No. 140 The Trusty Servant services; no detail was too small or insignificant. The bureaucratization of the party was key to Stalin’ s power. He did the unglamorous, fiddly, jobs that no one else wanted – not Trotsky, not Bukharin, not the Second Master. And in doing so, he became all-powerful. As Undermaster – sorry, General Secretary – Stalin removed Trotsky as Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs, then removed him from the Politburo in October 1926. An ice-pick in Mexico City confirmed Stalin’ s victory in the power-struggle. For Mr Reeve, it is an appointment as Deputy Head, Academic, at Shrewsbury School.
When Dan Reeve learned that I had compared him to the verticallychallenged tyrant in Moscow, I feared he would take it badly. He did not; he was pleased – flattered, no less. In no time at all, Dan built an empire at Winchester. He arrived from Epsom College in the middle of the Covid crisis, a mere Mathmā don and tutor in Furley’ s. Four years later, he leaves with the longest job description in Western Europe. In leaving, he has created four new job vacancies. And he really has made his mark on the school – on its pupils, on its dons, and on its support staff. He has worked and liaised with every corner of this ancient place; every inbox has received clear and detailed instructions from DTR @ wincoll. ac. uk. In under a year, he completely changed the Undermaster role, making it his own. Dan is one of the most efficient, consistent, colleagues I have known – pragmatic, sensible, reflective, robust, firm, and front-footed. No doubt, these are just some of the qualities that won him his promotion at Shrewsbury.
Some here will remember him as the northern boulder that rolled with great momentum into the Mathmä department, took one look at its operations, and said,‘ I’ ve got some thoughts.› I am told that there were some memorable department meetings – but none would go into detail. Before too long, Dan was at the helm of the leviathan that is the Maths Department: as Undermaster and as Head of Maths, he really was running the whole school. He created harmony where there was discord, he simplified its policies and approaches, and he did a great deal to help younger colleagues, fresh to teaching, stay on their feet and really start to walk.
Dan was my Assistant Housemaster. We went into Beloe’ s together in September 2021 and soon became firm friends and complementary colleagues. Seeing us together for the first time, the Beloeites must have assumed that I had employed a tough heavy to do my head-cracking for me. Dan has an annoying knack of finding trouble even when he is not looking for it. After a while, with my first top year – a motley bunch – I started to suggest that he not go too close to their rooms. When Dan went for a walk around the house at eleven o’ clock at night, I always braced myself for a sleepless night and a morning of urine samples and angry parents shouting at me on the phone.
This place and its inhabitants mean a great deal to Dan; they are special to him. The exhibition of photographs that he has taken of the school attests to this. He will achieve his ambitions elsewhere and find a full life beyond this little city; this little world. But he will always have it with him. We wish Dan, Emily, and the children all the best at Shrewsbury.
Richard Foster( CoRo, 12-) guides us through a portrait of Matthew Burnett( CoRo, 18-25):
Matthew came to us in 2018, having taught briefly at Sevenoaks School. It immediately became clear that Winchester was a natural fit and he threw himself into life here. Over the past seven years, Matthew has contributed to the school in an extraordinary variety of ways. I like to imagine him, therefore, as a painting of a medieval saint, represented with his many attributes.
In his right hand there is, of course, a Bunsen burner, testimony to his engaging, effective and scholarly teaching of Chemistry. To the boys he was, inevitably,‘ Bunsen Burnett’, and, until recently, an explosive combination with TNT. Pupils and colleagues admire his high-energy lessons, full of variety and enjoyable activities. Last summer he was made a Chartered Scientist by the Royal Society of Chemistry. His broader contributions to Science School have included running Science Society, inviting excellent speakers and pioneering a new series of EPQ seminars.
In his left hand, Matthew holds a shuttlecock; crucially, I have learned, made from real feathers. An expert player of Badminton, he led Winchester teams to considerable success, including winning the Charterhouse Cup. One former pupil remembers Matthew’ s keen participation in doubles matches, lunging for the shuttlecock without regard for his hamstrings, and always generous in praising good play from his opponent.
As the eye moves around the picture, it notices under one arm, or emerging from the pocket of a tweed jacket, Matthew’ s copy of this week’ s Spectator, indicating his keen political interests and excellent stewardship of Gaitskell Society, which hosted an exceptional line-up of speakers during his tenure.
In the background of our painting of St Matthew, we find a shelf of books that testify to his wide range of interests and enthusiasms. There are German and Latin dictionaries – two languages he has been learning while at Winchester – books on the history of science, and much else besides. He is a science don who bridges the two cultures, and he has put this hinterland to excellent use in his time here, as a Sixth Book Div don, in lectures to Vth Book, and when accompanying school trips to Germany and elsewhere.
In all great paintings there is an unexpected but revealing detail. In
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