No . 131
The Trusty Servant
Mark Stephenson ( Co Ro , 59-90 ; Go Bo , 92-96 ) died on January 21 st , 2021
Michael Nevin ( I , 63-68 ; Co Ro , 74-12 ) pays tribute :
To be taught History by Mark Stephenson was an unforgettable experience . He swept into the room , slammed the door and held attention riveted , as he portrayed , say , the Viking landings on the coast of Anglo-Saxon England . Once a month he would set an essay to be written in the classroom . His corrections were often longer than the essay itself . Every sentence was scrutinized , every missed apostrophe put right . Most paragraphs received trenchant criticism , but when praise came it tasted like manna . He would give back the papers , and , as they landed on the desks , he would say to more than half the set , ‘ Again , please .’ You had to work with integrity to avoid that rewrite .
As well as teaching History to the highest standard , Mark was a passionate advocate of Div . He and Michael Fontes ( D , 55-60 ; Co Ro , 66-04 ) fostered C-ladder Div and made it one of the brightest features of the school ’ s intellectual life . The survival and flourishing of Div as the distinctive aspect of a Winchester education owes a huge debt to Mark Stephenson . He believed in unexamined learning for its own sake and he instilled that belief in the entire institution .
Beyond the classroom , Mark was house tutor at Cook ’ s and College Tutor . He gave a great deal to squash , rackets , sailing and cricket . Together with Peter Gwyn ( Co Ro , 67-70 , 75- 76 ), he founded Sen Club , a combined XI of boys and dons which played against villages on Sundays . He was a hard-hitting batsman and a canny leg-spin bowler .
After retiring from Winchester in 1990 , medieval economic history remained a lifelong vein of exploration and study . As well as this , he served on the Governing Body for five years as Common Room representative . He taught voluntarily at two schools in Broughton-in- Furness . He was no respecter of persons . It did not matter if you were the top scholar at Winchester or a primary-school child with learning difficulties : he gave you the same care and attention . He often did wonders with the most unlikely pupils . He could always listen as well as challenge , encourage as well as growl .
Mark loved the natural world . In the 1960s he gained permission to take an informal tenancy of an abandoned croft , Runival , on Loch Hourn . Some sections of the beautifully constructed , century-old path to Barrisdale on the south shore have survived spate and landslip largely due to the unsung perennial attention of Mark and his spade . He was serious about woodland . With his own hand he planted and protected hundreds of native saplings on the steep grounds behind his house near Broughton-in-Furness , another quiet but invaluable legacy . He drove no car , but would think nothing of bicycling 15 miles to Ulverston and back to change a library book .
Though frugal and latterly vegetarian , Mark was a generous host and a thoughtful cook . While his bread was delicious , his coffee was of destabilizing intensity . He was solitary , yet companionable on his
MSS on Loch Hourn
own terms , enjoying conversation , which he preferred to be , like his reading , ‘ about something ’. Many Wykehamists will echo an appreciation of his intelligence , tenacity , and lasting influence . These qualities are balanced in my memory by his unexpected kindness . When our two-year-old son broke his leg , Mark gave him a little set of skittles which he could play with while he lay on his back in traction .
Dr Magnus Ryan ( G , 80-84 ; Go Bo , 18- ), Senior Lecturer in the History Faculty at Cambridge University , adds a pupil ’ s perspective :
Very few History undergraduates arrived at university with more than a rudimentary knowledge of the middle ages : Peter Carter at Marlborough was probably the only other school medievalist then active whose pupils were as disappointed as Mark ’ s by the fall-off in teaching quality once they arrived at Oxbridge , but only Wykehamists were literate in medieval economic History .
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