RIP - T Bryan Richards (STAFF, 58-61)

Thomas Bryan Richards (STAFF, 58-61)

Born 23rd November 1932 - Died 16th December 2023

Years later I asked him whether he remembered seeing a long tunnel or a bright light or if he even believed in God.

“Well, I couldn’t say, I’ve never met him,” he replied.

My earliest memory involves him carrying me like a rugby ball  and running across the pitch he had just been playing on, towards St Cross. I was about 3 years old and had fallen into a bonfire of leaves that had just been lit. A rather cantankerous nurse refused to treat me until I stopped crying, to which dad responded by saying. “If you want to cry boy, you bloody well cry.”

He always called Rob and I “boy.”

Rugby played a huge part in his life. Growing up in Skewen, South Wales, he was capped 999 times before the age of 12, as he played outside the front door of his house on Dynevor Road. In fact, he told me, the week before he died, in one of his more lucid moments, that Dynevor Road had boasted 9 Welsh Rugby internationals. It must have been something in the water.

Mind you, he also told the carers at Anya Court that he had been a champion jockey in South America. Obviously, the dementia had been kicking in hard that day and I joked that he had done many things in his life, but he hadn’t done that.

Or so I thought.

Rob confirmed that dad was part of a combined Oxbridge rugby team, that toured Argentina. During their travels they had visited some of the ranches owned by the hosts and he had indeed ridden on a racehorse. So proficiently that he gained the nickname “Hank” for the rest of the tour. His amazing stories were endless.

As children, a bedtime story from dad was an event, and they all began in the same way:

“Once upon a time, a long time ago, in the land of Kalamazoo, there lived Big Chief Sitting Bull and his friend Jimmy Robin….”

And then the story would unfold. Stories that Rob and I have passed down to our children and James has passed down to my grandchildren. It’s good to know that Kalamazoo lives on.

But these made-up stories were nothing compared to the real-life tales that dad would tell us over the years. Adventures on and off the rugby field. Of meeting Kings and Hollywood actors. Tales of how he thwarted a South African defence with an outrageous sidestep. How he halted an Aberavon attack with a Gandalf like command.

One of dad’s proudest achievements was perhaps not one you would expect. Being capped for Wales? Playing for the Barbarians? A Cambridge blue? Captaining both Swansea and London Welsh? None of these.

Instead, it was that during his time at Rugby School, he coached every single rugby team (16 in all) from the Under 14’s right up to the First XV. It was during an Under 14’s training session in 1981 that this story begins.

After an arduous number of drills and vomit inducing exercise, the whistle was blown and 20 plus sweaty young teenagers, me included, were called into a huddle by our coaches Malcom Lee and one Bryan Richards. It was chucking it down with rain. We were tired, cold, fed up and wanted nothing more than to retire to our respective houses for a shower and rest. However, Mr Lee and my father had other ideas. A game of touch rugby. Our hearts sank. More exercise. The teams would be all 20 plus sweaty teenagers against the 2 coaches. Now this was more like it. An opportunity for revenge. A chance to “get the teachers.” First however we had to catch them.

I can see them now. Two 50-year-old men in wellingtons, one of them carrying an umbrella, wearing over coats and a trilby hat against an entire rugby squad…and we couldn’t touch them. A dummy here, a sidestep there. Welsh wizardry. They were that good. They made us look ridiculous. Alex, you were there. Am I telling the truth?

I was and am a very proud son.

Peter Dewey, a friend and colleague of dad’s reminded me recently of a football match between the schoolboys and the teachers. The teachers lost 9 – 3 with Peter scoring 2 goals and dad 1. During the game dad spent a lot of the time dribbling down the wing rather than passing to a teammate, so after the game Peter asked him why he wouldn’t pass. He replied quickly and simply ‘Well Peter, I didn’t think there was anyone worth passing to’. His self-confidence was boundless.

And the respect in which he was held by staff and pupils alike has been made plain in the last few weeks as I have been inundated with emails and calls from Old Rugbeians and past masters, making their fondness for him known.

One old boy of the school messaged me with the following story. The boy was late to an economics lesson that dad was giving. He sheepishly entered the classroom armed with a cricket stump which he casually lay on the ledge of the desk in front of him. Dad and this boy had history regarding his lateness. The lesson continued until dad’s curiosity got the better of him and asked what the cricket stump was for.

“It’s in case you try and attack me Sir.”

“Boy,” he replied, “If I decide to attack, no amount of cricket stumps will protect you.”

Dad started at Rugby School in 1970 and was made housemaster in 1983. Coton House was home to about 80 pupils, but during the holidays Rob and I would take advantage of the games room that included a full-size snooker table and table tennis table.

Always competitive, dad would play and beat us at both games. He would never let us win. He would never let anyone win. Including my mother. Another tale from the Welsh mists of time involves dad proudly announcing that he beat mum at table tennis in a rugby club house in front of both teams. Mum, also a fierce competitor, would remind him;

“Only because I was eight months pregnant.”

Childhood holidays in Wales were for me idyllic. Dad buying us Joe’s ice cream in Mumbles. Running down to Three Cliffs Bay with all the energy of youth, but then on the return journey, being carried back to the car by dad, because my legs were bad.

Every village seemed to have a rugby team and all roads led to Cardiff Arms Park. This sacred, hallowed turf that our dad had played on. Our dad, this spectacle wearing, sports jacket donning, economics teacher had once been a bit of a big deal in the Welsh rugby world.

So much of a big deal was he, that at the end of one particularly punishing rugby match he was summoned out of the communal bath by one of the trainers.

“Bryan, King Olaf wants to meet you.”

“King who?”

“King Olaf of Norway, he wants to say hello.”

Dad dripping from his bath and wrapped in a towel.

“Well can’t he wait?”

“He’s the bloody King mun, of course he can’t wait.”

And so it was that King Olaf and dad shook hands just inside the changing room, with 14 other semi naked Welshmen looking on.

He told me that story a few years ago when Karen and I took him with us for a few days away at Centre Parcs. Dad was at a bit of a low ebb, and we thought he’d enjoy being with his family, out in the open air. But the thing he enjoyed most was the outdoor hot tub. I can see him now lowering himself into the perfectly heated water with a huge smile on his face.

“What do you think Dad?” I asked.

“Heaven” was his reply. “Nothing like the baths at St Helens.”

Growing up, we heard more and more of his adventures, as he casually recounted stories, like the time he was taken to a local hotel by two men in suits.

“Saville Row” dad said, very impressed.

There appeared from under the table a suitcase of cash. £5000. The equivalent of over £120,000 in today’s money. An offer to move to the dark side, Rugby League. He politely declined the offer.

Not only did he play for Wales. He was Fly half. A product of that mythical mine, “The Outside Half Factory, “made famous by Max Boyce.

I'll tell you a story,
'tis a strange and weird tale:
Of a factory in my valley,
not fed by road or rail.
It's built beneath the mountain,
beneath the coal and clay.
It's where we make the outside-halves,
that'll play for Wales one day.

But before I get too carried away in this eulogy it must be said that he was, like all of us a sum of his contradictions. He could be quite self-absorbed and certainly incredibly impatient. He expected things to be done immediately. A perfectionist some might say.

“I tell you what you can do for me,” was his way of asking for help.

And whatever it was, that I could do for him, had to be done right away. Many is the time that the phone would go at Bryan O Clock and an anxious and demanding voice on the other end would say;

“Hello, it’s Bryan here. Your father. Just in case I needed reminding. You need to come to the house now. It’s urgent.”

Either myself, or more often Karen would race round fearful, to be faced with the front door ajar. Would we find him lying there having taken a fall, or worse? No. Dad would be sat in his chair listening to Talk Sport.

“Oh, I’m glad you’ve come round. I tell you what you can do for me. You can change this lightbulb?”

For my money, it was mum that was the brains behind the outfit. Dad’s tenure as Housemaster would never have been as successful as it was without our mother’s council and her common-sense approach to the responsibilities they shared.

It was mum that nursed dad back to health after his heart attack. In truth she had been looking after him since the day they got married on August 1st, 1959.

They were married for just over 60 years. A true love story, but one that very nearly didn’t happen. They had been courting for several years before dad proposed. And how did he do it? Where was this romantic gesture offered up? On the upstairs of a bus, after a rugby match (of course) taking them from Swansea back to their respective homes. Mum said, “I’ll think about it.”

 Dad said, “Well can you let me know soon, as your stop is coming up.”

She kept him waiting right up until she got off the bus.

“Well?” he nervously asked.

“Alright then,” she replied.

Having made an extraordinary recovery from his heart attack, in no small part due to mum’s constant care, another challenge presented itself. Dad started to lose his sight. A combination of macular degeneration and glaucoma. He became very frightened and depressed, and it was our mum again who was his rock. She supported him and literally guided him through the rest of their lives together.

She was the one that encouraged him to take part in the English Blind Golf Association, which he went on to Captain and as club secretary was instrumental in changing its identity to The English and Welsh B.G.A. Blind Golf really gave him a new lease of life.

Mum was an absolute legend in the way she took care of dad and suffered his obsessiveness and his impatient perfectionism. At the time, both Rob and I would say,

“Mum, leave him alone, he’s just doing what he enjoys.”
It was only when mum was no longer there did we realise, that how she hadn’t buried him in the back garden under the daffodils, was testimony to her love for him.

Just to give you a very quick idea of how obsessive he could get over something, when Karen and I were clearing out his house we counted 44 different Golfing Jackets.

The last 10 years have been incredibly hard on our family and it has certainly taken its toll. Mum succumbed to a form of dementia that devastated her brain and meant that she spent her last four to five years in a care home, hardly speaking. All through this time, dad visited her nearly every single day. He suddenly found himself in his eighties, living on his own for the first time in his life. He learned how to cook for himself and wash his clothes. Navigating the daily chores of life were for a blind Octogenarian, substantial victories.

I became even closer to him over this last decade. He missed mum terribly. After she died, he didn’t talk about her very much. I think it was too painful for him. He would say to me not long ago;

“I woke up this morning and I would roll over and see her mop of white hair; and I would say Mary, Mary. But she wouldn’t answer and then I would realise she wasn’t there. It was just her pillow.”

Saying I love you, never came easy to dad. As a child just before going to bed I would say

“Goodnight mum.”

“Goodnight darling. Love you” she would reply.

“Goodnight dad”

“Goodnight dad”

I wouldn’t, couldn’t move from the doorway until he responded.

“Goodnight dad.”

“Ok boy.”

That would be it “Ok boy.”

But my God, for an intelligent man he could be a silly bugger. Some of the things he would say. We call them Bryanisms:

Here is a small selection:

“I met this chap, who was a man…”

“I didn’t trip, I fell…”

“ I went to bed and when I woke up, I was asleep…”

“I met this boy who was 4 years old, which is the same age as Joel was when he was 4…”

And my personal favourite when we had taken him out for a pub lunch.

“Now what shall I have to eat, not sciatica, scampi and chips.”

And of course, the immortal line whilst he was looking in the bottom of his freezer:

“You know these frozen vegetables? Are they the equivalent of real vegetables?”

I have already started writing the sitcom. To be entitled:

The Life Of Bryan (With a Y )

He wouldn’t let the loss of his sight hold him back though and quite often I would call round to see him and find him up a ladder in the garage, in the dark, looking for something in the rafters.

“Dad what are you doing? You could fall.”

“I won’t fall. I have balance and understanding.”

“But you might hit your head on the table here.”

“Well, I’ll make sure I fall somewhere else then”.

This was an intelligent man. A graduate of Swansea and Cambridge University. A schoolmaster of Christ College Brecon and Dulwich college. Housemaster at Rugby School. A Chief Examiner of the Oxford and Cambridge examination board and the author of “How to Pass Examinations in Economics.” Available in all good pound shops.

Indeed, he had ambitions of writing his life story and he wasn’t going to let his failing sight get in the way. When putting pen to paper got too difficult, he turned to the computer, where many drafts were made. Then when this became too much for him, fate would intervene and Blind Veterans UK approached Rugby School and came up with the idea that current pupils would interview him and write up his story as part of their community project. Over the span of a few months, three pupils visited him every Friday and documented his story. When they presented him with the finished article, he was over the moon.

I will end with my favourite story.

I am a huge fan of the actor Richard Burton. Married of course to Elizabeth Taylor, twice. Star of some classic films “Who’s Afraid of Viginia Woolf?” “The Spy Who Came in From The Cold” “Cleopatra”. Heralded as one of the greatest stage actors of his generation he famously said that he would have given up every performance of Henry V at the Royal Shakespeare Company, for the chance to play just once for Wales.

So, during one Sunday lunch I am regaling mum and dad, again, with stories of Burton. I have watched every film, read every biography, listened to every poetry recital he made for the BBC. There is nothing I don’t know about this Welsh titan of stage and screen.

When dad, without looking up from his meal quietly says:

“Richard Burton? Yes, I met him.”

My jaw hit the floor. Stunned silence, followed by a mess of questions:

“What? When? Why don’t I know this? Who was? What?”

It turns out that Burton (huge rugby fan obviously) was the guest of honour at an after-match dinner, that dad had been playing in, and was Captain, so Richard Burton was sat next to him at the dinner.

So, I continue trying to get as much information out of dad as possible. He is not very forthcoming but remembers that Burton had a bottle of whiskey stashed under his chair for his sole consumption.

So finally, I say:

“Well did you at least get his autograph?”

Dad, without looking up says:

“No, but he asked for mine.”

Just to finish, I must explain our choice of music for the end of the service. Two days before he died, Karen and I visited him. He had been very agitated, and it was, as you can imagine, very upsetting to see. However, on this occasion he was resting and peaceful. Almost asleep, but the squeeze of his hand told us he was aware that we were there. We each lay either side of him. Holding hands, talking to him and sometimes just being there in silence.

After a while, Karen said, “Shall we have some music?”

With the magic of Spotify, the room filled with the sound of Tom Jones. We started singing along to “It’s not unusual,” and dad, who hadn’t moved for all this time, joined in. A smile broke over his face.

Cwtch up now dad. Love you.