Hall, Denys

East Housemaster and Geography teacher

Full article in The Gazette 53.

Denys Hall joined Ottershaw at the same time as I did, in September, 1951. Already an experienced schoolmaster – he had taught for several years in South Africa, leaving, I understood, though he seldom spoke of it, because of his objections to apartheid – he proved a most valuable addition to the splendid group of idealistic masters who were already established as founding members of the School. As many Old Boys will know, Denys remained at Ottershaw until he retired, shortly before the School closed in 1980.

The Log Cabin will always be associated with him, and his teaching of Geography and much else. Apart from our New Zealand colleague, Tom Newman, who returned to his home country at Christmas, Denys and I were the only bachelor masters at that time, and we quickly struck up a friendship which lasted a lifetime. Ottershaw was my first teaching post, and I had much to learn. I learnt most from my immediate boss, Jake Buttery, who was a fount of wisdom in all respects, but Denys was a great model for me also. I particularly enjoyed watching him coach games: his expertise at Rugger and at cricket, both as player and as coach, filled me with admiration.

During term-time our teaching, games coaching, clubs, looking after boys, weekend entertainments, House responsibilities, and life in a boarding-school in general left us with little time for anything else. At the end of term, however, as bachelors, we both generally stayed on for several days into the first week of the holidays, to catch up on reports and the like – on one occasion helping to build the cricket pavilion! Meals were provided for us by the Housekeeper, the splendid Miss Baker, and on occasions the three of us would drive up to London in Denys’s car to see a show and enjoy a meal out afterwards. Over the years we grew to know each other well. Our working relationship grew into one of tacit agreement and mutual appreciation and support. A shared pleasure was provided by our playing against each other occasionally at tennis and squash, together in the early days for Staff Rugger and Soccer against the boys, where “Twinkle-Toes Hall” was a most popular figure, and especially, year after year, for the Staff Sunday Cricket XI.

In later years, when we were both married and had families, and later still, when we both became Housemasters, our friendship, and that of our families, continued. Denys gave me a great deal, which will always be much appreciated. He was one of the group of stalwarts who gave their lives to the School, and did much to make Ottershaw what it was.

Tom Weston


Denys was a pupil and chorister at Durham Cathedral Choir School, and subsequently went on to Durham School and University College Cambridge. He taught for some time in South Africa before joining the staff at Ottershaw in 1951, where he stayed until the closure of the School nearly thirty years later. He thus shares with Tom Weston the distinction of being the longest serving of all Ottershaw Staff members. He involved himself in a wide range of School activities, but will be chiefly remembered for teaching Geography, and coaching various cricket and rugby teams. He was a very capable all-round games player, and appeared in Staff teams as an accomplished scrum-half and as a stylish batsman and occasional bowler. But soccer, the game that he had previously played little, was the sport for which many pupils in the Foot years will most vividly recall his performances. His slight stature and twinkling feet gave his lightning forays up the wing the appearance of having been filmed at double speed, and Stanley Matthews himself could hardly have been more vigorously applauded by the spectators.

I encountered Denys comparatively rarely while a pupil as I didn’t study Geography and was never in his games groups. However, when I returned to the School ten years later as a Staff member I came to know him much better. He was never one of the more flamboyant members of Staff, being modest, unassuming, and quietly conscientious. By now, moreover, he had family responsibilities to add to his teaching, Housemaster’s duties, sports coaching and overall responsibility for the games programme. He had married Margaret, whom many pupils from that era will remember as one of the catering staff, and Denys became as devoted a family man as he had always been a schoolmaster.

After the closure of the School, Denys and Margaret retired to Cumbria, where he became very much involved with Wigton Rugby Club and with the local Citizens’ Advice Bureau. I visited them regularly and always found Denys to be the same thoughtful, considerate and eminently sensible man. In his last years his health deteriorated; hearing and memory declined and Margaret looked after him to the last with great devotion despite the very great pressures that this put on her. The number who attended the funeral testified to the affection in which this quiet and unassuming man was held.

John Furlonger