Found Him! An E-mail Interview With Ian Sandbrook, 50 Years After 1S At Alleyn’s School, 6 November 2023

2020 Image “borrowed” from the bowels of the Endelienta Arts website

On the morning of Rohan Candappa’s small gathering of 1S chaps in late October…

…I thought I’d try to track down Mr Sandbrook, and indeed, a few day’s later, as reported in the above piece, I received a message from “Ian” addressed to “Ian”. Eventually it dawned on me that “Mr Sandbrook” and “Harris” were now, a mere 50 years later, on first name terms.

A few days after that, in response to my somewhat inquisitive follow-up, Ian wrote the following charming tour d’horizon of the past 50 years and a few Alleyn’s memories from his perspective.

Ian has kindly granted me permission to publish it here. It is reproduced below verbartim.

This image borrowed from LinkedIn

I’ve never been good at the alumni thing; I have lost touch with people with whom I have been close as I have moved to other places and situations and I have found that the few reunions I have attended have been rather hard work. But that hasn’t stopped me from wondering – frequently – what became of individuals who, somewhat unpredictably, surface from the past and come into brief but often quite sharp focus for a while.

So this 50 year-old blast from the past is quite a strange experience. I am very gratified to think that our trip to Scapino proved to be significant in some way; and I am amused that my ruse about looking for spelling errors on the blackboard has stuck in your memories. Funny to think too about how much has moved on – not many blackboards around in schools these days. Seeing the full form list of 1S set my synapses singing, although sadly only with tiny snatches of song.

I was only at Alleyns for 2 years, although they feel, in retrospect, to have been rich and full years. The salient memories were to do with the feel of the classrooms, hockey, snooker, the flat I shared with Dr Dave Wallace in Calton Avenue, particular staff such as Barry Banson, Colin Rowse, Paul Kingman – to name just a few.

Oddly enough, it was because of my role as the first-year form tutor of 1S that I moved on. I had decided that it would be a good idea to visit one or two of the schools from whom members of the class had come. Heber Primary School, in East Dulwich (which was rather rougher and tougher then than the somewhat gentrified district that it is now) was one of these. When I went to visit, the headteacher there persuaded me that I should switch to primary teaching and, cutting a longer story short, this is what I did. From there I moved into headship (at Rosendale Juniors, not far away) and on into the ILEA inspectorate. Thence to Hampshire’s school inspection and advisory service and then, eventually, to become Director of Education in Southampton. I completed my paid career with a five year freelance period as interim director of children’s services in various local authorities and as an educational consultant.

You did well to find me via Endelienta Arts. When I was a consultant in the noughties, I had a website which included a full CV. But the education consultant market contracted sharply in 2010 when austerity cut sharply into local authority budgets. My wife and I moved to North Cornwall, which we had come to know and love after my playing annually in the St Endellion Easter (classical music) Festival (also since 1973). While we were there, we helped to set up a new charity, Endelienta Arts, to run a year-round arts programme to complement the music festivals. Endelienta Arts is alive and well, responsible for regular concerts across the music genres, the North Cornwall Book Festival, reflective days, and a thriving arts outreach programme.

We moved to Lewes in December 2020 – mid lockdown – because we wanted to be closer to our grandchildren who are in Brighton and Tottenham. I’m still involved with the St Endellion Festivals in Cornwall but we are building a life in Lewes – singing in a choir, being a school governor, doing various bits of voluntary work, tending an allotment, lots of walking on the Downs, lots of culture – very much enjoying being part of a (slightly quirky) 15-minute community.

This is probably enough to answer the “I wonder what happened to him ?” question. Thank you for going to the trouble to make contact – and for the work that you do to keep the 1S community alive. As I said when I responded initially, it is gratifying to discover that one has left little bits of legacy in one’s slipstream – but it is only through the likes of you that I get to make such discoveries !

My very best wishes to all who might remember me from my brief but rewarding time at Alleyns.

I really enjoyed and was moved reading this note. Janie liked it too when I read it out to her. I feel sure that many Alleyn’s 1970s alums will appreciate the note. Thank you, Ian.

But there is just one small thing, Sir…I mean, Ian. I have spotted a spelling mistake in your e-mail. The same mistake appears twice. Does that mean I can claim 10p or 20p?

No-one likes a cocky little 11-year-old. Worse yet, one who is still cocky after all these years.

A Small Gathering Of Alleyn’s Chaps Who Started In The Class 1S Fifty Years Ago, 26 October 2023

Frankly, only Candappa could come up with an idea like this and see it through to implementation.

When I call my friend Rohan Candappa just “Candappa”, I am of course harking back to that time, 50 years ago, when we started secondary school and discovered that we all had surnames but none of us seemed to have first names.

Candappa – bellicose back then…

…merely cantankerous now: Rohan Candappa

But as usual, I am digressing.

The gathering was at The Young Vic, in commemoration of the first theatrical school trip of our young careers, with Mr Sandbrook himself, to see Scapino, in January 1974:

Rohan issued some specific instructions:

Dress code: Grey suits (too large ideally, but don’t worry, you’ll grow into it), black briefcases, and a slightly nervous smile. Oh, and make sure you’ve got some blotting paper in the briefcase.

I knew that I would be unable to comply fully with Rohan’s rules and also that I was no longer in a position to get my (late) mother to write a note of apology to Mr Sandbrook, our form teacher. I decided to commission ChatGPT to forge a note from my mum. It took four or five goes, as ChatGPT, unwilling to imagine itself in 1973 writing a note, was keen to use the phrase “1973 was a long time ago” as part of the excuse. Only when I advised it to use a “dog ate my homework” style of excuse did it muster the following:

Interesting use of a gender-neutral pronoun there. Not very 1973.

It was always only going to be a small group of us. In the end, only four of us met, as Dave French unfortunately was a bit poorly on the day. He did send an extensive note, which I shall quote from shortly.

The four of us who met were:

  • Candappa, Rohan
  • Goodwin, Ian
  • Maine, Myles
  • Harris, Ian (me).
Left to right, Me, Myles, Rohan, t’other Ian

We called the register – strangely while I was calling the register from my old 1974 diary, Dave French was sending me a message which included said register with some thoughts about the people, especially those who have sadly departed.

Dave French helpfully provided a legible list, when he wrote in to us:

Please raise a glass or three in my absence to:

Allott 

Athaide

Barrett

Burgess

Candappa – Candy

Carroll

Corrin

Dallaway 

Feeley

Foord – Dunkie

Forrest

Frearson

French – Frog

Goodwin – Milk

Handy

Harley

Hayes

Hollingshead – Mutt

Manhood 

Masson – Chimpy

Mayne

Moore

Ricketts 

Romain – Charlie

Sym

Stendall

🍻🍻🍻

One sobering thought was the realisation that at least four of our number have departed permanently. That’s at least as many departed as gathered that October evening. An attrition rate above 15% seems very high.

The memorial roll of honour is as follows:

  • Wayne Manhood – I have written an Ogblog piece – click here – including my own partly false memories of this one from the 1980s.
  • Jovito Athaide – as Dave French wrote: “I think it was in the early 1990s that I received a call from Jovito Athaide’s dad, letting me know he’d died suddenly from an undetected heart condition.” I think quite a few of us got this call – my parents probably told me about it without passing on my new number to Mr Athaide. I have an address and phone number for Jo in an old address book – I should imagine he made a point of collecting/exchanging them.
  • Dave Masson – Dave French writes: “I and a few others stayed very close to Dave Chimpy Masson for many years after school – very fond memories in the sixth form of going back to his house at 66 Woodwarde Road, 5 minutes from school, either at lunch or during free periods, to drink his home brew – made maths more tolerable in the afternoon. Devastatingly he and his mother-in-law died in a car crash in Namibia in 1995…his birthday, December 4th, is ingrained in my memory, and I always say “Hi” and raise a glass to him. Lovely guy”.
  • Paul Hayes – who died of cancer more recently, in 2017. He had many formal obituaries – e.g. the one linked here – as he was a high-profile media dude. We had our own Alleyn’s alums-style toast to him just a few weeks later.

Yet the four of us who gathered in October 2023 were able to park our melancholy, enjoy each other’s company enormously and share many reminiscences.

Rohan, being Rohan, brought a small collection of gifts for all of us who attended – a fountain pen, a piece of blotting paper and a notebook which he had craftily renamed G.W.B for general work book – gosh yes, I remember those.

Gifted, we were, all of us gifted.

Naturally, when I got home I wrote Rohan a thank you note in my GWB using my fountain pen and blotting paper.

I then scanned the note and e-mailed it to Rohan, which slightly spoiled the 1973 effect.

My favourite anecdote from 50 years ago was also one of Rohan’s. He recalled that, in one of our very first lessons with Mr Sandbrook, we were promised a princely sum of money – perhaps it was 10p – every time we spotted a spelling or grammatical mistake on the blackboard. Rohan recalls that it took him most of the year to realise that he was very unlikely indeed to hit pay dirt. Rather, Mr Sandbrook had duped him into paying attention to the spelling and grammar for best part of a year.

On the topic of Mr Sandbrook, I had exchanged e-mails with Rohan about the possibility of trying to track Ian Sandbrook down. Rohan said that he had tried to do that, but with only limited success. On the morning before our gathering, I decided to do a bit of detective work myself. I decided that an Ian Sandbrook who seemed to be highly active in the arts community of St Endellion, even since the days of teaching us, was still active there until very recently. The others agreed that the Endelienta bassoon reference clinched it, as we remembered Mr Sandbrook bringing his bassoon into the class room to show us.

What a rackett!

I decided to write to Mr Sandbrook via Endelienta and see what happens.

On 1 November, an e-mail arrived from “Ian” addressed to “Ian”…

…it took me a while to realise that Mr Sandbrook really had just written to me. He’d like to know how we got on when we met, so I’ll send him a link to this piece. Hopefully he will send through some thoughts and memories of his own, in addition to the thoughts he wrote in his first note. He might even grant me permission to share those thoughts with the Alleyn’s 1970s alums on Facebook, several dozen of whom tend to look at these postings, however long and rambling they might be. Even Mike Jones, formally of the masters common room, hangs out in the Alleyn’s 1970s Facebook group.

Oh, and by the way, there are no cash prizes for spotting my spelling and grammatical errors. I’m not falling for that one. But all subediting comments and corrections are gratefully received.

God’s Gift, Pure Genius, Or Both? Annex To Alleyn’s School Class Of 1980 Virtual Buttery 3, 20 January 2021

When I reviewed last week’s virtual gathering, I forgot to mention Paul Driscoll’s anecdote about the optional “prefect’s blazer” available to those of us who attained such giddy heights at Alleyn’s School. The blazer was emblazoned (pun intended) with the school crest and motto.

That motto was God’s Gift. Edward Alleyn no doubt meant that motto to symbolise education. But the phrase has a sarcastic meaning in modern parlance; e.g. “he think’s he’s God’s gift.” And as Rohan Candappa so ably puts it, “We are Alleyn’s. If you cut us we bleed sarcasm.”

Unsurprisingly, very few of us took up the offer of this optional, distinguishing garment. Beyond the sarcasm, such an emblem had every chance to land us in a heap near North Dulwich railway station, where the Billy Biros (pupils from William Penn School) needed little excuse to isolate an outlier from the Alleyn’s herd, taking severe retribution for invented sleights and offenses.

The main senior school uniform was a two-piece or three-piece suit. I have only one picture of myself wearing mine:

Me And Wendy Robbins, Autumn 1979, Westminster Bridge

I was reminded of all of this by a posting on Facebook in the Keele University alums area.

In the late 1980s, just a few years after a left Keele, when Guinness had a particular advertising slogan on the go, some fine folk in the University of Keele Students’ Union produced the following tee-shirt.

It dawned on me that I am a very rare example of someone eligible to wear not only the Alleyn’s God’s Gift blazer but also the Keele Pure Genius tee-shirt underneath the blazer.

In the dying moments of the Trump US presidency, this suitably modest mental image should be shared with the world and saved for posterity.

It’s just a shame I was unable to model the two garments together back then. I would have looked magnificent; indeed it would have been the best look ever, anywhere, for anyone.

With all due modesty…

But Me No Butteries, Virtual Buttery Gathering Of Alleyn’s Alums, 14 January 2021

This lockdown business is nobody’s idea of fun, but Rohan Candappa has been putting in some hard yards in setting up some meaningful distractions and social interactions.

This “Virtual Buttery” session was the third such gathering of the Alleyn’s School “Class of 1980”. I wrote up the first of those gatherings in the autumn:

It wouldn’t be Alleyn’s School without homework. For this third session, Rohan (egged on by Nick Wahla) asked some exam questions:

Nick Wahla’s suggested a question to ponder: “What advice would you give to someone about to leave Alleyn’s?”

It’s a good question, and one which I am obviously going to claim credit for. But I’d also like to twist it around a bit. My question is: “What advice would you give yourself if you could go back and talk to yourself on the day you left Alleyn’s?

I chose to answer this question by Ogblogging about the day I left Alleyn’s School…

…and confessing to the music I was putting onto my mix tapes at that time:

Anyway, loads of people turned up again…but not Nick Wahla – he of the exam question. Typical.

I took the headline screen grab more than an hour into the event, so several people had already come and gone by then.

Again we had participation from across the globe:

  • Neal “Mr” Townley in Sydney,
  • Andrew Sullivan in Phnom Penh,
  • Richard Hollingshead in Washington (desperately trying to convince us and himself that Washington State is a long, long way from security-alert-ridden Washington DC),
  • Paul Deacon and Rich “The Rock” Davis claiming to be in Ontario’s freezing cold lockdown, although I have a sneaking suspicion that they might actually be sunning themselves in the Caribbean, as seems to be the Ontario way,
  • Mark Rathbone, claiming to be in Purley, then Purely and eventually confessing to living in Kenley, a totally different place noted for famous current and former residents such as Des O’Connor, Peter Cushing, Harry Worth, Karl Popper (ironically, given this empirical falsification of the “Mark Rathbone lives in Purley” theory) and Douglas Bader – all together now – Da, da-da, da-da-da-da, da-da, da-da, da-da-da-da…or do I mean da-da, da-da-da-da-da, da-da, da-da-da-da-da-da-da…?

…I digress.

It is hard to summarise the answers to the exam questions, not least because everyone had a slightly different take on them. One theme that ran through the answers is learning quickly post school how to be yourself and follow your heart/instincts in what you want to become. Many of us suspect that we had more freedom to “find our own way” back in 1980 than pupils finishing their ‘A’ levels have now – as the route from school to career via university seems to be a more defined path now.

Some raised the matter of careers advice (it’s lack or paucity), others the more informal aspects such as teachers instilling us with confidence, arrogance or in some cases diffidence.

Naturally this led the conversation on to discussion about memorable teachers, good, bad or indifferent. Mr Jones got off pretty lightly considering he wasn’t there…

…which is more than can be said for David Wellbrook, who should have known better than to defy the wishes of Rohan Candappa by going AWOL, if Rohan’s opening remarks were anything to go by. Rohan’s willingness to turn on a loyal follower for the slightest slight is almost Trumpian in its intensity.

But then, as Rohan pointed out when the conversation turned to the vexed question of teasing, banting or bullying, we weren’t saints back then and we are hopefully a bit more grown up about it now. Well it was easy for him to say that AFTER the invective of his opening remarks.

Heck, I’m kidding. It was fun again and it seemed astonishing when Rohan pointed out that those of us who were around for the whole event had been gassing and listening for two hours.

A Virtual Gathering Of People Who Left Alleyn’s School In 1980, 12 November 2020

Blame Rohan Candappa.

Rohan Candappa: “I have another idea…”

Actually this was a very good idea. The face-to-face “40 years on” reunion had to be cancelled this summer, so Rohan figured we should have a “40 years on” virtual reunion through the good offices of Zoom instead.

Of course, back in the day, nobody used the phrase “back in the day”…

…and back then a Zoom was an ice lolly, not a meeting.

I paraphrase Rohan’s remarks in the form of a quote.

37 of us gathered, from a cohort of some 120. That’s about a third of us, which, 40 years on and with some of our cohort no longer with us…is a mighty impressive haul.

People joined from places as far afield as Ontario (Paul Deacon & Rich “The Rock” Davis), New Zealand (The Right Reverend Sir Nigel Godfrey), Phnom Penh (Andrew Sullivan), Australia (Neal Townley), Barcelona (Duncan Foord), Crouch End (Rohan Candappa) and Penge (somebody, surely?).

It seemed like a recipe for chaos, yet somehow the mixture of untrammelled chat and a little bit of structured “go around the virtual room for a memory each” worked surprisingly well.

Some of the people are friends I have seen relatively recently, one way…

…or another

…but many of the people present I had only corresponded with on FaceBook or not at all in the last 40+ years.

The array of memories was varied and fascinating. A lot of stuff about teachers, good, bad and (in some violent cases) especially ugly.

Some observations especially resonated with me and stuck in my mind. Paul Romain illustrated through readings from his first and last school reports that he was a keen scout at first, but by the end at least metaphorically semi-detached from the school…if not detached and several acres from the metaphorical school. That resonated with my experience.

It also brought back to me my lingering grudge against my late mum for throwing out my old school reports (and indeed all my juvenilia from that period apart from my diaries) on the spurious grounds that “no-one would ever want to look at that sort of old rubbish again”. When I challenged this assumption, by letting mum know that I was REALLY REALLY upset that she had done this, she said, “how was I supposed to know that you cared for that stuff?”. To which my simple answer was, “if you had asked me BEFORE you threw my things away, you’d have known.” No, I’m still not over it.

“Renée is an enthusiastic, diligent lass, but she sometimes allows her natural exuberance to mar her judgement”

I think it was Jerry Moore who held up some editions of Scriblerus (the Alleyn’s School magazine), threatening to scan and circulate some elements of them. I do hope he does that. David Wellbrook mentioned his first toe-dip into performing Shakespeare and the rather damning review Chris Chivers gave of his performance.

That all brought back to my mind my own somewhat involuntary performance in Twelfth Night, I think the year after David Wellbrook’s debut. I remember Mr Chivers’ Scriblerus review of my performance as Antonio; in particular I recall pawing over it on a train with my friend Jilly Black, trying to work out whether he was praising me or damning me with faint praise. I suspect the latter, but I would love to see the review again now that I am older and…well, just older.

I have to be honest about this; I really was not in the mood for a reunion come 19:30 on 12 November. I had received some horrible news just a couple of hours before the event; the sudden and totally unexpected death of a friend, Mike Smith:

Indeed I considered sending my apologies to the virtual reunion and spending the evening wallowing instead. But I thought better of doing that and Janie encouraged me to give the virtual meeting a go…I could always switch off the Zoom early if I really didn’t feel up to the gathering…

…anyway, I’m so glad I did join the group, even if I wasn’t entirely myself throughout the evening. It was great to see everyone and I learn that there is every chance that many of us will be doing it again.

I guess I need to dig out those diaries again and see what else I can find!

Bumping Into Old Friends Forty-Four Years Later, 15 September 2020

Tim Church (far left), Graham Watson (left bumper), Paul Deacon (right bumper)

A couple of years ago, I wrote a piece about some schoolboy silliness from the 1970s, mostly revolving around my friend Paul Deacon, which included the above photograph:

In that piece, I promised to follow up the “bumps incident” in a further Ogblog piece, but subsequently that idea got mislaid amongst other musings and postings.

This morning, I woke up to discover this posting, from Paul Deacon, on my Facebook page; click here.

For those who don’t like clicking and/or object to Facebook, the following quote are Paul’s words on the matter:

Ian, with your recent birthday I thought of this legendary photograph of the ‘bumps’. However, with our advancing years it’s time to leave the school quad and visit pastures new.

[Several doctored versions of the above picture are displayed]

Which one appeals?

Thank you, Paul, for reminding me to write up the original incident. The time of year is apposite. It would have been around this time of year, I suspect September 1976.

My recollection is that we had witnessed somebody being given the bumps on their birthday; that was the tradition at our school and no doubt at many other schools past, present (even in these heath & safety, socially distancing, snowflakey times) and future.

Unfortunately, I chose to volunteer the information that, as my birthday takes place towards the end of the school summer holidays, I had always been spared the ritual humiliation of receiving the bumps.

Me & My Big Mouth

Some 44 years later, I still have not mastered the art of keeping my mouth shut when it really matters. But I have got a bit better at that art. The bumps incident, so brilliantly recorded for posterity by an (as yet) uncredited photographer, was one of many salutary lessons.

There’s a lot to like about the headline photograph. Paul Deacon seems hardly able to manage my weight in the matter of deploying the bumps, Paul’s growth spurt arriving a bit later than most of ours, Graham Watson’s perhaps a bit earlier. Tim Church is feigning disconnection from the incident, but I am pretty sure he was egging the lads on or at least enjoying the show. One (as yet) unidentified boy depicted is either oblivious or indifferent to the whole matter, reading the notice boards. Another day, another schoolkid getting the bumps. This was not a special or unusual scene at Alleyn’s back then.

Anyway, Paul has relocated the central subject-matter in several eye-catching ways and asked me to choose a favourite. So here is a scrape of all five of Paul’s. I have added titles of my own and marked Paul’s homework.

Goosebumps

Speed Bumps

Bumper To Bumper

A Bump In The Road

Down To Earth With A Bump

I have awarded Paul an A* for those five pictures; I think they are wonderful. Unfortunately the Ofqual algorithm has downgraded Paul’s GCSE Photography to Grade U.

Nevertheless, the winner for me is that last one: Down To Earth With A Bump.

Many thanks again, Paul.

School Dinners Again, Informal Alleyn’s Alums In The City, 28 November 2019

It was about time for another of our regularly-occasional gatherings of the old school clan, so, sure enough, an e-mail came through from John Eltham several weeks ago organising this evening for us.

More than a dozen of us gathered again, most for drinks at the Walrus & Carpenter plus dinner at The Rajasthan, while a handful came to just one or other of the venues.

This felt like a bit of a homecoming to regular City venues, as the last such gathering at this time of year was relocated to different venues, for some reason:

Anyway, my need to be in the City this week cunnningly conspired to coincide with this day, so I simply wandered over to The Walrus after work.

The group was already well gathered in the cunningly hidden dowstairs bar. Mostly comprising the usual suspects, the group also included Nick Wahla for the first time. Nick was in my class in the second and third years – here’s some evidence of the former:

According to the above piece, Nick’s nickname (if you can get your head round the idea of someone named “Nick” having a nickname), was “Gob”. It’s almost impossible to imagine why Nick might ever have been known as Gob. My guess is that the epithet “Gob” was handed down to Nick by our form master, Tony King, rather than an authentic compadre’s moniker.

Mr King, purveyor of synthetic sobriquets

In the Rajasthan, I ended up at the “breezy door” end of the room, next to Nick Wahla and opposite David Wellbrook, who for once in his life was being too polite that evening to promote his latest e-book – click here or the picture link below:

Soon we were joined by Mike Jones, who, coincidentally, had been form master to all three of us in our third year. Simon Ryan enocuraged the whole table to stand up and say, “good evening, Sir” to Mike, which I’m certain caused Mike not one jot of embarrassment.

We did a bit of 3BJ reminiscing at our end of the table…and why not? I particularly remembered Nick Wahla giving “Cyril” Vaughan a hard time in our Latin classes, but Nick claimed not to remember Cyril at all and went all “innocentia effecit imitatio” on the matter of Latin disruption, while admitting to having achieved a record low in his Latin exam. 8%.

Now I’m not saying that Nick was the main or only protagonist in the matter of Cyril baiting. Heaven knows, I personally pulled the “varnishing a stash of chalk and swapping the varnished variety for all the serviceable chalk” stunt…I am now prepared at this late stage to confess to that one…perhaps my best ever practical joke…especially the cunningly hidden addtional piece of varnished chalk waiting to be discovered in the master’s desk drawer…

…but I do distinctly remember Paul Deacon’s impersonation of Cyril, which was excellent vocally, normally comprising phrases such as, “…Wahla, please put that hand grenade down, there’s a good fellow…now Wahla, please don’t pick up that machine gun in place of the hand grenade, be a nice chap…”

If we’re really lucky Paul might chime in with a Cyril voice file to enhance this memory.

Bunch of clowns, we were and I’m sure the masters took great pains at the time to tell us that we wouldn’t be able to make a living in the real world writing silly jokes, speaking in funny voices and/or by having the gift of the gab.

Nick Wahla is now deploying his gift of the gab in the world of market research; he warned us all that no shopping visit nor even the supposed security of our own homes would make us safe from a possible approach by Nick at unsuspecting moments in our lives. It’s a minor miracle, it seems, that none of us have yet encountered Nick and his clip board in the field.

Meanwhile we ate Indian food, most people drank Cobra beer, while three of us (me, David Leach and Lisa Pavlovsky) braved the Indian Shiraz – I’m not sure we’ll be making that mistake with that particular wine again – my bad idea.

There was lots of chat.

At the end of the meal, it transpired that it was Paul Driscoll’s birthday and so David Wellbrook hurriedly cajoled the waiting staff into arranging a token birthday sweet, with which to embarrass Paul.

David Wellbrook uploaded a video of the resulting merriment onto Facebook – click here if you dare.

In that vid you can see an excitable-looking me (not sufficiently sedated with wine – one glass of that Shiraz was more than enough for me) jumping up to take the following picture:

As always, it was great to see the gang and especially nice to see Nick Wahla again after all these years. Astonishingly, he was too polite to ask a range of questions about the evening, so I shall provide the answers here.

On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is “totally dissatisfied” and 10 is “totally satisfied”, I would give the following scores:

* quality of food, drink and service 6/10

* quality of company and feeling of bon-homie 11/10

As always, a great evening. Many thanks to John Eltham who always takes on the unenviable task of trying to herd our bunch of Alleyn-cats for these get togethers.

Is It Better With Or Without? by Rohan Candappa, The Gladstone Arms, 18 June 2019

In late May, I got this slightly strange message from Rohan Candappa:

Ian, are you around on 18 June? I’m doing a reading of a new piece of work about getting an eye test and the meaning of life at The Gladstone.

As it happened, that afternoon was the only slot I had available to go into the City to do City-based work stuff and that evening also happened to be a free evening.

Also, it was going to be a good opportunity to see old school friends, whom I had meticulously avoided seeing at the formal school 400th anniversary reunion a few days earlier, by sending a video of a mock-Jacobean musical performance rather than attending in person:

As it turned out, the day became a flurry of unwanted activity (not least a hoo-ha with Axa PPP regarding Janie) and then a bit of a rush to complete my City work, but still I got to The Glad in time for a pie, drink and chat with the pre-show diners, not least Johnny Eltham and Rich “The Rock” Davis.

Johnny Eltham was in especially skittish mood that evening, making some unusually disparaging remarks about my Jacobean music and mode. The Rock was his usually Rock-like self.

Others in attendance that evening included Paul Driscoll, Simon Ryan, Steve Butterworth, Dave French, Terry Bush, Jan and her friend Charmaigne, David Wellbrook and we were also blessed by the presence of The Right Reverend Sir Nigel Godfrey.

Last but not least, some minutes into Rohan’s performance, the late Nigel Boatswain arrived.

Something a bit misty-optic-like about the lighting

The setting; an Optometrist’s practice, is not exactly home turf for me, as I don’t yet need anything to adjust my eyes and have only had my eyes tested twice in that regard.

The phrase, “is it better with or without”, used many times, apparently, in the search for the optimal optical specification, provided the basis for Rohan to wander off on an existential angst-fest in which the said search might be a proxy for the meaning of life.

As is always the case with Rohan’s work, the narrative takes you into some detailed areas about which you have thought little, then makes you think about some big stuff and also at times makes you laugh a lot.

For reasons that seemed to make sense at the time but to which I cannot really back track, Rohan ended up getting the audience, led by John Eltham, to sing (or rather, “dah-da-da”) the theme to The Great Escape.

I feel bound to say that Johnny Eltham’s efforts dah-da-da-ing that particular tune ranged from poor on melody/harmony to utterly dire on rhythm. Elmer Bernstein was no doubt turning in his grave. And after all those back-handed compliments and disparaging remarks from Johnny about my Jacobean musical efforts too.

We have ways and means of making you sing…

Before his performance, Rohan made some moving impromptu remarks, not least praising our visitors from the Great Dominions, Nigel Godfrey for his sterling work raising funds for the Christchurch massacre victims and Rich “The Rock” for the success of his personal battles against cancer.

After his performance, Rohan told the assembled throng about Threadmash and asked David Wellbrook to retell his moving piece on the subject of Lost and Found from Threadmash 2 (below currently is my piece from that Threadmash – but I might at some stage persuade David to let me publish his Threadmash 2 piece as a guest piece:

It was a very stimulating evening and/but I was really quite tired once the performances were over, so I made my excuses and left promptly. Terry also left at the same time as me, so we had a chance to chat pleasantly until we parted company at Bank, where east is east and west is west.

So is life better with or without evenings like this? With – no question. Thanks, Rohan.

In Darkness Let Me Dwell, A Musical Setting To Honour The Founding Of Edward Alleyn’s College Of God’s Gift 400 Years Ago, 13 June 2019

Unfortunately I shall not be attending the formal celebrations of Alleyn’s (my old school’s) founding 400 years ago, but I thought I would, instead, upload a suitably Jacobean piece.

My mind turned to the beautiful, tragic verse, In Darkness Let Me Dwell, which was well-known and much used in the Jacobean period.

The first known setting was by John Cooper (aka Giovanni Coprario – don’t ask!), published in 1606. The best-known setting is by John Dowland, published in 1610. Loads of people no doubt set the verse to music.

The mournful piece would still have been popular in 1619 and highly appropriate that year, as the English Queen, Anne of Denmark, died that spring. Anne had been a great patron of the arts; indeed she patronised John Dowland. She was also said to enjoy theatre, such that she (unlike King James I by all accounts) even tended to stay awake during plays.

So Edward Alleyn might well also have mourned the passing of Anne. It is even possible that it was Anne’s passing that triggered King James I to sign the Letters Patent that founded Alleyn’s College of God’s Gift in June 1619. The matter had been mired in bureaucracy and politicking for several years prior to the theatre-loving Queen’s passing.

So, I went in search of a suitable musical setting for 1619 and discovered a rare scrap of music that had been recently discovered in the cellar of an inn located in the Darent Valley lowlands.

It might well have been written in 1619…or do I mean 1966 – anyway it certainly sounds ridiculously old and I’m sure it comes from a year with all 1s, 6s and 9s in it.

If you would like to hear the original settings of In Darkness Let Me Dwell, please click here or below for some tasty videos of some pretty competent musicians. Yes, arguably even more competent than me.

An Award-Winning Evening During Which I Hung Out With The Alleyn’s Old Boys Crowd, Sripur Restaurant, 6 December 2018

Long ago arranged and long looked forward to, the (ir)regular gathering of old boys from Alleyn’s seemed to be looming as normal (Walrus & Carpenter followed by Rajasthan), when out of the blue we received a missive from our (un)official organizer, John Eltham, with some unexpected changes.

There are 15 people signed up for our festive evening.
PLEASE NOTE NEW VENUE – 200 YARDS DIFFERENCE
7.00PM Hung, Drawn & Quartered pub – 26-27 Great Tower Street… 8.00PM Sripur restaurant – 25 Great Tower Street – yes it is next door !

Here are links to the two venues themselves:

The change would be more than a little discombobulating for some. Let us not forget that Nigel Boatswain, for example, a few years ago, struggled to find a new venue that was described to him as “right in front of the Monument”, because he couldn’t figure out a landmark from which to navigate. Mike Jones, who had been our Geography teacher back in days of yore, must have found his former charge’s geo-spacial shortcomings somewhat chastening. 

In fact Mike Jones was one of several people who was listed to attend this 6 December gathering but latterly dropped out. He might have found the name of the pub an affront to his liberal arts background. Not only does the name describe a particularly barbaric medieval form of capital punishment, but a grammatically flawed rendering thereof. In my minds ear, I can hear Mike Jones gently correcting…

hanged, drawn & quartered, NOT hung. Paintings are/were hung, people unfortunate enough to be executed that way were hanged.

Execution of Hugh Despenser the Younger, …[from] the Froissart of Louis of Gruuthuse
(Public Domain picture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanged,_drawn_and_quartered)

That barbaric punishment was reserved for high treason and was abolished nearly 150 years ago, although the hanging bit stuck around a lot longer and treason only (technically) ceased to be a capital offence 20 or so years ago.

In these troubled times, of course, who knows what legislative changes our so-called leaders might make in the crime and punishment department. Further, many of us who gathered have been known to say publicly things that certain tabloid newspapers might deem to make us “enemies of the people”…which is to say, treasonous.

Personally I have far less to worry about than most of my compadres, as I am a Freeman of the City of London. Thus, if I were to be hanged, I could choose to be dispatched with a silken rope, not the common or garden rubbish rope that my co-conspirators would doubtless suffer. I find that thought incredibly reassuring in the present political climate.

But I digress.

In the end, nine of us gathered and a jolly good gathering it was too, although those who were unable to attend were, of course, sorely missed. In no particular order, the nine were: Ben Clayson, David French, David Wellbrook, John Eltham, Ollie Goodwin, Paul Driscoll, Paul Spence, Rohan Candappa, me.

It was an incredibly mild evening, enabling us to take our pre-dinner libations in the street, although John Eltham did complain about feeling cold at one juncture. But then again, John had removed his coat for some reason.

The Sripur Restaurant was heaving and our group of nine was clearly at least one more than the restaurant was expecting. To be fair, the booking for 14 which had descended to “probably 8-10” in some ways deserved its relegation. We all nine squeezed round a table that would have been comfy for six and just about OK for eight. It didn’t really matter.

The food was pretty good. Perhaps not quite as flavoursome as the Rajasthan (he says based on one main dish and some sides), but similar quality.

The Sripur Nine were all in pretty good form. The bants and reminiscences flew around the table like a metaphorical food fight with poppadom-Frisbees.

Towards the end of the meal, Rohan Candappa solemnly announced that he had a sports trophy to award. he noted that most of the people in our group had been pretty sporty at school; only one or two of us had not. But, as Rohan pointed out, there should be sports awards for exceptional performance even when it comes from someone less naturally sporty than most.

Rohan then passed an engraved trophy around the room for everyone to read, much to the mirth, one by one, of the readers…one by one, that is, to everyone except me. Once John Eltham had the prize in his hands, he was instructed to hand it to me.

It was a trophy commemorating my quarter-final win over John Eltham in the fives competition, on 9 June 1975:

9 June 1975 – Fives Quarter Final – Ian Harris beat John Eltham

What a moment in my less-than illustrious sporting career. A trophy. Of course, Rohan was right. I had never personally held a trophy for sport of any kind. That quarter-final win remains the pinnacle of my achievement at an individual sport.

Left to right: John Eltham (just in picture), Rohan Candappa, Paul Driscoll & Ollie Goodwin…with MY trophy centre

I proudly took my trophy back to the flat and have placed it in as suitable a location as I can currently muster – in the drinks cabinet section of my built-in book shelves and cabinets, between two personalised krugs (beer steins). 

But I am not expecting my sporting awards (belated and future) to start and end here; why on earth should they?

For a start, I’m a little surprised that an earlier event on the fives court has not yet received the recognition it deserved…

…beat Mason & Candappa 15-7…

…or if not that one, then surely the day, only one month after my historic victory in the fives quarter final against John Eltham, when I took a hat trick at cricket for 2AK against 2BJ on the very day that 2AK won the tournament:

…and who knows what future glories are to come in the world of real tennis, where I have managed quarter final berths (albeit losing ones) in each of the two years I have been playing internal tournaments at Lord’s. And occasionally representing the club:

So, my dear old school friends, especially the sporty ones, I need your help. I mean, obviously the drinks cabinet will do for the time being as a temporary resting place for my trophy, but clearly I need to have built a bespoke trophy cabinet for my current and potential future collection of sporting trophies. You fellows, accustomed to the world of sporting trophies, surely can advise me on the size and shape of trophy cabinet that will serve me best.

But that is about me and the future – this article is primarily about the splendid gathering of old boys eating, drinking, banting and making merry in the City. As usual the time flew by, until several folks with trains to catch realised that their choices were starting to diminish and that the evening should come to an end.

As usual with this group, we managed to avoid the dreaded bodmin, although some suggested that we should play the game of spoof to saddle one “boy” with the whole bill. We decided against, but I note on reading up on that (unfamiliar to me) game, that some play spoof for prizes and trophies. Perhaps I should get into spoof at a competitive level – I was a dab hand at bridge back in the old school days.

It was a great evening – I’m already looking forward to the next one.