Deaths

HUBERT OLIVER BOND (B47) 27th July 1929 – 5th December 2016, known as Hugh, was born in Anderton, Lancashire, the sixth of eight children.  At age seven, he was sent to a convent prep school in Boscombe where the Reverend Mother and two of the nuns were his aunts.  At age 10, he started at Junior House following his three brothers David (B40, died 1968), Justin (B40, died 2005) and Phillip (B43, died 2011).  At Ampleforth, he distinguished himself in the school shooting eight, winning the Anderson cup for .303 shooting in1944.  After a commission in the Royal Signals, he went onto Reading University where he completed a degree in Horticulture.

During his career, he combined a love of agriculture with adventure.  From 1955 to 1970, he was a tea, coffee and cinchona planter with Brooke Bond in Kenya.  During his first home leave in 1959, he and Tony Vigne (E49) drove across Africa from Kenya to Senegal in a Thames van.  From 1971 to 1981, he moved to Zambia where he worked with UK overseas aid.  Despite the restrictions caused by the Rhodesian war, he loved to travel all over the country visiting farms and agricultural projects.  From 1982 to 1986 he worked for the EU in Uganda, at a time when the country was in the midst of a civil war.  The job ended dramatically when he and his daughter Catherine, then just starting out as a war correspondent, escaped a battlefield through rebel lines in his Land Rover as shells flew overhead.  Further exotic assignments with international agencies followed in Somalia, Denmark, Libya, Pakistan and Tanzania (where he was British Honorary Consul) until his retirement to a country farmhouse in north Cornwall in 1991.

He married Anne Pierrepont in Nairobi in 1960.  They had three children; Catherine, Martin (B81) and Virginia, and six grandchildren.  A strong shared Catholic faith was the cornerstone of their 52 year marriage.  Due to a decline in Anne’s health, they moved to Dorchester in 2007.  Hugh nursed her with love and absolute dedication until she died in 2012.  He was intending to visit family in Zambia for Christmas when he died quite suddenly on 5th December 2016.

Hugh was moderate, loyal, kind and self-disciplined.  He was dedicated to his family.  He wrote poetry and loved discussing current affairs.  However, his greatest passion and talent was always gardening, in which he constantly ran experiments and about which he could instantly provide simple, miraculous advice, even into old age.

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Rest in eternal peace.