Tower and Town, April 2020

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Obituary: Brian Ashley

Brian Ashley, who has died at the age of 84 after a serious fall at home and a long spell in hospital, was one of the most active contributors to the life of Marlborough College and to the life of the town.

A native of Mansfield, he went to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he read history, and then to Carnegie College in Leeds to train as a PE teacher. After posts in Chipping Norton and St Paul’s School in London, he came to Marlborough College as Head of the PE Department and also taught History. He wrote a well-produced history textbook, Law and Order, for secondary school students, and also ran a popular keep fit group for local businessmen.

In the mid 1970’s, with a vision and determination that wasn’t always appreciated and shared by the powers-that-be, he established the College’s Summer School, and then looked beyond to set up similar courses at Taunton, Millfield and even in France. The construction of the fishponds at the College was another of his initiatives, too.

As if one career was not enough for him, he left the College in the 1980’s and with his wife took over the running of the Henge Shop at Avebury. The attractions of the local landscape and its history led him to offer courses locally, and he could overcome even sceptics with his enthusiasm for water divining.

He was a driving force behind Marlborough’s much appreciated and successful International Jazz Festival and became a local district councillor. Full of forthright opinions, anecdotes and good humour, he began conversations with “Have you heard …?” Characteristically, he expected people he bumped into to agree with his idea or point of view, and the irony of his departure from this life only a few hours after his country’s departure from the European Union was not lost on many of us.

We remember Brian as a man who thought big and achieved much, and we offer our sympathies to Kathe and his family.

John Osborne