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THE ALLEYNIAN 709
VALETE
as much as we have all benefited from his counsel, knowledge and compassion, I know that he in his turn will miss us, although, in his continued role as the Secretary of the Alleyn Club Trevor has found a way to remain connected to DC for a little while longer, and I’m sure we’ll still come across him searching for the office biscuit tin. Anyone who has left anything in the office for any period of time will testify that there is a risk of things being thrown away at the end of term. I have no doubt that Trevor will relish the opportunity for a proper clear-out in July, as he fully engages his inner Marie Kondo. Trevor has, for the most part, successfully separated his personal and professional life, but departmental summer shindigs and leavers’ parties often afforded us all a glimpse of the other side of Trevor. A ‘Rocky Horror’ themed party was perhaps only outdone by an infamous trip to Central London. After a rushed meal at Brown’s, the evening’s events included being asked to leave the theatre because Trevor was standing up and singing along too loudly to ‘We will rock you’, admittedly a few bars behind. Undeterred, and fuelled on liquid life, Trevor then ushered a drag queen off a stage somewhere in the Charing Cross area before proceeding to give a very forceful rendition of ‘Dancing Queen’. The evening was rounded off with a very long walk, before getting a taxi home from King’s College Hospital. Outside of the Geography Department, Trevor has worked tirelessly with DC athletes, and there are even rumours of him racing around the Dusters’ outfield like a gazelle, hair flailing in the wind. After stepping down as Head of Geography, he took on the challenge of reinvigorating the House system in the Middle School, a part of College life with which he had been involved for decades, as Housemaster of Jonson. This again played to his strengths, as he redirected his attention to providing the best competitive experience for the students.
JOHN CARNELLEY
Trevor was a regular at the Field Centre, and with John Cooper he would undertake his annual visit to the land of his forefathers, giving Year 7 students a love of adventure and the countryside, whilst exercising his beloved dog, Rumpole, on the Welsh hills. Many of us will recall Trevor explaining coastal processes to the masses on Brighton and Swanage beaches, the audience of 15-year-old boys entranced by his Hans Rosling-inspired arm waving and general enthusiasm for Physical Geography. In recent years, Trevor has embraced the technological revolution and, once he found the charger for his Surface device, he even found time to develop his own podcast series for the Alleyn Club during lockdown. The irony that it is Trevor who has brought the Alleyn Club into the online environment has not been lost on any of us. He has also overseen the expansion of the networking evenings, which have already proved to be a great hit for Alleynians past and present. However, he would be the first to accept that he would much rather have a face-to- face conversation than participate in this new ‘Zoom culture’, and in many ways this has been fundamental to his approach with all colleagues since he started teaching at DC in 1986. Now that he has turned his attention from high jump to cycling, there will be plenty of time for Trevor to explore the wilds of Dorset with his camera, or to enjoy the night sky with a glass of something red, with the odd OA dinner thrown in for good measure. Never one for all the paraphernalia and fuss that surrounds children, Trevor did the only sensible thing and was embraced into Louise’s fully fledged family; he now thoroughly revels in his role as a grandparent, chef and chief dog walker. We wish Trevor all the best as he flits between East Dulwich and Worth Matravers, walking Ronnie and Reggie and doting on Willow, but mostly trying to stay out from under Louise’s feet. As anyone who has had to write one of these valetes will testify, it is not an easy task. In this case, it is made even more stressful due to the precise, some would say fastidious, way in which Trevor does everything; even the piles of paper on his desk are neatly aligned, and woe betide anyone who messes around with the colour co-ordinated files or re-orders his exam papers. For my organisational shortcomings, and for any errors I have made here, I take this opportunity to apologise. Trevor: from all the boys you’ve coached in athletics, and all the boys to whom you’ve passed on a love and passion for your subject, as well as from everyone you’ve worked with over the last three decades, please accept our thanks for your firm yet fair approach, your sound counsel, your sartorial elegance, your good humour and, above all, your steadfast dedication to Dulwich College.
Richard Mayo
John, Deputy Head of Music, leaves us at the end of this academic year, having played a central role in the musical life of the College for 29 years. In addition to his role as Head of Academic Music, which has seen him lead the teaching of curricular music, John has contributed hugely to co-curricular music, conducting numerous College ensembles over the years, including the Symphony Orchestra, the Second Orchestra (for 20 seasons), and both the Madrigal and Concert choirs. But it is, perhaps, in the organ loft where John has been most at home. The Chapel Choir has been very fortunate to have had such a dedicated and capable accompanist for its services, many of which have taken place in highly prestigious cathedrals and places of worship, including St George’s Chapel, Windsor, St Paul’s Hereford and Southwark Cathedral in this country, as well as the National Cathedral, Washington DC and Saint Trinité, Paris, to name but two, abroad. In addition, generations of students and staff have benefited from his inspirational and often thunderous organ-playing at Great Hall assemblies. John read Music at the University of Bangor, which at the time was led by William Mathias, one of the country’s leading composers. Mathias was not only John’s tutor but also taught him composition for two years. Whilst at Bangor, John was also Assistant Organist of the cathedral, working under Andrew Goodwin, the Organist and Director of Music. It was during these undergraduate years that the foundations were laid for John’s career as an academic and practising musician. John came to Dulwich College in 1992 via Worksop College and then Felsted School, where, as Assistant Director of Music, he had taught Music, run the choral programme and played the organ for the school’s chapel services. At Dulwich, John’s numerous skills were soon drawn upon by Michael Ashcroft, then Director of Music, and he quickly became immersed in the department’s annual cycle of musical events. His qualities as an academic
musician of pedigree meant that John was the ideal person to lead academic Music teaching during a period of transition, and he was formally appointed Head of Academic Music in September 2007. His gradual revitalisation of the College’s Music curriculum has seen a sustained increase in the numbers of boys taking GCSE and A-level Music as well as the delivery of consistently high and outstanding results. John’s incisive and thorough grasp of the skills for academic Music have been of lasting benefit to a considerable number of students, several of whom have gone on to study Music at Oxbridge or Russell Group universities. Some of those have since gone into the profession. There has never been any limit to the care and time John has given when preparing those students for their university interviews. John’s own pedagogical interests led him to study and analyse the John Reading manuscripts held in the College Archive. This work earned him an MMus in 1997, and in 2008 John was awarded a PhD by the University of London for his work on George Smart, London’s leading musician and entrepreneur of the early 19th century. His book, George Smart and 19th Century Concert Life in London , was published by Boydell in 2015. Particular highlights for John have been the tours to Prague in 1992 and the US in 2017. It was in St Thomas’s, Fifth Avenue that the Chapel Choir, accompanied by John, gave the world premiere of De Profundis (or Trench Raid ) by Cecilia McDowall, the College’s Visiting Composer, with words by the Master. In 2015, over 100 of the College’s musicians were fortunate enough to give a concert in King’s College Chapel, Cambridge. This concert opened with John’s solo performance of Reger’s Introduction & Passacaglia in D minor, on the chapel’s famous organ. Two performances by the Foundation Schools are also significant highlights for John: Verdi’s Requiem in 2016 and Britten’s War Requiem in the Royal Festival Hall in 2018, for which John played the organ part accompanying the haunting off-stage chorus.
WHILST NEVER ONE TO REINVENT THE WHEEL, TREVOR LIVES BY THE MANTRA, ‘IF A JOB’S WORTH DOING, IT’S WORTH DOING RIGHT’
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