George Clarke –  JB: A colleague’s recollection

Given in Stowe Chapel, Saturday 10th September 2011

The Joe who joined the staff 57 years ago was not the figure most of us picture when we hear his name, but, as I remember him, a trim. Mercurial, boyish Joe, recently down from Cambridge, rather dapper in a yellow waistcoat and a bottle-green corduroy jacket, his ginger hair not yet starting to thin. His jaunty appearance raised some eyebrows, I fancy, among the Old Guard, well entrenched in those grey post-war years at Stowe, in a staff overweighted with elderly masters. But he quickly gained their respect by his skill in the classroom, and within a couple of years he had taken charge of the Modern Languages department. Almost as quickly he made his mark with stage productions, which are recalled today by others better qualified than me. And of course he immediately won admirers, as he did throughout his life, by that most magnetic of bis qualities – his dancing, irrepressible, irresistible wit.

How can one demonstrate something so spontaneous that merely to repeat it makes it seem contrived? But I must try. Imagine a Masters’ Meeting in the late 1960s, with a vehement discussion taking place on some petty matter which school rumour had exaggerated into a major scandal. In the end Bob Drayson summed it up: “Gossip”, he declared in a tone of resigned exasperation, ‘Gossip is the bane of Stowe.” ” Surely, Headmaster, you’ve got that the wrong way round,” came Joe’s voice immediately from the back of the room. It still makes me smile when I think of it. Like so much of Joe’s wit it was instantaneous.  Joe used to make these comments so quickly after the remarks that triggered them, that you could not figure how his mind had had time to think of the words before he uttered them. This example is typical too, and perhaps even more importantly so, in that Joe’s wit was totally free of malice. I don’t remember him ever using his wit for a cruel purpose.

For Joe was essentially a very warm, sensitive and understanding man. Not long after he came to Stowe a new master was appointed, fresh from university, who had been educated in the State system and who arrived wholly unfamiliar with the way a public school like Stowe was run. It was Joe who perceived his difficulty and took on himself the role of mentor, tactfully explaining things and initiating him into the workings of the school – a kindness which is still remembered with gratitude.

And at the memorial service for Eric Reynolds, a headmaster who did not have an easy passage, it was Joe who came back to Stowe (having left some years before) to pay the chief tribute. For the occasion he had composed, and then delivered from this pulpit, a dramatic monologue in blank verse, in the style of one of his favourite Victorians, exploring and reflecting on the hopes and fears and problems of that unlucky man. As a performance it was a tour de force. It was also a profound and compassionate meditation.

Allied to this was his friendliness, making him one of the most sociable people you could ever hope to meet. He had an insatiable appetite for good company and good talk. If you went into the Common Room just before dinner in the years when Joe was Housemaster of Chandos, you would find him standing there in his favourite position, on the left side of the fireplace, elbow resting on the mantelpiece, his drink beside him, a cigarette in the other hand, the centre of animated conversation with whoever happened to have walked into the room and been co-opted thereby into the party. He would be the last to go (almost too late) into dinner, and afterwards, when he had discharged his housemasterly duties in Chandos, some time after eleven, he would invite two or three colleagues into his study – a room lined with books from floor to ceiling, with the overflow stacked in piles on the carpet. Plying them generously with whisky, he would keep the good talk going till two or three in the morning. He was a wonderful host and a most rewarding guest.

These qualities of Joe’s that I have touched on – his intellect, wit, gaiety, sympathy, compassion, friendliness – these comprise most of the great civilising virtues, which, for the nineteen lucky years that Stowe was his stage, enriched the lives of the whole community.And it was through these same qualities that Joe also endeared himself unforgettably to us, his colleagues.

[Joe’s verse tribute to Eric Reynolds will be included in the forthcoming: Book of Bain.]