Roger Arthur Chant Ketley (1933-2024) was born in Croydon on 1 March 1933 and educated at Whitgift School. He served his National Service in the Royal Artillery 17th Training Regiment, before going on to study for a BSc at University College, London, and a Certificate of Education at Queens’ College, Cambridge. In 1959 he was married at St Leonard’s Church, Streatham, to Dr Andrea Langford, daughter of W.J. Langford, headmaster of Battersea Grammar School. His first teaching post was at Latymer Upper School in Hammersmith. In 1961 he joined the Geography department at Sherborne School, becoming Head of Department in 1966. Roger was appointed housemaster of Lyon House in 1969, a post he held until 1983 when he was appointed Second Master. He retired in 1993, but returned to serve as Registrar from 1995 to 1997. Roger Ketley died on 27 November 2024.
The following Valete for Roger Ketley was written by D.P. Jones and published in The Shirburnian Michaelmas 1993 issue:
‘We are sending you to Sherborne,’ said my Supervisor at the Department of Education in Cambridge who was organising the allocation of student teachers. ‘There is a good man there called Ketley. You’ll learn a lot from him.’ How prophetic those words in 1968 were. I wrote to Sherborne to make contact, visited Sherborne at short notice at the end of a busy term and was entertained warmly by Roger and Andrea before leaving with my teaching schedule for the following term. The latter was meticulous. The timetable was generous but demanding, beginning with three periods a week and ending with thirty. There were names of all those in the sets and advice to learn them; the topics to be taught in some details; the books I was to use; notification of the Cornish field trip to which I was invited, plus lots of practical, sensible tips and advice. It was my first taste of this good man Ketley’s organisation. ‘Oh yes,’ said the follow up letter from this man, ‘I’ve arranged accommodation for you in the town, so you don’t have to bother with that and if Jane wants to come to visit she can stay with Andrea and me.’ Many people reading this will have felt cossetted in the same way at their arrival in Sherborne and thereafter, by RACK. In the last twenty-five years, none of that has changed and in consequence it is almost impossible to know where to begin to catalogue Roger Ketley’s contribution to Sherborne.
Following his National Service, RACK earned his degree at the University of London followed by a Certificate of Education at Queen’s College, Cambridge. He then taught for several years at Latymer Upper School in London – ‘Well, Andrea was in London and it meant I could go on playing for Rosslyn Park’ – before coming to Sherborne to join W.A. Cooper’s Geography Department in 1961. Since then, barely an aspect of School life was not in RACK’s charge at some time or another, often many simultaneously, entailing a formidable workload and clear-thinking innovation. Yet, whatever other duties may have occupied his mind, RACK was first and foremost a teacher of classroom priorities, and woe betide pupils who didn’t absorb quickly the need for classroom discipline. Even if he had been teaching all day in Room 25, RACK’s room at the end of it all was as immaculate and tidy as at the start of the day. Generations of Geography teachers teaching next door to him, separated by only a thin, sound-amplifying door, have had their thoughts distracted by some interesting point being made – and leant – next door, before those same ideas were incorporated in their own teaching. As a practical exponent of teaching RACK was beyond compare; his blackboard work put to shame the indecipherable scrawls seen elsewhere; film strips, slides, latterly videos, were incorporated into all lessons (not you understand, the whole thing shown from start to end, but carefully selected snippets used to illustrated particular points); a bottomless well of newspaper cuttings, evidence of an indefatigable search for the latest and most appropriate data; map extracts carefully prepared (not much ‘off the cuff’ teaching in Room 25); and a life transformed by the advent of the OHP [Overhead Projector]. Suffice it to say that if RACK’s collection of transparencies came up for auction, members of the Department, past and present, would be first in the queue to bid for the fabulous resource, totally up-to-date, with the added value of the knowledge of the countless hours spent in their careful preparation.
If what has been written is not evidence enough of a superbly organised and committed Geographer, then RACK’s role elsewhere within the Department surely would be. In the early days it was volunteering the School to help Alice Coleman’s National Land Use Survey, the most comprehensive since the Domesday Book. Each weekend saw RACK and the Sherborne Geographers out in the field and never before or since were Lydlinch and Sturminster Newton so meticulously examined and recorded. Then there was the pioneering of field work and field days in a school not accustomed to the practice. Battles had to be fought and RACK won them and today every Department takes field days for granted and benefits from them. There were holiday field work weeks not at official study centre, but elsewhere, where the programme was designed by, taught by and followed up by the Department, tailor-made for the requirements of RACK’s Department. Under him the Geography Department grew in numbers and not just numbers but numbers of clever boys taking the subject at A Level, and the Oxbridge awards began to flow. Staffing in the Department expanded to meet the demand, recruitment carefully undertaken and always sensitive to the wider demands of the School.
At this time there were clear signs of his appetite for schoolmastering. From 1961 he was Westcott’s House Tutor in the days when Houses had only one to do the work now down by many.
From 1961-1967 he put military experience to good use when he was in charge of B Company of the then compulsory and much larger CCF. His beloved rugby was not neglected either and from 1961-1971 he ran the Colts XV and well I recall bringing a fancied team from Downside in 1968 only to go back again beaten by a meticulously prepared XV. It was a lesson not forgotten, nor the score. During those early days, Roger ran the School Exams from 1965-1969 and also the Blue Book and the White Book for many years. In the middle of all this, he was appointed Head of Department in 1966 and those in the School had confirmed for them RACK’s ability to hold down several important jobs at once. From 1966-1974, despite whatever else he may have been doing, the Department became the focal point of RACK’s energies even, dare I say it, when he came Housemaster of Lyon in 1969. Not surprisingly, the Department gained a national reputation for the quality of its teaching and the pupils that emerged from it. All who have followed RACK as Heads of the Department would want to be first to say that, without ever interfering, he always managed to keep them on their toes and retained, right up to his final Department meeting, a constant Peter Pan-like enthusiasm, rigour and up to the minute knowledge of geographical trends in education – and not just for Geography either. So, first and foremost, a teacher of Geography, his contribution to the School’s department was awesome.
When in 1969, RACK succeeded to Lyon House, it was at a time of great autonomy amongst the Houses and Central Feeding not yet in existence. In no time Lyon earnt for itself a reputation as a tightly run ship, where discipline and order prevailed and, true to the Lyon tradition, no Housemaster could have bene more parochial in the interests of his boys. Needless to say, not all the boys saw it like that at the time, but perhaps they might reflect on the varied and extensive load carried by RACK. Typically, RACK gave Lyon his all and immersed himself in running the House and also beginning the refurbishment programme which culminated in the building of the ‘Sweat House’ just before he left the House. Small wonder that Andrea would occasionally lock him away, unavailable to anyone, to enable breath to be drawn and sanity to prevail. Housemastering was not easy during this turbulent period of the late sixties and early seventies, but ask RACK about these years and it is clear that he loved the House and especially the humour and idiosyncrasies of his boys, especially the ‘characters’, the annual Lyon House plays, contests on the games field, all of which formed the bread-and-butter of schoolmastering. Any special moments? It is perhaps typical that RACK recalls the year when, never having won Seniors, the House seemed destined to do so because the entire XV came from Lyon… ‘and then the weather froze so hard the entire competition was cancelled’. It is a tale he tells often, accompanied by gales of laughter at the irony of it all.
In 1971, in his early days in Lyon, RACK was also made Director of Studies. It was a new job for which no job description existed, but RACK was prepared for this. Previously Secretary to the Public and Preparatory Schools’ Section of the GA, an O-Level examiner, a Committee Member of the Schools’ Council Geography Project and on the Standing Joint Committee for Oxford and Cambridge O and A level exams, RACK’s experience was already considerable. It is arguable that this role saw the right man in the right place more than at any other in his time at Sherborne. The timetable and curriculum were reorganised and new subjects were introduced. If RACK would have liked some of these changes to go further, that they didn’t was more a reflection of his courtesy than his lack of vision.
Then, in 1982, came the invitation to become Second Master, a surprise to no-one. If he was busy before, how much more so now and for a while he was simultaneously Second Master, Housemaster of Lyon and in the process of handing over Director of Studies. It is hard to envisage such a burden being borne by one person again. Wisely, in 1983, RACK retired from Lyon House a year early after fourteen years in the ‘West End’. It was an emotional farewell which took by surprise those who had not seen deeper than the surface of the man and were unaware of the emotion and sentiment normally kept well under control.
RACK began as Second Master to Robin Macnaghten and, in time, was to oversee the retirement of Robin and the appointment and induction of Peter Lapping. Both men could not be more fulsome in their praise and gratitude for RACK’s wise counsel, impeccable loyalty and absolute discretion. Indeed, on three lengthy occasions in 1987, 1990 and 1991, he was to act as Headmaster and it is significant that after the longest period, and entire term, the Senior Common Room saw fit to present him with a decanter and glasses in appreciation of the care he had taken of them during this time. Meanwhile, RACK set about bringing order to a considerable range of jobs and practices that had developed in an idiosyncratic way in Sherborne and, fresh from the job and aware of the conflicts and omissions and pressures of the role, he put the job descriptions and contracts of Housemasters on a proper footing for the first time. He didn’t stop there, of course, and very soon no aspect of school life that needed an overhaul or a review escaped his attention. The School Rules were rewritten, as was the Masters’ Book; codes of practice were laid down for everything from running a disco to BSR seating and very soon anyone wanting to organise anything in the School found it prudent to check with him beforehand to avoid pitfalls and clashes seen by few others. Co-ordination with the Girls’ School, too, became formalised and far more efficient. Such comprehensive reviews might have caused unrest in the School had it not been for the thoroughness and attention to detail with which they were conducted. By this time, RACK was speaking with great weight and authority, hardly surprising in view of the wide range of his experiences.
Always with an eye to the wider world, RACK’s outside commitments grew apace. In 1985 he became a member of the MEG Examining Committee and, in the same year, a member of the Oxford and Cambridge Examining Board. Insights gained from these involvements were used to keep Sherborne fully abreast of national education policy and fittingly, in 1990 RACK was put in charge of the School Curriculum Committee at a time of greater education reform than any time since R.A. Butler’s Education Act. Countless hours in Sherborne and beyond were spent hammering out policies and it was no wonder that RACK’s skills in committee became the envy of all. Such experience and wisdom gained wider recognition and in 1991 he was invited to join the panel of the Independent Appeals Authority for School Exams.
Then, in the midst of this hectic life, came the Children Act. Whom else would the Headmaster want to turn to on such a sensitive issue? In typically thorough, careful and detailed manner, the central issues for the School were identified, the staff thoroughly briefed, difficulties addressed squarely and regular contact maintained with the Dorset Social Services. Eventually the formal inspection took place, which proved overwhelmingly favourable, but the recommendations made were noted, acted upon and another aspect of school life was put in order. Yet there was still time to present a paper to the staff on education philosophy past, present and future, a paper whose understanding and vision was the talk of the Common Room for weeks and is still in the back of most minds as a model for the future. Perhaps now was the time more than any other when it began to dawn on the Common Room what a gulf would be left with RACK’s retirement and both affection and respect for him increased still further. Official farewells were as many and as warm as those of individuals, but I suspect that none will have meant as much to him as a gathering of all the colleagues who had taught with him in the Department since 1961 and former pupils, at a formal dinner. RACK’s speech saw him at his best – meticulous in expression, warm and light in touch, kind and generous in spirit, a keen sense of humour and as sensitive and charming a chief guest as he had been host on numerous occasions in the past.
It was hard to begin, how much harder to draw to a close with so much unsaid? Perhaps it is the vignettes of the years that say the most. There was RACK’s boyish excitement at singing in Dorset Opera – ‘You want to see my costume; it’s great!’; the indefatigable companion/teacher on field days – ‘No, we are not finishing early. No, I’m not sunburnt because my life has been transformed since Factor 32’; the enthralling speaker in the BSR, Junior Chapel or the Abbey (who will forget his farewell address?); the command of public occasions – prizes at Commem., quieting the BSR with a snap of fingers, collecting hedgehogs introduced into the Abbey Service by an errant prankster; the lover of Southern France and of modern poetry; the green anoraked figure always at the corner of the nets on the Upper for 1st XV matches, supportive and analytical and charitable to players and coaches alike; the teacher described by a former pupil as ‘the definitive schoolmaster’; the absolute family man sharing equal devotion and support with Andrea and loving and supportive always to Helena and Nicolas.
We hear that he had just been appointed to the Dorset County Probation Board – a fresh challenge yet again and Sherborne too has probably not received the last of RACK’s many contributions to the School. Perhaps the last word should be with him. At the start of this term each member of the Department received in the post from France detailed field sketches and extremely useful flood data following a deluge in Provence. ‘I’ve just been recording this and I thought you might find it useful. Good luck next term, I’ll be thinking of you. Roger.’
