What do I remember?
Mostly that my father was always willing to lend a hand, he was always helping someone. If there were any functions to be organised he was there to help. He used to teach the boys to swim he trained them in the cricket team and trained the ball boys also going with them to Wimbledon. He worked on the school Pantomimes, helping with the production and painting all the backdrops and making props. (He worked for a time shortly after the war for a Theatre Co. and learnt to paint backdrops). He ran evening classes for boys and staff, who wanted to learn more about painting or pottery. When there were trips, like for instance to London to the circus at Christmas he would go too. He attended nearly all the dances with my mother. He often played cricket and was always at the matches when the boys played.
Most of these things were done in his free time but he never thought twice about it he just did it. It was probably as he himself had been a Golding’s boy and wanted that the boys had a good time while they were there. He wanted that everyone could have things that he didn’t have as a boy, the same applied to us children he tried to always give us a good holiday and provide the things we needed. I think as well though he just really enjoyed doing those things.
One thing he had learned in the war was to play the trumpet. He had played in a jazz band for the BBC in Malta where he was stationed during part of the war. I remember one year he and several other staff members formed a jazz band I think one Christmas and played at the school one evening entertaining the boys. He drove us all mad practicing the trumpet at home. His two passions though were art and classical music. He had a room in our house that he used as a studio. He spent hours painting and listening to music. I would often sit and listen to the music and watch fascinated as a pictured slowly began to take shape. Sometimes he didn’t seem to be aware of his surroundings my mother would come and take the brush out of his hand and make him come and eat, he hadn’t heard her calling so engrossed was he in his painting. We all found it funny at the time.
One thing I remember well, which in later life helped me a lot in school was that he would sit in the evening at teatime and tell us stories, in fact kind of histories about famous artists or musicians. He would show us pictures they had painted and would later play us the music. I always found it very interesting and would ask for more. When I went to grammar school later in Devon my teacher was astounded that I knew all the artists and their works.
I never remember him being bad tempered or losing his temper he was a very mild mannered man he loved a good joke and was always laughing. At home he always gave the impression of having no cares or worries. I know there were times when things got him down. Around the end of his time in Goldings as headmaster he found it hard going sometimes but he seldom showed it, at least not to us. I think there were many boys who owed a lot to his teaching and it’s nice to think that many perhaps are living happier lives partly because of him.
Steve Sheppard
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