concordia 10 section 1 - merchant taylors' school, northwood winter/files... · 2014. 1....

Winter 2013

ConcordiaMerchant Taylors’ School

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Welcome

Add a friend to Concordia’s mailing list [email protected] YOU KNOW A MISSING ALUMNUS?

ConcordiaSandy Lodge, Northwood, MiddlesexHA6 2HT, Tel: +44 (0)1923 [email protected]

Editor: Jon Rippier Contributing editors: Chris Roseblade, Nick Latham Sub-editors: Alison Dawson, Sandra Sansom

Photography: 3Sixty, Ian Rudling, Rohan Gupta (5ths)Designed & produced by: 3Sixty Creativewww.3sixty-creative.com

Jon RippierEditor

May I begin by making special mention of all those OMTs who have contributed to this issue, particularly those who have contributed on their work in the legal profession; my sincere thanks to them all for taking time out of busy schedules to o� er their insights. Equally, special thanks goes to Dr Robert Pleming for his extraordinary account of the challenges he has faced in returning the last remaining Vulcan bomber to fl ight.

The stunning refurbishment of the Great

Hall this summer has enabled the school to welcome some celebrated speakers including Sir Ranulph Fiennes and Michael Palin: a foretaste of what is to come in this wonderful space. Merchant Taylors’ has a strong online presence in all the major social networks but more importantly has launched its own net community for OMTs so that you can reserve tickets for events and network easily and securely. We are also very proud to be hosting Middlesex CCC for two fi rst class fi xtures in May 2014.

These include a Twenty20 fi xture – more information will follow soon online.

Finally, I would like to thank all those who have sent in material for what is our biggest ever Class Notes section. It includes career updates from OMTs who are part of our LinkedIn channel, which we will continue to expand in future as alumni use our online presence both to renew friendships and to network with those working in similar fi elds.

Dear reader

E-mail Concordia at [email protected]

An image from the school musical Grease, with Kushal Patel as Kenickie, delivering Greased Lightning.

2/3Winter 2013

An introduction from the Head Master:

Introduction

y fi rst few months at MTS have fl own by. I already feel a part of the MTS family and am grateful for the various kindnesses and good wishes my wife and I have been offered. My fi rst impression has been of a warm and open community. The pupils and teachers are exceptionally able. Even more impressive is that they combine scholarship with courtesy and generosity of spirit. I sense a proud shared history and tradition, but also a zest for the new and a determination always to improve. Pupils at MTS are blessed with great talents, and many choose to use those talents to unselfi shly support others. MTS is a unique educational environment – to my fresh eyes we have a school to treasure.

Memories include the long-suff ering removal man who, after carrying the twentieth box of books into the Head Master’s House, told me that he would, out of his own money, buy me a Kindle. Other memories are of the kaleidoscope of music and dance at the Asian Cultural Show; the quiet authority and courage of

Sir Ranulph Fiennes when he spoke at the school; the beautiful music our choirs and ensembles off er; the vibrant support networks the parents give to the school; the sight of Saturday sport fi lling our wide fi elds. Above all, I have enjoyed meeting and teaching the pupils.

We should also celebrate the superb new space that the Great Hall refurbishment has given us. We have lost none of the character of the wonderful Hall, but equipped it with the most modern audio-visual kit we can fi nd. The Hall has been enlarged to fi t the size of the school and all of the wood and fi ttings have been restored. Its fi rst public use was to host Sir Ranulph Fiennes, but in short order thereafter it has been the venue for the Autumn Concert, the school musical ‘Grease’ and a scintillating talk on Brazil by Michael Palin which attracted an audience of almost a thousand people from the school and the local community.

The OMT Society was one of the fi rst groups to off er me a warm welcome and look forward to developing further the relationship between the school

and the Old Boys that is so crucial to our continuing success. We are always looking to fi nd ways to expand and strengthen our commitment to the former pupils of the school. We will fi nd new events that will interest all and off er new services to help our alumni in their careers and continuing friendships. All are welcome to return at any time to see the changes in the facilities and enjoy the hospitality of the new clubhouse.

One aspect of the relationship is the support OMTs give to the school and its fundraising. Our recent telephone fundraising campaign was a great success – thank you very much to the OMTs who gave and the younger OMTs who helped staff it. May I suggest that all who are interested in the life of the school involve themselves in our new net community My Merchant Taylors. This will allow us to keep OMTs updated about events and will allow them to book tickets, track down old friends and much else.

Simon EversonHead Master

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Law OMTs William Hughes QC, Stephen Rubin QC, Nicholas Tse, Lionel Curry, Mark Krais, Miles Geffi n and Brian Naumann write of their careers in Law.

Vulcan: Delivering the VisionDr Robert Pleming OMT writes of the challenges in restoring the Vulcan bomber to fl ight.

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From the ArchiveFrom a Head Monitor Chrishan Raja OMT looks back at his time at the school.

Development Nick Latham gives an update on Development, especially on the successful summer Telephone Campaign.

In this issueWinter 2013

To Support the Arts, Sport, Bursaries and more, go to www.mtsn.org.uk/developmentGIVE ONLINE TO MTS

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We have made every attempt to locate copyright ownership of archive photography but have not always succeeded in doing so. Any owners of copyright of individual images are invited to contact the editor.

Class Notes

Obituaries

Letter from AustraliaWill Copping OMT refl ects on his travels and the Wallaby Scholarship.

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William Hughes

William Hughes QC (1976-1983) has been a barrister for twenty four years, specialising in criminal cases. In Defence, he specialises in homicide, serious sexual offences and other grave crime, particularly those cases with vulnerable defendants and witnesses. He is a specialist in fraud, money laundering and drug-related crime. He also has considerable experience representing the interests of serving police officers in criminal allegations, internal disciplinary tribunals and inquests.

In Prosecution, he is regularly instructed by the CPS, in particular undertaking SOCA prosecutions on behalf of the CPS Organised Crime Division. As well as his experience defending cases of fraud and drug-related crime he is also regularly instructed to prosecute on behalf of Westminster City Council and other London local authorities. He is an Executive Committee Member Association of the London Welsh Lawyers, a Committee Member of the Fraud Lawyers Association and a Gray’s Inn Advocacy Trainer

Concordia Merchant Taylors’ School

and obtained a pupillage (a year’s training under the supervision of a senior barrister) at my present London Chambers. (I also practise from Chambers in Cardiff, where my family originate from). So, aside from dressing up in an anachronistic horsehair wig atop my head, swathed in a fancy gown while swanning around the Courts of the land, what is it that I do?

For twenty-four years I have both defended and prosecuted in cases of varying seriousness, complexity and notoriety, which is as taxing, exhilarating, draining, thrilling and ultimately satisfying as it may appear.

So how does it work? Barristers are self-employed advocates who are generally (but not always) briefed to undertake cases by solicitors, who are in turn instructed by the lay (legally unqualified) client. Thereafter, it has historically been the case that the barrister will undertake court appearances on behalf of the client and appear as his or her advocate in the trial proceedings.

Like any other occupation with which

responsibility follows, being able to make difficult, unpopular and unpleasant decisions is part of the job. Being the ultimate advocate and the person in charge of how a case is prepared and undertaken has its own pressures and difficulties. It means that care and consideration in decision making have to be undertaken in as equal measure as preparation of the case itself.

However, what sets this profession apart from almost any other job is the adrenaline rush experienced in conducting a trial, be it before a jury, Justices or a Single Judge. Jury trials, in the Crown Court particularly, generate a unique combination of fear, exhilaration, euphoria, anxiety and personal empowerment in equal measure.

So what sort of cases do I actually do? The question I, and probably every lawyer I know, is asked is “How can you represent someone you know is guilty?” The answer is not straightforward, but my usual response is that just because I represent someone

don’t recall it being suggested to me in any school career talk that I could be employed surviving on a diet of dirty money, extreme violence, hard drugs and lots of sex. (The possibility of being a Premiership footballer was not an option then and I wasn’t cool or good enough to be the second guitarist of the Clash, or indeed the Ramones). However, that is how my working life has turned out.

Since the autumn of 1989, when I was called to the Bar of England and Wales, I have been practising as a barrister, which is not something I ever expected to do, or was even on my radar when I left MTS in 1983 with “underachieving” A levels. Nonetheless, I subsequently ended up getting my qualifying law degree from Leicester Polytechnic, which enabled me to study for the Bar at the Inns of Court School of Law (as it was then called). After a year of further study I passed the Bar final exams

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charged with a crime does not mean I condone what they do or that I like them. You have to act professionally and get on with it. I usually ask the person posing the question if they like everyone they work with. In most instances the answer I get is “No”, so there may be an analogous scenario to consider.

I have been fortunate enough to have appeared in a number of high profile and interesting cases. The advantage of prosecuting and defending is that when appearing for the “other side”, I am able to look at the case from my opponents’ point of view and prepare my case accordingly.

During my career I have appeared for the Prosecution in a large number of multi-million pound frauds, a series of cases involving international criminal gangs (including the Godfather of the Turkish Mafia in the UK), as well as a varied diet of murder and other violent and sexual offences. When prosecuting, I work closely with the Investigating Officers, be they police, SOCA (Serious and Organised Crime Agency) or Customs and Excise. This usually involves advising the Investigation Team on matters of evidence, procedure and law, including matters of national security and sensitivity.

My defence practice has seen me represent clients as varied as murderers, serial sex offenders, fraudsters and other career criminals, as well as those whose experience of the criminal justice system is limited and unfamiliar. Throughout my career I have represented – and continue to represent – the interests of police officers

(including cases of corruption, perjury and perverting the course of justice), members of the Armed Services, professional sportsmen and others regularly in the public eye (no names I’m afraid!) in both criminal and internal disciplinary hearings, as well as advising them prior to proceedings being instigated. As a direct result of my occupation I have met and represented a multitude of personalities who are sometimes interesting, sometimes famous, sometimes strange and often downright dangerous. I have learned about people’s lives in ways that other occupations would not have afforded and about subjects of which I knew nothing prior to involvement in the case, such as coarse fishing on the one hand and international arms dealing on the other.

Earlier this year I was appointed Queen’s Counsel. Aside from having to dress in an even more bizarre wig and gown, and swear my allegiance to Her Majesty at a ceremony in Westminster Hall, it now means that I am instructed to appear in cases of the utmost sensitivity, gravity, seriousness and difficulty, usually assisted by a junior barrister or advocate. In the last few months for example, I successfully represented an ex-public schoolboy from a decent law-abiding family charged with attempted murder, resultant from his historical use and abuse of prohibited drugs. At the time of writing I have just concluded the representation of a foreign national (and career criminal both here and in his homeland) on charges of murder and attempted murder. The murder was as barbaric, heinous and appalling as one can think of. Nonetheless, however grave the allegation and whatever one’s personal abhorrence to it, it is only right that those on trial have their interests represented by advocates acting without fear or prejudice. I take professional pride in doing just that.

For those of you contemplating a career in law, either as a solicitor or barrister, I commend it but encourage you to proceed with caution. Despite the best efforts of the press and ignorant, inadequate politicians to suggest it, not all lawyers are “Fat Cats”; the reality is quite the opposite. The majority of those entering the profession will, without

exception, have accrued large student debts. Those who undertake publicly funded work will have little hope of paying off their debt for many years. Legal Aid fees have been the subject of savage cuts for the last fifteen years and continue to be so. In these current austere times, the commercial legal sector is not faring much better.

That being said, qualifying as either a barrister or solicitor is as useful a springboard to practising as a lawyer as it is in the business world. To do so you will need a qualifying law degree (2.1 or First are a minimum requirement). Competition to study law at university is as tough as ever and you will need three good A level passes to get a place. If you have not studied law, then a number of institutions offer a one year conversion course called the Common Professional Exam (CPE) or Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL), the passing of which will qualify you to obtain a place to undertake the Bar Professional Training Course (BPTC) or the (Solicitor’s) Legal Practice Course (LPC).

Thereafter, to finally qualify as a barrister you will need to undertake a pupillage of at least one year’s duration in either a barrister’s Chambers or with an approved pupillage provider, such as the Crown Prosecution Service. As a solicitor, you will need to obtain a two year training contract with a firm of solicitors, working as a trainee. At the end of each term you are not guaranteed a permanent position. It will very much depend on how you acquit yourself during your pupillage or traineeship!

Ultimately I cannot compare my professional experience to any other walk of life for excitement, personal experience and professional job satisfaction. Good luck if you choose to do the same and enjoy.

MTS 1st XV 1982-83

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Stephen Rubin

Stephen Rubin QC (1968-1973) has been a barrister for over thirty years, specialising in commercial litigation and advocacy. He has a particular focus on civil fraud, banking, telecoms, share sale litigation, foreign exchange, professional negligence and regulation and evidence from and for foreign jurisdictions. He sat on the Bar Professional Conduct Committee from 1994-1999, on the Bar Council Working Party on the proposed Supreme Court in 2004 and currently sits on the Honorary Board of United Kingdom Law Students Association (UKLSA). He is a Deputy Circuit Judge (Recorder) and a Chairman of the Bar Disciplinary Tribunal

didn’t fi nd it satisfying – so developed a civil practice; that is disputes about money, which are, surprisingly, rather good fun. A barrister’s working life is usually very interesting. One early memory was in 1980 when I defended a gang of Hell’s Angels who had smashed up a pub in Surrey (and a few of the customers also). On the fi rst day of the trial the barrister for one of the gang had not arrived. In fact he’d never met him before. The Hell’s Angel kept on asking me “Where’s my brief [i.e. barrister]?” . I told him not to worry, he was an excellent barrister and on his way. As time passed and there was still no appearance the Hell’s Angel asked me for the fourth time “Where’s my brief?”. I said to him, for some reason: “He’ll be here soon, don’t worry – and he’s a really big bloke”. The response to this was: “I don’t care how big he is, I don’t want to fi ght him – I want him to defend me.”

I remember pleading a case against a supermarket in Finchley for a woman who had been bitten by a tarantula that ran up her arm after she had grabbed a bunch of bananas from the fruit counter. We had an expert witness who informed us that his research revealed that “about six families of spiders a year (i.e. mum and babies) walk from fruit in shops”. Among other things in my written case, I alleged that Tesco had been negligent (careless) by

et me begin with a brief introduction about working at the Bar. Barristers are courtroom advocates – we are often portrayed in fi lms or TV with white horsehair wigs and gowns speaking to juries or judges. These wigs and gowns are still worn in some courts but unfortunately are on the decline and mostly we just wear suits and ties. We present people’s cases in court. We are specialists in analysing the issues and presenting the client’s case attractively to the court. We emphasise the good bits but we must not say anything we know to be untrue or mislead the court.

How did I end up doing this job? Well, I was at Merchant Taylors’ and received an excellent education under Brian Rees – an inspirational Head Master who went on from us to lead several other major public schools. Although not particularly successful until the Upper Sixth (I was in the B stream till the Sixth Form and on weekly report for a term in the Lower Sixth) a late spurt led to an unexpected exhibition to Brasenose College, Oxford where I read law. I left Oxford in 1976 and read for the Bar. Why? Well in those days the Bar seemed to be the glamorous part of the legal profession (which of course it still is!) and I liked arguing and acting so

LIt’s a bit of a rollercoaster life, an unusual way of working, challenging and stressful at times but very enjoyable and stimulating for the mind.

it seemed a good thing to do; the fact that my Dad told me to also helped.

I’ve done it for over 30 years and it has been great fun. I am now a Queen’s Counsel (QC) at the Commercial Bar in a Chambers called Fountain Court, a Deputy Circuit Judge (Recorder) and a Chairman of the Bar Disciplinary Tribunal. But it was a zig-zag route to there. I started off prosecuting criminals in the Magistrates and Crown Court, defended a few – but

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failing to put a sign on the fruit counter warning customers of the risk of large biting spiders! They’d have sold a lot of fruit wouldn’t they! I had to withdraw that as “vexatious” – a legal word for “not a seriously arguable point”.

When I started specialising in commercial law it was at a time when a large number of people from the Middle East had come to London with oil wealth and would “speculate” (gamble!) foreign exchange, gold and other commodities. This led to lots of arguments with banks here and abroad and some big cases which were great fun. We won some and lost others but for a few years there was much of this. That has now stopped and the new wave of work that has replaced it has come from Russia. Many Russians, while living over there, nonetheless have contracts governed by English law and which require all disputes to be litigated here so we see much work in London. The claims are often worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The trials can last many weeks and when in trial, we have to work 6 days a week for 12 hours a day, day in day out. But then when they’re fi nished we get a few days or weeks off until the batteries are recharged. It’s a bit of a rollercoaster life, an unusual way of working, challenging and stressful at times but very enjoyable and stimulating for the mind. Barristers work

for themselves although in groups sharing expenses called “Chambers”. So we set our own timetables – subject of course to when the courts are sitting.

They say that studying law sharpens the mind – by narrowing it. I suppose it’s true that the legal profession is not like business, advertising or working for the BBC. It has rigorous training and strict rules of conduct. One has to behave scrupulously – or you can be struck off or suspended. But it is endlessly fascinating, well paid and you get decent holidays. If you think it might be for you then try to spend a couple of days with a barrister seeing what they do. Get involved in debating at school or university or mooting – which is legal debating by students.

To become a barrister or solicitor you don’t have to study law as your fi rst degree; you can do a conversion course after graduating in any subject as long as you have at least a 2:1. I recommend a career in the law and at the Bar in particular. The days of fun at the criminal bar are probably over due to government cuts. But civil practice whether in the fi eld of commercial law, negligence, building disputes, tax or human rights is fulfi lling and you can make a real diff erence. It’s a very competitive profession but highly satisfying.

They say that studying law sharpens the mind – by narrowing it … It has rigorous training and strict rules of conduct.


Nicholas Tse

Nicholas Tse (1983-1988) read Modern Languages at Oxford and went on to do post-graduate research at the Ecole Normale Supérieure and the Sorbonne before training as a barrister. He is now an experienced advocate with diverse experience of representing governments, multinationals, banks and fi nancial institutions. Nicholas’ practice spans multi-jurisdictional commercial litigation, arbitration and alternative dispute resolution procedures, as well as negotiating major international commercial contracts.

In addition to his experience in the English courts, he has developed a track record in trying cases in off shore jurisdictions such as Bermuda, the BVI, Cayman, Jersey and the Dubai International Financial Centre Court. Nicholas also has experience in arbitrating international commercial disputes in London, Paris, Geneva and Dubai, and signifi cant experience of negotiating contracts involving projects, distribution and supply in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East

ier konnte niemand sonst Einlaß erhalten, denn dieser Eingang war nur für dich bestimmt. Ich gehe jetzt und schließe ihn.”

“Here no one else can gain entry, since this entrance was meant only for you. I will now go and close it.”

from Vor dem Gesetz1 , by Franz Kafk a (1915)

I was lucky enough to benefi t from being taught languages and literature at Merchant Taylors’ by some gentlemen of genius. I will never forget John Steane’s rendition of the Queen of the Nile as we

read through Antony & Cleopatra, nor the swashbuckling Denis Ogan regaling us with the tales of Camus.

They and their outstanding colleagues inspired me to read Modern Languages at Oxford, and I was then fortunate enough to be invited to do post-graduate work at the Ecole Normale Supérieure and the Sorbonne.

As I fi nished my Maîtrise in Paris I found myself in a quandary: should I pursue my studies as a modern linguist to their logical conclusion, and seek to enter academia and become a professor of literature? Should I chance my arm at

I chose the latter, because in law and the Bar I saw a great challenge, and an opportunity to ally analysis with performance …

H“

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becoming a professional actor, following some 24 plays in which I trod the boards while at Oxford? Or should I give in to the dream I had long harboured and seek to become a barrister?

I chose the latter, because in law and the Bar I saw a great challenge, and an opportunity to ally analysis with performance, and so to combine in some respect elements of the other paths I might have taken, but to a purpose which I thought more likely to make a signifi cant diff erence to the needs of others.

It is probably fair to call the path I have followed since unusual, for a barrister.

I began as a pupil, then tenant, in a well-regarded common law set of Chambers in London, where in my fi rst fi ve years of practice I was lucky enough to amass experience as an advocate before a great many diff erent Courts and Tribunals, from Employment Tribunals to the Court of Appeal.

Then, some fi ve years in, I decided I must use my fl uent French, and I wanted to work on major international projects, as well as doing disputes work.

Those twin ambitions led me to move to France’s greatest law fi rm, Gide, in Paris. There I spent the next 12 years, becoming dual qualifi ed as a French Avocat and working on a mixture of international project fi nancing predominantly with Africa, Asia and the Middle East, and on international commercial disputes, and building a multi-lingual and multi-cultural team of lawyers, which I continued to grow between 2008 and 2012 when I returned to London for Gide.

That team followed me when, in early 2012, I decided to move to my current fi rm, Brown Rudnick, a well-known US fi rm which is more of a high-end boutique with some 250 lawyers, as opposed to a huge international machine of 750+ lawyers.

The distinctive and somewhat rare feature of the very modern team which I have built is the fact that it features lawyers from top to bottom who have both common law and civil law qualifi cations

and experience. We are a “one-stop shop” composed of barristers and trial lawyers who do our own advocacy, very often pitted against the magic circle and top Queen’s Counsel from England, wherever the matters are heard. I have just returned from a two week trial in the DIFC Courts in Dubai, in which I was pitted against Vernon Flynn QC and Robin Knowles

Why does the law so fascinate? Because the Law is the ass to his master, Progress, and as such can only ever seek to follow economic, scientifi c and commercial development, by attempting to regulate new invention and innovation …

Centre Courts, and the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court2.

During my career to date, I have been fortunate enough to advise on some very major international disputes, including the following:

• I defended China against the US before the WTO Appellate Body in an action brought by the US to prise open the multi-billion dollar internal Chinese market for sound recordings, cinema and fi lm and music rights;

• I advised the main contractor on major disputes relating to contract revenues on the US $18 billion Pearl GTL project, the largest gas-to-liquid refi nery in the world;

• I advised France on the severely delayed €25 billion A400M military airlifter project, helping the seven purchaser nations to fi nd a solution to kick-start and complete the program.

The greatest single thing I can say about the job that I do is that, in 18 years of practice to date, I cannot recall having had a boring day at work, and I believe that the work my team does makes some small concrete diff erence and contribution to international relations and global commerce.

Why does the law so fascinate? Because the Law is the ass to his master, Progress, and as such can only ever seek to follow economic, scientifi c and commercial development, by attempting to regulate new invention and innovation, with varying degrees of success.

While mankind seeks to journey ever onwards and upwards, there is no end in sight to the exhilarating developments which the laws of our world will need to adapt and evolve to refl ect.

As the Gatekeeper in the Kafk a parable suggests, if we purposely construe his words in a constructive and positive way, any individual may fi nd that an opportunity – perhaps even a unique opportunity – exists for him or her somewhere within the law.

CBE QC, who also sits as a Deputy High Court judge in London.

The cases we handle are sometimes before State Courts and sometimes subject to arbitration and are very often heard abroad, whether in Africa, Asia, Europe, off shore, or in the US, as well as at home in London. This has led to me being admitted in other jurisdictions, such as the Dubai International Financial

1English: “Before the Law” 2Whose jurisdiction extends, inter alia, to Antigua, the BVI, St. Kitts & Nevis.

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Lionel Curry

Lionel Curry (1966-1971) has worked as a commercial property lawyer for 35 years having successfully set up his own firm in 1981. He looks back at how he entered the profession and recalls some of the highlights of his career

t seems really strange looking back to have had such a clear idea of the career path I wanted to pursue from such an early age at MTS but with hindsight, modern trends give everybody far more flexibility and opportunity to succeed than then.

My interest in becoming a lawyer was sparked by a chance meeting whilst on holi-day in Italy with my parents, with Michael Sherrard QC who at that time was possibly the leading silk of his day and in whose chambers Tony Blair was one day to be a pupil. I left MTS at the end of the Autumn Term of 1970, hopeful that my interview at Exeter College, Oxford would secure me a place to read law. But that was not to be the case and I had to settle for UCL, which many would say now was not in any way second best if you look at the current university league tables, but seemed disappointing at the time when I had set my hopes on Oxford.

After UCL I was fortunate to find articles, without too much difficulty, in a then well known city firm, Titmuss Sainer and Webb now called Decherts, not because of my academic record but because of published correspondence in a well known publication which one of the partners had read.

At the end of my articles and after staying on for a short time it became apparent to me that the City was not an environment best suited to my personality and after a short stint as an assistant solicitor with a very

I small firm near Wembley I applied for a job in an old established local firm, Mills Curry and Gaskell – not a relation – where I was interviewed by Bryan Wells, a partner in the firm. There was no internet in those days so no way of looking up any useful information about him but his tie was extremely familiar to me and I will never know to this day whether I got the job because of my glowing CV or the fact that he was an OMT!

After two very happy years I felt ready to set up in practice on my own in March 1981 and the practice – now called Curry Popeck – consists of five partners with a total head count of nearly 20 people and offices in the West End, Harrow and Pinner and associate offices in Paris and Berlin, covering most of the specialities for the high net worth private client.

Why Berlin you may ask? Because back in 1990 my career path as a commercial property lawyer took a very unusual turn as a result of a conversation I had with a lady who enquired as to what I knew about restitution of Nazi confiscated property from Jews in former East Germany as her father had been the orthopaedic surgeon to the German Kaiser and she believed that he had owned a hospital in what was East Berlin.

This led to a number of years commuting between London and Berlin and the privilege of being responsible for returning property to the rightful owners or in most cases their heirs. Ironically the lady who

first spoke to me about this was not a successful claimant as her father only had consulting rooms in the hospital.

Reflecting on what I have learnt over the last 35 years, there is not a day that passes when I do not learn something new, that whilst as a profession we do not get a second chance to make a first impression one has to have an open mind about the impression given to you and, whilst ability is paramount, without accessibility the client will find it almost impossible to have confidence in his or her lawyer.

A few years ago I was introduced to a very modest and cultured international client. He was by then retired and at the end of our first meeting, when he told me he wanted me to act for him I asked him for his mobile number to be able to contact him. Most mobile numbers are 11 digits but his local number was only 5. Not wishing to be intrusive I asked him if he would mind telling me why he had such a number, to which he responded that a number of years ago he had been the chairman of a then very successful Finnish mobile phone manufacturer.

So 35 years after qualifying did I make the right career choice? With 32 years at the same firm and hopefully another 25 to go, has that not been restricting? Absolutely not, as over the last 32 years I have been able to vary my speciality and so that decision at the age of 14 to become a lawyer was right, even if it was not in the direction I first envisaged at that meeting in Italy over 45 years ago.


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Mark Krais

Mark Krais (1981-1986) studied Jurisprudence at Oxford where he also took a keen interest in theatre. He has successfully combined his interest in law and the performing arts and is now a partner in Bray and Krais, a law firm specialising in the entertainment industry

ooking back at my career so far, I recollect that a key moment occurred at the end of the second year of studying Jurisprudence at university. It was the summer of 1989 and I had just stepped off stage for the second time at the Tokyo Globe Theatre. We were touring two plays in rep as part of the Oxford University Dramatic Society (OUDS) touring company. Due to a combination of tiredness, jetlag and being overexcited, I could not for the life of me remember which of the two plays we were performing that night. Not ideal, given that we were already twenty minutes into William Wycherley’s The Country Wife and I had been unconsciously reciting lines from Restoration by Edward Bond. Fortunately, no one seemed to notice; most of the front row of the audience were asleep and my fellow cast members were equally comatose.

This sinking feeling of realisation was in stark contrast to the overwhelming rush of joy which I had experienced five years earlier, leaving the stage in the Great Hall at school, when the curtain came down on the last night of Cabaret. This had set me on what I thought at the time was going to be an acting career pathway. Now I had to think again.

Reflecting on the situation twelve months after the end of the OUDS tour which had started in the UK and lingered

in Japan before closing in Moscow, I questioned whether there was some way to combine my passion for the performing arts and travel with the law.

My lucky break came when I was introduced to a partner of the city law firm Theodore Goddard, who specialised in entertainment law (primarily focused on music). I was fortunate enough to win a training contract at Theodore Goddard and loved every minute of the six months spent in the music department. Unfortunately, there were no vacancies within that department on qualification and I turned down their offer to specialise in intellectual property and defamation litigation and instead took up the position of a newly qualified lawyer with John Kennedy at JP Kennedy & Co. It was strange exchanging the marble clad halls of Aldersgate Street for an old Indian restaurant in the depths of Paddington. However, it became clear to me early on that I was drawing closer to the commercial pulse of the music industry.

The learning curve at John’s three lawyer firm (which included myself and Richard Bray) was very steep. The city law training had provided me with an excellent grounding in basic legal skills, including drafting and analysis; the challenge was to be able to combine those skills with a newly acquired business acumen. The revenue model of the music industry is complex and particularly challenging, not only for newly qualified lawyers but also for many of the clients.

John Kennedy left his own firm three years later to become Chairman of Polygram and at that moment the seeds of Bray & Krais were sown.

Seventeen years later, our ten lawyer strong firm continues to inhabit the entertainment space and we have expanded our horizons to advise sports personalities, commercial brands, live projects across the world and theatre. As the entertainment industry continues to fragment, creating new opportunities for investments (particularly around branded live projects, publishing and new recording models) we have also expanded our corporate department.

Highlights to date? There are many, which include overseeing the legal requirements for the worldwide Live 8 Concerts in 1995, working with the Rolling Stones and their management on all of their touring since 1996, helping to initiate and execute the Formula 1 Rocks series of concerts, and having the pleasure of working with a number of bands over the years and witnessing their journey from pub gigs through to international stadia. On the pro bono side, we continue to advise the Band Aid Charitable Trust and we recently worked with the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust in relation to a concert held on 29th September at the O2.

Do I miss the acting? Yes. Do I wish I had chosen another career pathway? Absolutely not.

www.brayandkrais.com

L

Miles Geffin

Miles Geffin (1982-1987) began his career as a generalist family lawyer. After briefly writing for a legal journal he now works in the family department at Mishcon de Reya, specialising in issues facing domestic and international families

hy family law? It all started one Thursday afternoon

in the spring of 1987. David Andrews was opining on the conflict between Shylock’s reliance on the strict letter of the law and Portia’s paean to equity, compassion and mercy. In a flash I recognised that the legal regulation of the family occupies an alluring middle ground that embraces both the law beloved of the moneylender and fairness favoured by the heiress. A glittering career as a family lawyer beckoned.

On reflection, Concordia isn’t the place for personal historical revisionism. The truth is rather more humdrum. We read Henry IV Part II that year and anyway Twelve Angry Men, not The Merchant of Venice, led me to a career in the law.

Having expected to start my training contract with a West End firm of media lawyers in October 1992, Black Wednesday intervened and I was asked to defer for 12 months. Rather than temp for a year, I phoned around and took a training contract with a local two partner law firm. Unfortunately, their offices were awful, the money was terrible and the training hopeless. The upside was that I was responsible for a couple of cabinets full of client files that covered the entire range of work that used to be dealt with by high street generalist solicitors: property, crime, personal injury, probate, general litigation and family issues.

Although it was interesting acting for an alleged terrorist (he wasn’t, and was acquitted) and for a shopkeeper accused of indecently assaulting his staff (he had, and was duly convicted), the cases that

W I most enjoyed dealing with involved family disputes.

I got the bug after I acted for a chap who had come to see me to obtain an injunction restraining his cohabitee. She had, he told me, defenestrated their children’s hamster and goldfish and then set alight his clothes in the back garden of their house. During the proceedings that ensued she repeatedly alleged that he had a Matisse hanging in their bedroom and various other masterpieces displayed elsewhere in the house. It later transpired that she was mostly telling the truth. The thing was, the paintings were actually forgeries and my erstwhile client ended up being sent to prison for various related offences.

I realised that I had found my forte and, soon after I qualified, I decided to take a position in the family department of a provincial law firm where I thought I might be exposed to a more conventional experience as a newly qualified solicitor. Over the course of the next five years I received an excellent training from some very wise solicitors.

In late 1999 I joined a firm in Islington to head their family department. Along with a couple of assistants we built an eclectic caseload. As well as acting for wealthy residents of Islington’s leafy squares, we also ran a legal aid practice meeting the rather different legal needs of the borough’s less well-heeled residents.

A couple of years later I was invited to join the partnership, and jointly head the family department, of a firm in Hampstead. In the years that followed I acted for a number of musicians, entrepreneurs and

sportspeople and was involved in one or two fairly important family law cases.

I even acted for a couple of OMTs, one of whom had been a prompter when I was in the Fourth Form and had reported me to Mr Mash for smoking a cigarette at Pinner Station. This led to one of the first of a number of run-ins with “Dobber” during my pretty modest MTS career.

In 2007, following a short career break, during which I briefly became the deputy editor of a legal journal, I joined my current firm, Mishcon de Reya. I now look after the professional training and development requirements of my partners and the assistants in the family department. I also get involved in exotic, complicated or unusual cases here and overseas, often in the appellate courts, sometimes even achieving a modicum of success for my clients.

As I approach 21 years of lawyering, I occasionally wonder whether I’d do it all over again. On balance I think I would, although if I was 18 now I’d think very carefully before pursuing a career in the law. Competition for pupillages at the Bar has always been ridiculously fierce and it’s become the same for training contracts. The law schools churn out far more graduates than the profession can accommodate, and it shows. Some trainees are often far better qualified than the partners who supervise them. My advice to an MTS Sixth Former considering a career as a lawyer? Don’t study law at university (it’s dull) and learn to communicate with economy (lawyers are no longer paid by the word).


Winter 2013 12 13Winter 2013

Brian Naumann

Brian Naumann (1991-1998) is a solicitor-advocate at West End law firm Magrath. He spent several years as an immigration specialist, eventually becoming the youngest director in the country at legal aid firm Duncan Lewis. He now advises private individuals on all matters, especially their family and business needs

settled on a career as a lawyer early on I think. I remember choosing History GCSE to begin learning the skills of evaluating evidence. Not wanting to give up any languages though, I took French, Latin and Greek to A-Level which was the perfect way to begin learning drafting and advocacy skills. I read law at University College, Durham. At that time the Human Rights Act was passed, and I found myself very interested in this, as well as constitutional law, British sovereignty, and the supremacy of European Law. Outside of the law, having been involved in theatre at Merchant Taylors’ I was very interested in acting, and this was something I continued at Durham. I also directed a play (Les Mains Sales) in my final year, probably having got a feel for it after winning the House Drama competition for Mulcaster. Looking for a way to continue with something theatrical and continue with the law, I decided that becoming a barrister was the way forward.

I was always interested in justice and the idea of right and wrong; I suppose I decided that I wanted to make a difference too, but without really knowing how. I studied for the Bar at the College of Law in London and joined the Inner Temple. Becoming a barrister is notoriously difficult since there is such fierce competition for pupillage. Several interviews later I was within arm’s reach when the Chambers concerned split into two sets, and the rug was pulled out from under me.

I took a job as a ‘caseworker,’ what they labelled a non-practising barrister at the time, with a legal aid firm called Duncan Lewis. I joined the Immigration Department and began to work on asylum and immigration law. As a fresh-faced law school graduate, to call it a baptism of fire would be an understatement. My work for the next several years would involve not just attending asylum interviews for refugees, but assisting them to draft statements of their account of persecution through an interpreter, assisting them with drafting their detailed appeal statements (rebuttals against the reasons for refusing their applications), and the drafting of legal arguments for their court hearings, and my favourite part – attending court to advocate on their behalf. I represented refugees, foreign spouses, students, workers, and criminals facing deportation.

I decided to cross-qualify and become a solicitor so I took the Qualified Lawyers Transfer Test, which involved going back to law school to learn about what solicitors do, and to learn about the Solicitors Accounts Rules. I joined the Law Society and continued to work at Duncan Lewis, this time joining the Criminal Law department. Keen to continue to be involved in advocacy I worked as a criminal trial lawyer, representing clients in the magistrates’ courts. The firm promoted me to supervisor, and then to head of department, and eventually, I was asked to become a director so that I became the youngest director of the largest legal aid law firm in the country.

I obtained my higher rights of audience so that I could appear in the Court of Appeal.

At the peak of my career at Duncan Lewis I was running a court team of eight advocates, supervising their work and mentoring them to be the best that they could be, and this was incredibly satisfying. At the same time I was running my own appeals, taking two cases to the Court of Appeal to change the law. One of the decisions provided guidance on the very test for permission to appeal, amending constitutional law.

After ten years of working in legal aid, with cuts in funding on the horizon, and in the knowledge that I would not be able to progress my career any further at Duncan Lewis, I decided to move on and obtained a job at PwC Legal. Going straight from legal aid to the city was a shock to the system and I found myself going from representing those who had no money at all to representing millionaires. Ultimately, the change in environment was not for me, and I decide to move on. I found a great niche firm in the West End called Magrath and I could not be happier. I am now advising foreign investors and entrepreneurs who wish to set up a business in the UK or invest in UK publicly listed companies, but I also assist them with their private immigration needs and with citizenship advice.

There is a great deal of job satisfaction as a lawyer, and there are many feel-good moments: that moment when your client finds out that they have been granted refugee status; that moment when your client is granted bail and his loved ones in the back of the court room jump for joy and you get assaulted by hugs; that moment when a judge allows an appeal so that a family can be reunited and the client from Africa says: ‘Jesus bless you’; that moment when you find the perfect legal argument or that provision which solves a client’s problem; the enjoyment and satisfaction of drafting that legal provision you found into a concise argument; that moment when you can see how far your team have come and that their skills have improved; the enjoyment of attending lectures to stay updated on the law. There is so much scope for what you can do as a lawyer. If you enjoy writing, you can put your skills into drafting. If you enjoy composing (moving) speeches, you can do advocacy. You can be a barrister or a solicitor; with direct access or higher rights of audience. No two lawyers are the same and the profession is vast and exciting.

I am proud to have been ‘called’ to the Bar and admitted to the roll. It hasn’t always been easy, and it involves a lot of hard work, but I couldn’t do anything else.

I

Law


Vulcan: Delivering the Vision

Dr Robert Pleming FRAeS (1964-1970) led the project that returned the Vulcan bomber to flight. After gaining a doctorate at the Oxford University Nuclear Physics Laboratory, he joined the IT industry, but thirteen years ago he decided to change career to pursue an aeronautical dream. He writes about the project and those experiences at Merchant Taylors’ that led him to pursue his vision and prepared him for its challenges

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Vulcan

Winter 2013 14 15

or men of a certain age, the Avro Vulcan is instantly recognisable, not least because of the innumerable Airfix Vulcan models constructed by them. For others, familiarity with the Vulcan has come more recently through her appearances at airshows. The Vulcan is a large aircraft – about the same size as a Boeing 737 or an Airbus A320 – but surprisingly manoeuvrable and incredibly noisy. A sight once seen, never forgotten.

The Vulcan saw service in the RAF from 1956 to 1984. The RAF kept one example, Vulcan XH558 flying up until 1993 – and I was one of the hundreds of thousands of people at air displays in the 1980s who stood in awe whenever she appeared.

I was also one of the 200,000 people who signed a petition to keep the Vulcan flying, after the MoD decided that the expense of keeping XH558 airworthy was not affordable following the end of the Cold War. Having followed XH558 during her final flying years, I looked more deeply into the history of the Vulcan, and the engineer in me was amazed by the leap in aviation technology in the immediate post-WW2 years that the aircraft represents.

Believing that British heritage needs to have a flying Vulcan, conscious of the public support for XH558 and aware that the aircraft was retired early, in 1997 I resolved to explore the feasibility of returning Vulcan XH558 to flight. Besides, a good friend told me I’d never make it happen – I can’t resist a challenge!

F


Vulcan Origins

In July 1945, just after the end of World War 2 in Europe, Churchill, Stalin and Truman met at Potsdam to decide on Europe’s structure. During the meeting, Truman was told of the successful test of the atomic bomb; Stalin’s spies ensured he knew too. By the end of August, the world had changed yet again: Truman had authorised the use of bombs on Japan; Stalin had become fearful of America’s intentions; Churchill had lost the election to Clement Atlee and on 28 August 1945, Atlee had presented a paper to his Cabinet proposing that, to retain control of its foreign policy, Britain should build its own atomic bomb. The Avro Vulcan was developed to carry that bomb to the Soviet bloc, in retaliation for a nuclear attack on the West.

Innovative design

The Vulcan was conceived in 1946-7 by Roy Chadwick of AV Roe (who had designed her predecessor, the Avro Lancaster) to meet the requirement for a bomber to carry the British a-bomb. This unique tail-less delta fi rst fl ew in August 1952. The production versions embodied such innovations as twin-spool axial turbojets, an AC power system, cabin pressurisation, electronic countermeasures and electro-hydraulic powered fl ying controls.

From 1957, the Vulcan was the major delivery vehicle for the British strategic deterrent, until superseded by Polaris in 1969. Afterwards serving in a tactical role, the swansong of the Vulcan occurred during the Falklands Confl ict in 1982, when a lone Vulcan, refuelled several times by a fl eet of Victor tankers, put the enemy-held Port Stanley airfi eld out of action. The last Vulcan squadrons were disbanded in 1984, but Vulcan XH558 fl ew on as a sole display aircraft until she was sold, and fl own to Bruntingthorpe Airfi eld in Leicestershire in March 1993. Having entered RAF service in July 1960, XH558 is now the oldest complete Vulcan, as well as the last one able to fl y.

The Avro Vulcan was developed to carry that bomb to the Soviet bloc, in retaliation for a nuclear attack on the West.

Feasibility Study

The challenge I faced was whether the civil aviation regulations would allow an ex-military aircraft as heavy, powerful and complex as the Vulcan to fl y. The key to progress turned out to be the support of BAE Systems, who had inherited design responsibility from AV Roe. With the aid

of a project plan built in spare time by a small volunteer team of experts under my leadership, and the enthusiasm of some senior BAE Systems personnel, this support was granted in May 1999 – theoretically, the Vulcan could fl y again.

In September 1999, a design workshop including representatives from BAE Systems and retained engineering authority Marshall Aerospace specifi ed a survey to determine whether there were any insurmountable technical issues, and the scope of the work needed to return XH558 to airworthiness.

By Spring 2000, the aircraft had undergone the survey, which verifi ed that its airframe and systems could be restored to airworthiness at reasonable cost. In addition, the availability of a library of original documentation and design data, and several hundred tons of spares – including, vitally, eight zero-time Rolls-Royce Olympus engines – meant that the restoration to fl ight was now feasible.

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Vulcan

Winter 2013 16 17

It was clear I needed to take a decision: the project now demanded my full-time attention. Should I stay in employment at Cisco Systems, or take a leap into an uncertain future leading the Vulcan restoration? How many chances in life does one get to make such a unique contribution? At the beginning of April 2000, I resigned from Cisco.

Costings showed that about £3.5million would be required. After two applications and considerable public support, in June 2004 the Heritage Lottery Fund confi rmed the award of £2,734,000, with the rest to be raised by ourselves. An 18-person technical team was recruited, and put through a 13-week Vulcan-specifi c technical training course. Finally, in August 2005, following the necessary CAA approvals, work started.

Restoration

The restoration was to have four phases starting with a detailed inspection of the

aircraft for faults, followed by rectifi cation of those faults. During this period, the hundreds of components were overhauled and returned for the recovery of the aircraft to the correct confi guration for fl ight. Tests followed, fi rst on the ground and then, with ticks in all the boxes, the aircraft was released for its fi rst test fl ight.

For the inspection, virtually everything that could be removed from the aircraft was removed, requiring a major exercise to track each component. Every aspect of the aircraft’s structure was inspected visually, and non-destructive techniques were used to discover any underlying problems. Numerous repairable faults were found, including skin cracks, missing rivets and corrosion, but none so signifi cant to warrant concern.

The aircraft’s hydraulic, pneumatic and oxygen systems were removed for inspection and overhaul. All fl exible pipes and seals were replaced, an expensive eff ort on its own. The Vulcan has many critical systems powered by electricity,

including the fl ying controls, so the integrity of the electrical system is vital: the aircraft was rewired.

Recovery and Testing

With structural work nearing completion in the Spring of 2007, attention focused on refi tting the aircraft’s systems. The components taken off for overhaul were refi tted: from canopy to landing gear, from engines to powered fl ying control units – the list went on and on. With the exception of modern avionics, the restored XH558 is almost completely authentic.

Ground testing started in early summer of 2007 with the application of electrical power. One by one, the various systems were put through procedures to ensure correct operation. August arrived: it was time to light the fi res! The four Olympus engines were started and performed perfectly – over 25 years since they were last run. It would be wrong to imply that

18 19

there were no problems found – there were – but that is what testing is all about. By October, XH558 was ready to move again under her own power. Slow and fast taxy tests followed, including deployment of the brake parachute.

Finally, after 26 months, with over 100,000 man-hours and £7million spent, Vulcan XH558 was ready to fl y again. Thursday 18 October 2007 was a perfect day, and in front of the crowd of those who had worked on the project, XH558 roared down the runway and soared into the air. There were shouts, cheers and tears of joy – so much eff ort by so many people. I felt elated, but remember thinking “I can’t relax until she’s back on the ground”. After a 30-minute fl ight, our test fl ight crew brought her back for a perfect landing. We had done it. Safely.

The restoration of Vulcan XH558 has been hailed as the world’s most challenging heritage aviation project ever – the Everest of aircraft restoration. I did wonder whether I was going to end up as Mallory or Hillary….

Aircraft Operations

Following further test fl ights to resolve problems with the avionics, XH558 was awarded her ‘Permit to Fly’ in July 2008. Two days later, she fl ew her fi rst display for an enthralled public at RAF Waddington. Since then, XH558 has fl own more than 230 hours in front of twelve million smiling and proud people at events during over 160 fl ights around the UK and Europe.

To keep the aircraft in top condition, checks on the engines, landing gear and critical structure are driven by fl ying hour milestones. Every winter, the aircraft undergoes a thorough inspection and lubrication; critical components which have a calendar life, such as the ejection seats, are overhauled. This is not cheap: to keep XH558 fl ying costs around £2million per annum, for 40-50 fl ying hours.


Every winter, the aircraft undergoes a thorough inspection and lubrication; critical components which have a calendar life, such as the ejection seats, are overhauled

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Vulcan

Winter 2013 18 19

The Future

When the last RAF Vickers VC10 was grounded last September, Vulcan XH558 became the only all-British four-engined jet aircraft in the world capable of fl ight, the sole survivor from the era when Britain led the world in aircraft design and manufacture.

Unlike modern airliners, the Vulcan was designed to have a ‘safe fatigue life’: XH558 has a limit to the life of her structure, beyond which she cannot fl y. There is one further life extension modifi cation which will be applied to the aircraft this winter, but the life left in her Olympus engines means that XH558 may

be taking her fi nal fl ight in the next few years.

When she stops fl ying, we aim to keep her capable of ground taxiing; she will be in the best condition of any large British aircraft of her era. We are planning for XH558 to become the centrepiece in a new facility to inspire the young in design and engineering.

In my view, the success of the project was due to: the perseverance of the small team that made it happen; the enormous support coming from the public’s desire to see the Vulcan fl y; and the assistance from many fi rms in the British aviation industry.

One unexpected outcome: returning

Vulcan B.Mk2 Facts and Figures

Dimensions:Length – 106 ft. (32.6m) with refuelling probe

Height – 27ft. 1 in. (8.3m)

Wingspan – 111 ft. (34m)

Wing area – 4,000 sq. ft. (379 m2) (= 1 ½ tennis courts)

Weight:Maximum in-service Take Off Weight – 204,000 lbs. (92,534 kg)

Powerplant:Four Rolls-Royce Olympus turbo jets of 16,500 lbs (7,500 kg) of static thrust each (=23,000 hp each)

Four alternators fi tted to the engines produce a total of 138 kW

Fuel:Capacity – 9,500 gallons (39,000 ltrs), held in 14 fuel tanks

Performance:Maximum speed – 645mph at 39,375 ft. (1,032 kph, at 12,115 m)

Unrefuelled Range – 4,600 miles (7,360km)

Maximum altitude – 64,960 ft (19,988 m)

Crew:In RAF service: two Pilots, Air Electronics Offi cer, Navigator-Radar, Navigator-Plotter

Now: two Pilots, Air Electronics Offi cer

First fl ights:Prototype (VX770) – August 1952

XH558 – May 1960

Number of Vulcans built: 134

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XH558 to fl ight has confi rmed that working engineering heritage is able to communicate with the public on several levels: telling the historical story, exemplifying innovation, inspiring the young, and generating pride in successful endeavour.

The Merchant Taylors’ contribution

I’d like to think that every OMT is able to identify aspects of their life that they can attribute to experiences gained during their time at Merchant Taylors’. For me, these include an interest in physics, a career in computing, a love of aviation and a certain ability on the shooting range. It’s the combination of these that led to the vision of a fl ying Vulcan becoming reality.

I owe a huge debt to teachers Jim Clark, Roger Greene, Leslie Robotham and Harris Thorning, who between them lit the sparks of interest in Maths and Physics in the Lower Sixth that led me to a scholarship to St John’s Oxford and a First in Physics. Additionally, Jim Clark’s Sunday afternoon sorties to use an Elliott 803 computer (1,000 instructions per second, paper tape input-output!) taught me how to program a computer – launching me down a path which led to a 23-year career in IT with IBM and Cisco Systems.

The Combined Cadet Force was and still is a huge contributor to the breadth of experience at school. My parents’ house in Northwood was under the fl ight path from RAF Northolt; now, as then,

my eyes turn skyward whenever I hear an aeroplane. My mother, as a WAAF just after the War, had a fl ight in a Mosquito. Naturally, at Merchant Taylors’, I joined the RAF section. Air Experience Flights gave me a taste of fl ying, and an appetite for more, so I applied for and luckily won an RAF Flying Scholarship – 30 hours of fl ying at the long-gone Luton Flying Club. At the age of 17, I was infected by the aviation bug; it’s never left me.

Through the CCF, I learned to shoot, and shoot well – ending up as Captain of Shooting for the year that the school won the Public School Aggregate at Bisley. I found rifl e shooting easy, and by the age of 17 I had added the more diffi cult sport of target pistol shooting to my portfolio. (Before I left Merchant Taylors’, I was legally the proud owner of a 0.22” semi-automatic pistol – imagine that nowadays!) I continued pistol shooting all through university, where I was Captain of OU Pistol Club, and thereafter at County level wherever I lived. In 1997, after the Dunblane massacre, the government unnecessarily took our target pistols away: I lost my sport. I was casting around

for something to fi ll the gap when the idea occurred to spend some time looking into the feasibility of returning the Vulcan to fl ight. So at least two good things have emerged from the horror of Dunblane - Andy Murray winning Wimbledon, and a fl ying Vulcan.

The breadth of the Merchant Taylors’ experience, and the confi dence and determination resulting, have enabled me on so many occasions to grasp success from likely failure – and in the case of the Vulcan, have confounded those who thought the goal of a fl ying Vulcan unreachable.

I contend that all the people who have supported the Vulcan project owe her return to fl ight in no small way to Merchant Taylors’ School.

Robert Pleming

[email protected]

For more information about Vulcan XH558, please visit: www.vulcantothesky.org

© Robert Pleming October 2013

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From the Archive

Winter 2013

From the Archive

Robert Westmoreland (1962-1968) sent in this photo. He writes: “I had a most enjoyable time in the RAF section of the CCF at school. I only have one photo of some of us, a group of we cadets during a stay at RAF Binbrook (then a Lightning interceptor base) in 1968, my fi nal year at MTS.

I expect that the RAF CCF cadets now wear the standard ‘No 2’ Service Dress, a lightweight and practical uniform. In my time and I suppose for a few years thereafter, the heavier wool Second World War-and-after Battle Dress was worn, we RAF section guys in RAF blue/grey and the Army section in the khaki version, both with webbing belt and gaiters. We also used and marched with the Second World War vintage .303 Lee Enfi eld short magazine rifl e, a fairly heavy beast with quite a kick when fi red.

My time at MTS was in the depths of the Cold War and I remember well, for example, the concern, to say the least, that all we pupils felt and talked about during the Cuban missile crisis,

especially knowing well that we were so close to a primary target, the Northwood underground control centre. That scare happened when I was in the 3rd Form, barely a month after entering Merchant Taylors’.

When the photo was taken in 1968, Binbrook in Lincolnshire was a major front-line fi ghter base tasked with the interception of incoming Soviet Air Force bombers and on our visit that both brought home the serious nature of the stand-off and made our week or so there all the more interesting. For example, they took us down into the bunker where they serviced the heat-seeking missiles that armed the aircraft. One missile, clamped on its test rig with nose cone removed, was demonstrated to us. The engineer switched on a soldering iron near it and immediately it reacted, moving its fi ns as it would to manoeuvre towards a target.

We saw or heard many 5 Squadron scrambles during our time there as their aircraft roared off day and night with cones of fl ame exiting the jet engines to

intercept the frequent incoming Soviet Bear and Bison bombers sent over the North Cape and down the North Sea to probe and test our defences. A couple of the aircraft were always on QRA (Quick Reaction Alert) by the end of the runway, rather than in hangars or on the main hard-standing areas, with fully kitted pilots waiting in small huts alongside them ready to get airborne immediately, with further aircraft on 15 minute reaction time. The English Electric (BAC from 1968) Lightning was blisteringly fast, going from ‘brakes off ’ on the runway to 40,000 ft. in under 2½ minutes. It was our fi rst Mach 2 (1,300 mph) fi ghter, a speed seldom exceeded even these days (although in its time, the extraordinary Concorde did so daily as it cruised routinely at 1,320+ mph).

Nowadays, the older aircraft types displayed at RAF base entrances are fi breglass replicas, the real things being far too rare and valuable to leave out in the open but in those days, they were originals, such as the Spitfi re in our Binbrook picture.”


Barrie Gotch (1995-2000) was about to open a nightclub in London before a chance trip to Uganda saw him take a very different path. He writes of the challenges of setting up what is now an award-winning luxury safari lodge

AdventureAn African

you find in zoos are lowland gorillas which are slightly smaller, have less fur and are more adaptable to survive in captivity.

I had now completed the final leg of our trip and having always been an entrepreneurial type, I immediately saw an opportunity. All the hotels I had stayed at in Uganda were charging 5-6* prices but only providing 2-3* levels of accommodation and service. Why was this? All of them were very busy so I had to explore this further. After chatting with the agent who invited us, and hearing her confirm my suspicions, I decided to take up the challenge.

After returning to the UK, I did extensive research, was told by numerous people that I must be completely mad, put together a business plan and went out to find investors. My father immediately agreed to put in a percentage of the capital and another one of the investors was Robert Fishman, an OMT from the same year group as me who is currently an Assistant Director in Deloitte Restructuring Services. After 3-4 months of various challenges I had found all the investors I required and was ready to begin the journey which would consume the next five years of my life.

Robert and I initially travelled back to Uganda in order to find the perfect piece of land. We found a plot opposite the forest that had taken our breath away which was home to a stunning 800/900 year old mahogany tree that could be seen for miles around, a river, a freshwater spring and the added bonus that it was visited by the

gorillas every couple of weeks. Now the fun part – how could we buy this land?

In Uganda it is very rare to find land with title deeds. Living there was a family who had been self-sufficient, living in mud huts for generations. To buy the land we were informed that every family member would have to agree. Each member had different prices, some of which went into the thousands of dollars. I had been made well aware that the prices we would be offered as westerners would be significantly higher. This was my first big mistake – negotiating myself and not using a local. We finally agreed a price after a year of negotiation and being let down constantly. I think we single-handedly boosted land prices in the area by 1000% and I realised I was going to have to learn very fast how to do business in Uganda.

I found a builder/architect in Uganda and sat with him, explaining all my ideas and concepts. He came to see the land and his first comment was “This is going to be tough and you will need more land”. Ouch! Anyway, after a further two years of land purchases, negotiations, and planning we were finally ready to build.

I could write a book on the challenges of building and then running a business in Uganda but the four biggest challenges in getting the lodge built and then up and running were:• Theremotenessoftheland.Bwindi

is 15 hours away by car from Entebbe International airport. 7 hours of that

y father, Len, owns a corporate travel company called Uniglobe Total Travel and back in 2006 he was invited to Uganda in order to see the country and all it has to offer. I was a regional manager for a chain of nightclubs in Leeds at the time and was making plans to move back to London permanently and possibly open a nightclub of my own for which I had already put together a comprehensive business plan and found backers in Leeds. My father asked if I would like to join him on the trip to Uganda. My life would never be the same.

I found Uganda to be stunningly beautiful and the greenest place I had ever been – quite in keeping with Winston Churchill’s description of it as ‘The Pearl of Africa’. I travelled throughout the country doing chimpanzee tracking, big five safaris, boat safaris on Lake Victoria (the source of the Nile) and finally the main attraction – gorilla tracking in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. You trek through the forest with guides and a group of up to eight tourists until you come face to face with a group of gorillas. On meeting these magical beasts, you spend one hour watching them and even interacting with them if they choose to come up and say hello. Watching the gorillas in their natural environment is an experience which cannot be put into words. There are no mountain gorillas in captivity as they don’t survive, the only gorillas that

M

22 23Winter 2013 22 23

drive is on track that is sometimes impassable for supply trucks due to weather conditions. We had many trucks break down en route to the lodge with various building supplies. These trucks were then left unattended and the materials disappeared.

• Themind-setoftheUgandanpeople.The local people that we have most of our dealings with are from a completely different world and interaction between us can be very challenging when it comes to business issues. The pace of life in Uganda is the opposite to that of the UK and getting anything done fast or with urgency is near-impossible.

• Thereisnoinfrastructuresothereforeno power, drainage or water system, and everything has to be created. Mahogany Springs is run by hydropower from the fast moving river, this provides enough power for us to run the entire lodge to a level as if you were at home in the UK.

• Findingatrustworthy,reliableandmorethan qualified management team to run the lodge. After a further two years of constant obstacles and challenges to overcome, as well as having been presented with the opportunity to give up many times, we were finally ready to open in April 2011. The lodge was exactly as I had pictured it, built to an exceptionally high standard of comfort

but now the challenge would be the service; luckily, I found an exceptional General Manager from Kenya who had been running 5 star lodges in the Maasai Mara and a head chef from Nepal whose cooking was sublime.

I handle all the marketing, logistics, bookings, payments and client communication myself from my desk here in the UK and the management team run the lodge on the ground.

Mahogany Springs has now been open for two years and is widely recognised in Uganda as a lodge that provides the highest levels of service and comfort to clients. We have featured in the Independent, the New York Times and Wall Street Journal amongst others. We reached number one spot on Trip Advisor for the area within a year of opening and we are enjoying extremely high occupancy levels. The plan is to expand Mahogany Springs by adding more rooms and then ideally build another lodge in a different area of Uganda.

You can fly to Entebbe direct from London Heathrow with British Airways in around eight hours and catch a connecting flight to Mahogany Springs which takes around 45 minutes. Those who wish to come on a longer safari around Uganda can travel by road. It’s a very safe, beautiful country which is currently booming. Meeting the gorillas should be on everyone’s bucket list.

On a side note – I am asked by many people who understand the challenges of Uganda what it was that made me stick with the project when so many give up. I must admit I thought about giving up many times but in the end I came to the same conclusion “Nothing is a problem, just another challenge”. I believe this mind-set came about from an illness I had. Whilst at university I was diagnosed with a very rare and aggressive form of cancer in my chest and given only a 30% chance of survival. I had a year of chemotherapy followed by an operation and I am now in my tenth year cancer free. I do believe this experience changed my attitude to life and undoubtedly enhanced my determination.

If any OMTs wish to meet the gorillas or discuss any business ideas, please get in touch.

[email protected]

24 25

Chrishan Raja was Head Monitor in 2006-2007. After leaving MTS, he read Law at Magdalen College, Oxford and Harvard Law School. He now works for a Wall Street law firm in New York City, London and Washington, D.C., where he is currently based


A s I sit and attempt to do justice to my time at Taylors’, it is hard to believe that over six years have passed since I last donned that grey suit (boring but easy, I always thought – I hear today’s 6th Form has more trouble). That said, having left more recently than the other Head Monitors whose experiences have filled these pages thus far, I apologise in advance if this piece takes on the same character of “stream of consciousness” recollection of which J.G. Brown often accused me during A2 History. Above all, I hope that the following encapsulates, to some degree, the school as I knew it; if, in doing so, I give my peers pause for laughter then all the better.

The MTS that I joined in 2000 appeared extremely daunting. I’ll never forget that first day, squeezing through the green door at the entrance to the “table tennis lobby”, amazed at the sight of so many pupils who seemed to know exactly what was going on. Then Head Master Jon Gabitass’ ability to memorise every new student’s name was well documented and so came as no great surprise; more shocking, however, his ability to chase down Tom Davies during U12 rugby!

The school seemed to foster an almost tangible spirit of endeavour, a constant encouragement to students to push themselves in whatever discipline(s) they saw fit. Without making a conscious decision to be so, I found myself occupied every lunchtime with a myriad of “extra-curricular” activities, ranging from sports to music and drama. It felt so easy to get involved because there was so much on offer and – well – everyone seemed to be doing it.

What springs to mind most when I think of the school is the cast (and I use that term deliberately) of characters, both students and teachers alike, with whom interactions took place on a daily basis. This formed a key element of life at MTS which may, I feel, be often overlooked. My contemporary, Peter Belden (erstwhile CCF dropout and self-styled intellectual, now WestPoint graduate and First Lieutenant in the United States Army), habitually vaunted my memory for small, often useless, details. Please allow me the indulgence of now putting this to good use:

As 3rd Formers, my year had the honour of Latin with either D.J. Critchley or M.C. Husbands (I kid you not), the former being the only teacher who continued to wear his Master of Arts gown during every class. These contained as much Latin

as they did every other philosophical, political and religious subject obliquely referenced in the texts being studied, and I remember being stunned by David’s general knowledge of everything. I was fortunate enough to be taught by him for three of my first four years of Latin, during which time he became a trusted adviser and mentor. It came as a wonderful surprise when, during my final weeks as Head Monitor (three years after David had left the school), I received a letter from him congratulating me on being accepted to read Law at Oxford, apologising for the delay in communication and, of course, offering some words of advice.

Such strong affinity with teachers was common in the school as I remember it; to this day, conversations with other OMTs are punctuated with memorable instances: J.G. Brown’s extraordinary memory for facts; N.G. Blight’s superhuman arm-wrestling ability; and Roger Coode’s French accent (impossible to replicate), to name but a few. On a personal note, GCSE Biology with N.T. Richards was a particular highlight, with our initial fear of the omnipresent “pop quiz” soon turning to deep appreciation of a teacher whose passion for his subject was matched by a wicked sense of humour, often with hilarious consequences. For one, the practical demonstration of a reflex

24 25

From a Head Monitor

Winter 2013

reaction using (only) a metre ruler and tabletop: “A rapid, automatic response to an external stimulus that does not require initiation by the brain” (exam emphasis added). Generations of Neil’s students have such defi nitions forever embedded in their minds. Unforgettable, too, the time (future 1st XV rugby captain) Oliver Nash was made to stand on a chair for forgetting the defi nition of the endocrine system. I understand that most, if not all, of those described above (as well as many others) have since retired or moved on. Nevertheless, I sincerely hope that this spirited relationship between students and teachers continues to this day.

There was perhaps no greater exponent of this dynamic than C.P. Overton, a much-loved teacher of Chemistry, rugby and hockey coach and mentor to many of us, who sadly passed away earlier this year. His classes were the stuff of legend, with stories of notes scrawled on an overhead projector at a hundred words a minute rife among all year groups within the fi rst week of each new school year. While I never had the chance to attend those classes myself, I did have the pleasure of spending a hockey season coached by “CPO”, as he will always be known. His hockey coaching and end of season celebrations, just like his teaching style, were as brilliant as they were unorthodox.

My fi nal two years at the school felt markedly diff erent to those that had gone before, as if somehow going through the hellish process of taking nine or ten GCSEs (the most gruelling examinations I’ve experienced to date, save for Oxford Finals) had forced us all to “grow up”. One of the earliest transitional experiences occurred in CCF, where suddenly we were entrusted with training younger cadets, much to the delight of (future RSM) Andrew Pollock. These changes became all the more pronounced with my appointment as Head Monitor at the end of the Lower 6th, which was of course a great honour. I remembered wondering, aged eleven, who those students sitting next to the Head Master (facing us) were; what they had done to be aff orded such a

What springs to mind most when I think of the school is the cast (and I use that term deliberately) of characters, both students and teachers alike, with whom interactions took place on a daily basis.

privilege; and further just how they dealt with the rest of the school staring at them each morning! A neat (albeit admittedly bizarre) trick I developed was a daily pre-occupation with cleaning my glasses, thereby averting the gaze of some seven hundred other students.

The most diffi cult part of being Head Monitor was, by far, the strange – and sudden – feeling of separation from my peers that resulted, a burden that

only felt truly lifted on the last day of the year. There were also the most memorable of privileges: Doctors’ Day Dinner at the Hall, dining in the House of Lords with OMT Parliamentarians and giving a reading at St. Paul’s Cathedral in a Triennial Year being more than suffi cient quid pro quo for the added workload. In attempting to deal with this, amidst the regular challenges of school life and added pressures of university applications, I am indebted to the Second Monitor, Alex Turner, for

his tireless eff orts and willingness to step in whenever the need arose. A word too for our fellow Monitor, Matthew Putt, without whose Wolsey-like powers of administration the year would have been far more diffi cult. One of many such feats of organization was the end of year Prefects’ Dinner. It will come as no surprise that the JCR voted, for the fi rst time I understand, to invite a number of teachers to share in this annual occasion; hopefully this tradition has continued since.

I left the school in 2007, but my connection continued, both at Oxford (where I was joined by the larger than life presences of Shanil Ghelani and Mihir Kelshiker) and thereafter at Harvard, where Neil (B.) Shah and I both attended graduate school. Since leaving Taylors’, I have on several occasions paused to refl ect on what I truly learnt during my time there. MTS and institutions of a similar ilk always seem to be fi ghting the stereotype of “exam factories”, where GCSEs and A Levels (and their modern equivalents) dominate above all else. Of course grades are hugely important but, as I hope the foregoing has shown, there was much more to it. The constant juggling of work, sports and music was also great preparation for my current life as a corporate lawyer, where seemingly simultaneous demands on my time are common. Managing relationships with clients and colleagues in the workplace is further made easier by the fact that, on some level, I feel like I’ve been learning to deal with real people and real personalities since I was eleven years of age.

I leave you with a demonstrative exchange from 2005 with (then Head of Science) K.G. Bridgeman, who was checking off the register before covering a Physics class one Friday afternoon: “Pillai… Pollock… Raja… Ah – so you’re Chrishan Raja?”… “Yes, sir.”… “Are you as clever as they say you are?”… “I guess that depends on how clever they say I am, sir.”… “Good answer.”

To borrow an expression from my current location: that’s training for life, 101.


Development:

MY first two years at Merchant Taylors’ have flown past. It is a great place to work and I am now getting to know many OMTs, parents and friends of the school well. At each event the school holds, there are an increasing number of faces that are familiar to me. That said, it is always fantastic to meet new people – OMTs who are re-engaging with the school for the first time since they left, or parents of the next generation of OMTs.

It has been another successful year

Development Director’s Update

BY now most of you will be aware of the Net Community and may indeed already have used it to buy event tickets or to update us with your details. For those who haven’t, the Net Community is an online portal which gives you the opportunity to link with the Development Office database. This may not sound particularly exciting. However, the database is becoming a mine of very useful information.

You may wish to catch up with an old classmate that you haven’t seen for years. By logging in to the Net Community you can track down fellow OMTs and get back in touch. It may be that you are interested in finding out about a particular career path you

are considering, or are interested in a change of career, and would like to speak to someone in that line of work. We have a Careers Directory which contains hundreds of contacts in a variety of different professions who have volunteered to be contacted.

The Net Community includes a calendar of school and OMT events and where registration or ticket purchasing is necessary, there is the facility to register and pay online through a secure portal.

For those unlucky OMTs and parents who didn’t receive a telephone call in our campaign over the summer, fear not – there is the facility to donate securely to whichever project you wish to support.

Perhaps this issue of Concordia had to

be forwarded to you and you just need to update your details. While you are doing so, why not let us know about what you did while you were at school and what sorts of things you are interested in now, so we can make sure we include you in mailings and event invitations that we think you might enjoy.

If you haven’t received a username and password from the Development Office, get in touch and we can issue you with one that you can then change once you have logged in. If you would rather choose yours from the outset, simply visit the Net Community at https://development.mtsn.org.uk and go to ‘new user registration’ and fill in your details.

My Merchant Taylors: Your New Online Community

in terms of fundraising. The Telephone Campaign was an obvious highlight, raising £100,000 over three years, but there have been many other wonderful gifts. The total raised in 2012/13 was in excess of £250,000. Just as exciting has been the increase in the sheer number of supporters we have. When Stephen Wright, in his speech at last December’s Benefactors’ Day, announced that he hoped there would be too many people to fit in the Head Master’s house in 2013, he may well have been right. Simon Everson has been able to thank and invite over 300 benefactors who have contributed to our Campaign over the course of the year. We look forward to welcoming many of them back to Benefactors’ Day in the Great Hall this year.

It hasn’t all been about fundraising, of course. We ran a personal information form mailing during the year, which helped us gather a huge amount of information about what our OMTs are doing now, what they did while they were at MTS and what sorts of events and publications they would like to see us produce.

Overwhelmingly our OMTs wanted to see more networking events, year-group reunions and informal events. We launched the City Network in February 2013 – to be repeated in 2014 – and have plans to launch an Arts and Creative Industries

event in summer 2014. With the Medical Group that Caron Evans-Evans and Sid Datta (OMT 1992 – 1999) have got off the ground this year, we hope we will have three groups meeting regularly. Also in summer 2014 we hope to launch an event for our recent leavers as well as an annual year-group reunion event. This will mean an opportunity for OMTs to attend every five years.

We are also in the process of launching our online Net Community. There is more information about that below. We hope it will make engaging with the school a lot easier for OMTs and parents in future. Online event registration and the Careers Directory are particularly important developments.

As the Development Office and the Old Merchant Taylors’ Society run more joint activities, our programme of events, publications, careers and networking initiatives will expand. There will be more organised opportunities to return to the school and to meet fellow OMTs and parents. If you would ever like to visit the school for a tour, you are always very welcome – please do get in touch.

Nick LathamDevelopment Director01923 845 545 [email protected]

26 27Winter 2013 26 27

OVER a two week period at the beginning of August, our team of 13 recent Merchant Taylors’ leavers raised over £100,000 for bursaries and a range of other projects we will support through our Annual Fund this year. They did superbly well and the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive from everyone who has been in contact with us since the campaign.

Thank you very much to everyone who received a call on our first ever telephone campaign. We are very grateful to all who took the time to speak to our team of callers, and particularly to those who supported our campaign.

Our team of callers (pictured) were trained for two days prior to the campaign so that they were able to process donations over the telephone. This made a huge difference. It meant that much of the support we received was immediate, in the form of card

Telephone Campaign raises over £100,000

donations, or by monthly or annual Direct Debits. This means that we have a reliable source of income for the next three years, enabling us to plan with confidence the number of boys we are able to offer bursaries. When combined with other donations we have received over the course of the year, we can really make a difference to many lives through both the bursary scheme and other projects aimed at improving the pupil experience at Merchant Taylors’ School.

The callers very much enjoyed their experience. One of the team, Simon Armstrong (2007-2012), said that “The campaign was great fun to do. Not only was it rewarding to raise so much money to help future students at the school but it was also great to hear about the diverse and often hugely impressive things OMTs have gone on to do. It certainly gave me a few ideas in terms of future career paths I might enjoy.”

Thank you again to all our supporters!


Class notes:

Updates

UPDATE YOUR CONTACT DETAILS

Hugo Blom (1976-1982) has moved jobs. Having recently retired from the Royal Netherlands Navy, he now works for Royal Dutch Shell where he is the Global Logistics Programme Manager (based at Shell International Exploration and Production in Rijswijk, The Netherlands).

Robin Bradbury (1937-1943) writes: “One of my fondest memeories of MTS was the Friday afternoon Three Sixths session that Norman Birley used to take in the Physics Lecture Theatre – the only class time in the week that all Sides got together. I enjoyed the intracies of order, motions and amendments. Later I came to build up my skills when serving on the local councils. I have just completed sixty years as a member of my Parish Council and enjoyed every moment of it. First elected in Coronation Year, 1973, as I moved round to live in different Somerset villages I was elected onto each council in turn and did my share of chairing and so on.

One of my little mementos, much treasured, is a “Povah Pewter” awarded to me in 1942 in the OTC for map reading. A subject I always enjoy – a plaque on electronic gadgets fixed to the windscreen – useless and misleading times without number, there’s nothing to beat knowing your map route. Best wishes to all in UIVB 1937!”

Simon Ryder (1968-1973) runs a successful mortgage company, the Commercial Mortgage Bureau, which has just won the NACFB UK Commercial Finance Provider of the Year Award.

Philip Feibusch (1978-1982) attended the auction of Bruce Ritchie’s rare book collection in Edinburgh in May. He writes: “I believe it was Bruce’s wish that the books were auctioned so that many people could enjoy them. In our case he achieved just that. Bruce taught me while at MTS and it goes without saying that I remember him as an inspiration. That thirty years on, and after his death, he has managed to reach into my life again and give such pleasure is a further credit to him. My daughter, Lucy, now 19, is studying English Literature at UCL. I mentioned the auction and that I would be happy to take her. She jumped at the chance and we had the most amazing day viewing various books and bidding for a number. The books we bid for were personal favourites for Lucy and whilst we didn’t get all those we tried for, we did get a few. It was an unforgettable day, linking my own education with her passion for literature. It is a day we will always remember and of course we have the books as permanent reminders too. If only a few purchasers get the pleasure we have done then he achieved his aim.”

Bandish Gudka (1993-95) was nominated as “Future Leader in Wealth Management” at the Wealth Management Awards on the 29th October 2013 at the Savoy Hotel in London. The brief for the nomination was for an outstanding individual within the Financial Services who has made and followed bold and inspiring plans and demonstrated strength, innovation and success and the capability to reach seniority in the field.

Bandish has also recently gained Chartered Wealth Manager status. Speaking 7 languages, he manages assets for international and UK resident HNW clients including Corporates and Charities at Vestra Wealth. Bandish commenced his career at Citigroup, where was awarded “Founder Member” honours with their UK Wealth Management Business. He subsequently successfully built and managed a large UK and international client base at Barclays Wealth.

Correction In the previous edition, we incorrectly stated that Philip Simon attended the Guildhall School of Acting. It should have read the Guildford School of Acting.

From the Evening Standard

Winter 2013 28 29

OMT News

Contact: [email protected]

Dan Hassell (1978-1983) completed the New York marathon in 3.59.41 just scraping under the all-important 4 hour mark. He would like to thank all those who supported him in raising nearly nine thousand pounds for The Cure Parkinson’s Trust.

Robert (Bob) Hurran (1957-1963), having almost completed his role as one of the two War Memorial Trustees, took over as Chairman of the OMT Club at the AGM in March. His challenge is to find the younger, more active OMT volunteers to lead the Club in the future and make the most of the new facilities for the enjoyment of the greatest possible number of OMTs. Meanwhile, aiming to move to Chalfont St Giles next year, Bob has temporarily moved to Northwood.

Chris Norland (1970-1975) is living just outside Chichester. He writes: “I have bumped into Mr Hull a couple of times over the past 10 years or so, who taught me Geography while I was at MTS. Mr Hull (we always used to call him “Charlie Hull”... he was a really lovely guy, and a great teacher) now lives in retirement quite close to where I live in West Sussex, and last time I saw him a few weeks ago (outside Waitrose in Chichester), we reminisced about a Geography field trip I was on that was led by him, down to the Arun Gap in the South Downs, pretty close to where we both have ended up living.”

Stephen Oxlade (1956-1964) writes: “I have a wealth of memories from MTS: excellent teaching from very able staff (there were three Wranglers in the Maths. Dept.); rugby matches in the lower teams; the start of the Sailing Club; cross-country matches at home and away; CCF Field Days at Portsmouth; the Field Club and Summer Camps organised by David Chivers; Scout Camps and expeditions to Scotland and the Pennines; fishing in Hampermill Lake; and many more.

After Natural Sciences at Cambridge, I did my teacher training at St. John’s Oxford, and entered a very interesting career as a teacher of Chemistry, Geology and Physics, in five different schools. Coaching a variety of sports, I specialised in rowing and ran the boat clubs of three. I still act as an umpire for rowing; sit on a Committee for Recreational Rowing, and am the Coach of Juniors for the England Home Countries team. Sports-wise, I now sail an X One Design at Parkstone Yacht Club and belong to Leander Club (Rowing).

My brother, Edwin, (3rd. Form 1957) is a Doctor of Botany and has lived in Belfast for 30 years. Now retired, he lectured at Stranmillis College, Queen’s University, and has written two books on genetics, and a recent book “Fifty-five years Running”, which starts, of course, at MTS. Also a resident of Co. Sligo, Eire, he writes widely on gardening, and trout and salmon fishing, and travels to Norway, Iceland, and mainly Russia to pursue this interest. His best fish weighed 35 lbs., caught in Russia three years ago.

A life-time friend is Andrew Alchin (3rd Form with me and Head Monitor 1963-4), and he organised a team, “The Prembroke Globetrotters”, from Pembroke College, Cambridge to take on the Eggheads on BBC 2. This was in 2009 and we managed to defeat the Eggheads in a close contest. Andrew worked for IBM, mostly in Europe, and then for the British Library. He lives on the Edgware Road and would welcome contact with old friends.

Ian Parsley (1988-1995) returned to live in Northern Ireland in 1999 and has remained there ever since; he runs a small PR company and married Paula in 2011. He has been involved in democracy promotion/conflict resolution both there and, on behalf of a number of organisations including the Council of Europe, as far afield as Moldova and Estonia; closer to home he served for six years (to 2011) as a local councillor. He is also a qualified football referee, though no longer practises.

Charles E.L. Price (1949-1954) is the new secretary of the Rollers Dinner Club. 2014 will be the Diamond Jubilee of “The Rollers” famous prank whereby they rigged a series of devices in the roof of the Great Hall, sending toilet roll cascading down during a school assembly. It has been celebrated every year since by the responsible members of the Classical Sixth of the time. Some of the Rollers are pictured below with Head Master Simon Everson.


Class notes:


Matthew Miller (1982-1989) and his wife are delighted to announce the birth of their third daughter, Akiko Georgina Homewood Miller, who was born in Tokyo on 31st October.

Charlie Sutters (1993-1998) and family are celebrating the birth of their second child, Edward, who was born in Haywards Heath on 29 June, a brother for Rosalind. Charlie and family now live in Bolney, West Sussex.

Peter Halford (1980-1984) and his wife, Martha, proudly announce the birth of their daughter, Emma, on 24 May 2013.

Births


Nikhil Sangani (2002-2007) works for Goldman Sachs and is also General Secretary of his youth community (The Navnat Youth Association). On 17th August he organised “The Great Gatsby” Social Experiment. The aim of the evening was to bring new people from a variety of backgrounds together via the medium of board games, on the condition that everyone who attended had to bring at least one person with them. The event was a great success as over 130 young professionals attended the 4* H10 venue in Waterloo, London, with tickets selling out within one week.

Steve Taylor (1964-1972) recently retired after 35 years of school teaching, and was licensed as Vicar of Westbury-on-Severn in Gloucestershire on Dec 1st. He would be pleased to make contact with school contemporaries.

Robert-Jan Temmink (1984-1992) has just been elected as a Master of the Bench of The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple. The Masters of the Bench, or Benchers, are responsible for the governance of the Inn. Masters are elected by their peers from the Inn’s members who have been called to the Bar. The majority of the Inn’s Benchers are Queen’s Counsel or senior members of the judiciary. But for Master Shami Chakrabarty, he is the youngest and most junior barrister to have been elected to the bench for 146 years!

Middle Temple currently has over 375 Ordinary Benchers and 80 Senior (retired) Benchers. The Inn also elects Honorary Masters of the Bench, distinguished individuals from other walks of life who have excelled in their respective professions. Currently the Inn has about 95 Honorary Benchers. The Inn has one Royal Bencher, His Royal Highness The Duke of Cambridge.

Pari Vandra (1992-1997) is now married to Muriel. They have two boys Leon and Maxence and are living in Totteridge.

Varun Paul (1998-2003) married Rebecca Helen Nonoo on 30th August 2013 at Heythrop Park Resort, Oxfordshire.

Marriages

Daniel Rodriguez-Clark (2001-2006) (born Daniel Clark), got married in St Andrews this summer, where he also went to university. He and his wife are moving to Lima, Peru in January to begin teaching in an International School.

30 31Winter 2013 30 31

OMT News


Lord Stirrup (1961-1967) was invested as a Knight Companion in the Garter throne room by the Queen before the annual Order of the Garter service on June 17th. Hundreds gathered at Windsor Castle to see the Garter Knights process to St George’s Chapel. The Order of the Garter was founded by Edward III in 1348 and is the oldest British Order of Chivalry; the monarch announces the Knights on St George’s Day, 23rd April; the Order is strictly limited to 24 knights, without consulting ministers, chosen for their contribution to public life. The deaths of Baroness Thatcher and Viscount Ridley left two vacancies in the order this year. The knights wear blue velvet robes and black velvet hats with white plumes for the event. The Prince of Wales, Duchess of Cornwall and the Duke of Cambridge were among those who attended.

Lord Stirrup elevated to Knight of the Garter

Honours

Appointments

On 19th April, General Richard Barrons (1972-1977) took command of JFC in succession to Air Chief Marshal Sir Stuart Peach.

The creation of JFC, which reached full operating capability on 2nd April, brings together more than 30,000 military and civilian personnel to ensure that joint capabilities are correctly prioritised. Reaching full operating capability means that JFC is now fully-manned and able to fulfil the entire range of its responsibilities in support of Defence’s objectives for current operations, future contingencies and for the longer term.

General Richard Barrons promoted to Commander of Joint Forces Command

Awards and Prizes

Thomas Nelson receives top First in his year for Greats at Oxford Thomas Nelson (2002-2009) has been rewarded with a number of University prizes, including the Cawkwell Prize (best Classicist in the judgement of the Tutor in charge of Classical Studies) and The Harold Lister Sunderland Prize for best performance in the Greek Literature Papers. Thomas was also made the Waddington Scholar for being the single best Classist in any one year.

Tom Newport wins prestigious J.L. Harley MedalPhD candidate Tom Newport (2005-2010), following his success in gaining a First from Oxford in Biological Sciences and gaining a Nuffield Scholarship, is now the proud recipient of the Harley Prize, awarded by the New Phytologist Trust.

Simon Perretta wins Diamond Jubilee Scholarship from IET Simon Perretta (2006-2013) has been awarded a £4,000 Diamond Jubilee scholarship by the Institution of Engineering and Technology.

Tom Isaacs receives Global Parkinson’s Award Tom Isaacs (1981-1986) has received the Global Parkinson’s award, one of three individuals in the world honoured this year by the Central Executive Committee of World Parkinson’s Program for their

tireless dedication and hard work on behalf of all those with Parkinson’s disease and their caregivers.


Class notes:


Henry Stuttaford (2006-2011) is now representing the Scotland U21 hockey team. He writes: “This summer I represented Scotland in

two U21 international matches. My hockey career at Merchant

Taylors’ began in the U13 ‘C’ team on a grass hockey pitch (we won 12-0). But during my time at the school I was lucky enough to benefit from the arrival of Joe Cowan as Head of Hockey and the upgrading of the hockey facilities. By the time I left MTS I had worked my way up to vice-captain of school hockey, even winning the main hockey trophy in my final year.

The preparation for the summer fixtures started at the end of 2012 through contacting the Scotland Hockey coaching setup. Given my experience at 1st team level for the University of Manchester I was invited to attend hockey camps in the build up to the summer fixtures as well as following the fitness programme. Despite not linking up with the squad for a few months I was able to stay in touch and work on my weights and fitness training. This was clearly very worthwhile as when I met the squad we had fitness tests pretty much immediately and whilst I was still behind on the weights training, my score on the 30:15 running test proved the joint highest within all of Great Britain hockey.

In July, the squad played England at the Lilleshall sports centre. This is a fantastic place with incredible facilities for a variety of sports, including video towers, which meant that both matches were recorded. The games themselves were both lost but they were high quality; I felt that I played well and it was great to be part of a team with so many good people and

Ravi Patel signs new Middlesex contractMiddlesex spinner, Ravi Patel (2004-2009) has signed a new three-year contract, keeping him at the club until 2016. Ravi has taken 54 wickets for Middlesex at an average of 26.50 across all forms of the game, with 40 wickets in 11 first-class matches. “We have always rated Ravi as a first-class bowler but in 2013 he showed how adaptable and smart he is by being extremely effective in Twenty20 cricket,” said Middlesex Director of Cricket, Angus Fraser.

Henry Stuttaford represents Scotland at hockey

great sportsmen. Whilst it was a slightly nervous experience I was very proud to be playing at this level and am now looking to make the squad for the U21 European Championships in Portugal 2014.”

32 33Winter 2013 32 33

OMT News


OMT SpeakersThe following OMTs have returned to the school to speak to boys:

Adrian Boehler (1983-1990) spoke to the Modern Languages Society Panglossia in September. Now Global Head of Institutional FX Sales at BNP Paribas, Adrian gave an inspirational talk about how his study of languages had helped him in his career at Goldman Sachs, HSBC and in his current role.

Bob Chilcott (1969-1973), prominent composer and conductor, returned in June to give a masterclass to the Chamber Choir, as well as a talk to the Music Award Holders and others about a career in music.

Conn Iggulden (1984-1988), best-selling author of the Emperor and Conqueror historical fiction series, spoke

to the boys during Reading Week in October. He spoke about the process of writing and the perseverance needed to succeed as an author. He also underlined the importance of English as a subject and learning the rules of grammar and punctuation.

Sameer Kassam (2000-2005) returned on November 14th to talk to the Modern Languages Society Panglossia about his study of Spanish and Arabic and (as a result of the latter) his career in global governance. He focused especially on his experiences in Iraq where he has been part of a team trying to encourage democratic norms in the Iraqi Parliament.

Rushab Shah (2008-2013), in his first

year studying Automotive Engineering, returned on September 26th to talk to Design and Technology students about his work experience at Formula 1 team Williams and also at Jaguar Land Rover. Rushab’s VW Beetle-inspired chair from his A2 studies is still in Reception at Sandy Lodge.

Lord Stirrup (1961-1967) returned on November 22nd to talk to the Cortex Society about the crisis in Syria. He initially spoke about the qualities of leadership and the importance of diplomatic power alongside military power. He then examined the impact of colonisation and decolonisation on Syria before giving his assessment of the current situation.

Adrian Boehler (1983-1990) Lord Stirrup (1961-1967)

Bob Chilcott (1969-1973)Conn Iggulden (1984-1988) Rushab Shah (2008-2013)

Sameer Kassam (2000-2005)


Class notes:


OMTs’ plays transfer from Edinburgh to London

Breman Rajkumar Breman Rajkumar (2005-2010) has

enjoyed a spectacular start to his career in theatre. He has won the Directors’ Guild Award for Best New Director and the Sunday Times Playwriting Award at the National Student Drama Festival 2013 for his new comedy, The Babysitter. The play, by his theatre collective InDepth, centres around a

family with a young child suffering from epilepsy. The play willsoon start a run at the new Diorama Theatre in Great Portland

Street, having recently gone down a storm at the Edinburgh Fringe. While there, they were listed in the ‘Top 10 shows to see at the Pleasance Courtyard by Fringe Review, received a couple of 4 star reviews from Broadway Baby and Three Weeks magazine as well as selling over half of their performances in the Courtyard’ – an unheard of feat for first time companies at the Fringe. They also received the following praise at the Fringe:

‘sparky dialogue and intriguing characters.’ (The Scotsman)

‘The Babysitter becomes a play that matters more than just an hour of comic or farcical interactions. Its lighthearted relief is

its draw, but it’s the depth that will make you glad you went.’ (The Skinny)

‘meticulous depiction of middle-class dynamics...It’s still a rarity to come across even one strong, female character from today’s emerging writers, let alone three...it stands out as a perfect example of teaching, disguised and made more effective through drama.’ (Ed Fest Mag)

‘The script is dazzling...it is also incredibly funny.’ (Broadway Baby)

‘Breman Rajkumar, a new Joe Orton if ever I saw one... Rajkumar takes dangerous risks with plot, language, performance and taste that make you hoot with delight.’ (Robert Hewison, NSDF13 Report)

‘Breman Rajkumar is a writer to watch.’ (British Theatre Guide)

‘writer/director Breman Rajkumar has an ear for dialogue that already demands respect’ (A Younger Theatre)

‘Redemptive, warm theatre delivered with truth...Fabulously vibrant and genuinely witty...One of the best scripts out there’ (Noises O Magazine)

34 35Winter 2013 34 35

OMT News


Ben BehrensAfter a smash-hit run at the Edinburgh

Fringe – where it was chosen for performance on the BBC Comedy Stage – Ben Behrens’ (2004-2009) Captain Morgan and the Sands of Time transferred to the Arcola in Hackney. The show has been nominated for the National Student Drama Festival Award, and received an NSDF commendation for acting, while the Arcola Theatre is now one of the most

respected arts venues in the UK, having blazed a trail in artistic excellence and innovative management since its opening. There are two actors, one musician – but no tech, no props and no need for them, as the remarkable duo from Tap Tap Theatre effortlessly play 44 characters including: a mute; skeletons; and the pair of cockney Siamese twins encountered by Captain Morgan in his quest for the secret of time-travel. It’s a whirlwind adventure-comedy of monsters, sword fights and shivered timbers. The two actors use nothing but their bodies to conjure objects and set – a trick Ben first learned at MTS.

‘It is an honour to watch them... Tap Tap prove that you can make theatre anywhere, with barely anything.’ (Broadway Baby)

‘The level of energy and skill demonstrated in ‘Captain Morgan’ is astounding, and the end result, outstanding.... this is a true example of a Fringe success.’ (Ed Fringe Review)

‘The performance had the audience rolling in their seats. And in the aisles... don’t risk missing out on this spectacular bit of fun.’ (Three Weeks)

‘If you’re looking for the ultimate in Fringe hilarity and creativity, then don’t miss Captain Morgan’s boat.’ (Clippings)

‘Tap Tap Theatre is a young company on the brink of excellence.’ (The Scotsman)

Nigel Lindsay stars in new Alan Partridge film

Nigel Lindsay has enjoyed a stellar few years in film and theatre. After starring in Chris Morris’ hit comedy

Four Lions, he played Shrek in the West End and on Broadway. Here he is pictured in one of his most recent roles, playing media boss Jason Cresswell in the new Alan Partridge movie Alpha Papa.

Film

Riz Ahmed joins Jake Gyllenhaal in ‘Nightcrawler’

Riz Ahmed (1994-2001) has spent the last three months in L.A. opposite Jake Gyllenhaal (Donnie Darko) in Nightcrawler. This dark thriller follows a (metaphorically and literally) driven young man (Gyllenhaal) who discovers the nocturnal world of L.A. freelance crime journalism, with Riz starring as Gyllenhaal’s driver and protege along with Bill Paxton and Rene Russo. Riz’s latest movie, Closed Circuit, with Rebecca Hall and Eric Bana premiered in the UK on November 1st.


Class notes:


Career Moves

Chris Daykin (1959-1967)is now Chairman, Social Security Sub-Committee at Groupe Consultatif Acturiel Europeen

1950-1970

Chris Harris (1969-1973)is now Managing Director at Converged Alliance - part of the Qubic Group

1971-1980

Mark Saragossi (1969-1975) is now Partner at OCTA

David Pollock (1971-1975) is now Chief Financial Officer at Flight Support Services

Nick Vandekar (1972-1977) is now Chairman at Berwyn Devon Business & Professional Association

Simon Kay (1973-1978) is now Managing Director Rrsat Europe at Rrsat

Mike Searle (1974-1979) is now Commercial Manager at King Facade International

Jon O’Neill (1975-1980) is now Global Head of Testing and Environment Management Office at ANZ

1981-1990

Zahid Torres-Rahman (1984-1989)is now Founder and Director at Business Fights Poverty

Andrew Brown (1976-1981) is now Consultant at Cadence Partners

Andrew Allwright (1976-1981) is now Head of Regulatory Strategy for Trading at Thomson Reuters

Rob Stewart (1977-1981) is now Executive Director at Eximius Developments Ltd

Ian Adkins (1977-1981) is now Colonel REME Reserves in the Territorial Army

Paul Humphreys (1977-1982) is now Partner, Global Wealth at Knight Frank

Philip Feibusch (1978-1982) is now Managing Partner at Five Bar Gate LLP & Six Bar Gate LLP

Mark Iwaszko (1978-1983) is now IT Director & Digital Forensic Investigator at FRP Advisory LLP

David Adams (1981-1986) is now Development Director/Owner at London & General/David Adams Property Development

Chris Coker (1981-1986) is now Group Finance Director at SDL plc

Jeremy Harford (1981-1986) is now Managing Director at Mestec Ltd

Nick Boxall (1982-1986) is now Factory Manager at E park and Sons Ltd

Andy Teskey (1982-1986) is now OBE Peng Project Engineer - Dover North Commercial Project at Brion Energy

Roger Lamb (1982-1987) is now Commercial Manager at Interservefm Ltd

Andy Iwaszko (1982-1987) is now Consultant (For AIITS) at CMC Communication Systems Ltd

Daniel Sen (1981-1988) is now Interim Finance Compliance Manager at GSK/ViiV

Arun Dehiri (1984-1988) is now Commercial Director at Colt Technology Services

Allan Ngam (1986-1988) is now Senior Manager, HR Business Support & Service Delivery at HSBC Malaysia Bank Berhad

Bruce Webb (1985-1989) is now Google Trusted Photographer at Google

Paul Hunt (1983-1990) is now Senior Corporate Development Manager at Euromoney Institutional Investor

Simon Berry (1985-1990) is now Global Commercial Director at Vieri Haute Joaillerie

Prabs Kapadia (1985-1990) is now Mortgage and Protection Advisor at Lloyds Banking Group

Vivek Nathwani (1985-1990) is now Founder at Pincer Communications

1991-2000

Amar Shah (1995-2000)is now Assistant Director in Corporate Financial Advisory at Deloitte UK

36 37Winter 2013 36 37

OMT News


Brij Dave (1986-1991) is now Project Manager at Transport for London

Paul Golz (1987-1992) is now Senior Lecturer at the University of Worcester

James Rose (1988-1993) is now Director (UK) at CXINLAW

Adam Forrest (1988-1993) is now Deputy Launch Authority at The Portishead Lifeboat Trust

Finian Davern (1988-1994) is now Solicitor at Knocker & Foskett

Asif Mohamedali (1989-1994) is now Partner, Credit Portfolio Management at Audley Tree Advisors

Shamus Jivraj (1989-1994) is now Head of Regulatory Affairs and Change (interim) at The Co-operative Banking Group

Neil Dhot (1989-1994) is now Head of Corporate Affairs at Water UK

Simon Golz (1990-1995) is now Store Manager at Dwell UK

Richard Price (1991-1996) is now Location Development Manager at Amazon.co.uk

Mahmood R Jessa (1991-1996) is now Chief Intelligence Officer at Connectiv

Andrew Chang (1991-1996) is now Data and Analytics Director at Red Fuse Communications

Zaheer Merali (1991-1996) is now Technical Leader at Cisco

Amar Bhat (1992-1997) is now Acute Internal Medicine Registrar at NHS

Paul Katz (1992-1997) is now Advantage Process Lead (Manager) at Diageo

Ahsan Qadir (1992-1997) now works in Digital Banking at Lloyds Banking Group

Rupinder Bhandher (1993-1997) is now Director at XPSDIRECT

Pankaj Patel (1991-1998) is now Managing Director at Aequitas, Chartered Accountants

Mark McKinley (1993-1998) is now Senior Consultant - Lead Systems Engineer NSW at Scott Lister

Ajay-Neil Kemwal (1993-1998) is now Strategy Manager at KPMG

David Goodhew (1993-1998) is now Vice President, Coal Logistics at Merrill Lynch

Peter Kerridge (1992-1999) is now Healthcare Solutions Lead at MSD Sharp & Dohme GmbH

Gary Sher (1994-1999) is now CFO at RBRG

Simon Fishman (1993-2000) is now Senior Director, Revenue Optimisation at Expedia, Inc

Tim Haidar (1993-2000) is now Editor in Chief - OilandGasIQ.com at IQPC

Samuel Knights (1995-2000) is now Board Director at Capture

Cameron Richmond (1995-2000) is now Front End Developer at Boden

2001-2010

Richard Suchet (1996-2001)is now Arts and Entertainment Correspondent, Sky News at Sky

Neil Jones (1994-2001) is now Technical Project Manager at Dyson

Daniel Rifkind (1994-2001) is now Senior Consultant at Cityspace Recruitment Ltd

Alasdair McInnes (1996-2001) is now Asset Manager at Kennedy Wilson

Andrew Mizner (1996-2001) is now Staff Writer at Global Legal Group

Thushan Dias (1996-2001) is now Principal Consultant at Leigh Fisher

Marco Caflisch (1996-2002) is now Business Development Manager at Elementum SCM

Darryl Gibbings-Isaac (1997-2002) is now Senior Consultant at Booz & Company

Tim Harrison (1997-2002) is now Senior Project Manager at BBC Technology

Michael Young (1997-2002) is now European Can Equity Broker at Mint Partners (division of BGC Partners)

Tim Bunting (1997-2002) is now Managing Director at Montgomerie Rose Ltd

Josh Fineman (1999-2002) is now Business Development and Content Creation at Superflex

Viraj Popat (1996-2003) is now Senior Executive at Ernst & Young

Charith Saranapala (1996-2003) is now Commercial Solicitor at Porsche Cars GB Ltd

David Gati (1998-2003) is now Solicitor at MacFarlanes

Richard Carson (1998-2003) is now Senior Surveyor at DTZ

Rory Gullan (1998-2003) is now Fashion Photographer/Videographer/Creative Direction at Rory Gullan Photography

Tom Hannah (1997-2004) is now Trade Mark Counsel at GlaxoSmithKline

Jordan Hurwitz (1997-2004) is now Associate at King & Wood Mallesons S J Berwin

Aidan de Gruchy (1999-2004) is now Implementation Manager at IBM

Johan du Plessis (1999-2004) is now Site Mechanical Engineer at BP

Ilyas Amlani (1999-2004) now works in Equity-linked Origination at HSBC

Charles Kavanagh-Brown (1999-2004) is now Intern at Telefonica

Hadleigh Measham (1999-2004) is now Change Management Recruitment Specialist at Lawrence Harvey Group


Class notes:


Zubin Mehta (1999-2004) is now Manager at Accenture

Akis Pattihis (1999-2004) is now Architect at Squire and Partners

Alex Robertson (1999-2004) is now Hotel Operations Manager at Exclusive Hotels and Venues

Kavit Patel (1998-2005) is now Trainee Accountant at Aequitas Accountants

Daniel Drage (1998-2005) is now Postdoctoral Research Fellow at National Research Centre for Environmental Toxicology

David Hopps (1998-2005) is now Customer Pricing Analyst at Diageo

Joseph Pike (1998-2005) is now Underwriter at Brit Insurance

Arjun Ahluwalia (2000-2005) now works in Public Sector at Thomson Reuters (Practical Law)

Jack Langmore (2000-2005) is now Associate at Baker & McKenzie

Jean-Louis Gandon (2000-2005) is now Product Consultant at S&P Capital IQ

Olly Griffiths (2000-2005) is now Senior Research Executive at YouGov

Mhiran Patel (2000-2005) is now Associate Dentist at Albion Dental

Nick Thompson (2000-2005) is now Assistant Manager at Devonshire Corporate Finance Limited

Nigel Tse (2000-2005) is now working in Client Valuations at Barclays

Mike West (2000-2005) is now Business Analyst - Global Standards Programme at HSBC

Simon Melvin (1999-2006) is now on the European Graduate Scheme at Easy Jet

Sam Popeck (1999-2006) is now Consultant at The SJB Group

Richard Massing (2001-2006) is now Senior Associate, Real Estate Deals at PWC

Josh Lee (2001-2006) is now Tax Adviser at KPMG UK

Thomas Jemmett (2001-2006) is now Associate at Slaughter and May

Jack Trudeau (2001-2006) is now Head of Phaidon Consulting Services for the Americas at Phaidon International

Neel Popat (2000-2007) now works in Buyouts at European Capital

Peter Belden (2002-2007) is now Executive Officer in the US Army

Alexander Gilford (2002-2007) is now Senior Associate at Deloitte Real Estate

James Franks (2002-2007) is now Audit Supervisor at H W Fisher

Rajiv Kotecha (2002-2007) is now M&A Analyst at Baker Tilly Corporate Finance

James Leigh (2002-2007) is now Assistant Manager at Deloitte UK

Jason Roston (2002-2007) is now Merchandiser at BS Clothing Ltd

Charlie Webber (2002-2007) is now Marketing Assistant at Egmont UK Ltd

James Booth (2001-2008) is now Recruitment Consultant at Spencer-Ogden

Neil Maroo (2001-2008) is now Dentist at Tangmere Garden Smile Centre

Shiv Thakrar (2001-2008) is now Senior Associate - Audit (Infrastructure, Services and Real Estate) at Deloitte

Shimol Khakhar (2003-2008) is now Senior Finance Administrator at KPMG UK

Simon Brown (2003-2008) is now Trainee Solicitor at Reynolds Porter Chamberlain (RPC)

Alex McRae (2003-2008) now works in M&A at Houlihan Lokey

Elliot Roston (2003-2008) is now Campaign Manager at Glam Media

Tom Sammes (2003-2008) is now Analyst in Strategy and Decision Sciences Practice at PA Consulting Group

Cheyne Sun (2003-2008) is now Catalogue Support Specialist at Amazon

Richard Walker-Taylor (2003-2008) is now Divisional Manager - Life Sciences at Burns Carlton

Ali Gokal (2004-2008) is now Trainee Solicitor at Linklaters

Anooj Dodhia (2002-2009) is now Analyst at Bank of England

Sunil Unadkat (2002-2009) is now Graduate Trainee Management Consultant at KPMG

Ali-Abbas Punjani (2004-2009) is now Analyst at Lazard

Rajeev Malde (2004-2009) is now Analyst at J P Morgan

Timothy Melvin (2004-2009) is now Recruitment Consultant at Shirley Parsons Associates

Pratik Shah (2004-2009) is now 2013 Cohort Member at Entrepreneur First

Ricky Zeiderman (2004-2009) is now Sales Executive at Business Environment

Joel Schwarzmann (2003-2010) is now Forensic Technology Associate at PWC

Vivek Chadha (2003-2010) is now Intern at DC Advisory

Kushal Chandarana (2003-2010) is now Technical Consultant at IBM

Dom Dickinson (2003-2010) is now Trainee Recruitment Consultant at Intelligent People

Dan Lesser (2003-2010) is now Graduate Software Engineer at BT

Tom Speed (2005-2010) is now Graduate Marketing Analyst at The Value Engineers

Louis Allen (2006-2010) is now Founding Partner at 2urDoor

2001-2010

Yath Gangakumaran (2001-2006)is now Senior Strategy Analyst at Channel 4

2011- present William Hatcher (2006-2011) is now Chassis Team Leader at Full Blue Racing

Jamie Thacker (2005-2012) is now IT & Communications consultant at Hearn’s Coaches Ltd

Emiel Khakhar (2007-2012) is now Associate at Q Ventures

Jack Cherkas (2007-2012) is now Junior Infrastructure Architect at IBM UK Ltd

38 39Winter 2013 38 39

OMT News


Dr Kapil Sugand (1999-2004) has had an eventful year. Besides training to be a surgeon, his research has been featured in the international press including the BBC for his work on revolutionising the face of education using holograms. His work has also been featured in the prestigious monthly technology magazine, WIRED. In October, Dr Sugand became a published book author after Medical School: An Applicant’s Guide and Medical School: An Undergraduate’s Guide hit the bookstores. He will also be heading a national outreach scheme to promote medical education and encourage prospective students from underprivileged schools to apply to university. In addition, he is a principal editor of two other medical textbooks.

For more information, visit the BBC at www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22860678, WIRED at www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2013/11/start/taking-lectures-to-another-dimension and YouTube at www.youtube.com/watch?v=pljG4ynfIz0. For his contribution to society, Dr Sugand’s biography is now enlisted within Marquis’ Who’s Who in the World 2013 edition.”

Dr Kapil Sugand gains international recognition

June 25th saw the first meeting of a careers and mentoring group for medics at all stages of their careers. In attendance were parents, teachers, OMTs and current students who met to discuss a way forward for the group. The full range of experience was covered, from students about to move into the Sixth Form to medical students, young doctors and Consultants. Our aims are to provide a support network to help medics through school, medical school and subsequently in their careers. The meeting was exciting and full of fantastic ideas for the future. We will meet again in September and are planning a convention in July 2014,

MTS-OMT Medics Careers & Mentoring Groupworking closely with the Careers Office and Nick Latham in the Development Office. If there are any parents in the medical profession interested in joining the group, or being abreast of our plans, please email [email protected].


Class notes:


This summer a group of OMTs made their way to the roof of Africa. Chirag Pindolia, Nikhil Gudka and I all successfully reached the summit early in the morning of September 11th. Our ascent had started five days earlier at Machame Camp. It took a while for the excitement to set in but, before we knew it, we were ascending to our first camp. Looking back, all the days seemed to just blend in to one; the altitude plays such a huge role and as you go up you notice how thin the air is getting and how much colder it is.

The days leading up to the summit weren’t hugely physically challenging; it was a case of consuming lots of calories, drinking plenty of water and making sure you did as much as possible to avoid altitude sickness. It was surreal to spend six days above the clouds; at night you could look down and see the city light pollution, while simultaneously being able to see the stars and the Milky Way with unparalleled clarity. The final day was the hardest by a long way; we woke up at 23:00 for a quick snack and started climbing at midnight in the dark. The temperature was -15C, and -25C after the strong wind chill; all one could see was the person’s feet in front. If one was brave enough to look up, one could see a pilgrimage of head torch lights heading to the summit. As morning approached water bottles froze, exhaustion kicked in and we started to question whether we should carry on. Thankfully we all persevered and made it to Stellar Point. By then the sun had risen and the 45-minute walk to Uhuru Peak was a lot flatter. Reaching the peak gave me the greatest sense of accomplishment I have ever felt.

Paras Shah (2005-2010)

OMTs climb Kilimanjaro

Jeremy Judge (2002-2009) has just finished his BSc Mathematics at Warwick and is about to start a Masters in Pure Mathematics at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. Over the summer, he travelled to Soweto with Warwick

OMTs volunteer in South AfricaUniversity to teach Maths, as part of the ‘Warwick in Africa’ volunteer programme. When he realised there were no creative subjects in the school curriculum, drawing on his experiences of A Level Art, and his trip with the department to the St Ives School of Painting, he started an Art club, using himself as a model.

Mikhil Haria (2007-2012) is helping to design and build an early learning school in South Africa. Mikhil, in his second year as an Architecture student at the University of Nottingham, is part of

a Department-led project, where a team of 37 architecture students is designing an early learning school in Calais Village (Limpopo). In April 2014, they will travel to the village to construct the school themselves using a design they are currently drafting. In order to supply the materials needed for this building project, each student needs to raise £1,000 (none of which will go towards personal expenses). If you would like to sponsor Mikhil please go to http://www.justgiving.com/Mikhil-Haria

40 41Winter 2013 40 41

OMT News


“25 years of joy, pain and hangovers”…was the title of the invitation cascading across the social media networks to tease out the OMT graduates from 1988 for our grand reunion. We had a great turnout of around 70 people, both old school boys and friends from local girls’ schools, where our links were so strong that even a couple of marriages ensued. We were especially touched by those who travelled far and wide to be there: not just from around the UK but also from San Francisco, Berlin and South Africa.

The new clubhouse was an exceptionally appropriate venue for the event, giving a sense of evenings at ‘Ye Olde Greene Manne’ from our later years, whilst gazing over playing fields reminiscing about the rugby games from earlier years. Little did we know back then how well scrums and hard tackles would prepare us for the conversion to the adulthood followed.

Some of us prepared for the meet by re-enacting the slow walk up the Long Drive and a stroll around the grounds. Others were not so prepared for the barrage of memories that flooded back from the moment Madonna’s ‘Holiday’ kicked off the playlist. Wham, Culture Club, Michael Jackson, Human League all played their role in creating a real a sense of nostalgia.

Embarrassing dance moves once thrown at the Durrant’s disco were constrained by the fear that this time images could be plastered on Facebook.

The delayed recognitions after re-uniting with our fellow classmates were soon followed by a real sense of familiarity. Behind the grey hair, beer bellies and wrinkles, essentially we hadn’t changed. What was clear is that Merchant Taylors’ had a profound effect on shaping our lives. Both our personalities and career paths were largely set on the school campus in the 80s – what seemed like small opportunities we embraced back then shaped what we do today in a big way. A performance at a Phab Review led to a career in media, a foray with the Debating Society led to a legal career, one nifty with a protractor became an architect, one proud of his cheeseboard production in D&T ended up in the building industry, and so on. This just demonstrates how diverse a bunch we were…a testament to the ‘something for everyone’ environment the school afforded us.

There was certainly evidence of the clichéd ‘school old boy network’ at the event. Many of us have kept in close contact, nurturing wonderful friendships over the years. Some business cards were exchanged and many links re-established.

A couple of us from the Class of 88 had our sons join the school recently. Our reunion helps us consider the advice for our boys embarking on their journey in our footsteps: grab the amazing opportunities with both hands, create memories you want to be engrained for the rest of your lives, don’t set limits and express your individuality – this is what the school nurtures. How does Merchant Taylors’ in 2013 compare to 1982-8? The school has somehow managed to maintain its traditional roots whilst creating an environment for the new generation to learn the life skills to adapt to a work and social environment that will look vastly different to what it does today compared to when they have their reunion 25 years from now.

We remembered too those of us that are sadly no longer with us... but their memory lives on in us and we hope they looked on with joy at the reunion.

The evening also allowed us to raise £255 which we have donated to the school’s Bursary Scheme so that those who wish to experience Taylors’ life in the future, but need help, can do so.

Arun Dehiri, Julian Seabrook, Daniel Sen

Class of ’88 Reunion September 21st 2013


Class notes:

OMT News

UPDATE YOUR CONTACT DETAILS Contact: [email protected]

over £1400 which went to the various Masonic and non-Masonic Charities they and their various Lodges support. Freemasonry is the largest fund-raiser for Charity after the National Lottery in the UK. Our Lodge raised £10,000 back in 2004 to help convert the Manor for Phab week guests.

The three who took part were Richard Price (1991-1996), Peter Cox (1958-1961) and Jeremy Gaskell (1957-1959).

Richard graduated from the University of Leeds in 1999 and is a surveyor by profession. He has worked for a number of firms, currently being an Associate Partner with Green and Partners, as a retail warehouse specialist. Richard married Lucy Bickmore on May 18th. He is a member of both our Lodge and Chapter.

Peter is a Chartered Accountant and has spent all of his professional life in Hertfordshire. Highlights include working for Sir Elton John and Graham Taylor at Watford Football Club, running the London Marathon and

trekking half way up Annapurna in the Himalayas (both for charity). Peter was initiated into Freemasonry in 1979 and is a senior Mason in several orders in the Province of Hertfordshire, as well as heading the Sir Thomas White Chapter this year. He is married to Yonna.

Jeremy joined Westminster Bank (later NatWest) in 1960, and worked at many branches in London and the provinces. He was made redundant in 1995 and has dealt in old stamps and postcards since. A keen Freemason, he is a member of many Lodges and Chapters, and holds a number of high offices in London. He has twice been Master of our Lodge and twice of the Chapter. He is married to Nina.

Jeremy J Gaskell

Websites – Sir Thomas White Lodge – www.sirthomaswhite.com Freemasonry generally – www.ugle.org.uk

Lord Mayor’s Show 2012

Gilbert Roscoe taught Physics at MTS from 1966 to 1973, and then moved on to Shrewsbury School. At MTS he ended up running the Scout Group and the Sailing Club, and was heavily involved in school plays. He was also the school’s resident (sometimes official) photographer. Here is one photo taken at the Moelfre scout camp from around 1968. He is pictured on the far right. Paul Handyside (Scoutmaster) is second from left.

The Sir Thomas White Lodge is a Masonic Lodge exclusively for former pupils of MTS and for current and former Masters of the School. Three of its Members were privileged to be selected to walk amongst 80 other London Masons in the Lord Mayor’s Show Parade last November. As a first on this wonderful occasion, they were wearing their full Masonic regalia, a most unusual occurrence, and carrying banners promoting the charitable work that Freemasonry does. They walked through the streets of London from London Wall to Aldwych and back again, and by doing so, raised sponsorship of

42 43

MTS onlineMerchant Taylors’ is now on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn

On Facebook: Merchant Taylors’On Twitter: @merchanttaylorsOn LinkedIn: Thomas White

Or go to www.mtsn.org.uk and click on the Share This icon

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Class notes:


Following early years at Terry’s Preparatory School, interrupted by orderly dashes to the air-raid shelter during visitations from Goering’s bombers and Herr Hitler’s “doodlebugs”, I managed by the skin of my teeth to sort of pass the common entrance to MTS – assisted by a bout of measles I think. Four things stand out in my memory: I formed a boxing club which met in the bicycle shed once a week, until I met up with my old friend Sandy MacNab who proceeded to knock hell out of me; so I gave up that little enterprise. My work handed in contained more of Mr Riddell’s red pen than my blue ink. Miss Nicholson put me in the corner for some misdemeanour, just when I was dying to go “north”. Miss Nicholson, not being a mistress you argued with, I sadly left a puddle on the floor, which luckily for me was not noticed by the bespectacled Miss Nicholson. Lastly, I remember our class was a little unruly and following a bit of a skylark someone was injured. I owned up to this and received six of Mr Riddell’s best for my trouble.

LIV at MTS did not really extend my brain too much and, again, I got into trouble for being the rowdiest of a rather boisterous form, which caused injury to yet another pupil. I took the blame and another six of the best from Hugh Elder. With hindsight (sorry

Andrew Cuthbert MBE writes of his school days at Merchant Taylors’, his memories of National Service and his career

44 45Winter 2013 44 45

OMT News


for the pun) I was fortunate to be caned by the Head rather than Dick Hawkey (our form master), who played first class squash and I think my backside would have accordingly suffered much greater pain.

At school my sporting prowess was on a par with my academics – pretty ordinary; though at Terry’s I did once win the Victor Ludorum but then it all went downhill after some idiot medic thought he discovered I had a weak heart. Anyway, I enjoyed my rugby and was very average at cricket; though I remember as an OMT my stepfather asked me to play for his Sunday side at Durrants and, as a desperate measure, he invited me to bowl at a rather stuck-in batsman. Much to my surprise, and probably my step father’s, I bowled him first ball, which was an absolute fluke! I played for Colin Cole’s Extra C and enjoyed the bar at Durrants.

Rugby in those days and at my level was very much a “gentleman’s” game and I remember a tackle that brought me down. I had gone quite grey at an early age and the tackler came up to me in the bar afterwards and shook me by the hand, apologising profusely for tackling an old gentleman so hard. I was all of 23! On HMS Newcastle there was a Surgeon Commander Dow, who had played rugby with the Huskissons and as soon as he learnt I was an OMT, I was in the ship’s first team and then played for Singapore Naval Base. Once I played against a Fijian side with no boots. Fame at last, I thought, but pride before a fall, as they were very hard tacklers. Thank goodness my three grandsons look as if they are set for better things than their grandfather!

My favourite day in the week was Friday – Corps day. I relished drill under Messrs RSM Mallion and CSM Bell. We were all proud as punch to be inspected by Lord Alexander of Tunis. I was privileged to be a member of the successful Drill Squad which swept the board at Summer Camps against all comers. I shot with my old and very great friend Ian MacGregor at Bisley camp. Then like many sons of divorced parents, I, as they say in Norfolk, “did different” and joined the newly formed Naval Section and the RNVR at HMS President. All this because my father had ended his war in command of his battalion in Rome and I suppose I wanted to prove a point. My end of school exam results were far from satisfactory. One thing I did learn from the famous John Fryers was how to hold my pen and write. I don’t think students are taught this these days, judging by the way many hold their writing implements. I ended my days at Taylors’ by steeling back the last night of term to haul a chamber pot to the top of the flag pole – oh well – little things...!

I then enjoyed two years’ National Service in the Royal Navy, mostly on the cruiser HMS Newcastle; meeting up with my

old school friend Hamish Darke on the Far East Station. On two occasions, under the direction of our Gunnery Officer Lt Cdr Henry Leach (later 1st Sea Lord), we scored direct hits on Communist positions in Malaya during the Emergency. My action stations were either loader on Red Two Bofor or deep down in the bowels of the ship as handler in the lower cordite gallery; not a very pleasant place to be during action stations!

I learnt a lot from my immediate boss Commander Michael Pollock in the Commander’s Office. He later became 1st Sea Lord and we kept in touch right up to his death. During my time in the Far East I was able to stay with my brother Ian on his rubber plantation in the midst of the Emergency. I was sent up-country with a Lee Enfield .303 rifle and five rounds of ammunition. I asked the Master at Arms “Why only five?” and he replied that the “commies” would get me long before I had fired off all five rounds!

After National Service one came down to earth with a bump and I enjoyed jobs with Whitbread’s as a trainee Abroad Cooper, then a gravel pit manager near Slough and then an assistant to the directors of an electrical wholesale firm run by a girlfriend’s father in the West End! Then I met my wife and we married in 1960. I fell in love with her and her county of Norfolk, so took a job with a crop spraying company there; ending up as a director. In 1976 my wife Sheelin was appointed Head Mistress of a girls’ boarding school – Runton Hill in North Norfolk. We had ten very happy years there and during that time I raised money for our Church by organising Pageants and Son et Lumieres, then Country Fairs in aid of Norfolk Scouts and St John Ambulance. Country Fairs followed at Chatsworth, Holkham Hall, Fyvie Castle, Castle Howard, Belvoir Castle, Stratfield Saye, Woburn and Broadlands.

One day I had a sort of dream that Norfolk should have her own Sail Training ship; so in 1980 I organised a Country Fair at Holkham specifically to raise money for this. Then started a journey which resulted in a Norfolk Boat charity which helps to send more than 120 children on sea-going voyages every year. We invest our capital and spend about £25,000 of its interest each year to achieve this. I have been recently truly humbled by being presented with the honour of an MBE, which I am to receive just before Christmas this year, 2013. Humbled, because it has been very much a team effort by many friends and family.

Andrew Cuthbert (1950-1953)

Son of Eric Cuthbert (1910-17)Stepson of Alan (Beady) Turner (1920-1925),Brother of Ian Cuthbert (C1940-1943) & David Cuthbert (C1943-1947)

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Class Notes:


Lord GilbertLord Gilbert, who has died aged 86, was, as Dr John Gilbert, a middle-ranking minister under Harold Wilson and James Callaghan; at the age of 70 he was recalled by Tony Blair to ensure Atlanticist continuity at the Ministry of Defence.

In between, he made an impact interrogating the mighty on Select Committees. The lean, magisterial Gilbert directed an accountant’s forensic brain against the evasions of highly-placed witnesses to deadly effect, notably during the Defence Committee’s hearings into the Westland affair.

A former international banker with a private pilot’s licence, Gilbert was not a typical Labour MP; indeed, a psychologist who showed photographs of politicians to women voters found that most reckoned the pinstriped Gilbert a Tory. Yet he was an asset to his party and to Parliament.

Gilbert made his greatest mark — and won The Spectator’s “Inquisitor of the Year” award — in opposition, after the resignations of Michael Heseltine and Leon Brittan from Margaret Thatcher’s Cabinet over Westland. When Brittan, himself a renowned QC, appeared before the committee, Gilbert accused him of having a selective memory over

the leaking by his press secretary, Colette Bowe, of an opinion secured from the Solicitor-General, Sir Patrick Mayhew, to undercut Heseltine’s position.

Gilbert was as tenacious with Sir Brian Hayes, Permanent Secretary at the DTI, the Cabinet Secretary Sir Robert Armstrong and eventually Heseltine himself. He shook Armstrong, in particular, by suggesting that he saw the “scandalous” episode of the leak as no more serious than a waiter spilling soup.

Labour members of the committee were convinced that the trail led to Downing Street, and Gilbert’s weighty thoroughness enabled it to issue a unanimous report accusing Sir Robert of neither giving a clear lead to his civil servants nor disciplining those who “connived” in the leak.

Removed from the Defence Committee after the 1987 election for attacking Labour’s “non-nuclear” policy, Gilbert found fresh challenges on the Trade and Industry Committee. He joined forces with its Conservative chairman, Sir Kenneth Warren, to tease out of Shell executives the admission that their own, “better”, petrol was frequently bought from a competitor. And he asked uncomfortable questions about the Matrix Churchill “arms for Iraq” affair, saying that ministers had “connived in and were complicitous in the activities of the men who were put on trial”.

John William Gilbert was born on April 5 1927, the son of Stanley Gilbert, a civil servant, and the former Mary Davies. Educated at Merchant Taylors’ School, Northwood, and St John’s College, Oxford, where he read PPE, he was a management trainee with the Forte catering group before moving to Canada, where he qualified (in 1954) and practised as a chartered accountant. After a spell in international banking in New York City, he took a PhD in International Economics at New York University, thereafter insisting on being called “Dr Gilbert”.

Gilbert had joined the Labour Party in 1945, serving as secretary of the Oxford University Labour Club, and was an active trade unionist. Returning to Britain early in 1966 as an industrial and financial adviser, he was selected for

Ludlow in the imminent election, halving the Conservative majority. He secured the candidacy for the supposedly safe Dudley in the 1968 by-election caused by the elevation of George Wigg to the peerage, but at the depth of Labour’s unpopularity the Tories swept home by 11,656 votes. Gilbert nursed the constituency and in 1970 regained it by just 336. At Westminster he specialised in financial issues and was put on the Select Committee on Expenditure.

In 1972 Wilson recognised Gilbert’s ability by appointing him a Treasury spokesman in the reshuffle forced by Roy Jenkins’s resignation over Europe. A persistent critic of the Takeover Panel’s limited powers to tackle insider dealing and other abuses, he asserted in a BBC documentary that malpractice was taking place on the Stock Exchange, a charge furiously rebutted. Gilbert raised questions about several takeovers, making his greatest impact questioning Sir Geoffrey Howe, Consumer Affairs Minister, over the collapse of the banking group London and County Securities.

Boundary changes at the February 1974 election helped Gilbert hold the new Dudley East constituency with a majority of 11,622. On Labour’s unexpected return to power, he became Financial Secretary to the Treasury under Denis Healey; his transatlantic experience proved useful in discussions with American business leaders on Healey’s tighter tax regime for foreigners working in Britain.

With Labour committed to a red-blooded programme of nationalisation, Gilbert was perceived as a “dove” despite his views on the City — and was not helped when Conservative MPs got up and said so. His first months were spent getting Healey’s first Finance Bill through a hung Parliament.

Later that year Gilbert announced that charitable payments to thalidomide children would be subject to income tax, only for Wilson to overrule him; a compromise was found, with the government paying victims £5 million to offset tax due. Gilbert went on to launch “granny bonds” to protect the elderly

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Obituaries

Winter 2013 46 47

against then-rampant inflation, and introduce Capital Transfer Tax in the 1975 Finance Bill.

A consistent anti-Marketeer, he campaigned for a “No” vote in the 1975 referendum on EC membership, and no one was more surprised when the repercussions won him promotion. Judith Hart, who had campaigned alongside him, refused demotion from Overseas Development Minister to Minister of Transport under the Environment Secretary Anthony Crosland. Robert Mellish, the chief whip, also rejected Transport, so Wilson picked Gilbert to show there were “no hard feelings” over Europe.

Gilbert made quite an impression at Transport. This proud owner of an Aston Martin convertible and a Mustang, he advocated the compulsory wearing of seat belts (failing to get a Bill through), emission and noise checks and stiffer penalties for drink-driving; he also christened London’s embryonic orbital motorway the M25. When EC transport ministers ordered restrictions on lorry drivers’ hours, which British unions refused to accept as they involved fitting every vehicle with a tachograph, he secured a two-year exemption.

He did less well with public transport, vetoing London Transport’s eastward Fleet (now Jubilee) Line extension, capping railway investment, acquiescing in bus and rail service cuts and suggesting buses might replace some trains.

In October 1976 James Callaghan moved Gilbert to Defence. It was rumoured that he wanted to sack him outright, but Gilbert was in America and could not be contacted, so was found a berth as Minister of State for procurement.

He was co-opted on to a Labour working party that proposed cuts of 28 per cent, including phasing out Polaris, reducing the British Army of the Rhine and cancelling the Tornado aircraft project, but dissociated himself from its report. Despite this embarrassment, he was sworn of the Privy Council in the 1978 New Year’s Honours.

After Labour’s defeat in 1979, Gilbert stood down from the front bench as the

party moved to the Left. He was one of 20 MPs who refused to vote against the nuclear deterrent in 1981 .

Gilbert was a natural target for Labour’s extreme Left, and in 1985 detected a campaign to deselect him. His critics claimed he had attended only one local party meeting in 22 years; his backers retaliated by recruiting 37 union delegates to the Dudley East party’s general committee, swamping the seven already there. They included Gilbert’s wife, an interior designer, representing the quarrymen’s branch of her husband’s General and Municipal Workers.

Labour’s National Executive refused to bar the pro-Gilbert delegates, and the rebels dispersed after a meeting “noted” their demand for his resignation. Having made sure of his seat — until a further challenge in 1989 — he upset the leadership by redoubling his attacks on Labour’s “non-nuclear” policy , and by arguing that renouncing atomic weapons had no moral basis because it would make Britain dependent on America’s nuclear “umbrella”.

In 1994 Blair nominated Gilbert to the panel of privy councillors set up to oversee the security services; one observer described him as the “quiet power” behind it. On the eve of the 1997

election Blair asked him to take a life peerage; it was assumed a seat was being “found” for a promising Blairite, but in fact the award heralded a return to the MoD.

Procurement minister once again, Gilbert worked closely with George Robertson on a year-long Strategic Defence Review, being credited with securing Treasury approval for the eventual construction of two large aircraft carriers at a cost of £2 billion.

Gilbert was a passionate supporter of wildlife conservation. In 1972 he urged Edward Heath to bar “rich and insensitive” women wearing leopard-skin coats from government receptions; at the MoD he halted the practice of treating free-fall parachutists’ gloves with sperm whale oil.

John Gilbert married first, in 1950, Hilary Kenworthy, daughter of the 10th Lord Strabolgi. The marriage was dissolved in 1954, and he married his second wife, Jean, in 1963. He had two daughters, one of whom predeceased him.

Lord Gilbert, born April 5 1927, died June 2 2013

This article first appeared in The Telegraph on 3rd June 2013

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Class Notes:


Jeremy William Buckland Warren 11th July 1982 – 1st August 2012

Jeremy was educated at Taylors’ from 1995, when he was just 13, until 2000, when he went up to Nottingham University. At both St Martins, his prep school, and at Taylors, he participated in the wide variety of sporting and musical activities available. He also enjoyed his involvement in the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award scheme and still found some time to work on the academic subjects he chose. It is difficult to know the extent to which an individual’s character is formed by nurture or by nature, but there seems little doubt that school environments affect a person’s development and what he becomes.

At his funeral, his fiancée – they were

planning their future together before he became ill – said “What I loved the most about Jeremy was how relaxed, genuine and authentic he was – not just with me but with everybody he knew. Jeremy was an exceptionally intuitive person, who was completely honest and true to himself. He could not engage in hypocritical relationships. He was instantly likeable with the power to make you feel good about yourself and warm about yourself in the most difficult of times. Various friends have described him additionally as thoughtful, caring, loyal and always positive.”

After graduating from Nottingham University, he took an MSc course in Business Studies at the University and then remained in Nottingham for a couple of years working in internet advertising and marketing. He then moved to London, to a job in the same field. He was very adept at keeping at the cutting edge in the fast moving and fast growing world of internet marketing, and at Publicis, where he worked for two years up to his death, he provided valued input on the internet elements

John R S Blake (1956-1961) died in August 2013 aged 70. He lived in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire.

Denis J. McCulloch (1932-1936) died 17/02/2013 aged 94.

Ian Miller (1945-1949) died in April 2013 aged 80. He lived in Chesham, Buckinghamshire.

to teams of people working on major marketing campaigns for leading brands.

Sadly, his career was cut short by the diagnosis in November 2010 of a primary brain tumour. The biopsy following its excision showed it was of a type with a very poor prognosis.

It was during the 20 month period after the diagnosis but prior to his death that his positivity shone through. The treatment was at times aggressive and debilitating, but despite this he worked when he could and lived as normally as possible. He kept in close contact with his many friends, minimising the seriousness of his condition and behaving as if things were relatively normal. During this time he watched his lifelong friend Tim Morris pass away with an even more aggressive cancer than his own. They went through St Martin’s, Taylors’ and Nottingham University together, as well as enduring many matches at Vicarage Road over the years.

Jeremy had the charm and self-assurance of very many boys of his background, as well as enormous inner strength and resilience. He enriched the lives of his friends, family and colleagues. His time at Taylors’ undoubtedly contributed to these qualities, which enabled him cheerfully and positively, to carry during the last 18 months of his life, the heavy cross that he had to bear.

Timothy Warren

Charles E. Norland (1933-1937) died 31/12/2012 aged 93. He lived in Chichester, West Sussex.

Kenneth E. Munn (1933-1939) died 20/06/2013 aged 92. He left Merchant Taylors’ in 1939 and went straight to Pembroke College, Cambridge to read Natural Sciences. His time there was interrupted by war service in the Army Operational Group. He returned to Pembroke after the war and was then a schoolmaster at Haileybury College from 1947 to 1983 when he and his wife retired to the Cotswolds. Mr Munn’s son Richard writes: ‘My father had many happy memories of MTS, especially the scouts and the rugby. He went on to play rugby for the OMTs for many years and recounted stories of their tours to the West Country.’

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Obituaries

Winter 2013 48 49

Paul OvertonIt was with great sadness that the school learned that former teacher Paul Overton had died after being taken ill while out shopping on 7th June 2013 at the age of 58

Colin Paul Overton, the ‘C’ seems to have remained a mystery to many of his pupils, came to Merchant Taylors’ in September 1982. He had been working in the Inorganic Chemistry Laboratory at Oxford as a graduate demonstrator. His energy and enthusiasm, in all he did, was immediately apparent.

He was a member of the Royal Society of Chemistry, had a real passion for the subject and loved teaching it. His lessons, never lacking pace, were based around the belief that pupils learned best through practical experience and he enabled the boys to carry out a great deal of practical work. Former pupils recall the ‘devotion and dedication’ of his teaching and many have added that, without it, they would not have got the grades that have enabled them to be where they are today. Anecdotes of many of his most dramatic demonstrations proliferate, showing that what he taught them was not easily forgotten. Each year, he guided the brightest Sixth Form pupils in their preparation for the International Chemistry Olympiad. Astonishingly, in a period of seven years, three boys went all the way to reaching the final team to represent Great Britain, a feat we are

never likely to repeat.He balanced his Chemistry teaching

around many other school activities. Closest to his heart were his rugby and hockey teams. Many memories endure. I recall on several occasions seeing him, in full games kit, riding the legendary bicycle down from the Manor at a furious pace with a large sack of rugby balls over his shoulder. Mid-week matches often meant early lunches to facilitate early departures. Reluctant to miss any part of a lesson, but equally reluctant to miss lunch, Paul would go to the Dining Hall, collect his meal on a tray, and eat it in front of the class whilst still conducting the lesson!

He spent several years as a residential tutor in the Manor when it was still a boarding house, where he gave invaluable support to the House Master. Paul was always very popular with the boys. True, pranks were played, but these were always good-natured and usually featured the bicycle.

He had a great love of classical music, especially sacred choral works. An unfulfilled ambition was to teach in a cathedral choir school. He was, however, a regular visitor to St Paul’s and Durham Cathedrals. He had an upright piano which he once told me he played very badly but I confess I never witnessed this.

He was a wonderfully generous

host and a very good cook. On one occasion my wife and I went round to dinner there. Needless to say wines of exceptional quality were on offer and the main course featured the largest sirloin steaks I have ever seen, following dinner plate sized portions of smoked salmon with dill as a starter. Everything was expertly cooked from fresh produce sourced from one of his weekly visits to Waitrose.

Paul devoted his life to the school for 26 years. He never gave anything less than 100% in all he did. His loyalty to the boys, colleagues and especially to me and the Chemistry Department was unwavering.

A fire in his house in East Drive tragically destroyed or damaged many of his treasured possessions and it is true to say that he never fully recovered from the shock. In his final years at the school it became increasingly apparent that his health was starting to suffer and in 2008 he made the difficult decision to take early retirement. He returned to Jarrow to live with his elderly mother who now survives him.

For a while he was able to continue his regular trips to Durham Cathedral and to watch his beloved Newcastle RFC. Indeed the last time I saw Paul was when he came down to watch Newcastle play Saracens at Watford. It was not a great day but I think he was able to see the comical side. The coach broke down on the A1, he only arrived at half-time and Saracens won. It was good though to meet up with him for a short while after the game in the Members’ Bar.

Paul was, in the most traditional sense, a true schoolmaster. Since the news of his passing spread, a large number of very moving tributes have appeared on Facebook. Many regard him as the most influential teacher during their time at MTS. He was, and always will be, affectionately known by pupils and colleagues alike as ‘CPO’.

Tony Horrox

50 PBConcordia Merchant Taylors’ School

After a couple of days spent in Singapore staving off jetlag, I arrived in Sydney, where I began my journey up Queensland. The outdoors culture, the friendly nature of the people and the prospect of getting sunburn at the end of autumn were all pleasant surprises. I was able to enjoy the pristine white sands of the Whitsunday Islands and snorkelling around the Great Barrier Reef.

I returned to Sydney after a month, settling into hostel life. My eff orts to even stand up on a surfb oard met with limited success, but discovering Pyrmont fi sh market cheered me up immensely, even if it did end my healthy eating habit. I visited the Sydney Opera house and the Harbour Bridge. These iconic buildings were a pleasure to see in real life and no photo could ever hope to do them justice.

Canberra was a world apart from Sydney, with pristine white buildings and a planned, geometric layout. I familiarised myself with Australian politics and current aff airs during this time, visiting the grand Australian Parliament and popping into the High Court for an afternoon. Whilst not teeming with nightlife, it was still a relaxing time.

Waving goodbye to urban life, I spent a month on a sheep farm acquainting myself with a very diff erent type of work. I was a fountain of stupid questions and I’m pleasantly surprised the farmer put up with me, despite me driving a trailer through a ditch! I won’t forget the strong community spirit I found there. Although I left the farm fed up of fox hunting, I also left with great memories and an authentic farmer’s beard.

My last stop was Melbourne, where I

spent my time exploring the busy little side-streets. Thankfully, I fi nally worked out Australian Rules Football, something of a cult there. I also met Joyce Webster, whose late husband Tony had generously founded the Wallaby Scholarship. We had dinner with another OMT, Andrew Gemmill and his wife Diana. Though our school experiences were diff erent, the spirit of MTS hadn’t changed. I returned to

Sydney for my last week to see John Filmer, another OMT.

I returned home after three months a seasoned traveller. When Gavin Brown fi rst discussed the Wallaby Scholarship with me I was sceptical about the opportunity for refl ection it provided, but that is precisely what happened. I can only thank everyone who helped to get the ball rolling and who hosted me whilst I was there.

Waving goodbye to urban life, I spent a month on a sheep farm acquainting myself with a very different type of work.

I couldn’t recommend an opportunity like this highly enough. I can only thank everyone who helped to get the ball rolling and who hosted me whilst I was there.

Letter from Australia

Will Copping (2005-2012)recently travelled to Australia during his gap year on a Wallaby Scholarship. He writes of his experiences Down Under

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Jon RippierEditor

1561

MTS Merchant Taylors’ SchoolExcellence, integrity and distinction since 1561

Please contact Gregg McCann, Admissions Secretary [email protected] +44(0)1923 845514Merchant Taylors’ School Northwood Middlesex HA6 2HT

Guided tours (last tour 11.30)The Head Master speaks at 11.15 and 12.15

www.mtsn.org.uk

• Car MTS is 15 minutes from the M1, the M25 and the A40• Coaches Beaconsfield, Ealing, Harpenden, Harrow, Highgate, Mill Hill, Radlett, Stanmore• Transit MTS is adjacent to Moor Park (Metropolitan Line)

Chiltern line trains change at Rickmansworth

Getting here

• 2014 Registration: 16+ December 31 2013• 2015 Registration: 13+ June 30 2014

• Bursaries• Academic, Art, Drama, Music and Sport Scholarships

Open Morning May 10th 2014 10.00 - 12.30September 27th 2014 10.00 - 12.30

Development Offi ceMerchant Taylors’ SchoolSandy Lodge, Northwood

Middlesex HA6 2HT01923 845545

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