The War Years

Kingham Hill School

The Frank Buttle Trust

Site Map

Notice Board

Can You Help?

Michael Payne
Warden & Head Master
Kingham Hill School
1990 - 2000

Michael Payne rather modestly describes his main contribution as a teacher at KHS as "picking up litter and taught some mathematics". Michael was of course Warden and then Head Master of Kingham Hill School throughout the 1990s. His reflections on his time at KHS can be read in this article on the School Days website. Michael was born in 1942 in Quetta (the largest city and provincial capital and district of Baluchistan Province, now in Pakistan) where his father - an army officer - was posted. His mother was a teacher. Tragically his father was killed in action, and awarded the Military Cross, when Michael was 2 years old.

Michael Payne

Educated at Southend High School, and then Welbeck College, Michael studied engineering at the Royal Military College of Science (RMCS) at Shrivenham between 1964-67.

Michael's military service took him to various posts in the UK, Germany and Malaysia. He was commisioned in the Royal Corps of Electrical and Mechanical Engineers  and attached to The Queen's Own Hussars ( Mechanised Cavalry). His was promoted Adjutant in Chief for the Royal Corps of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering for BOAR (British Army on the Rhine).

Rather than follow an obvious career path in the army, in which he would increasingly become a technical administrator, Michael decided to re-train and become a teacher in 1973. To this end he attended Cambridge University and obtained a PPGCE at in 1974.

Michael joined Kingham Hill School in August 1990 and taught there for 10 years until 2000.

Married to Nicola, Michael claims that his wife deserves credit for any success he might have had. They have two children: Lucy (Physiotherapist, married) and Jemma (Teacher, Married).

Nicola and Michael's wedding

Michael Payne