At the end of the College’s Quatercentenary, we thought it would be interesting to follow the lives and careers of the Class of 2019. Their stories continue here. MALCOLM EISENHARDT
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With apologies for my late entry to the OA Magazine; we’ve much to catch up on since leaving the college almost 7 years ago. Life has been moving at an overwhelming pace, and I am grateful for the opportunity to take a moment to reflect on recent years. After leaving the College, I found myself at University College London for three brisk years of studying Law. It was an amazing time, albeit lightly marinated with COVID-19. With corporate law in my sights, I then completed the Legal Practice Course and a Master’s Degree in Business and Management at the University of Law, before stepping into a training contract at Ashurst, a UK‑based law firm. During my training contract I had the great privilege of working alongside excellent colleagues and mentors within the firm's capital markets, real estate and digital economy transactions departments,
THE INSPIRATIONAL WILSON
where I was staffed on a lively mix of matters for a diverse cast of clients. I also pulled off a short detour to Goldman Sachs, where I advised on financial regulatory issues within the private wealth management division for six months. Six years of study and training later, I received my Solicitor’s practising certificate in September 2025 and returned to Ashurst’s digital economy transactions team as a junior associate, advising on all things digital. Think technology, data, and all things in between. When not negotiating documents, I’ve been trying my hand at negotiating gravity. I continue to compete in powerlifting at the regional and national level and most recently competed alongside the top 14 in my weight class at the 2025 British Open Championships. We won’t dwell on the scoreboard (I may have come last), but I’m immensely proud of the journey, and the fact that my spine remains on speaking terms with me. On the Rugby field, I pulled on Ashurst colours at the Law Society Rugby Sevens in August, where my knees and lungs delivered unequivocal advice that my playing days are, alas, over. JACOB PAGE So, 2025 – let's get the boring stuff out the way. I remain a sustainability consultant in name only, as Trump’s ‘war on woke’ has reduced demand for expensive PowerPoints that gather virtual dust in some business’s sustainability department, leading to my employers pivoting to PR. Occasionally, this can be vaguely entertaining – getting Peckham’s finest, Giggs, to serve cake and custard out of a bakery was a highlight. Overall, however, to work in corporate communications is to peer into the void, and to find yourself face-to-face with meaninglessness. To activate a comms plan is to sink into the morass, to push the boulder up the hill each day, only for it to roll back down each night. ‘One must imagine Sisyphus happy’, we are told, but Sisyphus never had to write the words ‘stakeholder engagement’. It’s not all bad - earlier this year I travelled to Romania with work to visit restored wetlands (let’s not dwell on the ecological perversity of also flying out 20 journalists), and I was also awarded a promotion for the passion I have for my career. This year, my main pleasures have involved frequenting the cinema, squeezing every drop of dwindling youth out of the BFI’s ‘25 and Under’ membership, and frequenting Spain, squeezing every drop out of my employer’s remote work policy. It is a testament to Dulwich College’s Languages Department that I feel prepared, should the time come when a local asks me what is in my pencil case. Most recently, I visited Mauritius to reconnect with my long-lost grandfather and the wider family I have there. Though his passing shortly before the trip made that first aim tricky however, two weeks spent on beaches so pristine the thought of them torments you is a wonderful thing. As for my College friends, we continue to do such varied things as watch sport in pubs and drink, watch sport in a flat and drink, watch sport in the stadium and drink, and drink. The Dulwich boy is intellectually curious. He is culturally nourished.
This picture was taken in room 42b during the 1960-61 academic year. 42b and the neighbouring 42a had clearly been created out of one reasonably sized room and were ridiculously cramped. Whether the master taking a lesson had a desk or whether he had to perch where he could find a space has faded from memory. In any case, these rooms were on the first floor of the north block, affording a good view of the old cycle shed (and therefore a convenient vantage point for prefects on the lookout for breaktime smokers).
encouraged the toilers and took undisguised satisfaction in their progress. In the 6th form he made clear that out of respect for his subject he wouldn’t be ‘’spoon feeding’’ us in preparation for our exams; and it seemed to work. He was openly emotional about certain things and quick to anger when confronted by rudeness, unpleasantness or disruptive behaviour – though, as with most Dulwich masters at the time, such were rare occurrences. As adolescent boys we were at least very surprised – if not startled – during a discussion on the metaphysical poets when Raymond nonchalantly used a couple of words which were relevant to the topic but unlikely ever to have been uttered before in a school lesson. (This ensured that he had our whole attention for the rest of that period.) And I still chuckle at the memory of sitting English A level in the old gym. Suddenly a persistent knocking was heard in the building, upon which Raymond, who was invigilating, sonorously announced, “The porter scene from Macbeth, boys”. Without his influence at a fairly late stage in my school career I don’t think I would have attended university. In one of his end-of-term reports he wrote of me, “This boy has undergone a conversion to English literature” – quite an achievement on his part. After eight years at Dulwich Raymond became a lecturer at Southampton University, then Professor of Education at Reading University. He died in 1995. And that leads, in conclusion, to the strangest true story I have ever heard, which was related to me by the late Terry Walsh. Terry had invited Raymond as his guest to the annual Dinner of the Alleyn Club (now, to the regret of this writer, known as the Old Alleynian Association), to which invitation Raymond replied that he would regrettably be unable to attend because he wouldn’t be alive on the relevant day. RIP Mr Wilson.
The form is the Modern Upper Sixth (MU6). There were at the time two MU6 streams, a and b, but boys from both are in the picture, as follows: against the wall at the front, Eric Brown (54- 61); behind him Graham Townsend (54-62) then David Milford (52-61); apparently about to scratch his ear, Tim Snowden (54-61) and beside him evidently asleep Paul Sidey (54-61). Behind Tim and Paul are two boys, Graham Sandiford (60-61) and John Turner (59-62), who had come into the Sixth Form from Manchester Grammar School, as can be divined from the fact that they look unusually studious and conscientious. In the blazer is the author of this piece and to his right, John Bourne (54-62). The cameraman is probably Bill Edwards (54-61). I know only a little of what became of them, namely, that Eric went to Glasgow University; David went to France to teach English to French children; Tim trained to be a school teacher; Paul went to Cambridge and subsequently had a highly successful career in publishing; and I went to St. Andrews University and then to work in the City.. A few decades ago, the OAs had a rugby tour to Bermuda, where they were entertained by the aforementioned Bill Edwards, who was running Bacardi’s worldwide HQ on the island (well, someone had to). On a melancholy note, David Milford told me, in middle age, that before he was born his father had been one of the ‘Great Escapers’, and like most of the others had been recaptured and murdered by the Gestapo. But the most important person in the picture is the great Ray Wilson – English teacher extraordinaire. Raymond was born in 1925, a Geordie. After serving in the Navy in the forties, he undertook teacher training and then studied for an external degree at London, graduating with a First in English. He came to Dulwich College in 1957. Not only erudite, but inspirational in his enthusiasm for his subject, Raymond always had the time and a welcoming smile for any student who sought his advice or opinion; he
John Walters (54-62)
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