YSJ Families: Geoff Cooper
In our first YSJ Families installment, we hear from Geoff Cooper who studied with us in the late 1950s. From the luxury of college life to reflecting on his time with us after his granddaughter graduated in 2020, sometimes teaching really does stay in the family!
From the RAF to ‘pure luxury’
In September 1958, I was privileged to step down from a train at York station to begin my studies at St John’s College, as it was called then. I shared a taxi to The Limes with a fellow first year student RPB Browne (Raymond) to get settled in.
I had recently returned from National Service overseas in the Royal Air Force. I was mainly posted in Cyprus at the time of ‘the Troubles’ and like many other servicemen who saw time in Cyprus, I was awarded the young Queen Elizabeth’s GSM (General Service Medal) for service in a place of potential danger. During my National Service I was also briefly posted at RAF Habbaniya in Iraq, RAF Muharrak in Bahrain, RAF Sharjah and RAF Salalah in what was then called the Trucial States (now the United Arab Emirates), and RAF Steamer Point in Aden, Yemen.
I’m proud to wear my medal on special occasions like Remembrance Day, Battle of Britain Day or Armed Services Day. Born in 1937, I’m old enough to remember my father’s war time service in the RAF too.
After serving in the forces, St Johns was pure luxury. No more marching, no more rifle drill, no wet days at the rifle range, no more rotten food in the mess tent – and no more living in a tent! That said, service in the RAF was a time of massive personal growth and education for me and many others.
I stayed at The Limes for my first year – wonderful grub – and then spent my second year living in college in New Wing. The food was pretty good in college, but nothing on Limes! In both years of College, I sang in the Chapel choir and after only two years, they then let us all out into the world of unsuspecting schools and pupils.
A teaching career
Impatient for promotion, I had 3 appointments in the first 8 years of teaching. By the time I was 30, I’d been appointed as head at a very old, very tiny, but lovely, village school. I’d also got married to a fellow teacher and we were expecting my first child. Fast forward a few years and we’d had two further children and I was offered the deputy headship of a newly formed middle school. Later, still with burning ambition and children approaching teen years, I was offered the headship of a rival, larger middle school in a neighbouring town.
This headship brought massive challenges as school life changed. Not only did the school need an almost total remodel and rewire in a classic open veranda building, but we had to build a new wing to unite a split site. There was also the introduction of ‘Baker’ hours, SATs tests, the National Curriculum, and difficulties in appointing my own staff to the school.
Flying the nest
When I reached my late 50s, the children deserted the nest and I took my pension before migrating over to the inspectorate. Part of that, briefly working as an additional inspector with HMI, was qualifying as a Registered Inspector. In that role, I led the inspection of more than 100 schools and participated in the inspection of 100 more, finally laying down my Ofsted pad aged 71!
Now, in my second marriage and living in a senior living complex in Spain, I love swanning it in the sun. But unfortunately, I am getting to know the local teaching hospital rather too well. One cannot have everything, and frailty means I am unable to attend reunions with my peers.
The family tradition?
There is teaching in my family’s blood. My mother was a teacher and so was my first wife. Both were highly respected professionals, and I suspect, better in the classroom than me! Of my three children, two are headteachers in and around York. My younger daughter escaped teaching and now lives in California as a highly respected professional in her medical field.
I met my second wife ‘on the job’ because she was also a village school head and later, an additional inspector with Ofsted. A nephew is principal of a huge school in Abu Dhabi.
My granddaughter, Maisie, is also part of this family tradition. I take no credit for her picking York St John, but I was delighted to be told where she was going and that she was an education student. She lives with her headteacher father and mother in York, and I’m sure she’ll make a great teacher, like most of our family!
A changing YSJ
Maisie will be very aware of the massive changes at Lord Mayors Walk since I left in 1960. We were about 100 in a year group – and all men – although the great and late lamented Joe Copping (who was my primary education tutor) tried to ensure we knew what girls were through various social activities and introductions. Today St Johns, now a university, has changed a lot.
Since leaving St John’s, I’ve lived a varied life and spent a lot of it learning. I studied with the Open University when it was still new, then was sponsored by my local authority to study at Newcastle University too. Most recently, well after retiring, I went back to the Open University to do a Creative Writing MA.
I look back on my York time with great affection. I was not a particularly good student – did enough to get through. But I loved being a cox in the Boat Club (I was seriously underweight on leaving the RAF) and trying to avoid Canon Lamb when dressed in tennis whites. He did love to win.
I have always tried to live up to the Latin motto: Ut vitam habeant et abundantias.
Floreat Ebor
If you have a family connection to York St John or our founder colleges, please get in touch – we’d love to share your connections to us!
