No. 141 The Trusty Servant number of colleagues to sing in the St Endellion Music Festival in Cornwall and this gave him great happiness and fulfilment.
Despite finding it hard, David was keen on golf. When he finished in Phil’ s, he was appointed don in charge of golf, and was a great encouragement to the pupils. He also loved to travel, and had at least one trip to each of Nepal and Vietnam, where he made local friends, as well as his sabbatical trip to New Zealand and Australia. He had a particular love of Italy, and for many years would stay in Asolo, just north of Venice.
David was very happy in his retirement in Winchester. He retained some contact with the College, mostly through music. He kept in touch with many former colleagues, but with the advent of Covid in 2020, he spent more and more of his time in Colchester with his sister Joan. It was sad to witness David’ s health deteriorating so rapidly in the last few months of his life, but whenever I went to see him in the hospital in Winchester, he was cheerful. I feel this was because of a deep-rooted, but rather private, Christian faith. David was a kind, gentle and decent man, who always saw the good in others.
Perhaps, slightly mischievously, we can imagine him now, at that heavenly Science Dons’ Common Room, celebrating the end of the week and having a glass of sherry at this hour with former colleagues, several of whom, sadly, have arrived at a similar time. More seriously, but affectionately, David, we rejoice with you, now upon another shore and in a greater light, and give thanks for all you meant to so many people.
Giles Dove( G, 75-80), Chaplain of Glamis Castle, testifies to his housedon’ s ability to change a life:
Today, and every day, I ought to give thanks to God for Dr David Smith- the man who completely altered the course of my life, in the space of about three minutes- by mistake.
When I arrived in Phil’ s at the start of 1975, I was a very strange addition to Dr David Smith’ s house. Apart from a little coaching at West Downs Prep School, I joined Winchester having been entirely educated in the State system. To provide additional challenges to my new Housemaster, I was also to be a Day Boy- and I was a practising Roman Catholic. By the time I left Phil’ s, I was proud to call myself a Wykehamist, I was a boarder and I was Anglican.
Through all of the challenges and difficulties of adolescence, David Smith made himself available to me, as I believe he did to all the boys in Phil’ s. He was sympathetic and caring. And this extended to my mother, who had been widowed when I was ten years old, leaving her to keep an eye on me and my five siblings( did I mention that we were a Catholic family?) without the support of my father. David was kind and discreet in inviting my mother to appropriate House and School events, keeping a look out for her as required.
Early in my time at the school, having been auditioned by the late great Julian Smith( CoRo, 53-92), later to be my singing don, I found myself joining Michla Choir, and later Chapel Choir. David, of course, gave me every encouragement, which led to my lifelong love of singing and of choral music in the English tradition. The church choirs here were supplemented, for me, by singing in Glee Club and in House Music Competitions. When it came to orchestral ensembles, David was confident on the double bass whilst I struggled to find the correct fingering on the flute for Vaughan Williams’ Folk Song Suite or to find the correct piece of equipment to blow or hit in the percussion section in Haydn’ s Toy Symphony.
By Winchester standards, I was not academically strong- understatement of the day! Things were to get better, however. Having failed to gain an Oxbridge place, which came as no surprise to anyone, I set out looking for another University. During my GAP Year, I heard that a couple of other recent Old Wykehamists had gained places at Edinburgh University. So, I phoned my old Housemaster and asked him whether I might do the same.“ Leave it with me, Giles,” David sighed. A few weeks later, David called me with what he described as very good news.“ I have phoned St Andrews, Giles, and they will offer you a place to read Mediaeval History.”“ St Andrews?” I replied,“ Where’ s that? I thought you were calling Edinburgh.” David paused before saying,“ It’ ll be fine, Giles. I think they’ re in the same place.”
And so it came to pass that I embarked on my first degree at the University of St Andrews in 1981. In my first term I met Kate, and we mark 38 years of married life this year. It is 45 years since David Smith made that mistaken phone call to St Andrews. I have never lived more than an hour away from St Andrews since. My children were all born there, my grandson was born there, and we live there today. How very different my life would have been had it not been for David. Thank God for David Smith.
You will have your own memories of David as family, friends, colleagues and Philites. Give thanks to God for those memories, and give thanks to God for David John Smith.
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