Brian Pollard, OH 1948-56 sent in to The Development Office this photo that he took in 1955, to be shown on our new photo management system, 'Name that Face' . It was taken when a group of Sixth Form students visited the University of Cambridge to sit the scholarship examinations and they were able to meet up with a school friend from their year above.

The occasion was when a group of us Sixth Formers went to Cambridge to sit the scholarship examinations.  Keith Munro, is in his RAF uniform, as he had gained a place the previous year, and, as happened at that time, he had to do his National Service before going up.  He was a close friend of mine so we must have arranged to meet up in Cambridge.

The back row of the photo, from left to right features Roger Blair Chappell (OH 1946-55) and John Keith Munro (OH 1948-55).  On the front row, from left to right are Dan Gilroy (OH 1949-56), Geoff Frank (OH 1949-56), and John C P 'Jasper' Stones (OH 1949-56).

Brian Pollard was born in Hull in October 1937, attending Cavendish Road Primary School.  In 1948, he passed the '11 plus' examination and was awarded a scholarship to Hymers College, which at that time, was still a Direct Grant school.  On leaving Hymers in 1956, he went to the University of Manchester along with Michael Dagwell (OH 1949-56), Robert Bruce (OH 1946-56), and Jake Corney (OH 1948-56), all studying Physics.  He continued at Manchester studying a PhD in theoretical particle physics at Manchester which deferred his undertaking National Service and by the time he completed it in 1963, National Service had ended.

After periods holding Research fellowships at University College London, and the University of Birmingham, he was appointed in 1966 to a Lecturership at the University of Bristol. He spent the rest of his career at Bristol, until his official retirement in 1997.  In retirement, he has been acting as archivist for the School of Physics at the University of Bristol.

Keith Munro sadly died in 1959.  After National Service, he went to St John's College, Cambridge in 1957, on a John Hymers Scholarship, to study Mathematics and Physics. He died in a diving accident at the end of his second year.

Dan Gilroy went to Trinity College at Cambridge to study Natural Sciences and continued his studies with a PhD in Chemistry. After three years working in Ottawa he spent the rest of his working life in Cheshire doing research for the Electricity Council. He passed away in 2021.

John Stones obtained a first-class degree in German at Manchester University and become a teacher of languages at a school in Bransholme in Hull. He passed away in 2022.

We haven't heard much about Geoff Frank and Roger Chappell since they left Hymers College. Geoff went to The Queen's College at Oxford to study Chemistry and Roger continued his studies in English at Magdalen College.  Brian has tried to find out more information about them and sadly thinks they may both have passed away; Geoff in 2004 and Roger, after possibly emigrating to Australia, in 2007.

I do a lot of genealogical research, and have looked up both Roger B. Chappell and Geoff Frank on the usual websites.  I can't prove that my research is definitely the same people but in the case of Roger Blair Chappell, that name pins him down pretty well.  However, there are others with the name Geoffrey Frank.  So it looks like I (behind the camera) am the only survivor of that group, which is sad.

Another memory of that trip to Cambridge is that I made contact with another contemporary who had gone to Cambridge a year earlier, Ian Hunter (OH 1948-55).  He was a brilliant mathematician and had a Scholarship which meant he could go straight to take up his place without doing National Service.  As my career has been in Mathematical Physics I have always wondered what happened to him. 

Related Articles:

• Fondly Remembered: Dan Gilroy, OH 1949-56
• Fondly Remembered: John Stones, OH 1949-56