OLD AZURIANS
ASSOCIATION
HAROLD GEORGE COOLING (1928-1958)
Subjects: English & French
Harold Cooling was born on 26 March 1899 in the King’s Norton district of the West Midlands. He went to Yardley Secondary School where he gained Senior Honours First Class in the 1914 Oxford Local Examinations. He was also a star sprinter for the school (an attribute he was later to pass on to his youngest son David), and ran for Birchfield Harriers. In 1916 he was awarded a Sub-sizarship to read History at Emmanuel College Cambridge. He did not take up this award, but instead went to Birmingham University for a year before being called up to serve in the RNVR. After training at various shore-based establishments he left for the Mediterranean as a qualified signalman.
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Whilst in the Mediterranean he was based at Malta, Alexandria and Port Said and survived the experience of his ship being torpedoed.
Service in the RNVR, aged 18
After demobilisation in March 1919 he gained a Sizarship to Emmanuel College to read Modern Languages, graduating BA in 1921. His first post, in 1921, was as Superintendent of Education for the Northern Nigeria Education Service, a post he held until he contracted tuberculosis in 1927 and was invalided home.
He joined the School in September 1928 and stayed on for 30 years during which time his contribution to the school, though low key in nature, was nevertheless considerable. His largely un-publicised works included the compilation of a complete register of all the boys who attended the school from its foundation and, during the Second World War, when H O Anderson was absent on military service, he held the Old Azurians Association together with the assistance of Mr W H Boylett who was the father of an old boy.
It was characteristic of Mr Cooling that his work behind the scenes was done unassumingly and with quiet dignity, qualities that the staff fully appreciated when he was Secretary of the Common Room. Above all else though, he was highly respected for his unfailing courtesy, his consideration for others on every occasion, and his gift for putting everyone he met instantly at their ease so that a feeling of friendship was immediately established.
There was perhaps one way in which he was more up front, though still understated, in demonstrating his commitment to the school. He acquired an Old Azurian tie and a tie for each School House, and these he wore in rotation, a different one for each day of the week.
He died in Worthing in 1979, just short of his 80th birthday.
