Old Princethorpians

Robert Eidschun attended Princethorpe as a second, third and fourth form pupil from the fall of '74 until the summer of '77.  Surrounded by students from Hong Kong, he apparently caught the bug, as he is now married to his former piano teacher, Bonnie Choi, who is Hong Kong Chinese.  Since 1990, they have made 20 trips from the States to Hong Kong and regard it as their second home.

Robert attended the University of Michigan, where he studied electrical engineering.  After seven years of working in that field, he enrolled full-time at the Eastman School of Music (University of Rochester) to study music composition.  Although he returned to engineering, he continues with his artistic endeavors too, having just completed a short film largely set to music.

Robert and Bonnie have one child, Erin.  At the time of Erin's birth, one of the attending physicians was so impressed with Robert's knowledge of biology, which was no more than what he had learned from Mr. Moroney, that she asked Robert, 'are you a medical doctor?'  'Mr. Moroney could have easily been a clinical medical doctor himself, or a professor of medicine', says Robert.  'He is extremely knowledgeable and a great teacher'.

Robert's only regret is not living closer to Princethorpe so that he can visit more often.

Currently, Robert and his family reside in western New York State.

Simon Kilby, Princethorpe 1986 - 1991 sent us this update.

I arrived at Princethorpe in 1986 and left 5 years later on.  I tried a few courses which did not suit me and by accident I fell into the profession of Hospitality.  I have never looked back since. Working all over the United Kingdom, Bath, Blackpool, Southampton and Jersey to name a few.

I am currently living in Austria, where I am now a citizen and loving every day. I work as a chef in a 4* hotel just 50 miles south of Vienna.

I met the love of my life, Evelyn, who I shall be marrying later this year after we have bought a house together.

Nigel Denton, Princethorpe 1977 - 1982, is now a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Engineering and Computing at Coventry University.

A stalwart of the OP Committee, he has an MBA from Warwick University and a degree in Manufacturing and Business Studies from Coventry University.

Nigel has another passion however, buying and renovating property, which he has done with a business partner for 12 years. He now has a portfolio of 11 properties in the UK and has recently branched out overseas with a new venture in Cyprus.

He has been out to the sunshine island recently putting the finishing touches to his new project, Villa Calypso. The spacious three bedroom villa, in the popular town of Peyia just outside Paphos, sleeps up to eight people and has its own pool. It is close to beaches, archeological sights and good restaurants.

Prices start from £530 a week.

If any OPs are interested please click on this link to download a brochure or visit Nigel's website www.bestcyprusholiday.com.

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I was at Princethorpe from 1975 to 1980 and generally (& genuinely) have
fond memories.  Father Clarkson was headmaster but there were numerous
priests I remember well, including Father McManus, Father O'Brien, Father
Kennedy (& his sister who we all used to think highly of!!) and Father O'Connor to name a few. 

I had two favourite teachers - Mrs Carpenter(English) and Mr O'Grady (Maths).

I am now working for Zurich, the insurance company, based in New York.  I originally moved to the US in March 1994, when I was working for AIG, which I had joined in 1990 in Birmingham. 

I married my wife Lynn in May 1996 and in September we moved to Dubai for 3 years, still with AIG and worked there for their life company subsidiary, Alico (American Life Insurance Company).

At the end of 1999 we moved back to New York and I was with AIG through to December 2008
when I was made redundant following their financial issues. 

My work now centres around the employee benefit insurances that major multinationals
have around the world and the funding of them - either through 'regular' insurance or other funding mechanisms, such as using a captive insurance company, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of the multinational.

Since 2008 I have been using LinkedIn, the professional networking site, to keep in contact with numerous old friends, clients and contacts and I have tried to ensure I have linked with all OP's - it's amazing what an international bunch we OP's are!

If you are interested in checking Guy out on LinkedIn click here.

Dan Fivey (88 - 94) is now working as a personal trainer in Cheltenham. Dan, 32, is following in the footsteps of his dad, Leo, who helped the Princethorpe PE Dept with cross country and athletics and dedicated his life to sport. Leo sadly died of a heart attack in Northern Ireland in 2009, aged 61.

Dan, comments, "My dad is the reason I became a fitness trainer. He was always encouraging me and I miss him so much."

Dan is married to Helen, a physiotherapist. He has always enjoyed health and fitness. He started working out at a young age competing at high levels in football, rugby, X-Country and athletics.

Dan wanted to help people realize their full potential by developing self-esteem through a fitness lifestyle, so he completed a Degree in Sports Science and became a Personal Trainer in 2000.

He has trained celebrities, athletes, elderly and disabled and achieved some fantastic results. He has travelled extensively and worked in the USA, Australia, New Zealand as well as the UK.

Dan's brother, Carl, who was in the year below at Princethorpe, is now a Flight Lieutenant in the RAF.

If you would like to get back in touch with Dan visit his website http://www.danfiveypersonaltraining.co.uk/

I was at the college from 1988 - 1995 and the headmasters at the time were Fr Sweeney and Fr Whelan. My daughter, Eleanor, is currently in Year 10 at the college so I still come and visit quite a lot. Parents' Evening is always quite interesting as many of the teachers who once taught me are now teaching my daughter, it's still very odd being called Mr Murtagh by a teacher that you used to have yourself! Princethorpe has been very good to me and my daughter.

I left Princethorpe with a brace of qualifications and a little girl and went to work for IBM in Warwick for a year to figure out what to do next. After spending a year breaking computers I went to Warwick University to study English and Theatre Studies before ending up at The Central School of Speech and Drama doing an MA in Performance.

I've always enjoyed creative writing, and thanks to teachers such as Mr Hunt, Mrs O'Neill and the Weirs I was given lots of chances to practice and encouragement to continue. While at the college I was runner up in The Rupert Brooke Literary Award, which I'm pretty sure Mrs Weir entered me in without me knowing about. I also got the chance to indulge my love of acting with roles in The Winters Tale and Ali-Baba and the Forty Thieves.

After drama school I managed to combine acting and writing and formed my own theatre company (The Black Sheep) and toured the country with my own shows. We play all over the country and Rosie O'Neill came to watch me at Warwick Arts Centre when one of my shows came through. In a bizarre twist of fate and by complete coincidence I also worked with one of my peripatetic drama teachers from Princethorpe in a staging of The Beauty Queen of Lennane down in Brentwood. It's a small world and all that.

I still continue to act and my current show The Joy of Politics is in the middle of a 40 date UK tour as we speak. Acting has taken me all over Europe and I've performed my shows in the West End, Warsaw, Bruges, Ireland, Denmark, The Edinburgh Festival and everywhere else in between including a remote Scottish island with a population of 60. Away from theatre I have appeared in a number of bad horror films (Minotaur with Tom Hardy and Luminal with Rutger Hauer) and a film which I am sure would play well at Princethorpe, Conspiracy of Silence starring Brenda Fricker all about corruption in the Catholic church! I also managed to pop up in Da Ali-G Show and Trigger Happy.

I started writing for TV and that lead me into writing books. If you have children of a certain age you will have seen some of my work. I write predominantly for CBBC. I write The Legend of Dick and Dom, The Slammer, Planet Ajay, Hotel Trubble and Scoop  and manage to make a lot of people fall over into a wide variety of disgusting things on a regular basis. Thanks to this I have been able to write my books. The first of these was Dinopants which I was lucky enough to find a publisher for pretty quickly, Piccadilly Press.

The books are all about a caveboy called Charlie Flint who invents things to make the stoneage a better place. They're all - I hope! - funny with a lot of thrilling adventure thrown into the mix. Dinopants came out in November 2009 and proved to be so popular they ordered three sequals which are all coming out over the next few months. Dinopoo is out in April, Dinoburps in June and Dinoball in October. They make the children laugh and I enjoy writing them so I hope they'll be a few more in the series.

My next book is called Frankenstein Stole My X-Box and will hopefully be out in 2011 - you can never be sure in this game! After that I have another series of books currently working away in the back of my mind which will hopefully find a publisher at some point soon too.

The OPs Committee hopes that Ciaran will come into school soon to do a writing workshop with some of the pupils, as part of our new Skills Bank Initiative.