PERSONALIA
November 2017 to February 2018. How many
OPs remember Adrian in the school production of
Hamlet all those years ago?!
Andrew Farquhar (66-72) retired from the Army
and is now employed as a Manager Director of
Gardaworld Consulting (UK) Ltd, a global security
company. He travels to the Middle East, Africa, near
Asia and more locally in Europe.
Tom Mellor (70-78) of multiple-award winning
Wold Top Brewery has launched Yorkshire’s first
malt whisky distillery, Spirit of Yorkshire, near where
he farms in Hunmanby, East Yorkshire. Indeed, Tom’s
farm is the source of all the barley and spring water
used to produce the unique single malt. Whisky
production began last year and the ‘spirit’ must
mature for a minimum of three years before it can
be called a whisky. However, a number of other
spirits produced from the same process will be
available to customers in the coming months. If you
are in the area, why not book a distillery tour? Check
the website for more details. www.spiritofyorkshire.
com.
Gerry Orchard (69-75) is Secretary of the New
Lyke Wake Club and in the summer of 2016 did the
Lyke Wake Walk for the 200th time.
1980 - 1989
Tim Brear (73-81) is a founding partner of
Harrogate wealth management company, BDB
Group. In his spare time, he is also an Ambassador
for the Bhubesi Pride Foundation, a charity which
supports community development in schools across
Africa through rugby and rugby coaching.
David Grigsby (81-88) is married with two teenage
sons. He lives in Bedford but still works in Yorkshire
as Managing Director of Liquidlogic, a software
company based near Leeds. He stays in touch
with a lot of the class of ‘88 through the legendary
‘Noktoberfest’. This is an annual gathering of a group
who all left in the summer of ’88. As well as David,
the group includes: James White, Phil Morton, Mark
Dawson, Graham Hall, Guy Essex, James McLuskie,
James Sweeting, Adam Goodfellow, Ralph Ineson,
Stefan Ludwig, Sandy Greetham and Robert Lewis.
The venue rotates - one year in London, one in the
west country and one in the north. David would
love to hear from Matt Brown (83-88) if anyone
knows of his whereabouts.
Sebastian Horsley (78-81), the late writer, artist,
dandy and seducer, is portrayed in a haunting
charcoal portrait entitled Wicked Son by artist
Maggi Hambling which featured in her exhibition
Touch: Works on Paper at the British Museum in
2016. She describes him as ‘an extraordinarily exotic
creature’.
Jeremy Lons dale (79-81) has written a book
entitled A Game Taken Seriously: The Foundations of
Yorkshire’s Cricketing Power (ISBN: 9781908165718).
Published by ACS Publications, the book is a
significant piece of research and gives an in-depth
study of the factors that influenced the growth of
cricket in Yorkshire. Jeremy has kindly donated a
copy of the book to the school library to add to the
collection of books written by OPs. Jeremy has been
following Yorkshire CCC since the early 1970s. His
previous cricket book was The Army’s Grace: The Life
of Brigadier General RM Poore, the record-breaking
Hampshire batsman. Jeremy studied history at King’s
College, University of London.
Trevor Loten (70-80) continues to teach maths
at Pocklington School. He has taken up residence
again at the school’s senior boys boarding
house, Fenwick-Smith House. Trevor is a former
Housemaster of Fenwick-Smith and has now been
appointed Resident House Tutor from September
2016 after Gary Kilsby retired from the role in the
summer. As well as being an avid Hull City supporter,
Trevor continues to play tennis and golf regularly.
He partnered Diane Flint (Governor and former
parent) to win the Pocklington KP Club golf mixed
pairs knockout trophy last season.
Neil Maloney (81-86) did O-Levels at Pocklington
and then moved to Scarborough Sixth Form
College for A-Levels. After a few years of casual
jobs, he attended Leeds University from 1996
to 1998 where he attained a first in his Zoology
degree and the Leeds Naturalist Prize for best
dissertation in faculty. After his first degree, he
started a PhD at Bristol University looking at aspects
of colour vision in a species of Australian parrot
but then the first of his now three children was
already on the way. So, he left the PhD unfinished,
married Anna, his son George (now 18) was born
and he started as a student with KPMG in Bristol,
all within a few months. He and Anna also had two
daughters, Katie (now 16) and Sophie (now 14) and
Neil completed his Chartered exams in between!
Over the last 19 years, he has worked as a Company
Tax Adviser for KPMG, Deloitte and then PwC
before joining Jumpstart as a Regional Director
in 2016. He now helps large businesses to access
a Government funding which rewards innovative
activity in areas such as precision engineering,
biotech and digital/software. In 2006, he relocated
from Bristol back to Yorkshire. In his free time,
he is a keen runner and a member of his local
athletics club.
Andrew Manfield (78-87) appeared in the first
of a two-part BBC documentary Yorkshire Wolds
Way hosted by presenter and VP of the Royal
Geographical Society, Paul Rose. Andrew was
demonstrating the technology behind precision
farming and explained how driverless tractors could
become a reality in his lifetime.
Michael Readman (77-82) has a ground care and
lawnmower machinery company called Michael
Readman Lawnmower Services Ltd based in
Newton on Derwent near York. The business has
been running for 6 years and includes the service
and repair of ground care equipment as well as sales
of new machinery. Further details are on the website
www.michaelreadmanlawnmowerservices.co.uk.
Simon Spence QC (74-81) has been involved in
a number of high profile criminal cases over the
last few years, leading to appearances in television
documentaries. He is proud to now be a door
tenant at Dere Street Chambers in York.
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Andrew Sutton (80-87) took part in the final stage
of the Tour de Yorkshire in April to raise funds for
the Alzheimer’s Society charity in memory of his
father, Graham Sutton (Former staff 71-02), who
suffered with the disease for eight years before he
passed away in September 2016. He raised in excess
of £15,000.
Richard Sutton (81-88) ran his first 100km race in
February 2017 finishing 17th in the Greek National
100km Road Race Championship in a time of 10
hours 41 minutes. He started running 8 years ago
when he turned 40. He entered the Tokyo marathon
as he was living in Japan at the time and has run
a marathon every year since. The last one was in
Florence in November 2016, which he completed in
a new personal best time of 2 hours and 57 minutes.
He plans to run in the Venice marathon this autumn.
He has also set himself the goal of running the
Spartathlon, which is 246km from Athens to Sparta,
before he turns 50.
Richard Willis (82-87) took part in the English
Weightlifting Championships in Milton Keynes in
January 2017. Richard, who has diastrophic dwarfism,
a rare condition, was inspired to take up weightlifting
by his daughter after they had been watching the
2016 Rio Paralympics together.
1990 - 1999
Caroline Ackroyd (90-96) is the finance director
of Sky Betting and Gaming and has overseen the
creation of hundreds of jobs in the Yorkshire
region as the firm rolled out a massive expansion
plan across Leeds and Sheffield. Caroline was
the winner of the Best Finance Director of a Ltd
Company (over £50m) in the Yorkshire Finance
Director Awards in October 2016. She has a
masters degree in chemistry from the University of
Leicester and has held a number of high profile roles
at Coral and Sky prior to being appointed to her
current position.
Rachel Clark (née Sweeting 91-96) returned to
Pocklington School in March, when she was asked
to share her marketing knowledge with Year 6
prep school pupils. As PR and Brand Director at
Wrapped (wrappedagency.co.uk), Rachel took the
pupils through the process of marketing a product
and its branding, as part of Design Technology Week
at Pocklington Prep School.
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