David's Headmaster respectfully asked if he could speak at at David's funeral:
Eric J
Whittle of Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School
As in John
Keble’s hymn ‘New every morning is the Love’. I want to praise the
ordinary. He wrote,
‘The
trivial round, the common task
Will
furnish all we need to ask-
To bring
us daily nearer to God’
In other
words - the ordinary. The hymn is, of course, poetry and poetry is
within my realm as a teacher in English. But whether I read poetry or
novels what matters to me is that the story is based on reality. Science
Fiction or Fantasy simple bore me.
I enjoy
these novelists and poets who ignore the improbable, the
once-in-a-lifetime flashy event but who realise the importance of
ordinary. In that sense David Staff was ordinary. In that very
ordinariness lies his 17 years of importance. He did things that
ordinary boys do. He knew he wasn’t a genius. He was never going to be a
famous scientist, writer or musician. When I taught him English during
1989/90 he didn’t find the subject easy but worked at it. Indeed, like
most decent ordinary boys he grew to realise his responsibilities and
put his back into everything he attempted - and that’s the next
important aspect of his character - he really did attempt so many
things. He wasn’t one to sit back and let life’s opportunities pass him
by, but kept on having a go - and met with a decent degree of success.
In
football, rugby, athletics - David showed what skills he had and set
about gaining more. None of this came easy - he worked at it. Talk to
those who taught him for his GCSE, especially in those subjects which he
would never have chosen and didn’t choose to study for A level - Modern
Languages for example - and you’ll hear the same tale. He worked at it.
He didn’t just let the partially understood slide by - he asked
questions. He always wanted to understand. He worked at it. He was the
sort of boy teachers like having in their classes. Not the know-all; not
the idle - but the good, solid, ordinary lad, helping the whole class
along as he profitably uses his time.
The sort
of lad who knows how to talk to anybody - neither cocky nor obsequious.
The sort of lad who expects fair treatment; who knows that games, class
instruction, life itself have rules - and he expected everyone to live
by those rules: class-mates, competitors, teachers and, of course
himself.
As he grew
into a 6th Former he voluntarily saw it that younger boys
were treated fairly. I know how he would step in to shield first formers
form the taunts of older boys; how he would join in a game of football
with them on Corporation Park without using his greater height and
weight to their disadvantage.
But it
wasn’t only the younger boys who knew that David always dealt a straight
hand. In the classroom as part of a team, as a member of a group on a
school trip, as a scout, he gave 100%. David was honest, upright,
reliable. As one of my colleagues has said, ‘He was a belting lad, the
salt of the earth’, - or as I said at the beginning of this ‘the
ordinary’. How much we should praise the ordinary.
For the
ordinary is trustworthy; isn’t deceitful; doesn’t parade itself
pretending to be something it’s not; isn’t going to hurt you by hitting
you with the unexpected or the disappointing. The ordinary is reliable.
I know how
proud David was to be a member of Queen Elizabeth’s - but he didn’t
shout it from the rooftops. He just lived it. His death had robbed us of
one of our rock-solid certainties.
The
ordinary boy, the ordinary young man whose true worth we only fully
realise after we have lost him.
We at
Queen Elizabeth’s are as proud of him as he was of his school - and I
say again. How very much we should praise and thank God for having met
in David - the trustworthy, the salt of the earth, the ordinary.
As
you can see from the photograph we did just that, and for 13 miles in
Newcastle we endured a torrent of verbal abuse from young and old that
lasted 1 hour 49 minutes - but he loved every moment of it, smiling all the
way with that infectious, cocky and cheeky smile.