Obituary in the Barnsley Chronicle

http://www.barnsley-chronicle.co.uk/news/article/4373

 

Retired English teacher who had a way with words dies, aged 89

Monday 22nd August 2011

Victor Prooth had an unorthodox teaching style. The retired English master at Barnsley Holgate Grammar School, who has died aged 89, was once told a class of boisterous pupils was called 2b.

“2b?” he exclaimed. “2 bloody b?” His frequent use of ‘bloody’ could come as a surprise to 12 and 13-year-old boys. To hear the word in the playground or on the TV in the early 1970s was one thing. To hear it in the classroom from a teacher was another.

Mr Prooth had a way with words: perhaps his impressive rhetoric stemmed from his passion for William Shakespeare.

Like the bard, he believed the play was the thing. He organised many trips to performances by the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon. For some pupils, this would have been the first time they would have set foot inside a theatre.

He was born in London and spent two years in Canada when he was three. He failed his 11-plus because he had rheumatic fever in the run-up to the exam. He had another go and passed.

He read classics at Leeds University but his studies were interrupted by the Second World War. He served in the Far East and was promoted from lieutenant to captain. He received a bayonet wound while in Burma. When he returned to university, he decided to read English.

After a short spell teaching in Leeds, he worked at Thornes House Grammar School from 1952 until moving to Holgate in 1961.

In 1980, he moved to Singapore to teach at the National Junior College. On retirement in 1992, he lived in the South of France until about three or four years ago.Failing eyesight meant he spent time with friends all over the world. This included a stint in Chicago.Last October, he moved into a home for the blind in Hove where he died. His cremation was in the Sussex town. He leaves a former wife Renne, a son Charles and two grandsons.

One of Mr Prooth’s favourite Shakespeare sonnets – which begins ‘No longer mourn for me when I am dead’ – will feature at his memorial service at 2.30pm on September 13 at Essex Church, Palace Gardens Terrace, Kensington, London.

Details: charles@proothfamily.com