Informal Concert, Music School, 9.05 pm

Kilimanjaro - the vision - John Jamieson-Black (C’76)

From my bed on the fourth floor of the Stroke ward in Gloucester Royal Hospital on the morning of Saturday 1st March 2014, I stared at the dull white ceiling that needed a good lick of paint.

My brain ached. I just could not figure out why I was here. I knew that something awful had happened. Someone seemed to have sliced my brain in half. I could move, very slowly, but every move was a considered thought. My right hand was useless, a dead wand, my right fingers were senseless. As I blinked my way out of the mists, I looked around and sucked in reality, slowly. Everything was slow now, how could I think this slowly? I kept thinking. I sat up. Effort. Huge effort. I steadied myself and looked around. Eight bodies just lay there. Blinking but listless. One man smiled and said hello. I could not even return this common gesture. Some inaudible grunt left my lips and I raised my one good hand in acknowledgement of understanding. My shallow rapid breathing was a result of the effort that I had made to just sit up. Thank God I had a window. I swung my legs to try and propel myself erect, to walk towards my vision of the outside world. I steadied myself, hands propped against the window pane, and again tried to take in how hard trying to move was. I clearly remember tears falling steadily down my cheeks in sadness. I can't say anything. I can barely think. I can't do anything. I can't move. It was so so sad. Everything that was me had been torn apart. My full bladder jolted my senses awake. As the tears of shame flowed, hidden by the open ward, I made a series promises, one by one, as my brain started to sort its self out. I would never use a bed pan. If it killed me, I would walk to the bathroom. I felt the room cheer me on as I staggered, a foot at a time, to the door. Minutes passed as I made my way across the ward, every eye was on me. I made it. This was so hard. My head ached. I had to think and plan every move. I remember trying to recall what the washing drill was again. My right arm was useless. The soap useless in my dead paw. The sensations of running water over my hands seemed peculiar. I sucked my breath in as I gathered myself for the trek back to my bed. All of ten metres, one would have thought that this was a marathon. As I reached my bed, I made another promise. I would sit on my chair, not lie down. This was a belligerent gesture. Stick two fingers up to one and all, I was elated. If I could do it once, then I could do it every time! Slowly that afternoon my series of promises grew. I would get up at 6.00 every morning and shower clean myself and shave. I would force myself to use my toothbrush and razor with my right hand. Sometimes I had to do it with two hands, but I did it. Everything I used to do with my right hand, I pushed myself to do it with that right hand. I could write better with my left on day one. By the end of that first week I could write better with my right. Everyday I could see that the more effort I put in, the better I became. That drove me to do more. Better to fall down trying rather than miss a day being more competent. That was my maxim. Sure I fell down, but who hasn't?

As the nodes of my brain started to grow back, I just knew I could do this. The condition of Aphasia had been diagnosed. I had had a severe Cardioembolic stroke. My mission was to get fit, and through physical exercise I knew I could get better. My son and I had a dream. The dream was to stand on the roof of Africa. I lay there at night, picturing that summit. Every night. I had been there before. I knew it. I knew how hard it was to get there. This was my goal. Our goal. It had to be in July 2014 and not 2015, as everyone suggested. Everyone laughed. Only two people didn't. My son and I. We had the belief. On the afternoon of Friday March 7th I came home. On Saturday I got up as usual at 6.00 am and showered. I walked down and put on my walking boots. I picked my phone, just in case, and as the light started to show me the way, I took my first steps towards making summiting Kilimanjaro a reality. On that Friday, July 11th, my 17yr old son became the first person in the world on to the Peak at Uhuru Peak at 06.10 hrs . I followed him to take him in my arms. It has been an amazing four months.

Former Londoner and his lifelong affair with America – Michael Jolley (O’47)

Courtesy of The Arizona Star July 4th 2014. Mike was invited to write for the Independence Day issue.

The year was 1973. As an aeronautical engineer, I was working for Rolls-Royce in London. One fateful morning, I was summoned into the presence of the personnel director. “Jolley, ” he intoned, “we want you to go to New York for two years. Find out what makes the U.S. tick and then come back to London” . All my years of scheming had worked! My South African-born wife, Judy, and I never went back to live in London, and in 1984 we proudly became citizens. Today I can claim a unique 40:40. Forty years lived in each country and a citizen of both.

It all started just before Christmas 1942. As a present, my mother took me to London for the first time. We stayed at the Strand Palace hotel, and for the first sightseeing trip we walked toward Trafalgar Square. I shall never forget the sight. Striding down toward us was a soldier, well over 6 feet tall, in an immaculate uniform, looking happy and confident like a million dollars. “Mother” , I asked , “who is he?” Her reply; “He is an American” . Six months later, America’s rearmament programme resulted in the appearance of the first Army Air Corps’ B-17 bombers on England’s East Anglian airfields. For a 10 year old schoolboy, what could be more exciting than seeing huge four-engined silver airplanes droning across the sky, crewed by young men who spoke with a strange drawl and who gave unlimited supplies of a splendid thing call gum chum!!

It was too much. Sometime in that summer of ’43, I announced to my fellow schoolmates that “I wanted to become a Yank” . The nickname was inevitable, and the enthusiasm for all things American grew. There was a B-17 base within a bike ride from home, and a friend and I would sometimes get up early to watch the morning take-offs, and the amazing sight of 60 B-17’s going off to war. Why did I forsake the U.K. for America?

For lots of reasons: • A better career opportunity, the weather, the incredible generous, kindness, friendliness and natural self-confidence of

Americans,. And the country’s economic self-sufficiency. • The total lack of “class” that encourages personal entrepreneurship, wonderful fast-food outlets, the wide open spaces and the sheer size of the country, the efficient interstater road system (sadly in serious need of new funding and repair) and an extraordinarily sophisticated airline system. • Some of the best newspapers in the world, the wonderfully diverse theatre and Hollywood’s ability to make brilliant movies - 600 a year. • The ability to integrate refugees and make them Americans, a political system that drives one crazy but is still fascinating (will they ever give the president a six year term?) and successful national attempts to minimize racism.

There are inevitable downsides. In particular, the obsession with guns, resulting in tragedies like Columbine and Newtown, with 11,000 firearm-related deaths in 2013. Why is it that the text of the Second Amendment to the amazing and brilliant U.S. Constitution has become so grossly distorted over the years? And another thing. The World Cup has hopefully demonstrated to U.S. football enthusiasts that soccer is a really exciting international game and deserves support. We recently visited the 9/11 Memorial Museum in New York. The U.S. is brilliant at creating war memories, and 9/11 is no exception. Viewing the site of the two World Trade Centres and listening to the last messages from the victims to their families is a sobering experience. America is an amazing country. We have serious problems, like the threat of terrorism, air pollution, and for us in Tuscon, a very serious water shortage. I am convinced that we will solve these problems , and that’s why I love America

Mike is former vice president of Rolls-Royce Inc, who now lives in Tuscon.

OR Publications

Professor Ian Roulstone (N’73) has published a popular science book "Invisible in the Storm: the role of mathematics in understanding weather" . Full details can be found on Princeton University Press's website: http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9957.html

Achievements & Activities 2013/2014

• In the 2013 public examinations, the boys and girls achieved 16% A*; 52% A*A and 79% A*AB at A-level, and at GCSE, 32% A* and 66% A*A.

• Special mention should go to six Reptonians who received places or offers to study at Oxford/Cambridge universities: Tom

Hackwood (L’12) has a place to read Land Economy (Robinson

College, Cambridge) and five leavers have conditional offers:

Madeleine Galbraith (U6F) to read History of Art (Corpus Christi

College, Cambridge); Alasdair Hastewell (U6O) to read Physics and Philosophy (Balliol College,Oxford); Thomas Hunter (U6P) to read PPE (Keble College, Oxford); Michael Hynes (U6N) to read

Physics (Keble College, Oxford) and James Novotny (U6P) to read

Economics and Management (Pembroke College, Oxford).

Alasdair also received an unconditional offer from the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the USA which he has accepted.

• Theo Morris (L6C) and Kamma Hvass (L6A) have been awarded

Arkwright Scholarships. Finley Saunders (5O) has been invited to attend a Smallpeice Trust course on Railway Engineering.

• A number of Repton pupils have attended the competitive

Gifted and Talented courses run by Villiers Park: Jacob Bullock (U6P): French: Language and Identity; Jack Sanders (U6P):

Spanish and Latin American Society, History and Culture; Lili

Kettlewell (U6M): Philosophy, Politics and Economics; Rowan

Saunders (U6O): Physics: How the Universe Lives and Dies;

Annabel Findlay (U6A): Geography: Geographical Imaginations;

Deepak Devikanand (L6P): Biology: Cell Biology and Genetics;

Caitlin Furniss (L6G): History: Science and Sexuality: the

Enlightenment from 1660 to Today; Hanyi Wang (L6M):

Exploration of Space; William Ackernley (L6C): Mathematics:

Chaos or Clear Cut?; Grace Buchanan (L6A): Creative Writing and Darcey Scheel (L6A): Biology: Ecology and Evolution.

• Charlie Keen (L6M) was successfully nominated to attend the China Global Experience and Hong Kong Extension of the Global Young Leaders Programme, in the summer of 2014.

• Ellie-May Evans (L6A) and Emily Brookes (L6A) were awarded places on the Holocaust Educational Trust’s Lessons from

Auschwitz Project. They visited Auschwitz-Birkenau in southern

Poland and made a presentation on the subject to members of the Lower School.

• Anna Andreeva (L6F) and Lydia Fitzsimons (L6F) attended the

Cambridge University Sixth Form Law Conference.

• Anna Andreeva’s (L6F) winning entry ‘Missing the Point’ in the

Young Writers ‘The Power of Poetry’ competition, meant that her poem was selected for publication in the anthology ‘The

Power of Poetry – Talented Voices’ . Trinity Hall, Cambridge ranked Jack O’Callaghan’s (U6S) essay ‘Writing can never be original: everything that can be said has already been said before’ , fourth in its essay competition. Matthew Storer (L6P) won the runner-up prize in the Corpus Christi College

Cambridge Philosophy Essay Competition for his essay entitled ‘I love chocolate and I want to get the most enjoyment I can when

I eat it. But I know that I enjoy eating chocolate more if I delay eating it than if I eat it right now. So I always have a good reason not to eat chocolate right now. Does it therefore follow that as a chocolate-lover I have a good reason never to eat chocolate?’ . • Katie Guest (L6F), Matthew Storer (L6P), Max Wilson (L6S) and

Andrew Oxburgh (L6O) made up the winning team in a regional inter-schools' European languages debating tournament, 'War

of the Words' held at Ratcliffe College. The Sixth Form Hispanists came runners-up in the Scoop! Journalism event, and an A and B-block team of juniors also came runners up in their European Business Language challenge.

• Adam Cartlidge (U6S), Thomas Hunter (U6P), and Abigail

Reading (U6A) have all led The Hampshire Society in its second year. The society has welcomed numerous members of

Common Room and outside speakers, and held a joint society event with Rugby School. Maxim Hibbs (5S), Daniel Hudson (5O), and Emily Winson-Bushby (5M) were the Hamlets’

Secretaries. Francesca Beharrell (U6A), Alasdair Hastewell (U6O) and Imogen Wollaston (U6F) edited the second edition of ‘Made in Hampshire’ to which over 20 Reptonians contributed philosophical articles.

• The Debating Society has had its best year to date under the leadership of Phoebe Jones (U6A) and Thomas Hunter (U6P).

Students have competed in the Cambridge, Nottingham and

Durham Schools' competition and have also taken part in the

Debating Matters qualifying events. There are now over 50 active members in the society with a strong cohort of junior debaters rising through the ranks. The most successful moment was in Durham when Hannah Robertson (U6A) and Alasdair

Hastewell (U6O) won the Novice Cup, beating around sixty other students, signifying Repton's first trophy at this competition.

• The newly-formed Marriott Society has had a rich year with secretaries Clare Gething Lewis (U6M) and Daniel Darby (U6L) leading the Society in some excellent evenings. These have included visiting speakers Heather Wheeler MP, Nick Raynsford

MP, Nick Williams, the legal counsel for Amnesty International, and a number of joint evenings with other societies including both Hampshire and the Law Society.

• The Ramsey Society had one of its most vibrant and cerebrally challenging years of the modern era. To mention only a few papers is, of course, invidious, but worthy of note were Rowan

Saunders’ (U6O) essay on Artificial Intelligence; Thomas Hunter’s (U6P) on the question of Personal Identity; Madeleine Galbraith’s (U6F) paper on the value of Contemporary Art; Michael Hynes’ (U6N) paper on the Philosophy of Time and Alasdair Hastewell’s (U6O) paper on some of the problems of Epistemology.

• In the UKMT Intermediate Maths Challenge open to O Block and below, Emily Winson-Bushby (5M), Rebecca Williams (5M),

Daniel Hudson (5O), Justin Fong (5S), Sarah Hignett (5A), Daniel

Yung (5S), Charmaine Tam (5A), Maxim Hibbs (5S), Madeleine

Sanders (5F), Keling Wu (5A), Amelia Tarrant (4M), Nathan

Hurdman (4P), William Davies (4O), Catherine McEwan (4A),

Rhys Methven (4P), Matthew Clark (4N), Arnav Rai (3P) and

Peter Cheng (3C) all achieved Gold certificates. Subsequently

Thomas Hvass (3P), Arnav, Peter, Nathan, William, Catherine,

Rebecca, Amelia, Daniel, Maxim, Sarah, Charmaine, Justin and

Keling were invited to take part in the Kangaroo follow on rounds where Arnav and Thomas were awarded Merits. Emily was invited to take part in the Olympiad paper in which she achieved a Merit certificate and she was subsequently invited to a prestigious mathematics course to be held at St. Anne’s

College, Oxford.