My mother, Marlene Cassidy, who has died aged 65 of cancer, was a teacher who showed exceptional care and attention to the students she taught and enthused them with a love of the natural world.
At Nottingham girls’ high school from 1984 onwards, she was a diligent and hard working geology and geography teacher doing a job that she loved. She was passionate about supporting the girls she taught to take advantage of the opportunities they had and, as head of sixth form, took great pride in helping students to take the next steps that were right for them. She was also a keen mentor to new teachers and a longtime union rep, and established links with other schools and universities in the city of Nottingham and internationally.
Marlene was born in Halifax, West Yorkshire, and grew up in Pecket Well, a village perched above the Pennine milltown of Hebden Bridge. She was the only child of Dorothy (nee Shaw) and Donald Tindall, who both worked in the mills, her father as a fabric cutter and her mother as a seamstress. Marlene’s love of the area continued throughout her life; she would regularly return to walk across the moors, visit family and friends and dodge the rain showers.
She met her future husband, John Cassidy, while they studied at Manchester University, and they married in 1980. They settled in the Lady Bay area of Nottingham, where they spent nearly 40 years.
Marlene retired in 2011 after a diagnosis of stage 4 cancer and took the opportunity to develop her skills in patchworking and silversmithing, welcome her dog Dusty to the family, and take on further volunteering.
She took great pride in the role she played in the establishment and maintenance of a local nature reserve on the Hook in Nottingham and was a longtime volunteer at St Barnabas Cathedral, where she was a committed member of the congregation.
She was a member of a patient advisory group run for the Nottingham hospitals, where she was keen to make sure that other women had an even better experience than she did. She always wanted to speak to friends and contacts who were worried after their own diagnoses and her experiences often gave them hope and practical advice.
She is survived by John, their two children – me and my sister, Maria – and two grandchildren.
