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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.”

Joe Sheffer has been shot at, interrogated and deported, but remains committed to his chosen career as a freelance photo journalist and cameraman based in Yemen, widely known as one of the most dangerous countries in the world.

Joe (OE 2000-2007) specialises in covering news in the Gulf and East Africa, and his news features have appeared in The Times, the Guardian, Private Eye and Global Post. He also works regularly for Channel 4 News.

On finishing at QE Joe fulfilled a passion for travelling and spent seven months touring on his motorbike, called Bianca. His travels took him through Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, India, China and the Himalayas. During that time he kept a blog, illustrated with his own photography.

After a year back in the UK, at Manchester University – which he describes as “depressing, like being in a prison cell” – Joe took off again, this time for the Pamir Highway, known as the Rooftop of the World, with a plan to cycle the old silk roads. During this trip he pushed himself to the limits – cycling at high altitude in inhospitable, if not hostile, terrain. “The pass to the Tajik border station is over 4,300m, for the first time the air got noticeably thinner and I had to keep going. I felt like vomiting up my breakfast and it took several hours to cycle the 13km to the top of the pass.”  But once again the trip produced a wealth of photography and blogs.

“I realised that there was an opportunity for me to carve out a career as a photo journalist and freelance cameraman, particularly if I was able to tough it out in difficult or unsettled areas,” said Joe. With that in mind, he settled in Sana’a, the capital of Yemen, widely acknowledged as one of the poorest and most dangerous countries in the world.

Having completed his Politics and International Relations degree at Manchester, he has spent much of this year covering the war with al-Qaeda in the Arabian peninsula, mostly for Channel 4 News.

“I also covered the protests around the recent Grand Prix in Bahrain,” said Joe. “I was shot in the leg with a rubber bullet and deported from Bahrain – not business-class needless to say!” He spent a few days back in the UK but promptly headed back to the gulf and his pursuit of news.

An original thinker, Joe demonstrated both an interest in current affairs and a strong degree of self-reliance and enterprise while in the Sixth Form at QE. He spoke regularly in Sixth Form debates, performing with great conviction and merit, and was well respected as the sergeant in the CCF and as a Prefect. Alongside his studies for A-levels in Politics, Business Studies and History, he made time for a wide range of activities outside School, including attending local party political meetings, climbing, kayaking, organising work in a press agency, learning Arabic and planning travels in the Middle East.

A charitable trust set up by the family of Guy Joseph (OE 1997-2002) has raised £106,000 this year through a wide range of fund-raising events. Guy was killed in a paragliding accident in the Pyrenees in October 2011, aged 25.

The trust was established to support two causes that Guy was particularly passionate about, namely disadvantaged children and conservation. Members of his family and friends will be travelling to Nepal in the spring to start building work on an Early Childhood Development Centre in his memory.

Guy graduated from Newcastle University with a first-class degree in Marine Biology. From autumn 2009 until the summer of 2011, he lived and taught scuba diving in Labuan Bajo, on the Indonesian island of Flores. Whilst there, he helped set up MantaWatch, an organisation dedicated to protecting the endangered manta ray through tracking, research, management and conservation.

Guy’s Trust honours Guy’s commitment to MantaWatch by funding two annual internships for deserving and academically gifted students to spend a month working with the organisation in Flores. The recipients of the first two Guy Joseph MantaWatch awards, announced earlier in 2012, were Anindita Rustandi and Muhammad Ichsan, described on the Guy’s Trust website as “enthusiastic, motivated and passionate young marine scientists”. Both are students at the Faculty of Fishery and Marine Science at Padjadjaran University, Indonesia. The cost of the two internships for 2012 was £1,765.

Guy lived in Pokhara in Nepal for several months during the winter of 2010-11. He loved the country and its people, especially the children, and had planned to return there. The trust, in partnership with the international Non-Governmental Organisation, ActionAid, is building two Guy Joseph Early Childhood Development Centres (ECDCs), one in Dhikurpokhari and one in Dansingh.

Guy’s parents, sisters and 26 friends are due to fly out to Nepal in March to spend a week starting to build the Early Childhood Development Centre.

“These ECDCs will promote the right to pre-school education for children in this impoverished region of Nepal and help hundreds of children get the start in life they deserve,” said Guy’s mother, Vikki. “The ECDCs will not only provide learning and recreational materials but will also run a wider programme including teacher training, parental education on nutrition, and health and hygiene.”

The School adopted the trust as one of its charities for 2012-13. “We were greatly saddened to hear of Guy’s death,” said Headmaster Neil Enright. “The School supports a number of charities each year and we felt that Guy’s adventurous spirit and commitment to the causes he espoused were very much in keeping with the ethos of the School.”

• The Guy’s Trust website may be reached at www.guystrust.org

When Aaron Tang (2006-2012) was offered a place to read Law at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) while he was still in Year 12, it presented him with a serious dilemma.  Should he leave QE a year early to take up this prestigious offer, or stay in the Sixth Form and complete his A-levels?

After a term of study in Hong Kong he finds the course excellent, but says only time will tell if he has made the correct choice. Either way he acknowledges his debt to the School.

Aaron, who was a School Lieutenant in Year 12, ultimately wants to practice Law in Hong Kong, but is finding it quite strange as the majority of his friends and peers are applying to UK universities.

“The idea of going to CUHK was first presented to me when I was in Year 11 at QE, when I attended a seminar in London. The Law Faculty at CUHK was then only five years old and they were hoping to encourage more students from abroad to enrol,” says Aaron.

Aaron signed up for CUHK’s summer school at the end of Year 11 and was impressed by the campus, faculty building and collegiate system. In Year 12, he achieved grade A in all his AS subjects – English Literature, Maths, Economics and Politics – and could potentially have gained a place at a Russell Group university in the UK.

In addition to a tuition scholarship from his faculty, his college (Wu Yee Sun College) has also presented him with the Francis Wong Hok Bun Memorial Scholarship for Distinguished Freshman worth HK$20,000 (approximately £1,600).

“Many have asked why I chose CUHK. I’ve two main reasons: firstly, it’s rare for students to be offered a place a year early and, secondly, I was awarded a full tuition scholarship to read the subject of my choice. I hope these factors will help me stand out when applying for a training contract with an international law firm.”

Aaron, who would like to practice Law in Hong Kong, where his parents live, is hoping that during his time at CUHK, he will also be able to establish useful contacts in the city. He is impressed with the course, which is taught in English, and considers the best part to be when students are required to apply the law to fictional scenarios. “The lectures are extremely thorough and detailed, giving the students a very strong understanding of Law,” he added.

“Although only time will tell, I hope that my choice of coming to CUHK was the right one,” said Aaron. “It goes without saying, all this would not be possible without QE. It still feels quite strange to me to be a former student of the School.”

George Mpanga, last year’s Chair of King’s College Student Union at Cambridge, has been forging a strong reputation as a poet with a focus on social and political issues.

With a performance in front of Prince Charles and success in a major national competition already under his belt, George (OE 2002-2009) is now planning a multi-faceted career, taking his poetry to diverse new audiences.

After gaining A grades in English Literature, Sociology and Politics A-levels, George won a place at King’s to read Politics, Psychology and Sociology (PPS).

Earlier this year, he spoke to the Harrow Observer about his time at QE, his upbringing on the St Raphael’s housing estate and the inspiration for his poetry:  “I always had the aim of academic success and my school was supportive in this way. My main motivation was my parents as we were all brought up in a culture which celebrated academic achievement  –  and all the negative stuff about the area only encouraged us more. I wanted to move away from all of that, but as I have matured I have realised I don’t want to run away from it, but help to change it – that’s a lifelong battle.”

Widely known as George the Poet, George previously performed as MC Shawalin, before deciding to focus on the spoken word. He appears at venues across London and his performances of his rap-influenced, politically conscious poems have also gained a significant following on youtube.

Highlights of his career to date have included winning a £16,000 prize from The Stake competition, sponsored by Barclays and Channel Four. The prize is to fund a series of poetry workshops called The Jubilee Line (TJL), which are aimed, he says, “at empowering underprivileged young people with the thinking tools they need to transcend their environment”. In his application to the competition, George set out how the workshops would draw on his own experiences “as a …Cambridge University student of African descent, hailing from a council estate in North-West London”.

His performance before The Prince of Wales came at the Awards for Excellence, held by the Prince’s charity, Business in the Community. This year, he has also been named one of the UK’s Top Ten Black Students in Rare Recruitment’s Rising Stars awards.

Now nearing the end of his degree, he told Alumni News about his future plans: “After university, I’ll be working in three sectors: education (in the form of my poetry workshops), entertainment (in the music world) and corporate social responsibility.

“The workshops are aimed at using poetry to help students explore the Citizenship syllabus primarily, but the same method can be applied to most writing-based subjects.

“In the entertainment world, I’ll be collaborating with prominent artists and probably release my own music albums on which I’ll perform poetry. It’s uncharted territory, but music has always been my true passion.

“In terms of CSR, I deliver presentations in the corporate sector. These are poems about social issues ranging from sustainable development to youth unemployment. So far my clientele have included Business in the Community, their branch on ethnic diversity, Race For Opportunity, and Citigroup.”

“I also do a bit of writing here and there, which I aim to continue after uni. Thus far I’ve published two articles for the think tank, Runnymede Trust.”

Paul Clark (OE 1990-1997) is looking forward to building on his success in 2013 after being picked out as one of the top names in the UK property industry.

In 2012, he was voted one of the industry’s Hot 100 Rising Stars by readers of Property Week magazine – one of the highlights of his career to date. It was the second running of the poll, which is conducted only once every five years. Property Week is one of the UK’s largest industry publications, with a weekly readership of 40,000. Nominees for the Hot 100 must be under the age of 35 and the previous vote included luxury property developers the Candy brothers and Ivanka Trump (daughter of Donald).

“The property industry is a really interesting, varied and – despite the recent market issues – a rewarding place to be,” says Paul.

He is currently head of Development at Capita Symonds Real Estate, a subsidiary of FTSE 100-listed Capita plc. Paul runs a team of consultants who specialise in providing advice to landowners and property developers. Some of his current projects include the acquisition of a new property for a film studio, the development of 1,000 homes on the south coast and the structuring of the sale and leaseback of a new bespoke headquarters for the Royal Pharmaceutical Society in central London. He has previously worked on the legacy plans for the 2012 Olympics and managed a major urban extension in Oxford.

At QE, Paul was a School Lieutenant and Sergeant Major in the Army Cadets. He won an Army Sixth Form Scholarship whilst at QE, but a skiing accident ended his aspiration to join the Army. He went on to Nottingham University to read Urban Planning. From there, Paul studied Town & Country Planning at post-graduate level at University College London. He then gained an MPhil in Land Economy at Cambridge University, where he rowed for the Sidney Sussex College 1^st VIII. Outside work, Paul is now a committee member of the Cambridge University Land Society and a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society ; he also  provides pro bono support for an urban regeneration charity in Finsbury Park.

“There is a wide representation of OEs throughout the property business including architects, engineers, town planners and agents. I would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a diverse life and the opportunity to have a lasting and positive impact on our built environment,” Paul concludes.