Some sad news to start 2021 with: I came across a message posted online just a couple of days ago, saying that Mr Marshall, my old form master and French teacher had died "recently". The details are a bit sparse and I've only been able to find out so far that his death wasn't Covid-related, and neither was it protracted. My best guess at working out how old he would have been is around 90.
French was far and away my best subject at school: I got a Grade 1 O-level and a Grade A A-level as well as a Distinction in one of the long-since defunct S-levels. The fact that I can still write, speak and understand French with a tolerable degree of accuracy is in no small measure down to the quality of the teaching I received, in particular the encouragement to aim for perfection. I'd have liked to have re-established some sort of contact with him, as I'd wondered periodically, on and off over the years, about what might have become of him, but I never succeeded in finding out anything and now it's too late, of course.
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