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Dear Sir Jeremy

 

Although we’ve never met - i feel we know each other in some way. We've both lived in South East Asian countries for an extended period - we're about the same age - we both like cricket. That's why i'm writing this letter to you.

Firstly, i don’t think you’re evil. You did what you thought was right. Let’s say: You knew not what you were doing - but you thought you knew.

Your life is very interesting. It’s a novel - or a play maybe. By the time you sat your A-levels in the UK, you’d lived in Singapore, Malaysia, Egypt, Yemen, NZ (for 6 months - hated it), and then 7-years in Libya - on and off.

You failed those A-levels - your first and last experience of serious failure - until Covid? Actually, that’s not true, your second and last experience was one year later, right?, when you fell short on those bloody A-levels again. It's surprising, considering the heights you rose to, but understandable given your peripatetic childhood .

Though you did attend Churcher’s College in the UK from at least the age of 15, The school annual has you there in 1977. Doesn’t appear to be a boarding school - so you stayed with relatives? At that time your father was an English teacher in Tripoli, as i recall.

You were a teenager - probably had some rebellious stuff going on with the peripatetics - it’d be normal - i would. My sense is you had a strained relationship with your father - felt closer to your Mum, a writer/artist - slightly bohemian - someone you could talk to.

To your credit, you didn’t give disjointedness as an excuse for flunking. Said you were good at sport - like your father was - said you focused too much on it to the detriment of your studies.

You were good - both cricket and rugby - made the Churcher’s First XV in Rugby in 1978-79 - and it wasn’t just any old season either:

Churcher’s Hill Annual (PDF): This season will be remembered for, arguably, the best 1st XV Churcher's has produced in its fifty year rugby history.

Whoa! Best team ever! In fact the Churchers won 10 games out of 12. As a champion schoolboy team you toured France. After being moved on by the gendarmes for conducting practice under the Eiffel Tower in the morning, part of the group went to visit a museum, while:

...the more sophisticated minority occupied the Left Bank and lunched on wine, cheese, wine, pate, wine, bread and wine, to the evident bewilderment of the Parisien spectators.

Sir Jeremy, sorry to out you, but you were among this group of teenage piss-heads. (Disclaimer: Me too! But a different group - in Australia - i told you we had things in common) So what did you get up to in the afternoon?

The afternoon was spent defending the Parisien public from Tim "baguette" Easlick's sly attacks and bestowing some English Christmas spirit (in the form of an enthusiastic rendition of "O Come All Ye Faithful") upon a crowd of French students chanting "Assassins!" outside the police H.Q.

So you drunkenly interrupted a protest against police-killings?

Celebrations back at the hotel continued until 3 a.m.

Big day’s night!

Wed 20th: A morning expedition substantiated that Lawrence Fiddler was still alive and meanwhile Jeremy Farrar was sent home with alcohol poisoning.

Yep - you could fail your A-levels by being a binge-drinking yobbo at 17. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You do look rebellious - cocky springs to mind.

Churcher’s College is a pretty good school though!

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Set to celebrate 300 years as an institution in 2022.

According to Wikipedia, it’s got four alumni from around your time who you’d say are/were modern day movers-and-shakers:

 



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