This letter was printed and circulated to parents to introduce the Tindalls to them.
The School House, Sherborne.
June 24th, 1920.
You will be glad to hear that a successor to Mr. Helbert has been found in Mr. K.B. Tindall, who has been for the last seven years a House Master at Sherborne School. You know how the welfare of West Downs and the continuance of her brother’s work by a suitable successor has been the constant pre-occupation of Lady Goodrich since Mr. Helbert’s death. As his oldest and closest friend, it has been my privilege to do what I could to co-operate with Lady Goodrich in this matter, and I am confident that I have done the best for West Downs in recommending Mr. and Mrs. Tindall, whose departure from Sherborne will be as severe a loss as could befall the School of which I have the honour to be Headmaster. They would not misunderstand me when I say that no one can exactly fill the place which Mr. Helbert filled at West Downs and in the hearts of those who knew him, and further, that so unique was the spirit with which Mr. Helbert inspired West Downs that we naturally explored the passibility of finding an O.W.D. to carry on the School. But having said thus much, I am bound to add that after more than ten years of the closest association with Mr. and Mrs. Tindall in the care and education of boys, my wife and I – as West Downs parents – are sure that we would entrust our own boy to no one more confidently than to them.
While in everything else they will as a matter of course be thoroughly competent – having conducted their House at Sherborne with complete success – they will also exercise that sort of sincere and reverent religious and spiritual influence which was so fundamental an element in Mr. Helbert’s work.
Mr. Tindall was educated at Winchester College and at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. He had known Mr. Helbert for many years, and his own boy would have gone to West Downs but that owing to delicacy the doctors insisted on his going to the neighbourhood of Margate. Mr. Tindall will take up his new work at West Downs in September next.
Nowell C. Smith.