The Boys from Blundell's: A Tribute to Hugh Morris (Episode 170)

And that was absolutely wonderful.

OK, I have to ask, before we go any further, Hugh has always been Hugh Morris, perhaps sometimes Mr Morris for me.

You called him Hughie.

Was that how he was known at school? That was how

I, yes,

we called him

in Westlake.

He was known as Hughie amongst his friends.

So, yeah, that's how I always remembered him.

And when I met him, I just went straight back into that term of endearment, I suppose, as much as anything.

OK, that's lovely.

Andrew, perhaps I think you should tell us about your time at Blundells.

And then perhaps do you want to just sketch out a little bit about Hugh's kind of early life and what brought him to the school?

Yeah, interesting that the name Sir Christopher Ondaatje has been mentioned.

I taught geography from 1986 through to 1993 at Blundells.

And I can remember working in my room one day when all of a sudden, this was an August afternoon, when John Rhys, the headmaster, suddenly wandered in, and I thought, well, I better look busy.

And he said, Andrew, I've just had this Canadian chap, lovely Canadian chap, come in.

And he said, look, and there was this cheque with quite a lot of noughts on it, and apparently Christopher Ondaatje had said, would you like me to give you money for anything? And John Rhys said, yeah, we could do with a...

Lovely new building.

And of course, that's how it all started.

I was there at a time when the names that have been mentioned, Ted Crow, who was one of Hugh's coaches at a time when David Fursten, another gentleman.

Terry Barwell, who looked after Hugh in the first 15 rugby.

I hear about five, so a gentleman called Douglas Rice,

and

also another man called Paddy Armstrong, who was in charge of squash.