Michael Rodney Gould (44-48) died on April 29^th 2022, aged 92, as the OP Society was informed by his cousin Charles Gould (73-78).

Mike arrived at the NCP in the middle of World War II from Somerfields Prep School in Oxford. At the College, he was in Macquarie Division, reached Form VIA, passed the Civil Service Commission exam and, according to The Log, joined the Royal Navy (S branch) through the Special Entry route. At Pangbourne he overlapped with his cousin Peter Gould (46-50) who went on to become one of the world’s leading geographers.

Mike did his National Service in the Royal Navy but after that the 1950s are a blank. By the time the 1963 Register of OPs was published, he is listed as working for the John Lewis Partnership. Charles adds: “For much of his working life he was a buyer for the Debenhams Group.” He then “semi-retired to Raglan, a village in Monmouthshire, Wales where he and his wife Jill ran a successful kennel and bred Tibetan Terriers, exhibiting and winning in their class at Crufts.”

Latterly, in full retirement, he and Jill lived in Bwich, a small village in Powys in southern Wales before moving in 2020 into an assisted living community in Crickhowell. Jill pre-deceased Mike, her husband of 57 years, by four months. Mike never spoke much about his time at the NCP, according to Charles, but he had the Pangbourne crest on his study wall.