Roy Bean Roy was a member of Uppingham staff for well over 30 years, including Housemaster of Highfield from 1977 to 1990. He passed away on 4th November 2016 after a long illness. The following obituary was provided by Casey O’Hanrahan, with an abridged version published in the OU Magazine, Issue 45 2017/18.
When Roy first stepped out of a car on to the Middle – it must have been the term before he started and he was with David Gaine, a friend from Cambridge days, already at the School for four years - he was greeted by a round of applause; or rather, as it was subsequently explained to him, his arrival there happened to coincide with an old-style ‘Middle Clap’, the tradition that whenever a noteworthy event occurred on one game of cricket – the scoring of a fifty, for example – the applause went around all the games in play, more numerous, of course, in those days. Amused by the sensation of inexplicable fame, he would nevertheless have approved of the practice: he was by instinct a traditionalist, with a conservative’s dislike of what he regarded as ‘woolly liberalism’ and its hypocritical intolerance; conversely, he had the capacity to admire, even revere, the people and attitudes that earned his respect. Roy always insisted that he was a proud man of York, where he came into the world, weighing less than two pounds, on January 1st 1937; he was no mere Yorkshireman. The most formative and memorable period of his years in York was his time as Head Chorister of the Minster under Francis Jackson. Nevertheless the other half of his destiny was perhaps fixed when he persuaded his Headmaster at St. Peter’s to allow him to study an extra language in lieu of Sciences. After school, there were two years National Service in the RAF. Unable to fly because of his eyesight, he qualified as a Service Translator with a Certificate in Russian; thence to King’s College Cambridge to read French and Russian and to sing in the Choir under David Willcocks. These were three memorable years, with lasting friendships. Roy arrived at Uppingham in 1966, along with his wife, Anne, whom he had married in 1963. Anne had been at Girton when Roy was at King’s and they had both gone on to Teacher Training at Bristol. An accomplished and knowledgeable musician, Anne taught piano and violin. The family was completed with their two beloved daughters: Catherine, still only months old when they arrived, followed by Rebecca in 1968. It was, of course, a full boarding school existence, with tutoring in West Bank, the games field and the CCF in addition to the demands of the classroom. And at times it continued into the holidays. For a number of years, with a variety of different colleagues – from Basil Morgan to Nigel Richardson – and a selection of boy assistants, Roy went out to Granna where they ran a sort of Uppingham-in-Sweden camp. After this came to an end, Roy set up an equivalent Uppingham Summer School for students from Sweden and elsewhere. The School Magazine offers some lively accounts of these ventures, which in Sweden also involved contingents from girls’ schools. Particularly one might wish to have been present for the final sketch of the Granna Variety Show in the summer of 1974 when, ‘Mr. Bean, doing an exquisite performance of Elvis Presley, was superbly backed by the Oakham girls in three-piece suits and ourselves [the Uppingham Boys] in long evening dresses and make-up’
Uppingham School was allowed some sightings of this ‘popular performer’ as lead vocalist for the band ‘The Cwm Rhondda Four’ [so named because their initial performance involved Roy as Tom Jones singing ‘The Green Green Grass of Home’; the red-shirted Roy as Cliff Richards singing ‘Congratulations’ followed later]. John Anslow was on drums, with John Lennon glasses ‘deadpan and indifferent, handling the sticks with disdain but studied accuracy’ [Christopher Richardson] and Basil Morgan studiously on keyboards. David Gaine and Jeff Abbott, tufts of hair protruding from headbands – in Christopher’s recollection - alternated on percussion. For much of the time, however, Roy’s involvement with music was of a more serious nature. It was his special contribution to Uppingham. For some years he sang with the School Choir [he can be heard singing the solo in Peter Cornelius’s ‘Three Kings’ on the old 1968 LP recording of the School Carol Service] and there are numerous references in old School Magazines to his solo performances in concerts, for example his ‘Christ’ in the Bach St. John Passion of November 1970 is described as having ‘every phrase thought out and the sound so mellow and round’. For many Uppinghamians, however, their most vivid memory will be of Roy taking Congregational Practice, with his sonorous singing of particular phrases demonstrating an inspiring if impossible ideal. I suspect that numbers of OU’s will still recall the sound of Roy singing the ‘Libera Me’ and introducing them to its congregational setting. Roy’s involvement with music went further: he began the Rutland Opera Company, conducting performances of Don Giovanni, Cosi fan Tutti and Rigoletto in the Uppingham Theatre, with Brian Stokes as Director and Christopher Richardson as Designer and Builder of sets. He also sang lead roles in productions in Leicester, Eugene Onegin, for example, and Madame Butterfly. For years he was conductor of Uppingham Town Choral Society, with Anne playing the piano for rehearsals. A review of their March 1971 performance of ‘Elijah’ remarked that Roy’s ‘work over the year with the chorus is magnificent’. 1984 saw what Bryan Matthews in the School Magazine called ‘Christopher Richardson’s splendiferous production of The Mikado.’ This ambitious highlight of the Quatercentenary Year, playing to some 1,700 people over five nights, involved a cast of over 200, including the Mayor and Council, Morris dancers, the Community College, ordinary citizens and members of the School. ‘Mr. Bean,’ writes Bryan Matthews, ‘had worked wonders on these motley and variegated chorus sections and had woven them together in masterly fashion.’ Christopher recalls ‘his patience with those with limited musical skill but who were desperate to be part of it all; with his sensitive nurture of their sometimes faulty grasp of music he saved the performance.’ It is Roy rehearsing Highfield for the House Shout that remains one of Charles Arrand’s (Hf 82) most vivid, positive images of Roy as Housemaster. He remembers him as ‘warm, inspiring, funny and totally in his element’. There is no doubt that he was very competitive: in Nigel Doggett’s (Hf 79) recollection ‘beating Lorne House in the House Shout was a clear purpose each year’. Roy moved into Highfield with Anne and the children in 1977, with Anne playing a vital role throughout. Alongside having to deal with the vicissitudes of life inevitable in any boarding house, there were occasions when Roy showed he could rise to handling a serious crisis. I think particularly of the tragic death of Neil Fulford in February 1982 during his 4th Form year from a rare form of meningitis. There were also the deaths shortly after they left school of Jonathan Carr and Steve Wright. Nigel Doggett recalls how ‘the way he handled those showed how compassionate a man he was’. A housemaster of mercurial temperament will inevitably provoke a variety of responses, with not everyone equally adept at responding to the changing moods. For some, even reading his state of mind will not have been straightforward: he did enjoy playing people along with apparent straightfaced seriousness. Nevertheless it was striking to read some of the positive reminiscences at the time of his death, particularly those of Charles Arrand; I hope a copy of his warm, witty, shrewd and perceptive reflections finds its way into the School Archive. It was never a question of favouritism, but it is unsurprising that numbers of musicians prospered on his watch: Tristan Head (Hf 86), for example, with his Choral Scholarship to King’s Cambridge. Of
course even before going into the House Roy had had an important influence on a number of singers: Andrew Hunter Johnston (SH 66), for instance, Choral Exhibitioner at Caius and Choral Volunteer at King’s and Nigel Howells (L 72), Choral Scholar at King’s. It is significant that another Kingsman, Chris Gabbitas (Hf 95) of the King’s Singers, although he was at Highfield after Roy’s departure, made a point of coming to see him when Highfield had their 150th anniversary celebrations. Meanwhile David Stout (Hf 87), after starting out his working life as a Biology teacher, now has his burgeoning career as a singer of opera and oratorio. It was not only singers in Highfield: most notably there is the organist and musicologist Professor Magnus Williamson (Hf 81). Unarguably, though, the Highfield boy in Roy’s time with the longest and most distinguished musical career as a performer is Toby Spence (Hf 82); it was particularly moving that Toby made the time to come down to sing at Roy’s packed funeral in the Parish Church last November. Coming out of a House after many years, the ex-Housemaster has the problem of constructing a new way of life, a different identity, but I was struck by the positive way in which Roy turned himself into a wonderfully supportive House Tutor to the Watsons in Johnsons and by the quality of his care and concern for his tutees. In many ways there seemed to be a mellowing with age, and this became yet more apparent as he assumed the role of President of the Common Room. Here he was particularly notable for the support he gave younger colleagues and those who were in some way struggling. There is, of course, so much else that might be written about Roy: his love of telling stories and listening to them, for example. When I first arrived he would reminisce nostalgically about what already seemed more leisurely days, listening, enthralled and entertained, to the anecdotes of the late Rev. Ifor Jones. And then there was his love of France, its food and drink and culture, particularly his corner of the South-West, where he had bought a house in Masmontet. From there he would delight in conducting visiting colleagues to the charms of Saint Emilion. Roy was darkness and light, his capacity to become indignant, even furious, counterbalanced by a capacity for laughter and compassion; he was saturnine at times and stubborn, but the amused, raised eyebrows and the warm smile were equally characteristic. He was a man who felt and responded to things with intensity. Perhaps the deepest and most enduring constant in Roy’s life was the music. It all really started with his years as a chorister. Thanks to modern technology, it is now possible to listen to him on YouTube as Head Chorister singing superbly in anthems by Bairstow and Greene in somewhat scratchy recordings from 1952. It is fitting that his ashes lie at rest in the ground outside the Five Sisters’ Window of York Minster.
