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Paddington. He trains all the cardiac arrest and trauma teams in the hospital. He says it is a good job, great fun (!!-Ed) but he does see a lot of dead people as his job has a big clinical role. As he admits, it is a strange career for someone who failed all his science 'O' levels! He also mentions Martin Bircher (1970-72), a consultant surgeon at St. George's Hospital who was in the news in 2002.
David Hammond (1975-80) was filmed taking part in the Paris-Dakar Rally last January and appeared in Michael Palin's 'Sahara' series on BBC1 in October. The filming took place just days before David dropped from the top of a sand dune and had to be flown to hospital in Paris. He has made a good recovery and has returned to grass track events. The cameramen for the series were Nigel Meakin (1956-63) and Peter Meakin (his son? - Ed)
Richard Dunwoody (1975-81) has figured in the local Gloucestershire news recently. He is part of a team taking part in the first race to the magnetic North Pole. There are nine people in the team who will be divided into teams of three to compete against others from across the world. The teams will be setting off from the North West Territories of Canada in April and the 400 mile race is expected to take about 30 days. The team was shown acclimatising to low temperatures in a frozen products warehouse in Swindon and doing fitness training on Kemble airfield by pulling a Hawker Hunter jet along the runway.
Jonathan Quick (1979-86) is very much enjoying running his travel business in Cheltenham which is proving successful.
Eric Blencowe (1976-83) has returned from Kenya and now works in London for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and is responsible for general policy matters associated with the government's sponsorship of the Environment Agency.
Stephen Lea (staff 1989-97) is now on the staff of a school in Worcester. He returned to Rendcomb to play the harpsichord in a concert on Remembrance Sunday and played the organ at a concert given by the choir at Cirencester Methodist Church on Advent Sunday. He is to be married in May.
Chris Morshead (1974-77) writes: "Following the tragic events of 9/11/01 I found my new career in the world of commercial aviation in smoking ruins. I have come to be most thankful that I was far better off than the hundreds of thousands of people affected by those sad events, either those who lost loved ones or friends on that dreadful day, or those who have suffered from the far reaching effects that 9/11 had, and still has, on the global airline industry. Having had an enjoyable time working for Her Majesty in the past, it was not long before I was back in gainful employment in navy uniform. I am currently based back at RNAS Yeovilton, Somerset in my old role as an engineer officer. In some ways it seems like the last three years 'outside' never happened. In addition to my return to the navy, I am looking forward to getting married again this summer. Yes, the last two years have been quite 'eventful' all in all. This time round I seem to have acquired an instant family in terms of two lads aged 17 and 15 and a daughter aged 13 going on 21 - as well as 'er indoors', Sharon. All this has had a major impact on my ordered lifestyle but I would not have it any other way - well, most of the time! My hope is that I will have a few years of stability now - but, as I have found out, life seldom works out as planned!"
James Button (1990-95) spent a gap year on an Israeli Kibbutz, including 4 months with the Israel Defence Force as part of their bomb squad. He was wounded twice and is a qualified parachutist. He graduated in 1999 at Nene University College, Northampton, where he read English and history. Since then he has had various jobs including those with police civilian support staff and Barclaycard.
Friends Reunited
From Charlie Jeffery (1988-90):-
"After having a baby I decided that I'd like to do something just for me as my life seemed to be pulled in lots of different directions. The O.R. magazine dropped on my doormat and I now find myself on the committee - how did that happen?
I was tasked with trying to make contact again with O.R.'s who had subscribed when they left school but had forgotten to include the society in their new home card list! The only way we could think of doing this was to use the very successful Friends Reunited website. There are currently 693 people listed under Rendcomb between 1945-2001 so armed with a spreadsheet I started at the beginning and worked my way through. I have had over 50 replies from people missing from our database and all of them were pleased to be able to receive newsletters again.
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