My mother, Mary Sparks, who has died aged 82, was a much loved and inspiring teacher in Manchester schools. From an early age, she aspired to be a teacher, and started training at Sedgley Park college at the age of 18, going straight into work two years later; she used to joke that she was charged half fare on the bus when she first started, as the conductor thought she was one of the pupils. Her first teaching post was at one of the schools she had attended, the Hollies convent grammar school for girls, in Fallowfield. Later, she taught for a quarter of a century at St Catherine’s school, Didsbury.
Daughter of Kathleen (nee Lenaghan), a nurse, and Frank Worsley, a motor mechanic, Mary was born in Didsbury, the eldest of three children, and lived there for the rest of her life. She grew up in straitened financial circumstances, but in a supportive home where her mother had a strong belief in the transformative effect of education.
At a dance at the Holy Name church, All Saints, in 1958, she met Henry Sparks, who worked for the electricity board. They married in 1961 and together ran a small shop in Moss Side while Mary continued to teach. She stopped working full-time in the mid-60s to raise my sister, Kate, and me, but she continued part-time at night school, teaching English as a second language.
Mary’s full-time career resumed when she became reception teacher at St Catherine’s, Didsbury, in 1972, and she remained there until her retirement in 1994. My sister and I remember her taking clothes and sometimes food into school; remembering her own childhood she always did what she could to help pupils who were struggling.
St Catherine’s and her Catholic faith were a huge part of her life. She was fully involved in parish life, singing in the choir, running the book store and helping at charitable events. Mary had numerous and varied interests: alternative medicine, family history, meditation, travel, French and personal finance. She was an avid reader and a great supporter of public libraries, especially Didsbury’s Carnegie library.
Mary is survived by Henry, Kate and me, three grandchildren, and her sister, Anne, and brother, Anthony.
