It may be surprising to learn that R.D. Budworth, the Headmaster of Durham School from 1907 to 1932, had a great interest in detective novels. Dr John MacDonald, who served as school doctor from 1924-1959, noted in some of his unpublished reminiscences that "I remember I seemed to get a good mark when I could tell him a little about Conan Doyle, who did his medicine at Edinburgh. Another favourite author was Agatha Christie. I think she was also a personal friend. His enthusiasm for the mystery play was such that he used to go three or four times to the same play. I can quite imagine him haunting Baker Street."

These detail about Budworth potentially being friends with Agatha Christie is tantalising, but I have been unable to find any evidence to support the assertion. He certainly seems to have passed on this love of the mystery novel to his students; John Coulson, a Bungite who attended the school from 1920 to 1924, took to writing detective novels with his wife under the pseudonym John Bonett, such as 1959's No Grave for a Lady (pictured above). Regardless, it does provide an interesting question as to whether any members of Durham School staff have ever been called upon to play detective. The DCSF is unfortunately not a stranger to theft- cases which spring to mind include the tale of George Dobson, the sixteenth century schoolboy who successfully stole a Christmas turkey circa 1565 as recounted in the great picaresque novel Dobsons Dries Bobbes, or else, more recently, the theft of a silver cross and two candlesticks from the school chapel in September 1979, for which the culprit has still not been found- but there are two interesting cases from the history of the Chorister School which would have interested an amateur sleuth like Budworth.

The 27th June 1807 issue of the Newcastle Courant recorded a tragedy befalling one of the pupils of the Chorister School. "On Thursday evening, a boy named Thomas Avrick, aged 11 years, one of the singing boys of the cathedral at Durham, when in search of bird nests in one of the western spires of the cathedral, fell, and was killed on the spot." This tragedy is born out by various other sources: the Dean & Chapter's account book between 1806-1807 recalls the expense of 12s. 6d. for paying workmen to attend the body "of the Chorister killed by a fall from the Cathedral". Thomas Avrick, or 'Averick' as he is mentioned elsewhere, is not one of the ten students who signed up for a quarterly stipend, but rather one of the supernumaries who attended classes and lessons but was not an official 'Chorister'. However, former Chorister School teacher Dr Brian Crosby advances another interpretation to these events in his excellent history of school, Come On, Choristers! (1999). He ventures the opinion that the statement that Thomas Averick was searching for bird nests was "a cover story" to protect the reputation of him and the Cathedral, as the following month- July 1807- some of the boys were accused of stealing lead from the Cathedral roof. Could Thomas Averick have been doing similarly?

Another account of theft comes from the 1960s or 1970s, in an anonymised account told by the then Chorister School Headmaster in 'The Chorister School 1957-1978: A Personal Record'. He recounts items from the changing rooms had started going missing. One day boy in particular, who hung his blazer on a peg nearest to the door, found his money getting stolen again and again. Happily, the father of one Chorister School student was a senior police officer, who sent a detective to the school to help catch the thief. The next games day, and with the collaboration of the boy whose money was stolen, they planted two special coins in his purse, both marked with permanent green dye. Whoever stole the money would have the dye staining their hands, being caught red- (or rather green-) -handed. After the money had been stolen, the headmaster and the detective wandered around the boarding house, but there was no sign of the green dye.

The thief must therefore have been one of the day boys, and so the detective agreed to come into prayers the next morning to examine their hands. The solution of the mystery revealed itself, however. When the senior policeman arrived home that night, he found to his horror that his son's hands were stained with the incriminating green dye. His son had been the culprit the entire time.