In Memoriam
Graham Nigel Burgess

Graham Burgess (m. 1954) passed away peacefully at home last year two weeks before his 87th birthday. He was of the generation that came up to Cambridge not immediately after school, but following two years' National Service, which he had spent in the RAF learning to fly jets in Canada. He entered to study English Literature, but despite enjoying attending the packed lectures of C.S. Lewis, he later opted to change to Geography, having learnt many essentials of spatially orientating himself in the world in his pilot training.

Both these disciplines resurfaced in his later life, as we shall see.

He was active in sports at Cambridge, which was where he began playing squash (which he later played competitively as Captain of Newbus Grange Squash Club) and was a member of the Queens' College Rugby team.

Graham was born and brought up on the Sussex coast until during the war, the experience of a Vl rocket pulverising the farm next door led his mother to evacuate to the North. He attended Sedbergh School, which nurtured his lifelong love not just of rugby but also of music, the outdoors and the landscape of the hills. Following graduation from Cambridge he returned to North Yorkshire, where he met his wife Ruth, and they had two children, Trevor and Mark, the latter of whom studied at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, 1984-87.

Almost by accident, he found his vocation in life, when he became a teacher at Grosvenor House School in Harrogate, progressing to be Senior Master. He proved to be a born teacher with the capacity to inspire the boys with his values and enthusiasm for life not only in the classroom but also on the sports field. It was in this period that his creative imagination came through in writing a series of plays which the boys performed each year. He also conducted an amateur choir. fn 1970 came his biggest professional challenge when he was appointed Headmaster of Hurworth House School, Darlington. The school was on the point of closure. Over the succeeding 23 years, in partnership with Ruth, he steered it to become a thriving, successful and respected school of nearly 200 pupils, and he served for many years a representative on the lndependent Association of Preparatory Schools (IAPS).

A lifelong love of sailing provided a respite from the responsibilities of running the school. The navigation skills he had learned as a pilot and his geographical studies at Cambridge served him well in numerous voyages in a small boat on the North Sea.

On retirement in 1993, Graham and Ruth moved out of the school to live in the Yorkshire Dales amidst the hills and moors that he so loved. But retirement didn't last long as Graham very soon was invited to help run Biker Wenwaste, a family business in Leyburn, later becoming Company Secretary, an association that lasted the rest of his life and to which he very typically gave his enthusiasm, loyalty and devotion.

Graham will be greatly missed by his wife, family and friends.