JOHN CARESS ROYDS: MEMORIES OF A CHARISMATIC AND INSPIRATIONAL HEADMASTER

John Caress Royds:
A tribute by his nephew and an ex-pupil during a service of celebration of his life
held at St Mark's church, Salisbury.

14 April 2011

(JCR died on 31 March 201l)


REV. J.C. ROYDS M.A. By David Andrews

I always knew that my Uncle John had special qualities:amazing, inspiring confidence building, extreme kindness when required, great faith and a strong belief that good would prevail in the end.
However I was not prepared for the deluge of emails, letters and telephone calls which followed his death and nearly all with a moving or amusing anecdote of confirmation.
As the only surviving relative, a difficult job was suddenly turned into an uplifting experience, and I am so grateful to all of you who have come today to continue that memory.
John was born on 23rd September 1920 in Blandford. He was the youngest of three sons and a daughter, Wilfrid was the eldest, then Edward (Ted), then my mother Margaret (Peggy) followed 8 years later by John. All three sons spent time in Japanese POW camps during the Second World War and Ted ended his life there, with Wilfrid returning to work in London and lived in Richmond before retiring early to the family home in Blandford, passing on in 1974. My mother and John were very close but she died in 1987.
John's father, another Edward, was headmaster of Milton Abbas School for many years before becoming ordained and appointed Vicar (ST. Johns) at Ryde lOW and then Blandford, there possibly laying the seed for his youngest son.
At the millennium Jan, my wife, and I moved to Wareham in Dorset, about an hours drive from Salisbury and since then have seen a lot more of John. Also our daughters, Sallyann and Nicola kept in touch with him and latterly Sally's twins Grace and Katie now nearly four kept him up dated with their progress. A maze of strange looking pictures still survive in John's flat, their handiwork!

John completed his Preparatory education at Liverpool College before going to Monkton Coombe School between 1934 and 1939. He was Captain of Cricket in 1939 and also Senior Head Prefect and Head of House as well as representing the school at Rugger and Hockey. He was a member of the school debating society, school orchestra (violin) school Amateur Dramatics club (3 years) and Dramatic Reading Club.
He went to Queen's College, Cambridge 1939-1940 and again 1946-47 for his 2-1 degree in History. He was recommended for a Varsity Cricket Trial in April 1947.
In between he was in the Army, enlisting in the Royal Artillery in September 1940 rising to Major in the Indian Army and de-mobbed in October 1946.
1947 saw him appointed Assistant Master at Bryanston despite a difficult correspondence with Mr. T.S. Coade because he was not prepared to promote the idea ofa Cadet force after what he had recently witnessed. He was appointed House-master in 1951 because of his "general ability his insight into the character and needs of boys, his sympathetic approach to their problems and his powerful natural discipline not requiring any external props" . The Headmaster had to limit the number of boys to whom any one-master could act as tutor because he was in such demand. The History VI form continued to flourish as did the school Cricket.
His cricket enthusiasm saw the formation of the Old Boys team and I was delighted to play against the Butterflies on the occasion of their 50th Anniversary in 2003. Of course, we lost! The archives show that there was a general realisation at Bryanston that John would move on into a Headmastership and a number of posts were considered by him but I think there was some suprise at his choice of the Wingate School, Addis Ababa in 1961. At the time alternatives were King Edward's -Bath, Ardingly, and Whitgift. But Addis it was and anyone who has been to John's flat in Salisbury will know that memorability abounds everywhere. I am grateful to Dr. Abraha Derso who will say a few words shortly about Ethiopia. However, I cannot leave out the wonderful response from those who considered John their adopted father.
My computer is full of Ethiopian tributes from former pupils in Addis Ababa and it has been a delight for me to savour the love and affection shown. Amongst those is the following written by John which appears to me to be a fitting memory:

"Remember me: For gathering a cadre of elite teachers; whose abilities and dedications were unmatched by any in Ethiopia; For standing guard over physical, mental, moral and spiritual well being, For judging the prince and the pauper amongst you by the same moral code, For doing my level best to equip you for the world out there, For not raising my voice at you but lead you by example, For dreaming of a life that is up right, productive and dignified for you, And for visiting you & the school few years before I joined my Maker."

And so to Uppingham in 1965 where be remained Headmaster until 1974. A unique appointment at the time in two respects ;
The first Historian to hold the post and the first bachelor for at least 360 years. I am indebted to a letter from Dr. Morgan which seems to sum up his time there;
His time as Headmaster at Uppingham has been under recognized. It was he who moved the school out of the post war stayed traditional public school attitude into a modem era, with the abolishment of personal fagging and other arcane matters. He began the removal of corporal punishment, and began a modernization of the facilities, refurbishing houses, bringing in new technology such as upgraded science school, language laboratories. It was under his leadership that the first appeal for money to develop buildings was begun. These are now commonplace but then it was a new concept. The initial target was for £250,000 in 1969. Due in no small part to John's personal involvement by speaking at fund raising events around the country, the appeal raised more than £330,000. It seems a small amount today, but it was a fantastic sum in the sixties, which enabled the school to realise all the planned projects.

Tributes from Uppingham staff and old boys have been many, the latter remembering his influence as a part of their lives at an important time. Not least from Stephen Fry in his book "Moab is my Washpot", sent to John "with fond and grateful memories of your patience and kindness". He writes ;-John Royds was physically short but had a powerful presence and possessed all the techniques for inspiring awe that one looks for in a headmaster, the ability to swish a gown in an especially menacing way, for example, and a telegraphic, donnishly tart and lapidary way with words. His noticeboard in the colonnade fluttered with memos, smartly typed by an IBM golfball such as;
Re. The wearing of lapel badges. I think not JCR
I have received a kind email from Richard Harman, current headmaster at Uppingham who is away in Hong Kong on business, saying that he hopes John's contribution to Uppingham will be marked at an event in due course.
In 1974 he resolved to take "Holy Orders" and was Ordained in 1975. He was appointed Director of Education for the Peterborough diocese from 1976 to 1981 where he became the popular Rector in Kettering, Loddington, and Cransley before being appointed Vicar of St. James, Northampton from 1981-1985. Again there have been some wonderful letters of support from grateful friends in all these places but John Thompson, a trusted friend of John's will speak more in due course.
Finally, as most of you probably know John's life very nearly came to a premature end when he went to Peshawar in 1985-86 with the Church Missionary Society and was sent home ill to UCH London where Tropical Diseases were treated. Amongst a range of problems, Hairy Cell Leukemia was diagnosed and I remember visiting him that Christmas with my mother expecting the worst. But it was not to be, Interferon had been discovered, he was treated, and after a short interlude he was brought to my mother's house in Sanderstead in my Triumph Spitfire sports car and recovered completely.

Before he left UK for Pakistan he had purchased his home in Salisbury with his friend Canon Magee and the property was split into two flats so that he was able very quickly to join the Parish of St. Mark's Salisbury for the rest of his life.
An inspiration to me and to many, his soft smile will be remembered by all and my daughter's 3 year old twins are even now going into battle with the full adult version of Scrabble received for Christmas. Nothing ventured nothing gained!



John C Royds Memories of a charismatic and inspirational headmaster
by Dr. Abraha derso

John Royds had spent only a few years in Ethiopia but his inspiration to many of his Ethiopian students lives on more than 46 years after he left the country. John was headmaster of the General Wingate Secondary School (GWSS) in Addis Ababa from 1961 to 1965. The walls at his home in Salisbury are bedecked with pictures and other memorabilia from that time. Among these are a spear and shield, a lion's mane and a head gear presented to him when he left to become headmaster of Uppingham School. These are items traditionally presented to heroes, and John was certainly our hero. We kept him in high regard and had a lot of respect for him. This is best illustrated by an incidence: once there was one of those perennial agitations at the university in Addis Ababa under the famous slogan "Land to the Tiller". Some of the students from the school were preparing to join the demonstration later that day and John was quite worried at the possible consequences. At flag parade John announced that if anybody went on the demonstration then he was going to resign his post and leave Ethiopia. On hearing this everybody returned to their classrooms. Just as well as members of the Imperial bodyguard were waiting outside the school gate, with guns, and who knows what might have happened. The students were in fact aware of the danger but the respect we had for John won the day.
The GWSS was built by Emperor Haileselassie in 1946 and named in honour of General Orde Wingate. Wingate had ridden on horseback beside the Emperor's Roll Royce when Mussolini's army was defeated in Ethiopia as part of the East Africa
Campaign and Haile Selassie retuned to Addis Ababa from exile in Bath via Sudan to be reinstated to his throne. The school was a prestigious boarding school but after some fifteen years the government could no longer afford the cost of running boarding schools (even though there were very few of them) and it went into decline. The UK government through the British Council came to its rescue with staff(mostly British) and money and John went from Bryanston school as the headmaster on this new venture.He ensured the electricity and water supplies were reconnected after paying the arrears, the cesspit was cleared out and the flush toilets were working. The school re-opened as a fee-paying boys boarding school, but this meant that only the sons of the ruling aristocracy and those of wealthy merchants could afford to go there. So John started a scholarship and exhibition scheme for top performing pupils from all over the country, including Eritrea which was then still part of Ethiopia. There were 30 scholarship and 15 exhibition places. I was one of the first 30 "scholars" to benefit from the scheme. We were called by John "the future leaders of Ethiopia". The school became very prestigious and the scheme continued until the military junta took power in 1974 and changed the school into a technical college.

Wingham Days
Departure from Ethiopia did not dwindle Johnts interest in the country. At Uppingham John used to beguile staff and students with stories about Ethiopia and tell them that he would go back to work there on his retirement, even ifit was just as a librarian. They couldn't understand what he saw in this backward African country.
The headmasters of public schools used to gather in London once a year to select pupils from applicants under what was known as OPOS -Office for Placing Overseas Boys in British Schools. This was confined to pupils from British Common Wealth countries (the ex-colonies). John persuaded OPOS to extend the invitation to Ethiopia and I was once again one of the first beneficiary from this scheme -John gave me a place at Uppingham School and I was there from 1966 -1968. Dr Aklilu Demissie followed the following year, and there were many others that came to Uppingham other UK public schools on the scheme in subsequent years. When I finished at Uppingham school, John made sure that there were funding sources, including an annual bursary from Uppingham school itself, to enable me to study medicine at The University of Birmingham Medical School. John had known from before he left Ethiopia that I wanted to become a doctor.

John's wish to return to Ethiopia in his retirement was dashed by the intrusion of the military junta into politics in 1974. (It was a life-changing situation for the rest ofus as well, and we had to readjust our plans to return to Ethiopia). So John instead became a vicar on retirement serving communities in Loddington, Kettering and then in Northampton. However the desire to serve abroad had not quite left him and he went to Peshawar in Pakistan in 1986 on behalf ofthe (Anglican) Christian Missionary Society only to be stuck down by a mysterious illness shortly after he arrived there. This forced him to return to the UK for prolonged investigation and treatment at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases and then University College Hospital, London. He bore his suffering and treatment with dignity and recovered. This was almost a case of mind over matter despite the sophisticated medication he was on. Several years later a doctor from UCH wrote a piece in the BMJ under the journal's column a memorable patient in which the patient showed more concern for the doctor than about his own serious situation. The article was of course anonymous but it was clear to Aklilu and mysel fwho the memorable patient was, from the description of his character. This was subsequently confirmed by John himself during one of the annual visits my wife, Sharon Ann, and I used to pay him in Salisbury.
John did go to Ethiopia on a visit in the late 1990s -the military junta had long been removed from power by then. One of the institutions John had continued to support is a school for destitute and homeless children in Addis Ababa. It is situated just outside the walls of the General Wingate School and was started by a
remarkable ex-Wingate boy (Asfaw Yimru) while John was still in Ethiopia in the 1960s. So it was good for John to see how the school was functioning. He also managed to meet some old Wingate boys and see parts of the country which he had no
opportunity of seeing while he was working there.

"The scholars -future leaders of Etlliopia!
As already mentioned lots of educated people,inc1uding a considerable number of the initial thirty "scholars", left Ethiopia during the horrors of the military junta in the 1970s and 1980s, and ended up working mostly in North American and European hospitals, universities and other institutes. However one of the initial thirty, Dr Kassu Illala (PhD in Agriculture, Reading University), was a cabinet minster in the new Ethiopian government (the EPRDP) and is currently the Ethiopian ambassador to the European Union (EU). What is more the Ethiopian Prime Minster, Melese Zenawi is an ex-Wingate boy and a scholar (1968-1972). So you can say John's dreams have been fulfilled to a large degree.

John during World War 2
During our visits we did not talk much about John's time during Second World War unless he raised it himself. But during our last, and sadly final, annual visit in May 2010, I asked John how long he was in India for during the Second World War. He said for three yeas, from 1942. Then he added they had to send a rescue team at the end of the Burma campaign and they had to toss a coin to choose the team leader between himself and another one "the popular one" as John put it. The "popular one" was killed by a landmine explosion.

As we have seen John had an enduring passion for Ethiopia. He was a very generous man who delighted in helping people unstintingly wherever he happened to be both before and after retirement. Many lives have been touched by his kindness and by his inspiration and we are all very lucky that the tossed coin in India came down the wrong way. Above all John was a consummate gentleman, even in illness. I am particularly lucky to have known him almost continuously from 1962 until the time of his death.

We will all miss him.
Abraha Derso