Old Princethorpians

Old Princethorpians love a challenge and when the call came through from the daughter of one of our OPs asking us to help track down a photo of her dad from his school days as a birthday surprise, we couldn't say no!

Michelle Crotty wanted to surprise her dad, Jude on the occasion of his 60th birthday this last Christmas Eve. All she could tell us was that Jude was at the College in the late 60s and that he had previously been at St Bede's.

Comments OPs Secretary, Melanie Butler, " It was a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack as it was a long time ago and memories are fading, but with the help of Alex Darkes and Jean-Pierre Parsons, both contemporaries of Jude, we settled on a whole school photo that he should have been in and scanned the faces for some recognition."

"We emailed Michelle with a photo of the section containing who we thought might be Jude and miraculously we were right! We were delighted to be able to help and contribute to making his 60th that extra bit special!"

Jude is pictured in the 1968/69 Princethorpe whole school photo, second row from bottom, seventh in from right.

Old Princethorpian Michael Cox (1968-1974)  an ex-Sports Captain who now lives in Denmark has fond memories of the Sixth Form from 1974.

"Recently I was browsing the website and it reminded me somewhere I had an old photo of the Upper Sixth Form. It is way way back in time and 1974 was a memorable year - as the start of a professional career.  After a sabbatical it was off to the bright lights of London with an international pharmaceutical firm, followed by healthcare research in the UK Government.

Since then I moved to Denmark as a specialist consultant for therapeutic biologicals and enjoy living in a country which has been polled as “the happiest people in Europe”. My three other brothers, Robert in New Zealand, Patrick in Los Angeles and Terry in Ireland, are also Old Princethorpians, and doing well. I believe we were the first to have four from the same family at Princethorpe College (or maybe it was the Patterson brothers). Fr Clarkson, Fr Teddy O’Brien and Fr Dan O’Connor are but a few of the memorable individuals of our time."

There are some great 70s hairstyles and snappy dressers on display, Michael is pictured back row, fourth from the left.  We have a few names but if you can identify anyone from the photo, please get in touch.