On Wednesday October 26, in the Rye Bookshop and under the guidance of its manager, Lizzie Lee, CJ (Jonty) Driver read from, and answered questions about his latest book, Some Schools, published last month by John Catt Educational Ltd with a foreword by Sir Anthony Seldon, former Master of Wellington College, now Vice Chancellor of the University of Buckingham,
Anthony Seldon calls Some Schools “an important book which should be read by all who care about schools”. It covers the years from Jonty’s first arrival at Sevenoaks School in 1964, a few days after his release from solitary confinement in police custody in South Africa because of his active opposition to apartheid, to his retirement as Master of Wellington College in 2000. His experience as a teacher is unusually wide: he was Housemaster of the International Sixth Form Centre at Sevenoaks School, then Director of Sixth Form Studies at Matthew Humberstone Comprehensive School in Cleethorpes (where one of his pupils was John Bowers, QC, now the Principal of Brasenose College, Oxford), then Principal of Island School, Hong Kong, then Headmaster of Berkhamsted School, before taking on, for eleven years, the headmastership of Wellington.
Photo: from book cover