Remembering David Brunton: My friend, teacher and mentor

I want to dedicate today's blog posting to remembering my friend, teacher and mentor David Brunton, who died a year ago today.

David taught me English for five years and Media studies for two. I consider that the academic and cultural lessons I learnt with him, more than anything else in my life, made me who I am today. I know that is true for so many pupils and teachers who met him and worked with him.

It's so easy, in a quiet moment, to drift back to Room 131 in the Colin Sanders Building. I hear the sound of raucous laughter first, and then I see David sitting in the middle of the room, leaning back on one of the brown plastic chairs.

He's holding forth on Peagram, our chairman of governors and his donation of a gold tie-pin to the Head Boy. Taking off Peagram's clipped way of speaking, he mimics him "I will today donate a silver crack-pipe to the Head Boy."

Tables surround him in a u shape. Each table has a fifteen year old boy laughing with him, rather than at him, something that few people are able to make happen.

With David, he didn't need to make any effort to amuse others. He was a natural wit. Any occasion would be enlivened by his presence. A school trip to Central London (an exotic place at the time)or a home clothes day was made wonderful by his comments and good humour.

The bell rings as we're in the middle of a digression, although what digressions! Perhaps Lynn from Alan Partridge is being likened to Offred from the Handmaid's tale, or we're chortling over the "roundabout" in the playground: a large stone flowerbed that had steel mesh fences. Maybe he's re-telling his corker about the old Usher (Richard Cairns, now of Brighton College) buying a black car "because he couldn't get one in pin-stripe". Or perhaps Jennifer Rowsell, his friend and sometime comedy partner, has entered and they've started a pretend argument that's got everyone laughing. Humour and David go together like Torvill and Dean.

Most classrooms at Magdalen were dry places, full of the fug of chalk and dumped PE bags at the back. David Brunton made his classroom echo his passions, with film and Radiohead posters decorating the walls. An old-fashioned clock was on the back wall, a challenge to the staid white plastic wallclocks that blended into the white painted walls of the other rooms.

He loved telling us how shocked a parent had been by a Homer Simpson poster on his wall declaring "Every time I learn something new, it pushes some old stuff out of my brain". No-one could have been less suited to that label than David. A brilliant scholar of culture, history and above all people, he was a true genius.

His desk was coated in a layer of books and papers. I remember John Pilger's Hidden Agendas vying for space with the latest copy of Private Eye. The concern he felt when boys tipped back on their chairs "Careful of the wall, it's just been re-rendered" became a catchphrase.

I have a page full of his quotes, some that will mean nothing to those who did not know him. Each one reminds me of a moment with him "Cook my beans, you mothers" when discussing sixth form trips or "150 dead in toddler's road cart rage" when giving examples of headlines in Media Studies.

He also had a sense of humour when it came to discipline, simply laughing heartily when he walked through the common room and saw that a giggling boy had been taped to a table by others for a joke-well, how else would you spend your Monday breaktime when a role of parcel tape is nearby?

Don't think that we never got any work done. The literature that I discussed in those English lessons has stayed with me for life. The Handmaid's Tale, Animal Farm, Carol Ann Duffy, King Lear, Lolita, Heart of Darkness, where "Marlow pisses on his chips", that's just a small selection. In Media Studies, we deconstructed the British tabloid and analysed why a news story is created, using the Key Concepts of Herman and Chomsky.

Outside of structured lessons, he set up the Wargaming and Fortean society, the latter dedicated to exploring conspiracies and mysteries, such as the moon landing and UFOs. He wore a green cloak one "home clothes day" and was always ready to mock stupidty in the system-something far too few people are prepared to do in New Labour's bland new world. Through David, I was introduced to Chris Morris (GCSE coursework!), Alan Partridge, David Brent, Private Eye, spoof adverts from Viz and above all the ability to question how tihngs were.

David didn't stop influencing me when I left Magdalen. Throughout my time at Sussex University, we would meet for a pint or three in the Angel and Greyhound across the road, looking out at Cowley Place. He helped write references for several of the universities I applied to for my postgraduate journalism degree, and was a constant source of advice up until he killed himself a year ago.

For the 39 years of his wonderful life,David Brunton suffered from bipolar disorder, which was diagnosed a week before he died. It is a constant source of sorrow to me that I never knew how he was feeling inside, and that I was unable to do anything to mitigate his depression. I made so many demands on his time, the last a request to meet up during Christmas 2006.

David replied saying he was unable to meet up as he had been feeling ill, but to e-mail him in the New Year and we could meet. He was also glad to hear that things were going well. Preoccupied as I was with university admission forms and work from my final year at Sussex, I decided to put off contacting him until the Easter holidays, as I would be unable to meet before then.

On February 20th, 2007, David Brunton threw himself off the church of St Mary The Virgin, opposite the Radcliffe Camera. It's a church I passed by every day walking to get the 2A home, sometimes with David, sometimes with others. I first heard of this on the Friday from a friend.

Disbelief, followed by shock and a growing sorrow set in. The difference that David made to everyone he met was reflected in the media coverage. Not for him the ghoulish and hypocritical coverage that someone like Madeleine McCann might have received (and I wish we could have deconstructed the McCann media circs with David). Telegraph articles, local newspaper stories and a Facebook group with 360 members show how popular this great man will always be.

In the days that followed, I sat through a talk by Christopher Hitchens (the Hitch) and Nick Cohen (of no nickname) my mind elsewhere. An interviw day at Goldsmiths College in New Cross passed by while I thought of David as I looked out at the East London Line before my interview.

The funeral was on March 29th in Magdalen College chapel, nice to see some old faces that took me back to simpler times of small blue hymn books, house sports and constant building work, as if Changing Rooms had become trapped inside the gates unable to escape. Reflections on David's life were given by his wife Jenny, his sister Joan, and his friend and co-worker Dr Grundy. Songs played were Van Morrison's In the Garden (not on Youtube or its sister sites at the moment) Goreki by Lamb and Ocean Rain by Echo and the Bunnymen. I want to go all Web 2.0 here-I'm sure David won't mind-and post Ocean Rain.



Dr Grundy ended his eulogy with "David shone like a crazy diamond, and I always felt he was perfect becuase of that." Tadhgh Barwell O' Connor, a pupil at Magdalen, mirrors some of my feelings "He managed to somehow make period 8 on a dull Thursday afternoon the highlight of the day...Dr Brunton was never just a teacher or housemaster. He surpassed those labels and became a friend and mentor...He made school ife fun simply by being there and we are all better people because of his part in our lives."

David also appeared in the Telegraph twice after his death. One piece was written by sports journalist and MCS parent Jim White, who wrote a superb piece about what David meant to him and his son " A great debt that went unacknowledged."

Unless you were one of the privileged few who came into his orbit, David Brunton is not a name you will be familiar with. You won't have heard of him because he was not the star of a soap opera, a contestant on a reality television show or a gobby mouth attached to a microphone shouting out of your radio, and was thus not the sort to whom renown is granted these days.

He was, in fact, a teacher, which makes it even less likely he would have been gifted fame.

But to my mind he was a heroic figure, his life worth celebrating. And he didn't even teach me.

The Telegraph also interviewed Jenny Liddard, David's wife.

She tried to make his illness comprehensible. She told them how much they had mattered to him, each one of them, and how she had found a thesis among his personal papers in which he movingly described how encounters with unhappy pupils in his early teaching career had taught him the value of listening and empathising and getting to know pupils as individuals. He believed teaching and counselling were inseparable because proper pastoral care improved their willingness and ability to learn. He felt privileged, she said, when boys chose to confide in him and gave him the opportunity to make a difference.

"If there's one thing I think he would want you to emulate," she told them, "it's never to be afraid to seek help and support - to do so is a sign of intelligence and strength, not weakness - and never to shrink from offering that support to others." It was a remarkable performance.

The Facebook group Dr David Brunton Memorial, along with the comments section of local papers reporting David's death, showed me how moved my fellow pupils were by David. Here are two examples.

Greg Iddon: He put the Dead Poets Society to shame - David was truly the definition of contemporary teaching. I learnt more about life in a 40min period with him that I did with any other teacher in my entire time at MCS. His quirky, forever changing obsessions with the likes of Freddos, Barry Scott (Cillit Bang), Ghost Watch and the likes always lightened our spirits and put us into a great state of mind to learn in. Never a dull lesson, never a dull conversation.

John Logan: When I was 13 he took 30 mins a week out of his lunch time for a year, just to help me combat dyslexia. I was then in his class for 5 years, all the way through to the end of my time at MCS. There was never a dull moment. A-level English Lit was the most fun I had at school.

It's thanks to David that I got a place studying English Literature at Sussex University, and it's thanks to David I got a place at Westminster University, where I am a postgraduate journalism student. Every time I edit audio I'm reminded of my AS Media Studies project on the JFK assassination: an eight-minute audio documentary. Every time I come home on the X90 I pass along the High Street and think of David. Every time I pick up a tabloid at Northwick Park Underground or the newsagents around Kenton I remember discussing the Mail and the Sun. As a proud Liverpudlian who remembered the Hillsborough disaster, David had a loathing for the latter. He was born in Maghull, and loved to read the description given by Crap Towns:

This dormitory town seven miles outside Liverpool is a
mean-spirited, characterless and deluded suburb, that fancies itself as a cut above the rest of Merseyside. Queueing up outside B&Q on a Sunday morning is the closest it gets to culture.

Contains Ashworth, that institution full of psychos thats always in the news. Every Monday, they test the sirens, they wail mournfully at the start of another week in Maghull.

Memories appear in my mind like drops on a window, and I could blog all year solely on David, but I must wrap up. I wish with all my heart David could have known that he got me into Westminster, and seen my career progress. I wish I'd known how he was feeling, and that I could have offered him even a fraction of the support he offered all of us. I hope that he can somehow see all of the pupils he taught over the decades,and how they benefited from his presence, his humour and his dedication to knowledge, honesty and logic.

It's so sad how we never appreciate fully the best things in life while we have them, and though we all loved David and loved his lessons, we never realised how because of five periods a week in Room 131 with David and the occasional lunchtime chat or chance meeting over lunch, our days studying alongside David Brunton would be the best days of our lives. "The History boys on speed" David might have called it, before slipping into a monologue to rival any touring comic.

David, we're all grateful to have known you and we'll always be thinking of you. Rest in peace up there in heaven, laughing with Peter Cook and asking John Kennedy "What exactly did happen in Dallas?" You've inspired a generation and through the bursary and word of mouth you'll continue to inspire others. To paraphrase Liverpool Football Club, you made sure we'd never walk alone.

The David Brunton Bursary was set up in his name, and is still accepting donations.
You can also purchase the song Last Chance, written in memory of David.

Further information on bipolar disorder can be found here.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to leave blogging for the rest of the week while I remember my friend, sitting in a classroom educating while entertaining-a perfect combination by the one person I've met who embodied perfection. Normal service will be resumed at the weekend, so please check back then.