School’s Out Memories
The road to 2012 I
n 1967, my father took up an appointment as Chief Superintendent of Police, Dog Section, in Nigeria. This was a turbulent time, with the Biafran War well under way. I was at Chester-Le-Street Grammar School at the time, embarking on my ‘O’ Level course, so stayed
It was the heritage at Barnard Castle School, that Tony Aikenhead, Project Director for the Olympic Stadium, will never forget
with relatives when my parents left the UK. Sadly, in 1969, my mother died, and my father was still in
Nigeria. My “O” Levels came and went, and it was decided that I would apply to go to boarding school for my A-Level course. Barnard Castle School kindly accepted me. If I said that this was a defining moment in my life, I don’t think I could be as sure of anything as this. Although I was 16 at the time, I was quiet and shy. I was not an academic but I was well behaved (not surprisingly being a policeman’s son). I liked sport, but had never held a rugby ball. I threw the Javelin at county level. After surviving the first few
days of everyone coming back to school after the summer and the inevitable awe of joining a large group of people who had known each other for a long period of time – I started to settle down, all with the help of a great bunch of guys in both Lower and Upper Sixth. Living in a 24-bed dormi- tory with a lights-out time, having a church service every day, being in school uniform 24/7, having quite a broad North East accent compared to the other board- ers, having to deliver the Sunday evening lesson from the pulpit, all were a big change for me. However, the most profound was the fact that Barney was an institution with such a rich heritage. In the first week, the rugby coach asked me to come and join the first training session with the 1st XV squad. But I took one look at the training underway and bottled out. Afterwards I pushed myself and joined the next session with the 2nd and 3rds. From then on, I was hooked. I spent Lower Sixth in the 2nds, Upper Sixth in the 1st XV and after school I had a very rich ten years in West Hartlepool’s 1st XV. I’ll never forget the camaraderie that was forged in our
Upper Sixth pre-season training camp – Newton By the Sea in Northumberland. Five hours fitness training on the beach followed by a 40-minute run – every day for 7 days. My A-Levels were a challenge – Maths, Economics and
Physics. Jonny Usher, who insisted on being called Jonny, took Economics. We worked on his farm with his family at
82 FirstEleven Summer 2012
weekends and helped drink his home-brewed beer. At the end of Lower Sixth – in 1971, the Biafran War ended. The Nigerian government took the radical step of terminat- ing the tenure of all non-black officers in the police force, so my father came home. The school fees were paid by the then “Crown Agents” so I was in a position where I had to leave the school. I was devastated. During the summer break, an anonymous benefactor offered to pay my fees for my final year. What a fantastic thing to do and that person will forever be in my thoughts. Wind forward 39 years. Alan Stevens, the new Headmas-
ter of Barney invited me to deliver the keynote speech at their Speech Day last year – it was such an honour. I had just finished leading the team as Project Director, which designed and built the London 2012 Olympic Stadium.
I opened by telling the audience about the task in hand,
in that we were charged with designing and constructing an 80,000 seat stadium fit for the games and the paralympic games, with the requirement that the stadium could be transformed into a 2,500 seat IAAF athletics stadium, post games. This had never been done before to such a scale and was completed early and under budget. I’ve had a great career, currently as Director of Opera- tions with Sir Robert McAlpine. I’ve had the opportunity to lead the delivery of the Millennium Dome, Portcullis House and the Millennium Stadium. The foundation for this career came from not only my father, whom I respect without reservation, but also Barnard Castle School, which instilled in me the qualities of leadership, commitment and teamwork.
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