2009 OJ Magazine

The 2009 Old Johnian Magazine is now in production stages and will be mailed out in early springtime. If you have news for next year’s edition please email development@stjohns.surrey.sch.uk.

Peter Parks OBE

Congratulations to OJ Peter Parks (West, ’55-’60) who was awarded an OBE in the New Year’s Honours for services to Natural History and to the Film Industry. Peter is also a three times Oscar winner and a founding partner of Oxford Scientific Films (OSF), a company that provides high quality film footage and photographs of a variety of organisms found in nature. He won his first Sci-Tech Award in 1981 for the development of the OSF microcosmic zoom device for microscopic photography. In 1989, Parks formed Image Quest, and Image Quest 3-D soon after, with the mission of researching and developing technologies pertinent to large-format filming in all media, with special emphasis on wildlife filming, special effects and 3-D.

OJs in Rugby

Congratulations to George Kruis (Churchill, ’03-’08) who has recently signed a contract with Saracens as part of their Elite Academy squad. We wish him well in the professional game.

St John’s has a proud association with professional rugby. OJ Richard Haughton (Montgomery ’94-’99) also won a place in the Saracens Academy after leaving St John’s and now plays for their full squad, winning the inaugural Richard Hill Saracens Player of the Year Trophy and being named in the Sky TV Guinness Premiership Dream Team for 2007/08.

Aidan Pritchard (North ’01-’06) plays prop forward for The Nottingham Outlaws.

Stovepipe

OJ Adam Brace’s (Surrey, ’93-’98) latest play Stovepipe is being put on by the National Theatre between 3rd March and 26th April this year. Stovepipe is a striking dramatisation of former journalist Adam Brace's tour of Amman. Honest, stark and immediately arresting, it delivers a vision of a post-war Middle East. Hailed by Tom Stoppard as “one of the best promenade drama’s I’ve seen”, Stovepipe will be performed in an indoor secret location in W12 revealed to patrons upon purchasing a ticket.

After leaving St John’s Adam Brace studied Performance Writing (MA) at Goldsmiths, London. His 2007 play Not Proud was premiered at the Seymour Centre in Sydney, Australia. The Bullshit Artists (2007) was performed as a rehearsed reading at Trafalgar Studios. Other writing credits include The Milk Run (BBC Radio 1, 2005), The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Runner Up, Guardian Fringe Award (Blue Elephant/C Venues, Edinburgh, 2004) and After Sex All the Animals are Sad (Hoxton Hall/C Venues, Edinburgh, 2003).

Local Accommodation

We are occasionally asked if there is any reasonably priced accommodation for visiting OJs in the area. We have listed below the contact details of one or two. Those marked with * are within walking distance.