Joe Bain delivered two tributes to Brian Stephan, first on the occasion of his retirement, and then in his memory. 

Ladies and Gentlemen,

We are here today to enjoy ourselves by celebrating a probably unique moment and certainly a unique personality. I refer, of course, to fifty years of continuous Brian Stephan: the first twenty-four years as a cryptic (dare I say, occasionally crusty) bachelor, and the last twenty-six, thanks to — what I am sure all his friends regard as the best thing that ever happened to him — his marriage to the incomparable Biddy, still Cryptic, but with the crust lovingly and skiffully browned and mellowed by we all kn6w whom. Between them (though you wouldn’t think so to look at them) they have served and delighted Stowe under different guises for about a hundred years — the sentences, of course, have run concurrently.

When we look back on our school-days, we (or, at least I) seem to have no recollection of learning anything, except as filtered through the personality of the teacher: really it is people we remember, not facts; though these must somehow, I suppose, have trickled through unobserved. Stowe boys (and latterly girls) over the last fifty years have been unusually privileged in experiencing a teacher who not only knew what he was talklng about (a rarer quality in teachers than one might suppose) but had the sort of personality that captures the imagination and is not easily forgotten, and a passionate devotion to an enormously wide range of writers, musicians and artists. No culture-vulture he; he knows what he likes and why he likes it, and (I was going to say) proclaims it loud and clear; but I shan’t say that for obvious reasons.

People are always prophesying the death of the humanist tradition — and I suppose that national curricula, league tables, GCSEs, PhDs, Dip Eds and so on will win in the end; but Stowe has been immensely lucky to employ (and sensible enough to hold on to) a fine example of the dying breed of Classical scholar and gentleman. Brian is no pedant; but, by God, he is a scholar, and, by God, he bashes the philistines. I know of few people who can make one so much aware of one’s deficiencies and inspire one to put them right; few who can by the jab of the forefinger or the twitch of an eyebrow (and no word said) express the disapproval of the whole civilized world. Had he pursued his original career as a lawyer, what a judge he would have been! I could not, and I’d shudder to try to, relate the legendary Stephan put-downs:

Ingenuous and uncritical friend: “I think Mrs X always puts me m mind of a picture.” Stephan: “What of?”

The “cheese up, Stephan” episode is too well known to connoisseurs of the genre to bear repeating; but possibly the most surprising phenomenon concems my old friend Teasdale Burke, to whom lack of conversation was psychological torture.

We had sat at dinner, Stephan, Teasdale and I, and possibly (I forget) A N Other, in total and rather strained silence, when, able to bear it no longer, and apropos nothing at all, Teasdale suddenly blurted out: “I had a friend once; never thought he’d get married; and d’you know, he became an Air Raid Warden.”

Such is the power of Stephan’s silence.

But I remember too the warm response Brian always gave to unobtrusive talent, the perceptive and friendly word of praise that means so much to the shy and insecure newcomer; the absolute honesty of his judgments; and, above all, his undeviating loyalty, in a society where loyalty is not necessarily an easy course. Stowe — pupils, Common Room, headmasters, governors and the place itself, owe him and Biddy a debt that they can but inadequately repay. Though he too, as he would be the first to acknowledge, has been lucky to have spent so long in such a lovely place. Brian has never been a conventionally histrionic man: there is more of the shaman than the showman in his nature; he loathes and suspects display. But here today a display of our gratitude and affection for them both must be acceptable even to him.

I have said enough, but…the other night I had a dream, and in the dream I saw an elderly and rather austere old gentleman. “Pardon me,” he said; “I am a great fan of B. S. Stephan. My name is T S Eliot. Will you take him a message?” The following are my possibly garbled memories of what he said.

STEPHANUS: THE LAST OF THE HEP-CATS

Stephanus is a wise old cat,
A cat who walks alone;
You are never quite sure what he’s at
His counsel is his Own.
Attempts at analysing
Are fated to ill-luck:
it’s really not surprising
They always come unstuck.
He’s never caught cat-napping,
He’s nimble on his paws;
Remove his outer wrapping,
There’s still no clue, because
There’s yet another layer
You wouldn’t quite have guessed
— a wily poker player
His cards stay near his chest.
Had he really read Catullus
At the tender age of five?
Did he brief John Foster Dulles?
Did he work for M15?
Such fancies one is loath to
Accept as really true:
But 1 wouldn’t take an oath to
Swear them quite fake — would you?
When Cheshire cats are jocular
They spread their jaws and grin:
You needn’t be too ocular
To see what mood they’re in.
Stephanus’ merriment is made
By methods more oblique:
He simply shrugs a shoulder-blade
Or gives his tail a tweak.
While most cats as a form of speech
Are limited to ‘Mew’;
Stephanus has been known to teach
In Russian and Urdu:
A feat impressive in its way,
LinguisticaIly laudable;
Except when what ‘some people say’
it’s sometimes barely audible.
Where other cats’ idea of fun
Is Milton and John Bunyan,
Stephanus’ fancy tends to run
From Pope to Damon Runyan.
in music there’s no razzamatazz
For this fastidious pussy,
But smoochy ivory- tickling jazz
With a whisker of Debussy.Now, after fifty glorious years,
He and his best of wives
Will have the time to spend the arrears
Of their joint eighteen lives.
So Stowe now bids you — not farewell
Nor goodbye, nor adieu,‘
But ‘au revoir’, for Stowe knows well
Stowe’s not quite Stowe sans you.
We needn‘t temper our applause
With sadness: they’ll be back more
Often than we fear, because
They’re still just down at Chackmore.

25th September 1994

 

 

Joe Bain’s Address at the funeral of Brian Stephan on April 7th 1998 at Stowe Church

Biddy suggested I read a poem, and I naturally thought of T S Eliot, but remembering Brian’s devotion to the scholar-poet A E Housman and their shared nostalgia for a kind of ideal Shropshire of the imagination, I changed my mind:

Into my heart an air that kills,
From that far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?

That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.

“And they were astonished at his doctrine : for he taught them as one that had authority, and not as the scribes.” – Mark 1.22

The apostle probably knew a lot about the scribes. We (or at least I) know very little except: First: that they were similar to, but different from, the Pharisees (who also had a bad press) Second: that we aren’t scribes ourselves – perish the thought! But we could name a few (not out loud please).  Bores, pedants, know-alls, committee-men, prigs who think Latin is elitist, the sort of fact-collectors who give facts a bad name – in short they are ‘pleased with themselves’ and we all know whom that would displease. Besides, they were apparently lousy teachers. In fact, all the things BSS wasn’t, or we wouldn’t have come along today in such numbers. Luckily for Stowe and for us all, Brian was as little of a scribe as anybody could be. He was a true teacher, a man who passionately loved what he taught, and taught it because he wanted others to enjoy it too. He knew that intellectual understanding consists not in knowing the answers, but in identifying and coming to terms with the questions. Brian’s great quality was that as a man of learning and wisdom he gave every question its due importance and appraised his pupils not by what they knew, but by what they were prepared to leam. “He paid us the compliment”, a former pupil of his told me, “of not for a moment imagining that we were unable to keep up with him, so, of course, we did”. “He was concerned” said another, “that we should make the most of ourselves, and enjoy what we were doing”. If this is elitism, then there should be more of it! The crime against the Holy Ghost in education is to disgust the young with the idea of learning.

One secret (of many) that endeared him to his pupils was, I suspect, the contrast between the rather solid inward-looking scholar and the unexpected variety of his interests. He took a keen (ish) part in sport – I well recollect for instance, his rather unorthodox rugger trousers : they could hardly be called with any accuracy ‘shorts’. He was as much at home with Damon Runyon as with Shakespeare or Turgenyev, with Stephane Grapelli and with Stephane Mallarmé – the sudden ironic smile, the quick sympathy with the shy or undervalued pupil, the ability he had to sit at the piano and play with exquisite touch and idiomatic style the music of Gershwin or Cole Porter as though he were Hutch or Oscar Peterson themselves. It was his instinctive taste that told him what was good or bad and not what it said on the label. He made no parade of all this : he liked the quirky and the ingenious and the unexpected, not because it was the right thing to admire, but just because it was what he liked. Ambiguity, half-tones, delicacy were his touchstones : Eliot, Verlaine, Debussy, Messiaen and Housman were among his Gods. But above all he was a man of conviction and integrity.

As a servant of this place over an almost unbelievable number of years, he has no parallel; Housemaster, Classics Tutor, English Tutor, Senior Tutor, Second Master, Acting Headmaster, Librarian, Organist (and this doesn’t cover it all). Successive headmasters, colleagues and boys have reason to thank him for his sane and judicious advice, always quietly (almost inaudibly) given, but well worth straining to hear. He was a scholar and a gentleman before the term came to seem an oxymoron.

We are all awaiting eagerly (if not without a certain healthy apprehension) his forthcoming “Memoires d’Outre tombe”. He was a representative man standing at the end of a great tradition of humane scholarship. Most of us here cannot remember a time when his seemingly unchanging physical presence appeared to embody what was permanent in this place. He was the still point of our turning world, but,

The old order changeth, yielding place to new,
And God fulfils Himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.

That is right and proper. But we may still regret its passing.

He could be a rather disconcerting colleague. He had the unnerving ability to convey intense disapproval without opening his mouth and he had the most expressive “back” in the business. His likes and dislikes of people were sometimes equally bizarre to the untutored eye, and seemingly more or less irrevocable. “Tell your friend X”, or “You are the sort of person who would have liked Z” carried sous-entendu beyond the reach of La Rochefoucauld.

The great salvation of the second half of his life, at the moment when it almost looked as though gloom might get the better of him, was his blissfully happy marriage to Biddy. She was ideal for him : she understood him and could jolly him along. He was a very lucky man, and he knew it. Our sympathies go to his family – to his sister Mrs Margaret Fargus and to Jennifer and Susan, but particularly to Biddy in her second widowhood : she and Brian and Raymond and their family have been central to Stowe for nearly its entire existence. How deservedly fortunate she has been in her turn to have had two such outstandingly gifted husbands and to have been so fully appreciated by them both and by their friends!

What makes parting particularly poignant is the loss of the physical presence, of the well – known tone of voice, the smile, the familiar turn of phrase. Those who knew Brian will not forget him, and memory is a magic bridge between the living and the dead.

So Brian, wherever you are, old fellow, old colleague, old friend, old teacher “Ave atque vale.”  As you cross the Styx may you be greeted, not by the grandeur of trumpets, but may Carrol Gibbons and Stephane Grapelli and Django and Ie Hot Club De France play you in, with Plato and Damon Runyon and Verlaine and Eliot and The Shropshire Lad himself to walk and talk with, and those prominent Old Stoics Seneca mi. and Marcus Aurelius to keep you company, the Elysian Fields will seem just like home. On one occasion when Sam Goldwyn was about to leave for Europe, all his entourage came down to the quay to see him off, just as we are doing now. As the liner drew away from New York Harbour, the great man leaned over the rail, raised his hand and said “Bon Voyage”. I see you do the same – everything is after all relative. Your journey is over : we are still struggling along.

It’s not farewell then but goodbye for now and Bon Voyage to us all. Keep a comfortable seat for us not too far from the band. We’ll be seeing you : we’re already on our way.

Sunset and evening star
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea.

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound or foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark.

For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar.

 

[Brian Stephan’s, Stowe, Hearsay and Memory was published by Stowe School, in 1998]