The Petty Family Tree

Victor Noel Petty was the youngest son of Alan and Jessie Petty and has an older brother John. His earliest memory was being taken into the garden to see the Hindenburg Airship overhead – some said it actually scraped the chimneys in passing!  He also remembered “digging for Victory” when his father turned their small garden to food production, including chickens.  When one became ill, official instructions were followed, the chicken’s neck broken and the body sent off to The Ministry of Food.  A brief reply was received a few weeks later saying, “This chicken died of a broken neck”!

As children before the war, John and Noel had an old leather football that was punctured. Rather than throw it away, the boys filled it with soil and left it invitingly in the middle of the garden path. Along came the milkman the next morning and, fancying himself as a Stanley Matthews, took a run and a kick. Family legend has it that he broke his ankle.

From 1938 Noel attended Highfield Council School before obtaining a County Scholarship to Keighley Boys Grammar School.  Noel played Rugby and Cricket for the school but clearly studied hard as he received an open scholarship to Cambridge University in 1951.  However, it was 1954 before he took his place at Magdalene College as he first carried out his National Service in the RAF.  He studied Maths on his return to University and also joined the chapel choir and other groups.  It was here he began to sing solo for the first time. He mixed with the likes of Bamber Gascoigne and David Nobbs and his achievement in being the first of his generation – from a council school start, in a northern mill town – to get a place at Cambridge cannot be overstated.

This poem written by Noel speaks of this time in his life:

‘Essentials of Education’ by Noel Petty

You had to have Latin in those distant days

Or you’d not be allowed through the door,

But in that initial bewildering phase

You soon found you needed much more.

Compulsory too – it was death to refuse –

A duffel coat then was the drill,

An elegant waistcoat, a pair of suede shoes,

And trousers of cavalry twill.

A well-bred umbrella would crown the display,

Tight-furled, with a smart brass ferrule.

You could hear whole platoons of them tapping their way

To the Science or History School.

Of trophies and tokens I keep very few,

No oar is displayed on my wall.

A few scraps of learning, a snapshot or two,

And there, keeping faith in the hall,

A greying umbrella, flamboyancy’s ghost,

You might say we share our decline.

I take it for outings – just here to the post –

On days when the weather is fine.

On leaving Cambridge Noel joined The English Electric Company in Stafford working on the mathematics of switchgear, transmission lines and turbo-alternators.  He carried out one project calculating the optimum distance, tension and height of power lines.  He felt a little deflated on arrival at the site to discover a couple of blokes in wellies installing the lines shouting, “Up a bit, down a bit – that looks close enough”!  He eventually moved on to become an early adopter of computer technology.

In 1958 Noel married Mollie Elizabeth Kane and their two sons Christopher and Giles were born in 1960 and 1962.  The family moved with English Electric to Cheshire before he left the Company in 1963 and joined ICI at Wilton, moving to Redcar.  He was seconded to the USA to work alongside IBM on a software project, taking the family to live in Tarrytown on the Hudson River for 18 months.  Back in the UK he eventually moved back to Teesside in 1969 as deputy manager at ICI Billingham living in Marton.

Noel did plenty of regular dad things, like taking his boys to Ayresome Park for the first time – to see Middlesbrough not win a game they were expected to win. He later maintained that this was actually the perfect introduction to a lifetime as a Boro fan, the dubious joy of which has now also passed down to Noel’s grandson Tom.

Noel was a keen photographer and home movie maker and one summer at Marton, Chris and Giles have fond memories of Noel as the cameraman and director of their very own home-made James Bond film (the footage thankfully now lost!).

By 1972 he was singing with the Michelmas Singers, appearing on stage for the first time singing in the Billingham Barbers and he began writing for the stage including his pantomime The Snow Queen – fondly remembered for his creation of El Sitana, leader of the Robber Band.  By 1983 he was writing more systematically via competitions in The Spectator, New Statesman, Literary Review and various other magazines and newspapers.  He won very many modest prizes and a few very large ones. Some memorable entries from the hundreds he submitted were, “The works of Jane Austen in Limerick Form” and “Gordon Ramsey’s school report” plus a surreal piece from 1988 in which he appears to have invented The Fitbit! Various of Noel’s poems are now routinely studied in schools across the English-speaking world.

Noel’s good friend Barry tells of the time that the Barbershop Group were rehearsing round his dining table. The other three members were struggling to get to grips with the piece and concentrating intently on the music sheet. Noel, however, was not only, without effort, note perfect but when Barry finally looked up he saw that while singing Noel had also been completing the large jigsaw that was laid out on the table!

The de-facto ‘father’ of the Michelmas Singers, Harold, remembers how Noel was always a great help when trying to select music for the choir, introducing them to Finzi`s choral songs, and, in particular, Clear and Gentle Stream, which forms part of this celebration. Noel’s hours of research produced several `Words and Music` programmes which were amongst the best concerts the Singers performed.

In 1980 Noel separated from Mollie and was living in Hartburn with Joyce and her daughter Jude. By 1985 they had moved to Fairfield and Noel joined in the formation of the Cleveland Consort, a specialist early music group. He sang and played the Viol touring and giving concerts widely. He extended his interests to NORVIS, an early music summer school which he attended for 30 years eventually becoming treasurer.

Jude remembers when, despite the best efforts of her teachers, she just couldn’t get the hang of calculus. With exams looming, she turned to Noel. Patiently and methodically, he took her through it from first principles and, to this day, she says she couldn’t have passed the exam without him.

Jude was also lucky enough to accompany the choir and the Consort on several of their tours and her memories of Noel in tights are with her to this day!

Noel now has 3 grandchildren – Tom, Eric and Ian. Tom remembers the keen interest Noel took in his University project to design and write a program to solve Sudoku puzzles. They explored strategies together and discussed which were the best candidates to be automated. Noel was delighted to test prototypes of the solution and offer feedback.

When the pandemic struck, Noel’s response was to dig out a pre-war textbook and re-read about the mathematics of contagion and pandemics – “It’s essentially a maths problem,” he told Christopher last year.

Another poem by Noel seems the ideal place to finish this tribute to his life.  It’s called:

‘Questionnaire’ by Noel Petty

Do you feel greater confidence, or less

about the future than a year ago?

Tick one box only.

Well, I must confess

things have been smoother for a year or so.

The children settled and the mortgage gone;

enough to live on, and a little more.

True, in the distance war-drums rumble on,

but nothing worse than what we’ve seen before.

It’s safe to tick the box marked Greater, then?

Not quite so fast, a quiet voice replies.

Full in your sights looms three score years and ten,

and each year is one nearer your demise.

Which prompts a darker question: is it best

to linger on behind, bereft and lonely,

or take an early bow before the rest?

Tick one box only.