My friend Bill Bradbury, who has died of cancer aged 73, was a long-term and prolific writer of letters to the Guardian. They were always leftwing and mostly moral in nature, but leavened by his acerbic wit.
As a teacher and headteacher for nearly 40 years, he was highly committed to his special needs pupils and he led two schools. Bill rapidly improved the first, Samuel Laycock school in Tameside, Greater Manchester, and achieved a perfect “outstanding in all areas” from Ofsted at the second, Rumworth school in Bolton. In recognition of this he was appointed a national leader in education in 2007.
Rumworth became a national support school, assisting the teachers of other struggling schools with advice and training, and Bill subsequently worked as a school improvement partner across the north-west up to his retirement in 2013.
Bill was born in Bolton, Lancashire. His father, also Bill, had been severely wounded while serving in Italy during the second world war and subsequently worked as a labourer for Bolton council. His mother, Lois, was a cotton mill worker.
After living in a prefab the family moved to a council house in Tonge Moor, Bolton. Bill passed the 11-plus and attended Bolton county grammar school, where he represented the school at a number of sports including chess. By the time he was in the sixth form he could clear his own height – over six feet – in the high jump.
He did well academically but surprisingly failed an A-level which meant doing a resit year. During this period he continued to play bass guitar in a band, and volunteered at a local special needs school where he found his vocation.
After gaining an economics degree at Salford University, in the mid-1970s he went to Liverpool University to do a PGCE under Jennifer Nias, to whose Other lives obituary in 2024 he wrote a heartfelt yet amusing addendum. After being observed giving a less than brilliant lesson, he reported that Jennifer had told him she’d seen worse classes, “but not many”.
In retirement Bill reformed and led the Tontos, the band he had played in as a teenager, but now as lead guitarist and vocalist. The band had some great nights, notably at OxJam (for Oxfam) in Nottingham.
Bill was both a socialist and a socialite and will be greatly missed by his family, many friends and former colleagues.
He is survived by his wife, June (nee Phillipson), also a teacher, whom he married in 1984, their two children, Will and Lucy, and three grandchildren, Louie, Minty and Sia.
