OW John Caird presents Prizegiving ceremony

Theatre director, librettist and OW John Caird (1966) was the guest of honour at the MCS Prizegiving ceremony on Saturday 15 September, as the MCS community came together to celebrate another year of stellar academic results and impressive achievements. The chair of governors, Dr Paul Withers, and the Master, Helen Pike, also spoke at the event, praising the achievements of current and former MCS pupils.

John delivered a rousing talk on the challenges for future generations, and asked current pupils and those leaving for university to help to build a better world and address the environmental and political challenges of the future.

He presented pupils of all ages with prizes for creative, sporting and academic achievement, as well as for the work they have done for local communities and charities in the past year. All the winners were asked to choose a book from Blackwell’s as a prize, with students’ choices ranging from cricket annuals to books on special relativity and Wittgenstein, and leavers given vouchers to help fund university books.

Omar Noia-Rodriguez was announced as the winner of the Coronation Cup, for his outstanding fundraising work for Dar Mariam Primary School in Sudan. He raised £14,000 in total during his time at MCS for the school, and was awarded the cup that John Caird had himself won in his final year.

John’s speech is available in full below, for those who missed the event:

Two years ago, I attended a 50-year anniversary lunch for the MCS graduating class of 1966. And a fascinating study it was, to greet one’s schoolmates nearly 60 years after first getting acquainted with them.

I’m in the imagination business, so I was able to stand atone end of the dining hall, half close my eyes and see all my old schoolmates as fresh-faced pipsqueaks in short trousers.

They were actually pretty crumbly of course, quite a bit heavier and greyer and balder and bendier than they used to be, but once my eye had ironed them out and straightened them up, no one seemed to have changed very much. Except of course for the ones who were missing.

By the same imaginative process, I can half close my eyes now and see all you leavers at your 50^th anniversary lunch in the autumn of 2068.

Yes, you’ve all gone wrinkly and bald and bendy and grey. But you don’t look that different from how you look now. And you won’t be that different. Except for the few, let’s hope the very few, who’ll be missing.

So, the question I want to ask you is this: what will you have to report to one another at your reunion in 2068? What will you have done with your lives?

My schoolmates and I rather fudged that part of our reunion. Perhaps because it was just too embarrassing a subject. When we were at school, the world had just recovered from some perilous adventures and we smugly thought everything could only get better. How wrong we were!

The world is certainly in a more parlous state now than it was then, and my generation, I’m sorry to say, has done little to solve its problems. In fact, we seem to have made everything rather worse.

I’ve been trying to work out why that is and I think I may have found the answer. When I was at MCS, the school was by no means the academic powerhouse it is now. If there had been league tables in those days, we’d have been mid-table at best or even struggling to avoid a relegation fight. So my mates and I simply weren’t mentally equipped to respond to the challenges ahead of us. It was obviously the school’s fault.

But that’s all changed now. According to the league tables of the last few years, you lot are among the most intelligent young people in England, possibly in Europe, probably in the world. So, you’re perfectly qualified to solve the serious global problems that my generation so sadly shirked.

I’m sorry, but your ridiculous level of intellectual acumen means you’re all lumbered! It’s no longer enough for you to do well in the world, you must also do well for the world.

This might seem unfair to you, and it probably is, so in order to prepare you for facing up to one another in 50 years’ time, I’ve devised a helpful list of homework assignments as your final MCS qualification. Let’s call it the Magdalen Challenge.

There are ten assignments, from which you must each choose a maximum of eight and a minimum of four.

Completion date – November 2068.

1. Please bring down the global population by peaceful means to somewhere in the region of 5 billion, give or take. Sustaining it at present levels is not an option and marks will be deducted for relying on warfare or pandemic disease.

2. Please set aside at least half the planet as an unpolluted habitat for your fellow non-human creatures. You will best achieve this by planting trees. As the Nobel Peace laureate Wangari Matthai said: ‘Until you dig a hole, and plant a tree, and water it and make it survive, you haven’t done a thing. You’re just talking.’ Bonus marks will be awarded for every animal and plant species brought back from the brink of extinction.

3. Reduce the annual global mean temperature to the level it was at in the year 1800. Those of you with scientific minds will have to work this one out, but you’ll need to hurry. If you wait until 2068 you’ll have missed the boat. And you’ll need a boat.

4. Eliminate all non-biodegradable plastics from the world. Oh, and clean up the oceans while you’re at it. Bonus marks awarded only for major oceans restored to pristine health.

5. Please ensure that at least half of all executive positions in politics, business,education, public services and the arts are occupied by women. Until women have a balanced share of power and decision-making in the world, no significant change is going to happen anywhere. Extra marks will be given for courage and tolerance – from both genders– from all genders.

6. Do try to sort out this whole religious intolerance/racism thing. We’ve all had quite enough of it. Marks deducted from any of you identifying with a particular religious or racial group to the detriment of another.

7. In order to make the first six assignments a lot easier, please build new schools in the developing world in order to lift children out of poverty, violence and ignorance. Bonus maths question for no extra marks: if it takes MCS 538 years to become a really first-class school, how much more quickly might it take a brand-new school in Africa to achieve the same level of excellence? Answers to the nearest fraction.

8. Try to avoid electing ignorant bullies and terminal narcissists to positions of high political office. They are bad for the mental and physical health of the planet. For the broad-minded and selfless amongst you, extra marks will be awarded for dedicating your talents to the righteous pursuit of political influence.

9. Avoid turning into a terminal narcissist yourself by radically reducing your cell-phone usage. It has been scientifically proved that the longer you stare at a flat screen, the flatter your brain will become. Research also indicates that the more often you post cute pictures of your pets, meals and children, the fewer friends you will have. Extra marks will be awarded for walking in the woods you’ve planted, climbing the mountains you’ve protected, swimming in the oceans you’ve cleaned up and teaching in the schools you’ve built.

10. If you’re good at anything artistic, don’t stop doing it just because you’ve left school. Professional or amateur, keep playing your music, painting your pictures, writing your stories, singing your songs,dreaming your dreams. Your artistry is part of who you are and makes you a bigger and a better person. All of the previous assignments will be easier to achieve if you set about them with an enlightened spirit and a joyful heart.

Please – don’t try to do all these assignments at once! Be patient and crafty and as clever as the league tables would suggest. Never forget, it might be true that the early bird catches the worm, but it’s only the second mouse that gets the cheese.

All work to be handed in to me at your 50-year reunion in November 2068, without fail!

Oh yes, I’ll be there. I will have just celebrated my 120^th birthday, so I might have slowed down a bit, but I’ll know who’s done really well for the world, and who’s just faking it. As will you!

Sicut Lilium – and good luck!