Michael Peter Cooke remembers late Cornwall College headmaster Arthur Crick

It is indicative of the man that Arthur Crick was, that my memories of him are at the outset quiet, subliminal even. More than anything, his manner was gentle, he was a gentleman. He treaded softly, kindly, perhaps somewhat distant and aloof, sometimes understated and indecisive, but his was a lasting impression.

With the distinction of being the first first-former of my year to be caned by him, we had a very early encounter: for the next seven years he oversaw the ordering of my life, stewarding a tradition and directing an institution which created a space for my world and the parameters of my worldview and gave my life structure, and an often tentative stability.

As boarders we saw him in a more domestic role. He often made his evening rounds, visiting our housemasters for a chat, cursorily checking up on evening prep, almost unobtrusively, respectfully negotiating our shared private space, almost mindful that while it was school, it was also our home: his and ours.

As captain of school, I got to know him better in my Upper Sixth year: we were, on rare occasions – Speech Day, Prefects’ Tea, Christmas Dinner – invited to his home on the hill above the boarding houses, afforded glimpses of a very humane and devoted pater familias. I was more often allowed to share in his almost philosophical and sometimes agonised musings about the school, and his vision for the institution he wanted to inspire. It was clearly more than a job for him: his was a loyal, deep and ardent commitment.

He was a gentleman and a scholar. A humanist, sports were important to him and he was a passionate cricketer. But he envisaged a school which was, in the first instance, an institution which would provide first-class training for our minds as embodied in the school hymn “converting boys to men of might”.

As a classicist and scholar himself, he gently reminded us of our linkage through him to a chain of institutions in the Caribbean and beyond, renowned for academic excellence: Harrison College; Codrington College and through it Durham University. I now often pass through Durham at night when, towering over the Wear peninsula, the Cathedral and New College in the castle are lit, resplendent beacons, symbolising the symbiotic relationship of power between church and university, between mind and spirit.

Mr Crick was very often misunderstood and harshly criticised – mainly as too soft and as ineffectual. I am sure many Cornwallians now understand him better, since so many have gone on to lead institutions ourselves, and to realise how difficult this is, especially where one wishes to lead ultimately by force of reason rather than by force of imposed authority.

The 1970s were probably the most difficult time in the history of the school to be first master. There were the inordinate financial difficulties which reflected the state of the economy, exacerbated by the fact that Cornwall was fully grant-aided by Government. It is no mean feat that the school was kept afloat, that the boarding school, for example, remained open and that new boarding houses were constructed. It was as much witness to his quiet perseverance and considerable capacity for discreet advocacy, as well as his skills of maintaining an excellent network based on goodwill and a high regard, in circles of influence, for his humility and his integrity.

Significantly, in the turbulent political context, Mr Crick was charged with negotiating the school community through a period of violently changing values. While the whole society questioned its values and, rightfully, jettisoned some obsolete ones, he had to maintain the integrity of the institution and its space, while guiding it through uncharted waters. Most importantly, local and national society questioned the colonial understanding of the traditional grammar school and its premises; authority was routinely challenged, as were the existing paradigms of personal and collective discipline.

We were undoubtedly in the middle of a Kulturkampf, a veritable battle in which it was very easy to find oneself on the wrong side. All figures of authority were caught in the middle, walking a tightrope, engaged in a balancing act without any safety nets. The quiet were very easily shouted down, their restrained voices often drowned out.

The fact that Cornwall survived has as much to do with his self-effacement and cautious openness, as with its venerable traditions and foundations as with its outstanding complement of staff and students. The very principles on which it was founded – the provision of a rounded education for the less privileged – and its diversity, attributable to the fact that its outstanding academic traditions resulted in many of means and varied backgrounds being attracted to it as well – meant it could in fact provide a model and context for the new concepts of accessible and inclusive education.

Every battle, though, has its victors and its victims: while Mr Crick eventually retired, perhaps before he might have wanted to, during these turbulent 70s the school expanded vastly its curricular and extra-curricular capacity. It produced at least two Jamaica Independence Scholars, and numerous UWI Open and Exhibition Scholars; two school captains went on to become chief justice of the Cayman Islands and chief magistrate of The Bahamas respectively.

Each year Cornwallians peopled the cohorts of all the university’s faculties with distinction. Cornwallians from this period have sat in Parliament; with varying success have created, led and been actively involved in churches, schools, farms, parish councils, newspapers, insurance companies, hotels, museums and popular demonstrations.

In addition to the basic academic skeleton, school life afforded a variety of activities for self-sdevelopment, and we were all taught that participation, leadership and success were experiences Cornwallians could aspire to and explore.

While in my time no captain lifted the DaCosta Cup or the

Mortimer Geddes Trophy, we were always a force to be reckoned with in every schoolboy competitive endeavour, the school led in numerous innovative activities and no boy was ever ashamed to wear the red and gold epaulettes. How much more might the school have achieved had he had the full support of circumstances, school, old boys and town.

No reminiscence of him is complete without mention of his talents as raconteur and his immense sense of humour. Most of us will remember him as “Django”, the moniker a tribute to his legendary stealth and his feats as the fastest cane in the West. We have a wealth of anecdotes which bear witness to that, as well as those which reflect his remarkable physiognomy and idiosyncratic accent. There are the famous Mice and Cowie jokes, indelible in our minds because their very essence is of a man with a great sense of self-irony, challenging our self-control, straight -sfaced but with a twinkle in his eyes, daring us to laugh at him, with him.