Richard Parnaby
Dates at Bournemouth School: 1958 - 1965House:
- CCF Cadet
| Richard at school | Richard today |
Richard studied: History, Geography and Art
After school, Richard went to: Liverpool University
Richard's biography:
After graduating in architecture and planning, I worked in a small Liverpool practice and then moved to Oregon to study for a master’s degree. I returned to the UK in 1980 after three years in Vancouver to set up a practice with a university friend in Abergavenny, teach at the Welsh School of Architecture and build my own house. In 1996, I joined UWE Bristol to lead the development of a new school of architecture, becoming professor in 2005. I was president of the Royal Society of Architects in Wales from 1997 to 1999 and was appointed the first chairman of the Design Commission for Wales in 2002. I served for eighteen years on the council of the RIBA, was vice-chair of the Architects’ Registration Board from 2102 to 2019. I now live in rural Wales and volunteer at the Oxfam bookshop in Monmouth.
What was best about Richard's time at Bournemouth School?
A good general education in the first four years to O level (in the express stream) followed by three years in the sixth form – an extra year after a poor first A level result – focussing on subjects that I loved guided by inspirational teachers. The headmaster (E G Bennett) was reluctant to allow me to take art. He said that, as I had been in the X stream that took O levels a year early, I should do something more ‘academic’ as I was destined for university. He asked if had thought of being an architect. I hadn’t but I said I would be an architect if I could study art in the sixth form. He let me and I did.
Who does Richard remember most fondly?
Bernard ‘Johnny’ Walker the eccentric art master (composer of the school song). Only six sixth formers took art, so I had personal tuition for three years. He taught me to draw (to see) and opened up a world of culture ignored by other subjects. I recall a trip to Salisbury Cathedral for the whole first-year sixth in his MG Midget.
What would Richard change about their time at Bournemouth School?
The curriculum: the A level course was too specialised. I would have liked to have carried on with physics alongside history and geography and learned a foreign language, preferably German, in the sixth form. And most importantly it would have been a much better experience and much better for society if it had been a mixed school.
What is Richard's favourite anecdote/most vivid memory?
In my final year during ‘free periods’ in the library, a few of us amused ourselves by sending letters under pseudonyms to the Echo, mostly on arcane aspects of philology. A search of the Echo archive reveals that several were published in early 1965 from: B M Rooke, T Colney-McAlister, J B Sawbridge and I M Grimswack. There were probably more.
Richard's final thoughts
I spent many happy hours in the art room making posters for all sorts of events and activities (including posters for most of the candidates in the mock general election of 1964).




