A tribute by Barry Coombs

I first met Trevor when I entered QEH in 1952. He had a big brother, Don, who was a few years above us. Trevor was a day boy and we were in the same house, Hartnell's.

He and I played rugby together as Centres in the first XV team. He was a staunch tackler and a difficult chap to bring down. Sport was always a great interest to Trevor and his talent soon became apparent. He excelled in most sports especially cricket as well as soccer, rugby and racket sports. His contributions to House sports were tremendous and one of the reasons that Hartnell's were frequent winners of the Crispin Shield.

Trevor was a member of the 1st XV that beat Bristol Grammar back in the '50s. He was stopped near the try line with a crunching tackle that broke his leg. Trevor with sangfroid and courage flicked a pass to a team mate who scored the winning try. The captain of BGS on that day was a certain highly talented sixteen-year-old scrum half going by the name Dave Perkins – who later on played for Bristol Rugby and became a teacher at QEH. Trevor also played for Brislington C.C. and made many runs for them.

He played yard soccer at school and in local Brislington teams. One of his great sports moments was becoming a very talented player in the House Water Polo team. As he could not swim, he played in goal!! In swimming pools, he was OK because he could stand on the bottom at the shallow end but in the deep ends he had to surreptitiously hold on to the goal posts which was a foul and which explained why so many of his team mates congregated at the deep end to shield him from the beady eye of the ref. He met his nemesis when we accepted a fixture at Henleaze Lake which has no shallow end and very deep water!!

Trevor was immensely popular at school, and afterwards, which explains why he was still in touch with so many of us right up until his passing. He was the only boy with a car at school, a Ford Popular which often sallied forth in the holidays with a full load of contemporaries. He obviously kept his love of cars as one of his many successful business ventures was an upmarket chauffeur service with top of the range limos carrying VIPs and especially famous footballers such as David Seaman and other Arsenal stars.

Trevor kept in touch with many of his former school chums and he was a good friend to us all and will be greatly missed by everyone who knew him.

Barry Coombs (class of '59)

A tribute by Roger Gould

Trevor was very self-confident and had loads of energy. As well as his sports involvement at school, he became a goalkeeper for Clifton St. Vincent's, the top soccer club in the Downs League in Bristol. He became a senior manager with Smith Corona, the big typewriter company, for many years before starting his own completely different business.

My lasting memory was on the cricket pitch in the late 1950s. Hartnell's v Ramsey's. The outstanding and prolific Ramsey's all-rounder was Derek 'Jack' Spratt who came in at no.3. He soon got into his normal batting stride and was into the twenties without any trouble. Then the sheer joy for Hartnell's and especially me when he slightly mis-timed his drive against my full length ball and the catch was gobbled up by our captain Trevor Brooks at mid-off. I think we probably exchanged 'high fives' or similar!

I have phoned Derek and as a fellow Brislington boy he remembers Trevor well. Derek mentioned that Trevor was always in a hurry when batting and perhaps tried to hit boundaries a bit too early, like first ball! He had the stance of the later England captain Graham Gooch with his bat held at shoulder height to challenge any bowler. He would have had the approval of our current big hitting England batsmen!