Norman Duerden

Ribbleton Hall County Primary School 

We all remember those teachers who made a difference in our lives. They generally treated you with respect, were fair-minded and encouraged you to enjoy and engage in the world around. Norman Duerden was my class teacher in the final year at Ribbleton Hall County primary school and he had all these qualities and more. He engaged us in activities that no school curriculum would ever throw together and he regarded the 3 Rs merely as tools for discovering and inspiring our real interests. He was comfortably at ease with himself in his green corduroy jacket with leather elbow patches, brown shoes, and V neck pullovers in natural colours as befits someone who was a naturalist.

I found a recording of him on Radio Lancashire the other day talking with great authority on wildlife in a  Ribble Valley and Beacon Fell broadcast, 1976.  It was pure nostalgia, the familiar intonations and genuine deep knowledge from a lifetime of interest in the natural environment. He had progressed from primary teaching into lifelong learning as the Vice Principal at Alston Hall College of Education.

Our year group was large with over 150 children and was divided into 4 classes. Mr Duerden, as the senior teacher in the school, took the A class which had 36 pupils with 23 girls and 13 boys. Mr Duerden introduced himself and his blackboard ruler; it was a yard long and he called it long Tom.  He explained that it was a multi-purpose implement which doubled as deterrence against bad behaviour and that he hoped it would remain just that. It did get an outing when Michael Cook transgressed just once too often but it was probably less threatening than Michael's mum. Our previous class teacher, a Mr Partington from Blackpool, was a suave, sporty type with a moustache. He had a Standard 8 car and a size 8 Dunlop tennis shoe that he kept on a shelf by the door and used fairly frequently in subjecting boys to corporal punishment.

I was reminded of Mr Duerden this summer when I was browsing in an Ambleside bookshop and discovered that he had published books on the Lake District and Scottish birdlife as well as contributing to books on the Yorkshire Dales. It all fitted so well with the curriculum that he provided for us. We knew it would be a different sort of class experience when he announced during the first week of term that when we finished our arithmetic or writing assignments we could go out on a nature walk or play cricket in the large school playground.

He provided enough exercise to keep the hyperactive amongst us calm in the classroom. He seemed unperturbed about seizing the moment and supervising, without any support staff, 36 pupils on trips and jaunts with no risk assessment to diminish the pleasure of the immediacy. He would take us into Red Scar Wood and show us the diverse birdlife including sparrow hawks, explain the origin of pits (ponds) in the boulder clay that held greater crested newts and show us the different butterfly species at the fag end of the summer.

Unlike other teachers who divided the class into two genders, he would involve everyone in everything. When he bowled at cricket the speed and spin on the ball would accommodate the different abilities of all children, both the girls and the boys. He was not a soft touch and banned me from batting after I broke the caretaker's kitchen window for the second time; the bungalow had been foolishly built at mid-wicket. No one resented these punishments as they were usually appropriate.

At break time one of the class would be dispatched to the mobile van to buy him a Wagon Wheel and on the days he was on yard duty - yes teachers used to do all these things - he would turn a blind eye when we cockled over the 6 feet high railings to retrieve balls from the out of bounds streets surrounding the school. How else could we continue to play our ball games? Through these discrete indiscretions, he won the respect of all pupils, we knew that he would turn a blind eye. He worked us hard over the winter for the eleven plus but still made school a place to enjoy with all sorts of random outings and trips to break the monotony of classroom boredom. He took us on a wet December morning to watch Harold McMillan, the prime minister, open the M6 at Preston, it was the first stretch of motorway in the UK. The PM's lumbering Daimler was in a convoy of black police cars and looked more like a hearse than a limousine.

The year culminated in a week's holiday to Newlands holiday fellowship in the Lake District. It was glorious in June and I still have vivid images of every day. Our parents paid a deposit and then half a crown a week throughout the school year into the holiday fund, it came to £4 17s 6d for the seven days but we got a refund of 10s 0d. This was greatly appreciated by parents as the summer holidays started and school uniforms for secondary schools were required. No wonder parents thought they had 'Never had it so good' as Harold MacMillan quipped in the election of that year.

We were introduced to red squirrels, launches on Derwentwater, hill walking on Hindscarth and Dale Head, feeding trout in the beck that runs alongside a Grasmere cafe and climbed Orrest Head above Windermere to witness the glorious Lakeland landscapes. We built a bird hide to watch the birds in a hedgerow, visited Keswick and had a barbecue on the shores of Derwentwater. Mr Duerden introduced us to Vivian, the man who opened the gate at Ashness bridge with a jay sitting on his shoulder. 

Throughout the week we were given the freedom that children require and we were treated as responsible young people. He inspired 50 or so Preston children by showing us the magic that is the Lake District and the importance of looking after the park for the benefit of others and future generations. Like the best of teachers, he taught us how to discover and enjoy the mesmeric scenery and to appreciate wildlife. The experience was certainly the highlight of my school education.

As the baby boomers, we were privileged to receive public service excellence that is talked about but not often achieved in 2010. Norman Duerden managed it because he had intrinsic values that should be at the core of a public service ethos but are lost today as services are contracted out and by the tangled web woven by the regulators and inspectorates.

Norman Duerden passed away in January 2013 and I have posted an appreciation at Norman Duerden, FRSA,1919-2013

Vale of Newlands

Vivian Fisher at Ashness Bridge

Leaving home for Newlands, June 1959