Page 48 - Androvian2021

46 | SALVETE
FAREWELL GARETH JONES
The following is an excerpt from the Chairman’s Address at Speech Day
Just over three years ago, if you had been on the beach at Holywell at 6.30am you would not have been alone. There were two other people already there. One was Gareth and the other was me. Gareth was continuing his routine swim, first thing each morning of the summer term, to raise money for the pavilion. I was there to lend my support and, I confess, to see that he really was swimming every day. It was hard to believe. Of course, he was there.
It was a bright, sunny morning and it will be a memory I shall always cherish as it captures in a moment, in a single image, everything about Gareth. His boundless energy, his limitless enthusiasm for St Andrew’s and his willingness to do stupid things, especially if a costume is involved.
Gareth was our headmaster for six years and it is easy to look around St Andrew’s and see parts of the school that are new or look different since his
arrival. The Wainwright Pavilion no longer looks ‘almost finished’; it has become
a well-used space for match teas, school events and meetings and it’s the perfect spot for the Year 8 Common Room. Our boarding house has benefitted from a total refurbishment and has been christened Colstocks, the name of the farm that stood on this spot until 1877 when St Andrew’s was founded. A forgotten space has been turned back into a fives court and the former school shop is now a wonderful wellbeing hub, appropriate called The Snug.
Each of these completed projects says something about one of a number of the important things Gareth wanted to do: to make boarding – whether flexi or full – a central part of school life; to give people the opportunity to have a go at something new (anyone for fives?); and to make places for pupils to feel comfortable, whether in a cosy space where there is someone to talk to, or a lively common room.
It is easy to point out the changes to buildings and spaces: they are real, you can touch them; but it is harder to identify additional areas that have been transformed at St Andrew’s under Gareth’s leadership. Thing like how people feel, how they talk to one another, how they join in. And yet, while they may be hard to pinpoint and describe, I think there have been many positive changes, like this, that the pupils, staff and parents have experienced and witnessed too. And they have come about because Gareth wanted to make the pupils the heartbeat of St Andrew’s.
Every Friday afternoon, the St Andrew’s Bulletin appeared, always with a message from Gareth and his weekly quiz. No matter how busy he was with other things, he always found time to write it.
And, of course, there is his dressing up box.The tartan jacket, Superman, book day outfits, an Edwardian swimming costume and my all-time favourite: socially distanced Morris dancing with Mr Anderson in the first lockdown. A strangely surreal moment but very funny.
For all of these things and more, thank you Gareth, from us all.Thank you for joining us six years ago and for being such a wonderful Headmaster.
Thank you, too, to Jemma, for helping out in so many different ways, in the classroom and on the sports field, and for being a constant presence in the school. Ava, Darcie and Jake have also become Androvians. And let’s not forget Dexter,
and the lockdown dog, Ottilie. We shall miss the whole family but we wish them well at Bilton Grange.
Farewell, and remember, you will always be welcome to visit us.
Philip Broadley, Chair of Governors