The Westminsterian • Volunteer • Canadian Coincidences • Brookes Webinars
The Westminster Society
London & Oxford alumni & former staff
12th February 2022
FEBRUARY NEWSLETTER
The Westminsterian
BA (ad eundem) for 3-yr Cert Eds
Commissioning Editor Vacancies
Reunion Day - hold that date
Could you phone some people for us ?
Missing Ws - where are they now ?
Customer Recommendation
Subscriber information
Ten Subscribers without addresses
Canadian Coincidences
Obituaries
Oxford Brookes invites us
Dear "W",
It's in the Post
The Westminsterian2022 went into the mail this week. The magazines went 2nd class, and should be with UK Members within 4-14 days (in theory, but please allow a little more for Royal Mail difficulties before you complain about non-receipt).
Overseas copies have been sent by an airmail service.
We apologise to Members who dropped a line to Peter S recently (as he asked us to do) and then found him slow replying. He received over 130 emails about subscriptions and address changes. It took longer than expected to work through them.
Some great information came in and a number of people were able to reconnect with College friends.
The Westminster Society now has 732 Members. Ready to join us? Details further down the page.
Attention 3-year Cert Eds from the 60s & 70s
BA (ad eundem)
We are seeking Cert Eds from the '60s & '70s who are entitled to request a BA (ad eundem) from Oxford Brookes. Are there any College friends you have not yet checked on?
• We have received 61 requests so far.
• Several hundred people who do not see this newsletter would qualify.
Please ask your Westminster contacts. Why not catch up by email or phone and tell them about the BA offer? Please do whatever it takes to find the missing Cert Eds. Brookes tell us this offer will NOT be repeated
We are looking for friends who finished with the 3-year Oxford Cert Ed, not those who went on to take the 4th year and gained the BEd. There are full details in November's newsletter. Here is the extremely long link for you to click on, or to cut and paste:
Please send all info and documents to Peter Steadman at: WestminsterOxfordAlumni@gmail.com
Please don't assume we know where your Westminster friends are.
We probably don't - but we'd like to!
Comissioning Editor Vacancies
We need a couple of people who might encourage other Westminsterians to send in their stories and photos for the next edition of The Westminsterian. Personal contact makes all the difference here. (We can help with contact info.)
How much of a job you make this 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 yourself.
You may have your preferred subjects - Arts, Sport, Faith, 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, with your phone number so you can have a chat about the possibilities :
WestminsterOxfordAlumni@gmail.com
Here's THE Date for our Diaries:
Save the day - let's get it in the diary - right now !
More information coming in The Westminsterian
If there is an activity or event idea you'd like us to consider
- please get in touch
If you could be a steward or a runner on the day - we need you too.
We are planning to include a further BA Celebration
for the new BAs, and
for those with the 2020 award
who could not come to Oxford in 2021
whether unwell, shielding, isolating, or cautious, at the time,
you will be very welcome to celebrate on September 3rd 2022
A few volunteers wanted
Over 100 email addresses that were live a year ago have stopped working. People change email and don't remember to tell us.
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 ?
Fellow Westminsterians will be pleased to hear from you. Asa result of earlier calls, several have rejoined TWS, updated addresses, and added their own email (or that of a relative who can print newsletters for them.)
You will read stories from a couple of them in the magazine.
We would like a few people to make 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 S 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
We are now in contact with Tony Rowe 68-71, and his sister Maggie Rowe (now Gospel) 71-74, who are both living in Suffolk and will be reading this newsletter.
Do you know where these Ws are today?
• Alison Rowe69-72, is not sister of Tony & Maggie, we are still looking for her
• Val Green, tutor, 1990s, Ana Bacharach 96-99, would like to make contact
Martin Lown 68-71 would like to make contact with these contemporaries: • Ruth Keene - does anyone know her married name, or which county she might be in? • Andrew Arscott - originally from Carshalton, he and his wife could be back in the South London area
Peter Sergeant is interested in contacting:
• Chris Lawther 70-73 - anyone know her married name? • Andy Lamb 70-73
• Michael Tom Thomas 61-64 - Michael Frost and others, keen to renew friendships
• Mary Burbeck - it's Ellie Darlow (McDonald, 72-76) who would like to make contact • Claire Brown (Smith, '94) in Wiltshire - Shirley Anderson is keen to contact • Sue Taylor (Hanson, 66-69) - Judy Hurd (Green, 67-70) is seeking contact
If you know any of these Ws, please contact the usual address:
WestminsterOxfordAlumni@gmail.com
Customer Recommendation
Thank you so much for providing me with a contact who was able to get in touch with Beverley Draper (née Carr, 70-73.)
As a result we have caught up after nearly 50 years, swapped news and photos and provided information on other students from that time. . . . this may also provide a springboard for further links to ‘missing people’.
Once again, a big thank you for making this possible.
Graham Riddell (70-73), in Jersey
We welcome requests for renewed contact between Westminsterians. Where their alumni list entry is up-to-date it can be fairly easy, but we don't mind a challenge if you only have a few clues.
Ask Peter S at:WestminsterOxfordAlumni@gmail.com
Your Privacy: the Society will not pass on your email address unless you give permission. For your protection, 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.
Alumni & former staff of
Westminster College, London & Oxford
Subscribe to
The Westminster Society
If you are not yet a subscribing member of The Westminster Society please consider joining today.
The most tangible benefit of joining the Society is that you will receive a copy of our annual magazine, The Westminsterian, each year.
We have a small stock of magazines put by, and we'll send you a copy when you join The Westminster Society - today.
LIFE MEMBERS: We do not know how much it cost to join TWS 'for life' in different decades.
We don't think our predecessors did too many sums, and they certainly did not invest your subscription payment to protect against inflation.
Please ask yourself whether the amount you paid back then realistically covers your membership for this many years. Any contribution you now choose to make will be put to good use running today's TWS and preparing the Society for the future.
When you click on the instructions here they should expand and tell you how to join (or rejoin) the Society.
If your device does not let you do that, this link will take you to the same information our our website:
and we will send you the new 2022
issue of our annual magazine
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.
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.
Do you know any of these Westminsterians ?
• 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
• Judy Page, was in Johnstone Renfrewshire, where is she today ?
Canadian Coincidences • Coïncidences Canadiennes
Strange things happen across the waters it seems. Here are two stories from one of Westminster's exports to Canada.
"I gave my granddaughter one of my college scarves some years ago. She was stopped in the playground by one of her teachers who said: “What are you doing wearing my college scarf?”
It was a lady from the 1961 College intake. I tell you this because it took place in Lethbridge, Alberta! It seems that Westies are everywhere."
And to further illustrate his point:
Some five years ago I opened one of the old files I had brought with me from England, via the Philippines, many years ago.
Out fell a photograph of the 1963 Westminster College hockey team, of which I was a part. Then, as nostalgia and the effects of a couple of “Methodist’s Teas” swept over me, I began wondering what had happened to the various members of that group in the black-and-white photo who had had so much fun together on the playing fields of Harcourt Hill.
So, as one might have expected, I went on-line. After a little fumbling, a site popped up under “Westminster College Forum,” run by a Mr. John Aspey. So I dropped him a line and offered a brief introduction.
Here I should say that it was about 9 o’clock at night, and that I live in Oak Bay, a Municipality of Victoria, in British Columbia, Canada, some eight or nine time zones behind GMT.
But, as I was putting my computer away, a return message flashed up from Mr Aspey.
Astonished, I replied, asking him if he was having difficulty sleeping, expecting it to be around 5.am. in the UK but, once again, I received an immediate reply.
“No” it said, “it’s not bedtime here yet,” prompting me to write back asking where “here” was.
“I’m in Canada,” came the reply.
Intrigued, I pushed even further, “Where in Canada are you?” eliciting a response of “Victoria, British Columbia.”
Within minutes it was established that John was in Oak Bay, like me, and sitting at his computer only about 600 yards away from my desk, just as we had probably sat, without knowing it for years. And, almost every morning for those years, John had walked past our gate, on his way to his favourite coffee shop! So I picked up the phone…
I never did pursue my original intent, but I did gain a new friend, another “Westie.”
Many thanks to Dr Dennis L Brammer 60-63 for sharing his recollections with us. Dennis was in the second intake year at Oxford, where he found the small contingent of Holy Ladies who had transferred from Horseferry Road, with the men. His was the first intake year with men who had not been conscripted into the armed forces.
John Aspey62-65 ran the former Westminster College Forum. An adventurous project for its time, the Forum brought together Westminsterians from the UK and around the world. Sadly the Forum closed down before the COVID era.
It is great to have both John and Dennis with us. Welcome aboard, chaps! How many other overseas towns can boast two Westminsterians? You are going to tell us, aren't you...
We do not have the name of the Westminster-trained teacher in Lethbridge Alberta. It would be rather lovely to find that someone reading this does remember her and can make contact for us.
The Westminsterian magazine only happens because key volunteers put time and effort into the process. Last year's editor, Denis Baldry, set a very high standard for any successor. We are all agreed that the Society's Chair,Peter Relf has well and truly risen to the challenge, putting his own editor's stamp on The Westminsterian 2022.
Working together in the background, were our Treasurer, David Gibbs, and Mr Online & Membership, Peter Steadman, making sure TWS's membership records were completely up to date in time for the magazine mailing.
Our sincere thanks go to all of them..
We hope you have enjoyed this newsletter. We would be delighted to receive your contribution for the next issue. Don't be shy. You know the email address to send it to.
In March we will ask you how you are feeling about our September 3rd 2022 Reunion & BA Day. Are you already planning your trip? Talking to friends about coming together?
You will find an outline of the day's events in your copy of The Westminsterian - although Reunion & BA Day is open to all Westminsterians, Members and non-members alike.
Very best wishes.
Peter R, Mary, David, Peter S
Liz, Frances Ann, John, Will
Sylvia, Miriam, Mollie, Tom
Obituaries
We often hear about a death a long time afterwards, especially where the alumna/us has not been in touch for a while. A brief mention here will sometimes match with a more fulsome mention on the website, and you are welcome to create or to contribute to tributes.
We have recently heard about the following:
Eric A Wheeler, left Horseferry Road in 1952. Died late 2021, Portsmouth.
Dickie - Richard Hadnett, 98 (BTh Distance Learning). Died 1st June 2018 at Limerick Junction, Ireland.
The Westminster Society is one of a dozen alumni societies within the overall Brookes Alumni team umbrella.
As a result, we have access to facilities open to all Brookes alumni. Here is an interesting series of online seminars coming up, from the first week of March.
We advise early booking as these webinars are popular.
This email is published by the Committee of The Westminster Society
alumni & former staff of Westminster College London & Oxford
Peter Relf (63-66), Chair & Magazine Editor 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 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 ex officio members
Recent Chair: Sylvia Clift (65-69)
Methodist Chaplain to Brookes: Rev Miriam Moul
Brookes Alumni Team Rep: Mollie Ashley
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
