Perry Parsons (conductor and occasional trumpet)

G. L. ('Perry') Parsons was educated at Tiffin School, where he took lessons on the cornet because no piano tuition was available - he was offered the violin but his father declined on his behalf! Besides playing in the Tiffin Brass Band and Orchestra, he was soprano cornet in the Watneys Silver Band for several years, rehearsing regularly at Mortlake Brewery!

After reading BA Hons in History at Exeter University and taking a diploma in Education at Oxford, he joined Vyners in September 1968 as a probationary teacher and took early retirement in the summer of 1997, after 29 years at Vyners. He held various departmental and pastoral roles in the school and took an active interest in most areas, particularly sport, music, drama, organising discos, charity and community service, and he was on various local committees, such as Friends of Vyners and the Ickenham Community Forum.

He played soccer (goalkeeper) for 25 years for the Old Tiffinians FC, and even a little for local club Drayton Wanderers (where they still remember one superb Gordon Banks style save). For many years he continued his sport - playing for Vyners Staff XI, cricket for various clubs, including Uxbridge CC, Old Tiffs, and Tiffin Tercels, and he even fielded for Sussex in a First Class Cricket match in 1968! When it was decided to retire him from regular playing, the idea of forming a jazz band re-emerged.