By retired local vet Richard Huddart MRCVS
You might recall an article in the last issue of the Village Link, when I wrote about one of the guests at my old Wellingborough Grammar School Speech Days, Sir John Cockcroft, who shared the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1951 with Ernest Walton. They had been the first people to artificially disintegrate the atomic nucleus, ie ‘Split the Atom’.
In that article, I included a photo I had found online of Sir John presenting a prize to a sixth form student who later became another famous Knight, David Frost, OBE (1939-2013). Indeed, I remember that David Frost had scratched his name on the underside of my school desk, and that my father had been his Physics teacher. However, there had been no love lost between my dad and Frost. Every time he appeared on the TV, Dad would grumble “That ruddy Frost again!” Thus when, at the height of his fame in 1972, David Frost revisited the school, this time as the honoured guest presenting the prizes at the Speech Day, it was a surprise to see the two men bury the hatchet and smile at each other, if only for the local newspaper photographer!
As it happens, I was one of the many students receiving prizes that year. The headmaster read out my name in turn, and I climbed up to the stage and walked towards Mr Frost to collect my prize. As we shook hands, he asked “Huddart? You’re not related to Mr Huddart the Physics teacher, are you?” I beamed proudly. “Yes, actually! He’s my Dad!”
David Frost’s smile evaporated. “Oh” was his chilly reply. Obviously, not his best interview – he probably used this to perfect his technique for the devastating 1977 one with US President Richard Nixon! Many years later, the newspaper photograph surfaced amongst my father’s documents – I sent a copy to Frost’s son Wilfred, a Washington Post journalist in the USA. On the back of the photo, my dad had written one of his favourite admonishments: “Get Your Hands out of your pockets, Frost!”
PS – sorry there’s nothing veterinary this month.
I’ll try and squeeze something animal-related into the next article.
