Staff Notes 04 (1958-59)

WE offer our congratulations to Mr. P. H. J. H. Gosden who has had conferred upon him by London University the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

The following gentlemen joined the Staff last year, we bid them welcome.

M. P. Benielli visited us for only a year from the University of Poitiers. While he was not teaching French he acquired a knowledge of London far beyond our own, a subtle skill in the delicate art of tea-making and terrifying possibilities as a cricketer. It was rumoured that he had lodgings at the Festival Hall.

Mr. N. Bowker B.Sc. (Hons.) London, left Imperial College for several years in industry before returning to the academic fold. His abundant energy has found ample outlet in tampering with electrical gadgets throughout the school and wiring the dining-hall for Workers' Playtime. His hobbies are guitar-playing, country-dancing and driving a car of ancient lineage and rare vintage.

Mr. A. Fletcher, B.A.(Hons.) Dunelm, came to teach Latin and French and he now stands firmly with one foot in the classical camp and the other in the modern. He has a West-country calm which none can ruffle and he soon won a special niche in the affections of 4C. His only known vice is perpetual pipe-smoking.

Mr. C. M. Johns, B.Sc (Hons.) University of Wales, arrived from the craggy peaks of Cambria—via Harrow County School—to take charge of Economics. Still sufficiently virile to play rugger and cricket seriously, he tamed the school attack in the staff match; and he is fast winning fame as a poker-faced bridge player.

Mr. J. S. Kinsey, M.A. Oxon, taught at Southfield School in Oxford before coming to take charge of German in the school. A lusty oarsman at Hertford College, he should shape well as Mr. Clarke's partner in the staff front-row. His appreciation of German literature is extended to the wine of the country-ex Goethe ad hoc.

Mr. D. C. Owen, B.A.(Hons.) Oxon., from St. Edmund Hall, completes our History Triumvirate. He played rugger for his college and drives his scooter with the spirit and the zeal of a French taxi-driver. The significance of his tie with the teddy bear emblem is yet unknown; apparently it has nothing to do with picnics. In some nefarious way he has persuaded the school tuck-shop to show a profit.

Mr. D. J. Proudman, B.Sc. Hull, is yet another of Mr. Easom's enthusiastic "boffins". He was soon struggling with eight thousand St. Nicholas Fair programmes—and about six hundred programme sellers. The cancellation of the staff rugger match prevented our seeing his prowess; meanwhile he keeps fit for the next one by Spartan, all-weather cycling,

Mr. M. R Rose, L.R.A.M., A.R.C.M., G.R.S.M., we have to share with the Lower School of John Lyon; we dare not ask him which he prefers. Not content with helping the school choir and orchestra, he finds time to entertain us with his own expert piano playing and even to spin the occasional off-break of prodigious proportions.

Mr. K. Walker, B.Sc(Hons.) London, is a mathematician, and the speed of his bowling plus the style of his batting have certainly equalled all demands made upon them by a staff team rapidly approaching senility. His new car maintains the high standard of mathematical motoring in the school, but he lacks the nautical leanings of his calculating colleagues.

A.A.