Hotplate death

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This topic has come up a few times in the past so here we are trying to set the record straight as possible.
Firstly a report from Malcolm Gower MBE FinstP FIET  (OT 572 – East) Hello: I notice from the front page of the OSOBS website that someone has been looking for the whereabouts of  L. Bourner. I think this is the same Ludger Bourner who was my dormitory leader in Mr Cunningham’s East House in about 1961. I recall he was a very strong and muscular individual ready to demonstrate his prowess at doing multiple pull -ups on any available open doorway! I liked him a lot. He was always very fair with me when having to deal with my older peers and the prefects in East House. Regrettably he was found dead one morning lying on a pillow inside the large hotplate ovens after turning the gas on, climbing in and closing the sliding door. As far as I’m aware, the reason for his death remained a mystery and can only be guessed at. At Assembly the next morning, Mr Foot announced this sad news and emphasised we should keep it within the school and not talk to outsiders about it — presumably he was worried that should the news go further afield it might give the school a bad name! My father who was Chief Inspector of Police at Chertsey at the time was called in to investigate this unfortunate incident. When I told him of Mr Foot’s instruction to us to contain the news, he was appalled that he should have reacted in this manner. So RIP Ludger Bourner - a good mate to me during some of my darker moments at Ottershaw. 
Later we received the following information from Michael Timms OT511 . Re Malcolm Gower's note above concerning Ludger Bourner, OT484.  Ludger was a good friend of mine. We used to do weight training/lifting in the gym on most evenings. He had a great gift of being able to play music on the piano, with harmonies, simply after hearing a piece and without sheet music to read from. In play-fighting he would catch you in a bear-hug, to trap your arms. Occasionally, he would sleepwalk during the night. It was well reported that on one occasion he ran along the 1 foot wide stone balcony at the top of the school, whilst asleep, waving a sword, which was a prop for the character he was playing in the school play. Ludger was found dead, in the East house dining room hotplate, by Ray Noseda OT474, when he went to light it, as the prefect on duty that morning. I had a number of conversations with Ludger in the days before he died, which might have been relevant to the Coroner at the inquest. I was not contacted by anyone in authority: my recollection is that only his colleagues in East House were interviewed. I was in North. The Coroner recorded an open verdict, not suicide, perhaps because of Ludger's history of sleepwalking. I recall that Ludger's poor mother made a number of visits to the school afterwards and was looked after by the East House prefects in their common room. Michael added,. "I would, however, like to feel that I have corrected some of the myths about Ludger Bourner’s death, which have obviously percolated through handed-down fables over the years. Ludger was a real person, an Ottershaw pupil like the rest of us, not just someone from ancient history, like Julius Caesar or William the Conquerer! "

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