VALETE
of assessing Mathematics, Mark helped run several components including the GCSE open-ended tasks plus all of the A-level Mechanics coursework. Mark’s meetings for the coursework were known for their thoroughness in making sure all details of the mark schemes were transparent and communicated to teachers. In more
Simon Clark with numerous colleagues enjoying his company after school and on numerous school trips – largely those connected recent years, Mark took on running the Middle School Mathematics Competition, and named the Talwar prize after our former colleague, Sunil. Mark has made many friends in the Common Room over the years, the position of Overseas Operations Director. Such was the magnitude of his managerial brief that the unusual move to a second career in education necessitated not an inconsiderable pay cut; indeed, colleagues will recall how uncomplainingly Simon languished for so many years on College pay-scale A, with little but the river-front penthouse in Greenwich and his proprietorship of a small village in the south of France to tide him over austerity. Educated at Skegness Grammar and Royal Holloway, University of London, Simon broke the mould of his Brexit origins by championing the Costa del Sol, then in its package heyday; as an enterprising holiday rep, he would spend his summers mastering the Spanish tongue while developing the Pontins brand. All of this led, inexorably, to wider company responsibility for destinations such as Mallorca, Tenerife and Morocco; for the resorts of Neilson Ski; to a major Viajes Iberia project, introducing the European package-tour model to Cuba; and a two-year stint in New York as Vice-President Marketing for an Australian outfit just prior to the Second Gulf War. It was these fast, heady years of Ambre Solaire and Vª¨}ÇZÓÐл¶
to the History Department, such as the Vienna trip, Battlefields trips and one-day Hampton Court trips. Many will miss Mark’s sharp humour and interest in a wide range of topics. We all wish him all the very best with his move to Germany later this year.
S imon’s final Wellbeing assembly for the Middle School on the theme of online safety was masterly, an occasion when his myriad skills coalesced in glorious Technicolor: the gift for storytelling, the flow of unconstrained lucidity, the knack for memorable analogy, all underpinned by a generous passion for life and a deft understanding of his audience. In that moment of collective learning, he was wit and wisdom, sense and sensibility. Simon’s physical departure robs us of an effortless humour and treasury of knowledge by which our daily grind has been enlivened for eleven years, but his words and inflections will live in hundreds of memories. It is 2006: Crash wins an Academy Award for Best Picture, the BBC launches How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria and Simon Clark, aged 49, enrols at the College. An advertisement for French and Spanish teaching had caught his well- travelled eye, and lucky we were to secure his services. Prior to Dulwich, this shrinking ingénu had enjoyed a stellar career in tourism; he was, in effect, the Judith Chalmers of his age, rising rapidly through the sunny ranks of Intasun and Thomas Cook to
piste-bashing which fostered Simon’s love of languages, European culture and, above all, food (...the days before his variant of the 5:2 diet kicked in, the one in which cakes, biscuits and leftover sandwiches don’t count!). Coming from the world of business, Simon has never quite adjusted to that brand of politesse expected of its practitioners by a public school; his inimitable frankness is a defining trait. Indeed, before Simon’s arrival, the Modern Languages Department had never run a trip to Magaluf. In all of his roles and guises, whether teacher, tour-guide or colleague, Simon’s word has been definitive: when he says something is 3-star, it is! Simon’s contributions to College life are too numerous for these slender paragraphs, but among the more significant would be his complete rejuvenation of the PGCE programme in his coordinating role, making the Common Room see this arduous process as an investment not a chore; his absolute dedication to touring his favourite cities with the boys (mostly Montpellier), while introducing Palma, Paris and Boulogne as popular Dulwich destinations; his untiring application to Founder’s Day, wooing some of Britain’s
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