Author: Patrick Vance

Patrick Vance - June 2022

In an idle moment when my two youngest were at school and nursery, my odd and selective memory took me back to waiting for the bus after school in Maidenhead to take me home (near Windsor) circa 1959 where a chum of my father offered me a lift home in a long pink Cadillac, much to the amusement of the rest of the queue. It turned out to be Diana Dors' husband, Dennis Hamilton, and it was her car. Several years later I worked with her and we spoke about old times. In fact we worked or saw each other several times…she was a delightful woman! I even got a mention in one of her books!

That was the last time I spoke about Winbury as I felt a bit fish out of water-like there, having been at boarding school from the age of six - and again at the Nautical College Pangbourne, after Winbury. Also, at that age, pink braid wasn't something I was completely happy with! I only felt I really belonged if I boarded! Strange child!

Thinking about Winbury made me wonder if it was still in any way extant, so went on-line and found Winbury Old Boys and my surname.

After Pangbourne I went to sea for 3 years or so including a stint at Southampton University, School of Navigation, then at 21 joined Thames Television where I remained till the Sainted Margaret got rid of us at the beginning of 1993.

I freelanced in the TV industry until I retired in 2010, since when I've had two more children which many might regard as foolish in my mid-70s! Foolish? Certainly exhausting! But then again, having babies late on in life is no problem when you are up two or three times in the night anyway!

For the last twenty years I've lived near Chipping Campden in the Cotswolds, and in the last two, locked down - well before the government mandated it. Yet a further example of politicians not knowing any history…or ignoring it. But I digress.

The only name I can remember of the boys is Paul Huxley and of staff of course Mr Spicer and a Mr Handyside. I was not unhappy at Winbury, but I was only there for two years and I couldn't wait to go to Pangbourne and board.

So that is me more or less up to date. I cannot imagine anyone alive from then will remember me, I have difficulty remembering 'then' too, except that I lived just outside Windsor on the Maidenhead Road at 14, 'The Willows', with the river at the end of the garden and my happiest times spent swamping Eton College wet bobs, with the wash of our speed boat that I was allowed to use unsupervised! Ahhh! Now those were happy days!

Patric Vance
June 2022