Past pupils praise top class teacher

Retired teacher Geoff Hadley got top marks from pupils he taught 50 years ago when they gathered for a reunion.

Mr Hadley, aged 81, taught at St Margaret's CofE Junior School in Hagley Road, Hasbury. His class of 1959 believe it was his inspirational style of teaching which helped most of the 46 pupils to pass their 11 plus exam.

A past member of local amateur dramatic groups such as Halesowen Operatics Society, Mr Hadley from Ombersley Road, said: "I'm very flattered by what people say. I always wanted to be a teacher.

"I did pass the entrance exam for St Edmond Hall in Oxford only I couldn't go because my parents couldn't afford it. That was when I made my mind up to be a teacher."

Mr Hadley attended Halesowen Grammar School and later did a French degree at University College Leicester.

"My father Harry worked a lot of overtime at Stewarts & Lloyds in Halesowen to keep me at Halesowen Grammar School," he added.

"The grammar school teachers were very good, some of them just lectured but others guided you and treated you as individuals and that's what I based my teaching on.

"I had a brilliant Latin teacher who kept a bookshop in Halesowen and I didn't know until after I left the grammar school that she had never been trained in Latin."

Mr Hadley is fluent in French, German, Spanish, Italian and Flemish.

Among those at the reunion at Hasbury Conservative Club, Blackberry Lane, was classical pianist Michael Round dubbed the "brightest boy" in the class by his peers.

Mr Round, 61, now of London, said: "Geoff was very inspiring, whatever he did it sank in, he made learning vivid and accessible."

Journalist Graham Hart, also 61, from Bromsgrove Road, Hunnington, Halesowen, said: "I remember Geoff having a terrific sense of humour. He never had to come down heavy handed."

Canon David Rogers who was at St Peter's Church in Cradley between 1979 and 1990 and is now in Redditch, recalled how Mr Hadley organised a trip to Belgium and said: "To take us raw Black Country children to a foreign country was quite something."

Retired lawyer Roger Billingham, of Woodridge Road, Halesowen, said: "Geoff was quite simply iconic. He broke the mould when it came to teaching."

Mr Hadley taught at the school, now Hasbury Primary, for 36 years.