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DOWNING COLLEGE ASSOCIATIONin Prestatyn, North Wales, before joining the Divisional HQ Signals Unit of3rd (Guards) Division based around Bristol. He married Vera Alexander inSeptember 1940. In early 1943 he was posted to Nigeria, where a new formation,81st (West African) Division, was being raised from volunteers in the thencolonies of The Gambia, Sierra Leone, Gold Coast and Nigeria for service inthe Far East against the advancing Japanese. The Division spent two longperiods in the Kaladan Valley of Burma supplied purely by air drop, and as aCoding Officer for the Divisional HQ Signals, Ken was Mentioned inDespatches for devising an effective system for the ordering of standardisedpayloads containing the necessary supplies for the entire division. By the endof the conflict in August 1945 he was second in command of the DivisionalHQ Signals with the rank of Major. Like many Burma veterans, Ken did notspeak much of the privations and conditions under which they fought as partof the so-called ‘Forgotten Army’ until many years later, but it clearly left itsmark on all of them.Ken returned to Ilford and his previous job in early 1946, and played footballfor Thurrock Athletic and cricket for both Ilford and, occasionally, Essex 2ndXI. His only son, Geoffrey (Downing 1966–69) was born in 1947. In 1950 heapplied successfully to Woodbridge School to teach Chemistry as Head ofScience, a position he took up in January 1951. The following year he wasappointed as Second Master, as the Deputy Headmaster was then known, a rolehe held until his retirement in 1981.During that time he also served twice as Acting Headmaster for virtually theentire academic year (but without giving up his teaching commitments) duringthe illnesses of two Headmasters, was the Honorary Auditor for the ScoutTroop, President of the Scientific Society and of the Photographic Club, andwas responsible for the initial formation of the school golf team. His own golfwas of modest standard apart from putting, at which he excelled. An aboveaveragecricketer, a superb gully fielder and a reliable opening bat, he playedregularly for Campsea Ashe and for the Gentlemen of Suffolk, and for matcheson the School cricket pitch alone had a batting average of just under 50 over aperiod of some eleven years. This did not however prevent him fromaccompanying school teams for rugby, hockey and of course cricket to all partsof East Anglia or from imparting suitable pithy but constructive comments tohis team charges.Apart from teaching and sport, Ken and his late wife Vera were the longstandingmakeup artistes for a succession of school productions. Vera was alsoinvolved in the checking – by hand – of the teaching timetable for the entirenew school year drawn up and devised by Ken in a frantic two-week sessionimmediately following the end of each summer term. The use of computer61