Peter (Monty) Morgan (F 53-58) recalls some of his contemporaries and major events:

“Three articles in the January 2011 Bulletin have spurred me on to put pen to paper. Firstly, Rosa Somerville wrote about her mother, Cecile Wykes, the wife of my Headmaster J.C. Wykes. “JC” only knew me because my father worked for a company that made a machine like a road roller which sucked up water from cricket pitches! Secondly, Alec MacCaig wrote about Alan E.S. Quantrill, as they both went to Wadham House prep school in Hale, Cheshire. I too went to Wadham House, as did Rodney Price (F 53-58), where I played football for the Under Tens team. If we were losing, one of our team with a glass eye would take it out and give it a good wipe. This had no effect on our team but certainly changed the fortunes for the opposition! Finally, Richard Nicholls (F 49-53) wrote about Anthony Dearle and David Lyall. Anthony participated in just about everything going. He was my English master, he sang in the school choir as I did and he was the scout master that took a party of us to scout camp in the grounds of Powerscourt House outside Dublin. David was my Maths teacher and encouraged my interest in cross country running to the extent that I became a member of the Junior Running Eight and later won my senior house tie two years consecutively for the sport.

Amongst my contemporaries on Foundation were Peter Turner, Rodney Price, John Smith, Michael Bird and Trevor Rostron, who all attended my wedding in 1962. Peter has an accountancy firm in Cockermouth. Rodney, who had a lifetime with the drugs company Pfizer, lives near Cork in Eire. John became Physics master at Kendal Grammar School but sadly died some years ago. Michael was, I believe, in surveying and lives in the Lake District. Trevor became joint M.D. of the family paper mill in Selby within a few years of leaving school. He moved to Ross-on-Wye when the business was sold and ran a bookshop there. The Society nor I have addresses for Michael and Trevor. Is there anyone who can help?

Many noticeable world events occurred during my years at St. Bees but three stand out. In Oct 1956 I attended the opening, by the Queen, of the world’s first nuclear power station at Calder Hall. I seem to remember that the whole school was bussed there in order to create a “crowd scene”. Secondly, in Oct 1957, as a prefect, I was allowed to get up in the middle of the night to watch Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite, orbit the earth. Finally, the Munich air disaster on the 6th Feb 1958, when eight of the seventeen Manchester United players died, had a profound effect on very many of us at St. Bees even though we were a “rugby school”.

After school I joined the O.S.B. Manchester Branch where we regularly had just over a hundred members at our annual reunion dinners thanks to the hard work of Dick Harrison. My career included being part of a team running the catering operation at Hampton Court Palace. In 1992 I was involved in catering for 2,500 media people attending the G7 conference in Edinburgh chaired by Sir John Major. My final employment was as Personnel and Facilities Manager for a company that dealt in electronic data management at four sites across England with nearly 200 staff.  I now live in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire with my wife Jennie. On the 1st September next year we shall be celebrating our Golden Wedding.

I should be pleased to hear from my contemporaries on peterandjennie@live.co.uk”