John Anthony Davison

John Anthony Davison (JAD)

20th August 1937 – 21st September 2019

The 2020 Old Berkhamstedian contained an excellent tribute to JAD by ‘Jonty’ Driver, Headmaster 1983-1989. Although JAD died on 21st September 2019, Covid restrictions prevented the School from holding his Memorial Service until 2nd April 2022.

On that day, nearly 200 people filed into the chapel, the congregation made up of former pupils, former and current colleagues from the School, family and friends, and a 20-strong choir made up of former pupils and staff, all there to honour JAD, who taught at the School between 1960-1997. There is a list of those who attended at the end of this section.

The service was beautifully led by Rev Jane Markby with moving reminiscences, reproduced below, from ‘Jonty’ Driver, staff colleague Chris Hayward (Hon) and Robert Courts (Fr ’97), capturing the true spirit and essence of JAD. Readings were delivered by Peter Williamson (Be ’66), Larry Eaton (Ch ’09) and the Principal, Richard Backhouse.

Full details of the reminiscences, together with the order of service, can also be viewed in Berkhamsted Connections – alternatively, please contact The Old Berkhamstedians’ office.

Mike Horton (Sw '64)

Twenty-eight years ago, in the early summer of 1994, Form 4A was preoccupied. Nirvana’s frontman, Kurt Cobain, had just died, Four Weddings & A Funeral had just been released, a fresh-faced innocent called Tony Blair was about to become leader of the – Labour Party…

Oasis released their first album, whilst Aerosmith were the first band to release a single on something called the World Wide Web.

Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin signed the Kremlin accords, providing for the dismantling of the Soviet Union’s nuclear arsenal based in Ukraine, whilst Nelson Mandela became President of South Africa after the country’s first multi-racial elections.

It was one of those hot days in which the dark blue Berkhamsted blazers were discarded in piles on the floor, the shirt sleeves were rolled up, while the heat haze outside the single-glazed white iron-frame of the form room surely called for an afternoon of cricket. But what preoccupied Form 4A was not the simmering news or the shimmering heat, but their brand-new hardback copies of RC Sherriff’s Journey’s End.

4A’s extraordinarily tall, thin, quietly spoken form-master was playing the part of Osborne, the schoolteacher turned soldier who, despite probably being in only his late twenties, was known as “uncle” by the officers with whom he shared a dugout in the last week before the last, great, doomed German offensive of World War One.

The commanding officer, Stanhope, was played by a Berkhamsted boy only a few years younger than the real Stanhope would have been. They are discussing the nature of schooldays hero-worship:

– OSBORNE: Small boys at school generally have their heroes.

– STANHOPE: Yes. Small boys at school do.

OSBORNE: Often it goes on as long as –

– STANHOPE: – as long as the hero’s a hero.

– OSBORNE: It often goes on all through life.

The boys of Form 4A recognised the character of Osborne. Kind, decent, honourable, knowledgeable, quietly reassuring, his character could have been based on that of John Davison. But little did they realise that those famous words described the feeling of hero-worship that so many of the boys present in that room felt for their teacher – as indeed, judged by the number of people here today – had so many boys felt for so many years.

JAD had probably planned that lesson to start as all others had – with a quick-fire pop quiz, usually on the meaning of certain words – “empheral,

transitory, transient – “what do they mean?!” / “Tell me about Alfredes ship, and the proper use of the apostrophe!”

But on this day, Form 4A were all busy chatting nosily away, ignorant of JAD’s entrance, or at least more interested in our own childish concerns. JAD waited, silent, unspoken, a sad look on his face, for his class to quieten down and pay attention.

We were not silent, so he walked out of the room without saying a word…

We immediately turned on one another, blaming each other as to whose fault it was that he had left, and who was responsible for making him upset. The room quickly went silent and he returned, and he said nothing about it but got on with the lesson.

Now there’s something of classic reverse psychology in there: He hadn’t become angry –we wouldn’t have minded that – we were, after all, teenage boys – and we were used to that from other teachers; But he – somehow – silently expressed the view not that our behaviour had failed him – which it clearly had – but that he, as a teacher, had failed us; Now this, to his English form, was unacceptable! And quiet as mice, we picked up our copies of Journey’s End. But there was more to it than teaching tactics, clever though they were…

The evidence of disappointment and hurt that he displayed was much more powerful because of the respect we all held for him. We recognised his gentle and kind nature – and we all – to a boy –felt guilty for our conduct (and quick to blame one another). But, more than that, we recognised his worth, his dedication to us and our improvement.

And that dedication to us was truly inspiring, and provoked hero-worship in response.

What teenage boys, after all, would break off torturing their parents by playing the guitar really loudly, and really badly, to ring each other up on the only phone in the house and discuss JAD’s reading of Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part 1, that day? What teenage boys, after all, would break off figuring out how to talk to the puzzling but wonderful creatures that lived up the road at the Girl’s School to tell each other about the Tennyson poem that wasn’t even on the syllabus, simply because it was in a book that JAD liked?

The answer, of course, is teenage boys taught by JAD. And what teacher, when asked by friends of those boys to teach them Tennyson in lunch break – when Tennyson wasn’t in the exam – simply because his teaching could not be missed, would agree?

The answer, of course, is a teacher known as JAD. And it was in that room – that hot, white classroom – that JAD set the current of lives. Lives that loved literature. Lives that laughed with Falstaff and cried with Stanhope, that cheered with Harry Hotspur and Hal. It was in that classroom that JAD suggested that Phil Rule and I might like to be called to the Bar – which we were – and it was in that room that he suggested that we write an essay about the time in history in which we would most like to have lived. I chose 1940. Another long, hot summer, but one in which the Royal Air Force and Winston Churchill stood together to battle rampant evil.

JAD’s response to my essay was classic JAD:

“Robert, it’s a little unusual to wish yourself into a time of national crisis, but if you do feel that way, I have a suggestion for something you might like to read…” Followed by enigmatic silence. The following day, JAD burst into the room, scattering yellow paperbacks. Left, right, and centre, boys ducking for cover from these autobiographical missiles! Slowly we emerged from under the desks, to find we had been given “My Early Life” by Winston S Churchill. It contains Churchill’s tribute to Robert Somerville, the English teacher who he credited with teaching him to love English. Churchill recalls “this most delightful man, to whom my debt is great … charged with the duty of teaching the stupidest boys the most disregarded thing, namely to write mere English. He knew how to do it. He taught it as no-one else has ever taught it.”

It should be JAD’s epitaph:

– A most delightful man

– A man who taught English as no-one else has ever taught it

A man to whom my debt – all our debts – is great.

Robert Courts (Fr ’97)

Vale Outside the Gate: Epilogue for Young Berkhamstedians

Stiffly he rose, and as he turned to leave, Touching her fingers on the old man’s sleeve And smiling slightly at the book she’d read, ‘You seem to care about this place,’ she said, “This house not made with hands”, sweet Berkhamsted.’

‘Smart misquotation lets you laugh at me; How irritating clever girls can be. Your education will have framed your mind To judge with fairness what you leave behind: No mean school, yet no fabled paradiseYou’re not Miranda nor I Prospero –I marked what happened, and let that suffice, It’s just the story of a place I know; I thought I’d pass it on before I go’.

JAD

Read by Larry Eaton (Ch ’09)

John retired from teaching at Berkhamsted in 1997, with his 60th birthday coming up that August. I had put my name down for a classic car tour of France that summer, and I invited John to join me as co-driver in my 1965 Sunbeam Rapier, knowing that he had owned a similar car early on in his motoring career.

Although by 1997 I had been a colleague of his for well over twenty years, the experience of going on holiday with him brought some unexpected discoveries. In order to save money on this trip, we shared a room in each of the hotels, and that went pretty well on the whole. Having crossed by ferry from Portsmouth to Cherbourg, we then followed the route down central western France, with overnight stays in Fougères, Saintes and Périgueux among other places. John’s regular practice before bed was to wash out his underclothes in the basin and hang them up overnight, then put them on again nice and dry in the morning. This routine worked well until we got further south and reached Montauban, near Toulouse. Usual procedure that night, but next morning his smalls were cold, wet and clammy – how had this disaster come about? Well, the Montauban hotel was the first on the tour to have air conditioning, which scuppered the drying stage. Fortunately, he had some reserves.

Out on the French roads, John had a habit of exaggerating minor difficulties and downplaying serious ones. For example, his grasp of the mechanical side of motoring sometimes seemed a bit tenuous. Before this trip, my Sunbeam’s cooling system had been very predictable: once the engine had warmed up, the temperature gauge seldom shifted from normal. So when, on the third day of the tour, near Poitiers, the needle suddenly swung to the top of the scale, I was naturally concerned and realised it was potentially serious. John would have none of it, however. ‘Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that,’ he said, ‘it’ll soon go down.’ Nevertheless, I pulled off the road, and another tour member helped me to remove the radiator thermostat, which had jammed shut.

On the other hand, when consulting the map for the route ahead and seeing we were approaching a village with perhaps a left turn and a roundabout and then a level crossing, he would exclaim in apparent horror, ‘Lordy, we’ll never get out of here alive!’

Another thing that made this holiday memorable was John’s appearance. Despite the fine hot weather, he always wore shirt, tie and trousers with an elderly jacket, which had no doubt been fashionable in 1958 but now looked rather out of place in holiday France. I was brought up believing that it’s rude to stare, but the French have no such inhibitions, and when they caught sight of the very tall Englishman in this get-up, topped by a straw hat which the mice had clearly enjoyed nibbling, we found ourselves the object of amused scrutiny. I suppose I should have been grateful that he wasn’t wearing the long khaki shorts he used at Berkhamsted for cross-country. Even when we reached the Mediterranean near Montpellier, his uniform didn’t change.

I fondly recall one particular incident near the picturesque old cathedral of Maguelone beside the sea; once we had walked along the sand a good distance from the car park, we found we had reached an area of the beach being enjoyed by nudists. When John realised the full horror of the situation, he diverted his gaze out to sea at a boat which somehow monopolised his attention till it was safe to look inland again. When eventually we reached the old church and headed back to the car, like the wise men in the Bible, we returned by another way.

It was a wonderful fortnight of classic motoring in France, but John’s company made it extra special.

Chris Hayward Staff (1974-2005)

John Anthony Davison, JAD, was a first-class example of the all-round schoolmaster. His father had taught for many years at Brighton College (where John himself was at school), ending his days there as Second Master, and in a sense JAD was born a schoolmaster. He didn’t think the extras were extra; they were part of the vocation. He was for years Master-in-Charge of Athletics and Cross Country (proximity to Ashridge Common was a great advantage for those who loved long-distance running). He coached rugby. He produced plays. He set up, supervised, and encouraged various societies. He was first Housemaster of the day-house, Greene’s, and then for fifteen years Housemaster of School House. John knew the boys in his house from the inside out; he knew their strengths and he knew their weaknesses. His end-of-term reports on them were kind, clever and funny, and his UCCA (later UCAS) references were insightful and truthful. In their turn, the boys in his House knew where they stood with him: he was strict, but he was straight – he always did what he said he was going to do. It’s small wonder so many boys became immensely fond of him, and regularly came back to see him; the turnout of ex-pupils at JAD’s funeral was evidence.

He was also a very good teacher; early on in his career he taught Latin occasionally, but his main subject was English, and for John that meant English Literature. He had been well-taught himself at school and at Oxford; he was properly proud of having been at Wadham. He loved reading and had a good memory, and he could communicate his enthusiasms: Shakespeare, the “metaphysical” poets like Donne and especially George Herbert, Milton, Wordsworth, Tennyson, Hardy, Kipling, and the great English novelists, Jane Austen, George Eliot, Dickens, and the moderns too. Some teachers of Literature stop reading when they begin teaching; John never did.

JAD was one of those fortunate souls whose discipline seems somehow innate. It derives in part from self-discipline, but there is also an assumption that pupils will do as you tell them to do: “or else…” and you don’t really have to spell out what “or else” is. It may seem obvious, but a teacher who cannot get his class to sit down and shut up is unlikely to get much work out of them.

JAD had an especial dislike of those electronic watches which make a “beep beep” sound. “Here, take it off,” he would say. “Give it to me”, and out of the window of his classroom it would fly, usually to land safely on the lawn below; so boys soon learned to switch their noisy watches off, unless of course they wanted to be reminded that JAD had a considerable temper – which he did. He was very good with the less clever of his pupils, but he didn’t tolerate fools.

After retiring, John returned to live permanently in Sussex; he was very much a Sussex man, having been born at Fragbarrow, Ditchling Common, in 1937, within sight of the South Downs. He bought a cottage in Rackham, within sight and walking distance of those same downs, and he lived there until his death. However, really he didn’t retire from teaching, nor indeed from looking after other people. For years he worked tirelessly for the CAB (Citizens Advice Bureau), though latterly political correctness got in the way of his commitment. He was a volunteer for the Samaritans, though I never found out much about this side of his life, as it was something he couldn’t discuss with outsiders. He ran a Literature class for the WEA (Workers’ Educational Association) until the local overlords of that worthy organisation decided literature wasn’t part of its true purposes; so John’s class asked if he would please go on teaching them Shakespeare even though it wasn’t official; and of course he did. He was for years one of the office-holders of the Society of Schoolmasters, looking after members of the profession who had fallen on hard times. He was a regular speaker at the Winchelsea Literary Society, talking about Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Walter Scott, Byron, Tennyson et al, so popular there that every time he spoke on any writer he would immediately be asked if he would take on another subject the next year.

John was a good writer too. One piece of evidence is the poem, “Hope”, included in the order of service; it could have been written only by someone who had absorbed the poems of George Herbert into his deepest imagination. There is also the evidence of John’s great endeavour of his retirement years: a brilliant history of Berkhamsted School, written with the help of Peter Williamson, sometime Chairman of Governors.

John was profoundly a Christian, not in any doctrinaire sense, but because it was part of his nature, part of his upbringing and his culture. The Book of Common Prayer, the English Hymnal, and the version of the bible inspired by King James were ingrained in his imagination. At school he was a stalwart of Chapel, singing in the choir, reading the lessons, turning up for services. After his retirement, he became churchwarden of the little church in the grounds of the local “great house”. Even promisingly pleasurable invitations which interfered with his duties as a churchwarden were courteously but firmly turned down. Although he never married (he told me once, only half-joking, that he was “terrified of women”) he was close friends with a number of women and was as devoted to his extended family of aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews and cousins, as they were to him. The big festivals were always spent en famille

In what has turned out to be quite a long life, I have come across a good many schoolmasters, schoolmistresses and teachers. John Anthony Davison was one of the greatest schoolmasters and finest teachers I was ever lucky enough to know. I was his boss for six years, but we became friends and allies then, and thereafter Ann & I went on being friends with him for thirty years. We count ourselves exceptionally fortunate to have known him.

C.J. (“Jonty”) Driver Headmaster, Berkhamsted School (1983-89)