Framlinghamian 2022 - Flipbook - Page 293
SOF | OBITUARIES
his final year there he was made Head of
he was banned from public speaking by
School and was awarded the Founder’s
James’ successor, Gwen Randall, and
Prize, the Hunter Music Prize and the
stood down by his campaign manager
Governors Silver Medal. After graduating
for his own safety! You see, once you put
from Selwyn College, Cambridge, like
Michael in the spotlight, there really was
a fish out of water, this quintessential
no end to the amount of damage that
Englishman travelled to Italy, where he
rapier wit might do.
taught English for six months in Salerno,
and, in an uncharacteristic moment of
‘daring-do’, he even tried out the local
pizza –which he quickly discovered, like
all foreign foods, he absolutely hated!
Thereafter, having run out of Marmite and
Earl Grey, Michael gratefully returned to
‘Blighty’ to get a proper job. Here, as a
fresh-faced schoolmaster at Framlingham
College, our international ‘man of
mystery’ became an instant hit. ‘Frank’,
as he became affectionately known,
was soon cajoled into becoming editor
of a student-led College equivalent of
Private Eye, wittily named, Framboise...
or ‘Fram boys’. While the occasionally
anti-establishment tone of this worthy
publication no doubt enhanced his
credibility with the students, however, it
didn’t always do much for his popularity
with Senior Management. Indeed, on
Image drawn by Chris Lenton, a colleague from
the Art Department, in the mid-1990s.
one occasion the content was deemed so
contentious that an entire edition’s worth
of copies had to be hunted down and
‘Then there’s the character count – any
destroyed! But our ‘Phantom Raspberry
problems there
Blower’ always did like to sail close to
Get back to either Suzie or myself
the wind and had started how he meant
As Head of ICT – but I have left
to go on – ‘building a career’ in any
Lines between stanzas, tried to shape a
conventional sense simply wasn’t in his
phrase
DNA. Under the Headmastership of J.F.X.
Followed the line beyond the template’s
Miller, we campaigned to get him elected
reach,
President of Common Room as a joke, but
For today I am writing reports.’
once in office, as hard as he might try, he
could not get rid of the role. Ultimately,
From a personal perspective, from the
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