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Shaun McSweeney (OE 1970–1977) is now volunteering regularly to support QE Collections, working with the School’s archivist, Jenni Blackford, with his personal knowledge of his era already proving valuable in the cataloguing.

Shaun is a History graduate and qualified as a History teacher, even doing some supply teaching at QE in 1983. “Obviously I have a love of history, and I have always been grateful for my education at QE, where I had seven happy years,” he says.

The Headmaster welcomed his involvement: “It is great to have OEs as well as current students with interest in helping with the important work of archiving, and I am sure Shaun’s first-hand knowledge of some of the events he is cataloguing will be helpful in ensuring that QE Collections remains an authoritative source of information on our history.”

Notwithstanding the fact that he personally enjoyed his School years, QE itself declined while Shaun was a pupil, he says. “I entered the School in 1970, which was the last grammar-school entry before the School went comprehensive in 1971. Sad to say, I witnessed an obvious deterioration in behaviour and academic standards in the following years, such that when I was in the Lower Sixth, I was one of the sixth-formers who volunteered to help with remedial English classes for the more junior boys.” The School reverted to a fully selective admissions system under Headmaster Eamonn Harris in 1994.

“In my last year , a very young teacher took my A-level English class. His name was Eric Houston. I wonder what became of him!” Shaun took his degree at London University and initially embarked on a teaching career. “But the 1980s were a difficult time to be a History teacher and in 1988 I joined HM Customs and Excise – which eventually became HM Revenue and Customs – then Border Force, spending a total of 35 years before retiring in 2023. I had many jobs, including plain clothes work for five years. Without going into too many details, I uncovered a link between bootlegging (i.e. the smuggling of alcohol and tobacco products from Europe into the UK) and the funding of terrorism in Northern Ireland which resulted in a security alert of the highest level and I was advised to check underneath my car for bombs!

“I was stationed at Heathrow Airport from 2006 to 2023, spending most of my time dealing with cargo ‘exams’. Freight is where the majority of smuggled goods are found, not the passenger terminals. I had plenty of seizures of drugs and cigarettes, and huge amounts of counterfeit goods. Work continued through the Covid lockdown  – no working at home for us – and that resulted in vast quantities of counterfeit face masks and Covid test kits being seized.”

The archiving work does have its emotional side, he says. “Looking at old documents, I can’t help thinking that nearly everyone I knew in them is now dead. There was one teacher who tragically took his own life, and another who ended up in prison. And those two events happened while I was still a pupil. Rather depressing! But reading these documents also recalls many stories about my time at QE, some of which bring a smile to my face.”

Eighteen years after leaving QE, Warren Balakrishnan is loving family life in New York, from where he is growing an international insurance business.

“I’ve wanted to contribute to the School in a meaningful way for some time, and living in the US makes it a bit harder to join events there, so it felt serendipitous to receive an email for the 450 Club.” (The club, which was set up ahead of QE’s 450th anniversary last year, was for those making a contribution to the School of at least £450.)

Warren (Warendra, OE 1999–2006) says he has good reason for gratitude to his alma mater. “I screwed up my first year A-level exams – not turning up to class and assuming you know the material is a high-risk / low-reward strategy, no matter how intelligent you are! Eric Houston took me into a meeting and told me it would be a complete waste of a line on the UCAS form to apply to Oxford with those first-year A-level results. Needless to say, I took the bait, and stormed off in indignation, telling him I’d prove him wrong. I think Eric knew me better than I knew myself at that point, and that this is true for a lot of the teaching faculty at QE – that’s what made it such an incredible formative experience.” Warren duly went on to get the grades he needed to read Law at St John’s College, Oxford.

Graduating in 2009 in the midst of the great financial crisis, he counts himself fortunate to have received the offer of a training contract at a US law firm. “I thoroughly enjoyed being a corporate lawyer focussing on the significant amount of financial services M&A activity as a result of the crisis.” After qualifying as a solicitor, he was seconded to a private-equity-owned insurance business headquartered in the UK to help them raise capital, set up their fund, and carry out their initial acquisition of an insurance business in the US. The secondment turned into a job offer involving Warren leaving his legal role and joining the business unit. (“Side note: If the notion of being principal, not agent, appeals to you, being a corporate lawyer may not be the best long-term career path.”)

“I have never felt so terrified in my work place as I was when I started my new commercial role, taking out a blank piece of paper and staring at it very hard for over two weeks, as I contemplated: ‘Well, they hired me to make money, right? Now, how exactly is it that I make money for the company?’ Thankfully, you learn as you go, and after over a decade at the company, I am sure I have a long way to go before I can drop pearls of wisdom, but I have had a tonne of fun being a founding member of, and growing, an international insurance business with over $100bn of assets.” Warren is today Chief Development & Strategy Officer with that company, Resolution Life, a giant of the insurance world.

“In all of this, one thing has stuck with me as I reflect on my career: when you decide to do a task, do the best you can at it, and success, plaudits and recognition often follow,” he says.

Life in New York with his wife and children has a major benefit to counter the disadvantages: “It forces individuals and families to utilise public outdoor spaces to gather. We have met many of our friends in the kids’ sandbox in the public gardens and playgrounds. The food, culture, and, of course, the career opportunities are incredible in New York, and there really is a neighbourhood for everyone. My wife and I are, however, confronting the sad fact that our children are learning American English.” He has made it his mission to police their pronunciation of ‘water’ – “I will correct them till I die!

“For any younger OEs, I’d strongly recommend living and working in at least one different country. I am a firm believer that it firstly helps develop a world-view based on a broader set of experiences; secondly, it enables you to be a better leader of people across cultures and values; thirdly and most importantly, it is a lot of fun and should be seen as a great adventure!”

Warren knows of a few OEs dotted across the States – and is confident there are more. “I randomly met Jonathan Cohen (OE 2000–2004) in the elevator of a Bermuda hotel last year when he had just moved back from the US to the UK.” The photo above shows Warren with Sunil Tailor (OE 1999–2006) and Neil Yogananther (OE 1999–2006) in November 2023.

Retired since 2020 from his position as Professor of Family Medicine at the University of Calgary, Canada, Roger Thomas (OE 1952–1960) continues both to teach medical students and to conduct research – his current work is a study of 230,000 patients aged 65 and over.

The winner of multiple awards, including 19 teaching awards, Roger taught firstly at Yale, then at various universities in Canada over a 53-year career, with 1980–1983 spent at a hospital in Malawi. QE, he says, had a large effect on his life: he has penned his memories of the years he and his brother, Andrew, spend at Queen’s Road.

Roger’s account

“Mr Ernest Jenkins was a unique and highly motivated and excellent History teacher and Headmaster . I had no idea what a mentor was: I realised later how important his encouragement was, because he arranged for me to take the admission tour through Oxford and Cambridge colleges that he selected. His goal was to get as many boys as possible into Oxford and Cambridge. Due to the calibre of  his teaching, I achieved Scholarship-level History, an A in A-level History, a State Scholarship and an Exhibitionship at Magdalene, Cambridge.

The students were generally extremely obedient. Mr Jenkins told the School one day that a lady had written to him and ‘three boys had walked along the pavement and forced her thus into the road’. No-one owned up, so the entire School of 650 boys attended one Saturday afternoon and stood on tables for three hours with their hands on the tops of their heads. Mr Jenkins had absolute control by force of personality. He played the grand piano every morning for prayers, and when singing Bring my spear, O clouds unfold [from the hymn, Jerusalem], the boys tried once to slow down on the “O clouds”, but a look from Mr Jenkins said: “Don’t try that again.”

Mr Jenkins’ prize day featured orations in Greek, Latin, German and French (I was assigned to memorise a speech from General de Gaulle’s memoirs): Mr Jenkins reminded boys who forgot a line, sotto voce.

We paraded on the sports field annually for Founder’s Day. There was a speech which always mentioned “a fishmonger of Barnet”. Boys inevitably fainted in the heat despite instructions to rise regularly on their toes. We marched to the parish church for the service.

I thought some of the masters could have had academic careers if they had wished and had there been more opportunities in universities at that time. We knew very little of their personal lives. We also wondered if the catapults and other toys apprehended from the boys and placed in the master’s desk drawer, if not returned, perhaps went to those masters who had children.

We did exactly what we were told. The teachers were all highly motivated and prepared lessons carefully. Having taught medical students and registrars for decades, I know how much thought and preparation have to go into any presentation if it is to have any lasting teaching effect. The Physics and Chemistry laboratories were well equipped and we did many useful experiments.

My memories of lessons include the following:

• The Physics master one day decided we would all write a 100-page essay and we were issued a book. I unfortunately decided to write The history of the universe and carefully illustrated it. Some cleverer boys chose instead topics like The motor car and, for example, stretched a picture of a piston over two pages;
• I remember one lesson when the Headmaster threw the map of Europe on to the table and took us through Napoleon’s campaigns. He was reported to have been the captain of a minesweeper in World War I;
• Mr Wingfield had been a tank commander in Italy and could easily be redirected to stop the Latin lesson with a request to “Please tell us about when you attacked Anzio”;
• We wondered from where the Biology master got his supply of dead cats for dissection;
• The Greek master, “Tiger” Timson, had only to look at a student to get obedience;
• In contrast, kindly Mr Woodbridge, the German master, offered to mark my German O-level exercises as I decided to take it as an extra subject from home;
• Two of the French masters for some reason had the poorest luck with control. On Saturday mornings, we read the magazine La France, with enough copies only for one per two boys. The master’s command to change them over led to the uncontrolled shunting of desks for about 15 minutes. He was reported to have left due to a breakdown. Another master tried to make lessons interesting with small French objects in envelopes that were passed round the class for us to name them in French. However, the boys deliberately mixed up the objects and “lost” the handle for the gramophone which signalled to move the objects round.

Lines were a key way of enforcing discipline. They could be either prose (no poetry, as it could be remembered and written more easily) or equally spaced tiny dots.  One could get 200 lines just for turning round in class. If required to write more than 600 lines per term, you would probably be caned with ‘six of the best’. This was in the Masters’  room: the rule was the cane could not be lifted higher than the master’s shoulder. We were asked to write  a magazine: one boy drew a person on a bicycle and a sign ‘to the bogs’, but this reference to toilets got him caned.

My memories of ‘illegal’ activities amount only to some boys secretly smoking in the World War II anti-aircraft gun emplacement, one boy offering to steal pens from a stationery store, and another offering to rent out a magazine, Health and Efficiency, with pictures of naked ladies, for sixpence a night.

Sports were compulsory, and included Saturday afternoon. Getting to rugby required a three-mile trek through fields full of cattle and cowpats, and jumping over brooks. There was also cricket, swimming, track and cross-country. The cross country was over the area of the Battle of Barnet 1381. “Sid”, the Chemistry master supervised the cross-country, but chose to do so by bike and did not observe the short cuts the runners took. Swimming included plunging in November into a freezing pool full of green vegetation.

There was no careers counselling. All my family members left school at 14 except my uncle. He wanted to study engineering at Birmingham University, but the fees were greater than my grandfather’s annual wage as a shunter. My uncle was a self-taught engineer who rose to be head of BSA and one of the key Brockhouse engineering firms, and sold machine tools to Mercedes, Volvo, Renault and in the US. When I was at Yale, he regularly wrote me to obtain engineering books from the bookstore. My mother thought I should be a Post Office engineer (she had been a telephone receptionist and worked her way up to be office manager of an engineering firm) or a rock star.  I mention this because there may be many current boys who have no career counselling from their families, and counselling would open their eyes. Some may have very bright and motivated parents who are blocked by an inadequate education.”

Pupils from across the first three years of Queen Elizabeth’s School had their achievements recognised and lauded at the 2024 Junior Awards.

At an afternoon ceremony held in the Main School Hall, boys gathered with their families and with staff and dignitaries to celebrate.

There were prizes for all the classroom subjects, as well as House prizes, prizes for commitment, and prizes for extra-curricular activities, such as debating & public speaking, and chess. Music prizewinners from Years 7, 8 and 9 punctuated the programme with a series of musical interludes. A vote of thanks was given by the Year 7 debating & public speaking prizewinner, Aaron Singh.

Headmaster Neil Enright spoke about how the prizewinners are seen by others; guest of honour Asif Ahmed (OE 1997–2004) about how they see themselves; and the Mayor of Barnet, Councillor Tony Vourou, about how the whole School is seen in the borough: there is, he said, considerable pride in QE and the achievements of its students.

In his introduction to the ceremony, Mr Enright told the boys: “These awards are a signal that you are doing very well indeed and that we see in you qualities that set a positive example for others in the School – so many of whom are also very talented and hard working.”

He spoke about the butterfly effect, which argues that small things can end up having significant impacts, citing the famous story of a butterfly flapping its wings in one part of the world and a hurricane developing in another.

He urged the boys to small acts of kindness – “a quiet, unshowy altruism” – to benefit those around them, whether at School or elsewhere.

“With your abilities, many of you may go on to make the discoveries, find the cures, engineer the projects, secure the investments of the future. There should be no ceiling to your aspirations. But, with certainty, everyone here and in our Elizabethan community can do the little things in daily life so that things are better for others, or at least,” he added, quoting from George Eliot’s Middlemarch, “that things are ‘not so ill as they might have otherwise been’.”

Guest of honour Asif leads the accounting and advisory team at major accountancy firm Cooper Parry which focuses on venture capital-backed founders of companies. He is also the author of best-selling book The Finance Playbook for Entrepreneurs. An accomplished sportsman, he is now part of the Board at Middlesex County Cricket Club.

In his speech, he included many biographical elements from his Schooldays, mentioning being made form captain in Year 7, playing cricket for Middlesex and rugby for Hertfordshire, being appointed a Lieutenant, and achieving good grades.

“At all those milestones, including being appointed Lieutenant, I never shook the feeling of looking around me and thinking: ‘When will you get found out, you absolute fraud?’” he said.

After leaving School, while still training for his professional qualifications with large accountancy firm PwC, his father was diagnosed with a terminal illness. “I unexpectedly found myself in a position at 22 years old, looking after his very small accounting firm. There I was, no clue in the world, with nothing and really no-one to rely upon. The imposter syndrome kicked in again.”

Over time, however, Asif succeeded in building up the business, wrote his best-selling book, and was approached by a much larger firm with an offer to buy his company. “Today, I am a Partner of that firm and I lead the largest team and portfolio of high-growth technology businesses in the country, working with the best entrepreneurs in this land.”

He told the boys all this, because, he said: “I’ve come to realise that imposter syndrome is the world’s way of telling you that other people see something in you that you yourself can’t see…yet. When you are rewarded, you absolutely must savour it, hold it tightly and mark it out as one step closer to fulfilling your destiny.”

The afternoon’s music was a varied selection – including Stravinsky, Gershwin and Mozart alongside a piece by the rather less well-known Polish composer, Szymanowski.

Because of the inclement weather, the reception, normally held on Stapylton Field, took place this year in the Mayes Atrium.

• Click on the thumbnails below to view the images at full size.

After its successful unveiling at last month’s Founder’s Day, plans are being drawn up to give a permanent home to a new artwork produced by every boy in the School.

The Tudor Rose Crown, a commemorative artwork produced to mark last year’s coronation of Charles III and Queen Camilla and as part of the School’s 450^th anniversary celebrations, shows the crown as it appears on QE’s logo.

It comprises some 1,305 roses – one for each pupil – with every boy having made an impression into clay that was then cast into plaster.

The artwork is currently on display in the ‘Crush Hall’ – the area in the Main Building, close to the main entrance and Reception.  It is hoped to relocate it to the Fern Building, near the Art Department, for the start of the 2024–2025 academic year, once tests to ensure the wall there can bear its weight have been completed.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “This artwork is a striking visual commemoration of our 450^th anniversary, made still more remarkable by the fact that every pupil had a hand in creating it. My congratulations go to the Art department on all their work in realising this vision.”

The crown from the logo is a representation of the crown on the original royal charter for the School, which was signed by Elizabeth I on 24th March 1573.

Art teacher Jeanne Nicodemus said: “Year 7 students painted the roses individually and meticulously.”

Year 12 boys then cast additional roses in red and green resin to represent the jewels in the crown.

The artwork is mounted on English oak, representing the strength and endurance of both the monarchy and the School.

The choice of wood also alludes to And Be It Known – the anthem commissioned for the School’s thanksgiving service in Westminster Abbey last year, in which international composer Howard Goodall compares QE to an oak, drawing its strength ‘from ancient roots spread deep and wide’.

One further allusion is to the 49 ceramic poppies mounted high in the School’s entrance hall. These were taken from the 2014 art installation at the Tower of London commemorating the centenary of the start of the First World War.

The poppies were bought for QE by the Trustees to the Foundation of the Schools of Queen Elizabeth using funds from a bequest from the late Dennis Nelms (OE 1934–1941) and his wife, Muriel. The number represents one flower for every OE who died in 1914–18, together with one in memory of Mr Nelm’s brother, Gordon (OE 1927-1932), who died in the Second World War.

• The making of the Tudor Rose Crown: click on the thumbnails below to view the images.