Nicholas Charles Tyrwhitt Wheeler founded Charles Tyrwhitt Shirts in 1986, while studying geography at Bristol University. After two years with Bain & Co, strategy consultants, he went “full time” in November 1989. Charles Tyrwhitt sells shirts, ties, suits and shoes through mail order, retail (since 1997) and the Internet (since 1998). The company philosophy has always been to “surprise, delight and excite both colleagues and customers”.
The company has grown rapidly in the UK, the USA and Germany with sales of £50MM last year. Nick is a non-executive director and shareholder in The White Company, a mail order and retail company selling household goods. He is married to Chris Rucker, the White Company’s founder, and they have four children.
Hugh Purcell was in New House 1955-1960 and ended his time at Repton as Head Prefect, possibly because he stayed on to take his Cambridge entrance exams and therefore was one of the oldest boys in the school! He spent most of his career in the BBC, ending as Managing Editor of the TV Documentary Department. His speciality was history documentaries and one of his series, on the American Civil War, won a BAFTA award.
He left to be a director of an independent company called CAFE, taught at film schools in Denmark, Cuba and India and then, in 2004, became the Head of Studies at EsoDoc, a European Media project. This encourages young documentary makers from all over Europe to make films on human rights and environmental protection, particularly in the developing world.
These are shown on TV but increasingly on the Internet or/and by NGOs such as Oxfam. A growing technique is 'participatory video' in which local people are taught how to make their own films for local viewing. He will show examples of 'PV' and other film techniques in the human rights area.
Prof. Anthony Seldon Anthony Seldon is an authority on contemporary British history and headmaster of one of Britain's most historic independent schools. He became the 13th Master of Wellington College in January 2006, having been Headmaster of Brighton College since September 1997. He is also author or editor of over 25 books on contemporary history, politics and education.
Anthony Seldon’s books include Churchill’s Indian Summer, which won a Best First Work Prize, The Thatcher Effect, Major, A Political Life, the authorised biography of the former Prime Minister, Conservative Century, and the standard academic history of the Conservative Party, Blair's Britain, 1994-2007 (with Peter Snowdon) and Blair Unbound: The Biography Part II, 2001-2007.
He has been historical consultant on the memoirs of several former Prime Ministers and Foreign Secretaries. Professor Seldon appears frequently on television and radio, and writes for several national newspapers. He founded, with Professor Peter Hennessy, the Institute of Contemporary British History, the internationally respected body whose aim is to promote research into, and the study of, British history since 1945. His recent education booklets include Public and Private Education. The Divide Must End (SMF, 2001) and Partnership Not Paternalism (IPPR, 2002).
Karen Pell was educated at Ockbrook School for Girls and Trent College and subsequently graduated in English from Swansea University and gained a Post Graduate Certificate in Education from Cambridge University. Following a year of teaching in a Surrey prep school, she joined the RAF in February 1987 as a Administrative (Education) Officer. She completed a Short Service Commission of 8 years, serving at RAF Cottesmore, Kinloss, Rudloe Manor and Waddington as well as Aide to Camp to the Commander In Chief, Strike Command.
Following a short career break, she rejoined the RAF on a Permanent Commission in the Administrative (Secretarial) Branch and has since served at RAF Halton, the Ministry of Defence (London) and Headquarters Personnel and Training Command. She undertook a 4 month out of area deployment to Basra from February to June 2007 and is now serving as Officer Commanding Base Support Wing at RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire.
Stephen Taylor was born in Yorkshire where he was a chorister at Wakefield cathedral and attended Queen Elizabeth Grammar School. When his parents moved to Derbyshire he completed his education at Ernest Bailey Grammar School in Matlock before studying for a degree in music in London. After university, he spent time organising concerts - from everything from pop to classical – before deciding he needed to know more about the business side aspects of the industry.
He enrolled as a chartered accountant and found himself at the cutting edge of Thatcherism, working for companies that were growing rapidly, but also with an increasing number that were collapsing. Promoted at the age of 32 to partner in what is now one of the Big Four firms, Mr Taylor became well known as one of the Midland’s leading insolvency practitioners. He was featured on Channel 4 as one of Thatcher’s Children and in a BBC2 documentary and, in the words of his daughter was “on TV more than Terry Wogan!”. Increasingly, Mr Taylor’s work became multinational and he spent much of the next fifteen years working with companies across the world. Some of these, such as Enron and Parmalat became international headlines while others such as the world’s largest pig farm in Eastern Europe, a hedge fund in the Caribbean and a bank in Africa presented unique challenges.
In 2005, after lading the Business Recovery Group in Europe at PricewaterhouseCoopers and while still living in Germany, he announced his resignation, having promised his wife he would spend more time at home. Life hasn’t been that simple. He is still in great demand to take board seats on ailing companies both in the UK and abroad and to act as an advisor to the German government.
After co-leading an environmental expedition to Everest when he was 18,
Paul Deegan made two unsuccessful attempts to climb the world’s highest mountain in the 1990s. One of these took place during the infamous ‘Into Thin Air’ storm. After a hiatus of eight years, he returned to Everest in a final bid to reach the top of the world.
Paul’s other expeditions have taken him to the summits of the highest mountains in North and South America, to an unexplored mountain range in Central Asia, and to the rarely-visited Indian island of Car Nicobar.
Publications ranging from The Sunday Times to Geographical (the magazine of the Royal Geographical Society) have published more than 250 of Paul’s articles on destinations as diverse as Antarctica, Zanskar, and the Galápagos. Paul’s first book received an award at the U.S. National Outdoor Book Awards. Vist his website at
www.pauldeegan.com