The School is sad to announce the death of Paul Griffin who was Headmaster from 1962 until 1974. Prior to coming to Aldenham he had served with a Gurkha regiment in WWII, taught at Uppingham, and been Head of the British School in Cyprus. He had the unenviable task of seeing the school through the ‘Sixties and in particular being Headmaster at the time of the filming of ‘If' which had wider repercussions throughout many schools. As he wrote in the 1997 History of the School: “the atmosphere felt curiously subversive, a witness to the fact that we had embarked upon the dreadful Sixties. The signs were there. One was sartorial – the long battle over dress and hair had begun. Anything was likely to become a battleground of protest; my subsequent reputation for fussiness over detail, which lasted through shorty raincoats, loose ties, Neolithic hairstyles and the rest was perhaps no bad thing”. Following his retirement he lived quietly in Suffolk and continued to take a keen interest in the School as well as writing poetry. His funeral will take place in Suffolk where the school will be represented.

Mr Griffin was one of six Headmasters who attended the re-dedication ceremony of the replacement Headmasters' portraits at Aldenham in 2004. The originals had been stolen in January 2001.






From left to right: Mr P Griffin (1962-74), Mr P W Boorman (1974-83), Mr R S Harman (2000-06), Mr M Higginbottom (1983-94), Mr S R Borthwick (1994-2000) and seated Mr G P Mason (1949-61) who passed away in 2009.