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O.B. EVENTS
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 OLD BELMONT NEWS |
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Football - The Harrow Game by Dale Vargas (Head Master's 1952) available to purchase in both paperback and hardback editions.
This fascinating book for all Footer and Football fans traces the evolution of Harrow football over 200 years. It tells how it influenced but did not join the Football Association, and how it ploughed its own furrow through the Harrow mud. This is a social history rather than a book about games and should appeal to those who have experienced
"the toil and the tussle, the batter of ankle and shin".
Find details on how to purchase the book here. |
 Tim Wickenden
(1970-72)
Tim has created a vivid catalogue of short stories and novels, collected here, and also in his YouTube channel.
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Peter Wear (1952-57)
Peter is celebrating a lifetime of laughs in
"The British Comedy Co."
In the photo L -> R:
Flip Webster - Peter Wear - Steve Steen - Anthony Ingle - Jack Vaughan
[see Peter's memories] |
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Martin Phillips (Belmont 1953-1960, then Harrow)
Martin had been living in Perth, Western Australia since the 1980s, working as a physician at the Department of Respiratory Medicine, Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital, Nedlands, WA.
He is married with two children.
He has recently relocated to Sydney to be Clinical Professor at Macquarie University Hospital. |
Alan Caiger-Smith
Belmont: 1938-43
Alan Caiger-Smith was born in Buenos Aires in 1930. He attended Belmont School and Stowe, and went on to study at Camberwell School of Art, the Central School of Art and Cambridge University where he read history.
He is best known for his tin-glaze work. With Geoffrey Eastop he founded Aldermaston Pottery in Berkshire in 1955 and has written extensively on the subject of tin-glaze pottery and lustre decoration.
Alan died on 21st February 2020 aged 90 at home in Aldermston.
Married to
Anne-Marie (d. 1994); father of Nicholas, Martin, Patrick and Daniel, granndfather of eleven; partner of Charlotte.
See also his obituary in The Times, 27 March 2020
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Sir Christopher Frayling - 6th October 2014
We congratulate Christopher on the publication of his latest book "The Yellow Peril: Dr Fu Manchu & The Rise of Chinaphobia".
A hundred years ago, a character who was to enter the bloodstream of 20th-century popular culture made his first appearance in the world of literature. In his day he became as well known as Count Dracula or Sherlock Holmes: he was the evil genius called Dr. Fu Manchu, described at the beginning of the first story in which he appeared as “the yellow peril incarnate in one man.”
Why did the idea that the Chinese were a threat to Western civilization develop at precisely the time when China was in chaos, divided against itself, the victim of successive famines and utterly incapable of being a “peril” to anyone even if it had wanted to be? Even the author of the Dr. Fu Manchu novels, Sax Rohmer, acknowledged that China, “as a nation possess that elusive thing, poise.” |
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Bruce Houlder CB QC DL
Bruce was at Belmont from 1954-1960. He is currently working as a Recorder in the Crown Court, and has a wide portfolio of interests. |
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Sir Nicholas Barrington (Belmont 1945-47) was a career diplomat for 37 years prior to his retirement in 1994. He has served in a variety of posts overseas including Afghanistan, Iran, Egypt and Pakistan, where he ended as High Commissioner. He also served in Japan and Brussels.
Please see this flyer announcing these two important books based on his fascinating life in the Foreign Office. |
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The first-ever History of Eton Fives, a sport that an Eton master once described as "the
most valuable contribution ever made by the school to the well-being of
mankind", has recently been published.
Written by Dale Vargas (E1947-S1952 & Master S1958) and Peter Knowles this volume tells a fascinating story which happens to feature several OBs and former Masters, the most distinguished being Mr John Stephenson and Mr David Guilford.
Flier - Jacket - Reviews
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Martin Phillips (Belmont 1953-1960, then Harrow) has been living in Perth, Western Australia since the 1980s.
He works as a physician at the Department of Respiratory Medicine, Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital, Nedlands, WA.
He is married with two children.
[Hasn't change a jot? - more from that era on 1953-1972 photos] |
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Sir Robert Horton (Belmont 1947-51), who had a distinguished career in industry, with many positions of responsibility, including Chairman of BP and Railtrack, has died aged 72, on 30th December 2011.
A very sympathetic obituary appeared in the Daily Telegraph on Wednesday 11th January 2012. |
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Just published: 'THE QUIET GUNNER AT WAR'
El Alamein to the Rhine with the Scottish Divisions
by Richmond Gorle MC RA, edited by his son
Peter Gorle (Belmont 1947-51), MD of Metra Martech Ltd.
The Quiet Gunner at War is a delightfully fresh and well-written account of war at the sharp end of North Africa, Sicily and North West Europe.
Published by Pen & Sword Books Ltd - Website - Flier |
Lord Home,
Dale Vargas
and D J S Guilford
(EFA Vice President)
at a dinner in 1955 |
David Guilford, who has died aged 80, came to teach at Belmont for a year after leaving Harrow in 1950 and before going up to Christ's College, Cambridge. He had been a boy at Harrow in Druries, whose House Master was Ken Snell, David's uncle, and a mathematical associate of Max Burr. Ken Snell's textbooks, written with his collaborators, Siddons and Morgan, were used by a generation of school children of that era.
Many of the Belmont boys of that period that went to Harrow ended up in Druries: John and Richard Hermon-Taylor, David Moseley, Robert Brown and Dale Vargas. After reading Classics at Cambridge and winning half blues for Eton fives, David taught at Highfield prep school at Liphook, before moving to Eton where he taught classics and was a House Master for fifteen years.
With Martin Shortland-Jones, also formerly of Druries and later also to become an Eton classics 'beak', David won the Kinnaird Cup, the Eton fives national championship, in 1959 and 1960, and again in 1963 with Tony Hughes. David, who remained a bachelor all his life, was a passionate collector, both of Coalport porcelain where there had been a family connection, and postage stamps. Every communication from him had "Save all stamps!" written in his own hand on the back of the envelope.
He retired to Alweston, a village near Sherborne in Dorset. |
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Timeline book brings Harrow's history up to date
Dale Vargas (E1947-S1952 & Master S1958) has written a handsome new volume entitled "The Timeline History of Harrow School". It is now available and can be purchased at the post-publication price of £25 plus £7 p&p.
Contact John Lee on 020 8872 8212 to order.
Further details of the contents [item posted 2 Nov 2010] |
Max and Petronella with
Peter (from 1949 group) |
Peter Burr (centre!) writes:
If any OBs are in the Hassocks area, both my parents are buried in Clayton churchyard (my Mother's ashes in my Father's grave), and J's ashes are in the same grave.
After my Mother's death in 1998 I planted a yew tree in her memory, with a plaque, which is in the churchyard of St Mary's Streatley on Thames (in front of the church, not behind). Perhaps there are those who might like to pay their respects. [item posted 1 Nov 2010] |
Donald Farquhar
Belmont 1944-48
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Timothy Farquhar writes that his brother Donald Farquhar died 14th September 2009 in his 75th year.
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Dale Vargas (E1947-S1952 & Master S1958) has written a compelling book about Jean Clark Zwolińska, the mother of his Polish born wife Krystyna. After a childhood in Scottish lighthouses and a whirlwind marriage Jean found herself in 1947 Warsaw, a city devastated by the war, with two small children and no knowledge of the language.
Jean not only survived in this unfriendly regime, but became the first port of call for many British ‘lost’ in Warsaw, a role that was recognised by the award of MBE in 1978.This is a story of two very different cultures that have, in the course of history, become entwined in unexpected ways.
Any proceeds from the sale will go to The Alzheimers Society and the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. |
John Melvill
(Belmont X1938-S1944)
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We report with regret the sudden death, aged 77, on 12 November 2007 of John Melville (Belmont X1938-S1944) who was a member of the main party evacuated to Belmont Nassau during the war. After Lancing College he had a varied career in theatre and hospitality, then as a mechanical engineer wiht the Worcester Valve Company in the United States. On return to UK, with a business partner he acquired a company making pipe-line valves in Burgess Hill. He retired to Shoreham and was a very enthusiastic supporter of Belmont Reunions. We offer our condolences to his family. |
Paul Attlee
1924-2007 |
From The Times, 27 October 2007, enlarged by Dale:
Martin Attlee was the only son of Clement; Don, Paul and Mark were nephews. All were at Belmont as were two in the next generation, including Martin’s son John, the present Earl.
Paul (d.o.b 27.09.24) went on to Haileybury and Milfield, joined Royal Navy 1943, in minesweepers, trained for a commission at HMS Alfred (Hove!) 1945; then Newton Abbot Agricultural College. He was a farmer in Devon and Cornwall, and wrote for a farming paper. Suffered from Parkinson’s disease for many years. |
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From The Times, 15 June 2007
‘Once we’d taken the ridge, we saw the enemy sloping off’
Part of the 25th Annivesary reflections on the Falkands War
concerning the significant role of David Chaundler (OB) |
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Roger Day (OB), who has died aged 73, was the saviour of the Monotype printing company, but his business career was sustained alongside a passion for organ playing.
See Daily Telegraph obituary (31 May 07) |
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Brian Walton.
Sir Robert Horton [
X1947-E1951]
writes:
Brian Walton went to Belmont before WW2, and Belmont Nassau. He died on 18th March 2007. Brian’s sister, Mrs Ann Attwood, amazingly went to Belmont in Nassau as well. Apparently there were eight girls who accompanied their brothers. She lives in the South of France and at the age of 78 has vivid memories of her time there with Sir Harry Oakes and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. The Duchess disliked little girls!
Brian was born in Calcutta in 1928 and shipped back to England aged 4, with his sister, aged 2. He then went to Belmont and they both went to Nassau in 1940, returning 3½ years later. He then went to Merchant Taylors’ and was later commissioned in the Royal Engineers, with whom he served in Malaya, Kenya and Abu Dhabi. When he retired from the Army he joined BP.
His first wife died young leaving a daughter and he later married Ginnie, and they came to live in south Stoke on his retirement. They were both tremendous supporters of the community and it was a dreadful shock when Ginnie was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer just after Christmas, aged only 60. She passed away in March and Brian followed her just three days before her funeral.
His uniform and a bottle of wine adorned his coffin at a humanist ceremony.
He attended the 2003 reunion at Westminster School. |
OB News
April 2006 |
Paul Warburton attended the reunion dinner last June. It is sad to report that shortly afterwards, in August, he was killed in a combine harvester accident. His local walking group have just published a book on local walks in his memory.
Friends of Lawrence Pepler, who died last year, planted a tree at Ditchling Cricket Club in his memory. Sadly it has been vandalised.
A Passage to Nuristan, Exploring the Mysterious Afghan Hinterland,
by Nicholas Barrington (OB) with Joseph T Kendick and Reinhard Schlagintweit
is published by I.B.Tauris.
Jim (Harold Anthony) Jowers (E1942-S1946): Clayesmore and Cirencester Agricultural College; National Service, mainly in Egypt. In 1956 he left to farm tobacco in Northern Rhodesia. In 1963 he returned to do Contract Milking in Sussex and a Farm Manager. Died in 2002.
Richard Jowers (X1943-S1946): When his elder brother Jim left Belmont, Richard, then aged 10, transferred to Vinehall, Robertsbridge. Radley (Head Prefect) and Selwyn College, Cambridge. Trained St Thomas’s Hospital. Registrar Consultant General Physician, before being taken ill and dying, aged just 29, in 1965.
During the war the Jowers family lived in Sussex and chose Belmont as it was close to home, before it moved to Lichfield. Richard's sister Ann can remember one school holiday when the boys stayed up in Lichfield to avoid the aerial ‘dog fights’. |
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David Sanctuary
Howard
January 22, 1928 - March 25, 2005
Scholarly
dealer, and Old Belmont pupil, whose
interests in heraldry and ceramics came
together in a definitive study of Chinese armorial porcelain.
See his Times
Obituary (30th May 2005), and the description of his autobiography
(below). |
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The
Unforgiving Minute
by
the late David Howard
(January 2005)
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The
Unforgiving Minute is the autobiography of the late David
Howard, who was at Belmont between Summer term 1937 and Spring
term 1943. He tells of the school’s evacuation from Hassocks
to Lichfield, whence he joined the small party which sailed to
Nassau, Bahamas.
He gives a fascinating description of the adventures of Belmont Bahamas over the following three and a half years, before he returned to the UK to go to Stowe.
David did his National Service in the Coldstream Guards and spent several years in business before turning his hobby into a business and becoming a world authority on Chinese
Armorial Porcelain, a subject on which he has written
several books.
The Unforgiving Minute can be obtained from
The Memoir Club, Suite 11742, 72 New Bond St, London W1S 1RR
email: memoirclub@email.msn.com |
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Sir Christopher Frayling appeared
on 'Desert Island Discs'
interviewed by Sue Lawley
on BBC Radio 4 (UK) on Sunday 2nd and Friday 7th November 2003.
The BBC now make Desert Island Discs available
on their website: Click here for a link to Christopher Frayling's broadcast. |
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