Issue 20, 2019 The Gossip Bowl The Alumni Magazine PRIOR PARK ALUMNI “And sometimes lurk I in a gossip’s bowl” * A Community for Life PPA Noticeboard IN THIS ISSUE: All change please 2 PPA Noticeboard After many years of valuable service, Christopher Liu (PPA 1979), Paul O’Dea (PPA 1998) and Scott Parker (PPA 2006) have stepped down from the PPA committee, leaving an old guard of Suzannah Angelo-Sparling (PPA 1987), Darren Crawford (PPA 1988), 3 President’s Letter Terry Ilott (PPA 1968) and Simon Morgan (PPA 1975). New committee members include Simon Beck (PPA 1969), Tom Clarke (PPA 2017), Mark Gallen (PPA 1985), Chantal Hopper (PPA 1999), Olivia Matthews (PPA 2017) and Fiona Rae (PPA 2009). Evie Unwin (PPA 2019) and Archie Ansell (PPA 2019) having now gone out into the wider 4 - 7 School News world, they have been replaced as sixth-form liaison reps by current students Ned Clarke and Sasha Kariy. These changes mean that the average age of past and present students Interview with on the committee has come down to 41 and the gender balance has improved: five female 8 -9 James Murphy O’Connor to six male. The additional members of the committee are the headmaster, the rep for current staff Malcolm Bond (PPA 1995) and the rep for former staff Denis Clarke. Head of development Declan Rainey and Carole Laverick complete the list as non-voting members. 10-11 From the Archives 12 Development Update 13 Weddings at Prior 14-17 Adventure and Resilience 18-19 People 20-22 Alumni Sports Cover image: The Foundations of Empire Rarely noticed because of its location on the north-facing pediment of St Peter’s, looking 23-24 Reunions down towards the valley, the scene depicted in the statuary is the killing of Turnus by the Trojan hero Aeneas. Turnus wears a prominent sword belt that he had seized from the body of Aeneas’ closest friend, Pallas. 25-34 All the Gossip In Virgil’s Aeneid, Book XII, the pair duel to the death. Aeneas gains the upper hand and Turnus, wounded in the thigh, begs either to be spared or for his body to be given back to his people. Aeneas is minded to spare him, but seeing the belt and realising that Turnus 35 - 38 Obituaries killed Pallas makes him enraged. Turnus is despatched. Turnus’ death removed the last impediment to the founding of Rome, and hence of the Roman Empire. It may have been this association that attracted the ever-ambitious Bishop 39 Mansion Lunch Baines, Vicar Apostolic of the Western District, who acquired the work from Hunstrete House. At Prior, Baines had created a college, with a school in the east wing (St Peter’s) and a seminary in the west (St Paul’s), as part of his grand design for the revival of the 40-41 Alumni Volunteers Catholic Church in England. James Bradby (former staff) thinks the statuary might have come from the Palace of Queluz in Portugal. If so, it was likely looted by Napoleon’s forces in 1807 and then either 42 Prior Park Alumni Update captured by the English after the Battle of Waterloo or bought by one of the English officers. In any event, it ended up at Hunstrete, which was demolished in the 1830s. After the 1836 Mansion fire, Baines acquired many of Hunstrete’s fittings, including garden sculpture, 43 The PPA Medal chimney pieces, joinery, doors, plasterwork, window frames and even the main staircase that now graces the Mansion. 2 www.priorparkalumni.com President’s Letter “If it ain’t broke…” Welcome to the 2019 edition of The Gossip a chance to tap into the vast array of talent Bowl, my first as president of the PPA. that exists within the PPA. In this issue we highlight some of the contributions made by I suppose, looking back, the highlight of my alumni to the school in the past year (see school career was being head boy during pages 40 and 41). In addition, I have decided the celebrations to mark 50 years of the to re-introduce the Prior Park Association Christian Brothers at the school. We had no medal, to be awarded on Speech Day to the inkling then that what we were celebrating member of the association who is adjudged was not a new beginning but the last hurrah by his or her peers to have most completely of a regime that within a few years would displayed the qualities that Prior seeks to completely collapse. But our sadness at its engender in its staff and pupils. (For further demise was soon to be assuaged by our details see Page 43.) admiration for the new order, which, building upon what was left of the past, created the Finally, we are saying farewell to the Prior Park of today. headmaster, James Murphy-O’Connor, who leaves Prior to take up a new position at the So, now that I am president what am I going Haberdashers’ Monmouth Schools (see to do? Well I tend to the view that if it ain’t interview on page 8). Sad though we are to broke don’t fix it, but I have identified three “ see him go, he does so with our very best areas that I would like to progress during my A community wishes and our gratitude for the help and tenure. First, I would like to try and connect support he has given to the PPA over the past with those past pupils who, for whatever that actively looks after ten years. On behalf of the association, may I reason, feel at odds with the perceived “its own. extend a warm welcome to his successor, Ben ethos of the Prior Park schools. As far as I Horan. I look forward to meeting and working am concerned, the PPA is a fully inclusive with him in the future. community that has only one condition of there have been some quite extraordinary membership: that you were taught or taught initiatives taken by individual alumni to My very best wishes to you all. Deo Duce, at Prior Park. It does not matter what you assist old friends in difficulties. I would hope Deo Luce. did then or have done since, we would like that in future we can collectively offer such to keep in contact. assistance. Simon Morgan (PPA 1975) Second, I want the PPA to be a community Last, but not least, I would like to be able President Prior Park Alumni that actively looks after its own. In the past, to offer to the present pupils and the staff Adventure Alumni All the Pages 14-17 Pages & resilience Sports Gossip 25-34 Pages Pages 20-22 Pages The Gossip Bowl 3 School News COLLEGE Prior in top 22% for pupil progress Snow day March 2019 Michaelmas Term Politics students made a trip to Westminster to visit Parliament and the Supreme Court to learn Explorer Alex Hibbert gave an inspirational more about the heart of Britain’s democratic lecture on polar exploration to sixth-form institutions. students, explaining the dedication and planning that goes into each expedition. The Prior community came together in Our Lady of the Snows Chapel for a moving Remembrance Prior Park Schools’ Biathlon took place with Sunday Mass to mark the 100thAnniversary of some fantastic performances in the pool and on the end of World War One. The headmaster the track. Pentathlon world champ Jamie Cooke unveiled the Prior Park Memorial Chapel, which Tom Brass and world team silver medal winner Joe Choong was blessed by Father Simon. helped on the day. Students from St Gregory’s, Royal High, Ralph College’s annual Inspire! Conference was Allen and Writhlington schools joined Prior introduced by BBC Presenter Alex Lovell. students for the United Nations Association Speakers included managing director of The Bath sixth-form Conference. Guest speaker was Wedding Shop Anne-Marie Jenkins (PPA Symon Hill, a pacifist, activist and journalist 2003), Bake-off contestant Briony Williams, who became co-ordinator of The Peace Pledge and EMMY-award winning creative director of Union in 2016. Jellyfish Pictures, Tom Brass (PPA 1998). The Paragon and College music departments House Music featured talented, creative and presented a magical evening, “Wassail! Carols entertaining performances. Burton House of Comfort and Joy”. They were joined by choral won the Group Performance prize, House composer and arranger, Alexander L’Estrange. Song went to Roche House and Fielding House won the Best Solo. Overall winners Lower-sixth fine art, textiles and photography were St Mary’s. students attended a fascinating series of 4 www.priorparkalumni.com In 2018/19: lectures by established figures within the art The sixth-form enjoyed a visit from MiKo world, Jock McFadyen, Simon Roberts and Berry, performance poet and European Poetry Grayson Perry. Slam champion. 622 students enrolled at College Modern Foreign Languages students The War and Peace College were in the top ten (out of 700 schools) on Creative Writing a weekly basis on the “This Is Language” Competition received leader boards. 120 entries (from ages eight to adult 478 and not only from day pupils Lent Term Bath schools but It was announced that, after a decade of also Gibraltar), service, headmaster James Murphy-O’Connor including war was leaving to take up the post of principal of diaries, poetry, 144 Haberdashers’ Monmouth Schools. short stories and boarding pupils graphic novels. Professor David Thomas (PPA 1980), head Over fifty entries of ocean sciences at Bangor University, were included in 20 talked about art in science to our the shortlist, many of which now academic scholars and art students at the appear in our War & Peace Anthology.