Christopher Trevor-Roberts

CHRISTOPHER Trevor-Roberts, creator of a progressive prep school in Hampstead and tutor to all four of the Queen’s children, has died at the age of 77.
A funeral service was held last week at the Queen’s Savoy Chapel, in London, and was followed by interment at Brighton, where he lived his last years with his third wife, Wendy.
“We had many tributes and letters to him from past pupils and all those he helped,” said his son, Simon, headmaster of the Trevor-Roberts Preparatory School in Eton Avenue, where his father was the principal.
“A memorial service is to be held at Hampstead Parish Church next month. But the true memorial to him is the school itself and all those he was able to help over so many years.”
Born in North Wales, Mr Trevor-Roberts originally wanted to be an opera singer and, despite suffering from TB, he performed as a tenor. But he realised the precarious nature of such a career and instead became a teacher at a prep school in Malvern, Herefordshire.
He moved to the Vale of Health in the late 1950s and became a magnet for the children of the famous, among them the musicians Sir Georg Solti, Sir Colin Davis, Yehudi Menuhin, Alfred Brendel and even those of pop stars such as Ringo Starr and Lulu.
His relaxed, unusual methods – he sometimes fed pupils in a local Chinese restaurant and provided picnics in his garden overlooking the Heath – produced remarkable exam achievements, with the result that the Queen heard of his activities in the mid sixties.
So it followed that Mr Trevor-Roberts helped Prince Charles overcome his fear of maths. He taught also Princess Anne, Prince Andrew and Prince Edward, as well as Princess Margaret’s daughter, Lady Sarah Armstrong-Jones.
The Queen’s personal recognition came later when he was appointed a Lieutenant of the Royal Victorian Order in 1977.
Indeed, his discretion and ability to keep out of the headlines gave him intimate access to the Royal family. He used to recall how he once arrived too early for dinner at Sandringham and the Queen Mother entered the drawing room and surprisingly asked him to make her a gin and tonic.
Fortunately for him, she described the end result as “perfect”.
He established his school in Eton Avenue in 1981 and it is run by his son Simon and daughter Amanda.
It educates 100 boys and 80 girls, aged from five to 13.

GERALD ISAAMAN