BA Round 2 • The Westminsterian • Opportunities to Help • Lost Contacts • French Item
The Westminster Society
London & Oxford alumni & former staff
18th January 2022
JANUARY NEWSLETTER - MEMBERS' EDITION
Dear "W",
Have you noticed the new roundel above? We are grateful to Bob Pomfret at Brookes for re-drawing the Society's roundels in College colours. There are four versions, the W, the crest, and the simple W to use like a rubber stamp.
And we still have the celebratory silver and blue version too... but the sticky labels of it lack the "The" of our title. We discovered how vital that word is as we changed banks recently! Here is the full set:
In this Newsletter:
The Westminsterian (progress)
BA (ad eundem) - Apply today
Reunion Day - hold that date
1921 Census - West Eyar Training College
Time to make some calls ?
Missing Ws - where are they now?
Subscribe in time for The Westminsterian
Subscribers with no address !
Commissioning Editor Vacancies
The Bar-le-Duc disaster
Obituaries
The Westminsterian
The coming edition of The Westminsterian is being designed at the moment (by the same Bob Pomfret). The magazines are due to be mailed in February and there is still time to set up your subscription to The Westminster Society, so you receive your copy of the magazine straight off the press! See below ↓
BA (ad eundem) ♦ Round 2
Peter S is still seeking Cert Eds from the '60s & '70s who are entitled to request a BA (ad eundem) from Oxford Brookes. Have you asked your College friends?
We know that several hundred people who do not see this newsletter do qualify. We have received nearly 50 requests so far.
Please work your Westminster contacts even harder. Email, phone, and please mention the BA. Please do whatever it takes to find the missing Cert Eds. This is their final opportunity.
We are not looking for those who took the 4th year and gained the BEd. It is friends who finished with the 3-year Oxford Cert Ed. You, and they, will find full details in November's newsletter. Here is the extremely lengthy link for you to cut and paste:
Please send all info and documents to Peter Steadman at: WestminsterOxfordAlumni@gmail.com
The good news continues . . .
The BA exercise has renewed contacts with 23 members whose details were out-of-date. Please don't assume we know where all your Westminster friends are. We probably don't. But we'd like to!
Tell us who's moved, who has a new email address with their permission, of course :
WestminsterOxfordAlumni@gmail.com
The big announcement
Save the day - put it in your diary - right now !
More information coming in The Westminsterian
If there is an idea you want us to consider - please get in touch
If you could be a steward or a runner on the day - ditto
If you are working with the recently released 1921 Census, Archivist Tom Dobson has noticed that Westminster College, Horseferry Road, has scanned as West Eyar Training College. While researching his grandfather Frank Whittingham Rushton, who was resident in College on Census Night, Sunday, 10th June 1921, Chris Rushton has seen it listed as West Year Training College.
Good luck with your researches - and please, don't forget to tell us about them, in this newsletter or in next year's magazine.
A few volunteers wanted - working from home
Over 100 email addresses that were live a year ago have stopped working. People change email and don't remember to tell us. They probably wonder why the newsletters stopped.
They don't know about the BA offer, the new magazine, nor September's Reunion Day.
Can you help by phoning some of these Ws ?
Ann Darley has been phoning the 1950s cohort over the last year. She finds they are delighted to hear from The Westminster Society. Several have rejoined TWS, updated addresses, and added their own email or that of a relative who will print newsletters for them. We have even found nearby Members who kindly print and deliver.
You will be able to read stories from a couple of these fellows in the magazine.
We would like a few people to join Ann, making no more than half a dozen calls a week. You will probably find you enjoy the chat, and so will they.
You then email Peter S with what you have found out, maybe the stories they tell you (we all love a bit of College gossip!), or perhaps just their new address and an email address that works for them.
Please drop Peter a line at the usual email address:
WestminsterOxfordAlumni@gmail.com
Privacy: you will be acting as an officer of the Society so it is acceptable that we pass a few names to you. You must not add the information to your own contacts without express permission.
Missing Persons
Do you know where these Ws are today?
• Chris Lawther 70-73 - anyone know her married name? • Andy Lamb 70-73 - Peter Sergeant would like to contact Andy, and Chris Lawther
• Tony Rowe 68-71, a resident of BB House, brother of↓ • Alison Rowe69-72, Tony's sister • Maggie Rowe 71-74, sister of both of the above !
• Michael Tom Thomas 61-64 - Michael Frost and others, keen to renew friendships
• Mary Burbeck - Ellie Darlow (McDonald, 72-76) would like to make contact • Claire Brown (Smith, '94) in Wiltshire - Shirley Anderson would like to make contact • Sue Taylor (Hanson, 66-69) - Judy Hurd (Green, 67-70) seeking contact
• Beverley Draper (Carr 67-70) - is anyone in touch with Beverley? Graham Riddell 70-73, would like to renew contact
If you know any of these Ws, please contact the usual address:
WestminsterOxfordAlumni@gmail.com
We welcome requests for renewed contact between Westminsterians. Where their alumni list entry is up-to-date it should be fairly easy, but we don't mind a challenge if you only have a few clues.
Your Privacy: the Society will not pass on your email address unless you give permission. It may seem long-winded, but we ask one of the parties to agree to their details being passed to the other even when the Society is in touch with both.
You are already on the subscribers' list to receive the next issue of The Westminsterian when it comes out in February.
However, if you pass this newsletter on to friends (and we hope you will) - they may not be paid up Members yet.
Here are the essentials for joining The Westminster Society as a full Member:
SUBSCRIBE TODAY
so you don't miss the next issue of
The Westminsterian
Subs Paid - but NO ADDRESS to send The Westminsterian:
We need addresses, please, for these Members who regularly pay their subs yet have not said where to send their magazine.
Do you know any of these?
• William K Gerrish, 1950s, in Lincoln • Mr J A Blackhurst, 1997 leaver, was perhaps in Milton Keynes
• Margarita Kimberger, 1994 leaver, last known in Banbury
• A M Brett
• Brodhurst
• N F Dias
• S & A DIcks
• S J Dry
• C M Johns
• R G Nye
• Mr Phillips CBEMA IBS (is this Dr Paul Philliips, CBE MA, at Weston College?)
If any of these names ring a bell with you, even the vaguest hint could help us find them. Peter S would like your info on: WestminsterOxfordAlumni@gmail.com
Thank you.
Comissioning Editors
As we prepare to print and mail this year's The Westminsterian, like Harrods after Christmas, we must begin thinking about the next one!
Could you encourage people to send in their stories and photos? Personal contact makes all the difference here. We can help with contact info.
How much of a job you make it is up to you. Making some calls, sending some emails, collecting in the articles, stories, and images. You could pass them on to the Editor, or perhaps you'd prefer to shape them into articles first.
You may have your preferred subjects - Arts, Sport, Travel, Faith, Education, History. It is, as they say, an open book at this stage. Get in first, and define your territory!
Please drop Peter Relf a line at the usual email address:
WestminsterOxfordAlumni@gmail.com
Et finalement,
Bar-le-Duc . . .
Here's something for the French Teachers and speakers among us, a contingent rarely mentioned, and yet, mon Dieu! Nous sommes une force to be reckoned with!
Peter S writes. When I arrived for my year teaching in Châteauroux I had to find motor insurance. My UK Green Card only lasted a month. Best offer was from MAAIF - the Mutuelle de l'Assurance Automobile des Instituteurs de France. It was even cheaper than my policy back in London.
I told colleagues at our high school how pleased I was with the cost. But they were not so happy.
Although underwritten at Lloyds, (yes, Lloyds, not Paris), their insurance company had that word Mutuelle in it. For two years their premiums were doubling because one member had caused a catastrophic loss a few months before my arrival.
It was 2.30am, a car with bald tyres (2 new ones were in the boot) got stuck on a railway line, not enough time to stop the 103km/h Strasbourg-Paris goods train. It crashed with the car, derailed, hit a bridge, and bounced into the Rhine-Marne canal, taking 13,000 tonnes of carriages, beer and soup, and the bridge deck, with it. The picture above shows the Citroën "Traction Avant" involved.
This closed a major canal which had to be drained to retrieve the metal and glass. MAAIF had to recompense everyone in sight, including the SNCF, and users of the canal who could not move goods through the area. Total cost, 19 million euros - back in 1976. Zut alors!
Here's an article from L'Est Républicain, 40 years on from that dreadful March night. Alerte spoiler: aucune victime mortelle. Cliquez ici. You can also say "Spoiler Alert(e)", mais SVP, protéger notre belle langue de ces néologismes anglais! Aussi: Reportage radio à retrouver ici.
Thank you Peter S. As you see, we do try to please every kind of member, sometimes at the risk of boring the pants off the rest of us.
We hope your year has begun in a better way than the driver in that story!
Our very best wishes
Peter R, David, Mary, Peter S
Liz, John, Frances Ann, Will Sylvia, Miriam, Tom
Your Westminster Society Committee WestminsterOxfordAlumni@gmail.com
Obituaries
We have decided to put obituaries here, at the foot of each newsletter. What appears above can often be quite light-hearted in style. Obits deserve a quieter space.
We often hear about a death a long time afterwards, especially where the alumna/us has not been in touch for a while as a result of declining sight or other faculties. A brief mention here will sometimes match with a more fulsome mention on the website. This will allow more people to contribute to an obituary, making it more personal, adding particular recollections or tributes
We have recently heard about the following:
Mike - Michael Charles Best, 72-75. Died 16th December 2021, aged 67.
Andy - Andrew Paul Sloman, 75-78. Many will have read the tributes on the Westminster College facebook page, and on Andy's own page. He died 3rd November 2021.
Phil - Philip Staves, 56-58. Died 7th November 2021, aged 85.
Liz - Elizabeth Weller (née Long), 68-72. Husband Graham has been in touch to tell us of Liz's death on 6th December, aged 71.
This email is published by the Committee of The Westminster Society
alumni & former staff of Westminster College London & Oxford
Peter Relf (63-66), Chair Mary Lines* (Schofield, 75-78), Secretary David Gibbs (66-69), Treasurer Peter Steadman (74-78), Membership & Online Liz Stock (Bullock, 72-75), Reunion Rep All of the above form the Reunion Weekend Organising Team
Representing Area Organisers: Frances Ann Johnson (England NE, 75-78) • John Wallace (Cornwall, 65-69)
Committee Members: Will Bissett (86-90) • & a vacancy
Recent Chair: Sylvia Clift (65-69)
Methodist Chaplain to Brookes: Rev Miriam Moul
OCMCH Rep: Thomas Dobson
*Mary Lines is a Director of Westminster College Oxford Trust Ltd, which is the sole trustee of Westminster College Trust, Oxford, Regd Charity 309672
