The Abingdonian 2019

94 The Abingdonian Pygotts’ House Welcome to the first Pygott’s House end of year report. Replacing a well- loved, charismatic and inspirational leader is never easy as people as diverse as Anthony Eden, David Moyes and Chris Evans have all found out to their cost. Rob Southwell-Sander built up a great house over recent years and it’s been my pleasure to take it over. Hopefully it won’t end in the equivalent of the Suez Crisis! To business. The first house event of the year was house singing. Mohsen Ansari and Henry Muller took charge and went to extreme (spreadsheet based) lengths to pick the perfect song – California Dreamin’ by the Mamas and the Papas. They did a great job of marshalling the house and we came a very creditable second overall. We only didn’t win because, in the words of the judge, “we looked utterly miserable.” Something to work on for next year... We were successful in the Michaelmas inter-house sports competitions. Bertie Walpole and Nicholas Staroske won the U14 Badminton, Kane Watson won the pool and Will Taylor and Joshua Massey-Thompson brought home the squash trophy. The term ended with the annual house carol service led by Rev Steer. Oliver Judge, Ediz Hunter, Oliver Paton, Arthur Boulton and Henry Muller read beautifully. In the Lent Term over half the house took part in the Road Relay, 25 of whom ran it in under 11 minutes (it took me 13). Of particular note were the third year team of Will d’Arcy, Henry Channon, Robin Hambidge and Marc Sheriff who ran the fastest third year time in the event’s 50 year history (37 minutes 22 seconds), breaking the fourth year record as well in the process and beating every single Upper Sixth team. There were many victories in the Lent Term inter-house sports. While most of these were moral victories, somehow we managed to win U14 and U15 house football and the (massive) football trophy overall. The U15 team did incredibly well to hang on in their final game against Austin House. Kane