Abingdonian 2020

80 The Abingdonian Franklin’s House Heads of House this year were Edward Gill and Jimmy Strainge, and Oliver Elly was Deputy Head. The House Prefects were George Carver, Charlie Farrar, Kiran Gathani, Alister Jamieson, James Magé, Tom Phillip and Lancelot Wilson. It makes everything better for the house when the senior boys are so inspiringly able, energetic and friendly, and this really was a vintage year. Huge thanks to these guys, and indeed to our whole Upper Sixth. The House Singing Competition was the first house event of the year. We dived into an excellent performance of Hold Back the River , ably led by Iain Storrie, with Ashwin Tennant again accompanying brilliantly, and Jonah Marsh singing a superb solo line. We were widely regarded as the best entry, but nobly allowed Lower School to take the limelight. The next event was the winter house sports, and it was our most successful event ever. Seb Watkins, Ashwin Tennant and Lawrence Putt were runners up in the chess competition; and then Oliver Elly, Harry Watkins, Rufus Cox and Alex Heffernan came second in the bike challenge. The rugby went even better: Freddie Coode, Lucas Marsh, Dominic Wood, Tom Robson, Krishen Rao, Lachlan Borthwick, Luke Prior and Zac Connell won the U16 competition; and Oliver Thompson, Harry Martin, Archie Kind, Tye Willis, Alexander Kleinknecht, Lawrence Dew, Arthur Strong and James Hall won the U14 competition. The swimming was equally brilliant. Our team consisted of Nicholas Skelton, Max Hems, Euan Baldwin, Ollie Martin and Matthew Hoult (U18); Christopher Skelton, Benjamin MacLennan, Johnny James and Trystan Moore (U15); Samuel Hughes, Torsten Ayerst, Owen Chetwood, Dhruv Hegde and Warwick Jones (U14). They won the competition by a mile. We have always dominated the table tennis, and our team was outstanding; with Huba Varady, Rohan Gathani and Conrad Smith at U18, and Todd Stanmore, Luc Tucker and Jamie Robson at U16, we romped home in both competitions and were the overall winners again. Huge congratulations to all our competitors! The Lent Term was of course curtailed by the lockdown, but we had more successes first. We produced some great performances in the debating competition, and Alex Heffernan and Warwick Jones won the third year competition in great style. The House Challenge tests general knowledge, and Frankin’s have a very strong record here. Our fifth form team (Johnnie Willis- Bund, Johnny Stavropoulos, Dominic Wood and Edward Scott Payne), and sixth form team (Seb Watkins, James Robinson, Lachlan Jones and Matthew Hoult) were unbeatably brilliant, and both teams emerged as winners of their competitions. Well done! The March lockdown ended our school year in many respects, and we missed the opportunity to compete in the usual house events from then on; but many of our boys achieved great things. Jimmy Strainge was Head of School, and won the Ayling Cup for tennis, the Veronica Walker Memorial Prize for modern languages, and the ASPA quatercentenary prize for his school contribution. Edward Gill won the English, German and Greek prizes, and the Mercer’s School Memorial Prize. Tom Phillip won the Latin prize, the Bowen Prize for creative writing, and the Mercer’s School Memorial Prize. George Carver won the History and Ancient History prizes, the Duxbury Prize for service to the Library, and the High Sheriff essay prize. Oliver Elly won the Sawbridge Choral Prize. Matty Ball won the James Molloy prize for innovation in design. Edward Scott Payne was a national fencing champion, and won the Dawson Trophy. Lancelot Wilson ran the MUN superbly and won the Mitchell Seward Cup for debating. Samuel King won the David Taylor Drama Prize,