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A friendship forged at QE between Jonathan Ho and Johan Byran has remained strong – despite their careers following very different paths: Jonathan is a successful film and video-maker, while Johan is a medical doctor.

Now Jonathan is making a documentary about Johan’s marathon-running exploits and his determination to beat his own rheumatoid arthritis, focusing especially on his training for next year’s famous Marathon des Sables (the Sahara marathon), billed as the ‘toughest footrace on earth’.

In preparation, Johan has already been training in a special laboratory-type environment which emulates the desert’s heat and Jonathan is interviewing him in various locations – in a classroom at QE, where the photo above was taken, and also at University College London, his old university, and in Morocco.

Both Jonathan and Johan were at QE from 1997 until 2004. Jonathan went on to study at London College of Fashion for a year then to Kent Institute of Art and Design (now known as UCA Rochester), where he gained a degree in Photography. He has since: made a number of music videos for acts including Rudimental; filmed fashion shoots for top names such as Victoria Beckham; shot corporate videos for blue chips like Marks & Spencer and Ernst & Young, and made short films and documentaries on varied subjects.

For his part, Johan studied Medicine at UCL and now practices as a GP in Enfield. He also works in palliative medicine at St Francis Hospice near Romford in Essex.

Johan has run many marathons and in 2015 set himself the challenge of completing one per month. His JustGiving page explains why: “I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis at the age of 18, just weeks before I was due to go to Medical School. At 18 years old, most people probably thought they were invincible and, sure enough, so did I. However, in a matter of weeks, I was dependent on my brother to care for me in university halls. It was hardly the life of Med School I had imagined. I was destroyed physically and felt powerless to change my circumstances.

“My turning point was running my first marathon in 2008 – the Flora London Marathon. The significance of completing the race was that at one point I would struggle to walk 200 yards down the street to get to my lectures – so the idea of running 26.2 miles was my challenge to not allow this disease to dominate my life. What I took away from that day was that I was able to overcome my physical adversity through a great support network and determination.”

In the following years, he completed multiple marathons as well as an Ironman triathlon and the London2Brighton 100km run. His next is the Stockholm Marathon on 4th June this year and he plans to run the Marathon des Sables in April 2017.

It is run over six days and is more than 150 miles long and the event’s website spells out to potential competitors what they can expect: “Conditions: Stating the obvious – it will be hot. Very hot. Midday temperatures in the Sahara can get up to 120 Fahrenheit. So you will need something on your head. But your feet are just as important, if not more so. You will be running or walking on uneven, rocky or stony ground, with up to 20 per cent of the distance in sand dunes.”

Dr Robert Aldridge has been named the winner of a national medical prize for his research into tuberculosis among vulnerable people.

In a varied career to date, Robert (OE 1988–1995) has been a management consultant in the City, a hospital doctor and is now a medical academic.

On leaving QE, he went to Nottingham, where he gained an MEng degree in Mechanical Engineering in 1999. He then spent some time in management consultancy, before a volunteering trip to India inspired him to make a career change.

“After my engineering degree, I took a year out to volunteer in India and, whilst there, I worked with several doctors in very poor areas of the country, delivering services and education to women and working children,” Robert said.  “It was during this time that I realised that medicine was actually what I wanted to do.”

He returned to England to take up an existing job offer from Accenture and worked for a period in the investment banking industry, but eventually decided that he needed to follow his true vocation.

He duly went to University College London, gaining his degree in Medicine in 2007. He was then appointed a junior doctor at the Royal Free Hospital and at Barnet and Chase Farm. He subsequently trained as a Public Health doctor in Bromley Primary Care Trust, Bromley Local Authority and Public Health England. Robert is currently an Academic Clinical Lecturer at the Institute of Health Informatics, University College London, and also works in the Data Science team at Public Health England.

Research has been a key interest, and he has written numerous scientific articles in peer-reviewed publications and various policy documents for the Government, including chapters of the Chief Medical Officer’s annual report. In 2010, he gained an MSc in Epidemiology at The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

“I’m interested in public engagement with scientific research and recently conducted a project in which I worked with schools across England to see whether schools absence data can be used to detect levels of influenza in the community,” he says.

“My current and future research focuses on infectious disease epidemiology and the health inequalities faced by vulnerable, and often invisible populations such as homeless, migrants, prisoners and intravenous drug users.”

He won the national prize – the 2016 Lancet Young Investigator award – after presenting work from his PhD on Screening of tuberculosis in migrants before entry to the UK: a population-based cohort study. The award, which he won jointly with Dr Vanessa Wong of the Cambridge Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, included a £2,500 prize and the opportunity to write an editorial for The Lancet on the wider implications of his research. Robert describes the award as a “great honour”.

“Most of my spare time is spent with my two-year-old daughter, Hazel, who keeps me grounded,” he concludes.

Richard Davis (OE 2001–2008) is celebrating the publication of his first book – a hard-boiled thriller set in the USA.

Chosen by Amazon to be in its monthly book promotion alongside blockbuster authors Harlan Coben, Clive Cussler and Marcia Clark, he now shares a publisher with Eric Idle and the New York Times best-selling crime novelist C J Lyons.

After leaving QE, Richard took up a place reading English Literature and Language at University College London. Graduating with a first-class degree in 2011, he then took an M.Phil in American Literature at Queens’ College, Cambridge, which he completed in 2012.

“I wrote a novel while taking my Master’s, though it hasn’t seen the light of day,” he says. But Richard persevered: “After university, I set about writing a different type of novel – an American-style thriller. This involved in-depth research into the FBI, cultic groups, psychopathy and weaponry – and eventually led to a 100,000-word manuscript.”

This gained the attention of leading London literary agent The Hanbury Agency, and a new, up-and-coming publisher, Canelo.

The novel, False Prophet, is about Saul Marshall, a con-artist-turned-FBI-agent, who finds his son taken hostage by a serial-killing cult obsessed with having victims take their own lives. The promotional material accompanying its publication states: “Fast-paced, relentless and brutally exciting, False Prophet marks the entrance of a major new thriller talent.”

Richard drew inspiration from childhood holidays spent in the US, when he developed a taste for American thrillers.

In an interview with the Crime Thriller Fella blog, Richard said: “I am lucky enough to have travelled a good deal around America: I have visited some 14 states, and have been to most major locations featured in False Prophet – New York, Boston, Washington DC. In fact, I have stayed in a couple of the hotels I write about.

“There are no short cuts to writing a novel,” he added. “The hard way is the only way if you want to produce something worthwhile.”

His own favourite authors include G K Chesterton, Patricia Highsmith, Paul Auster and Lee Child – like Richard, another British author who is currently the biggest writer of American thriller fiction.

Richard – pictured here in unsmiling pose as instructed by his publisher! – says he spends most of his free time reading. He is already working on a sequel.

Intellectual property specialist Joel Vertes is – officially – a rising star of the legal industry and has just been promoted to Partner at his international law firm.

In each of the past three years, Joel (OE 1991–1998) has been named both as a Rising Star in IP law and a Super Lawyer for Intellectual Property in Thomson Reuters’ Super Lawyers publications. He has also been ranked by the influential Legal 500 guide to leading lawyers and described as an ‘excellent IP specialist’.

Joel is still in touch with some of his old teachers at QE – where he is fondly remembered for his early ambition and ability – and has also remained very close with many old School friends. A member of Harrisons’ House, he was a Prefect and Senior Lieutenant.

After gaining straight As in English, French and Mathematics in his A-levels, Joel went up to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, to read Law. After graduating in 2001, he took the Legal Practice Course at the College of Law (now University of Law).  In 2006, he gained a distinction in his postgraduate diploma in Commercial IP at Nottingham Law School.

Joel has established a highly successful career with global lawyers Olswang LLP, which he joined as a trainee solicitor in 2003, having first travelled the world for a year. He became part of Olswang’s specialist IP team – one of the largest such teams in Europe – and has just been promoted to Partner in the same team. He specialises in both enforcement and commercial exploitation of intellectual property rights such as copyright, trademarks, patents and designs. He has a particular focus on the leisure, retail, technology and sport sectors, with clients including Microsoft, Chelsea FC, ITV and LinkedIn.

Joel is the head of Olswang’s international, Franchising & Licensing Group. In this role, he regularly advises clients on complex international deals exploiting brands overseas. He has acted for many clients, including major fashion brands, restaurant groups, hotels and sports brands, exploiting their brands in territories such as China, India, Morocco and Greece, or importing foreign concepts into the UK market.  Joel is also an experienced litigator, especially in anti-piracy, anti-counterfeiting, copyright and brand enforcement. He has worked on many high profile litigation matters at every level of the English and European Courts.

Joel is also a lecturer on the British Association for Sport and the Law (BASL) Sports Law course at De Montfort University.

Joel is married and has recently celebrated the birth of his third child. In his spare time, he enjoys following Manchester United.

In a career that has taken in City trading floors, learning high-speed driving manoeuvres, postings in Africa and senior management with a FTSE250 insurance company, Paresh Thakrar has learned a few things!

A keen advocate of ‘portfolio careers’ – “more interesting and more fun” – OE Paresh believes one of the key lessons is that it is important to continue to learn and renew yourself throughout your career.

“There is no substitute for ‘experiential learning’, taking risks in your career choices and following your interests, so long as you can demonstrate some consistent thought around your decisions.”

“As careers have become so specialised in every field of work from law to medicine to finance, there is more need than ever for people who can bring together the various threads into a coherent strategy,” adds Paresh, who is now Chief Operating Officer at Hiscox.

Paresh left the School in 1993 with an unusual collection of A-levels – Physics, Maths, Economics and Russian – but it gave him plenty of options for university. He chose to do Natural Sciences at Cambridge, enjoying the freedom to mix ‘hard’ subjects like physics with options such as zoology or history, and philosophy of science and psychology. “Churchill College was a great choice – out of town, tranquil and with the Cavendish Laboratories on the doorstep. QE had developed good links with the college over time, too.”

On graduating, he headed for the City, working at Deutsche Bank. “The mix of ‘quant’ skills and problem-solving rigour imparted through a Natural Sciences degree is a hugely valuable asset on a trading floor.” He spent five years as an emerging markets trader, trading everything from equity derivatives to foreign exchange and thriving in the “pacey, meritocratic culture”. During an exciting time in the financial industry, he enjoyed opportunities to spend time in South Africa and Eastern Europe.

Deciding it was time for a new challenge, he then served in various roles at the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign Office from 2001–2008. “Following a gruelling training programme, I came in after the 9/11 turmoil.” His financial background proved valuable in trying to unravel and understand the new world that emerged after the terrorist attacks in the US. “It gave me a fascinating insight into a fast-paced area of government and a huge amount of autonomy in a career where you could find yourself chasing down leads in the Far East one week and the Middle East the next. I never dreamt I would be posted in Nairobi, doing “j-turns” in a Ford Focus on an abandoned airfield, or jumping out of a helicopter into the English Channel. Whatever your best-laid career plans, sometimes it’s just best to follow what you find fun.”

Finding the travel demands of diplomatic life at odds with being a good parent after the birth of his first child, Paresh went back to studying and in 2008–10 he took an MBA at London Business School, looking to move back into the private sector.

After an enjoyable two years, he took a role at management consultants McKinsey, “working with some of the smartest and inspiring of colleagues”. The highlights included “pulling my first all-nighter at the ripe age of 35” and working for financial institutions after the international financial crisis alongside some of the most senior leaders at the big banks. “The lessons I learnt were to never be afraid to network and reach out to mentors and colleagues who can often be the source of the most unexpected opportunities – and always to look for ways to reinvent yourself.”

In 2013, he began his present role, as Chief Operating Officer at FTSE250 insurance company Hiscox. “I was attracted to the small, rewarding and entrepreneurial culture with a distinctive market positioning and a hugely ambitious management team I wanted to work with.” Paresh’s areas of responsibility include strategy, IT and operations for the reinsurance business.

Paresh still lives in Hertfordshire; he is married and now has three boys.

The School marked half a century of dinner debates with an evening that included a stimulating speech about OE Joe Sheffer’s experience as a war journalist.

The 50th Annual Dinner Debate brought together current Year 12 boys and Old Elizabethans to debate the motion ‘This House Believes that prosperity is the best measure of success’. The special anniversary was mentioned several times by the chairman, Pranesh Varadarajan, in his introductory and concluding remarks.

“The school was wonderfully represented by Omar Haider and Zaheer Badat,” said Nisha Mayer, teacher in charge of debating. However, it was the OEs opposing the motion, Arjun Sajip (2004-2011) and Joseph Masters (2004-2011), who carried the day.

“The chairman, Pranesh, noted that the vote at the beginning of proceedings was heavily in favour of the visiting OE opposition and then swung at the end of a fascinating debate and floor discussion more in favour of the proposition, but with the opposition still winning overall,” Mrs Mayer said.

The event began around 6pm with a drinks reception for guests and VIPs, including several OEs, and “concluded around 10pm after a very enjoyable evening”, reports Mrs Mayer.

There were the traditional toasts to ‘Her Majesty, the Queen’ and ‘The Pious Memory of Queen Elizabeth I’. School Captain Norbert Sobolak proposed the toast to ‘The Visitors’, while the toast to ‘The Elizabethan Union’ was proposed by the after-dinner speaker, Joe Sheffer (2000-2007).

The diners enjoyed a starter of houmous with olives and pitta bread. The main course comprised Cajun butterfly chicken supremes with savoury saffron rice and coleslaw pot, or a vegetarian alternative of Mediterranean vegetable & butter bean ragout. The desserts of chocolate gateau with cream, or lemon tart with raspberry coulis, were followed by coffee or tea with petits fours.