May 2021 Ewellian Bulletin Content

Ewellian Email Bulletin Content

Ewellian Email Bulletin Content

OE Cricket Match: 30th June 2021

We're finally into the cricket season and for many, that signals the start of warmer weather (May has been colder than April) and we're delighted to be able to share our plans with you for our annual OE vs School 1st IX Cricket Match.  Once again it will be held at Ewell Cricket Club on Wednesday 30th June from 2.30pm and due to finish around 5pm.  Refreshments will be able from the Club House.

We're looking for cricket players as well as spectators so please email oldewellians@ewellcastle.co.uk as soon as possible if you would like to play or to confirm your attendance as a spectator. Cricket Match Location: Ewell Cricket Club: 27 Ruxley Ln, Epsom KT19 0JB

 

Please donate £5 a month - Stepping Stone Appeal

Please support our £5 Stepping Stone Bursary Appeal that can make all the difference to whether or not a student can afford to remain at Ewell Castle School.  

For the price of a pint of beer/glass of wine or a couple of take away coffees each month, you can contribute to help bright and enaged young people with potential to stay on at Ewell Castle to enjoy, flourish and succeed in our amazing Sixth Form.

To donate just £5 a month to the Stepping Stone Appeal please email Carol at oldewellians@ewellcastle.co.uk

 

Post Cricket Match Castle Drinks

After the OE Cricket Match on the 30th June, OEs plus guests are invited for outdoor drinks and croquet at the Castle between 6pm & 7pm. Places are limited, so email oldewellians@ewellcastle.co.uk to RSVP by 21st June to secure your place if you plan on attending.  OEs may also like to pre-book post drinks supper at The Spring Tavern via opentable.co.uk  

 

Peter Hagger - Alumni Profile

Old Ewellian and Ewell Castle Music Pavilion Appeal benefactor Peter Hagger, left Ewell Castle in December 1945 and started work in London with Midland Bank Trust Company.  Two years later he did his National Service with the RAF, learned to fly and obtained his A Licence through the Bank's Flying Club.  He had hopes of becoming aircrew, but that was confined to regulars, so after 6 months training in England, he spent 18 months in Germany driving reconnaissance cars around Fassberg and Hamburg airports, guarding the big airlift into Berlin that was current at that time. 

Ewell Castle School had given him an interest in football and cricket, which he continued to play and swimming which he has kept going until recently, having obtained lifesaving and teaching qualifications in his time.  He also joined the Bank’s Rowing Club and took part in Regattas without much success.  He admits to being hopeless in athletics at School and the high jump under 12 was all he could manage.  He lived in Rickmansworth, where his two daughters were born, before moving to Portsmouth.  After two years there he was appointed Manager at Worcester, then at Nottingham and finished his career as Manager of the Area office in Birmingham.

Peter and his wife lived in Solihull and in 1995 moved south to Aldwick south of Chichester and West of Bognor Regis.  He was a Magistrate in Worcester and Nottingham, serving also on the Children’s Bench in both cities, and a member of the Rotary Club in Nottingham and Birmingham, serving as Treasurer in the later 5 years before they came south.  He became involved with the visually impaired through Rotary and since moving south became Treasurer of the West Sussex Association for the Blind, spending many years driving members to meetings.  Peter’s sporting interest was squash in Nottingham and then moved to golf in Solihull. 

He was a member of the Robin Hood Golf Club in Solihull and is now a member at Goodwood Golf Club and the Leisure Club.  Peter and his wife have always had a great interest in the Arts and in retirement they studied through the Open University to obtain BA (Hons) degrees in the Arts.  They have 3 grandchildren and one great grandchild and he has fond memories of his years at Ewell Castle School.

 

James Croxson - Alumni Profile

Old Ewellian James Croxson left Ewell Castle in 1967 aged almost 17 and regretfully lost contact with almost everyone at school.  His ambition was to go to Canada and study photography, however, he was invited to work in the family bottle business, and as he already had a few years of holiday work experience he accepted the position.  When the time came to move on, a supplier told him that he thought James’ father wanted him to take the business on and this he did. 

James took the business from being bottle washers [one of the first recycling business] to exporting bottles, jars, corks and caps to over 50 countries.  James has travelled to Australia and New Zealand over 110 times where Croxsons has successful offices as well as setting up a business in America which still operates with glass from China and the UK.   They also have an office in Hong Kong which controls the Chinese purchases of bottles, rope and hand sanitiser equipment, from China they export to over 20 countries.

Croxsons are renowned for supplying some very special bottles for some well know Gin, Whisky and Soft Drink brands and they supply over 200 different Gin companies. They also had businesses in shipping and forwarding with a fleet of vehicles covering Europe, first set up to help imports from France and Germany.  They also had a wine business, concentrating on award winning New Zealand later sold to a London wine company as well as a large printing company which they successfully turned around from a loss-making operation and later sold to a French company. 

36 years-ago Croxsons moved out of premises in Bermondsey to Morden, Surrey, and this month they’ll move again, this time to Sutton.  James has 1 son in the business, another son in Australia, 6 Grand Children and says he was born to be a Grandfather. 

One of his grandsons, (currently aged 13) is a pupil at Ewell Castle, and whilst James thinks it is a very different school now to when he attended as a pupil, it is still recognisable to him as a unique establishment that nurtures its pupils and brings out the best in them.  Now living in Worthing, James continues to travel to the office a few times per week and in his spare time enjoys walking, swimming, travel, and cars.

 

Max Marchesi - Theatre's Rising Star

OE Max Marchesi (who left Ewell Castle in 2017) is currently training at the University of Chichester Conservatoire and staring in  a production of 'Daisy Pulls It Off' by Denise Deegan, at The New Theatre Royal Portsmouth.  Max plays the role of Mr Scoblowski, the Russian Music Teacher, so anyone wanting to tune in and check out how good his accent is can watch via the live stream this Sunday 16th May at 2.30pm and 7.30pm.  Tickets just £8 can be purchased on the theatre's website https://bit.ly/2QgQUDa

 

Australian Summers - By OE Richard Smart in Sydney

Recently my youngest daughter asked me to tape record memories of my childhood holidays to occupy her two children during the drive to their beach holiday. It worked - both slept for three hours! She assures me it was my mellifluous tone and not the content that caused their drift into the twilight zone.

Her request made me reflect on my long-ago childhood holidays, in England. We had a tiny Austin 7 car and us three kids would be crammed, beltless, in the back playing "I Spy", looking for sheep,
cows and horses, and scanning the horizon for first sight of the ocean. "I saw it first," would be the chorus from my two sisters and I; my ever-patient mother would assure us it'd still be there when we arrived.

A memory that stands out is that the sun always seemed to be shining.   Beach cricket every day, huge sand castle building, the impossible  task of stopping the water breach the walls; scouring the rock pools  for crabs and occasionally being nipped; best of all, the daily ice cream served in a giant cone and large enough to dip into and cool off your sunburnt nose (mine, anyway). Doubtless there were wet and windy days; seventy+ years have swept those clouds away.

My summer holiday memories for the past fifty-six years are Sydney centered. Sunshine, of course, has never been in short supply and the nationwide catch cry is "Don't Get Burnt". In the Enid Blyton's
"Famous Five" books (first published in 1942 and going strong) Georgina (George) would have lashings of butter on her beach holiday sandwiches; here we put lashings of sun cream on our bodies.

The simple pleasures of the beach and ocean continue through the generations. Every day I ride a few kilometers to Coogee Bay and swim across it and back. And every day it is different; the wave action and swell; the brilliant, ever-changing colours of the ocean and sky; fish of multitudinous colours and sizes; seaweed and grasses, brown, orange and deep green, in fantastical shapes.

Meanwhile, on the beach, families (with sun cream on) enjoy exactly the same activities from my childhood days. In a world that's changed entirely since those long-past times, it's a joy to behold.
Richard Smart, Sydney, April 2021

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