Mundella Magazine, Xmas 1916 (No 43) - Obituary, Lieutenant Claude Sykes:
I met him nine years ago, when I entered the Mundella Secondary School. For the succeeding years he bestowed on me the great honour of his company and friendship. I now undertake the difficult task, a labour of love and duty, of describing a personality as fascinating as it was great; a task difficult for one whose inexperienced pen can do little justice to an intellect so penetrating and a nature of so universal a sympathy.
Perhaps the most striking feature of his mind was the breadth of his knowledge and the truly phenomenal extent of his reading. The secret of this achievement must be attributed to his precocious development which enabled him to understand at twelve what others understood only at twenty. Thus he became familiar with all that was great in literature, when quite a boy.
With studied neglect for appearances he would fill his pockets with favourite books, to read when the least occasion presented itself to do so. I remember how he was once reproved for the dilapidated appearance of some of his books. “When I read,” he replied, “I like to read a book to bits.” He was a great admirer of Carlyle, and probably knew many passages from his works by heart. The depth and sincerity of this author appealed to the depth and sincerity of his own nature, while the style made a peculiar appeal to him.
His own school compositions and later writings betrayed an original and unique mind. Those who were qualified to judge saw in his work the seeds of a great writer, and thought that when experience had taught him what experience teaches, he would have taken [his] place among the great English essayists. He himself considered essay writing his great calling in life, and knowing the immense labour that mastery of the art would involve, he was ready to work for many years. Till then he cared neither for fame nor position. And then – why then this mastery was ambition enough.
He was thorough in everything – even in the smallest things. I remember how he once stood in the school yard, at recreation time, sharpening a pencil. A crowd of small boys gathered round him as he went on with his work oblivious of everything; till the ringing of bell brought him back to his surroundings. Those of us who cared to look, saw this small piece of work thoroughly executed. His handmade cigarettes were perfect. I quote these instances as being typical of almost everything that he did.
He possessed a keen insight into things and men, and would seize the gist of a problem or an argument without consciously thinking. On one occasion in an algebra lesson, the teacher gave the class a difficult problem in permutations. After some time the teacher asked those who had solved the problem to show their hands. There was only one hand up. “Show me how you did it,” said the teacher, when the correct answer was given, stretching out his hand for the exercise book. But there was not a figure on the paper. “I guessed it, sir”, the boy replied. Murmurs of disapproval rose from all sides. “That is not mathematics,” many voices cried. “Yes,” said the teacher, “But it was more than you could do. That’s the boy,” he cried, pointing to Sykes. And yet Sykes disliked mathematics.
He was wonderfully quick in translating Latin unseens, even after only a short period of study of the language. This is only another illustration of his acute intellect and the extent of his reading. No thought or idea was strange to him and it needed but the stimulus of a few familiar-looking words to unravel the mystery of a complex passage in a foreign language.
Some thought him eccentric. Perhaps he was a little, but this sprung from the idea that one must be brave enough to be unconventional and occasionally be ready to meet a little ridicule rather than to submit to an illogical convention. Perhaps he was wrong in his application of this theory, but after all this was a venial fault. He had a great deal of practical common-sense which harmonised well with his idealism. “If a thing is of no use, then what’s the use of it?” was his quaint way of expressing a practical attitude to life.
He had a keen sense of humour which rarely had recourse to personal jokes, but was broad and universal, endearing him to the hearts of those who knew him. Once when for the sake of a brilliant retort he unthinkingly wounded someone’s sensibility, he repented it and went a long way to remove the little unkindness. But on those occasions when the situation admitted of no compromise, or when he thought compromise was undesirable, he spoke out boldly regardless of the station of his opponent.
When the war broke out he was one of the first to offer his services. “Will the Germans win?” I asked him when that formidable enemy was showering blow upon blow. “Not if all the English feel as I feel,” and he looked far away realising to the full what it meant for him. In the army his qualities placed him high in the opinion of his comrades and superiors, and he received a promotion to a lieutenancy just before his death. “He died while gallantly leading his men into the enemy’s trench,” wrote the commanding officer of his battalion.
So ended the brief career of a youth of twenty who might have been a great man. (Author ‘AS’)