Doug Little (KEGS Staff, 1962-77), 2015
In his teenage years, when he was at Calday Grange School, Cheshire, Doug was taught Mathematics by Old Burian, Wilfrid Thompson (1904-96), who had achieved great things as a sportsman – in rugby (with Harlequins & Midlands) later becoming an international referee. As a cricketer he played for Cambridge University and Surrey. Was it Wilfrid who influenced Doug to take up hockey and encouraged his later career?
Doug arrived at KEGS in 1962, teaching Chemistry, taking on responsibilities as Housemaster of School House (Boarders) and coaching School hockey teams and umpiring games over a good number of years. It was one of life’s coincidences that on Easter Tuesday in 2015, just a few weeks before Doug’s death, we revived the hockey match between the School and the Old Burians.
Doug transferred to the Upper School in 1972 and was given oversight of Sixth Form Studies, encouraging students to achieve their best. He moved to Chelmsford in 1977 and eventually settled in Norfolk, becoming Head of Smithdon High School, where he stayed until he retired in 1996. In later years his health was never robust, but he doggedly survived crisis upon crisis, and kept a lively interest in the organisations of which he was a part. His last visit to Bury St Edmunds was in August 2013, when he attended the annual ex-KEGS Staff Lunch, hosted by Robert Hey in the Headmaster’s Garden at the Vinefields site.
He was survived by his widow Pat and two sons, and is still remembered with much affection by his former students.