I came across this photograph of Vic Prooth at Holgate School, Barnsley, when he was a young man, on the ‘Barnsley FC BBS’ website.  He is first on the left, at the front.  He would have been about 40.  I would welcome anecdotes from his students at Holgate.

Victor Samuel Prooth

I've just come across the blogs about my old colleague Vic, stirring (both senses) many recollections of my three years in his Department at Holgate, which I left in 1965. I want to record that, as well as being the astonishingly memorable teacher that his pupils have written about, he was also warmly supportive of his young colleagues. I won't say he was a model for us, as he was strictly a one-off; but he managed the tricky task of advising us very positively and yet encouraged us to pursue our own route. He led his Department just as he led his platoon in the Burma campaign: determinedly, cannily, a touch myopically, and from the front, Sten gun in hand.

He was a character - self-invented, self-propelling - straight out of his beloved Shakespeare, or some utterly unlikely personality in a Dickens novel. As a young man he decided he needed more of a name than mere Samuel; so he ascribed himself Victor, and set about living up to it. Any report or memo signed VSP became a declaration of human rights, or at least of his right to put you straight. As a teacher he was also the centre-stage actor who wrote his own plays and then explained what the play was really all about, testing you on it afterwards.

For decades he remained a good, demanding but staunch friend of mine; so I was deeply touched when his son Charles asked me to write a eulogy for Vic's memorial service. Vic would have ticked me off for being absent when the eulogy was delivered, but he always insisted that God was a permanent absentee, so VSP would have let me off that duty and sent me home to read my Shakespeare more carefully next time. Holgate's corridors would echo resonantly with this man for all seasons and reasons.

Michael Freeman

Due to this memorial website being spammed I have taken down the ability to post by emailing an address.  In the future, can you please send memories to: victorchua (at) gmail.com and the subject line should be "Victor Samuel Prooth"

Victor Prooth

I was touched to see that the music played at VSP's funeral included an aria from Verdi's Otello and some Tom Leher songs.  When I was a pupil of his for six of my years at Holgate school Barnsley (way back in the 1970s) , VSP enthused about these very works - and in fact for the princely sum of 50p made me a double cassette copy of Otello.     I've often thought about this favourite teacher of mine and am  pleased he had such a long and interesting life.   Mark Stratford, London   mstratfo2004@yahoo.com

Victor Prooth

My class first encountered him at the end of our first year at Holgate. Once we were seated to his satisfaction he declaimed from his desk, "Gentlemen, you will have heard, I'm a bastard. It's true." We were both stunned and undeniably impressed. Here was a teacher who used the same kind of language that we did. It set the tone for our relationship with Vic through the next four years. He had our respect, we knew where we stood with him but none of us stood in fear of unfair punishment or retribution. If you got caught misbehaving in class you were simply invited to stand in front of his desk and look at an imaginary painting on the back wall of the classroom before being asked whether you wanted top-spin or back-spin before he clouted you on the back of the head. He didn't have to do it often, and I don't remember anyone ever complaining amongst ourselves. I remember that, on one occasion, having gained knowledge of my interest in Grand Prix racing he made sure there was a copy of Speed Six in the class library and then drew my attention to it. One other memory of Vic which I would like to share was an event which happened to a friend of mine whom Vic, as he did with many of us, called by a nickname, in this case "Freddie" after Freddie Jones the actor. Anyway, on this occasion Freddie was walking along the top corridor by the art room when Mr Prooth came along in the opposite direction. Freddie knew that he had been spotted and had no choice but to acknowledge the meeting. The conversation went something like this:

VP: Ah! Freddie! Have you done that homework for me yet?

Freddie: No Sir.

VP: Why not Freddie? Have you never had an event you will remember all your life?

Freddie failed to spot the trap which was being cunningly laid.

Freddie: [With enthusiasm] No, Sir. That's it, Sir. I've never had one, Sir.

VP: [Using pantomime villain voice] Then come with me, Freddie.

At this point Mr Prooth, followed by an increasingly nervous Freddie, set off in the direction of Mr Prooth's classroom: Freddie was surprised when they didn't go into the classroom but instead stopped at the top of the stairs where, according to Freddie, Mr Prooth grabbed him by the ankles and dangled him over the bannister at the top fo the staircase where all the jumble which was then carried by school boys in their blazer pockets began to fall on the heads of the unsuspecting pupils using the staircase.

VP: Will you remember this event for the rest of your life Freddie?

Freddie: Yes, Sir!. I will, Sir! For the rest of my life, Sir!

VP: So, now you can write my essay can you Freddie?

Freddie: Yes, Sir!

VP: And when can I have my essay Freddie?

Freddie: Tomorrow, Sir. Tomorrow.

The conversation was at an end and Mr Prooth put Freddie back on his feet before walking off leaving my friend to collect his belongings from the four flights of stairs down which they had tumbled. No-one thought this behaviour to really be worthy of comment other than to find it amusing and effective. Freddie wasn't complaining about it when he told me the tale.

Victor Prooth was definitely one of a kind!

--
" Prayer indeed is good but when calling on the gods a man himself should lend a hand"
Hippocrates

From an anonymous former student, https://exiledtyke.wordpress.com/2012/11/05/riding-along-with-davie-police-victor-prooth/

Obituary in the Barnsley Chronicle

http://www.barnsley-chronicle.co.uk/news/article/4373

 

Retired English teacher who had a way with words dies, aged 89

Monday 22nd August 2011

Victor Prooth had an unorthodox teaching style. The retired English master at Barnsley Holgate Grammar School, who has died aged 89, was once told a class of boisterous pupils was called 2b.

“2b?” he exclaimed. “2 bloody b?” His frequent use of ‘bloody’ could come as a surprise to 12 and 13-year-old boys. To hear the word in the playground or on the TV in the early 1970s was one thing. To hear it in the classroom from a teacher was another.

Mr Prooth had a way with words: perhaps his impressive rhetoric stemmed from his passion for William Shakespeare.

Like the bard, he believed the play was the thing. He organised many trips to performances by the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon. For some pupils, this would have been the first time they would have set foot inside a theatre.

He was born in London and spent two years in Canada when he was three. He failed his 11-plus because he had rheumatic fever in the run-up to the exam. He had another go and passed.

He read classics at Leeds University but his studies were interrupted by the Second World War. He served in the Far East and was promoted from lieutenant to captain. He received a bayonet wound while in Burma. When he returned to university, he decided to read English.

After a short spell teaching in Leeds, he worked at Thornes House Grammar School from 1952 until moving to Holgate in 1961.

In 1980, he moved to Singapore to teach at the National Junior College. On retirement in 1992, he lived in the South of France until about three or four years ago.Failing eyesight meant he spent time with friends all over the world. This included a stint in Chicago.Last October, he moved into a home for the blind in Hove where he died. His cremation was in the Sussex town. He leaves a former wife Renne, a son Charles and two grandsons.

One of Mr Prooth’s favourite Shakespeare sonnets – which begins ‘No longer mourn for me when I am dead’ – will feature at his memorial service at 2.30pm on September 13 at Essex Church, Palace Gardens Terrace, Kensington, London.

Details: charles@proothfamily.com

 

Vic Prooth

The cast of The Importance of Being Earnest" 1964

Characters left to right

Merriman, Algernon, Cecily, Footman, Gwendolen, Jack/Ernest, Dr Chasuble

As teachers we sometimes are surprised at what our students remember
from schooldays.

When I was in the fourth form of Holgate (and the first year that Vic
taught me English) I took the role of Cecily Cardew in the school play
of that year - 1964 - a production of "The Importance of Being
Earnest" directed by a member of the Modern Languages staff in fact -
a Mr Bevan. The school followed the Shakespearean tradition of using
boys to play the female roles.

Vic, however, was the reviewer for the production and the notice was
placed in the school magazine - the Alumnus. His verdict on my
performance was as follows:

"Wake, though visually attractive, lacked the timing necessary to be
an unqualified success."

I think his assessment was pretty accurate and I have tried to live up
to it.

David Wake