Friday 28th February 2025
My story: Haydn
Helen Nathan
Haydn lives at Evington Home in Leicester. Hailing from the mining village of Glyncorrwg in South Wales, he became a headteacher and then a minister in the Church of England. He’s a man with many a tale to tell
Part of the skill of a rugby player is to keep your eye on the ball while adapting to the opportunities that come your way. Over his 92 years, Haydn has had cause to draw on these qualities on many occasions, both on and off the rugby pitch.
There’s his name, for a start. He began life as ‘Hadyn’, named after his father’s best friend. At the time, his parents couldn’t afford an official birth certificate but the 11 Plus made one necessary. When the certificate came back, there was a mistake – the ‘d’ and the ‘y’ had been switched making him Haydn. Amending it could have been complicated, so Haydn he became.
Throughout his schooling, this flexibility and a refusal to give up in the face of setbacks saw him through. “I actually did the 11 Plus twice,” he recalls, “I didn’t get enough O-levels the first time to stay on for sixth form so I had another go. Then, when I was doing my A-Levels, I found out that Glamorgan were giving grants to students with three A-Levels but I had only two, so I had to stay on an extra year. I was in school until I was 19.”
Rugby was his great love and he was part of the school team, happy to slot in where needed. “I played every position except hooker and wing. One because I couldn’t bend enough, the other because I wasn’t fast enough.”
A chance opening led to him being appointed captain – the intended captain, a prodigious talent, had got on the PE teacher’s wrong side by opting for a local soccer trial instead of rugby and was kicked off the team. Thanks to Haydn’s intervention, he was later reinstated. “I told the teacher we’d lose the next match without him and so he changed his mind.”
One of four children born to dad Clifford, a miner, and mum Nora, Haydn was the first in his family to go to university, gaining a place at Aberystwyth, then part of the University of Wales. However, even then it wasn’t plain sailing.
“I was doing Geography but I failed the course about the weather – I couldn’t understand the chemistry. For the second year, I changed to History and discovered I had to answer questions in French and Latin and I had none. I switched to Economics but then the grant ran out. I had enough courses to gain a degree, but it was a pass rather than with honours.”
Was it disheartening to come up against so many obstacles?
“To be honest, I was more interested in the sports,” says Haydn. “I’d play rugby at the weekend and as it ended I’d think ‘I’ve got to wait a whole week before I can have another game’.”
After university, Haydn began a PGCE and was placed in a secondary modern school. One day, he caught a boy smoking and reported him to the headmaster. “I was present for the boy’s punishment and actually found the boy’s answers quite amusing,” Haydn recalls. “He said that I was ‘mistaken’ and that he’d been ‘in the motions of lighting up’ rather smoking itself.”
The headmaster did not see the funny side and gave the boy double the number of strokes with the cane. “He really laid into him and I didn’t like that at all. I asked for a transfer and when I didn’t get one I resigned.”
Changing his course once again, Haydn took a role in a primary school and there he found his calling. “I loved teaching kids who wanted to learn,” he says.
He knew his first wife, Dorothy, from childhood and they married on 11th April 1955, settling in the Coalville area of Leicester. Dorothy was also a teacher and they had two sons, Stephen and Mark.
Haydn eventually became the headmaster at Viscount Beaumont’s primary school. It was a small school of only 37 and he made a point of hearing every pupil read aloud to him each day. Mathematics teaching was also rigorous. “When they went on to secondary school, my students were always in the top set because they knew their times tables,” says Haydn.
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Haydn threw himself into his work and also served on three local councils as a Labour councillor. The death of his father when he was 39 triggered what Haydn believes would now be called a breakdown, forcing him to take three months off school. At that time, he called himself an atheist.
One day, he went out for a walk and passed the local church. Feeling tired, he tried the door and went in. It was then that he heard a voice saying, “O Lord of the Harvest, send labourers into the field. Send some to reap and some to sow and some to clear the ground and plough, and if You will, send me.”
He went home and told Dorothy and she said, “About time.”
“She reckoned I’d always believed in God and I’d been pushing it away and that might have contributed to the breakdown,” says Haydn.
Haydn retired from teaching early and enrolled on a ministry training course. However, although he got through the course his calling wasn’t accepted by the church straight away. Instead, in 1995, the bishop ordained him as a deacon. It was only when the new bishop came in 1998 that he was ordained as a priest.
Haydn served first as a curate at St Mary’s Church in Anstey before transferring to Coalville to serve as the incumbent’s colleague at St David’s, Broomleys. After that, he took services in churches across the deanery of North West Leicestershire before retiring at the age of 88.
Sadly, Dorothy died in June 2006. Haydn then met Jill who had lost her husband at a similar time. Haydn and Jill married in January 2008. Ill-health led Haydn to move into the care home in 2023.
“It was a hard decision but I knew Jill wouldn’t cope caring for me. She visits often, but it’s harder for her as she’s on her own at home. At least I’m around people.”
During this change in circumstances, Haydn’s ability to adapt has stood him in good stead once again. That and his characteristic good humour. He has nothing but praise for the staff team who look after him and enjoys taking part in the activities. “Barbara [our ACE Facilitator at Evington Home] gets us doing some fantastic things.”
He shows me a paper cup pig made with a student visiting from a nearby school and a cardboard sailing boat that he made and then raced across the floor. Ever the sportsman, Haydn had worked out the best technique for winding in his string.
“It looked like I’d be the clear winner,” he says, “But then the string got in a muddle and I was pipped at the post. Still, that gave everybody a good laugh. You can’t win them all!”
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