THE WYKEHAM JOURNAL 2023
Winchester ’ s Goddard Legacy Society brings together 236 people who have promised legacies to the school when they die . Most of the society ’ s members , naturally enough , are Old Wykehamists . More than 40 were not at the school but have relatives who are or have been pupils . James Turner belongs in a small , select category of just four society members : he is not an Old Wykehamist , nor are any members of his family . James and his wife Linda joined the Goddard Legacy Society when they pledged to leave the majority of their estate to Winchester . While the exact sum provided by a residual legacy can never be calculated before the donor dies , it ’ s safe to say that this will be an amount in seven figures .
I asked James how someone who went to a quite different school came to leave his money to Winchester . The short answer turns out to be the niceness of Wykehamists . ‘ Through my life I ’ ve known quite a few Wykehamists ,’ James said . ‘ The school I went to closed in the 1990s and produced quite a lot of bullies and not very nice people . The Wykehamists all seemed jolly nice blokes .’ He concluded that it was a school dedicated to educating people to be kind . ‘ It ’ s not the exam results or what they have gone on to do since school . What the school produces is kind and generous people . I have a sort of surrogate uncle , a Wykehamist , who I ’ ve known since I was two years old . Such a nice person .’
When James was at prep school , he might have been headed for Winchester . His father was a naval officer and could count on half the fees being paid by the Navy . But James had a terrible memory and struggled to remember things for exams . ‘ It didn ’ t impede my life , but it did impede my childhood .’ He sang well and won a
James and his wife Linda joined the Goddard Legacy Society when they pledged to leave the majority of their estate to Winchester .
music scholarship to a school in Dorset . At the age of 66 he is as keen on music as ever and that is the theme of his gift to Winchester . I asked him to name his favourite pieces of choral music . He has , he said , a long list of favourite choral and organ music ‘ most of which I listen to every day ’. He thought that the very best would be a tie between Charles Stanford ’ s The Bluebird and Hubert Parry ’ s Crossing the Bar .
The College Statutes make provision for
16 Quiristers
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