J.R. wrote:
Maybe the Housemastership of Coleridge B became a poisoned chalice at that point, bearing in mind, N.T. Fryer !!!
Buck departed overnight (literally) and his immediate temporary replacement was (of all people) Bill Kirby. (This was a very Old Bluish affair. Buck, Seaman and Kirby were all OBs.) It's a nice thought, Seaman somehow finding Kirby at 10pm, which was, I think, well past Kirby's bedtime, and saying:
"Good evening, Kirby. Could you be housemaster of Coleridge B please?"
"When shall I start, headmaster?" (Actually, I don't know how Kirby addressed Seaman. Maybe he was privileged to call him George.)
"Now, if you would. I've just sacked Buck with immediate effect."
Seaman used Kirby on various occasions for difficult jobs, such as negotiating on disputes with local farmers (he spoke their language), but this one must have been particularly irksome. Kirby preferred to keep himself to himself and hated paperwork. Unfortunately a housemaster has to make small talk to parents and fill in forms.
I remember mentioning Buck's departure in my weekly letter home. In order not to shock parental sensibilities (and not least, because I didn't quite know how to put it) I intimated it had something to do with Buck's (well-known) fondness for alcohol (which in a sense was true; the editor of the correspondence with Blunden says the incident occurred "after some heavy drinking").
The "welcome back" (which I mentioned in the post above) was a dinner at CH to mark Buck's 80th birthday in 1980. This was indeed some years after Seaman's (fairly early) death.
Th.B. 27 1955-63