The Salopian Summer 2023

24 SCHOOL NEWS
On a chilly evening in early February, what could be
better than an evening in the Moser Library, listening to
Salopians discussing their carefully chosen “spells”?
The McEachran Prize, awarded to the winner of this
wonderfully unique competition, is a celebrated and much
anticipated event in our School’s Fasti, and the class of 2023
did not disappoint. The illustrious Frank McEachran, who
taught for 40 years at Shrewsbury and whose passion and
individuality are commemorated through this competition,
would have been very pleased to see 16 young people
volunteering to share such a wide variety of interesting and
engaging thoughts, sparked by carefully chosen lines of verse
or prose.
Richard Hudson, former pupil of ‘Kek’ and, more latterly
teacher of English and Housemaster of Churchill’s, was
welcomed back to adjudicate – and nobody envied him the
task of having to choose the winners from such a strong field!
The evening began with a reminder of the rules: students
must talk for up to four minutes on the subject of their
choice, the content of which has been inspired by a
“spell” – a piece of text from any source or genre. There
is no reward for slick delivery here – this is not a public
speaking competition - rather, the talks are judged on the
way the subject matter relates to the chosen text, the level of
intellectual coherence and the interest and value of what they
have to say.
This year’s ‘spells’ came from a wide variety of sources, from
The Velvet Underground to Herman Melville, from Woody
Allen to John Milton. Without exception, the talks were
hugely engaging, carefully considered and intellectually
stimulating. Such is the personal nature of the competition,
every person in the audience will have had their own
individual view on who was the most deserving of the prize,
with so many worthy contributors. But the adjudicator was
the only person to make his choice.
McEACHRAN PRIZE
Mr Hudson gave careful consideration to each talk and in
the end made the following awards: the junior prize was
shared between Violet Heintz (M 3) and Matthew Wong (SH
4). Violet reflected on the aphorism commonly associated
with Winston Churchill: History is written by the victors.
Matthew chose an extract from Keith Douglas’ poem,
Vergissmeinnicht.
The senior prize was awarded to Edward Scott (Rt U6)
who skilfully wove his spell into his speech, to explore the
nature of Englishness and the value of the ordinary through
examination of “the little old lady of College Street, who
commanded no armies and attacked no religions, who was
burnt at no stake and married no prince, whose life added no
faintest ripple to the waves and storms and England.” (from
England, their England by A G Macdonnell).
Enormous thanks are extended to all who took part in what
was a wonderful evening of thoughtful entertainment.
Kristina Leslie
Head of English