OBITUARIES
ANTHONY LUNCH 1945-2022
Anthony Lunch was born on 13 February 1945 . He learnt to sail , aged 10 , at Chipstead Sailing Club , moving on to that hotbed of sailing talent , Sevenoaks School . Of this time , Anthony said : ‘ Before long I was a very junior member of the Sevenoaks team and from then on my abilities improved and my love of team racing was fuelled by exciting fixtures and senior boys ’ expert tuition . All this culminated in the Public Schools Championships when we were lucky enough to win and bring home a new Firefly to join the school fleet . In all my years of racing , this remains one of the highlights !’
After Sevenoaks , Anthony spent 12 months doing Voluntary Service Overseas ( VSO ) as a teacher in The Gambia , then read Geography at Mansfield College , Oxford to . He became involved in the Oxford University Yacht Club ( OUYC ), sailing in and winning the Varsity Match in all his three years – the final one as Captain and Vice- Commodore . In his final year , he represented the British Universities in their tour of the United States , where he met Martine . They are reported to have made a dashing couple and their long-lasting union was a constant in the rest of his life .
Anthony joined Unilever as a graduate trainee , then became Managing Director of Phildar UK before his entrepreneurial drive led him to start a number of ventures . In 1990 he founded the Sermathang Project in Nepal to educate hundreds of children in the Helambu area , and built a new school in 1995 , and in 2000 he founded the volunteering organisation MondoChallenge , and subsequently the MondoChallenge Foundation .
Anthony returned to OUYC as Commodore in 1979 , becoming Vice President in 1985 and President from 2001-18 . When he stepped down , he was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the RYA , presented by Princess Anne .
Our thoughts are with Martine , his children Chris , Nick and Cecilia and their families who have lost a loving husband , father and grandfather .
Nick Lunch
Sevenoaks School cricket team 1977
SIMON PRODGER 1959-2023
Prodge , as he was universally known , was born into a family steeped in cricket and was brought up initially in Kenya . Prodge ’ s father Peter played for Kenya and East Africa so it was firstly there , and then after the family returned to the UK , that the young Prodge fell in love with cricket .
Prodge was fuelled with a natural spirit of enquiry and curiosity . He liked learning , not so much from the textbook , but through observation and self-discovery . At Sevenoaks , Prodge didn ’ t find the academic side of life straightforward – the dyslexia with which he contended was poorly understood – but he excelled at sport . Cricket was his real passion and he relished the competition of league cricket playing at Harlow CC , Hoddesdon CC , Harefield CC and Watford Town CC . Beyond this , he played for Stroud Green CC in Haringey , represented the MCC on 113 occasions , was a regular for the Kenya Kongonis and Stragglers of Asia and , in later years , for Bucks Over-50s .
Prodge ’ s contribution as a cricket player was enormous , and so too was the service he gave to the game as an administrator and trustee of many cricket-related charities . As MD of the Club Cricket and National Cricket Conference , as trustee of the Club Cricket Charity and East Africa Character Development Trust , he fought tirelessly to represent the recreational game and community clubs and in establishing the National Asian Cricket Council and the African Caribbean Cricket Association , to help players from these communities become better integrated into cricket ’ s mainstream . Suffice to say there ’ s a theme running throughout Prodge ’ s cricketing involvements ; he sought to make it a game for everyone . It was entirely fitting that the MCC honoured Prodge posthumously with a Community Cricket Hero award .
Someone remarked to me recently : ‘ In every conversation with Prodge , he made you feel as if you were his only friend .’ Of course , he had thousands of friends . But such was his remarkable capacity for making every person he encountered feel special .
Nick Gandon
150 OLD SENNOCKIANS