By Derek Mountford
Destiny dances in the wind, but Fate is the prisoner of time: on the Indian subcontinent, the Children of War and Midnight’s Children were destined to be contemporaries, but their fate was separated by a narrow and dramatic sliver of time that marked the end of global hostilities in 1945 and Independence two years later.
As the brutalities of a world at war reached a frenzied pitch, from Dulwich and Sandhurst, destiny brought a British Officer to Indian shores: commissioned into the 1/4 Gurkha Rifles and with that quality of courage known only to the young, Captain DGA Mountford won a Military Cross in the NWFP in 1940 for exemplary courage under fire, defied tradition and mocked prudence by marrying an Indian for love in 1941 and courted fate in the jungles of Burma in 1942.
Varied and many narratives are born from a singular significant event. In regimental history, he is a hero of war: as the Japanese bombardment continued, he ran out to save his men burning in a tank and the shrapnel of another bomb destroyed his hands and he died shortly thereafter at a medical outpost. Anecdotal evidence from his fellow officers highlights his constant reference, even in the darkest moments of jungle warfare, to the child his wife was carrying and of a telegraph message smuggled in from Delhi the night before his death: To Capt. DGA Mountford: ‘’A son born. All well’’. And then there is family folklore, corroborated by his wife long years later, of this particular romance that began at The Savoy in Mussoorie: of that fateful evening at The Writers’ Bar when the daughter of the Rev JC and Onila Chatterji had her palm read most unwillingly, with the ominous prediction that she would be married in a year and widowed in two and how it was that at that very party Captain DGA Mountford walked into the room, both of them having used the Kipling Road up to Mussoorie on the same day… And, yet, the most tragic narrative of all, of a son born three weeks before his father died in action and a woman who was widowed when she was 21.
This is the personal tribute to that little boy who never met his father and whose mother left for England to make her way in the world – the victim of war, my father, Richard Mountford, who passed away at the age of 83 in Dehradun on the evening of 15 May 2025.
It must have been very lonely for a markedly English-looking child to potter about the sprawling maternal family home at 7 Cavalry Lines in what is now Old Delhi in the care of grandparents that led busy lives: the Reverend JC Chatterji was the Vice-Chancellor of Rajasthan University and Member of Parliament, while the formidable Onila, on first name terms with the Viceroyalty of India, was a renowned social worker with the Kaiser-i-Hind to her name. Thus, it was decided in the spring of 1948 to admit him as a boarder to The Lawrence School, Sanawar, not far down the road from the family summer home of Helston Lodge in Kasauli.
When, for all intents and purposes, as a child, you are without parents or young company at home, boarding school assumes an attractive quality and, from all accounts, he was both happy and enormously successful at Sanawar for all his growing up years. The wonder of playing fields and dormitories spilling over with friends must have come as a great joy as he regained his childhood. Combining in his person the athleticism of his father and the grace of his mother, over the years there emerged the ‘Monty’ of Sanawar: a truly legendary sportsman and an athlete like no other, his 100-metre record of 11 seconds dead in 1957 still standing till today.
If Sanawar made not just a man of him but a leader of men by the time he finished as the Head Boy in 1958, the first strains of his personality in adult life could be traced back to these early years: he set a premium on lifelong friendships, devoted his life to teaching in boarding-schools and the Sanawar that filled the painful void of his childhood, became a mooring, safe-harbour and a recurrent theme in his life in later years.
The Chatterji home breathed a Protestant Christian ethic to life and living. It housed high-brow intellectuals with strong ties to the Cambridge Brotherhood and St Stephen’s College, Delhi. Thus, upon completing his Senior Cambridge Examination from Sanawar, he was sent up to read History at St Stephen’s and by all accounts, with his home walking distance from the College gates, several further happy years ensued of study, sport and an even larger group of friends.
By the time anyone graduates, personality traits, formed from childhood trauma or otherwise, become clearly visible and very often a restlessness and rebelliousness flow in the blood. Thus, amidst considerable family unpleasantness over his refusing to accept a British scholarship to Oxford and an even greater insistence on not attending interviews for positions at Imperial Tobacco (ITC) and Unilever (now HUL) – this despite his Uncle being at the very top of ITC – he pronounced his ‘calling’ in teaching and departed Delhi abruptly for Sanawar to begin his career there.
Richard Mountford was always his own man and thus he chartered his life and career on his own terms, without the help or assistance of an influential family. Indeed, not only did he do well for himself professionally at Sanawar, but also found for himself there a talented, honest and upright woman who would make him the most devoted, loyal and supportive wife for the rest of his days.
Sadly, after a few very happy years, when realisation dawned that his career would stagnate at Sanawar which effected promotions purely on seniority, he accepted a House-Mastership at St Paul’s, Darjeeling, and not much later at the age of 32, was offered the headship of Sherwood College, Nainital, in 1973.
Founded in 1869, Sherwood is a heritage institution and was in rapid decline by 1973 with dwindling numbers, financial disarray and internal disorder. Ironically, his predecessor, also from Sanawar, had exited under a cloud in a short-lived and chaotic headship and if anyone harboured doubts about how another public school man would run a minority Christian institution, it was unfounded: the time spent in the family home in Delhi had instructed him in the application of the Protestant Christian ethic to education and this, he understood to be markedly different from an attempt to proselytise Christianity. Thus, a deeply secular public school man of Christian bearing assumed charge of a minority heritage institution at the bottom of a cycle of decline.
Yet, despite youth being on his side, the clean-up of any educational institution is an arduous and dangerous business and after confronting threat to life and limb in 1974, word spread about a young man who meant business; by the late 1970s, Sherwood began to recover a good name in educational circles and it would be fair to say that during his 30-year tenure as Principal, the School came to be viewed as amongst the best boarding schools in India.
Master narratives of institutions evolving from poor to great capture a broad sweep of history, but obscure human subtleties: in 1973, aged 32, Richard Mountford was the man of the hour, a dashing figure of military bearing and a strict disciplinarian, who, by the sheer force of his personality, cleaned up the school and carried the day. When the professional history of Sherwood College is written up, records will reveal how the 1970s marked a precarious period in the school’s history and, how, but for one man’s courage, the fortunes of the institution would have been vastly different from what it is today.
The debris cleared, the 1980s witnessed a man in the prime of his life freed up to implement his ideas in education and, in the modernising of Sherwood in thought and infrastructure. The school blossomed in every sphere of educational practice: outstanding public examination results, high quality university placements, remarkable sporting achievements and a vibrant cultural life. The honest and able administrator, the visionary with an eye for detail, the architect of new buildings and the votary for adopting contemporary educational practice – the man of exacting standards – had won the day, and in doing so, uplifted a community forever.
Towards the end of the decade, a not insignificant event occurred in his life: upon Shomie Das moving to The Doon School as Headmaster, the headship of Sanawar fell vacant and he was offered the position almost instantly, with the belief that he would accept what had been his most cherished ambition. Notwithstanding the enormous pressure that was brought to bear upon him from all quarters to accept the job, especially from Old Sanawarians of his vintage, he finally chose to stay on at Sherwood which had by then become his life’s work. Thus, the dashing young ‘Monty of Sanawar’ graduated into the ‘Mountford of Sherwood’, and it does not require great discerning to comprehend the toll 30 years in the chair takes on a man. Indeed, what the families of heads of premier boarding-schools have to endure is a tale for another time.
The passing of a man who had a profound impact on you generates all sorts of memories – disjointed and unconnected – but as clear in one’s mind’s eye as if it were only yesterday. When that man was your father, in the days that follow your standing beside his grave, deep reflection floods the mind: about the Anglo-Indian who, by virtue of his parentage, ought to have lived out his life in England, but, who, as a young man consciously chose to be an Indian; the man who turned his back entirely on his British heritage and who loved India; he, who, despite offers of help from Military Attaches in Rangoon, never visited his father’s grave; the son who was very distant from his mother; the young man who gave up corporate life for his ‘calling’ of school mastering which he believed was crucial for nation-building; that man, without a single commercial bone in his body, who husbanded Sherwood’s finances with genius for three decades; that individual hopelessly unmusical and devoid of artistic talent who established and promoted flourishing Art and Music Departments; the man, who, till his last day in office, could not switch on a computer but who was amongst the first in the country to introduce computer literacy and programming at Sherwood; the powerful public orator, but an embarrassingly monosyllabic man at home; the man who preferred data to perception, but whose use of a common calculator was questionable; that high-achiever in everything he did in life, but who spoke repeatedly of “the ordinary boy and girl who win no laurels for themselves, but who determine the ethos of the School’’; that man of privileged background who cared deeply for the poor who served the School and, who, in turn, worshipped him; the shrewd judge of character professionally but the same man who allowed people to exploit him personally; the sharp-shooter at work but master procrastinator at home; the man who detested self-promotion, public relations exercises and fund-raising initiatives: “your body of work should speak for itself’’; the Principal that generations of pupils swore never smiled but who had a veritable army of friends from all walks and stations of life; the man who enjoyed a drink and made no bones about it, hypocrisy being something he disliked enormously; the odd relationship he had with money and property making no real effort to earn or acquire any, and, but for the generous inheritance he received from his mother, he would have retired without a roof over his head and in penury.
Like most extraordinary men, Richard Mountford was a towering personality but not without inherent contradictions and idiosyncrasies: at once both unmechanical and personally disorganised, he could never find anything he was looking for and, in an accusatory tone, found it ‘very strange’ that the offending object reappeared the moment someone helped him look for it; to be oblivious to insult was his forte: thus, when some Nainital townsfolk he had given a mouthful to referred to him as Saddam Hussein, he appeared to be quite pleased with the comparison for a considerable quantity of time (until someone plucked up the courage to clarify); equally, post a rather lengthy and pointed sermon by the local padre on the evils of alcohol, he blithely dismissed the entire tirade by pronouncing that one should never trust anyone who does not drink! On holiday, he would call for a ‘bash-up’ regularly and his friends understood that this meant a ‘big bash’! And he was an absolute nightmare on journeys: not only would he grumble loudly and incessantly about every aspect of the endeavour (including the weather), but also unfailingly be cheated of change at every transaction he undertook. Banned from any further exchange of cash from his wallet, he looked so pleased at the outcome, that fellow-travellers were often left wondering secretly at the entire hoopla!
Yet, in all the years I knew him at Sherwood, two aspects stand out very sharply: unsaid, it appeared to me, that a crucial part of the success story revolved around the personal loyalty he inspired in people; beyond the call of duty, everyone seemed to put in a special effort for him. Was he just a natural leader of men or, perhaps, more likely, did he radiate the energy of a man with a mission that no one wanted to disappoint? Either way, he was a devoted schoolmaster with the most astounding fidelity to purpose throughout his 39-year career.
And, finally, in my view, what made Richard Mountford truly great was his uncanny ability to choose the right person for the job and then to have the wisdom and grace to let them get on with it without interference. Thus, the soccer coach played it his way and won national recognition for the School team; the Physical Training staff staged an extraordinary display every Founder’s; the Shantiniketan couple he appointed mounted an impressive art and craft exhibition; the Indian music maestro on the staff put together a large orchestra of considerable distinction; the Western Music Choir and theatre presentations became legendary and, most importantly, the teachers enjoyed complete autonomy in their classrooms, formidable academic results being achieved without the Principal ever sitting in on their classes for 30 years!
Richard Mountford was too much his own man to snoop about the corridors of the school to spy on the people he trusted and, to a man, the staff of all categories, reciprocated that respect by not letting the side down.
That is how, perched up in the middle of nowhere on Ayarpatta Hill, with a motley crew of not a few eccentrics and pupils from all over India and beyond, he carried a team to success.
He inspired everyone to be the best versions of themself and in doing so, delivered high standards at Sherwood for three decades.
In the winter of 2003, after a two-year extension of service, sensing forces afoot eager to move the school in a direction that he felt was inappropriate, he hung up his boots quietly, and despite offers of lucrative engagement, lived out the next 22 years of retirement peacefully. It falls to men like him to devote their lives to the building of a brand and, in a million years, people like him would never even know how to milk it for personal benefit.
Ironically, and entirely by chance, his last years were in a home in Dehradun that he bought 200 yards from the start of the Kipling Road to Mussoorie. What began as a romance of another era up that very road in 1940, came full circle on the evening of the 15th of May 2025, when he passed away from pneumonia-related complications.
If you ever see a young boy running effortlessly on Barne Field or on the Hodson Run at Sanawar or on the playing-fields of Sherwood, encourage him to grow up to become like Richard Mountford.
He left the world a better place than he found it.
Rest in Peace, Dad. Your legacy lives on in many of us.
(Richard Mountford is survived by his wife, Pamela, a daughter, Natasha, and a son, Derek, who authored this tribute to his father.)
