O.N. Vaudrey (57-62)

O. Nicholas Vaudrey (57-62), CCCC in 1962, died of cancer in Cape Town, South Africa on May 5th, 2019. He was 75. Robin Knight (56-61) writes:

“Nick’s earliest years were spent in Surrey and Sussex and he attended Downsend School in Leatherhead before going on to the NCP. At the Nautical College Nick excelled both in the classroom and on the sports field. Hockey was his strongest sport. He played at left back in decent teams in 1961 and 1962, captaining the latter and taking part very successfully in 1962 in the first College side to play in a schoolboy tournament in the Netherlands. The Log of 1962 described him as “a forceful player and good Captain.” He also won his colours propping in the front row of the 1961 1st XV – another very good team – and represented the school at squash, swimming and boxing. In 1962 he won the Founders’ Medal despite being CCCC at the time; apparently a setback at ‘A’ levels ruled him out of receiving The Queen’s Gold Medal which went instead to Rob Green (57-62).

A member of Form V1 Science, Nick was one of eight Pangbournians to enter the Royal Navy and BRNC Dartmouth in the autumn of 1962. Subsequently, during a six-year stint in the RN, he served in the patrol vessel HMS Protector in the Antarctic and the shore-based HMS Vernon. One of his highlights from this RN period was a tramp across East Falkland from west to east – the same route the Parachute Regiment were to undertake in the Falklands conflict 15 years later. He also was involved in the Beira Patrol off Mozambique for which he was awarded a Service medal.

In 1968 Nick left the Navy shortly after he married Jennifer in 1967. He then worked for a time selling Avery Scales in Cornwall before becoming a stockbroker in the City of London. In 1980 he and Jennifer divorced; soon after he moved to South Africa to begin a new life. Initially, he worked as an investment broker for Old Mutual in Cape Town before moving to the nearby town of Somerset West, remarrying and becoming an estate agent. Here he began to play golf and restore properties in the Cape region.

Sometime in the 1980s his second marriage ended and he moved to the seaside town of Muizenberg, also in the western Cape region. In Muizenberg he earned a living as an independent financial advisor, tax practitioner and wills administrator as a partner at Alford, Vaudrey & Associates and also chaired the Muizenberg Improvement District Committee. When a neighbour was murdered during a burglary in the 1990s, he “made loud, indignant (public) noises” but achieved little. Somewhat disillusioned, he left Muizenberg and built himself and his third wife Lilla a house on a quiet road leading to Clovelly golf course near the town of Fish Hoek.

In 2001 he had joined his brother Jonathan, a vet who lives in Victoria, Australia, on a four-wheel drive into the heart of central Australia. Nine years later the pair teamed up again when Nick was one of three Old Pangbournians – the others were Geoff Popple (58-62) and David Keith-Welsh (58-62) – to take part in an overland drive in Land Cruisers through Africa from the parade ground at the College to Cape Agulhas at the southern tip of the continent. During an epic adventure that lasted four months and covered 25,000 km, the group, which also included Nick’s next-door neighbour Anthony Kent, experienced all kinds of weather conditions, widely varying temperatures, bureaucratic obstacles and occasional mechanical problems but survived to tell the tale. A Devitt & Moore pennant accompanied them all the way. The drive helped to raise £3,000 for the Red Cross hospital for children in Cape Town.

Nick was a complex, restless character – adventurous, vociferous, independently-minded, enigmatic, always his own man. He resisted his cancer manfully to the end. He is survived by his wife Lilla and three adult children – David, Annabel and Duncan.”