Tributes to Bernard
Marchant will invariably be written in educated and measured
English. For command of the highest standards of English was one
of the many skills which Bernard Marchant passed on to his
students, even above and beyond love of the Classics.
A lesson with Bernard Marchant was uplifting. One
would emerge with a knowledge and understanding of anything from
a basic point of grammar to the reasons why Cleon demagogue of
Athens was so loathsome. One would make one's hesitant way
through the blood-stained mess that was Roman politics as the
Triumvirates united and then split to fight for control of
Rome. One could even prepare honey with Bernard courtesy of
Virgil's Georgics!
Above all, pupils would familiarise themselves
with every detail of the campaigns and processes under
discussion. Their respect for say Thucydides as that great
historian watched - with a mixture of horror and dismay - the
decline of Athens was not just narrated. It was brought home
with a humanity and emotion which those who were taught by
Bernard fully appreciated. Bernard did come across as stern to
those who were not taught by him. But those who were his
students realised the love he entertained for his subject.
On a personal note I sometimes met Bernard
after leaving school at meetings of the Society for the
Promotion of Hellenic Studies, Britain‘s most important
Classical Greek organisation. His love of the Classics continued
well after retirement.
One or two pupils joked that entering the room
which Bernard was to make his own, A15, was just like waiting in
a surgery. Bernard would enter and dispense his mastery of Greek
and Latin literature. His teaching “skeleton” was the
wall-concealing map of the Imperium Romanum which cascaded into
view when released. I am not quite sure which was the more
inspiring and imposing – the vista of the Ancient World or its
tall, broad interpreter.
It has been remarked that translating from and
into Latin and Greek results in an education in English better
than any English course can provide. This was the case with
Bernard - to arrive as closely as possible at the real meaning
of a piece of Classical literature one had to dig deep into
one's own seam of vocabulary, selecting two or three words
before delivering justice with the correct one. And Bernard had
English vocabulary in abundance. It may not be the fashionable,
monosyllabic grunts of the contemporary and ignorant English of
some but those who knew Bernard realised his literate
inheritance.
Bernard's English was
indeed noted by fellow members of staff. One French teacher
remarked to me that staff meetings in the Harrow County Common
Room witnessed English of the greatest eloquence when Bernard
spoke.
Bernard Marchant could easily have gone on to
become a university academic. He was, however, recruited as part
of the drive to teach the Classics that was the brainchild of
the often-controversial Dr Simpson. It was and is to the gain of
generations of Gaytonians that Bernard Marchant was there to
enrich their lives.