With QE’s 450th anniversary year now well under way and thoughts turning to this week’s special service of thanksgiving in Westminster Abbey, Old Elizabethan Iain Lanyon, who was School Captain during the 400th anniversary celebrations in 1973, recalls his experiences during that momentous year.
Iain began by saying that he had, in fact, had other plans for the first half of 1973…
“I stayed on after my A-levels in 1972 to take Cambridge entrance exams in the autumn. I was, I think, the youngest in my year, so I wanted to take a year out,” he said. “In the end, I stayed the whole academic year 1972–73 as School Captain: it was the 400th anniversary and there was so much to do! Prefects were responsible for much of the discipline and organised all school break times and the junior assembly.
“I had to combine school work with part-time paid work (I was from a one-parent family and on free school meals).
“I worked in the doubles bar at the Red Lion pub and remember ‘Tiger’ Timson [Classics teacher Percival Timson] coming in for a drink each evening before catching the bus home – double White Horse whisky with Malvern Water.
“My favourite memory of the 400th anniversary was organising the School fete. I persuaded the school to hold a joint fete with the Girls’ School and for the proceeds to go to the new Marie Foster home for multiple sclerosis about to be opened in Wood Street.
“I worked with the new comprehensive intake of QE junior boys to save enough Green Shield stamps to buy an early type of mobility scooter for the home, and the fete also raised over £1,200 for the home – that’s over £17,000 in today’s value.” He has a copy of a letter from Marie Foster herself thanking him. “She was an amazing woman!”
The colour photo in front of the Main Building shows him collecting a prize on Founder’s Day 1973, while he is in the front row, centre, in the prefect team line-up.
Iain was a keen sportsman. He was captain of the athletics team and played rugby on the left wing in the First XV, also playing for the county in both sports. He was the Borough of Barnet schools 100 metres sprint champion for two years. “My time of 11.2 seconds was a record that stood for several years, I think.”
In 1973, the School was approached by a local college to see if there was a QE pupil who could teach the English Language course. “I was sent along. I remember being the youngest in the room full of people needing an English qualification for their careers. The administrator came in and apologised that the teacher hadn’t arrived, so I had to put up my hand to say I was their teacher!”
Teaching has remained part of his life ever since: “Firstly graphic design and communication, and now as a part-time voluntary mentor for English Literature Oxbridge candidates at Camden School For Girls.”
After Iain finally handed over the School Captain’s mantle to Maxwell Ball, who took over in the Autumn Term of 1973, he went on to his own English Literature degree at Warwick.
After that, he worked in arts marketing at the Royal Opera House. “I then became a graphic designer, working for theatre companies, which has been my career for the past 40 years.” He is creative director of his own company, Kean Lanyon Ltd.
Iain lives in Crouch End. “Several of us still meet up on Founder’s Day each year at the Black Horse, then go on to the School fete. Last year we were given a guided tour and saw the new swimming pool for the first time. ” It is, he reflects, quite a contrast to the days when he and his classmates would stand shivering on the edge of the outdoor pool, with PE teacher Eric Shearly cheerfully pouring scorn on their reluctance to enter the water.
One highlight that sticks in his mind is the research & presentation course he took. “I really enjoyed that class the most, partly because it prepared you for public speaking. Also, at that time, you didn’t Google everything: it was all about going to the library and trying to do some research. Teaching that is not something that every school does.
It was while establishing himself in this job that through a family friend he met Michael Bernstein, a senior figure working in New York’s accountancy scene. “I call him my Jewish father: to survive in New York , you need a Jewish father!” He invited Raj to come and work in the US and so, on September 23rd 2006, he moved across the Atlantic, starting work on 1st October from offices opposite Bloomingdale’s, the famous department store.
Reflecting on his life and career, Raj is clear about the benefits that QE has brought him. “QE actually did give us a good grounding. At that stage of your life, it’s important to have some discipline and sense of responsibility. There are of course always two ways of looking at things, but I think QE does teach you responsibility and it does give you the skillset to build your career in the way you want to.”
Through the two events, today’s Elizabethans remembered the 113 old boys who lost their lives in the 20th century’s two world wars and those who have been injured or died in wars since.
QE’s traditional 11.00am act of remembrance took place at the School’s World War I memorial in the Crush Hall. It was led by representatives of the School’s Combined Cadet Force, who were joined by Colour Sergeant Rhys Peto, the CCF’s School Staff Instructor, who is a member of QE’s Facilities Team.
Two days later, 36 of the School’s cadets and CCF staff representatives participated in High Barnet’s Remembrance Sunday events. After assembling at Barnet Army Reserve centre in St Albans Road, they paraded down Barnet High Street and joined the church service at St John the Baptist Church, where there was the playing of the Last Post and a wreath-laying ceremony. Events concluded with a march-past, where Martin Russell, the Representative Deputy Lieutenant for the London Borough of Barnet (and the parent of an Old Elizabethan) took the salute.
Helen Edmunds, Head of History & Politics, said: “Hampton Court provides excellent contemporary sources, including a display of diaries and letters written by the soldiers who were there just over a century ago. This links in well in with the work our pupils will do next year when they enter Year 9 on the role and importance of Empire troops during World War I and World War II.
Max (OE 1991–1998), a corporate communications expert, visited the School to speak to a select group of sixth-formers.
All but one of the group from the Class of 2016 (those who started at QE in 2009) were from Broughton House, and so they duly enjoyed the opportunity to talk to the young Broughtonians of today.
They then did a careers ‘speed-dating’ workshop in which they introduced their roles and industries, and the key skills and routes into it, to small groups of Year 8 boys. The group included doctors, engineers, a lawyer and a representative of the film industry. There was an opportunity for the boys to ask questions of the visitors.
Two engineers: mechanical engineer Lampojan Raveenthiranathan, who studied at UCL and now works for a company which designs and manufactures components for military aircraft ejector seats, and civil engineer Roderick Lee;