In the Dark

Today is 31st August 2024, which is officially the last day of my year-long sabbatical – even if tomorrow is a Sunday, so I won’t be actually returning full-time to the office until Monday 2nd September. After that I have three whole weeks to prepare the new modules I’ll be teaching in the Autumn Semester. I suppose at some point I’ll have to write a report about what I did on my sabbatical, at least from the point of view of work. I’ll keep the rest to myself!

I was planning to cook myself dinner and a few glasses of wine this evening to mark the end of my year of travels. I’ll still be doing that but in the last few days I have been given something else to think about.

About 50 years ago, in September 1974, I was preparing for my first days at the Royal Grammar School (RGS) in Newcastle. I didn’t know anyone else there and had no idea what to expect. I’d won a scholarship under the Direct Grant system so my parents didn’t have to pay fees, which was just as well because they wouldn’t have been able to. The RGS was an all-boys school in those days and most of the boys were from much wealthier backgrounds than I was and their parents paid fees. Many had also been to the RGS Junior School (also fee-paying) whereas I had gone to a state school, so when I arrived for my first day there were quite a few that already knew each other and were much better prepared academically than I was.

The upshot of this was that I found it very difficult there for the first few weeks, both socially and academically. I just wasn’t used to the intensity of the teaching style, the extensive homework, and the fact that I had to try to make friends from scratch.

In the first year the teaching was arranged in “Houses” and the boys in each House had to wear a tie of a specific colour with their (blue) blazer. I was in Eldon House so wore a green tie and my first form was called 1E. Everyone took the same subjects in first and second form.

Among the friends I made in the first year was a boy who had been to the RGS Junior School where he had acquired the nickname “Titch” because of his diminutive stature; his real name was Alan Michael Hawdon although he never used Alan. When he wasn’t “Titch” he was Michael. I found it a bit awkward calling him “Titch” because I was scarcely any taller than he was, but he didn’t mind it at all. Despite not being very tall, he excelled at all sporting events, especially running and gymnastics. He was also very kind, friendly and gregarious. Although I wasn’t anything like as sporty as him, we became good friends. In fact he was the only boy whose home (in Tynemouth) I visited in the first year at RGS. I can’t remember what the occasion was, but we spent an enjoyable day at the coast. I also remember going to the annual school camp in Ryedale and spending quite a lot of time with Titch then. I also remember asking if I could take a picture of him with the old Box Brownie my dad had lent me. He agreed.

The system at RGS was that, after the second year, i.e. after 2E, classes began to diversify and there was some choice of subjects. Forms were no longer composed of students from the same House (though we continued to wear the house tie). When I returned to RGS to start the third year, I was in the “Three Languages” form as I had decided to do German (though I dropped it after one year to concentrate on sciences). I was dismayed to find that Titch was in a different form; since I no longer had any classes with him we drifted apart, though we remained on friendly terms until A-levels and departure for University in 1981 after which I lost contact entirely. All I knew until recently was that he got a Royal Navy Scholarship to do Mechanical Engineering at Nottingham University as a precursor for joining the Navy.

So why am I telling you all this?

Last week I heard that Michael Hawdon (aka “Titch”) passed away in December 2022. That news came as a shock because he was the fittest and healthiest lad in the class of ’81 and I would have given long odds against him dying at the age of just 59. The picture of him on the left was taken in 1979; the wonky tie was always a trademark.

I gather that, in 1982, before going to university, he had been enlisted to go to the Falklands. However, the ship he was on suffered a mechanical failure and he never got there; the war ended in June 1982 and he went to Nottingham in October that year. After that, he travelled extensively, including spending some time living in New Zealand.

Forty years had passed since we both left RGS and went our very different ways until, in 2021, out of the blue, he sent me an email (signed “Titch”). It seems he had come across my name in connection with some work he had been doing at the UK Space Agency and decided to look me up. He was probably bored during the Covid-19 lockdown but I was very happy that he remembered me at all. Whatever the reason, I was delighted. We exchanged a considerable number of messages sharing memories of RGS days. Then he stopped replying. I don’t know whether he was ill or merely busy, but just a year later he passed away.

I was only 11 when I met Michael Hawdon and so immature that I didn’t know what was going on in my own emotions, but looking back I can see now that I definitely had a crush on him. Maybe it was more than that. I never told him, of course. It wouldn’t have been appreciated let alone reciprocated. I was in any case more than happy just to be able to call him a friend.

I mentioned the photograph of Titch I took in Ryedale just to say that I carried that around with my in my blazer pocket for at least a year. I spent an hour or so today looking for it, but unfortunately it seems I must have lost it. I wish I had been able to find the words to thank him for his friendship all those years ago. The best I can do now is to drink to his memory.

For some we loved, the loveliest and the best
That from his Vintage rolling Time hath prest,
Have drunk their Cup a Round or two before,
And one by one crept silently to rest