Obituary JimMilburn
educationalist and publisher b July 24, 1924 d December 29, 2021
Jim Milburn, a teacher fondly remembered for his love of books and the spoken word, has died aged 97.
An influential publisher, books and the value of education were at the heart of everything he did.
In 1957, Milburn, with Hugh and Beverley Price, and hiswife, Barbara, set up publishing house PriceMilburn. The company became an international success, helping generations of children to learn to read and love books.
A 2005 interviewwith Jim and Barbara, who was also a teacher, summed up his philosophy about education. Barbara described how her students atHutt Intermediate wrote to their favourite author, with some choosing Roald Dahl.
She was surprised to receive a letter, saying Dahl was far too busy to waste his time replying to children. Jim wrote back saying he was also a publisher, and that the children were prospective buyers and deserved a reply. He got an apologetic response and the children got a detailed reply.
‘‘Dear children, far across the sea,
How good of you to write to me. I love to read the things you say When you are miles and miles away.
Young people, and I think I’m right,
Are nicer when they’re out of sight.’’
Jim, by then aged 80, and happily using computers, told the interviewer the bestway for children to develop a broad vocabulary was to read books.
‘‘If you areworking on a machine, you are getting a limited vocabulary. Children may end up with a very strong technical vocabulary but not be able to express ideas and emotions.’’
One letter that he was very proud of was from a girl he had taught at Maidstone Intermediate in Upper Hutt. He recalled entering a class where the children were supposed to be reading silently. A 12-year-old was doodling and told him she did not like reading. He invited her to join the library group he ran as a discussion forum on books and lent her a copy of Tom’s Midnight
Garden, by Philippa Pearce.
When the girl later went to school in the South Island, she sent a letter thanking Milburn for encouraging her to read. ‘‘Here, no-one seems to care, you just get a book and you are expected to read it and no-one asks what it was like.’’ As well as returning the book, she sent her old school uniform, askingMilburn to sell it and use the proceeds to buy books for the school library.
James Dalton Milburn, QSM, was the principal at Raroa and Maidstone intermediates, and Avalon School, as well as deputy principal at Silverstream.
One of his early pupils at Maidstone was Nick Barnett, who would go on to be a senior subeditor at Stuff.
In 2011, he wrote to the Upper
Hutt Leader fondly recalling the impact Milburn had on him as a pupil. ‘‘We had book-related quizzes; we joined and regularly ordered from a book club; our teachers read to us from good books; and the library was the school’s physical heart.’’
Milburn, he recalled, encouraged him to read everything from Lord of the Flies to Tintin and Asterix books. ‘‘It is not until now, 40 years later, that I realise just how important and lasting that kind of commitment from teachers can be.’’
Milburn was born to Thomas and Ada in 1924. His parents, who had migrated from Manchester in 1912, settled in Petone and he lived there until hemarried Barbara in 1955.
Although his family was not wealthy, there was always reading material in his home, often borrowed from the Petone Working Men’s Club library.
He read avidly as a child, whether it be comics, boys’ annuals, or children’s classics like
Alice in Wonderland.
His childhood was a happy one but he did not enjoy Hutt Valley High School. He later told friends that ‘‘secondary schoolwas horrible – amiserable time’’.
Short by stature, he felt he did not fit in at a school where being in the first XV was all that counted. It was perhaps there that he got the dislike of bullies that would be a hallmark of his teaching career. After leaving school at 17, he took a job at the Inland Revenue Department, and it was only by accident that he became a teacher. A young female colleague applied to teachers’ training college and he hoped to impress her by applying too.
The war, however, interfered with his plans, and he spent three years in the air force, some of it in the Pacific, before returning to teachers’ college in 1946. At Victoria College, where he was a champion debater, he completed an MA. His teaching career got off to the worst possible start at Hutt Central. After going on a professional development course, he found his classroom was empty. When he asked the principal where his pupils were, he was told they now had a ‘‘real teacher’’ andMilburn should consider himself the school gardener.
He would go on to be a highly respected principal, much loved by his former pupils.
It is Price Milburn publishers, however, for which he will be best remembered. The company stemmed from a book he wrote on public speaking in 1957 but for which he could not find a publisher. University friend Price offered to help and PriceMilburn was born.
It went on to become one of New Zealand’s most successful publishing houses, supporting authors such as James K Baxter, Bruce Mason and Roger Hall.
But with Beverley Price writing children’s books, under the name Beverley Randell, it increasingly focused on educational books, encouraging children to read. Their learn-toread and storybook list ran to more than 400 titles, all edited or written by Randell, with sales running into the millions.
While the Prices handled the editing and production side of the company, theMilburns handled sales and distribution from the garage of their Silverstream home.
Through all these intensely busy years, Milburn worked as a full-time teacher, teachers’ college lecturer, school inspector and as a principal.
Murray Gadd, who taught with Milburn and is now an education consultant, says his impact on the education scene in Wellington was immense.
‘‘He was beloved by those of us who taught under him andwas widely recognised as the senior principal of the Wellington area, with a daunting intellect and a quick wit.’’
Books, he says, were at the core of everything Milburn did.
‘‘One of the reasons that Jim enjoyed teaching so much was that it enabled him to indulge his love of books and reading through inspiring others to read andwrite just as he liked to do.’’
Although his death notice described him as a ‘‘publisher extraordinaire’’, Beverley Price says his greatest achievement was as an educationalist. He had an extraordinary passion for books and a desire to inspire children to share his love of the written and spoken word.
– By Nicholas Boyack