was responsible for bringing people together in the most difficult of circumstances, and his drive and ambition to normalise an otherwise abnormal world were inspiring to so many. It would be remiss not to finish reporting on this period of Phil’s Dulwich career without mentioning the love and pride Phil feels for the colleagues and pupils he works with. He regularly expresses how lucky he feels to work with them and his pride in seeing them thrive in the environment that is Dulwich College. Phil is a true leader; he goes far beyond managing people and a programme. Pupils and staff follow him; he creates change rather than reacting to it, and he is very much part of the team as opposed to being just head of the team.
He very rarely says ‘I’; it’s always ‘we’, which epitomises his approach and which has had a profound impact on all. He has been a tremendous colleague and an even better friend, and he will be missed enormously. It is testament to Phil that he has forged so many enduring relationships with a wide variety of members of the Common Room. We all hope he stays in touch, and we wish him all the best as he embarks upon a new adventure. If there is one silver lining to his departure, it is that from now on, there will be more tea in the urn and more biscuits, particularly custard creams, in the tin! ◎
Alastair Trevill By Rory Fisher
performance, really – of the insidious persona of the Duke in Robert Browning’s ‘My Last Duchess’. The passion for words and their meaning he sought to instil in his charges could occasionally have interesting consequences. In my first term as Head of Department, a shamefaced Al came to see me after a lesson with his Year 12 class. Attempting to inject the requisite emo- tional turbulence into a performance by a particularly mild-mannered member of the Upper School of Hamlet’s ‘What a rogue and peasant slave am I’ soliloquy, Al had perhaps rashly instructed him to express his character’s frustration more overtly. ‘Go on, kick a desk or something …’ he suggested. The very literal response – no more than a polite tap – led to the prompt collapse of the drawer unit next to the teacher’s desk. That the pupil’s mother was at that point the College’s Head of Procurement, in charge of sourcing such furniture, did not help reassure Al, but certainly added to the many ironies of the moment. Having directed a number of plays during his time at the College – his Middle School Volpone , staged in the Upper School Common Room, was particularly memorable, not least for the performance of a future Head of School as a lipstick-smeared Lady Politic Would Be – Al fulfilled a long-held ambition over the last two years by team-teach- ing in the Drama Department. There he relished the opportunity to share his wider literary expertise, particu- larly on Renaissance texts, while his input in clarifying meaning for A-level Theatre Studies students was invalu- able, as was his support for lead actors in a production of Macbeth , helping them to navigate the text ahead of their rehearsals. Al has been as much of a loyal and warm colleague as a passionate teacher. The English Office has been enlivened on numerous occasions by his anecdotes – not all of which were heard more than once – and talent for accents and impressions. We wish him and Sylvie the very best. ◎
Al is one of the most energetic, and conscientious teachers to have passed through the English Department, and his classes were always places of lively enquiry, scholarship and humour. He ar- rived at the College in 2010 after a career as an actor, and drama re- mained at the heart of his interests as well as his teaching practice. A product of Manchester Universi-
ty, Al is widely read and hugely well-informed. Exhaustive resources were a signature, with his legendary ‘packs’ talking students through every aspect of their texts help- fully and with friendly encouragement. Concepts were made concrete through his gift for memorable phrases – how many former Dulwich pupils immediately recall the requirement to ‘juice the orange’ when undertaking literary analysis (or the drawing of the proverbial orange that would invariably adorn the teacher’s board by the end of Al’s lessons)? There was also copious helpful and timely feedback; most afternoons after school, Al would be found at his desk marking furiously, despairing and delighting in equal measure at what his classes had pro- duced, and all the while treating each pupil’s progress as a personal mission. Hamlet , Philip Larkin, Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem and American literature were all areas of Al’s extensive knowl- edge and expertise. Over several years his love of poetry and declamation informed the Middle School poetry recital competition, with Al’s judicious guidance of subject and performance helping to produce striking assemblies each year. But it was drama that defined and made so memorable Al’s English lessons: chairs and desks cleared to the side of the room to make space for performance of the text; ‘conscience corridors’ where one member of the class walked through rows of others trying to persuade them to take opposite courses of action; Al’s legendary recitation –
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