MEET THE MEDICS ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: VIRGIN MARY HOSPITAL | CARL FIRTH | COUGH BOY! | MAKEEN BAROUDI ISSUE 108/AUTUMN 2020 ONA MAGAZINE ISSUE 108 AUTUMN 2020 ONA is the magazine for the Old Novocastrians’ Association All correspondence should be addressed to: The Development Office, Royal Grammar School, Eskdale Terrace, Newcastle upon Tyne NE2 4DX Telephone Development Office: 0191 212 8909 email: [email protected] Guest Editor: Dr Simon Barker Congratulations to current Y13 students Theo Hoult and Dominique Hewitson Editor: David F Goldwater (51-62) who have been appointed into the new roles of Old Novocastrians’ Association Sixth Form Ambassadors. Theo and Dominique will be responsible for The Editor reserves the right to edit, representing current students at a range of external events, including ONA alter or omit all submissions to the magazine. Copy may be carried over meetings, activities and dinners, and crucially, identifying and approaching Old to the next edition. The Editor’s Novos who could support current students, through talks and/or careers decision is final. advice. The Ambassadors will also be responsible for helping to shape ONA activities, so that they are interesting, relevant and of value to the Class of 2021 Contribute! We are always looking for and beyond. ONs can look forward to hearing more from the new ONA Sixth articles and news from Old Novos to Form Ambassadors in the next ONA Magazine. include in the magazine, so send your contributions, via email (if possible) to: [email protected] or by posting to the Development Office at the school. IN THIS ISSUE Please include relevant pictures if 1 HEAD’S WELCOME GEOFFREY STANFORD possible. They will be returned as soon 2 FROM THE GUEST EDITOR SIMON BARKER as the magazine has been printed. 3 MEDICS IN THE ARCHIVES GENNY SILVANUS The deadline for acceptance of copy 4 BEDESMEN, BRETHREN & BURSARIES HAZEL JONES-LEE for the Spring 2021 issue is Friday 8 6 FROM RGS TO RADIOLOGY ALEX SELF January. Copy may be carried over to 8 MY MEDICAL JOURNEY HAZEL WATCHORN a future issue. 10 PSYCHIATRY AT ITS CORE… KALUM AMARASURIYA The ONA Magazine is available online 12 THE PUS PUDDLE ROBYN DICKINSON Please note that the magazine is 13 GILLIAN MATHER, SCHOOL NURSE JOHN ARMSTRONG circulated in hard copy and is available 14 OLD NOVOS ON A HELICOPTER ABHINAV SINGH on the ONA website shortly after circulation. By submitting an article or 15 THE RGS MOCK MMI BROOKE MILBURN news for inclusion, the contributor is 16 FROM J1Y TO CLINICIAN SCIENTIST OMAR MAHROO accepting that it will be available 18 WHEN BREATH BECOMES AIR FINN GAVIN through both formats and will also be 20 IVORY TOWERS THOMAS COPE accessible beyond the Association membership through internet search 22 CARL FIRTH SIMON BARKER, SUSAN BECK, FINN GAVIN, PHILIPPA SANDERS engines or any member of the public 25 UPSTAIRS DOWNSTAIRS DAVID GOLDWATER viewing the RGS website. 26 A HISTORY OF THE RGS IN ITS PEOPLE DAVID GOLDWATER www.rgs.newcastle.sch.uk/ 28 MEET (SOME OF) THE MEDICS rgs-family/ON 30 MEDSOC REPORT PHILIPPA SANDERS Please note that the ONA Magazine 32 COUGH BOY! DAVID GOLDWATER content does not necessarily reflect 34 MY BURSARY STORY M MAKEEN BAROUDI the views of the school or the 36 RGS SIXTH FORM MEDICALS STANLEY ASHMAN ONA and is based on personal experiences, recollections and 38 NEWS & CONGRATULATIONS memories of its contributors. 40 OBITUARIES www.infinitedesign.com WELCOME BY GEOFFREY STANFORD HEAD remains!), and then the gradual reopening of the school at first to Year 6, Year 10, Year 12, and then Years 3-5, has required a similar level of military precision. Immediately after closing the school gates, we moved to remote learning, with live online lessons, following the normal timetable. We held our first virtual RGS Day; our Class of 2020 celebrated joining the ONA with a digital leavers’ ceremony; and our teachers have risen to the challenge to ensure our students have maintained an amazing breadth and depth of education. This experience has helped our pupils develop the ability to learn independently as well as acting as a catalyst for the school to engage with education technology. I am incredibly proud of the positivity, the proactivity and the collaborative approach taken by our students, parents and staff; we really are a family at RGS. The last Term has also brought into stark relief the specific needs of our small community of Bursary students and their families, who are critical to the ethos of the school. As at the end of Summer Term 2020, we had 76 Bursary Students in the school, t gives me great pleasure to introduce the latest each one having won their place based on their thematic ONA Magazine, Meet the Medics. ability and potential. Our pastoral team has been IWe selected this theme long before we had even extra vigilant in monitoring the welfare of our Bursary heard of COVID-19, never mind uttered the word students and I am so grateful that Old Novos and ‘unprecedented’ in every other sentence. Perhaps current parents have collectively donated over now more than ever it is important to celebrate £40,000 in Hardship Funds. This has been used to Old Novocastrians leading the way in medicine and provide essentials such as food parcels and, where supporting countless lives around the globe. Simon necessary, assistance with Wi-Fi and access to IT. Barker (Head of English) and David Goldwater have Your support has been invaluable in enabling these done an outstanding job in these pages, paying young people to continue engaging in education and tribute to just a few of the overwhelming number for this I give my personal heartfelt thanks. As with of medics the RGS has been privileged to teach. many charities, our fundraising income has been I am regularly asked to describe school-life in badly affected by the pandemic, yet we remain lockdown, and I encourage those who are intrigued committed to supporting the existing Bursary to follow our Facebook and LinkedIn pages. We have students through their school years and to our also posted a large number of communications and long term ambition—to grow the community of virtual assemblies on a dedicated COVID-19 page of brilliant Bursary students. Without the help of our website. It will have been one of the most a benefactor they simply would not have such challenging times in the school’s history: the last time an extraordinary opportunity. the school was mandated to close was in 1939, when I hope that you enjoy leafing through these the then only male RGS students were evacuated to pages as much as I did and, like me, perhaps you Penrith, and Eskdale Terrace became a regional war will wonder about the incalculable number of lives room. The closure of the school to all but across the world that have been touched by Old keyworkers’ children (the long tradition of RGS Novos involved in medicine. What a privilege it is Photograph by Susanna Stanford educating children of many of the RVI’s Consultants to be a member of this community. ONA | OLD NOVOCASTRIANS’ ASSOCIATION MAGAZINE | ISSUE 108 | AUTUMN 2020 1 FROM THE GUEST EDITOR BY SIMON BARKER HEAD OF ENGLISH I did remark to one of the contributors in the following pages that it was odd for the Head of English to be invited to guest edit a magazine on Meet the Medics; the reply came back that it was not remotely odd. It is indeed true that I have taught very many medics over the years, and written many of their university references. he RGS has sent more people into the medical professions T than into any other. So we faced a colossal problem: the enormous embarrassment of riches on which to draw. It is a good, but challenging, problem to have! The Chorus to Shakespeare’s Henry V apologises at the outset for the ‘wooden O’ that is the Globe theatre, in being unable to do justice to the immense story that is to follow: for each character on stage ‘On your imaginary forces work’, ‘Into a thousand parts divide one man’ who appears there. And we have to make the same appeal: do not be offended, gentles all, if you are not here. The pages that follow can only be a tiny, representative snapshot. at school that its ONs fondly recall (and of the roll call of teachers who But what a snapshot it is! ‘Medics’ we emerge, old and new, who helped to are taking in an inclusive way (including facilitate them). But the other striking dentists, vets, nurses, doctors and other thing is the interconnectedness of the medical professionals). All of that is stories: how a thread or a name here is honoured somewhere in these pages, picked up somewhere else, which also even if it could not be by an article. The On your imaginary manages to reflect the team nature of first thing that is especially pleasing is the what many of the medics here celebrate diversity of story (the only brief was to tell forces work” in their profession. that story from any angle of the writer’s choice), reflected in the diversity of age, It has been a delight to work with the gender, ethnicity, specialism, experience. team at school on this issue and with the It endorses what Kalum calls ‘the broad team of contributors, all of whom willingly church’ of Medicine and Thomas its gave up precious time. Here is our ‘unrivalled range of opportunity’. It is also ‘wooden O’ and, on its stage (as a moving to read about the varied range in Shakespeare contemporary puts it), qualities of opportunities and experiences ‘infinite riches in a little room’.