In the summer of 2000 whilst wandering London’s Hyde Park during Speaker’s Corner (and wearing a huge backpack at the time), I met an old man standing on a milk crate, reciting his poetry. I stopped to watch and listen. He was very nasty to me at first, but for some reason It didn’t scare me away.
I ended up spending a few hours with him and it really affected me deeply. I’m not sure it was a good thing. He seemed so sad and I just wanted to save him. That afternoon he took me out for a hamburger and read some more of his poems. In truth I cried for hours. He kept asking me why I was crying and I couldn’t answer, nor stop.
We kept contact for a few years, but lost touch. Thoughts of him make my heart feel very heavy. I saw him again 3 years later and had the same reaction. Again he asked why I had cried so much the afternoon that we met. I still didn’t have an answer. I just felt very sorry for him.
I wonder if he still exists
Today I happened upon one of his poems. It was written by hand in a letter that he sent to me many years ago:
The Word
A pen appeared, and the god said:
‘Write what it is to be
man.’ And my hand hovered
long over the bare page,
until there, like footprints
of a lost traveller, the letters
took shape on the page’s
blankness, and I spelled out
the word ‘lonely’. And my hand moved
to erase it; but the voices
of all those waiting at life’s
window cried out loud: ‘It is true.’
– Paul Hunt
I wonder if it is the same Paul Hunt who spoke there in the mid-’80s. Mathematics teacher? I didn’t know he wrote poetry — if it is the same man. The being nasty and melancholy parts sound right. He encouraged me to listen to a voice out of the wilderness and to go and read “things that matter” — Plato, Nietzsche, New Testament and the like. He took me out for a coffee for being the only one who stayed to listen after he railed against the dispersing crowd. I don’t know if I completely understood his message — or if he did. I do know that I will never forget him.
Where did you find this poem?
Incredible! This is definitely the same man. I vaguely remember he was a maths teacher, but I know that he taught at an all boys school at the time. I too have never forgotten him… obviously.
The poem that I included was one that he wrote and sent it to me in a letter many years ago. I recently found it when I moved apartments. I have been looking for him for some time, but have had no luck.
I continue to be astonished at the power of the internet. How did you even come across this blog post?
By “Googling” “Paul Hunt Speaker’s Corner.” I did not know he was a poet, but I have been working on a poem about him. He was an extraordinary fellow. I don’t know if I ever fully understood his message, but he set me on a path of a lifetime of reading that I otherwise may never have taken. I have not seen him since 1985. I would love to see him again.
It is a pleasure to “meet” you, by the way.
His poem is lovely, by the way. I knew there was more to him than met the eye. Thank you for posting it.
I know Paul Hunt. And if he is still alive and well he should be at the park. That’s where I would always find him when I was looking for him. He is an afternoon speaker. I live in Las Vegas USA.He must be 75 now. But if you ever run into him again say to him Rabcki says Hi.
Yes, that’s Paul – melancholy and lonely, and watching himself from the inside at all times! – nice bloke; and can be fun when he forgets to watch…. Mary
Hi I know Paul and his Wife Hanna,
Paul passed away last night…that’s why I am looking for his poem.
Thankyou so much for posting it…!
Ah, goodbye to Paul – and now you know! One of a kind …
I too just put paul hunt speakers corner into google and came to this site. Thank you for it. He was my maths teacher at an all boys school in Windsor and introduced me to speakers corner when I was 18. He would read Nietzsche in class, often instead of teaching us maths, and got us to question a lot. I spent years at speakers’ corner as a result, but less and less of that time with Paul, due to his negative demeanour and comments. But he did introduce many of us to so much, Socrates, the Sufis, and Alex, his constant heckler. I am sorry not to have seen him before he died, but many who knew him have moved away physically. But maybe I wouldn’t be where I am if it were not for him, as he did introduce a world of reading, disputing and curiosity to so many of us.
Friends, please read the obituary by clicking the link below:
http://www.windsorexpress.co.uk/News/Obituaries/Windsor-Boys-Schools-maths-teacher-Paul-Hunt-dies-15112012.htm
I am very sad today. Paul’s death came as quite a shock. I want to believe he is still at the Corner and if I ever return to London I think I will still look for him there. How many times I shared coffee with him as we sat on the pavement and leaned back against the fence-he was very easy to hang out with and did not hold grudges though we had a few skirmishes-who doesn’t at that fabulous place called Speaker’s Corner. A friend I will remember.
11 Jan 2007
Thirty years ago I asked Paul at Speaker’s Corner what he was doing. He looked like all the pictures you ever see of Socrates and was not a ranter like most of the nutters who gather there – he merely stood on a milk crate responding calmly and logically to whatever people said to him – and sometimes not even bothering to do that. After ignoring me for a long time he finally said, ‘Fishing’ (from ‘go and be fishers of men’) which I didn’t immediately understand. After a while longer, seemingly in exasperation, he said, ‘What are your responsibilities?’ I thought about this for a week and (in the bath) came up with ‘honesty’. I went back and told him but he didn’t say anything so I asked him what his responsibilities were and he said, ‘Other people’. I went back to see him from time to time and watched him arguing with and castigating others or sitting quietly reading the bible or the ancient philosophers – I met his wife and teenage children once or twice and had a coffee in McDonalds with him and them if they were there. Sometimes we and others would sit on the grass in the sunshine discussing books. I did not join in much and felt like I was watching happy people through a prism – and all to the background of the fractious rabble. He was familiar with one or two of the disturbed types around – deranged chess players, philosophy PhDs sweeping the leaves and such like – but generally disparaged or ignored most of them. I said to him once, of one particularly insistent gabbler, that he appeared to have ended up trying to control his thoughts with his words rather than the other way round. He was slightly surprised by this idea but thought it was perceptive. I once asked him why he did this every weekend and throughout the school holidays (apparently he is a maths teacher in Windsor) and he said he saw a man on a bus once and wondered why he couldn’t communicate with him and by implication everyone else I suppose and so began to do this.
I drifted off and didn’t see him for about twenty years. I went back one day out of curiosity to see if he was continuing with his experiment. I was inexplicably nervous but not hugely surprised to see that he was still there standing alone on his milk-crate with far fewer people than before (none in fact) around him. I went over and he recognised me. He looked the same – Roman looking red haircut, chinos, warm shoes, anorak (but a smart high quality one) worn out but still bright blue observant eyes. His odyssey was now into its third or even fourth decade (I don’t know how long he had been there when I first saw him in 1980). I asked him if he had ever written anything down and he became uncharacteristically animated and produced a notebook of hand-written poetry. It was very plain and not very poetic (little imagery or literary flair) yet full of stark and interesting observations. We went for a coffee with a girl who had drifted by and he told me he had been to Cambridge ‘but only the teacher training part.’ I asked about his wife and he snorted, ‘What’s a wife anyway?’ I asked him what he had thought of a song I had given him – a copy of my one and only success in music a song in the Hong Kong pop charts. He said he thought it was bland. He had been in hospital with suspected cancer of the pancreas which it turned out he didn’t have. He still ate rubbish (chips with bits of revolting McDonalds ‘dressing’) and I suggested that that was why he had stomach problems. He became defensive at this and told me that he was perfectly fit and had been playing hockey only the night before. Furthermore he didn’t smoke, had never taken drugs and never been drunk. He also said, ‘Five to six thousand people a year die of pancreatic cancer so I’ll just be one of those.’ (Shrug)
Next time I saw him a few weeks later he was much less friendly but still responded well to being asked about his poetry but when I asked him whether he performed it anywhere or tried to get it published he said ‘what a stupid question – why ask someone about doing something somewhere else or in some other way when they are doing it here?’ After a while he became even less friendly and said he didn’t want to talk to me at all. I said ‘what now or ever’. He said ‘maybe in the future’.
Is it possible to be both innocent and wise?
05 April 09
A rare Sunday off so I went to the Russian Orthodox Church in Ennismore Gardens. I have been meaning to go to a Russian service for years having heard the music from time to time. The priests enrobed in pale purple intoned in front of a screen, which they disappeared behind from time to time, and the choir sang mournfully from the organ loft above the main doors at the back of the church. There was no altar. There were no pews either and the people milled around in a mob. The liturgy seemed less structured than a Catholic mass. The people bowed and crossed themselves seemingly at random and not all of them – and never at the same time. Sometimes some knelt and others bowed right down and kissed the floor Muslim-style; others didn’t do any of this but just stood around. The women all wore head-scarves and looked demure which gave a Jewish or old-fashioned Catholic air. One woman sat in the corner on one of the few seats around the outside edge and breast-fed her baby.
There was a large crucifix to the right of the priests on a plastic rock into which was moulded a skull and crossbones in relief. I have always associated this with pirates and did not understand its significance here. Some people went up to the priests in front of the screen and sipped wine ladled from a spatula while two other priests held a large red cloth beneath the communicant’s chin. When they had sipped, the base of the chalice was offered for them to kiss. There was bread and wine on tables at the sides of the church also which the people helped themselves to. A solitary priest in green stood to the left of the others and women went to speak to him briefly. I thought this may be a casual form of confession but maybe they were just having a chat; I couldn’t tell as they were speaking Russian. The service was moving at first and fascinating but rambled on too long and after about an hour I left.
I walked to Speakers Corner to see if Paul was still there. He showed up with his milk crate which he sat on by the green railing. I said, ‘You look older and frailer.’ – which he did. He said, ‘Well I am older and everything is beginning to fail.’ He seemed friendly and happy to talk which we did for a while about the church service and about Spike Milligan. Paul has always resembled a cross between the customary depiction of Socrates and Spike Milligan. He admired Spike Milligan and had once gone to his house to meet him but been turned away. We talked a bit about his early days in the park in the sixties and he said he had decided that if anyone asked him what he was doing (today) – which unsurprisingly they frequently did – he would say, ‘Looking for someone.’
He told me that he had given out books and leaflets in the village where he lived in the sixties but had no response apart from one complaint and one message of encouragement from the Jehovah’s Witnesses. He had come to speakers corner hoping for a better response but after his first visit decided he ‘wasn’t ready for this’ and didn’t return for seven years. I asked him why Speakers Corner when it is only known for nutters and he said, ‘Where else could I meet people on my terms?’ I asked him if he had ever met anyone he considered worthwhile or in his words ‘worth their salt’ and he said, ‘Once but not here; I went to a meeting in the sixties and heard Richard Wurmbrand speak‘. I think he had been reminded of him by my remark apropos the church service about the Russian capacity for mournfulness. To which he had said, ‘Not just the Russians; all Eastern Europeans.’
He mentioned on an earlier occasion that he had frequently holidayed in Czechoslovakia when it was communist. Richard Wurmbrand was a Romanian Christian Jew who spent fourteen years in prison for religious preaching during the communist times before being bought out by friends in the West and moving to Norway. He died in 2001 in California. Paul said he had all his books and regarded him as a man of rare insight. He recommended I read Tortured for Christ which is about his prison experiences in Romania. I mentioned Hal and his doctorate on Heidegger and Paul just said, ’Heidegger.’ I talked more about Hal and Paul listened but didn’t comment. I wanted to bring Hal to meet Paul but Hal couldn’t make it. I had planned to meet him at Farm Street and suggested he come up earlier. I told Paul that Hal had a lot of domestic commitments but that I didn’t at which point he said, ’Give it a rest.’
’You mean stop talking?’
’Yes’ – so I did.
’Can you leave me alone now.’
’You mean go away altogether?’
’Yes’
‘OK. Perhaps I’ll bring Hal another time.’
‘I can’t stop you; but I might not speak to him’ – and I walked away.
This is a poem, perhaps not very good, that I started writing about Paul earlier this past summer, when I was thinking of him a good deal. I knew him at Speaker’s Corner in the early to mid 1980s. If you knew him, I hope you will enjoy it, but it is only about what knowing him meant to me:
For Paul Hunt
You stand there still before me,
If only in my failing memory –
No, not still, but still animate in intensity.
There, upon your mountain-top milk-crate –
A modern-day Zarathustra,
Calling to the masses in London’s Speakers’ Corner
On any given Sunday.
The Telegraph online tells me
That you were there in recent years,
Although you had “fallen silent” for a time
In the mid-‘90s, in a place
Where people “with nothing to say”
Preach to “those who won’t listen.”
“St. Paul” the newspaper canonized you,
Although I knew of no such epithet
In the days I knew you when.
Your advice to me had been:
“That you go and read,
And by that I don’t mean magazine or newspaper articles –
But things that matter.”
I don’t remember your exact recommended reading list,
But I’m quite certain it included Plato, Nietzsche, and the New Testament,
And I knew you to carry tattered copies of the Tao te Ching and the Koran.
This advice had followed upon your question to me:
“What do you want out of life?”
And my failure to answer
It, beyond, perhaps, a desire to be happy,
If I answered at all.
Perhaps I was finally honest enough to answer
“I don’t know.”
And at twenty or twenty-one, how could I?
With a Dad only a few years dead, and a long road of life ahead of me?
No one had ever asked me such a pointed question so pointedly before.
At twenty-one, how could I have known?
At fifty-two, I don’t know
If I know much better now.
All I know is that I’m glad you asked me when
I was young enough to start my journey when I did.
You told me to “listen for a voice from out of the wilderness.”
Were you that voice?
Or do you only point the way to another?
Was I not to listen to my own voice calling from my own wilderness?
And did I not have to find my own voices that matter?
Schopenhauer, for example, was for me
Far more truthful and lucid than Nietzsche could ever be.
Still, there’s no denying that you helped me to see
Things that I might not ever have otherwise seen.
And who knows what my spirit or
Me might have otherwise been.
And now, a quarter of a century later,
I still puzzle and worry at
What your message was,
If I have understood your message,
Or exactly what you intended me to understand or to practice –
“The truth,” as another speaker there had once said to me about you,
That you had “discovered.”
But what was that “truth”?
And have I ever really
Understood exactly what you intended to say?
The key, at least, seemed to lie
In the mediocrity of Man today.
You claimed that Men today
Had lost all sense of or capacity for
Honesty, integrity and nobility.
Do I see any hope of
Any of those seeds in me?
Is this what you wanted me to see?
I have tried to read what you recommended to me – and more –
And tried to read well.
But if I have, only time and moral review of my life will tell.
You’ve taught me to question,
And to live to learn that
The Unexamined Life is not worth living.
But I cannot share your bitterness;
I must be more forgiving.
You taught me of Nietzsche’s hatred of mediocrity.
And it has grown in me a loathing of my own commonness and cowardice.
I am no higher man,
But I reach beyond my grasp.
I owe thanks for such impetus largely to you.
And as Nietzsche said, I must become who I am,
And a man who remains only a pupil repays his teacher badly.
Perhaps so.
But there is something to being a lifelong learner and to becoming a
Scholar – which I did by earning my doctorate.
And in so doing, I became a teacher and a mentor.
So, I can’t be you
And you wouldn’t want me to –
I wouldn’t repay you so badly.
But I have heeded your advice in
Striving to find what I want out of life,
And in taking the journey to who I am.
I understand not that you knew I had to travel it
Alone, and through one of your poems that you
Know what it is to be lonely.
Is that what lies at the bottom of your bitterness?
Is that the root of your anger and anguish?
I have taken your advice and have read,
And have tried to read well –
And widely and deeply and voraciously –
And hopefully “things that matter,”
And with my eyes and (I hope)
My mind and my heart open.
But you taught me to question
How well I read, how well I think, how well I learn,
And even Zarathustra’s paths were,
By his own admission,
Crooked.
Many times I have stumbled in my journey.
But I have always picked myself up,
Or been picked up by others,
And even believed that I have been
Picked up and carried by Him.
And who knows for sure?
Perhaps I have been.
At the very least you inspired me to do my best
To live by Socrates’s dictum that
The Unexamined Life is not worth living.
There was a lengthy stretch where I nearly derailed from this
And “floated,” as I heard you once disdain,
“Through life in a puddle of alcohol.”
It was nothing I wished for myself;
It is nothing I would wish upon my worst enemy –
Whoever he or she is –
If it is not in fact myself.
It is as I was or am or at least could be again –
Disease.
And while I may not exactly be Health now,
I am at least Recovery.
In fact, I am Resurrection –
Though I am far from perfect life.
I still don’t know what to make
Of what you were trying to say,
But you were the closest I have ever known to a
Socratic gadfly, stinging the Asses in Speakers’ Corner marketplace.
Stinging this Ass, me, perhaps worst of all.
Because I have never recovered from your bite.
I am infected.
I read voraciously, if perhaps scatteredly.
I did so even during my drunken, derailed years –
If not always the best stuff –
And perhaps too scatteredly.
And I wrote.
And wrote.
If not always the best stuff,
And most likely much too scatteredly.
I largely have you to thank for driving me
Toward a contemplative, literary life –
One spent in pursuit of knowledge, truth and wisdom.
I have read widely, and I have tried to read deeply,
And I have tried to read well.
I try to do so with eyes, mind and heart open,
And continually question how well I do.
That is also, in large part,
Thanks to you.
I live my days now with one eye towards the future.
I stumble often, for having one eye turned too often on
Past mistakes, poor decisions, and other weaknesses.
But I am trying to train this lazy, self-pitying eye to
Turn and face the future, with both eyes
Focused on a better world,
Filled with better men.
But, like you, my vision is often blinded
By bitter tears of disappointment –
Disappointment that I am not a better man myself.
But I will work not to become a bitter one because of it.
Is this not in fact the source of your own self-professed bitterness?
I will never know. Do you?
Perhaps you and Nietzsche are right that a higher humanity must
Be born if we are to survive and to grow.
And perhaps men like you and him can serve us as
Pointers along that path.
But it is not for you or for any man,
But for nature alone to set the pace for us,
For our journey on that path.
For when we try to push and cajole us on a trek
That we mus make in our own way and in our own time,
Then we will only cause ourselves to stumble badly – even fatally.
It has happened before and will again – whenever we follow
Those who would run us at faster than nature’s pace.
Yet I remain thankful to men such as you and Nietzsche,.
And also Christ, for pointing the way to becoming higher men
With higher values and the keys to living better lives.
Thank you for giving me the impetus for trying to live as
Good and meaningful life as I can.
A perfect life?
No, I shall never live a perfect one
But I shall live an examined one/
I owe that much, at least, to you.
For were you really asking us
To do anything more than that?
To go through our lives
Reflective, thinking, thoughtful, mindful (?), awake?
What was your message other than that?
What was your message?
What was the truth that you (supposedly) discovered?
Was it that Christ didn’t rise from the dead?
But how can anyone know or say for certain?
I know this in that I always have a discontent
And an endless longing – again largely thanks to you.
And my reach will always exceed my grasp.
And I am left so adrift.
Yes, another speaker at the corner had
Once told me that you had discovered a truth.
And I feel like I only pass through life idly, asking
“What is truth?,” and, like Pilate,
Feebly washing my hands.
But shouldn’t they be as clean as I can get them,
So they can receive any decent or holy truth?
Not that I would likely recognize a decent or holy truth
If if held one in my hands.
But largely thanks to you, I hunger to hold one in my hands –
And in my heart.
What truth can I possibly know for certain,
Other than the fact that I will die one day –
And that day approaches closer and closer,
In a straight line, in a
Life that more likely has far
Fewer days ahead than behind.
And I still have far too many days –
Such as now – where I would gladly
Rush headlong to that end –
The far too many days
When I would welcome death,
When I have wearied of perpetual,
Relentless struggle, and would gladly lie down to
Eternal rest and respite from suffering.
And yet I hold myself back,
As I am afraid of what is – or is not –
On the other side.
But at times I welcome death,
As I apparently fear life more than it –
Fear living more than dying.
I have lived too much of my life in fear;
I even lived in fear of you.
Would it make you happy to hear that?
Just exactly what would it make you feel?
You often went out of your way
To antagonize and to intimidate.
But perhaps it was your way
(Your only way?) of teaching.
And yet if, as in your poem,
You view “lonely”as “what it is to be man,”
Then why did you do so much to
Alienate yourself from the rest of humanity –
Of which you are ultimately a part
(Or is that apart?)?
Double question marks seem fitting,
As you have left me with at least twice as
Many questions about life than
I otherwise might have had.
But then both Socrates and
You are correct – only the
Examined life is eminently worth living.
And so I will do all in my power
To live such a life,
As best I can,
For as long as I can –
Quiet and still – as best I can.
As Brett as I can.
I am sure you understand what that means –
I cannot be you;
I have to be me.
But I can be a much better me
Than what I might have been,
Thanks to you.
Brett-
If something Paul said gave you pause to see something in yourself than it was of you and not Paul Hunt. Be careful of that hero worship. Paul Hunt was just a man standing on a milkcrate and for the life of me I don’t know what he was talking about. But he was no guru. Frankly I think some of his screws were loose. I met him in the 1970s. I did not like him really. He was mean. And he did not seem to care if he hurt people with his insults. I was no match for his rationative prowess. But he drew me in-reeled me in like a carp. He always said he was fishing for carps. I was a doozy and he no doubt saw me coming a mile away. Prime target. He let me know in no uncertain terms my biggest fault.
Temper.
He was right.
But I already knew that.
But I told him he was no better.
We had a few unsavory tete-a-tetes.
But he never held grudges and I liked that. We would sit right on the pavement of the corner having coffee from the kiosk vendor and watch the people go by.
That’s why I got on with him so well. He had this easy going way. He was available. And he was learned. I am not. I really know nothing from nothing. I got an annoyed feeling that he was looking for my kind of dummy. And I’d walked right into the trap.
Well he did not point the way for me. I doubt he knew the way himself. I can’t stand Nietzsche. I don’t like people who stand on milkcrates lecturing to the intellectual nitwit. It seems kind of arrogant. But Paul always said “People who have nothing to say speaking to people who are not listening…”
I was sad in a strange way when I heard of his death. Because he was a character in my life. Everytime I went to London I made my way to Speaker’s Corner. Just to have some new mean insight given to me. I’m a sucker for punishment. I don’t think the guy said a nice word about anyone. I lived in London five years and visited often after that. Paul was always there. Well I did not want to shed any tears for this man and I think I shed one-in Las Vegas as I was walking through the Christmas lights and all the cheer right after I heard about his death. The thought of his death was disturbing. Again I don’t know why. But he would not shed any tears for me so why waste a good tear. I’d had enough of it. I decided to remember his cold-blooded clever and self obsessed demeanor. I was cured of sentiment. I think Paul would have been proud of me.
You seem like a very thoughtful sweet sensitive person. But let up on yourself a bit. You’ve achieved and stop giving that man Paul Hunt the credit.
Denderah; fascinating nom de plume? Derivation? Your remarks about Paul are interesting … I think he was quite deliberately enigmatic, but unlike you, I liked him but certainly didn’t agree with much of what he said. Odd that you grieved when you heard of his death …. I suspect a sneaking affection for the very unusual character that he was!
Denderah is of the Egyptian-a temple site called Dendera. I like it better than my legal name. However-yes there was more than a sneaking affection for Paul. He was a strange friend-but not a friend-if you know what I mean. And yet I can’t say I like him. Back in the 1970s I had a crush on him. A lot of us did. He was a fine good looking man. A drop dead gorgeous British accent and you know how Americans fall for that! And refined and educated. And there he was on a milkcrate. How could I not be entranced? I don’t think Paul realized that a lot of the girls were not listening to his speeches but basking in his male beauty.
Denderah — Prudent, insightful observations and advice. Thank you.
I never knew he appreciated Spike Milligan. I love Spike Milligan.
Paul waited around, in the coldest winter, in the hottest summer, Christmas day, New Years day, he waited there for us; for those with melancholy hearts, for the one person who might not ask ‘Is this Speaker’s Corner?’ or ‘Are there any toilets near here?’ or ‘Are you a speaker?’
I don’t know how he did it, how he didn’t give up, how he didn’t die of boredom and the misery of watching life pass by unaware, asleep. I think it was because he knew we were out there and would also pass by one day, and that we would come back too.
He made me read, he made me question, he made me fearless of questioning knowing it would hurt and be uncomfortable but knowing is preferable to not knowing.
He was also a mirror for me, I never felt more truly myself than when I was with him.
Unreservedly I can say he was the best, kindest, wisest person I ever knew even though I heard him demolish grown men. I also saw him hold old men’s hands as they were dying, talking easily with the homeless in the underpasses, helping elderly ladies in and out of his vw van, weeping as he watched a tramp go through the dustbins. I also went to some unbearably sad funerals with him. Paul wept often, he’d stop what he was saying and bite his lip to stop crying. Most people do not allow themselves to think as deeply or feel as deeply, and Paul did it openly. Rabcki, he would have shed those tears.
Some of his questions were:
How is it possible we exist? Can you see how amazing this world is? How amazing it exists when it could be that nothing existed at all? What is it to live a good life? What is the kingdom of God? How can I think something in here (his head) and my fingers move over here? Why are we here? What should I do? Who was Jesus?
I miss him. I am who I am because of the kindness and influence he has had on my life. I doubt I’ll see his like again and I am so glad he was who he was..
I am glad you loved him yen hui.
A beautiful tribute to him, Yen Hui. I wish I had gotten to know him as well as you did. I always figured there must have been a very sensitive man inside that tough shell. I am glad to learn of examples of it.
I was genuinely sorry to hear of his death at an untimely early age for this country. Paul was a Christian when I first knew him and then he apparently ditched Christianity and went into a long sulk during which he would stand silent for hours on Sundays while Speakers Corner milled around him. He recommended reading the great philosophers such as Plato, the Sufi mystics and Pascal’s Pensees. Regrettably, he and I quarreled (largely his making) in 1982. I used to see him but not talk to him after that. Deep down, he was a genuinely good man. R.I.P.
I’m coming to this late –
but I knew Paul and his family when I lived in London in the mid-seventies.
I started by heckling him, and then after a few weeks ended up realising that what he was saying was too serious.
The unexamined life is not worth living and all that.
He was the reason I went as a mature student(all of 27!) to university to take a degree in Religious Studies.
I once got an A for an education essay that was based on my experiences with Paul at Speakers Corner.
Never ended up with any religious belief – but he did change my life.
And clearly affected others as well.
Last saw Paul and his family 1979/80.
And if he did become more cantankerous as he got older and frailer, so what.
He never claimed to be perfect!
Hi Mike I would be very interested to read your essay if you feel like posting it – Martin
I knew Paul when I was living in London in the late 70s and early 80s. In those days Sundays often included a few hours at the Park and I remember many of the characters who have already been mentioned here. Lord Soper was still a regular along with rationalists and Christians, anarchists and socialists and party political advocates of all kinds. There were crowd regulars like Alex the heckler and even a few younger speakers like Michael the Australian. Paul was at the centre of my sense of what Speaker’s Corner was all about then, at a time when there were still more serious speakers than there were stand-up performers and entertainers.
I was sorry to learn recently of Paul’s death and also sorry to read that he spoke less in his later years and had periods of sadness or introspection. He could always be difficult, of course. Nobody who met him more than once could be unaware of that. He could be combative in debate and he was easily annoyed by glibness or pretence but in my memory he always responded to authenticity and, as others have suggested, he was unique in the community of the Park in his capacity to take everybody as he found them, from homeless drunks to peers of the realm.
I remember visiting the Park in the mid 1990s. I was mostly living overseas by then, and they were difficult times, but finding myself in London for a weekend I wandered over to Speaker’s Corner. The Park was always at its most vibrant on Sundays so I think this must have been a Saturday because it was empty. Paul was there, looking just as I remembered him, standing on a milk crate, reading a book, completely alone. I went over and said hello and he asked how things were. I told him a little about what I was doing and he listened and asked a few questions and behaved like the best friend one could ever imagine. He didn’t offer any advice, he just listened with empathy and kindness. It was just the two of us talking and when I told him I couldn’t stay for long he did something completely unexpected. He got down off the crate, shook me by the hand and wished me well. It was the last time I saw him and I always remember him how he was that day.
He was a man, take him for all in all,
I shall not look upon his like again.
Hi
Not sure if you will get this message. We have put together Paul Hunt’s poems in a booklet. If u r interested pl let me know…
LeeMeng
I am indeed interested. Please send me a message with the details.
R u talking about Enigma?
Hi Lee Meng definitely interested in a copy let me know where to get it
Martin Kennedy
Call Hunna Hunt on 01784433912
Essa poesia é de R. S. Thomas…
Hello everyone
I have read all comments on this blog and although interesting and surprising I can’t agree with most praise that I have read.
In the 80s I joined Windsor Boys’ School as a 13 year old student. Paul Hunt was my Maths teacher for a short period of time, less than a year. In my first ever lesson in one of Paul Hunt’s classes he looked around and spotted me, he then asked me ”Why are you brown”, I was shocked and surprised but I quickly replied with ”Why are you white”. With that he said ”Good answer” and continued to conduct the class as if absolutely nothing had just happened. I was the only student in that class of around 30 pupils who was of colour. He made me feel like crap and had belittled me and made me feel anxious and conscious. I think it is was racism, it felt that way to me and did very little to empower me, it had the opposite effect.
He also physically attacked students if they walked on the right of corridors instead of the left. During lessons he would regularly throw blackboard rubbers at students with a heavy arm if they in some way annoyed him with the mediocre of incidents.
I remember one incident where a student rode his motorbike inside the corridors of the school, I think it was the last day of term and who would jump out from his classroom and knock this student flying off his bike while in full flow, yes Paul Hunt but yes the student deserved it this time. An infamous incident at Windsor Boys’ School and rightly so.
Another time we would play games indoors if the weather was dreadful outside on sports day. Wednesday was always sports day, I had been playing table tennis and Paul Hunt asked the student I was playing against to move to one side so I found myself playing against Paul Hunt. Me the brown boy beat Mr Hunt and I can tell you he was not pleased, not pleased at all.
He was also verbally abusive regularly as well as physically abusive. I was only 13 so I didn’t analyse him back then in the way I would have if I was an adult so not much more to say about him really.
Paul Hunt was a teacher at Windsor Boys’ School for 42 years and retired in 2002 on his 65th birthday having only taught at this school. If he was a footballer he would have been given a lucrative testimonial.
I googled ‘paul hunt windsor boys’ school’ this week to see if I could find more about him having never searched for him online before and found he had passed away in 2012 at 75 years old. Not meaning to be disrespectful but it brought closure to that 13 year old boys terrible time at Windsor Boys’ School.
I was also surprised that he taught for 42 years at the same school without being asked or ordered to move on because there is no way his physical and mental abuse would have gone unnoticed or reported so either he achieved very very high grades for students or he had some kind of hold over his peers. The school itself had become a comprehensive in the late 70s having previously been a grammar school but carried on with the similar ethos of a grammar school and somewhat victorian in attitude. It had that freemasonry feel about it which is maybe why Paul Hunt’s job was never under threat.
To me he was a bully, a racist and a bitter man but to you guys he was something entirely different.
Hi
I was a pupil at Windsor Boys and Mr Hunt also taught me. He was one hell of a character and he used to make comments about me coming from an ethnic community but I would fire them back to him. I do not at all think he was racist he just seemed to want to create a argument. He thrived on being argumentative. At times I felt he could see no other destiny then him continuing to teach at Windsor Boys! I really think he felt that he deserved a bigger role in life but because he seemed to enjoy upsetting people without really meaning it he was stuck in that current job and had given up on society. In reality I felt sorry for him. He always seemed to be in a rage and looking for a fight. But when he started his flow of conversation he was brilliant to listen too! He at times totally lost me. But I will always remember him and I think in reality he was more bark then bite! I was sorry to hear that he died and he will always bring back fond memories from my days at Windsor Boys! I am not going to tell his nick name at school but I am sure every one can guess. Mr Hunt the C***.
God Bless him!! I doubt that I will ever meet a character like him again.
I too was a student and Windsor Boys’ School and concur with Jason’s comments. He justified abusive behaviour by saying he was trying to ‘provoke a response’. Perhaps this method of communication can be ignored at Hyde Park Corner, but it certainly can’t within the confines of a classroom. I also remember his racism and, as mentioned, there is no way he would last as a teacher with today’s level of scrutiny.
He could be thought provoking at times, and also shared some of his philosophically interesting poems; his classes achieved good results and were very controlled by fear as you never knew who would be the next focus of his vituperative tongue. He was also physically imposing and aggressive; he was well aware of his physically and how he used it as a threat.
He was a racist scumbag. Thankfully anyone behaving in the way he did towards children these days would be imprisoned. I was helping one of my daughters yesterday with her homework and was really angry about how little maths I knew and this led me to gogle hunt. I was a pupil at WBS in the 80’s, I would walk into the class, someone would make a funny noise or slam a desk and he’d tell me to get out. This happened every maths class during my time there, the other teachers were scared of him and let hime get away with it. Polly Hunt was a nasty, horrible national front supporting, racist nonce.
I was at WBS 1999-2004 and had Mr Hunt as my GCSE maths teacher, he did the top sets back then and he was a really scary and horrible teacher, ruled by fear and would belittle the class most lessons shouting over and over ‘You should be aiming for an A*!’
He always looked so tormented or like something was weighing heavy on him, we always speculated if he was some guy that lived all alone so I take some comfort in hearing he had a family.
Now that I think about him, I feel like everything he did was to provoke a response and did that through some form of degrading way. I still remember him absolutely tearing me about my ‘crap’ coursework.
Always remember he had those faded brown corded trousers he’d wear. We’d also refer to him as Mr Hunt the C**t just because he was so foul to be around,
I do feel sad to hear of his passing and I’m truly amazed at all the stories people had shared, clearly he had lots of things going on and I’m wondering if he felt the burden of challenging mankind to be better.
His wife published a book called: ENIGMA. It contains a collection of poems by Paul Hunt.