As part of UK Charity Week 2020, former pupil Ambrose Mason (1969 leaver) tells us about his time at and after King's and why he has decided to contribute to the School's Bursary Fund. If you would like more information on how you can support the School's Bursary and Hardship Fund, please visit our Support Us page.
"I came to King’s in 1961 – to the top class of the Junior School, then housed in the Methodist Church along Cumberland Street. I commuted every day from near Hyde on the railway line which came to Macclesfield through Marple and Bollington. Leaving after ‘A’Levels in 1969, I became Articled to a Solicitor in Hyde and was admitted a Solicitor in 1975. After a few years in private practice in both Hyde and Manchester my wife and I moved to run retail businesses in North Wales. We moved to London in 1983 when I began training for ordination as an Anglican priest. Ministry began in a parish close to Heathrow Airport, and then I moved into the Distance Learning arm of theological education. We stayed in London when I began to serve the Anglican Church in Europe – a very dispersed and fascinating part of the Anglican world! After about nine years we moved to rural life in Monmouthshire when I became vicar of four small rural parishes. A wider ministry of support to the Diocese of Monmouth emerged from this and I am about to retire as Archdeacon of Monmouth.
King’s was so significant to this journey. I was not a strong student and I didn’t like sport! Nonetheless, those eight years were a profoundly formative time and some of the teachers were great characters! King’s gave me life affirming gifts and knowledge.
Immediately, there were the fruits of a superbly broad general education, a good introductory grounding in History, Geography, English, Communication and a love and respect for the natural world and the outdoors. Perhaps most importantly I came away from King’s with an awareness that life was about other people and not entirely about me! I was given an appreciation of the breadth of life and the ability to analyse and think and ask questions. I knew the need to go on learning and I had been taught to respect other people, their diversity, their value and their dignity.
It has been a privilege now to be able to make a small gift to the Bursary Fund so that more might benefit as I have done and might grow into the fullest and best human lives they can have.
I do look forward to seeing the new school in due course – and especially to see how contemporary technology has been built in to enhance the experience of preparing for life, which King’s has always done so well".