The People OMs of the Year OM of the Year 2003
OM of the Year 2003
OM of the Year 2003
Which other school could honour in one fell swoop a Cruft’s sled dog expert, a leading higher education minister and a top golfer? This was the question posed by the Headmaster of Millfield School when all three were invited to the Thistle Marble Arch Hotel in London on October 10th to collect their Old Millfieldian of the Year Awards. In fact, as John Davies, Secretary of the Millfield Society, had earlier pointed out, no other school in the UK – and possibly in the world – honours its former pupils annually in this way.
This year’s winners of the OM of the year awards were:
Simon Luxmoore
(1966-69; Day), President of Messier-Dowty, the aeronautical engineering firm, whose hobby is sled dogs;
Garth McGimpsey
(1972-74; St Anne’s), victorious Captain of the Great Britain team and the Ireland Walker Cup team
His Excellency Sheikh Nahayan bin Mabarak al Nahayan
Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research for the United Arab Emirates, whose citation left the audience of some 80 friends and supporters of Millfield School breathless with admiration
Choosing the recipients of this year’s awards had not been easy. Opening the proceedings Dr Robert Clark, Chairman of the Society, pointed out that there were 14,000 OMs across 100 countries; and John Davies referred to the huge number of OM heavyweights in the world achieving mighty things on a daily basis.
But it could be argued that the real hero of the awards ceremony was the school’s archivist Barry Hobson. To great laughter it was reported that he had spent a morning ferreting through the dust and cobwebs of the cellars under Millfield House to rummage through the old school reports of the winners.
Schools are never very good at predicting success in future life when it comes to careers. Some years ago I co-wrote a book called Old School Ties which analysed whether anything that happened at school could be used as a predictor of eventual success. There turned out to be very little correlation.
R J O ‘Boss’ Meyer, Millfield’s founder and first headmaster, wrote on Simon Luxmoore’s final report: “I am sure he is right to think in terms of teaching rather than science or engineering”. As the Society’s Secretary went on to remark: “As you will hear this was something that the Boss got absolutely wrong!”
It was lucky that Simon ignored Boss’s advice: he turned down a teacher training place in favour of a business career and eventually landed a job as head of Design Engineering for the Dowty Group in Cheltenham, the largest designer of aircraft landing gear in the world. He is now President of the Messier-Dowty Group and warned his audience: “Just think of me when you are next landing at the airport: there is a 65% chance that you are landing courtesy of me!”
Simon won his award for being the quintessential Millfield all-rounder, mixing professional success with his expertise on Siberian huskies – and playing in every OM versus the School rugby match between 1966 and 1983!
Neil Chadwick, Housemaster of Garth McGimpsey, also got it wrong when he penned his judgement on the young McGimpsey in winter 1973. At that time Garth was already playing golf for Ireland. Nevertheless Neil wrote: “He needs to get into something he can do really well. Shooting for example!” This was about a man who went on to wear the green sweater 226 times for Ireland and became the hero of many Walker Cup matches.
The secret of why school is not a great predictor of success was revealed by His Excellency Sheikh Nahrayan. He disarmingly admitted: “In truth my Millfield record was short of excellence. I saved my best work until later!”
His saved best work, as cited, includes:
- Guiding and shaping higher education in the UAE
- Chancellor of UAE University and UAE’s Higher Colleges of Technology
- Enthusiast for e-education
- Highly successful entrepreneurial businessman, banker and investor
- Noted patron of the arts
- Light aircraft and helicopter pilot
- Falconry expert
- Chairman of Abu Dhabi cricket club
- Patron of Medicins Sans Frontiers
- Leading campaigner for the disabled
And last but not least President of the Arabian Peninsular Millfield Association.
We don’t know how Boss came to select His Excellency for Millfield, but Simon Luxmoore said of his own selection: “It was nothing to do with me or my background. The deal was that if my father preached at the parade service one year – then that would be good enough!”
Garth’s account of his selection process when he arrived as a shy 15-year-old from Ireland went as follows: “During that long interview with Boss he made me play tennis with the coach, he made me swim to beat one of the school’s swimming records and then we played some golf for a while. He suggested we play a match on a small course behind Millfield House. By then I was exhausted. Boss knew every bounce on that tricky course. To my direst horror Boss beat me. I thought “There go my chances!” But Boss must have seen something in me and he offered me a place”
In this selection and in choosing the other two award winners, Boss obviously got it absolutely right!