Wilf Hewitt and Vivian Todhunter (both died in 1998)

After the last edition of News from Elstree when we reported the sad deaths of Wilf Hewitt and Vivian Todhunter, we received the following letter of tribute from Peter Oppenheimer (O.H. '56).

"I was sad to read the death of two Common Room 'characters' from the 1950s, both mathematicians: Wilf Hewitt and Vivian Todhunter ('Victor' was a sobriquet').

"Their personalities were very different. Wilf was a kind of dynamo, covering the blackboard with derivations to the accompaniment of high-speed verbal patter. He wore rubber finger stalls to protect his skin from being worn, and sucked lozenges to preserve his throat. He was a great enthusiast for Corps camps, where he acted as first-line-of-defence medical officer. His principle was that boys were afflicted at camp by only two ailments: blisters and constipation. If it wasn't the one, it must be the other. This principle generally worked pretty well, though I do have a vague memory, possibly libellous, of him dosing up with laxative a boy who turned out to be suffering from sinusitis.

"Mr. Todhunter was entirely different, reflective and quietly versatile, rather flamboyant. His versatility extended, apparently to doing The Times crossword before the start of morning school, though his pupils were not aware of this. He was, an amateur linguist and language textbook illustrator. As a side activity within the School he taught a group of us Russian up to 'O' level in our final year(s). I owe him a great personal debt for this. It helped me to get on to the Russian Interpretership course in my National Service (in the Royal Navy). One of the friends I made on the course turned out to be the (half-Russian) brother of my future wife. Moreover, since the collapse of Communism my knowledge of Russian has been a significant factor in my professional activities, reinforcing my well-established love of the language and its culture with frequent visits to Moscow and other parts of the country".