Ian Robertson (Class Of 1961)

L.C.W. ("Theo") Theobald
 

Leslie Theobald's nickname "Theo" is a contraction of his last name, but it is also the root of the Greek word for "god", and indeed he did seem like a minor god at DHS.  He was one of our most prominent teachers and everybody understood that the school was his entire life. He had been a pupil at DHS and had taught there throughout his career. There was always talk that Theobald could never become principal of DHS because that would require him to take a promotion somewhere else first, but he could not bear to leave the school.  He did remain at DHS until the end of his career.

I was in Theo's Latin class in fifth and sixth form. He was an excellent teacher, in complete control of his classes and on top of his material.  He loved Latin language and literature and conveyed a real appreciation of the subject. To this day, passages of Caesar's crisp prose or Vergil's majestic poetry sometimes float through my head, always inseparable from the memory of the man who taught them to me. I still have my books of Latin readings, with the marvellous notes that Theo dictated to elucidate the subtleties of syntax and grammar.

I found Theo hard to like and hard to dislike, because it was impossible to know the real man. He was a complex person, and when I think of him a series of sometimes contradictory adjectives come to mind. Poised, aloof. Witty, amusing.  Reserved, repressed. Urbane, charming. Cold, solitary.  Perhaps those he coached for cricket saw a different side of him and can fill in the portrait?

Theobald was a celebrated cricket coach, always associated with Barry Richards whose talent he nurtured and whose career he launched. Today Barry is regarded as one of the greatest batsmen of all time. DHS was first and foremost a rugby school -- cricket was never compulsory, but all of us had to play or attempt to play rugby in third and fourth form. However Theobald carved out a special place for cricket in the DHS of his day, and this is nowhere better revealed than in the annual school magazine. The issue for 1961 contains 91 pages.  All the school clubs -- camera, natural history, debating etc -- get crammed into 3 pages.  Athletics gets 3 pages.  Rugby gets 6 pages. But cricket gets 29 pages, with every match described in minute detail.  Theobald had hijacked almost a third of the magazine for his passion!

Those are the memories of Theo I took with me, until a rather jarring experience when I happened to meet three Old Boys from a few years later than ours in London pub. We compared our experiences of the school and of any teachers we had in common. When I brought up Theo's name, they reacted with venom and disgust. They said that Theo had become a vice-principal in charge of discipline and was feared and hated for delivering savage, six-of-the-best floggings for even the slightest offence. This seemed so out of character with the man I knew that I didn't know what to make of it.

Now that we have several class websites from that era, it's clear something snapped in Theobald in our final year of 1961. He had lived with his mother until her death the previous year, and in 1961 he became a housemaster in the boarding establishment. Perhaps he picked up some ideas from sadist housemaster Dog Perkins.  But that year Theobald started flogging not just boarders but also day boys in his room for a variety offences, including getting trivial mistakes in third form Latin tests. One pupil reports him standing at the top of the Blackmore's staircase, flaying with a cane at pupils who were not moving fast enough; another reports getting six strokes every day for over a week, for errors in Latin grammar. When he was appointed one of two vice-principals and had responsibility for discipline, he became a notorious tyrant.Perhaps some dark, long-repressed impulses rose to the surface after his mother died. Or perhaps be believed that only the severest discipline could save the school from modern trends.  

At the end of his teaching career Theobald retired to the Natal south coast, but it was soon apparent he was losing his mind and he was eventually moved to a hospital ward in Durban. There he died on 14 September 1991 from "pneumonia, senile dementia" -- a sad and lonely end for this man who loomed almost god-like in the lives of generations of DHS schoolboys.

Cedric Parker

Thanks for sharing your memories Ian. I remember him as a Latin teacher in Form 3 and 4. in 1963 and 1964. I had huge respect for his intellect, and we knew we dare not rock his boat. I count it a privilege to have been taught by him.

John Leslie

Jonathan Goldberg (Class Of 1955)

I completed my matriculation at DHS in 1955. Theo taught me Latin and English in 5th class and 6th class. He was an inspiring teacher. I endorse all the compilments that have been paid to him here. On a point of fact, I am fairly sure that he was a teacher at the boarding school in my time. Even then he had a reputation for caning, some said sadistically. So I don't think he acquired that habit only for the last period of his tenure after his mother died. In my time I never heard it said that he lived above the tea room, which renforces my memory that he lived at the boarding school. (Was the "tea room" the same place that we called the "tuck shop"?). I heard a rumour that he had been killed. I am glad to read that that was not the case, although suffering from  dementia, if that is what he died of, is also a sad ending to a career of excellence and devotion. He was the greatest educator I ever encountered in all my school and university studies on four continents.

Cedric Parker

Thank you for your excellent tribute Jonathan. I also believe that Theobald was one of the top three teachers I encountered at school. The other two were Geoff Chater, who brought history alive in a very special way, and Mrs Lonsdale, who taught English (and good manners) at Underberg boarding school. She was such a legend, and one of the most caring people I've had the privilege of knowing.