Mr Dan Colquhoun (CR18-21)

By Thomas Garnier

Like many others on the staff team, including Mr Salmon and Mr Eagers, who are also leaving this year, Mr Colquhoun joined Pangbourne as a sportsperson-in-residence and in the last three years he has become a valued member of the Common Room. He has thrown himself enthusiastically into College life, and has made a particularly strong contribution to hockey, leading girls’ hockey this year, and in Dunbar as Assistant Housemaster. He has gone the extra mile for others and it is a mark of his character that although an ardent Aston Villa fan, he has been able to forge such a strong working relationship with Arsenal’s Dr Hart. We wish him well as he starts an NQT position at St Edmunds, Canterbury.

By Dr Ian Hart

Parenting is not easy. Bringing a child up is difficult, expensive, it takes devotion, patience and wet-wipes. Lots of wet-wipes.
So, Jo and I were a little nervous when we found out that in January 2020 there would be another addition to our family. As always, you never know what this new little person is going to be like. Will they make you proud, will they let you down. In the words of my predecessor “never underestimate their ability to disappoint you”. We eagerly awaited our new arrival. Named after the beautiful Elton John ballad, our little bundle of joy was to be called ‘Daniel’ - a name linked with a man thrown into a den of lions - how appropriate for someone about to enter Dunbar.

There are always highlights in the life of any child, their first steps, their first trip to the toilet without you, their first words...
For most parents that treasured first word might be ‘mummy’, perhaps ‘daddy’, but Jo and I couldn’t hide our disappointment when Daniel’s first word was ‘Jack’, whoever that might be.

It wasn’t long after this that Daniel looked like he might take his first steps. His friends at the creche - two lovely little boys named Michael and Matthew - were already walking, in fact one of them could already run, although the other wasn’t quite so keen. And soon Daniel was walking too. The unbridled delight on our faces as we watched him toddle down the laundry pathway. But our happiness was short-lived, because every time Daniel would go for a ‘play-date’ with his friends Michael and Matthew he would suddenly lose the ability to walk. And the ability to speak. He would stumble and fall, and could only be pacified by his favourite apple juice.

Nevertheless his first days at school were very happy, and the reports from his teachers were glowing. Daniel was a happy, smiley boy, who always tried his hardest, and was popular with his classmates. He loved playing games, and was never happier than when running around chasing people with a stick. He liked to play with all the boys and the girls at school, and he particularly loved showing off his skills to all the bigger children. Full of energy, he would spend all day running around after his friends, and come home thirsty for more apple juice.

As Daniel grew up, he inevitably went through that difficult ‘teenage phase’, rebelling against your parents, insisting that all the things they like are rubbish - their music, their clothes and even the teams they support. In an effort to stress his independence he refused to support Arsenal, insisting instead that he preferred a team called ‘Aston Villa’, a little-known football team who weren’t even the best team in the West Midlands, and whose kit frequently meant they were confused with West Ham. Even the music he had grown up with - timeless classic bands like Queen, Genesis or Radiohead - were all now spurned in favour of more ‘modern’ singers like Elton John and the like. His clothes started to become more extreme, no longer the lovely chinos and polo shirts favoured by his father, but instead skinny jeans, endless different training shoes, and even some bizarre plastic flip-flops he liked to call ‘sliders’. His behaviour also became erratic, he would stay up late, spend hours in his room gaming, and would constantly try to sneak alcohol into his room.

And so, finally, the bittersweet moment when it was time for Daniel to fly the nest. Inevitably as parents we were torn - yes we would miss him terribly, but we would still see him occasionally, and we knew deep down that it was time for him to move on. We had carefully checked the new school he would be going to, and it seemed lovely, and I sat him down and had a fatherly conversation about the pitfalls that would lie ahead - sex, drugs and rock and roll - and we trust him to make the right decisions.

So ultimately our job now is done, and he will make his own way in the world, and all we can do is sit back, be immensely proud of all he has done and is yet to do, and hope that we won’t be completely forgotten.