DEATHS AND OBITUARIES
French had a deep affection for Turkey and its people , above all in the villages and small towns of the Anatolian hinterland . A fine linguist , he mastered modern Greek and Turkish as a postgraduate student , and Turkey for much of his life was not merely an adopted but his real home . It is a matter of good fortune that he carried out much of his field work before the accelerating developments of modern Turkey erased many traces of its historical heritage .
( From The Guardian , Thursday 20 April 2017 , by Stephen Mitchell , chairman of the British Institute at Ankara )
Alan Vasey Grace ( 49-59 ) was the son of a Natwest bank manager . He started life in Goole , later moving to Southwell , London . He had an elder brother , Malcolm ( 47-56 ), who sadly died in 1963 of nephritis . When Alan left Pocklington , he attended St Catherine ’ s , Oxford to study Chemistry . After finishing his degree , he went to work for ESSO on Victoria Street in London , later moving head offices to Leatherhead in Surrey . He retired from ESSO in 1993 and moved to Pickering , North Yorkshire , where he lived happily for 23 years . He enjoyed golf in his earlier years , listening to classical music and opera , but having learnt to play bridge at Oxford , this became his passion . He has been a member of many bridge clubs over the years and later came to run a number in and around Pickering .
( Martin Read )
Geoffrey ‘ Tom ’ Kelly ( 48-56 ) died peacefully at home on 23 February , 2017 , after a short illness , aged 78 . He came to Pocklington School form the Market Weighton Church of England Boys ’ School at Michaelmas 1948 having passed the 11 + exam when barely ten years old . The Headmaster of the Market Weighton School extolled his achievement and held him out as an example to the rest of us .
In fact this little school sent at least a dozen pupils to Pocklington between 1946 and 1950 – most but not all of them “ scholarship boys ” like Geoff . They included some of his life-long friends : Brian Dixon ( 47-56 ), Michael Gawtrey ( 49-54 ), the late John Wise ( 49-54 ), Keith Walls ( 49-57 ), myself ( David Stather ( 49-57 ), and the late Ian Wise ( 50-57 ).
At Pocklington , Geoff would achieve athletic
26 distinction with the coaching of the Geography Master , the late G F D Pearson ( 20-23 ), who memorably admonished him to guard against the sins of the flesh when representing the school at an inter schools athletics competition in Manchester . In 1953 , aged 14 , Geoff broke the school long jump record which had been set by H M Tapper at 20 feet 10 inches , sixty years earlier . Canon Tapper , who left in 1891 and was still living in 1953 , wrote a letter to Geoff which is still in his son ’ s possession .
In 1955 , the school held a ‘ mock election ’ on the occasion of the General Election of that year which followed Sir Winston Churchill ’ s resignation as Prime Minister . Geoff bravely stood as the Communist Candidate with largely day boy support at a time when Communists were seen very much as enemies or ‘ Fifth Columnists ’. On the strength of his personal popularity he secured a large vote , coming second only to the School House ‘ Independent Candidate ’, Tim Beard ( 46-56 ). After the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956 , Geoff became disillusioned with Communism although he remained a socialist all his life .
Personal memories of schooldays include the daily train journeys to and from school for eight years and working with Geoff in the fields during the holidays planting trees , harvesting and potato picking – physically back-breaking work which many of the ‘ Weighton ’ day boys did in those days for a rate of payment varying between 1s 9d ( 9p ) and 2s 6d ( 12.5p ) per hour . At Pocklington , Geoff made further life-long friendships with Norman Wood ( 49-57 ) and John Nicholson ( 49-56 ). Mention should also be made of another school friend ‘ Wes ’ ( Charles Westerhout 48-55 ) from Beverley , a boarder , whose unhappy story of depressive illness and premature death in 1958 remained with Geoff for the rest of his life . It was towards the end of his schooldays that , with Norman Wood and others , Geoff formed a ‘ skiffle group ’ which performed locally . It was never disbanded ; four of its members including Geoff and Norman continuing to meet occasionally until Geoff ’ s last illness but no longer performing publicly .
Geoff left Pocklington in 1956 , proceeding to Hull University where he remained for only a year . He had already begun to suffer ill-health whilst at school and he eventually settled for an outdoor life as an agricultural contractor . He married in 1968 and , together , he and his wonderful wife , Janet , a schoolteacher , bought , converted and made a beautiful home out of the old Burnby railway station through which we had passed every day on the rail journeys to and from school and which had come onto the market following the closure of the Hull – York railway line in 1965 .
Over a period of 14 years , four of his retired OP friends would meet up with Geoff several times a year at local pubs . These now included John Dykes ( 49-57 ) and in recent years we were joined by Geoff ’ s oldest friend , Mike Gawtrey , who annually made the journey from Sussex with his wife , Pat , to stay with Geoff at Burnby . Another occasional guest there was Brian Dixon from Scotland with his wife Annette . These various reunions ended only with his final illness during which he was nursed devotedly by his wife and sister and he met death ( in his son ’ s words ) with ‘ grace and dignity ’.
Geoff was one of the kindest and most generousspirited men that one could ever know and we remember him for his sense of humour and as a wonderful raconteur of anecdotes of his early life and of local Yorkshire characters of the past , but above all as a good friend . He leaves his wife , a son Sean , two grandchildren and his sister , Jennifer . The large numbers present at his funeral on 13 March 2017 included seven of his OP friends and two other surviving fellow pupils of the 1940s at the Market Weighton School . He will be greatly missed .
( David Stather , 49-57 )
Although he had once given Geoff 12 ‘ C ’ s , Geoffrey Pearson (‘ Boomer ’) recognised in Geoff a determination to expend every last ounce of effort in each athletic endeavour . At junior and senior levels he broke eleven school records and stood out as the school ’ s finest all-round athlete in the 100 , 440 , high jump and long jump , going on to represent Yorkshire Schools at the All Englands and become captain of athletics . Boomer once took Geoff aside to require him to keep an eye on one of our group of three invited to the Northern Counties at Manchester , to steer him from any liaison which might render him victim ‘ to some of the foulest diseases known to mankind .’
Under RSM Watt , Geoff , along with Mike Gawtrey , had been a fearless gymnast . He was later an outstanding and courageous winger for the first XV . He resumed his rugby after leaving school , playing for the town ’ s teams . He repaid Boomer ’ s tireless devotion to coaching by successfully training the athletes of a younger generation .
In his retirement , Geoff excelled as a talented maker and editor of short documentaries , including a 3-disc portrait of the City of York . Requests for these skills came in from groups such as the Pocklington Canal Society , which he always answered generously . The deep affection he engendered in all who knew him was manifested by the hundreds of friends who joined his family at a remarkable funeral .
( KW )
Alan Kent ( 34-42 ) died on 10 September 2015 , aged ninety . He came up to St John ’ s from Pocklington School to read Natural Sciences and Chemical Engineering , and became a member of