We are very sorry to notify you of the passing of Tim, who attended the School from 1953 until 1961.  

Tim passed away at the weekend, aged 83 years. 

A Celebration of Tim's Life will be held at The Wychwood Golf Club, Lyneham, Near Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire on Monday 22nd June from 12.00 pm. Please email oldipswichians@ipswich.school for more details.

We are conscious that some people who knew Tim 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 Tim in the 2025-26 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

Sally Webber
OI Chair

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I am sure everyone is, like me, totally devastated at the news of Tim’s death yesterday. We shared many happy times playing in various teams at school and one particular memory stands out that might be of interest: We were playing in a School 1st XI match on the square and we were in some degree of trouble against a strong opposing team. We were batting, wickets were falling, and we were trying to save the match.  Tim was our trusted number 11 and was demonstrating his technique in the pavilion showing how he would leave balls outside the off stump by moving across his stumps and "shouldering arms” with his bat. The time duly came when Tim’s services were required.   He strode out,  took guard and faced his first ball.   As just demonstrated to his team-mates in the pavilion, he moved across his stumps and shouldered arms - sadly he was a bit late and his off stump went flying.    The pavilion erupted, with everyone collapsed laughing. Needless to say this was much to the consternation of the Headmaster, Pat Mermagen who was sitting close by!

Colin Simpson (OI 1955-61)

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I remember Tim as being very competitive in whatever sport he tried. I also remember when he joined the junior boarding at age around 11 he challenged any two others to a scrap - the fact he lost didn't bother him.

Humphrey Catchpole (OI 1953-61)

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I was very sorry to hear about Tim Thorn's recent death. I had expected him to outlast me by many years. I wrote an article about him for the OI Journal some two to three years ago, and it  may be of interest to those who didn't see it or may wish to revisit it.   Within that article, which was mostly about Tim's outstanding RAF career, I referred to an excellent article covered by Wikipedia, ( Tim Thorn RAF ) which gives a resume of Tim's career.  Somewhere on the internet there is another article which relates to one of Tim's ejections with a wee bit of humour from a quote from Tim talking to the press about that particular ejection - the one near Nottingham I believe. I'm not in a position to talk about Tim's outstanding sporting life but he excelled in rugby, cricket, bobsleighing, and probably anything else he turned his hand to. I expect, and hope,  there will be plenty others able to expand on many of those. Tim led an outstanding, interesting, and rewarding life and is without doubt a credit to Ipswich School, as he was also to the RAF.

Hally Hardie (OI 1949-58)