MANY years ago, probably more than either of us care to remember, when I started on the Evening News, one of my first assignments was to cover the sports day of King's School, Worcester, held on a gorgeously sunny summer afternoon on the playing fields in New Road.

There I was introduced to a dashingly handsome young master called Tim Hickson, newly given charge of athletics, who was causing hearts to flutter among pupils' mothers.

Sebastian and Julian may have been running and jumping their hearts out, but mater's eyes were somewhere else altogether.

Since that opening encounter, our careers have bumped along their separate ways, occasionally colliding at a speech day or careers evening and most recently at a 60th birthday bash for a joint friend, at which I fronted a This is Your Life.

It is now Tim Hickson's turn to get the red book treatment.

He is retiring after 40 years at King's, having occupied the lofty heights of second master since 1986.

"Some of your friends have told me you are retiring and I should write a piece about you," I said over the phone.

"They are no friends of mine!" came the stentorian reply.

It was a voice that has instilled some awe into generations of King's scholars, for even when it was legal, Tim never found the need to whack one to get his point across.

"I discovered fairly early on I seemed to have the knack for commanding respect," he added. "At least I think so."

Which isn't bad for someone who freely admits he has no teaching qualifications, bar experience and results, at all.

"You didn't need them when I started," said the man who was appointed head of physics at King's as long ago as 1971. However, he had been to Oxford University and has the gown "with the bit of rabbit fur on" and did three years National Service in the RAF, so that must count for something.

In fact, it was National Service that really pushed this West Country man in the direction of the teaching profession.

"I'd always been interested in electronics and stuff like that since I was a lad and I used to sit in RAF lectures thinking 'I could do this better'."

So he decided to give it a go, approached King's for a job and got it.

He began in September 1962, and TDRH - as he is universally known throughout the school campus - "For some reason I don't appear to have been blessed with a nickname" - has been there ever since.

Despite his lack of a schoolboy calling card, Tim was only too aware one of his former charges, the comedian Rik Mayall, used to entertain fellow pupils during the break, by donning a pair of spectacles and doing an impressive impression of their physics teacher.

"A studious lad, but a good impressionist, young Mayall. I always knew he'd go far. The only doubt was in which direction."

Tim has less kind words for another former King's pupil, TV personality Chris Tarrant, who caused some distress at the school a few years ago by his claims that his schooldays were a most unhappy time, he was regularly beaten and bullied and on at least one occasion, caned in front of the whole school.

"I knew young Tarrant when he was here, although I never taught him. I would see him quite often coming out of that door over there." And he pointed across the playground.

"He was always larking about. A bright lad who seemed full of fun. He certainly never gave the impression he was desperately unhappy.

"As for being caned in front of the whole school, that was utter rubbish. Totally untrue.

"I switched the television on the other night and he was on the Parkinson Show. The two of them were goading each other about their schooldays, almost trying to prove who had the worst time.

"I just turned it off."

It has to be said Chris Tarrant has been given numerous opportunities by the Evening News to explain his remarks, but has always refused. A remarkable attitude for a motor-mouth with a view on every other topic under the sun.

Changes have been many and varied during Tim's years at King's. His first year's salary was £670 and he's paid a bit more now.

In 1962 there were about 600 pupils, including 150 boarders, in a boys' grammar school under the direct grant system.

Today, as a fully co-ed independent school without boarding, which ended three years ago, there are around 1,230 day pupils, including those in two junior schools that feed into the senior section.

"The boarding ethos really started to decline in the late 60s and 70s," he said. "Up until then, the decision on a boy's education seemed to have been made mostly by the father, who'd come and see the cold water and Spartan conditions and say 'This'll make a man out of you, my son. It never did me any harm'.

"But then mothers began to have more of a say. They'd come along and want to know where the carpet was.

"Of course, our boarding conditions changed considerably - they really did get a jug of cold water to wash with when I started - but the whole attitude to education altered and today families want their children at home."

Which is where Tim Hickson will be spending more of his time from now on.

"It'll be strange at first. I'll miss the buzz, the people moving about, the pupils, my fellow teachers. It's a lovely environment and we are a big family here. It's been a wonderful place to work. It really has."

And who would have thought, all those years ago, as I elbowed my way through groups of ladies wearing flowery dresses and goofy smiles in search of the result of the 100 metres, I'd be writing his career valedictory.