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 aone 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 -. thoughThough you attendeddid attend Churcher’s College in the UK from at least the age of 1515, 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 going on - 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.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,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.
Jeremy Ferrar
You do look rebellious - cocky springs to mind.
Churcher’s College is a pretty good school though! 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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Howard Drake (aged 65) OBE, High Commissioner to Jamaica from 2010 to 2013, and Ambassador to Chile from 2005 to 2009 High Commissioner to Canada from 2013 to 2017. Retired.
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Rear Adm Philip Mathias (in his 60’s) MBE, Director since 2010 of the Strategic Defence and Security Review (Nuclear), and President in 2004 of the Admiralty Interview Board. Now a protester calling for investigation into corruption at NHS.
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Dr Richard Dyer (in his 60’s) OBE, Chief Executive from 2006-9 of the Biosciences Federation, and Director from 1994-2005 of the Babraham Institute
Then there’s you of course -theChurcher's College's brightest star: -
Sir Jeremy Farrar (aged 60) Professor of Tropical Medicine, University of Oxford, Director of the Wellcome
Trust,Trust, Director of the CovidConspiratorsConspiracy (?)