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Welcome to the blog for the QE Music Department’s trip to Durham, 14th – 17th July 2012.

Wednesday 11th July 2012

A reminder of the arrangements for the morning of Saturday 14th: we will meet at the music department at 6.00 am, ready to load the coach for a prompt departure at 6.30 am. 

The gates to the Main School will be closed, so please drive straight past these and down to the music block, leaving space for the coach to drive out through the gates.

Please be ready to hand any medication which your son requires to his group leader in a clearly-labelled bag.  If you wish to hand in money for safe-keeping, this should also be presented to your son’s group leader in a clearly-labelled envelope. 

I look forward to seeing you on Saturday morning.

Miss Lancelot

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Saturday 14th July 2012, 2pm

We have arrived safely (from both Barnet and Shrewsbury) and settled in to our beautiful accommodation. Lunch was taken under the impressive chandeliers of St Chad's College. The boys are looking forward to seeing the bands at the cathedral service for the Miners' Gala at 3pm. 

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Saturday 14th July 2012, 9.30pm

This afternoon the Miners' Gala service proved to be a splendid, moving occasion, with marching bands leading new banners into the cathedral at the start of the service. Boys enjoyed the opportunity to sing one of our Founder's Day hymns, Jerusalem, again, and hear the cathedral choir in action for the first time.

Afterwards, we saw the bands make their way back through the streets of Durham, and enjoyed our first glimpse of sunshine in a very long time! Boys spent some leisure time getting settled in to their rooms and playing football on the Cathedral green.

After a delicious supper in St Chad's (BBQ chicken, steak and mushroom pie, lamb chops or butternut squash risotto), the choir had an intensive rehearsal with the cathedral's Master of the Choristers and Organist, James Lancelot, which was a very valuable experience for all involved. The band rehearsed shortly after, making a very impressive sound under Mr Howe's direction.

At the end of a long and exciting day, we are due a period of recreational activities led by the seniors, followed by bed. Roll on Beamish tomorrow!

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Sunday 15th July, 9.30pm

Day Two of the Durham tour was spent at Beamish museum, Stanley, and saw three very well-attended performances, one by the choir and strings, and two by the band. Boys took advantage of the brilliant sunshine, and enjoyed sampling the delights of Beamish's traditional sweet shop.

Having dined at St Chad's, we're spending the evening aboard Durham's largest vessel, the Prince Bishop (this is her first outing in seven weeks due to the recent flooding!). Boys are enjoying the beautiful scenery over complimentary refreshments, and are very much looking forward to tomorrow's cathedral performances.

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Monday 16th July, 11.15pm

Monday's itinerary was a busy and challenging one for the boys, but they more than rose to the occasion and excelled in a riveting lunch time concert and an enchanting evensong, both of which were extremely well received.

All boys were treated to a tour of the cathedral this morning, and those who were involved in just one of today's two performances also toured the historic castle.

The day was aptly rounded off with a relaxing BBQ event at St Chad's College, which was attended by the boy choristers of Durham Cathedral Choir, with whom the QE chamber choir had performed at evensong, and Prof P J Rhodes OE of Durham University's Classics Department.

We're looking forward to our tour of the city and university in the morning. It seems it will be hard to say goodbye to Durham tomorrow!

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Tuesday 17th July, 3.30pm

Our final morning comprised a fantastic talk about and tour of Durham University with Mr James Randle and Dr Peter Swift. We felt very privileged to be able to see inside labs in the Physics, Geography and Engineering departments, as well as a brand new lecture theatre. The tour ended with a trip to St Mary's College, from where we could admire the stunning panoramic view of the cathedral.

After a brief trip to the shops to purchase souvenirs, we set off at 1pm, and currently our ETA is 18.15.

A wonderful time has been had by all; boys have performed to a very high standard and rightly received numerous compliments not only for their musicianship but also for their polite manner. It has been a pleasure for us as staff to take such talented and considerate young men on tour, and we look forward to facilitating similar opportunities in future.

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.