Page 52 - The Old Ratcliffian 2015 Magazine

52 OBITUARIES

OBITUARIES

IN MEMORIAM

Notification of the deaths of the following Old Ratcliffians and associates has

been received since the last edition of the Old Ratcliffian:

Alfred Ferreyros (33) Richard Wheeler (62) Anthony Richard Burdon (76)
John Sweeney (57) John A Dunn (46) John Bernard Richardson (52)
Prof Robert Leaper (40) Neil Stokes (63) Susan Walker (née Geraghty) (81)
Christopher Morris (58) Rev Fr Anthony Dewhirst IC (48) Peter James Clark (54)
Michael Congdon (42) Robert James Galvin (68) Lt Col Johnathan Dyer (82)
John ‘Nick’ Chabrel (61) Dr Peter Michael Sullivan (48) Michael Stokes (55)
Monica Marriott, Anthony Edwards (69) Martin Needham (86)
wife of Patrick Marriott (42) Alfred Peter Reynolds (51)

REQUIESCAT IN PACE

NEIL STOKES Law degree in later
life quite a remarkable
OLD RATCLIFFIAN 1960 - 1963 achievement, and
DECEMBER 26TH 1946 - JULY 18TH 2013 you can discern
something of this in
Neil was born on Boxing Day in 1946 into a loving family, where the photograph taken
he was the sixth of eight brothers and sisters. Like all of us, he at his graduation (left).
drew short and long straws as he went through life, and, though
many of his were short straws, he was never once heard to When he was just
complain about his lot; instead, he always worked very hard to twelve years old, his
support himself and his family, seeking no help from anyone, and father died, leaving
especially not the state. Not long ago, he wanted to buy his own his mother to make
medicine from the chemists, rather than rely on the prescription decisions about the
to which he was entitled, and this was quite typical of him. family on her own. Neil
and his brothers and
When he was four years old, he jumped out of the greengrocer’s sisters were fortunate
van into the path of a passing car. He was in hospital for a long that she was such a
time, and remained in a coma for a week. The sequel of this was strong and capable
that his difficulty with learning was attributed to the accident, lady. She decided that he should follow his older brothers to
rather than to dyslexia, which would probably have been the boarding school which they had already left, hoping that
diagnosed in a later decade. This made the achievement of his Ratcliffe College would provide the best learning environment
for him.

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