Roger Pope (OW 1956)

The school was informed by OW Peter Del Nevo (1956) that Roger had passed away on 23 April 2014. His partner for the past 20 years, Louise Thomas, provided the following obituary.

Roger attended Magdalen College School from 1950 to 1956 on a scholarship. One of his abiding classroom memories was, on 6 May 1954, listening to the cheers as Sir Roger Bannister broke the 4 minute mile just up the road. By coincidence Roger’s funeral was on the 60th anniversary of this event.

A life-long love of poetry, developed at MCS, was evident in the readings at his funeral. He left school and went directly to an apprenticeship at Pressed Steel where he won the Apprentice of the Year Award and moved onto work in their laboratories for a number of years. His enjoyment of learning new things, another trait carried on from school, led him to evening classes in Spanish and Open University courses in Computer Programming, Maths and Geology.

He became self-employed for a few years, using his excellent practical skills to advantage, before becoming Office Manager at the Oxfam headquarters in Headington until Parkinson’s disease caused his early retirement in 1998.

Aside from his working life, he was always involved in local voluntary activities. He helped to run a Youth Club in Kennington and was a member of the Oxford Round Table and a founder member of the Oxford Isis Rotary Club, being their president in 1991–92.

When asked what he remembered most about Grampy, without hesitation his 6-year-old grandson replied ‘He was clever and could make things’. Both these talents were encouraged by his years at MCS and stood him in good stead throughout his life.