I wrote about this a few months ago, writing up a brief post on Facebook, and I have been wanting to recycle it and expand on it, but try as I might I cannot seem to find my original text so I’ll try to rehash what it was about as best I can.

Mr Pendered was my housemaster for years one through four of the five years I was at Tonbridge. He saw me through French right up until my GCSEs. Prior to me, I believe he had also taught my two uncles in the late sixties and early seventies. I remember him as a man of tremendous character – the very personification of an extravert –  given to spontaneous and very vocal outbursts that ranged from tempestuous rage to impassioned enthusiasm. When he was particularly upset or exited about something he liked to emphasize  the point he was trying to get across by rhythmically and repeatedly Karate chopping the palm of his open left hand with his right. The involuntary tension he must have felt at these moments would rise visibly from his chest, tensing the muscles of his neck then to be projected on a face rapidly turning red with his eyes popping out of their sockets as he gritted his teeth between frases that expressed his displeasure at something or other. As far as I know he is a thoroughbred Englishman but his manner I found almost Gallic at times. “La colere!” The fact that he is married to a Frenchwoman might have something to do with it.

As a master and our housemaster, he commanded respect and we treated him with due deference, particularly when he flew into a blind rage with us for one reason or another and went on the rampage around the house, at which point we would all scatter like cockroaches caught in the glare of the kitchen lights, to lie as low as possible until the storm had passed. On these occasions, as we cowered meekly in odd and dark corners of the house, trying to look busy and hoping not to be noticed, those of us that had managed not to come to his attention found all the shouting and stomping and hand-chopping quite hilarious, sniggering guiltily as some other poor bastard in the study next door was being subjected to a rabid dressing down. Not so much fun, believe me, if Mr Pendered happened to be having a fit of rage whilst addressing you. When he wanted to, he could project his voice like no other person I have ever heard. His quick temper notwithstanding, I found him to be very human and kind more often than not. He just happened to rise quickly to a state of anger. If I say he was a very colourful character, I mean it in the best of senses. I liked and respected him very much. I remember him being a very clever and cultured man who left me with a nugget or two for life that I’ll expand on on some other occasion. In retrospect, I think it is almost a shame that I crossed paths with him at such a young age as I believe I would have gained more from him had he taught me as a young adult and not as a boy. Word had it, I seem to recall, that he had been educated at Uppingham before taking a year off to motorcycle around Spain and France – beatnik style – surviving on wine and tapas. I believe he then went on to do his National Service and found himself as a young officer in the Paras, being parachuted into Egypt during the Suez crisis. After that I seem to remember reading in the school lists that he had gone on to take a degree or two at Oxford and the Sorbonne. A quick-witted, intelligent and rounded man, he would drop little nuggets about the etymology of “this” or an anecdote concerning “that”. Of course, at that age, none of us gave a crap about his digressions, which is a shame really. His French was excellent.

It must have been in the second half of our Novi year and he was teaching us French.

“Gilbert!!!”

“Yes sir.”

“Gilbert, Translate the sentence on the board into French”

“Ummm…ahhh…yes sir. ….mmmm…too ley suar…..aprey le diney…..avan de me coo-chey….je vey ver ma mer poor looy beysey…”

“NOOOOOOO” screamed Philip. “You never say “BAISER” in French when you mean “embrasser!!!” “WHHYYY???? Because BAISER…. in French….means…TO FUCK!!! Got it?”

“…ummm yes sir.”

I bumped into him a year or so after leaving school, in a McDonalds just off Tower Bridge.  It was during my first term at The Bartlett and Maria and I had just been in to visit The Tower of London.He was there with a group of sixth formers on a field trip. He told me that in the last couple of years he had learnt to speak and teach Japanese and this lot were his students.