DEVELOPMENT AND SCHOOL NEWS
LEGACY LUNCH WITH THE NEW HEAD
The annual 1514 Club Legacy Lunch was held on Wednesday 15 October 2025 in the welcoming setting of the Head’ s House. The event brought together members of the 1514 Club, alumni and friends who have chosen to leave a legacy to the School. Guests enjoyed drinks, met Sixth Form prefects, and shared memories over lunch provided by the School’ s catering team. welcome you as a member of the 1514 Club and acknowledge your commitment. To find out more about leaving a legacy or to let us know about your intentions, please contact the Development Office via development @ pocklingtonschool. com or 01759 321200
Every legacy, no matter the size, helps secure the School’ s future for generations to come.
The new Head, Becky Lovelock spoke about future plans for the School and the vital role of legacy support in ensuring those plans come to fruition. She commented:“ Legacy support is a deeply meaningful investment in Pocklington School’ s future, allowing past generations of OPs to directly shape the opportunities for future generations.”
Club President Tim Stephenson( 02-24) added:“ Leaving a legacy is one of the most personal and enduring ways to give back. It connects our past to our future and ensures that the values and experiences we cherished at Pocklington continue to shape lives for years to come.”
The event concluded with a display of archive materials presented by volunteer archivist David Dyson, highlighting the long tradition of generosity that continues to shape Pocklington School.
Leaving a legacy is a powerful way to make a lasting difference. It reflects a deep connection to the values and vision of the School and ensures future pupils benefit from the same rich educational experiences. If you have already pledged a legacy to Pocklington School, the School would love to hear from you so they can
ADULT BATTLEFIELD TOUR 2025
Those of us fortunate enough to take part in Paul Bennett’ s Battlefield Tour of 2025 had a deeply memorable experience, not only through observing the vast scale of the cemeteries and memorials but also by hearing the personal accounts of some of those on the tour whose antecedents had fought and died. Paul made time in the schedule for several of us to do that: Jeremy Harrison, Walter Burns( 71-78), Jonathan Shorer( 63-71), Ian Tate( 77-79), Christian Carver, Will Treasure( 74-79), Andrew Beckett( 62-69) and Paul Bennett.
Very touching too were the inscriptions on some of the tombstones. Families of the fallen were able to add a few personal words, some of which are deeply poignant and reveal the depth of grief felt by the families at home.
Our tour lasted just three days across the Channel, yet we took in almost twenty locations, cemeteries and battlefield vantage points, mostly from the First
World War but including the La Coupole Museum and the Dunkirk beaches from the Second World War. We began at the Wimereux military cemetery on the coast, where the dead were largely casualties evacuated to the military hospital there who did not survive; these included Hugh Lipscomb, one of several OPs serving with the Canadian Army, who is buried close to the grave of John McCrae, author of In Flanders Fields.
The next morning we visited the Sheffield Memorial Park and Railway Hollow at Serre, in the Somme battlefield. There, and frequently later on the tour too, I was most grateful for the background explanations provided by Callum Braidwood-Smith and Hugh Richards, respectively Heads of History at Pocklington and Huntington Schools, as well as by Paul. At Sheffield Memorial Park they explained how British artillery unknowingly used the wrong type of shells in the pre-battle bombardment, attempting to obliterate the German barbed wire. Tragically, the fragmentation shells that they used had little effect on the wire, but the troops – largely Pals battalions who had joined up enthusiastically at the start of the war – were ordered to advance nevertheless, at walking pace. Few survived.
At the Schwaben Redoubt we arrived just in time for the arrival of a Northern Irish marching band making their salute to the Ulster Tower.
We went on to the enormous Thiepval Memorial and Cemetery, the massive Lochnagar Crater at La Boiselle and the cemeteries at Hermies Hill and Villers Bretonneux before our second night at Arras. At Villers-Bretonneux are the Australian National Memorial and the Sir John Monash Centre, both of which we visited. They stand near the site of one of the decisive battles of the war, when the Germans
were ejected from the village that stood in their path to Amiens. The Australians, under Monash, were crucial in the battle. Monash was arguably the most imaginative and gifted general of the war. His tenets of meticulous planning and deception of the enemy were recognised and followed up by other Allied commanders.
After a‘ run ashore’ in Amiens, we boarded our coach again on the Sunday morning for a visit to Vimy Ridge, where the towering Canadian National Vimy Memorial stands. The capture of Vimy Ridge by the Canadians( 9-12 April 1917) was a major achievement that has been attributed largely to meticulous planning, innovation, heavy artillery support and extensive training. As with the Australians at Villers-Bretonneux, the effort helped to forge their nation.
Our day continued with visits to the cemeteries at Lijssenthoek and Poperinghe, the In Flanders Fields Museum in Ypres and the German cemetery at Langemarck. Finally, that afternoon we visited the Tyne Cot Cemetery near Passchendaele, the largest cemetery for Commonwealth forces in the world. It is on a sobering scale. As with the other Commonwealth cemeteries that we visited, it is meticulously kept by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
In the evening we returned to Ypres for the Last Post Ceremony at the Menin Gate, which takes place every evening at 20:00. We were greatly honoured that Tony Morris( 52-55) of our party, wearing his own medals and his father’ s Military Cross( Poelcapelle 1917), was chosen to deliver the Exhortation and the Kohima Epitaph that night. Led by Christian Craver, father of the current Head Boy, nine members of our party drawn from OPs as well
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