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T h e O l d S t a t i o n e r - N o 8 0
founder member and very much involved
in setting up the club.
He was also much involved in the running
of both clubs, cricket probably more than
football, as he organised and participated in
tours especially the Football Club Easter
Tour and the Cricket Club visits to Broad
Halfpenny Down - the birth place of cricket
- a rare privilege to gain that fixture, and
regular tours to Norfolk. He was also the
skipper of the Football 3rd XI and the
Cricket 2nd XI. A habit that Peter also
initiated was to watch, or even umpire, the
school cricket matches to keep an eye on
potential talent that maybe persuaded to
join the Old Boys when they left the school.
In those days the former pupils organisation
was known as the Stationers Old Boys
Association (SOBA) and the football and
cricket clubs were separate organisations.
In 1963 it was decided to re-organise the
constitution, re-name it as the Old
Stationers Association and amalgamate the
football and cricket clubs with it to make it
fit for the second half of the 20th century.
Peter again was very much the driving
force to bring this into effect. The football
club continues to exist and operates under
the same name but recruiting its players
from different sources. The cricket club
unfortunately closed in 1994 mainly due to
circumstances beyond their control but the
Association with its social activities
continues to thrive In 1964 Peter was
elected President of the Association at the
relatively young age of 37.
Peter devoted a great deal of time and
energy to the running of the sports clubs
being involved in the multitude of tasks
that lead to the smooth running of these
organisations. That contribution also
continued long after his physical
participation in the matches had ceased. I
think that his efforts, especially in
connection with the new constitution, can
be regarded as his legacy to fellow Old
Stationers as I am sure it is a contributory
factor in that the Football Club now over
100 years old still fields 5 XIs each week
and the Association, 30 years after the
school was closed, has over 500 members.
Recitation of composite verse of School
Song.
Thank you Peter for all that you have done
for your fellow Old Stationers.
May you rest in peace.
Leslie Lane
BRIAN SIMPSON
1943 – 2014
Brian Frederick Simpson, more commonly
‘Sim’, was born in Wood Green and started
at Stationers’ at the same time as me in
1954. We had little in common in our
schooldays, save Major Halls’ CCF where
he outranked me, as sergeant, and
outgunned me on the rifle range, and it
was to be many years before our paths
crossed, literally, again.
It was in 1978, when we were crossing in
opposite directions the car park which
separated the main offices of Broxbourne
Council at that time from its satellite
buildings, that we recognised each other 19
years after leaving the School. Brian had just
joined my Authority’s Solicitor’s Department
as Senior Legal Executive so we agreed to
have a pint together at lunchtime. It quickly
became apparent that we had many shared
interests, not least sport and freemasonry,
and thus began a firm friendship which
spanned the next 36 years.
On leaving School, Brian began legal
training at Royds Rawlston before moving
to the London Borough of Haringey’s
Legal Department. Some years later, he
broke away from the legal profession for a
while to join Abbey Life, dealing with life
assurance, and then the London Borough
of Hackney as a Rent Assessment Officer,
until taking up the post with Broxbourne
Council. In 1982 he moved into private
practice and, in 1988, joined Breeze &
Wyles, Solicitors, in Hertford, where he
remained until retirement in 2009.
In private life, Brian took a keen interest in
music, playing guitar in a skiffle group
whilst still at school and later forming a
band, Patents Pending. He also enjoyed the
theatre and acting, becoming a member of
Group12 Amateur Dramatic Society,
performing at the Intimate Theatre in
Palmers Green as well as other venues. By
all accounts, he was an assured actor capable
of masking the odd fluffed line but, on one
occasion, he brought the house down by
inadvertently changing Kipling’s famous
verse to “tho I’ve beaten you and flayed you;
by the livin’ Gawd that made you; I’m a
better man than you are, Gunga Din!” It
was at Group12 that another member of
the Society took his eye and he began
courting Angie, leading to their marriage
on 14th August 1976. Their first house was
in Broxbourne, later moving to Hertford
Heath, and he played squash at Broxbourne
Sports Club, although his sons, Ben and
Tom, recall him spending rather more time
in the bar, and he organised the Club’s
Bonfire Night fireworks displays and New
Year’s Eve celebrations for a number of
years. Another passion was golf and we
always enjoyed a round together at
Essendon or Brickendon Grange.
His interest in freemasonry began when
his father initiated him into his Army and
Navy Lodge in 1974 and he became its
Master in 1984 and again in 2004. In
Hertfordshire, he was a founder member
of the Guy Marsden Halsey Lodge in
1990, and its Master in 1992. In 1991 he
was exalted into the Royal Arch and, in
1994, he was a founder member of the
Guy Marsden Halsey Chapter and its 1st
Principal in 1998. He received London
Honours in 1996 and was a Provincial
Officer in both Craft and Chapter.
Brian was a member of the Toastmasters
and Master of Ceremonies Federation and
its President in 1998. For many years he
has been Toastmaster at our Annual
Dinner at Stationers’ Hall, resplendent in
his red jacket and OSA bow-tie and the
epitome of efficiency in guiding
proceedings along. He was, of course, an
OSA member and regular attender at our
‘Intake Year of 1954’ reunions.
In 1995, he was diagnosed with Hodgkins
Lymphoma, which he successfully overcame
although an overdose during radiotherapy
left him with scarring to his neck.
In retirement, Brian was able to lavish
plenty of time on grandson Freddie, buying
him a set of golf clubs when he was six,
arranging lessons for him and taking him
to the driving range for practice, trying out
go-karting at Rye House, ‘helping’ him put
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