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Concordia Winter 2024

‘writing scripts entirely in excruciating rhyming couplets’. As his rugby playing days tailed off, his hours on the High and West courses at Moor Park increased. Many adventures with the OMT Golf Society and the 8.12 gang followed. Mum’s illness and premature passing away in November 1989 was devastating. I simply can’t imagine what it was like for Dad during those days. Now a single parent of four, he battled and endured, and with the love and support of so many, the clouds started to lift. In 1991, when he met Gill Seldon, the sunshine broke through. They married in 1993 and Dad became stepfather to Jason and Mel. Now retired, Dad devoted his time to family, a fabulously busy social life and volunteer roles in various capacities. Of these, he committed the most time

to the Old Merchant Taylors’ Society, editing its News Sheet for 12 years and being its chairman for another 12. He was instrumental in moving OMTs from Durrants to the school grounds, which was a major project. I truly believed he felt a sense of duty, of giving back. We have received dozens of messages of condolence which remark upon his service, and testify to the number of lives he touched and left better as a result. Dad and Gill regularly attended OMT social events until the very end, going to countless dinners up and down the land. Together they frequently travelled to Goa and Hong Kong to visit family, and with friends to New Orleans, South Africa, France, Portugal. Their family grew, as they became grandparents to ten grandchildren. My daughter, Sophie, will learn about her grandfather as I tell her about our

father-and-son trips to Twickenham and Lord’s; how he was one of a handful of people to have seen England win the football and cricket world cups in person; how he met the Queen aboard Her Royal Yacht Britannia while desperately needing the loo; how his choice of Mandarin and Hong Kong over Russian and Berlin would eventually lead to my living in China and meeting her mother. I’ll tell her that, for her Granddad to have met and been so happily married to one brilliant woman may be down to fortune, but to two… he must have been special. An absolute gentleman, sportsman, multilinguist, writer, public speaker, successful businessman, loving husband and father all rolled into one – he was indeed a great man. Farewell, Dad, and

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thank you for everything. John Wright (1996–2001)

Obituaries

Philip Newfield (1958–1963), Gill and Tony Wright, Afternoon Tea 2024