Giles, Geoffrey

Geoffrey Giles

Dates at Bournemouth School: 1958 - 1965
House: Hambledon
  • CCF Cadet

Geoffrey at school Geoffrey today

Geoffrey studied: German, French and Latin
Geoffrey received the following accolades whilst at school:
  • Lance-sergeant in charge, Driving & Maintenance Squad

After school, Geoffrey went to: University College London

Geoffrey's biography:

After my B.A. in German, I earned a Ph.D. at Cambridge University, published as “Students and National Socialism in German” by Princeton University Press. I then spent four years in a think tank at Yale University before becoming a history professor at the University of Florida for the next 35 years. I inaugurated a course on the Holocaust, demand for which grew to 180 students each Spring semester. I also led several travelling seminars for faculty to the death camps and other sites in Poland. The US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC appointed me as their Senior Scholar-in-Residence for the year 2000-2001, with the task of expanding their coverage of the persecution of homosexuals in Nazi Germany. I remain active in publishing on this and other topics of German history.

What was best about Geoffrey's time at Bournemouth School?

Overcoming teenage shyness about public speaking through acting in the school play (in French!), Molière’s Le Médecin Malgré Lui.
Reinforcing a pride in my appearance through the laborious weekly cleaning and ironing of the CCF uniform — boot polish, blanco, Brasso.

Who does Geoffrey remember most fondly?

Spike Whitaker clearly loved his job. He stood for no nonsense but also had a warm sense of humour and inspired me with a love of foreign languages. Nick McCabe pressed me to read widely in contemporary German fiction, so that I had interesting books to talk about when I interviewed at UCL, clinching my acceptance there.

What would Geoffrey change about their time at Bournemouth School?

I hated the compulsory school-wide cross-country run, for which I was never in shape.

What is Geoffrey's favourite anecdote/most vivid memory?

The proud CCF Company Sergeant Major was perfection itself in drill at Trooping the Colour standard. One day as the boy marched off to the side, his metal heel caps slipped and he crashed down on his backside. Even the officers (teachers R.D.F. Williams and Charlie Swain) were unable to suppress a grin, as we all roared with laughter.

Geoffrey's final thoughts

A handful of us boys who left the school exactly 60 years ago are still regularly in touch and have even been to an Old Bournemouthians’ dinner together. A school that can forge such friendships has obviously been doing something right.