Pavlik Thompson (56-64), also known as Paul Thompson, was a pupil at Pocklington School from 1956 to 1964. One of his fellow-musicians remembers Pavlik as a 17-year-old pianist who, at a school concert in the Assembly Hall, kicked over the piano stool. “Pavlik, still standing, truly gave the piano a good bashing. The audience cheered, shouted and stamped their feet.”

Another friend recalls: “There were no bigger personalities than his, so multi-talented, a natural rebel always challenging the conventions and orthodoxy. He brought colour and noise to our humdrum lives.”

Nearly forty years later, I met Pavlik for the first time since school. He was sharing with his beloved mother a house in York and working at the public library in Goole. The affection that most of his library colleagues felt for him is evident. Several of them were writing long personal letters to him sixteen years after he retired.

I shall always be grateful for the close friendship that Pavlik and I had for the last 22 years of his life.

He was a perfectionist, but only in the matters that he cared about. Having worked night shifts at Rowntree’s in his twenties, he suffered from insomnia for the rest of his life. Sleep and career were less important to him than making the time to pursue his wide-ranging cultural interests. He kept up to date with the most recent books and films. He collected and studied those parts of popular music from 1953 to 1973 that he admired. He gave lavish gifts, generously and thoughtfully matching his own tastes and strong opinions with what he felt each different friend or relative might enjoy. The Bloomsbury group? The Comedian Harmonists? Dirk Bogarde? Early Elvis Presley? Victoria de los Ángeles? How knowledgeable Pavlik was, and how he shared his knowledge with others!

I don’t think he ever left Yorkshire in the last twenty years of his life. He disliked many aspects of the present day, and looked back longingly to the inter-war years, or to his happy primary school years in Cottingham.

He was a heavy smoker and suffered more than fifteen years of seriously declining health. Born on 15th July 1947, he died on 17th November 2024, aged 77. His much-loved sister Nata died at 53, and her children are Pavlik’s closest living relatives: Tamara, Matthew and Helena.

Pavlik’s father was a senior lecturer at the University of Hull and a vicar in the Church of England. His mother came to England from Russia in the 1920s, becoming a Gymnastics teacher, and later a member of York’s Russian Orthodox congregation.

(Tony Spreckley 57-64)

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The funeral of Pavlik Thompson OP (1956-64), also known as Paul Thompson, will be on Thursday 12th December, 1.30pm at The Pritchett Chapel in York Cemetery, 49 Cemetery Road, York YO10 5AJ.

After the burial, there will be tea and coffee at the Harriet Centre, which is inside the cemetery, near the main entrance.