Fortunately Dave Williams was able to lengthen his own speech by recounting his days in the Marines. (At this point I was of course feeling even more of an imposter.) Dave spoke about his training regime and I don’t know if it was the heat in the hall (it was absolutely baking) or merely his memories but he burst out sweating at the mention of it.

The stars were however the students and it was a real privilege to present them with their different awards, trophies, medals and colours. My thanks to David and to Katie Farrell who was a superb organiser of the evening. My thanks also to Sixth Former Sam Gillett who took charge of the video presentations, to Joe Tracy for doing the lights and to the “Friends” Karinne Marshall and Danny Papandreou for providing refreshments. Finally of course my thanks to the rest of the PE team, Matt Ramsey, Joe Dolan, John Burtonshaw, Vicky Bull, Sarah Wheeler and Louise Rees for all their contributions in getting such achievement from our students and to their team manager and helpers. All in all a superb endorsement of a talented bunch of people – both staff and students.