In The Spotlight: Richard Chadwick

This month, former staff member Richard 'Chads' Chadwick (1971-2009) is in the spotlight.

What did you do before you worked at BMS? 

I was a brash young 21-year-old when I started my teaching career in 1971 at BMS, having been a winsome*, carefree student at Loughborough, with a passion for Rugby and most other sporting activities, still speculating on what I was going to do when I grew up. Has anything really changed over the subsequent 50-60 years, I wonder?  I’d had some great life experiences growing up in Preston and spent much of my time kicking a ball about with mates or in the great outdoors with 6th Penwortham, our fantastic Scout Group.  I gained the Queens Scout Award in 1967.  It was a big honour for Hutton Grammar school when I was selected for Lancashire Schoolboys but I also loved singing in the school choir where we performed ‘Messiah’, amongst other things, at Preston Public Hall, a venue where The Beatles had also played on their way to fame and fortune.  I think my teachers and parents had almost given up on me in terms of my academic results so it was a pleasant surprise for all when I gained enough ‘A’ level grades to get into Loughborough College, a feat I only achieved by driving down there, cap in hand, after results day and asking for a place.  Obviously, I hadn’t applied earlier, something I somehow forgot in my busy adolescent life!  ‘Never give up’ was a mantra of my grammar school education and my home life and stood me in good stead here.  You don’t get ‘owt for nowt’ was another message and I had to work in my spare time for any pocket money during my teens. Variously I did paper rounds, worked in a chicken factory, a corn mill, laboured on building sites, drove an ice-cream van, mucked-out pigs, and worked on the dredgers and tug boats on the river Ribble….a massive part of my education and such an insight into the world of work

Tell us about what you do now? Has your time at school influenced your life today?

Now, much older but not much wiser, I have enjoyed approaching 18 years of retirement...where has it all gone?  There is no doubt that time accelerates with the passing years, whatever Einstein thinks!  Jenny and I have 5 lovely grandchildren aged 8-16, and we spend some time with them especially during their school holidays. We have travelled quite extensively, including a 3-month tour down under and in South East Asia taking in the 2012 Rugby World Cup in New Zealand, a month in India and Sri Lanka, Costa Rica taking in New York en route, and more recently Istanbul and Uzbekistan as well as several visits to Western Europe including our old haunts in Western France sometimes with family. We love it!  It’s such a pleasure to meet up with OBMs at various places and I have enjoyed their company at various reunions at the school, in Westminster, at the Blues, at Twickenham, Lords and at Clapham golf course.  Always a pleasure, for me at least! 

Tell us about your time at BMS. Do you have any special memories you would like to share? 

I sometimes think I’m better at achieving the impossible than the mundane and still love a challenge.  I loved the cut and thrust of school life, and the countless human interactions in the school day.  The walk from the geography department to the staff room might have involved any number of brief conversations and I definitely miss that in retirement.  BMS students have always buzzed with energy and enthusiasm, and I tried to engage with that both in the classroom on the sports field, and beyond.  There are so many sporting memories from the rugby touchlines to the athletics track that I will never forget and that still, occasionally, even give me a shiver!  Some parts of my work were not a job, but a passion and there were times that I was immensely proud of our students.  Geography, Sport, Outdoor Education, all involve field trips to some of the most fascinating and beautiful parts of the planet both at home and abroad.   Ski trips, water sports trips to France and North America, geography fieldwork in UK and France, rugby and cricket tours around the globe, World Challenge trips to the Himalayas and Africa where we were able to improve life in remote villages in the developing world by concreting dusty classroom floors or providing water supply and storage to the latrines.   What really inspired me in sometimes demanding conditions was working with energised BMS students and on tours or with sports teams where we were united, not for a 40 minute lesson but in achieving a longer term goal.  I was so lucky to have had such an understanding and supportive wife and family.

One of the most satisfying achievements later in my career involved the remodelling and expanding of the House System “run for the students, by the students” in which every student has the opportunity to perform, lead, organise, or be creative in a wide variety of sports, performing arts, debating, leisure activities and anything else we could think of … all highly competitive and involving teamwork

Another was the creation of an integrated Outdoor Education programme with the entire Year 8 group being kick-started with an annual trip to the Outward Bound centre in Aberdovey. I’m delighted to see that both these initiatives still thrive

I especially loved my time working with the Sixth Form. Whether in Geography groups, tutor groups, social initiatives creations, or event organising, I never ceased to be impressed by the energy, humour and talent that our students showed.  Inspirational or what?

Was there someone from your time at BMS who had an impact on you? 

I worked so closely with so many talented teachers over nearly 40 years that it’s really difficult to name any without glaring omissions…they were all fantastic (almost!).  But I will name just four who inspired and helped me on my way as a young and inexperienced teacher in the 1970s and beyond, and these were ‘Sambo’, ‘Chopper’, ’Digger’ and Dan Dickey,** all sadly no longer with us. Eternal thanks to these great, yet sometimes unorthodox schoolmasters!  

What do you like to do in your spare time?

Jenny and I don’t have much spare time, outside of family gatherings, following my passion for sport on TV or live, travelling, playing golf, walking, keeping the house and garden in shape and trying to be good company when with friends

What would be your advice to your younger self? 

I think I have been true to myself with all that entails.  “Trust your instincts” is a mantra I repeat to my family and I think it has always stood me in good stead.  Don’t worry too much about making mistakes (I made loads) they are all good learning experiences.  GO FOR IT! 

I think I did, but I wonder if I would have listened to my own advice?

Are there any other thoughts you would like to share with the OBM and BMS community?  

The rock behind everything that I have achieved has been Jenny, who I met in about the third week of my time at BMS in September 1971.  She had just completed her studies at Oxford and I at Loughborough.  We have created a family life together and none of the above would have been possible without her.  I have been so lucky in my family and professional life, and I am eternally grateful to all those I have been able to share it with.  The OBM Club is brilliant in helping us all remember those happy schooldays we all shared and whenever we get together, once I’ve worked out who I’m talking to, it’s as though we were never apart and that’s (usually) a great joy to me.

As I enter the closing stages*** of a busy and colourful life.  I would like to thank you all!

Chads

❤️

* Cambridge dictionary: attractive, charming, or engaging in a sweet, innocent, or childlike way ...? You decide

** Mr Sampson, Mr Hale, Mr Roberts and the unwitting Mr Dickey

*** No immediate plans to depart, yet!