Brian Mawers career at Monkton started under Dick Knight in the Autumn of 1977, just a year after the introduction of 1st and 2nd Form boys to the school. Part of his early brief was to teach them science, and he tackled this young and vivacious age group with more enthusiasm than other colleagues accustomed to older pupils. He also took on other responsibilities, turning his hand to lower school mathematics (sums as he always called it), to sixth form general studies and to his speciality, chemistry.
In all his teaching, his enquiring and adventurous mind was opened up to his pupils, and they went down many and winding streams of knowledge which were so often made much more fun and interesting than the straight and narrow confines of the syllabus. He had never taught sums before, but the modern SMP course was just the right course for him, because it is designed to excite interest. Not for him any of the standard methods for finding the inverse of a matrix; he much preferred to invent a new method for himself. So it was with his general studies lessons: long before greenhouse gases and the ozone layer became fodder for the press, his courses led pupils to think about the science of the world they lived in.
Many scholars for whom the O-level course was too easy, or who wanted to spread wings beyond A-level found him to be a constant source of inspiration. He would not use the well worn duplicated notes which had been served up to generations of chemists; every reaction and equation was re-invented for each class, so lessons were always interesting and not too predictable. This approach may not have suited the boys who did not have enquiring minds; although they were certainly encouraged to work, they did not have facts poured in thoughtlessly and not too much energy was spent dragging unwilling horses to knowledge. Brians enthusiasm was certainly directed at those who wanted to be inspired.
He was attached to School House, and was a helpful tutor to several generations. He often took on the more difficult boys as tutees, and he treated them all in the same straightforward way, encouraging them to stand on their own feet. He was involved in rowing from the beginning, and it was immediately very clear that his skill as a coach was second to none. His Novice crews learnt the basics of the sport so that by the time they were J15, they were prepared as well as any crew of that age.
He assisted with the 1st VIII for many years; he and the Senior Coach frequently shared responsibility for the crew throughout the season. School generations pass through very quickly, so the most recent ones will know only of Brians work at the river, and at the Boat Club workshop in particular. He had built boats before coming to Monkton: can it be true that his first boat was built in a bachelor flat while he was teaching at Clifton? - what would an Estates Bursar say nowadays? The mind boggles! His practical skills were turned to house-building during his early years at Monkton, and of course skills were passed on to boys who spent week-ends on the roof of his house on the Mendips. (Incidentally, it was in a bad winter during the Mendip era that Brian managed to drive through blizzard conditions to reach the valley on time on a day that made more closely based colleagues a touch late for school.)
Meanwhile the Boat Club had its biggest ever numbers, with about 125 boys and girls rowing four days a week. The Boatman could not keep up with the many aspects of his job and he needed help and encouragement on a regular basis. Brian became Boathouse Manager, not only doing practical work at the river, but becoming entirely responsible for equipment and the boathouses. He did a thorough survey of the boats, and reported at length to the Governors, then set about an approved boat building programme which aimed to renew the fleet of ageing boats within ten years. (Boat acquisition is not unlike painting the Forth Bridge - pauses can be catastrophic - and the Club had been through a period during which not enough replacement had been done.) This building programme, just like other improvement projects at Monkton, may have seemed over-ambitious to the outsider, but the effects were dramatic and positive. Much time used to be spent by coaches and crews at regattas (and during training, for that matter) trying to put life, screws and patches into worn out equipment, which often failed. Under Brians expert eye and with his new equipment, crews were not let down.
Rowing is a sport enjoyed by girls as well as boys, so the building programme changed direction two or three years ago; small boats and boats for lighter crews had to be built so that the girls and the reduced number of boys could be given first rate equipment. A lightweight octuple sculling boat (which won the first ever J14 8x division at the Schools Head Race) was the first of this new generation of craft, and it was followed by lightweight fours and sculling boats. This work was cut off when the Governors decided that they did not want boat building to continue in the way it had been carried out; it was perhaps no coincidence that Brians time as Boathouse Manager and member of staff came to an end very soon after that decision had been reached.
Monkton has lost not only a skilled craftsman, but a man who believed in and practised schoolmastering. He was absolutely loyal to his pupils, and never condoned unfairness to them. This year, he spent some time coaching the Girls 1st VIII. They were apprehensive about how he would deal with them, as many who do not know him might be, but it was not many days before they came to heel, as he would say. He would not have missed an outing with them, even though once it meant driving 100 miles, and later he cancelled a much needed holiday abroad which would have clashed with training; he was none-too-pleased when he heard that a member of the crew had absented herself from an outing for a trivial reason. Perhaps it was because of this dedication to the crew as well as his skills that they were transformed into a crew with a sense of purpose. A boys crew might have made no comment, but the vivacious and more outgoing girls did not hesitate to award him with the title Shwinger - a term of endearment and respect well earned by a loyal servant of the school as well as its pupils.