David Manners and his wife have visited Jock Sutton and his wife Muriel in their nursing home in Oxford. David writes:
“Jock is, I think, over 90. Muriel is nearly 90. Muriel has had a bad fall needing plates in her leg and has also had a brain haemorrhage and has spent many months in hospital, although you would not know from her conversation and spirit. They are both very frail physically. Mentally they are both very much with it. Jock is still his old challenging, feisty self and still writes his “let’s have no nonsense” letters to the Oxford Mail but under the name of Frederick Sutton and not, as in the past, F. W. Sutton. He is an engaging talker. Did you know that they got married in an air raid shelter during an air raid on Coventry? He is very proud of his daughter, grandchildren and great grandchildren. CND is still very close to his heart. We talked of the school and of his life as a teacher. He is still devising novel teaching practices….. I am sure they will be delighted to hear from anyone from the school, although Jock cannot promise to recall everyone. I very much doubt that they are fit enough to visit the pub or any restaurant. Muriel has not been out since returning from hospital, she is very much reliant on a zimmer frame.”
Peter Scaife writes:
“I was interested in your feature on “Jock” and to note that he is still alive aged over 90 years. How I used to dread his lessons and that stern tone (with hands behind his jacket lapels) which used to say “open your English exercise books and make a heading prose/verse interpretation” Then there were the spelling tests where he looked at us like thunder if we did not get 10 out of 10.”
Malcolm Williams’ Rare Poetic Talent. Richard Coleman (53-60) writes: “In my memory Malcolm’s most singular claim to fame came during an English lesson in 2A. Jock Sutton obviously thought that the country’s total preoccupation with the coronation had gone too far and urged us to write a poem celebrating the conquest of Everest. Malcolm stood up to read his piece:
Everest
Only two men have reached the summit.
Hilary and Tensing dunnit.”
Ian Lamb writes:
“Jock was a great influence in and on my life. I still remember much of a term devoted by him to having his class listen to a play by Sean O’Casey, “Juno and the Paycock”, if my memory serves me: my introduction to to 20th century theatre at a time when the the A Level set books were no more recent than the 19th century. More than that however, was the enormous importance of his teaching for A Level overcoming my natural intellectual laziness and enabling me to achieve a grade A.
That in turn just managed to get me an interview at university, resulting in a conditional offer, which I managed to fulfil after a third year in the 6th form. A law degree followed and then a career in the law as a barrister and a judge. It is not an exaggeration to say I owed it in part to Jock. Perhaps he got through to me because my father was a Scot, with a broad Aberdonian accent, and these were the only two Scottish accents in my life, both of them influential and beneficial.”