Staff Changes 17
Mr. David C. Laubach (1970)

Mr. Laubach came to St. Nicholas Grammar School in September to spend a year teaching English and General Studies, while Mr. Buckingham, his exchange partner, went to Loyalsock, Williamsport, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., to teach English in Mr. Laubach's school.

The exchange demanded considerable adjustment on the part of the teachers concerned. At home in the USA Mr. Laubach taught 15-year-olds and above exclusively. Furthermore his schedule of lessons varied only slightly from day to day. The age-range and the variety of teaching at St. Nicholas were two of the unfamiliar aspects of his work which Mr. Laubach had to grapple with straight away and which he soon learned to enjoy.

He very quickly established cordial relationships both with boys and with his colleagues. To senior pupils Mr. Laubach's arrival offered a heaven-sent opportunity to thrash out in discussion the vexed question of Vietnam and to hear from an authority something of the political and social structure in the U.S.A. Many prejudices, unwarranted assumptions and misconceptions about American life were swept away in the first few weeks of Mr. Laubach's visit. In the staff common room, too, we found we had an invaluable and informed commentator on the American political scene and we were early entertained by some off-the-cuff impressions of Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey and others. Mr. Laubach was constantly in demand as a speaker by schools. societies discussion groups, etc. and travelled widely in the London area to speak on American life and literature. A member of the Society of Friends, he was also an authority on the Protestant, and especially the Puritan, tradition in the U.S.A.

One of the great joys of lunch-hour in the common room during Mr. Laubach's visit was to be present while he and Mr. J. D. Smith discussed the American comedy films they saw in their youth on their respective sides of the Atlantic. As is well known. Mr. Smith had a repertoire of accents and anecdotes which made him a natural entertainer and in their common admiration for S. J. Perelman and the Marx Brothers the two corpulent devotees of the silver screen whiled away many a break time and lunch interval.

Mr Laubach came to England with a number of ambitions to fulfil outside the classroom. One of these was to lose some weight! It was mainly for this reason, but partly also because he could never quite get used to Mr. Buckinghain's mini-car, that Mr. Laubach walked to school each day from Ruislip Manor and home in the evening. He could be seen any moming, in all weathers, striding with his characteristic gait up Fore Street, firmly declining offers of lifts from passing colleagues in cars, while his face shone with good health and perspiration.

Another of Mr. Laubach's ambitions while in England was to learn to play cricket, but the writer of these notes is not aware that he ever found time to further this object.

But it is principally as a teacher thai most boys will remember Mr. Laubach. His sympathetic and stimulating approach and his love of literature, both that of his own country and that of Europe, made him an asset to the school and to the English Department in particular. We send our greetings and best wishes to him and to Mrs. Laubach and we shall look forward to seeing them both again whenever they make their next visit to England,

A. J. T.