#Trinity60‍

On Friday 24 June, the Modern Languages Department bade farewell to Mr Thomas Grundy, Head of German since 1973. It was entirely appropriate that, as we sat down in the restaurant, the elements made their own feelings clear: torrential rain, thunder and forked lightning, an eerie play of light and shadow, and the dimming of the restaurant lights. Was this to be Götterdämmerung—the twilight of the gods? Was the Department shuffling towards an abyss of doom as its most revered member departed? It would be wrong to over-dramatise the import of the moment, but then...

The major difficulty in writing a valete to a man such as Thomas Grundy is the sheer immensity of the task: how can one know what is truth and what is fabrication? The myths invented by others interweave with the legends created by the subject himself. We can but try.

To Begin at the Beginning

Tom was born on 5 January 1929 in Wigan. His father, also Thomas, had died tragically before he was born. Here we see the power of words and their associations: if we say "Tom Grundy," we conjure up a myriad of images, but had it not been for this tragic beginning, the Head of German would have been a certain Mr Thomas Dixon. As matters stood, his mother remarried; Tom gained the name we know so well and a stepfather whose care and affection he valued.

Tom’s early years were marked by life in a big house, nurtured by a determined and indomitable group of women: his mother, aunt, and cousin. Another early influence was his grandfather, Harry—a twenty-stone, cinema-loving man who, needing two seats at the pictures, would take the young Tom to occupy the precious little space that remained next to him.

From Wigan Grammar School he went not to Oxford but, as he would often tell us (usually in the same terms), to "the other" University—meaning, of course, Manchester. His degree completed, he began military service in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps. He would tell us he was in Military Intelligence, and then deny all, claiming merely to have been a sergeant giving intelligence tests to new recruits.

A Master of the Profession

After qualifying as a teacher in 1953, he set out on the long route that ended at Trinity. His career began at Abbotsholme, from where he moved to Hertford Grammar, Goffes, and Haileybury—none of which could keep him for longer than two years at most. However, once he arrived at Trinity, Tom demonstrated over the decades that he was an excellent practitioner of the teaching profession: a skilled motivator who cared about standards, amusing yet demanding and conscientious.

The present-day success of the German Department is a monument to his charismatic enthusiasm, ably supported first by his dear friend Peter Marshall, who died suddenly in 1984, and then by Simon Ware. There are hallmark phrases which will continue to reverberate down the Modern Language corridor: "Inside!" (to which was added "Outside!" in honour of last year’s 3F); "My eyes are narrowing to slits"; and "I’m getting testy..." Members of this year’s Upper Sixth recount how his desk in Room 12 would periodically be moved to the edge of the dais. Tom would usually obligingly slam shut the drawers, and the desk would topple off. He professed to know every word in the German language, would break into song with very little encouragement, and refused to call his Sixth Form pupils by their first names, as he did not want them to call him Tom.

Beyond the Classroom

But he has been much more than a teacher. He was House Front of Manager for numerous drama productions; a Form Master in the Middle School (sympathetic but certainly no colluder courting popularity); Carol Service organiser; Union representative; Rhineland trip organiser; and Common Room Social Secretary ("Nothing to report, Mr Chairman").

No valete would be complete without reference to his major contribution to the PE and Games Department. Mr Ian Marsh supplied the following tribute:

"When TG arrived, cross country was—in every respect—a 'Cinderella' sport at Trinity. During his 20-odd years here, Tom has turned cross country into a cult activity. By seizing the talented and not-so-talented at an impressionable age, and with the promise of chocolate bars and free swims, Tom conned generations of boys into believing they were actually enjoying this most masochistic of activities. Spurred on by catchphrases like 'The Wetter the Better,' the devotees really did get better.

How appropriate that in Tom’s last year, the Seniors should win the Croydon Schools Championships, the King’s Trophy, the Judge Cup, and the Kent Relays. Their greatest achievement was winning the Knole Run. It is a great shame that the immortal instructions of Tom, the Starter, will never again be heard in Lloyd Park: 'I shall say, "Are you ready? ... Go!" ... "Are you ready? ... Come back!!!"' "

Retirement and Reflections

Tom, in his self-mocking style, often claimed: "You’ll miss me when I’ve gone." He is, of course, absolutely right. As Max Miller used to say: "There’ll never be another, Missus!"

What does life have in store for him now? An apartment on the seafront at Eastbourne, perhaps; bridge, films, 1950s musicals, and a passion for detective novels. Indeed, it was Tom who wrote to the BBC years ago recommending they dramatise Colin Dexter’s Inspector Morse novels. He still has the letter from the BBC declining his suggestion—and the one he wrote later telling them, "I told you so." His favourite film is Goodbye, Mr. Chips, which encapsulates the courtesy and vigour of a bygone age. When in the future, at the age of perhaps 106, Tom prepares to depart for the "language laboratory in the sky," a future Headmaster might be heard to whisper: "Pity he never had any children." And Tom will reply, as he must: "I heard what you said—but you're wrong. I have thousands of them. Thousands of them."

It has been a privilege and a joy for the Common Room to have a colleague such as Tom. We miss him, but although we may have lost a colleague, we have not lost a friend.

Postscript: By the way... Tom Grundy is not TG, but TFG. The 'F' stands for Fairhurst, his mother’s maiden name. He kept it a secret his whole working life. I thought you should know.

P. March

I.G. Marsh