Summer Times is the Journal of the Old Scarborians Association

to tick off my last weeks on the Calendar. The
new Sergeant, a dour little Scot, and I got on
well and he was happy for us to share his
role, with me doing the late night functions,
and sleeping in the next morning, and him
starting early in the mornings to cover break‐
fast.
“What,” you may say, “has any of this to do
with SBHS?” Well, to look after 50 Officers,
we had Army chefs, batmen, drivers and so
on, but we also employed a German civilian
staff of around 20.
There was still a bit of post‐war feeling and
whilst the civilians were pleasant enough,
they had stroppy periods when they refused
to speak English, which meant me having to
speak in German. From a halting start, Bon’s
teaching really paid dividends and from then
on I looked on him as something of a father
figure and frequently mouthed a quiet
“thank‐you” to him.
I left the Regiment late in February 1959 and I
still have the tankard with which the officers
presented me. I don’t remember much of the
leaving party they threw for me as I was
presented with a Magnum of champagne and
was “ordered” not to share it, or go to bed,
until I had finished the bottle. That was one
of the very few occasions when I could not
remember much after the first tankard full!
On rejoining the bank in Bridlington, life
seemed very tame and it took some time to
settle down. Bank exams followed and even‐
tually, through Night school and correspon‐
dence courses – there was no study time off
in those days ‐ I qualified as an ACIB (then
supposed to be of degree standard), and was
later elected to Fellowship.
By that time Miss Scott had moved on to
pastures new and I had met Eileen through
rehearsals for one of the Open Air Theatre
shows, Rose Marie. She was a dancer and I
was in the mens’ chorus. Performances were
on a Monday and Thursday ‐ but if they were
13
rained off before the interval you had to be
available on a Tuesday and Friday for a re‐
peat performance. It followed that on wet
nights, costumes sometimes got very wet as,
wherever possible we played through to the
interval so we didn’t have to appear again the
following night.
Eileen and I married in 1963. We have one
daughter, Susan who has been involved in
the technical side of West End theatre for
many years but who has now moved to Bury.
Promotion in the bank followed, but, in those
days meant many house moves within a com‐
paratively small geographic area. The bank
felt that you had to be involved in the local
community to get business and that meant
living in that community. By the time I took
early retirement in 1994 from Ryedale I had
three subordinate managers and I was per‐
sonally responsible for lending of well over
£20M ‐ at 1994 values. These days, it seems
the computer decides who can borrow, and
how much, and very young Managers, who
would probably have been called “clerks” in
my day, seem to come 10 a penny.
Interests included Lions International in
which I held various offices over 38 years of
membership, and committee work for many
charities including MacMillan Cancer Relief,
and the British Heart Foundation. In 1988, a
highlight was to attend a Garden Party at
Buckingham Palace and to wander through
the palace, long before it was open to the
paying public.
I was a School Governor for a number of
years and a Business Adviser to Prince
Charles’ Youth Business Trust. I met him in
York in 1996 at a Trust event and found him
to be very friendly and approachable. He sent
all Advisers a Christmas card each year ‐
normally a reproduction of one of his own
water colours.
I am a Vigneron d’honneur de la Association
de la Jurade de St. Emilion – (Les Brown