FAREWELL a list of‘ been there and done thats’ that demands acknowledgement. He initiated the 5-a-side football leagues back in 1985, organised UI5 Tennis and UI4 Cricket during the mid‘ 80s to‘ 90s, ran the student councils from 1994 to 1999, was the staff liaison for the Friends of Pocklington School from 1997 to 2002, was involved with external Prep School marketing and significantly, alongside Andrew Dawes, was heavily involved with the steering and planning of the Pocklington 500 juggernaut of events and celebrations, including the visit of HRH Prince Andrew in 2014.
Alongside of all of this, Mike as the Commanding Officer of the CCF since 1989, led the development of a hugely successful sub-organisation in its own right. The weekly structure of activities, regular trips and visits, training exercises and flying experiences, external camps with regional and national trophies and awards achieved and won, along with the biennial inspections, was and is, a constant honour to Mike and his staff, reflecting over three decades of commitment and long hours, above and beyond the call of duty.
Externally, Mike was also the Chairman of the NE / NW Standing Committee for Science, and latterly an ISI Inspector.
Mike has organised and implemented so many memorable and fine things over the years, much of it unseen, and perhaps beyond the fuller glare of popular acknowledgement.
On a personal note, amongst the years of spending much of our extra-curricular organisational responsibilities in quite separate contexts of school life, we have remained Chemistry teachers of a similar traditional style, sharing many classroom practices together, thus providing a constant source of reassurance for my own self-reflections. Mike returned as Head of Chemistry in 2014 to the present day, steering the department through a rather turbulent few years as enforced staff absences and changes of personnel frustrated the natural order of things, but he has remained the same entirely approachable, genuinely affable and solidly reliable colleague and friend amidst the highs and lows – albeit that he supports the wrong Manchester football club!
The school though, will be the loser, as one of its chief organisers, the orchestrator of so many keycornerstones of the school’ s contemporary public face, another one of those highly experienced teachers and members of the 30 + club, and of course the RAF / CCF Commander, parachutes off the aircraft.
DAVID WATTON( 87-16)
Dave worked at Pocklington for just under 30 years teaching Economics, Business Studies, Mathematics and Geography but for many pupils who passed through the school it was his love of‘ life education’ and sport that may have been their main contact with him. One of the generation for whom the outside elements of the job were as important to him as the high level of A level success his pupils regularly achieved, Dave’ s roll-call of involvement would put many‘ super teachers’ to shame.
A senior house tutor organising house events in the days before the current house system he was also a regular in the senior boarding community for more years than he can remember, often taking boarders and day pupils on trips to Elland Road to see high quality European football, and Leeds. He also assisted on lower school house camps for over 15 years.
It is perhaps his achievements in the competitive sphere of the school that show his true ability in achieving the best from everyone and anyone who came his way; taking teams to both first and second place in the York and District Chess team in the same year, coaching an U15 cricket team to Trent Bridge for a final against Millfield after a two year competition around the country and taking Lyndhurst to victory in both the six-a-side national cricket competition and the county football cup were just some of his teams’ achievements. His eight-year spell as first team cricket coach yielded more wins than losses and he took a cricket team to Barbados( overcoming his usual reluctance of flying to make it happen).
As any who knew Dave at all will attest his three lifelong passions were financial matters, skiing and Leeds United. The former we will gloss over here but as for skiing; as well as supporting the annual school trip Dave would organise other trips for experienced students to go with him an experience that might be referred to as‘ proper’ skiing. Some of the students from these trips have become lifelong friends. His preparation for his personal skiing started in about November when he would check weather forecasts and snowfall in places he was visiting weeks later. The advent of the ski resort webcam saw him overcome his distrust of the modern computer.
Students who never really came into contact with him, and as a mainly sixth form teacher, this was many of them, thought of him as a stern‘ Yorkshire’ figure but any who had contact with him found a warm and generous man who would inspire and motivate in equal measure. With his well-deserved retirement to the ski slopes in the winter and the borders of Scotland in the summer we lose another of a golden generation of Pocklington teachers.
SEAN HOULTHAM( 06-17)
Sean’ s( yes, it is pronounced‘ Seen’!) GAP years at Pocklington spanned the close of one century and start of the new millennium. Following university he began his life here as a teacher of PE and games in 2006 and through his career we have seen him become so much more.
We cannot underestimate Sean’ s influence on a generation of pupils. Through his work in sport he has influenced and inspired; through his pastoral roles as Housemaster of Hutton Lower School and boarding tutor of Dolman and latterly Fenwick- Smith House, he has cajoled and supported.
In his teaching of GCSE and A-level PE, Sean focused on innovative and imaginative ways of getting the very best out of his students in some difficult theory areas, particularly exercise physiology and biomechanics. Practical into theory has always been a watchword and who can forget the use of table tennis to help the understanding of energy systems or his specialist topic area of wall displays!
Sean’ s day and boarding pastoral work has been tireless and every pupil through these years will have a snippet or a memory of Mr Houltham bending over backwards to get the very best out of themselves whilst at school.
All this aside, it has probably been Sean’ s work in rugby, which he has most relished and for which the school will be forever in his debt. Coaching schemes, staff support, overseas tours and some incredibly successful seasons of senior rugby, Sean’ s passion for this aspect of his career has been relentless.
So many senior rugby boys will look fondly at their time at Pocklington and their rugby life and‘ Beany’ will be the reason. And some were even there … with the Ostrich!
Most deserving of this promotion to Director of Sport at Barnard Castle, Sean leaves with us the best of him.
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