My father, David Lloyd, who has died aged 86 after living for 15 years with Parkinson’s, was a musician and peripatetic teacher in North Yorkshire who also ran a Saturday morning music centre in York.
David loved his teaching job with North Yorkshire county council schools, which included running wind bands, orchestras and recorder groups. He was held in great affection by his pupils, but promotion to administration left him utterly miserable. Taking early retirement in the mid-1980s, he applied to Leeds University, where he studied philosophy, and then history of art. “I’m a student, you know,” became his catchphrase.
Born in Norbury, south London, to Betty (nee Cornforth), and Frank Lloyd, a Fleet Street journalist, David, and his siblings, Nick and Brenda, grew up in complete freedom while their parents involved themselves in left-wing politics. Some of David’s best memories were from the village of Spetisbury, near Blandford Forum in Dorset, to where he was evacuated in 1940.
He took up the clarinet at 14, excited by the playing of Benny Goodman. When called up for national service he became a bandsman, and his love of marching music was later evident in his own teaching. On leaving, he won a scholarship to Trinity College of Music in central London.
David met Betty Lower at a dance, and they married in 1952. Betty worked as a teacher to support the family, before a move to Dublin in 1957 when I was one. My siblings, Ben and Frances, were born there. After working as a freelance musician, David’s job as first clarinettist of the Radio Éireann Symphony Orchestra (now the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra) left him with some longlasting musical friendships. Recorder playing enjoyed a revival in the 60s and David took it up with gusto, running recorder groups for local children in the sitting room.
The family lived “the good life”, beekeeping, maintaining a peat bog, DIYing, gardening and head-standing. Gardening was David’s biggest hobby outside music and he proudly maintained five compost heaps to the end. In 1967 the family moved to Tadcaster in Yorkshire, to the house they would live in for 50 years.
A loving and encouraging father and a humanist by nature, he always allowed his children to make up our own minds about life. The whole family would attend his Saturday morning music sessions.
In his last couple of years he became very emotional about injustices and misfortunes in the world.
He is survived by Ben, Frances and me, nine grandchildren, two great-grandchildren, and by Betty, who shared his love of camping, gardening, thrift and opera.
