House and all the qualities he had shown and learned with Milner were needed to cope with all the First and Second forms, and some of the Third, day and night.

In the meantime he had joined the Army Cadet Force as Chaplain to the Staffordshire cadets. He rapidly rose to the rank of Major and it is a little-known fact that his name appeared in this year's New Year's Honours List for his ACF work. Another task he did for many years was to

write the Chronicle for `The Cottonian'. He would go to the Editor's room and a large wad of paper would thud on to his desk; it sometimes comprised half the magazine. He was Secretary and Treasurer to the Staffordshire Catholic

Historical Society for a period and for several years ran the Cottonian Association after Frank Roberts.

In 1984 when Fr Piercy left to become parish priest in his native parish, Philip amassed power. Overnight he became Parish Priest of St Wilfrid's, Cotton; Rector and Chaplain of the School. He is the only Rector in the School's history as the office has now lapsed. He was parish priest for only ten months, but in that short time he endeared himself to the parishioners by his pastoral care and kindness to the old and sick. They regaled him with gifts when he left.

He expected to be leaving Cotton at the end of 1982.

It was to be a fitting climax coinciding with the Golden Jubilee of St Thomas's of which he was then Master, the visit of the Apostolic Delegate, as he then was, as Guest of Honour for Speech Day and, ostensibly unbeknown to Philip, many presentations being organised on his behalf. When Tom Gavin had left in 1978 he had gone out on a crest with Cardinal Hume as the Guest of Honour and the blessing of the new altar. Parge accordingly was accused of or complimented on out-Gavining Gavin, which took some doing in organising skills. He merely gave a wry smile.

However, the Archbishop could not spare him from Cotton at that time so his presentation money was put into escrow, a term that tickled him no end at the time. It

tickled him even more so later when the escrow accrued interest.

His Silver Jubilee celebrations last year were a triumph. He was at his best organising in his quiet way the liturgy, the various venues, the guests. He omitted no one from his vast friendship with Old Boys, parents, parishioners, ACF colleagues, priests, former members of Staff, aye, and bishops: he had four of them! He did it so well that the Archbishop must have thought that he should apply those

gifts to St Chad's Cathedral.

Philip was a man of order; thorough, painstaking and meticulous in planning and foreseeing possible snags. He planned his lessons that way, he arranged his books that way, he ran his own life that way. I have left his library till last. Mgr Gavin humorously said at his Silver Jubilee that his books filled four rooms in St Thomas's. He was a member of a multitude of book clubs and, what's more, he'd read them all, although he humbly claimed that he never remembered what he'd read. When it came to his day of departure from Cotton he loaded them all into a furniture van and we said our fond farewells. He was back within half an hour: the weight of his books had caused the van to sustain two punctures between the School and `The Star'.

The Lord did not want him to leave Cotton.

Jubilees

GOLDEN

Father Thomas Fee PhD of Shrewsbury diocese, Parish Priest of St Mary of the Angels, Hooton, South Wirral.

Father James Matthews of Shrewsbury diocese, now retired and living in Deganwy, Gwynedd.

Dr Edward Neary of Birmingham diocese, now retired and living in Henley-on-Thames.

Sister Nellie Emery (Sister Zita), who served for many years at Cotton and is now at La Retraite Convent, Burnham-o n-Sea.

SILVER

Father Thomas Cockburn, Parish Priest of St Giles, Cheadle.

Canon Peter Reilly, Chaplain to St Joseph's, Stafford.

Father Liam Macfarlane, of Our Lady of the Rosary and St Theresa of Lisieux, Saltley, Birmingham.

Monsignor David Cousins, Parish Priest of Sacred Heart, Four Oaks, Sutton Coldfield.

John Philip Kemble

In `The Cottonian' of 1981 we published an article on Three Famous `Parkers', one of whom was John Philip Kemble.

We are now able to print a photograph of the painting
of him as Cato in Addison's `Cato' by Sir Thomas Lawrence.

The photograph comes to us through the good offices of Mr Stephen Walker, a good friend of the School.

The painting hangs in The Heath House, Tean, the residence of Mrs Philips.