Introducing the Lund Fund...

…a new campaign to raise £1 million for disadvantaged children, by building on a special gift-in-Will from David Lund. Help us say “Thanks a million, Dave!”

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Raised so far

The amazing story of the Lund Fund

The serendipitous connection between David Lund and Eastside….

Hear from three UCS head Teachers:

John Hubbard
UCS
1966-2001

Giles Slaughter
UCS
1983-1996

Mark Beard
UCS
2013-Present

Now let's hear from you

We are so pleased to build a very special picture of David Lund’s life as told by you, David’s former students, colleagues, and friends. We hope you enjoy these special testimonies and kindly ask that you leave your testimony and encourage others to do the same. Thank you so much!

Daniel Rosenthal UCS student 1984- 1989

Adam Meggido UCS Student -1989

Matt Lane UCS Student 1978- 1988

Archie Young UCS Student 1989- 1998

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David Lund in the UCS auditorium

David Lund and fellow UCS staff with the Queen

University College School

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A life well lived

David Lund was an outstanding English teacher at University College School between 1967 and 1996. He was passionate about teaching, literature, jazz music, and creativity in all its forms.

Help us tell the story of david's life

Do you also have fond memories of David or your time at UCS? Send us photos, videos, written pieces, music, etc.

Leave your own legacy

Have you been inspired by David Lund’s special legacy gift? Why not help Eastside support the lives of thousands more disadvantaged young people across the UK by leaving your own legacy gift.

Click here to find out more including what to do next, or alternatively contact Eastside’s CEO and Old Gower Matt Lane

Explore more of David Lund's Life

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A remarkable connection with Eastside

Eastside’s CEO/Artistic Director, Matt Lane, is a former Head boy (1988) of UCS. Matt returned to UCS in 2018 to meet Headteacher, Mark Beard, in order to relate the surprising story of a gift in a will of £10,000 from former UCS teacher David Lund’s family. Matt immediately recognised the Lund family name when he received the letter and cheque at the Eastside offices and contacted the solicitors to confirm the connection with his old school. Having discussed with friends, family and Old Gowers, Matt decided that the best way to honour his former English teacher’s memory and his family’s wonderful generosity would be to establish the Lund Fund in order to build a long-lasting legacy brought to life by a programmes of creative learning opportunities reaching the most underserved schools across London and beyond for the long term future. The Lund Fund has already enabled thousands of young people to take part in I know I wish I will, Eastside’s 25th anniversary spoken word project and the Lund Fund aims to reach thousands more young people, year after year, with life changing creative learning experiences at a time when funding for the arts and culture in mainstream education is seriously reduced. This fund will ensure that the Lund family’s posthumous gift is sustained and developed in perpetuity.

Matt writes:

‘…Returning to UCS to meet with Mark and the team was a joy. Walking around the building on a guided tour with Head Girl Mayi and monitor Sam reminded me of just how special a place UCS is and how fortunate I was to receive such a creative and nurturing education. David Lund was a major influence on me and although I studied medicine at University and went on to practise as a Doctor, it was a love of the arts and music that has defined my career prompting me to change path and pursue acting, then directing through to running major cultural programmes for the Royal Opera House and now leading Eastside. The contribution and influence David Lund made is very clear to me. His love of art and culture was evident alongside his incredible Thursday night Jazz concerts where I got to hear the likes of Ronnie Scott and Courtney Pine amongst many others play at the aptly named Lund Theatre as well as being treated to all sorts of other events including Fry and Laurie’s stand up shows, the Cambridge Footlights revues and many other memorable events. I came to realise pretty quickly that schools like UCS are the exception rather than the rule. For most young people growing up in this nation, there aren’t weekly concerts, there aren’t the chances to visit the theatre let alone put on your own play. The Lund Fund will help change this, through providing amazing opportunities for those young people who need it most…’

Words from John F Hubbard

I was a young chemist teaching at UCS when David Lund was appointed to teach English in 1967. We were colleagues at Frognal until 1991, when I moved to take over the headship of the Junior Branch. I have fond memories of David, a kind, warm and civilized man of principle who put others before himself. The twenty-eight years he devoted to UCS before ill health forced his early retirement saw him make major contributions both to the School and the local community.

As a teacher and head of department of English, David was a calm and modest mentor who instilled his own love of literature and theatre into his pupils and inspired many of them to enter the worlds of literature and journalism. He cared passionately for his students, he knew their strengths and weaknesses and was always prepared to help them.

Before entering the teaching profession, David had worked as a scriptwriter, firstly with the Cambridge Footlights and then, in partnership with his brother Peter, with a host of radio and TV personalities. Before that, though, back in his Barnard Castle boarding school days, he taught himself to play jazz piano and, by the time he arrived at Frognal, he had a well-established jazz trio performing regularly in London clubs. This background enabled him to set up, in 1975, regular Thursday Evening Concerts in the UCS Theatre. These attracted the great and the good from the music and entertainment worlds who performed to packed audiences made up from the UCS and local communities. The proceeds from these concerts, which continued for 25 years [even after David’s retirement], were donated to charity. In honour of David’s work, the UCS theatre was later re-named the Lund Theatre.

Perhaps David’s greatest contribution to UCS was his work with the Voluntary Service Unit, set up initially by Anton Barber in the early 1960s, for it involved so many pupils, many from privileged backgrounds, helping the more disadvantaged members of the local community. Groups of boys would help in playgroups, primary schools and hospitals and with the mentally handicapped. They would decorate, garden and shop for the elderly and take them for wheelchair walks. Every Autumn Term the whole school participated in fund-raising activities, the Palm Courtet would put on a concert in the theatre for 300 local pensioners and another in the Hampstead Community Centre. The funds raised by these varied activities were used to distribute hampers to the elderly at Christmas and, on Christmas Day, to provide lunch for up to a hundred at the Hampstead Community Centre. David worked tirelessly, but modestly, arranging these activities, which had huge benefits not only to the recipients but to the pupils whose eyes were opened to needs of so many outside the walls of UCS.

Peter died shortly after David and it came as no surprise that the two brothers, who had devoted so much of their lives to supporting others, should leave much of their estate to charity. I am delighted that Eastside was one of the chosen charities and that Matt Lane [OG], at the helm, has set up the Lund Fund. The Lund name should live on: David and Peter were kind, thoughtful, unselfish and generous men who devoted their lives to the service of others!

John F Hubbard

Senior School 1966-1991, Junior Branch 1991-2001

Words from Giles Slaughter

It really came as no surprise to me to learn that David Lund after some specified bequests had left the residue of his estate to ‘charitable purposes’ at the discretion of his executors. An active and deep concern for other people, particularly those in need of support, friendship and help, guided David throughout his whole life. Nowhere was this more evident than in his career at UCS. His gentle, restrained, and thoughtful manner exerted an influence on the whole School which was far more extensive than he would ever have been prepared to acknowledge. He was a wonderful man to have as a colleague: wise, loyal, patient and unflappable. I can recall only one occasion when David lost his temper; this was with a senior member of the Sixth form who had been rude to a female member of the English Department. Coming from David of all people, the sixth former concerned realised that he really had stepped out of line! David embodied everything for which UCS stands. As an academic he sought to inspire his students through his own love of literature, and in the way he conducted himself as a man, he taught them the life enhancing attributes of respect for others, kindness and tolerance. I believe that David’s pupils recognised his special qualities treating him for example, with nothing but kindness when he was cruelly afflicted with Parkinson’s Disease and forced into early retirement.

Away from the classroom and in the wider community David will be remembered for the Thursday evening jazz concerts which brought many of the great figures of the jazz world to Frognal and were held in what is now appropriately named the Lund Theatre and for his organisation of the School’s Community Service Section. It is worth remembering that David was himself a most accomplished jazz pianist recording and performing widely in London with the Dave Lund Trio. Some years ago, while on holiday, I happened to meet Elaine Delmar, just one of the many artistes persuaded by David to perform at UCS and she spoke with enormous affection about David and how heartbroken she and other musicians were to hear of his debilitating illness. Within the local community the work of UCS Community Service brought great happiness to the elderly and lonely but David always maintained that the real beneficiaries were the boys themselves who by going into the wider community came to appreciate how fortunate they were and of their responsibility to put something back into society.

The decision of David’s executors to make a grant of £10,000 to Eastside Educational Trust was truly an inspired one. Not only are the aims of the Trust in perfect harmony with David’s sense of social responsibility and his lifelong interests in music and drama but by a happy coincidence the Trust’s Chief Executive Officer and Artistic Director Matt Lane happens to be one of David’s former pupils. When Matt wrote to me recently telling me about the Lund request, it stirred memories of a remarkable, modest and very special member of the UCS family. If like me, any of his former pupils are moved by memories of David and his generosity of spirit to help Matt build on the ‘Lund Legacy’ by supporting the Eastside Educational Trust I am confident that David would feel that his message of kindness and service had not fallen on deaf ears. Happy and grateful memories.

THE DIFFERENCE YOUR FUNDS MAKE

Every penny, pound or gift you donate helps young people in a number of ways.

Lund Fund donations directly support the delivery of artist-led workshops in the most deprived neighbourhoods across London and the UK. Your donations work in many ways including the following:

£50 enables Eastside to offer a bursary to a student on one of our films and digital media courses, supporting travel, childcare or other costs that may be a barrier to participation
£250 enables a school to join Eastside Online, our digital platform giving free access to schools across the country to high quality creative educational videos, lesson plans and live-streamed artist-led workshops for students and teachers.
£1000 enables us to run spoken word poetry workshops for schools that have never had access to artist lead creative learning opportunities
£10,000 enables 5 schools to have a fully subsidised place on our Creative Schools programme, a long term whole school artist in residence initiative engaging up to 900 students and upskilling the whole teaching team in creative learning
£50,000 enables us to run a year-long development programme for up to 60 diverse young aspirant filmmakers drawn from the most deprived communities, giving them the tools and platform to create the films that matter to them and a pathway to enter the industry.

In addition, Eastside uses the Lund Fund as vital match funding to help us leverage much bigger grants from trusts and foundations thereby helping us scale up our creativity to offer to young people across the country and beyond.

Dave Lund’s generous legacy gift has already created a truly significant impact on thousands of young lives across the country.

For example, in 2019, to celebrate its 25th anniversary, Eastside bid to the Arts Council England to run a national spoken-word poetry project reaching the most disadvantaged young people across the country and beyond. The Lund Fund gift, offered as match funding in the bid, unlocked £110,000 of funding from the Arts Council to make this incredible project a reality. Over 3,100 young participants from 82 schools across England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Cyprus, France, Spain and Nigeria took part to generate 1100 new spoken word poems which can be found in the wonderful I know I wish I will book.

Watch the I know I wish I will trailer here, find out more about the whole project here.

Eastside is proud to have committed a further £10,000 of Lund Fund resource as match funding in a bid to secure 3 more years of precious funding from the Arts Council England (value £310,000) to extend our incredible spoken word work with young people across the nation in a new project entitled WORD POWER due to start Autumn 2021.

Watch this space for further updates.

For all of these remarkable achievements, we say ‘Thanks a million Dave! ‘