My husband, Peter Griffiths, who has died aged 86, was passionate about education. He worked as an English teacher at Forest Hill and Upton House comprehensive schools in London in the 1960s, then as a lecturer in English at Furzedown College of Education for nearly a decade, and at the Ilea English Centre, which offered support to London teachers, between 1976 and 1978.
He then turned to television schools programmes, notably The English Programme, and worked at Thames TV (1978-92) and Double Exposure (1992-96). Before retiring in 1998 he spent a couple of years as a freelancer doing similar work.
He won an International Emmy for the TV film The Belle of Amherst in 1987, and received a Royal Television Society award in 1994 for best education programme (secondary) as director and producer of a documentary about the book My Left Foot. His programmes on The Caucasian Chalk Circle (1986) and Brighton Rock (1989) were Bafta-nominated.
Born in Harlow, Essex, a few months before the outbreak of the second world war, Peter was eldest of the four sons of Ken Griffiths, who served with the Grenadier Guards and later became a police officer, and Vera (nee Hodge), a school secretary, post office clerk and bar worker.
Peter grew up in Little Wakering and Great Wakering, villages in south-east Essex, and went to Barling school and Southend high school for boys.
He started a maths degree at Birmingham University, then switched to gain a teaching qualification at Goldsmiths College, London – where, as top academic student, he was awarded a £5 book-token, with which he bought 13 novels. He and I met during his training, and married in 1961. Peter carried on working as a teacher, while continuing his education with an English degree from Birkbeck College. Later he gained a master’s at the Institute of Education, and, in retirement, a diploma from the Institute for Heraldic and Genealogical Studies.
Peter was a committed socialist and humanist. In the 1970s and 80s, living in south-west London, he was secretary of the group Action for the Community of Tooting, the real-life version of Citizen Smith’s Tooting Popular Front; and part of a collective of progressive English teachers who published the magazine Teaching London Kids. For many years he was a member of the Communist party. Peter led the education group of the Britain-Cuba Scientific Liaison Committee and, in 1978, co-edited, with his brother John, Cuba: The Second Decade.
Peter acquired friends throughout his life, with whom he shared his love for art and the arts, jazz, theatre, world cinema, travel and birdwatching. He also loved cricket, often speaking of his first time watching first-class cricket in 1948, when Essex bowled out the Australian team’s greats in one day, but at the cost of 721 runs.
He died of a brain tumour and bequeathed his body to medical education.
Peter is survived by me, our two daughters, Melanie and Jilly, three grandchildren, Ellis, Sonny and Romilly, and two of his brothers, John and David. His brother Joss predeceased him.
