In Memoriam David Stancombe - Life President Emeritus
We are deeply saddened to share the news of the passing of David Stancome, who died peacefully in the early hours of Sunday 22nd June 2025, surrounded in spirit and presence by his family. David, a former pupil of the School, returned as a biology teacher in 1965 and retired in 1995. David was involved with many school activities including the Scouts. For many years he was Secretary of the Association and worked tirelessly to ensure that the Association flourished.
His family are planning a memorial and celebration of David’s life at the home he shared with his beloved wife in Norfolk. Details will be shared in due course for those who would like to attend and honour his memory.
David’s legacy within the Association and the broader school community is one of enduring friendship, service, and pride in Hitchin Boys’ School. He will be greatly missed.
Please add your memories about David and his time at the school and in the Association.
Stinky was one of the most enthusiastic teachers that I encountered at Hitchin. He taught there for all of my 7 years, but unfortunately for me I did not take any of his courses. Where I interacted with him was mainly on the games field and at the Scouts. I remember him for his loud encouragement.
He was clearly did a huge amount for the FSA. His enthusiasm still came through when I wrote to him about something or other, and it was great to see him at the one reunion I’ve attended.
My condolences to his family
Oh, and not just hockey and Scouts – also sailing: Mirror dinghies on Arlesey pit. His loud voice came in very handy there, too. Sailing has become one of my favourite pastimes.
I remember David Stancombe well as a knowledgeable and dedicated Biology teacher. He taught me in the early 1970’s, up to ‘O’ level in 1973. His own biology exam or test questions were, perhaps, sometimes a little more rigorous than those set by his colleague Alwyn “Dicky” Richards… I can recall David’s half-suppressed smile when telling us that his questions should be seen as a kind of counterbalance to “…Mr. Richards’ easy questions”!
I remember too his exhortations to those of us not actually taking part in school sports matches to “…turn out and support”!
After I’d joined HBSFSA, I returned to the school in the autumn of 2001 to play trumpet in a concert. That was my first visit to the school since leaving in 1975, and the first person I met, on walking into the main hall, was David, busily setting out chairs. OK, he was like the rest of us looking a little older, but in all other respects he hadn’t changed, he was getting himself involved enthusiastically. That was the start of my realisation of the huge amount of work that David was putting into the Association, and in later years into producing the Centenary book “We Were There”, which he jointly edited.
I was saddened to hear of his recent death – my condolences to his family.
Dick Whitworth has written to say:- The late Guy Randal, David and I spent a month climbing in the Alps in the early 1960s, climbing Mont Blanc, Monte Rosa, and the Matterhorn amongst others. Then in 1968 David and I had 3 weeks mainly in the Austrian alps, but we finished off the holiday by doing a traverse of the Matterhorn. This is the highlight of our mountaineering lives.
To be honest, as another in the group “class of ’75” I did not realise that “Stinky” must have been mid-career at the time. He was always active with sport and other extra-curricular activities and indeed contributed both to the culture of the school – several old-boys were teachers, and extra-curricular life was almost as important as science! He seem youthful to me and injected energy into his teaching and later into the Old Boys Association.
My last visit to the school was indeed the year that I reconnected with Adrian Sillence above – therefore 24 years ago. David was still very active.
My condolences to his family.
So sorry to learn that David has died. He was a constant connection with my younger days, the school, the Old Boys’ Association and the Blueharts. When I started in 1955 he was a prefect, memorable for his presence, eventually the start of a lifelong friendship conducted intermittently often at a distance due to my peripatetic RAF lifestyle. We played hockey together and he persuaded me to join the Old Boys’ Association after I retired in 1999. He was at the centre of a revival in interest in the Association with increases in membership and attendance at the annual dinner and was influential, sometimes pushing occasionally pulling, organising saw some key events such as the Centenary Dinner and publication of a book “We Were There”, memories of 100 years of the school. The Association is, of course, much changed since the pandemic but our survival and the gathering numbers of activities owes much to David’s hard work, a fitting tribute.
I have to reiterate Mike Norris’ comments. I also new David in earlier times when his Mother was in Cannon House, although it might have been David and his wife before they moved to Dunton. When they moved back to Chiltern Road, my abiding memory is of David in his less than smart shorts walking up and down the road.
I wasn’t all that interested in the OBA but I nearly always attended the dinner, sometimes with my father. David was the lynch pin in the 100th anniversary, even if he did get the ties dated incorrectly. After that I was pressed into being the next Hon Sec, which I did for 13 years, carefully watched by the President Emeritus !!
I feel that if we cut David in half, like a stick of rock, Hitchin Boys’ School would pass through the whole of his body. What a great guy, what a sad loss but lots of good memories.
A very sad time for David’s family and friends, but think of all the good times and his kindly influence at school, in sport and beyond. My personal memory is of ‘Stinker’ giving me a lift to the district Cricket trials at Barclay School at Stevenage in the summer of 1972. Unfortunately, we had a minor shunt at the Corey’s Mill roundabout and I jarred my knee and couldn’t take part.