Alumni Profiles
Andy Cook
Footballer
Andy Cook (born 10 August 1969) is a former professional football player, and is currently a physiotherapist at Conference South team, Eastleigh.
After playing for Mountbatten school teams, Andy gained representative honours for Eastleigh and Winchester Schools, and Hampshire Schools, before signing as a trainee at Southampton in 1985. He signed full professional terms in July 1987, and made his full first-team debut at home to Manchester United.
After failing to settle into a regular first-team slot at either left-back or left-midfield, Andy signed for Exeter City (then managed by former Southampton player Alan Ball) in September 1991 for a fee of about £50,000.
He also played for Swansea City, Portsmouth, Millwall, and, lastly, Salisbury City.
Andy retired at the end of the 2005–06 season, becoming Salisbury's Football in the Community Officer. He then became manager of the club's reserve team before becoming part of City's physio staff.
In Summer 2008, he left Salisbury to become Woking's physio, also registering as a player and briefly as joint caretaker boss.
In 2009, Andy joined Eastleigh as a Physio.
Benjamin Senior
Artist
Benjamin Senior (born 2 July 1982) went to The Mountbatten School, and attended Barton Peveril between 1998 and 2000, studying A-level art. He returned to Barton Peveril to teach art between 2006 and 2008 before going on to Winchester School of Art.
He then went on to do a MA at the Royal College of Art, Britain’s most prestigious art college.
Benjamin had the honour of being chosen as an official Olympic artist for Rio 2016 when he was selected by Team GB as one of eight official artists to represent the UK and to have their work made into official Team GB posters.
When asked what inspired the poster he said: “I’ve been doing sporty themed art for several years. Making the poster was quite organic. I drew from things I was interested in. I was exploring ideas of athleticism and sport before. It was a theme I began whilst doing my M.A. The poster could be one or three swimmers or three stages in one training activity.
"I like the emphasis in the repetition of training. I see parallels between an athlete and an artist as both need balance, harmony and getting the right rhythm”.
Charlie Dimmock
Gardening expert and TV presenter
Charlie Dimmock (born 10 August 1966) is a popular gardening expert and TV presenter. While at The Mountbatten School, Charlie wanted to specialise in forensic science.
Charlie first came to the public's attention in 1997, when she joined the BBC gardening series Ground Force.
Since then, she has presented such programmes as The Joy of Gardening and Charlie's Garden Army, as well as presenting coverage of the Chelsea Flower Show. In 2004, she appeared in the Channel 4 reality TV show, The Games. She has also appeared on American television, presenting a gardening slot on The Early Show on CBS. In September 2006, she appeared on the BBC's Celebrity MasterChef.
She has also published several gardening books, including the Ground Force books Water Garden Workbook and Container Gardening, as well as Enjoy Your Garden, a book on general gardening published in 2000. Charlie wrote a weekly gardening column in The Mail on Sunday for many years and was also the President of the Television and Radio Industries Club (TRIC). In 2011, she joined ITV's Daybreak breakfast magazine show as gardening expert.
In 2003, she competed in the Macmillan 4x4 UK Challenge charity event, raising the profile of the event considerably, for Macmillan Cancer Support. She has also been involved in many other charitable works, such as Dreamflight, a charity organisation backed by British Airways for children with serious illnesses that takes them to Florida, USA, for a "holiday of a lifetime".
David Dickson
Producer and Director
David Dickson (born 1986) now lives in Los Angeles. Starting as a film editor in the mid-80s, David went on to direct and produce award-winning documentaries such as ‘What happens next’ and 'Love in Action’ before turning his attention to feature film development and production, most recently through Bow Street Films on ‘Flutter’ with Joe Anderson and ‘Margin Call’ with Kevin Spacey and Jeremy Irons.
He set up a film production business in LA called Bow Street Films making feature films and documentaries and in 2012 the company merged with AKA films to make films for under $3 million, becoming specialists at delivering top-quality products with great stars at a relatively low cost.
Joe Brooks
Musician
Joe Brooks (born 18 May 1987) grew up in Southampton and attended The Mountbatten School. His interest in music began at a young age, when he saw his mother play the piano. When he was 16, he saw musician and guitarist Derrin Nauendorf play at The Brook music club in Southampton and this inspired him to teach himself to play guitar.
After leaving Mountbatten, his interest in the guitar and music recording lead him to focus on Music Technology classes while he attended Barton Peveril Sixth Form College. Between music classes in college and recording at home on his own digital recorder, he began to produce his own songs and covers, which became popular via Myspace. By 2008 he was labelled as the "Number 1 Unsigned UK Artist" on MySpace and had amassed 11 million song plays. In 2009 he signed to Jason Flom's Lava Records and Universal Republic Records, where he released his first full-length and major label album, Constellation Me, in 2010. Following his exit from Lava/Universal in 2011, he released a fan-funded independent EP, A Reason to Swim, later that year.
Joe has been involved with different charity works and attributes his desire to help to his Christian faith. This charity work includes the Invisible Children Organisation, going to Africa with his father when he was 19 for Habitat for Humanity and then to China in 2011 with the Bring Me Hope Foundation.
Julia Copus
Poet
Julia Copus (born 1969) attended The Mountbatten School. Her debut collection The Shuttered Eye appeared in 1995. It contained the first of several ‘specular’ poems, a form she devised in which the second half of the poem is an exact mirror of the first. In 2012 Faber published her third collection The World’s Two Smallest Humans, which was shortlisted for both the Costa poetry award and the T.S. Eliot prize. Other awards include first prize in the National Poetry Competition and the Forward prize for best single poem (2010).
Julia’s radio work includes an afternoon play Eenie Meenie Macka Racka, which won the BBC’s Alfred Bradley award, and Ghost Lines, a cycle of poems and biographical interludes about the experience of IVF, which was shortlisted for the 2012 Ted Hughes award for new work in poetry.
Julia published her pocket-sized writing guide Brilliant Writing Tips for Students in 2009. The book addresses students’ most common writing concerns, and arose directly from her work as an RLF Fellow at the University of Exeter. Her debut book for children Hog in the Fog (the first in the Harry & Lil series) was published by Faber in 2014.
Melanie Purkiss
Athlete
Melanie Purkiss (born 11 March 1979) is a British track and field athlete. A former student at The Mountbatten School, she reached the semi-finals of the 400 metres at the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester.
Laura Carmichael
Actor
Laura Carmichael (born 1986) attended The Mountbatten School and Peter Symonds College, and later studied acting at the Old Vic Theatre School in Bristol, England, graduating in 2007.
Laura supported herself as an office receptionist, teaching assistant and nanny while pursuing acting, in stage productions of As You Like It, Stags and Hens, The President's Holiday and Plenty, among others.
Laura made her television debut in 2008 in the film The Heart of Thomas Hardy. She appeared in another TV movie, House at the End of Our Street, before making it on the big screen in the Gary Oldman film Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy in 2011.
In 2010, her career took off when she was cast as Lady Edith Crawley in the hit series Downton Abbey. For her portrayal of the often-overlooked Crawley sister, Laura joined the rest of the cast in winning the 2013 Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series.
Downton Abbey also launched Laura Carmichael to greater heights on the stage, and she made her West End debut in a new production of Uncle Vanya at the Vaudeville Theatre in late 2012. She has also made guest appearances with the Fitzrovia Radio Hour, a British troupe of comedy writer/performers.
Martin Butler
Professor of Music
Martin Butler (born 1960) attended The Mountbatten School and went on to study at the University of Manchester, The Royal Northern College of Music, and Princeton University, USA. From September 1998 to July 1999 he was Composer-in-Residence at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton in the United States. He is currently Professor of Music at the University of Sussex.
His works are widely performed and broadcast both in the UK and abroad. He has received commissions from, amongst others, the BBC. In 1983 he received a Fulbright Award for study at Princeton University, USA, where he was resident until 1987, and in 1985 he received the Master of Fine Arts.
In 1988 he was awarded the Mendelssohn Scholarship which enabled him to spend time at Tempo Reale, Berio's studio in Florence, and in 1994 he was awarded an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Northern College of Music. From September 1998 to July 1999 he was Composer-in-Residence at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton in the United States. He is currently Professor of Music at the University of Sussex.
Sam McQueen
Footballer
Sam McQueen (born 6 February 1995) was scouted by Southampton when he was eight years old whilst playing for a local youth side. He was part of the Southampton FC Academy U13 side that were runners up in the prestigious Dr Pepper Dallas Cup Tournament in Texas. The same team included other academy players James Ward-Prowse, Luke Shaw, Calum Chambers, Harrison Reed, Jordan Turnbull and Jake Sinclair, who all gained professional contracts in later years with the club.
Sam was named in the Southampton senior team for the first time on 15 February 2014 for the FA Cup fifth round match against Sunderland. He signed a new four-year contract on 17 June 2014.
In January 2016, Sam made his first loan move to Southend United until the end of the season. He scored his first league goal as a professional in his first full league start in the Essex derby versus Colchester United on his 21st birthday. He made an impressive Premier League debut for Southampton against Burnley at St Mary’s stadium on 16th October 2016, helping them to a 3-1 victory.