David Ronald (Ron) Branscombe [1946-51] 11.10.1932 – 19.08.2016 Ron Branscombe was born in Sittingbourne,
Rose, OA 1945 - 1953, who was a keen rugby player and captain of the OA 1st XV at the time. Against the medical advice which was to avoid sport after his early bout of TB, Keith already played cricket for the OAs, and then took up rugby, playing for the OA 1st XV on several occasions. His other sport was golf and he was Captain of the OA Golfing Society in 1984. Sophie and Anna. Sadly Victoria died, and he married Adele in 1988. In the year 2000 they visited the northern Costa Brava, later purchasing an apartment there which they beautifully refurbished. The apartment overlooked the local sailing school so there was always plenty of activity to see from their balcony, and they made many friends among the community in the area. Adele cared for Keith lovingly in his fight against multiple myeloma, also known as bone-marrow cancer. Keith is survived by Adele, all four of his children and by seven grandchildren. He wrote his own obituary notes, with additional contribution by David Starr, OA [1945-51]. Maurice Gordon Bowyer [1934-37] 17.12.1920 – 30.12.2015 Maurice Bowyer was the youngest of four brothers who Keith married Victoria in 1968 and they had four children, Daniel, Kate, College from the Prep and was in Spencer for the three years he was at the school. After leaving Dulwich, he began a Mechanical Engineering degree at the University of London’s Imperial College, but at the start of WW2 in 1939, he joined the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve (RNVR), and served on motor boats, mainly in the Adriatic. all came to Dulwich between the wars. He came to the
He was the Captain of a Motor Torpedo boat for the last two years of the war. In 1945, he joined his brothers in working for the Metal Box company for a few years, but Maurice soon left to become a market gardener in Dorset. He spent the rest of his life in Dorset, becoming a successful pig farmer and setting up a farmers’ co-operative for marketing bacon, for which he was awarded an MBE in 1985. He had married Doris Lawford in 1949 and they were both keen gardeners. Soon they moved to Dorset to set up and then run a market garden, towns. After they started farming with pigs and sheep, they continued to garden. He and Doris had one daughter, Susan, but unfortunately the marriage ended in divorce in 1976 and Doris died in 2008. When he was younger, Maurice, like his brothers, had been a keen sailor, sailing small dinghies. He sometimes went off on his own on these boats, on intrepid voyages across the Channel. Despite his naval wartime service and then living near the sea in Dorset for many years, Maurice found that farming took up all his time and he rarely went to sea again. He never really retired, continuing farming until just before his 90th birthday. Even after that, he continued to maintain a large garden and grow all his own vegetables right up to the end of his life. He never owned a television, but he read the newspaper every day and was always totally up to date with what was going on in the world. He died just after his 95th birthday, having led a full and independent life. growing vegetables for sale to greengrocers in neighbouring
Kent. He followed his elder brother to Dulwich, arriving at
the College soon after WW2 ended, from Cumnor House School, which had been evacuated to Seale in Surrey during the war. At Dulwich, he was in Sidney and played cricket for the school first XI in his final summer at the school and played rugby for the 2nd XV for three years in a row. He was also a Sergeant in the School CCF. He was very much a person of routine. After leaving Dulwich, he immediately joined insurance firm Tysers in the City and remained with them for his entire working career. He regarded a pint or two of real ale at the East India Arms in Fenchurch Street as essential. He often went to the Alps for a summer holiday, but otherwise the rhythm of his life was set by work, being at home with his mother in Dulwich, and the constant thread of the Old Alleynian sports clubs. The results from College rugby and cricket fixtures were far more important to him than the efforts of any professional side and even our national teams. In terms of rugby, he joined the committee of the OA Football Club in 1958 and was eventually made Vice- President in 1983. He played for the club for years and then ran the line as a touch judge for many more. He was awarded and Honours Cap in 1992. He was a long-standing member of the London Society of RFU rugby referees, greatly prizing the tie he was awarded in recognition of 25 years service.
His daughter Susan Armstrong contributed significantly to this obituray.
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