Dare Nec Computare

Chapel Address given at the 2004 Reunion

By John Davey

ver the door of this chapel are the three words, ‘Dare nec computare’ - ‘To give and not to count the cost’ - the school motto to which the agonies of the war years gave birth. As you walked slowly past those names on the memorial tablet you read those noble words ‘Seek for their resting place not in the earth but in the hearts of men’. They gave everything.

As Neville Bradshaw said at the dedication of this chapel in 1960 and wrote in his booklet "The Building of a House of God"

"Two thousand years ago a sacrifice was made on Calvary without counting the cost and, ever since, has rested in the hearts of men. The conception of giving springs from Christ himself and leads us back to him. We start with Christ and we end with him"

Our service starts with an act of remembrance of these OL’s who gave their lives in the Second World War. Everyone alive today has good reason to remember and be grateful for their sacrifice given selflessly in the name of Liberty and Freedom.

Schooldays

Now I want to invite you to spend a few moments of personal reminiscence - to look back to your schooldays and to reflect on the reasons why you can be grateful and proud to be an Old Lewesian. Along with others in my class, I learned the school motto at an early point in my school career. I was in Form 2A - with Dai Jones as my form master. Our first term was drawing to a close and there was the buzz and excitement of approaching Christmas holidays. But, as new boys, we still had much to learn about the school’s customs and traditions - including, of course, the duties of the Form Captain to arrange a collection in order to buy a suitable - usually bottle shaped - Christmas present for the Form Master!

Not many of my early Latin classes remain clear in my memory, but I do remember the lesson devoted to the school motto and the end of term exhortation to ‘give and not to count the cost’! And it occurred to us boys to wonder whether the verse ‘it is more blessed to give than to receive’ was possibly the only verse of scripture that our Form master knew! I was to hear the school motto on many other occasions during my seven years as a pupil and eleven years as a member of staff at LCGS. But, although the words became indelibly imprinted on my memory, it was much more what I experienced and what I saw going on around me that taught me the true meaning of ‘to give and not to count the cost’. The great gift that NRB possessed was his ability to inspire others to ‘adopt the cause’ and to exercise similar devotion to it - well beyond the call of duty. He surrounded himself with a team of men each one of whom, in his work as a teacher at the LCGS, caught the spirit of ‘Dare nec computare’.

Think back to what happened when you were at school here - the way in which you were constantly encouraged always to give of your best whether in the writing of homework, the playing of rugby or cricket, - or even in the dreaded cross country running! The House system ensured that everyone was involved in healthy (and usually friendly!) competition, and it fostered in you a determination to achieve your full potential. Scholarship and sportsmanship were the goals of those who taught you

Among the ranks of OL’s we can number those who have represented their country on the sports field, those who have led our armed forces, and many who have won great distinction for their work in the diplomatic service, in education, in medicine, in law and the police force. And there are many others from this school who have quietly given so much to the life of the community. How appropriate it is that we should remember with thanksgiving and with gratitude those teachers who helped NRB turn his dream into reality and enable a small county town grammar school become one of the best in the land.

None of this would have happened without a commitment of time and energy from the headmaster and every teacher that went well beyond the contractual requirements of the local authority. For each and every member of staff it was a case of true giving - but no one counted the cost. It was all far too enjoyable and satisfying.

Charity

Today, everything to do with ‘giving’ seems always to be linked with money. Indeed, even NRB was not averse to cajoling hundreds of parents and friends of the school to dig deep into their pockets again and again in order to raise the funds needed for the building of this Chapel. It took eighteen years - from conception of the idea in 1942 to realisation of the project in 1960 - and cost a total of £26,500. But when he wrote at the end of his booklet, ‘The task was finished’, I like to think that NRB’s mind was far from these blunt statistics and, instead, he was remembering the long years during which only a colossal and unselfish devotion of enthusiasm, time and effort had brought the Chapel into being.

Many years after I had left Lewes, I found myself in a Headship in the West Country. One Sunday, I invited Dom Philip Jebb to preach at our Evensong service. Dom Philip was, at that time, head of Downside College near Bath. He was, of course, a monk. In conversation with our Sixth Formers after the service, he was asked why he had become a monk. He told them that there was no other way that he could properly understand the meaning of the greatest Christian virtue - charity. I shall never forget his words -

"When a man has given away everything that he can afford to give, then the next thing that he gives is an act of charity."

His words taught us two things - that giving what can be afforded to good causes is a fine act - but true charity comes when the giving means the sacrifice of something beyond the affordable. And the greatest sacrifice is life given for others to live.

Each of us is privileged to have this very special heritage. In our daily lives, let us honour those who gave everything and those who did their best to teach us these values by their example. Let us renew the pledge we made as boys - to give and not to count the cost.