The year 2006 saw the deaths of many famous people, from Robert Altman to Al Zarqawi, as Mark Steyn relates. It saw the death of a decent man, in Gerald Ford, a brilliant man, in Milton Friedman, and an evil man, in Saddam Hussein.
But what are you to say of the deaths of the countless unsung heroes, such as Richard Milward, “Schoolmaster whose history lessons, and whose goodness, inspired generations of pupils at Wimbledon College?”
According to the obituary in the Daily Telegraph he spent his entire working adult life teaching history at a Jesuit secondary school in Wimbledon, England. Sir John Keegan, the British historian, was one of his students and “left the College with a good history A-level and a place at Balliol [College, Oxford.]”
This was a man who contracted polio at age 15 and “suffered a crippling back condition for the rest of his life.”
How do we measure the contribution of a man like Richard Milward, unable to serve in World War II, unable to become a member of the Society of Jesus, yet devoting his life to teaching history and coaching cricket?
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