These are values that will always be shared in different pathways , but along one journey , no matter where we are from or where we end up , and no matter whether that knowledge is gained from the library , or on the road .
In the middle of 2016 I felt oddly compelled , for the first time in a long while , to read the Headmaster ’ s message in The Trusty Servant . I had just returned home from my latest stint in the Middle East , where the focus of my study , work and personal life in the years following Win Coll had led me . In an era of the region ’ s long history where the concepts of internal values , identity and confidence have never been subjected to so much pressure , it was both personally , and professionally , cathartic to return to a place where these aspects of knowledge are still as powerful as ever . In Dr Townsend ’ s message , I found something of a trigger . From afar , all I could see of home was a crisis in the NHS , junior doctors on strike , student riots , a crumbling relationship with our European neighbours , and our judges and barristers , the pinnacles of my own chosen profession , having their roles violently called into question . The institutions that had once held value enough to form some part of the identity of the country , and my own identity , had fallen into serious question . In the face of a troubled job-market , the millennial crisis , an unstable economy , political and psychological shifts , Instagram , Facebook , and all in between , this was the first time in a while that I had read anything wholesome from home about the glue that binds our many paths into one journey - values . The value of values is one of those legacies of Win Coll that I never took for granted whilst at the school , but whose inherent communal strength I never knew until my experiences of living and working in the Middle East . At school it lies in personal day-to-day diplomacies , in the quiet solace of Cloisters , in the diversity of different media , in self-empowerment through audacity , and in the historic philosophy that the school has successfully enfranchised into the body of its pupils that we are all part of something larger than ourselves . It lies in the physical and mental environment quietly curated for 600 odd years , and shared with the wider world out of love . In the Middle East it does not lie very differently . I will for ever be grateful to Winchester , for a great many reasons . But in terms of real education , there is one particular story I would share . I had seen 9 / 11 unfold on the television screens whilst in the school gym ( compulsorily ) as a 14-year-old . The very next day , I asked the Headmaster at the time for permission to start the Muslim Society of Winchester College . Whilst I sat on the couch in his study usually reserved for those who were personae non gratae , it was not the support he gave formally , but the pride he took informally in investing in such an endeavour , that in many ways defined the values that underpinned my education , and my life thus far . The endeavour was greeted with nothing less than full praise and support , from a man who knew the value of patience , and of tolerance , and that knowledge , in the end , was power . These are values that will always be shared in different pathways , but along one journey , no matter where we are from or where we end up , and no matter whether that knowledge is gained from the library , or on the road . I am extremely lucky to be able to say that Wykehamists tend to be , or at least
16 The Wykeham Journal 2016