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Monday 21st  September 2009 - Old Girls Hockey

Where are you, all you hockey playing Old Girls of St Edmund`s? How come so few of you managed to respond to Lauren Chalk`s invitation to represent the Society against this year`s 1st XI?

This was a real shame in that a fixture against a goalie-less squad, reinforced by current School 2nd XI players is unlikely to be competitive, and will hardly encourage those who did play to want to come again next season.

As it turned out, the School won 3 - 0. `Girl of the Match` was Carlotta Kopietz with her two goals. The third came from Deveena Pithia. Enough said - but I do hope that this year`s U6 leavers will do their best to come back in a year`s time and pit their skills against the generation of 2010.

Come on, you Old Girls! - and many thanks to those who made the journey today to the UKC Astroturf. Perhaps our own in the not too distant future?

D.E.K

 Saturday 20th June 2009 - Summer Gathering

The annual summer reunion of the St Edmund`s Society reverted reverting to its traditional place in the Calendar, after last year`s experiment of a Summer Gathering in mid-May. The day was filled with many of the usual aspects of the past - not least the powerful `Sundowners` cocktails to round off the day at 7.00pm - and some that were just part of the daily School routine.

 Then followed the very extraordinary in the shape of a service of commemoration of the life of Francis Roderick Rawes, Headmaster of St Edmund`s School from 1964 to 1978. A swift dash from swimming-pool to Chapel, via a study to collect suit and gown, enabled your writer to be one of the five speakers offering personal memories of the Headmaster who appointed him to the School in 1972. Four other Rawes` appointees, Messrs Barnard, Barnett, Narburgh, and Thompson offered prayers in Francis` memory. Thank you to the Chaplain for crafting the service, to the choir, trained on this occasion by Spencer Payne, and to the congregation of over sixty, including the three Rawes children who travelled especially to Canterbury for the service.

Then followed, as ever, an afternoon of sport as the Society pitted itself on cricket field and tennis court against the current School first teams. This year, for once, the School triumphed in all three, with the tennis teams both winning 6 - 3. In the boys` match, Matt Sutton and Sean Figgis won all three of their sets for the Old Boys, Christian Kortlang and Shaun Barrett came close, but the School won the remaining six rubbers to come out on top. A similar situation prevailed in the girls` match, with 6 - 3 win to the School, where honorary Old Girl Trudie Cliff won her three sets, but lacked enough support from her teammates to defeat the current School VI.

The cricket 1st XI turned recent form on its head and beat a strong, though unpractised, Old Boys` side by 141 runs. This looked highly unlikely as the School, batting first slumped to 43 for 4, with the top four out, and the Penn brothers taking the wickets. Enter Ben Easter, at 18 for 3, to bat for the rest of the innings to finish, tantalisingly, on 97*. He was given sensible support from Higson (37), Kemp (a flashing 31), and Smith (15*) to lift the total to 242 for 6 in the allotted 40 overs. The Old Boys` challenge petered out the moment Copestake mishit a drive to mid-off, after which Higson, in an excellent spell of 4 - 32, bowled wicket to wicket, and with a modicum of movement either way showed his true value to the team. Matt Penn bashed it around at the end, before last man Kristian de Pledge was superbly run out by Ben Clarke`s pick up and throw to the bowler`s end. Kemp`s opening spell of 3 - 10 had ripped the heart out of the OBs` batting - fast and nasty - with bouncer/yorker combination removing the dangerous Paul Walker.

D.E.K