Bryan Cozens 1944-51



My father Bryan Cozens who was an old Pricean 1944 -51 sadly passed away peacefully in his sleep from Coronary Heart Disease on Saturday 16th February. We had recently had a lovely family meal to celebrate his 80th Birthday.

He had such fond memories of his time at Prices School where, as well as studying Physics and Maths, he was very involved in all things sporting: Hockey Captain I think, County Hockey, Football, Cricket, he loved it all. He continued his love of sport by Playing Hockey for Harrow. His spoke avidly about his Christmas meals with the Old Priceans at the RAF club in London and relished renewing acquaintances.

Daddy did 2 years military service in the canal zone, Egypt and Suez canal, in the Signals as an engineer  and found the skills learnt invaluable when he we to work for British Telecom as a general manager in Peterborough (where he met my mother Jean at the local Badminton Club), then on to London. He was Controller of Operator Services for the London region, a board level role and also did a lot of work on the International Telecommunications side travelling all over the world which he loved and being one a group of 10 involved in the transmission of the first man on the moon amongst other work with NASA.

 Having been fortunate enough to take early retirement he and my Mother pursued their hobbies in Harrow with the local geology society and eventually becoming secretary of the national Geology Association (the GA). He helped with St. Mary's Harrow on the Hill PCC and took up Golf. His main focus for the last 20 years was organising and taking part in sponsored walks for the local Harrow Hospice St. Lukes. He raised about £2000 annually. He loved helping people and drove patients to their treatments. For the last 4 years he did a sterling job as principal carer for my mother, Jean after she developed Alzheimers. He even took her regularly to concerts by the LSO at the Barbican. She has now moved to a care home near us in Somerset where we can all visit frequently and bring her to our home. She loves visits from her two granddaughters.

Kind regards

Rosemary MacKeith



back row:  Wadey, Purkiss, Dimmock, Byng, Devlin, Rudling. Seated: Byng, Gregory, Cozens, ROJ, Turner, White, Nobes.      



And a CC Field Day from L to R:  Stone, Jarmain, Nobes, Devlin, Brown ("Bull" not D). About the same date.



President Patrick Nobes writes:



I shall do my best to be at Bryan's funeral.

I played in the 1st XI hockey and cricket with him, and was given one or two chances to open the innings with him, but he made runs and stayed there, and I didn't!

He was a regular 1st XI soccer player, and occasionally I was promoted from captaining the 2nd XI to join him. He was very difficult to beat at table-tennis.He was a fine and reliable chap, and I'm pretty sure he would have made a better Head Boy than I did, but he gave me great support. (His only faults were that, although he was a Gosport boy,he wasin thescience sixth and was not in School House.) He was a great cyclist, and would have cycled round the world given half a chance.

He was master of the Provincial bus timetables, a battered, much-used copy of which he kept in his pocket. He was very knowledgeable indeed about Big Bands, and introduced us to Stan Kenton et al courtesy of Miss Jewel who invited us to talk about the music of which we had knowledge - "Buzzy" was one of the very few capable of doing that..


I was not surprised to read his daughter's account of the things he did to help people - just what one would have expected.  It was a delight to see him again at the OP Christmas lunches in recent years.<

I attach, for the second time in a few months, a photo of the 1951 Hockey XI.  Bryan is on ROJ's right hand. (Previously I'd sent it re Keith Devlin, who left us just before Christmas.)  If I can find it quickly, I'll send later as another att a poem, written c 50/51 in which he features.