No. 141 The Trusty Servant
Andrew Powell( C, 71-5) has coauthored, with John Miller, After Our Parents Won the War, a memoir that brings to life a time when baby boomers and the stalwarts of Empire were colliding. Aged 8, an anxious Miller and a precocious Powell were sent away to a boarding school that was a microcosm of postwar Britain. It was 1965 when they first confronted Jenko roaring, Brazier screaming, and Griffo chain-smoking in his tracksuit. The Empire was gone, and its grey icons were being replaced by new heroes: the Beatles, Muhammad Ali, and the Apollo astronauts. On a pilgrimage back to their old haunts, Miller and Powell recreate the characters that defined their childhoods by telling a series of tales. Some are shocking, some comic and some tragic; some are even uplifting.
352 pages; MillerPowell Publishing; ISBN 979-8995605812 Proceeds from all June sales will be matched by a gift to The American Friends of Winchester College
Mark Pyper( D, 60-65) has written and published And Silken Dalliance in the Wardrobe Lies: The Miscellaneous Musings of Mark Pyper. He has never kept a diary but from an early stage developed a jotting habit. This book is not an autobiography but a selection of these random scratchings from the longest-serving Head at Gordonstoun. After a career in the independent British education sector he has continued to exercise influence as a governor and trustee in various contexts since retirement. In his own words‘ if you like dipping into generous hors d’ oeuvres but never quite getting to the main course, this may be just the book for you.’ Available on Amazon.
360 pages; independently published; ISBN 979-8269797878
Fifteen years ago, Charles Quest-Ritson( D, 61-65)( historian, writer, journalist and editor) and Eduardo Mencos( farmer, landscape designer and photographer) conceived the idea of going on a trip around the world, with the olive tree playing the leading role. The outcome of that 26-country adventure is this book, which tells the story of humankind through the olive tree and its fruit.
With over 200 spectacular photographs taken by Eduardo Mencos, the book covers the origin and later domestication of the tree, all of the different roles it has played and the significance it has had at different times throughout history, including its importance in the Bible, right through to the prominent place it holds in the Mediterranean diet and its different uses.
240 pages; Ediciones El Viso; ISBN 978-8412846683
Nicholas Richardson( Coll, 53-58) has contributed to and helped edit the first of five volumes of Cantate Domino. The full title is Cantate Domino: A Commentary on the Hymns of the Liturgy of the Hours. Volume I: Proper of Time. Advent, Christmas, Lent and Easter. The hymns are drawn from among the very finest authors of the first millennium: Ambrose, Prudentius and Gregory the Great together with later authors such as Thomas Aquinas, Leo XIII and some twentieth century authors.
368 pages: Catholic University of America Press, 2024; ISBN 978-0-8132-3902-6.
Andrew Sclater( I, 62- 67) is a Scottish poet living in Paris. Quite Joyful is his latest collection of poetry, published in 2025. It is a wonderfully rich, original book by a poet who won a Northern Writers’ Award in 2011.‘ Andrew Sclater’ s poems surprise and move me with their insight and emotional depth. Subjects large in import are expressed with simplicity; word play, rhyme and touches of the surreal leaven them. These poems poke at the strangeness of life, and risk waking monsters. They resonate long after a first reading.’ – Beverley Bie Brahic.
Mariscat Press; ISBN 978-1068675676
Moonlight Crusaders is the latest book from Paul Smiddy( K, 67-71). In it he covers the gestation of special duties flying in the RAF during the Second World War, and the operation of the Lysander and Hudson aircraft by an elite bunch of pilots. None of them were OWs, but several, such as Douglas Dodds-Parker( D, 22-27) feature among the secret services with which they dealt. Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Portal,( F, 06-12), is a central figure, obstructing the creation and resourcing of these special duties units.
384 pages; Osprey Publishing; ISBN 978-1472873477
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