Cheuk Ho Yeung/Michael Tung, on behalf of the Class of 79′
Mr. Jimmy Lowcock, the Legacy of a Patriarch
Where does one begin to retrace the footsteps of a true giant? For me, it all started on a fateful day in 1960. Headmaster Lowcock, vigilant as always in tending to his flock, took me into his confidence when one day I caught his attention during my participation in the “street running” group. In his gentle but authoritative tone, I was easily persuaded to join the School Cross Country Team as an active sporting member of the newly formed Goodban House. 1961 began an adventurous year for me. I failed to manage a passing grade in English mandatory for the School Certificate Examination and my only hope was to seek the approval of the Headmaster to repeat Form Five. Even now, I still believe in second chances and apparently Mr. Lowcock did so too when he took me under his wings and welcomed me back as a fledging member of the boarding school so that I could consolidate my time for studies and athletic training. I was truly overwhelmed yet the shock came later. Just before the start of the 1961/62 school year, Mr. Lowcock told me he was appointing me as the Athletics Captain and a School Perfect. I was totally flabbergasted. All I could remember mumbling at that moment was “Can I make it?” His words, which have forever remained with me, were simply “You can do it and I’ll be there with you.”
1961/62 was a challenging year for DBS athletics. With the graduation of practically the entire A grade team, we were left with a group of rookies (including me) who were charged with the seemingly insurmountable task to carry on DBS’ ownership to the much coveted title of Inter School Athletics Champion. Training and more training were all we did throughout the seven months prior to the 1962 Championship and true to his promise Mr. Jimmy Lowcock was always there. The DBS team only scored two relay gold medals but thankfully lots of silvers and bronzes in the individual events, just enough to edge out strong opponents such as KG5 and La Salle to retain our title as the 1962 Champion. 1962/63 was another story. The rookies had fine tuned themselves and many became the acknowledged superstars in sports. The 1963 Inter School Athletics Championship saw the DBS team scored a landslide victory in all A, B and C grades, achieving one of the few enviable grand slams in DBS history.
I left my beloved DBS in the summer of 1963. The great man whose words have so long ago guided me throughout my youth and adulthood is no more yet I know his spirit will always linger in the hallowed hallways of DBS, constantly keeping guard over his flock. For all of us who were so blessed and fortunate to be touched by him, his memory will live on as the cherished cries of “DBS, DBS” will always echo in the fields of champions.
The many memories, thoughts and feelings written and shared by the old boys made me reflect on the privilege granted to me through Mr. Lowcock, to treasure the importance of motivation and uniting people on a common objective; to focus on doing the right thing so to maximize ones potentials. Borrowing my favourite line from my classmate Kenneth Wan—“It is really Mr. Jimmy Lowcock who inspired me to become who and what I am today.” Like many of us, we are forever indebted to you, Mr. Jimmy Lowcock. May you rest in peace in Paradise.
Patrick Choy Kwok-Hung Class ‘62
School Athletics Captain 1961-63,
School Perfect 1961-63
Member of Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference
Twenty years after I left DBS, if there was any superior during my days that I still pause and think about every so often with great fondness, it would definitely be Mr. S.J. Lowcock.
During my years, I only knew him as the ex-headmaster. But he was still very attached to the school, its activities and its people – most famously his attachment to the Athletics team, of which I was glad to be a part of.
While most teachers impressed me with any combination of their shrewdness, stern demeanor, or humorous nature, Mr. Lowcock seemed everything of that and more. He would drop by at track meets or practices, and would strike up conversations with us in a manner that is uniquely “him”. Exactly what he would talk about I don’t recall, but I definitely remember the feeling – it was down-to-earth, humorous, warm, and showed a sense of fatherly care.
During the early years, he would invite the Athletics team to his place (I went to one such gathering) to just hang out, eat and chit-chat. Again, all this was very vague in my memory, but I remember it was a kind gesture for him to host us.
What left my indelible respect for him is during my last year in Form 6. I was fortunate to be named one of the co-captains of the Athletics Team (with Barry Tsui). While I was elated, I had always thought of myself as a really shy, skinny kid who wasn’t especially accomplished and wouldn’t stand out (I never even won a medal in any inter-school individual event). Even so, Mr. Lowcock would, in a few occasions, deliver me personal, hand-written notes, offering advice, observations of the team, and usually generously giving his encouragement or compliments. I can’t tell you how much it boosted my confidence and self-worth.
Somehow, he also found out that I was the chief editor of Steps that year. That year, it got published so late that it literally went to press after I left HK for school abroad. While most everyone was focussed on how slow it was, a few weeks later, I was absolutely taken by surprise to receive a two-page, hand-written letter from Mr. Lowcock, telling me his thoughts on it, making very detailed observations about its content, and generally, being very complimentary and encouraging of the editors’ efforts. I still keep that letter to this day.
I don’t presume to know Mr. Lowcock very well, but yet, I feel I do. I don’t even know if he remembers such a person as me. Now that I’m all grown up, I understand that for someone of his stature to connect to his students in such a private and commanding way speaks volumes to his character. He is willing to spend significant time connecting with his students, knowing he had very little to gain, but simply to build them up.
Mr. Lowcock: Thank you for everything you’ve done for me. The life lessons I learnt from you is so much more than anyone had taught me. You taught me that words and actions
make a difference, and to see the good in everyone. At times these are difficult lessons, but I know they are the one of life’s best lessons. Rest in peace, Mr. Lowcock. You deserve the best and I always keep you in my heart.
Eric Chan
(class of 1992)
It was probably within two weeks after the 1960/61 school year had began that Mr. Lowcock first spotted me playing football on the field. I was a new boy and a boarder, attending Form 2D. As I was walking up the concrete stairs facing the field, Mr. Lowcock asked for my name and where I had come from. I told him that I had transferred from Wah Yan HK and when he asked me why I left there, I did not reveal to him that I had been invited by Wah Yan to leave. Instead I had made up some excuses. It was only in recent years when I read Mr. William Smyly’s transcript of his interview with Mr. Lowcock that I learned that Mr. Lowcock had very close association with Kowloon Wah Yan and the Jesuits ( S.J . for Society of Jesuits and these were also Mr. Lowcock’s initials ). He had even spent a year at Kowloon Wah Yan helping to set up their laboratories. I am certain that Mr. Lowcock had checked me out but he never brought up this subject again.
When Mr. Lowcock became headmaster in 1961/62, I was in his From 3C physics class. To this day, I am still in posession of the Black DBS Lab book containing his comments in the margins. That year, while I had never been exposed to field events,. Mr. Lowcock had encouraged me to toy with the discus and the javelin and in due course, I became a member of the B grade School Athletics team. A year later, when I was in Form 4B, I was the treasurer of the Intermediate choir under Mr. Kiang and one day, an envelop bearing my name was delivered to me. It was a note from Mr. Lowcock saying that while I may have many good reasons, he asked me not to miss anymore choir practices. ( I still have the note )
When boarders had to stay in school on some weekends, it was Mr. Lowcock who had invited me to go over to his house and asked me to do oil painting with him. He was most generous with his time, patience, boards, equipment and paints. I admire this man for he had introduced the arts, music, competitive sports and that learning is not confined to the classroom, laboratories or textbooks.
After I finished Form 5 and went back to DBS for the School Leaving Certificate results, at the time I had already been accepted by a Canadian University for a B.Sc. Course. Mr. Lowcock had invited me to return for From 6. When I told him that I shall embark on a science degree in Canada, he bluntly told me that I should not go for science. Instead, he suggested that I should consider selling Japanese dolls as a future career. Mr. Lowcock sure had a talent in spotting the personalities of his students.
Thank you Jimmy, for introducing the Charleston dance, the Peter Gunn music and jazz, the peanut characters, the mustache, the oil painting lessons, and that it is alright to be a non-conformist.
Steven Chow ’64
Boarder Prefect – 1963-64
DSOBA General Committee Member – 1981-96
DBS Fund Raising Committee Member
P.s. After completing my B.Sc. ( Biology ), I switched course for an MBA and a PhD ( economics )
Very sad to hear his passing;
No words but RESPECT.
Thank you, Mr. Lowcock, for guiding my grow up years.
Simon Ho ‘73
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Albert’s thoughts to me in response to hearing of Lockcock’s death:
Here’s mine:
I came to know Lowcock through the Willows as we used to participate in various wine and cheese gatherings of young people up at his house. He would join us for a while and then just leave us to our own devices. One early evening when I was there, he asked me to go out with him to get congee for his mother who was unwell. We did and then he offered me one of those deep fried pastry sticks and told me not to worry about what others would say about eating in the streets and that it’s fine to do so. Since the Willows sang a lot of protest songs as was the trend in the 60’s, he once told us that “it is not enough to know what one is against, one has to know what one is for”. Then another time he said that we go to him expecting answers to whatever were bothering us at the time, but that we need to know that he didn’t always have all the answers. Albert told me once that Lowcock answered a question he asked a while back and was very touched that his headmaster had actually taken the time to troubled himself to think over those issues before replying. When the boys realized that Lowcock valued the old classroom desks and chairs over new ones, some of them started to see how nice they were and mentioned seeing carved graffiti by some of the then famous old boys.
I guess what I took away from these memorable words and thoughts were that life is to be lived thoughtfully, to question existing norms and those in power though with a healthy respect for authority at the same time. He knew that fame came too soon for us Willows and asked that we focus on the positives, as well as to value and protect the old and the weak.
FROM CHENG TAI PUI, CLASS OF 64
MEMORIES OF MY DAYS WITH A VERY YOUNG MR LOWCOCK AT DBS FLICKERED ON MY MIND AS HIS BODY PASSED BY AMID THE SINGING OF OUR SCHOOL HYMN. MANY PEOPLE SOBBED. WE ALL MISSED A MAN WHO ONCE LIGHT UP OUR LIVES, AND FILLED US UP WITH PATERNAL LOVE. AS I RECALLED HOW HE WENT OUT OF HIS WAY AS HEADMASTER TO GENTLY HOLD MY SWOLLEN HAND IN HIS AND GIVE IT A 20 MINUTE MASSAGE DURING CLASS, I COULD NO LONGER FIGHT BACK MY TEARS. GOOD BYE, MR LOWCOCK, MY DEAREST ALUMNI, TEACHER, HEADMASTER AND ABOVE ALL, SON OF DBS. MAY YOU REST EVER PEACEFULLY IN GOD’S EMBRACE.
First the shock, then the sadness, and now we grieve. The 22-year tenure of Sydney James Lowcock as the headmaster of Diocesan Boys’ School saw the golden age of DBS. Founded in 1869, its success and renown were, of course, the result of the labors of a great number of other people including his forbearers and successors, rather than solely attributable to him alone. However, the character , spirit and essence of the school on which it has built its identity for the last half a century were without a question the work of James Lowcock. DBS is Lowcock, and Lowcock is DBS, that much is certain. There is no shame in agreeing to this even for successive headmasters Jacland Lai and Terrance Cheung, both of whom were outstanding and filled the shoes of their predecessor with distinction. But still they were James Lowckock’s shoes and, not only were they huge, it was the prints they had left that first led the way to Rome.
In history there are some who are larger than life. Familiar ones in recent times include Churchill, Mandela, Reagan, Thatcher, and Maclehose, to name a few. These people broke with convention and, with wisdom and strength of conviction, pushed through visions that affected numerous people for the better. Lowcock had a vision of a school in Hong Kong mostly for Chinese students that was built along the fine traditions of the English public school where, in addition to academics, young men were able to build and develop their character, for it was strength of character that would ultimately be the measure of a man and determine his success or failure. DBS boasts a large number of captains of industry, government leaders, and celebrities in the arts, but seldom if any heinous criminals and wretched politicians. It all comes back to character building. Contrary to traditional if nescient beliefs back in the 1960s, Lowcock promoted a liberal education, encouraged independent thinking, sports and extra-curricular activities, and a liberal, open, and unoppressive campus lifestyle. This also explains why the Headmaster usually bonded better with students that had a personality over the recondite. Even the teachers were a great deal more than just an group of erudite scholars: the humorous KY Cheng (short pants), the incredibly gifted YT Kwong (spareribs), the titillating Lina Fong, the convulsive J Farrington (fat won-ton), the almost conceited Henry Ho (holland bean), the eccentric John Seed, the didactic TK Hong (old rooster). One could have been fooled for a collection of Marvel characters.
Sold though he was on the English public school model, “Har Gau”, as Lockcock was fondly nicknamed, did not buy its elitism. The school had already begun to enroll students from less priviledged backgrounds during the tenure of his predecessor George Zmmern. Lowcock went even further. The tale of Har Gau’s selfless financial support of poor students to his own financial demise will reverberate through the school hall and corridors as long as those walls will stand. Such was dedication with no bottom, and compassion that knew no bound. And he never took credit for any of it.
Lowcock’s ethnicity had something to do with the character of the school which he molded. Born in Hong Kong, Lowcock came from an Eurasian family with a British father and a mother of Anglo-Indian decent. Indigenous Eurasians saw themselves as authentic Hong Kong people, as they were neither the British from a foreign shore nor the Chinese migrants who identified themselves by the Chinese provinces that they had come from. Early Eurasians were discriminated in Hong Kong until they got their breaks through education and hard work, and enjoyed a unique advantage by being bilingual. The history of the Eurasians and his own experience convinced Lowcock of the importance of knowing and understanding one’s own language and culture. The colonial era’s bias towards the English language did not stop Lowcock from giving his students every opportunity to do so with Chinese in the curriculum. However, at the end of the day, whether the student could take advantage of this and take in both East and West depends largely on the student himself. Har Gau more than once quoted Thomas Jefferson: “The government that governs the best governs the least.” He embraced the idea that one should take responsibility for one’s action. He would help you to develop the tools to do so, but was not about to hold your hand in the process. That was not his cup of tea.
Lowcock’s ethnic background also helped shape his views on nationalism and race.. Chinese made up most of the school’s student body, although there were some Indian and Pakistani boys, and also some Eurasians. There were both local and expatriate teachers. The school itself was like an Eurasian, as the English school system found itself seasoned with local culture and traditions. The path of tolerance and understanding was the only viable path. In a miniature sense the phenomena of “multiculturalism” was already manifest on Lowcock’s campus 30 years before it did in the West, only that in the West it has arguably ended in disaster, whereas at DBS it enriched the students’ learning experience and gave them their first preparation for a globalizing world. During the first ten years of Lowcock’s tenure the world saw the madness of Mao’s cultural revolution. Hong Kong was under siege, with nationalistic fervor near hysterical levels. In the midst of all the insanity, the school’s unswaying adherence to knowledge, tolerance, fair play and good sense provided its students with the equivalent of a shot of antidote to the venoms of nationalism.
Once a parent phoned and complained that her child did not have enough time for studying due to too much extracurricular activities. Lowcock’s reply was blunt: “ Didn’t you know that the core principle of the school is to teach the students to manage their time and to help them become well-rounded individuals? If you disagree, then it means you have erred by enrolling him here and I suggest you send him to another school.” That was in the 1970s, and the parent quietly rested her case. I couldn’t help wonder, with humor, how Har Gau, who did not understood Mandarin, would have handled the following imagined rebuttal of an upstart parent from the mainland in the year 2012: “你這算是那門子的教育?老娘我從來沒聽說過! 我兒要考試不及格, 你得負全責!” It is indeed 2012, and Lowcock’s successors have to deal with problems which he would have considered pure nonsense and not even dignified with a response. Yes,Hong Kong has changed and is a far cry from the glorious days that he knew and shared with his students and staff.
The ghastly father and son duo of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il consecrated themselves with the appellations “the great leader” and “the dear leader” respectively. Even as macabre as they were, they might have been persuaded not to desecrate these words had they attended DBS with Lowcock in court. For they would have seen that Har Gau was held to be “great” because of his selfless devotion to his school and the marvelous and unparallel job he did as its headmaster, and he was “dear” to the students because of how he taught and nurtured us, for which he was held in utmost respect and with deepest affection. And with his departure we are now left with a sense of loss that is larger than any hysterics that those twisted despots could concoct.
As a faithful follower of Christ, our dear Headmaster you have more than completed the task given to you by the Lord. You helped thy children when they called, and you leave us knowing for certain that they will build an undefiled heritage from age to age. As you stand in front of the gates of St Peter, we pay our respects to you and bid you farewell for the last time. So goodbye, and thank you!