My friend Clive Mann, who has died aged 80, was a biology teacher who engendered lifelong affection in his pupils, while using his jobs as launching pads to fulfil his passion to study birds all over the world.
He was born during the second world war, in Colchester, Essex, to Kathleen (nee Coppin) and Richard Mann. His father, a coal porter, was enlisted and died in Palestine in 1946 after being shot, so Clive barely knew him and was brought up by his mother and his grandmother Selina. While attending Colchester Royal grammar school he joined the Colchester Natural History Society where he learned to ring birds and embarked on a series of bird-watching adventures, mostly by bicycle, with like-minded friends.
