My friend and colleague Paul Elms, who has died aged 76, was an educationist and philosopher who influenced many organisations’ approaches to teaching and learning, from Surrey schools to British Gas and London Underground.
Paul was born in Bucklow, Cheshire. His father, Alfred, was a secondary headteacher in Manchester (Paul became a lifelong City supporter) then Colchester and finally Leeds, where Paul attended Roundhay school. His mother, Celia (nee Gray) was a primary school teacher. In 1959, he went to University College London to study philosophy.
After graduating, he became a religious studies teacher in a London secondary school, before, in 1968, joining Brooklands Technical College in Weybridge, Surrey, as a lecturer in liberal studies, teaching craft apprentices on day-release courses. He then moved across to the college’s management school to work on residential programmes run for client organisations, the key one being for British Gas. I joined its staff in 1972.
Paul’s presence helped to transform the management school’s academic approach into one that encouraged students to learn from their own experiences. He worked particularly closely with headteachers in Surrey, relishing the chance to influence schools’ management practice.
He was also involved in training further education teachers at Brooklands. There he met Ann Tomalin, one of his mature students, whom he married in 1989.
When cuts hit Brooklands in the 1980s, Paul and I left to establish a small consultancy business, MDS, which provided management development and team-building services to organisations including the Co-operative Bank, London Underground, Aon and the NHS Purchasing and Supply Agency.
The philosophical and educational values from Brooklands, which Paul did so much to inspire, underpinned our work. He was challenging and provocative yet always kind, and possessed of great wit, intelligence and charm.
Football was a key interest outside work. He played for many years for a small club called Ridge Athletic in the Woking League and managed the side when his playing days were finished. He was also an avid, and at times obsessive, buyer and hoarder of old books, a Francophile, who owned a property in Dinard, Brittany, for more than 30 years, and an enthusiastic wine connoisseur.
He is survived by Ann, four children, Simon, Benjamin, Natasha and Emma, 10 grandchildren, and his sister, Lyn.
