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Alumnus and former QE teacher Tim Adnitt is now firmly established with a multinational music technology company, while continuing to work very successfully as a record producer and sound engineer.

Tim (OE 1988–1995) is a Product Owner for Native Instruments, leading teams in London and Berlin for the German company, which creates software and hardware for computer-based audio production.

He has also worked on several award-winning albums, including Saluting Sgt. Pepper by British musician Django Bates, in collaboration with Frankfurt Radio Big Band and Eggs Laid By Tigers. This creative re-imagining of the Beatles’ seminal LP was named The Times & The Sunday Times 2017 Jazz Album of the Year. As a composer, Tim has written music for the Royal Opera House, the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Globe Theatre.

His work centres on Komplete Kontrol, the award-winning keyboards used by many of the world’s leading composers and producers including Stevie Wonder, Herbie Hancock, Jean-Michel Jarre, Hans Zimmer, Junkie XL, John Powell, Noah Shebib, Jacob Collier and Justin Kauflin.

He played a key role in the creation of Native Instruments’ Native Kontrol Standard (NKS), the de facto industry standard for browsing and hardware control of virtual instruments and effects.

Tim is known as an advocate for accessibility in music technology, working to promote a change in mindset across the industry towards musicians and producers with disabilities. He co-designed Komplete Kontrol’s accessibility features for visually-impaired musicians. Tim has spoken at numerous events and conferences around the world on this topic, including: last year’s Audio Developer Conference in London; Moogfest 2018 in North Carolina, USA (where he co-presented a workshop with Stanford University’s Thinking Matters Fellow, Tiffany Naiman), and Berklee College of Music Accessibility Conference 2018 in Boston, USA.

He is supported at Native Instruments by fellow Old Elizabethan and former Music Technology student Adil Ghanty (2003-2010), who joined the company in summer 2015 – an appointment that is “testament to the strong tradition of Music and Music Technology at QE,” Tim says.

After leaving QE, Tim read Music at City, University of London, before going on to take a Master’s degree in Composition. Tim taught Music Technology at the School between 2005 and 2014.

Having completed his English degree at Oxford, Surya Bowyer has spent the last year taking a Master’s at University College London and has now been nominated by UCL for a post at the Sorbonne.

Surya (OE 2007–2014) is in close contact with fellow QE alumni – “There’s a group of eight OEs that I have very regular contact with, and we have a tradition of going away together each summer,” – and he retains very fond memories of his School days. “I think one of the most important things QE taught me was to treat people with respect and never forget my manners. It’s a very useful life skill.”

In addition to the OEs he holidays with, Surya meets up with others from his year group “both by chance at university, and on purpose for intermittent catch-ups at the pub. As a year, we have a pretty large group of people who seem to be fond of each other, which I’m thankful for. Even when at a new university or stage of life, when you find yourself having to make new friends, it’s always nice to be able to also catch up with well-known faces every once in a while.”

After completing his BA at Keble College, Oxford, Surya wanted to branch out beyond English into more interdisciplinary work, so he chose UCL’s European Culture and Thought MA. “UCL has been great. There was a shift in teaching style and the shape of the workload, in that Oxford had us writing one of two shorter essays a week, whereas at UCL I had to complete two 6,000-word pieces of coursework each term. I found myself particularly enjoying the freedom to pursue more of my own interests in the MA,” Surya adds, though acknowledging that the critical reading skills he had developed at Oxford also proved indispensable.

He will work at the Sorbonne as a lecteur: UCL sends one person to Paris each year for this role which involves teaching undergraduate English majors at the Faculté des Lettres (also known as UFR). “I’m told they usually send doctoral research students, but somehow I got the nod,” says Surya.

He hopes to take advantage of the opportunity both to improve his French and to gain experience of lecturing at a university. “I’m seriously contemplating applying to do a PhD and trying to go into academia, and I think having the experience of teaching for a year will help me determine whether this is the career path I indeed want to pursue.”

Surya returned to QE last year to talk to Year 11 about the virtues of studying English at university and to conduct mock university interviews. Looking back to his own School days, he recalls with affection certain characteristic sights and sounds: “The noise of the atrium at lunchtime, with people constantly banging on lockers as they play cards or scramble to finish off some work, sticks in my mind.

“I particularly enjoyed my time in the Sixth Form, with the added responsibility and depth of work. The inter-house rugby and tug of war competitions also have a warm place in my memory, probably because Pearce often won.”

In his spare time today, Surya enjoys visiting museums and galleries, as well as going to the cinema and watching football.

“I think that if I do end up going into academia, it would be important to me that the work I do extends a little beyond the walls of the university. So, over the last few years I’ve also been attempting to improve my ability to write critically in a less academic context and tone.” Surya’s own website holds a collection of his published reviews and non-academic essays.

QE under long-serving Headmaster Ernest Jenkins (1930-1961) was so strict that a prefect punished a boy for buying an ice-cream without wearing his School cap…on a Sunday afternoon.

This was just one of the anecdotes which three alumni from the 1940s–60s shared with current Year 7 pupils to help them with a project looking at the history of the School. In a special assembly, they recalled a School that, like today’s QE, enjoyed both academic and sporting success, yet one which was in many ways very different.

Ken Cooper (OE 1942–1950), David Farrer (1954–1961) and John Todd (1958–1964) were introduced by Head of History Helen MacGregor. There was an opportunity for the Year 7 boys to ask them questions, which typically focused largely on the disciplinary regime of the time!

The hapless young ice-cream buyer was ordered to write lines when he was caught bare-headed one hot weekend making his purchase from a shop near his home in Southgate. Although the older pupil was within his rights – prefects of the time were authorised to dole out such punishments and boys were supposed to wear their caps even when not at school – the visiting alumni recalled that he was considered by his classmates to have gone too far, even by the strict standards of the day.

The three visitors reminded the boys that the School was much smaller in the 1940s and 1950s, with a roll of only about 400-450 boys, split into four Houses, not the current six. The School was very much less diverse and boys typically lived very locally.

All indoor activities took place in QE’s Main Building, with the hall even being used for lunch for a time after the refectory was bombed by the Luftwaffe in 1941. The lunches themselves were reported to have been dreadful. “The potatoes were black; the meat looked like it had come off the bottom of someone’s shoe,” said Mr Cooper.

At first, all that lay behind the Main Building was the ‘Gun Field’. Later, an unheated, open-air swimming pool was built; boys were expected to swim in it in all weathers.

The whole School met each morning for assembly, addressed by the Headmaster in his gown: all masters (teachers) wore gowns daily, while prefects wore half-length undergraduate-type gowns.

School ran six days a week, with games on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons. Sport was a huge part of School life and was very popular: the best memories of many Old Elizabethans from that era are from sports on Stapylton Field, the visitors stated. The rugby and cricket were both good, and QE established a very strong reputation in athletics. Fixtures against the top public schools had been established by Mr Jenkins (pictured below), who modelled the School on such institutions during his long headmastership, which extended from 1930–1961.

During his tenure, the strictness of the regime was seen in the use of corporal punishment. The cane was still very much in use and boys could, in the schoolboy slang of the time, be ‘whacked’ for a variety of misdemeanours. The three alumni reported, though, that they accepted this as being a normal part of school education and thought that there was usually good reason for the punishment! Mr Todd recalled going to be caned and being asked to select which of three different canes should be used. He remembered being concerned that it would be very obvious that he had hidden a workbook down the back of his trousers to cushion the blows, although this was, in fact, not commented upon by the master.

While much has obviously changed, the visitors reflected that in 2018, just as in their day, expectations at the School are high, both in terms of behaviour and of academic attainment. A grammar school then and now, QE through to the early 1960s had a good reputation for sending boys to Oxbridge and other top universities, albeit in a context in which only about 3% of sixth-formers nationally went on to university, with most school-leavers going straight into employment.

Although they had very positive memories of their time at QE, the three visiting old boys were in little doubt that the fabric of the School, the opportunities available to boys and the outcomes achieved are all very much better now.

Year 7 will be continuing their work on the History project through the rest of this term.

Pupils past, present and even future all helped make the 2018 Queen Elizabeth’s School Founder’s Day a resounding success.

The day, a great highlight of the School’s summer calendar, included a morning church service and subsequent ceremonial proceedings, before culminating in the popular afternoon fete on Stapylton Field.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “This was a splendid and enjoyable day and it was a great pleasure to see everyone, from boys and their families who are set to join the School in Year 7 in September right through to the Old Elizabethans spanning several generations who came along.

“Founder’s Day really brings together the whole Elizabethan family in celebration both of the School’s history and of the strength of our present community.”

The day got off to a stirring start with the School Choir’s rendition of Handel’s coronation anthem, Zadok the Priest, performed as the introit in Chipping Barnet Parish Church.

The service included hymns and Bible readings, including from the current School Captain, Aashish Khimasia, and his predecessor, Oliver Robinson, as well as the traditional Founder’s Day prayer, concluding with the petition that “our School may endure as a home of sound learning and of true godliness”.

Guest speaker for the service was Major Charles Russell (OE 1997–2004) who spoke on the theme of service, reflecting on QE’s “rich history of military service” and pointing out that 2018 marks the centenary of the end of the First World War. He went on to articulate how service to others is demonstrated throughout the Elizabethan community.

Major Russell told the congregation of boys, staff and VIPs of his experiences in 2010, when he and a fellow soldier were very seriously injured in Afghanistan, where he was serving with The Royal Gurkha Rifles. “We were on the operating table in Camp Bastion within 25 minutes of the blast, and back in Birmingham two days later.

“Although I wasn’t conscious at the time, I was visited in the intensive care unit by an Old Elizabethan – a consultant working at Queen Elizabeth’s Hospital Birmingham who had been a senior prefect when I was a brand new Year 7. The note he left me: ‘To a fellow OE in the new QE hospital; don’t worry you are in the care of the very best.’ Imagine the comfort this provided me and my family – he was absolutely right – this was the cutting edge of complex trauma medicine. No surprise to find an OE at the forefront of his profession.”

Major Russell added that he had been “touched beyond words” to receive a card from the QE staff as he lay immobilised in his hospital bed. “Not only was there a card, but a parcel was delivered containing a spanking new iPad: these had just come out in the UK and were seriously hot pieces of technology then.”

Guests at the service included Major Russell’s father, Martin Russell, who is Representative Deputy Lieutenant for the London Borough of Barnet. Also in the congregation were: the Mayor of Barnet, Cllr Reuben Thompstone; local MP Theresa Villiers and Queen Elizabeth’s Girls’ School Headteacher Violet Walker, as well as QE governors, former members of staff, parents and boys.

After the service, the day continued, in accordance with cherished QE tradition, with the roll call and the reading of the School Chronicle in front of the main building.

Then it was time for the fete, organised by the Friends of Queen Elizabeth’s, to get into full swing, to the accompaniment of the School Concert Band. Among the many stalls, activities and attractions, the International Food Tent proved as popular as ever – takings for the Sri Lankan curry alone reportedly topped £4,000! These sales helped the FQE raise a total sum for the day provisionally put at around £21,000.

The afternoon also saw the annual Stanley Busby Memorial Cricket Match between old boys of the School and the current First XI. Played on the Third Field at the rear of the School, it was this year won by the pupils after a close encounter with a strong team of OEs.

A good many other Old Elizabethans attended the formal aspects of the day, the fete and the cricket, with some having travelled a considerable distance in order to be there.

A chance encounter with the person who is now his wife led to a significant alteration to Adam Dossaji’s location and career trajectory.

It was soon after he had graduated from medical school that Adam (OE 2003-2010) met Saima Shikari, a doctor from New York. For a year they flew back and forth between the US and the UK before deciding to get married. During that time Adam completed all his licensing exams, allowing him to practice in the States. “I moved to the USA shortly before getting married and applied to be a resident in internal medicine,” he says.

Adam has just started his Internal Medicine Residency at Baystate Medical Centre in Central Massachusetts, where he lives in Springfield with Saima. “It’s a role that doesn’t exactly exist in the UK,” he says. “I basically cover all non-surgical medical problems in the hospital for adults. I tell my non-medical family and friends that I do what JD and Dr Cox do on Scrubs – a programme I watched at lunchtimes on a very small screen in the Sixth Form Common Room at QE!”

He remembers the School visits with particular fondness and says he now realises what a strong foundation QE laid in its boys. “It was challenging, and, at times, I complained and thought things were arcane or unnecessary. Looking back, I now see how the requirements for attention to details, for us to think for ourselves, and to take the harder road, built my resilience and gave me a belief that anything was possible.” He especially picks out the Science and Mathematics departments for their “incredible” support during his A-levels. Among the trips he enjoyed, he names the Swanage GCSE Geography trip, a visit to Mill Hill observatory and the German exchange.

After leaving QE, Adam took up a place at Kings College London School of Biomedical Sciences, graduating in Psychology with Basic Medical Sciences in 2013 and also gaining from Kings a Diploma in Theology and Philosophy. He then went on to Guy’s, King’s and St Thomas’ School of Medical Education (GKT) where he was awarded his MBBS (Bachelor of Medicine & Bachelor of Surgery) in 2016. The previous year, as part of his training he spent four weeks at the Lady Willingdon Hospital in Manali, Himachal Pradesh in India, in general internal medicine and four weeks in Critical Care and Emergency Medicine in the Hinduja Hospital in Mumbai. He completed his Foundation Programme at the University Hospital of Wales, where he spent four months in Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary surgery, four months in A&E and a further four months in General Internal Medicine (Respiratory) in 2017.

Among the accolades he gained during his training were the National Poster Presentations prize at the Royal College of Psychiatrists International Congress in 2013 and the Royal Society of Medicine Phillip Ellman Prize in Respiratory Medicine (2014).

His current role involves working in rotation through the wards, in intensive care, in outpatients and in all the medical departments for three years. He will then move on to further training. In the future, Adam is looking forward to specialising further. “I have a keen interest in pulmonology and critical care. It involves managing some of the most acutely unwell people in the hospital, helping patients and families through some of the most difficult periods of their lives.”

His professional experience of life in the USA has been overwhelmingly positive. “America is at a very unusual point. Most people’s views of the country are based on its domestic and international politics, which at the moment is very chaotic. Personally, my experience of the USA has been very different: it is an incredibly open country, where large institutions are desperate for the best employees they can find, regardless of where you are from. They highly regard international experience and yearn to learn about different perspectives.”

“Massachusetts is an amazing place to practice and learn medicine; we are one hour from Harvard and Yale, and home to the New England Journal of Medicine. There is an argument that healthcare is more expensive in America, and the insurance system has got flaws; however, many hospitals in America are at the forefront of advances in healthcare, relentlessly expanding horizons, and at the cutting edge of treatments and cures for diseases such as cancer.”

Several of Adam’s OE friends studied Medicine, although staying in close touch can be a challenge. “It’s great having that connection, but the distance makes it harder. I am sure I will see many of their names in medical journals in coming years.”

A keen table tennis player when he was in the UK, he has pursued this even further in the US. “I’ve joined a club and now play a lot of table tennis.”

He has re-established contact with the School and hopes in the future to be able to provide information to current boys interested in studying Medicine, particularly those who wish to work abroad.

2016 leaver Sahil Handa has been reflecting on a packed first year at Harvard that has seen him embrace activities ranging from drama and dance to journalism and entrepreneurship.

The former School Vice-Captain, pictured above right with friends at the Harvard vs. Yale football match, decided to pursue a Liberal Arts degree at Harvard after being offered places at three Ivy League colleges. Sahil (OE 2009-2016) took up his place last September following a gap year.

“It has been an incredible year at Harvard and I am the happiest that I can ever remember being,” he says. “The university offered me more opportunities than I could ever have imagined; the people I met, the classes I took, and the adventures I enjoyed have made me extremely thankful for the chance to study in Boston.”

At School, Sahil was elected a drama director and also ran the QE dance club for four years. He has built significantly on this QE experience at Harvard: “I was the lead male actor in a play called JOGGING, which was performed eight times at the American Repertory Theatre and directed by professional director Melissa Nussbaum. The play is set in Beirut, deals with themes of religious violence, feminism, and motherhood, and involved me playing six different men at different stages of life. It was definitely the most intense (and rewarding) theatrical experience I’ve had so far; luckily, my mum was able to visit and watch!”

Sahil was a dancer and model for the Eleganza Fashion Show – a large charity event held in Harvard’s ice rink, which “involved lots of dancing, strutting and attitude!” – and was the Bollywood choreographer for Ghungroo, a South Asian cultural show, for which he created and taught a routine to 30 students who had never danced before.

His writing skills have rapidly attracted attention. He has won a place on the editorial board of Harvard’s renowned student newspaper, Harvard Crimson, and now writes articles for its opinion section. “I have recently been made a Harvard Writing Center Tutor,” he adds. “This is a paid part-time job reserved for undergraduates who have shown excellent writing capabilities during their time at the university, and it involves me helping undergraduate and graduate students who are struggling with an essay.” In addition, he took a workshop with Man Booker prize-shortlisted author Neel Mukherjee. “I have been writing a lot of fiction, particularly short stories,” he adds.

Sahil has also:

• Devised, co-written and directed a student play;
• Secured a position as a Freshman Arts Proctor (as the creative writing proctor) which means he will be helping those in the 2018 student intake who enrol in the week-long immersive Freshman Arts Program;
• Recently founded the Harvard Centrist Society along with a few friends; “My role will be the Director of Speakers and Networking;”
• Helped start a scheme called the Harvard Giving Pledge, which is attempting to convince all Harvard Students to commit to giving 1% of their income to charity;
• Begun working for a fellow Harvard freshman’s start-up – a productivity app aimed at high school students;
• Joined the Harvard Political Union, the main political debating organisation on campus.

Notwithstanding all these extra-curricular activities, his classes have been a highlight of the year, reports Sahil. “My favourite courses were High and Low in Post-war America – a tour of Post America’s cultural theory, art, poetry, literature, music, race relations, journalism and philosophy – and Early Modern Philosophy: Self and World –an introductory philosophy course that focused on metaphysics and epistemology. I’m looking likely to major in a combination of Philosophy, Psychology and English Literature, but I’m certainly enjoying the freedom that comes with being able to pick across all of the disciplines.”

During his first year at Harvard, he has taken a few trips with fellow students, which has served both to deepen friendships and to further his love of travel. These included a road trip & trekking expedition in Texas and a last-minute trip to Iceland a week before examinations, with Sahil and his fellow students taking advantage of $100 tickets and studying on the aeroplane to make sure their results did not suffer.

And after the final term ended last month, Sahil headed up to the famous tourist hotspot of Cape Cod to stay at the house of his best friend. “I actually met him on my gap year; we decided, along with a few other Harvard gap-year students, to backpack around Southeast Asia for two months as a group.”