My brother Richard, who has died aged 82, was a teacher and writer, and a devotee of both history and football.
For 20 years from 1967 he taught history and Latin at Chislehurst and Sidcup grammar school. There he was much loved, particularly for his efforts coaching various cricket teams. He also ran the local Sunday league football team Abbey Wood FC, winning their division of the Kent Suburban Football League in 1981.
His lifelong love of football began in 1955 when our father took him to see Woking v Walthamstow Avenue. His lifetime total of games attended was an astounding 5,181, including all the England games in the 1966 World Cup. He was a regular contributor to the football magazine When Saturday Comes, and the Woking FC magazine.
Born in Pyrford, Surrey, to Joy (nee Muller-Roland), a wartime VAD (voluntary aid detachment) nurse and homemaker, and Charles Mason, an accountant, Richard boarded at Hordle House prep school in Milford-on-Sea, Hampshire, then Shrewsbury school in Shropshire. In 1962 he went to Exeter College, Oxford, to study classics and history.
After graduation he attended teacher training college, then joined Chislehurst and Sidcup school. A gifted teacher, he took inspiration from Robin Williams in his favourite film, Dead Poets Society.
In 1987, much to the surprise of his family, Richard decided to move to Bergamo, in northern Italy. He had studied Italian at school, and kept up his fluency through frequent travel to the country, and it was here that he found his true home, relishing stimulating conversation with his newfound Italian friends, and the successes of his new home team, Atalanta BC.
Initially he taught at a private English language school, then as a private tutor, and finally in the Italian school system before retiring in about 2008.
His life changed for ever with the Covid-19 pandemic. Bergamo was one of the worst-hit areas in Europe during the first wave of the virus in 2020. Confined to his fourth-floor walk-up flat for more than 1,000 days, Richard had a view of an endless parade of lorries carrying away the dead. This was also the start of his daily, and post-pandemic, weekly, “Letters from Italy” – an email to everyone in the family describing his daily life, and commenting on the wider world.
Unfortunately this confinement and lack of exercise took a toll on his mobility, and he exited the pandemic requiring a wheelchair. His brilliant mind was not affected, however, and he continued to draw from a lifetime of accumulated knowledge, both in conversation and letters.
Sensing his failing health, in November 2024 he returned to England, living in a care home in Reigate.
Richard is survived by a sister, Jane, two brothers, David and me, and seven nieces.
