Paul Williams (M 48-58)

Tim Brown (G 53-59) recalls:

“I attended Paul’s funeral at St Marylebone Crematorium, Finchley. The chapel was packed and there were several eulogies, some mentioning St Bees School, which had been his first teaching post after Cambridge. I was pleased to see another OSB, Peter ‘Monty’ Morgan (F 53-58) there as well as the current director of the Rosehill Theatre at Whitehaven, in which Paul had always taken an interest.

At St Bees Paul taught me English in the New College Hall and introduced me to the poetry of John Betjeman, for which I’m eternally grateful.

He was greatly interested in amateur dramatics and, again, I’m grateful for that introduction. His greatest achievement was perhaps a production of ‘Ruddigore’, which I’ve never seen bettered, and which involved so many of the pupils at that time. 

I lost touch with him after that, but regained it on a transatlantic cruise, when the unmistakable voice asked me if I lived in Cumbria as he’d once taught there.

That was about fifteen years ago, and we kept in touch afterwards. I last visited him at his Islington house, for coffee, in April of last year, when he wasn’t feeling too grand. He subsequently entered a care home.

He left St Bees and teaching, but returned to the latter in London, I believe.”

 

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