Obituary - Sergio Lecchini

Via Egypt and the Sudan, Sergio arrived in Kenya in 1950, speaking four languages (Italian, Arabis, French and English). Dr Lecchini persuaded Mr Fletcher (the Headmaster), to admit his son into the Prince of Wales School, despite the fact that Sergio was only aged 10.

He was a very bright pupil, who came top of his form and was promoted into the year above. He came top of that year too and was promoted to the year above that. When Sergio completed his Higher School Certificate in 1955 with top marks in Maths, Physics and Chemistry and the highest grades in East Africa, he was only 16 and too young to be admitted to the Universities of Oxford or Cambridge.

Aged 17, he entered Manchester University to read Chemistry, where he achieved First Class Honours and a PhD. Sergio was as strong in the Arts subjects as in the Sciences. He was a very clever person and among the most academically accomplished scholars ever produced by the Prince of Wales School.

Sergio was eternally grateful to the School where teachers like Mr Walker, Mr Boase and Mr Saville encouraged his talents and he was happy to pay back to Nairobi School, as it is now called, something to support present pupils. He was a founder members and a generous contributor to, the Old Cambrian Society Educational Trust (UK), which has financed more than fifty needy boys through the school in the past decade.

Sergio had a distinguished business career, with Anglo-Dutch company Unilever, becoming a Director and leading one of its main Food Divisions. Working at Port Sunlight on Merseyside and at The Hague, Sergio travelled the World. He Bought the Old Rectory at Aldington near Ashford in Kent in 1983, where he and his beautiful Czech wife Vera (a former pupil of the Msongari Convent in Nairobi and a near neighbour of the Lecchinis) lived until their deaths.

Although Sergio was three years ahead of me in Clive House, he was only one year older than me, and from 2001 when I came to live in Canterbury, we became close friends. I saw him the day before he died on 12th November 2025.

The following was Sergio's entry in the Alumni section of this web site prior to his death: