Feature Articles The Cheltonian 2021-22

Few of College Chapel’s stained-glass windows were completed and coloured, yet one that certainly stands out is on the North side and features a somewhat illustrious Old Cheltonian, Edward Adrian Wilson.

I will never forget meeting Her Majesty The Queen at Cheltenham College and having the honour of showing her around this fabulous school.

My career advice at College never entailed medicine. I wanted to be a farmer or a marine biologist. Enthused by my biology teacher Chris Rouan, off I went to the University of Oxford to study biology.

When I think of Cheltenham College, my first and favourite memories are of Chapel – the thunderous hymn singing and Father Reynaud’s sermons. His sermons consistently focused on service to others.

On 31 August 1997, I set off for my first day at Cheltenham College. Mr Cook (Housemaster of Leconfield) had that summer come to my prep school, Beaudesert Park, and I was looking forward to starting at College, albeit a little nervous!

I’m not sure I’ll ever forget my first day at College. I’d always been a real ‘home bird’. I have a close relationship with my parents and siblings so, despite the excitement about

When I started at College in 2013, I can say with some confidence that the worlds of engineering and manufacturing were not high on my list of interests. My main and perhaps only subject of interest was Art.

There can’t be many three-generation families with Duke of Edinburgh Awards. My interest in hill walking started with a course at Plas y Brenin, Snowdonia, when I was about 15, leading to a Silver DofE expedition with College in Skye and my Silver Award in 1961.

Britain was in a state of international crisis from as early as the summer of 1938. The boys at College were put to digging trench air raid shelters along the edges of the adjacent playing fields during the Summer Term – only to fill them in again in the Autumn Term;