Old Farnhamians’ Association

Jeffrey Tate CBE

Jeffrey Tate (1954 – 1961) is one of Farnham Grammar School’s most famous old boys. Jeffrey was an outstanding pupil in all subjects who chose medicine as his initial career, going to Cambridge and later qualifying as a medical doctor at St Thomas’ Hospital, London. As his FGS contemporaries recall, music was his real passion, greatly encouraged by Alan Fluck who provided so many opportunities for boys with musical aptitude throughout his tenure as Music Master. At school, Jeffrey displayed himself as an outstandingly natural pianist, despite having had relatively little piano tuition in his early years.

In 1970 Jeffrey forsook medicine and joined the music staff at Covent Garden as a répétiteur (rehearsal pianist and vocal coach) until 1977. He worked with Maria Callas during these years. Jeffrey Tate’s rise to prominence followed his 1978 conducting debut of “Carmen” at the Gothenburg Opera in Sweden. His reputation spread rapidly when, in 1979, James Levine was unable to fill an engagement due to illness and Jeffrey was asked, at 3 hours notice, to conduct the opera “Lulu” at the Metropolitan Opera, New York. Thereafter he was asked to conduct many operas at the “Met”. Today, he is chief conductor of the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra and has held positions with the English Chamber Orchestra (principal conductor, 1985-2000), In recent years, he has conducted the RAI Orchestra in productions of Haydn's Creation (January 2000), Shumann's Goethe's Faust Scenes (January 2001), Wagner's Die Meister Singers von Nürnberg (April 2002), and Bach's B minor Mass (February 2003). Other posts held include Minnesota Orchestra (principal conductor, Sommerfest, 1996-2000), Rotterdam Philharmonic (music director, 1990-93), Orchestre National de France (principal guest conductor, 1991-1998) and the Royal Opera-Covent Garden (principal conductor,1986-1993) and principal guest conductor of the Orchestra Nazionale della RAI (Torino, Italy) to 2008. Jeffery Tate has been awarded the CBE and in France has been awarded “Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.” He regularly conducts the world’s leading opera companies, with his interpretations of Mozart, Strauss, and Wagner, and the French repertoire, being particularly acclaimed. A prolific recording artist, Jeffrey has recorded with the English Chamber Orchestra the complete symphonies of Mozart for EMI, and his cycle of Mozart Piano Concerti with Mitsuko Uchida are among the best-known and appreciated versions. In 1961, Alan Fluck organised the first Farnham Festival and Jeffrey took part in the concert presented by Farnham Grammar School. In the years since, the festival has become an event of national significance and an important feature of Farnham’s cultural programme. Through sponsorship, many pieces of music for children and young people have been composed for premier performance in the festival. It is both fitting and a matter of local pride that Jeffrey Tate is a patron of the festival.

Article updated Friday, 28 January, 2011

Bill Wallis

Bill Wallis (1948 – 1955) was head boy in his final year and left FGS to go to Cambridge University, where he became a friend of Peter Cook. When Cook and the rest of the Beyond the Fringe team left to take their show to Broadway, Wallis took over Alan Bennett's roles in the West End production. Bill’s portrayal of a vicar in that show included an uncanny resemblance to the voice of the Rev Hedley Wilds, Rector of St Andrews’ Parish Church, Farnham at that time!

Bill later appeared on Peter Cook and Dudley Moore's famous TV series Not Only But Also, in which they all sang a silly song about Alan A'Dale. (It repeatedly went ‘Alan A’Dale, Alan A’Dale, this is the tale of, Alan A’Dale…’, but we never actually got to hear the tale of Alan A’Dale). In 1969, he played Prime Minister Harold Wilson in Mrs. Wilson's Diary (1969), a stage show based on a regular feature in Cook's satirical magazine Private Eye. Bill also had several roles in Blackadder's various incarnations, notably as the revolting jailer Ploppy, son of Ploppy.… He later had a role in several series of Dangerfield, a BBC medical drama. Other notable roles were in Yes, Prime Minister (as a chain-smoking Sports Minister who is promoted to be Minister of Health) and The Avengers. Bill has taken leading roles in rep at Newcastle and Leicester, enjoyed seasons with the National Theatre and the RSC, and in London performed at the Young Vic, Riverside and Old Vic. His film appearances include The Other Boleyn Girl (2008), Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1997) and Splitting Heirs (1993). Article revised Friday, 28 January, 2011

Guy Bellamy

Guy Bellamy (1948 to 1952) left FGS to do two years national service in the RAF, spent mostly in Germany, and then became a reporter on a weekly paper in Woking. He was Sports Editor on the Surrey & Hants News in Farnham (then a paid-for broadsheet newspaper), and left to become a sub-editor on the Bournemouth Times. He was aiming to get to Fleet Street,which he did by the age of 24 when he became the youngest sub-editor on the Daily Express.

Throughout this time he was writing novels in his spare time but failing to get one accepted. In 1977, by which time he was a sub-editor on Rupert Murdoch’s The Sun, he had a novel The Secret Lemonade Drinker, instantly accepted by a good publisher in London and in America. He gave up his job and decided to earn his living by writing fiction.

The first novel got outstanding reviews from highly regarded critics such as Auberon Waugh (“A major new talent … I laughed and laughed, reading it in a state of tremulous excitement which must have been the nearest we novel reviewers come to an understanding of heavenly bliss”) and Erica Jong (“One of the wittiest books I’ve read in years…”). It reached number 4 on the best seller lists.

Guy has now written 12 novels. The most recent is due out in 2003. One of his most successful, The Nudists, was in the best seller lists for many weeks reaching number 6 and being named one of the Sunday Express’s four novels of the year. Another book, The Mystery of Men, was made into a two-hour film by the BBC and screened in 1999 with Warren Clarke and Nick Berry. There are plans afoot to film three other novels either on film or TV, but such arrangements sometimes take a long time to materialise. However, the book The Holiday, published in 1995, is going to be made into a two-part television film, each of 90 minutes.

Over the years, Guy has regularly written articles and short stories for newspapers and magazines and done book reviews for The Observer and The Mail on Sunday.

This is a prolific writer who may have been spurred to great achievements by the closing remark of F.A Morgan in his final school report…”Well, it’s too late now”!

Guys recent books include The Man Who Won (2005) and A Year In Suburbia (2007)

Article revised Friday, 28 January, 2011

The Talented Mr Chandler by Guy Bellamy

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