NEWS FROM AROUND THE WORLD
1950-1959
Brian Acott ( School House 53 ) In response to your social media post about the 70th anniversary of Her Majesty the Queen ’ s accession to the throne : I was a pupil in School House and the Flag Monitor on 6 February 1952 , the day King George VI died . Here is the photograph of the Union Jack at half-mast on that day . This is just one of my memories from my schooldays . I still have the formal house and school rugby photos and my 1st XV , 2nd XV and Colts caps .
Chris Marshall ( Sackville 56 ) I left Sevenoaks School in 1956 but have returned often , especially when my daughter Anette Marshall ( Boswell 91 ) was in the first intake of junior girls . I found myself on the parents committee for two years . Anette went to Keele University followed by a year at Freie Universität Berlin and works for Paribas in Frankfurt where she has lived for quite a time .
In February 1957 I was called to do national service and was lucky enough to be commissioned . I spent nearly two years in Malaya . On my return I did not know what to do but was offered a job in Cornwall and moved to Newquay in 1962 . There I met a lady from East Germany who had come to learn English . We married in 1966 at Woodlands Church , Kemsing . After the Berlin Wall came down we went to the authorities in Potsdam and asked for the return of the land bequeathed to my wife by her mother . There had been a large house on the plot but it was bombed by the British in 1943 ; my wife and her brother had to be dug out . It took 17 years before we were able to say that we owned the land . I designed a house which now stands on the same plot as had my wife ’ s childhood home . It is opposite a lake where my wife learned to swim and where she still swims every day . I suspect that not many OS or their spouses have been dug out of a bombed house and lived through a Russian occupation . Unhappily , the stories that one has heard from the 1940s , relating to this area , are now being repeated in Ukraine .
1960-1969
Revd William Allberry ( Sackville 66 ) Thank you for the article in last year ’ s Sennockian about the visit of the Duke of Edinburgh . I have often recited part of a poem , ‘ Prince Philmit ’ s Visage ’ by Geoffrey Kitchener ( Hardinge 67 ) from the 1966 edition of Sennockian . I couldn ’ t remember two of the lines so it was wonderful to receive them from the school archivist :
‘ With Aaron and hatson and grey soots abound , And senior mastsirs who bow to the ground , The press and the pressed , the rites of the tea , We welcomed our Herzog at thirty-past-three .’
Brian Fay ( Wordsworth 67 ) Post-pandemic life becomes closer to normal every day here in south Florida . The high heat and humidity are challenging , especially for us tennis and pickleball players , but tall cool drinks as the sun goes down help us chill out ! I am very involved in my community as a Palm Beach Ambassador for InterNations , president of our community wine club and a social member of the British American Chamber of Commerce . We have resumed back to ‘ live and inperson ’ gatherings – so much nicer than those Zoom events . However , those kept us all in touch during the darker days of the pandemic . Hopefully we will get back to England soon to see family and friends , and maybe some OS friends too . I would love to get together with any OS in south Florida . Please email me via os @ sevenoaksschool . org
Ian Brinton ( Fryth 68 ) My recent publications include Language and Death , a translation of poems by Philippe Jaccottet ( Equipage , 2022 ), Paul Valéry ’ s selected poems ( Muscaliet Press , 2021 , with a Preface by Michael Heller ), Paris Scenes , a translation of Charles Baudelaire ’ s ‘ Tableaux Parisiens ’ ( Two Rivers Press , 2021 ) and Islands of Voices , the selected poems of Douglas Oliver ( Shearsman Books , 2020 ). My translation of Gérard de Nerval ’ s Les Chimères will appear from Muscaliet Press later this year . I also review for The London Magazine , PN Review , Litter , Long Poem Magazine and Golden Handcuffs Review , co-edit the magazine SNOW and help to curate the Cambridge University Library Archive of Modern Poetry .
SEVENOAKS SCHOOL 2021-2022 141