only death is free. So mused Arturo Ui, otherwise known as Adolf Hitler, in Bertolt Brecht s allegorical satire on the rise of Nazism. This play, challenging both for the director, Sam Groom (Coll), and the audience itself, is Brecht s attempt to demonstrate that Hitler s rise to power could and should have been prevented. A difficult play to perform because of its length, Groom and his cast unquestionably succeeded in making it a captivating and visually powerful spectacle. The audience witnesses the rise of Ui from the least respected mobster in Chicago (Germany) to kingpin of the Cauliflower Trust (the Prussian Junkers) in both Chicago and Cicero (Austria). He achieves this by exploiting the financial uncertainty of the depression and the unwillingness of the citizens of Windy City to look past their own individual preoccupations and to confront a common enemy. Rupert Meadows (G) masterfully played the title role in this, the first play of MDH s stewardship of QEII. He captured the disdain with which Hitler/Ui was viewed originally as he struggled to impose himself on petty hoodlums and to find an opening into the cauliflower business. There is an amusing scene, the funniest in the play, where we see the transformation of Ui begin at the hands of an affected thespian, brilliantly portrayed by Ed Horrocks (A), and the origins of Hitler s oratory and his infamous goosestep. Ui visibly grows in confidence as the play progresses, culminating in his brazen treatment of Mrs Dullfeet (Hannah Tickle), a mourning widow. The female parts were played convincingly by actors from Peter Symonds College. In a play at times so oppressively dark, lighter moments are interspersed effectively, and there are interesting contrasts between Ui s henchmen, such as the loquacious Guiseppe Givola (Goebbels), played by Tian Wolf (Coll) and his maniac enforcer Emanuele Giri (Goering), played by Jamie Onslow (A). William Ashford (D) was at his best playing Ernesto Roma, Ui s original right-hand man before he is squeezed out by Givola and Giri. The power struggles in Ui s mob demonstrate the initial tensions within the Nazi party, which Brecht via the opening monologue (Rosa Tallack) assures us are uncomfortably accurate: 12 But everything you ll see tonight is true. Nothing s invented, nothing s new Or made to order just for you. The gangster play that we present Is known to our whole continent. A base knowledge of Nazi history is essential, and it helps to know one s Shakespeare, for there are allusions to his plays throughout. Brecht assumes that the audience is familiar with Shakespearean tragedy. There is an intriguing scene when the ghost of Roma appears to Ui in a dream, as Macbeth and Richard III were visited by their victims ghosts. Amschel de Rothschild (B) played Dogsborough (von Hindenburg) well, bringing out his internal torment as he realises that he has made a pact with the devil, blackening his name forever. All the cast spoke with Chicago accents and, with a few exceptions, were clearly audible throughout. There were some scenes which were a little static, with little movement on stage, and the tension did at times drop when the impressive Meadows was off-stage, but on the whole the play was a pleasure to watch. As ever in QEII the stage was visually impressive, with a clever framed portrait of Dogsborough, the legitimate front of Ui s crime syndicate, dominating the set. Groom deserves credit for the play s slickness: it was evident when watching that every detail had been addressed, right down to (what I believe was) the inaugural serving of ice cream at QEII during the interval.. It was an ambitious choice -The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui was an excellent choice to commence this year s drama programme. Cloisters: the west walk The Glee Club concert this term featured two of perhaps the most ambitious pieces in the choral society s history, challenging each other for the hearts of the audience with breath-taking intensity and musicianship. The atmosphere created left us all feeling overwhelmed with the passions of the two great composers resulting in an thrilling musical event, one that certainly stayed in the minds of those who were there. Beethoven began his composition of the epic Ninth Symphony, The Choral in D minor, against growing deafness and a contemplated suicide. Greatly affected by these personal tragedies, he made his art his salvation, resulting in the composition of many of his greatest symphonic works. These include his fateful Fifth Symphony in C minor, his heroic Third in E flat minor, and of course the Ninth, all immense pieces of music that were longer and more dramatic than any other ever written. The Ninth was the first choral symphony composed by Beethoven. With the words taken from the Ode to Joy poem written by Friedrich Schiller, it is split into four movements: the Allegro ma non troppo, the Scherzo, the Adagio molto e cantabile and the Presto. Springtime on Funen by Carl Nielson was the last major choral work written by the composer and recognised as his greatest. Influenced by the folk songs of his mother, this piece was written to accompany a prizewinning text by Aage Bernsten. His richly playful memories on the island of Funen determined the light and lively feel of the work. The music is delightfully buoyant and lavishly diatonic with vibrant melodies and rich modulations. The piece bears the marks of the Danish countryside awash with swaying grass, blooming water lilies and of course good-natured, flirtatious children dancing among falling apple blossoms. The Winchester College Glee Club Choir and the Winchester Music Club Choir joined forces to tackle this music, a challenge for NPW to organise and conduct. As a singer in the chorus myself, I was stunned by the progress the choir managed to accomplish in the little time it had to rehearse. Due to the efficiency of the rehearsals and with helping hands from OT and JJS, the choir quickly got to grip with the two pieces. Four soloists joined us for the concert, contributing enthusiastic performances that delighted all and which gave the chorus a necessary rest during both the rehearsals and the concert itself. The Nielson was handled with the right amount of frivolity and control to give the impression of early spring. The repetitive fluidity of the string phrasing and tranquil steadiness of the clarinets gave rich contrasts to the courage of the brass and the thunderous thrill of the Glee Club chorus. Of particular note was the light flippancy of the children s chorus, a mixture of the ever-impressive Pilgrim s Quiristers and many of the younger female sopranos. The playful antics of the young children of Funen were sung beautifully, enough to make even the coldest hearts of the audience to melt with the warmth and joy of springtime. The two soloists in the mini chorus sang with all the conviction needed and projected well, managing to hold their own against the vast space of the Cathedral. NPW led with a light-hearted gusto and passion. During the first two movements of the Beethoven, the orchestra remained responsive and fine-tuned, making good work of the difficult phrasing. Unfortunately, because of the acoustics of the Cathedral, some of that intensity was lost within the vast space that the music had to occupy. Nevertheless, the orchestra did well given the challenging circumstances. The third movement, the Adagio, was held with a great degree of softness and care, with variations in key signature held confidently without compromising the quality of sound. The highlight of the concert was the fourth and final movement, the Presto, the only movement in which the choir sings. The chorus was responsive and accurate in its timings on almost all occasions, as NPW allowed little room for error. The confident and astonishing volume of sound that was produced sounded marvellous from the choir stalls; it must have been even better resonating through the Cathedral for the audience. The piece and the concert were closed with the stunning finale of the fourth movement which moved with a frantic prestissimo, filling the building with colossal sound. It was a spectacular concert. 13

8 School Concert William Ashford (D) There are virtuoso oboists, and there is Tommy Peet (F). 14 Iain Vellacott: Going Back Up to House The packed-out auditorium fell into respectful silence as Peet swaggered onto the stage like John Wayne, oboe in holster, ready to do battle with Haydn s Oboe Concerto in C Major. After months of rehearsing, practicing and memorising the music it had all come down to this single moment. The music began with thick C major chords that bathed the audience in golden sonority but it was Tommy s first entry that told the audience that this was going to be a spectacular concert. With his eyes closed like a possessed shaman he effortlessly played the music with the expressive quality of a true maestro. When he reached the tricky, virtuosic solo cadenzas that explored the extremes of the oboe s range and required great concentration and precision, and without the safety net of the orchestra behind him, he seemed unfazed, masterfully demonstrating his skill and inherent musicianship with flair and dynamism. (His fingers moved so quickly it was like watching a millepede on a treadmill.) This vulnerability not only drew the audience in but focused every ear onto the wonderfully pure tones that filled the hall. (I really am not joking when I say that his rendition was worthy of a performance at the Wigmore Hall.) With a wink of an eye to NPW, the orchestra seamlessly re-entered at such a controlled volume that the oboe could soar gloriously above the orchestra like an eagle. He delivered the music with such ease that the oboe seemed to be an extension of his voice. It was aural honey. If you closed your eyes during the performance you could have imagined being inside some huge Esterhazy country palace listening to the elegant sonorities of the plucked harpsichord beneath the liquid oboe. What impressed me most was Peet s ability to switch from rhapsodic panache to melancholic lament within the space of a few notes. The antiphonal dialogue between orchestra and soloist was electrifying. His highly expressive playing together with the responsiveness of the orchestra made the performance memorable. Peet showed exhilarating flair and brilliance. More riveting even than the virtuoso passages was his tone, splendid and intense right to the end of every note. So appreciated was his performance that he was called back to bow four times. Haydn s Oboe Concerto in C major has been the subject of great debate. For centuries, scholars have disputed over the work s authorship as the orchestration is far from typical Haydn with its use of kettle drums and trumpets as part of the orchestral accompaniment for a concerto of this type that uses the light-voiced solo instrument of the oboe. Nevertheless, whoever wrote it, whether Haydn or Kozeluch, Peet did the composer proud. After the excitement of the first piece there was even greater anticipation for the next act, Gabriel Faure s Pavane (originally performed in the same year as the Requiem -1887) an orchestral miniature played by the Symphony Orchestra. Faure is a composer who bridges the Romantic and Modern eras. Taught by Saint-Saens and teacher of the great radicals Ravel and Debussy, his music looks back and also forward. The music of Pavane draws inspiration from both the old and the new as the piece s form is derived from the pavan, a sixteenthcentury, a duple-meter dance that originated in the courts of Italian nobles; the orchestration, although rich, is thoroughly modern, possessing the transparency and lyricism of a new aesthetic. The clockwork pizzicato arpeggios played by the lower strings that accompany the haunting silver melody above evoke the sound of a lute from olden days. The music finally reaches a dramatic central episode before returning to the opening material. Although only six minutes in length, the piece easily managed to captivate the audience. NPW s and ADA s rehearsals were rewarded as the orchestra played the music with confidence and subtlety, responding with musical intuition to every wave of the baton. Schubert s Symphony No. 5 in B-flat major is Mozartian in flavour. Composed in 1816, Schubert was infatuated with Mozart s music at the time. This is particularly noticeable in the lighter orchestration, his only symphony not to include trumpets, timpani or clarinets. The Allegro first movement is greatly reminiscent of the opening movement of Mozart s Symphony No.40. To me the Schubert is the happier version of the Mozart. The buoyant, joyous spirit of the music and the seemingly spontaneous melody produced smiles throughout the audience. Another of Schubert s heroes makes an appearance in the work with the Beethovenianlike repetition of material and unanticipated shifts and modulations to unexpected keys. Schubert famously 15

9 carried Beethoven s coffin through the streets of Vienna at the mass funeral (there were 10,000-20,000 mourners) in 1827, a year before he too was to die. The performance was testimony to the hours and days of hard work of the orchestra and was a brilliant The autumn leave-out 5G trip to Berlin is only four years old, but it already feels like an institution. And that, in a place like this, is saying something. This year we went to explore the legacy of the Nazi period in the city, in the form of memorials and the few pieces of Nazi architecture that remain. Laugh-a-minute, as you see, but we did have the sobering experience of unavoidable interaction in German to sober our joyride. On arriving in the city on Friday morning, we barely had time to drop our bags before making our way out to the Olympic Stadium, battling with public transport: a system of trains, trams, tube and buses that was baffling if reliable, and that we would know well by the time we left on Tuesday. The stadium was colossal, and, pertinently, imposing. Rebuilt to house the 1936 Olympic Games, it was a massive piece of propaganda and gives one an idea of how Berlin the World Capital would have looked had Hitler had his way, i.e. classically-inspired and designed to make the individual feel insignificant. The football enthusiasts were excited by the players changing rooms, and the jacuzzi that is legally required in all professional sports facilities in Germany. Next day we had a private tour of central Berlin, seeing many museums and memorials: to the victims of war, on all sides; to those dead in the Holocaust; to the homosexuals and Romani people who were killed by the Nazis. Each looked completely different and cut an eerie, contemplative space out of the noisy capital. The sites were both moving and thought-provoking, and in some instances their erection had caused controversy. The question of how we relate to the past and the sins of our fathers is chillingly significant and ever-present in Berlin. 16 Berlin 2013 demonstration of the orchestra s competence both as individuals and as a group. It was lucidly communicative because of the orchestra s ability to hang on NPW s every gesture. The concert was a complete triumph. Sam Groom (Coll) did not get lost in translation. Cloisters the vault The morning after was yet more challenging, for we visited Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Not built to be an extermination camp, rather a labour camp, Sachsenhausen was the model for other camps across Europe and therefore was disturbingly familiar to us in many ways. For example, after a long walk through forest, a visitor sees the famous words AR- BEIT MACHT FREI in iron across the gate. To try to do justice to an experience like this visit in a few words, as they who have been on the History department s Holocaust trip know, is to risk making light of the complex and profound feelings that surround these places. Suffice to say that we came away with a fuller appreciation of the burden on Germany s conscience. We saw more amazing things. The Reichstag building and the Bundestag parliament chamber; ancient Roman and Middle Eastern art in the Pergamon Museum; the multi-storey Central Station; a play and an opera. But what will stay with us, I think, is the sheer fun of exploring a new city with the as ever masterfully-organised yet relaxed BLHM and her second-in-command, called up with two days notice and nothing but the numbers one to ten in German, AEWA. It would surprise you how far Latin can get one when ordering kebabs in Berlin. The devil, it is said, is in the detail. I have certainly found that details are often the most important and interesting parts of things, but all too often we overlook them. In our busy lives, full of toytimes, sport, music and drama, dominated by smartphones and social media, it is easy to say that we have no time for them. Attention is repaid, though, if we stop and look. Think of a typical day at Winchester. Many in the School, especially the Commoners, pass through War Cloister daily several times. How often have you really stopped to look at its details? Those who have will have appreciated the thought and effort that was put into its design and construction. SF, the Archivist, once showed me a pamphlet that was produced at the time of its opening. It explains the thinking behind the various features of the Cloister, many of which I had not noticed before. The four corners of the Cloister, for example, are dedicated to the greater Dominions [of the British Empire; Africa, Australia and Canada] and to India and are decorated accordingly with carefully-researched coats of arms, symbols and inscriptions, which attempt to express historical, geographical, mythological, and other dominant facts and influences of these portions of the Empire. In the floor of each corner you will notice large circular slabs, quarried in the parts of the Empire they represent, inlaid with symbols of bronze. Notice the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary, to whom this School is dedicated, in the gable above the gate from Meads into War Cloister, with her monogram in flint-work above. On either side of the gate is a tablet, recording the dates on which the Foundation Stone was laid (15 July 1922) and on which the Cloister was opened (31 May 1924). Just inside the gate from Meads to War Cloister there are four square stones set in the floor, taken from the Ruins of Ypres, each inlaid with the double cross of Ypres in bronze. Their inclusion is both subtle and moving. Standing between those stones, look up and notice a wooden roof angel in the trusses of the Cloister, of which there are a number around the Cloister. And there is, of course, that powerful, moving and beautiful inscription high up around the perimeter inside the Cloister: Thanks be to God for the service of these five hundred Wykehamists Another interesting detail is the door and blocked arch in the northwest corner of the Cloister, looking left after LOOK Richard Ibekwe (Coll) explores the value of looking entering through South Africa Gate (the entrance from Kingsgate Street), which were designed to provide access to planned buildings beside the Cloister that were never built. The doors are permanently closed. On the outside, high on the wall of the northeast corner pointing towards Flint Court, is a plaque honouring those who built the Cloister; in my time at Winchester, with numerous trips by this corner on my way to New Bethesda (College Sick House), I have only recently noticed this. Many other parts of the School are replete with such interesting details that reflect its rich history. That is to be expected of a place that has been around for so long. A journey to old Cloisters is a good example. Entering through the gate, one can see in the wall immediately to the left a blocked arch. On the opposite side there is another, more easily seen from the outside. The story behind this tells of the disassembly of Chapel Tower during Butterfield s Victorian alterations. To make reconstruction easier the builders laid out the stones in order on Meads, and to make access to Meads faster they cut out the arches. WGD, quite an expert on such things, gave me a tour of Kingsgate Street, showing me how much can be learnt about the history of a building by looking carefully at it. Several houses show evidence of modification to brickwork, insertion and removal of windows and the like. The Headmaster s house (Witham Close), opposite South Africa Gate, appears to have had its front door inserted where there was originally a window. Notice also the false window painted in on the top floor of 5 Kingsgate Street for symmetry. There is what appears to be the impression of a fossil at the foot of the front door of Number 14. That the road was originally at a lower level and was subsequently raised is evidenced by a number of houses with front doors level with the pavement and the tops of some basement windows only just visible. A number of buildings are adorned with the monogram of the Sun Insurance Company to show that they were insured; Toye s, which has two white ones, was originally two houses that were joined, with the current front door inserted at the seam. In Flint Court, in front of the wing to the left when you look in from Meads, some square impressions are visible in the pavement. These were probably left 17

10 over from railings that stood there when Flint Court was the Commoners residence before conversion to classrooms. Slight discolouration of the brickwork above the central façade facing Meads was caused by a fire there in 1947; old photographs show an impressive pediment that stood there and was apparently damaged in the fire, removed and never replaced. A great deal more could be commented on many other 18 Iain Vellacott: Kingsgate Street Old Bethesda things, but space restricts me. I hope this article has shown what fascinating things can be discovered by careful attention to detail. I would strongly encourage you to look out for other such things, both within and without the School. Take a closer look, for example, at the clock in Moberly Library and try to translate the inscription above the door of the Dons Common Room. Stop and look- it s worth the effort. HOW IT ALL FITS TOGETHER We print here an address given to V Book and VI Book 2 by the Headman on 9 January 2013.As the opening paragraph explains, the address was the first in a series about how the School s principal officers work together. We thought it might interest you to hear this term from a number of us as to what we do in the School in order to make it work; and not just make it work, but make it a lively, colourful, stimulating, happy place in which to live and learn. So you will hear from the Second Master, the Director of Studies, the Master of Music, the Chairman of Dons Common Room, the Chaplain, the Senior Housedon, the Head of Sport and others who have particular responsibilities in the School. This should give you a clear picture of how we all work together as a team. So what do I do? How do I spend my day? Perhaps from your point of view mine is the most mysterious of all the roles, because you don t see me much in div rooms or in boarding Houses or in the PE Centre. There are different ways of doing any job and how you do headmastering will depend on the character of the school and its established organisational structure and on the personality, particular interests, strengths and weaknesses of the person doing it. I have been headmaster of three schools over a period of 24 years, each of them different in character, though all of them concerned with the same basic constituencies of Governors, parents, Old Members, teachers and pupils; and beyond them, external groups like government departments, inspectorates, the press and the general public. When you think about it, very few roles require contact and accountability to so wide a range of interested parties. While I have the ultimate responsibility of managing the School day-to-day, I could not possibly do it all on my own. A lot of my responsibility has to be delegated to other people, such as those I mentioned a moment ago. Over the years I have learnt that the golden rule is, only do what only you can do. So I delegate the direction of studies and the organisation of the curriculum, the organisation of sport, music, fundraising, day-to-day pastoral care of all of you, the care of the grounds, to other people many other people about 500 of them. Only do what only you can do. So what can only the Headmaster do? I think there are seven main areas. First, the Headmaster sets the tone of the School. This is a subtle matter. What language does he use when he is talking about the School, as I am now, to you, to the dons, to prospective parents and other outsiders? What is his personal style and manner? Is it extrovert or reserved? Is he Captain of the First XV or more the scholarly type? Does he come across as an efficient manager or more of an intellectual or does he seem more like a vicar? Is his style intense or more relaxed, earnest or humorous? Is he given to rousing speeches or a quieter mode of persuasion? The style needs to suit the school. The prevailing tone of Winchester, as I see it, is basically intellectual: it is a place in which learning, high culture and good conversation (including humour) are what matter most. Most of the dons fit that description and that is the model of the good life we commend to you. So that is the tone I need to project and explain both inside and outside the School. Second, and closely allied to its tone, are the School s character and values, which need to be made consistent and clear. What is the School s character? It has a strong sense of its history, of its uniqueness and difference from other schools. Winchester is not the most famous school in the world, but it is the most venerable. It prefers to think in terms of character not branding, which is too commercial to match venerable. Good teachers are more important than state-of-the-art buildings. We are understated, a little embarrassed about such things as mission statements and the apparatus of the modern world of public relations. Our prospectus and website are text-heavy and image-light, they seek to appeal to people who like to think seriously about education, who are sceptical about the extravagant claims some schools make and suspicious of glossy clichés that lack substance. This may explain why in the current celebrity climate Wykehamists are disinclined to go into politics, so high in PR and low in analytical principle. In the current climate our values can appear a little unworldly, and indeed they are, if by unworldly we mean a certain scepticism about modern trivialism. The shorthand for all that is Div. Third, the Headmaster must ensure that the day-to-day order of the School is well-understood and embraced so that people can live and work happily together. The prevailing experience must be one of harmony and not dissonance. Allied to this is the School s system of discipline, which is managed on a personal basis consistent with fairness. Our system of Warnings, without deten- 19

11 tions and rustications and other heavy machinery, works because our standards and values are clear; and you are intelligent enough to get the message and respectful enough of the community in which you live to want to co-operate. The way the dons relate to each other, the way they treat you, requires an order and discipline which is so well understood that it happens naturally. The appointment of dons is a key responsibility. I spend a lot of time talking to dons, supporting them in their work, helping them to find solutions to their difficulties, whether professional or personal. Most of them are here for much longer than you, or indeed me, and their professional fulfilment is important to them and their families. They are, as it were, the Headmaster s apostles; I look after them and they in turn look after you, academically and pastorally. The Housemasters bear the greatest part of the School s pastoral work. Fourth, and for the most part invisible to you, but essential to your well-being, is the School s process of management. You might get the impression that the Headmaster can make any decision he likes and then impose it on everyone by fiat. I suppose he could do that, but it would not be very effective. It is important that decisions are taken with appropriate dispatch but after consultation. The Senior Management Committee meets under my chairmanship once a week. I meet the Housemasters every Monday morning. I meet with the Bursar every Monday morning too. Heads of department meet at least once a term. I meet with the Co Praes, who are an important part of my link with you and your concerns, every Friday morning. Fifth, and also invisible to you, is my accountability for the day-to-day operations of the School to the Warden & Fellows. In theory they could tell me what to do, but in fact they never do, because they have delegated to me full responsibility for ensuring the good order of the School. They are responsible for ensuring that the School s policies and finances are in proper order. There are six different sub-committees and I attend all their meetings, so I see a lot of them and keep them well-informed. Sixth, because of the seniority of the School on the national scene, the Headmaster of Winchester is expected to have a national profile. In years gone by, this tended to take the form of prominence in the Headmasters Conference (HMC), but for the last decade the national action has been much more focused on the maintained sector and what independent schools can do to help struggling maintained schools lift their standards. The Academy movement has become significant and Winchester made its mark early when in 2008 it was one of the first independent schools to enter into a partnership with an Academy; over the past five 20 years we have given human resources to governance and teaching in order to help Midhurst Rother Academy out of the doldrums to a very respectable place in the West Sussex LEA. I am also a non-executive director of two Academy providers, each managing about seven academies, and a Trustee of a consortium of nine preparatory schools, some of which send boys to Winchester. On the international scene the School has a growing profile in providing consultation for schools in the Far East and partnerships with ten schools around the world through the Winchester International Symposium. We are currently in the process of setting up the Winchester European Symposium. And to come back to base, there is one other important thing. The Headmaster of Winchester has a special responsibility to look after the Chapel and what goes on it. It is crucial that he understands the function of the Chapel and takes a close interest in it, because what happens here is connected with everything I have talked about: the tone of the School, its character and values, its pastoral service, its intellectual and cultural life. Winchester cannot be Winchester without its Chapel. It is the only place (apart from the Cathedral) in which we can meet as a large group. We have been particularly fortunate in recent years to have had Chaplains of high intellectual, pastoral and moral calibre. I meet with them every Monday morning too. The Headmaster is called the Ordinary of the Chapel, meaning that he ensures that faith and order are given the prominence they deserve in the formation of a good life. All of this comes down, in the end, to good relationships among people who share common basic values and who enjoy working in a team. The metaphor that sums up best what I do in the School is the conductor of the orchestra, who has the whole symphony in his mind, ear and heart, who interprets the music to the players who can play all the instruments I cannot, so that every individual instrument can make its distinctive contribution to the complex and beautiful whole. In the coming weeks you will hear from some of the individual players. Lessons in School The New York Marathon It advertises itself as the world s largest sporting event, with 48,000 runners and crowds of over two million spectators lining the streets. The world s most renowned road race, the full 26.2 miles, it was an even bigger event than normal this year, having been cancelled last year in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, and after the bombings at the Boston Marathon in April. Quintessentially American, every aspect of the New York Marathon is on the largest scale, with Mayor Bloomberg declaring the race open, a cannon as the starting gun, with a barge shooting out streams of water dyed red, white and blue, and speakers blaring out the inevitable and ubiquitous song New York, New York. Meanwhile, a military fort doubles as the race village catering for all these runners before the start with free doughnuts and free drinks (some 90,000 bottles of water and 40,000 cups of coffee), and with the legendary urinal the world s longest stretching an eye-watering 290 foot long (google it for photographic proof). There are 130 live bands along the way, and 6,000 volunteers participate, giving out 2.5 million cups of water to the runners, with 41 medical stations equipped with five tons of ice, 14,000 plasters and 400 tubs of Vaseline. Truly, you can t understand the scale of it all until you ve been there and witnessed it first-hand. For me, it was the culmination of my mid-life crisis. By bizarre chance the marathon was five years to the day since I d visited the doctor expecting to be told that it was all the fault of a diet overly rich in cheese and wine. But there was more to it than just that, and if you find yourself in a similar state don t necessarily assume it s your hedonistic lifestyle that s to blame. Your thyroid gland controls your entire metabolism and mine just happened to have given up, resulting in dramatic weight gain, and loss of energy and loss of feeling too: I was having to boil a kettle to heat up my hands before playing the piano, and within twenty minutes they were so cold again as to be effectively immobile. With the medication eventually sorted, it was time to get fit, and having started it s been hard to stop. A year later I ran my first marathon (not a success I managed to forget my shoes!) and, within two more years and four stone lighter, at the Pisa Marathon I achieved the magic sub-3 (way off professional times, or indeed the likes of RSN, but still a time considered to be the holy grail for amateur NAS ran in it! runners) and with it came qualification for New York. Thus I found myself in the front pen of one of the three start waves on a very cold and extremely windy morning in New York. One thinks of New York as being flat, but it s a hilly marathon route with at least five continuous climbs, each equivalent to going to the very top of St Catherine s Hill, and the first of these happens in the first mile as you cross the Verazzano Bridge, from Staten Island to Brooklyn. The course prides itself on crossing and linking the five boroughs of New York and it continues through Queens and the Bronx, before eventually winding its way though Manhattan to the finish line in Central Park. Along the way you witness much of the economic inequality (a survey last month had 15% of New Yorkers living beneath the poverty line) and the cultural diversity of New York, with large Spanish, Polish and Mexican enclaves in Brooklyn and Queens. At half-way you cross the twomile long Queensboro Bridge to Manhattan, with all its skyscrapers and brash commercialism, and the most extraordinary barrage of sound as the crowds scream their support as you enter the final stages. There are only a few moments of silence on the route, along the bridges (where spectators are not allowed) and the other perhaps my most abiding memory of the race in the Hasidic Jewish quarter in Williamsburg which we ran through just as their religious services were coming to an end. Dressed all in black, the men with their top hats and long beards, they studiously averted their gaze as runners do not conform to their dress code (no low-cut necklines, sleeveless shirts or shorts) and there was an eerie silence for at least a mile before we entered the rapidly growing and vibrant Puerto Rican neighbourhood on Bedford Avenue. I had one simple aim, to finish under three hours, but it wasn t to be, not just because of the hills, but a strong headwind for the first twenty miles put paid to any concept of personal bests. Even the winner of the men s race, Geoffrey Mutai in 2hrs 8 mins (just try and imagine running at thirteen miles an hour for over two hours) was three minutes slower than his own course record which he d set two years before. My own time, 3:00:43, was enough to put me in the top 2%, but that s not as impressive as it might sound: events like these are inclusive and they re more about 21

12 the fun-runners, each with their own personal targets and so many of them raising vast sums for charity. Marathon running has increased massively in the past few decades (up by 50% in America in the last twelve years) and this is set to continue. Amongst our own staff, marathon runners include Messrs Berry (who ran the Marathon des Sables, probably the toughest of all of them, with five marathons over five days across the Saraha Desert), Cramer (who managed to run the Paris Marathon by accident!), Leigh, Nash, Nickerson, Shedden, Tarrant and Mrs Talks. One only has to witness the perseverance and determination of almost all in the final yards of Jun, Jun Jun and Sen, to be reminded of 22 NAS finishes a marathon in Pisa - not New York! After the race the enormous benefits of running, with such minimal kit and minimal cost, and such a huge gain for body and soul. With Winchester at the centre of so many beautiful trails the South Downs Way (to Eastbourne), the Clarendon Way (to Salisbury), the Pilgrim s Way (to Canterbury), the Monarch s Way (to Worcester), the Millennium Trail (to Portsmouth), the Itchen Way and many more you can head off in any direction and there are countless paths to get you away from civilisation. We are so fortunate to live here and running offers one of the best opportunities to enjoy the beauty of the landscape on our doorstep. It s never too late to start. Having precariously dodged our way through the Himalayas we landed safely at India s highest airport (3,256m), Leh, and were greeted by a group of smiling, red-robed little nuns who proceeded to bless us with prayers and ceremoniously adorn us with sacred silk scarfs decorated with intricate Buddhist symbols. We threw our bags onto the roofs of our dust-covered, carpeted and incense-smelling Maruti Suzukis and headed towards Basgo, a tiny village thirty kilometres outside of Leh and our home for the next week. The nunnery, a five-minute walk away from the campsite, was being built to provide a home for destitute girls to provide them with an education and the opportunity of continuing to live life as a nun. Although a team of Wykehamists had worked on the site last year there was still a lot of work to be done. We were divided into three teams and assigned specific tasks such as levelling the floors, transporting rocks and firewood onto roofs and making and moving mud bricks. We worked in the morning to avoid the worst of the sun s heat, stopped for elevenses (usually a cup of cha and a custard cream) then ploughed on until lunchtime, then snoozed for an hour in our oven-like tents, then returned for a final push at two o clock before finally retiring at five. It may not sound like much but when you are shovelling dirt into sandbags for hours on end, at lung-squeezing altitude and with the sun 100% stronger than it is at sea level, believe me, it is hard work. Even the athletes among us suffered. It was only the perennially-cheerful nuns who kept us going. Without them we would not have accomplished what we did. They kept us entertained for hours on end with their practical jokes and made the work a pleasure. Nuns and Wykehamists sang and danced together under the light of the Himalayan sun to the rhythm of shovels smashing granite. When illness, rabid dogs and exhaustion plagued us in the night it was the thought of them that made us forget our mortal worries, woke us up in the morning and spurred us on. On the building site, these little Jedi padawans insisted on helping us by carrying the bags of rocks and bricks to speed up the building process. It was quite extraordinary. I could not imagine a six-year-old in Britain willingly taking a heavy bag of dirt out of my hands, climbing barefoot up a ladder, dumping it LADAKH 2013 William Ashford (D) reports on the completion of the project. on the roof, picking up a pickaxe to smash the rocks and then jumping down only to do it again! One particular event that sticks in my memory was when we formed two columns of workers and raced each other with bags of bricks and piles of logs. It ended with a very loud Ladakhi chant with all of us shouting at the top of our lungs - Yammu, lammu, tongley. While our resident linguist Amschel de Rothschild (B) managed to hold his own in conversation with the nuns in near-fluent Ladakhi, the rest of us invented our own composite multinational language that used a variety of different tongues: French, German, English, Arabic, Hindi, Australian, Mandarin, Japanese and even Glaswegian. These mixed-language sentences referenced Bollywood films seen on the plane, to the UK Top 40 and even 15 th century Japanese commands cribbed from Shogun: Total war. Eccentric sentences such as Donde esta tapa s il vous plait thugdzetche? were common and both parties understood one another. Even though the nuns had no material possessions they were the most happy, selfless, loving and giving people We had ever met. They were the embodiment of team work. Not once did I see them argue or raise their voice or become angry. As the lead nun said, The purpose of life is to be happy and useful. Although we worked on the site for only five days, we managed to move the project on to the final stages of completion and I know that quite a few of us will be returning in the near future to check on the project. Before we bade our new friends farewell we put on a little show for them and the inquisitive local villagers. Will Malpass s (C) brilliant improvised percussion drum solo on metal water canisters, an extremely fast rendition of I am a very model of a modern majorgeneral by Jack Bolton (E) and a surrealist sketch performed by de Rothschild, William Ashford (D) and Hamish Coles (K) were received well: but it was our grand finale, an interesting remix of The Beach Boys I Get Around, The Beatles Yellow Submarine and Queen s Bohemian Rhapsody that was received with rapturous applause by nuns and villagers alike. And so it came to pass that on the eleventh day we set forth on our next adventure. Led by founder of The Lotus Flower Trust John Hunt, we (and 42 ponies) began the six-day uphill trek to 5,000m. 23

13 As we climbed higher we left behind the dusty and desolate moonscape of Leh and found ourselves engulfed by walls of gun-grey stone that hid the sun from view. Like termites in the belly of Koln cathedral we marched past these serrated and jagged walls of rock and were numbed by the spectacular views that dwarfed us. I felt microscopic in the presence of these omnipotent, omnipresent and monumental Goliaths of stone that looked like the fins of a prehistoric fish or the vertebrae of some huge coiled dragon. I was half expecting to run into a pack of Uruk-hais We trudged on determinedly through the wind and rain, through rivers and up mountains, enduring both the extremes of heat and cold. Tanta (man or machine I know not) and his expert team of men were the engine workers for the whole operation. Along with JJCW, they were first up in the morning and last to go to bed. They were the ones who could set up tents in blizzards in less than a minute, provide delicious food at altitude and guide ponies over ravines and up cliff-faces before we had even peeled our eyes open from our sleeping bags. I remember watching Tanta effortlessly saunter the final ascent to 5,000 m in flip-flops and denim jeans while I panted and flapped around like a freshly-caught goldfish in frying pan. We came across a local shepherd and an ancient woman who churned yak milk into butter with a piece of string and elbow grease. As we climbed higher the air became thinner (every breath felt like a razor blade ripping the inside of your lungs) the team became a close-knit unit of brothers. Without Alvin Pao (B) constantly encouraging me up the last 200m or so I would have given up, crumpled into a ball and rolled back down the mountain in defeat like a dried out woodlouse. However cheesy this may sound, it really was team work that got us through the tougher parts of the expedition. Reaching the summit was a moment of pure ecstasy. For days I had been engulfed in a bowl of dark stone and had seen nothing but the brooding rock above. At 5000m, even though the effects of altitude were making me feel as if I had had a lung surgically removed with a rusty spoon, I felt like an Old Testament prophet looking down at the world beneath, touching the clouds with the branch of an olive tree and letting the cold wind blow through my wizened hair and across my weather-beaten face. Essential to the success of the trip were the two highlyqualified and highly- banterous Scottish doctors Jamie Hill and John Copland. During the darkest days of the trip, when almost everyone was feeling the effects of altitude, exhaustion, sun stroke and curry, 24 these brave men pulled us through. Together with AF s expert advice on what to bring up the mountain and where to put the items exactly in your bag (and his encyclopedic knowledge on the Eurovision song contest) we all felt in safe and more-than-capable hands. With every step downhill the invisible weight on our chests was lessened. The air became fat with oxygen. It felt as if the vacuum cleaner that had been thrust down my oesophagus and had been sucking out the little precious air in my lungs. Never have I been so grateful to the most basic necessity of life! Life-giving oxygen returned to my body, I could feel it nourishing my arteries like water spilling onto the roots of a wilted dandelion. The wagon train finally came to a stop at the Saboo Ayu nunnery where JJCW made a farewell and thank-you speech to the nuns, after which we said an emotional goodbye to our new friends. Having haggled and bought many an ethnic garment in Leh (sherwanis, kurtas and turbans) from a host of eccentric traders, we boarded the plane to New Delhi. Through the dense humid mist we had a whirlwind tour of the city, visiting the Isa Khan Tomb and the Humayun Tomb before heading off to the Baas Educational Trust School where we had great fun teaching and playing with the pupils. Even though we were slaughtered by the local cricket team (who played barefoot and texted while batting and bowling) the trip ended on a high with an unforgettable afternoon relaxing in the palace-like Tikli Bottom guesthouse, swimming in the pool, playing chess and devouring an excellent celebratory dinner. JJCW was a fantastic team leader with the organisational skills of a modern major general. Having been to Leh before he was an aficionado on the area and provided us with wise and sensible advice like a learned sage. SDM and AF were not only good company on the trip with their reservoirs of information from the X-men to X-rays but also invaluably useful gurus on trekking. We had a brilliant time in India. The Trusty Servant The convent in Ladakh The Ladakh working party 25

14 26 Freden International Music Festival 2013 To the Wykehamist, ADA is a man of mysteries. The bouncy-haired figure seen by most only atop the conductor s podium is worldwide a renowned performer with an ever-growing list of recordings to his name. More remarkable, though, is that this year, for his twenty-third year twenty-three would you believe it! ADA was artistic director at the International Music Festival in Freden, Lower Saxony, Germany, and I was lucky enough to work on its practical team. It is a unique event. Freden is a very small village set in postcard rolling hills and woods, where everyone knows everyone else and needs no one else. For three weeks in summer, however, it is host to a series of concerts, talks and exhibitions of the highest standard. Last year s theme, Die Welt zu Gast ( playing host to the world ), meant the programme had been saturated with exotic world music. This year, then, there was no theme (Kein Thema!), so a great variety of music was heard, from Vivaldi to Hosokawa to the premier of a work by Texan Kerry Turner. Performers included Bayreuth veteran Sarah Fryer, singing Wagner; pianist Thomas Hell, playing, among other pieces, Ives unique Concord Sonata; and our very own ADA as the mainstay of the Festival s ensemble camerata freden. As I say, I was there. I had been conned into volunteering to do jobs that were earning other (teutophone) youths 35 per day: in the daytime, printing programmes and setting seats; before and after each evening s concert, pulling pints and selling snacks. A kind couple put me up free of charge. They, Dorle and Werner Meyer, lifelong inhabitants of Freden, were the two most hospitable people imaginable, and the Festival had taken advantage of their kindness over the years. Compared with the Italian quartets and crowds of American college students they had been loaded with in past years, I was easy to look after. I certainly was not whole populations of concerts turning up at their patio of an evening, demanding drinks, staying until the early morning and sometimes sleeping on their floor. That gives you an idea of Freden s atmosphere during these weeks. I went primarily for my German. Indeed, if that were all I had gained I would be happy, for two weeks spent living and working with (no offence) unsympathetic German-speakers of all ages can do terms of good for your language. Beyond that, though, I had a unique experience. I got to know many fascinating people Sam Groom (Coll) didn t mention the war. even by the standards of professional musicians and made good lasting friends; I discovered a sample of a beautiful region, where a beautiful community lives; I heard, for free, two weeks of world-class music; I ate and drank in such a way and to an extent that can only be described as Germanic. All this was made possible by ADA twenty-three years ago, when he founded the Festival, and every year since, when he is the driving force behind a stunning musical team, and this year, when he invited me to join him. I now see the man with even more than the respect in which I have long held him: deference stops me calling him Adrian whenever our paths cross until next summer, of course. ADA with his fiddle Fromonds s Chantry the vault The ISGA European Championships Golf at Winchester has been on the rise in recent years, thanks to the investment made by the OWGS and the involvement of RSM and SDM. The fact that we were even taking part in a competition like the ISGA European Championships shows just how far the golf programme has come. Going into this event the team had endured a difficult couple of weeks, with an especially tough loss to St John s Leatherhead in the first round of the ISGA Matchplay. There was definitely the feeling that we d been underperforming, so we were hoping to bounce back in Spain. The inaugural ISGA European Championships got under way at Villaitana on 25 October with a practice round on the Levante Championship course. That evening we found that the group s food and accommodation had been upgraded and so for the rest of the stay we enjoyed a five-star experience off the course. Early the next morning the first day s competition took place on the Poniente course where the teams played fourball-better-ball for team rankings. Winchester s first pairing out, Jamie Joshua (I) and Jack Keating (C), came in with an encouraging -4. The second pairing of Alex Cheung (D) and Sergej Stojiljkovic (F) didn t play as well as they would have liked but were still able to manage a respectable score of +3. Whilst -1 sounded like a good total we found ourselves sitting in second last position overnight. The next afternoon the individual stroke play got underway on the Levante Course. On the singles days the best three scores from each team went towards the team total and so when it became clear that Saturday wasn t Joshua s day there was some added pressure on the rest of us to produce. Luckily that is exactly what we did. Cheung posted a remarkable +7, especially when you take into consideration his handicap of 15 and his 8 on the par 4 13th. Stojilikovic, the youngest member of our team, also fell foul of the 13th taking a 7 in what was a solid round of +9. It was however the captain s day, shooting his first under par round at just the right time. With a combined total of +15 for the day we jumped up the rankings into 4th position. Sunday morning saw the final round of the competition, this time individual stroke play on the Poniente Course. With individual and team prizes up for grabs it was Jack Keating (C) was on the course. Winchester s time to shine. Keating started where he left off the day before racing to -6 under through 11 holes, with 7 birdies. Unfortunately a couple of bad holes on the way in saw him drop back to -3 for the day. Behind him Joshua was having a much better day which saw him post an impressive +1, holing a vital birdie putt on the last. When Cheung and Stojilikovic both came in with rounds of +5 all we could do was wait for the results. Whitgift s A team had won the team event comprehensively and so the best we could hope for was second. At the same time we knew that Cheung had a good chance in the individual nett, while Keating might place in the individual gross. After an agonising wait the results were revealed. With Cheung, Keating and Joshua all well under their handicaps for the week, we won the team nett comfortably. With a trophy in the bag, along with some weighty medals, we waited to see where we had placed in the gross team event. We were second. While we didn t receive any prize we knew that this result was an good achievement from where we had been after the first day s play. In the individual competitions Cheung missed out on winning the individual net by one shot, whilst Keating came second in the gross. The individual winner came from the Whitgift A team. All things considered, it was a fine performance from the Winchester team, one which will be hard to follow in the future. Thanks have to go to SDM who was much more than just the don-in- charge. Over the four days he was our psychologist, coach and number one fan. His laid back yet competitive approach helped us create a hugely enjoyable feel within the team which probably helped us get the best out of ourselves on the course. Since arriving back the new ISGA rankings have been published and all four members of the team are currently sitting in the top 25. I think it would be fair to say that this result has established Winchester as a force to be reckoned with on the independent school s circuit. The team 27

15 Archery Charlie Peters (B) traces the growth of a new sport. A SOUND SEASON OF SOCCER Alex Sachak (C) looks back over the games. Winchester College Archery Club was founded in It started as a niche and relatively minor sport, but as time progressed, it gained huge popularity. Indoor and outdoor archery are available to Wykehamists, with many of the more advanced archers as well as the team s coach, Tomas Maliszewski, giving coaching and training advice to the junior members. Membership has grown hugely at the Archery Club with an extensive junior presence being attracted each year to the squad. Archery, in its competitive form, operates in a similar way to shooting. Archers must try and get as close a grouping as possible in their rounds, with the overall scores being counted after the final round to determine the leader board. Each training session focuses on improving the accuracy of the archer, through his posture and ability to determine the best shots. TM has an excellent pedigree as a competing archer, and gives his professional advice to each aspiring archer, regardless of ability. The archers all shoot the recurve bow, which is the most widely used type of bow in the world, even at the Olympics. With so few other schools offering archery as an activity, Winchester has struggled to organise matches. This leaves lots of time available to training for the indoor and outdoor national competitions. Alongside the excellent participation at national level, the archery club also boasts matches against St Swithun s roughly twice a month. At junior level, the school provides kit and equipment. This makes it a surprisingly accessible sport for all Wykehamists who wish to represent Winchester. Before 2010, the School had failed to send any archers to the national competitions, instead operating at a fairly low level of competition outside of term time. However, Winchester has now managed consistently to train several archers to compete at the highest national level each year. Last season, under the captaincy of Daniel Njoo (E), Winchester sent eight archers to compete at the indoor nationals in December. All of the archers finished in the top thirty-five, with Nicholas Barnfield (B) finishing thirtieth, David Wu (E) placing twenty-sixth, Frederik Boumeester (A) finishing thirty-third, and Njoo winning the silver medal. It was a highly successful trip. At the outdoor nationals, Winchester did not experience the same success. With the challenge of shooting up to 90 metre targets and having to face experienced adult archers, they struggled. However, in the under 18s category, Boumeester finished twenty-fifth. This was the first ever placing of a Wykehamist at the outdoor national championships. Archery is a typically Wiccamical sport. During Cloister time, the archers can enjoy a relaxed atmosphere on Bursar s Field shooting in the sun. During Short half and Common Time, the Wykehamists shoot in the Cecil Range. There, the boys have the ability tactically to analyse their shots after each round in preparation for the indoor nationals in December. Archery is now becoming a seriously successful and popular sport at the school, and more success is expected at this year s indoor nationals. After the loss of a number of key players at the end of last year there were fears that this Soccer XI would not be a competitive side. The pre-season soccer camp seemed to suggest that this would be the case. In the first competitive game of the season a physical Corinthian Casuals side dismantled Winchester. However, the season ended up a surprisingly successful one, with a number of stirring performances by a side that has shown impressive team spirit. The first Sunday back from holiday saw soccer the XI involved in the novelty of the knockout rounds of the ISFA-6-A-Side Cup, the first time any Winchester side has made it past the group stage. Harry Hands (K) and the captain George Herring (I) linked up together with particular effectiveness. The promise did not continue as XI suffered against a tactically smart St Bede s side that passed the ball better than any team we encountered all year. The subsequent 3-2 loss against KES Whitley was a disappointment. This was a game I will never forget after being ordered to sort myself out by Lew Chatterley and reacting by fouling their striker inside our box to give them a penalty. A response was needed - and that was exactly what came. Winchester struck up three goals in the first ten minutes of the game against Harrow and cruised to a comfortable victory. That Saturday the XI faced up to its first big game of the season against Eton. The game looked to be going well at half time when the score was 1-1 but insufficient fitness and concentration condemned us to a 5-2 loss that was not nearly as bad as it looked on paper. Our first ISFA cup game was the following week and Winchester came back from one goal down to win 2-1. Vincent Kerck (A), in what would end up being his last full game of the season due to injury, played admirably and Robin Richards (D), our goalkeeper, proved to be the difference between the two sides. Mr Chatterley decided to change things around against Hampshire Schools U16s by introducing some of the next generation. Soccer XI achieved a draw, the first time any XI side has come away with a result against Hampshire schools. The side trained exceptionally hard over the next week in expectation of the important games to come. ter the final whistle blew was the highlight of my time in the XI. We continued our march forward in the ISFA cup with a 4-2 victory, Nicolas Sollohub (D) continuing to be in the goals and Hands acquiring the first yellow card of the season. Facing up to Ardingly that Saturday was always going to be a stiff task and so it proved. I managed to bring down their pacy left-winger in the box after five minutes of play but Ardingly moved one goal ahead - it did not look good. But we proved ourselves to be made of sterner stuff with defence rallying under the leadership of Tom Bacon (D) and Patrick Trant (K). The final score of 3-1 was an injustice as we applied considerable pressure in the second half and rattled a very strong side. Bedales were comfortably beaten 4-1 the next week. The OWs sent us off to Leave-Out with a 1-0 loss with a stunning goal that was the only thing that separated two evenly-matched sides. We returned from Leave-Out with a match against Lancing after one day s training. We quickly went two goals down but replied with good intent in the second half to achieve a 2-2 draw. We played brilliantly against Alleyn s, and after an early goal by Herring we led for sixty minutes, only to succumb agonizingly to two late goals by Alleyn s. The biggest game of the season came next as we faced up to Latymer in the third round of the ISFA cup. We played in front of a big crowd on Bull s Drove for the first time in the season but sadly lost after Latymer scored goals in the first and last minute of the game. A very strong Bradfield side was next and we were determined give a response to their ISFA cup loss. The game finished 3-1 but the Bradfield coach noted at the end that we did not deserve to have lost the game. The whole team played their socks off and we were able to hold our heads high after the game. After that came a 4-2 victory against Midhurst Rother College, a great finish by Angus Woodman (E) saved our blushes after falling 2-1 down. The team would like to thank our coaches Lew Chatterley and GJW for their inspiring coaching throughout the season, and the ground staff for the great pitches prepared. Lawnmowing: picture by Dominic Rae Then the XI overcame Charterhouse 2-1 for, what Mr Chatterley believed, the first time in seventeen years. Richards continued a series of astonishing performances with some mind-blowing saves and the team worked together brilliantly to secure the victory. The feeling af

16 VALE PSAT In a postscript to the Vale we published in the last number, Thomas Yarrow (Coll ) remembers him. VALE RSS QEII Theatre was a shrine for me and for many during our time at Winchester. The building itself with its faded upholstery, chipped wooden railings and musty atmosphere seemed as hallowed as the 14 th century buildings I lived in. Presiding over it all was the great enabler, Simon Taylor. Enthusiasm and sympathy are mixed in him to such an extent that his passion for creativity and theatre cannot help but inspire in eager young minds a desire to achieve the closest to their potential, and so it is no surprise to me that his tenancy as Head of Drama has created what history may well call a revolution in theatre at Win:Coll. One could point to the four-fold increase in the number of productions per year, and to the fact that so many of these productions have been boy-led. Directing plays could have been among the most stressful experiences of my school life, but Simon s encouragement, unflagging support and comfort made the burden one to which there was added not an ounce of despair. Projects which were not a good idea, with Simon s help became some of the greatest achievements I have accomplished to date. Many a CV contains a section extolling the virtue of interpersonal skills, and Simon recognised the value theatre plays in education by setting up the Junior Play Festival, which nurtures exactly these qualities. It allowed older boys the freedom to write, direct and manage a small team, while giving younger boys the opportunity to cultivate talent, develop self-confidence and forge friendships which might otherwise never have happened. Friendship, in fact, is what I have taken most from my experiences in QEII under Simon s mentorship, because he created an atmosphere in which that alltoo-dangerous word love is allowed to exist. I have never felt closer to a group of human beings than I did in his rehearsal rooms and in performance during King Lear, and this included the stage management and technical teams. So much of the actors onstage work relied on the friendships we had developed offstage with Simon at our helm, and he taught us to bring that feeling on with us every time we made our entrances. People keep coming back to Winchester because of the camaraderie he instilled. I have been involved in two productions of the Winchester College Players, 30 with old friends from school- and new friends who have been equally inspired by Simon in their own school years. Not only that, but this summer a youth production company created by a group of like-minded boys while still at Win:Coll:, which could never have existed but for Simon s fostering presence and support, will celebrate its tenth year. I am an actor now because of Simon. People may look at that as a good or a bad thing, but it is what I have been most passionate about for a long time. It is passion, encouragement, friendship and love which I hope will continue to be the hallmark of QEII after Simon leaves to join my world in London. Play in the Seventh Chamber Richard Shorter is a man of many parts, and is ever ready to acquire new skills. Sensing that the successful candidate for the post here would be an expert in electronics, he made himself into just that before applying for the job, and has been our resident guru ever since, working in the electronics projects lab (before it was overtaken by the little black box revolution), and becoming a mover and shaker in the world of Electronics Examining, when you could still do it as a separate subject. The research he did for his doctorate gave him a taste for experimental work and, throughout his career, he has delighted in devising elegant experiments and demonstrations, which he has enthusiastically shared with the rest of the Physics department. Peeking into his lab during up-to-books hours, you invariably see a beautifully organised whiteboard and, as like as not, a java applet running on the projector, for he is a great searcher of the internet for apposite simulations. Great as his enthusiasm for the classroom and Physics has been, he has been just as vigorous in what is now known, I think, as co-curricular work, seemingly effortlessly keeping a large number of activities simultaneously on the go over an extended period. A keen and competent recreational sailor himself, holding all the necessary certificates, he ran the sailing club here for many years. An enthusiastic photographer, he chronicled the life of the School with a very fine set of monochrome images in the days of film, and was then one of the first to embrace the new technology and to recognise its potential. Scores of thespians - especially the Furleyites - over the years have been grateful for his labours in producing portfolios of play after play, while sportsmen have game after game recorded for posterity. Music has been a very important part of his life, for he is an accomplished violinist and, with Ann, brought up a musical family. He knows that dulcet tones come only from hard work, and you will often hear music wafting from his lab or his study - either just him practising, or a quartet that he assembled, making chamber music together in the time-honoured way. And he has always been willing to stiffen School Orchestra as concert day approached. In the early days, he used regularly to play in the Winchester Operatic Society productions, as well as in the major city orchestras; and it is good that he has taken his place in the theatre pit again during the recent run of Patience. Also, in the early days, he ran the theatre lighting and was the acknowledged expert on all things technical in the theatre. It is perhaps just as well that New Hall is being refurbished because, with his departure, there would be no-one left who knew how the New Hall theatrical rig went together! His expertise was invaluable when Furley s was putting on plays, without which it is doubtful that some of our more ambitious sets could have been completed in time. He served a spell in the Undermaster s office, rationalising, inventing timetabling systems, and generally aiming much of the School s organisation towards the twenty-first century. But the most important job a Winchester don can undertake is the running of a House; and Richard and Ann moved into Furley s in One of the first things he did was to establish a mechanism for enabling New Men to get to know each other - bonding, I suppose you would call it nowadays. His idea was that we would all go to the 31

17 Lake District at the beginning of the Short Half Leave- Out. The idea was only partially successful because the first batch of New Men enjoyed it so much that they wanted to repeat the exercise as One-Year Men, and again as Two-Year Men (MP and V Book), so that the trip rapidly lost its function as an ice-breaker. But it was the start of Richard s next enterprise, which was to turn Furley s into a DofE centre. We tutors were all packed off to the relevant training courses, while Richard coped with the admin and cajoled the men into completing what they had started - and when I consider how arduous a task all that proved to be when I subsequently extended the project to the whole School, I marvel that Richard took it all in his stride alongside the myriad of other tasks shouldered by a housedon. I suppose I may be forgiven for viewing this period through slightly rose-tinted spectacles, for I found both Richard and Ann enormously supportive of me as a House tutor. If I was finding the production of a play going through a rocky patch, with the men not learning their lines or not turning up to rehearsals, there would always be a glass of wine before I went home, and a word in the ear of the relevant Furleyites before my next visit - and Ann was a treasure when it came to finding the right look for a play. They were a welcoming couple outside the House routine too, inviting the House chaplain and me to share part of their family holidays on Dartmoor during several Easter breaks. Symphony Orchestra for three decades, and a front-desk player in various ensembles in the wider community. In recent years he was Chairman of the Winchester Symphony Orchestra. Egg Flip Night in School RSS has served Winchester since his appointment in All good things must come to an end - albeit a little later in life now than when I had to retire. What is amazing is that Richard and Lucy have just started a second family, and that Richard is looking better than ever on it. We wish them well as Richard settles to the serious business of retirement, and thank him warmly for his time of service here. AJPA An additional note from KMP RSS s long and distinguished career at Winchester encompassed Head of Science and Housemaster of Furley s. He was also persuaded at two different times to undertake the role of Undermaster a responsibility for which an amount of persuasion might have been necessary but was certainly worthwhile. His razor-sharp mind cut through the inevitable plethora of administrative demands, and he created whole-school timetables with imagination and enviable logic identifying solutions to seemingly intractable difficulties, and seeing essential patterns and possibilities that were beyond the perception of most other dons. A very keen violinist, former member of the orchestra that accompanied the Chelsea Opera Group, it is part of RSS s life blood to play in orchestras and ensembles. No matter how busy, he was a loyal member of the Winchester College Compass in Science School collection LAURA ELLEN BACON was Artist in Residence during November Her large-scale cane sculptures, constructed with assistance from boys in the School, follow patterns of natural air flow through the surrounding space. The sculpture in Figure 1 follows the wind paths echoing through the foyer and up the stairwell of Art School. Figure 2 will be installed in the Warden s Garden

18 I asked Nicholas Fennell what he had been up to for the past forty years or so. He is a man of whom a thousand stories are told, but I wanted to be able to write this Vale, or Wale as the Latinate confidently voice it, with knowledge from the horse s mouth. We sat back in the deepest chairs we could find, and for a happy and absorbing hour or more, I heard what he had been doing. He came to Winchester in 1974 for a year, to teach Russian and French. He was a tutor in Toye s under Kenneth Kettle, a linguist himself. But then he made off to Soviet Armenia for a year, where he was lector at the Yerevan State University. In , he had two jobs in Toulouse, running alongside one another: English Assistant at the Centre pédagogique régional, and lector in Russian at the University. In 1977 he returned to Winchester. He marks out his career first by a list of the Houses where he was tutor: Hopper s, Phil s, then a return to Toye s. I know from experience how much Nicholas gives as a tutor. His Preces, sometimes so short and sharp they leave the whole room in gaping silence, sometimes substantial offerings on such unfathomable questions as the theology behind the Orthodox rite of Easter, never failed to raise the level. He is a connoisseur of the absurd, and it wasn t always easy to know, when he picked up an absurdity, whether he was about to take it in the direction of hilarity or towards the serious. In the end, the whole show, tutoring, teaching, his own work, has always been serious, very serious. Entertainment, buffoonery, the Falstaffian, the Gargantuan, was where he housed all that really mattered. With such qualities, the company he offered the housemaster, who had perhaps spent the day wrestling with the money-box while preoccupied with the weighty question of how best to look after his flock, amounted to nothing less than a moment of enlightenment in the week. It probably mattered very much that Nicholas, for years, tutored on a Wednesday evening, right in the middle of the week. The sense of humour, ranging effortlessly from light comedy to the ribald belly laugh, is prodigious. Nearly everyone will know the sound of it from hearing his laughter in the theatre. When he was acting various cameo parts in the Minack production of Great Expectations, he laughed so loud, still onstage, at the eating scene between Pip and Herbert that Simon Taylor had to get him out of earshot. That was the exception. The rule is that everyone wants him to stay in the audience, because they know, actors and all, 34 VALE NF that if Dr Fennell is there the play can t die. He is the proverbial life and soul. And this went into his tutoring, this healing laughter with its effect of raising the level. In the classes he taught, besides laughter, there was the never-questioned, unflagging faith in the material of the subject, whether the grammar of Russian or French or the right reading of a novel by Dostoyevsky. I loved the feeling, after teaching French literature to a really good class, a class with native speakers in it, that I had pulled it off. I didn t have the French, not really, but somehow I had pulled it off. It had worked. And the same kind of feeling after pulling off his part in Robin Price s production of Ionesco s Exercices de Conversation et de Diction Françaises pour Étudiants Américains, or from good readings of plays in the sessions of Frog Soc. Nicholas studied Italian at university, and I remember when we had a group reading the Inferno for a while, how he would go about it. It was no joke. Dante was telling us something, in a beautiful language, but telling us something difficult, something which was there, which we might not be able to lay hold of, but which if we were going to read him at all, it was our job to try and get hold of. The vagaries of the hermeneutic circle seemed to wither, and the quest for a sturdier truth commenced. Yet none of this without exuberance. Recently he told a Div of mine that if they wanted to understand Crime and Punishment, the thing to do was to get their laughing-gear round it. Or ask his Russianists, who remember what я пишу, ya pishu, means ( I send ), because it derives from the language of the Amazonian tribe who use pea-shooters to send messages. The laughter, the academic earnestness, the turn, at times, to the sardonic, have woven a web of loyalties round him. There are many who remember their classes with Dr Fennell as the golden thread through Winchester. The loyalty is also to a tradition, and one which like all good tradition scatters fashion ( Fashion is the mother of death ), yet keeps surprising itself with its own inventiveness. The list of those whom Nicholas himself remembers with special affection and respect is an embodiment of a tradition in figures who, like the figures of Dante s poem (Paradiso rather than Inferno) remain immediate because they have become not just themselves but a way of doing things: John Thorn, Jo Bain, Liz Nash, John Surry, Alan Conn, Michael Fontes. ( The voice Fontes s voice! You know why you do Russian? Russian in, Russian out. ) Nicholas and Vassiliki are going to live in Eastleigh. He knows Queensland, he knows Florence, he knows the monasteries of northern Greece and he knows Mt Athos; and he knows France and Armenia. But Eastleigh, with its (concrete) canals and Palladian echoes (Nicholas words) is the unsung English response to Venice. What will he be doing? The answer leaves one boggled at first, and then more and more absorbed. He is going to write History. It is easy to see how this interest has long formed a reliable background, or rather a grounds, of his teaching. I could only do this kind of work because of the generosity of Win Coll, he says with feeling. I will always be grateful. He will hope to get a Leverhulme grant as a member of Winchester University, to research and write a book on the Russian monastery of St Panteleimon on Mt Athos. He has already written a more general book, The Russians Drawing by Marcus Scott on Athos (Oxford 2001), an edited version of his doctoral dissertation from the University of Southampton in 1997; and a study of The Prophet Elijah Skete on Mt Athos, in Russian (Moscow 2011). But the history needs revisiting: the archives have been opened up since the late 90s, and there is much more to be told. There are even documents which Nicholas has transcribed and which have since mysteriously disappeared. The story of St Panteleimon hangs on the catastrophic moment in 1912 when the Russian navy sailed through the Straits to the holy island of Athos and arrested 800 monks of the Russian monastery, all of them accused of stirring unrest by their insistence that the uttering of the name of Jesus in the hesychastic prayer (a brief but central prayer used in the Orthodox Church from early times) has the force of a sacrament. These heretics, as they were called, were expelled. The pandemonium in which monks had been thrown off cliff-tops or otherwise manhandled was brought to an end, and a monastery of 2,000 was reduced to 1,200. The story, the searching in the archives itself a story, and we can picture Dr Fennell driving tough bargains with curmudgeonly abbots and librarians will make quite a tale. But this is the whole world in a drop; more than a local slice of life. Two Russian monks have already been persuaded to quit the island after trying to write histories of St. Panteleimon. The material is painfully sensitive, because it has to do with Greek national self-identity defining itself through the distinctiveness of the Orthodox Church, and with the possibly still more intricate historical-religious picture the Russians, on their side, make of themselves. Nicholas imparts a sense of the global fatality of these goings-on, a sense we can learn from them; and when he speaks of them, he does so with an unmistakeable attachment to the task of writing good History. Listening to him, I recalled his love of accuracy, of exactness of expression made possible by an ear for idiom. There is some traffic here between the study of language and that of the past which has borne and, it is clear, will bear fruit. The research and the teaching are linked up in specific ways too: It means I can write Russian now, he says of writing on the Skete of Elijah in Russian. And: It means that I know what academic method is, and this matters in the classroom. One colleague referred to Nicholas occasional grumpy iconoclasm. (Not in the religious sense.) It s a phrase that could be misunderstood, but one hears its sense again, to do with the refusal of received ideas, in his own remark on all this History he is doing: In History you can never be impartial. You want to be, but you can t be. The other side of this taking of pains is the thrill of memory: When you go to Mt Athos you are aware of History living. It s all those centenarians with long memories. Theatre has been a significant part of Nicholas time at Winchester. Simon Taylor told me that when he first came to the School, Fennell s performance of Pozzo in Waiting for Godot was still talked of as a benchmark. He was Dr Caius in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Lionato in Much Ado About Nothing and Mr Wopsle in Great Expectations, the last two directed in The Minack in Cornwall by Simon Taylor. He was Lady Bracknell 35

19 in The Importance of Being Earnest, which he directed himself as the Toye s House Play in A handd...bag? He directed Charley s Aunt in Toye s Garden (dangerously weather-dependent, but the gods were favourable), The Good Doctor (Checkhov sketches done in 2008), Daisy Pulls It Off (2010), Ionesco s The Bald Primadonna, all for Toye s. His style of directing is exact and ambitious. In some curious, half-magical way, he gives everyone the confidence they need by expressions of disbelief that the play will ever be ready for performance. I think the cast felt confident because it was so obvious he knew what he was doing, knew the level he wanted to reach, and wasn t going to let anyone fall short. As in any good teaching, no one was excluded, everyone was caught up in the thrill of getting there, and there was somewhere definite in his mind and worth working for. His staggerment that he should need to tell anyone not to block onstage was a case in point. Theatre was at the centre, too, of Frog Soc, which Nicholas ran from 1997 to I was honoured to be asked to a couple of readings. He raised our level. We sipped good wine in the garden of Nicholas and Vassiliki s beautiful house, which seemed to capture all the light of Kingsgate Street, while the dusk crept up on Feydeau s farce from the wilderness of blackberry bushes beyond the lawn. Games? He loved Yearlings D cricket with Nick MacKinnon. Wins were few, reports NIPM, but when they came they were due to Nicholas s work on the boys catching, his fielding practices aided by the bag of cricket balls that he liberated from less needy teams during a season. In the 80s, he had his own team of Fennell s Rabbits. Geoffrey Eyre was unsure. I m not ****fielding there, he said - and then tried to catch the ball in his hat. Bowling Michael Nevin out (caught in the slips) was a high, probably the highest high; but when, years ago, Fennell s team lost a football game 17 goals to nil at Charterhouse, he got in the bus and wondered miserably why he was still a schoolmaster. I have missed out two things. One, a very important one: Nicholas as mentor to colleagues. He invents new materials for the classroom. He shares them. He brings on those who will teach after him: Stephen Rich and others. He is a generous man. It is in the same spirit that he has inspired clever pupils. The other thing is a comedy, and the full story of it is in a 2008 Quelle, written up by Alasdair MacKinnon. It s the story of how Dr Fennell took his senior Russian sets to a play in the West End. They were aiming for an artsy staging of some Dostoyevsky in an artsy warehouse in a backwater. The bus-driver got in a muddle. Westminster went past, Buckingham Palace swung by, Piccadilly, other sights in the wrong order, then the backwater but no warehouse to be seen. In the end they settled for hamburgers in a part of town your Mum wouldn t want you to set foot in. But the joy is in the search, and when they got back to Winchester, they had had one of the best trips ever. How we will miss this brilliant man. How I will miss the red cords flitting by to re-affirm the serious comedy of teaching. We wish Nicholas and Vassiliki, and their family, the happiest of continuations in Eastleigh and other places near and far. PJMC Societies Diary SHORT HALF M Lecture Prof Peter Biller An Inquisitor in 1307 Classical Tian Wolf (Coll) Virgil s Aeneid Alex Hollomby (H) The Odyssey DT Edward Barber & Jay Osgerby The 2012 Olympic Torch Empson Henry Eliot (OW) Medieval Literature Dr Timothy Lustig Sir Thomas Malory Mr Mark Forsyth Mark Forsyth: The Inky Fool French Film Film Polisse Les femmes du 6ème étage Geography Mr Robert Guest Economics of Global Migration Hispanic HE Saborio de Rocafort Costa Rica History Mr Simon Kerry Lord Lansdowne Prof Antony Best The Smuts Speech of 1934 IDEAS Mr Philip Spanos Renewable Energy Dr Lorrain Warren Entrepreneurial process Music Mr Nicholas Wilks Nielsen & Beethoven Oriental Mr Damian Harper Living in Beijing Sir David Brewer UK-China Business Relations Mr Michael Rutland Bhutan & China Ramsay Dr Dieter Helm The Carbon Crunch Science Mr Ian Fraser Surveying Reefs in the Gulf of Thailand Prof David Tong Black Holes Prof Chris Proud Understanding Cancer Theo & Phil Dr Nigel Warburton Sacrificing One to Save Many Dr Simon Oliver Theology & Evil in Films NF in touch with the world 36 37

20 38 Music Chamber Music I (Scholars Concert) 22 September Bassoon Concerto K191 Mozart ( ) Joseph Rhee (E) bassoon, OT piano Impromptu in Ab maj D935 Schubert ( ) Angus Robertson (B) piano Cello Sonata op. 40 Shostakovich ( ) Max Cheung (Coll) cello, NAS piano Double Bass Concerto Capuzzi ( ) Orlando Beeny (H) tuba, OT piano String quartet op.17 in D maj Haydn ( ) Nicholas Lau (B), Jacob Thorn (Coll) violins, Calvin Chan (D) viola, Samuel Grew (B) cello Andante & Scherzo Busser ( ) Alexander Toal (B) trumpet, OT piano Etude in E maj op. 10 no.3 Chopin ( ) James Fraser (Coll) piano Oboe Concerto Att. Haydn ( ) Thomas Peet (F) oboe, NAS piano Music for a while Purcell ( ) William Ashford (D) voice, NAS piano Violin Sonata in G min Debussy ( ) Kazuma Costello (F) violin, NAS piano Music Scholar s Concert, Avenue St Andrew s, Southampton 26 September String quartet op.17 in D maj Haydn ( ) Nicholas Lau (B), Jacob Thorn (Coll) violins, Calvin Chan (D) viola, Samuel Grew (B) cello Double Bass Concerto Capuzzi ( ) Orlando Beeny (H) tuba, OT piano Cello Sonata op. 40 Shostakovich ( ) Max Cheung (Coll) cello, NAS piano Meditation Massenet ( ) Nicholas Lau (B) violin, ADA piano Andante & Scherzo Busser ( ) Alexander Toal (B) trumpet, NAS piano Rondo Capriccioso Saint-Saëns ( ) Max McCulloch violin, ADA piano Oboe Concerto Att. Haydn ( ) Thomas Peet (F) oboe, NAS piano Music for a while Purcell ( ) William Ashford (D) voice, NAS piano Violin Sonata in G min Debussy ( ) Kazuma Costello (F) violin, NAS piano Quiristers Concert, All Saint s Church, Odiham 5 October Missa Orbis factor Plainsong Winchester College Quiristers, MDA Director, Where er you walk Handel ( ) JJS, Charles Maxtone-Smith (B), Henry An Evening Hymn Purcell ( ) Websdale (B), Organ Magnificat in D min Dyson ( ) Ricercare in C min Pachelbel ( ) Ex ore innocentium Ireland ( ) My song is love unknown Archer (b. 1952) O Mensch, bewein dein Sünde groβ (BWV 402) Bach ( ) Panis angelicus Franck ( ) Ave verum corpus Fauré ( ) Chaconne in E min Buxtehude ( ) Down by the Salley Gardens arr. Britten ( ) Missa Brevis Britten ( ) Somewhere over the rainbow Arlen ( ) Concert: Stravinsky s Rite of Spring 6 October John & Fiona York (piano) Chamber Music II 13 October Sonata in G min BWV 1020 Bach ( ) Edward Cunningham (K) oboe, NAS piano Impromptus op 90 nos. 2,3,4 Schubert ( ) Samuel Grew (B) piano Suite for violin/piano, op 6 Britten ( ) Jacob Thorn (Coll) violin, ADA piano Ballade No.1 in G min op 23 Chopin ( ) Victor Lu (I) piano Les cloches de Genève Liszt ( ) Intro. & Rondo Capriccioso Saint-Saëns ( ) Nicholas Lau (B) violin, ADA piano Violin Recital 17 October Edward Daniel violin, ADA violin/piano Sonata for two violins op 56 Prokofiev ( ) Sonata for piano/violin op100 Brahms ( ) Suite for violin & piano op 6 Britten ( ) Guitarfest Concert 20 October Amontillado Cottom (b 1954) Richard Ibekwe (Coll) Mexicana Nuttal (b 1952) Kevin Lo (B) Montanas Nebulosos Linsey-Clark (b 1956) Romance from Grand Sonata Paganini ( ) Alexander Crew (I) Blue Moon Rodgers ( ) & Hart ( ) Rondo in G Carruli ( ) Michael Turner (Coll), William Nestor-Sherman (B) Ozymandias (words by Shelley, music by Michael Turner) Angus Robinson (Coll) voice, Michael Turner (Coll) Guardame las Vaches de Narvaez ( ) Michael Turner (Coll) Misty Garner ( ) Jerold Chu (H) Rondo in D Sor ( ) William Nestor-Sherman (B) Torna a Surriento De Curtis ( ) Jerold Chu (H), Michael Turner (Coll), Alexander Crew (I), William Nestor-Sherman (B), Andrew Baxter-Zorin (A) Waltz op 69 no 2 Chopin ( ) Adrian Neville Kalimba Kindle (b 1960) Zachary Habgood (I), Yeonjoon Bae (I), Andrew Baxter-Zorin (A), Kevin Lo (B), Michael Turner (Coll), Alexander Crew (I), Richard Ibekwe (Coll), Jerold Chu (H), directed by the Vida Guitar Quartet Rhapsody in Blue Gershwin ( ) Vida Guitar Quartet: Mark Eden, Mark Ashford, Helen Sanderson & Christopher Stern Britten & Purcell Recital 22 October Abraham & Isaac Benjamin Britten ( ) & Henry Purcell ( ) Paul du Plessis-Smith counter-tenor, Paul Bentley tenor, Richard Allum piano Piano Masterclass 7 November Sonata in Ab maj op 110 Beethoven ( ) James Fraser (Coll) piano Sonata in A Maj K331 Mozart ( ) Angus Robinson (Coll) piano Piano Concerto in A Min op16 Grieg ( ) Sikun Chen (Peter Symonds) piano Chamber Orchestra Concert 10 November Pavane Fauré ( ) Winchester College Chamber Orchestra: Kazuma Costello (F), Nicholas Lau (B), Geng To Law (E), JDF, Jacob Thorn (Coll), ADA violin I, Matthew Lloyd-Wilson (H), Justin Kim (A), Ryan Shum (B), Thomas Allinson (Coll), Charles Maxone- Smith (B), Hyunseog Lee (H), George Weil (B) violin II, Amschel de Rothschild (B), James Fraser (Coll), Calvin Chan (A), Ryan Chan (A) viola, Sam Grew (B), William Ashford (D), Max Cheung (Coll), Min Hyuk Choi (Coll), Christopher Cheng (Coll) cello, Jasper Hart (D) double bass, Henry Hole (Coll), Oliver Yu (I) flute, Edward Cunningham (K), Arnold Ching (C) oboe, Benjamin West (G), George Petrie (I) clarinet, Christopher Stern (Coll), Maximilian Kadarauch (H) Bassoon, Hugh Chilcott (H), Henry Duxfield (H) horn, Lauens Bainton (K), Alexander Toal (B) trumpet, Edward Sweet-Escott (G) timpani 39

21 Oboe Concerto in C Maj Attr Haydn ( ) Thomas Peet (F) oboe Symphony No 5 in Bb Maj Schubert ( ) Winchester College Chamber Orchestra Chamber Music III 14 November Works Villa-Lobos ( ): Mazurka Choro William Nestor-Sherman (B) guitar Preludes Nos 3& 1, Homage to Bach, Homage to the Countryman Area from Bahianas Brasilieras No.5 Michael Turner (Coll) guitar Carrie Gothard soprano, Jerold Chu (H), Michael Turner (Coll), Alexander Crew (I), William Neston- Sherman (B), Andrew Baxter-Zorin (A) guitars Pavane pur une infant défunte Ravel ( ) William Elger (A) piano Sonata for Violin & Piano Debussy ( ) Kazuma Costello (F) violin, ADA piano String Quartet in F maj op 17 Haydn ( ) Nicholas Lau (B) & Jacob Thorn (Coll) violins, no 6 Calvin Chan (D) viola, Samuel Grew (B) cello Glee Club Concert 21 November Symphony No 9 Beethoven ( ) Winchester College Glee Club & Quiristers, Springtime on Funen Nielsen ( ) Winchester Music Club, Voices from St Swithun s & King s School, Winchester Music Club Orches tra, Nicholas Wilks conductor Chamber Music IV 28 November Sonata in A maj K331 Mozart ( ) Angus Robinson (Coll) piano Five Songs from Schubert ( ) Benjamin West (G) voice, NAS piano Schwanengesang Nocture No4 in Eb maj op 36 Fauré ( ) Jacob Thorn (Coll) piano La Cathédrale Engloutie Debussy ( ) Jacob Thorn (Coll) piano Concerto in A min Vivaldi ( ) Academy Orchestra conducted by ADA: Samuel Morton Morris (G), Matthew Lloyd-Wilson (H), George Weil (B), Victor Lu (I), Alexander Tagg (B), Rory Bedford (Coll), Kieran Mackison (E), Angus Robertson (B), Maxim Meshkvichev (B) violins, Krishna Amin (Coll), Adrian Cheng (Coll) violas, Bernard Ko (C), Tobias Schröder (Coll) cellos, Thomas Collings (H) double bass Cantores Episcopi Mince Pie Concerts 5 & 6 December Chawker s House Concert 12 December Sports Results Soccer Team Played Won Drawn Lost Soccer XI Beat Charterhouse 2-1; Reached last 16 of the ISFA Cup 2nd XI rd XI th XI th XI th XI th XI Sen Colts A Beat Eton 2-1 Sen Colts B Sen Colts C Sen Colts D Jun Colts A Beat Charterhouse 5-1 Jun Colts B Jun Colts C Jun Colts D Jun Colts E Yearlings A Yearlings B Yearlings C Yearlings D Yearlings E Total Golf Team Played Won Drawn Lost Seniors Knocked out of ISGA and HMC Foursomes; however the B team are through to the 2nd round of the ISGA whilst the As are in the final of ISGA Regional Plate Juniors ISGA Euro Championships runners up Rackets Team Played Won Drawn Lost Princes Overall Sailing Team Played Won Drawn Lost Overall nd (11) in BSDRA Midland Area Championships 16th (26) RYA ET National Youth TR Championships 40 Laura Ellen Bacon: Willow Sculpture 41

22 Fencing Team Played Won Drawn Lost Foil A Foil B Epee A Epee B Overall Water Polo Team Played Won Drawn Lost U Beat Charterhouse 6-5 with last shot of the game Basketball Team Played Won Drawn Lost U U U King Richard II in the east window of Chapel SALVETE James Alexander Allan Barron Callum Peter Barnes Susan Ingram Carpenter Henry Benjamin Cullen Julian Edmund de Bono Liam Paul Francis Dunne Lucy Deborah Ford James Robert Fox John Mark Greenwood Sarah Joanne Harden Robert Stephen Moore Luke James Ronaldson Christian Schofield Thomas David Shaw Middle Gate The lithographs on pages 20,30,32 and on the back page are from the Garland sequence of Winchester College (1870)

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