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In Memory of Fred Allen

We are sad to announce the death of Fred Allen, school captain in 1956/57. We publish below some of the memories and tributes that you have sent.

DR FREDERICK HORACE ALLEN MA
1939-2010


Fred joined Seaford College as a five-year old at its war time location in Worthing, eventually joining the Senior school at Lavington Park, in Charmandean Hall.

From the start it was clear that Fred was to become an outstanding scientist and he thrived under the tutorship of Ralph Morgan and John Lanman in the Chemistry and Physics Department. Fred forged many firm friendships during his time at Seaford and always regarded it as his second home. He became school captain in 1956 and, as school captain, he created ‘SPEC’ (School Prefects Executive Committee). The purpose of SPEC was not to punish but to interview habitual offenders against the school rules and to work with each pupil to resolve any underlying problems and put them back on the straight and narrow. Many of you commented on his exceptional fairness .

When he left Seaford in 1957 he went to Trinity College, Dublin, where he gained a First Class Honours Degree. Whilst working on his PhD he joined the Seaford staff and many of us will recall his energetic delivery whilst pacing the floor at high speed, his hands running through his hair with exasperation when we failed to comprehend immediately! One Old Seafordian reminds us of the time when Fred asked the question “ what is nothing?”. He is still searching for the answer !

It was Fred who introduced the mix of staff and pupils at the Bridge Club, and the introduction of Duplicate Bridge proved particularly successful.

Eventually Fred left the UK to join Hong Kong University where he became Professor of Chemistry there. He spent many enjoyable years in the Far East, entertaining visiting friends and delighting those of us still in the UK with those wonderful ‘best fruit cakes in the world’ at Christmas time.

Fred died at home just after supper, sitting in his own chair – in many ways the perfect exit. We remember with gratitude his friendship, his loyalty to Seaford, and his outstanding intellect.

FRED ALLEN SOME THOUGHTS - COLIN GODDARD (SEAFORD 1947-1959)

From his early years at Seaford, it was clear that Fred was destined to become an amiable eccentric. There was never any question of his intellect; his loathing for anything too physically energetic; his keen sense of leadership and his impatience with foolishness.

His intellect was clearly demonstrated by his early acceptance into Trinity College, Dublin (where he subsequently earned his PhD) and, during his breaks from academic study, he always returned to Seaford to teach. But his teaching skills, while appreciated by the brightest, were lost on those less able. In all his years at Seaford, Fred prided himself in somehow avoiding any inclusion in teams, although he was willing to umpire or referee when the situation demanded. He was a leader, not so much by example, as by authority and, in his year as School Captain, the School Prefects’ Executive Committee (SPEC) was formed – a structure that caused many a nervous knee to shake! He never suffered fools gladly and he hated cant and boorishness.

He loved working behind the scenes at school productions and, in the years he was at Seaford (as man and boy) he was always the one to manage the lighting. To say his methods were unconventional would be an understatement. Just before Jerry Jarratt’s production of The Tempest in 1959 all the lights went and he solved the problem by sticking a nail in the fuse box – not a practice that would pass muster in today’s safety conscious world.

After graduating from Dublin, he was offered a teaching post at Hong Kong University and he remained there as Lecturer and Senior Lecturer until his retirement.
I renewed my friendship with Fred in Hong Kong when I went to work for the Hong Kong Government in 1967 – in fact, it was his eulogising of the place that gave me the incentive to move there. He met me from the ‘slow boat to China’ on which I had arrived and that began our forty-plus years of post-school friendship.

While I was settling my own accommodation, I stayed with Fred and the first thing I noticed in his university-provided quarters was the complete lack of extraneous comforts. This was a characteristic of Fred – he eschewed anything that did not have a functional purpose. There weren’t even lampshades as they “were merely decorative and restricted the light”. This was to be a peculiarity of every apartment he lived in and I never saw anything in his possession that he might have regarded as of a frivolous nature.

In all the years we joined together for a dinner, or met at a party or travelled to different parts of Asia, he never changed. Of all my friends, Fred was the one who remained almost as he was at 17 or 18, except that he aged – as we all do. But his interests, his humour, his style of dress, his love of simplicity, his ability to be alone without being lonely, never changed. With one exception. In his forties, Fred decided to grow a beard and he kept it for a long time – until, at some point, I think he decided that its vivid whiteness really did make him look just too old!

His hobbies were predictably intellectual. After one dinner party at Jerry Jarratt’s in the early ‘60s, he introduced us to a game (which I still have) called “Wff’nProof – the Game of Modern Logic”. I still cannot fathom its intricacies. As a fellow of Mensa, Fred was often coming up with these intellectual challenges, which most of his friends found more than puzzling. Another interest of his was Bridge, an obsession he had begun at Seaford, where his talent was evident. As was to be expected, he studied the game with a passion. Fred had every book on Contract Bridge that was worth having and belonged to the most active Bridge club in Hong Kong.

Fred was not gregarious by nature but the friends he did have were long-time and as faithful to him as he was to them. He maintained a close relationship with his contemporary at Seaford, Humphrey Avon - and his family; he continued to be close with Charles and Joscelyn Johnson and, of course, his friendship with Jerry Jarratt continued until the latter’s passing a few years ago.

For the past thirty years or so, he had an adoptive family in the Philippines, which, in many ways, was ironic. As one who had determinedly become a life-long bachelor, he did, in fact, have a fairly extended family in Manila. He also maintained a flat on Lamma Island in Hong Kong, in the same building as mine.

In 2009, I had my last meeting with Fred. I am now living in Australia but I travel to Hong Kong fairly frequently and we agreed to meet for a drink and a chat. He was clearly in poor health. He had had a previous heart operation and had just been to see his doctor for a check-up. He was moving very slowly and the walk from the ferry to his flat on Lamma took a very long time. But he was in good spirits and, when I left him, waving from his balcony, he looked no different from the stoic Fred Allen I had always known.

Fred was a staunchly independent and private person. All his life overseas, he listened to the World Service of the BBC every day (and often at night), which indicated to me that, although he had left England in the mid-1960s, his heart remained there. His last two decades were spent alternating between his adoptive family in Manila, where he had bought a house in which they all lived, and the more solitary environment of his flat in Hong Kong.

April 27, 2010


FROM: NESTOR DEMETRAKOS

I was at Seaford for one year only 1952-53. Fred Allen was my best friend. We were both at Charmandean House and shared the same dormitory. We had long, long conversations on subjects as recondite as 'quantity' in mathematics, the meaning of atomic numbers and the place of Great Britain in the world at the time. I got into LSE doing economics in 1954 and came for a visit that year. He was a school prefect and we got ourselves photographed, he wearing the house prefect gown and I a plain gray flannel suit. I lost contact with him subsequently as our fates diverged geographically. He was always intensively thoughtful and could combine a unique interest in abstractions and an attachment to homely things like the Royal Family and Sussex teams, always stressing his local origin and allegiance.

He was also fond of argument for argument's sake, like I was. Once he corrected my English by saying that 'amen' is not pronounced 'ahmen' as I did, but 'aymen'. As his observation was made in public, I felt I had to defend myself as best I could. He appealed to the authority of Dr Fisher, then Archbishop of Canterbury whom he had heard on the radio. I appealed to my knowledge of the Greek New Testament. The outcome of the battle was a draw.

But he did remember it when we met again in 1954 and admitted that I my argument was persuasive. For the record, the HOWJSAY pronouncing dictionary admits BOTH forms as correct,eventhough it classifies Fred's version as American! Fred had a first class mind and he was a good friend. I was very sorry for his passing away as I had hoped that I would meet him again some time.

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