Obituary

First Warden of Melbourn Village College, 1959–1969

Arthur Behenna M.A.(Oxon) FRGS

Arthur Behenna (photo on page 29), the first Warden of the Village College, died on 23rd September, 2014. He was 91.

Some of your readers may well recall the time when Mr Behenna came to Melbourn. It was his task to appoint teaching and support staff to serve at the new Village College built on The Moor and to prepare the school with its everyday minutiae for the opening in the Autumn of 1959. The official opening proved a ‘great occasion’ for no less than the then Minister of Education, Sir David Eccles, was invited to open the shiny-new establishment with the Bishop of Ely in attendance. The college was one of the last to be opened before its innovator, Henry Morris, the notable one time Chief Education Officer, died.

During his ten years at Melbourn Arthur Behenna oversaw the steady growth of the school, the equivalent of a secondary modern school under the then tripartite system (of Grammar, Technical and Modern schools) and witnessed the surge and success of Adult Education in this part of South Cambridgeshire. Gone was the well-worn, all-age school: in its place was here, within the village, a new building to be proud of, and, what’s more, a college where every villager from the wide catchment area of eleven other villages was welcome - it was a community hub for all. (Buses brought in children by day and a free bus service ferried in the adults during the evening) Very quickly the bristling community-spirit engendered by Henry Morris’ ideal was underway – and Mr Behenna had his part to play in its earliest flowering.

Arthur Behenna had previously been a Colonial Officer in Nigeria and one might be forgiven for thinking that he brought a little of that imperial past with him. His majestic, headmasterly frame, occasionally wrapped in an academic gown, may not have wrought fear but there was a certain magisterial air about him. He favoured a traditional, deferential approach to schools and schooling: a top-down control which was readily transferred to others through his tight departmental governance. There’s no doubt that this was in stark contrast to the times - for the 60s, if nothing else, was a decade of new music, mini-skirts and change. But he remained true to his own ‘gentlemanly ways’. He was just as likely to ask a member of staff to ‘attend to your tie’ as he might to a pupil in the first year: surnames were to be preferred to Christian names and in all those small matters he mirrored a world that was steadily by degrees disappearing. He ‘looked the part’, as one might have heard it said by an older adult student and, indeed, he did. As Warden, though, he surveyed everything: the beautiful grounds wonderfully tended by Mr Ernie Smith, the head gardener: the flag-post annually painted by the caretaker: and the cleaning, otherwise overseen by the attentive housekeeper, Miss Howard. The material state of the school was a joy to behold – no Warden could have done more to demand that its original gleam be preserved.

But the College was no gloom-ridden artifice. Oh no, not whilst there was a certain Mrs Gladys Turner to ‘see to’. Gladys was the college cook and her empire was the kitchen next to the assembly hall-cum-dining room. Her sharp wit, her ungovernable laughter, together with her delightful disregard for anything that smelt of pomp and circumstance was infectious: whatever she did with the food, and she had a wizardry of culinary skills, it got into everyone’s veins (if that’s possible), and even into Mr Behenna’s. On reflection, she did much to modify the Warden’s all-seeing role, at least she thought so.

Mr Behenna, on one memorable occasion, was proud to be able to welcome Her Majesty The Queen Mother, when she, in 1960, opened ‘Moorlands’, the old people’s home across the road from the college. The children were assembled along the open drive to the school to offer their loyal applause for it was intended that Her Majesty would gracefully make her unhurried way to a helicopter which was temporarily housed on the college playing field to the rear of the building. In an unprepared ‘dummy run’ Gladys Turner performed a tour de force by giving what was termed ‘a very fair rendition’ of the dramatic role expected of Her Majesty making her ceremonial way to the helicopter. Tears of joy aided by whoops of laughter greeted Gladys’ ‘warm-up’ act. By the time Mr Behenna and his royal guest made their way to the take-off pad the party was greeted with a genuine glowing response from the children. Not surprisingly, you might think, Her Majesty noted the depth of the affection of “such delightful young people”.

Mr Behenna left Melbourn to become, in turn, headmaster of a large school in Shropshire; then Head of Lincoln School in the 1970s; and finally, he became the first Head of the amalgamation of four Lincoln city schools – and, to his credit, he seemed to have enriched it immediately by adopting the title of one of the combined schools – Lincoln Christ’s Hospital School, a truly Behennian move.

Arthur Behenna may have left one long-lasting stamp upon The Village College – its Latin motto: Nisi Dominus Frustra, which, incidentally, is the heraldic motto of a rich academic centre, the City of Edinburgh, and that shared motto, though rarely understood, was worn on every Melbourn school blazer in the 60s and beyond. And of its meaning? You might say, for instance, “without God all is in vain”; but there is a nice double meaning involving the word “dominus”: “without the teacher all is in vain”. However, a little while ago the vestige of an age totally disappeared for the Latin motto, perhaps Mr Behenna’s remaining gift, has, for a number of reasons, been unadopted by the College. John Bell Member of Staff – Melbourn Village College 1964–1994