We share the sad news that Old Badmintonian Susan Connely Rands passed away earlier this year. Below is her obituary, written by her daughter and Old Badmintonian, Gianetta Rands.

Susan Connely Rands (1930 - 2022); Badminton 1939 - 1947

Susan and her sister Sally (1931 - 2014) were always reminiscing about their Badminton days at Lynmouth during the war. They loved the setting, the games fields high up on cliff tops, the route between there and school buildings, usually via steep walks or the funicular railway, the wildness of the sea, and the occasional visits from dignitaries of the day.

Susan was still telling stories of BMB and Miss Jefferies on her deathbed! A few weeks before she died I had sent her ‘Metaphysical Animals’, a book by Clare Mac Cumhaill and Rachael Wiseman about four women philosophers, one of whom was Iris Murdoch. It contains some delightful details about Badminton in Murdoch’s days that chimed with Susan’s memories, fond and foul.

At school, she was good at reading, writing, running and art. Susan left Badminton to read English Literature at Somerville College, Oxford (same college as Iris Murdoch - more memories kindled by the above book). After Oxford she moved to London and shared accommodation with Sal’s school friend Gillian Pool, in St. John’s Wood. She worked as a journalist for a literary magazine called John O’London’s Weekly, regarded, at the time, as ‘the leading literary magazine in the British Empire’.

She met her husband Ian, then a student at SOAS, on their regular bus route to work. Ian was a soldier, and after marrying in 1952 they moved to Malaya, where he had 3 postings over his career. These overseas trips took Susan to many wonderful places and as she was dying, she marvelled at how lucky she had been to see so much of the world. They had two daughters and a son.

It wasn’t until they settled in Somerset in the early 1970s that she was able to re-establish some of her earlier interests. Susan and Ian created a small holding, self-sufficient in most things except coffee, tea, sugar, and chocolate - some of Susan’s essentials. After a few years drawing landscapes, she started tracing village boundaries, and discovered evidence of ruins of a hilltop fort.

She was a devoted and involved member of The Powys Society, taking her turn as Treasurer, and publishing many essays and articles about the Powys brothers, their writings and their lives. She contributed extensively to Somerset and Dorset Notes and Queries, wrote a booklet ‘John Cowper Powys, the Lyons and W.E. Lutyens’ (2000), and assisted many Powys Society members with their research and ideas.

Badminton has always valued its outward gaze, social awareness, international representation, and extra-curricular activities. If it were not for Miss Raab’s sewing lessons I would not have been able to make Susan’s skirts - luscious coloured corduroy or brightly patterned cotton, big pockets and wide hems for striding out over the fields. The last one I made for her was during the pandemic, using my bathroom curtains; she’s wearing it in this photo taken 6 months before she died.

She is scattered on a hilltop where she regularly walked with her small dog Bonnie, relishing fresh air, local history, wild flowers, and hedgerows full of small birds, all pleasures she first came across as a child boarding at Badminton during the war.

Gianetta Rands (Badminton School 1965-1970)