Former pupils of Edmonton County School

It is to be hoped that many former pupils of Edmonton County School went on to achieve distinction and excellence in their chosen careers. However some of them, by their involvement in sports, the performing arts, the media and politics have achieved a broader celebrity. This page lists a few of them. Readers are invited to contact the website to suggest further names and also provide any corrections.

Daisy Ridgley

Daisy Ridgley joined the school in 1923 and participated in the 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam. There were only five track and field events for women in those games. Unfortunately the 200m was not one of them as Daisy recorded the world's fastest time for the event that year (25.6 seconds).

Basil Hoskins (Telegraph obituary)

Basil William Hoskins was born on 10th June 1927 and attended the school in the 1940s. He went to RADA and became a fine character actor who dedicated his career to the theatre, appearing in the classics and in musicals. A spell with the Royal Shakepeare Company (as it became) in the 1950s was followed by a number of West End leads. He made a number of film appearances in minor parts and became well known on television as Dr Lane-Russell in Emergency Ward 10. He continued to appear in a number of television dramas over the years, mostly in guest appearances and supporting rôles. He died on 17th January 2005.

In many places, including his own driving licence and passport (!), 10th June 1929 is shown as his date of birth and this provoked some bemusement among his contempories at the school. Suffice to say the earlier date is the true one.

Ron Onions OBE (Telegraph obituary)

Ron Edward Derek Onions was born on 27th August 1929 and attended the school in the 1940s. After school he served as ground crew with the RAF before moving in to journalism with the Enfield Gazette and Tottenham Herald and the Brighton Evening Argus. He worked with Southern Television before joining the BBC in 1961. He became their first news organiser in New York in 1967, covering a number of major international news events. He joined Capital Radio in 1973, setting up their news room, before moving to LBC and Independent Radio News (IRN) in 1974. He later became the first programme director of Jazz FM before returning to LBC. He is recognised as a true pioneer of radio news, and is credited with completely changing the style of radio news delivery in the UK. He was appointed an OBE in 1983. He died on 27th May 2012.

Rt Hon the Lord Tebbit, CH (Norman Tebbit)

Norman Beresford Tebbit was born in 1931 and joined the school in 1942. He became a journalist on the Financial Times, served with the RAF during four years of National Service and then joined BOAC in 1953 as a pilot. His political career started in 1970 and he became MP for Chingford. He came to prominence in the Conservative goverment of the 1980s, serving as Secretary of State for Employment, Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, President of the Board of Trade, as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and as party chairman. Denis Healey called him the "Chingford skinhead" and Michael Foot memorably compared him to a "semi-house-trained polecat". During the Brighton hotel bombing of 1984 he was injured and his wife, Margaret, was permanently disabled and he stepped down as an MP in 1992. He was raised to the peerage in 1992 as Baron Tebbit, of Chingford in the London Borough of Waltham Forest.

Sir Roy Strong (management)

Roy Strong was born in Winchmore Hill in 1935 and joined the school in 1946. He is well known as a historian, a writer on history, the arts and gardens, and as a cultural commentator. He was Director of the National Portrait Gallery from 1967 to 1973 and the Victoria & Albert Museum from 1974 to 1987.

Kenny Clayton (Kenny Wilkinson)

Known as Kenny Wilkinson to his contemporaries at the school from 1947 to 1952, Kenny Clayton is well known as a music producer, arranger and conductor, as well as being a renowned jazz pianist.

Roy Sleap (team photo)

Roy Sleap was born in September 1940 and joined the school in 1952. He had a distinguished career as a footballer with Barnet, Hendon and Enfield and was also in the football team that represented Great Britain at the Rome Olympics in 1960.
Mike Margetts, who suggested the inclusion of Roy and Les Eason, commented that he was a member of a school party led by Mr Briggs and Mr Kevill that attended the Rome Olympics in September 1960.

Les Eason (photo)

Les Eason began his football career with Edmonton FC and then moved to Finchley where he gained the first of his seven England amateur caps. He joined Barnet at the start of their first season as semi-professionals in 1965–66 and scored 31 goals in that first season. He stayed with Barnet until 1974 and returned for the 1977–78 season, making a total of 648 appearances which is the club record.

Larry Lamb

Larry Lamb was at the school from 1959 to 1965. He is remembered by some for his role in the pioneering but pretty awful BBC soap 'Triangle' made in the early 1980s (for those not familiar with it, it was set on a North Sea Ferry!). He is known to many for his numerous appearances in TV productions since then but is also active on the stage and has appeared in numerous feature films as a supporting actor and in bit parts. In 2008 he became familiar to a whole lot more people when he joined the cast of 'EastEnders' as Archie Mitchell. He was written out in dramatic, and final, fashion for the big Christmas 2009 story.

Ray Winstone

Born in Hackney in 1957, Ray joined the school in 1968, after it had become a comprehensive. His academic career was somewhat undistinguished, leaving school with just a CSE Grade 2 in Drama, but was drama was something he liked and he was also a successful schoolboy boxer, becoming London champion three times and representing England. Moving on to drama school, from which he was expelled after a year, Ray then wangled his way into an audition for a BBC play and got the part. The play was the notorious Scum which was shelved but remade as a film. Ray's career has picked up dramatically in the last decade and he is now highly successful in film and on TV.

Kelly Johnson (Bernadette Johnson) (Telegraphy obituary)

Kelly was a well regarded lead guitarist, perhaps best known to many for her time with the heavy metal band Girlschool in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Born in 1958, she would have joined the school in 1969 and was known as Bernadette Johnson at the time. Sadly Kelly died on 15th July 2007 after losing a six year battle with cancer of the spine.

Kriss Akabusi (company site)

Kriss Kezie Uche Chukwu Duru Akabusi MBE MA was born in 1958 and so will have joined the school in 1969. He was known as Kezie at the time. Pupils at the school at the time generally recall the frequent cries of "Akabusi - Out!" during assembly! Kriss is perhaps best known for his athletics career, with particular highlights being winning an individual gold over the 400m hurdles in the 1990 European Championships, and being part of the 4x400m team that took gold in the 1991 World Championships. Kriss has also presented various TV programmes and is a regular on chat and games shows. He is now a successful motivational speaker.

Kevan James

Described as the archetypal journeyman county cricketer, Kevan was at the school from 1972 to 1979. He toured Australia and West Indies with Young England (which didn't do his A-Level results any favours) and played first class cricket for Middlesex from 1980 to 1984 where his chances were limited. He then moved on to Hampshire where he enjoyed a solid career for fifteen years. A left-hand middle order batsman and left-arm medium-fast bowler (but a right-arm fielder!), Kevan cemented his place in cricketing history on the 1st July 1996 when he took four wickets in four balls for Hampshire against India and then went on to hit a century. He is now a sports reporter and presenter for BBC Radio Solent.

Debbie Kurup (official site)

Debbie was at the school from 1990 to 1995 and has gone on to make a name for herself in musical theatre, playing major roles in a number of West End and touring productions including playing Velma Kelly in Chicago from January to April 2006.

On the Friends Reunited boards there were a couple of queries as to whether Paul McKenna, the well known hynoptist, attended the school. On the same board Joan Corneloues reports that his mother taught her Domestic Science at the school c. 1960 leading her to speculate that he may indeed have been a pupil, but it seems Paul McKenna actually attended St Ignatius College.

Having seen mention here of Paul McKenna's mother teaching at the school, it should be noted that a friend of Paul's mother has written in pointing out that this is incorrect and she actually taught at Enfield County, though may perhaps have visited the school in her role as Borough Adviser on Home Economics. 

This in turn has surprised Linda Collier who was at the school from 1959 to 1964 and who clearly recalls a Mrs McKenna teaching domestic science during all of that time, and later teaching her children at Chase Girls (which merged with Enfield County in 1967 to form Enfield Chase, which now goes under the name of Enfield County). So unless Mrs McKenna is not Paul's mother something isn't quite right.