Rhubarb 2020

ST EDWARD’S r h u b a r b

From October 2020 we will be putting all new obituaries online. This will enable us to update information on a regular basis and allow all OSE to access details throughout the year. If you don’t have access online, please contact the OSE team and we can send you a hard copy by post. More details will be shared through the Teddies In Touch newsletter and the website.

OSE OBITUARIES The below obituaries have been kindly provided by the family and friends of OSE in conjunction with information found on the School Roll and online articles and they are, to our best knowledge, true and correct.

O B I T U A R I E S

including the day he died.

post-war British austerity, John took to Australia’s lifestyle as eagerly as he embraced its climate. He played tennis beyond his 90th birthday (sporting a John Newcombe tennis jacket!), and he loved being able to eat al fresco throughout the year. He enjoyed a useful and satisfying career in General Practice and as occasional surgeon on Sydney’s North Shore for 36 years, for most of which either he or his partner was on call 24/7. He retired in 1995, aged 73. In 2017 he and Mariuccia moved from Sydney to a care home on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, to be closer to their daughter Renata and son-in-law Trevor. John Brooks was a man for marriage. His long and loving union with Mariuccia was a beacon of security and a moral compass for his children and grandchildren. He was also a man for mealtimes, possibly never happier than when enjoying Mariuccia’s fine cooking, on their terrace, surrounded by their family. He was a man of medicine to the last, fascinated by the social and scientific implications of the current pandemic (which had no bearing on his death). He was a man of multiculturalism, a citizen of the world, across most of which he travelled with his beloved Mariuccia. And he was a man of merriment, always on the lookout for life’s next absurdity; whenever John was mixing drinks, moods lightened, eyes brightened. He quickly became a regular at their care home’s Happy Hour, until and

For myself, a Yorkshireman, John was a man of the North. His softly spoken vowels never lost their Lancashire inflexion; his strong physical presence had something of the stubborn solidity of the Pennines; and his impish wit had a deadpan north-country undertow. The accent, the solidity, and the humour must have gone down well with his Australian patients. Shakespeare, as always, puts it best: He was a man, take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again. MATTHEWS, FREDERICK (1922-2020) On 14th January 2020 in France, aged 97, Frederick Gordon Matthews (F, 1936-1939). Brother of Ian Matthews (G, 1944-1947), father of John Stephen (F, 1973-1978) and Anthony Richard (F, 1974-1979). Royal Air Force 1942- 1946, Flight Lieutenant. Flour miller and corn merchant, Oxfordshire. PARKER, MICHAEL (1921-2019) On 30th May 2019, Michael Wolseley Eyre Parker (E, 1935-39). This obituary was kindly provided by his daughter. Michael was born on 3rd August 1921 at Gillingham in Kent. As a toddler, he moved to Malta for six years when his father was appointed as Assistant King’s Harbourmaster to the Naval Base in Malta’s

Please do get in touch if you have an obituary or news of past OSE you would like to share or you have any further information about the below – email us on OSE@stedwardsoxford.org.

RADCLIFFE, ALAN (1922-2019) On 6th June 2019, Alan John Radcliffe (A, 1937). Royal Australian Air Force 1940, Squadron Leader. Awarded Distinguished Flying Cross 1945. His DFC citation appeared in the London Gazette 3rd July 1945: ‘Squadron Leader Radcliffe has a fine record of operational flying. …He is a highly skilled and resolute pilot whose keenness to engage the enemy has set a fine example to all. His example of courage and devotion to duty has won great praise.’ Beloved husband of Elise (dec). Much loved by his children Bill and Barbara and their partners Alison and John. Grandfather to Douglas and William and great-grandfather to Erin. On 19th June 2020, John Barritt Brooks (B, 1936- 1939). Brother of David (B, 1939-1943), Uncle of Ian (B, 1973-1978) and Peter (E, 1974-1979). The following obituary was kindly provided by his friend Simon Petch (G, 1959-1964). John Barritt Brooks died in Peregian Springs, Queensland, BROOKS, JOHN (1922-2020)

Australia on June 19th. His younger brother David, who predeceased him, also attended Teddies, as did David’s sons Ian and Peter. John was in his 98th year, and had lived in Australia since 1957. Our condolences go to his widow, Mariuccia, to his daughters Angela and Renata, to his son-in-law Trevor, and to his grandchildren Gemma, Natalie, and Oliver. John Brooks was born in Rawtenstall, Lancashire, on August 6th, 1922. After leaving St Edward’s he studied Medicine at Manchester University. He graduated in 1945 and worked in hospitals and sanatoria in the UK, France and Switzerland, with a particular interest in chest diseases. Disillusioned with the procedures of the early NHS, John migrated to Australia in 1957, intending to pursue his profession in ways that seemed best to him. In 1958 he married Mariuccia, whom he had met in 1955 on a skiing holiday in the Dolomites, and who was from Castagnea, in Italy’s Piedmont region. They settled in Roseville, Sydney, in a house that they named ‘Ortisei’ after the town where they had met. They would live in ‘Ortisei’ for almost 60 years. An incidental refugee from

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