Rhubarb December 2025

ST EDWARD’S

PUBLICATIONS BLAIR WORDEN:

parenting and separations from home and each other, various temptations, and the unease, uncertainty and upheaval that service families face as they are posted from place to place. Flights of Fancy is available from Amazon and from Richard at richardjcullen @ aol.com.

PUBLICATIONS

A BOOK OF FRIENDSHIP

LEAVING THE LADDER DOWN: HOW TO COMBINE CAREER AND MOTHERHOOD, FROM THE WOMEN WHO’VE DONE IT

Professor Blair Worden (Cowell’s, 1958-1963)

This spring, the St Edward’s School Press published Blair Worden: A Book of Friendship. Blair, who is a past president of the OSE Society, is a celebrated historian and leading authority on the English Civil War period. To celebrate his remarkable career and his 80th birthday, friends and colleagues contributed essays to make up this volume. It includes work from those Blair taught, supervised and mentored as well as his colleagues.

Dolly Jones (Segar’s, 1992-1994) This spring Dolly published her first book, Leaving the Ladder Down, a funny and practical guide for women facing the life-changing prospect of returning to work after having

The School also hosted ‘The Blair Worden Lectures’ in April, in which Blair’s colleagues

children. Dolly combines her own personal experiences with those of over 200 women from different professions.

and fellow academics delivered a series of lectures celebrating the publication of this book as well as the 80th birthday of one our most academically accomplished OSE. Blair Worden with Chris Jones (Field House, 1968-1972) and Chair of Governors on the left.

Dolly left Teddies in 1994 and went on to edit Vogue.com for 15 years before taking on the role of Content Strategy Director across the Condé Nast portfolio. She has over 20 years of experience as a journalist and creative digital consultant and we were thrilled to welcome Dolly as one of our ‘Industry Experts’ at the OSE Professional Networking Event in September.

FLIGHTS OF FANCY: THE LOVE LETTERS OF MARGARET McLAREN-REID Richard Cullen (Tilly’s, 1960-1965)

ABSENCE: Issa Quincy (Apsley, 2012-2017)

We’re thrilled to share the news that Issa has published Absence , his debut novel. Absence follows the story of an

Flights of Fancy is a hybrid memoir that follows the life of society debutante Margaret McLaren-Reid. Richard used over 700 letters dating from the 1920s and a wealth of images that track her life within the British Empire during the interwar years and beyond.

unnamed narrator and how he is affected by

a poem from his childhood which continues to reappear mysteriously throughout his life and is reflected in the lives of others around him.

Granta Books, his publisher, say ‘With fierce imagination, Issa Quincy has constructed a transcendent portrait of humanity, deftly illuminating a symphony of memories, murmurs and phantoms that add up to an ordinary human life.’

He takes the reader to the Middle East, India and chronicles an unusual experience of the Second World War in South America as Margaret accompanies her husband Harry, a decorated RAF pilot.Their glamorous life is punctuated by the stresses of

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