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Jonathan Pudden Obituary
5 Entries
Andrew Banks
September 10, 2025
Mr Pudden was my headmaster at Brockhurst. It was a great school and he was a good HM. I remember him letting me stay awake to watch a Mohammed Sli fight on TV as he knew I was mad on Ali.
Sebastian Speight
March 18, 2018
A truly inspirational headmaster, who I will always remember with great affection. Jonathan's values and ethos permeated Brockhurst - high academic standards & love of classics and maths, encouragement of all sporting endeavour, and insistence on courtesy and manners. Fair and kind, he had great gravitas but also a fantastic sense of humour. The carol services were rich and memorable (and I had the pleasure of being the page to his Wenceslas). The study, thick with pipe smoke, oak lined, paper strewn desk. Coming round the dormitories in a sheet at Halloween. The fabulous bonfire nights. His dedication to his vocation and the inspiration that he gave to generations of boys leave me rather in awe.
Richard Barrett
September 29, 2017
The best years of my education were at Brookhurst under the watchful eye of Mr Pudden (we used to call him Garry but I can't for the life of me remember why!) An amazing man and a great school, like so many the Christmas Carol concert was a highlight of the year, the great hall filled with parents and perfume and hushed by the voice of Good King Wenceslas. He used to carry the smallest boy in the school to the bonfire each November to light it (not as kindling!) A true legend and the best teacher I ever had. Rest in peace sir.
Oliver Smyth
June 18, 2017
What a fantastic man and headmaster. I will fondly remember him calving his block of condor moments whilst supervising changing practices and signing good king wenceslas from the balcony. He taught me so many things but the most memorable will always be how to shake hands like a man.
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May 15, 2017
What extraordinary commitment to the school and generations of children!
Presiding from waking to lights-out, year through year,
with calm and instant authority,
half-moon glasses and pipe smoke.
Austere wisdom with a flicker of Sherlock Holmes.
Always ensuring standards: bed's made, hands clean, socks up, shoes polished, IQs tested, no running in the corridor, prefect's shut all the windows, suitable literary bedtime reading
(brow furrowed by Archer, Deighton, Smith W., King S.).
Greeks, Trojans, Corinthians, lend me your ears.
A. Mars. Bar. for a term's good work.
King Wenceslas in resonant bass from the balcony:
"Hither, page, and stand by me
If thou know'st it, telling
Yonder peasant, who is he?
Where and what his dwelling?"
Precision in parabolas and cosines. Dactyls and subjunctives. Herodotus and Caesar.
Telling parents of prospective pupils about his nickname as the Bald Eagle (never heard anyone call him that). More commonly it was Gary; lost in time whether following the leader of the Risorgimento or the biscuit.
Defense de toucher on the paused chess-board, when a student emerged worthy of a game.
On the playing field, watching from the side-lines with his red setter.
His neat italic signature on every hard-won commendation and Sports Day certificate.
Indeed Palma non sine pulvere.
A titan amongst teachers.
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Clarendon House, 44 London Road, Newbury RG14 1LA
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