The school was saddened to hear of the death of Jared Armstrong, who passed away on the 9th April 2025 at the age of 99. Armstrong attended Durham School from 1940 to 1943 where he gained an enthusiasm for music, later receiving the Hubert Parry Organ Scholarship at Exeter College, Oxford in 1948. He would go on to teach at Oundle and Cranleigh, and worked as Director of Music at Wellington College from 1967. He was a frequent correspondent with Durham School, and would often write about his memories of wartime Durham. Several of his letters were published in the Dunelmian, and they paint a fascinating picture of the school in the 1940s. In one such letter, Jared Armstrong sent a photograph of the 1942 Speech Day taken by the Northern Echo, to which he attached the following note:

"At the top left of the photograph is a group of Caffinites, occupying the back 3 rows. I am 6 along in the back row itself, hoping to conceal the fact that I had misplaced my 'basher' - only to be betrayed by the Northern Echo cameraman! …I wonder what the Speaker has just said to merit such a warm response." 

In his 'Reminiscences (Ramblings?) of a WW2 OD', Jared Armstrong stated that "It is a sad, but inescapable fact, that so many teenagers are unhappy at School. They often feel that they WERE happy, or that they WILL be happy. I can honestly state that, at Durham in the early 1940s, I found myself saying 'I AM happy'." Armstrong attended the school from 1940 to 1943 under Canon Luce, who unlike his predecessor Budworth was keen about promoting music and art rather than sport. "The Artist and Academic were no more or less valued than the Athlete. Because of, rather than in spite of, being a Musician I had status." He would often talk of his hopes for a musical future after the War with his friend Roger Lord, who would go on to become first Oboe in the London Symphony Orchestra. Elsewhere he wrote of his musically-inclined friends. "Whilst they were persecuted on account of their music (as were their artistic and academic colleagues), at Durham Luce contrived that academic and artistic excellence counted for as much, no more, as athletic prowess. I would go so far as to say that my experience of the integrated community, of which I was so happy to be a part, remains the standard by which I have since judged all similar institutions. At the time of which I speak, Durham was light years ahead of most boarding schools in providing a truly civilised environment in which all boys could develop their talents to the full. This is Luce's great legacy." 

In a letter received in 2018, he wrote: 

"Recalling Durham – the sound of Abbey's clock beginning to strike 9.00 and still with 20 or more Chapel steps to mount before the doors closed on us and we had to wait outside, ruminating on which disciplinary sanction we had incurred; the tarry smell of the Boat House; the Farming and Forestry summer camps – hard work rewarded with much appreciated 'Agricultural Workers' ration scale' of food; the stories the battle hardened Junior Training Corps instructers from the Durham Light Infantry told us, etc. etc. – seem just as vivid now, nearly 80 years later." By far the most notable memory of his time at Durham School, however, was of an event that took place on the 1st May 1942 at 2.33 in the morning. This was during the 'Baedaker Raids', where German pilots made use of the tourist guidebook to target historic English sites. "Renegade Englishman" and Nazi propagandist Lord Haw-Haw had reported that the next German air-raid would be over Durham; the destruction of the Cathedral was seemingly imminent. When the sirens sounded, the boarders retreated to the basement shelters while four students- one of whom was Jared Armstrong- remained behind to 'fire watch', which involved searching for incendiary bombs to raise the alarm and, if necessary, take steps to extinguish the fire. 

"From the top dormitory window we could see the Anti Aircraft barrage opening up on the coast and hear the drone of the Heinkels coming ever nearer. It was a night of brilliant full moon and we hungrily gazed our last, as we thought, on the wonderful mass of Abbey. Surely, even one bomb remotely near, would send everything into the river. Then the miracle happened. A mist rose out of the River Wear and, by the time the first planes had arrived, the whole peninsular had disappeared in cloud. Bombs were dropped that night at random, on Framwellgate Moor, for example, but Abbey was spared. So a legend, the equivalent of 'The Angel of Mons' in 1914, was born."

The legend grew that the mist that shielded Durham from the bombers was brought about by Saint Cuthbert, saving his Cathedral from destruction.