Rhubarb 2021

ST EDWARD’S

Former MCR Tony Snel l by John Wiggins RENAISSANCE MAN

J ohnWiggins, Honorary Secretary of the St Edward’s School Society, Maths teacher and rowing coach, talks to colleagues and former pupils about former MCR, Tony Snell (1996-2020) and the amazing impact he has had on their lives. Where does one start to write about Tony Snell? A man who has dedicated his life to educating children, he is, in the words of the 11thWarden, David Christie at a Boat Club dinner, the ultimate schoolmaster . Revered, respected and a person of reference for colleagues, alumni and parents alike, ‘JANS’ arrived at Teddies in 1965, and was still coming into School to assist with the DofE programme over 50 years later. Now he has retired, what do those he has influenced, inspired and enabled recall about this tireless individual? Malcolm Oxley is not someone to use lightly the epithet ‘Renaissance man’ but was a colleague until Tony’s retirement from teaching in the 1990s and he describes him as ‘the most talented and clever’ of his contemporaries. Tony was a Physics teacher and textbook author but also an outstanding linguist, a Bard of Cornwall contributing significantly to the recent debate on unification of the

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Cornish language. He was quick to learn a new tongue as Malcolm witnessed on a school trip toYugoslavia in 1971 where ‘within days,Tony was conversing with the locals in a Bosnian pub’. Malcolm is also a great admirer of Tony the musician, well versed in tradition be it Cornish or Breton and he remembers him creating the uniquely Teddies Morris Dancing group.

SES Morris Men 1982

J.A.N. Snell and SES Group C 1976

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