Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

I note the death, reported today, of the highly acclaimed stage director Howard Davies (MaA 1956-63), known at CH as 'Barrel' (for some reason not immediately apparent) whose theatrical career began, I think, as one of the rude mechanics in David Jesson-Dibley's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, the school play in 1962, which also went on tour to Holland.

michael scuffil wrote:I note the death, reported today, of the highly acclaimed stage director Howard Davies (MaA 1956-63), known at CH as 'Barrel' (for some reason not immediately apparent) whose theatrical career began, I think, as one of the rude mechanics in David Jesson-Dibley's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, the school play in 1962, which also went on tour to Holland.

Sad news. I don't recall him personally, but he was of my era, leaving the same year as me.

Telegraph has an obituary: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2 ... -obituary/

Guardian had an obit too, suggesting that he thought public schools encouraged snobbery.

rockfreak wrote:Guardian had an obit too, suggesting that he thought public schools encouraged snobbery.

I would tend to agree when looking at the likes of Eton.

Not entirely John. The Grauniad obit said that his father was a miner turned glass blower who instilled in him a deep love of learning. "The teachers at Christ's Hospital were bright enough to give a natural rebel a measure of authority which he immediately used to abolish fagging. The experience of being forced through the class and educational system bred in him a peppery radicalism which was evident both at Durham University and in Bristol, where he first worked at the Old Vic in the 1970s while living in a commune."

On a different but not entirely unrelated tack: What is the attitude at CH these days to people who find that the manual school has provided them with a talent they hardly suspected? My own father was a miner for a while but he moved south and was a working class Conservative for much of his life (although eventually becoming disenchanted with Mrs Thatcher). Although not distinguishing myself academically at CH I took home a few items of woodwork, ironwork and metalwork which my parents treasured. But if I'd said to them on leaving that I wanted to work with my hands they'd have been aghast and protested that I didn't go to a school like that to become an artisan - although they wouldn't have used that term. Does the school encourage this these days? There was precious little careers advice back then for non-uni leavers as I remember.

CH certainly encouraged intellectual snobbery. Howard Davies 'only' went to Durham University, and was never a button grecian. If you were of a vaguely academic bent (as he was) and most of your friends were going to Oxbridge (as they were), this doubtless hurt.

(I recall a cartoon I saw about that time -- in Private Eye? The caption read: 'It doesn't matter which university you go to, my boy. They're both very old.')

....... and now of course, many former colleges are called Univerisities.

After a few years away … I too was sorry to learn of Howard's death, to which I was only alerted by my brother who was at Durham with him. I kind of think that very few English Grecians of that era were awarded their Buttons. Though my Lamb A contemporary Ian Christie, also without Buttons, read English at Magdalen, along with Julian Barnes. The newspaper obituaries are full of praise for Howard's work in the theatre. Sadly I haven't see any of his work since a production of The Tempest at Stratford back in the far-away days of the early 1980s. I last saw Howard at Clive Perdue's funeral in Paris on Good Friday, 2008, when he was one of those who paid tribute to Clive; and I am sorry that we didn't speak more then. The obituaries say that Howard came from Durham. But my unreliable memory is that that in his CH years Howard lived in Reading. And we were hugely impressed (jealous) that he had directed the young Marianne Faithfull in a play there !