Rhubarb

St Edward’s r h u b a r b

21

OSE News

1939 Theodor Abrahamsen (D, 1933-1939) Theodor celebrated his 95th birthday last year, which was attended by the Warden in Norway. As well as playing in the school’s 1st XI and 1st XV, he was selected for the English Schools’ XV in 1938. By 1940, he was a student at Oslo University and, like many students, became involved in the resistance movement, helping to distribute illegal news-sheets. Teddy and his friends were at the University on 30th November 1943 when news came that the campus had been surrounded. All students from Nazi-supporting families and all female students were released; the men, including Theodor, were imprisoned and underwent interrogation by the Gestapo. As a result, Teddy was sentenced to life in a camp and was dispatched – on the notorious prison ship Donau – to Buchenwald, the largest concentration camp in Germany. Eventually, at the end of April 1945, Teddy found himself, along with all Norwegian and Danish prisoners, first exempted from work and soon afterwards transported to Sweden, arriving on 4th May 1945, four days before Germany surrendered. He spent almost a month in a Swedish hospital regaining his strength and finally arrived home in Norway in June. After the war, Teddy became a teacher in Lillehammer, taking further teaching roles in Montreal and Seattle in the 50s. He was a lecturer at the British Institute of Oslo from 1966 – 1971 and a Headmaster in Norway until his retirement in 1987. Teddy stays in close contact with St Edward’s attending many of the school’s significant events. Many happy returns to Theodor.

1960 PeterTucker (C, 1955-1960), writes: “I came to Teddies in the first place because my uncle, Peter Standfast (E, 1925-1930), had been there, which gave my parents a reduction in the cost of tuition. Peter (after whom I am named) went to RADA and had just made his first break in the West End when war broke out. He joined the RAF and flew as a pilot officer in a Blenheim squadron. Sent to Malta he died making a successful bombing run over an Italian freighter taking supplies to Rommel’s army in North Africa. I found his name on a memorial in Malta and followed up this clue, visiting the airbase he flew from and finding information on his time on Malta and his crewmates. After my time at Teddies I studied at the School of Architecture in Headington. I moved to Sweden in 1969, as a guest student at the Royal Academy School in Stockholm. After several years living in the countryside painting the landscape, I moved back to the city. After further studies at the Dramatic Institute in Stockholm I worked for some years as a set designer in theatre, on both a national and local level, and especially with children’s theatre. For a short while I had my own experimental theatre. The 80s and 90s were spent teaching children to paint, both at primary and higher levels in the school system. My wife Cilla and I have

O S E n e w s

1941 M Gervase Peel (C, 1937-1941) Son Philip (C, 1963-1968), contacted the office to let us know that his father Michael Gervase Peel (C, 1937-1941) was a Lancaster Bomber pilot in WWII who was shot down and became a POW. “Now I’ve been sent the newly issued Bomber Campaign Bar and was looking for a way to make some sort of ceremony for him to be given it.” “He’s now 91 so it’s a bit of a long way to go over to the RAF airfields he flew from in East Anglia, though we did take him on a taxi ride in a Lancaster last year for his 90th birthday.” “He thinks he first flew with the air cadets at St Edward’s. It’s certainly why he joined the RAF. (I have recorded a long interview with him including his school days) and I wondered whether it might be possible to have some sort of little ceremony at St Edward’s with the CCF and have his medal bar presented to him. He lives not too far from Oxford.” Mr Peel was presented with his Bar in a School assembly on 10th November 2014 and will be Guest of Honour at the CCF Parade in May 2015, subject to his health. Right: Head Boy Oscar von Hannover (A), M Gervase Peel (C, 1937-1941) and the Warden, at the presentation of the commemorative Bar.

The Royal Palace, Drottningholm, Autumn 2009- 2011, by Peter Tucker

Theodor Abrahamsen’s birthday