The People OMs of the Year OM of the Year 2000
OM of the Year 2000
OM of the Year 2000
Lucy Bailey (1973-78; Day) for her splendidly inspired direction of the West End play “Baby Doll”.
William Louey (1972-79; Chindit) for his educational foundation, providing academic scholarships to Chinese pupils.
Opening the proceedings of the inaugural awards ceremony, John Davies, Society Secretary, thanked William Louey and his parents who had made the journey all the way from Hong Kong to London’s Cafe Royal.
Both winners came with an accompanying cast as well as family. Lucy Bailey literally, as she brought along with her the two stars of the award-winning play Baby Doll – Charlotte Emerson and Paul Brenner, who plays Baby Doll’s boyfriend Archie Lee and other members of the company. William Louey managed to persuade five of his scholars at Oxbridge and LSE to forego their lectures and tutorials and be with him for the event. In all the assembled company numbered about 40.
John Davies said the winners had been chosen so that excellence and achievement could be acknowledged. Their effort in winning was colossal since there were at least 13,000 OM’s on the Society’s data base. He also referred those present to the hot-off-the-press news of the event in the “Chronicle”; the first 40 issues had been rushed out for the occasion and scooped the reporters from The Stage, The Standard and The Telegraph, who were also present.
Before asking Sir Peter Kemp (1947-49; Orchards), Millfield Governor and distinguished former Civil Servant, to present the awards, John thanked the girl whose name may for ever more become linked with the awards, Anna Williams. Anna in the Lower Sixth, won the Design Technology Department’s competition (as part of an A level project) to design the best trophy. He hoped the resulting trophies did justice to her excellent design which would be created again every year. They were Millfield’s version of the Oscars – and perhaps in future they should be called “The Annas”.
Sir Peter said that although Millfield had not notched up 600 years of tradition like other schools such as Eton, yet in its short life it had provided a wide range of achievers.
Accepting her award, Lucy Bailey said she had had a fantastic time at Millfield. She did just about everything in terms of activities, music, sport – and looking after animals in the laboratory. The one area in which she had not been fully involved was the theatre. This was partly because there was no theatre in her day. But she had been inspired by a truly remarkable teacher of English, David Rosser. She had studied Macbeth with him and “it started something off”. After Millfield, university was a let down. Instead of going to lectures, she took up directing, So she owed more to David than he perhaps realised. She did reveal that she had one acting role at Millfield. It was not a very distinguished one and she had forgotten the name of the play. She had a 10-line part as a char lady. It involved talking to a tramp through an open window. Having spent weeks plaguing her mother to help her learn her lines, the great occasion was a bit of an anti-climax. First through a mistrick of lighting the only bits of her which the audience could see were her knees. Eloquent though these were, they could not make up for the fact that the tramp came in off-cue, before she had said most of her 10 lines. That was her first and last acting role.
William Louey in an equally eloquent and short speech pointed out that in his case praise was due to the scholars financed by his foundation. If they were successful, then he was successful. He paid tribute finally to the very special Millfield spirit which was at the essence of these awards.
Headmaster, Peter Johnson said “at Millfield, as at most other schools, we take particular interest in the careers of our former pupils, but I believe we are the first to honour them with a special annual former pupil award. It is fitting that the first recipients should be in the worlds of art and business. Although the school is renowned for its academic and sporting successes its former pupils also excel in a wide variety of careers.”
In February, in front of her group, Anna Williams was presented by the Headmaster with a specially commissioned trophy of her own OM of the Year design. A mini-Anna.