Summer Gathering Saturday

Date: Friday 19 June 2009

The annual summer reunion of the St Edmund's Society took place yesterday, reverting to its traditional place in the Calendar, after last year's experiment of a Summer Gathering in mid-May. The day was filled with many of the usual aspects of the past - not least the powerful 'Sundowners' cocktails to round off the day at 7.00pm - and some that were just part of the daily School routine.

Such was the Inter-House Swimming Sports which began on the dot of 10.45, and had to be completed in an hour! They were, and three of the four Houses each went away with a piece of silverware. Wagner, with George Levett leading the way, dominated the Junior Boys' competition, Baker the Senior Boys', and Warneford the Open Girls' races. This left the overall winners to be decided, and so it was by just a single point, with Warneford having an aggregate score of 86, which Baker managed to beat with 87. Commiserations to Watson, whose team was hit by sickness during the event, leaving them out of two of the relays.

Then followed the very extraordinary in the shape of a service of commemoration of the life of Francis Roderick Rawes, Headmaster of St Edmund's School from 1964 to 1978. A swift dash from swimming-pool to Chapel, via a study to collect suit and gown, enabled your writer to be one of the five speakers offering personal memories of the Headmaster who appointed him to the School in 1972. Four other Rawes' appointees, Messrs Barnard, Barnett, Narburgh, and Thompson offered prayers in Francis' memory. Thank you to the Chaplain for crafting the service, to the choir, trained on this occasion by Spencer Payne, and to the congregation of over sixty, including the three Rawes children who travelled especially to Canterbury for the service.

Then followed, as ever, an afternoon of sport as the Society pitted itself on cricket field and tennis court against the current School first teams. This year, for once, the School triumphed in all three, with the tennis teams both winning 6 - 3. In the boys' match, Matt Sutton and Sean Figgis won all three of their sets for the Old Boys, Christian Kortlang and Shaun Barrett came close, but the School won the remaining six rubbers to come out on top. A similar situation prevailed in the girls' match, with 6 - 3 win to the School, where honorary Old Girl Trudie Cliff won her three sets, but lacked enough support from her teammates to defeat the current School VI.

The cricket 1st XI turned recent form on its head and beat a strong, though unpractised, Old Boys' side by 141 runs. This looked highly unlikely as the School, batting first slumped to 43 for 4, with the top four out, and the Penn brothers taking the wickets. Enter Ben Easter, at 18 for 3, to bat for the rest of the innings to finish, tantalisingly, on 97*. He was given sensible support from Higson (37), Kemp (a flashing 31), and Smith (15*) to lift the total to 242 for 6 in the allotted 40 overs. The Old Boys' challenge petered out the moment Copestake mishit a drive to mid-off, after which Higson, in an excellent spell of 4 - 32, bowled wicket to wicket, and with a modicum of movement either way showed his true value to the team. Matt Penn bashed it around at the end, before last man Kristian de Pledge was superbly run out by Ben Clarke's pick up and throw to the bowler's end. Kemp's opening spell of 3 - 10 had ripped the heart out of the OBs' batting - fast and nasty - with bouncer/yorker combination removing the dangerous Paul Walker.

This win suggested three valuable lessons: batting first allows the chance of a recovery from early problems - panic does not set in as it does in a run chase; Ben Easter, in the middle order, provides stability from which the younger players can bat with more confidence; and Alex Higson is a much better all-rounder than he has so far been given credit for.

Cup match Tuesday - 1.00pm start against Chatham House, at home. Good luck!

Meanwhile, our junior girls were despatched to the wilds of Kent College, for two routine fixtures. It was not easy to concentrate as a Russian 'pop star' was rehearsing, at full volume, in their Music School, but it did not affect the KC girls, who won by 6 - 3, and 7 - 2, Under 15s and Under 14s respectively. All credit to Deveena Pithia and Emily Betham who won three sets for the 15s, and to Rowan Jones and Nesta Wigan, who won two out of three. Last junior tennis matches tomorrow against King's Canterbury, a return fixture.