John Aubrey Akroyd (Staff 1974-92)
Died on 16th November 2019
It is with sadness that I write about John Akroyd, but it is also a privilege to do so in his memory.
I first met John when he came to Queen Mary’s in 1974 when I was in the 4th form as it was then called. He spent the rest of his career at QM, retiring when he was 62. He only taught me in the 6th form. Two things I especially remember: his love of classic French literature (he taught us Racine’s Phèdre); and he got me to spell correctly because of the marks he lopped off. I kept in touch with him over the years, and lately visited him once a year around his birthday. Sadly he was so frail last summer that he was not fit enough for me to visit.
John was a highly cultured man. He enjoyed the theatre, but his great love was music. That is how I and others got to know him outside school. In particular, he imbued Lloyd Allington, Richard Jones and me with a love of classical music through visits to many concerts, choral evensong in Worcester Cathedral, and occasional soirées at his flat. The memory I have of his first flat in Lichfield Street is of frequent buckets to catch water coming through the leaking roof, despite it being owned by the school.
He was generous, and cultural visits often included lunch or dinner. He continued this support for the families he knew after retirement.
Walsall was a good place for him, with easy access to Birmingham for CBSO and other concerts, and to other venues in the West Midlands. Southport, his last home, had the advantage that it was near to the musical centres of Manchester and Liverpool. He was for many years a member of the Friends of Cathedral Music and The Hymn Society, and treasurer of each for a time.
John visited me once at Cambridge just after Easter, sensibly wrapped for the usual East Anglian weather in several jumpers and a thick coat. However, it had suddenly gone hot. His comment was: “Let me never again say that Cambridge is always cold.”
Technology was not his strong point, to put it mildly. He never had a television or mobile phone, and was found once with a tin can and can opener looking haplessly and hopelessly at it.
John was born on 7 June 1930, and he died on 16 November 2019 aged 89. He spent most of his years before going to university in and around Southport and Crosby, and also Dunstable. He read French at St Edmund Hall, Oxford. Having done National Service, he taught French in various schools, one of his favourites being Bury Grammar School, before coming to Queen Mary’s. He stayed in Walsall for a few years after retirement, and then moved to Stirling Court, Churchdown, Southport, where John spent the last twenty years of his life. One highlight of each year was his visit to the annual festival of opera and early music at Ambronay, near the French/Swiss border.
John’s funeral and memorial service took place on 3 December last year. Stuart Holtam, Tim Swain and I attended. I represented Lloyd Allington and Richard Jones from my years at school, and Margaret Anderson, the wife of John Anderson, Head of History and Second Master at the school for many years. A colleague and a pupil from previous schools were also there.
John had been a devout and faithful member of the Church of England, having became a Christian about the time he was at Oxford. He planned his funeral and memorial service in detail, including the hymns, music, and bible and other readings. The funeral and burial took place at The Much Hoole Woodland Burial Ground, a consecrated meadow setting about 15 miles north of Southport. The memorial service was held shortly afterwards in St Cuthbert’s Church, Churchtown. John could until recently walk there from Stirling Court. The services were led by a retired priest who also attended St Cuthbert’s, and whom John had always sat next to at the far rear of the church, and whom he had got to know well.
He will be remembered fondly. May he rest in peace and rise in glory.
Jonathan Turton (QM 1971 – 1978) 14.04.20