Rhubarb 2021

ST EDWARD’S

crews. He also became rowing correspondent of The Oxford Times in 1976, a role he held until 2014.

Pam and Duncan were one of the outstanding husband-and- wife partnerships who arrived in the immediate post-war era at Teddies: there were a number of them who eventually became the Housemaster teams of the ’60s and ’70s and the engine room of the School in those challenging, heady times for educating boys.Those partnerships were instrumental in transforming the Common Room away from the bachelor club it had been, and Pam played a huge part in that. After living in Field House Drive, Pam and Duncan moved into the new Housemaster’s house in Tilly’s in 1964, Duncan Bill and Auntie Pam as they were affectionately known by their 70 boys. She threw herself into the role of Housemaster’s wife unreservedly, displaying boundless energy, kindness and positivity. She also acted as both a paid and unpaid PA to several Wardens, utilising the secretarial skills that she had learnt working for a surgeon in Liverpool for a number of years before she got married. She made many other contributions to school life, such as acting as occasional House nurse, doing the Chapel flowers, and being a core part of the team that guided prospective parents round the School. She started up the very successful school fêtes run for the NSPCC. She helped run the ornithological club, and ran gardening groups in many locations with boys on the DofE scheme, reflecting two of her great loves in life – gardening and birds. She ran the pastoral side of the scholarship programme for some years and continued to do this until she and Duncan retired. She also founded Pam’s Party, a weekly nursery which she ran for 27 years for the children of the teachers and associates. In the Chronicle John Armstrong (Bursar and former Assistant Warden) wrote on Duncan and Pam’s retirement in 1984, “I doubt anyone knows quite how much is owed to Pam. Perhaps I may merely say that I benefit enormously from her competence, I am regularly aware of her kindness and I rely constantly upon her unswerving loyalty to the School”. For the last 43 years of her life she had her beloved house and garden on theWoodstock Road overlooking the fields and next door to successiveWardens, which kept her in close touch with the School until the end of her life. She loved attending School and Common Room events and Special Gaudies into her nineties. Pam was also involved in a huge range of causes outside the School. In typical Pam style she not only joined things but was soon immersed in the running of them and in several cases leading them; the local branch of the NSPCC where she was Chairman and President; Greycotes and Milham Ford schools for which she was a Governor ; the OxfordWomen’s Luncheon Club, where she was Chairman and President; Fairfields, a care home on the Banbury Road, where she was on the Board for many years; the PBW theatre club which she started up and which she was still attending until lockdown; and Sobell House – she led many gardening parties there fromTeddies and eventually became more involved when Duncan became the Treasurer of the charity.

Rosewell owed his break at this newspaper to the unquenchable thirst of Burnell’s successor, Jim Railton, who wrote colourfully but often unreliably, especially after lunch. Having been bailed out by colleagues on several occasions, Railton’s failure one year to file from Henley led to his job being offered to a man who was only a year younger. That is not to say that Rosewell didn’t enjoy a drink and a good time himself; he was just able to contain himself until he had filed. Once a year he would be found on the balcony of Room 124 in the Hotel des Alpes at the Lucerne regatta declaring “I could drink that!”, the toast of the British Association of Rowing Journalists, and he had a playful taste for tomfoolery, such as when he formed a kazoo orchestra to perform Deutschland über Alles and Always Look on the Bright Side of Life at a regatta in Munich. At a world championships in Aiguebelette, France, he borrowed from a Peter Cook sketch and blamed feeling tired one morning on Brigitte Bardot pestering him all night for sex. Rosewell was the official timekeeper for the Boat Race for 12 years. His biggest regret came when he missed the race in 2003 after breaking his elbow when he tripped on a paving stone on his way to the weigh-in. Oxford won by one foot.Three years later he suffered a more embarrassing moment involving the race when, having gone out on a launch to watch the trial eights race, he returned to Putney to find that the Thames had risen higher than expected and swamped his car, parked outside a boathouse. Not only was the vehicle a write-off, he lamented, The Times didn’t even have room for his race report. All these setbacks were soon chuckled off with a Rosewell catchphrase that reflected his pragmatism and optimism. “It can’t be too bad” was his standard response to triumph and disaster, a recognition that while time and tide wait for no man, all that really matters is how you scull life’s boat.

OBITUARIES

PAMWILLIAMS At Teddies,1948-1984 P amWilliams was wife of Duncan Williams (MCR, 1948-1984 and Housemaster of Tilly’s 1964- 1976). She died on 27th October 2020.

These words were written by her son Richard.

Pam was born on 12th April 1925 and grew up on the Wirral. In 1948 she met Duncan who also grew up on the Wirral and had just started working at Teddies. As only Pam could say, from the moment she met him it was magical. Duncan was a rock for Pam – a modest, quiet man with great qualities and a lovely, twinkling sense of humour. They were married in 1950 by the thenWarden Henry Kendall and so began a lifetime’s association with the School.Three sons, Michael, David, and Richard, followed.

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