Peter Needham (teacher, 1960s)

(1935 – 17 March 2021)

We are grateful to OW Christopher Bond (1996) for this obituary

MCS was saddened to hear of the death of Peter Needham aged 86, Peter, who taught Classics for four years at MCS in the 1960s  was appointed by former Master Bob Stanier.

They were happy years in a remarkable life, which ended in peaceful retirement in Berkshire, but – in common with other notable members of the MCS community – began under the shadow of war in 1930s Europe.

Peter Niethammer (as he was then called) was born in Teplice, Czechoslovakia in May 1934. His father, Fritz, was a German Lutheran; his mother, Anna, was from a wealthy, assimilated Jewish family. Following his parents’ divorce, Peter and his mother moved to live in her parents’ fine house in Radic, near Prague.

A contented childhood was interrupted by the imminent Nazi takeover of Czechoslovakia, following the Munich Agreement in 1938. In January 1939, four-year-old Peter arrived at Croydon airport as one of the first Jewish refugee children to be flown out of Prague, under the auspices of The Barbican Mission to the Jews, an organisation which insisted that the children they rescued be brought up as Christians.

Peter’s mother and her parents escaped to England soon afterwards, and Peter began his transformation from central European refugee to English gentleman. He won a scholarship to St Paul’s School in 1947 and in 1952 (by now Needham) went up to Oriel College, Oxford with another scholarship to read Classics. There he enjoyed rowing and Ancient History. Less enjoyable were two years of National Service: a strong-minded man, Peter did not always take well to orders, and his duties were restricted because of the perceived security risk from his father, who worked for the East German government.

Nor did Peter enjoy his first years in teaching, at Bromsgrove School. But better times lay ahead when in 1960 Bob Stanier offered him a post in the Classics department at MCS. His immediate impression of the school when he came for interview was not favourable: perhaps the Nissen huts in which some of the classrooms were then housed reminded him of National Service. But a tour of School Field and the view of Magdalen Tower dispelled his reservations.

Peter spent four years at MCS, where he was a tutor in Maltby and coached rowing. He made lifelong friends, including Brian Martin, and in later life always spoke with great affection of his years by Magdalen Bridge.

In 1964, Peter made the move downriver to Eton College, where he taught for the remaining 34 years of his career. In 1971, he married Nicky, a Cordon Bleu cook, who survives him with their two children, Rupert (now a master at Malvern College) and Ruth, as well as six grandchildren.

Peter retired to Datchet, Berkshire in 1998, where he lived until his death in March 2021. His later years were scarcely idle. He had begun work as a translator while still at Eton, most notably Latinising Michael Bond’s A Bear Called Paddington as Ursus nomine Paddington. He went on to translate into Latin the first two Harry Potter books: Harrius Potter et Philosophi Lapis and Harrius Potter et Camera Secretorum.

In retirement, Peter also began to revisit the upheavals of his early life. He returned to the Czech Republic in 2000, to visit the family home in Radic, and went on to meet Sir Nicholas Winton, founder of the Kindertransport, which also rescued Jewish children from Prague, and to support the erection of a memorial in Prague’s central station to the parents who were left behind.

Behind a sometimes gruff exterior, Peter was a kind man, who was as willing to share his love of Latin with children as he was his forthright political views with adults. He inspired great affection and loyalty in those, young and old, fortunate enough to get to know him.