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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.”

Old Elizabethan George the Poet’s latest composition was hailed as a fitting introduction to the global television coverage of the royal wedding.

George Mpanga’s performance of The Beauty of Union was chosen by the BBC to introduce the day’s coverage and was therefore seen by a global TV audience that experts were predicting could reach 1.9bn.

The pre-recorded film of George reading the 154-word poem at St George’s Chapel, Windsor – the wedding venue – was intercut with scenes of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. His contribution was reported by journalists worldwide – the Toronto Sun’s Jane Stevenson said it immediately drew her in to the coverage, for example – while also being hailed by many on social media.

George (OE 2002–2009) is linked with Prince Harry through his role as an ambassador for Sentebale, one of the prince’s charitable foundations, which supports the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people affected by HIV in Lesotho and Botswana. Having seen at close-hand the prince’s warmth and compassion in meeting the children helped by Sentebale, when the royal engagement was announced last year, George was one of the commentators interviewed by the BBC for an insider’s perspective.

George’s growing national profile as a poet rests in large part on his work commenting on major issues of the day. In 2017, he released a video showing himself reading a poem on hate crime. The video was produced in collaboration with the Equality and Human Rights Commission to coincide with the anniversary of the murder of MP Jo Cox. He also performed in front of the Queen and Prime Minister Theresa May at the Service of Celebration for Commonwealth Day in Westminster Abbey.

After leaving QE in 2009, George read Politics, Psychology and Sociology, at King’s College, Cambridge. He maintains close links with the School: last year, he was a well-received guest speaker at QE’s formal luncheon for Year 12 pupils and also led a poetry workshop for the whole of Year 9.

The poem is set out below: a video of George performing it may be viewed on the BBC twitter feed.

The Beauty of Union

There’s an indescribable beauty in union
In two beings forming one new being
Entering each other’s world
Surrendering each other’s selves
Accepting the invitation to be everything to someone else
There’s an unparallelled bravery in union
In telling the one you love:
“The only way that we can truly win
Is if I think of you in everything I do
And honour every decision you faithfully include me in.”
Love gives union true meaning
It illuminates the path
It wants us to compromise, communicate and laugh
It wants us to elevate, appreciate without pride
Love is oblivious to the outside
Even with an audience of millions
Even when that love bears immortal significance
All of this is met with cordial indifference
By the two people at the heart of it
Two individuals when they started it
Becoming two halves of one partnership
Such is the beauty of union
Such is the beauty of union

Jake Green’s deep knowledge of financial services law has made him a go-to man for journalists wrestling with the implications of Brexit.

An award-winning partner with leading London law firm Ashurst, Jake (OE 1992–1997) has been quoted several times in recent months on the front page of the Financial Times, with the newspaper turning to him for his expert knowledge of areas including regulation and compliance matters.

His day-to-day work involves giving advice on Brexit to banks and fund managers. In fact, he offers a valuable combination of expertise, since his knowledge of the law is complemented by practical experience from ‘the other side of the fence’: over the past few years, Jake has spent time on secondment at a hedge fund and a brokerage house.

Jake won the 2013 Thomson Reuters Annual Compliance Awards Best Regulatory Lawyer of the Year title. He was recognised in the Financial News’ 40 Under 40 Rising Stars in Legal Services in 2014 – although he had no idea he had even been put forward for such an accolade.

He qualified while at Nabarro, where he worked for more than five years. “I then followed my boss to Ashurst,” he says. Jake arrived at the firm in 2010 and was made a partner in 2015.

“I really enjoy it and, of course, there are the rewards. It’s a long job; it’s a taxing job, but work-life balance is changing in the City. The days of the ‘all-nighter’-type culture are slightly fading. I am emotionally invested in my clients, and most understand that a work-life balance is healthy!”

Other factors, such as serendipity and the willingness to make the best of any situation, can contribute as much, if not more, to an individual’s success as any carefully worked-out career plan, he believes.

Before reading Law at Leeds University from 2000–2003, Jake ‘took a year out’. He recalls: “I got very lucky and got a job at Sky, working on the Premier League. I was dumped straight into working with Andy Gray and Richard Keys. It was great fun. In life, things sometimes are a bit random – it can just be about being in the right place at the right time. I have found that being prepared to muck in gets you quite far and sharing gets you an awfully long way. I was offered the opportunity to stay at Sky but decided I wanted to do Law. Sport was a hobby that I found I was enjoying slightly less when I was working in it.”

Jake’s sporting prowess was very much in evidence during his time at QE: he played both Fives and cricket for the School. It is perhaps because of that that he fitted in so well, he says.

Like others, his memories include endless breaktime games of football using airflow balls. Other aspects include the ‘duckets’ – blue cards used to give boys credits, which added up to commendations, with these, in turn, counting towards House points.

Of the staff, it is History teacher Mr Marek Kolczynski who especially sticks in his mind, both for some enjoyable, thought-provoking lessons and for memorable encounters outside the classroom.

“He used to say: ‘Always ask yourself how do you know that you know?’ and ‘What evidence is good evidence? How do we weigh evidence?’ He would urge us to keep on probing.” Such a grounding proved valuable later in his legal career, Jake says.

He also recalls being ‘skewered’ by Mr Kolczynski over some minor misdemeanour: “’You are not sorry; you are sorry that you got caught,’ he told me.”

Jake left QE after GCSEs to attend a sixth form college nearer to his family home in Finchley. “My father died and I wanted to be close to home,” he says.

He still lives in the same area today. He is married to Miranda and has two children, Ethan, aged six, and Chloe, four. He maintains close friendships with a number of his QE contemporaries. In his spare time, Jake enjoys playing football.

With the recent media furore over Facebook and Cambridge Analytica, the topic of this year’s Elizabethan Union Dinner Debate held particular resonance.

The Old Elizabethans secured a decisive, although not totally one-sided, victory, as they and a pair of sixth-formers debated the motion: This House believes that in the digital age we should not expect our online activities to remain private.

Pupils Akshat Sharma and Tej Mehta put forward the motion for the 53rd annual debate, which was held on the day of the 445th anniversary of the founding of the School. It was opposed by Jonathan Hollingsworth, who opened, with support from Pravin Swamy (both OEs 2006-2013).

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “The debate itself was a typically lively and good-humoured affair. The whole event serves to help prepare boys for handling similar such formal, but social, occasions as they progress through university, their careers and life more broadly.”

Captain of the School Aashish Khimasia proposed the customary toasts to Her Majesty, the Queen, and The Pious Memory of Queen Elizabeth I, whilst Ross Lima (OE 1995-2002) proposed the toast to The Elizabethan Union.

Ross read Law at Sheffield and now works for Shell as Lead Legal Counsel for the sale of catalysts across large areas of the globe. In his speech, he reminisced about his first day at QE and meeting friends Laurence Burrows and Panicos Petrou, both of whom attended the dinner debate as his guests, along with Ross’s wife, Sarah. He remembered how the then-Headmaster, Eamonn Harris, told them to look around at the prefects: “He told us we were wearing the same blazers, but we hadn’t earned ours yet.” Looking at his Dinner Debate audience, Ross said: “You are now in the same position as those very boys that I looked up to on that day, and through your achievements at this School you have earned the right to wear that blazer.”

He spoke of the challenges the boys have already faced in their School careers and encouraged them to continue to seek out new challenges and opportunities, and to learn to overcome their fears.

The indicative vote at the outset indicated that the floor was leaning against the motion.

The debate began with Akshat putting forward the proposal. He and seconder Tej set out their case that it was, in fact, a reality that our online activities are not private – using state surveillance, as an example. They also argued the importance of being aware of how others use the data they hold, via social media or online gaming. They put forward the view that if people agree to the terms of surveys and ‘apps’ they use, then companies like Cambridge Analytica had, in law, not necessarily done anything wrong.

They also expounded the case for the positives of monitoring online activities, for the purposes of detecting and preventing crime and acts of terror.

The opposition countered these arguments, claiming the price of giving up our online privacy would be to give up part of our humanity, including our freedom of speech. Facebook came in for criticism, and the alumni said that even Mark Zuckerberg has now opined that such companies need regulating. They argued that people would not expect more traditional forms of communication – the Royal Mail or faxes, for example – to be open to others to view, so why should the internet be any different?

They also questioned whether the good citizens represented on the floor should be subjected to privacy breaches by the state in the name of security, advocating a higher threshold. They proposed a series of policy interventions to ensure better data protection online.

The floor debate saw enthusiastic contributions from Year 12 speakers and guests. These ranged from the question of how to monitor and deal with the terrorist threat, through to the different expectations there should be users in terms of the sharing of social media posts and messages between, on the one hand celebrities (and those who court social media attention) and, on the other, ordinary users. They also raised the already-strict financial and criminal penalties that exist for those who breach data laws.

The three-course meal started with leek and potato soup. There was a choice of main course between vegetarian tart and salmon, which was served with crushed new potatoes, green beans and tomato and basil sauce. Dessert was lemon and lime tart.