RIP Neville “Spike” Wilkinson
No one at St Mary’s referred to Neville Wilkinson by his full name. He was simply Spike and he was part of the furniture of the school.
He joined St Mary’s College in 1953 as a fresh-faced 25-year-old and saw it all, the move to the new site in 1957, the adoption of Grammar school status and the merger with St Joseph’s Convent in 1979. He died in January 2020, aged 91.
How many English Grammar School boys from the 1970s have an “O” Level in History which was American, rather than British or English History? Well, those of who Spike taught to our “O” Levels in 1973 do. Not quite sure why he did, but Spike was an unusual teacher who certainly sparked my interest in History, which was minimal studying the “Roman Britain” and “Tudors and Stuarts” stuff up until our “O” Level years. Spike opened my mind up by choosing to teach us an alternative history – that of the Colonies and North America – long before such a view would be considered anything other than offbeat.
RIP and thankyou!
Spike taught French and was brilliant at it. Does anyone here remember La Chasse au Buste ?
He also taught the Advanced Swimming Course at Swanley Baths.
The 1968 cohort were taught American History by Peter Ribbins in Form IV and Fr. McKeown in Form V.
I will always remember “Spike” Wilkinson (R.I.P.) calling a More House Meeting (in the Chemistry Lab) after School in July 1964, my last day at School.
Having been House Captain for many years, and having excelled at most sporting team events throughout the School, “Spike” paid me effusive, warm, and most generous, compliments about my contribution to the sporting life of Saint Mary’s Grammar School, Sidcup.
“Dave“, (the ONLY time he ever used my Christian name) he said, “you have been an outstanding sporting example to More House and to the School.”
“Academically”, he went on, “you are a waste of space”.
In addition, when I last saw “Spike”, at an Old Boys’ Reunion in the Mid-1990s, he gave me a thundering great bollocking for addressing him as “Sir”, instead of “Spike”.
God Bless, Sir.
R.I.P.