Alan E.S. Quantrill (F 42-46) died suddenly on 7th August 2010 at Weston-super-Mare Hospital at the age of 81.
Alec MacCaig writes:

“I remember well the day in the spring of 1942 when Alan, Donald Sinclair and I were all waved off on the train from Manchester to St Bees by our parents. The three of us had all been at Wadham House Prep School in Hale, Cheshire and we were about to follow in the footsteps of John and Miles Craston, Cedric Wisbey, Geoffrey Lee and David Steele, all of whom made that same journey from Wadham House in the years just before or during the 1939 war.
Alan’s sporting pedigree preceded him when he arrived at St Bees because
T.A. (Tom) Brown, our Housemaster and a very keen sportsman himself, was very proud of the fact that he was going to have on his house the grandson of England’s very first football superstar, Steve Bloomer, and he delighted in letting people know of the connection.

Alan distinguished himself both on the football pitch and the athletic track at both Wadham House and St Bees, and on the rugby field he was a match, on the wing, for most of his contemporaries. After leaving St Bees he had a trial for Manchester United but was denied a place in the squad on account of a knee injury which he incurred whilst playing rugby at St Bees. He did however play hockey for Cheshire for a number of years, but sadly he was diagnosed with ankylosing spondilitis (commonly known as ‘bamboo spine’) in his late twenties and that severely restricted the extent to which he could engage in sporting activities for the rest of his life. He did National Service in the RAF in the Middle East and then went into the insurance industry, where he became a broker with Stewart Wrightson & Bowrings. In 1952 he married Jean and they lived in Cheshire with their two sons until Alan was moved by his firm to Bristol in 1971. He and Jean collected five adoring grandchildren and when he retired from insurance, he spent a lot of time helping Jean with the cattery which she ran in Portishead. He also took great interest in the progress being made by his five grandchildren.”