Mal Howard.

May 2023

Mal Howard Obituary

My name is Geoff Le Breton and I attended the Collegiate form 1954 until 1961. I don't know if this is appropriate or not but I enclose an obituary of my lifelong friend from schooldays, Mal Howard, who died last Christmas Day. The photo I enclose was taken behind the Kearton Hotel in Thwaite, Swaledale, at the end of our walking week in 1998. I am in the red T shirt on the left. The second photo was taken in June 2007 and Mal is on the far left with Mr and Mrs Hume in the centre and me on the far right. If you think this would be of any interest to the readers of the annual newsletter please use it as you wish.

Kind regards,

Geoff Le Breton.

Toronto.

Obituary:

Malcolm Howard, 8 August 1942 - 25 December 2022.

I became friendly with Mal when we shared three classes in the Sixth Form: English; Economics; and History from 1959-1961. Mal played hockey for the school and was in the Naval section of the CCF. After leaving school in 1961 he became a trainee with Unilever in logistics management. A very successful career in logistics followed with several managing  directorships most notably with FedEx and Group 4. Throughout his life Mal was an avid Liverpool F.C. supporter and a season ticket holder from his teenage years. He had great pleasure watching them all from Ian St John to Mo Salah.

Since we shared an interest in walking, Mal arranged a week in the Lake District over the October holiday in 1960, the first of so many such holidays. We were walking from Kendal to Hawkeshead and an old Austin Cambridge pulled up alongside us and it was Mr Ken Crofts, his wife and son who were also holidaying up there. Though I emigrated in January 1968 we kept in touch and had several walking holidays over the years up to 1988. In 1990 we began an annual week in the Yorkshire Dales. Each year we stayed at the Kearton Hotel in the hamlet of Thwaite in the wilds of Upper Swaledale. Over the years frpm 1990 until Covid ended it in 2019 we walked about every trail in Swaledale and most in Wensleydale, many several times over, and we came to love the area. One day in 2007 after a very wet morning spent in the Bolton Arms in Leyburn waiting for the rain to cease we finally gave up, returned to the Kearton, got a bottle of wine and retired to the lounge for the afternoon. We were sitting chatting when an elderly gentleman entered the lounge and even after not seeing him for 46 years I recognized Mr Hume who had tried, unsuccessfully, to teach us Religion at school. There followed a few days of reminiscing and we all stayed in touch afterwards.

Covid ended my visits to the UK which after 2012 were three times per year in spring, summer and autumn and we shared a lot of day walks around Grappenhall Heys, where Mal lived, and the Dee side of the Wirral where I always stayed with my sister. There are so many wonderful memories of our lifelong friendship which began at the Collegiate. It is something for which I will always be grateful to the school.

The end of it all was on 11 April this year, 2023, on my first trip to the UK since 2019. Along with Mal’s two sons and seven of his mates from their ‘local’ we drove up to the magnificent, picturesque village of Reeth in Swaledale. After a walk along the river bank in glorious sunshine with a backdrop of Fremington Edge, one of our favourite walks, Mal’s sons scattered his ashes on the banks of the Swale. It was a fitting conclusion to a good life well lived.