John Craig Ardingly

Contents Latest news Spain Future Projects Chantemerle Hennemont Dip into the past History page Swannington Cousins Christine Party Marie-Charlotte Alexander Catherine Christine Nicholas	JOHN CRAIG (1925-2003)	Those of us privileged to have had John as a friend and to have been taught by him were greatly saddened by his death last year and also by the knowledge that he had suffered terribly in the final months, becoming someone quite unrecognisable to those who loved him. We were therefore very lucky to have been able to recall the real John at a memorial service organised by Ardingly College in April. Many thanks to all of those who put so much into the preparation the day. I think around 150 must have gathered to remember him including someone whom he taught in 1951, and all his family. The Celtic Lament from the Gurkha piper was simply magic.
	John Craig, who died on 19th December at the age of 78, was one of a collection of remarkable young teachers who came to Ardingly during the 1950s under George Snow and who stayed to make it one of the finest schools in the South of England. Best known for his ‘tutorials’, where all his pupils were invited to discuss the ‘meaning of life’, John Craig was also a distinguished teacher of English Literature of the old school. One of his most celebrated threats was to give or dictate notes, if that was what his class wanted, but no text was ever annotated during one of his lessons because the words and poetry had to speak for themselves. For John Craig, Literature and the life it reflected were magical. He was one of that breed of teachers who was both able to appreciate the wonder of life and to impart its magic to generations of pupils, bringing the same vigour and originality to each new crop. He took his beliefs beyond the classroom to the CCF parade ground, the games field and most especially to the swimming pool where in sometimes glacial conditions, he ensured that all pupils could swim by the end of their first year. Latterly, he was renowned for his ‘school of life’ in the Western Isles where countless friends and visitors came to share his wondrous vision, climbing the hills, rowing in the sea, observing the wildlife, discussing literature and learning to love life to the full. John Edgar Craig was born the second of four children on August 25th, 1925. His father was later to become the professor of Classics at Sheffield University and from him John inherited his love of scholarship. At the age of ten, a heart condition kept him in bed for a year and it was then that he began to devour English literature. In later life there were whole collections, such as all the works of Dickens and Shakespeare, that he would re-read every year. At Rossall, as well as being made Head Boy, he became a keen rugby player and cross-country runner. Still in the late sixties no pupil of his could beat him over ten miles if they were fool enough to challenge him. During the early years of the War, fully recovered from his childhood illness, John and his brothers spent the summer months on Loch Long where they roamed the hills with complete freedom. As soon as his age allowed, he enlisted in the army and entered active service on the last day of the War as an officer in the 4th Battalion of 4th Gurkha Rifles. Although he ‘missed’ the War, there was still much work to be done and his regiment had the difficult tasks of first overseeing Indian Independence, and then helping to steady Burma during its difficult transition. The whole experience marked young Craig for life and he never lost his love of India, which he later visited twice, nor his love of the Gurkhas and Gurkhali. In retirement, in 1991, he became closely associated with the Gurkha Museum at Winchester, where he gave a great deal of his time to conducting research work and assisting with exhibitions. He wrote numerous publications, including a study on the development of the Kukri, and Gurkhas in the Burma Campaign 1941-1946 that are now regularly used by the Museum. He assisted in the museum shop twice a week and provided a friendly, and re-assuring face to the many local and foreign visitors. Illness forced him to stop working for the Museum in 2001, but he maintained a close link and interest in the development of the Gurkha Museum. In 1948 John Craig went up to Oxford where he was the pupil of Masterman and Wilkinson. He was the undergraduate who, in the latter’s biography, jumped up from reading his essay to put out the fire started by the sleeping don’s pipe, to be told immediately to ‘carry on reading’ as soon as the disaster was averted. On coming down from Oxford in 1951, he took up a position as English master at Ardingly where he was to spend the rest of his career, retiring in 1987. His voice when teaching was legendary; he brought a nobility to the reading of Shakespeare, his rendering of Chaucer was unparalleled and through it all, he engaged his pupils in countless debates on every conceivable subject. In 1963, he became housemaster of Hilton and for the next fifteen years enjoyed the finest moments of his career; indeed, for John Craig teaching was practically a twenty-four hour job and the evenings spent with his senior pupils were never counted. While housemaster, he continued with the CCF and was awarded the OBE for his services in 1968. In giving himself to the lives of his pupils, he showed a generosity of spirit in all its forms and many families adopted him as part of their own lives. He had both a love of everything that was good, from fine Burgundy to Scottish watercolours, and a contempt for material things, so that in retirement he could do no better than a council flat having given away nearly all he possessed. Among those who benefited from his generosity were pupils whose parents could not afford the fees and who unknowingly received help from this anonymous donor. John Craig was a strong Christian of the CS Lewis tradition who, despite losing faith in the church, never lost his faith in, nor love of, God.