A.O.S.A. 2004 ANNUAL REPORT

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Although he spent some of his teenage years in Darlington, Robert’s first contact with Ayton School was when he met his future brother-in-law, Dick Bye (1954-62) at Cambridge. Once he became involved, he gave of himself to the school with a generosity that few of us who were educated there could match.

Thanks to the war, Robert started life at Ganton, between Scarborough and Malton, where his father was in charge of searchlights on the Yorkshire Wolds. Having ‘run away’ from the village school (Granny passed by so he went off with her) he went to the local Prep school, Bramcote and then on to Glenalmond in Perthshire. Instead of playing sport badly he persuaded the school to allow him to spend the time helping on the school estate, getting his first real experience of land management (although there was some farming blood in him). During the holidays he followed his other great passion - sailing, often in south Devon. Initially he spent his weeks at a club learning to sail, but later he became an instructor and a mate on the club’s cruising boats which included a converted trawler. He once helped out Royalty by crewing ‘Bloodhound’ from Torquay to Oban - another area where he did a lot of sailing.

Robert went to Caius College Cambridge to read Agriculture, where through rowing he met fellow student Dick Bye. He met Jane (1953 - 60) briefly a few times (Jane was at Trinity College of Music in London) but their relationship really blossomed after Dick suggested they attend a May Ball together. On graduating, Robert did a foundation year at West Hesleton but he and Jane (1953-60), were already planning to get married and had decided to look for a farm in the north east. They found Oneholmes but started married life in a caravan while the farmhouse was made habitable.

Robert and Jane were Ayton parents from 1981-91 with their three children all attending the school. Fiona (1981-88), James (1982-89) and Rohan (1984-91), and in 1985 were involved in setting up the Ayton School Development Fund, Robert becoming its first Chairman. The idea of the Fund was to enable interested parents and other benefactors to see rapid results from their help, and it funded such things as the Domestic Science room, and the moving of the boys’ changing rooms so as to free up space for the CDT workshops. When they had created the new music department, ‘Afton Hall’, they could then move the library (amongst other things). Not only did Robert and the ASDF committee raise the money but they also harnessed some labour to clear the old pet hut and the taddy tanks outside the Biology lab, all to enhance the appearance of the school for prospective parents and for staff and pupils. One of the advantages of being a local farmer was that Robert often had the equipment (which he also operated for the school) that could be used to solve some of the school’s problems - such as how to get the safe upstairs to meet some new regulations concerning the storage of exam papers!

This brought him onto the School Committee for his first 3-year stint. He returned as Vice Chair in 1994, soon taking on the main role. He bore the brunt of guiding everyone through the painful times around the closure, ensuring that the trauma, while still huge, was minimised. He is still Chairman (yes, the School Committee does still have a role to play, albeit a much reduced one).

Robert’s philosophy of life can be seen in the way he runs his farms (he has another near Galashiels). He is proud to be a LEAF farmer - Linking the Environment and Farming - and calls himself a ‘harvester of sunlight’. For long term sustainability, a farmer needs to try and balance many conflicting needs, and the greater degree of biodiversity there is on a farm, the better it will cope with a changing world. Like many things, farming practices are subject to cyclical fashions, but the results are often not seen for over a year. Crops (or stock) may be for food, fuel or textiles and the land is also an important amenity for local people. Most of us know that hedges are a ‘good thing’ - certainly they are for tree sparrows and many other birds. Little owls and kestrels (buzzards in Scotland) thrive and help keep down the rabbits. (And if you delay cutting hedges until January, the birds will have had time to harvest the berries.) But if it is skylarks you wish to see above you, then a much more open environment is needed. Robert tries to provide both sorts of habitat, as well as ponds and beetle banks (areas of land which are neither ploughed nor treated with chemicals). Wildlife corridors are provided mainly for the wildlife but can have a beneficial side effect if used to ‘square-up’ an irregularly shaped field!

The effects of the use of any chemical are considered very carefully - did you know coffee is so poisonous it is banned as an agrochemical!? Careful breeding (not GM) can produce healthier herds that need less intervention.

Robert also cares for his staff, for instance trying to ensure that the minimum number are needed during the weekends - as a result some have been with him for many years. Fiona has been involved since she graduated and James has recently been tempted back from an engineering career.

Ayton School has been an integral part of Robert’s life for 22 years, and he strove for many years and in many ways to maintain it and enhance the lives of its scholars. Jane has supported Robert throughout and now gives hours of her time to restoring and maintaining the archives. This Presidency will be, in some ways, a team effort and Jane will be a very worthy wearer of the brooch while Robert has the Presidential chain of office.

Wendy Smith (Arnold) 1959-65

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