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2011 leaver Sam Sherman (School Captain 2010-2011) is studying Anthropology at Cambridge; the result, he says, of his study of the Maasai tribe as part of the Extended Project Qualification (EPQ) that he took alongside A-levels.

Along with his other studies, Sam spent a year on his EPQ – which was introduced at the School in 2010. Equivalent to half an A-level, the EPQ offers students the chance to study a topic of their choice in depth.

Following his research and a visit to Kenya, Sam produced a 10,000-word dissertation looking at the impacts of the Maasai Mara National Park on the tribe.

“My Extended Project effectively introduced me to anthropology – which became my chosen discipline at university – and to the idea of ‘cultural relativism’. I found that before the project I had neglected the hugely significant psychological impacts of colonisation, focusing instead on the more tangible social and economic.”

His research took him from the libraries of universities in London to personal communications with ‘modern Maasai’ and anthropologists. Subsequently he returned to Maasailand and conducted a quasi-ethnographic study amongst the Maasai: spending a large part of his Year 13 summer holiday living with a family of Maasai in rural Kenya.

Ben Pugh (QE 2002-2009) has helped Pembroke College, Cambridge, reach the quarter-finals of the BBC’s University Challenge.

He played a leading part as his team beat St Anne’s College, Oxford, in the first round early in the autumn and then again this month as they saw off Nottingham University by 280 points to 125.

Ben, who is reading German and Russian, put in two impressive individual performances, answering questions on a diverse range of subjects, ranging from chemistry and history to identifying that the S in SIM card stands for ‘Subscriber’. In the first round he was also on the receiving end of presenter Jeremy Paxman’s trademark mockery for his ability to recognise the girl band Girls Aloud in a music round, but then demonstrated his depth of musical knowledge in the next round when he identified Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring.

Ben studied English Literature, French, German and History at A-level at QE, securing a grade A in all four subjects – the top grade at the time. He was placed in the top five in the UK in AQA’s GCSE German and French courses. While he was a pupil, Ben supported younger QE boys in the weekly language clinics.

Having taken up Eton Fives again a couple of years after leaving the School, Sunil Tailor (1999-2006) has now become the first QE old boy ever to reach the quarter-finals of the sport’s national championships. He hopes one day it might be possible to set up a Fives club for Queen Elizabeth’s School alumni.

Sunil learned the game at QE and then, four years ago while in his second year studying Economics at UCL, he got in touch with QE Fives coach Ian Hutchinson to ask for advice on playing the game as an adult. Since Mr Hutchinson is a teacher at Mill Hill School, he urged Sunil to join the Old Millhillians Fives Club.  “We currently have teams in the first and second division and have competitive matches once a fortnight on average, running from about October to April,” explains Sunil.

Together with an Old Millhillian, Joe Coakley, Sunil entered the Kinnaird Cup, which is the national tournament. Thirty-three pairs entered this year’s cup, which was held at Eton College.

“We were given a slightly difficult first round draw, which we won three sets to one,” says Sunil. “Then we were drawn against the seventh seeds and, in a very close match, we lost the first two sets but were able to bring the match back to two sets all. In the fifth and deciding set, the game was getting very tight. In the end, the scores went to ‘sudden death’ and we won 13-12 to move into the quarter-finals.”

In its report, the sport’s official website, praised this game as “a real dogfight” and saluted “a miraculous shot that had no right to go up”, by which Sunil saved a match point.

The following day, Sunil and his partner faced the second seeds, who had been Kinnaird Cup winners or finalists several times in previous years. They were comprehensively beaten in straight sets but Sunil adds:  “It was a great experience and playing against the better or more experienced players can only make us better. It is a great sport to continue playing after school and I do recommend it fully to QE leavers – hopefully one day, we could also create a QE old boys’ Fives club!”

Sunil is currently training to be a chartered accountant and is a part-qualified ACA trainee with accountancy firm MHA MacIntyre Hudson LLP. He is due to sit his advanced stage examinations in July this year.

• The first Fives courts at Queen Elizabeth’s School opened at the old Wood Street premises in 1880, following a £10 grant from the Governors and a special fund-raising concert. The sport languished for some years after the move to Queen’s Road in 1932 and it was not until the post-war rebuilding programme in 1951-52 that plans for a new court were considered. By 1954, the court was complete and the following year the School was affiliated to the Eton Fives Association and entered the Public Schools Championships.

Ben Pugh (OE 2002-2009) and his team from Pembroke College, Cambridge, fought their way successfully through every round of the BBC’s University Challenge before losing narrowly in the final.

He then took the opportunity, along with the rest of his team, to meet the Duchess of Cornwall at a televised ceremony at Clarence House, during which the winning finalists, the University of Manchester, were presented with the University Challenge trophy.

In the 41^st series of the popular quiz, which was first broadcast 50 years ago, the Pembroke College team gained frequent praise from host Jeremy Paxman, with Ben’s breadth of knowledge and speed of thought proving key to their success.

In the first round, he got off to a good start against St Anne’s College, Oxford, giving a strong individual performance. But Ben also fell victim to Paxman’s trademark mockery after successfully recognising the girl band Girls Aloud in a music round. Pembroke won by 205 points to 140.

The margin of victory was even bigger in the second round, when Ben’s team trounced Nottingham 280–125.

Next up in the first leg of the quarter-finals were Balliol College, Oxford. Ben was very quick on the buzzer, answering a range of starter questions on diverse subjects including dance tempo, planet recognition, literature and geography, which helped his team to establish an early 90-point lead and secure an eventual 240–160 victory. Ben seemed particularly pleased, or perhaps relieved, to be able to answer correctly on the meaning of the Russian acronym ‘gulag’ – since he is reading Russian and German at Cambridge.

In the second leg, Pembroke faced a fellow Cambridge team, Clare College. Ben’s team raced to a 145-point lead – a position from which fellow Cambridge team, Clare College, could not recover, despite a spirited fight-back. Once again, Ben made his mark by answering correctly on topics including politics, philosophy, the American constitution and geographical terminology. Pembroke won 250 – 175.

Pembroke were slow starters in their semi-final and had to come from behind to overhaul opponents UCL, finally winning 185 points to 125.This time, Ben came up with correct answers on Shakespeare, chess, classical music, geography and Home Secretaries. Paxman praised Pembroke as the only semi-finalists not to have lost a match in the competition and heralded their win as “another storming performance”.

However, that unbroken record was finally to fall in the final. Their opponents, the University of Manchester, enjoyed a very strong start and, although Pembroke fought back strongly, they were unable to catch up, finally losing 180 – 135. Ben made his usual significant contribution, answering a number of starter questions on subjects including anagrams, Chancellors of the Exchequer, Swedish chemists, Polish composers and Rift Valley archaeology.

Former QE pupil Piers Martin (1987-1995) is hoping for top podium places for British fencers at London 2012 after leading the transformation of the sport in the UK since 2008.

Recruited to be the Chief Executive Officer of British Fencing and appointed to the National Olympic Committee four years ago, Piers has made full use of his own international sporting experience, which began while he was still at the School.

Piers, who was the guest speaker at this year’s Founder’s Day, service, says: “These last four years have been hard work, but I am now looking forward to an exciting and successful Olympic Games on home soil. We have focused on taking the sport from an amateur committee to a successful business and I hope that will be seen in some gold medals – for the first time since 1956!”

He swam internationally during his time at QE, but then switched to water polo where he played for Great Britain as a Junior and Senior. He was therefore delighted when the School significantly upgraded its swimming facilities in 2006 with the opening of the Martin Swimming Pool, which is named after his father, Barrie Martin, the current Chairman of Governors.

His career path has brought together his knowledge of top-level sport and his business acumen. “As an international swimmer and water polo player, I made a natural move into coaching and tutoring whilst at Manchester University. I then took a job as National Development Manager for Water Polo with the ASA, the governing body for swimming. Although I never intended to stay in the role for long, I found myself there for a while and eventually moved to become a Director, running the North West Region.”

After completing an MBA at Manchester Business School, he remained in the city to take up a role consulting on the UK set-up of the World Academy of Sport – a global programme offering executive education to federations of sport. It was his success in this that led to his recruitment to British Fencing and a return to London.

During his address to the Founder’s Day congregation at Chipping Barnet Parish Church, he spoke of his work with the British Olympic fencing team and highlighted the steadfast dedication necessary to succeed at the world’s ultimate sporting event.

When Claude Francois Muhuza arrived in the UK in 1996, aged just six, he spoke no English and had received no formal education.

Since that time Claude (2001-2008), who was guest of honour at this year’s QE Junior Awards ceremony, has not only achieved high academic success, he has also thrown himself whole-heartedly into supporting human rights causes. In October he will be heading out to Nicaragua on a three-month volunteering placement with the charity, Raleigh International.

“I enjoy the study and the application of law, but one of my other passions is learning about international development and the way developing countries around the world pursue economic growth,” he explains.

Claude was born in Kigali, Rwanda, where he lived until he was four, when the outbreak of war forced his family to flee. For two years he was moved from country to country, living in Tanzania and Kenya, before settling in the UK with his mother. His first experience of education was at Harlesden Primary School, where he not only learnt English, but also revealed latent academic potential: at the end of Year 6, Claude was awarded the Harlesden Primary Cup for academic achievement.

Whilst at QE, Claude amassed nine A* grades at GCSE and four As at A-level (the top grade at that time, before A* was introduced).  During his time at QE he began to pursue his interests in law and human rights, spending a week shadowing two judges at Southwark Crown Court. In 2007 he was appointed Vice President of the European Youth Parliament Regional Session, which required him jointly to organise, co-ordinate and lead a regional debating forum. The following year he represented the UK in international debating forums in Greece and Turkey. He used his work experience placements to gain an insight into trading and international banking, with placements at Morgan Stanley in London and Merrill Lynch in New York.

From School, Claude progressed to Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he graduated in Law and won the Crowden Award for Outstanding Contribution to College Life. Once again Claude did not restrict his interests to the purely academic: for three years, he was a member of a committee concerned with fundraising for Pembroke College. One of its roles is to raise money for an African Scholarship scheme which provides a fully-funded place for a student from Africa to study at Pembroke. In 2009-2010, in his second year at Cambridge, Claude was President of Pembroke College Student Union, where he oversaw an overhaul of the constitution, an increase in charity work and the creation of an extra Access position on the JCR (Junior Common Room). The role also involved organising Freshers’ Week and welfare events throughout the Summer Term, as well as representing his fellow Pembroke College students at the University Students’ Union.

After graduating in 2011, he worked for Pembroke College at a summer school. He also spent a few weeks in Panama working with a charity called Global Brigades as a member of the first Cambridge Law Brigade.

Since September 2011, he has been studying at the College of Law in order to complete the Legal Practice Course (LPC), which will allow him to work as a solicitor.

Claude is now looking forward to his autumn placement in Nicaragua with a project based in a rural community. He hopes to work with local craftsmen to help them understand the principles for constructing composting toilets and with farmers to support them in developing a livelihood from the use and sale of crops. “I chose to engage in this project because I knew that I would gain hands-on practical experience of international development and the work of NGOs,” he says.

On his return, Claude will take up a training contract with Baker & McKenzie, a commercial City law firm, in March 2013.

London 2012 is almost here – and Queen Elizabeth’s School is hoping for fresh success as well as reflecting on past Olympic glories.

Rower Tom Aggar (OE 1995-2002) recently received confirmation that he is part of the British team for the Paralympics, where he will be defending his single sculls title. Tom won gold at Beijing in 2008, when rowing made its Paralympic debut, and has never been beaten in five years of competition.

“I’m under no illusions that it will be tougher competition than Beijing but competing in a home Games is a great opportunity,” he told BBC Sport.

Tom started rowing as part of a rehabilitation programme following an accident in 2005 that left him paralysed.

Other QE Olympians include high jumper Peter Wells (OE 1939-47), who competed in the Games both at Helsinki in 1952 and at Melbourne four years later.

Peter’s own website tells the story of how he discovered the discipline while at the School: “In his first few years at QE, Peter’s competitive athletics were limited to running distances up to 400 yards. However, there was a high jumping pit at the School with a bamboo bar and sand. He became drawn to this, and spent hours after School trying to clear the bar at varying heights. The school library had a scrapbook of newspaper cuttings from the 1936 Berlin Olympics, and Peter spent hours browsing the book, and attempted to emulate the styles pictured. Unfortunately, what the pictures didn’t show which was the take-off foot, and this led to Peter developing an unusual style.”

This deficiency clearly did not hamper him too much, because he picked up a number of awards while still at the School, starting with the London Public Schools vs Paris athletics fixture in 1946. At the same event a year later, he became the first English schoolboy to clear 6ft, setting a new public schools record.

After leaving school, he began his two years’ National Service in the Army. In 1949, his jump of 6′ 6¼” broke the English Native High Jump record in Bristol – a record which stood for ten years.

After first touring New Zealand when competing for England at the 1950 Empire Games in Auckland, Peter decided to emigrate. In his own words: “The seeds were sown and when the rest of the Empire Games Team caught the boat back to England, [I] had decided that [I] wanted to stay.”

He was New Zealand champion for seven years from 1950/51 to 1957/58 and broke the New Zealand high jump record twice – his December 1954 jump of 6ft 4½in stood for 14 years. He came 12th in Helsinki, 16th in Melbourne, fifth at the 1950 Empire Games and fourth at the 1954 Empire and Commonwealth Games in Vancouver.

Peter still lives in New Zealand. He is married with five children and ten grandchildren, including two with whom he is pictured (right), Sophie and Tim. He keeps fit by cycling 100 miles every week.

A few years before Peter was another QE athlete whose hopes of an Olympic medal were dashed by the outbreak of the Second World War. Ernest ‘Jim’ Nankivell (OE 1926-1934, pictured below), who died last month at the age of 95, was a steeplechaser and was chosen to represent Great Britain at the 1940 Games in Tokyo. These, of course, never took place.

Born in Potters Bar in 1916, he was a member of Southgate Harriers Athletics Club, and competed at county and international level in the late 1930s.

After serving with the Royal Artillery during the war, he returned to Barnet and established a career in woodwork, eventually launching his own company, C&C Woodworking Co and becoming a successful businessman. As well as producing cases and crates for the Ministry of Defence, Jim retained a passion for athletics and designed a 200-metre indoor running track. He was also interested in cars.

“He was always very active,” Gordon Francis, 72, told the Barnet & Whetstone Press. Gordon’s father, Sydney, was a school friend of Jim’s. “He was very strong and very determined. I remember on one occasion asking Jim if he had a good weekend, assuming he would respond with having done a few jobs and a bit of gardening. But, no, Jim got up at the crack of dawn, drove from Barnet to Snowdonia in his Austin Healey, climbed to the top and returned the same day.”

After the death of his first wife, Kathleen, Jim married Pat in 1981 and the couple moved to Bournemouth. Mrs Nankivell said that she had many happy memories from their 30 years together and that her husband had been looking forward to the London Olympics.

• A number of QE boys have won London 2012 Olympics tickets through a popular ballot run as part of the Get Set Network schools group.

Founder’s Day saw the revival of an old QE tradition – a cricket match between the current First XI and an old boys’ team.

The match was last played regularly in the early 20th Century, although it was revived in 1984 for one year only as a retirement ‘gift’ to former pupil and master, Eric Shearly (1920-2005).

Revived permanently by the Headmaster, the match is now to be known as the Stanley Busby Memorial Match, in honour of Mr Busby, who was a QE parent and also a Governor from 1989-2011. His widow, Margaret, was among the VIP guests on the day.

On this, the first time the match has been played in the 21st century, spectators enjoyed a thrilling 30-over game, with the School team emerging as narrow winners.

The OE team – who were mainly in their late twenties and organised by Nick Jones (OE 1996-2004) – batted first. They set a target of 169, losing four wickets and ending their innings with Nick on 95 not out. In reply, aided by Sebastian Feszczur-Hatchett’s 52, the First XI amassed a similar total, winning the match with a four off the last ball of the day, finishing on 171-5.

Cricket remains a strength at QE.  In recent times, teams from Years 7 and 8 have both won the Middlesex Cup, overcoming strong opposition from the best of independent and state schools.  And, for the first time, the School this year played host to the Read Trophy – a mini tournament involving QE and three Lancashire schools.

Nick Jones manifested a passion for both sport and science, especially biology, while still at the School. But he believes that when he joined QE in 1996, few would have thought it possible that he would end up as a marine biologist working in remote locations worldwide.

“Yet here I am some 16 years on, working in a very different career to the majority of other QE alumni. I thoroughly enjoyed my time at QE. A biological interest, combined with a love for the sea, led me to enrol in Marine Biology at Southampton. I become increasingly fascinated with the marine world and after completion of my Master’s degree in 2009, I was awarded a scholarship for an internship at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences to work in the coral reef ecology department.

“Coral reefs are some of the most threatened habitats in the world, as well as some of the most colourful and diverse. Unsurprisingly, I had no desire to move back to the UK and I got the opportunity to establish a new coral reef research programme for the research and conservation company Blue Ventures in Belize, Central America, after finishing my internship.

“Living and working on a desert island in the Caribbean Sea is a magnificent thing, and some of the wildlife I encountered made for awe-inspiring occasions, from swimming with colourful reef fish, endangered manatees and turtles, to sharing the water with potentially dangerous sharks and crocodiles.

“Sharks were what got me into marine biology in the first place,  and when I was offered the opportunity to study Great White Sharks in South Africa it was too good to turn down. The waters just off Cape Town contain the highest number of Great Whites in the world. Despite being one of the most feared animals on the planet, they are very poorly understood and incredibly endangered, with estimates of as few as 3,500 individuals left worldwide. Working with wild animals that can get to over 20 feet in length and weigh over a tonne presents its own challenges: caution is needed in even the most simple situations, but the sight of a Great White in the wild is one of nature’s greatest, and working so closely with them was a dream job.

“However, warmer waters and the lure of diving on coral reefs in remote environments were too great and I was drawn to the Seychelles, working on a cutting-edge project to grow coral reef on large artificial reefs to attempt to replenish the depleted coral reefs of the region. Living on an island that had five times as many giant tortoises as people was incredibly surreal, with regular interruptions by nesting Hawksbill turtles. This long-term project could be a key point of reference to save coral reef environments in the coming years.

“After spending three years in the field I have now returned to England to work for the Environment Agency,” Nick concluded. “One advantage of being back in England is that I could get back into playing cricket. It was a pleasure to be back at the School which got me interested in science and set me on my way around the world.”

• Nick’s photograph here shows him in the Seychelles with a hawksbill turtle.

This summer marks the 50th anniversary of QE’s pioneering expedition to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe – reportedly the first-ever British school party to visit Russia.

The month-long trip in two Dormobiles covered 5,000 miles, with the party of three teachers, 12 Sixth-Formers and two former School Captains mostly camping along the way.

The expedition came at the height of the Cold War: the Berlin Wall was barely a year old and, coincidentally, was to claim its first victim during the QE trip, when an 18-year-old German bricklayer was shot and left to bleed to death while trying to escape to West Berlin. And just two months after the expedition returned, the world would be teetering on the brink of nuclear war as the Cuban Missile Crisis erupted.

Led by Kay Townsend and Richard Dilley – two masters at the School who had learnt Russian during their National Service – the preparation started a year before the expedition’s departure on 30th July 1962.

The party comprised these two, together with fellow teacher Eric Crofts, as well as former School Captains John Swann and Brian Salter and pupils John Paternoster, Pete Connor, Alan Bloch, Frank Edmonds, Andrew Tarry (known as ‘Ned’: a reference to a character in the Goons, a popular radio programme at the time), Torj Herbert, John Holloway, Pete Mitchell, Sam Smith, John Keeley, Hugh Sinclair and Willy Upsdale.

In parts of Poland and Czechoslovakia, camping was not possible so they were were accommodated in student hostels.

Their experiences ranged from eating takeaway caviar wrapped in newspaper to being stared at by women working on building sites in the Ukraine who muttered “Capitalisti” and spat on the ground. For much of the time, they were accompanied by two young women who had been assigned to them by the authorities to keep watch over them.

John Keeley and Andrew Tarry have produced a full account of the trip, which will appear in the Old Elizabethans’ Association’s forthcoming issue of its newsletter.

They write: “Many of us who left the School 50 years ago do have very happy memories of our time at QE. Our education in the broadest sense was certainly not exclusively focused on exams; many of our life skills were developed playing in sporting teams on Stapylton field, as well as travelling further afield during such challenging school trips as this one.”

Joe Sheffer has been shot at, interrogated and deported, but remains committed to his chosen career as a freelance photo journalist and cameraman based in Yemen, widely known as one of the most dangerous countries in the world.

Joe (OE 2000-2007) specialises in covering news in the Gulf and East Africa, and his news features have appeared in The Times, the Guardian, Private Eye and Global Post. He also works regularly for Channel 4 News.

On finishing at QE Joe fulfilled a passion for travelling and spent seven months touring on his motorbike, called Bianca. His travels took him through Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, India, China and the Himalayas. During that time he kept a blog, illustrated with his own photography.

After a year back in the UK, at Manchester University – which he describes as “depressing, like being in a prison cell” – Joe took off again, this time for the Pamir Highway, known as the Rooftop of the World, with a plan to cycle the old silk roads. During this trip he pushed himself to the limits – cycling at high altitude in inhospitable, if not hostile, terrain. “The pass to the Tajik border station is over 4,300m, for the first time the air got noticeably thinner and I had to keep going. I felt like vomiting up my breakfast and it took several hours to cycle the 13km to the top of the pass.”  But once again the trip produced a wealth of photography and blogs.

“I realised that there was an opportunity for me to carve out a career as a photo journalist and freelance cameraman, particularly if I was able to tough it out in difficult or unsettled areas,” said Joe. With that in mind, he settled in Sana’a, the capital of Yemen, widely acknowledged as one of the poorest and most dangerous countries in the world.

Having completed his Politics and International Relations degree at Manchester, he has spent much of this year covering the war with al-Qaeda in the Arabian peninsula, mostly for Channel 4 News.

“I also covered the protests around the recent Grand Prix in Bahrain,” said Joe. “I was shot in the leg with a rubber bullet and deported from Bahrain – not business-class needless to say!” He spent a few days back in the UK but promptly headed back to the gulf and his pursuit of news.

An original thinker, Joe demonstrated both an interest in current affairs and a strong degree of self-reliance and enterprise while in the Sixth Form at QE. He spoke regularly in Sixth Form debates, performing with great conviction and merit, and was well respected as the sergeant in the CCF and as a Prefect. Alongside his studies for A-levels in Politics, Business Studies and History, he made time for a wide range of activities outside School, including attending local party political meetings, climbing, kayaking, organising work in a press agency, learning Arabic and planning travels in the Middle East.