School Staff: Flight Lieutenant A.H.Tomlin DFC and Bar, School Staff 1948-1953

OBs’ Day 2010 was a great success with a good attendance (over 300) matched with wonderful summer weather (despite some predictions of rain). Highlights of the day included the 60 years on reunion, entertainment and sport for all the family and not least the naming ceremony of the Bromfield Cricket Pavilion, in honour of Jeremy Bromfield, who retired this year following 37 years teaching at Bancroft’s.

In addition the Pimms bar, BBQ food court and children’s entertainment were also a great success and full use was made of the swimming pool and in addition many watched very competitive cricket and netball matches.

The

Old Bancroftian Autumn2010

OBs’ Day 2010

Anthony Herbert Tomlin (usually known as Tony) was a member of staff at Bancroft’s from 1947 to 1953, teaching Latin. Prior to teaching at Bancroft’s he read Latin at Oxford and taught at Framlingham. In between Oxford and teaching, he had a remarkable career serving as a pilot with Bomber Command during the Second World War.

OBs from his time at the school may remember him as a very quiet and kind man who very rarely mentioned his wartime experiences. He made significant changes to the boarding house by changing the well established hierarchy with the introduction of Junior Leaders, this didn’t please all those in School house at the time! Commissioned as a Pilot Officer in August 1941, he rose to the rank of Flight Lieutenant and served with distinction and great courage as a pilot of Lancaster bombers with 619 Squadron. All bombing missions were perilous but the winter of 1943 was particularly hazardous; on two occasions he saved the lives of his whole crew and was justifiably awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross and less than three weeks later an immediate Bar to the DFC. Firstly on the 26th November 1943 he returned from a raid on Berlin in a damaged aircraft unable to land. The aircraft was abandoned over the Yorkshire coast with no injuries to any of his crew. Shortly afterwards on the 16th December 1943, on another raid to Berlin, he was badly attacked by night fighters on the run up to the target, one of his starboard engines being put out of action and catching fire. Tony made the amazingly brave decision to continue and press on to successfully attack

the target on just three engines and then attempt the long, very risky journey back to Woodhall Spa in Lincolnshire in his crippled aircraft. Several hours later he made it back to England but on nearing his home base another engine failed, realising that he now couldn’t remain airborne or reach the runway he crash-landed the aircraft in total darkness just a mile short of the airfield perimeter – not a single injury was sustained to any of the seven man crew.

For this act of courage and skill he received an immediate Bar to his DFC, which was announced in the London Gazette on the 25th January 1944. I’ve been a Commercial pilot for over twenty years and cannot adequately describe how difficult and challenging this event would have been to accomplish with no injuries to anyone involved. His citation for this act of bravery states that, “This officer displayed outstanding determination and devotion to duty”.

Tony went on to complete his first tour of duty, followed by a second one and then half of a third tour before the end of the war in Europe. It is worth noting that 55,573 airmen were killed whilst serving on operations with Bomber Command (with many OBs amongst them). Statistically an airman would survive twenty missions (with the average 5% loss rate); for Tony to have flown in the region of sixty bombing raids is a testament to his courage, skill and leadership of his crew. In the Allied war effort no other unit suffered greater losses, per capita of those serving, than Bomber Command.

After teaching at Bancroft’s he briefly tried running a Bed and Breakfast in Devon but quickly returned to teaching at Stamford School in Lincolnshire, where he remained until his retirement in 1974. Pupils at Framlingham, Bancroft’s and Stamford all recall him as a quiet, modest and unassuming character, only rarely giving end of term talks to his class about ‘The Science of Precision Bombing’, much preferring to keep quiet about his experiences. The crewmembers whose lives he saved weren’t so fortunate and were killed whilst serving on other aircraft. This sad fact touched him deeply and it was with great reluctance that he would even join the CCF at Stamford. He relinquished his commission on the 31st May 1960. Maybe it was as a result of the immense stress of his wartime life that he was a prolific smoker, a factor that most likely cut short his life soon after he retired in 1974.

In the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, whilst living at the school as the son of living-in staff, I well remember the wooden garage that Tony had built to house his car, little did I realise that some forty years later this man would become of such great interest and fire my enthusiasm to research the many OB’s who served with Bomber Command.

Let us therefore remember Tony Tomlin and be grateful that this remarkable, modest, but very brave man came to teach at Bancroft’s.

Matt Giles OB 1976-1983

I am the batsman and the bat,

I am the bowler and the ball,

The umpire, the pavilion cat,

The roller, pitch, and stumps and all.

Andrew Lang

1999 & 2004 Leavers’ ReunionEighty-four OBs attended the event in May, where the President and the Head welcomed them back to the school and encouraged them to get involved in the OBA.

The evening was rounded off with supper being served in the 6th Form Common Room.

Stay In TouchStay In TouchThe OBA is currently in contact with 3,580 members so don’t forget to update your details to make

sure you receive the latest information about OBA news and events at www.bancroftians.net

DATes fOR

yOuR DiARies

15 October

Annual OBA Dinner

Bancroft’s school

1 October

Old Bancroftians Livery Association inaugural Dinner, Watermen’s Hall,

London

2 October

27th Northern Dinner, Rossett Hall Hotel near

Chester

2 December

OBA Christmas Drinks, venue tbc in central London.

Keep an eye on the OBA website

for further details.

The OBA Office: Stephanie Praill Bancroft’s School, Woodford Green, Essex IG8 0RF

email: stephanie.praill@bancrofts.essex.sch.uk Tel: 020 8505 4821

President: Jim Williams

Chairman: Malcolm Fleet (1970-77) email: chairman@bancroftians.net

telephone 020 8530 8869 (home)

Secretary: Amanda Campbell (1979-83) email: obasecretary@bancroftians.net

Treasurer: Michael Watts (1986-93) email: Michael.Watts@Haslers.com

Membership Secretary: Jason Winton (1991-98) membershipsecretary@bancroftians.net

Communications Officer: Steve Dodd (1972-79) email: steve@doddmed.com

Newsletter editor: Gemma Wicks (1991-98) email: boggycreek@hotmail.com

OBA

Contacts

Professor John Newson was an eminent child psychologist, who attended Bancrofts in the 40’s. He is renowned for his excellent longitudinal work in child development at Nottingham University. The full obituary can be read following the link below:

www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/

jun/14/john-newson-obituary

William Luther Chapman passed away on 17th May 2010 aged 95 and attended Bancroft’s from 1925 -1931. He was the first of four generations of Bancroftians, with his son, Ernest Chapman (died 2006) at the School from 1930, his grandson Paul Chapman studying from (1959-1966), and his great-granddaughter Mercy attending from 1988.

Professor Sir Frederick Warner died on July 3 2010 aged 100. He was a leading authority on chemical risk management and nuclear safety and led the first international team into the ruins of the Chernobyl nuclear plant.

In the aftermath of the meltdown in 1986, Warner assembled a group of experts, all aged over 65, to visit the stricken Soviet reactor. On his return to Britain he proposed the formation of a permanent task force made up of older scientists who would be on hand to enter contaminated areas after serious nuclear accidents in order to make initial damage assessments. The idea was that because of their age, they would have less to lose in the event of a massive dose of radiation. As a result Volunteers for Ionising Radiation (VIR) was formed and incorporated into the emergency provisions of the Order of St John.

Frederick Edward Warner, always known as “Ned”, was born in London on March 31 1910, and educated at Wanstead National School, Bancrofts School and University College London.

Warner graduated in 1931 during the Depression. Unable to find work he returned to university for a postgraduate diploma – and opted for chemical engineering. He failed his diploma the first year “because I wasn’t doing anything except playing football and creating

havoc”. This was presumably a reference to his youthful dalliance with an underground Communist cell called the Holborn Students Group, with whom he travelled to anti-war conferences in Amsterdam and Paris. In 1934, after passing his diploma, he enjoyed a “terrific fight”, helping to break up a Nazi rally in Schleswig Holstein.

Returning to Britain, Warner got his first job running an ethyl acetate plant for A Boake Roberts and was soon handed responsibility for a second plant making fire extinguishants, manufactured by mixing methyl bromide with pentachloroethane. It was here that he had his first experience of chemical toxicity when he noticed his staff “behaving very oddly – I’d tell them to do one thing and they’d head off in the opposite direction to do the other”.

Following the outbreak of war, Warner was asked by the government to build a plant for the manufacture of nitric acid (needed to produce nitroglycerine for TNT explosives) at Drigg, near Sellafield. Though he had little knowledge of how to construct a chemical plant, Warner’s success in building it at half the cost of ICI (which did not employ chemical engineers on their design teams, regarding them as an inferior species), helped to raise the status of chemical engineering. Later he organised teams of welders to install FIDO fog dispersal units at RAF stations. From 1944 to 1948 he worked on improving methods of penicillin production with the pharmaceutical company APV.

After several years working for the oil distillers Carless Capel and Leonard, in 1956 Warner co-founded Cremer and Warner, consulting chemical engineers. Over the following decades he became involved in a broad range of engineering problems around the world and served as an adviser on government and government-appointed bodies, including the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution and the Advisory Council on Energy Conservation. He also served as a technical adviser at the inquiry into

the explosion at the Flixborough chemical works (1974-1975) and an assessor to the Windscale Inquiry in 1977-1978.

In 1982, two years after his official retirement, Warner was appointed treasurer of the International Council of Scientific Unions’ Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE) and went on to chair three important SCOPE projects into: predictions of a nuclear winter scenario expected from a major nuclear exchange (ENUWAR); the data from the fallout from the explosion at the Chernobyl reactor (RADPATH); and radioactivity from nuclear weapons tests (RADTEST).

Warner was a founding member of the Royal Academy of Engineering and was the longest-serving member of the Institute of Chemical Engineering, which he joined in 1936 and served as president in 1966-67. Among many other appointments he also served, at various times, as president of the European Federation of Engineering Institutions and chairman of the British National Committee on Problems of the Environment.

In additional to his career as a consulting engineer, Warner held a number of university appointments as Visiting Professor in Environmental Science at UCL (1970-1986); Visiting Professor in Chemical Engineering at Imperial College (1970-1978); and, from 1983, Visiting Professor in Chemistry, and later Law, at Essex University. He also served as pro-vice chancellor of the Open University.

Warner was elected to the Royal Society in 1976, winning the society’s Leverhulme medal in 1978 and Buchanan medal in 1982. He was knighted in 1968.

Warner, who was twice married, was survived by his second wife, Barbara, and by a daughter and three sons of his first marriage.

On the 4th September an U19’s OB’s

side turned out against Canadian side,

Meraloma, hosted at Bancroft RFC. This

is the second year running that the

recent leavers have played as an OB’s

side and it is hoped to continue next

year by entering an U21 side in Cronk-

Cunis National U21 XV’s Rugby Festival

which takes place in Richmond at the

end of August.

Bancroft RFC and the School are

working closely to develop the youth

section rugby of the club by running an

U12’s side this season.

Bancroft RFC captained again by Matt

Barrett (98-05) having been promoted

to London Division 3 would encourage

OBs (either current players or former

players) to check out what is going on

at the club via the new website www.

bancroftrfc.com . Former players are

encouraged to show their support by

joining the former players section and

of course coming down to watch.

OB Samantha Spiro• won an Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical or Entertainment for her performance in the Open Air Theatre’s revival of the Jerry Herman musical Hello, Dolly!, in which she played the title role of meddling matchmaker Dolly Levi.

OB Alysa Hulbert• is joining the British Schools Exploring Society on exploration to the Arctic.

Yolanda Brown• will be starring in her own show, ‘Yolanda Brown Live In Concert’ in London on Friday 19th November.

Raphael Pepper• recently opened his new studio at 47 Cranwich Road, London, N16 5HZ. Amongst the new works currently on show is the ‘Crying Virgin’

Gordon Brown• MD of TeleAdapt is listed at 50 in the first annual International Track 100 league

table supplement published by the Sunday Times (11 July 2010). The league table ranked companies’ international sales growth over the latest two years of available accounts. The table was based on limited publicly available data of international sales so there are likely to be omissions, but it provides a useful picture of growth in overseas trade by UK private companies.

for the full obituaries celebrating the lives of OBs, please go to

www.bancroftians.net

Anyone who’s been to one of the OB

Dinners will tell you what great fun

it is to renew friendships with former

classmates and staff both current and

past. This year we’re trying to make it

even better with a few surprises to make

it a great evening.

We’ve already got booking requests from

Bancroftians from every decade since

the 1960’s, so you’re bound to bump into

someone you haven’t seen for a while.

Better still, why not organise a group

booking and enjoy having a whole table

of friends to drink, eat and be merry

with.

This year Jeremy Bromfield will be our

guest speaker – so your chance to come

and wish him well in his new life.

Ticket prices are an extremely palatable

£30 and even better value for those who

left between 2008 and 2010 and any

students still studying full time for their

first degree – you pay just £20.

For your money, there’ll be a fabulous

meal with two bottles of red and two of

white on each table, and if you want to

drink more we’ll have a fine vintage for

you to purchase. As usual, we’ll all be

gathering at the bar from 6.45, with the

Dinner starting at 7.30.

Get your booking in early as we expect

to sell out.

Tickets can easily be booked online at

www.bancroftians.net or if you prefer

send a cheque (payable to OBA) with

your contact details (including an e-mail

address) to:

Nick Bowman

Old Bancroftians’ Dinner Manager

15 St Johns Road

Loughton

Essex IG10 1RZ

Please include the years you were at

the school and/or who you would like to

be seated next to, and if you’d prefer a

vegetarian meal.

Look forward to seeing you there - and

if you know anyone who might like to

attend but may have dropped off the

mailing list, do just pass this on.

Old Bancroftians’ Dinner15th October 2010

Don’t miss out on future OBA events!Help us to keep you in touch.

Please keep your details up to date by entering them at www.bancroftians.net

or emailing them to stephanie.praill@bancrofts.essex.sch.uk

OBs News

school News

OB Rugby Club news

OBA Business Networking – Linkedin

exam success for sixth formPupils have been celebrating an impressive set of A Level

results, with well over half of the papers achieving an A grade

or above. This is the first time that sixth formers have been

able to attain an A* at A Level - the new grade is reserved

for an exclusive group of pupils scoring at least 90% in their

A2 exam – and seven hard working Bancroftians achieved

three or more A* grades, including Karandeep Nandra, Tim

Robinson and Rupal Desai who all achieved a fantastic tally of

four A*s.

Once again the school saw a 100% pass rate, with 87% of exams

gaining grades A*/A or B. Sixty one pupils achieved at least

three A grades and fifteen achieved at least four A grades.

The school sees nine of its most talented pupils off to Oxbridge

colleges in September. Six of these have confirmed places

at Cambridge: Izabel Cheung (Natural Sciences), Rachael

Flaherty (Geography) Ifey Frederick (Classics), Alyssa

Hickson (Modern & Medieval Languages), Karandeep Nandra

(Medicine) and Lara Tembey (Economics). Aqil Taiyeb (Physics),

Ruchika Patel (Geography) and Annabelle Trotter (Ancient

and Modern History) have confirmed places at Oxford.

In addition, eight pupils are planning to study medicine (or

related subjects such as dentistry).

Mary Ireland congratulated the pupils on their successes; “the

Sixth Formers have been very focused in their studies and their

hard work, together with the support given by their teachers,

has paid off in this set of results. Fifty members of the year

group gained at least one A*, with 21.3% of all A Levels taken

scoring A*. This is well above the national average for A* which

is 8.1%.”

Highest ever A–A* results at GCseMembers of the Fifth Form were jubilant as they opened their

GCSE results last month. The year group achieved the best

ever crop of results with the number of A*s awarded soaring

to 54% and the number of A-A*s reaching a high of 88%, which

exceeded last year’s results by 7%. 98% of the exams were

awarded B-A* grades.

An impressive 24 pupils, out of 107, received 9 or more A*s,

with four obtaining a stunning 11 A* grades. Although pupils

did well across the board, results in the science subjects

were particularly outstanding: with 70% achieving an A* in

Chemistry, 65% an A* in Physics and 60% an A* in Biology.

Among the many success stories was Third Evie Foster who

achieved an A* in her Spanish GCSE. Every one of the U4

pupils who took their French GCSE a year early achieved an

A*, and 91% of U4 mathematicians achieved an A*.

The OBA has set up a group on the

professional networking site Linkedin.

The business contacts network is

currently used by over 65 million

professionals who use LinkedIn to

exchange information, ideas and

opportunities. It provides a means

to stay informed about your contacts

and industry. Find the people and

knowledge you need to achieve your

goals. In addition it enables you to

control your professional identity

online.

Membership for the group is only open

to OBs registered with the OBA; the

group has only being going a couple of

months but already has 85 members

and two informal business networking

events are taking place in September,

one in London and one in Sydney.

Two student OBs have found work

placements through the network so it is

worth having a look.

If you are already a Linkedin member

simply select groups – group directory

and search under Old Bancroftians.

You can then click to join the group

otherwise visit www.linkedin.com/

to find out more about this business

network and to register.

Old Bancroftians’ Livery Association inaugural DinnerThe recently formed Old Bancroftian

Livery Association comprising Old

Bancroftians and others linked to the

School with connections to the several

Livery Companies of the City of London

and the City’s oldest TA unit – the

Honourable Artillery Company are

planning to hold their first Dinner this

autumn on 1 October. Instead of the

vast grandeur of Drapers’ Hall, which is

familiar to most OB’s, we have chosen

the smaller, yet equally impressive,

Watermen’s Hall.

The format of the evening, which will

be a black tie event, will be the familiar

City sparkling wine reception starting

at 7pm, followed by a three course

meal at 7.30pm with wines and port,

formal toasts and a couple of speeches.

Carriages will be at 10.30pm. The cost

for the event will be £80 per person

inclusive and guests, including wives or

partners will be most welcome.

If you would like to attend the dinner, or

just find out more about the association

or Livery Companies in general do

please contact our Chairman – Tom

Barker tl.barker@ntworld.com

Obituaries