My fellow adult education tutor Alan Petford, who has died of lung cancer aged 61, was an inspiring local history teacher who will be remembered by every student he taught.
Born in Saddleworth, now in Greater Manchester, Alan was the son of Joan (nee Cryer), a landscape gardener, and Ken Petford, a grammar school teacher. His uncle, Bob Cryer, with whom Alan would share an interest in vintage vehicles, became Labour MP for Keighley and for Bradford South.
Alan attended Hulme grammar school in Oldham, where he became head boy. He read modern history at University College, Oxford, and gained an MA in local history from the University of Leicester. Alan taught at Blackburn, Hipperholme and Lancaster grammar schools until he grew so disillusioned with the narrowing curriculum that he resigned. Forgoing a teacher’s salary, he boldly gambled on the financial insecurity of part-time tutoring, initially for the Workers’ Educational Association (WEA). It was a gamble that worked. Alan’s brilliance as a teacher meant he never lacked classes.
I first met Alan about 14 years ago. I was working in the School of Continuing Education at Leeds University, and Alan joined our team of tutors on the certificate in local historical studies. To teach alongside Alan was, I always felt, a privilege. He invariably brought in freshly discovered documents, always placing local evidence in its widest historical frame, his scholarly fluency gripping students’ imagination. Indeed, he was a genius in the classroom.
Alan’s specialism was architectural history, and to go on one of his field visits was the ultimate treat. On one occasion, shepherding students around Norwood Green, a gentrified former mining village near Halifax, he paused outside a house where the owner was clipping his hedge. Overhearing Alan evoke the local industrial past, the householder dropped his shears and joined in at the back of the group.
Although a fairly private person, Alan was an excellent conversationalist and always good company. Unconventional, he was the only person I know to champion both the WEA and grammar schools. Old-fashioned in his schoolmasterly tweed jacket, Alan was noticeably tardy in his conversion to computers and email.
In 2005, the School of Continuing Education at Leeds closed, as did so many university adult education departments, and with them the opportunities for mature students to study for part-time degrees. Alan himself continued teaching through the many local history societies and groups. At his hillside funeral in Saddleworth, the church pews were crowded with hundreds of those whom he had inspired with his teaching, generosity, and gentle genius.
Alan is survived by his sister, Helen, brother, Martin, niece, Jennifer, and nephew, Jason.
