Alex Capon (Pure Mathematics, 1967)
Alex read Maths (BSc.) at University College of North Wales, 69´«Ã½ (1964-67) and additionally took a Dip Ed. Diploma at the University (1968). He taught in the Grimsby area and was head of Maths in a Comprehensive school there for many years.
Alex spent two years as a student in residence at Neuadd Reichel on Ffriddoedd Road and will be remembered by many of his contemporaries there. These were the years when Reichel men still wore undergraduate gowns to dinner each night and Hall communities were thriving and supportive environments.
During his time in 69´«Ã½, Alex was an active member of the University Soccer Club becoming its secretary in 1967-68. Under his stewardship the Soccer Club grew from two to five teams and competed in the Welsh Premier League in the 1967-68 season.
Remarkably, Alex also played tennis for U.C.N.W. and was captain and secretary of the University tennis club. He was instrumental in organising Easter tours of Ireland, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia for the university soccer club in consecutive years. The climax of this was a 0-0 draw with a powerful Prague University team only months before the Russians invaded the country.
Alex returned to 69´«Ã½ for many years to celebrate Old Stars' week-ends and retained fond memories of his time in 69´«Ã½ and the companionship and success these years afforded him.
It is certain that Alex's many friends will remember him fondly for his friendship, his talent as a sportsman and the organising ability he brought to University sports clubs.
Lynn James (Arts, 1967)
Patricia Sorrell (nee Murray)
Patricia Murray (Tricia or Trish to all) came to Menai Bridge in 1985 as a Geography graduate from Hull, having had her appetite for marine science wetted by coastal geomorphologist John Pethick. She followed the MSc in Physical Oceanography under its then Director Des Barton and continued to develop her interest in coastal sediment dynamics by following modules in the parallel Marine Geotechnics MSc and undertaking a field based dissertation project working in the Mawddach Estuary under the supervision of Colin Jago.
Motivated to continue pursuing moving sediments she began a PhD in 1986, supervised by SOS’s Alan Davies and Richard Soulsby of Hydraulics Research Wallingford. There she transitioned from a field scientist to a real sediment dynamics boffin and spent much of her PhD reconstructing and instrumenting a ‘walk in flume’ in the cavernous hangars at Wallingford. A three month break from study took her on Operation Raleigh to Guyana in South America where she showed the same sense of adventure as she did in the mountains. Like many she had come to 69´«Ã½ a mountaineering novice but left a dedicate lover of the mountains in North Wales, the Lakes, Scotland and the Alps.
After a variety of moves to university research and IT posts in Cambridge and Newcastle she latterly found permanent employment at Sheffield University as a Teaching and Learning specialist and trainer, living in a cottage in the attractive Peak District village of Hathersage where she settled with her partner Julian, a fellow walker and climber.
In December 2018 she was diagnosed with breast cancer and undertook chemotherapy but secondary cancer sadly proved untreatable and she died on 6th August 2019. If there was any consolation it was in her great happiness in marrying Julian two weeks before she passed away.
Many of us will remember Tricia’s wide and infectious smile and her sense of fun and adventure. She will be very sadly missed by many SOS alumni and staff as well as all those other friends and colleagues she met on her way through life.
Simon White
(14.03.1975 – 03.07.2019)
Simon White, who died after a year-long illness, was a PhD student in the School of Environmental and Natural Sciences .
In 2015 he graduated from SENRGy with a Master of Research (2015) in Natural Sciences. When Simon first moved to North Wales in 2004 he worked for the Sarvari Research Trust (SRT), a potato breeding company based at 69´«Ã½â€™s Henfaes Research Centre. He started out as a general field assistant but his enquiring mind and deep interest in plant pathology, genetics and sustainable agriculture ensured that he quickly learnt the skills he needed to become the Trials Manager for SRT. Those trials led to the promotion of potato varieties such as Sarpo Mira and Sarpo Axona that are now popular with home gardeners across the UK.
Simon’s Masters project was a feasibility study for the use of DNA fingerprinting to improve late-blight resistant potatoes. His PhD research built on this groundwork to optimise selective breeding strategies and identify the most effective combinations of resistance genes through crossing. He meticulously produced over 300 new breeding clones of potato. In June 2018 he planted his final field trial to test the potato clones that he predicted should harbour good levels of blight resistance (they performed exactly as Simon predicted) and he designed a final experiment to evaluate their genetic make-up using cutting-edge resistance gene-targeted DNA sequencing.
He is survived by his wife Kate and children Sam and Melissa.