Obituaries
which is the personal gift of the Sovereign. Peter and Shirley loved retirement, taking up golf and spending time with their friends. They retained membership of the OA Football Club and Golf and Sailing societies, and spent a great deal of time travelling all around the world. They also were able to see their grandchildren, and latterly their great-grandchildren, grow and develop. Peter was struck down by a severe stroke in October 2014 and was then diagnosed with liver cancer. He fought hard against the cancer and retained a twinkle in his eye right up to the end, but he finally lost his battle in May 2015. He is survived by Shirley, Susan and Richard, who contributed significantly to this obituary, and by his grandchildren and great- grandchildren.
a place so, before starting at Oxford, he spent several months hitchhiking around Europe, returning to take a summer position at St Aubyns Preparatory School in Rottingdean, Sussex, teaching a class of 10 year olds. He read Modern Languages (French and Italian) at Christ Church, Oxford, spending one year living in the Maison Francaise. On the sporting front he proudly rowed for the College third boat and played cricket for the Warrigals. He also witnessed Roger Bannister’s historic four minute mile run at the Iffley Road track on 6 May 1954. After graduating in 1956 he started as a management trainee with Royal Dutch Shell as an aviation assistant in Nairobi, Kenya, before moving to Uganda and then Tanzania. After only one year he had another change of heart and returned to England to rejoin the family accounting firm in London, eventually retiring as senior partner in 1995. In 1965 he married Sheila, after being introduced by a mutual acquaintance. They honeymooned in France and Italy, managing to see The Beatles perform live in Genoa. In 1966 they bought a house in Carson Road, Dulwich, and after both of them had experienced the trauma of a nomadic existence during their wartime childhoods, they never moved again. Two sons, James and Andrew, soon followed, and both of them followed their father to the College. After retiring from Calders, Michael took up the position of treasurer of Westminster House Youth Club in Peckham. His love of languages never faded and he started learning Dutch at the age of 65, passing his O-Level one year later. He was a keen philatelist from a young age, building a particularly impressive collection of Canadian stamps, thanks in part to the generosity of Canadian soldiers from their army camp near one of his wartime childhood homes in Hurstpierpoint. He was also a big sports fan, supporting Dulwich Hamlet Football Club in his youth, and Crystal Palace later in life. He was a member of Surrey County Cricket Club for many years and in the 1990s he was a trustee of the John Passmore Trust, an organisation that built cricket grounds in South African townships. Michael died of lung cancer in King’s College Hospital on 31 August 2015. He is survived by his younger brother, Desmond (45-50), and his two sons, James (77-83) and Andrew (79-86). James contributed significantly to this obituary.
Michael John Calder (1943-50) 28.11.1931 – 31.08.2015
Michael Calder was born in Streatham and initially attended nearby Busy Bees nursery. The family moved to New Malden in 1935, then to Herne Hill a year later, where Michael attended school in Red Post Hill. In 1938 he became a weekly boarder at
Brightlands School, moving to Dulwich Prep in 1939. Soon after war broke out he and the rest of the school were evacuated first to Tavistock in Devon, then to Snowdonia, where pupils and teachers stayed in the Royal Oak Hotel in Betws-y-Coed. When the family escaped the dangers of London by moving to Sussex, he won a singing scholarship to attend Hurstpierpoint College, where he spent two years in the relative peace of the countryside. The German bombing threat seemed to have subsided and the family moved to Selsdon, near Croydon, for 18 months and here he attended Elmhurst School. After yet another house move, this time to Burbage Road in Dulwich, he moved to Dulwich College at the age of nearly 12. At the College he was in Drake and joined the choir and the Army Corps. He liked to tell the story that he was the youngest cadet and was so small they did not have a uniform to fit him, so had to dress him in an old First World War uniform, including puttees. He was Captain of Drake in his final year and left Dulwich from the Classical VI (Greek) form. He undertook National Service from 1950 to 1952 in the 5th Royal Horse Artillery, eventually being commissioned in Oswestry as a Second Lieutenant. He later served part-time in the Territorial Army and also started training with his father at the family accounting firm, W J Calder Sons & Co. The firm had been founded in 1883 by his grandfather, was located in the West End of London and still exists today as Calder & Co. Michael visited an old school friend in Oxford, liked the place, and after only nine months, he left the firm to take the Christ Church College entrance exam in January 1953. To his surprise he got
Brian Guy Campbell (1941-47) 14.03.1928 – 17.03.2015
Brian Campbell came to the College from the Prep during the Second World War. He started a life-long love when he began learning to play the trumpet at the age of 14. He continued to practice the trumpet three
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