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Copenhagen
Abingdon’s Studio Theatre Club will
perform Michael Frayn’s
Copenhagen
in the Amey Theatre on 13 March as
part of the Oxford Science Festival. The
play focuses on the meeting between
Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg in
Copenhagen in September 1941. Once
colleagues in the field of nuclear research
the war had made them enemies – what did they talk about? The play has a
particular resonance for the town of Abingdon and for the School as many of the
scientists working in the same field as Bohr and Heisenberg later worked at AERE
Harwell and sent their sons to Abingdon School.
After the play there will be a question and answer session chaired by Professor
Frank Close who is writing a biography of Bruno Pontecorvo, a Harwell scientist
who sent his son to the School before defecting to the Soviet Union in 1950.
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Tickets: £5 available at
or 01865 810000
Sir Andrew Hugh Smith
Sir Andrew Hugh Smith, who died on
3 October aged 81, was a Governor of
Abingdon School from 1998-2006. A
senior partner in the stockbroking firm
Capel-Cure Myers, he was chairman of the
London Stock Exchange from 1988-1994
and oversaw the changes made necessary
by Big Bang, the deregulation of financial
markets and the introduction of electronic,
screen-based trading.
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Staff profile:
Lesley Bosley
Attendance Secretary
Lesley Bosley started at the school in 1997
working in the Registry. She then moved to
the Masters’ Common Room as secretary.
She is now working as the School’s
Attendance Secretary and is also secretary
to David Wickes, the Deputy Head Pastoral.
In her role as Attendance Secretary, Lesley
has to follow up any absences. She will
admit that the phone was very busy at the
end of the last term with all the seasonal
ailments that hit the School.
Lesley is a Scot from Aberdeen. Her childhood was spent moving around with her family,
as her father was in the RAF – they had two postings to Germany and one to Aden. It
was the RAF that brought her to Abingdon where she has been ever since – working in
a number of businesses, including her husband’s butchery business, before coming to
work at the School. Lesley has three grown up children. She enjoys singing and has
belonged to various choirs and is currently with the Albert Park Singers. She is a member
of the Green Gym, and also likes to play Scrabble, which reflects her love of words.
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1563-2013
450 Years of
Benefaction at
Abingdon School
To mark 450 years since the first
of a number of large benefactions
that helped to establish the modern
school,
A History of Abingdon School
in 63 Objects
will go live on the
School’s website on 31 January with
new objects uploaded every term-time
Tuesday and Thursday throughout
the year. Why 63? It was on the 31
January 1563, his 63rd birthday, that
John Roysse signed an indenture
endowing Abingdon School with
money and property for a school that
he hoped would have 63 free scholars
in a schoolroom that he knew was
15 x 63 feet. The number 63 has
maintained its significance for the
School, which is why a party of boys
is set to walk 63 miles in 24 hours
over the 28 / 29 April, and why the
school bell will sound 63 times to ring
them home.
There will be an exhibition
Abingdon
to Zanzibar
– a history of Abingdon
and Abingdonians over 450 years
at
Abingdon County Hall Museum from
31 January until 21 April 2013.
On Wednesday 27 February
Michael St John Parker, headmaster
1975-2001, will give a talk to
accompany the exhibition.
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Abingdon County Hall Museum 7.30 pm
Niels Bohr and
Walter Heisenberg
Portrait of John Roysse in the Amey Theatre,
painted for the bicentenary in 1763
