Of A Mentor, Neighbour, Colleague & Friend.

My eldest son recently sent me the news of the death of his Y6 (fourth year junior in those days) teacher's death at the age of ninety-one. E (Mrs B to kids and parents) was someone I greatly respected. I’m not sure that many people had the opportunity to know her in quite as many roles as I had - a mentor, one of their children’s teachers, a colleague, a neighbour and a friend.

I got to know E in 1977, when I was her student on my final teaching practice at a junior school in the Home Counties. We had actually met briefly a few times some years previously when she was herself a student. She had been widowed early and took on a job as a school secretary at a school within walking distance of her home. The head teacher, one of that rare old-school breed of wise and kindly men, realised her potential and encouraged her to train for the profession as a mature student. It was purely coincidence that we both trained to be teachers at the same college, though we were not there at the same time.

Each of my three teaching placements were in the same town and I remember much more about being E’s student than I do about the other two schools. This was down to E herself. Not only was she an exemplary teacher who was respected among her colleagues, but also her pupils were very loyal from what I could see. She suffered no nonsense from pupils, but I don’t remember there ever being a storm around her. You know how some people seem to generate noise simply by occupying a space? Having worked in hundreds of schools over the years I spent in education I've seen plenty of those but E was not that kind of person and not that kind of teacher. She was very patient with me as I tried to cope with the class she was forced to entrust to my care, and I aspired to be as good a teacher as she was. Watching me at work with her precious pupils must have been a painful experience for her. Whenever I observed her at work she was always impossibly methodical. I've never mastered that grasp of any area of learning other than in music and I never managed her ability to control classes containing a significant proportion of pupils exhibiting challenging behaviour (again with music being an exception). At the end of that placement, she invited me to join the class trip to York, so I suppose I can't have been a complete disaster. The college didn’t generally allow their students to act as accompanying adults and, by definition, free labour on school trips, but I went anyway. E had planned a great week - walks round the city wall and through the historic city centre, trips to the National Railway Museum, the Jorvik Centre, the Castle Museum the Minster and a trip out to the coast to look for fossils.  Our visit coincided with the triennial performance of the Mystery Plays and I asked for time to attend one of the evening performances. I've written more about that experience here. E asked me if I would take four pupils with me. She had four in mind whom she specially thought would gain a lot from the experience. As always she wanted the best for her pupils. The plays were not on the week’s itinerary for the trip because she realised that the majority would prefer the evening activities back at the youth hostel. I wonder if the four remember that show? A student would not be allowed to take pupils unchaperoned these days with all the extra safety protocols that have to be observed.
I was in my third year of teaching and I'd stayed in touch with E. She had moved to another school across town, closer to her home and was the one who let me know that a job had come up in her school. I’m pretty sure she had a word with the head, which helped secure me the strangest interview I've ever had. I received an invitation to visit the school and after a tour and a chat, there being no other candidates in evidence, the head simply said, "Well, do you think you like us then?" Apparently that was his way of offering the job, although I had to ask to be sure! 

At that school, my respect for E as a most exceptional teacher grew over the four or five years I was there. She was certainly the first person I knew who taught yoga in PE! In many ways she was very reserved. She never offered gratuitous advice, but was always willing to give her time if asked. She specially seemed to have time for her pupils and I am sure she remembered something about every one of the children she taught. While there I moved house from across the town and was very happy to end up as E's across-the-road neighbour. She was a always a very private person, so we still saw more of each other at work. Her beautiful garden always put mine to shame though. She found children fascinating and was a great observer of child behaviour. She once told me how, from her kitchen window, she had watched one of my children spending ages examining a flower in our front garden. Apparently he turned it this way and that and it came off in his hand. E was very insistent that he hadn’t done it destructively and under no circumstances should I chastise him! He was just turning the flower to look at it more closely. She was always on the side of the child and she invariably saw a funny side to things and had an endless stock of anecdotes about teachers and past pupils, which she’d relate (often doing the voices too) though, to be fair I don’t know how much her pupils saw of her humour … It was hilarious listening to her and a former colleague at her previous school, hold conversations or tell stories pronouncing words the way children mis-spell them. That was a skill that took a lot of practice!

When I moved away from the town to take up my first advisory post we kept in touch. Whenever I passed through the town, which was not very often, I would try and make a point of visiting her. I valued being able to discuss professional issues with her and she proved wise counsel on other matters too. She also had the most remarkable memory. Even decades afterwards in her late eighties, she remembered not just the pupils she had taught, but most of the pupils in the school. I’ve no idea how she managed that, because I cannot remember seeing her about the school very much. She was usually busy in her classroom with a pupil, a group of pupils, marking work or mounting displays - we did all those ourselves in those days there being no such people as Teaching Assistants. I should have remembered more of the pupils than her because I often worked throughout the school with musical activities as well as my own class responsibility but, whenever I went to visit her at home, we’d reminisce and her memory put mine to shame. She would keep me up to date with the achievements of pupils and former colleagues she knew about and through her I was able to re-establish contact with one or two other teacher ex-colleagues. I knew her to be very compassionate and supportive from personal experience. 

One day when I was visiting her at home she dashed out of the room saying she had something for me. She returned with a pastel drawing that she had framed and kept from the time I was her student. Laurence, one of her pupils, made a pastel drawing of a scene from the story of The Firebird I’d read to the class as part of a topic on “fire”. She was amazed at the perspective and maturity of Laurence’s drawing. The picture had been hanging in her upstairs office for forty years and she had finally decided to part with it and wanted me to have it. The picture now hangs on the wall in my galley where I can be reminded of her every day - and how calm she was when my fire topic “science demonstration” threatened to set the classroom alight. I’m sure the cleaners were finding bits of black ash for days afterwards.

Laurence's pastel drawing of The Firebird 1977 

It is very sad the way things are at the moment. The plan is to scatter her ashes in her native Caithness when possible. Someone like E probably has many people who would want to remember her and celebrate her life. She would also be very likely to deny in terms that would invite no discussion that anyone could possibly be interested enough in her to want to say or write anything. Somewhere inside, though, I suspect she might be just a wee bit pleased.