Early starts, 3am finishes, the dedicated teacher who got top marks

THERE were 600 people at Tony’s funeral, and family and friends raised more than £1,000 in his memory. At the school where he taught for 36 years, there is now a beautiful monument, a globe and three benches dedicated to him in the grounds. But Tony’s greatest legacy is his students, who went on to achieve so much.

There are few teachers who can inspire generations of children in the way that Tony did. He once won the Good Schools Guide award for the best geography department in the country, and his exam results were regularly the highest in England.

I first met Tony when he moved to Southend. He was just out of teacher training college, a young man from Kinross with a love of running, and a sixpack to die for. He became my rock.

‘Wardy’, as he was known by children at the St John Payne Catholic School in Chelmsford, Essex, was phenomenally hard-working. He would be up until 3am, marking and preparing lessons, and then back in the school the next morning way before the pupils.

He organised legendary skiing trips and field trips to North Wales. After his death, we found scores of letters from students and parents thanking him — and even a life-size cut-out of him that one of his sixth form groups had made with their messages on the back.

He was a man who was married to his job but he was close to his family back in Scotland — he had three siblings, three nieces and nephews.

There was a group of us who used to meet for dinner, and Tony was always an interesting conversationalist. He was not a great cook, though, despite having the latest gadgets. He only ever used the oven for heating up ready meals bought on the way home from school!

When he turned 60 he told me he would retire at 65 — he felt teachers weren’t as much on the ball after that age. It is so sad that he was barely two years into that ‘plan’ when he suffered a stroke on an A-level field trip.

He briefly rallied and I really thought he’d make it, but it was not to be.

Sad as it was, I will never forget how the church was packed on the day of the funeral, so many former pupils from all over the country and the teenagers lining up either side of the path outside.

He always said to his pupils: ‘I’m giving 110 per cent to you — I expect 100 per cent back from you.’ And he did — and so did they.

TONY WARD, born December 29, 1954, died April 5, 2016, aged 61.