After the Headmasters the School Captains must be the most exclusive group of the many that make up the Aston school community. Looking at the above list after all these years some of them are now only names to me; others I remember very clearly.

Maurice Whitehouse was widely known among his juniors as ’Slasher’. The staff were aware of this, of course, and apparently strongly disapproved, though we never knew why. I think they felt it a disrespectful nickname for such an important school personality. At his last school assembly Maurice took up his usual position near the front of Big School, whence the first formers were able to report to those of us further back that the tears rolled down his cheeks as he sang the School Song for the last time as a pupil. This was hardly surprising: Maurice lived and breathed school throughout the time I knew him.

Malcolm Walton I remember very clearly. He was unique among school captains for not being a Rugby player. He was ‘arty’ rather than ‘hearty’. This led to his being cast in the title role for the school's production of Christopher Marlowe’s ‘Dr Faustus’. His performance was truly ‘towering’ and physically draining on one of comparatively slight build. His wavy red hair was another memorable feature of this gentle pupil. The Head was truly professional and had no favourites, but when Malcolm was allowed to apply - and gained admission - to his old college at Cambridge we became aware of LGB’s regard for him. Many years later Malcolm told me that he never went there, going instead to the London School of Economics.

Nowadays Malcolm lives on the slopes of the Appenine Mountains in Italy which, from his web site, looks to be a beautiful part of the world.

Having secured a university place Malcolm left school early (to earn some money, he wrote later in the 'School Record' for 1957, in anticipation of future expenditure!) and was replaced by my ‘contemporary’ Mike Jarman.

Mike wasn’t a true contemporary, having arrived at Aston in 1949. Absence through ill health during that year necessitated that he ‘stay down’ to repeat his first year with us in 1950. Thereafter, though a year older, he became ‘one of us’. So his accession to the 'top job' was never really in doubt. Being an England Rugby Schoolboy International must have helped too! Mike got a place at St Edmund Hall, Oxford where he could have reasonably expected to further his Rugby career. He has since said that, when he arrived there, he found the competition so fierce that his ambitions in that direction came to naught.

Strangely the ‘School Record’ has nothing to say about the school captains for 1955/6 and 1958/9, but that is consistent with my view of its variable quality.

I have been fortunate to meet School Captains of the modern era and they continue to impress with their high standards of sporting, academic and social achievement.

One would expect nothing less.