In Memoriam: Christina Herbert

This week, Merchant Taylors’ School honours the memory of a pillar of the school, a wonderful colleague and a good friend. Christina Herbert joined Merchant Taylors' in 2006, and remained in post as a reliable Head Master's Secretary and more importantly, friend, until 2017.
When I first arrived as Head Master at Merchant Taylors’ School, the complexity of the school and its multifarious systems, conventions and people was immediately evident and rather daunting. That was in 2013, but little did I know that waiting for me in the Head Master’s Secretary’s Office would be a deep resource of institutional wisdom, unflustered organisation and total mastery of the art of the secretary. Thank goodness for Christina.
Christina Herbert had already been in post for seven years and knew the school inside out. She was an extraordinary figure of calm, as the busy world of the school and the demands of headship swirled around. I immediately came to rely upon her and found out that I was just one in a long line of others who did the same.
Christina joined Merchant Taylors’ School in September 2006. She had been appointed by my predecessor, Stephen Wright, and what an appointment! Christina served Merchant Taylors’ School as the Head Master’s Secretary for the next eleven years, retiring on 11th September 2017. She had over 30 years secretarial experience prior to joining MTS. This included employment at St George’s RC Primary School from December 1996 to September 2005 as PA to Headteacher and School Administrator and Uxbridge College from October 2005 to August 2006 as PA to the Principal.
Throughout her time, Christina went out of her way to support others and spot talent. She had a way of noticing when something was done well and then set about finding ways to help the person responsible onto the next stage of their career, or simply to do them a good turn. Christina was, like the character Dorothea in the novel Middlemarch, a source of ‘diffusive good.’ That is to say that her personal standards, high expectations and quiet goodness spread out around her, changing people and processes for the better.
I don’t think I ever saw Christina lose her cool, her poise or her composure. When there was a matter to be sorted out she would pause, raise her eyebrows, and serenely start putting things right. I do know that so many in the whole school community missed her very much when the time came for her to take a well-deserved retirement.
What a cruel blow that so soon into that period of rest, Christina found herself facing a long illness, one that has taken her well before her time. She leaves behind many in the school who will feel a real sense of loss and of shock. These feelings are real and must be acknowledged. But when they are mellowed by time, there will be something else. There will be sorrow, of course, but above all there will be gratitude. We are grateful to have known Christina: to have shared some of our lives and our careers and our time with her. We are the better for having known her, and that is a legacy in which Christina’s family can take pride.
Merchant Taylors’ School honours the memory of a loyal servant to the school, a wonderful colleague and a good friend.
Simon Everson
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