24
25
From a
Head Monitor
Winter
2013
reaction using (only) a metre ruler and
tabletop: “
A rapid, automatic response to
an external stimulus that does not require
initiation by the brain
” (exam emphasis
added). Generations of Neil’s students
have such definitions forever embedded
in their minds. Unforgettable, too, the
time (future 1st XV rugby captain) Oliver
Nash was made to stand on a chair for
forgetting the definition of the endocrine
system. I understand that most, if not all,
of those described above (as well as many
others) have since retired or moved on.
Nevertheless, I sincerely hope that this
spirited relationship between students and
teachers continues to this day.
There was perhaps no greater exponent
of this dynamic than C.P. Overton, a
much-loved teacher of Chemistry, rugby
and hockey coach and mentor to many of
us, who sadly passed away earlier this year.
His classes were the stuff of legend, with
stories of notes scrawled on an overhead
projector at a hundred words a minute
rife among all year groups within the
first week of each new school year. While
I never had the chance to attend those
classes myself, I did have the pleasure
of spending a hockey season coached
by “CPO”, as he will always be known.
His hockey coaching and end of season
celebrations, just like his teaching style,
were as brilliant as they were unorthodox.
My final two years at the school felt
markedly different to those that had gone
before, as if somehow going through
the hellish process of taking nine or ten
GCSEs (the most gruelling examinations
I’ve experienced to date, save for Oxford
Finals) had forced us all to “grow up”. One
of the earliest transitional experiences
occurred in CCF, where suddenly we
were entrusted with training younger
cadets, much to the delight of (future
RSM) Andrew Pollock. These changes
became all the more pronounced with my
appointment as Head Monitor at the end
of the Lower 6th, which was of course a
great honour. I remembered wondering,
aged eleven, who those students sitting
next to the Head Master (facing us) were;
what they had done to be afforded such a
What springs to
mind most when
I think of the
school is the cast
(and I use that
term deliberately)
of characters,
both students and
teachers alike, with
whom interactions
took place on a
daily basis.
privilege; and further just how they dealt
with the rest of the school staring at them
each morning! A neat (albeit admittedly
bizarre) trick I developed was a daily
pre-occupation with cleaning my glasses,
thereby averting the gaze of some seven
hundred other students.
The most difficult part of being Head
Monitor was, by far, the strange – and
sudden – feeling of separation from
my peers that resulted, a burden that
only felt truly lifted on the last day
of the year. There were also the most
memorable of privileges: Doctors’ Day
Dinner at the Hall, dining in the House
of Lords with OMT Parliamentarians and
giving a reading at St. Paul’s Cathedral
in a Triennial Year being more than
sufficient
quid pro quo
for the added
workload. In attempting to deal with
this, amidst the regular challenges
of school life and added pressures of
university applications, I am indebted
to the Second Monitor, Alex Turner, for
his tireless efforts and willingness to
step in whenever the need arose. A word
too for our fellow Monitor, Matthew
Putt, without whose Wolsey-like powers
of administration the year would have
been far more difficult. One of many
such feats of organization was the end of
year Prefects’ Dinner. It will come as no
surprise that the JCR voted, for the first
time I understand, to invite a number of
teachers to share in this annual occasion;
hopefully this tradition has continued
since.
I left the school in 2007, but my
connection continued, both at Oxford
(where I was joined by the larger than life
presences of Shanil Ghelani and Mihir
Kelshiker) and thereafter at Harvard,
where Neil (B.) Shah and I both attended
graduate school. Since leaving Taylors’,
I have on several occasions paused to
reflect on what I truly learnt during my
time there. MTS and institutions of a
similar ilk always seem to be fighting
the stereotype of “exam factories”, where
GCSEs and A Levels (and their modern
equivalents) dominate above all else.
Of course grades are hugely important
but, as I hope the foregoing has shown,
there was much more to it. The constant
juggling of work, sports and music was
also great preparation for my current life
as a corporate lawyer, where seemingly
simultaneous demands on my time are
common. Managing relationships with
clients and colleagues in the workplace
is further made easier by the fact that, on
some level, I feel like I’ve been learning to
deal with real people and real personalities
since I was eleven years of age.
I leave you with a demonstrative
exchange from 2005 with (then Head
of Science) K.G. Bridgeman, who was
checking off the register before covering
a Physics class one Friday afternoon:
“
Pillai… Pollock… Raja… Ah – so you’re
Chrishan Raja
?”… “
Yes, sir
.”… “
Are you as
clever as they say you are?
”… “
I guess that
depends on how clever they say I am, sir.
”…
“
Good answer.
”
To borrow an expression from my
current location: that’s training for life, 101.
