Donald (“Don”) Tapster (1928-2012)
Don passed away on 3 April 2012 at his home in Yarcombe aged 84. He taught as Head of Art on the KEGS staff from 1955 to 1958 then again from 1963 to 1969.
He was born in Wakefield, spent his early school life at Scarborough and later attended the local College of Art for his Art and Design training. This was interrupted by two years of National Service in the RAF at Gloucester, after which he completed his Art Teachers’ Diploma course at Leicester. His other teaching posts were at Ashmead School for Boys, Reading, the Gateway Grammar School, Leicester, and Holyrood School at Chard.
Don was a dedicated and inspiring teacher, whose boundless energy and enthusiasm captured the interest and imagination of his pupils and resulted in a high quality of work. He encouraged working in a wide range of drawing and painting materials, and in print making and pottery. The development of practical work was enriched by his profound knowledge of the history of art and architecture, and this was reinforced by the many trips he organised both locally and abroad.
Don had a great love of the theatre from his boyhood days, which is illustrated by the photograph of him at about the age of 8 or 9 standing beside his Punch and Judy Show, which he made himself, and, perhaps above all, he will be remembered at KEGS for a remarkable series of Dramatic Society productions which he directed during both periods of his tenure. The earlier presentations included “Family Album”, “Macbeth”, “Reluctant Heroes”, “Gaslight”, “The Man in the Bowler Hat”, “She Stoops to Conquer” and “The Man Who Wouldn’t Go To Heaven” – staged mainly in the Old Gym on trestles and table tops borrowed from Stanley Palmer’s Tea Rooms – access to the stage being up a ladder and through a window! The early 60s productions were “Charley’s Aunt”, “The Happiest Days of Your Life”, “Twelfth Night”, and “Rope” staged in the New Hall which provided more ambitious opportunities, with one act of “The Love of Four Colonels” presented at the newly restored Theatre Royal, for the Suffolk Drama Festival. The later 60s productions, which took place mostly at the Theatre Royal, were “St Joan”, “The Merchant of Venice”, “And So Ad Infinitum”, “Henry IV, Part 1”, “When We Are Married”, extracts from “Murder in the Cathedral” and “Amahl and the Night Visitors”. These productions reached a high peak of achievement in their standard of acting and visual dramatic effect created by scenery and lighting. They provided a valuable life-changing educational experience for the many pupils involved
The care and concern Don had for the pupils under his guidance, his modesty and dignity, made him a highly respected member of staff and his work is greatly appreciated. His Christian faith was the basis of his life, finding expression and commitment as a Lay Reader in his local parish for many years. He is buried in Yarcombe churchyard amongst the parishioners he loved.
(Clifford King – with much appreciation to Don’s cousin Margaret Scarlett)
