Hamish Aird reflects on the life of Warden Dennis Silk CBE.
1968 was a year of revolution: riots and student demonstrations in Germany and France; a degree of unrest in British universities. Here too at Radley a revolution was about to begin. A young, new Warden had just been appointed, and a picture published of him and his wife and young family in the Radleian amid anticipation, hope and for those who knew him already something not far from joyous exhilaration. In September 1968 Dennis Silk came to Radley from Marlborough, where he had been a Housemaster, with a name as a cricketer who had led MCC teams to North America and Canada and to New Zealand; with rugby and fives blues for Cambridge, a strong interest in English Literature and agreement among the cognoscenti that he would one day be a great Headmaster.
For some years at Marlborough he had been a bachelor housemaster. In 1963 he married Diana Milton, and over the next five years a young family, Kate, Tom, Alexandra and Will arrived. Marlburians have told me the marked influence for good that his marriage and his family had on Dennis as a person.
At Radley we waited, some apprehensively, some with great optimism. Many of us had not met the new Warden but as he spoke to each one of us individually it was clear that he had done prodigious homework on our subjects, our interests and our characters. It was as if he knew us already.
With the boys he was straight-forward and direct at the first Assembly in Hall, and made it clear what standards he expected. This was reinforced by a late evening fire practice roll call on his second Saturday evening, when a number were found to be absent in Oxford and were duly dealt with. It was clear that Dennis was going to have no problems with discipline. Early this same term he held an extra Assembly in Hall, and ordered some particularly serious miscreants to walk through the gathered throng out of Hall and to wait for him in his study. Hall went very silent as they made their exit.
Very soon we all (dons, boys, staff) knew that Dennis had a vision both for the school and for the individual boy. Work mattered. The academic standard at A level was poor: or as a Classics colleague wrote on a sheet he handed me with the A level grades for 1968 on it: “abysmal”. It wasn’t just the boys who had to work – we, as dons, must SYP (set your preps) and MYP (maintain your presence), that is be around at all times for the boys. Teaching at Radley was to be a full time job.
The change both in the attitude to work among dons and boys from 1968 to the early 1980s was remarkable. Warden Milligan had made some good appointments, but it was the encouragement that dons received from Dennis that led to the golden years. And while there was strong expectation for dons to take full active parts in all areas of school life, there was room for the quirky inspirational teacher to be appointed.
On this foundation of real respect for work came also a strong emphasis on the fundamental decencies of life: behaviour, manners, unselfishness, awareness of other people. His inspiration for this came from his Christian family background, his experience at Christ’s Hospital, his experience at Marlborough and foremost of all from his marriage with Diana.
Dennis also fully believed that life at school should be fun. Striving to be hardworking and good did not preclude fun. He also believed in shared activity. Within a year or two he was working with senior boys to create a club room in the Mansion Cellar for sixth formers. Another two projects, in line with his great love of gardening, were his potato farm on free land by the main road, and, more attractive to the growers, creating a field for ‘grow your own’ strawberries. Boys who wanted to take part were allotted a strip with strawberry plants and tended them in their free time.
Back in the eighties for the first Comic Relief Day Dennis and Diana came into Hall for lunch dressed as bikers, Dennis with bovver boots and braces, Diana in sleek black leathers. At any Radley charity event Dennis was to the fore, whether pillow-fighting with his Senior Prefect on a raised plank, or striding out to complete 30 miles in the Shelter and Starehe Walks along The Ridgeway.
There was a new optimistic mood in the school, and in the development Dennis worked closely with the Chairman of Council, David Rae Smith, and with his two bursars, Sir Kerr Bovell and Micky Jones. They were both entirely in tune with Dennis’s aims and became his closest of friends.
Radley was still a Victorian campus badly in need of renovation and new buildings. Top priorities were the modernisation of the boys’ accommodation and the need to increase the size of each social to hold the greater numbers now in the school. Only a few boys had bedsitters in Socials and most lived in studies and cubicles in dormitories.
In addition there were two major projects for which successful appeals were made: firstly, a new Arts Centre attached to the Old Gym and named The Sewell Centre; and secondly a Concert Hall, eventually to be called The Silk Hall. Expeditions were made all over the country by the Warden and Diana and their loyal lieutenants to address groups of Old Radleians in their houses and feed them with Coronation Chicken before making the appeal. Both projects were successful and the school had two vital new buildings, while at the same time the accommodation came closer and closer to the new expectations of privacy and comfort. In addition the go-ahead was given for the building of a nine-hole golf course.
The Warden had great faith in what he was doing at Radley, and, granted this, he was ready to welcome the BBC and their cameras to Radley in 1979. It is hard to make a film about school life, as so much of it is routine, but much was happening at Radley and the public liked what they saw. The film also did much for other independent schools as a result of this.
The Sewell Centre was close to Dennis’s heart, and with it Radley became a pioneer in promoting Art and Design as academic subjects. Who should take part in these subjects? The whole school! And no boy from that era will forget the Creative Hobbies Competition where every boy in the school had to make his own entry for the competition. There was a fine Cup for the winning social. In 600 homes all over the country each year you might find an aesthetic delight varying from a new pottery owl wearing a social tie to a huge show-stopping wooden pink pig.
While the zanier projects caught the eye, the traditional extramural areas of public school life flourished. The Warden had a strong natural interest and ability in many sports, and his support for teams and individuals went right across the board, from the 1st cricket X1 down to the Under 14 rugby 5th XV. He would write in a junior boy’s end of term report: ”I was delighted to see him gather the ball and make a break down the wing that JPR Williams would have been proud of.” Needless to say games flourished over his 23 years as Warden. And he sang with the Choral Society and attended almost every play and concert.
Boys like a bit of charisma in their Heads, and they also like the Warden to know them individually. Dennis worked at knowing all the boys from Social photos and lists and reports and meeting them on their birthdays and around the school. He must have written thousands of letters to boys and dons and members of the College staff composed at 5.00am in his study at home. And there was much hospitality in the Warden’s House: dinner parties, Confirmation lunches, informal suppers, drinks parties, farewell parties, with many of these for Tutors or Heads of Department moving on to be Headmasters in their own right.
Dennis knew personally the importance of friendship. Much of his love of literature and especially the First World War poems came from his strong friendship with Siegfried Sassoon. He knew that from deep friendship came understanding of life, loyalty, comradeship and inner strength. He added to these qualities a natural warmth and a generous respect for his friends. And what a legion of them there were!
Dennis saw life whole. And he saw the community that he led and presided over as a whole. His concern was not just the school but everyone who worked or lived at Radley. To this he brought a strong Christian faith which came from his family and developed further at Christ’s Hospital. This faith coloured all he did and it was combined with the humility that comes with strong faith. It was a sure foundation to a great era for Radley.
Hamish Aird reflects on the life of Warden Dennis Silk CBE.
1968 was a year of revolution: riots and student demonstrations in Germany and France; a degree of unrest in British universities. Here too at Radley a revolution was about to begin. A young, new Warden had just been appointed, and a picture published of him and his wife and young family in the Radleian amid anticipation, hope and for those who knew him already something not far from joyous exhilaration.
In September 1968 Dennis Silk came to Radley from Marlborough, where he had been a Housemaster, with a name as a cricketer who had led MCC teams to North America and Canada and to New Zealand; with rugby and fives blues for Cambridge, a strong interest in English Literature and agreement among the cognoscenti that he would one day be a great Headmaster.
For some years at Marlborough he had been a bachelor housemaster. In 1963 he married Diana Milton, and over the next five years a young family, Kate, Tom, Alexandra and Will arrived. Marlburians have told me the marked influence for good that his marriage and his family had on Dennis as a person.
At Radley we waited, some apprehensively, some with great optimism. Many of us had not met the new Warden but as he spoke to each one of us individually it was clear that he had done prodigious homework on our subjects, our interests and our characters. It was as if he knew us already.
With the boys he was straight-forward and direct at the first Assembly in Hall, and made it clear what standards he expected. This was reinforced by a late evening fire practice roll call on his second Saturday evening, when a number were found to be absent in Oxford and were duly dealt with. It was clear that Dennis was going to have no problems with discipline. Early this same term he held an extra Assembly in Hall, and ordered some particularly serious miscreants to walk through the gathered throng out of Hall and to wait for him in his study. Hall went very silent as they made their exit.
Very soon we all (dons, boys, staff) knew that Dennis had a vision both for the school and for the individual boy. Work mattered. The academic standard at A level was poor: or as a Classics colleague wrote on a sheet he handed me with the A level grades for 1968 on it: “abysmal”. It wasn’t just the boys who had to work – we, as dons, must SYP (set your preps) and MYP (maintain your presence), that is be around at all times for the boys. Teaching at Radley was to be a full time job.
The change both in the attitude to work among dons and boys from 1968 to the early 1980s was remarkable. Warden Milligan had made some good appointments, but it was the encouragement that dons received from Dennis that led to the golden years. And while there was strong expectation for dons to take full active parts in all areas of school life, there was room for the quirky inspirational teacher to be appointed.
On this foundation of real respect for work came also a strong emphasis on the fundamental decencies of life: behaviour, manners, unselfishness, awareness of other people. His inspiration for this came from his Christian family background, his experience at Christ’s Hospital, his experience at Marlborough and foremost of all from his marriage with Diana.
Dennis also fully believed that life at school should be fun. Striving to be hardworking and good did not preclude fun. He also believed in shared activity. Within a year or two he was working with senior boys to create a club room in the Mansion Cellar for sixth formers. Another two projects, in line with his great love of gardening, were his potato farm on free land by the main road, and, more attractive to the growers, creating a field for ‘grow your own’ strawberries. Boys who wanted to take part were allotted a strip with strawberry plants and tended them in their free time.
Back in the eighties for the first Comic Relief Day Dennis and Diana came into Hall for lunch dressed as bikers, Dennis with bovver boots and braces, Diana in sleek black leathers. At any Radley charity event Dennis was to the fore, whether pillow-fighting with his Senior Prefect on a raised plank, or striding out to complete 30 miles in the Shelter and Starehe Walks along The Ridgeway.
There was a new optimistic mood in the school, and in the development Dennis worked closely with the Chairman of Council, David Rae Smith, and with his two bursars, Sir Kerr Bovell and Micky Jones. They were both entirely in tune with Dennis’s aims and became his closest of friends.
Radley was still a Victorian campus badly in need of renovation and new buildings. Top priorities were the modernisation of the boys’ accommodation and the need to increase the size of each social to hold the greater numbers now in the school. Only a few boys had bedsitters in Socials and most lived in studies and cubicles in dormitories.
In addition there were two major projects for which successful appeals were made: firstly, a new Arts Centre attached to the Old Gym and named The Sewell Centre; and secondly a Concert Hall, eventually to be called The Silk Hall. Expeditions were made all over the country by the Warden and Diana and their loyal lieutenants to address groups of Old Radleians in their houses and feed them with Coronation Chicken before making the appeal. Both projects were successful and the school had two vital new buildings, while at the same time the accommodation came closer and closer to the new expectations of privacy and comfort. In addition the go-ahead was given for the building of a nine-hole golf course.
The Warden had great faith in what he was doing at Radley, and, granted this, he was ready to welcome the BBC and their cameras to Radley in 1979. It is hard to make a film about school life, as so much of it is routine, but much was happening at Radley and the public liked what they saw. The film also did much for other independent schools as a result of this.
The Sewell Centre was close to Dennis’s heart, and with it Radley became a pioneer in promoting Art and Design as academic subjects. Who should take part in these subjects? The whole school! And no boy from that era will forget the Creative Hobbies Competition where every boy in the school had to make his own entry for the competition. There was a fine Cup for the winning social. In 600 homes all over the country each year you might find an aesthetic delight varying from a new pottery owl wearing a social tie to a huge show-stopping wooden pink pig.
While the zanier projects caught the eye, the traditional extramural areas of public school life flourished. The Warden had a strong natural interest and ability in many sports, and his support for teams and individuals went right across the board, from the 1st cricket X1 down to the Under 14 rugby 5th XV. He would write in a junior boy’s end of term report: ”I was delighted to see him gather the ball and make a break down the wing that JPR Williams would have been proud of.” Needless to say games flourished over his 23 years as Warden. And he sang with the Choral Society and attended almost every play and concert.
Boys like a bit of charisma in their Heads, and they also like the Warden to know them individually. Dennis worked at knowing all the boys from Social photos and lists and reports and meeting them on their birthdays and around the school. He must have written thousands of letters to boys and dons and members of the College staff composed at 5.00am in his study at home. And there was much hospitality in the Warden’s House: dinner parties, Confirmation lunches, informal suppers, drinks parties, farewell parties, with many of these for Tutors or Heads of Department moving on to be Headmasters in their own right.
Dennis knew personally the importance of friendship. Much of his love of literature and especially the First World War poems came from his strong friendship with Siegfried Sassoon. He knew that from deep friendship came understanding of life, loyalty, comradeship and inner strength. He added to these qualities a natural warmth and a generous respect for his friends. And what a legion of them there were!
Dennis saw life whole. And he saw the community that he led and presided over as a whole. His concern was not just the school but everyone who worked or lived at Radley. To this he brought a strong Christian faith which came from his family and developed further at Christ’s Hospital. This faith coloured all he did and it was combined with the humility that comes with strong faith. It was a sure foundation to a great era for Radley.
