My friend and former colleague Peter Wall, who has died aged 69 from leukaemia, was a leading figure in developing media studies in colleges and schools in the UK, and wrote more than 30 key textbooks.
Pete was born in Nottingham, the only child of Ron Wall, an accountant, and his wife, Norma (nee Hopkins). On leaving Nottingham high school he worked on the Nottingham Evening Post for two years. Keen to leave home and study for a degree, he applied to Hendon College (now Middlesex University), north-west London, in 1968 to do a BA in English literature. Pete married Jane Kirk, his long-term girlfriend, in 1971 and the following year they moved back up north, where he got a job teaching at Wakefield College.
He fought to get media studies off the ground and make it accessible to young people from non-traditional backgrounds. In the 1980s he set up and ran a media centre, where he gathered professionals from a wide range of media backgrounds to inspire students. In the 90s he pioneered links with Sheffield Hallam University, allowing mature students to study the first year of a media degree in their home city (the second and third were taught at Sheffield).
Pete combined teaching and writing with working for examination boards and held several senior positions throughout his career, including chair of examiners for media studies for the AQA exam board. Teachers who met Pete at media conferences will recall his wit, his ability to inspire confidence and his intuitive understanding of what students were capable of achieving.
He had a healthy disregard for authority and did not always get the recognition he deserved. This, together with the growing corporate culture of further education, led him to leave full-time teaching in 1998 to concentrate on writing textbooks and developing teaching resources, until his retirement in 2013.
Pete was an expert mentor and even recently, when he was in hospital, he was offering education and career advice to grateful nursing staff.
He is survived by Jane and their daughter, Zelda.
