A lifetime of public service

Geoff was born into an Anglo-French family in the Loire valley in 1950. Both his father and his grandfather were educated at Prior. He started in Cricklade in 1959 and carried on through “big” Prior. He was head boy in 1967/8 and was capped for his contribution to the rugby first fifteen. After school, Geoff studied modern languages at Saragossa and Cologne. He then joined the army, being commissioned in the Royal Dragoon Guards in 1971.

He served in several theatres, including Northern Ireland and, notably, the Falklands, where in 1982/83, he was sent as a 32-year old captain, initially to deal with post-combat discipline. But while clearing minefields around Port Stanley, the men under his command came across bodies of Argentinian soldiers, still lying where they had fallen. Geoff was charged with identifying the Argentine dead and giving them decent burials.

Many of the corpses were of young conscripts, who, unlike the professional soldiers, had no identity tags. To assist future identification, Geoff collected each soldier’s personal effects and took detailed notes. The bodies were put into coffins and buried in a specially created cemetery with appropriate ceremony, including a piper from the Gordon Highlanders, a bugler from the Royal Hampshire Regiment and a 10-man firing party.

Years later, Geoff, who speaks fluent Spanish, was deputed to host a trio of Argentine veterans in London. They told him that they assumed that the bodies of their comrades must have been chucked into a pit. Geoff, horrified at the thought, surreptitiously let them have a copy of his report from 1983. In it, the location of every body and all the known personal details were listed. This led to the foundation in Argentina of Do Not Forget Me, a charity that tracked down the families of the fallen soldiers. This in turn led (via the intervention of Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters) to DNA testing that initially matched 90 of the bodies with their families. More have been matched since.

For the diligence and sensitivity with which he carried out this work, Geoff was awarded an MBE. He also became something of a folk hero in Argentina.

He subsequently served in the British embassy in Paris, as the British instructor at the French staff college and as British liaison officer with the French rapid reaction force. His last service appointment was chief of staff to the Supreme Allied Commander Europe.

Geoff left the army, a full colonel, in 2005 after 34 years’ service. Almost immediate he became secretary of Veterans Aid, a charity assisting ex-servicemen in crisis – picking former soldiers off the streets and out of police cells and putting them on the path to rehabilitation. He did this job with distinction for ten years.

On leaving Veteran’s Aid, Geoff moved back to France, where, five years ago, he became president of the Franco-British Foundation, which provides training and work for 850, mostly mentally handicapped young people in 11 establishments around France.

In a recent letter to the trustees and patrons, outlining the charity’s response to Covid-19, Geoff concluded with a quote from Baden Powell: “Ambition to do right is the only ambition that counts”.

Geoff still makes regular trips to South America to improve Anglo-Argentine relations. His efforts in this area resulted in the award of the CBE in 2020.

Geoff’s lifetime of public service makes him an outstanding recipient of the Prior Park Association Medal 2020. He was nominated by Simon Howell (PPA 1969).

Bravery, strength and resilience

Fi Rae (PPA 2009) nominated Neil for the award. She writes: In 2008, when Neil was in Form Four, his mum received the first of what would become four cancer diagnoses. Neil and his family pushed on, and, with no small amount of grit and determination, battled this hardship together.

Through his resilience and hard work, Neil finished College in 2011 and went on to study law at Exeter University. Despite his mum getting another cancer diagnosis just as finals loomed, Neil graduated in 2015. It was at this point that he had the idea for an app that could combine all of your social media information and your calendar, to make it easier to connect, keep up and meet with people. But with law school exams, training contracts, and professional priorities at the forefront, he stored the idea on a shelf at the back of his mind.

Over the next few years, Neil worked hard in the demanding world of law. However, in January 2018, his mum received a third cancer diagnosis. This was followed in June by a diagnosis that was terminal. She passed away in March 2019. Before she died, Neil promised her that he would dust off his business idea and follow his dream of making it a reality.

In his own words: “I promised her that I would continue to make her proud and I plan to do just that.”

Neil worked on his idea in his evenings, weekends, and any spare moment. He roped in two friends from university as co-founders: Duncan Cowan, formerly a spacecraft engineer, as the chief technology officer, and Jake Jenner, previously in private equity/ investment banking, as the chief financial officer.

The result is Howbout, a social planning app that combines events, group chats and calendar sharing. The app was officially launched in December 2019. The trio set themselves the target of 500 downloads in their first month and, amazingly, reached 500 in the first five days.

Howbout had grown to more than 4,000 downloads before COVID-19 hit. The team quickly noticed that people were finding it just as hard to co-ordinate a group of 10 for a video call as they had to get them together for dinner. Howbout pivoted to build in onetap integration with Zoom, Houseparty and Hangouts, so that now people can instantly make virtual plans that link straight to their video chat platform, whilst still benefitting from Howbout’s other social planning features.

Jake Jenner said that Neil has shown “an incredible combination of leadership, determination and resilience” to develop and release Howbout. He has overcome “extremely difficult personal circumstances” and used them as a catalyst to execute his vision and “create a product and brand that embodies the very traits that make him a great individual: excellence, openness, integrity, and not taking life too seriously”.

In short, Neil has made an incredible achievement in his field. His example teaches us that hard work pays off, and demonstrates the importance of bravery, strength, and resilience in difficult times. This is the most valuable lesson that pupils at Prior Park can learn in life. He is a worthy winner of the PPA Medal 2020. Neil Tanna (PPA 2011)

To submit your nomination for next year’s awards please contact the PPA office at ppa@priorparkschools.com by 30th June 2022.