In any history of St Mary’s/St Mary’s & St Joseph’s, 4 August will always be a poignant date.

That was the day in 1968 on which one of the finest sportsmen to emerge from the school was born – but one who would die in a tragic accident nearly 18 years later.

Recalling the death of Kevin Hedderman more than 35 years ago, still has the power to bring a tear to the eye – so sudden and devastating was the news.

It robbed the world of a truly outstanding young man who was surely destined for great things both on and off the sports field.

And yet with the sadness, come positives, not least the humble dignity showed by Kevin’s parents, Roy and Maureen, and his older brother Paul and younger sister, Claire.

Kevin’s death cemented lifelong friendships and inspired people in ways perhaps he would never have imagined.

Jim Staples, who went on to play 26 times for Ireland, says he would often think of Kevin when he pulled on the famous green jersey before big matches and draw on his memory for inspiration and motivation. Jim recognised what a great player Kevin was.

Kevin inherited much of his sporting ability from his father, Roy, who hails from West Clare in the Republic of Ireland and played Gaelic football to a good standard.

After coming to England for work in 1960, Roy met and married Maureen, who had also come across to England from Ireland and the family eventually settled in Stone, near Dartford with Paul born in 1966, Kevin two years later and Claire in 1971.

Roy told me: “After I came to England for work, I started playing Gaelic football. I belonged to the Irish club in Dartford, where I met others who liked Gaelic and we decided to teach the young people some of the skills we knew and so we formed a club.” The club was called St Malachy’s.

It meant Kevin started playing Gaelic football from an early age: “This gave Kevin great hand-eye co-ordination and knowledge of the ball,” explained Roy. “I taught him to never take his eye off the ball and that stayed with him. He was undeterred when someone was coming at him and could stay calm and focused.”

Kevin became an excellent player and would go on to represent London: “Kevin was very skilled at Gaelic,” said Roy. “He had the ability to score a goal by taking a low shot while on the run which is a difficult technique but it just seemed to come naturally to him. We didn’t have to really play great attention to it – it was just there.

“As a lad, Kevin was very placid. He never seemed to have a temper at all on him. Gaelic football could get quite heated but he never did. He was always calm with a wonderful, easy-going attitude to life. Kevin was like his mother in that way.”

In 1977, Kevin’s older brother Paul arrived at St Mary’s with Kevin joining in September 1979, part of the first intake of St Mary’s & St Joseph’s after the amalgamation.

One of Kevin’s best friends, Simon ‘Prim’ Primarolo, recalls: “We sat next to each other on that first day and boom – best mates – instant. With an infectious laugh, and crazy mop of Bay City Rollers hair he turned out to be a genius coupled with a mild lack for the art of practicality. He near sawed off his thumb carving a swan in woodwork. Bouncing from spot-to-weak-knees spot, clasping his bloodied digit in front shouting, ‘Sir, Sir, Sir’ amidst a sawdust cloud of yelps and pain-fuelled laughter. In maths he was a genuine genius, but rugby was his prowess. Having said that, Kev’s biggest gift was simply that he was a top bloke. He got on with everyone, peers, teachers, parents, the lot.”

In the summer of 1980, the Hedderman family went back to Ireland for a year and even though the family and three children all prospered, Roy and Maureen decided they would be better off completing their education back in Sidcup so they returned for the beginning of the 1981/82 academic year. And it was now that Kevin really started to sparkle on the rugby pitch.

The attributes passed down to him by his father, deft feet, quick-thinking and a fabulous sporting brain, made him an ideal playmaker and a natural rugby union fly-half, orchestrating play with great tactical vision and the knack of making the right decision at the right time.

Roy said: “When we came back to England, Kevin started to take his rugby more seriously and settled in at fly-half. I know the skills he learned in Gaelic helped him. In Gaelic football, you get players rushing to you and you don’t always get time, but Kevin always seemed to have plenty of time to make a decision which is a great asset for a fly-half where you have to think quickly on your feet. He had good hands too.

“The thing I always taught Kevin was to keep his eye on the ball, no matter what else was happening. He was also two-footed which really helped his game as well.”

Kevin’s mother, Maureen, said: “I was always confident about Kevin playing rugby because he never seemed to get injured on the field of play, despite the many games he played.

“This is a testament to the high standard of tuition he received at St Mary’s and St Joseph’s School. Needless to say, Kevin was always enthusiastic and loved the game. That was a good time.”

Kevin was the stand-out player in a fast-improving team and was also filling out as Prim recalls: “Kev was bigger than you thought and could also shift. He was our year’s top 800m runner, a feat he excelled to the point of exhaustion one Sports Day whereby he immediately threw up on the finish line, passed out and spent the afternoon in the nurse’s room. He wasn’t a bad high jumper either until he missed the mat, knocked himself out and was back in the nurse’s room. Always taking one for the team was our Kev!

“Meanwhile, we were moulding into a pretty decent rugby side. Emulating and wanting to better the year group two above, Kev was instrumental to say the least. He nurtured his fly-half skills playing Gaelic Football. ‘Toe-to-hand, toe-to-hand’ the mantra mirrored by deft chip-kicks as, on more than one occasion, he took the opposition apart single-handedly.

“He played for Kent like it was a walk in the park. By the fifth year Kev was playing two years above his station for London Counties. He’d spend a freezing-rainy November night somewhere in the Home Counties, and never let on to anyone. At school next morning it was business as usual, the night before simply a natural progression to goals set by sheer dedication.”

Under the expert guidance of, at first, Roy White – a fly-half himself – and then Andy Wolstenholme, Greg Shannon and Jim Woodhead, Kevin benefited from the wisdom of various St Mary’s games masters.

By the fifth form, Kevin was already one of the first names down on Roy White’s team sheet when he was selecting his first fifteen and he also excelled in a sevens team which swept all before them in the 1983/84 season.

Roy White recalls: “Kevin was a gifted ball player. He had brilliant hands and a range of skills with the boot. He was rugged and much tougher than the archetypal fly-half of the era. He was not lightning fast, but was quick enough, confident and inventive. Above all, however, he had time on the ball, with a facility to read the game and the best options available to him and the team, much more quickly than others. The final act of my time as Master in charge was at the Kent Sevens and Kevin’s control and awareness was a key ingredient of a superb combination which stormed to victory.”

Andy Wolstenholme, who took over from Roy White in 1984, recalls: “I wasn’t long at St Mary’s and Kevin was in the first fifteen. He was a tremendous player and I felt very lucky to have him in the team. He had the ability to turn a game and was often the difference when things were tight. He came across as calm and assured both on and off the pitch.

“He was a good kicker and also blessed with great handling skills. He had an eye for a gap and the power to break tackles when he ran with the ball. He was astute tactically, always competitive and he gave the team confidence when he had the ball. Off the pitch he was respectful and entertaining company. Enjoying life and popular with staff as much as his peer group.”

Games Master Greg Shannon, who had arrived at St Mary’s at the same time as Kevin, says: “When Kevin reached the seniors, he went straight into the first fifteen and the best compliment I can pay is that he did not look out of place next to Jim Staples and was a vital part of that sevens team that took everyone apart to win the Kent Cup.

“I like to fool myself that not many pupils got the better of me, but Kevin did. He did not take History and on one occasion, I was halfway through a GCSE class when Kevin got up from the back row saying: ‘This is all very interesting sir, but I had better get back to my own lesson now.’

“A few months later, he did it again!’”

In the spring of 1986, Kevin was part of a St Mary’s & St Joseph’s rugby squad which toured California in recognition of the 25th anniversary of rugby at the school. By this time, his representative honours were mounting up as his true potential was being realised. Kent Schools at U16 and U18 level; London County honours and top local rugby clubs, Sidcup and Blackheath, at U19 level, as well as representing London at Gaelic Football at U16 and U18 level.

A fantastic career surely lay ahead.

But, at the end of May, Kevin lost his life following a tragic car accident after an evening out with some St Mary’s friends.

The news was greeted with shock, disbelief and deep, deep sadness by everyone with even the remotest connection with Kevin so one can only begin to imagine the impact this must have had on his family and friends.

His father Roy told me: “The support we got from everyone was just wonderful. The Gaelic football team I had run called Saint Malachy’s regrouped after Kevin died and changed its name to Saint Kevin’s of Dartford. I bought them a set of jerseys with amber and a blue band and that was what they played in. It made us very proud and being involved gave me something to focus on.

“It did leave a mark on the family and I had to accept it was a cross to bear. Our Catholic faith definitely helped Maureen and myself.”

It was this wonderful dignity and humility displayed by the family not just at the time, but in the ensuing years, which so impressed people and was surely, in itself, a fitting tribute to Kevin. Somehow the qualities displayed by the Hedderman family, helped understand even better the outstanding qualities that Kevin clearly had. People knew he had come from a fine family.

Roy White had left St Mary’s by the time of Kevin’s death but recalls: “When I moved on, Kevin’s best years were ahead of him, both on and off the field, at school and beyond, and it was a shock to hear that his life had been cut so tragically short. In addition to being a superb sportsman, he was also a lovely young man. The huge number of people who attended his funeral bore witness to how much he was loved by those who were lucky enough to have known him.”

“He was a lovely lad,” agrees Greg Shannon, “and I will remember the atmosphere at the funeral forever.”

Who knows what Kevin would have gone on to achieve. That he would have been a very, very fine rugby player indeed is not even in doubt – he already was – but with his attributes he must have had a very strong chance of going right to the top.

As Prim says, he was also a Mathematics genius and Roy, his father, has said that he was interested in a career in engineering.

Prim told me: “The relatively short time we grew up together, it seemed like a lifetime and, in many respects, most definitely is, such is his legacy. We grew up together, went to the fair together and laughed so much that when he drank Tizer, it poured out of his nose!

“We roomed on rugby tour’s together, went on our first holiday without parents together, steered our adolescence on the social scenes of youth together and had our picture of just us, playing rugby, hanging on the wall in the headmaster’s office.

“And this is just my perspective, for he holds the very same impression on anyone who met him, either via his academic or sporting ability but mostly for just being a lovely fella. If ever I need guidance, I talk to Kev.”

Kevin, may you rest in peace.

Thank you to Roy, Maureen, Paul and Claire Hedderman, Roy White, Andy Wolstenholme, Greg Shannon and Simon Primarolo.