58 / 63
38
39
Obituaries
wears off and within few days you’ll be calling him Denis and
not Sir – you’ll find many of them different as colleagues, and
you might even get to like some of them!”
Of course Denis was immediately approachable; he was a
man of infinite patience with the failings of the young – boys
and colleagues alike. He always had time in the early days
to help one in one’s first faltering steps in the classroom and
was always ready to give what seemed like genuine sympathy
when one got the run-around from boisterous classes, which
of course one did. “Seemed genuine” because I find it hard to
believe that he ever had discipline problems himself; mind
you it would have served him right – one of his favourite
reminiscences of his own schooldays at City of London during
the war was of getting some unfortunate master to cower
under the desk by imitating the sound of an approaching
doodlebug; when telling this story, he would produce a deep-
chested Oganesque rumble (he claimed it was the whole
class, not just him) quickly followed by an irresistibly funny
imitation of the unfortunate victim, who, he would sheepishly
admit at the end of his story, was probably a shell-shock
victim from the First War. It was an impish side of him one
never suspected as a boy. The cruelty of the schoolboy had
however softened into the good-natured tease, who could
always deflate the pompous with gentle good humour.
His advice to young colleagues was often humorous too,
but above all it was driven by a concern for linguistic and
intellectual rigour as well as plain common sense and an
instinctive distrust of general pedagogical cant. Later in my
career at Merchant Taylors’ I suggested a new communicative
format for an internal exam: “Look,” he said in a rare moment
of slight impatience, “if you want to know whether a boy
knows how to say something in French the best thing to do is
to ask him to translate it”.
A devastating critique, you might think; but his critical
gaze was never inquisitorial and his remarks were never
inspired by malice nor did they show any form of aggression,
even in the quasi-military context of the CCF, in which he
commanded the naval section – or so I learn to my surprise
from Charles Hull who confesses to having shared hipflasks
of something strong with him in the freezing butts at
dreaded Bisley, where apparently Denis resolutely refused
to learn how to use a Bren gun by dint of a show of total
incompetence to the indignation of the Sergeant-Major and
to the huge amusement of bystanders. On this, to me, new
militaristic dimension of Denis’ life at the school, Stephen
Higginson wrote to Sarah, Charlie and me giving us a boy’s
eye view of Denis’ amused indulgence when inspecting his
troops – he concludes:
“There are so many moments which come back - all
reinforce an impression of an extremely civilised man who
cared deeply about many things but who observed life with
an amused detachment which rubbed off, their benefit, on
colleagues and pupils alike. It is a tribute to him that one
could indeed go on for hours…. I won’t, though!”
And so, like Denis, who despite his many talents was a
profoundly modest man, we must know when to fall silent.
Sarah, Charlie, it has been a great privilege to speak of your
father and to say something of what he brought to so many of
us at the school. For my part, all my life, I too have entertained
certain ideas about France, but also about the French
language and people, as well as of how to teach foreign
languages. Very often those ideas, and indeed ideas about
life itself, have owed a great deal to my long acquaintance
with your father, and I feel I can say alongside countless
classmates and colleagues down the years and generations
that we shall miss him, and that we shall long remember him
with gratitude, a smile and above all with great affection.
Charles Watkins OMT (1967-1971), MTS Staff (1978-1985)
... He was a man of infinite
patience with the failings
of the young – boys and
colleagues alike.
Summer
2015