Beyond King’s

This week for OV of the Week, we are delighted to feature OV Laura Kingshott (Br 00-04). Laura was involved in music and drama at King’s and also enjoyed taking part in Duke of Edinburgh.

After King’s, Laura studied Environmental Chemistry and Process Engineering at the University of Nottingham. This was followed by a Masters of Environmental Technology at Imperial College London, which included a research project at Arcadis consulting.

Laura then emigrated to Australia, where she commenced a graduate program with mining company BHP on a remote island off the Northern Territory, which included a 3-month secondment in Gabon, Africa.

Laura has remained with BHP throughout her career to date, including several years as a fly-in fly-out worker to the Pilbara region of Western Australia.

Laura now works across BHP’s 20 Australian operations, supporting the development of compliance management technology applications, and the implementation of BHP’s water stewardship and climate change public targets.

This week we are delighted to feature tenor and professor of singing Richard Steele (Cl 61-71) as our OV of the Week. At King’s, Richard was a cathedral chorister and took part in and organised many concerts whilst at school, studying piano, oboe and singing. He sang Nanki Poo in the school production by Peter Diamond (Hon OV) of The Mikado.

In a career spanning 40 years, Richard has sung in some of the world’s great opera houses. His career began with the lyric roles of Flamand, Fenton and Tamino (Glyndebourne) and progressed naturally into the German Heldentenor repertoire. He has sung Loge, Siegmund and Siegfried in many Ring Cycles. Notable performances include Laça in Janacek’s Jenufa (San Francisco Opera, Metropolitan Opera, New York), Siegfried (Seattle Opera, English National Opera), Lohengrin (ENO, Teatro Massimo Palermo), Tannhäuser (Chemnitz, Sydney, Beijing, Venice), Tristan (Grange Park Opera), Siegmund and Peter Grimes (Liceu Barcelona), and Herodes (Washington, Stuttgart, Bogota)).

Although specialising for many years in Wagner roles, he also sang Don Jose (San Francisco), Sergei in Shostokovitch’s Lady Macbeth of Mtensk (Melbourne), Samson in Samson et Dalila (Sao Paolo), Eisenstein in Die Fledermaus (Seattle, Seoul), the Prince in Rusalka (Opera North), Sir Philip Wingrave in Owen Wingrave (Edinburgh Festival, Royal Opera House, Aldeburgh Festival, Toulouse), Aegisth (Prague).

Richard is now a professor of singing at the Royal Academy of Music, London. Since the pandemic, he has continued his teaching regularly online.

“I have very happy memories of my time at the King’s School. My time as a cathedral chorister (directed by Christopher Robinson) helped develop self-discipline as well as musicianship, which was invaluable during my career. I would also like to thank Harry Bramma (Hon OV) (Head of Music) for his inspirational lead in making music so important at the school. I have also always taken a great interest in art, jazz and cricket. There are art galleries all over the world waiting to be visited, also jazz clubs (New York was a particularly rich source) and sometimes a decent game of cricket (The Ring Cycle in Adelaide in 1998 happily coincided with an Ashes Tour).”

We have reached the final few weeks of the summer term and are excited to feature OV Sarah Westlake (Os 11-13) as this week’s OV of the Week. Sarah joined King’s at Sixth Form and took part in lots of activities alongside her A-Levels including debating, drama and choir as well as being a monitor.

Upon leaving, Sarah studied History and Spanish at Durham, working during her year abroad as a teaching assistant at a primary school in Barcelona. At University, Sarah was a writer for The Tab and Editor of University College’s magazine. At the same time, Sarah also tried to get as broad as possible an experience of work, so interned at various places, including at a PR firm, a Sales company and in Assurance at EY.

Our OV of the Week this week is Cameron Walker (Os 08-15) who is approaching 5 years since he left King’s. As a pupil, Cameron threw himself into school life, singing in the school choir, being a monitor and taking part in the 2012 Les Mis production.

Cameron studied Broadcast Journalism at Nottingham Trent University. During this time, Cameron tenaciously approached TV producers and directors to offer himself for work placements and freelance shifts. A tactic that helped him to get his foot in the door of the industry. After graduation, Cameron gained a place on the ITV News Traineeship. He spent 10 months in the Channel Islands, working for ITV Channel Television. Here he learnt to produce and present news bulletins, how to produce professional TV reports and wrote countless articles for the ITV News website.

Cameron is now a television journalist based in London. He currently works as an output researcher for ITV’s Good Morning Britain. At work, Cameron produces multiple programme items every shift and helps to write and edit VTs (pre-recorded videos). Cameron says, “I love briefing guests and reacting to breaking news – every day is different and I never know what to expect when I come into the studios.”

Another week of lockdown has passed and this week we are pleased to feature Ed Bolton (K 79-89) as our OV of the week. At King’s, Ed studied Maths, Physics & Chemistry at A-Level. Ed was involved with lots of sport too, starting off as a rower in the removes and then switching to rugby in the sixth form.

Ed went to study Production and Operations Management, Business Studies at the University of Nottingham before embarking on his career in business operations. Ed started out with OCS Group UK where he worked for over 17 years. During this time Ed gained several promotions, working his way up from Project Manager to Managing Director for their Transport Division.

Ed is now Head of Business Services at International Airlines Group (IAG) where he looks after HR and administration at the Group’s Head Office.

This week as we continue to show our support for our amazing OV NHS and key workers we are delighted to feature Dr Lucy Studd (K 00-05) as our OV of the Week. At school, Lucy was involved in Drama and LAMDA, and went on to study Drama and Theatre Arts at Birmingham University, and Acting at Drama Centre, London.

After working as an actor, Lucy changed careers and enrolled in a medical degree at St George’s University, London in 2014. She graduated from medical school in 2018 and is now a Foundation Year 2 Doctor at St George’s Hospital in London; currently working in General Practice. Lucy will start training to be an Anaesthetist in August 2020.

She married Graham (another doctor!) in 2019, and they are expecting a baby later this year.

With the outbreak of COVID-19, many of us have had our work and personal lives turned upside down. Our OV of the week is graphic designer & illustrator Jack Bendall (S 04-09) who understands this very well.

As a pupil at King’s, Jack was a member of the Boat Club and enjoyed drama. Following King’s, Jack studied Graphic Design (BA Hons) at Sheffield Hallam University. After graduation, Jack remained in Sheffield and through working freelance, struck up strong working relationships with several local businesses, which helped Jack discover that helping small businesses and start-ups was one of his passions. It also led to a full-time design job with True North Brew Co.

Since then, Jack has continued to work freelance as well as working with agencies focused on branding and web design. Complications caused by the crisis left Jack unable to start his new job; instead, he is now working hard on assisting businesses that are still operating with any required design work, as well as working on his own website.

Jack says, “Graphic design as a career can be a challenging path to follow; it is a very competitive industry, full of various ups and downs, but with the right attitude and determination, it can be highly rewarding. Seeing how other people react and respond to your work, as well as satisfying client expectations and beyond, makes it all worth it.”

We are back after the Easter Holidays even if from a distance and our first OV of the week for the summer term is Victoria Crowe (Cr 98-06). At King’s, Victoria was heavily involved in the Boat Club as a cox and was also involved in Young Enterprise and was a monitor.

Victoria took a gap-year to volunteer in South Africa with children with Cerebral Palsy and other neurological conditions with part of her role including assisting with physiotherapy sessions.

Following this experience, Victoria initially went to Cardiff University to study Medicine, but after a year, changed her course and moved to the University of Southampton to study Physiotherapy. Victoria has worked for Acorns Children’s Hospice and spent several years in the NHS, specialising in Paediatric Physiotherapy. She also qualified as a Bowen Therapist in 2017.

This week school has been busy as ever only school for many of us at the moment is now our homes. To keep motivated and inspired in these uncertain times we are delighted to feature Tom Rogers (K 97-06) as our final former pupil of the week for the spring term.

At school, Tom was involved in a number of curricular and extra-curricular activities include Duke of Edinburgh, rugby and football.

After King’s, Tom completed a Master’s degree in Civil Engineering with Architecture at the University of Southampton. Since then he has worked in a number of sectors within the construction industry as a Structural & Construction Engineer, gained his Chartership as a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers in the UK, and latterly moved to New York in 2016 to further his career in the industry.

Aside from work, he enjoys travelling, skiing, running and football, also managing a team in his local 48 league. After taking some time off in 2019 to travel the world for 5 months, Tom plans to return to New York in 2020 to continue his journey.