We are very sorry to notify you of the passing of John who was at the School from 1947 until 1954.

John sadly passed away in December 2024.

We are conscious that some people who knew John during his time at the School may not be in contact with us and we would be very grateful if you could pass on this information to those that you know.

As is usual practice, we would like to place an obituary for John in the 2024-25 OI Journal. If you know of any stories or memories which you can pass on to us so we can put them together for the publication we would be most grateful. Please address any contributions to me through oldipswichians@ipswich.school

John's funeral will be held on Thursday 16 January at 1.00pm. Venue: Horham Baptist Church, Eye IP21 5ER

Sally Webber
OI Chair

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I remember when we had been swimming in the School back in the day and we all had straw boater hats as part of our uniform. We had all placed them on the bench whilst swimming, including Malcolm Cockrill (OI 1944-55) had John sat on Malcom's boater and it disintegrated much to everyone's amusement!

Roger Jarrold (OI 1944-55)

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John ('Hoof') Graham

We (Tim and Jeremy Barr) have fond memories of playing alongside 'Hoof' as captain of the successful 1st XV 1953/54. Unbeaten until the last Christmas Term fixture, the success owed much to Hoof's leadership of a dominant pack with Tim and 'Hoof' being the second row powerhouse. 'Hoof's battle-cry of “let's whirr it” sticks in Tim's memory.
An earlier game against the hitherto unbeaten Gresham's XV was particularly memorable, Greshams were captained by scrum half Andy Mulligan (who went on to play for Ireland and was a member of the successful 1959 Lions tour of Australia and New Zealand). He was effectively bottled up by our back row on that afternoon! An unbeaten season beckoned but we sadly lost our scrum half Martin Gleave during the final school game against Framlingham (no subs in that era) and that proved our undoing. Nevertheless, coach Jimmy Young was pleased enough to take the unusual step of sitting alongside 'Hoof' in the team photo.
Other memories are of CCF Camps and particularly the Guard Mounting competition at Pirbright, Surrey. 'Hoof' was a member of our well drilled and immaculately turned out winning squad.

Tim (Trabs Major) and Jeremy Barr (Trabs Minor) (OI's 1946-54 & 1946-56)