I fairly regularly have alumni visitors to the BSN archives and it is invariably a source of real pleasure.  Finding out what people have made of their lives after leaving school is always a fascinating business. It is not often though that I have the pleasure of meeting an alumnus who was at the school getting on for 60 years ago. But that was the case recently when I received an email from one Stuart Wilson introducing himself and asking if he could come and visit his old school. His old school was not called the British School in the Netherlands and it was not in Voorschoten of course. It was called the English School of The Hague and consisted of a couple of houses in Scheveningen. But essentially it was the same place.

Stuart was at the school from 1968 to 1970. In the photo below he is in the third row back, five from left. After leaving the school he went to boarding school back in the UK, normal practice in those days, and subsequently pursued an academic career, finishing up as Stuart Wilson BA MA DSc, Professor of Pharmacology at Durham University.

There was a very specific reason for Stuart’s visit to The Netherlands, not just to see the school. Several years ago, he was able to take early retirement and has since then been able to pursue his passion – music. He did a BA at the University of the Highlands followed by an MA in composition / music production at Leeds Conservatoire. And he is now visiting The Hague regularly. He is engaged in a project with the Royal Conservatoire where he is working with the composition department to create a set of piano pieces inspired by his memories of the time he spent here as a child. Below is a link to one of these pieces accompanied by some photos.

We wish Stuart all the very best and every success with his project, now virtually completed.