This joint contribution is from Mark Spencer Ellis (SH 62-66) and Iain McNicol (SH 62-67). SIXTY YEARS ON.

Mark writes: “In September 1962 Iain McNicol and I joined Eaglesfield. The following term we moved onto School House and subsequently shared a study as well as succeeding each other as Eaglesfield House prefects. In February this year I suggested that we could meet up when my wife, Victoria Love, and I might break our journey on our way to the Western Isles, which together with the Isle of Skye have long been our favourite summer destinations. We met in Port Appin where Iain and his wife Winnie live. So, at this stage he can take up the tale.” Iain writes: “Mark and I had a very pleasant evening together last night with our respective wives, whom we had never met, as it is 54 years since Mark and I last saw each other. We started on Eaglesfield together 60 years ago before moving quickly onto School House in January 1963 – the severest winter for many years. We immediately became firm friends and supported each other through our time at St Bees enjoying rugby, cricket, running and indeed most sports. Our paths diverted when Mark went to Oxford whilst I chose to go to the family Alma Mater, the University of Glasgow, initially to study biochemistry, but after two years, hating laboratories, I went and asked to follow my dream to become a GP and was accepted to medical school on the old six year course, which had long summer holidays, allowing a rich education in life. In these holidays I worked in the Forestry Commission, hitch-hiked round most of Europe, worked in an innovative cancer clinic in Germany, was the sole white employee on an Arkansas cotton farm, and ended up running a 1,500 bed provincial psychiatric hospital in Thunder Bay. On graduating I did my surgical house job in Inverness before returning to Glasgow to do a medical/geriatric house job with the pioneer of geriatric medicine, Prof Fergusson Anderson. I then did a trainee GP post in Bearsden and Woodside Health Centre in Maryhill, Glasgow with a view to deciding what further training I wanted before entering practice. Memorial University of Newfoundland had set up the world’s first programme for remote family medicine training, so I applied and was luckily accepted on their two year programme. So, we spent two happy years in that fascinating province before returning to Hamilton and then spending two years in the lovely island of Flotta in the Orkneys at the height of the oil construction boom. My father then retired from the Appin Lismore Practice, so I applied and was lucky enough to be accepted, and so spent the rest of my career in a single-handed practice, which allowed endless opportunities to expand my horizons. I have had a wonderfully satisfying life shared with my wife, and four children and my Moody 35.” Mark continues: “I hope I have had a fulfilling career, but not perhaps so obviously in the service of others as Iain’s has been, particularly in the light of some of the stories he shared with us in June. I read English – a stern critic might say ‘English and rugby’ – at Oxford at the college where one of St Bees most distinguished players, Peter Dixon, was a post-graduate student (in my first year all three members of the college back row went on to captain their countries, one for South Africa and two for England); I then taught at Marlborough College for six years. My rugby career peaked with a senior county cap for Dorset and Wiltshire. On a scale of representative rugby, with playing a Lions’ test match at one end of the scale and an under 15 trial for Rutland at the other, perhaps my playing days were more at the Rutland end. When I started as Head of English at Forest School in East London it was a boys’ school with about 450 pupils of secondary school age. Over the years the school has become co-educational, has made more space available by abandoning boarding, and has become much larger. I spent 28 years as Director of Sixth Form, and in the final years we had 280 sixth form students. While serving my time as an A level Chief Examiner, I published several contributions in the Longman Critical Essays series, mainly on Shakespeare and Chaucer, and also edited Brave New World and Cry, The Beloved Country for Longman Study Texts. In 2012 I stepped down from the Director of Sixth Form post and took two years of part-secondment at the new London Academy of Excellence. This is a sixth form academy in the London Borough of Newham, which has six partner schools in the independent sector: Brighton College, Caterham, Eton, Forest, Highgate and University College School. My role was to set up the template for university guidance and to be, together with a teacher from Eton, half of the initial English Department. This was extraordinarily rewarding. Raising aspirations was easy, especially with students who had learnt to conceal any academic inclinations and who were now revelling in the realisation that it could be cool to be clever. I don’t believe for a minute that a sixth form’s quality should be judged solely on its Oxbridge results, but they can be a healthy indication that things are going well. Back in 2012 on average two or three Newham students won places at Oxford and Cambridge. Building on a first year which doubled the borough’s previous average, LAE has been achieving well over 30 offers recently. Teaching and encouraging these students, many of whom were the first members of their family to apply to university, was a wonderful way to end my career. However, I’m still busy though looking for ways to cut down on commitments. I first became involved in running night shelters in the 1990s when the Redbridge night shelter was set up, and I negotiated a move into permanent premises with the local authority. Then I joined the Board of Management of the Renewal Programme, renewalprogramme.org.uk, which is a major charity operating in Newham running several projects which aim to empower the most marginalised members of society. When I became Chair of the Board of Management we had a turnover in the region of £3 million a year, so while not being a giant like Oxfam, we were in the top 5% of UK charities for income and expenditure. After ten years as Chair I decided to step down in 2016. In ‘retirement’ I trained as a Church of England Authorised Preacher at St Mary’s Woodford and I currently chair Chelmsford Diocese Educational Trust. There are 139 Church Schools in the Diocese, and our main function is to be a member of the Board of each multi-academy trust which has responsibility for one or more of our schools. Rather to my surprise I’ve also found myself accepting the position of Co-ordinator of the Chaplaincy of the largest Crown Court in England and Wales. Snaresbrook Crown Court is based in a former orphanage and school, and with twenty courts can be a very busy and stressful place. We have an ecumenical team of about fifteen, which allows us to open for at least ninety minutes in the middle of the day when the Court is sitting. The role in some ways is rather like that of being Director of Sixth Form: no matter how often you’ve heard versions of a particular issue or problem, you have to remember that this is probably the first time the person talking to you has experienced it. A capacity for non-judgemental listening is essential. As is the case with Iain, I find close family a source of great delight. Both of our daughters live fairly close, and some OSBs have met the younger one, Julia, at the OSB and guests’ event at Wasps in March 2019 (see the Bulletin for July 2019). While I am singularly lacking in Iain’s enthusiasm for and capacity to sail a Moody 35, my enthusiasm for rugby remains, and Julia and I have been season ticket holders at Wasps since the amateur days. This has involved four changes of home ground, each further away from home, but the thought of changing to the nearest premiership club, Saracens, is impossible.

Mark Spencer-Ellis (left) & Iain McNicol (right)

1966 whole School photo Left to Right: Mark Spencer-Ellis, Hugh Redway, Anthony Fox and Iain McNicol

On reflection I think I was so lucky that St Bees between 1962 and 1966 was rather good at two things I really enjoyed, English and rugby. I wish I’d had the imaginative capacity back then to appreciate what experience of the school must have been like for those who didn’t buy into the mainstream ‘approved’ activities. What has also stuck is a remark by Geoffrey Lees. Right from the beginning of the lower sixth in 1964 when he taught us, I sensed that he found teaching a relief from the public role of being Headmaster. And in my final year he suggested that while a sixth former of 1939 would have had so much in common with a sixth former of 1962, neither would have found it easy to find common ground with a sixth former of 1966. I’m so pleased that Victoria and I were able to visit Geoffrey and Joan in Hove so that I could say, many years later, that I realised I owe so much to his teaching.”

 

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