The Common Room and Staff

Three masters left us in July: Mr John Orr and Mr. Trevor Tiffany to take up other appointments, and the Revd. Noel Kemp-Welch has retired as Chaplain; his sermon preached at the Commemoration Service is reproduced in this edition. The Headmaster has written about all three, and we join in wishing them well.

We offer our good wishes, too, to Mr. E. W. Herring who has been our Caterer; for him nothing seems to have been too much trouble, and we have been fortunate in his quiet and courteous efficiency; and to Mr. J. G. Coates who, as Clerk of Works, has had a very important part in the tremendous range of improvements in our buildings in recent years.

N.H.K-W.

Noel Kemp-Welch leaves St. Peter's after twenty years as Chaplain. A Choral Scholar at King's College, Cambridge, he graduated in History and Theology in 1933; his parish experience was gained in Liverpool in the late thirties and in parishes in Berkshire, and for three years he was Chaplain of King's College, Cambridge. After the war, he spent nine years as Warden and Headmaster of St. Michael's College, Tenbury, before coming to St. Peter's in 1956.

I can speak from personal experience only of Noel's last nine years in York. These have been increasingly busy and noisy years, so memory suggests, and in that business and noise Noel is not a man to have raised his voice. But his voice has been heard clearly all the same. Thus, in all the confusion of a rehearsal for one of the great Minster services, Noel would be there, quietly deploying his vast forces and miraculously getting us in the right places at the right time. He has introduced the new liturgical services of the Holy Communion into the School, so that we are now well used to Series 3. In his introductions to readings in Chapel, in his meditatively personal sermons, in his taking of Family Communions and in his readings in the Compline services, he has constantly reminded us of an alternative society, of a needed dimension, of the futility of competition and conceit and self-seeking. He has exemplified, as well as preached, peace of mind. Yet the message was not passive: he called us to self-discipline, with firm expressions of conviction, and showed an alert appreciation of beauty. Nor was he narrow or sectarian. In the Chapel and the Theological Society he has welcomed variety of voices—high and low, Quaker, Roman Catholic, Methodist, Jewish, agnostic—as long as they were sincere and affirmative.

I retain clear memories of Noel in various contexts—as a genial umpire of cricket games in the summer; as one struggling gallantly in the Common Room to impose order on notice-boards and work-tables; as the man behind the examination scene calmly coping with the problems of panic-stricken omission by G.C.E. candidates; above all as a musician, singing as the Christus in that superbly simple setting of the Passion by Vittoria. And I remember the rapt attention he gained when, in a Chapel service, he sang one of Vaughan Williams's mystical songs, a setting of words by Herbert—surely a priest with whom Noel has an affinity. It is good news indeed that Noel will continue to exercise this gift of his in the Minster Choir.

Our gratitude to him cannot be measured in normal ways. Our best wishes go with him and Stella in his retirement. P.D.R.G. 8

REVD. NOEL KEMP-WELCH, M.A. (Photo: T. O. White

J.P.O.

John Orr, who has left us for Hampton Grammar School, spent two eery productive years in the School. After leaving Rydal School, he spent three years at St. Peter's College, Oxford, and a year on his PostGraduate Certificate in Education at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. He came to St. Peter's for his first teaching experience.

He brought great vigour and bounce to his work in the School. As a rugby coach, he galvanized his team from the touch-line--there was no escaping his vociferous sense of purpose! This last year, he has invigorated School tennis, with the help of some enthusiastic players among the boys, and has expanded the game in the School—in this, showing the way himself by vivid example. We have seen him as a keen singer in those enjoyable performances by Queen Anne Grammar School in our Chapel. Those in the Manor have been most grateful to him for his cheerful presence and ministrations.

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Primarily, of course, he is a Maths teacher, and a very good one. He has fired several sixth-formers with scholarly zeal, at that stage when Maths can become an arduous ordeal: the ordeal has become fun. At the same time, he has taught sympathetically those in the middle school whose aims are humbler—an "0" level or a C.S.E. grade 1.

We shall indeed miss John and we wish him good fortune. P.D.R.G.

T.T.

After spending six years at St. Peter's, Trevor Tiffany has decided to leave us to devote himself to swimming instruction. We have greatly benefited from having such a high-powered swimmer with us. With that blend of amiability and ruthlessness that often characterizes the good specialist teacher, Trevor has always extracted the best from our swimmers. A high point of his time was of course the successful season of 1972, when the School won the Northern Public Schools Relays here in York, and then went on to win the John Parry Relays in London. But each year he has produced a strong swimming team, if not one to beat those Northern Schools that allow their best swimmers full-time swimming, at least good enough to set the pace among Schools in which swimming takes a less prominent role in the general pattern of sports. He has also launched Water Polo as a sport, creating an enthusiasm for the game and opportunities for its practice locally to a high standard. His coaching methods include the best modern techniques practised in the U.S.A. but are also seasoned with a quietly genial humanity.

If swimming is Trevor's enthusiasm, he has, in his obliging way, assisted at many other sports and P.E. activities whenever needed. In the winter term he was often to be found in the thick of game one, a fearsome sight, and he gladly upheld a special responsibility for the second XV. In every sport he played, he brought humorous relish and massive power—ils ne passeront pas!

Our thanks to Trevor, therefore, for his great swimming enthusiasm, for initiating us to Water Polo, for much advice about the equipment for the Sports Centre (I doubt if we would have the weight-lifting apparatus but for his insistence) and for much companionship in and out of School.

We wish him well in the world of swimming. P.D.R.G.

MR. J. G. COATES

Jack Coates often looked sceptical about some of the strange request , made to him: a set of shelves of peculiar design, or a quite unorthodox extension to the stage; but he was never baffled. A quiet appraisal, a few seemingly casual measurements, and within a few days at the most the job would be done. Meanwhile the normal routine of construction repair and maintenance would go on; and wherever the action was, Jack would be there. On the perilously steep pitch of the Chapel roof, belov, ground level dealing with some crisis, and as often as not plying from one job to another by bicycle, loaded with wood and glass and wire, and of course a bag of tools. But, loaded or not, there was always a greeting 10

Jack became Clerk of Works when Bob Hawkins retired in 1970, but he has worked at the School for over thirty years; so he has seen the place transformed out of recognition in many areas, and he has had a hand in almost every part of that transformation. For a long time all alterations were done by the School's internal staff, until the scale and complexity of the expansion made contract work essential; and when this happened it became an important part of the function of the Clerk of Works to create and preserve harmony between his own staff and those from outside.

Those of us who have been resident in the School will always remember the courtesy and tidiness with which Jack invariably carried out and completed a job, either of major construction or of simple maintenance.

Jack Coates came at a very early age from Barrow-in-Furness, but his family were from York and he is very much a York man. Here he will continue to enjoy his garden in his retirement, and it may well be that we shall see him from time to time about the School. We shall always be glad to do so. We thank him and wish him well.

D.G.C.

(Photo: J. P. J. F. Abbott) MR. J. G. CoAms