1916
2000
“Memories of Bill by his children, Michael, Sheila and Janet”.
Desmond James Kibblewhite 5th August 1916 – 6th March 2000
Bill was born in Richmond on the outskirts of Sydney, Australia. His mother, Ethel Ann Crowe, was one of 13 children brought up on a large farming station in the Australian outback. His father, Gilbert Frances Kibblewhite, was a travelling agricultural chemist whose father was a newspaper editor of a London paper. The two met when Gilbert was working in Australia. When Ethel fell pregnant in 1915, she was thrown out of the family home and supported herself by teaching in Sydney. On the 1st August 1916 Gilbert, having joined the Australian Imperial Force, set sail from Sydney to France to fight as a gunner, leaving Ethel unmarried and with a baby due in a few days’ time. In his last letter to Ethel, dated on this day, he asks her to do her utmost not to part with the baby and if it was a boy to have “James” as one of its names – James being a favourite name of the Kibblewhite family. Ethel, wanting to include a reference to her Irish ancestry, named the baby “Desmond James”.
Bill always hated the name Desmond – he said he got teased about it at school - and everyone, with the exception of his mother and aunt, always called him Bill or Billie. In later life a lot of people assumed his proper name was William.
After the war Gilbert returned to Australia, having obtained a divorce from his first wife in England and married Ethel. In 1920 the family set sail for England. Bill had clear memories of the 6 week voyage, in particular calling at the old ports of Bombay and Aden and then passing through the Suez Canal where the banks were crowded with locals receiving coins thrown for them from the passengers on board ship. At Tilbury Docks they were met by Uncle Jim, Gilbert’s brother, who gave Bill a bar of chocolate and carried him aloft on his shoulders. The couple settled in north London in a house in Grenville Road. The 1920s were a difficult time for Ethel; Gilbert, suffering from the after-effects of war which these days we would probably call PTSD, became increasingly erratic in his behaviour and was admitted to a psychiatric hospital where, with increasing serious illnesses, he remained until his death in 1945. Ethel’s two closest sisters came over from Australia to help and one of them, Leslie, known to the family as Auntie Dessie, settled in England permanently. She opened a little school in one of the rooms in Ethel’s house and was responsible for educating Bill from an early age right up until he moved on to secondary school at The City of London School. Judging from an early exercise book, she gave him a very thorough grounding in English grammar, arithmetic, French, geography and music. Bill said she was a very strict teacher and would rap him on the knuckles with a ruler if he misbehaved. Three other children also attended this little school, namely Bygrave Makeham and his sister Elspeth and John Cairns, all of whom became close and lifelong friends of Bill’s.
Throughout his teens and beyond, Bill was a keen scouter. He enjoyed camping holidays in this country and visits to jamborees abroad. He always said that his training in the scouts and the responsibilities he undertook were a useful experience for his work in the army during the war.
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Gilbert’s parents and siblings welcomed Ethel into the family and took an active part in Bill’s upbringing. In the absence of his father, his Uncle Jim was a great support and paid for his education at The City of London School. His grandparents entertained little Billie at their house. But it was an upbringing surrounded by adults and one of Bill’s regrets was that he never enjoyed the company of brothers and sisters, or even cousins (although he had a great
many in Australia). It was one of his desires on his marriage to have plenty of children of his own.
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However, in 1958 he discovered to his great delight that he did in fact have some siblings. The story unfolded through some strange co-incidences. When Bill and Sophy’s fourth child was born on 11th July 1958 they put an announcement of the birth into The Daily Telegraph. The baby was called John Treleaven Kibblewhite; Treleaven was the family name of Bill’s Cornish grandmother – his father’s mother. Not long after the announcement was printed, Bill received a letter from someone called Martin Treleaven Kibblewhite, who wondered if he could be related on account of the 2 unusual names. Apparently, Martin’s wife, Mary, had been feeding her neighbour’s cats when she noticed the announcement in the daily paper which she had picked up from the doormat! Bill showed the letter to his mother, and very reluctantly she told him that his father (Gilbert) had been previously married and there were two children from this first marriage, Peter and Diana, who would be a half-brother and half- sister to Bill. This Martin Kibblewhite was the son of Peter. Bill was quite delighted to find a new branch of his family and over the years got to know Martin’s family well. He took a particular interest in his sister Diana Poulton who was an eminent lutanist and a leading expert on the life and music of the 16th century musician, John Dowland. She and Bill also shared an interest in tracing their Kibblewhite ancestry right back to the 1500s.
After obtaining a university degree in chemistry at King’s College London, Bill embarked on a teaching career and in 1939 took up a post as science master at Pinner County School. However, in 1940 he was called up and joined the army as an officer in the Royal Signals. In 1942 he met Sophy shortly before she joined the WRAF and the following couple of years were intensely happy times for both of them. They were married in December 1943. For the most part, Bill remained in the UK during the war, and for a while was assigned to a teaching post for trainee signalmen in Bury, a place he detested. To assuage the boredom and provide some light relief he produced several plays for the troops to perform during their spare time. As an officer he was always conscientious in carrying out his duties and eventually, after being posted to France and then Belgium in 1944, he rose to the rank of Major before being demobbed in 1946. One of the greatest legacies that Bill and Sophy left to the family was a trunk containing 1200 letters written to each other, during the years 1942 to 1946, which detail their lives at this time. These have now been transcribed and digitised.
When Bill joined the staff of Pinner County in 1939, the school had only been open for a couple of years with just one third of its projected intake. The staff was young and energetic and there was a sense of purpose and laying down of foundations. Bill was involved in selecting and buying apparatus for the science department, but also to his horror he was asked to teach some geography to 1st and 2nd years. He said that he learnt a great deal about world wheat production in a very short space of time! When he returned to the school after the war in 1946, things had changed. He had to learn new teaching techniques and by this
time the school was full to capacity. He often used to recount the awful experience of causing an explosion during a standard demonstration to a 4th year chemistry lesson, when a glass tube shattered and acid accidentally got sprayed on to the faces and heads of pupils.
Ambulances were called and the pupils were taken to hospital, though thankfully there were no serious casualties. Bill carried the scar from the shattered glass on his forehead throughout his life. Despite this he was promoted to Head of Science!
He enjoyed his time at Pinner very much but in 1952 decided that he should move on and was appointed as Senior Science Master and Head of Careers at Downer Grammar School in Edgware. This again was a new school so his experience at Pinner in setting up a science department was invaluable.
In 1956 he moved on again to the Headship of Acton County Grammar School. At the time this was a well-established grammar school for boys but during his 18 years at the helm Bill steered it through some enormous and challenging changes. In 1958 girls were admitted for the first time and in 1966 the Labour LEA proposed a change to comprehensive education. This was challenged by the parents who took the LEA to court, but they lost the case and the school took in its first comprehensive intake in 1967. This was a very stressful time for Bill, being juxtaposed between the parents and the LEA, whilst also encouraging his staff to try new and different teaching techniques.
Bill’s teaching career at Pinner, Downer and Acton has been well covered by the two “memories” written by former pupils and staff to be found in other sections of this memorial. There is however an amusing postscript to his headship at Acton:
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In 2018 Roger Daltrey, lead singer of The Who published his autobiography entitled “Thanks a lot Mr Kibblewhite”. Roger, along with John Entwistle and Pete Townsend, had been pupils at Acton County Grammar during the 1950s when Bill was Headmaster. Daltrey recounts that one day in 1959 he took an air gun into school. Although he didn’t fire the gun, another boy did and the pellet bounced off a wall, hitting a 3rd boy in the eye leading to him losing his sight. At this point Bill expelled Daltrey which, according to Daltrey, was the best thing that could have happened to him as he now had the chance to get a job rather than following the expected route of A’ levels and university. With that freedom Daltrey ultimately went on to form The Who, one of the most successful rock bands in the 20th century. Apparently on being shown the door in 1959 Daltrey thought to himself “Thanks a lot Mr Kibblewhite”! In correspondence with Roger Daltrey after the publication of the book, he said that he was sorry Bill was no longer with us as he would like to have thanked him in person.
Although a dedicated and successful teacher by career, Bill was at heart a family man, a gentle and caring father of four children, who loved his ramshackle house, The Garden Cottage (sadly now demolished) with its huge walled garden. Wonderfully supported by Sophy, the two of them created a happy and secure family home to Michael, Sheila, Janet and John. Buying the property in 1950 must have seemed such an adventure to Bill and Sophy; it had no electricity, the water came from a well, drawn up by a pump in the kitchen, the lighting was by calor gas and the heating was by paraffin stoves or open fires. It had originally been two or three tiny dwellings used to house the gardeners to Hedgerley Manor House, and the walled garden and orchard supplied the manor with fruit and vegetables. When Bill and Sophy bought it, the manor house had long since been demolished and the garden left to run wild. The high walls were studded with nails to train the fruit trees and although a lot of them had died over the years, the fig tree continued to flourish and bear fruit right up until 2007 when the house was sold. Transplants from this tree are now abundantly fruiting in Cheshire and Cornwall! Always active in the garden, in the earlier years Bill kept a lot of chickens, and a very bad-tempered goose called Adolphus.
No-one dared go near Adolphus, except for Bill who could pick him up and cuddle him! Bill was also a keen beekeeper and kept the family well-supplied with delicious honey. Again, everyone would retreat inside with the doors and windows closed whenever there was a swarm, but Bill, togged up in his protective outfit and brandishing his smoke machine would calmly deal with a cluster of angry bees apparently without getting stung. Sometimes, in order to prepare the land for planting potatoes Bill would use the plough. This ancient machine was an enormous petrol driven contraption which had a mind of its own and could be heard half a mile away. It took a lot of tinkering to get started but then it took off with Bill running behind and attempting to steer it as he ploughed some rather wonky channels. Over the years as the house was modernised and the garden tamed, with a series of dogs, cats, donkeys and other assorted pets, Bill and Sophy lived a happy, if slightly unusual life with their family at The Garden Cottage.
From an early age, Bill’s sporting interest was in cricket. He was an avid supporter of Middlesex C.C. and would travel up to Lord’s to watch matches, meeting up with his two schoolfriends, Bygrave and John. He also shared his enjoyment of the game with his son, Michael.
In 1988 Bill achieved his life-long ambition which was to return to Australia. He and Sophy were welcomed by his enormous Australian family, many of whom had already visited them in England. They spent 6 busy weeks there during which they visited Gobarralong, the farm where his mother spent her childhood and followed up birthplaces and graves of his ancestors. It was the holiday that he had always wanted.
Religion for Bill was a fundamental but very personal part of his life. He had worshipped in St Mary’s Church in Hedgerley for 50 years and had at one time been churchwarden there. His ashes are buried in the tranquil churchyard, near the bird sanctuary, a fitting resting place for a man who in his quiet and unassuming way had exerted great influence on his family, his colleagues and his pupils and had been a wise friend and counsellor to all who knew him. It is not surprising that the church was full at his thanksgiving service in March 2000.