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Former QE School Captain Roger Pearce (OE 1961-69), who enjoyed a police career which saw him rise to become head of the Met’s Special Branch, is now a successful political thriller writer.

Roger, who writes based on his first-hand experience, signed a two-book deal with Coronet, an imprint of Hodder & Stoughton, and the first book, Agent of the State, has now been published in hardback.

Roger, of Underne House, was at the School when Tim Edwards was Headmaster and John Pearce (no relation) his Housemaster. After graduating with a BA Honours in Theology from St John’s College, Durham University in 1972, Roger married Margaret, a former pupil at Queen Elizabeth’s Girls’ School, whom he had met when both were Sixth-Formers. Roger had intended to become ordained as an Anglican priest, but instead joined Durham Constabulary in 1973 and transferred to the Metropolitan Police in 1975.

Within a year Roger had applied to join Special Branch at New Scotland Yard. He also began an external LLB Honours degree from London University by private study and in 1979 qualified as a barrister-at-law at the Middle Temple.

Formed in 1883, the Branch’s mission was to gather secret intelligence against terrorists and extremists. It conducted sensitive assignments here and abroad and was also responsible for the protection of the Cabinet, of visiting heads of state and of VIPs. Roger became the head of Special Branch in 1999 and also served as the Met’s Director of Intelligence, authorising surveillance and undercover operations against serious and organised crime. He held both posts until 2003. The Met’s Special Branch was merged with the Metropolitan Police Anti-Terrorist Branch (SO13) to form Counter Terrorism Command, or SO15, in 2006.

In his last months of service, Roger was approached by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to take up the newly formed post of Counter-Terrorism Adviser, where he worked with government and intelligence experts worldwide in the campaign against Al Qaeda. In 2005 he was hired by GE Capital in London as managing director of European security.

Roger and Margaret have just celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary. They have two sons, both former QE pupils: Andrew, a composer, and Matthew, an airline pilot. Their daughter, Laura, is a personal assistant.

Roger had been writing for several years and was delighted when a top London literary agent agreed to represent him and eventually brought him together with the team from Hodder. The sequel to Agent of the State, entitled The Extremist, is to be published in July 2013.

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.”

Two senior pupils were invited to attend a special awards ceremony after their impressive performances in the élite British Physics Olympiad competitions.

Year 11’s Tanishq Mehta was a gold award-winner in this year’s British Physics Olympiad GCSE Physics Challenge, in which his performance placed him within the top five of some 6,000 competition entrants nationwide.

And Niam Vaishnav, of Year 13, is celebrating another exceptional showing in the British Astronomy and Astrophysics Olympiad (BAAO) this year, having last year been chosen to represent the UK and then winning one of only two silver medals given to the national team at the International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics in Beijing.

The pair were presented with certificates at the prize-giving at the Royal Institution in central London. QE Physics teacher Gillian Deakin said: “The honour given to these two young physicists at such a prestigious venue was a fitting recognition of their talent and dedication to the subject.

“They enjoyed the opportunity to meet fellow high-achievers from schools across the country and the British Physics Olympiad organisers.”

Tanishq Mehta spent several months preparing for the challenge – one of a number of competitions run by the British Physics Olympiad organisation – by practising past papers.

He recently sat the challenge’s one-hour paper, which featured both multiple-choice and short-answer sections. Teachers initially marked the papers and then sent high-scoring scripts through to the Olympiad office at Oxford. Only the top five were invited to the prize-giving.

With regard to Niam, even to have taken part in the BAAO in two consecutive years is a considerable achievement – entry is generally by invitation only.

He once again excelled in the competition: his score was among the highest in the country, which secured him an invitation to attend a training camp at Oxford University to compete for selection to the UK team.

He only narrowly missed out on that selection.

From enjoying spectacular views near the summit of Mount Etna to learning how to make their own pizzas, QE’s younger pupils sampled Sicily’s best on a Geography tour.

Forty-one boys from Years 7, 8 and 9 took part in the five-day trip led by Geography teacher Helen Davies, who was accompanied by four other members of staff.

After the first evening spent ten-pin bowling, the first full day brought a coach trip to Mount Etna, Europe’s highest active volcano. The guide-led tour included travel, first in a cable car and then in jeeps, to reach a height of 2,900m, where the strong winds brought heavy windchill that was felt even through multiple layers of clothing.

Nivain Goonasekera, of Year 9, said: “Whilst the whole trip was incredible, my favourite part was probably reaching the summit of Mount Etna: we were all taken aback by the photogenic, breath-taking views, which totally compensated for it being -5C!”

After returning to lower altitudes and warmer temperatures, they visited the nearby Alcantara Gorge – a basalt formation created by Mount Etna’s volcanic activity.

On the following day, after getting up at 5:30am, the boys set off for a full-day visit to the Aeolian Islands, a volcanic archipelago visible from Sicily.

A short boat ride took them from Milazzo to Lipari, the largest of the islands, which boasts deep caverns, steep cliffs and attractive views. Then, on the island of Vulcano, the group sampled the mud baths, where a pool of brackish water and mud clay is continuously agitated by sulphurous bubbles, the olfactory effects of which are known to linger, as Nikhil Mark, of Year 7, discovered: “It was a bit ‘icky’, but the mud was warm. We were all stinking like rotten eggs when we got back.”

On day four, the group visited the Straits of Messina and Tindari Lakes, where they saw the linguetta di sabbia, a sandbank stretching 1.5km into the Tyrrhenian Sea. “It is an extraordinary sight, for which the correct geographical term is a ‘spit’,” said Miss Davies.

One evening activity popular with the boys was the visit to a restaurant, the Café Sikelia. There they not only learned about the history of the pizza and the different types available, but also had the chance to try their hand at making one themselves, before tucking into a pizza dinner.

On the final day, they headed for the amphitheatre at Taormina, which was built by the Greeks in the third century BC and expanded by the Romans. Robert Hyland, Head of English, was able to give the boys plenty of information about the history of the amphitheatre.

Richard Collins is now an award-winning composer writing bespoke music for film, TV and games, with his first musical release and collaboration with Universal’s Aurora Production Music label just out.

Yet, if it had not been for the sage advice he was offered by a teacher when in the Sixth Form, it could all have been very different.

Richard (OE 2005–2012) originally planned to study Law at university. “Although I really struggled to write my personal statement, I managed to get something together and got ready to send off my applications.

“It was only when I gave my personal statement to Mr Hargadon [Liam Hargadon, currently Head of Politics] that he made me realise I was heading in completely the wrong direction.

“Writing my personal statement to study Music was one of the easiest 500 words I’ve ever written.

“Also, there is no doubt my musical experiences at QE were instrumental in laying the foundation for my career.”

After achieving straight As at QE – where he had been a Music Scholar – Richard went on to read Music at Durham, where he first acquired a love for composition. He went on to take a first-class Master’s degree in Composition for Film and Television at Bristol University.

In 2016, his music featured in a Student BAFTA-nominated documentary film, A Lion’s Tale. The following year, he was nominated for the Monkey Bread Tree Award for best original score for the film Rambling On. And then, also in 2017, he won second prize at the annual film-scoring competition for the California Independent Film Festival (CAIFF).

A pianist and clarinettist, Richard has performed at the Royal Albert Hall, Birmingham Symphony Hall, Croydon’s Fairfield Halls and at one of the Queen’s garden parties. He gives private piano or music production tuition to students. In September, he will be joining QE as a peripatetic Music teacher (piano and composition).

He is the co-founder and director of White Square Films, a production company covering all types of video and media production. He has also worked as an assistant to leading composers Martin Phipps and Samuel Sim on productions including Season 3 of Netflix’s The Crown and the BBC’s Black Earth Rising (Phipps) and The Spanish Princess and The Bay (Sim).

In April 2019, Richard’s work appeared on Aurora Production Music’s latest album, Nature’s Way.

• Richard’s music can be heard on his website.