Many of the younger OMs will remember Alex Williams, the art teacher who took over from Charles Taylor when he retired. Alex started at SMC in January 1967 and stayed for four years, so his time at St Michael’s encompassed the difficult years of transition to Stevenage and the replacement of Fr Benedict Sketchley with Fr Konstant as headmaster.
After St Michael’s his career as an artist flourished, though like most careers it did have its ups and downs.
Alex now lives on the Isle of Wight. I went to see him a couple of weeks ago. He showed me round his studio, and he clearly continues to be very active in art.
This is all related in a book about Alex Williams by Liz Hodgkinson. Here is a link to the book, entitled
St Michael's College, Hitchin 
Thank you and I’ve bought the book. I have fond memories of Alex Williams (AW) as he encouraged what latent art talent I had. He was generally regarded as being a cool guy. I had no idea then that he and also Peter Blagg had studied/trained under Sir Peter Blake. It’s so interesting to read about what he has done since leaving St. Mick’s especially as I had no knowledge of this. Maybe I need to darken his current art studio doorstep.
One final thought: There was one pupil in our class called Ian Daly who was head and shoulders more talented than the rest of us and I remember AW working with him. One day we were set an hour long still life painting/drawing assignment and Ian produced an amazing monochrome green colour painting of a wine bottle and some other items, I have such clear memories of how impressed I was by it.
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