My husband, David Larder, who has died aged 88, was an educationist, going on from schoolteaching to posts as a college lecturer. After promoting safety education for the Royal for the Prevention of Accidents (Rospa), he worked for a student welfare organisation.
Born in Boscombe, Dorset, to Rose Sque, a cleaner, and Walter Larder, a builder’s labourer and farm worker, he was educated at Brockenhurst grammar school in the New Forest and then the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. His youthful acting career was cut short in 1953 by national service with the Devonshire Regiment in Kenya during the uprising of the Land and Freedom Army there. Seeing it as a colonial war, he refused to use the propaganda term Mau Mau and after eight months’ service applied to register – successfully – as a conscientious objector on political grounds.
In 1958 he qualified as a teacher at Bretton College of Education in Yorkshire before teaching first at Darton school for boys, Barnsley (1958-60), then drama and English at Woldgate comprehensive school, Pocklington, Yorkshire (1960-65).
David then moved on to become a senior lecturer at Madeley College of Education in Stoke-on-Trent, where he set up one of the first degrees in drama, dance and film. In 1970 he took up a post at Trent Polytechnic (now Nottingham Trent University) as a senior lecturer in mass media. In 1975 he gained a degree in education at the University of Birmingham.
Two years later David took up the post of director of safety education for Rospa , where he had much to do with the introduction of the Green Cross Man campaign, involving the Darth Vader actor David Prowse, into schools.
Leaving Rospa in 1980, he became the manager at Mary Morris Student Housing in Leeds for 17 years, helping to care for thousands of international students from across the world, many of whom stayed in touch with him. He retired in 1997, when we moved to Harrogate.
David’s experiences in Kenya informed the rest of his life, and he was involved in peace activism, including as chairman of the North of England committee of the United Nations International Year of Peace in 1986. He was a passionate supporter of the Labour party, which he had joined at the age of 15.
In his spare time he was a keen amateur actor and director, and had small roles in shows such as the ITV drama Marcella (2016) and Mister Eleven (2009), as well as Sky One’s Dream Team. Above all he was a keen family man.
An early marriage to Gertrude ended in divorce, and David and I were married in 1975. He is survived by me, our twin daughters, Victoria and Nicola, his four children from his first marriage, Helen, Brendan, Duncan and Mary, 11 grandchildren, and his sister Mary.
