David November - Sport and TC
Monday 28 March 2022
In response to my emails about help with sport speakers for our scholars David November very kindly wrote me a piece about his career and sport. This was over a few emails so my apologies for my editing. Many thanks for the invitation - which certainly interested me - especially as I consider that Tettenhall College really prepared me for what followed in more ways than one - eg - My father, the Catering manager at James Beattie's in Wolverhampton at the time decided that at 16 I had better leave TC and go to a Technical College in London to learn to be a chef firstly, and then to go on the Hotel Operations course there....I had also been a Boy Scout at TC so being sent to live in a hostel in Hampstead joined the local Senior Scout troop - and became a Queen Scout being presented, among many others, to the Queen Mother at Windsor Castle in 1957. National Service followed and I was fortunate to be successful in being WOSB'd to become an Officer in the Army Catering Corps for 18 months of my time in the army!!Then into hotels and restaurants in London, Geneva, then London in 1961 again for another 20 years before someone head hunted me for a job as an Executive in a Hong Kong based prestigious Hotel Company until I retired from there in 1991........!!Retirement turned out to be somewhat different as my wife had bought us a farm when we moved to Hong Kong so we returned there to run it and a drug and alcohol Christian oriented rehabilitation centre for a further 10 years!! I've just turned 85 and live quietly and peacefully with my wife, Margaret who is a year younger than me and not in great health, so we don't travel around much these days - and anyway we have a 20 year old young farmer looking after the farm, which has its moments!! Brian Oliver is the only OT I have heard about in recent years - he was then living somewhere in Gloucestershire, I think it was...!SportSport has played a big part in my life as I was active in various ways until we left Hong Kong in 1993......Most of my 30's and 40's I played field hockey, first in Ilford and later on at Hounslow mostly in the 5th Team and even sometimes on a Sunday, mostly as a full back, but sometimes as an inside forward. I lived in Hong Kong from 81 or so and stayed 10 years during which time I ran in races for the part of a Company I worked for, (Hong Kong Land but I worked for the hotel Company called Mandarin International Hotels as a Director, first Sales and Marketing and later for 5 years as the Operations Director for Asia and North America (But there were only 2 hotels there in NA!!)...!!). I played league squash in about the 5th Division (there were 6 divs!!) every week at the HK Sailing Club where I also raced a boat in the Flying Fifteen Class........At TC I played hockey but I doubt I made the first team but would have had to play for my House - Pearson...?? However after an exchange year in a hotel in Geneva I started to play hockey once more in Ilford after marrying and going to live there as I had a job in Tottenham Court Road that had an easy 'underground' connection to that area! When we next moved having had a baby to Twickenham (my wife that is....had the baby...) I joined Hounslow Hockey Club and played in a variety of teams as they ran 5 men's teams on a Saturday and some times Sunday! I even played some hockey in Hong Kong after we went there cos of my job in 1983 or so.However the game I learnt to play in my National Service time from when I was 19 and a half (due to my being a full time student until that July) was Squash - and I played Squash in London socially but in Hong Kong for a team of the HK Sailing Club that had courts and 5 or 6 squash teams in the Hong Kong Squash Leagues!!! I also owned and sailed a sailing dinghy in the Flying Fifteen Class - and one year made it to the HK Sailing Clubs team for the FF Worlds event - clearly not really influenced by my time at TC directly but the idea of playing in Sports certainly was!!The 'other' part of my life undoubtedly influenced by my TC time was Music......I had been the only Day Boy singing in the Chapel Choir - so even on Sundays pedalled my way to TC for the morning service!! A Scotsman, (Mr Vaughan...??) in the Sayers musical era taught me to play the violin, but not very well I reckon! In my last term I sang the solo in a work that Mr Malcolm Davy the then Music Teacher had decided was best suited to my voice.....but when I married in 1961 it was to a lady Music Teacher so........as she became a member of the Hong Kong Bach Choir and eventually its Chair person, Choral Music became once more a feature of my life - that Choir was one of 3 that shared the opening of the then 'new' Concert Hall in Hong Kong in around 1990.....(?)Mr Jim Baxter's influence on my future Scouting activities extended to all manner of subsequent happenings, including, undoubtedly my Commissioning in the ACC for the major part of my 2 years National Service!...but that's another story!!All the bestDavidSo Sports and Music owes much to my early days - but not much mention of academic prowess - but I did win a National Competition for my Catering College in 1956 before starting my 2 years of National Service late that year!I hope that's enough but our Christian life was also very important during that time so maybe that too needs a note!!