I was in an Indian Restaurant in Birstall on the Saturday before my 51st birthday waiting for a table when I noticed the ‘Leicester Mercury’ with a headline referring to the deaths of four British personnel killed following a roadside bomb attack against a Warrior Armoured Vehicle patrol west of Basra City, Iraq, in the early hours of the morning, Thursday 5 April 2007. On the Sunday I was told by Paul Fisher that one of those four, Second Lieutenant Jo Dyer, was a former pupil of the High School.
At the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire Jo is remembered on three memorials: – On the imposing Armed Forces Memorial to those who have lost their lives serving their Country since the 2nd World War; On the Basra War Memorial Wall, which had originally stood at the Basra Air Station and by a Babylon Willow, which is flourishing, in the living grove.
At about 5.30pm on 30 March 1995 I was back stage with the cast of Les Miserables at the Palace Theatre ready to dismiss the school to the 18 buses after our ‘largest ever block booking (1156!) of a Cameron Mackintosh Production.’ The curtain call was taking place and the school was cheering and applauding loudly. Then Inspector Javert went to take his curtain call and was greeted entirely by ‘boos’. The rest of the cast thought this was wonderful…it had never happened before, and I don’t suppose has since.
I was invited to the 10th anniversary concert in the Royal Albert Hall the following year and 15 years later to the 25th anniversary concert in the 02 . However, neither compared with the sensational and incredible ‘The Arena World Tour’, marking 40 years, spread over the past two years in 25 countries and ending this month at the Birmingham Arena and then finally at the Royal Albert Hall.
On my journey home from Birmingham I reflected that one of my saddest memories and one of my happiest of my time at the School are now remembered within a few metres of each other in the LGS Quad.
– John Weitzel
