Alumni Newsletter Archives - Page 22 of 35

Old Elizabethans were well represented at Captain Charles Russell’s country wedding to Rebecca Johnston.

“It was a cracking day. I was very lucky to have two of my closest friends from Underne and QE days, Devesh Parekh and Andrew Bershadski, to celebrate with us,” said Charlie, who, like Devesh and Andrew, attended QE from 1997 to 2004. “Richard Morrison, who often plays the organ at the Founder’s Day Service, also played the organ for us,” he added.

Charlie is currently on the permanent staff at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in Surrey, where he is due to remain until June 2015.

The happy couple’s Guard of Honour was made up of friends and colleagues from his battalion, The First Battalion, The Royal Gurkha Rifles (1RGR).

They were married at St Mary the Virgin Church in Becky’s home village of Elmley Castle in Worcestershire. The reception was held in the gardens, with the wedding breakfast followed by dancing in the Tithe Barn at Stanway House, just across the border in Gloucestershire.

Last year, Charlie welcomed the School’s Combined Cadet Force when they called in at the Officers’ Mess on a visit to Sandhurst.

In July 2010, Charlie was quoted in a Ministry of Defence announcement, which pointed to the rapid improvements brought about by joint patrols between 1RGR and Afghan National Army (ANA) troops in Helmand province, Afghanistan. The patrols had “seen the pernicious influence of insurgents in the village of Piand Kalay diminish and a new level of normality return for the local people”, the announcement stated.

Charlie, who was then a Second Lieutenant, explained at the time: “Four weeks ago when I used to patrol through the village on a daily basis I’d be lucky if I spoke to three or four people. It was an empty village, the locals were intimidated, they were scared to come to talk to us because they’d be seen interacting with ISAF [the International Security Assistance Force] and ANA.

“Now, when we walk through the village from checkpoint to checkpoint and push out into the Green Zone, they welcome us – they want to speak to us. They are a little intimidated but the overall impression is that they are happy with us in the village and they want to see more progress.”

Charlie was injured in Afghanistan in 2010. In summer 2011, he attended a reception for wounded servicemen and women hosted by Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall in the grounds of Highgrove, their Gloucestershire home. The Prince of Wales is Colonel in Chief of the Royal Gurkha Rifles.

Poet and performer Anthony Anaxagorou (OE 1994-99) this month completed an Australian tour and has just published a volume of short stories.

His antipodean tour took in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Canberra, and featured a number of sell-out workshops. He was also interviewed by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Anthony has increasingly been making a name for himself as a poet, prose writer, playwright, performer and educator.

The School welcomed him back this term to speak to a number of Year 10 classes about his work as both a writer and teacher.

Anthony started writing poetry in his teens. At 17, he won the prestigious Mayor of London’s Poetry Slam with his poem, Anthropos. He was initially inclined towards a career in music and studied Music Production at the University of Westminster. Quickly realising that this was not for him – and after a short period supporting himself with odd jobs including warehouse work – he committed himself to working full-time as a poet.

A man stands inside the noise of the world,
But all he hears is peace,

A man stands inside the stillness of a virgin field,
But all he hears is noise,

All a man ever hears is himself

“We were delighted to receive a visit from Anthony,” said Assistant Head and English teacher, David Ryan. “Much of his work has a social and political edge to it and some is far better than anything we are studying in the GCSE anthology!”

Anthony’s work frequently looks at the spiritual search for inner peace. It also encompasses themes that deal with politics, racism, history and philosophy. His work has attracted increasing admiration and attention and drawn testimonials such as this from The Sunday Times: “Look out for Anthony Anaxagorou … a near-spiritual experience.” and The Evening Standard: “One of the most powerful stage performances I’ve seen.”

Anthony runs creative-writing workshops in schools for the First Story educational trust. The organisation focuses on schools in which more than 50% of pupils are considered deprived, according to the Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index. Over the course of an academic year, each writer-in-residence leads weekly after-school workshops for a group of up to 21 pupils. The pupils’ writing is then published in a professionally produced anthology for each school; the schools host book launch events at which the students read their stories to their peers, friends, families and teachers.

He now has eight collections of poetry and short story collections in print. His poetry has appeared on BBC Youth Nation, BBC Newsnight, the British Urban Film Awards, BBC 6 Music and has been performed by Cirque du Soleil. His work has been studied in universities across the USA, the UK and Australia and has been translated into Spanish, Japanese and French.

His new book, a collection of short stories, is entitled The Blink that Killed the Eye.

Success in the BBC’s Great British Bake Off has brought fame to former QE pupil Richard Burr.

Richard (OE 1987-1994), was named ‘star baker’ an unprecedented five times in the primetime television series, which will now also be shown in the US from 28th December. He had been the front-runner for much of the series and only narrowly missed out on the title, finishing as runner-up.

Speaking after the result was announced, Richard said: “I think the greatest lesson I have taken out is [that] if you want to do something, just crack on and do it: if you don’t just open the door, you will never find out.”

Despite being pipped at the post, Richard impressed the judges in the final in October, with Paul Hollywood praising the “unbelievable” flavours of his final creation – a spectacular pièce montée cake modelled on a windmill. In the end, however, first prize went to retired GP surgery manager Nancy Birtwhistle.

Since then, he has continued to enjoy the limelight, this month rubbing shoulders with well-known figures such as singer Paloma Faith at the BBC Music Awards at Earls Court.

His Twitter feed has more than 30,000 followers, while his blog posts are eagerly followed by many and feature updates on his recipe research as well as his charity work.

Richard went to St Paul’s C of E Primary School in Mill Hill before coming to QE when Eamonn Harris was Headmaster.

He traces his love of baking back to the time he spent baking with his mother as a small child. Then, as a teenager, he had a Saturday job washing up in a local bakery, which further fired his enthusiasm.

Richard is the fourth generation to work in his family’s building business and specialises in bricklaying and building. The Great British Bake Off judge Paul Hollywood said his experience as a builder could even be seen in his baking: “Whether Richard’s mixing up plaster, cement, dough or pastry, he knows about consistency. It’s like working a cement mixer. That’s why he does so well.”

Married to Sarah and with two daughters, Richard does most of the family cooking and enjoys baking with his wife. He especially enjoys bread and pastry-making, while making the girls’ birthday cakes are highlights of the family’s year.

Richard had long been a keen fan of The Great British Bake Off. “We watch it every year and really enjoy it,” he told the BBC. “After last year I had quite a few friends and family say ‘you should go on Bake Off’, so I put my money where my mouth was and here I am.”

A keen fisherman, diver and cyclist, he also grows his own vegetables and volunteers for the National Wildlife Trust. He is teaching his daughters eco-friendly ways to help animals by building homes for hedgehogs to hibernate in.

Richard told the School that he is proud of the first-class BSc degree in Biodiversity and Conservation that he gained in 2012 from Birkbeck College, London, studying part-time.

Margaret Thatcher’s PR advisor, Lord Bell, recalls his School days at QE with fondness in his recently published memoirs, Tim Bell, Right or Wrong.

Baron Bell of Belgravia (OE 1953-1959), who is Chairman of Bell Pottinger public relations, has worked with some of the greatest names of modern politics, business and media.

He is famous most of all for the successful general election campaigns he developed for the Conservative Party in 1979, 1983 and 1987, each of which put Margaret Thatcher into Downing Street. In many senses, he was the original ‘spin doctor’ and his Labour Isn’t Working poster in 1979 has earned its place in UK political history.

Born in 1941 in wartime Britain into a middle-class family living in Southgate, he grew up with his mother and sisters after his father walked out on them when Tim was five.

He passed the 11-plus examination at Osidge Junior School and won a place at QE. “It was a traditional, well-run and disciplined place, but I enjoyed it: there was camaraderie, it was good fun, and I don’t have any tales about being bullied or riddled with angst,” he writes.

He was good at cricket and adds: “I could play rugby to a decent standard, and was in the School’s First XV – but wasn’t really interested.”

Music, and particularly modern jazz, was a greater love – and for a brief spell he made a living of sorts as a professional trumpeter. He is, however, characteristically honest about his motivation: “I didn’t want to be …cannon fodder. I wanted success – although I wasn’t yet sure what ‘success’ meant, and possibly I’m still not. But I did, even then, measure it by visibility and success. That, I suppose, was a presage of my subsequent career.”

In fact, many facets of his later life emerged during his years at the School. “My early taste of leadership was in running the smokers’ club behind the sheds”. He remains, famously, a keen smoker to this day. “I wasn’t an outright rebel as such, but, for example, the school uniform rules annoyed me (as I liked quite flashy clothes, and I was the first person I knew to get an Italian suit) so I would try to get round them. And I hated to be told by the teachers that they disapproved of my hairstyle…Yet I respect rank and title and order and authority, and I respect wisdom and experience. And I see no inconsistency in holding these two positions, because I’m not anti-establishment so much as anti-authoritarian. Maybe that’s not surprising, being the child of an Australian mother and Northern Irish father.”

Several significant figures in the School’s history stick in his memory. Of the Headmaster, Ernest Jenkins, he remembers especially his hatred of anything modern, including television and cinema. “He would openly criticise all parents for their awful, useless, idle boys. Can you imagine a teacher doing that now?”

PE teacher Eric Shearly “always seemed to like the boys who were not only good at sport but also the most noisy and obnoxious”. As both pupil and teacher, Eric Shearly (1920-2005) devoted 76 years of his life to QE: the modern Shearly Hall is named in his honour.

But his warmest sentiments are reserved for his Latin teacher, John Finnett. “I admired [him] because he was such an unusual man. He actually spoke in Latin. He was a very sensitive, modern, switched-on guy who understood adolescent boys, and if you had a problem, you went to see him and he would talk to you in proper human-being language. But then he’d revert back to speaking Latin for most normal occasions.” John Finnett died in 1971, aged just 43.

Given the family’s straitened financial circumstances, university was not an option for Tim – a fact which never bothered him. “I don’t think anybody sat me in a room and told me, but I just understood that I’d had a good grammar-school education, and now the moment had come to go out and get a job.” (And when he turned 18, his mother made it clear that, regardless of his earnings from music up to that point, this should be a ‘proper’ job.)

So he joined ABC Television as a ‘chart boy’, putting labels on a board to say who had booked each commercial. “I was the lowest of the low, but I didn’t care, because I felt that I was at the centre of a vibrant new world, and had no doubts at all that I was on the road to somewhere modern, glamorous and exciting.”

He later thrived in the burgeoning West End advertising industry and in 1970 became a co-founder of the Saatchi & Saatchi agency.

His career eventually took him to the corridors of power and the world of international big business. In his book, as the dust cover puts it, “Bell applies his acerbic wit and resolutely right-wing sensibility” to his dealings with Ronald Reagan, F W de Klerk, the Saatchi brothers and his late friend, David Frost, and to key political events such as the miners’ strike, the Cold War, the poll tax riots and the end of Apartheid.

Tim was knighted in 1990 after nomination by Margaret Thatcher and made a Life Peer after nomination by Tony Blair in 1998.

He remained close to Baroness Thatcher after she left office. When she died in April 2013, it was he who made the official announcement.

The School started this Autumn Term buoyed by another excellent set of results in the summer’s public examinations.

In the face of warnings from Ofqual, the examinations regulator, that this year’s results nationally would be ‘particularly volatile’, boys at QE once again performed very strongly, with 96% of A-levels taken being awarded A*–B grades. At GCSE, the picture was similarly impressive: 90% of GCSEs sat here gained either an A* or A grade. More recently, the Sunday Times placed QE in first place in its Parent Power league table of state schools for the second consecutive year.

Whilst we are proud of such achievements, it is important to understand that they result not only from a great deal of sustained hard work on the part of the pupils, but also from a strategic approach by the School aimed at creating and maintaining an educational environment in which talent is identified, nurtured and encouraged to thrive.

That approach is set out in our 2012–16 School Development Plan. Put simply, the plan underpins our current success while also keeping us moving forward as a School. Our Assistant Heads work assiduously to ensure that we maintain progress with each of the plan’s themes, while the Second Master, Colin Price, and I oversee the whole process. Next year will be about evaluating the effectiveness of the changes made to date and also about starting to consult with all our stakeholders as we look towards a new School Development Plan for 2016–2020.

At the start of this academic year, I enjoyed hearing about the summer holiday rugby and cricket tour of Sri Lanka, which involved around 50 boys drawn from Years 10-13. Facing tough opposition in challenging climatic conditions, the tourists found wins hard to come by, but nevertheless enjoyed the experience of a lifetime. The tour marked the 100th anniversary of the introduction of rugby at the School.

Highlights of the term itself have included the visit to Buckingham Palace by Gee Scarisbrick, of our Mathematics Department, to receive her MBE from the Princess Royal. The award was announced earlier this year in the Queen’s Birthday Honours.

The School is receiving 49 poppies from the Tower of London’s World War I Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Blood art installation, which we believe to be the single largest purchase of the ceramic poppies. They have been bought for the School by the Trustees to the Foundation of the Schools of Queen Elizabeth using money from a bequest from Dennis Nelms (OE 1934–1941) and his wife, Muriel. The number represents every OE who perished in the 1914–1918 conflict, together with one in memory of Mr Nelm’s brother, who died in the Second World War. The School is currently considering how to display the poppies.

There has been a special focus on Year 11 this term, with every boy having an individual meeting with a senior member of staff as they start the important process of making their Sixth Form choices. We invest considerable time and effort into preparing boys of this age for their future beyond QE. Year 11 boys recently participated in our annual Careers Convention. I am most grateful to the Old Elizabethans and other friends of the School who supported this event.

May I wish all our old boys and their families a happy Christmas and a peaceful and prosperous 2015.

Neil Enright

In just seven years as a solicitor, Ross Lima has worked on multi-million pound deals and contracts for clients ranging from the BBC and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society to Avocet Mining and BP.

Since last year, Ross (OE 1995-2002) has been working for Shell, where he is Lead Legal Counsel for the sale of catalysts across large areas of the globe.

During his School years, he took part in extra-curricular activities, including rugby, athletics and debating.

He went to Sheffield University to read Law in the autumn of 2002 after completing his A-levels in that summer. Ross was elected to the university’s Law Society and also threw himself into organising events including Christmas and summer balls. He was also elected to the university’s Commercial Services Board, which is in charge of holding the spending of the student union to account.

On completing his LLB degree in 2005, Ross took a gap year and went travelling in South East Asia (Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Singapore) as well as Australia, New Zealand and Japan.

“During this period I applied for and got a job as a trainee solicitor at Field Fisher Waterhouse LLP (FFW), a multi-national law firm headquartered in the City of London, and in 2006-2007, I attended BPP Law School in London, where I completed my legal practice course,” he says.

Ross qualified as a solicitor in 2009, specialising in Mergers and Acquisitions. “While at FFW I acted for Avocet Mining plc on its US$200m sale of its South East Asian mining assets – a deal which took over a year to complete and required the meeting of local regulations across SE Asian countries.”

He also went on various secondments which, he says, give him valuable experience of different environments in very diverse sectors.

“I was seconded to The Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain as part of a two-person legal team with the object of splitting the RPSGB into the General Pharmaceutical Council (the regulator for all pharmacists in Great Britain) and retaining the RPSGB as the professional body for pharmacists in Great Britain.”

He acted for BBC Worldwide on the sale of 85% of BBC Audiobooks.

And he had his first experience of working for an oil-industry employer when he was seconded to BP plc. He worked in its Castrol division on contracts that tested the way Castrol worked in various engines, seeking to improve the brand’s offering to the market.

Now at Shell, he works across EMEAR countries (Europe, Middle East, Africa and Russia) on the sale of catalysts and the provision of technical services on downstream sites. (In the oil and gas industry, ‘downstream’ commonly refers to the refining and processing of crude oil and raw natural gas, as well as the marketing and distribution of the final products).

“The breadth of work at Shell has been wider than I initially could have imagined before taking the role. Alongside the legal work itself, I speak every day to clients and customers across the EMEAR region.”

The sales in which he is involved concern the catalyst that is used in the refineries of Shell and other oil & gas companies’ refineries across the world.

“Catalysts are tiny particles that speed up chemical reactions without being consumed themselves. They can accelerate production, increase yield of product and save energy,” explains Ross. “They are used to produce cleaner fuels, such as ultra-low sulphur diesel, and also have a large impact on successfully transforming natural gas into valuable synthetic oil products such as detergents and plastics. The catalyst business focuses on producing the most highly active and stable catalysts that function reliably.”

Arjun Paliwal (OE 2006-2013) has launched his own website to display his work and talk about his experiences and insights.

Now in his second year studying Fine Art at New College, Oxford, Arjun also told Alumni News more about a special event that he staged at the college during the summer.

“I wanted to experiment with the hybrid nature of painting and sculpture in contemporary art, and so I placed my paintings in the middle of the New College Lawn for one day only, but presented them as sculptural forms. As the day progressed, students started to draw towards the works, sitting around them eating lunch or studying. They were subconsciously participating in the work of art. This, to me, is a whole new opportunity for artists, and one that I cannot wait to continue exploring.”

Arjun provided this update after featuring in last summer’s Alumni News e-newsletter.

In his first year at Oxford, one of his films – Human – was chosen as one of only ten being shown at the Ruskin Shorts show.

The annual event showcases the diversity of moving image work undertaken by students, alumni and staff of ‘the Ruskin’, Oxford University’s Fine Art department. The show took place at Modern Art Oxford, one of the UK’s leading venues for the presentation of modern and contemporary visual art.

Arjun’s three-minute film has a minimalist sound track and features headings such as ‘Robot’ and ‘It isn’t funny’ interspersed with fast-moving images.

Arjun had already begun to make his mark in the wider art world while still at QE: his A-level examination artwork, entitled Frames, was shortlisted in the Royal Academy’s A-level Summer Exhibition Online.

In the longer term, he would like to work as a product designer.

Arjun’s website is www.arjunpaliwal.com. [Website no longer operating – Ed. May 2019]

Old Elizabethans help fill shelves of new Queen’s Library

Old Elizabethans are engaging enthusiastically in a special initiative to build the book collections for the School’s new Queen’s Library.

In the opening three weeks of the scheme, 82 books together worth more than £1,000 have been donated by old boys through online Amazon wish lists.

The Headmaster said: “We are extremely grateful to those alumni who have already donated, thereby making a tangible contribution for the benefit of the current generation of Elizabethans. This is an ongoing appeal, so it is of course not too late for OEs to give books through the wish lists.”

The lists have been compiled by Ciara Murray, the professional librarian appointed by the School to run the Library, which is located at the heart of the School campus on the site of the old Refectory.

Martyn Bradish, Chairman of the Old Elizabethans Association, wrote to OEs in November to solicit their support: “The Librarian has produced a list of volumes that the School wishes to acquire over nine subject areas and one category of fiction.

“What I appeal to you to do is to buy one or more volumes by going on to Amazon and the respective wish list using the links below. Please only buy through the Amazon wish lists shown below as this means that duplicate volumes are not donated.”

To date, Economics, Technology, Geography and Philosophy have proved the most popular categories, with literature, poetry and ancient history texts also to the fore.

“The boys have already been looking at and borrowing some of the books that I’ve put out on the shelves,” said Ms Murray.

In recognition of each donation, the donor’s name will be listed in the Library’s electronic catalogue, and also physically in the book itself, with their name and the years in which they attended QE inscribed on a bookplate.

Several donors have also taken advantage of a facility to include a donation note. Some notes are a recommendation of the particular books they have chosen, or a dedication to a family member, or simply best wishes for the success of the Library.

All donors receive a letter of thanks from the Headmaster.

The Library has quickly become popular with boys, as well as adding significantly to QE’s educational resources. It provides a study base during lesson periods for QE Sixth-Formers and incorporates a university-style seminar room for Sixth Form teaching.

The Queen’s Library boasts 100 new computer terminals, as well as ample further space for reading and writing.

Now open to all boys at lunchtimes – when users are free to browse and borrow – the Library is also being used after school by pupils from across the year groups in the independent study club.

Induction sessions for every year were held this term, during which Ms Murray taught boys how to access both printed and digital resources. The state-of-the-art catalogue system even has an ‘x marks the spot’-type function, indicating with a red circle on a digital floor plan exactly where their chosen title can be found.

Through the eQE portal, boys can make reservations, append their own book reviews to the catalogue and use the ‘recommend a book’ form, which will directly inform acquisitions.

Developments planned for the coming months range from the recruitment and training of pupil librarians, to trials to explore whether subscriptions to particular online resources would be helpful for Sixth-Formers’ advanced studies.

The lists are automatically kept up-to-date, with items removed as they are purchased and other titles regularly being added.

Oil industry solicitor Ross Lima routinely handles multi-million pound contracts and deals with contacts across large parts of the globe.

Since 2013, Ross (OE 1995-2002) has worked for Shell, where he is Lead Legal Counsel for the sale of catalysts across the EMEAR countries (Europe, Middle East, Africa and Russia). Before that he worked for clients ranging from the BBC and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society to Avocet Mining and BP.

During his School years, he took part in extra-curricular activities, including rugby, athletics and debating. After A-levels he went to Sheffield University to read Law and was elected to the university’s Law Society. He also threw himself into organising events including Christmas and summer balls.

Ross was elected to the university's Commercial Services Board, which is in charge of holding the spending of the student union to account. On completing his LLB degree in 2005, Ross took a gap year and went travelling in South East Asia (Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Singapore) as well as Australia, New Zealand and Japan.

He also went on various secondments which, he says, give him valuable experience of different environments in very diverse sectors.

He then went on to act for BBC Worldwide on the sale of 85% of BBC Audiobooks. And he had his first experience of working for an oil-industry employer when he was seconded to BP plc. He worked in its Castrol division on contracts that tested the way Castrol worked in various engines, seeking to improve the brand’s offering to the market.

At Shell, he has worked across both on the sale of catalysts and the provision of technical services on downstream sites. (In the oil and gas industry, ‘downstream’ commonly refers to the refining and processing of crude oil and raw natural gas, as well as the marketing and distribution of the final products).

“The breadth of work at Shell was wider than I initially could have imagined before taking the role. Alongside the legal work itself, I speak every day to clients and customers across the EMEAR region.”

The sales in which he is involved concern the catalyst that is used in the refineries of Shell and other oil & gas companies’ refineries across the world.

Alongside his increasing success as a published and performance poet, Anthony Anaxagorou is also committed to education.

Anthony (OE 1994-99) started writing poetry in his teens and at 17, he won the prestigious Mayor of London's Poetry Slam with his poem, Anthropos. He was initially inclined towards a career in music and studied Music Production at the University of Westminster. After realising that this was not for him – and after a short period supporting himself with odd jobs including warehouse work – he committed himself to working full-time as a poet.

In 2009 he published his first book, Card Not Accepted – a collection of essays, short stories and poetry, all reflecting moments from his life and providing a commentary on western living. In May of that year the MOBO award-winning hip hop artist Akala chose Anthony’s short poem Himself, from the Card Not Accepted collection, to be read out on the BBC Newsnight programme by the actor Damian Lewis:
A man stands inside the noise of the world,
But all he hears is peace,
A man stands inside the stillness of a virgin field,
But all he hears is noise,
All a man ever hears is himself

He has a number of poetry and short story collections in print and his poetry has appeared on BBC Youth Nation, BBC Newsnight, the British Urban Film Awards, BBC 6 Music and has been performed by Cirque du Soleil. His work has been studied in universities across the USA, the UK and Australia and has been translated into Spanish, Japanese and French.

In addition to his poetry career, Anthony has run creative-writing workshops in schools for the First Story educational trust. The organisation focuses on schools in which more than 50% of pupils are considered deprived, according to the Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index. Over the course of an academic year, each writer-in-residence leads weekly after-school workshops for a group of up to 21 pupils. The pupils’ writing is then published in a professionally produced anthology for each school; the schools host book launch events at which the students read their stories to their peers, friends, families and teachers.

In 2014 Anthony was welcomed back to QE where he spoke to a number of Year 10 classes about his work as both a writer and teacher.

He also undertook a tour of Australia, which took in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Canberra. The tour featured a number of sell-out workshops and in the course of his travels he was interviewed by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Viewing archives for Alumni Newsletter