John Reed – 25th August 2019
We are grateful to John’s brother Philip for his thoughts and memories kindly sent to us:
“John attended the King Edward Grammar School in Bury during the early 1960s. He then completed a degree in geography at London University after which he took up a teaching post at his old school where he taught geography in a department headed by Peter Smeltzer. After the demise of the grammar school John took a post at the County Upper where he remained until the health of his father deteriorated whereupon he became a full-time carer. On the death of his father he resumed his career at Debenham High before retiring to concentrate on building his Christian website [www.JRtalks.com], playing and watching cricket at his beloved Brockley Cricket club cricket, bird watching and assisting in a leadership capacity at his local Baptist church.
On the 25th August my brother John, “J.R.” to me, died gently at the Finborough Court Care home where he had been a resident since April. He had been struggling with mobility for some time which the NHS experts had diagnosed as spinal problems and as a result he underwent major surgery in November last year. There was no improvement in his condition and in February he received the diagnosis that he had predicted for some time that he had Motor Neurone Disease. During the last months of his life at Finborough court John was overwhelmed with a daily stream of loving visitors: family, old colleagues, sporting colleagues, many former pupils (mainly female) and of course his large group of Christian friends. He gained enormous comfort from his visitors. Every morning, up until three days before his death, he completed the Daily Telegraph crossword, made a full diary entry and enjoyed a cooked lunch. He also enjoyed watching a wonderful summer of cricket.
Towards the end of his life he was tormented that in his opinion his life had not been worthy or useful. An old colleague and birding companion, Tommy, who had been ever-present by his bed side, picked up on this anxiety and embarked on a campaign of reassurance, wheeling old pupils into his room in an effort to boost my brother’s failing self-esteem.
I shared John’s anxiety regarding the manner that his Motor Neurone Disease would finish him but his last day was peaceful and his death gentle. After a wonderful relaxing injection by a loving district nurse he slipped away while my other brother Paul, held his hand, prayed and sung alongside his bed. John’s funeral proved to be an uplifting occasion: family, old colleagues, pupils, sporting team mates and his many Christian friends turned up in droves and overflowed into the grave yard. The chapel roof was nearly lifted with the singing of the hymns and my brother Paul conducted the service with great sensitivity, skill and style. The wake was wonderfully irreverent with speeches celebrating the more worldly and earthy part of J.R.’s life being made by friends and old pupils.
Many affectionate letters have been written by old pupils. It seems my brother did a lot of black board rubber throwing but not always to maintain discipline! To demonstrate coastal erosion, he’d repeatedly throw the rubber at the class room door. During his cheroot smoking days another old pupil recalls her parents’ amusement when attending a parents evening watching the smoke of his recently puffed cigar billowing out of his jacket pocket!
As his coffin was about to be lowered into the ground J.R. would have been amused by the exchange that took place between two of his brothers. Responding to the birdsong emanating from the grave yard hedge Paul remarked, “That’s nice, a hedge sparrow!” To which his brother Peter muttered, “No a robin!” J.R. would have probably have argued that it was a wren.
John’s cricket club, his beloved Brockley CC, has suggested that a celebratory match be played in honour of John’s seventy-year involvement, it has provisionally been arranged for the late August Bank Holiday Monday.”
These are some of the memories that some of J.R.’s many friends shared with Philip:
• Andrew, “I remember whilst fielding in the slips catching a deflection off J.R.’s trilby.”
• Anne, “An explosive teacher, full of passion and vigour.”
• John, “Getting lost at Pioneer Camp – wide games – late suppers in the kitchen tent with tales from Bonzo .”
• Hazel, “Loved bird watching and hunting for wild flowers with John.”
• Vic, “Greatest cricket man of Brockley C.C.”
• Graham, “I’ll always remember the snail crawling up his trilby.”
• Mark, “Fierce and fair.”
• Elizabeth, “He had a great aim with the chalk and the blackboard rubber.”
• Julia, “He pretended to die during a school assembly, year 7 believed he had.”
• Anon, “Showed great compassion when one of his form, my daughter, returned to year 11, pregnant.”
• Anne, “As a boy he had a great aversion to soap and water.”
• Jean, “On a school trip to Pleasurewood Hills pupils came from all over the park to see him come down the big slide.”
• Kate, “He made cricket less boring.”
• Gemma, “My beloved geography teacher at Debenham High.”
• Mark, “Off stump Leb.”