The Salopian no. 160 - Summer 2017

96
OLD SALOPIAN NEWS
Ingramites in David’s earlier years found him stricter than
their successors were to do, but there is no doubt that
David’s style was pastoral, in contrast to the more remote and
authoritarian stance of the earlier generation. David wanted
to know each member of the House as an individual and
to respond to his concerns. He regularly took a carload of
boys out to walk on the hills on Sunday afternoons; they
returned for tea in his dining room, making toast on long
forks in front of the fire. In the times before a House TV
was installed, he would invite the boys into the Private Side
to watch his own TV at weekends. He arranged for some
of the boys to go pigeon shooting with Peter Gladstone at
Hawarden, storing their guns securely for them. He allowed
a keen photographer to convert a redundant larder into a
photographic darkroom for the use of the House. David
often sang when he wandered round the House (a tactic
not uncommonly used by Housemasters and a very useful
one for minimising disciplinary confrontations). David’s dog,
‘Douggie’ was a prominent feature of the Ingram’s scene
and David’s pupils remember Douggie providing a domestic
element in the classroom, as he lay by the demonstration
desk, in front of the boys seated on the tiered benches.
‘Douggie’ and ‘Moses’ (Peter Gladstone’s dog) were the joint
doyens of the Salopian canine community.
In 1965 liberalism was in the air: it gained in force until
it became a veritable wind of change: indeed the pace of
these changes, over which Donald Wright presided with
such dynamism, was such that there never seemed to be
sufficient time for an ‘all-up’ in which to regain one’s breath.
Most members of the House which David had inherited had
experienced the pains of the douling system, but they were
to be denied its doubtful privileges. Dress regulations were
considerably relaxed; relaxation, indeed, was the order of
the day both in and out of the House. David remembered
that when he began Housemastering it was virtually an
offence to be seen with a girl in the town; by the time he
left it was almost an offence not to be seen with one! The
inauguration of Kingsland Hall occurred exactly half-way
through David’s time in Ingram’s. Before that David and his
Matron/Housekeeper were directly responsible for providing
all meals in the house. In one term when there was no
cook, David had to cook the breakfast himself once a week,
and he reported that he had learned how not to scramble
eggs for seventy! On the positive side, when Ingram’s boys
had joined members of Ridgemount to act as beaters for a
shoot on the Gladstone estate, David was able to provide
pheasant at Sunday lunch for the whole House! More
generally, matters became easier after 1969. Bed-sitters were
provided for the older boys and the structure of Ingram’s
was very substantially altered, both physically and socially.
David remarked that Ingramites were tough; tougher, he
thought, than their Housemaster: at least one of his charges
at the time concurred, “it was a House that was naturally
undemonstrative, uncooperative, bolshie even, and didn’t
really like joining in with what was expected by the rest of
the School”.
David succeeded Bertie Fowler as Officer Commanding the
CCF in 1960. This appointment allowed Brookie to make an
addition to his idiosyncratic collection of jokes. Question:
‘Who commands the Spanish Army?’: Answer: ‘The Spanish
Main’. David steered the CCF through a very difficult
period. He introduced a more interesting type of ‘Cert A’, an
innovation made possible because he got on so well with
senior regular officers of the Mid-West District, including the
General, Peter Gillett, who was very sympathetic towards
the CCF: but when Donald Wright became Headmaster,
it was already well known that he was very critical of the
organisation. At a crucial meeting Donald made it clear
that although he disapproved of boys being compelled to
carry weapons, he was prepared to tolerate the wearing of
uniforms. Supported by Arnold Ellis and Peter Hughes, David
negotiated and inaugurated a successful transition from a
compulsory CCF, first to Civil Defence, then to Basic Year and
still more recently to the Duke of Edinburgh Schemes and
other varieties of Adventure Training. David himself also gave
particular support to the shooting team.
David was a dedicated rowing coach. He had rowed in his
College crews at Oxford, and the cox of one of those crews,
Wally Marsh, later became one of David’s House Tutors in
Ingram’s. Rowing achievements by Ingramites gave David
the very greatest pleasure. One of their oarsmen in David’s
time records that ‘While I was at Shrewsbury we had the
winning boats in JCO and SCO and were Head of the River
in Bumpers… He (David) was particularly happy with our
1971 Bumpers result… Moser’s, (whom we bumped and
then held off for the remaining nights) had a full crew of 1st
Eightsmen, while our highest crew member was in the 2nd
VIII and the rest of us were mere amateurs! You can imagine
his delight at the underdog pulling off such an emphatic win.
There was an evening of great celebration in the old dining
hall in Ingram’s.” The last time the House had been Head of
the River had been in 1923!
David was a stalwart member of Concert Choir, and also a
member of the Pseuds’ Club, a body composed of masters
and boys who professed an aversion to being seen to be too
keen and who sported a black tie embroidered with a Beta
double minus. Much more significantly, David was a devoted
member of the Chapel Congregation; he was invariably
present at the 8.00 a.m. Sunday Communion as well as
the compulsory Chapel Services. This, together with the
pastoral style of his Housemastering, may well have led him
to contemplate a wider sphere for his ministry and to seek
ordination. Perhaps the example of Hugh Brooke helped to
confirm that intention. The phrase was widely current at the
time that David was ‘going to do a Brookie’!
Encouraged by the Bishop of Glasgow and Galloway, Rt
Revd Francis Moncreiff, himself an Old Salopian, David left
Shrewsbury in 1973 to study at St Deiniol’s Hawarden, before
being ordained in the Scottish Episcopal Church to serve
initially as a curate in the city of Glasgow itself. Subsequently
he became Rector of Challoch, an idyllic country parish, and
then moved to the important incumbency of Kilmarnock,
where his mother, who had acted as his gracious hostess
in Ingram’s, still survived, in her late nineties, to keep him
company. He was also installed as a Canon in the Cathedral
in Glasgow.
In retirement, David moved to Castle Douglas, where he
continued to assist the Rector. Obliged eventually to enter a
care home, David experienced a rapid decline in health in
the autumn of 2016 and died on 19th November, aged 88.
Four Bishops attended David’s Requiem Eucharist, which was
conducted before a congregation of over two hundred of his
parishioners, from Challoch, Kilmarnock and Castle Douglas,
an eloquent testimony to the high regard and affection
in which he was held. A small group also represented
Shrewsbury. The subsequent interment took place, at David’s
request, at Challoch, where he had spent the happiest days of
his ministry.
All historical periods exhibit an element of transition. In
David’s case transition was the predominant theme. His
years at Shrewsbury spanned the dramatic transition from
traditional to liberal public school; his years as a Housemaster
witnessed the transformation of boarding houses from