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Letters 1998
24-iv-98
Dear Headmaster,
I am enclosing the obituary of Mr Daniels, for which you asked. During the short period I was at Clayesmore, it is really rather astonishing that so many of the very few pupils that were there with me, managed to make their mark. Michael Crichton-Balfour, may have been a very small time bit player in the theatre, but he merited quite a long obit in the 'Guardian' when he died last autumn.(He was Toby Belch in 'Twelfth Night' at Shaftesbury Town Hall, when I was Olivia. I was with him in Galsworthy's 'Bird in the Hand', though the names of the characters escape me. So was Stephen Joseph, who now has a theatre named after him in Scarborough, and so was Kenneth Mackintosh, who has been influential in the National Theatre - though I have been unable to find out if he is still alive.) I went to Clayesmore from King's College Choir School, where I had been extremely unhappy. (Both Evelyn Mansfield King and John Appleby had taught me there.) The contrast with what I found at Clayesmore was astonishing and I look back at my time with great pleasure. The concept that E M King drove into us was that education was 'for learning to learn'. Even though I am an academic dunce, this concept has enabled me to appreciate so much as I have trolled through life. I have achieved so little, yet I have managed to enjoy almost every minute. I have visited two thirds of the countries in this world, and that is something that, I think, few people could match. I only wish E M King had allowed us to learn to type - and he forbade it specifically!
Yours sincerely.
Gavin Maclean. (34-36)