During their recent Battlefields Tour, our Third Form (Year 9) pupils took part in a moving act of remembrance at the Thiepval Anglo-French Memorial. As part of a long-standing Kimbolton tradition, they held a short service at the graveside of Old Kimboltonian Philip Stubbs (OK 1916), who fell during the Battle of the Somme at just 18 years old.

Pupils read prayers for peace and the biographies of several Old Kimboltonians who lost their lives in the Great War. A wreath was laid on Stubbs’ grave — a solemn reminder of the young lives from our own community who never returned home.

Stubbs, from Raunds, captained the School’s First XI football team before leaving Kimbolton at the end of the Autumn Term in 1915 to join the King’s Royal Rifle Corps. He was killed on 3 November 1916.

As the School prepares to take part in the town’s Remembrance Parade this Sunday, this moment of reflection in France offered our pupils a powerful connection to the generations of Kimboltonians who served before them.