Sloane Grammar School Hortensia Road Chelsea London England

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This page seeks to list, in no particular order, old boys who made good and those who made bad. It's up to you whether you view them as Heroes or Villains.

Let me know about others you think deserve to be here or if you'd like to add or correct details about those you already see. Where you see a video screen, click on the centre arrow, turn up your volume, watch and listen. Hover your mouse over the icons on a video screen to see what they are for. 

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John Creasey MBE (17/09/1908 - 09/06/1973):- Born in Southfields, Surrey (now London) became a crime thriller author of over 600 books under more than twenty pseudonyms, as well as his own name, after leaving school at 14. After 743 publisher rejections his first novel, "Seven Times Seven" appeared in 1932. He invented Gideon of Scotland Yard and The Baron, both of which became TV series. Also wrote about Department Z, Dr Palfrey, The Toff, Inspector Roger West and contributed five novels to the Sexton Blake series. Awarded Mystery Writers of America Grand Master award in 1969. Stood for Parliament as a Liberal in Bournemouth, then ran as an Independent and formed the All-Party Alliance pressure group after becoming disillusioned with the Liberals. He had been at Sloane from 1920-24 and returned to present the school prizes in 1946 and to give a speech on 23rd October, 1949. He also presented the school with the mirror with the school crest on it, that hung in the library. At the 1952 Annual Supper of the Old Cheyneans Association, he described the trials of authors and complained of a man, who, when asked if he knew the books of John Creasey, said "No: but I only read thrillers." He enjoyed writing immensely and never holidayed without his typewriter. The Cheynean of 1946, said of him that, 'At 38, he has published some 70 books. His output rivals that of Edgar Wallace. He is said to make more than £10,000 a year'.  

Married four times, he was living in Salisbury, Wiltshire at the time of his death.

 

  JohnCreasey

 

Jeremy Spenser (16th June 1937- present day?):- Born Jeremy John Domhurst de Sarem, his Sloane career was a short one when he was a member of Class 1b for six months before leaving to become a child actor and taking the part of the boy prodigy conductor in the film Prelude to Fame, he went on to appear in 34 television dramas and films between 1948 and 1967 including The Prince and the Showgirl with Marilyn Monroe, The Dancing Years, Kind Hearts and Coronets and Fahrenheit 451, as well as stage appearances such as that with Flora Robson in The Innocents. He seems to have mysteriously disappeared, and was last seen living in Kensington, London where he was known to have become a drama teacher in 1969.

 

 

 

Keith Strachan (Born 21/01/1944):- Born in Consett, County Durham, was a Maths teacher at Sloane from 1968 to 1970. Now a theatre, television and musical director, arranger and composer. Credits include co-writing "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" theme tune and Cliff Richards' "Mistletoe and Wine", which appeared in the musical "The Little Match Girl", which he also co-wrote. Devised the John Lennon musical "Imagine", co-wrote the musical "As Large As Life" (aka "Baby Love") and formed singing group "Wall Street Crash". Ex-teacher Peter Pallai said Keith's first album, of the two he made with his group Swegas, was the best jazz-rock album he'd ever heard. At the time of writing this entry Keith is directing the West-End musical "Dancing in the Streets". He was also musical director on "Elvis".

 

 

 Keith Strachan

Michael Mullins:- Became lead vocalist with Modern Romance in 1982 and sang lead on their best seller, "Best Years of Our Lives" (see video below). Morrisey once said of the group -"There are indeed worse groups than Modern Romance but can anybody seriously think of one?". Michael has since appeared on TV and in concert as backing singer for the likes of Cliff Richard, Elaine Paige and Joni Mitchell. The first of the two videos below shows Michael on lead vocals for Modern Romance, with probably their best song, the lovely "Walking in the Rain", which reached number 7 in the charts of 1983.

 

 

Mistletoe and Wine. The Cliff Richard Christmas hit from 1988, was co-written by Keith Strachan, one-time Sloane Maths teacher.The middle one of the three backing singers in this Top of The Pops video is one-time Sloane pupil, Michael Mullins.

 

Brian Auger (Born July 18th,1939):-  Jazz pianist / organist who formed The Trinity in 1963 and made Bob Dylan's "This Wheel's On Fire" a massive hit with Julie Driscoll on vocals. Started afresh in 1965, forming Steampacket with Rod Stewart, Long John Baldry, Julie Driscoll and Vic Briggs. Also had a hit with "Road to Cairo" and in the 1970s formed Brian Auger's Oblivion Express who are still going today. He has played with countless jazz and pop luminaries and Herbie Hancock once said he was the " best Hammond B-3 organ player" he had ever heard and that he had an "awesome technique".

  

 

 

Brian Auger 1960s	Brian Auger & The Trinity	Brian Auger & Julie Driscoll
		Brian Auger today

 

Nice to know that Brian Auger (BAG to his old Sloane classmates) has still got it in him. Brian Fernee kindly sent me the following report of Brian's 2010 performance at the old Ronnie Scott club. It gives a little insight into Brian's family and where he lives today. Keep it up, Brian. We're watching with interest -

 

Brian Haynes has added to the Brian Auger memorabilia with this photograph of an award presented to him by the US Congress in recognition of his "contribution to the American art form of Jazz music" -

 

 

Malcolm Ian MacDonald (Born January 7th,1950):-

"SuperMac" was born in Fulham, London, whose football team he was later to play for. He also played for Tonbridge Angels, Luton Town, Newcastle United, Arsenal and England. He never won a major domestic honour but did gain 14 England caps including the one in which he scored all five England goals in the 1975 game against Cyprus, a record which still stands. His career was cut short in 1979 by a knee injury and he later went into management, managing Fulham and Huddersfield Town. He achieved promotion for Fulham from the old Third Division to the Second Division and only just failed to take them to the First Division the following season, when they finished fourth. Now a reformed alcoholic he had turned to drink after a failed business venture left him bankrupt and his second marriage ended in divorce. Currently working as a radio presenter in the North East on "Upfront with Malcolm MacDonald" and "Legends Football Phone In". His other claim to fame was a time of 10.9 seconds for the 100 metres on TVs "Superstars" in 1975.

  

 Malcolm MacDonald

 

 

Malcolm, front row centre, at Sloane c1961

 

John Martin-Dye (Born May 21st,1940):-

The only sport he was ever any good at in school, swimming made him a British Freestyle Champion at 100, 200 and 400 metres. He represented Great Britain at the 1960, Rome, and 1964, Tokyo, Olympics coming closest to a medal in the Rome relay when the team came fourth. Some would argue that it wasn't the only sport he was good at as he also won the Discus at the School Sports, setting a new record at the time. He was also an accomplished pianist, appearing in a number of school concerts. The photo below shows him, far right, after winning a Freestyle Relay sliver medal at the European Championships in 1962.

 

 

 

Piece on John Martin-Dye from West London Observer November 10th 1961

 

 

Steven Richard Hackett (Steve).(Born 12th February, 1950, Pimlico, London):-

One time Genesis lead guitarist, now solo, composes much of his own work and has a loyal following. Whilst with the band Quiet World, he joined Genesis in 1971 after they answered one of his many adverts in Melody Maker that read " Guitarist/writer seeks receptive minds, determined to strive beyond existing stagnant musical forms". He was quoted in 1973 as saying he preferred to " remain static on stage, rather than attempt uneasy, rock-style leaping. On stage, I do tend to use the guitar rather as a voice in the oneness of sound". He released his first solo album, Voyage of the Acolyte in 1975 while still with Genesis and left them altogether in 1977 to pursue a solo career which was punctuated by his collaboration with ex-Yes guitarist Steve Howe in the band GTR in the mid-80s. 

Queen guitarist Brian May says Steve has been a big influence, and Steve's own influences have been all those great guitarists that, over time, made their name with John Mayall's Bluebreakers and Fleetwood Mac's Danny Kirwan and Peter Green, as well as Mario Lanza and J. S. Bach. Steve's all-time favourite records are All Along the Watchtower (Jimi Hendrix Experience), I Want You (Bob Dylan), Kashmir (Led Zeppelin), All Your Love (John Mayall), The Nazz Are Blue (The Yardbirds), I Wanna Be Your Man (The Rolling Stones) and My Generation (The Who).

Steve was brought up on the Churchill Gardens Estate, Pimlico, London and was married for 32 years to the artist Kim Poor, who produced, among other things, the Genesis and Steve's album covers.They divorced in 2007. He has a brother, John, a renowned flautist, who learned to play the guitar under Steve's tuition.

These six early photos of Steve were provided by John Muncey -

Steve Hackett in his Pimlico bedroom 1960s	Pete Muncey, 'Jock' Greenaway (up tree), Steve Hackett in Ravenscourt Park 1960s
Steve Hackett on the Thames at Twickenham c1966	Steve Hackett & Pete Muncey c1966
'Jock' Greenaway, Pete Muncey * Steve Hackett on Harmonica 1960s	Steve Hackett playing guitar 1966

In the words of Peter Pallai (ex Sloane School Economics and History master), "Unlike many of his contemporaries he has lost neither his hearing nor his marbles. Remains a good musician and a hell of a nice bloke" and one who doesn't find it easy being on stage. Having met Steve myself at the 2002 reunion in The Fox and Pheasant, I can only concur. Check him out on www.stevehackett.com

 

 

 

 

Rt Hon Alan Arthur Johnson MP (Born 17th May,1950):-

Didn't have the best start in life after his father left home in Notting Hill when he was eight and his mother died four years later, leaving his elder sister, Linda, to raise him in Battersea despite efforts by the authorities to have him fostered. His first school was Wornington Road Infants School in North Kensington and then Bevington Road Primary School, Notting Hill, where he remembers one of the teachers, who he refuses to name, as being particularly sadistic because he used to cane him across the upended wrist and "it hurt like hell!"

 

A young Alan Johnson

 

About Sloane he says, 

"the best thing about Sloane was its location on the King's Road, with swinging London on its doorstep."  He left Sloane out of necessity at fifteen, with no qualifications, and work included stacking shelves at Victor Value's supermarket in Richmond. He says he had told the teachers at Sloane that he was going to be a pop star when he knew he was about to become a postal clerk at Remington Shavers. He was quoted as saying that

"It's fair to say that neither Sloane nor I were sad at the parting of the ways."

However, looking back, he regretted not getting his 'O' levels and going on to university but also said

"I was lucky in one respect at least. I had a teacher - Peter Carlen, who taught English - who I idolised. He was very much a creature of his time, with his long hair and corduroy jacket, but undoubtedly helped make the person I am today. I was always interested in books but he gave purpose and shape to my reading. He drew up a list of books I should read and started his own side-library for his pupils. He even gave me money for books and I remember cycling down the Kings Road to buy Orwell's Keep The Aspidistra Flying.  If you can give a kid that 'reading bug', no mater what their social class or ethnicity, there's no doubt in my mind that they'll lead a more fulfilling life. For that alone, I will always be grateful."

After his first marriage in 1968 he became a postman and they moved to Slough. That marriage produced a son and two daughters, one of whom died at the age of 30, from a blood disorder. He has been MP for Kingston-upon-Hull West and Hessle since 1997. Became Home Secretary on June 5th, 2009 but lost his position after Labour's defeat in the May 6th, 2010 General Election, although he did retain his seat. In opposition, he became Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer and openly admitted his limited knowledge of what was required after answering -

"Pick up a primer of economics for beginners."

when asked what his first act would be. On January, 20th, 2011, he surprised everyone when he announced his resignation from the shadow post, citing "personal family" reasons.

He had previously been Secretary of State for Health, Secretary of State for the Department of Work and Pensions, Secretary of State for Education and Skills and Secretary of State for the Department of Trade and Industry. Has also been Minister of State for Lifelong Learning, Further and Higher Education and Minister of State for Employment Relations and Regions. In 1992 he became the youngest General Secretary in the history of the Union of Communication Workers.

An article in The Times of September 22nd, 2006 gives additional information about Alan Johnson. It speaks of him as a " mod, guitarist and habitue of The Marquee club in Wardour Street ". Alan, himself, says he and school friends at Sloane

"cut six inch vents into our school blazers and used to pose in the Kings Road."

He had started playing a Tommy Steele plastic guitar at the age of 8 and by the age of 10 had graduated to a Spanish acoustic, which he played while doing three-part harmonies with his sister, Linda, to Everly Brothers songs. Alan says he wrote his first song, Fed Up, when he was about nine. By 1966 he was wearing " fishtail parka, Ben Sherman shirt, Beatle boots and a thin tie " as he played a Sunburst Red, Hofner, Very Thin rhythm guitar and sang backing vocals with a band called The Vampires, later renamed The Area, mainly at a weekly gigs in The Pavilion, a pub opposite Wormwood Scrubs, and also at the Fourth Feathers Youth Club, off the Edgware Road. The biggest gig they ever did was Aylesbury College. Other group members were Danny Curtis, Tony Curtis, Ian Clark and Andrew Wiltshire on drums. Believing he was destined for stardom, he had joined the band after answering an advertisement in Melody Maker but the group's existence was short-lived as it disbanded when its kit was stolen shortly after cutting  20 copies of their one and only single, Hard Life, in Denmark Street's Regent Sound studio, in 1967.  They had the studio for an hour and the 'A' side took 50 minutes of that to record, leaving 10 minutes for the 'B' side, I Have Seen, written by Alan. I hope he won't sue me for reprinting the words below and that it doesn't embarrass him too much . He says it was about "suddenly realising that this woman, this love interest, wasn't the woman for me". At the time, Alan admits, the group had at least two fans; Yvonne Tozer (nee Stacey and now wife of Classmate Mick Tozer) was one of them. -

I Have Seen by Alan Johnson

I've been walking round with my eyes closed,
Preferred to see the things I liked the most,
But a thunderbolt has just flashed past my eyes,
Suddenly, suddenly I'm wise.

CHORUS
I have seen
It's all so clear
I'm looking where I have been
It's rather queer but
I have seen
And I don't like it at all.

Two and two was four that's all I knew,
Rearrange the score and four and four are two,
I've come down to earth and I don't want to stay,
Mister, mister, please take me away.

CHORUS

All my life talking just realised that I've been walking in a crowded dream,
Preferred to take things as they seem, oh, oh but now,
Recently decided, quit the law that I abided,took a long hard look,
One look was all it took, oh, oh and now.

CHORUS

Please don't look at me with those pleading eyes,
Looking through I've just seen your disguise,
The game is up I'm in a longer dream,
It breaks my heart but darling I have seen.

Phil Manzanera, of Roxy Music fame, listened to the record in 2010 on Alan's BBC Radio Four programme 'Alan Johnson:Failed Rock Star' and commented, "That's incredible for 16", the age Alan was when it was recorded. The Area was eventually killed off after a spate of thefts of the group's equipment. Alan had his Vox guitar stolen from the flat he shared with his sister on the Wilberforce Estate in Battersea and then most of the band's equipment was stolen from the Fourth Feathers Youth Club. Fortunately for him, Alan had enough equipment remaining to join another band, the multi-racial In-betweens, who played a regular slot in a pub in Islington, North London but, after yet another theft, they too disbanded, with Alan thinking he would always return to music. As we know, he never did, and finds solace in his record collection that includes everything Elvis Costello has ever done. He also enjoys Ryan Adams and what he calls 'folksie stuff'.  

One contemporary at Sloane is quoted as saying he was " Gobsmacked to find him on the front benches ". The contemporary is not named though Steve Hackett ( Genesis etc; ) is quoted as saying he found Johnson, "quiet and studious", Phil Yerby, who left Sloane in 1966, remembered him as a " very quiet, thoughtful, often funny individual ", who " played guitar quite well and even wrote a few songs " and another contemporary, Paul Swinson, says they were encouraged by the music teacher, Reginald " Dolly " Harris, who let them practise in the music room where they " found a way to link the acoustic guitars into the record player and link that up to the speakers around the main hall to get a tremendous acoustic effect ". His ex-wife, Judith, says in a a Daily Mail article, "When he says he's going to do something, he always does it", and describes him as "very highly motivated" (though he himself has said he has never been motivated by personal ambition) and forever regretting his "lost opportunities". She also says that he was undoubtedly inspired by his mother's work ethic and that although he's been described as a "former communist" and an "old Trot", she had never seen the slightest hint of it as he had "only ever been interested in the Labour Party. Despite what his ex-wife says, in an article in the Telegraph he always said he didn't want to be Labour Party leader, seeing himself more as a Deputy Leader. His son Jamie, from his second marriage, said, " He'd rather be lead singer of Super Furry Animals than Prime Minister".

Various contemporaries have described him as being witty, eloquent, intelligent, having integrity and tremendous presence. His sister sees him as "happy with his life, genuine and patriotic". John Monks, former General Secretary of the TUC, said, "There's still a bit of the old London mod about him. A bit of flash and swagger and a very sharp wit. But he's a thoroughly nice bloke, very relaxed and genuine. Not a conspirator". However, he he also appears to be not given to modesty; as another contemporary said, "Alan would have no trouble admitting his genius under torture". An example of his 'genius' is to be found in the 1965 edition of The Cheynean:-

THE BOMB

The alive are dead,
There is no light
There is no bread,
War has ended and that has led
To the bomb.

You may hear a cry,
You may hear scream,
They'll all have to die,
No one's supreme.
Shake as you may,it isn't a dream,
It's the bomb.

The green is black
The sky is too.
They won't come back,
The world is through.
Now they've found out it was all true
About the bomb.

You can boo and jeer
At what I say,
The people here 
Booed yesterday.
But they all died when they got in the way
Of the bomb.

                  Alan Johnson 4Y

Rt Hon Alan Johnson MP

 

 A quote by Alan Johnson, from 2006, that seems even more relevant today:-

"We shouldn't obsess about the super rich but the super, super poor. Too often Labour has been characterised by the politics of envy. There ought to be a moral motivation for people who earn huge bonuses to put something back into society". 

2009 saw Alan touted as the man to replace Gordon Brown if his party were to force him out of office. Despite having said in the past that he didn't think he was up to the job and pledging his support to Gordon, we wouldn't have expected him to do anything less and on June 6th he took one step closer when he was appointed Home Secretary, a position he said he was "pleased and privileged" to accept. Spookily, should the question ever have arisen, he was in a position to pardon the next man on this list; a situation that prompted this cartoon from Classmate Stefan Bremner-Morris -

 

 

On a personal level, I've always found Alan's public image to be that of someone you wouldn't mind being your mate. Unfortunately, as a politician, he's no different from most others. He's well versed on the Party line, though, to be fair, I can't see much evidence of a man driven by personal ambition at the expense of all else. Anone's political views are for their own conscience so, rather than judge, I'll leave you with this You Tube link that will lead you to many Alan Johnson videos -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbnaryEh2y0

 

Robert Knapp:-

Currently serving life at Her Majesty's Pleasure after being found guilty of the contract killing of Mohammed Raja who had been stabbed and shot at his home in Sutton, Surrey. Nicholas van Hoogstraten had, allegedly, hired Knapp and David Croke to murder Mr Raja after the two of them fell out over property deals and Mr Raja launched a High Court action against Mr van Hoogstraten and labelled him a fraudster. Knapp had quite a reputation among his peers at school but Peter Pallai, who taught him History, found him "likeable,intelligent and no trouble at all". Van Hoogstraten was found "not guilty" of murder in 2002 but sentenced to 10 years in prison for manslaughter, a verdict later quashed due to there being no foundation for a manslaughter case as there was no proof beyond reasonable doubt. Mr Raja's family won a civil action against van Hoogstraten in 2005 and were awarded £6 million after the court decided that the balance of probabilities was that "the recruitment of the two thugs was for the purpose of murdering Mr Raja and not merely frightening and hurting him".

As an interesting aside, the 1962 copy of The Cheynean shows Robert Knapp as a member of the school Under 13s cricket team. Gives a whole new meaning to the word "Hitman".

 

Robert Knapp

 

Sir Frederick Frank Arthur Burden (27/12/1905 - 06/07/1987):- 

Conservative Member of Parliament for Gillingham, Kent from 1950 - 1983, retiring in 1982 when he was one of the oldest sitting MPs.. First contested South Shields as a National Labour candidate in 1935 before joining the Conservatives and contesting, unsuccessfully, Finsbury in 1945 and Rotherhithe in a 1946 by-election. British schools boxing champion 1921 - 22. Served with the RAF in the Second World War, first with a Polish unit then with Eastern Air Command, and later at South East Asia Command on Lord Mountbatten's staff, attaining the rank of Squadron Leader. Became Director of British Eagle International Airlines and of other companies and was chairman of the Parliamentary Animal Welfare Group.

Donald James Wheal (1931 - 2008):- (Name remembered by Brian Haynes)
 

Don at Sloane

 

Prolific author and TV writer especially under the pen name Donald James. Born in Chelsea's World's End but the family moved to White City after their home was destroyed by German bombing in the Second World War. Both areas featured in his books recalling his life there, World's End (2005) and White City (2007). Apparently obsessed with self-improvement and the history and politics of Post War Europe, his father arranged for him to travel to France in 1946. National Service eventually led to a commission and a spell as an intelligence Officer in Trieste. He then joined the Parachute Regiment before moving on to read History at Pembroke College, Cambridge. The 1960s saw him writing scripts for many TV shows including The Avengers, Space:1999, Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) and Mission: Impossible.

He was also co-author of the classic reference work, The Penguin Dictionary of the Third Reich and under the name Donald James wrote the bestselling novel The Fall of the Russian Empire (1982) and three thrillers, Monstrum, The Fortune Teller and Vadim between 1996 - 2000. Inspector Constantin Vadim being his greatest fictional creation, he credits Ted Simon (see entry below on this page) with the inspiration for it in his book World's End. Ted's mother had a large collection of books that sparked Don's lifelong interest in Russia and among them was Alexi Tolstoy's Road to Calvary which was to become the source of the Vadim stories. Don also wrote novels under the pseudonyms James Barwick and Thomas Dresden.

A self-effacing man who never spoke of his own achievements but was extremely moved by letters he received from childhood friends after the publication of  World's End. He was School Captain in his final years at Sloane, one of the few to hold the position twice (1949-50 &  and 1950-51), and is remembered by his contemporaries as a lovely man. Before Sloane, he attended St Mark's Elementary School in the grounds next to Sloane. Here, Don writes,  the

'grimy octagonal building (that remains today) contained, as far as I can recall, two junior classrooms downstairs and a senior classroom occupying the whole of the upper floor'.

At the time, boys who passed their 11+ there moved on to Sloane and the girls moved on to Carlyle. Don failed his 11+ and seemed destined to remain  at St Mark's until the age of 14 when, as his book World's End tells us, the pupils were

'released from school to become shop-assistants or errand boys, apprentice tradesmen or Watney's Brewery girls'.

The Second World War, to a degree, and Don's father, changed Don's destiny. His father learned that Sloane would take a few boys who hadn't passed their 11+, if they thought they were suitable, but you had to pay. The cost was £24 per year and Don's father had put some money aside for the purpose. An appointment was made with Sloane's (operating as the West London Emergency Secondary School for Boys at the time due to the War) Headmaster, the Reverend John Kingsford (see the Origins & History page). Don recalls the occasion -

'Once seated in his huge leather armchair, Reverend Kingsford seemed barely awake. He glanced at the letter Miss Perkins (the Elementary School teacher) had written, curled his lip as he flicked it aside and nodded his long chin terrifyingly in my direction. I was in'.

After gaining 'A' level (or Higher School Certificate as it was then called) passes in spoken French (Grade A), along with three Bs and a C, and with much help from Leslie Berkeley who pressured Guy Boas into supporting Don's application, Don moved on to study for his degree in History at Pembroke College, Cambridge, a period he seems to have intended as the subject for the third part of his biographical trilogy, but sadly, a book he was not to live long enough to complete.

John East, a Classmate on this website, is Don's cousin, and he and his family lived in the vicarage at Braywood, where Don and his family went to stay after the Germans had bombed them out of their home in Chelsea.

Take a look at The Cheynean page for some of his school work that was included in the magazine.

 

 

Don Wheal aged 9 or 10 from his book World's End	Don Wheal

 

Bernard Joseph Archard (20/08/1916 - 01/05/2008):- 

Born in Fulham, London, where his parents were mayor and mayoress, this tall, distinguished actor with a most recognisable face, made almost a hundred film and television appearances between 1957 - 1993 when his final part was in the ITV soap, Emmerdale. Often seen playing either a policeman, a vicar or a doctor in films such as Village of the Dammed (1960) , The List of Adrian Messenger (1963), The Day of the Jackal (1976), Dad's Army (1971), Krull (1983) as well as several Edgar Wallace 'B' movies and also in TV series such as No Hiding Place, Dixon of Dock Green, Danger Man, Callan, The Avengers, Dr Who, Crown Court, Z-Cars and, probably most famously, as Lt Colonel Oreste Pinto in 24 episodes of Spy-Catcher, between 1959 - 1961. He lost his Fulham accent when he won a Rada scholarship upon leaving school(1938-39), at which time the outbreak of war saw him sent to work on the land after declaring himself a conscientious objector. Working at the Edinburgh Festival in 1948 he met his lifelong partner, fellow actor James Belchamber and with him ran a touring repertory company in the mid 1950s, based in Torquay. The two of them also collaborated on the book and lyrics for the musical, Our Jack. He was most proud of his role as a magistrate in Terence Rattigan's West End success Cause Celebre in 1977, but less proud of having appeared in Peter O'Toole's Macbeth flop of 1980, in which he played Duncan, having also appeared as Angus in Roman Polanski's film version of the same play.

He attributed his being frequently typecast as a Police Inspector to TV producers having "suddenly thought they had found someone who could ask the questions properly" and could never fathom how his Spy-Catcher appearances had brought him "two direct offers of marriage and about a dozen oblique ones".

He returned to the school to present the prizes in 1960, when he said that he had realised early on, whilst appearing in Sloane School plays, that he wanted to be an actor. The parts he had played included Antony's servant in Julius Caesar, when a review said he "spoke his few lines as Shakespeare would have liked to hear them spoken", Lady Percy in Henry IV Part II, The Queen in Hamlet, Goneril in King Lear, Ferdinand in The Tempest and Oberon in A Midsummer Night's Dream.

After retiring in his early 80s, he lived with his partner in Witham Friary, Somerset, where he died at the age of 91 and was then cremated at St John's Crematorium, Woking.

Bernard Archard

 

Mike Tomkys:-  (Born Kensington, London, 1933) (Name provided by Brian Haynes) 

At Sloane he became Captain of Athletics in 1950 and later played football, usually on either wing, for Queens Park Rangers between 1951-59 although the programme below, showing his photo, has him at centre forward against Gillingham in 1953. He scored 16 goals in 86 appearances.He was an amateur who joined QPR from Fulham and went on to play for Yiewsley and Margate. In 1951 he became the first player to be selected for any Youth International side whilst still at school, when he was picked for the England Youth XI.

 

Mike Tomkys 3rd from right in middle row in a charity team that included Ferenc Puskas (front row)

 

Mike Beevor:- (Name remembered by Gary Needham)

A talented school runner who represented England in the 1960s and 1970s and was a medallist at the IAAF World Cross Country Championships. Excelled at distances between 800metres to 10,000 metres and some of his times are still among the best recorded by an athlete for Hercules Wimbledon Athletic Club. A photgraph of Mike, along with other members of the Sloane Cross Country Team, appears courtesy of John O'Brien, on the Sloane Photos Slideshow.

Terry Fullerton:- (Name remembered by Kinley Davies)

Terry Fullerton is still an icon to many in the world of Karting. Widely considered one of the greatest kart racers of all time, Terry' brother was killed in a motor bike accident when he was only 11 and it was partly due to his brother's memory that Terry was spurred on to greatness. With the 1970s being the peak of his career, he claimed Ayrton Senna among those he defeated, having been Senna's team mate between 1978 - 1980. Senna, never a man to take defeat graciously, repaid the compliment by pushing Terry into a pool but, shortly before his death in 1994, said that Fullerton was the best he'd ever raced against, including F1 drivers. Terry appeared in the 2011 documentary film about Ayrton Senna entitled simply 'Senna'.

Terry was Britain's first ever Junior Champion, a title he took an unprecedented three consecutive times, as well as becoming Senior Champion in 1971, 1973, 1975, 1978 and 1980, also the year he retired after the World Championships where he finished third. His greatest racing feat was becoming World Champion in 1973 but he is remembered amongst his school contemporaries for the TV advert that earned him the nickname "The Weetabix Kid".

After retiring from competitive racing, he established his own kart manufacturing company and coached kids. He lives in Manilla now, where he still coaches, and in 2008 appeared in the inaugural Over 40s Grand Prix, in Australia.

 

See also the Shared Memories page.

 

                            

Terry (8) & his brother Mick (10) c1963	Terry Fullerton in the 21st Century

                                  

     

Stephen Greif (Born 26/08/1944, Sawbridgeworth, Herts):-

 

A recognisable character actor who first appeared on TV in 1970 as Edward II in the "Earl of Pembroke". Probably best known for his role as Travis in the cult TV series "Blakes 7" in the 70s but has made one-off appearances in countless others as well as eleven episodes of "Citizen Smith" with Robert Lindsay in the late 70s. At Sloane he excelled at sport, becoming Athletics and Swimming Champion in his time and representing both school and county at athletics. Became an actor quite late on after working in an estate agents and an electronics manufacturing company. He was awarded and Honours Diploma at RADA and has won a number of acting awards. Has appeared in many seasons with the National Theatre and is still acting today, most recently on TV in "Spooks", and his voice is often used for TV and Radio commercials and narrations. A system for describing voices and used primarily by actors and actresses, "Voice Quality", was founded by him, he is a member of MENSA and Arthur Miller, no less, was his first sponsor for working in the USA.

 

 

 

 

Bill Kimber and The Couriers:- ( Remembered by Stefan Bremner-Morris)

This group, formed in the 1960s, included two Sloane old boys, Bill Kimber on rhythm guitar and vocals and Alan Turner on drums.

Bill Kimber	Allan Turner

 

Bill Kimber at Sloane

 

Others in the line-up were Richard Laws - vocals and lead guitar, Peter Fairweather - vocals and bass guitar and Barry Ashby who joined in 1965 as a vocalist. They didn't chart in this country with songs that included covers of the Swinging Blue Jeans' Hippy Hippy Shake and the Beatles' I Want To Hold Your Hand, but became massive in South Africa. Their South African recordings, Shakin' Up A Storm and Swinging Fashion, are very collectable and fetch £100+ each in mint condition and their 1968 Parlophone recording, Kilburn Towers/Goodbye, whilst not as valuable is still a collector's item. Bill Kimber also recorded as a solo artist as William E Kimber and two of his albums, William Kimber and Art of William Kimber are also sought after by collectors. A South African website remembers them, in 1964, as one of the hottest "new wave" groups in the business and says they're a "talented group of London boys (they're all under twenty) who are being launched into the pop world of music in an unusual way- they're getting their big kick-off in South Africa."

Their promotion included, in the style of Beatles' films of the era, a 90 minute film, made in South Africa, that showed them touring the country. David Hemmings was also in this film as were Brian Poole and The Tremeloes whom the group were later to tour England with. This film, described at the time as 'a musical comedy in English' and the 'most unusual film ever made in South Africa', included over twenty songs, mainly standards like Long Tall Sally and I Got My Mojo Working, to make up for the lack of plot, no logical sequence of events and the fact that the screenply was written as they went along. The group were described as 'specialists in the Mersey beat, the contemporary folk music which was originally popularised by The Beatles. The music is characterised by an accented beat, vocals which are screamed rather than sung, and electric guitars tuned and amplified to an excruciating pitch."

As a group, The Couriers owed their existence to Johannesburg-born Frank Fenter and it was he who arranged for them to go to South Africa to make what was that country's first English language musical. They don't seem to have achieved the 'lucrative career' that was predicted for them.

Bill Kimber and The Couriers

 

Almost as if he knew the direction he wanted to go in, he sang to his own guitar accompaniment at a school Christmas Dance on December 14th, 1962 and the following poem, attributed to W E Kimber Class 4a, is from a 1960 copy of The Cheynean and was sent in by Stefan Bremner-Morris:-

 

Tony Allan (22/09/1949 - 09/07/2004):-

Tony was born in Westminster, London and it was there that his funeral service was to take place, at Westminster Cathedral, fifty four years later,before cremation at Mortlake. He had become a highly respected broadcaster with a rich radio voice, a great knowledge of music and a considerable intellect, who had remained loyal to pirate radio's Radio Caroline when others had defected to mainstream radio. He left school aged 16 and, literally, ran away to sea joining pirate Radio Scotland in 1966, after being initially rejected by Radio Caroline for being 'too young', and later North Sea International and the Voice of Peace, off the coast of Israel. Radio Caroline had been his true home and, despite being rejected as a DJ he first worked for them doing odd jobs and was still working for them until shortly before his death from throat cancer. His loyalty to Caroline meant he never achieved the widespread acclaim he deserved but his listening public loved him, and his colleagues loved and respected him for his presenting and production talents. Work as a TV continuity announcer for Grampian, London Weekend and Granada followed the closure of Radio Scotland in 1967 but he went back to sea with Radio Northsea International in 1970 but that station's life at sea was short-lived and in his time with them he joined, left, re-joined and left again in quick succession. His ambition to join Caroline came to fruition when he joined them in 1973, working from the Mi Amigo off the Dutch coast but only for an initial six weeks before signing up for the Voice of Peace project when, through fund-raising efforts, the founder amassed £29,000 in the Benelux countries and gained the donation of a ship by the Dutch Council of Churches. Tony's time with them lasted until late 1973 when he re-joined Caroline, now called Radio Seagull and also worked in Dutch clubs. Shortly after Seagull became known as Caroline again in 1974 the ship was forced to raise anchor and return to Britain after the Dutch outlawed offshore radio. The only time he presented programmes on legitimate radio was during his brief spell with Radio Forth in 1975. He never stayed long in one place and between 1975 and 1978 he alternated between Caroline and the Voice of Peace during which time Caroline, famously, had to be abandoned to the elements. When it reopened, yet again, at Easter in 1979, Tony's voice was the firast to be heard, pointedly inroducing Chris Rea's Fool If YouThink It's Over. August 1979 saw Tony leaving Caroline for the last time when he settled in Ireland and where much of the success of Radio Nova was down to his dedication, talent and professionalism.

Tony was immensely proud of probably being the first openly gay broadcaster and spent his final years in Camden, London, fighting the cancer that had been diagnosed many years before. Despite frequently being in great pain he continued to live life to the full and joined those of us who made the reunion at The Fox and Pheasant in 2002, without, I believe, any of us knowing his situation and the majority being unaware of what he actually did for a living, which, I think, says a lot about the person he was.

Tony Allan in the Radio Caroline studio

 

George Innes (08/03/1938 - the present day):- (Remembered by Peter Tipping)

Born in Wapping, London, this recognisable actor was not remembered as being involved in School plays by Peter Tipping (see Classmates on this website) but has been appearing on TV and in films since 1963, when his first film credit was Billy Liar. Described as a "scowling British character actor" his credits since have included The Italian Job, Morons From Outer Space, Quadrophenia, Last Orders, Master and Commander: The Far Side Of The World and, more recently in 2007, Stardust and Elizabeth: The Golden Age. On TV he has done the rounds of most of the well-known series including Callan, The Avengers, Budgie, The Sweeney, The Good Life, Magnum P.I. Hill Street Blues and MASH as well as five appearances as Alfred the butler in Upstairs Downstairs in the 70s.

 

 

 George Innes in Open All Hours

 

Harry Turner (1935 - the present day):-

Born in Fulham, Harry joined Sloane in the late 1940s and has over thirty five short stories in print as well as two books of military poetry and the autobiographical Growing Up In Fulham, which includes memories of his time at Sloane, under the headmastership of Guy Boas and some of the other teachers of the time. He was a Director of ITN News from 1987-1992 and Managing Director of Television South West from 1985-1992. One of his school pieces appears in a copy of The Cheynean, which you'll find on The Cheynean page. 

 

Harry Turner at Sloane

Stanley Slaughter:-

Stanley deserves a mention here. Still living in Fulham, he now operates as a freelance travel writer and photographer but for most of his working life had been a journalist on a number of national newspapers. He currently edits Air and Business Travel News as well as continuing to write travel books and articles. He has also been Features and Travel Editor for the Birmingham Post and was responsible for setting up the Teletext travel section in 1992, which he wrote and ran for five years.

 

 

Stanley Slaughter

 

John Denis Fraser MP (30/06/1934 - the present day):- (discovered by Stefan Bremner-Morris)

Born in Lambeth and educated at Sloane in the late 1940s. Studied at the Law Society College of Law and became a solicitor. Served as a councillor on Lambeth Borough Council, 1962-65. He was a founder member of the Co-operative (Housing) Development Society and became Labour MP for Norwood, London in 1966, a position he held until retirement in 1997. During his time with Labour he served under James Callaghan as Under Secretary of State for Employment from 1974-76 and Minister of State at the Department of Prices and Consumer Protection from 1976-79. He was also active in support of prisoners held in Greece under the Colonels' Regime. 

A devout Roman Catholic and enthusiastic runner, he still runs with the Dulwich Running Club and enjoys cooking and playing the piano.

 John Denis Fraser MP

 

Tom Angus (23/11/1934 - 14/05/1988):-

Tom played seven times for Middlesex Cricket Club's First XI in a short-lived career, scoring a total of 49 runs and taking 23 wickets as a right-hand, fast-medium bowler, at an average of 15.34. The 1956 copy of The Cheynean shows him as playing his first game in that year.

He had left Sloane in 1953 and joined the M.C.C. ground staff in 1956, playing for their 'A' team. Playing for them against West Herts, at Watford on June 19th, 1956, he took all ten wickets for 24 runs in 15 overs, six of which were clean bowled.

Zulfikar (Zulfiqar) Ghose (13/03/1935 - the present day):- (Remembered by Frank Wilmot)

A prolific writer of prose and poetry from his early teens who, as Frank Wilmot pointed out to me, had shown his ability with contributions to The Cheynean during his time at Sloane in the 1950s. Some of them can be found in the copies of The Cheynean to be found on the School Magazines page of this website. He couldn't have been at the school for long as he would have been 16 or 17 when his father brought the family to London from Bombay in 1952. Zulfikar had been born in Sialkot in 1935, in what was once India but had become part of Pakistan after partitioning in 1947 and the family had moved to Bombay, which remained in India, in 1942. In Bombay he was educated in the English colonial system at Don Bosco High School but on coming to London, joined Sloane whilst his father established a shop, "Maharani" in Regent Street. He graduated from Keele University in 1959 with a B.A. in English and philosophy and taught English at Ealing Mead School (1963-9) as well as spending some time as a cricket correspondent for the Observer (1960-65). Moving to Austin, Texas, in 1969 he became English professor at the University of Texas.

His first novel, The Contradictions, was published in1966, having written short stories (Staement Against Corpses, 1964) and poetry (The Loss of India collection, 1964) as well as an autobiography, Confessions of a Native-Alien (1965), prior to that.

In his seventies, although still writing, he found it increasingly difficult to get his new work published with 1998's Veronica and the Gongora Passion: Stories, Fiction, Tales and one Fable, seemingly his last to be so. His last novel, The Triple Mirrors of the Self (1992) had, he admits, been "a complete flop" and had not even been reviewed. His British publisher told him the problem was his books were "too good" and that he didn't write "badly enough". However, another collection of his short stories and one of essays was due for publication in 2008 and he insists he has not become disenchanted with publishing despite his agent telling him, "If you were a 27 year-old beautiful woman, I could easily sell your first novel. But for a man...writing his umpteenth novel, forget it!"

 Zulfikar Ghose

 

Laurence Edward Sebastian Cotterell (born Hendon 07/12/1917, died Bromley 26/06/2001):-

Won a London Junior County Scholarship to Sloane when he and his family were living in Peabody Buildings, Fulham. Under Guy Boas he developed a love of poetry and also enjoyed boxing. He left school aged 15 and joined the Territorial Army, being sent, with the Middlesex Yeomanry, to Palestine at the outbreak of war in 1939. In Syria he took part in what he believed was the British army's last cavalry action, against the Vichy French in 1942, riding his beloved mount, Caractacus and revelling in the nickname 'The Count'. He exchnaged his horse for a dispatch rider's motorcycle, taking it from Cairo to Alamein and then through Italy to Monte Cassino, before returning home and joining the second wave of D-Day landings. It was whilst in North Africa that he wrote his first published poem, one of four that would appear in Poems from the Desert (1944) and earn him the attribution "war poet" by Siegfried Sassoon, though he had been less than impressed with Sassoon when they met whilst Sassoon was preparing the introduction for the book Poems from Italy, in which he cited Cotterell's -

So from the burning ruin of the arch
Of sheltered years, bright brands we pluck
The soul of man once more is on the march.

Words which showed his growing skill and a greater awareness of nature rooted in the Catholic faith he was later to lose after the Second Vatican Council.

He had a multifarious career as a laundry transport manager, poet, patriot, boxer, cavalry trooper, dispatch rider, book reviewer, lecturer, publicist, obituary writer for The Daily Telegraph and adviser to publishing houses and literary organisations. First and foremost, he was a bookman, having been Chairman of the Poetry Society, publicity adviser to the Royal Society of Literature, a member of the Arts Council Literary Panel and the man responsible for the massive media coverage surrounding Charlie Chaplin's autobiography in 1964.

Born in a pub in London, the son of a 12th Lancer and a 16 year-old girl he was something of a free spirit and cherished an independence that saw him become a friend to the Kray twins, in whose company his rugged features, broken nose and square jaw, seemed to sit well. However, he also mixed with the aristocracy and militery top brass. He saw himself as  a 'principled anarchist' whilst others saw him as a 'witty raconteur', especially his fellow members at the Garrick Club, where his old headmaster, Guy Boas, had spent many happy times, and which he had joined in 1976. It seems a little strange that he harboured a mistrust of intellectuals, particularly those he suspected of being pretentious - one of the ultimate sins in his book.

Apart from his poetry, which had been received favourably by Sassoon and Vita Sackville-West, his best-known book was on war graves and was called Courage Remembered (1989).He is also remembered for convincing the chairman of W H Smith to sponsor the successful, and still existing, 'Poets in Schools' project. His death, at the age of 83, meant that he was unable to complete the recordings he had been making for the National Life Story Collection's Book Trade Lives project, at the British Library, which traced the course of his life. He became a member of the literature panel of the Arts Council, an advisor to the Royal Literary Fund, a (non-alcoholic) advisor to Alcoholics Anonymous and a valued friend to the Polish Community.

He was said to have had a 'Bashful, self-denigratory humour' that never permitted him to take his own work seriously. When Sir John Betjeman died in 1984 Gavin Ewart wrote in The Spectator -

Don't neglect Laurence Cotterell
Or even R Bottrall -
It's a race which outsiders can win...

He had married Beryl Leighton in 1946, her death preceding his by thirteen years, and they had four sons. 

Edward (Ted) Simon (born Germany 1931 - the present day):-

Starting out life in Hamburg, Germany in 1931 and attending Sloane between 1943-1949, when his family lived at Notting Hill Gate, Ted left school to study chemical engineering at Imperial College before going on to become 'the world's best known motorcycle traveller' and author of a number of books, one of which Jupiter's Travels, written in 1978, has been called 'one of the greatest pieces of travel writing'. This book tells the story of his first circumnavigation of the globe on his Triumph Tiger 100 500cc motorcycle (now on display in Coventry Transport Museum),

Ted's Triumph 100 500cc

when he set out to discover more about the world, 'warts and all'. The journey, sponsored by The Sunday Times, took four years, in which he covered 45 countries and somewhere between 64,000  and 78,000 miles. He wasn't even a motorcyclist before he started the trip - he simply wanted a cheap and exciting modeof transport. It inspired many to try the same thing, most notably actors Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman in 2004, though there journey was considerably shorter, less hazardous, and they weren't alone. Ted also did the journey again between 2001-2003 when he was age 70 at the time he started. This time he was riding a BMW R80GS and it took him three years. After this journey, which he undertook to see how the world had changed in the years since his first attempt, he wrote Dreaming of Jupiter. A 90 minute film of this journey, called Jupiters Travels was made by Manfred Waffender in 2002. Ted's travelling motto has always been "the interruptions ARE the journey" and of his second round-the-world trip he wrote,

"Without memory we are like monkeys, like apes, doomed to chaos and foolishness. I think it's probably the most important single aspect of humanity. Because without it we have nothing to make comparisons with; we can't tell stories, we can't develop our imagination. Everything depends on our ability to remember. So for me the exercise of trying to relate what I find today with what I remember from 27 years ago is a very valid exercise. I think it will illuminate something."

Despite flirting with chemical engineering, he moved to Paris and embarked on a journalistic career with the Continental Daily Mail. Ten years in Fleet Street followed after his work on Scramble, a magazine for RAF recruits he had set up whilst back home in England doing National Service, had been noted. He rose to become Features Editor on the Daily Sketch but left in 1964 to set up men's magazine, King. Three years later he moved to France, doing work on various publications before writing his first book, The Chequered Year, an account of the 1970 Formula One season.

His other works include The River Stops Here, Riding High and The Gypsy In Me, an account of his 1,500 mile walk from his mother's birthplace in Hamburg, through Germany, Poland, Russia, Ukraine and Romania, which, as the book is subtitled, is 'In Search of Youth, Truth and Dad', his father having been Romanian.

He moved to California in 1980 and still lives there in Covelo, a tiny town off Highway 101 but journeys out to give talks on his experiences and is still writing.

He had a lasting friendship with Donald James Wheal and, in his book World's End, Don recalls the day after February 23rd, 1944 - that fateful night when bombs took their toll on Don's friends in Guinness Trust Buildings - when he was surveying the damage and saw Ted Simon coming towards him, unaware that the school was closed because of what had occurred the night before, carrying a ' badly bent cage with a canary still fluttering inside it."

Don also recalls Ted's mother -

' His mother was, to me, an exotic figure, a dedicated Communist but also, perhaps more interestingly at that time, a German. Ted was born in Hamburg. They lived in Notting Hill Gate, a 31 bus ride away. Books lined the walls in a room painted predominantly deep red. They were books in which the names Stalin and Lenin appeared frequently in the titles. In fact, it was from these shelves, a few years later, that I acquired the book that sparked my lifelong interest in Russia, Alexi Tolstoy's Road to Calvary, also the source of the three Vadim novels I wrote. I have Ted Simon to thank for it.'

Ted's mother may have influenced his political leanings and, in White City, Don Wheal writes that Ted was,

"one of those who had consciously begun to think about our post-war political direction. Ted was a signed-up member of the Young Communist League" who,

"put himself forward as the Communist candidate in a mock-election held at the school. Ted's speech was remarkable. It was by far the best prepared of the three (candidates). He stood at the lectern in the school hall, dark-eyed and intense, his great mop of black hair untamed. He was offering an entire world view: at its heart, revolutionary policies of immediate nationalism at home, the abolition of the monarchy and the public schools, and abroad, realignment with the Soviet Union rather than the United States. For Ted it was a landslide victory. He was duly elected Communist Member of Parliament for Sloane School, World's End, Chelsea."

Ted had urged Don to join him in the Young Communist League but

"Not as a Communist, he cleverly argued. Simply as a sympathetic searcher after truth."

But, by the late 40s -

"Ted no longer proclaimed himself a Communist in so open a manner and kept his mother's allegiance to the Party from anybody who didn't already know."

In 'A' level Chemistry Ted gained an 'A' grade. The only full subject 'A' that year   

 

  Three of Ted Simon

John Bryning (born London, 11/10/1913, died Warminster, 1/3/ 1998):-

He was renowned for his acting at Sloane to such an extent that the Evening News theatre critic said, after his perfromance in 1933's Hamlet, "He would be mad not to go on the stage." He duly did, and, whilst not achieving the greatness many thought he would achieve, became a fine actor. As well as appearing on stage in the West End of London, he became a film and television actor and also lent his voice to BBC radio programmes such as Paul Temple in the 1950's and The Hobbit in 1989. On film he is best remembered for playing Rembrandt's Son, Titus van Rijn, alongside Charles Laughton, in the 1936 film of the same name.

REMBRANDT with JOHN BRYNING as Titus von Rijn

 

His only other film appearances were as Sentinel, in 1945's Caesar and Cleopatra, and in 1939's Flying fifty-Five. Television work included No Hiding Place, Crane, Softly, Softly and his final role in 1972's The Regiment.

Cyril Aldred (Born Fulham,London, 23/06/1914, died Edinburgh, 19/02/1991):-

He left Sloane in the mid-1920s to study English at King's College, London, followed by Ar History at the Courtauld Institute of Art. The direction of his career was determined after a meeting with archaeologist Howard Carter, the discoverer of Tutankhamen's tomb, in 1933. After graduating from the Courtauld in 1936, he became an assistant curator, in charge of the Egyptian collection, at the Royal Scottish Museum, and worked there for the rest of his professional life. The Cheynean of December 1949, says that the publication of his book, Old Kingdom Art in Ancient Egypt, was only to be expected given Sloane's 'strong literary associations.' He presented a signed copy of this book to the School Library and further volumes followed in 1950 and 1952. He took a year away from Edinburgh in 1955 to work in the Egyptian art department of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York, where he helped identify and catalogue a number of previously overlooked articles that had been in storage. 1961 saw him promoted to Keeper of Art and Archaeology at the Royal Scottish Museum, a post he held until retirement in 1974.

He wrote a number of other works on his specialist subject and also the 1973 catalogue for the Brooklyn Museum exhibition, Akhenaten and Nefertiti. Guy Boas and Shakespeare must have had their effect on him too, as, in 1935, he wrote notes to accompany an edition of A Midsummer Night's Dream. He continued to write after retirement, until dying peacefully, in his sleep, in Edinburgh in 1991. To this day he is remembered as one of the leading characters in improving archaeology in Scotland, at the Burrell Collection in Glasgow.

 Cyril Aldred in 1969

 

Frank Branston (Born Retford, Nottinghamshire, 09/05/1939, died 14/08/2009 in Papworth Hospital):-

He left Sloane in 1955, where the 1954 copy of the School List shows him as being in Mr Robert Pitman's Form Vb, age 16. Robert Pitman taught English at Sloane and went on to work for the Daily Express.

Although born in Retford, Nottinghamshire, Frank was brought up in Chelsea and went on to become an author, politician, journalist and newspaper owner.

Began his journalistic career with the Sunday Express where he became known as "the most sarcastic office boy in Fleet Street. After stints with The Richmond and Twickenham Times, The People, and the Fleet Street News Agency, he joined The Bedfordshire Times as an investigative reporter, becoming the first weekly paper journalist to be named Provincial Journalist of the Year, at the IPC National Press Awards, in 1974. 

In 1977 he launched free paper Bedfordshire on Sunday with £9,000 capital and a £5,000 bank loan. Considered an abrasive, impatient, no-nonsense proprietor, Bedford Borough Council sued the paper for libel in 1999 and won the case on appeal, costing Frank £2 million. He sold his Local Sunday Newspapers Group in 2005, by which time it had become highly profitable and had a circulation of 350,000.

After campaigning for the establishment of a mayoral system in Bedford, he accepted an invitation to stand as an independent candidate for the post and duly became their first elected mayor. He was re-elected in 2007. His paltform was always based on encouraging investment in the town and on focusing on getting things done, rather than on party politics, although he had at one time been a member of the Labour Party in the 1970s.

He was the author of two novels, An Up and Coming Man (1977) and Sergeant Ritchie's Conscience (1978) as well as contributing to Frederick Forsyth's The Dogs of War in 1974. 

Frank died two weeks after after a four-hour operation in Cambridge, having suffered an aortic dissection. He is survived by his wife Marlies and two daughters. 

Frank Branston

 

Philip Linklater (Born 1885, died 18/08/1950, Chiswick, London):- 

Philip Linklater taught French at Sloane from 1920 until his retirement in 1950, and was described by one School Inspector as "probably the best school-teacher of French in London." Sadly, his retirement was short-lived as the ill-health which had dogged him in his final months, led to his death a few months after he retired. He deserves his place among the Famous and Infamous of Sloane due to the phenomenal success of his French Dictionary, Mon Premier Dictionnaire, published in 1949. In The Cheynean of December, 1949, Mr Bailey reviews the book and speaks of it selling in its thousands at a cost of 7/6d, and in the July 1950 copy of The Cheynean, speaking of Mr Linlater's retirement, Guy Boas writes, " The recent publication of his Dictionnaire will leave us after he has gone a happy memorial of the art and wit of his instruction." Not even Guy could have known how quickly that would become true. "The glory of the book according to Mr Bailey, was the pictures. He says, "Mr Linklater is indeed blessed with having the gift of art as well as tongues. This book is clearly the work of a teacher of ripe experience and undimmed vision; it is so original in conception and so thorough that in spite of its unpretentious title of 'schoolbook' it has a quality of genius." The editors of The Cheynean of December, 1949, humorously write, "Larousse has encountered a devastating rival: Larousse knew a great deal of French, but he had no sense of comic draughtsmanship, nor was he content with 7s. 6d."

Mr Linklater was, what Guy Boas called, Second Master at the school for the last twelve years of his life, during which time, Guy said, the "charm and  benevolence of his personality has permeated all spheres of the School's life. He has combined in a remarkable degree the best qualities of a school master with those not always associated with the profession - width of vision, aesthetic sensibility, and an exquisite sense of humour. We say farewell to a pillar of the school, a fine scholar, a brilliant wit, and - greater than all of these - a kind and good man."

Guy Boas' obituary for Mr Linklater ends,

"For him, with his lifework so nobly accomplished, the sudden end was blessed: but our hearts go out in sympathy to his devoted Wife, and to all his family. At least they have, what we may also share, the proud memory of a splendid man."

Philip Linklater

 

William Gordon East (Born Battersea, London, 19/11/1902, died 27/01/1998):-

Gordon, as he preferred to be known, was Emeritus Professor of Geography at the University of London. On leaving Sloane, he went up to Peterhouse, Cambridge, in 1921, and graduated in History in 1924. Geography, as an academic subject, had barely arrived in Cambridge at that point, and historical geography was yet to come. He stayed to do research on Central Europe, and his first book, The Union of Moldavia and Wallachia, 1859, was published in 1929. Two years later he took a Leadership at the LSE, making the transition into academic geography. The years that followed were his most highly productive and, in 1935, he published what was termed 'a milestone of scholarship', An Historical Geography of Europe. Along with his essay on England in the Eighteenth Century, the two books became the standard texts on historical geography for many years. In 1937, he completed a trilogy with The Geography Behind History.

World War II saw his expertise being commandeered for the war effort, when he served in the Ministry of Economic Warfare and the Foreign Office. Two years after the war ended he succeeded to the Chair of Geography at Birkbeck College, London, staying there until his retirement in 1970.

 

Anthony Edward Dyson (Born Paddington, London, 28/11/1928, died London, 30/07/2002):-

A E Dyson

In the words of Brian Cox, with whom he had collaborated on a series of student textbooks including the 1963 best-seller, Modern Poetry: studies in practical criticism, Tony was a "witty, brilliantly entertaining conversationalist with an extraordinary intelligence, obsessed by the great problems of religion." His obituary, by Antony Grey, in the Gay and Lesbian Humanist magazine, recalls that he was

'one of the gentlest, most compassionate and cultured men',

who had once written to Antony Grey that

'The whole 'gay world' thing was calculated to harm us as humans, and to stoke up the reaction, now there is the climate of dogma and superstition and reductionism that replaces civility'.

As a teenager he was converted to Christianity when he walked into a church by chance and listened to an emotional sermon. At Cambridge, where he had joined Pembroke College after leaving Sloane, he even took the first steps towards ordination, before losing his faith in his third year when studying for a paper called 'The English Moralists'. For the rest of his life he moved in and out of the Anglican Church, publishing a book on religion, The Fifth Dimension, in 1996, and still retained a strong belief in an eternal life where he would be reunited with the love of his life, Cliff Tucker, with whom he had lived for thirty-five years, until Cliff's death in 1993.

Tony had known he was homosexual since his teenage years at Sloane, which he had joined after winning a scolarship from Essendine Elementary School. A shy, deeply humane and compassionate man, he believed that the law regarding homosexuality, as it stood in the 1950s, needed reforming. In 1958, shortly after the Wolfenden Report had recommended that homosexual behaviour in private between consenting male adults over 21 should no longer be a criminal offence, he formed the Homosexual Law Reform Society, having long felt that the law was an insult to human dignity and democratic freedom. He wrote hundreds of letters and, at his own expense, managed to assemble a collection of distinguished signatories to his opening campaign letter, published in The Times on 7th March, 1958. Among the thirty signatures were those of J.B. Priestley, Clement Atlee, Isaiah Berlin, Trevor Huddlestone and Donald Soper. His own signature was undoubtedly the only one that would not have been known to most people; at the time he was an unknown lecturer in English at the University of Wales.

It was in the late 1950s, whilst co-operating with J.B. Priestley in the setting up of the Albany Trust to serve the needs of gay people, that he met Cliff Tucker, a BP Senior Executive and Labour Councillor. When Cliff died, the proceeds from the sale of their Hampstead house were bequeathed to Lampeter College, and there remains a Poetry Fellowship in Anthony Dyson's name there to this day.

He had already written a series of books of literary criticism when, in 1959, he started the Critical Quarterly with Brian Cox. It still survives today, and has been called "the most influential literary-critical journal in the academic field over the post-war decades." 1969 saw the publication of a pamphlet he wrote attacking the excesses of progressive education, and the Labour Party's introduction of a series of comprehensives to replace the grammar school. This, and his four other 'Black Papers', as he called them, were not in principle opposed to progressive education, only to its excesses. They criticised selction for grammar schools at the age of eleven, advocating that it should be delayed until at least thirteen.

Anyone old enough to remember him at Sloane, might recall his terrible stammer and gawky appearance, and his death, in 2002, came after a fall downstairs at his London home, before which he had been fighting leukaemia for four years.

David Caminer (Born London, 26/06/1915, died London, 19/06/2008). (Name provided by Peter Armstrong)

David Treisman, was born in London's East End, the son of a Jewish tailor who had emigrated from Lithuania. His father was killed during the First World War at one of the battles of the Marne, when David was just two years old. David took his stepfather's surname, Caminer, when his mother remarried. Educated at Sloane in the late 1920s, he passed up the chance of going to university because, as he once explained after failing to get into Cambridge, the Depression had made him too politically conscious. To him university

"seemed an irrelevance in the days of mass unemployment and hunger marches".

Instead, aged 21, he joined the J. Lyons bakery and catering company as a management trainee. Within seven years he was serving with the Green Howards in Tunisia, at El Alamein and at the Battle of Mareth, where he lost a leg and was invalided home, rejoining Lyons in 1944. Here he found the Lyons' board had taken an interest in the early computer prototypes that had emerged during the war, and David was promoted to manage the Lyons Systems Research office, where he started to earn himself a reputation not only as an organisational genius but also as a hard taskmaster who drove his staff, and himself, relentlessly.

The Lyons' board commissioned its engineers to build the world's first working computer for business use. Named LEO (Lyons Electronic Office), it was completed in 1951 and became the machine that David used to introduce software systems and concepts that transformed the way companies were to manage data. J. Lyons had been drowning in a sea of paper but David Caminer helped create a computer that automated and processed millions of daily transactions and which led the world for many years from its first business calculation on November 17th, 1951, when it evaluated costs and margins on baked goods. The first LEO machine - 16 feet long, with 7,000 valves, a storage capacity of just over 2,000 words and a memory that could only remember a mere 1,000 combinations of digits - was built in Lyons' Cadby Hall headquarters, Hammersmith, London, was applied to handle the company's payroll in February, 1954. Thanks to David's programming, at a time when the word 'programmer' didn't exist as a job title, the task of calculating an employee's pay, which had taken an experienced clerk 8 minutes, now only took 1.5 seconds. Gradually LEO handled all the repetitive work that required manual form-filling or order books, using one data entry clerk.

In 1956 Lyons went on to establish LEO Computers, manufacturing computers and selling them to other businesses. It became one of Britain's leading computer firms, but failed to beat IBM to the punch through a lack of management initiative. In 1963, when it became unable to compete with the giants of the computer industry, it was merged into English Electric and became English Electric LEO Marconi, which was later to become ICL after its merger with ICT in 1968. David had become a director of LEO Computers in 1959 and later became general sales manager of English Electric LEO Computers. He went on to become a senior executive with ICL and, whilst living in Luxembourg in the late 1970s, he ended his career as Project Director for the installation of the computer and communications system for the European Commission. He was awraded the OBE in 1980.

In retirement he wrote extensively on the history of the LEO computer and, in 2006, was awarded an honorary doctorate by Middlesex University fro his contribution to computer business applications. He was survived by his wife of 63 years, Jackie, a son and two daughters and, according to those who knew him and worked with him, was a charming man with exquisite manners and a delightful sense of humour but also a short fuse where programming standards were concerned. I doubt that anyone would hold that against him in light of his achievements.

David Caminer at J. Lyons & Co.	The first LEO Computer in situ at the Science Museum, South Kensington, London in 1965.	David Caminer with two of his books.

 

Michael Burleigh (Born 1955 - the present day). Remembered by Paul King:-

A distinguished author and historian, he was born in 1955 and grew up on the south coast near Pevensey Bay. He attended Sloane from 1966, moving on to Pimlico Comprehensive when the school closed and was amalgamated with others. In 1977 he took a first class honours degree in Medieval and Modern History at University College, London, winning the Pollard, Dolley and Sir William Mayer prizes. After a PhD in medieval history in 1982, he went on to hold posts at New College, Oxford, the London School of Economics and Cardiff, where he was Distinguished Research Professor in Modern History. Michael walked away from academia saying,

"The crap had begun to take over. I had always promised myself I would never become the kind of academic who surrounded himself with cronies. There's a lot of bitchiness and envy among academics, and I just had enough of the internal politics."

A fellow of the Royal Historical Society, he also founded the journal Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions. his best-selling books include what has been described as the 'majestical' The Third Reich: A New History, which won the 2001 Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction; Ethics and Extermination: Reflections on Nazi Genocide (1997); Blood and Rage: A Cultural History of Terrorism (2008) and Sacred Causes (2007) and Earthly Powers (2006), both of which cover the relationship between politics and religion.

He has also been instrumental in bringing history to television audiences and, in 1991, he won the British Film Institute Award for Archival Achievement for the Channel 4 documentary Selling Murder: The Killing Films of The Third Reich. In 1993 he won a Bronze Medal at the New York Film and Television Awards for Heil Herbie: The Story of the Vokswagen Beetle.

His most recent book, Moral Combat, was published in 2010 and concerns the importance of ethics in history. This work has been described by Andrew Roberts of the Sunday Telegraph as the "zenith of Michael Burleigh's career".

He is married, lives in South East London and, as he puts it, has the freedom to go to Borough market every Friday morning, to go fishing and, most of all, to write and say what he likes. His time is now divided between the 'think tank', the Hoover Institution, and writing.

Michael Burleigh

 

Richard Wilson (Born Islington, London 24/05/1953 - present day). (Name provided by Steve Christie):-

Sculptor, installation artist and musician, Richard Wilson, grew up as one of five children in Ravenscourt Park, West London. His father, Arthur, is a painter who was inspired by wave shapes during his time as a fitter in the RAF, and Richard seems to have inherited the talent.

Richard was a mediocre student at Sloane from 1964, largely because he lived for the weekends when he'd build things from balsa wood, little petrol engines and propellers that he'd buy from a Kingston model shop. He always felt more comfortable as a hands-on creative artist rather than the graphic designer he started training to be when he started a Graphic Design Foundation Course at the London College of Printing after leaving school. It was there that he realised he was actually a 'maker' and left the course half-way through, in 1971. He moved on to the Hornsey College of Art, staying until 1974 when he was awarded a First Degree Honours in Sculpture, DipAD. This was followed by a postgraduate Master of Fine Art course at Reading University from 1974 until 1976, in which year he put on his first show, 11 Pieces, at London's Oracle Press Gallery. Since then he has had over fifty exhibitions, devoted to his work, all around the world.

At the end of the 1970s he lived and worked with around 200 other artists in the quasi-commune of London's Butler's Wharf, which was a complex of semi-abandoned warehouses and is now luxury flats. Here he used two cranes to lift stuff in and out, including eight motorbikes.

Twice nominated for the Turner Prize in the 1980s, Richard's best known works include one called 20:50, which Charles Saatchi purchased and which became the only permanent installation at the Saatchi Gallery in Chelsea's King's Road. It has been called a 'contemporary masterpiece'. First exhibited at Matt's Gallery, London, in 1987, this it is actually a waist-high reservoir of specific proportions, half-filled with highly-reflective recycled sump oil which creates an illusion of the room turned upside down. Hence the title of the piece, a work that is considered to be a defining work in the genre of site-specific installation art. In the same year as this was produced Richard filled the south tower of the Tyne Bridge with his temporary installation, One Piece at a Time.

Richard Wilson and 20:50

All of Richard Wilson's work is characterised by architectural concerns with volume, illusionary spaces and auditory perception and he has said his ambitions include to be able to

"tweak or undo or change the interiors of space... in that way unsettle or break people's conceptions of space, what they think space might be".

A few years ago Richard took a taxi from the station in Liverpool to the Tate Liverpool Gallery. He conversation with the cab driver went something like this when asked what he did for a living and replying that he was a sculptor -

"Sculpture. I'll show you sculpture," the driver said. "Better than anything you'd get in London."

He drove Wilson down to Moorfileds, where an 8m diameter circle had been sliced out of a building and mounted on revolving arms.

"That's art, mate," said the cabbie. "What do you think?"

"Bloody brilliant," said Wilson. "Best thing I've ever seen."

The piece they were referring to was Richard's Turning the Place Over. He had carved it out of a derelict building to mark Liverpool's year as Capital of Culture in 2008. Whilst it has been called 'the most daring piece of public art ever commisioned in the UK', Richard says of it,

"I'm not sure what's daring about it. It's quite straightforward. It's a building turning."

Click on the arrow and turn up your volume to see the piece in action

Turning the Place Over by Richard Wilson

 

Richard Wilson is still working hard and among projects he has on the go at the moment is another involving oil that he is installing into the Red Jail in Sulaymaniyah, Iraq as well as an architectural installation, which he's named Square the Block, at the London School of Economics' New Academic Building at the corner of Kingsway and Sardinia Street. During his career he has won many awards, most notably the DAAD (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst or German Academic Exchange Service) residency in Berlin.

In 1983, Richard, Paul Burwell and Anne Bean formed the Bow Gamelan Ensemble, to create a theatrical experience that went beyong the normal definitions of music by adapting their performance to the environment and performing at novel venues such as Three Mills on the River Lea.

He currently lives in Rotherhithe, London, with his partner, Japanese film-maker and photographer, Miyako Narita, having previously lived with performance artist Silvia Ziranek with whom he had two children, Aldo and Yma. 

Richard Wilson at Sloane c1970 From L-R Richard Wilson,Sean Morris,John Carnegie,Scott Newcombe Photo provided by Sean Morris

 

Richard Wilson with 'Turning the Place Over'	'Water Table'
'Butterfly'	'Hot Dog Roll'

 

 
Sir (Oswald) Bernard Miller (Born Chelsea, London, 25/03/1904, died 23/02/2003:-

Became a retailer who devoted his working life to the John Lewis Partnership.

After leaving Sloane, Bernard, as he preferred to be called, graduated from Jesus College, Oxford with a First in Modern History and, despite passing the Civil Service Entrance Exam and having no intention of "going into commerce", joined John Lewis in 1927. After a few months selling silk in the Oxford Street store he was rescued from work he found to be "very tiring" and was recruited into the inner circle of intellectuals who were destined to help push through Spedan Lewis' radical ideas that would give staff a stake in the business his father, John, had started.

Bernard helped create the new John Lewis constitution as a member of the team that created John Lewis' modern structure by turning worker participation into reality while simultaneously building a commercially successful retqailer. He then moved on to become financial controller and then a director of the company in 1935, at which time he also qualified as a chartered secretary.

In 1950 Spedan Lewis announced that he would retire in five years , naming Bernard as his successor as Chairman, a position he duly took up in 1955. As Chairman, he oversaw dramatic expansion that saw the John Lewis Partnership increase it's turnover from £28 million in 1950 to £140 million in 1972, the year he retired. During that period John Lewis' 'partners' also increased from 12,000 to 20,000 as the Waitrose supermarket arm grew from 3 to 43 outlets.

The current Chairman of John Lewis, Sir Stuart Hampson, said of Sir Bernard Miller that he had been known for his patience and loyalty and had

"set in place the framework of sound financial and trading disciplines which have given the partnership its enduring capability".

Bernard was knighted in 1967 for 'public service' and, after retiring in 1972, having been with John Lewis for 45 years (17 as Chairman), Southampton University figured large in his activities, which also included work as a trustee of Glyndebourne Arts Trust and the Youth and Music Trust, chairmanship of the Glyndebourne Festival Society, and work as a council member of the English Stage School.

His wife, Jessica, whom he had met at John Lewis' and married in 1931, died in 1985. They had three sons.

Sir Peter Bernard Hirsch FRS (Born 16/01/1925 - present day):-


A leading figure in British minerals science who has made fundamental contributions to the application of transmission electron microscopy to metals.

After Sloane he studied at St Catharine's College, Cambridge and, in 1946 joined the Crystallography Department of the Cavendish Laboratory to work for a PhD on work hardening in metals. He subsequently carried out important work, which is still cited, on the structure of coal.

In the mid 1950s he pioneered the applpication of transmission electron microscopy to metals and developed, in detail, the the theory needed to interpret such images. 1965 saw the publication of the seminal text Electron Microscopy of Thin Crystals, which he prepared alongside Howie, Whelan, Pashley and Nicholson.

He took up the Isaac Wolfson Chair in Metallurgy at Oxford, in 1966, and held the post until retiring in 1992.

Among the many honours to come his way are his knighthood in 1975, the 1983 Wolf Foundation Prize in Physics, and his election to the Royal Society in 1963.

He is still actively working today and his current projects include -

Atomistic Calculations and Image Simulations of Structure of Thin Foil

and

The Theory of Electron Scattering in Imaging.

Sir Peter Bernard Hirsch

 

David Wechsler (Born June, 1946 - present day):-

School Lists show David as having been in the same class as Bill Kimber (see above), so he would have joined Sloane in 1957. 

He joined the London Borough of Croydon Council in 1970, spending 37 years with them before retiring in 2007. For the last 14 of those years he was Chief Executive. On retirement he was given the Freedom of the Borough in recognition of his 37 years service, and the major role he played in the re-introduction of trams to Croydon.

David Wechsler

 

Brian O'Connell (Born Earls Court, 30/09/1937 - present day:- (Name provided by Brian Haynes)

Brian at Sloane

 

 

During his time at Sloane, Bryan O'Connell was, in the words of Classmate Brian Haynes, 

" a very industrious and inventive player, leading from the front. Quietly spoken, he commanded a lot of respect from the rest of us, and was well-liked."

Whilst at Sloane, Brian Haynes remembers him captaining a couple of the school sides. He also represented West London Schools and Middlesex Youth. On leaving school, he joined Fulham FC as a professional in March, 1956, but it wasn't until December, 1958, that he made his debut against Stoke City at Inside Right, the only appearance in the first team he made that season. He was given the nickname 'Pat' and his versatility also saw him playing Ouside Left and Left Back at a time when Fulham's small squad meant they needed cover in all positions. By his own admission he was not a good 'finisher, so goals were hard to come by, but he did score 10 in the 1960-61 season and 8 a season later. In all he scored 28 times for Fulham, but never in his FA Cup appearances, which included the two semi-final matches against Burnley, in 1962. Appearances for Fulham totalled 170.

In 1966, he became one of several experienced players released by Fulham, and moved to Crystal Palace on a free transfer. A year later, he was snapped up to play in the North American Soccer League by Bobby Robson, when he took over from Ferenc Puskas as manager of Vancouver Royals. His stay with them was short-lived and, in 1969, he returned to England to play for Brentwood, in the Southern League, and reached the FA Cup 3rd Round with them in 1969-70. He later played for Dover, Wimbledon and, finally, as player-manager for Epsom and Ewell in 1973, the team he took to the Wembley Final of the first ever FA Vase, in 1975, when they were beaten 2-1 by Hoddesdon Town.

When his playing days ended in the early 1980s, 'Pat' became a London taxi driver and a coach to boys at Spencer Park School, Wandsworth until back problems forced him to quit.

Brian O'Connell	Brian 'Pat' O'Connell
Brian durng a Fulham game	Match report v Spurs from the Daily Express of April 18th, 1962
Brian, Front Row 2nd from right as Captain of the Junior XI at Sloane 1951-52	Brian, Front Row 2nd from right as Captain of the Sloane 3rd XI 1952-3

Piece on Brian O'Connell Fulham Chronicle November 3rd 1961

Brian O'Connell in the Fulham team v Man City December 26th 1960

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