Remembering my teacher Kenneth Keast | Letters

Kenneth Keast (Tragedy in the Black Forest, 6 July) finished his career at Marlborough College, where he taught me and others A-Level German. As we ploughed through Schiller and Kleist, there was never a hint of the dark story hed been involved in. It was surprising to read that one of the fathers of the

Kenneth Keast (in cap) near Freiburg in 1936. ‘As we ploughed through Schiller and Kleist, there was never a hint of the dark story he’d been involved in,’ writes John Grundy. Photograph: Christian Jungeblodt/The GuardianKenneth Keast (in cap) near Freiburg in 1936. ‘As we ploughed through Schiller and Kleist, there was never a hint of the dark story he’d been involved in,’ writes John Grundy. Photograph: Christian Jungeblodt/The Guardian
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Remembering my teacher Kenneth Keast

Kenneth Keast (Tragedy in the Black Forest, 6 July) finished his career at Marlborough College, where he taught me and others A-Level German. As we ploughed through Schiller and Kleist, there was never a hint of the dark story he’d been involved in. It was surprising to read that one of the fathers of the boys lost in 1936 thought that Keast had an “open dislike” of Germans. In the early 60s he was still fostering Anglo-German links. I, for instance, was supposed to go and spend a term at Kurt Hahn’s Salem School in 1963, an exchange brokered by Keast, but a broken leg prevented me from going. Maybe his love of Austria was stronger: he was one of the first regular British visitors to Alpbach, now a popular ski-ing resort, and wrote published stories that included Ein Dorf in Tirol. Would a teacher today who led a group where five students died be able to continue in the profession?
John Grundy
Oxford

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