![Alan Durband July 1946](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/52/Alan_Durband_July_1946.jpg)
Alan Durband (1927–1993) was an important figure in the education and arts community in
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...
. He was head of English at the
Liverpool Institute High School for Boys
The Liverpool Institute High School for Boys was an all-boys grammar school in the English port city of Liverpool.
The school had its origins in 1825 but occupied different premises while the money was found to build a dedicated building on ...
and was co-founder of the
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...
Everyman Theatre.
Early years and education
Alan Durband was born and raised in the poor inner city districts of the
Dingle, Liverpool
Dingle (known locally as the Dingle) is an inner city area of Liverpool, Merseyside, England. It is located to the south of the city, bordered by the adjoining districts of Toxteth and Aigburth. At the 2001 Census, the population was recorded ...
, (Drysdale Street) and Kensington (Esher Road), as the only child of a ship's carpenter, Joseph William Durband, who spent many months at sea on the 'banana boats' during the 1930s, leaving Alan in the care of his mother and aunts. His mother, Edith Durband (née Ashcroft), had come from a background ruined by the failure of the family horse-and-cart business in the late 1920s. She was particularly ambitious for her son, and even before he was born began making sacrifices and saving money from their modest income for the time when she might have to pay for a grammar school education. However, this was not needed, as Alan won a City scholarship from Matthew Arnold Junior School in the Dingle in 1938 and gained entrance to the prestigious
Liverpool Institute High School for Boys
The Liverpool Institute High School for Boys was an all-boys grammar school in the English port city of Liverpool.
The school had its origins in 1825 but occupied different premises while the money was found to build a dedicated building on ...
, where he proved an excellent scholar, eventually being appointed to replace the Head Boy (accidentally killed in a school cricket match) in mid-year.
In 1946 he won a scholarship to
Downing College, Cambridge
Downing College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge and currently has around 650 students. Founded in 1800, it was the only college to be added to Cambridge University between 1596 and 1869, and is often described as the olde ...
, but this was delayed by 18 months of compulsory
National Service
National service is the system of voluntary government service, usually military service. Conscription is mandatory national service. The term ''national service'' comes from the United Kingdom's National Service (Armed Forces) Act 1939.
The l ...
. Because of his pacifist beliefs, he refused to enter the armed forces, and as a
conscientious objector
A conscientious objector (often shortened to conchie) is an "individual who has claimed the right to refuse to perform military service" on the grounds of freedom of thought, conscience, or religion. The term has also been extended to object ...
he was instead assigned work in a coal mine. This experience later gave him his schoolteacher nickname "Dusty", aggravated his lifelong asthma, and strongly influenced his political views.
He began undergraduate life at Cambridge in September 1948; his tutor was the noted literary critic
Frank Raymond Leavis, who had also been a conscientious objector (in
WW1
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
). He was much influenced by F R Leavis and his views on literary criticism. He graduated in 1951, did a year's post-graduate certificate of education, married (Audrey Atherton) in 1952 and began his career, briefly in Bolton, then in September 1953 returned to The Liverpool Institute as an English teacher, later (1956) becoming Head of the English Department.
Teaching at the Liverpool Institute
His teaching work was generally with the higher streamed, academically-inclined boys and the Sixth form, in preparation for Advanced (A) level English or for scholarship exams to Oxbridge and he achieved very high pass levels and results. "Dusty" Durband later came to considerable public fame as the highly regarded Sixth Form teacher of A level English to
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney (born 18 June 1942) is an English singer, songwriter and musician who gained worldwide fame with the Beatles, for whom he played bass guitar and shared primary songwriting and lead vocal duties with John Lennon. One ...
(1958–60) who achieved his pass in that subject.
[Spitz. p84]
Durband's teaching style was imaginative and engaging, displaying his enthusiasm for the subject and praising individual achievements. His discipline was strict but humane and he never resorted to the physical punishments so common in the school. All the plays were read aloud by pupils in class with dramatic flair encouraged. McCartney himself commented that he loved the way that Durband cut down the stories to expose their most basic themes, therefore simplifying them so as to be easily understood.
He played a central role in directing school plays and staged them with imagination and 'modern' interpretations: ' The Rivals' in 1958 (with incidental music composed by
John McCabe John McCabe may refer to:
*John McCabe (composer) (1939–2015), British composer and classical pianist
*John McCabe (writer) (1920–2005), Shakespearean scholar and biographer
*Christopher John McCabe
Christopher John McCabe (born 20 Oc ...
); 'St. Joan' in 1960, 'Servant of Two Masters' in 1962.
Expansion of post secondary education and the uncertainties of the future of
Grammar schools led several experienced teachers to leave the Liverpool Institute School after the departure of the Headmaster John Robert Edwards in 1961. Durband was appointed to the
C.F. Mott Teachers' Training College
C.F. Mott Training College or C.F. Mott Teachers' Training College or City of Liverpool C.F. Mott Training College was a college located in near Huyton on Merseyside.
The college was named after Charles Francis Mott who was the Director of Educ ...
, Huyton, Merseyside in 1962, eventually becoming Head of English.
Texts, plays and theatre
Durband's experience in the classroom led him to write a series of textbooks entitled 'English Workshop' which had commenced at his desk in Room 32, (published in 1959) and proved popular in classrooms throughout the country. He also wrote a series of student guides, 'Shakespeare Made Easy' – each volume a complete play, the original on one side and the same verse in modern English on the other. These were published from 1986 on.
Alongside his career and his writing, he was an avid promoter of the development and production of new drama & plays in collections entitled: 'New Directions in English', 1961; 'Contemporary English', 1962; 'Playbill', 1969 on; 'Prompt', 1973 on; and 'Wordplays' containing writers such as
Alan Ayckbourn
Sir Alan Ayckbourn (born 12 April 1939) is a prolific British playwright and director. He has written and produced as of 2021, more than eighty full-length plays in Scarborough and London and was, between 1972 and 2009, the artistic director of ...
,
Tom Stoppard
Sir Tom Stoppard (born , 3 July 1937) is a Czech born British playwright and screenwriter. He has written for film, radio, stage, and television, finding prominence with plays. His work covers the themes of human rights, censorship, and politi ...
,
Willy Russell,
Brian Jacques
James Brian Jacques (, as in "Jakes"; 15 June 1939 – 5 February 2011) was an English novelist known for his ''Redwall'' series of novels and ''Castaways of the Flying Dutchman'' series. He also completed two collections of short stories entit ...
,
Alan Bleasdale
Alan George Bleasdale (born 23 March 1946) is an English screenwriter, best known for social realist drama serials based on the lives of ordinary people. A former teacher, he has written for radio, stage and screen, and has also written novels. ...
, George Friel &
John Mortimer
Sir John Clifford Mortimer (21 April 1923 – 16 January 2009) was a British barrister, dramatist, screenwriter and author. He is best known for novels about a barrister named Horace Rumpole.
Early life
Mortimer was born in Hampstead, London, ...
, etc.
According to Jacques, Durband also passed along the original manuscript of his novel
Redwall
''Redwall'' is a series of children's fantasy novels by British writer Brian Jacques, published from 1986 to 2011. It is also the title of the first book of the series, published in 1986, as well as the name of the abbey featured in the book, ...
to a publisher.
Durband was also a motivating force behind the creation and renovation of The
Everyman Theatre on Hope Street, Liverpool which opened in 1964 and earlier he had attempted with
Sam Wanamaker
Samuel Wanamaker, (born Wattenmacker; June 14, 1919 – December 18, 1993) was an American actor and director who moved to the United Kingdom after becoming fearful of being blacklisted in Hollywood due to his communist views. He is credited as ...
Why was Sam Wanamaker under scrutiny by UK security forces?
/ref> to revive 'The New Shakespeare' as a supper club until its mysterious destructive fire in 1959.
He served for nearly 30 years as vice-chair, chair and vice-president of the Theatre Board raising thousands of pounds by means of innovative seven-year tax-free covenants for the conversion of the building. It was a popular theatre specialising in local Liverpool settings & political subjects which gave opportunities to new playwrights – most famous of whom is probably Willy Russell (to whom Durband lent his Welsh cottage to write 'Educating Rita') and to actors such as: Bill Nighy, Pete Postlethwaite, Jonathan Pryce
Sir Jonathan Pryce (born John Price; 1 June 1947) is a Welsh actor who is known for his performances on stage and in film and television. He has received numerous awards, including two Tony Awards and two Laurence Olivier Awards. In 2021 he wa ...
& Julie Walters
Dame Julia Mary Walters (born 22 February 1950), known professionally as Julie Walters, is an English actress. She is the recipient of four British Academy Television Awards, two British Academy Film Awards, two International Emmy Awards, a ...
who joined the Theatre company around 1975.
To mark this era, Willy Russell unveiled a plaque in memory of Alan Durband at the theatre in 1998 in the company of actor Pete Postlethwaite who acknowledged a great personal debt to his time spent on the stage at The Everyman.
Views and styles
Durband was an atheist
Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no ...
, and like his mother, a committed socialist
Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the e ...
and a supporter of left-wing
Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in soci ...
, progressive
Progressive may refer to:
Politics
* Progressivism, a political philosophy in support of social reform
** Progressivism in the United States, the political philosophy in the American context
* Progressive realism, an American foreign policy par ...
causes. He was the Communist Party
A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. A ...
candidate for school elections in 1946 and he withdrew (at the Head's suggestion) in favour of the Labour
Labour or labor may refer to:
* Childbirth, the delivery of a baby
* Labour (human activity), or work
** Manual labour, physical work
** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer
** Organized labour and the labour ...
candidate "to prove the value of the united left". ource: School Mag. Feb. 1946
His ideas were to evolve into an unusual combination of beliefs and experiences. His acute social conscience seemed to lie easily alongside a love of life with all its joys: of good food, wine and clothes, comfortable houses and luxury cars, made possible only by his entrepreneurial bent and an extremely strong work ethic which produced a steady flow of royalty payments from several decades of sales of his study guides in Britain and the United States. As an entry in the School Magazine (July 1962) announcing his departure, put it: "nestling in his briefcase alongside L5A's exercises were the latest brochures on refrigerators, washing machines, caravanserai, nuclear disarmament, brilliant new textbooks, and resurrections of long defunct amphitheatres". An obituary in the ''Liverpool Daily Post
The ''Liverpool Post'' was a newspaper published by Trinity Mirror in Liverpool, Merseyside, England. The newspaper and its website ceased publication on 19 December 2013.
Until 13 January 2012 it was a daily morning newspaper, with the tit ...
'' on 13 March 1993 said "His influence lives on in the minds of the boys he taught and the strength of popular theatrical productions in Liverpool".
He became a Justice of the Peace
A justice of the peace (JP) is a judicial officer of a lower or ''puisne'' court, elected or appointed by means of a commission ( letters patent) to keep the peace. In past centuries the term commissioner of the peace was often used with the sa ...
, (J.P.) in Liverpool in 1974 and is survived by his wife, Audrey, and his son, Mark, and daughter, Amanda.
Afterword
With the financial support of former pupil Paul McCartney, the old Liverpool Institute school building on Mount St. was saved and its interior transformed into LIPA, The Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts
The Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA) is a performing arts higher education institution in Liverpool, founded by Paul McCartney and Mark Featherstone-Witty and opened in 1996. LIPA offers 11 full-time BA (Hons) degrees in a rang ...
in 1996. It is particularly apt that his old English teacher's Classroom 32 was designated & plaqued as 'The Alan Durband Room'. Overlooking the school at the top of Mount Street at Hope Street is a sculpture ("A Case History" by John King, 1998) which depicts Durband's old briefcase cast in concrete.
References
Sources
*Dave Lang," Scrutiny to Subcultures: notes on litereray criticism and popular music", Popular Music, Vol. 13, No. 2, Mellers at 80 (May 1994), pp. 179–190.
* Merkin, Ros (Compiled by), ''Liverpool's Third Cathedral: The Liverpool Everyman Theatre'', 2004
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Durband, Alan
1927 births
1993 deaths
British atheists
British conscientious objectors
British socialists
English theatre directors
Schoolteachers from Merseyside
People from Dingle, Liverpool
People educated at Liverpool Institute High School for Boys