Tag Archives: Mr Hardwick

by jfwknifton | October 17, 2022 · 6:16 am

Keith Doncaster’s Poem

This is Mr Hardwick, who spent a large part of his time at the High School as the form master of 2A. In this photograph he is some twenty years older than when he plays a small part in this particular story:

In 1936, Keith Doncaster was with Mr Hardwick in Second Form A. Aged only twelve, he was honoured by having a short poem featured in the School Magazine, the Nottinghamian. It was entitled “Poetry” and this is how it went:

Poetry

“I’m not a Poet

And I know it.

The next line will take some time.

Now I’ve started,

All thoughts have parted

From my head,

So now I think I’ll go to bed.”

Still a young boy and now thirteen years old, Keith had a second poem which was featured in the Nottinghamian. It was called “Gathering Shells” and he wrote it when he was in Third Form A with Mr Beeby in 1937. Here’s Mr Beeby, in the middle of the group:

This is, in actual fact, an enlargement of a staff photograph taken in 1946, just twelve months after the end of the war. Mr Beeby, late Scholar of Jesus College, Cambridge, was one of a small group of High School teachers who joined up to fight for his country. Like Keith Doncaster, he joined the RAF where he became a War Substantive Flying Officer, which meant that as long as the conflict lasted he held that rank. In the RAF he served in the Signals Unit of the Technical Branch This may possibly have been Radio Countermeasures and Jamming as well as Direction Finding. Flying Officer Beeby may even have been working in Electronic Warfare but he would have been instructed never to say a word about any of this top secret stuff to anybody. And he would have kept that faith for the rest of his life.

As soon as I read Keith’s second poem, I realised what poetry he might have written had he lived, and that, even if he did not realise it himself, he had inadvertently foretold his own premature death:

Gathering Shells

Along the silvery beach we run,

Gathering coloured shells.

We think that gathering shells is fun.

Along the silvery beach we run.

And as we go beneath the sun,

We hear the distant bells.

Along the silvery beach we run,

Gathering coloured shells.

The poem summarises, in nine lines, the lives all humans lead. We pursue happiness, we like our pleasures, each one of us, we run along our own silvery beach, gathering coloured shells, objects which are attractive and pretty but ultimately of little or no value on the cosmic scale. We are just the same now, eighty years later. Short lived creatures who enjoy the sand and the sun and the shells, which we consider to be highly important and worthy of our attention. But ultimately, they are of little or no value whatsoever. The only things which are important are the distant bells, because they call us, one day, to our doom. But we choose to ignore them, and just to run along the silvery beach for a little while longer.

Along the silvery beach we run,

Gathering coloured shells.

We think that gathering shells is fun.

Along the silvery beach we run.

And as we go beneath the sun,

We hear the distant bells.

Along the silvery beach we run,

Gathering coloured shells.

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Filed under Bomber Command, History, military, Nottingham, Personal, Writing

Tagged as gathering shells, Keith Doncaster, Mr Hardwick, the distant bells, The Nottinghamian, the silvery beach

by jfwknifton | April 17, 2022 · 6:17 am

The Carvings in the Tower (8)

John Michael Taverner Saunders was born on March 14th 1922. His father, Mr W Saunders was a commercial traveller, and the family lived at Park View in Redhill, a suburb of Arnold to the east of the Mansfield Road:

John was one of the young men who carved their name and message on the window sill in the High School’s Tower:

John entered the High School on September 18th 1930 as Boy No 5459.

He was only eight years of age.

He passed through a succession of teachers and forms. First Form D with Miss Webb. Here is the best photograph of her I could find:

Then it was First Form B with Miss Baker. And First Form A with Mr Day and the School Nature Study Prize. Then the Second Form A with Mr “Tubby” Hardwick, badly gassed in WW1. Third Form A with Mr Gregg and Upper Fourth Form A with Mr “Beaky” Bridge, a very strange man. Here he is on the left:

Then came the Lower Fifth Form A with Mr “Fishy” Roche and then the Upper Fifth Form Classical with Mr “Uncle Albert” Duddell. Here he is:

Teachers and forms pass by with the years. Firstly the History Sixth Form with Mr Gregg, and then, in his second year, Mr Beeby. And very soon, May 20th-21st 1940, John was looking for German parachutists and carving his name.

John received four different scholarships because his parents sometimes struggled with the fees. He was a Dr.Gow Memorial (Special) Exhibitioner and an Agnes Mellers Scholar and a Foundation Scholar and the taxpayer also awarded him a Nottinghamshire Senior Scholarship.

His prize record included the SE Cairns Memorial Prize, Mr Durose’s Prize for History, the Cusin’s Memorial Prize for History, the Bowman-Hart Prize for Music and a Bronze Medal for Reading. He was a Prefect and in the Junior Training Corps he became the Company Quarter-Master Sergeant and then Company Sergeant Major. In sport, he won his First XV Colours at rugby as:

“an improved player and solid scrimmager. A front row forward who gets through a great deal of hard and useful work in the course of a game.”

Here’s his final record from the School List:

John left the High School in July 1941 and eventually finished up with the Royal Artillery. They, of course, had a very large selection of guns, including these giants, designed to bombard the enemy from long range :

This smaller weapon is an anti-tank gun:

And this is an anti-aircraft gun :

John was involved in fighting through the Netherlands, as the British Army tried to rescue the paratroops who had captured the Arnhem bridge but were now surrounded and cut off . Did he realise that fellow Old Nottinghamian, Tony Lloyd, lay in Kate ter Horst’s house in the town, one of 57 paratroopers given a temporary burial in a mass grave in the house’s garden?

And then John played his part in Operation Plunder, the crossing of the River Rhine at a small town called Wesel, all of it organised behind an impenetrable week long smoke screen. Did John Saunders ever realise that two of his schoolmates would die within just a few miles from him? Arthur Mellows (1931-35) and John Hickman (1934-37)? Here’s what was left of Wesel at the end of World War Two:

John survived the war, but despite my best efforts, I could find no more mention of him until February 12th 2013 when he passed away peacefully in his sleep. On March 1st 2013, he was cremated at Macclesfield Crematorium with all donations in lieu of flowers to be made to SPANA (the Society for the Protection of Animals Abroad). He left behind him three daughters, six grandchildren and one great granddaughter.

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Filed under History, military, Nottingham, The High School

Tagged as Arnhem, Arnold, Arthur Mellows, John Hickman, Miss Baker, Miss Webb, Mr Beeby, Mr Bridge, Mr Day, Mr Duddell, Mr Gregg River Rhine, Mr Hardwick, Mr Roche, Operation Plunder, Redhill, Royal Artillery, Society for the Protection of Animals Abroad, SPANA, Wesel

by jfwknifton | March 7, 2022 · 6:17 am

The Sandiacre Screw Company (2)

Ivan Keith Doncaster, usually known as Keith, began his education at Wellington Street Infants’ School in Long Eaton, built as recently as 1911 for 320 girls and 320 infants.

Keith left his local school and moved to the High School on May 2nd 1933. Just nine years of age, he was Boy No 5701 and he went straight into Hardy’s House and First Form C with Miss Richmond. There were 28 boys in the Form and Keith, very much a latecomer to the school year, finished an extremely creditable tenth. Here is a fairly poor picture of Miss Richmond:

The following year it was First Form B with Miss Baker. Of the 21 boys, Keith came 11th. Here is Miss Baker, in between Mr Kennard and Mr Bridge, a pedagogical rock and a hard place.

Here’s a picture of Miss Baker a few years later:

The next year Keith was in First Form A with Mr Day, who, tragically, was to die of pneumonia on March 25th 1935, just before the end of the Easter Term. Mr Page took over his form. During that same year of 1934-1935, Miss Richmond had already passed away from pneumonia on January 7th. Keith finished fifth of the sixteen in the Form and also won the Preparatory School Drawing Prize.

Outside the classroom, Keith was in the Preparatory XI team for the “Preparatory Schools Spelling League Competition No 23”, although I couldn’t find out how he fared.

In 1935-1936, Keith was with Mr Hardwick in Second Form A. Here is Mr Hardwick in 1959, a picture taken by the Reverend Stephens:

Keith was now in a Main School house, Maples’, rather than Hardy’s House. There were 28 in the Form and Keith came 21st, not a disastrous result in a form which contained seven Entrance Scholars and Foundation Scholars and the winner of the Second Forms French Prize, Peter Robert Scott. This year, Keith found true fame by having a short poem featured in the School Magazine. It was entitled “Poetry” and this is how it went:

Poetry

“I’m not a Poet

And I know it.

The next line will take some time.

Now I’ve started,

All thoughts have parted

From my head,

So now I think I’ll go to bed.”

Next time, another poem published in the Nottinghamian. You will not be able to read it without putting on your salty sea dog accent. Or even, perhaps, pirate.