The Chronicle 682

39 ST EDWARD’S CHRONICLE

Jonny was wry, dry, witty and a fearless fighter for fairness. Unafraid to put forward a contrary view, often playing the sceptic, but mostly arguing for what was right and fair. There was certainly something of a Mr Keating from Dead Poets Society in JTL. Carpe diem is more often than not mistranslated as ‘seize the day’, when what the Roman poet Horace meant was far

more akin to the act of harvesting and enjoying ripe fruit: plucking that sweet apple from life’s tree, to savour every bit. Jonny did that. Goodbye, my old friend.

Jonny the Sportsman By Zanah Coram-Wright, Avenue Matron I met Jonny when he was a Tutor in Cowell’s and I was House Matron (before moving to the newly opened Segar’s in 2004). We became friends, we enjoyed working together while on duty. We were also hockey coaches – well, Jonny was. Jonny was a good sportsman who loved to share his skills with teams of newcomers to the sport. After coaching the girls’ U14C for a couple of years I then joined Jonny’s U15C team, where he was in charge. We both felt that the most important thing about training less skilled teams was to help them to enjoy the game, cultivate their team spirit and develop their skills, hopefully taking them onto the higher teams in the process. We had set drills from the three-man weave, intricate passing and shooting drills, which Jonny demonstrated with great aplomb. Jonny’s sense of fun ran through the teams he coached. Nothing was taken too seriously: the roars of laughter from the boys when a ball was miss-hit (which was often), a goal missed or even a goal scored added subtle improvements to the boys’ game. On one occasion the squad was making so much noise that we hadn’t noticed that the other Astro had come to a standstill. We were being watched. At the end of the session Zak Jones (then Head of Hockey) announced that he would be joining our next practice - high praise indeed. D-Day arrived: Jonny and I were distracted by a plane flying overhead. We were trying to work out whether it was a spy plane or a UFO as it had a strange disc on the top. Needless to say we weren’t concentrating and we suddenly realised that the question: ‘Are you two going to join us, or are you going to just stand there, plane spotting?’ was aimed at us. We stifled our giggles and headed off to the practice - the boys were in their stride showing off their new skills (leading to some of them being poached for higher teams). The sense of achievement was palpable. My memories of Jonny include seeing him as one half of Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee at a mutual friend’s Alice in Wonderland themed wedding, his willingness to share his knowledge, his empathy, his support, his ever-present sense of humour, his strength; and last but not least his love for his family and friends.

Jonny Lambe 7 April 1966 - 17 Dec 2020

Surfing in Polzeath during Fourth Form activity week in 2009

Jonny with Huw Thomas, Liz Boast and Anna Fielding on a school trip to Russia in 2017