Theresa, I should have also mentioned to you that on the same photo section I referred to in my previous reply, there are several photos of your uncle at Swartha, dated 1945, as well as later shots of him in Assisi shortly before he died. Later interested visitors to Assisi have posted photos of his grave . David

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 1945-50

Current location (optional) Keighley

After I had posted the above reply relating to 'Harry' Harpin I received an Email from Terry Marsden remarking on a coincidental receipt of a photograph of Harry, by Email, of a similar shot in Italy. This photo had been passed on to Terry by John Waddington-Feather. In addition there was a copy of a newspaper clipping covering the sudden death of our former Headmaster Mr Neville Hind, giving a brief outline of his life and achievements. Also, there was a photograph of Ms Berrington. All three items were passed on to our Webmaster who has placed them in the School/Faculty section. Later the same day I was reading through the Neville Hind clipping and noted with surprise, that he had served in the infantry during the Great War(1914-18)and had been wounded. Not only that but he had been awarded the Military Medal!!! All those times at School, whenever you saw his name in print, it was nearly always 'Mr.N.Hind M.A.(cantab)', but never an 'M.M.'after his name. Amazing! I wonder what that says about the man?

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 45-50

Current location (optional) Keighley

Thanks, David, for that elucidation. Although "the Old Man" was never seen as an heroic character, he did show a strong interest in school athletic performance - especially school rugby.(I don't think he rated cricket!)He showed little sympathy for injured rugby players - "Well, if you will play these rough games....etc!" Knowledge of his army career and decoration would have enhanced his status with West Riding lads at kbgs and possibly would have given many of us heightened ambition. Perhaps many of our contemporaries would have appreciated that the school was not led by donkeys after all! We all needed the qualities of good role models.Unfortunately "Old Nick" would appear to have hid his light under a bushel - not unknown for Yorkshire types - despite the national image. Good'on you, Nev!

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 52-60

Current location (optional) Lincoln

Terry. You say that you thought 'the Old Man' never rated cricket and yet I can recall him turning out on more than one occasion for the Old Boys, usually with a beaming smile on his face(a rarity). The other thing I do remember is that he never wore a belt around his waist, preferring instead, to wear his old school tie!! A bit like when the Barbarians play rugby, they all wear a Barbarian shirt but the stockings worn are from their indivdual clubs, to show 'where they're coming from'. So in a way, Neville was saying 'I learned my cricket at Newcastle Royal'- and was proud of it.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 45-50

Current location (optional) Keighley

Good thread! I remember "old Nick" wearing his tie for a belt.When I first saw this I was in the first form,and I thought that maybe this is the norm when you "grow up". Interesting to hear about the Military Medal- that is a very high award.My brother received the MM for bravery in Vietnam,serving with the Australian Army.Thanks for jogging me about the faculty page David. The piece on Harry Harpin was most interesting.As has been stated on here,he was a popular teacher. Cheers.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 47-51

Current location (optional) Auckland,NZ

I was looking again at the posting I made regarding the death of Neville Hind and the revelation that he had been wounded and decorated in WW1. One aspect of the item that nattered me a little and that was the dating of the newsclipping, which in turn would have given us his D.o.b., knowing already that he was 74 when he died. I now find out that the year of the clipping was 1972 which means he was born in 1898. The clipping also states that he joined the infantry in 1917, making him only 19 years old at the time. Therefore he must have won the Military Medal when he was some 19/20 years old!!! Amazing!! And we never knew!

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 45-50

Current location (optional) Keighley

Neville Hind was a complicated man, sparing with his praise and furious in his (mostly simulated) anger. I knew about his MM though I can't ever remember him referring to it. This was typical because he was always a modest man so far as his own achievements went and .looking back on it, a wise and sympathetic character. I would have nothing at all bad to say of him. He was rightly proud of his own success as well as mine when I got my Open Scholarship to Christ's Cambridge and I even got a literal pat on the back from him.

Hildred Harpin - equally complicated and because I was terrible at drawing he might have thought I didn't like it which couldn't have been further from the truth. Thus we were never very close but I remember the stories of his travels very well as well as his own great painting.I remember Zest For Your Leisure also and I am sure I had an old copy but. like a lot of old papers, goodness knows where it is now.When I myself became a Catholic I would like to have told him but I had no idea what happened to him after he became a priest so thanks very much for the posting and the interesting clip.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) '40-'48

Current location (optional) Epsom

Going through the Website Guestbook recently I read a piece by a certain 'Tom Bell' asking for information about 'Harry' Harpin. I contacted Tom by Email and directed him to the Faculty Section on our Website and in particular the Silsden Newsletter regarding 'Harry'. He replied saying that he and his sister, between them, had four watercolours by 'H.Harpin' all of Swartha, which they had inherited. At the same time he mentioned that he(Tom)had a small photo album belonging to Harry, with pictures taken from the mid 30's to the mid 40's, which he has kindly sent on to me. Six of the photos have been 'posted' by our Webmaster, on the 'Faculty' page along with others of Harry already there. Tom tells me that his uncle, John Stanley Bell, is on one of the photos as is Tom's father, Tom Bell Snr, on more than one. It's just possible that some of the older Old Boys may 'find' themselves on the photos newly posted. Tom has also exchanged Emails with Denis Pickles regarding the paintings mentioned, and hopes to meet up with Denis sometime in February with the paintings, after which we hope to have some 'shots' of them to put on the website. It also transpires that Denis used to play in the second row with John Stanley Bell back in the 50's with the Keighlians!! Small world!! Finally, Tom tells me that he has bound copies of 'The Keighlian' magazine dated 1935-41!!

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 45-50

Current location (optional) Keighley

Don't know how I did it, but the message I've just posted about Harry Harpin's 'Zest' Magazines has appeared out of chronological order. If you are interested, scroll back to my entry dated 30th August 2008.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 1945 - 50

Current location (optional) Norfolk

Whatever happened to Malcolm Whittlestone, ex KBGS. He was known as the 'hardest man in Haworth'. He had many a fight outide 'The Rodney Pub' on the cobbles of a Saturday night. A brute of man who could be a handful on a weekly rugby match at Greenhead or even up at Oakbank.

I notice in the Guestbook that there is an entry from Dave Pawson. Does anyone know if he was from Ingrow and did he have a brother called Mike?

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58-65

Current location (optional) leeds

Dear Friends of Francis--

I am now quite chagrined not to have searched on the internet, until now, for news of my beloved mentor Fr. Hildred Francis Harpin. His mentorship was the single most pivotal educational and spiritual relationship in my life.

When I was a college student, in the early 1980s, I was introduced to Father Harpin on a pilgrimage I had made to Assisi and which was followed by a pilgrimage to the Holy Land for Holy Week 1981. When I met him, we was living in an apartment probably of Medieval vintage, with a garden overlooking the valley below Assisi. He had a pomegranate tree (of which I have a watercolor by his hand) and a cobblestone patio near the lower-level apartment where he would serve tea to young people who from every walk of life but ones he called his "little brothers" and "little sisters"--people who were not "clubbable", as he put it. These were dialogues interwoven with stories which kept our rapt attention. He likened us, affectionately,to the bread our Lord gathered up into baskets, after feeding the crowd. I learned, not from Francis, that he was offered what I consider to be the greatest artistic commission one could be offered in Christendom: reworking & restoring the mosaics in the Holy Sepulchre. When I was able to 'work it out of him' that this was true, I asked him why he didn't take the commission. He answered simply--and I paraphrase: "...because then I could not have been with you and the other little brothers and sisters."

For those of you who knew and maybe loved him, I can assure you that these latter days of his were glorious. In the end, he said "all I live for is the Eucharist." I own two of his paintings--one of the pomegranate tree and one which he painted at the Sea of Galilee. I also own a painting by his father of an estuary in England. It was the light upon this estuary which his father strove so brilliantly to capture and which he told Francis he saw on his death bed in his last moments.

I would be interested in anyone who might be willing to participate in the creation of some sort of "Legacy" website in honor of Francis. This would have a place for memories to be shared from the wider reaches of his life and ministry--inclusive of those you have been sharing from his teaching days--as well as photos of him and his work. Any recordings of him speaking would be also welcome. My email address is: michaeladamovich@att.net.

I'm already conscious that Francis would chide me good-naturedly about this posting, because it's a long and winding road. He told me, laughing, that "the shaggy dog story" must have been invented in my native Minnesota where he visited me twice. However, he never tried to make me into an Englishman but affirmed the "naturalness" of my American manners and way.

Thank you for remembering him with me. He was a Saint, from all I know of him.

Blessings,

Mike

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) Mentored by Hildred Francis Harpin-- not a KBGS student

Current location (optional) USA

I think so Shaun.

I emailed him a few years back and it was the Dave Pawson who, in the last (?) 1964 'Panorama' (on the tennis courts) that he had a cheroot behind his left ear and purposely ensured that his head was 'in the line of fire' so that it would be recorded for posterity. And it was! You can see it if you have a 'Panorama' and might be able to see it on the website.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 1959 - 1966

Current location (optional) Shoreham-by-Sea

I remember Harry very well and reading this thread has brought back a strange memory. I used to sit next to the door of the art room and every art lesson he would say to me " Go and check the time, please". This involved going down the steps to the window opposite the Large, well huge , clock face of the Town Clock. Simple enough but you see I could not tell the time, not because I was stupid but because I had never been taught how to. One day I told my mother about this. She was shocked and immediately took me up to the Town Hall square, the Old Man's park and sat me down and in about one hour taught me, using the same clock. As I say, I was not stupid and learned in one hour. So in a very indirect way I have something to be grateful to Harry for.

It was my fond wish when I first started to contribute to this site, that I might be able to obtain information regarding some of the lads who were in the same form as I all those years ago. I left school almost 65 years ago and with the odd exception, I lost touch with all but a handful of the boys I had shared the previous five years. That didn\'t worry me at the time. I was busy with other important things such as mapping out a career for myself, devoting two years to serving Queen and country, getting married and raising a family, making new friends in the different places I chose to work, etc.. However now, it seems important that I should try and fill what gaps there are in my knowledge. Perhaps there are still one or two old boys who can help but where are they? David Seeley is the only chap who has been able to unearth snippets of information and I do believe that there may be a few old timers who attend a retired men\'s group In Keighley who may know \'summat\' .
So, if there is anyone out there from the 45 - 50 era who might be able to fill some of the voids, please let me know. I don\'t want to borrow any brass, just to know how life has treated them.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 1945 - 50

Current location (optional) Norfolk

Denis

Was Jack Martin one of your 'lost' classmates, by any chance? I have his contact details if he was. He and David were in the same year, and close friends, but maybe you were earlier than them?

Doug

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 1951-58

Current location (optional) Keswick, Cumbria

I have a painting of Bolton Abbey which was painted by Hildred Harpin and given to my father Geoffrey (Geoff) Hill, on the back Hildred had written 'to my brother Geoffrey'. Unfortunately my father passed away in 2011 so I am not able to ask him for any more information. My father attended school in Silsden but I have a photograph of him that looks to have been taken in an art class.

Current location (optional) Manchester