Obituaries

HOWARD BRAYTON

25.11.1938 - 4.12.2021 KS 1950-57

Howard's wife Sue writes:

Howard was born in Elland, Yorkshire, on 25 November 1938. He was christened by his father, Lionel Brayton, a Methodist minister, on Christmas Day four weeks later. His father’s work meant frequent moves around the country to different church communities, but Howard was not impressed with his parents’ decision to send him to Kingswood School as a boarder in 1950, so he decided to do as little work as possible - and it didn’t stop there! At thirteen years old he formed possibly the school’s first smoking club, and by sixteen he’d learnt to copy his house master’s signature to forge his own permission notes for trips into town. He even managed to fool his parents that he had been attending orchestra practice all along, by playing his violin with the bow upside down at the school speech day. Howard really was a very naughty boy! There was only one subject that he was interested in, with one enthusiastic teacher, and that was chemistry! Armed with an A Level he signed up for an apprenticeship at Cadbury’s as an industrial chemist. Cadbury’s turned out to be the ideal employer for Howard as they looked after their employees well, giving them opportunities to develop other interests; one of which was music. Howard won a scholarship to Birmingham School of Music, and discovered he had a beautiful baritone voice. He developed a life-long passion for classical choral music, and after moving to Chichester to do teacher training in secondary maths and science was often called to sing solos in Chichester Cathedral.

He qualified as a teacher and took up a maths teaching post at Westhill Boys’ secondary school in Bath. Howard then found he really wanted to teach those that needed the most help. He always remembered a boy, who was really struggling, saying to him, 'But Sir, what’s the point of algebra?’ This played on Howard’s mind, so he asked the head teacher if he could have all the underachievers in the school. The Head thought he was mad, but Howard took this on; developing a curriculum that would get those students the essential skills they needed in life. He even wrote and published books to support this, and the royalties kept him in new cars for years!

In early 1982 Howard moved to Oxfordshire where he became a Special Needs Adviser for the County and later an Inspector for all Schools and Further Education Colleges. He also became an OFSTED Inspector. Despite his dubious beginnings at school, he was a true intellectual and took a Master’s Degree in Education Management at Oxford Brookes University. He loved to read and just last week had a book of poetry published, called 'Bright the Vision that Delighted'. (Available from Amazon at the sum of £6:99) It’s such a pity that he didn’t live long enough to see it in print. Church remained a large part of his life, including the choir which Howard led for many years in St Mary’s, North Leigh.

During his time as choirmaster, Howard commissioned for the choir no fewer than fifteen anthems, designed to cater for the entire liturgical year. Almost all were given their first performances by the choir under Howard’s direction. Among the composers were several well-known in church music or wider circles, notably Roderick Williams, now very well known as a singer and composer (Holy Father Great Creator, for Trinity), Anthony Caesar (St Mary’s Mass, published by the Church Music Society), three fine anthems by Peter Irving, and others. Most of these works have either been published or widely used by churches throughout the UK and perhaps further afield.

He adored cathedral music and was one of the founder members of the Prebendal Singers, performing at many cathedrals around the country.

Howard retired from Oxfordshire County Council when he was 57, to become an Education Consultant and part-time lecturer at Oxford Brook’s University

Howard was the most kind, loving and supportive husband. He was a father of five children, and a doting grandfather, with nine lovely grandchildren who delighted and kept him on his toes! He was so brave during his fight with cancer, often in pain from lymphoma, but he never complained, and was always positive. He found so much joy in life, and he showed such strength and determination throughout. He was warm and gregarious. He loved meeting people and his gin and tonics were legendary! •

ROY COOK

KS FORMER STAFF 1959-91

Memorial Service written by Gordon Opie (Deputy Head Pastorial) (KS 1976-81)

It was with some trepidation that I agreed to say a few words today about my memories of Roy as one of my History teachers and the Second Master during my time here at Kingswood all those years ago. I am nervous about doing this because I know that so many of you gathered here today will have your own special memories of Roy and also because Roy had such a profound influence on my life. As I have reflected on this over the past few months, I have realised that so much of the person I aspire to be was influenced by how Roy was, at all times, in school.

I hope that I manage to capture something of an extraordinary teacher and extraordinary person and am really honoured to be speaking about him in this special chapel; so, thank you Sue and the rest of the family for asking me.

I thought I would start by sharing some of the hundreds of tributes that were sent to Sue and the family once the news of Roy’s passing was announced on the Kingswood Association website.

Michael Jones (KS 1959-63)

Roy Cook taught me History and I seem to remember he was also my House Master.

Sixty years on I still recall him with appreciation for who he was and for what he taught me.

It is not the eureka moments – it is the example of calm authority exercised and wise scholarship transmitted, and the realisation that you actually learned a lot from someone.

Roger Saul (KS 1961-69)

Roy was my Housemaster and mentor, as both schoolboy and Captain of Athletics. He gently guided me in the right direction when I got it wrong but was my greatest supporter when I got it right. We as a team in that special year had the most amazing highs, both as individuals and as a team, and I know that helped shape me as we hit ever greater highs and we savoured each other’s performances. He was the glue and the quiet but strong inspiration. We are and were incredibly lucky to have this special Man in our lives.’

Reggie Tsiboe (KS 1962-68)

I was never in a classroom with Roy and so very much appreciated my time with him as coach and mentor. His gentle guidance brought out the best in me and I will forever remember him as a ‘life coach’ at an important stage in my life. A privilege to have known him.

Chris Brown (KS 1971-78: Senior Prefect/Head Boy 1978)

Roy was a kind, gentle and wise man of whom I have very fond memories. He taught me History throughout my time at Kingswood (including helping me to a very unexpected A grade at A Level) but I got to know him best when I was Senior Prefect in 1978 and he was Second Master. His calm, humane and compassionate approach to every problem during our weekly meetings was something I admired and, I hope, learned from in ways that have stayed with me through my working life.

So where did it begin – well for me it was at the front of school in August 1976. I was starting my Kingswood journey as a shy, nervous new boarder having just arrived from Kenya. Roy happened to come out of the front entrance and introduced himself to my father. I do not remember much about what was said but he certainly made an impression on my Dad. My first blue airmail from home arrived about ten days after the start of term and, along with devastating news that my pet budgie (appropriately named Houdini)

had escaped again and a mongoose had eaten all my homing pigeons, came this sage advice from my rather formal Dad: “If you ever have any problems at school, I recommend that you talk to Mr Cook as he is a most impressive man. He will be kind and you can trust him.”

That was good enough for me as I worshipped my Dad – if he thought Roy was a good man, he was! How right my Dad proved to be. Over the next five years I got to know Roy both as a teacher and also as the parent of two of my best school friends in Tim & Kate. He taught me O Level History and my A grade (I did not get that many!) was the most important result for me. He sidestepped me neatly in the Colts vs. Staff rugby match but did it kindly! I was already having a tough afternoon as, John Horton, the current England fly half seem to know how to run the game but that is another story!

Roy was a man who had the ability to fire one with enthusiasm without needing to perform/shout/or do anything spectacular. He inspired absolute loyalty through his unfailingly kind interest in everyone. He could be firm and was the master of the “I am surprised and disappointed in you conversation” I was devastated when he spoke to me about being thoughtless as I raced around the Ferens one Friday afternoon and knocked over a first former. There was no punishment but just the thought that Roy thought a little less of me was unbearable. Typical of him he sought me out a few days later and thanked me for some little kindness that I had done, and that exchange made my heart sing.

One of the most exciting bits about returning to Kingswood as Director of Sport in September 1990 was the fact that I got to work with him for a year. He was generous with his time, advice, and always supportive – well almost! He gave me a really tough time in my first Heads of Department meeting when I had decided that unsupervised swimming had to stop (To the younger people listening it was a different world then!) After much debate it was agreed that this was the right decision, but I was puzzled by how hard this had been and why Roy, in particular, had made me justify everything. Roy found me after the meeting and said I had done well. He said he had agreed with me from the outset but that the wider staff needed to see that I was prepared to stand up for what I believed in, as this would help with the other big changes, I wanted to introduce going forward. This, of course, explained his approach – just another example of his wise and kind support!

Our Kingswood journeys contain and uncanny number of similarities. We were both Heads of Department, House Masters in Middle House, we both chaired any number of committees, we both love sport and have spent many happy hours on the Upper. We both had spells as Acting Headmasters. We both came to Kingswood after teaching elsewhere and stayed for a little while! We both had to introduce or support huge changes here at Kingswood but, at the same time, try to ensure that those Kingswood values, that make this such a special community, are not lost. The main difference is that Roy was better at all of this than me - well not quite! I am confident that my handwriting is certainly neater! He was also a talented musician with a fine baritone voice. How he would have enjoyed being part of the choir in the balcony today. He was an amazingly talented man and yet so humble with it. At those challenging moments in the life of a Deputy Headmaster, I still ask myself, even today, “I wonder what MRC would have done here?”

So, what made him so special to us as students? He was passionate about what he taught, he was a man of absolute integrity, and he was Mr Cook or Grandpa. I can honestly say that I never heard a grumble about him while I was at Kingswood. If he told us something was worth doing, we did it. He shaped so many of our lives. I know he was a key influence in my decision to go into teaching. I feel so privileged to be the Pastoral Deputy Headmaster here at Kingswood and Roy’s example has shaped how I have done this job. Kingswood still places such an emphasis on educating the whole student and stresses simple values like the importance of being kind. For me Roy’s influence is still everywhere here at Kingswood - it is in our DNA. What a legacy!

I have spoken to several former members of staff over the past few months, and they all speak so highly of Roy. Gary Best talked about how kind, wise, and supportive he found Roy as he started as a young Headmaster. Angie loved sharing stories about how much fun Roy was and how everyone respected him. He was loyal to the staff, and they wanted to work for him. He remained this way throughout his retirement. We all loved the moments when he visited or attended events to support Sue in her role as one of our governors or to watch his grandsons play sport or perform on stage.

His reference when he started at Kingswood in 1958 said the following: Cook is a man of absolute

integrity, commanding the respect of all with whom he deals. He has an extremely pleasant manner, combining a quiet courtesy with sound perception and sound common sense. He has had an exceptionally successful career both academically and on the games field and he has a profound interest in music.

Roy lived up to that and so much more throughout his 41 years of service to Kingswood. If any of us who are teachers have managed to do or achieve things half as well as Roy did, we have done remarkably well. I feel so privileged that I knew him as a teacher, a colleague, and a friend. A good “Cook” in your life is absolutely essential, and mine was a five-star Michelin chef! • supported by the Methodist community and in particular the Sandry family, throughout their lives. This very fortunate generosity, all embracing care, support and warm friendship was such a feature that when the time came, our mother, Margaret was also educated in a Methodist school and, in her turn, always manifested generosity, loving kindness and willingness to help others; a trait subsequently passed to Giles too.

We were 3 extremely different children. The eldest, R.M. Damerell (known as Mark) is listed as Dux on Kingswood’s dining hall boards of fame and was the winner of a scholarship to Cambridge. He is married, with two children and lives outside London. I was the middle child, Christina, neither enormously clever nor bottom of the class. G.D.H. Damerell on the other hand had a most unimpressive academic record. His school reports contained a consistent theme of "must work harder”. One teacher put it particularly deftly: "If Giles would only apply himself to his English with the focus that he has for practising in the cricket nets, then he would do extremely well!”

One might think that Giles was indeed putting very little effort into his academic studies, so all credit to Kingswood that he nonetheless left as a very sociable, physically active, and well-rounded individual. He went on to become enviably good at most sports, including the cricket he'd learnt at school. Also, due to the school's flexible approach, he'd been allowed to do woodwork during periods that should have been allocated to rugby. He told me that his patient but very demanding woodwork teacher would allow no imperfections or inaccuracies. Giles may have taken a long time doing every job since, but nothing has ever needed re-doing!

GILES DAMERELL

27.11.1945 - 22.08.2021 (KS 1957-63)

G.D.H. Damerell. Known to all as Giles. A man who, if we addressed an envelope to him, insisted it include all the initials.

Giles was the youngest of 3 grandchildren of Methodist minister R.J. Cook, who died of appendicitis, when our mother was only a few months old. Our grandmother, his grieving and virtually penniless widow, and 2 small daughters were hugely So, it turned out that when Giles found something that he wanted to do, he would put enormous and detailed attention into it. He became very good at a wide range of things, all of which required considerable effort to perfect. Soon after leaving school he spent some time in France and came home speaking French like a native, having acquired an excellent knowledge of wines into the bargain. He built on that when he went on to work as a sales rep for a company importing exotic herbs and spices from all over the world.

Always one to enjoy a good chat alongside doing business, he was popular and successful as a rep and as publican when he and his wife Susan took over The Holly Tree pub in Midhurst, Sussex. Beneath his relaxed and jovial manner behind the bar, lay a will of steel! Every aspect of pub life and management was tightly controlled - in fact as visitors we would be closely watched so that tables were set to his measured spacing and bottles were returned to their correct position on the shelf, label facing front, precisely in line with its neighbour.

It was a very demanding, full, and busy life but they always found time to pursue

their interests and rewarded themselves with really good holidays. This was the period during which Giles initiated his lifetime indulgence in owning and driving the best of cars (driven with his foot to the floor for most of the time if possible!).

He enjoyed having the ‘right’ kit for any sport or suit for any occasion and enjoyed looking (what I call) ‘dapper’. We were charmed and delighted to find, when going through his possessions, many pristine, lovely suits, jackets, and particularly around 20 ties in his wardrobes which his close friends in Devon were pleased to receive as mementos of him. We were also delighted that the Kingswood archivist accepted an untouched suitcase of Kingswood Cricket colours kit that he'd carefully stowed away after his last match for the school team!

During his publican years he particularly engaged with his hunting, shooting and fishing customers and soon became a regular at their events in Devon. He was much appreciated as an excellent shot and owned and trained a series of Flatcoat Retrievers to do "picking up". He was particularly proud of one dog, Thomas, who could always find any injured bird on the moors, and then, one day, suddenly decided that he could also land any fish that Giles had hooked, which made Giles proud and amused! It seemed natural that Giles retired to live in Devon once the pub had been sold. He was well known in the town, regularly walking down to the market and chatting with everyone. He was always willing to give a hand to those needing help, finding pleasure in helping people with odd jobs.

By the time Giles no longer had a dog to walk he had turned a double garage into an extremely well stocked (and immaculately organised) joinery workshop. He would spend many worthwhile and enjoyable hours over the next few years setting his splendid woodworking skills to good use, making beautiful salad bowls, designing a puppy whelping box, the bottom half of a stable door, a lamp holder, clock, or table for friends.

When I visited, he would always take me into his workshop to show me the latest job he was working on. There was never a stray wisp of shaved wood on the floor, or loose tools lying around instead there were some ‘nice finds’ he was keeping for the right moment. On one occasion I accompanied him on a trip to look for pieces of wood and I saw him in a new light - gone the careful, sensible businessman! - he was like a child in a sweetie shop trying to choose between all the delights and came away with many more than he had intended!

Unfortunately, his health deteriorated during the latter part of his life in Devon, and the first lockdown saw him alone in his house for many days at a time. He was tested for everything imaginable but apart from a diagnosis of Coeliac Disease, nothing concrete was found. He continued to be in and out of hospital due to unknown causes over several months. Eventually we found a wonderful care home for him, where the staff were both kind and helpful, so he was able to die in peace with Mark and me at his side. •

PHILIP EVANS

(KS 1953-63)

My father, Philip Evans, who died on 31st October, was a remarkable man who lived an extraordinary life, for several reasons. He was a wonderful father to me and my younger sister Caroline, and husband to my mother Linda, but he has also frequently been called the finest paperback publisher of his generation who, amongst other achievements, helped set up the Coronet imprint and was responsible for some of the biggest bestsellers of the 1970s. In addition he was a novelist, journalist and the author of several football books and restaurant guides. All of the above was accomplished both before and after a car accident in 1975 which nearly killed him, leaving him with catastrophic injuries and using a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

His entrance was no less dramatic: Philip James Evans was born in Columbo in Sri Lanka in 1943. My grandmother Elsie was onboard a ship that had sailed from Liverpool, down the U-Boat infested coast

of the United States, through the Panama Canal, across to Australia, and eventually to then Ceylon where she was the first passenger off ship and where a sickly Philip was born and immediately christened because it was thought he would die. Elsie was on her way to join my grandfather, a Methodist minister with a mission in Southern India. Phil grew up a much-adored only child in Tamil Nadu, and retained a deep love for the country he never visited again as an adult. I remember him telling me of a trip to Bombay in 1949 and seeing trainloads of murdered bodies after Partition arriving back at the railway station in the heart of the city.

In 1953 he was sent back to England to go to boarding school and eventually was rejoined in the UK by his parents, spending his holidays from school at wherever home was, depending on his father’s ministry: Cornwall, Guernsey, Crewe, Kendal and most of all Barnsley. This peripatetic holidaying in a variety of places and with different families gave him an easy adaptability and instinctive understanding of what the British public up and down the country wants to read, so often lacking in London-centric publishing. And for the rest of his life he was to claim Yorkshire ancestry, or at least a deep love of Barnsley FC.

He won an Open Exhibition to New College to read History, went travelling to Italy where he indulged his obsession with all things Italian - football in particular - then went up in 1963. After Oxford he was chosen for Hodder and Stoughton’s graduate trainee programme. The venerable publishing house, then merely 90-odd years old, was still owned by the Attenborough and HodderWilliams families, and Dad often told us about the time Blackwells in Oxford, despairing of payment from him for the books and records he had acquired there on credit, sent their bill to Bedford Square with a note requesting settlement, care of Philip Attenborough. Dad was called to the boardroom and asked to explain himself. Hard to imagine a company exerting that much influence over its employee’s non-work affairs these days.

Graduates were supposed to move around each department. But after a stint in Rights, under Jane Eustace, later to become Mrs John le Carre, Phil moved to editorial where he was such a success he stayed there, learning a huge amount from various industry titans such as George Greenfield, Robin Denniston and Paul Hodder-Williams.

In 1969 he married my mother, Linda (herself later to become a successful publisher in her own right at Transworld), and took time off from work to write two thrillers, Next Time You’ll Wake Up Dead, and The Bodyguard Man, the latter of which was optioned by David Frost as a movie. He might have become a full-time writer, but publishing called again when he was head-hunted in 1972 to run the Coronet. The old established publishing houses had seen they had to set up their own paperback lists and retain these important rights, and for a few years Dad was at the vanguard of this trend. It is where his huge talent for commercial fiction – the idea that good books are for everyone – reaped the greatest rewards. He published authors as varied as Delia Smith, George V. Higgins and Jan Morris before his greatest hit, David Niven’s first memoir, the nowclassic The Moon’s A Balloon. Dad and ‘Niv’ got on extremely well – my father took a bar of Kendal Mint Cake over to Geneva for his first meeting with him in the mountains which seems to have gone down well. They shared a genuine, kindly charm and David Niven greatly valued my father’s influence. When he lay in a coma for months after his accident, Niven sent him chatty cassette recordings from Switzerland to be played to my father in hospital.

My father’s car accident, on Valentine’s Day, 1975, minutes from home as he was returning from another successful trip to New York, cut short a career that would have gone on to greater heights. He was in a coma for several months – I was 9 months old at the time and have no clear memory of this catastrophic period for us all, but its aftereffects rippled throughout the rest of his life. He suffered major head trauma, lost many teeth and the use of one side of his body. But though he nearly died, several times, it did not cut short his life and whilst there was a difficult period of adjustment I only remember him in latter years being a constant source of warmth, wisdom, and light. He was then at home, but carried on writing and editing, giving advice and support to his daughters, his wife, his many publishing friends and colleagues who in turn hugely enjoyed his company; you simply could not fail to have a good time with him. He wrote five World Cup guides over three decades, several quiz books and was the editor of the Gault-Millau restaurant guides for a number of years (which he loved as it meant lunching, his great passion, for work). He also published another thriller, Playing the Wild Card (1988). All these were typed with one finger of one hand.

The last five years of Dad’s life were marked by illness: he survived a deadly bout of sepsis

which lead to his moving into a nursing home, but his grace and charm meant he had more visitors than anyone else in the home, was beloved by the nurses and cherished by us of course. For those last few years in that room one felt he was back in the centre of the action, where he belonged. For a while he could still read and hugely enjoyed literary thrillers, especially European authors, and revisiting old favourites like Raymond Chandler. When he died in autumn, it was immensely sad but a release for him, and also a chance for his many friends and family to pause and remember quite what an amazing man he was, and how very lucky we were to have him for so long.

Robert Guy remembers Philip:

Phil was my lifelong friend. We first met at Kingswood in 1957. We were both sons of the manse, as were many other boys at that time.

The school had an enviable educational reputation. There was an eclectic bunch of masters worthy of Alan Bennett. We had a wonderful history teacher, Roy Cook, who tutored Phil in the life of Frederick Barbarossa and the history of the Holy Roman Empire with the result that Phil gained an open exhibition to New College, Oxford. Phil stayed in touch with Roy for the rest of his life. Similarly, he corresponded for many years with Michael Bishop who introduced him to the beauty of Renaissance art and, in his spare time, taught him Italian.

Phil wore his academic success lightly and found plenty of time for other pursuits, drama and music in particular. Acting, for both of us, started with the Junior Lit and the Merchant of Venice. The Drama Critic wrote in the School Magazine, with the supreme objectivity you would expect in such a publication: “Evans [surnames were de rigueur in those days] enjoyed himself and was well cast as Gratiano a character at times exuberant, at times tender, and in the final scene, capable of discreditable rancour.” In real life, Phil did indeed enjoy himself, was both exuberant and tender, but he was never, in my experience, filled with rancour.

In music, singing was his forte. A fine tenor, member of the Choir and a soloist on Speech Day singing arias by Handel. Not that his interest was solely classical. After all, ours was the Age of Rock and Roll. He was a huge fan of Elvis Presley. I have a photo of him in typical Presley pose. Slouching, mean and magnificently moody. He didn’t need to sing. The girls loved it.

After his death, I was in touch with several of our contemporaries one of whom, Derek Collinson, shared a memoir he had written a year ago of Phil and their time at Kingswood. He wrote: “For me, Philip had always been there, through thick and think, supportive, interested, always generous, consistently positive and appreciative with whoever he came into contact.”

So it continued as he went on to University and the world of publishing. It was a tragedy that his career was cut short by a terrible accident at the age of 31 but, as the obituary written by his daughter, Harriet, shows he was amazingly resilient, his sense of humour never left him and the large congregation at his funeral was testament to the many friendships he had enjoyed throughout his life. I was indeed privileged to have such a lifelong friend. •

REV JOHN MICHAEL FRANKLIN

15.03.1933 - 31.07.2021 (KS 1943-51)

Michael was at Prior’s Court from 1943-46 and Kingswood from 1946-51. Michael’s brother Robert A Franklin also attended Kingswood (1947-54) along with Michael’s uncle J Henry Doddrell (1919-23), his cousins Stephen J Pillow (1960-66) and John R Doddrell (1965-72) and his daughter Sarah K Franklin

(1981-83).

A son of the manse, Michael was born on 15 March 1933 in Hankow, China, of parents who were serving the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society. His early education at Prior’s Court provided every opportunity to appreciate the world of nature, with an enlightened freedom to explore fields and woods. Kingswood added the disciplines of rugby, of Scouting and the Air Training Corps. He was in Upper House, became a House Prefect and made lifelong friends.

From 1951 Michael completed ‘articles’ to the City Engineer, Salisbury, and qualified as a Chartered Municipal Engineer. Commissioned into the Royal Engineers for National Service, he was posted to Hong Kong, where his Army padre first stirred in him a call to the ministry. After

engineering posts with two local authorities Michael candidated for the ministry from Epsom Methodist Church and trained at Didsbury College, Bristol from 1961. Among the strong tutorial staff his former School Chaplain at Kingswood, Rev Dr Rupert Davies, became a formative influence.

In 1963 Michael married Jennifer Cook, herself a daughter of missionary parents and also born in China, with whom he shared a call to serve overseas. They were appointed to the Hong Kong (Chinese) District of the Methodist Church in 1964. Language study together was followed for Michael by chaplaincy and teaching at Methodist College, Kowloon. He was ordained in Kowloon in 1966 alongside two Chinese colleagues. During this time Sarah and Jonathan were born, and later Michael became a proud grandfather and great grandfather. After furlough in England the family returned to Hong Kong in 1969. Michael was given responsibility by the Chinese Synod to oversee the building and equipping of a new secondary school, Wa Ying College, where he later became Chaplain.

Michael’s first English circuit, in 1973, was Bristol (Kingswood), where John Wesley founded Kingswood School in 1748. Two large church buildings, only a hundred yards apart, came together as Kingswood Methodist Church as Michael’s five year ministry ended. There followed stationing to Bracknell in the Aldershot, Farnborough and Camberley Circuit, a New Town ‘plant’. Michael’s ministry included a Free Church hospital chaplaincy and an Officiating Chaplaincy to the Royal Air Force Staff College. During this time Michael developed a severe and long lasting depressive illness, which finally required him to seek early retirement. The family moved in 1986 to Salisbury, which Michael knew well. During his years as a supernumerary in the Salisbury Circuit, and when his health returned, he preached across the circuit, shared in two hospital chaplaincies and undertook a number of church offices. Thirteen years as a volunteer with Salisbury Citizens Advice Bureau included the initiation and development of a Social Policy Unit in the Bureau which gave Michael a sense of continuing pastoral ministry. When a second period of depression occurred, Michael made a lasting recovery, again with Jenny’s loving support and the care, love and support of family and friends. After giving up regular preaching Michael valued putting his own thinking into brief articles for occasional publication. Throughout his ministry, which Jenny shared to the full, Michael maintained an active commitment to Methodism’s contribution within the World Church, into which he and Jenny had been born.

Michael’s love of travel with Jenny introduced them to the pleasures of river cruises along the waterways of Europe. Further adventures took them to the Middle East, Italy, Canada, USA and China and they were invited to return to Hong Kong in 2011. Michael cared for Jenny through a period of ill health and during the Covid lockdown. Sadly his own mental and physical health declined, a period of separation from Jenny borne with great courage. He died peacefully in Salisbury District Hospital on 31 July 2021, aged 88. Jenny died just three months later on 1 November 2021.

Michael had a passion for Kingswood and a continued interest in and support of the school throughout his life. He regularly kept in touch with the school, with his teachers and peers, attended services and events at Kingswood and, in his words, enjoyed “the friendship of distinguished alumni”. He had the privilege of preaching at the service of dedication for the memorial to John Curtis Tribbeck, the only Kingswood former pupil to die in the Korean War in the service of his country, at Kingswood in 1992. Kingswood played an important part in laying the foundations for Michael’s life of ministry, and his service to God and to all those whose lives he touched. •

PETER GREAVES

(KS 1945-50)

Peter Greaves (KS 1945-50), who has died aged 89, was a health and nutrition officer for Unicef whose work made a huge difference to children’s lives around the world. He was an early advocate of low-cost interventions including immunisation, oral rehydration and breastfeeding.

While he was Unicef’s chief nutrition adviser in the mid-1980s, he managed to get Unicef and the World Health Organisation to agree on the final draft of The Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding (www.who.int/ teams/nutrition-and-food-safety/ food-and-nutrition-actions-in-

health-systems/ten-steps-tosuccessful-breastfeeding). This document helped transform global maternal care policies.

Born in Cardiff, the son of Methodist missionaries, Stella (nee Cox) and Lionel Greaves, Peter spent much of his early childhood in Kenya. He boarded at Kingswood school, Bath, then went to Jesus College, Cambridge, to study biochemistry, graduating in 1955. This was followed by a PhD in nutrition at the Royal Free hospital, University College London – and a crash course in tank-driving during national service in Germany.

From 1959 he was in Tanganyika (now Tanzania), for two years, as a senior scientific adviser at the East African Institute for Medical Research, before moving back to London to work at the British Nutrition Foundation (www. theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/ nutrition).

He joined the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in 1969, working first in Cairo, and then in Beirut as a health and nutrition officer. After three years working as the FAO adviser to Unicef New Delhi, he left that organisation to join Unicef fulltime, where he spent the rest of his working life.

In 1980 Peter became Unicef’s regional officer for South America in Brazil (www. theguardian.com/world/brazil). There he set up a programme for street children in Rio, providing them with education, part-time work, a safe place to sleep and a hot meal. He also launched a highly successful breastfeeding programme. In 1983 his team developed a primary healthcare plan to tackle the appalling infant mortality rate in the poorest Brazilian state, Maranhão, resulting in a 33% reduction in infant mortality. The programme was taken up by the Brazilian government and extended across the whole country.

He moved in 1984 from Brazil to the Unicef HQ in New York as chief nutrition adviser. His colleague Margaret KyenkyaIsabitye recalled: “He was the backbone, the glue, that held the nutrition section together.”

Peter’s commitment to good causes did not stop on his retirement in 1992. He joined the United Nations Association, which is how I met him, and campaigned on many issues, including climate change, and wrote regular letters to national newspapers (including his last one, published in the Guardian in November 2021 - www. theguardian.com/news/2021/ nov/12/pay-up-for-nazanin-to-bereleased-home). In the words of his son, Tim, “he is undoubtedly one of those rare people who has left this world a better, a more generous and kinder place than he found it”.

He is survived by his wife, Chloe (née Morgan), an actor whom he married in 1957, Tim, a daughter, Kate, and four grandchildren. •

NOEL HARVEY

(KS 1940-49)

Noel Harvey, was District Commissioner in Nyasaland (now Malawi) in Africa. His final job there was transferring British Rule to Independent Rule in the mid-1960s.

He and his wife retired to Swaffham, Norfolk and he was a keen birdwatcher, spending much of his time on the marshes peering through binoculars or swimming. •

PEEL HEPWORTH HOLROYD

(KS 1949-55)

Obituary by Chris Walkland (KS 1973-82)

Peel Hepworth Holroyd - son of the Methodist Minister, Harry Holroyd, twin to Arthur and his brother John - attended Priors Court in 1949, and then Kingswood School until 1955. He always spoke very fondly of both schools and became my, and my brother Stephen’s, guardian when we arrived at Priors Court in 1973.

After his time at Kingswood Peel studied at Harper Adams Agricultural College, and then at Ontario Agricultural University, Guelph.

He ultimately became a giant in the agricultural and particularly the poultry industry, helping to build Marks and Spencer’s St Michael’s chicken brand from practically nothing into the wellrespected business it is today.

After nearly 20 years at M&S he started his own consultancy business and became a global expert on all aspects of the Food Supply Chain from farm to plate, and including farming, production, processing, distribution to consumers, and retailing across the globe. He travelled the world speaking at

many different engagements; advised numerous companies; chaired dozens of organisations; was a visiting lecturer in food and agriculture to colleges and Universities, and also advised the UK and other Governments in their food and agricultural programmes. In 1992 he became a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Poulters and was awarded the freedom of The City of London.

All the while, though, his Methodist roots and beliefs were central to him and he was a lay preacher for all of his life.

As he had been with Stephen and I at Priors Court and Kingswood, Peel loved nothing more than to nurture and guide young people – be it in their personal life, or in their careers, or on the rugby or cricket fields. That’s because Priors Court and Kingswood also gave him a love of sport that never left him. He was a very useful rugby and cricket player in his time and, here too, he also encouraged and guided “the next generation”. This was epitomised by him being a rugby refereeing assessor after his days as a player and subsequently a referee himself had come to an end. He was a controversial no-nonsense referee too – he is a legend in local Berkshire rugby circles for sending off a whole team in one match! Cricket was also a firm favourite, and he was a long standing member of the MCC.

He married his beloved wife Margot Telford Holroyd in 1971, and was devoted to her all of his life. Margot died in January 2021 and after a short illness Peel passed in December 2021. • the NHS Supply Council and the Wessex Institute of Public Health Medicine during 1975 to 1996. In 1982 he was sacked as chair of the RHA by Kenneth Clarke, the health minister, when Mrs Thatcher decided that no RHA chairs could be members of the opposition. He immediately led the sacked chairmen round to the BBC to be interviewed on Radio 2. Kingsley was already a member of the Council of Southampton University from 1977 and chairman from 1987 until his retirement in 1998.

The university gave him an honorary doctorate as thanks for his hard work. He was also the chairman of Winchester School of Art during the negotiations for the link to Southampton University. He was able to enrol on the first year of their new parttime course in history of art and design and although pressure of work meant he only completed one year he was able to give five of his surviving colleagues their degree certificates five years later. He particularly enjoyed the study tours to Florence and The Netherlands. Family holidays had always included visits to Ireland, France and Italy for their art galleries, stately homes and gardens, but his chief joy was sailing. He had learned to sail as a teenager, when the family settled in Fowey after his parents retired from teaching in Ghana. All three children were born in Accra but were sent home to England aged three, four and five, before the days of vaccinations it was not considered safe for European children. Kingsley and his brother Mike continued to board at Kingswood School in Bath but in World War Two were evacuated to Uppingham. To their horror their father came out of retirement to teach there when younger men were called up. Kingsley read law at Cambridge, after a brief flirtation with

JOHN BUCKNALL KINGSLEY WILLIAMS

(KS 1941-46)

Kingsley Williams, who has just died aged nearly 94, was best known in Winchester at the senior partner of Dutton Gregory & Williams, where he worked from 1956 to 1991.

He was the partner who dealt with the legal work at Conder, which was a major employer. Its chief executive Robin Cole remained a life-long friend and squash partner. “We were equally bad at squash”.

Kingsley was a member of the Labour Party from when he was at university. He was a Winchester city councillor for the St John Ward from 1966 to 1974 (an area covering Winnall and the Brooks area of the city centre). He enjoyed canvassing and elections, which still sounds unlikely. He led the Labour Group and chaired the planning committee. At the re-organisation of local government in 1973 he was elected to Hampshire County Council, representing a Southampton division. He led the 24-strong Labour Group at the county council until his appointment to chair the Wessex Regional Health Authority in 1975. He was proud of his roles as chairman of the Wessex Regional Health Authority, on

medicine, adding more friends including Norman Webb later of International Gallup. “I wish I could play honky-tonk piano like Norman”. He did his articles with a firm of solicitors in Cornwall until asked by a cousin to join his firm in Winchester. • of course his teaching career. He died in Witney, Oxfordshire on 5th October 2021, aged just over 100.

Geoff was born on 2nd September 1921 in the village of Abbots Leigh, just the other side of the Clifton Suspension Bridge from Bristol, where his father Harry worked in his own father’s printing and publishing business. He was sent away to prep school at the age of seven, for him a distressing experience which he still talked about in old age. His teachers at Heddon Court School in East Barnet included for a year the young John Betjeman.

After that he was educated at Marlborough College, which was a much more positive experience. He had already begun playing the piano, and at Marlborough took up the organ, eventually winning an organ scholarship to Trinity Hall, Cambridge in 1940. By then of course the country was again at war; Geoff turned 18 the day before war was declared, and little over a month later his adored mother Doris died after a long illness. The following year he deferred his place at Cambridge to read Modern Languages – as it turned out, for six years – in order to join the Royal Navy.

Starting as a young rating, he became an officer a couple of years later and eventually a Lieutenant Commander in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve after the war – he stayed in the RNVR until the late 1960s and ran the RN Section at Radley College. At first he served in Hunt-class destroyers, which apparently rolled alarmingly in rough seas – in Geoff’s words he was “as sick as a dog” on a number of occasions, whereas in later years the roughest of ferry crossings to the continent or to Scandinavia never bothered him. In 1943 he transferred to the Submarine Service and served in HMS Rorqual, a Grampus class minelaying submarine. Rorqual’s last operation of the war saw the crew sail all the way to Fremantle in Australia, taking in Malta, the Suez Canal and Ceylon along the way. Rorqual surfaced a number of times to sink defenceless Japanese sailing vessels and coasters with gunfire, and it’s a measure of Geoff’s humanity that this stayed on his conscience for the rest of his life. On 8th May 1945 Rorqual received the order to ‘splice the mainbrace’ to celebrate the end of the war in Europe. In Geoff’s words “we didn’t splice anything: we had to be as quiet as mice as we were in Japanese waters”.

Safely back in Portsmouth in the late summer of 1945, Geoff almost immediately met a young WRNS officer and Plymouth girl called Elizabeth Marsh. The romance proceeded apace; Geoff proposed to Elizabeth on top of Sheepstor on Dartmoor, and in September 1946 they married in Plymouth. They were soon in Cambridge, where Geoff completed his degree in French and German in the space of eight terms – no confidencebuilding year abroad for him. During his time at Trinity Hall he became devoted to the Chaplain Launcelot Fleming, later Bishop of Portsmouth and then of Norwich. Such was Geoff’s Christian faith and interest in the church that Elizabeth was convinced for a while that he

PROFESSOR BRIAN PEELING

(KS 1941-49)

Professor Brian Peeling had a distinguished career in Urology, training at the London Hospital under Professor Dix. He set up the British Prostate Group with Geoff Chisholm and developed the first prostatic ultrasound machine in the UK. He was awarded the CBE.

Outside Urology he had been a National hockey player and he was a very competent pianist and owned an interesting collection of instruments. His wife Audrey was an Anaesthetist who died in 2011. •

G.R. SAVORY

02.09.1921 - 05.10.2021 (Kingswood Staff 1953-59)

Geoffrey Savory’s passions were his wife and family, and his strong Christian faith. His many interests included music, birdwatching, walking and the Royal Navy, and

would take holy orders. Instead, he decided on teaching and in 1948 took a position at Bristol Grammar School, where he remained for five years before moving to Kingswood. Geoff and Elizabeth were keen to start a family, but this proved elusive. In 1952 Elizabeth decided to re-join the WRNS; no sooner had she done so than the inevitable happened, and in June 1953 their elder son Richard was born, followed two years later by Tim.

After the move to Bath they initially lived in a flat on Lansdowne Hill, a year or more later moving to North Lodge at the end of Hamilton Road, next door to the avuncular Mr Kearsey who charmed Geoff’s young children. Brought up as a Methodist, Geoff’s wife Elizabeth was happier at Kingswood than at any of his other teaching posts. The growing family was friendly with the Edes, the Fields, the Arnolds and several other families of Geoff’s colleagues, and he had an enduring respect for the Headmaster A.B. Sackett. His son Richard has vivid memories of nursery school with Alison Ede and Susan Sackett, taught to read and write, long before they moved on to St Stephen’s, by the kindly ‘Nanny Sackett’. To the joy of his family, Geoff’s 100th birthday party was attended by Alison and her mother Mary, John Ede’s widow.

In 1959 Geoff took up what turned out to be his final teaching job as Head of Modern Languages at Radley College. He found Radley to be a ‘sporty’ school, although Geoff’s participation more or less began and ended with coaching lower-school hockey. Geoff was an enthusiastic proponent of the innovative language lab, and among other initiatives fostered a close relationship and exchange programme with Schondorf, a school in Bavaria. Geoff was more interested in long rambles than team sports, and he took on the Ridgeway and the Pennine Way among other lengthy walks. Holidays were spent at bird reserves or walking in the Brecon Beacons or on Dartmoor. In 1966 he took his excited family for their first foreign holiday, driving all over the Netherlands. Typically, being a proper linguist, he took the trouble to learn Dutch for several months before they set off. He got lost one day in Rotterdam and stopped the car to ask a policeman for directions. Running out of Dutch steam, he asked the policeman whether he spoke English. “Why should I”, replied the policeman, “when you speak such good Dutch?”

In 1981 Geoff and Elizabeth ‘retired’ to Plymstock and shortly afterwards to Brixton, a village in the South Hams where Geoff served as Chairman of Governors at the local primary school and on the parish council. His interest in languages was very much maintained – for ten years or more he examined French at GCSE and A Level for the Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate, which provides educational assessments for over eight million learners in over 170 countries. This took him all over the UK, several times to the Channel Islands and, memorably, twice to Mauritius. In retirement, Geoff and Elizabeth acquired six grandchildren, and made regular visits to Leeds, Witney, Geneva and Avignon to visit them. By the evening of his life he was delighted by the addition of four great-grandchildren.

During his teaching career Geoff had always continued to play the organ wherever and whenever he could, and retirement gave him the opportunity to do so on a regular basis. For the better part of thirty years he was the church organist, firstly at the Church of the Good Shepherd at the Royal Naval Hospital, and when that was closed in the 1990s at St Nicholas Church at HMS Drake, the Devonport naval base. He played at numerous weddings and funerals, including his son Richard’s wedding at Radley Parish Church in 1980. Ultimately, though, he gave up playing seven or eight years ago when, in his words, “I realised that I’d started to make mistakes”. A year or two later, aged 94 in 2016, he gave up his car and driving licence for the same reason…

His final and to him his most important job started after Elizabeth developed vascular dementia around 2010. He became as devoted a carer as one could wish for, and in the last year or two of her life could usually be found on his knees beside her, holding her hand, and answering with infinite patience the same question that she would ask thirty or forty times every day.

Geoff on his 90th birthday

Elizabeth died aged 96 in April 2016, just short of 70 years into their marriage. Geoff had already agreed that it would be a good idea for them to move to Witney to be close to Linda and Richard, and after her death decided to go ahead with the move to a flat that had already been found for them. He moved into an ‘assisted living’ retirement complex that June, and was able to live independently with initially minimal but later much increased care by the excellent on-site Orders of St John Care Team. Signs of his own dementia – Alzheimer’s – were already clear by 2019, and progression was such that he had an official diagnosis in January of this year. Thankfully he developed few of the more distressing symptoms commonly associated with Alzheimer’s, and to the end of his long life continued to charm his family, friends and carers with his winning smile.

Geoff was a person who was very rarely heard to complain about anything; he always looked for the best in people. He had strong views about what he saw as being wrong with society – back in the 1960s this often related to long-haired men, mini-skirts and pop groups – but as is sometimes the case his views mellowed as the years rolled by. In some ways he was ahead of his time; his son Richard (as a young teenager) has a very clear and formative memory of him having a heated disagreement with a visitor who said he would not want to sit next to what he termed a coloured man on the bus. Geoff was a great supporter of a dozen or more charities and has left a third of his estate to be divided between five of them.

THOMAS ALFRED WALLS

(KS 1955-61)

Tom Walls went to Nottingham University after leaving KS and the dreaded “UPPER” where he considered violent exercise to be a form of forced labour, and armed with his science degree and a PGCE, taught for a number of years in Halifax, West Yorkshire. He was famed for his “corrections” to student’s work being longer and more detailed than the original student submissions! Sadly, he had to stop building balsa wood model hovercrafts at this stage as work took over. They DID work!

The Forensic Science Lab at Harrogate (and later Wetherby) was thereafter his working home for nearly 34 years where he was much respected as a meticulous investigator of what was always complicated and involved task. Tom married Joyce in 1981, and rejoiced in 2 children, Sam and Rachel, with a grandson Daithi arriving in due course. The family home was in Otley, and Tom continued his hobbies of photography, kite flying and computing, alongside being Secretary of the Bingley Robertshaw Music Festival. He was a member of Keighley Vocal Union (KVU) & KVU sang at the Memorial Service for Tom at Otley Methodist Church where Tom helped operated the sound system and held numerous other roles. A diagnosis of Parkinson’s shortly after retirement was initially well controlled by medication but eventually led to him relinquishing retirement roles and his death on 10th March 2022. •

CHRIS WHITTAKER

1946 - 2021 (KS 1956-64)

Chris Whittaker died last June at the age of 74. He was born and had lived and worked throughout his life in Newbury, Berkshire, where he was a hugely valued member of the community. He had been educated locally at nursery and primary school, before attending Prior’s Court at Hermitage, which was then the prep school for Kingswood. He moved to KS in 1959 and joined Hall House. By then had begun to establish quite a network of school friends, with several of whom he was to remain in contact throughout his life.

These were almost totally friendships born on various sports fields, principally but not exclusively rugby-playing ones. His father Len had founded Newbury Rugby Club in 1928 and with his mother Phyllis, who was a long-serving local magistrate, gave Chris and his friends much hospitality and support down the years, both at KS and thereafter.