The Common Room

* * * The Boat Club Dance was held on May 1 1th.

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Students from Doncaster College of Education visited the school on May 13th; and the same day there was an Area Meeting here of I.S.I.S.

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Comniander Holmes, R.N., Schools Liaison Officer for the Royal Navy visited on May 16th.

* * * The Scholarship examination was from 20th to 23rd May.

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Half-term was from 24th to 28th May, and there was a Party for Parents of Lower VIth on the 24th.

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The Annual Inspection of the CCF was on June 4th. The Inspecting Officer was Major General G. de E. Collin, M.C., General Officer Commanding North East District.

The Music Prize Competition was on June 5th.

* * * Common Entrance Examination was from June 10th to 12th.

* * * A play, 'The Unvanquished,' was staged by farm Ma on June 18th.

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The Sports Centre was opened on June 22nd by Councillor J. M. Wood.

* * * The Choir Supper followed Choral Evensong on July 5th.

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Commemoration week-end was from July 12th to 14th, and Term ended after the Service on the 14th.

Four masters left us in July: Mr. S. G. l'Atzson and Mr. A. J. Leng to take up other appointments; Mr. R. C. T. Hall to retire through illhealth after a valiant but losing battle to keep going, a battle in which he greatly appreciated the kindliness and helpfulness of all around him in the school; and Mr. R. F. Harding who retires after a remarkable career which brought him to St. Peter's in 1938. Such a career of course embodies a good deal of the recent history of the school, and Mr. Frank 3

Wiseman, formerly Senior Classics Master and the author of the latest history of St. Peter's, has written the article which follows.

Robert Harding joined the staff of St. Peter's in September 1938 after completing a year's specialist course in Physical Education at Carnegie College in Leeds. His qualifications as Games Master were very impressive: so impressive, in fact, that John Dronfield deserves considerable credit for persuading him to accept the appointment: for the fortunes of the school at the time were at a low ebb: but in so persuading him, he did by the stroke of a pen free himself for most of the next thirty years of any concern for the major sports activities of St. Peter's. Rugger and cricket were in very safe hands.

As a boy at Tonbridge, Robert (`Cone' to successive generations of Grovites) was more prominent at cricket than rugger. He had three years in the XI as a slow left arm bowler: it may be added with some certainty that he was a magnificent fielder and, from the majestic way in which in later life he dealt with a rising ball at the wicket, no mean batsman. In any event, he was good enough to be selected by the Royal Empire Society in his last year at school to join a party of schoolboys on a fourmonths tour of New Zealand which took him round the world.

One season as fly-half in the Tonbridge XV was little indication of the great things that lay ahead for him on the rugger fields of Oxford and elsewhere: but it was only at Oxford that he developed the now familiar broad shoulders and massive chest of the natural athlete. He captained the Brasenose XV in 1935-36 and in the same season was awarded a Rugger Blue in a side that included eight eventual international players, one of them being the famous Obolensky who played on the wing outside him for both college and university. The name of Robert Harding himself might very well have been ninth on the eventual international list. He played against the All Blacks twice—once for Oxford and once for London Counties—and in the final English Rugby trial of 1935. He was nominated as reserve for England v New Zealand and v Wales in 1936.

The calibre of his work at St. Peter's as Master-in-Charge of the XIs and XVs has throughout been of such high quality and is so well recognised by everyone who will read this, that little further analysis is called for. His teams did not always win, but, what is more important. they always played their games in the spirit in which they should be played. Highly successful seasons come most readily to mind: 1949 and 1950 for the 1st XV when only one school match was lost and 1950, 1951. 1957, 1958, 1959, and 1960 when the 1st XI maintained an unbeaten record against all school sides. But, particularly in rugger, there have been many years in which towards the end of the season, the team has risen in spirit above its normal capabilities and asserted itself over more fancied opponents. On one such occasion he attracted the attention of the national press by playing two full-backs to achieve his purpose. On the other hand, after a heavy defeat at Denstone in 1961, when to use his own words 'they ran round the outside of us again and again and again', his reaction was typical. He was prepared to move (heaven and?) earth to bring the 1st XV pitch up to regulation width, and finding the headmaster and governors sympathetic but reluctant to act immediately on the ground of cost, he took the initiative himself and personally enlisting the services of a generous O.P. contractor, he made the proposition a feasible one and it was promptly completed. 4

The Second World War had, of course, caused a hiatus in his services to the School; he was called up in September 1940 and for some months was trained in chemical warfare; he received a commission in the RA. and thereafter served as an anti-tank gunner in the 8th Army at Alamein and in the subsequent North Africa campaign; service in Syria and Italy followed; in the latter country he organised some regimental rugby as opportunity allowed. On one of his early leaves, he arrived back in York in time to help clear up debris from School House and fill up craters on the Squash Court field after the Baedeker raid on York.

He finally returned to St. Peter's in February 1946 with the rank of Captain and a newly-wed bride who was to prove an invaluable asset to him in the years ahead. Although now over 30 years old, he resumed his pre-war connection with Headingley R.U.F.C. and played many fine games for them in the Easter terms. Reference in The Daily Telegraph to his "long striding running, polished kicking and generally constructive moves" is typical of his press reports at this period. But active participation in the game came to an end in 1948 when he was appointed to the Housemastership of Grove, an old title that was being revived for a new boarding house. He had previously served as Assistant Housemaster in Temple before the war and in the Manor after it; but even without these trial runs, it would have been obvious that Robert and Molly Harding were a first-class partnership for the running'of a school boarding house; and so it proved to be. Robert started with the advantage which any schoolmaster has who is good at games, but in addition, his sense of humour, his equable temperament—who ever saw him depressed or in a flap?—his strong sense of fair play were in themselves assets that would have spelt success on their own. On Molly the success that she achieved made greater demands. In addition to the duties that fall to a housemaster's wife of supervising all the work of the domestic staff, she had to provide a home for her family in premises that were not isolated from the hustle and bustle of the boarding house. Obviously her experience of communal life in the course of her wartime duties stood her in good stead in this respect. Equally obvious, too, is the telling fact that their children Richard and Anita would be a credit to any parents, however favourable their domestic circumstances might be.

It so happened that their return to a private life coincided with the shifting, if not the easing of the work-load for Robert. He had been in charge of squash until 1960 and of swimming until 1965. Now at the beginning of the 1968 season he relinquished responsibility for the coaching of the senior XVs and handed over similar responsibility in respect of cricket in 1969. Since that time he has been responsible for the administrative side of school games; he has continued to organise athletics and the cross country races, at the same time carrying out his normal syllabus in the gymnasium and the classroom, and he acted virtually as official consultant in the design and construction of the new Sports Centre, which, not altogether inappropriately, the irreverent young are referring to as Cone's Colosseum.

He may rest assured that all that he has done—so much, so very well done over so many years—has been, and is, appreciated by boys and colleagues, past and present, parents and everyone else connected with the School and that the Hardings have their sincere wishes for a long, active and happy retirement. Although it is accepted that no man is indispensable, St. Peter's without Robert Harding will never be quite the same again. F.J.W. 5

(Photo: Yorkshire Evening Press) R. F. Harding, Esq., M.A.

R.F.H.

Robert Harding joined the staff of St. Peter's in 1938 and, war service apart, served continuously here till July 1974. Of Robert the Latin teacher and Robert the singer I have no direct experience (apart from once sitting beside him in Chapel when one of his favourite hymns came up). For 20 years he was Housemaster of the Grove, where he and Molly must have been the ideal team. How many Old Grovites mention to me how much they owe to the strenuous, no-nonsense, yet warmly humane regime of the Hardings! And then Robert taught Maths, as one could not but be aware if one chanced to walk down a school corridor during a period and heard the well-known voice, with the timbre and penetration of a fog-horn, in some coaxingly didactic explanation.

But it is of course as Director of PE, with a particular enthusiasm for rugby and cricket, that we think of him.

His energy is phenomenal. This last term, one often saw his left arm wheeling in the nets; till recently, he was representing the staff in the annual squash match against the boys—that pleasant encounter in which physical fitness and low cunning are nicely balanced. His enthusiasm is boundless, for instance in the demoniac excitement of that game (his own invention?) in which about 25 boys seem to start by playing rounders, then pelt an apparently innocent player with a tennis-ball and then begin scampering to and fro in one frantic sauve-qui-peut after another; in his windmill gestures at the end of the mile as a labouring runner who had tried hard was, with an extra volt or two, likely to make a "mid" by half a second; above all in the games of rugby that he took, his voice encouraging and reproving, in an exhortatory running commentary; in the infectious grin with which he described his Colts cricket team of this year, who did nothing if not "go for their strokes."

If his voice spread into most corners of the School, so did that familiar handwriting—for which so many Peterites waited daily at lunch-time to discover their afternoon fate. His notices were a highly characteristic extension of his personality—larger than life, imperious, exclamatory, goading. All of us got sucked into the maelstrom of his athletic, crosscountry or swimming organisation—and there were mill-boards, lists and biros for us all. He was at best organising a massive Sports Day which involved the whole community; in my experience, it was always a model of crisp, personally-conducted organisation—the timing right, the weather fine, the starters and stewards miraculously there (and most of the. competitors), the continuity smooth and unfussy. And in the planning of the Sports Centre, which in some ways is a sort of Harding legacy, his comprehensive grasp of detail was a very impressive feature of the site meetings.

Robert is a man of strong convictions. His belief in the primacy of rugby as a physical and moral discipline may not be universally accepted these days—but he has held to it and fought the battle sincerely and unremittingly, truly believing that rugby calls for the utmost powers of fitness, courage and teamwork. And if we all were to disintegrate into our individual athletic fancies and go off and do nothing but our own thing, we should have lost something hard to replace. This belief may have made h:m seem intolerant at times but, with perspective, we can 7

R. C. T. Hall, Esq., M.A. (Photo: K. Pettinger)

all see the loyalty to St. Peter's and his whole-hearted service to the School that went with it. However cross he was with us or we were with him, his basic humility and his infectious sense of humour, signalled by that schoolboy grin, always reasserted themselves.

He leaves us, with powers seemingly undiminished, a superb and indefatigable schoolmaster. It will be long before his echoes fade from the campus. We wish him and Molly a very happy retirement.

R.C.T.H.

Dick Hall retires, as a result of ill-health, after 19 years at St. Peter's. This bare statement is specially poignant for anyone who knew Dick before his succession of physical afflictions—he was, from boyhood, a superb athlete, a gymnast, a parachutist. In his earlier years at St. Peter's he was indefatigable in the CCF, where his energy allowed no one to give up until a job was finished, come wind come weather; and he was equally forceful in extracting real effort from sometimes reluctant rugger players, and in imparting those talents which live on in the springy vigour which his two children have so obviously inherited. Then he had to come to terms with his physical misfortunes, to change from a Physics teacher to a Maths teacher, from a participant to a spectator, or an umpire. His success in this muted version of his potential is due both to his own exceptional determination and to the wonderful support of his wife, Anne, and his family.

As a Maths teacher, he demanded a high standard of response from the boys—and woe betide any boy who withheld that response! But once the boy tried his best, Dick was indefatigable in helping, very often out of hours. It was this serious concern for the individual that seemed the power centre of his teaching. Though this concern operated in the sphere of mathematics, it radiated outwards so that he longed to help a pupil when he was in some social or moral difficulty. Dick's championing of the boy in trouble has so often been a salutary counterpoise to our superficial disciplinary responses.

One cannot be long talking to Dick without being aware of a mind bristling with perception. His interests—modern music, sport, a wide range of reading—were pursued almost fiercely. Many a staff lunch or tea suddenly became electric from his shrewd comment on a book or a topic of current affairs, as his mind pounced and suddenly revealed a new facet of the topic.

Dick makes clear to me the twin poles of pedagogy. He has a sharp professional attitude towards the teaching of maths—it is his skill, and he does it thoroughly; but he also knows that education concerns the whole personality, that the test of a good schooling is not merely the academic skill of the individual but the depth and breadth of his mind.

Fortunately Dick and Anne will be close to the School and those qualities will still be seen by individuals in the School. (Anne's phenomenal work as make-up expert for all School productions, dispensed with such relaxed charm, really deserves a separate appreciation to itself.) How many Peterites remember with gratitude and admiration and affection Dick's bracing and humane teaching! P.D.R.G.