28th January 1922 – 6th January 2007 John Foot was the Founder President of the OSSS. He always said that he had the idea for the Society on the Golf Course in 1969 and he enlisted the help of the OS Golfers like Tom Parry to get the idea off the ground and the OSSS … Read more
SAS officer who ambushed a German column while dressed in corduroy trousers and a silk top hat. Major Henry Carey Druce (1921-2007), who has died aged 85, won the DSO and the Croix de Guerre while serving with the SAS behind enemy lines in the Second World War. In 1944 Druce was serving as a … Read more
ERNEST WILLIAM ‘BILL’ DEANE (a 32-37) MA, MB, BCh, MRCS, LRCP Bill Deane was born in 1918. His father, Dr Norman ‘Doc’ Deane was a GP in Christchurch, Dorset. Bill was educated at Sherborne School and then went up to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, to read medicine. He did his clinical studies at The … Read more
Rugby captain who brought consistency to Scotland’s game In an era when Scottish rugby veered from peak to trough with dramatic regularity, Charles Dick provided an element of consistency as one of the leading mid-field players in Britain. He signed off his international career, moreover, with a try in the match historians regard as a … Read more
Famous Fleet Street columnist who prided himself on his hard-hitting exposés of the peccadilloes of high society The longest-serving Fleet Street gossip columnist of his generation, Nigel Dempster became more famous than many of the personalities who appeared in his column. True, he got a great many stories dramatically wrong. He insisted that the Prince … Read more
Ralph Daly, who has died aged 82, spent the greater part of his life in the Arab world; his last 37 years were in the Sultanate of Oman. His time in Oman was the most fulfilling period of his long and varied career, for it was there, under the aegis of Sultan Qaboos, that he … Read more
‘The Great Omani’ Ron Cunningham, who died on Monday aged 92, was an escapologist and end-of the-pier artiste specialising in feats such as eating light bulbs and removing a straitjacket while hanging upside down with his trousers on fire. The Great Omani, as he was known to his public, began in the 1950s as a … Read more
A mathematician of exceptional influence in school mathematics To be awarded, after competition, one of the most prestigious prizes that the University of Cambridge can offer must be the ambition of every good young mathematician. And so it was that Martyn Cundy took the Rayleigh Prize in 1937 for an essay on “Motion in a … Read more
The voice of Dick Barton, Special Agent, who was also a highly respected polar explorer James Bond was perhaps little more than a spark in the imagination of Ian Fleming when Dick Barton, Special Agent, held 15 million listeners pinned to their postwar radio sets. The Devils Gallop signature tune and the sonorous, commanding voice … Read more
AC died in October 2007 at the age of 88. He had led an interesting and distinguished life and was devoted to Sherborne. I knew him from the time he joined the governing body and am indebted to a number of obituaries for information on his earlier life – in particular he left a comprehensive … Read more