Welcome Wyvern to the 19th Edition
Remembering Marjorie Abraham and Celebrating Stanbridge Earls
An Introduction from the Editor
by Ben O'Hanlon, approx 1995-1997
In this edition, we pay tribute to the life and legacy of Marjorie Abraham, a remarkable educator who touched the lives of countless students at Stanbridge Earls School. Through heartfelt memories shared by Peter Bragg, Edwina Cole, Tim Clark, and others, we celebrate Marjorie's unwavering dedication to nurturing young minds and helping them reach their full potential.
We also delve into the history of Estate Work at Stanbridge Earls, a unique aspect of school life that allowed students to develop practical skills and contribute to the school's grounds. Timothy Salter provides a fascinating account of the early days of Estate Work and its evolution over the years.
Looking to the future, Chris Rowney discusses the importance of Wyvern reunions and the ongoing efforts to bring together former pupils and staff. While no reunion is planned for this year due to Marjorie Abraham's memorial, we look forward to the possibility of gathering in Autumn 2025.
As always, we welcome your contributions, memories, and suggestions for future editions. If you have any photos or stories you'd like to share, please send them to benohanlon@pm.me. Your input is invaluable in keeping the spirit of Stanbridge Earls alive.
Thank you for being a part of the Wyvern community.
Best wishes,
From the Chairman's Desk
by Peter Bragg, 1960-1964
Dear Wyvern,
I hope you are keeping well. The Memorial Service for Marjorie Abraham took place in Romsey at the United Reform Church. Fifty-three Wyverns attended. The Readings were read by:
Timothy Salter (Wyvern Historian)
Julia Parker (Friend of the Wyverns)
Three Eulogies were given by:
Colin O'Brien (1968-1975)
Frances Charlton (1964-1973)
Martin Milward (1967-1973)
The Service was conducted by Reverend Mike Perrott MA.
Tea was taken at Stanbridge. The weather was kind, so we were able to sit outside and enjoy the view of the middle lake, which has not changed.
I owe Marjorie a lot. It was she who helped me be more decisive at the age of thirteen. I was invited to the Abraham's house, with two other new boys, for dinner. The meal included fruit salad. When it was my turn to be served, Marjorie asked if I wanted thick cream or single cream on my fruit salad. I responded by saying, "I don't mind, Mrs. Abraham." She immediately retorted, "One day, Peter, you may be leading a lot of people, and if you can't make a decision, a fat lot of use you will be!"
That advice has served me well throughout my business career. Many is the time I have made a decision, and the thought comes to me, "Marjorie will be proud of me!"
Ben continues to do a good job editing the Newsletter. Please send any memories you may have of your school days to him for publication in the December 2024 edition.
The Wyvern Accounts have been audited, and I am pleased to report that we are still solvent.
Best wishes
A Lasting Legacy: Marjorie Abraham's Impact on the Accelerated Learning Centre
by Edwina Cole, Head of ALC 1997-2009
Marj was the very best sort of educator, always putting the young people first and keeping them at the centre of everything. She began by teaching her pupils at her kitchen table, but by 1997 when I met her for the first time, The Accelerated Learning Centre was well established and valued by all at Stanbridge. No longer in someone's kitchen, but in its own building.
I came for an interview as Head of the ALC. Although I had worked in the field of SEN for over 10 years and had a lot of experience, I wasn't hopeful because I was coming from a large secondary school in the state system. Marj was so kind to me that day, making sure I could see how everything worked and introducing me to the skilled members of staff in the Centre. She was a real inspiration to me, and I left thinking about the remarkable Centre she had created where young people could be nurtured and helped to realise their potential.
She told me later that she was supremely confident that I was the right person to take over from her, and so it was that I spent the next 12 years in post, loving every minute of the enjoyable, challenging life at Stanbridge. She was always welcome in the Centre and visited whenever she could. She often smiled as she reflected that she knew from the start that she was leaving her beloved ALC in safe hands. In preparation, she assigned tasks to the staff so that they could help me settle in and, as a result, I felt welcomed and supported from day 1, rather like the students on their first day!
So many young people were helped to make sense of their considerable talents and differences because of the way they were taught and nurtured. Marj laid the foundations of this, and we who followed in her footsteps were proud to do so, never forgetting the example she had set.
We all have a great deal to thank her for and remember her with love.
A Heartfelt Tribute to Marjorie Abraham: Memories from Tim Clark
by Tim Clark
My name is Tim Clark. To try and explain the emotions I feel in writing this email is like trying to explain the colour of the sky to a blind person.
I began my time at Stanbridge Earls School in the early sixties. Peter Bragg was head boy and in his last few terms, leaving in the summer of 1964, I think, along with Bill Scoble, who taught geography.
I can remember my first meeting with Marjorie. I was struggling with my English and reading at the time, and I was told by David Charlton, who had taken over geography from Mr. Scoble, to report to Mrs. Abraham at the next lesson I had with him. His next lesson came, and I walked along the gravel path at the back of the school up to the top lake and Lindisfarne, the first house in the row from the top lake. Not knowing what to expect, I knocked on the front door. As it opened, a warmth seemed to flow towards me. That was the beginning of a friendship that lasted some 60 years.
The lessons were hard at first, going through word after word and reading story after story while sitting at her kitchen table. There was one word in particular that I could never understand: YACHT. You can understand a word like "news," as it comes from the four points of the compass, but "yacht"—where does that come from? Even if you pronounce the letters, it does not come out the way it should.
There was one time I can remember when I was between lessons, so I had some of my exercise books with me, the ring binder type. I started reading one of her books, and Marjorie started looking through my work. As she did so, I remembered I had pasted some girlie photos on the inside cover. I could feel my face getting redder and redder from ear to ear as she found them. She turned to me and smiled, "So this is your Biology, is it?" That smile was like a glass of champagne, sometimes dry, sometimes sweet, but always bubbly.
When I left and started work, she even found me a tutor to carry on the work that she had started, but it wasn't the same, and I soon lost interest. In the late 60s, perhaps 1970, I got the opportunity to go to the USA and spent almost a year there. While there, I got to know a teacher who taught dyslexia and was able to acquire some books from her. On my return, I went to see Marjorie and handed over these books, which she was very pleased about. She took me to show me her new classroom, which was a loft. I think someone called it 'Paradise.' In my day, it would have been above the old art room.
We kept in touch over the years, with me telling her of my journey through life, work, college, marriage, and children. The last time I saw Marjorie was at John and Marjorie's retirement party at Stanbridge. I brought my daughter with me to meet this incredible person. I was greeted by her saying to me that 'I swore that I was not going to cry.' I'm sorry for that. From then on, we would exchange Christmas cards and bits of news every year until last year.
I have read all the lovely things that people have written about Marjorie, and it seems that her love, friendship, and happiness all flowed from her like birdsong on the wind. I would like to end this email with a poem from a person who lived not far from me, William Penn:
“They that love beyond the world cannot be separated by it. Death cannot kill what never dies. Nor can spirits ever be divided, that love and live in the same divine principle, the root and record of their friendship. If absence be not death, neither is theirs. Death is but crossing the world, as friends do the seas; they live in one another still. For they must needs be present, that love and live in that which is omnipresent. In this divine glass they see face to face; and their converse is free, as well as pure. This is the comfort of friends, that though they may be said to die, yet their friendship and society are, in the best sense, ever present, because immortal.” - William Penn, Some Fruits of Solitude/ More Fruits of Solitude
Thank you, and may your God go with you,
A Box Of Old School Photographs Given To Us By Marjorie Abraham
Estate Work At Stanbridge Earls School
by Timothy Salter, 1960-1964
Estate Work was first mentioned in connection with Stanbridge Earls School in The Stanbridge Earls Chronicle 1961, in a piece written by Anthony Thomas (the School's Founder), dated 14th July 1961. He says in his fifth paragraph on page 2, "Imaginative outdoor games, as elaborate as they were original. Estate work was instituted, and the boys enthusiastically undertook the repainting of the inner kitchen courtyard, and converted it into one of the most effective little Elizabethan theatres I have seen, for our first Parents' Day, when the first of a memorable series of school productions took place."
Estate Work became an option open to pupils who did not want to take part in 'sport'. The master first mentioned in connection with Estate Work was Bill Scoble, who joined the school in 1960 and taught the Cuisinaire system of Mathematics, as well as Geography and Geology. He undertook much work prior to 1962 in clearing the grounds. An area of young conifers was planted, and the kitchen garden tamed and tidied up. A modest start was made to develop the ornamental part of the garden by planting a variety of flowering shrubs and trees. The first part of this work was carried out on the path to Top Lake. Eucryphia Nymansii, a small tree with wide open white flowers, Stranvaesia Davidiana, a shrub with autumn berries, Yucca Filamentosa from Mexico, with a plume of cream-white flowers, as well as Stonecrop and Spindleberry were planted. In addition to this, a huge number of Clematis Jackmannii, which has purple flowers, were planted round the theatre, as well as the rose, Queen Elizabeth.
During 1963, several varieties of Eremurus were planted, so that their tall spires of pink, white, or golden brown would be on show for Speech Day. The main development, however, was the planting of many shrubs between the front drive and the theatre. These were paid for by Mr. Kerrison Preston, a former Chairman of Governors and benefactor of the school.
Under Bill Scoble's guidance, the pupils planted the conifers behind Middle Lake and made a big difference over a number of years to the estate. Bill Scoble left at the end of the Autumn term in 1964, and his place was taken by Michael Birchall. Pupils planted an acre between the Burmese Temple and the main drive. This was a permanently wet area, with very heavy clay soil, well suited to the growing of poplars, a fast-growing and disease-free hybrid, which would reach felling age in about twenty-five years, when the timber could be sold at considerable profit for conversion into matches.
The next area to be planted was that between Top and Middle lakes. Because of the overhead cover of existing trees, a shade-tolerant species was chosen in the form of Beech and Tsuga. A third area to be included in the plans was around the incinerator. This was an unsightly mess, as well as being a waste of valuable ground.
In 1969, a memorial to Michael Birchall, in the shape of a granite stone (a gift from his father), was placed in the azalea garden near the dining hall. Michael died while leading the University of Bangor expedition to the Andes during the summer of 1966.
Bibliography:
Stanbridge Earls Chronicle 1961.
The History of Stanbridge Earls School.
Peter Bragg/telephone/joining and leaving dates of Bill Scoble.
Martin Milward/Cordillera Real 1966 By D H Challis.
From the Standbridge Chronicle 1969-70
Stanbridge Earls Wyverns: Reuniting and Remembering
by Chris Rowney, Housemaster of A House, 1987-2012
I began teaching at Stanbridge Earls School in 1987 and later became Housemaster of A house for over twenty-five years, retiring in 2012. For the last few years of my time at Stanbridge, I was appointed master in charge of Wyverns, the former pupils' organisation, working in close collaboration with Peter Bragg, the chairman of the Wyverns. During that time, I arranged reunions aimed at specific year groups, so there were visits and a meal for those who attended in the 1950s, and then those in the 1960s and so on.
When I retired in 2012, there was no time to appoint a successor in that role before the school closed in 2013. Consequently, as 'last man standing,' I have continued to arrange reunions for Wyverns, with considerable help from others. There have been meetings in London, meals in Romsey, and more spontaneous events in various places.
We have held two events in The Parcel Yard in Kings Cross station, the last one in November 2022, which attracted over 50 former pupils and staff. There have also, sadly, been memorial services held in Romsey, last year for John Abraham and this summer for his wife, Marjorie Abraham, which has enabled many Wyverns to remember these very significant past staff members.
There have been many discussions about where reunions should be held; obviously, Romsey is where the school is, and there have been reunions at Kimbridge and Ampfield, with opportunities to use the facilities of Main House, now part of Audley Stanbridge Earls Retirement Village, which may be possible in the future.
Other events have been held in London, where a good many Wyverns live and is easy enough for most people to reach. The Parcel Yard is especially useful, residing as it does in one of London's mainline stations, but there have been many other venues used in the past.
Because of Marjorie Abraham's memorial, which should attract many Wyverns, it is not expected to hold a reunion this year, but it would be possible to arrange one for next year, maybe in Autumn 2025. Any suggestions for venues, organisation, and cost are always acceptable and should be directed to me at rowneychristopher@aol.com.
Thank you for reading! Let me know how we can improve future editions.