Welsh martyr to the cause

Other schools get the deputy director of education to do the glad handing, or some old boy past his sell-by. Since 1981, English Martyrs at Hartlepool has had a guest list straight from Who's Who and Nee Argument.

It began with the Duke of Norfolk, his titles so voluminous (they include Chief Butler of England) that they all but overwhelmed the programme. Lord Longford was next, so self-effacing that he feared the head wouldn't recognise him at the railway station, then Brian Clough who feared nothing of the sort.

Follow that? Basil Hume, Dennis Thatcher, Cyril Smith - for whom local building apprentices made an extra-outsize chair - Frank Carson, Bob Holness and David Bellamy. Jeremy Beadle was somewhere about in 1991. The Ronnie Corbett trophy for golf, the Tessa Sanderson trophy for athletics and the Philip Madoc work experience trophy reflect more recent leading lights.

Each is remembered in a portrait gallery - "unique and splendid" said a 1996 Ofsted report - painted by Roy Carless, a teacher since the school's formation in 1973.

Last week the English Martyrs School and Sixth Form College (properly to address it) welcomed the truly heroic Mr Weston, shoes shining like an RSM's inspection, sports hall so hot and so crowded - "stowed out," said Joe Hughes, the Leadgate born head - that it might have become a passing out parade.

Fr Eamonn Croghan, impish chairman of governors, was said himself to have asked for an extra ticket and to have been told there was simply no room at the innings.

It's a Roman Catholic comprehensive, founded by amalgamating five other schools in Hartlepool. Former pupils include Andy Linighan, who scored an FA Cup final winner for the Arsenal, Janeck Gers who became an Iron Maiden and Philip Middlemiss who was in West Side Story at English Martyrs long before he was in Coronation Street, Weatherfield.

Simon Weston's religion is unrecorded, though there may have been many times during the Falklands conflict and as he fought to survive 46 per cent burns on which he most fervently said prayers.

"I joined the Army because I made mistakes," he told his audience. "I thought I would have a wonderful military career drinking, playing rugby and having a good time.

"It didn't quite work out like that."

English Martyrs' awards winning guest list had, admittedly, been given a financial incentive.

Though none is paid, the school raises £2,000 for his nominated charity - Weston's Spirit for Simon, the organisation he founded in 1988 to help disadvantaged youngsters. He is also involved with a Hartlepool-based magazine called Yes, which encourages positive thinking towards those with disabilities.

Usually they spend the afternoon talking with the sixth form. Jeremy Beadle said he wouldn't come unless he could make a day of it. Simon Weston said he wasn't a performer but clearly doesn't have to be, so forcefully does every picture tell his story.

The 38-year-old who only ever wanted to be an engine driver is now a qualified pilot, drives in saloon car races and likes to bright burnish his maxim. "If you think you can or you think you can't, you're right."

English Martyrs has a motto too, Strength Through Unity, and - as befits a modern day Catholic school - a mission statement. "To serve the children pastorally, educationally and liturgically" is but part of it.

They'd organised things superbly, what might be termed with military precision. The principal guest's possible misgivings when they sang Jerusalem - the bit about England's green and pleasant, anyway - were at once subsumed when the school orchestra played the Welsh guards march, and followed it with Men of Harlech.

The programme cover featured the Welsh Guards badge (pictured left) - "Cymru am byth"; Wales for ever - the Red Dragon was on the wall behind him. The shelves held more trophies than Manchester United have won in the past 20 years, or Hartlepool United (bless them) in over a century.

Head boy Abid Khan spoke of their guest's courage in the face of adversity, Mr Hughes, who wore an academic gown, as heads did when Jennings Went to School, told of his endurance and great suffering and of his fierce determination not to give in.

"There can be no better role model for our students," said the programme, and in ten words said it all.

The school had done well, 49 per cent passes at GCSE A-C, 94 per cent at A level, granted Arts College status, well up the state schools ranking in the Financial Times top 1000.

Staff Sgt Marie Mariner, unlikely star of Guns and Roses, a BBC documentary on women at Sandhurst - "a Geordie who shouts," said one of the tabloids, inexactly - won the chairman's award for a former pupil bringing "great credit" to the school.

She was absent with leave, exercises in Germany, but wants to be the first female RSM at Sandhurst.

There were hundreds of other awards, no fewer handshakes. "If I'd known the 'Yes' might have been a 'No'," joked Simon. He spoke briefly, actions being what they are, the address barely longer than the applause which sumptuously greeted it.

Afterwards he was again surrounded, though no longer by the enemy. "You need an awful lot of luck to do what I've done, really I'm just glad to be here," said Simon Weston OBE.

Cause to the Martyrs, he meant that he was glad to be alive.

MUCH the same joy of living suffuses Brother George, the region's best known monk, who on Monday celebrated his 90th birthday with a tea party. "They'll be surprised when you put that in the paper," he said. "Everyone thinks the old beggar dropped off long ago."

The accordionist played Irish Eyes, though he is a lad from Lancashire. Tea party or no, several of the presents appeared to be bottle shaped.

He has been a member of the Hospitaler Order of St John of God since 1932, the last 50 at the Order's hospital in Scorton, near Richmond, or at Hurworth.

"They've put up with me and I with them," he insists. "When you join the Order you have to put up with anything."

Eyes ever twinkling, he still circumlocutes a daily ward round, though he himself lost a leg following a road accident in the Purple Peril, the Morris Minor in which periodically he would be closer to God than perhaps the Highway Code had ever envisioned.

"I'm actively inactive," he probably said, though possibly it was "inactively active". George, it should be added, professes a suspicion of Her Majesty's media - "they take all those photographs and then put in the worst one."

He became hugely familiar in south Durham and north Yorkshire, often on licensed premises, as both fund raiser and front man. Collecting boxes, sculpted in his habitual image, still adorn many bars. The Brother George collection.

"He is an inspiration both to the Order and to the whole Province," said the Very Rev John Martin, the Provincial.

"I've never heard him complain, rarely seen him anything other than optimistic.

"He is truly the father of the Province and is dearly loved by us all."

Within the speed limit set by a wheelchair, he shows little sign of deceleration. "All I say to that," said the merry old monk, "is that when God wants me, I'll go."

If anyone knows (y'know) it's Tom Purvis in Sunderland. Thus finally we have a memory jogging graphic to illustrate the role of "Cynthia" opposite diminutive comedienne Hylda Baker.

It's not, admittedly, the Cynthia portrayed by Darlington doctor's son and straight actor David Kirk (John North, Oct 19) who became the "feed" for a few months when theatrical times were hard and wished thereafter that he'd gone hungry.

This is Tex Martin, the original Cyn - a film stunt man who developed a music hall act ("undressing a girl with bullets"), was spotted by Hylda and invited to join her touring stage show called Beauties in Bearskins.

They lived together for several years until 1957, when the relationship ended.

Perhaps she didn't look up to him enough.

The column, head long in the clouds, returns in a fortnight.