Summer Times is the Journal of the Old Scarborians Association

David McLintock (1939-46)
By Michael Herman
David had 7 years at the
school but then left in
1946 when the family had
to move to Grimsby. We
met again when we both
went up to Queenʹs Ox‐
ford in 1949 after National
Service. David took his
First ‐ probably a very
good one ‐ in French and German, and went
on to teach German in Oxford. From 1967
onwards he was a Reader in Royal Holloway
College, London, and in 1983 had an honorary
doctorate conferred on him. As an academic
he published on philological and literary sub‐
jects, but after retirement in the 1980s he be‐
came an outstanding translator of twentieth
century German literature. A clutch of annual
literary prizes came his way, and he was justi‐
fiably pleased to be awarded one of them
twice.
Our lives and interests did not overlap and I
never knew David well: at school he was not
a games player, though I recall that he was
once persuaded to play for the Kingsley XV in
a House Cup match to make up the side. I
saw him occasionally in recent years and
found him good company: donnish, amusing
, interesting and interested. The Timesʹs
obituary referred to his ʹamiable presence ...
capable of delightful self‐irony ... with an
enthusiastic boyishness that never left him.ʹ
Clearly he was a notable German scholar.
Probably he had been well taught at the
school, presumably by some combination of
Bon Clarke, the German refugee Haines, and
Frank Binder. Not long ago he told me that he
still drew on what Binder had taught him half
a century earlier about translating German. In
this role The Times described David as
ʹsensitive, passionate and congenialʹ : an epi‐
taph that would probably have pleased both
him and his earlier mentor.
19
Robert Palmer
Michael Wilson Robert
Editor: Adapted from a Scarborough Eve‐
ning News article. Many column inches have
appeared following the death on 2nd Octo‐
ber 2003 of Robert Palmer, but, by way of
obituary we feel this item to be the most
appropriate. Michael Wilson is an OSA
member who attended school between 1960
– 68.
Robert Palmer’s best friend from his school
days in Scarborough has spoken of his memo‐
ries of the singer who died recently at the age
of 54.
Mr Palmer, who lived in Scarborough for
several years during his childhood and began
performing in bands while in the town, suf‐
fered a heart attack in Paris.
His best friend from school, Michael Wilson,
who is business editor at Sky News and lives
at Dummer, Hampshire, said: “He was my
best friend in my first years at the Boys’ High
School when his engineering skills were em‐
ployed to make a small cannon which we
exploded on the school playing fields.
“We’d also make Airfix kits of Second World
War fighter planes, which we used to fill with
banger gunpowder and explode on Cayton
beach.
“But apart from the destruction, he was a
great artist, and we’d often spend hours
drawing from a magazine called War Picture
Library
“He got so good at sketching that during the