Staff Biographies – Page 2 – Burton Grammar School History

Norman Jones

Burton Grammar School Master (Chemistry 1945 – 1979)

Norman was born in Swinton, an area of Greater Manchester which was best known for its cotton mills and Rugby League team. His early school days were spent at a local Junior school where his father was Headmaster.

At age eleven, he won a scholarship to enter Eccles grammar School where his various successes, which included colours for athletics, culminated in him gaining entry to Manchester University to read Chemistry.

jones01 When he graduated three years later, the second world war was quite well advanced and Norman’s knowledge was put to use overseeing the production at the Government Explosives Establishment in Drigg, south of Whitehaven.

After the war, Norman sought a post in teaching, and was successful in obtaining a post at Burton Grammar School, being appointed by the then Headmaster, Mr H.S. Moodey who was a Cambridge Chemistry Graduate and thus well able to assess Norman’s potential value to the school.

For the first years at Burton Grammar School, Norman lodged with the Binns family in Winshill. When his father began to suffer with his health, his parents moved from Manchester to Winshill and Norman moved in with them. Norman was though, soon to marry and move to Ashby Road where he was to remain for the rest of his life in a home still occupied by his wife, Sheila.

Initially, Norman worked under the departmental Head at the time, Mr E.C. Nicholson. This partnership enabled the department to flourish and many of their pupils performing with distinction in Open Examinations. In 1952 Mr Nicholson retired and Norman was promoted to take over the Chemistry Department. He was to hold this post for a further twenty-seven years until his eventual retirement.

sports Norman was also heavily involved with school athletics in his early days, having earlier in his life been a promising sprinter. He working together with Victor Roebuck, the appointed PE (Physical Education) teacher, not knowing at this time that the two of them were destined to remain on the Grammar School teaching staff together for many decades to come.

At school, Norman was a keen but fair disciplinarian. He would not tolerate indiscipline in the vicinity of so many potentially dangerous substances. He was known to speak his mind but also, to be warm-hearted and was full of goodness; being generously helpful to anyone he felt he could assist. Under his leadership, the Chemistry Department continued to achieve high standards, and many of Norman’s pupils gained entrance Scholarships or Exhibitions to the top Universities.

Labs Norman taught at both Bond Street and Winshill and had considerable input into the design of the new laboratories. The original benches at Winshill proved to be too large and had to be hurriedly modified before school was back in session.

Hugh Wood, the French teacher whose time also spanned Bond Street and Winshill, became one of his closest friends and colleagues. Together, they ran the school Scout Troop. Hugh also wrote the scripts for gang shows that were held for several years in Bond Street Old Hall in which Norman was to appear. Ballroom dancing was another of Norman’s interests and he and a mistress at the Girls High School ran dance classes, held in the Girls High School. He was also involved with the annual Christmas dances held there which provided many happy memories.

In the nineteen-sixties, Norman and Hugh developed an association with the London University School of Economics and became two of the representative educationalists to travel overseas to study educational systems in other parts of the World. This included multiple trips to different parts of America and Russia. A later trip to China was abandoned. On one of the trips to America, Hugh Wood had a fall and broke his femur necessitating a special seat on the plane home.

With many photographic slides of his travels, Norman presented a number of illustrative presentations to the Grammar School Sixth Form Society, as well as many outside groups and societies which were very much appreciated by those fortunate enough to attend. The experience had given Norman the yearning to travel and subsequently he became a very keen caravanner, travelling very extensively on the continent with his wife and young son during the long school holidays.

Norman found it very difficult to adjust after the changeover from the Grammar School to the comprehensive system. He was very bemused at how much time he had to spend traversing between the three amalgamated sites and perhaps the final straw came when he was asked to go down the hill to Ada Chadwick and take Needlework for the afternoon.

jones03 Norman requested early retirement and consequently retired in 1979. Post-retirement, Norman and Sheila led an active and enjoyable life together and made the most of their join love to travel. In what was to be his final year alone, he and his wife travelled to Spain, Africa, and South America. With only minor ailments, his death on June 10th, 2005 came as something of a sad surprise.

Norman is survived by his wife Sheila and his son Graham, who was himself a pupil of Burton Grammar School, and now works as a Consultant Anaesthetist at Preston Royal Hospital.

Robert James

james1 Robert James was educated at Newcastle (Staffordshire) High School. From here he went to the University of Durham (Grey College) where he gained a degree in French Language and Literature and Post-graduate Certificate of Education. He played cricket for the university for four years and became captain in 1970.

He spent one year in France at the Lycee Marceau, Chartres, as English assistant. This coincided with the student riots of May-June 1968. There was a general strike for a short time and Sixth Formers occupied the school, so effectively he had a month off work.

Bob also played cricket for Staffordshire and Derbyshire 2nd XI, played in North Staffs and South Cheshire League as both an amateur (Longton CC) and professional and was professional at the same club (Norton) where Sir Frank Worrell, Sir Garfield Sobers and Jim Laker had been professional. He also played hockey for Burton in the 70s.

His first experience of Burton Grammar School was as an opponent in a cricket match played at the Mill Hill Lane site when he was a pupil at Newcastle (Staffordshire) High School. He remembers being impressed by the view from the pitch over the Trent valley, but Burton itself seeming singularly unattractive, even to someone brought up amongst the smoke and grime of North Staffordshire.

It was therefore somewhat ironic that he was destined to spend five years as a master at the school and a further thirty-one on the same site at the Abbot Beyne School. By the time he retired, having been acting Head for a short while the previous year, he was beginning to feel like Mr Chips.

It was on a damp miserable Friday in March 1970, having made what seemed an interminable journey from Durham, that Bob had found himself being interviewed for the post of assistant French master at the school. A misty shroud enveloped the town, and the unique Burton aroma of malt, rubber and Robirch permeated everything. It did not make for a very welcoming atmosphere.

Having found his way from the station to the ‘Swan’ as a reference, he finally located the school. In fact, he arrived early for the interview, and was asked to wait in the corridor outside the office. Deputy Headmaster, Geoff Henton appeared but what he expected to be a preliminary interview turned into a pleasant chat about sport, especially rugby, as the school was agog at the prospect of the match the following day at Peel Croft – the Rugby County Championship final. It is a competition which no longer exists in these days of professional rugby, but it was in those days a major event in the sport’s calendar. Against all the odds Staffordshire, coached by one Vic Roebuck, had reached the final, a final which they were to win.

He was then shown around the French department and interviewed by Bill Gillion. To his surprise, he was offered the job. To Mr Gillion’s surprise, Bob asked for time to think about it. It was clear that here was a good department in a good school, but the thought of living in Burton on Trent was not appealing. The smell of Marmite was still in his nostrils.

Given the good prospects for a young French master, taking into account the age profile of the department, Bob’s motives for accepting the post were rather less career-orientated. He was captain of the cricket team at Durham University and a full fixture list beckoned for the summer. He didn’t want to waste time travelling around the country for interviews when he could be playing cricket!

James2 Having accepted the post, he started in September in this prestigious school which had just celebrated its 450th anniversary. The French department was well-managed by Hugh Wood, who managed to combine old-fashioned academic rigour with new-fangled methods such as a language laboratory and an audio-visual course in the first year. He was superbly organised and the syllabus set out exactly what was to be done. Hugh was always supportive and helpful. The other members of the department were Ellick Ward and Betty Radford, who like Hugh were approaching the end of their careers. Ellick was always jovial, often making a gift of his bottles of home-made wine to his colleagues.

Mr James also had to teach some Latin, a prospect which he did not relish, as he had studied the subject at university only as a subsidiary, and had not touched a Latin book for three years. Fortunately, John Long had only allocated him a small set of Lower Sixth pupils who had failed ‘O’ level because they had missed out the third year in order to take GCE early. They were therefore extremely bright and motivated because they needed the qualification for Oxbridge matriculation. The lessons took quite a while to prepare; he remembers spending ages sorting out the first lesson – a double – and running out of material half-way through. The lads however, sailed through the November re-sits and later went on to Oxbridge.

His first French lesson was a total disaster. It was with a first year group in the French room using the audio-visual course. After a couple of minutes the drive-band on the tape-recorder, a reel-to-reel machine which was at the cutting edge of technology at the time, broke. As one spool spun totally out of control, the desk was soon covered with yards of tape. He carried on as best he could without the machine until the bulb in the projector blew. Fortunately the lessons were only forty minutes long in those days and he somehow survived but hasn’t trusted technology since.

Living in Burton was something of the culture shock that he had feared. He rented a small bed-sit in an old house on Ashby Road owned by the Renwick family which is now an old people’s home. After four years in Durham and one in Chartres, woken each day by the sound of bells and looking out on to two of the most magnificent cathedrals in Europe, it was loud drone of beer lorries struggling up Ashby Road and the view of the water tower which now greeted him each morning.

Still, Burton had its compensations in the form of the excellent school. He was able to settle into the swing of things and was soon enjoying the work.

The staff was the usual mix of the experienced ‘doyens’ and the younger masters who definitely knew their place in the hierarchy. Amongst the former were, as well as Hugh Wood, Norman Jones, Harry Smith and Ron Illingworth. The latter was a luminary. During Robert’s first week in the school, a fearful first-former, waiting outside the Geography room, asked “Sir, is it true that Mr Illingworth throws boys out of the window?” Brave was the boy who would dare to put a foot wrong in one of Ronnie’s lessons. A shared interest in cricket meant that Bob and Ron got on well.

Harry Smith, of course, was already a legend. His teaching was inspirational and a steady stream of Sixth-formers made their way to the best universities in the country to read Maths. He also made his colleagues laugh with his deep fund of anecdotes.

All these men had great presence and were awe-inspiring to newcomers, but once Bob got to know them, they were the epitome of kindness and good humour. What struck him was the fact that many of the staff had great talents outside of their subject specialisms, whether it was in the arts or sport. Experts in their subjects they certainly were, but they were also well-rounded and cultured men.

Many of the younger staff were also gifted sportsmen and would willingly take on a team, which, in the case of rugby, meant three practices a week and a match every Saturday from the end of September to the beginning of March. The present generation of teachers, sadly, are too busy with one initiative after another to take on such tasks, and in any case, school sport nationally suffered enormously in the 80s, never to recover, despite the government’s finally waking up to the fact that competitive sport is not necessarily the evil which many progressives think it is.

Quite apart from the dedicated PE staff (the inimitable Vic Roebuck and John French) Alan Cure, a former pupil and Cambridge graduate, was a Staffordshire prop and trained the Under 15s. John Long, who could turn his hand with equal facility to rugby, tennis or cricket, took the under 14s in the winter and a tennis or cricket team in the summer. Colin Bagshaw could be seen every Saturday morning in the rugby season refereeing a match before turning his attention to cricket in the summer.

It was no surprise then that the school produced a steady supply of rugby players for the county and even the England teams. The Osman brothers, Peter Nelson and Pete Orton represented their country in the early 70s. Mr James remembers being asked by Geoff Henton if he would help him to transport some of the Under 15 team to a county match one Saturday. Half the Staffordshire side seemed to be from school. Two names that emerge from the mists of time as well as Orton were Tony Hair and John Sharpe.

Bob’s own small contribution to sport was to help John French with senior cricket coaching and take the Under 12s rugby squad. The latter was an innovation, and normally the Loughborough student would lend a hand. The first was John Appleby who became assistant head at Paulet. They were amazed at one early training session when a young lad started popping over kicks from both sides of the pitch with either foot. His name was Russell Osman, later like his elder brother Mark, to represent England Schools at rugby. He then found fame as an England and Ipswich Town centre-half. Other members of that side included Jes Redfern and Paul Green, who both made their mark on local cricket.

As far as cricket was concerned, lads such as Bob Lathbury, Graham Parkinson, Graham Milnes and David Marshall were all accomplished players, with the latter two enjoying considerable success after they left school with Bass and Burton CC respectively.

Bob was form master of one group of pupils for several years. He taught them French from 2B to ‘O’ level as well. He found them a pleasant group who worked hard (under suitably applied pressure!) and with whom you could share a joke at the same time. Names that spring to mind are Mark Turner, Paul Johnston, Dave Granville, Steve White, the Markeys, Chris Talbot and “Sam” Salt to name but a few. It was a class of over 30, much to be frowned on these days. The marking was time-consuming but the results were excellent. He had to admit to feeling very old when Chris Talbot’s son (along with Tony Di Gravio’s lad) turned up in his Citizenship group in his last year of teaching.

James3 The final year of the Grammar School intake produced some outstanding pupils both academically and on the sports field. Graham Shaw went on to read Vetinary Science at Cambridge and played hockey in an outstanding Abbot Beyne XI which included Mick Emery, Ian Jones and Steve Morrison. (John Mills, a future Scottish international, was also in that side, but he had arrived at the school after re-organisation.)

BGS ran smoothly. Bill Gillion was a typical grammar school headmaster of the time, paternalistic in his approach. Staff meetings were few and far between; the masters simply got on with the job. Bill’s deputy, Geoff Henton, was always calm and extremely helpful to young staff. Little did Bob realise that he would one day succeed him as Deputy Head. That was in 1984 after serving as Head of Department for the previous ten years.

Bob finally retired in the summer of 2006. David Mart had retired the previous year leaving Bob as the last staff link between Abbot Beyne School and Burton Grammar School.

Despite his original impression of Burton, Bob still lives locally. He is married to Yvonne with two sons. The elder son Mark did a degree at York before doing a Master’s at Loughborough before training as an accountant. Younger son Michael read Law at Cambridge. He is spending his retirement watching sport and doing some occasional sports writing (football and cricket) for both the press and websites, and coaching cricket at Rolleston CC and for Derbyshire U17s and other age-groups.

Ronald Illingworth

Burton Grammar School Master (Geography 1936-1973)

Ronald Illingworth was born in 1908 in the village of Carlton near Leeds; one of four children to a miner in Yorkshire’s industrial West Riding. He was successful in gaining a coveted scholarship to the Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Wakefield. Here, he enjoyed great success both academically and on the sports field. He played both cricket and rugby for the school first teams as well as for Yorkshire schoolboys.

From here, he gained a place to read Geography at Leeds University which he attended from 1927-30. His sporting prowess continued and he played rugby and cricket for both Leeds University and combined University teams.

One of his masters at Queen Elizabeth Grammar School lived near Chepstow in what is now Gwent and during the school holidays, out of school term, he returned home and took Ronald with him. It was through this relationship that he met Betty from that area who was to become his future wife.

Deciding on a teaching career, his first post was at Huish’s Grammar School in Taunton in 1931. This also turned out to be his ‘golden era’ for sport playing both cricket and rugby for Somerset. He opened the innings for Taunton for many years with Harold Gimblett who went on to be well known Internationally.

Illingworth In 1931, whilst playing for Taunton at Sidmouth, a hard-hitter, he hit a ball completely out the grounds. Having tea on a verandah on and seeing the ball heading towards him, a man had the presence to stand up and catch the ball to prevent it from crashing onto the table. After the game, so impressed, Sidmouth Cricket Club mounted the ball and presented it to the unwitting fielder. Ron was delighted to find that this is legendarily recorded in the clubs history.

Ron and Betty married in 1933 and their first son, John, was born a year later. Second son Hugh was born some seven years later.

After 5 years of teaching Geography at Huish’s Grammar School, Ron was interviewed at the Russell Hotel in London by Burton Grammar School headmaster, Mr W.D. Fraser, for the post of Head of Geography. He was successful and so in 1936, he moved to Burton to take up the post and, after a short period in rented accommodation, moved into the house on Bretby Lane which was to be his home for the rest of his life. Jake Hammond, a fellow teacher who also enjoyed a very long career at Burton Grammar School also lived close by.

Mr Illingworth quickly gained a reputation for being a stern but fair disciplinarian and naturally became master in charge of cricket.

He also soon established himself as a sportsman, playing both cricket and rugby for Burton, where his introduction caused some excitement. Burton Cricket club was a highly esteemed club in those days and Ron scored many centuries. During the Second World War ‘Holidays at Home’ activities, Burton played against a visiting celebrity side which included a number of International and Test cricketers, after a magnificent innings, Ron made the local headlines with the story ‘174 Runs Off Four Test Bowlers’. Another famous innings that made the press was when Burton played Repton; a boundary was needed from the last ball to give Burton victory and Ron, whose innings had outlasted a number of batsmen, yet another century. It is said that the ball was struck so crisply and with such power that, although never leaving the ground more than six feet, it was still well off the ground when it crossed the boundary. Ron certainly had the stuff that legends are made of!

Illingworth Ron was also an accomplished pianist and played at musical events and school assemblies for many years. His additional geographical activities also included field study groups to places such as the Lake District which he particularly enjoyed. Many of his pupils went on to enjoy distinction in both cricket and Geography,

He retired from Burton Grammar School in 1973 after 37 years service where, after decades of association, he for the first time discovered that he had exactly the same date of birth as Ellick Ward.

After retiring, he continued to lead a full life and took up golf to good effect. After some years, Betty’s health deteriorated and she died in 1991. Ron died in the following year.

His first son John, an ex-BGS pupil himself, read Mathematics at Oxford before a career with Rolls-Royce. His second son; Hugh, also went on to Oxford to read Chemistry before becoming a schoolmaster. Tragically, he and his wife were killed in a road accident in Kenya in 1968.

William Gillion

Headmaster 1958 – 1973

William H Gillion, more affectionately known as ‘Bill’, was educated at Paston Grammar School in Norfolk from where he was successful in gaining a place at Trinity College, Cambridge to read Mathematics. In 1934, he was awarded an Honours degree and he went on to gain an M.A.

Deciding to follow a career in teaching mathematics, he was appointed Senior Maths master at Katherine Lady Berkeley Grammar School, Gloucestershire.

For a six year period as a result of the war, William joined the Royal Navy. He started with coastal convoys but his mathematical prowess was soon put to better use training Officer Cadets in Navigation and Action Plotting and was given the rank of Instructor-Lieutenant. By 1947, he had been promoted to Instructor-Lieutenant Commander and in 1951, he became Head of Mathematics at the Turkish Naval College where he taught through am interpreter.

During interim periods and after the war, William spent time at Melton Mowbray, Tavistock Grammar Schools and Chatham House School in Ramsgate as Senior Maths master before finally arriving at Burton Grammar School, very shortly after it had moved from Bond Street to Winshill, to replace Horace Pitchford as Headmaster. The appointment partly came about through his association with Arthur Blake who was Director of Education for Burton. Another associate was in the same period appointed Headmaster of the other Grammar School in Burton – Dovecliff making for a very successful period in Burton’s education history.

gillionform Mr Gillion was tremendously keen as far as academic standards were concerned, and the achievements of the school were never higher than under his headship. In 1960 William, with the co-opted help of Harry Smith, inaugurated a new form 5X. This was a special class that was for the most gifted pupils of form 3A. It meant that group of them would study the fifth form syllabus, with the best available tutoring, in their fourth year to gain a year so that they would be able to study Open Scholarship, which went well beyond normal ‘A’ Level, in their year in the Upper Sixth rather than having to spend an addition year there. Bill’s dream of academic excellence was realised; in a single year, Burton Grammar School achieved fourteen Scholarships and Exhibitions. To put this in context, Repton School achieved eight in the same year!

Sadly there was strong pressure, both internal and external, to look after the lesser able pupils rather than the brightest so the exercise was never repeated.

A stout supporter of the Grammar School System and unable to accept the abolition in favour of a comprehensive school, William retired in 1973. After living in Rolleston during his time in Burton, post-retirement, he moved back to Stroud in Gloucestershire where he retained an interest in education by becoming Chairman of the Governors of Downfields School which managed to survive as a grammar schools.

In 1975, two years after he left, the school closed, and was turned into the Abbot Beyne Comprehensive School’s Evershed building. You could almost say therefore, that his career at Burton Grammar School spanned the time of the beginning and the end of the Winshill school.

His first wife, Frances, died of cancer, and Mr Gillion met his second wife, Edith, during his time in Gloucestershire. He finally died of a heart attack in his garden aged 92 and had a very large attendance at his funeral. William was survived by his wife and daughter, Daphne, who was a pupil at Burton Girls’ High School before leaving for university in Birmingham.

Victor Roebuck

Grammar School Master (Physical Education 1952-1972)

team Victor was born in Rotherham, Yorkshire in 1925. He started his secondary education at Maltby Grammar School, one of whose most famous sporting pupils was Freddy Truman.

In 1939, due to a family move however, during his second year, he moved to Stafford where he was transferred to King Edward School. He was ridiculed slightly for his Yorkshire accent but soon established himself due to his success in almost all sports.

roebuck3 In 1942, he attended Loughborough College of Athletics that has produced many of England’s finest athletes the likes of Sebastian Coe, David Moorcroft and Sir Clive Woodward. In his first year, he won the coveted ‘Victor Ludorum Trophy’ (to save you rushing to Google to find out who Victor Ludorum was, as I did, it is in fact, Latin for “winner of the games”). It was the first time that this had been awarded to a middle-distance winner and Vic went on to win it the following; the first time that this had been achieved too. He also won the ‘Freshers Trophy’ for Athletics and Swimming combined. During this time, aside from athletics, he played for the college rugby team and was cross-country captain.

In 1944, his time at Loughborough was cut short with a one year deferment due to the war and was to join the Queens Regiment of the army in Maidstone, Kent. He was soon commissioned to the North Staffordshire Regiment and posted to Northern Italy where he was to patrol the Yugoslav border against gangs of Yugoslav partisans and escaped German prisoners of war. On conclusion of the war and before being demobbed in 1948, Vic played for the Central Mediterranean rugby and athletics team.

After the war, he took the post of PE master at Dartmouth Street Secondary Modern School in Stafford. During this period, he finished his deferred year at Loughborough and enjoyed much sporting success including Northern Universities Welter-weight Boxing Champion and competed in the Midland Counties and British Universities athletics in 880 yards and One Mile events running against such legends as Roger Bannister (4 minute mile), and John Parlett (European Champion and Olympic 800m record holder). He also narrowly missed out in a trial for the 1948 Olympics.

His next post was at Preston Grammar School which was well known for sporting success and enjoyed the rare luxury at the time of a well equipped gymnasium.

Team In January 1952, Victor joined Burton Grammar School, Bond Street as Head of Physical Education. Prior to this, the music teacher took PE and exercises were very basic. Immediately, circuit training was introduced with targets to reach bringing a whole dimension that had previously been lacking. Victor was also to develop the existing athletics, boxing, swimming, cricket, cross-country and rugby supporting Jake Hammond, Harry Smith, Jack Adams and Norman Jones. His weekends however, were taken with rugby where as flanker (wing forward in those days).

He was soon to captain Burton and later Staffordshire. Later positions included President of Burton Rugby Club, Burton coach and Staffordshire coach. With a seven year, fairly unimpressive history, in 1970 under Vic’s coaching, Staffordshire were to win the County Championships for their only time as underdogs against favourites, Gloucestershire.

During the summer recess of 1968, Vic was contacted by headmaster at the time, Bill Gillion, and asked if he could teach English in the forthcoming year. Applying some of his coaching techniques, some were somewhat surprised but nonetheless delighted when Vic managed to give form 5b a 100% pass; a feat never previously achieved!

Captain In 1972, Vic left Burton Grammar School and became ‘Secondary Schools Advisor’ for the country borough. Shortly after, he was one of the first four staff coaches for National Rugby Union. A year later, in 1973, Vic spent a few weeks rugby coaching in Poland where he was a little surprised to find that the sport had such a following there. He was later to also spend a short time coaching in Denmark.

By the time of his retirement in 1989, Victor was County Education Inspector with responsibility for 72 schools in and around Burton where he encouraged schools to work together and work to a common timetable for 16 to 19 year olds which would allow them to move between schools for specialist subjects.

Now Among other sporting acknowledgements, Victor has been president of the Staffordshire Rugby Coaching Society where he gave practical help to both coaches and individual players; president of Burton Rugby Club as well as President of Staffordshire Rugby. He has also served as chairman of Burton Sports Advisory Council and chairman of Burton Rugby Club, where his membership now spans well over fifty years. There is now a suite named after him at Burton Rugby Club. Some PE teacher!

Victor lost his wife Sybil after a short illness, having not long retired as secretary of Edge Hill junior school. Together, they had two daughters; Sally, with a 2.1 honours degree in Sports Science and Administration, has her own business within the field of fitness and aerobics; Anna who gained an Art degree at Watt University, Edinburgh now with her own art business; and son James who, after being educated at Burton Grammar School, gained a degree in philosophy at York University, a post graduation in Education at Nottingham University and has taught English in numerous countries, including Dubai where he completed an M.A. in education. He is currently in Abu Dhabi.

David Mart

mart David Mart was born in Ashby before moving to Stapenhill where he attended St Peter’s Junior school. His father was a grocer and managed a store in the centre of Burton for a number of years before eventually becoming a manager for Fine Fare supermarkets and having responsibility for around 50 stores.

When David started school, with a birthday in July, he should have been one of the oldest in the class but it was decided that he should be able to cope with the work a year above and so started school early.

In 1956, David went to Burton Grammar School but, effectively a year ahead of himself, it sometimes proved a struggle to be the youngest in the class. His greatest love was Mathematics which he largely attributes to the inspiration of his maths teacher of the time, a certain Harry ‘Brab’ Smith!

David left the Grammar School in 1963 with a fixed mind that he was going to himself teach Mathematics. He qualified from Borough Road College in 1966 and was delighted some five years later to be given the opportunity to be a member of Harry Smith’s team at the Winshill Grammar School in 1971. He confesses to finding it a little daunting at first, going into the Staffroom with many of his old teachers who were now colleagues. It didn’t take long however, to feel like a member of staff rather than a pupil.

mart Mr Mart faced more of challenge than he at first perhaps anticipated. He had taken over from Mr James (Jomo) Moore whose lessons had been riotous and everyone was very considerably behind the expected syllabus and had grown comfortable with the culture that Maths was something of a free-for-all. To this day, my first lesson with Mr Mart provides me with a very clear memory of the school as he very successfully asserted himself where Mr Moore had failed. Maths lesons were suddenly very different with a necessarily increased workload to make up for lost time.

I can put hand on heart and say that this had a big influence on my life. Unknowingly, I had a reasonably strong natural ability for maths. The ‘O’ Level most had once dreaded turned out to be something of a breeze and I went on to take a number of mathematically intense higher education courses and fairly maths dependent Engineering career with good confidence. It is partly in gratitude for such influences that I felt that this website was worth doing. Thank-you David!

At the end of his first year, I can remember our class making the unprecedented gesture of clubbing together to purchase a bottle of wine to present to him. Ironically, David also has a clear recollection of this as the first gesture of the start of being accepted by pupils as someone who could help them learn if they were prepared to put in a little effort.

He also recalls his first 4A being academically challenging in a way that he thoroughly enjoyed and hadn’t experienced before; and 5C being equally challenging in a different way… but a great bunch of lads !?

mart He took time away from Burton Grammar School in order to get a degree at Nottingham University. During his time away, the school had undergone the transition from the Grammar School so when he returned, it was to the newly created Abbot Beyne Comprehensive school. This provides him with a fairly unique history with the school; seeing the changeover from Bond Street to Winshill School as a pupil and later, seeing the changeover from Burton Grammar School to Abbot Beyne Comprehensive School as a teacher.

Life, he recalls, was very different and demanded entirely new skills. He proved however, to be well equipped and made good progress in the new regime. He soon became Head of Year and, after going on to gain a Masters Degree from Nottingham, became ‘Pastoral and Academic Coordinator’ before finally being appointed ‘Assistant Headteacher’. He finally retired in 2005.

David still lives in Newhall with his wife, Gill of over 40 happy years. He has two children and three grandchildren who live in New Zealand.