Tower and Town, August 2019

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Family News

Dennis Silk CBE (8 October 1931 – 19 June 2019) was educated at Christ's Hospital and Cambridge, where he read history and captained the cricket XI.  He went on to play first-class amateur cricket over many years, captaining MCC touring sides on several foreign tours. He served as Chairman of the Test and County Cricket Board and as MCC President, later Honorary Life Vice-President. 

He taught history at Marlborough and was housemaster of A1 (Silk and Beer, in A1 and A2 respectively, were a memorable pair) and then of C1 (with much-loved wife Diana) before moving on to become Warden of Radley College. Marlborough remembers him particularly for his coaching (together with Martin Harrison) of the 1963 1st XV rugby side which uniquely not only had an unbeaten season but also had no try scored against them. It was during his time at Marlborough that he got to know Siegfried Sassoon, at the time living in Heytesbury, becoming an expert on his work and much in demand for his talks on and readings of the great WWI poet. He later became President for Life of the Siegfried Sassoon Fellowship. His time at Radley led a fellow-headmaster to deem that he had made it into one of the best public schools in England. (Radley was selected by the BBC for its documentary series Public School.)

He was made a CBE in the 1995 New Year's Honours List for services to cricket and education.  We send our sympathy and gratitude for his life to wife Diana and children Kate, Alexandra, Tom and William.

Many people will remember Fred Palmer who was a pupil at Marlborough Grammar School from 1948 to 1957. When he left he went to Reading University to do a degree and PhD in agriculture. His father was a farmer at Puthall Farm, off the A4, east of Marlborough so he had an understandable interest in agriculture.

He worked around the world from Mexico to Pakistan to East Africa. He was involved with the Ford Foundation and their development of high yielding strains of wheat and maize known as the "green revolution".

In retirement he and his wife, Peggy, (also MGS) lived in France where Fred died recently at the age of 81. We send our condolences to his family.

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Jessy Pomfret