As is now traditional, the transition from Cranleighan to (almost) OC for the current UVIth took place at a lunch the day before Long Leave in May.
Cat Staples (Loveday, 1999-2001 and current CPS) welcomed them as OCs with some very wise words:
“Nearly 20 years ago I was sat in your place listening to someone witter on about OCs. All that I was really worried about at that time was wondering at what point I’d ring my parents and ask if it was ok for me to head into Guildford that night, rather than come home and get an early night ahead of all the revision I had to do over Long Leave. So I’ll try not to keep you too long in case someone’s in the same boat. Irritatingly, back then my older brother was at home at the time. He was someone who had sailed quite easily from a choral scholarship at St Paul’s Cathedral onto a music scholarship at Eton College and then another choral scholarship at Cambridge. He saw me reading and highlighting and writing and asked ‘What are you doing?’ and I quite proudly said ‘I’m revising’. To which he just looked at me in complete amazement and said ‘why didn’t you just listen in class’?
“I had to work a bit harder at the things that came very naturally to him. I look back at that time now and realise how significant some of that hard work really was.
“I left Cranleigh with absolutely no idea what I wanted to do. I didn’t have an offer of a place at University as I’d decided to take a gap year and apply post-results but I didn’t even have a plan for the gap year. I lived very much in the moment and as I said I was worried more about the immediate hours ahead rather than the years ahead I might be setting myself up for. I’d studied music, french and theatre studies at Cranleigh, so naturally my first job was building (Ikea style) filing cabinets at a Government office. When the advert described an exciting opportunity to ‘create filing systems’ I hadn’t quite anticipated how literal a description that was. Anyway, a chance meeting in a lift one day with a senior civil servant found me taking the place of a more experienced temp who hadn’t turned up so I was propelled to be a junior event manager for the Department of Education and Skills. I temped for a couple of months and decided on a whim to go to Paris. What I thought was going to be a 2 week stay ended up the next 6 months and I came back having learnt how to speak French properly. Amidst all of this I’d accepted a place at Bristol University and went there to read music with a year at the Sorbonne in Paris on the cards too. Bristol was full of OCs – especially the music department and the girl I’d shared a room with in my first term in South was reading music in the year above me. Helpfully, for me – she’d kept her essay notes so my first year was a breeze.
“After graduating I still had no clue what to do. By this time, some of my OC friends had started companies, been taken on by Deloitte on graduate schemes, started officer training in the army and many seemed to be sorted in life already. I applied for a job as an Assistant Artist Manager at a music management agency – for classical musicians. I didn’t really know what that was, but it said on the job description that a speaking a language would be an advantage; that a love of music was essential; and that office experience was desired. Well this sounded good – I had all these things so I applied and I got the job. A nod to my A-Levels; to Cranleigh – Music…I was a music scholar here – I sang in chapel choir, Cranleigh voices, played in the orchestra, jazz band, organised the part song for Loveday, got lost in Poland on a choir tour etc. – I definitely fostered my love of music in my sixth form years here. French – well, I found it hard at Cranleigh but encouraged by some great teachers, Madame Blanche, I scraped a C and that was enough to lead me to Paris and then to the Sorbonne; and Theatre Studies – probably the most important of the three. Playing God in the Mystery plays in a black wheelie bin as a pulpit… well that and everything in drama gave me the confidence to talk about myself positively and conduct that conversation in the lift that got me my office experience and ultimately made me seem an attractive prospect to an employer in an interview.
“I leaped from my degree straight into a career in music which saw me managing some of the world’s greatest classical musicians – for those of you who like that sort of thing, my agency represented the conductor Simon Rattle and I used to work for violinists Tasmin Little, Viktoria Mullova, pianists Evgeny Kissin, John Lill, as well as cellists Natalie Clein and the world-famous Borodin Quartet. I traveled all over the world helping put concerts together for them and negotiating their contracts, advising them on record deals and many, many late nights having dinners schmoozing with concert promoters and orchestra managers. One night, a familiar face came backstage and asked for me. It was my old Headmaster from Cranleigh, Guy Waller, whose daughter wanted a signature of the pianist Evgeny Kissin and Guy knew I worked for him and chanced that I might be there. It was a touching moment to be able to get an excited and humbled Headmaster backstage to meet one of his daughter’s heroes, and really I’d only ended up working there because he’d given me a scholarship that got me here to Cranleigh.
“After 10 very happy years in Artist Management I had a daughter and decided a change in career might afford me a little more time at home and I kept with music for a while working in the music department at St Albans School and then becoming the Music Schools Manager at Eton College. Now I’m the Head of Admissions at the Prep School and I’m one of the lucky OCs who gets to come back and make my old teachers feel extremely old for having taught me! Mr Futcher, Mr Saxel – I can go on. And some of my peers are here as teachers too – Housty, Mr Verdon. My job now is to encourage the parents of 5-6 year olds to begin their journey at Cranleigh. And it’s amazing to think that some of our new 7 year olds who will begin in Form 1 in the Prep School in September will be sat in this dining hall in 2030 listening, perhaps, to one of you tell them about what you’ve done since you left.
“I think at your age it’s impossible to imagine the significance of some of the things you’ve experienced already. And many of you, when you’ve got your exams done, and you finally walk down the steps as a leaver, will want to give it a bit of a pause before you come back. That’s fine. I did. I didn’t really want to see this place – I’d outgrown the 250+ acres and wanted to take on a bigger world.
“And yet here I am today to talk to Welcome you as new Old Cranleighans.
“The Society is our (as in Old Cranleighan) society and it is there to help OCs stay in touch with each other and with the School, and to help OCs meet other OCs. The Society seeks to achieve this in a number of ways.
- The Society maintains a website and hosts a database and network portal.
- It publishes the Old Cranleighan printed magazine annually and sends out more frequent emails, (including eContact) with news of events being held at the School and giving OCs the opportunity to attend some concerts, plays and the like.
- The Society holds an annual OC Day at the School and arranges or assists with a number of reunions each year (including the over 70s, although they may have to wait a while to be invited to that one, but it is immensely popular) and dinners. The last OC Dinner held at the School allowed people to come back and stay in houses and was significantly over subscribed.
- There are a number of clubs and societies, including the popular City and Property Societies (Invite them to look at the website or portal for the list; and more can always be added if there is an appetite). Registrations for the outgoing sixth form on The Old Cranleighan Network will be approved the day after the Leavers Ball and the photos from that and access to all other parts of The Network will be possible from that point, but only if they register.
- The Society has fantastic sports grounds at TD. Rugby (success). Hockey (men and ladies) (more success and a fabulous new Astro). But also cricket, netball, sailing and so on. In addition to leagues, cups and tours (most recently to Malta), the Society looks to arrange sports fixtures against School sides wherever possible.
- The Society fully supports the Cranleigh Network, which is designed to help Cranleighans and OCs alike, when embarking on a career for the first time or when moving it starting again later in life. It could be an introduction to a US university, how to apply and when, or a summer placement with an advertising agency, or something else.
“But the real point is that, because the Society is ours, it can be whatever we want it to be. New OCs are encouraged to get involved in all aspects and, if they want to organise an event or something more long term, then we are here to help. Vickie Ingle is the first point of contact and can help with most things, she is currently walking the Cornish Coast with a 75 year old OC to raise money for the Cranleigh Foundation bursaries.
“So there’s just one last memory from my teenage years which has resonated with me over and over again. The Director of Music at Cranleigh suggested I go on a choral course and towards the end of the week in Liverpool the conductor, Ralph Allwood who was leading a session on conducting choirs on the course said to us that we should get up and give conducting a go. He said that by the very fact we had come to this course it meant that we were some of the best choral singers in the country. We might not be better than the person stood next to us at sight-reading, at singing technique, or at conducting but that when we went on in our lives and back to our homes and into communities that we didn’t know yet, at some point we’d realise we’re the best that there is right here, right now. And that responsibility lies to us to take control and to lead. So, why not give conducting a go in this friendly environment because you never know when you might need to step up and do it. I am terrible at the guitar. I never learnt it properly, it kills my fingers when I play, and I don’t like practising it so I’ve never got over that feeling. But for one Sunday a month at my little village church, at a children’s service, I’m the best there is. And I step up, and I play terrible guitar to a loving crowd who is just happy that someone is leading things. You might not have been the best whilst you were here at Cranleigh at netball, at rugby, at maths, or at drama, but when you go on into your new lives you might just remember that the very fact you learnt it here, means you’ve got a responsibility to step up and organise the office netball tournament, coach beginners rugby or even get up and play the guitar badly at church like me.
“I did ring my parents that night and they said no, they said, bring your friends round here instead and that irritating older brother of mine drove us into Guildford anyway. Friends and family – that’s what being an OC really is all about.”