When did you join Concord?

I was appointed as a maths and physics teacher by principal Martin Horwood in 1974. There were only 11 teachers and 130 students, so it was a formidable load!

What were the students like in the early 1970s?

The students were relatively old compared to today’s cohort, with many having completed military service before coming. Most students were from Nigeria, Iran, Jordan, the Gulf States, Hong Kong, Thailand and an intake from Malaysia in January. British students were rare.

This being the 1970s, the students favoured massive Afro hairstyles and smoking amongst the students as well as the staff was widespread. A number of students owned cars.  At one point, there was a Rolls Royce Corniche, a Lamborghini, a Mercedes, a BMW , an MG sports car and a Volvo in the car park!

Fashions in the 1970s!

What are your memories of Frank Bell?

Frank Bell used to visit every few weeks to check on the progress of the school.  My memory in the early 1970s is of a school very short of funds, and all the furniture in bedrooms and classrooms was government surplus.  There clearly was much to do to create a viable school.

Frank appointed the College’s first Bursar: Donald Yates OBE. They met as prisoners of war in WW2.  Donald had been a very senior manager in industry, and immediately caused significant changes in the organisation of the college.

Frank Bell in 1945

Frank subsequently appointed me as Estate Manager and ‘Bursar designate’ to assist Donald. I started updating the college facilities - no bedrooms had locks on the doors, and so students who were late in arriving found very little furniture left in their room! The bedrooms on the top floor of the Main House had no doors, they had a curtain instead. I rebuilt the top floor with single bedrooms and fitted locks throughout the college on a master key system. Some bedrooms had 4 or 5 students to a room, so the college maintenance team set about building single bedrooms, doing all the work themselves, other than electrical work and plastering.

Frank Bell negotiated a lease with the National Trust at Attingham Park so we could start recruiting girls.  I found the new site difficult to manage as we occupied a prestigious set of National Trust rooms. Every overflow from student baths, showers and basins ended up amongst the priceless national treasures! The heating system was very unreliable, and the kitchen must have been a minimum of 100 years old. 

Concord's First Trustees and guests (Frank Bell took the photo) The early trustees were Roger Bogg (chairman), Martin Horwood, Donald Yates, Frank Bell, Eric Anderson (Headmaster at Shrewsbury School and then Eton College) and Reggie Lloyd, a local councillor.  

When Donald retired, I was appointed Bursar and when Frank Bell retired in 1983 it was my challenge was to form the Bell Concord Educational Trust - I had to transfer the college owned by Frank and Elisabeth Bell to the new trust. This took several months of negotiation and new trustees were sought to form a Board, and I was Company Secretary and Clerk to the Governors. The Chairman of the Board was Roger Bogg.

Building Projects

In an increasingly competitive educational world, it was necessary to improve the college facilities. So, over the next 20 years, I project managed lots of new buildings as well as alterations to existing ones. 

Tony Morris, John Leighton and Tony Foster with some building blueprints

By far the largest projects were the building of the Sports Hall, followed by the Theatre complex.  With such large projects, I requested that the Board gave consideration to the future size of the student population.  The Board arrived at a total number of 250 and this was the figure until I retired in 2003.  So, the Sports Hall, Dining Room and kitchen, and Theatre were all based on this number.

Although the Theatre was the most complicated building (large complicated in situ concrete for the auditorium and air handling plant, and acoustic design of the theatre), I gained the greatest pleasure from the Sports Hall. I always felt that sport was important for an enclosed student society, both for participants and spectators and I am pleased to see how well used it has been.

One building that I have not mentioned was the student kitchen in the walled garden. The architect (who designed most of the new College buildings) submitted the design for the national RIBA Stirling prize in the ‘small buildings’ category. It was shortlisted in the final six in the UK and I attended the prize giving in London!

Tony's building projects included clockwise from top left; theatre, Bell House, student kitchen and the sports hall.

Marketing

In the early 1980s Tony Morris decided we had to actively market the college abroad. We booked into a British Council Education Exhibition in Hong Kong. I went out first to set up the stand and attend the briefing. I had an experience that amused me: we had a student who was homesick and returned home soon after arriving. I was walking in HK and round a corner, I came face to face with the student. He went white and ran! He must have thought that I had come to escort him back to Acton Burnell!!

Our first exhibition was a disaster but we were quick to learn from the experience. Tony Morris and I had taken out just a few sheets on the college and some A3 photos and hadn't recruited a single student. So when we got back home we set about improving our marketing materials. I commissioned the building of a scale model of the college campus.  Bob Marston purchased a high quality camera and took many photos of student activities on the campus, and piloted a plane to take aerial shots (he has a PPL). We engaged a film company to make a video of the college and activities, and Tony and I wrote a new large glossy brochure.  Future exhibitions proved to be highly successful, with the film on a continuous loop, the model, and large photos on lightweight frames.

Filming the College for exhibitions and shows

Student recruiting increased significantly, and exhibitions were attended in several countries. A number of the teaching and administration staff attended the exhibitions, but it became obvious that the strong recruitment only occurred when Tony Morris was on the stand.  Tony had the charisma to engage parents and students, and of course, parents wanted contact with the top person. 

Please share some special memories!

When Concord gained more sports facilities, the College was organised into houses: Hammarskjold, Waldheim, U Thant and Lie. Jack Phillips was a house master and compiled the statistics. surprisingly, his house always came top!!!

Jack Philips compiling the sports day statistics.

Jack Philips (centre) on his 90th birthday

An annual event was the cross country run of three miles. John Leighton and I used to run, and also our children.  One year, a maths teacher called Dr Ivan Wilkes unexpectedly entered. He won by a large margin, to the amazement of everyone.

A memorable event each year was the student concert. I remember a very moving performance where the Iranian students sang beautifully on stage, each with a lit candle. They then extinguished the candles one by one whilst singing. Excellent.

I look back fondly when I think of the students, and staff who went out of their way to be a 'shoulder to cry on'.  The list is not exhaustive, but includes Christine Ellis and Lorna Grant (the first secretaries), Lennie Pitney and her husband Mike, Pat Brown and Sue Coker (lab technicians), Len and Nell Morris who ran a snack bar at the village shop, and Elizabeth Leong who ran a snack bar in the college. The Leong family seemed to spend every working hour in the College; total dedication.

I also remember the difficult winters. In 1980, the temperature dropped to minus twenty in Acton Burnell, and in 1983, we suffered a number of power outages, as a result of industrial action.

Winter in 1982 courtesy of Afzal Osman