Did your family connection have any impact on your time at school?
Not as far as I am aware. If the school knew the connection, they didn’t make it apparent. Whilst I obviously knew my mother was a Wills and there was a clear link, at the time I had no knowledge of the detail or the extent of it. My brothers and I knew that my father was an Old Tauntonian and that seemed to be the principal connection with the school.
So, what are your family’s links with Taunton School?
William Day Wills (‘WD’) was the original Chair and Senior Founder of Taunton School. WD’s only son was William Henry Wills, who became Lord Winterstoke.
My brothers and I are great great grandchildren of Henry Overton Wills II (‘HO’), WD’s brother and partner in their tobacco business (WD and HO Wills). HO had 19 children and three of his sons attended Taunton School. His youngest son, my great grandfather, Sir Frank Wills, was the architect of the School Chapel, donated by his cousin Lord Winterstoke. Lord Winterstoke’s adopted daughter, the formidable Janet Stancomb-Wills continued support for the school after his death. She gave the old Winterstoke Library to the school in his memory and in 1912, the Wills boarding houses. She was a great philanthropist and, for example, helped fund Shackleton’s 1914 expedition to the Antarctic. This resulted in her name being attached to one of his lifeboats and an Antarctic glacier! She was honoured for wartime services with one of the first Damehoods in 1918. My grandfather, the youngest son of Sir Frank, happened to be one of her executors. Probably because of that, for several years I, unwittingly, used one of her luggage trunks, marked with her initials ‘JSW’, for school.
There are no living descendants of WD Wills. In contrast, I and my brothers are among the countless descendants of HO Wills.
What did you get from coming to Taunton School?
Beyond a great education, the School gave me independence and self-sufficiency. You didn’t have parents at the end of a mobile phone, and although I believe you could call home, you didn’t. We had two ‘exeats’ a term and that was it. You had to learn to be self-sufficient.
Exemplifying that, I decided in Summer 1970 to solo hitchhike around Europe. It was naive but it was hugely rewarding. I went all the way to southern Spain, back across the south of France and down to Naples. In early September, I ended up at Monza to watch the 1970 Italian Grand Prix. After the race I hitched back through Switzerland and France, only just making the start of School.
Which teachers inspired you?
From autumn 1970 my housemaster was Chris Evans (TS 1966-85). He was down-to-earth, approachable and caring. He seemed to understand the boys in the house and we felt that we had moved into a new modern era. His predecessor, Ernest Neal (TS 1946-71), whilst an extraordinarily scholarly man, was from a different and more traditional generation.
Roy Exton (TS 1949-81) taught me maths. He was legendary for his wall to wall rotating ‘blackboards’. He was genuinely enthusiastic and inspired my love of maths. It seemed like magic until he unwrapped the secrets. I wasn’t aware that he did much in the school outside of the classroom but then in summer 1971 he offered to take a group of us along the North Somerset coast from Porlock to Minehead. He had worked out all the tides so that we could squeeze along the beach and lower cliffs. It was a great day and we saw a broader side to him. One of my regrets is not coming back to thank him before he died (January 1999).
What were your favourite memories of School?
My main memories seem to start in Wills East. An early one was building a truly huge ‘snow woman’ at the back of the house. It started as a giant snowball but ended up as high as the first-floor window. We had a lot of snow that year and a picture of the giant construction made the Tauntonian.
Rugby and swimming were my two sporting activities. Winning the house rugby cup, as part of a very young team, in 1970 was a major achievement. We fought Wills West to a three-all draw in our semi-final and, since the other semi was also drawn, the opponents were changed, and the semis replayed. We prevailed in both subsequent games. Given we had virtually the same team, retaining the cup in my final term in autumn 1971 was relatively straightforward.
What did you do after Taunton?
I was awarded an Exhibition (Junior scholarship) to Caius College, Cambridge and studied Natural Sciences and, in my final year, Theoretical Physics. I spent too much time enjoying myself and deciding I didn’t want to be a scientist so my time in Cambridge was not littered with plaudits.
I applied to accounting firms in January 1975. I had decided that dealing with money would be more rewarding than being in a lab.
Price Waterhouse, as it was at the time, was very impressive. It was professional, modern, and looking to the future. From the moment I went into the interview, everything felt crisper and clearer and their recruitment messages really came through to me.
What was it like to work at PwC?
The one word that sums up PwC is truth. Truth is central to everything the firm does, it says it in the audit report and it runs throughout the organisation. I worked there for over 34 years, retiring nearly 14 years ago, and I am hugely proud to have done so.
Before I became a partner, and the day after the birth of our first child, my boss, Chris Bull, also coincidently an OT, called me into his office. He asked if I would go to New York for a period to support our business out there. When you wanted to be a partner it was an opportunity you wouldn’t refuse but I had to negotiate with him to allow me a few days to discuss it with my wife. The answer was, of course, yes.
What were you most proud of doing at PwC?
I was advising companies on their global tax position and by the end of my 34 years I had a set of blue-chip clients including Tesco, Diageo, Cadbury, General Electric and Vodafone. This was partly the benefit of having been at PwC for a long time but I had brought some of these companies to the firm. They came to me for tax advice and a number subsequently became PwC audit clients. Clients appreciated a hands-on approach, so I tended to roll my sleeves up and get deeply involved. If I got a call from a client with an issue, I would, invariably, pop over to their offices and we would get the whiteboard out to work through what needed to be done.
All in all, the school gave me many good memories and a great education. The education was undoubtedly a springboard to Cambridge and an enjoyable career.