John Polansky, a 35 year old former Welsh House pupil, living in Colorado, USA lives by a lake but that doesn’t mean that he has to swim the English Channel. When one of John’s friends was looking for a challenge and a means of raising funds for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society along with the Special Olympics she approached John. The group of five swimmers undertook a gruelling training routine in Colorado’s icy lakes.   Yet conditions were against them when they took to the Channel on June 25th. The water temperature had dropped to an unusually chilly 49 Fahrenheit. “When you first get in it just feels like hot pins and needles throughout your body, and then you get the ice-cream headache. With two of the team suffering from hypothermia John had to take on two legs.   Although the crossing is 24 miles, tide pull and push swimmers off course and most crossings are closing to 35 miles. The team made exceptional progress completing the crossing, despite a near miss with shipping and jelly fish, in a very fast 10 hours and 48 minutes. So far they have raised nearly $10,000 for their charities.

“Utter nonsense,” was the verdict on The Hunting of the Snark, performed by Shiplake College’s Mad Dogs Theatre Company when they returned to Oxford University’s Botanical Gardens. Lewis Carroll’s poem charmed, frightened and delighted an audience of several hundred as they sidestepped picnic baskets, sprinted across the lawns and skirted ornate lily ponds as the Shiplake cast set off in pursuit of the elusive and indefinable Snark. Throughout the world the Snark enthusiasts have set up societies and the cast’s academic gowns recognised their rules and rituals. Freddie Greaves, an Old Viking, had flown in from Cambodia, as a cast of past and present pupils came together for just five days to prepare a piece of midsummer magic that also saw two outings as Buratta’s in Wargrave. Billy Sayers, just twelve, as Boots, was the youngest of the cast taking on the absurd roles assigned. Every character, from Greaves’ Glaswegian accented Bellman, through to Tom Jones bloody butcher has a name beginning with B.Picking up their props along the way the cast created a ship from a rope as they sailed in search of the island where the Snark, tasting of Will-o-the Wisp and very fond of bathing machines, possibly lived. Even Carroll was reluctant to specify too many details of the mythical creature’s identity. Every now and then the eccentric hunters paused to play a sea-shanty on their hand-bells. Finding a symmetrical jubjub bird, imaginatively constructed from black bin liners may have raised the search party’s hopes but the Snark remained as elusive as ever. The afternoon finished with score upon score of children screaming with delight as the Bellman organised an outsize game of hide-and-seek, counting to 400 randomly, before the children ran of in search of the actors. Last year the Mad Dog Theatre Company helped to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the inspirational boat trip with Alice. So successful was the event that this year it was decided to follow-up with an Alice in Oxford day.

Born on a Carlisle council estate, travelling way south to read English and Russian at Leeds University, Pat Langham CBE retired Headmistress of Wakefield Girls’ High School for 22 years and former Chair of the Girls’ Schools Association, has undertaken an inspirational life’s journey. “Never undersell yourselves,” she told Shiplake College’s pupils when she was guest of honour at Prize-Giving.   Even as a little girl she aspired to be a teacher, sitting younger children down, teaching them and giving them homework. “I soon became friendless,” quipped Miss Langham.   As Shiplake’s leavers progress to university Mrs Langham gave them some informal advice. “I went to university to get two things: a degree and a husband.. I still find the degree very useful. You can always get a husband or wife later, though my eye sight is terrible. I’m minus 13 in both eyes and I used to be too vain to wear my glasses. No wonder my mother thought my choice of boyfriends very strange.”     At Wakefield, as Headmistress, she established a reputation for no-nonsense education with shirt-tucking and strong discipline high on an agenda. She provided fee-paying parents with the choices that they wanted for their daughters. Traditional values, epitomised by fountain pens and puddings with custard, were fostered.   “We had some famous alumni at Wakefield Girls, novelist Helen Fielding, who wrote the Bridget Jones diaries, sculptor Barbara Hepworth and most recently Katherine Kelly who now plays Becky in Coronation Street. We also produced the first housemate ever to be evicted from the Big Brother House. In fact I phoned in several times myself to make sure.”   Miss Langham was impressed by the Shiplake students who she met. “I can see that you produce an independent, feisty type of student here, people who will look you in the eye and give you a firm handshake.”   Aless Williams, Head Girl, thanked Miss Langham. “I am delighted that in the year when Gilson House, the girls’ new House opened, we have had a female speaker to break the run of male speakers that has occurred recently.”