I grew up in Hyde. This is a town that is still associated in the public‘s consciousness, if at all, with the Moors Murders in the 1960s and the more recent grisly case of serial killer Dr Harold Shipman. Instead it should really be mentioned in the same breath as cotton mills, the Chartists, Victorian philanthropy, noble municipal buildings, a thriving market, friendly unpretentious people, traditions in sport and the arts, and an enviable location on the edges of both the city of Manchester to the west and open Pennine hills to the east. I left the town at the age of eighteen but there is not the slightest doubt that I would ever consider myself to be anything other than a Hydonian.

I studied French and German at the University of Nottingham, where I also trained as a teacher at the School of Education under the inspirational professorship of the late Ted Wragg.

My teaching career took me first to South Craven School in North Yorkshire, then on to Saltus Grammar School in Bermuda and latterly to Milton Abbey School in Dorset. I feel very fortunate to have landed not only in good schools but also in beautiful parts of the world.