The TRUSTY SERVANT
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The TRUSTY SERVANT N O .118 N OVEMBER 2014 The Headmaster writes: Vale David Fellowes David possessed in abundance, was the way forward. The David Fellowes has appointment of Lorna Stoddart Winchester in his DNA; his from the National Trust for father came up to Trant’s in 1937, Scotland to work with David to and his two sons, George and create the skills base we needed Archie were both in Phil’s. David resulted in an ideal partnership. himself came up to Hopper’s in 1963. Sport was his thing. He David is a man of golden qualities. captained Soccer XI, played He is a team player. He is squash for the School, won organised and gives attention to Middle Steeplechase and played detail. He is sensitive to the in VIs. After six months as a feelings of others while holding to Rifleman in the Green Jackets the constructive objective course and an escapade to Australia and of action. He is avuncular and has New Zealand, he trained as an natural charm – he has the party accountant and via several other spirit common among Hopperites! firms started his own accountancy He is patient (even with that rare practice in 1989. It was specimen of OW, the wilfully Winchester’s good fortune when, ignorant and prejudiced). He has on the retirement of Patrick been able to interpret effectively Maclure, David took up the post to the OW community changes in Photo by courtesy of Martin Tod of Secretary of Wykehamist the School’s policies and approach. He has been a major influence Society in 2004. determination and personal integrity in maintaining the blend of tradition and made this transformation possible. The At that time the School had innovation which makes Winchester the creation of Win Coll Soc was quickly recognised that friend-and-fund-raising lively institution it is. needed to be put on a more professional accepted by all parties of good will, footing. It fell to David to implement the consistent with David’s palpable As Headmaster I have enjoyed the Governing Body’s decision of 2006 to commitment to all that is in Win Coll’s happiest of professional relationships with create Winchester College Society, best interests. David. To me he is the Trusty Servant, open-handed, discreet, faithful, practical – binding together OWs, dons and parents Once Win Coll Soc was established, and even well-dressed! David is well past and present into one organisation. David could quickly see the scope of its aware of his good fortune in Venetia as his Only a man as trusted by all potential and the structure it needed to partner and support. The entire constituencies as David was could have achieve that potential. The appointment Winchester community thanks them for carried out this diplomatic and strategic of a highly-respected development their loyal and exemplary service and challenge without rancour and with a professional to oversee fundraising takes comfort in the knowledge that in remarkable degree of harmony. His strategy, coupled with the equally- retirement they will continue to be a part combination of clear thinking, important friend-raising skills which of Winchester life . I 1 N O .118 T HE T RUSTY S ERVANT Stephen Winkley The Second Master writes: And what a place Winchester is! Tradition is everywhere, as is the flow of Stephen Winkley succeeded James people through it, and the imprint of Sabben-Clare as Second Master in minds and lives that have gone before. September 1985, occupying that role Variously powerful faces stare from the until August 1991 when he was appointed walls in the neat symmetrical universe Headmaster of Uppingham School. He Christopher Wren gave us in School. was the last Second Master to run And Old Cloister’s memorial plaques College: the job was split into two when testify to the human flow. And then the his term of office came to an end. little things: the worn stair; the dented Stephen came to Winchester from salver; the graffiti of an idle moment. Cranleigh School where he had worked That human flow, while fascinating, for almost twenty years and where he had occasionally overwhelmed us in our hazy, latterly run the sixth-form house. He half-understood struggle to understand brought to our community a worldly ourselves and our place at the end of the scepticism, a quick intolerance of queue to get into the world and see what anything stuffy and an independence of Court) to Mus a¯ . He seemed to enjoy the we would make of it. spirit that sometimes struck his colleagues social side of the job. He and Jenny were Into this world Stephen stepped. I’ve as wayward. He also brought with him his certainly generous hosts: the writer since met people who were at Cranleigh wonderfully good-humoured wife Jenny remembers a wonderful Friday dinner under him and he is an instant bond (whose gracious equilibrium was party in their kitchen in honour of between us. immediately shaken by the speed with George and Zara Steiner, for example, which Collegemen ate their lunch), their and many a merry moment. He was exciting to talk to. He was daughter Imogen and two characterful interested. It was genuine. He had his sons from an earlier marriage, Leo and Joe Bain used to say that a person was own boys our age, whom we knew a bit. Mungo. either a boys’, a parents’ or a colleagues’ Our parents sensed too that he really was Housemaster (or Headmaster), but never in loco parentis . Like so many, he soon fell for the all three. Stephen was unquestionably the romance of College, though that did not first. Late in Cloister Time 2014, a group He could exasperate his colleagues on prevent him from some fairly sturdy of Collegemen of Stephen’s time in office the teaching staff with his disciplinary treatment of individual transgressors, gathered for dinner in College Hall to style, often no more than exasperation including dons who hazarded criticism of honour his memory. Marcus Fysh (Coll, with our wrong-doing, and a colourful his brightest Scholars: his sarcasm in 84-89) spoke; and here gives a Scholar’s- exhortation to grow up, and apologise. response to some clichéd expectation one eye view of this memorable man: Occasionally there were serious might have perpetrated could be matters, which he took seriously; but in wrinkling. In the classroom he liked to go ‘Padding around in his Russian fur my experience he respected those who his own way: to the delight of his pupils hat like a Cold War spy, Stephen Winkley were honest and candid, and he was and to the consternation of his Head of wasn’t regarded as all that Wykehamical wonderfully quick to forgive. Department, he once taught a satire of at first. Juvenal that had not been set – and taught He was certainly a change from our In a place like Winchester which so it in French. much respected Second Master, James readily enthuses its charges about the minds of others - the geniuses, poets and In those days the Second Master was Sabben-Clare. Steeped in knowledge and polymaths - and which made us marvel at also Chairman of Common Room. the traditions of the place, James had our own mental dexterity and powers, Stephen masterminded the move from been a boy at the School, had served as Stephen led us in unexpected directions. the room which is now E5 (on the ground Aulae Prae and Captain of VI, had floor between Moberly Court and Flint returned as a don, and was going on to be I didn’t see this at the time, but in his Head Man. 2 N O .118 T HE T RUSTY S ERVANT Div hours he got us studying our own He used his love of theatre to direct and intellectual ideas of the modern hearts and souls, and how people interact us skilfully and passionately in David western counterculture, and a different with each other, or fail to, socially. We Hare and Howard Brenton’s satire of kind of belief in the self, that arose in the studied theories of psychology and journalism and 1980s society, Pravda . And 1960s. interpersonal relationships. And the it was my reading of the psychology and And in retrospect that was a very literature he gave us was, in retrospect, a cultural resonance in Sophocles’ Oedipus Wykehamical thing to have done. stark warning not to lock our souls up, not Rex , and an essay on ethics that I wrote in to shut ourselves off. We read Harold detention, that led him to recommend me Thank you for the respect you Pinter’s No Man’s Land and Hermann for prizes. showed us, Stephen. I feel no Hesse’s Steppenwolf . His interest in the embarrassment at all in saying that you So yes, he actually was a sort of Cold personal and social byways of history were greatly loved and will be greatly War operative. He subtly smuggled into made him more interested in Juvenal missed.’ I our young brains the liberal, emotional than Virgil. The Kenneth Clark Prize Laurence Wolff, Head of Art History, writes: great sense of occasion to the Final. There medal be part of the British Museum has been an extraordinarily eminent set of collection, which it now is. The Kenneth Clark Prize has Adjudicators, including two Directors of celebrated its tenth year. It is part of the The eight talks in this year’s Final the National Gallery, the Chief Executive Div syllabus, and from 2014 onwards will were of exceptional quality. The winning of English Heritage, the Surveyor of the extend from VIth Book to the lower presentation was given by Sam Groom Queen’s Pictures, the Director of the years, involving every boy in the School.