Paul Tran
North B 1977-83
Paul, 61, sadly passed away on September 26, 2025 due to a heart failure after many years of battling against sarcoidosis and its complications. Paul was the youngest of five siblings of a Catholic family that came to settle in Cambridge in 1975 after the fall of South Vietnam into Communism.
He first attended St John’s School, Cambridge, where in 1977 he won the Nationwide School Art Competition of the National Portraiture Association, and went on Anglia TV with an ‘accidental’ haircut. That 1st Prize bought him his very first lightweight bicycle, which started years of passion for cycling and the Tour de France.
Paul went on to attend The Leys to do his O-A Levels, where he met most of his lifelong friends in North B. After college, he attended the Architecture Association School (AA) in London, and later UEL to read Architecture. He contributed to the building of Abbey Swimming Pool, Cambridge.
Paul made many friends here in Cambridge and around the world, who still remember him as someone who would bend over backwards to help others, always with a sense of self-deprecating humour; an artist; a keen tennis player; and last but not least, as a profoundly religious person, well-read but sometimes incredibly stubborn.
As his older siblings, we’ll always remember Paul as the pillar of the family, the one who took care of home in Cambridge. While we were away building our lives, he gave up his younger years to care for our parents and our grandma. We owe him so much and we miss him dearly.
Words by Paul’s sister Elizabeth Tran