Rhubarb October 2022

Zecki Gerloff (Mac’s, 1997-2001) T here were only a handful of us, as we were the first girls to

start in Fourth Year. This meant a lot of attention and socialising. I think it was then that the term ‘quad-posing’ was coined. In Australia we watched a lot of each other’s matches, which formed a strong bond between the boys’ and girls’ teams. Memories include a very large and angry seagull snatching away my sandwich by Sydney Harbour, snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef and Mr Boult doing karaoke. (Did that really happen? Possibly not!)

FEATURE

Charlotte Lancaster née Berkin, (Corfe, 1998-2000)

I joined Teddies in September 1998, the first year when there were girls through the whole School. We had a tiny year group of girls and not many who played hockey, so I was the only girl from my year who went on tour, joining girls from the two years below including my younger sister Gemma. I was thrilled to be asked to captain the girls’ team!

I now live in Berlin with my partner and two year old, running a small non-profit organisation. I have too many memories of School to be specific, there was certainly a lot of fun had!

The tour was one of my highlights of School and something I still talk about now, especially with my children,

as it was such an amazing opportunity to spend three weeks in Australia playing a sport we all really loved. Spending time staying with other families and being shown all the tourist attractions was so much fun as well. I also remember being very jealous of the amount of sport the children in Australia did every day! Snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef was another highlight for me. There was a lot of travelling around between places and, if I remember correctly, our tour song was Shania Twain’s ‘That don’t impress me much’ – there was a lot of singing on buses between different destinations! The hockey matches were good, and the schools all so welcoming. I particularly liked how at the start of the matches we exchanged a school flag with the opposite captain. It was an incredible experience that I will always remember and I hope when my three boys are older they will get the opportunity to go on a sports tour as well. After Teddies, I spent many years working in the leisure industry, horse racing then indoor ski slopes. I now work at a Prep school running their performing arts and help out with the hockey fixtures when I get the chance to!

Georgie Parsons, née Medwell Bates (Oakthorpe, 1998-2003) I loved my time at Teddies and look back with such fondness and still have many wonderful friends from that time. The Australia hockey tour was such a fabulous trip – not least because we got to travel with the Sixth Form boys! It was superbly organised and we made some real lasting friendships. The hockey was really challenging – we certainly found the Australians to be fierce opponents. After leaving Teddies, I went on to Durham to study Geography and Sociology and then went in to event management. I now look after our three children and still love playing hockey when I can. I loved all the sport and drama at St Edward’s and had so much fun performing in many plays and musicals – but really my fondest memories are the friendships that I made and dancing around the common rooms in Oakthorpe.

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