Univ Record 2018

Throughout all these changes he clung resolutely
to the values of politeness, good manners and courtesy
instilled in him by his devout Christian mother and his
personable father. He always wore a tie, often a Univ
tie.
At the age of 13 or 14 he was familiar with the
sight of German fighter and bomber aircraft overhead,
and with the sound of anti-aircraft guns. He was
sometimes forced to take shelter from both.
All of this would shape, and form, any young man’s
character. Perhaps because his home and his immediate
family were not hit, my father always considered
himself – and the Wright family – to be lucky. He had
a positive outlook, a cheerful approach to life, and –
perhaps because of the privations of the war years – a
great appreciation of whatever life gave him. He counted his blessings.
At 13 he was sent away to board, at Ellesmere College, in Shropshire, where he
formed a life-long love of rugby – or “rugger” – as he always called it, and cricket.
In 1944, with World War II still in full cry, he went from Ellesmere to Oxford to
study for naval officer training at University College, and then onto HMS Dauntless.
When the war ended in 1945, he was offered a place at Univ to study history. But, in a
pivotal decision, he accepted his father’s wishes, and reluctantly joined the family bakery
business on the Wirral. He forever regretted missing out on all that university would
have offered.
He is survived by Penelope, his wife of 64 years, his three sons, his eight grandchildren
and one great grandson.
1947
PHILIP WILFRED BROKE DENNY (Dover College) died on 27 February 2018 aged
93. He read Modern Languages at Univ, and then stayed on to read for a Diploma of
Education. His grandfather, George Broke, had come up to Univ in 1880. We are very
grateful to Edward Enfield (1948) for writing the following tribute:
Philip Denny (known as Pip at Univ, as in Great Expectations), was one of the last
to come up having seen active service in the war. He had crossed France in the latter
part of the Normandy campaign and retained a vivid memory of V.E. Day, when he was
standing in a field in Germany with a brother officer, saying “We have got through the
war alive and now everything is going to get better”.
At Univ he was a prime example of a good college man – keen on all that was going
on, a lively member of the Shaker, starting on rugger and switching to rowing. Though
he never got beyond the second eight, he acquired an expertise which enabled him to
coach a first-rate eight at Monkton Combe, where he later became a master. In Oxford
vacations and thereafter his great pastime was sailing, and for many years he was a
familiar figure at the Lympstone Sailing Club in Devon.
As a teacher and housemaster at Monkton Combe he was very highly regarded. He
had the reputation, perhaps, of being a trifle old-fashioned, but this just reflected his
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