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Our Legend@Lunch for May was Business Studies and PE teacher Mr Ben Phillips. Ben drew an amazing crowd and had them enthralled. Along with his own recollections of learning about boxing and learning the life lessons of boxing, Ben quoted from some of his favourite books on the subject. Several are recalled in the video above. One of these is from On Boxing by Joyce Carol Oates. Widely known as a fiction writer, her book surprised many but is considered a modern classic on the subject. The session was rounded off with video highlights of a few famous boxers of the last half century.

Ben inherited a love of boxing from his father who encouraged him to read about boxing history, then agreed to take him to lessons where he really got hooked. Some final words from Ben:

The thing that boxing taught me was the importance of being a man from an early age and using the skills I learnt wisely… Boxing taught me self discipline. What this discipline instilled in me was to finish things I have started. To go the extra mile. To run another kilometre when I had finished a set training distance.  To train when others weren’t. To finish the things I start.

Our first Legend@Lunch for 2008 was Head Master, Tim Hawkes, talking about one of his passions - naval history and the literature which it inspires.

See larger version here.

Dr. Hawkes read from or made reference to three authors in particular:

C. S. Forester (we hold Mr Midshipman Hornblower, Flying Colours, The General, The Ship and The African Queen), Dudley Pope (Ramage) and Alexander Kent *(Captain Richard Bolitho RN, The Flag Captain and Form Line of Battle!).

Other books of interest held by TKS Library include:

Patrick O’Brian (The Far Side of the World, Master and Commander), Jay Worrell (Sails on the Horizon, Any Approaching Enemy) and Julian Stockwin (Kydd). Stockwin’s web site is a treasure chest of interesting and archane items like scrimshaw and the poetry of the sea.

 * Alexander Kent is the pen name of Douglas Reeman who is a prolific writer of 20th Century naval stories under his true name.