Barbara Bingham was Clitheroe Girls’ Grammar School

Barbara and I enjoyed almost 20 years of happy co-operation at the two Clitheroe Grammar Schools, which proved valuable to us both.

In the early years she found it sometimes helpful for me to fill in details of the local scene and personalities, and later we travelled together to the seemingly endless series of meetings on secondary school reorganisation, often sharing our joint lack of enthusiasm for any of the schemes on offer!

Plans were already well advanced for our special commemoration service to celebrate the 425th anniversary of the school’s foundatuon when a disastrous fire gutted St Mary’s Church. Barbara was quick to respond with her offer for us to use her school as an alternative venue, a timely offer which proved very successful.

Over the years, Barbara became a close personal friend to me and to my wife, Mollie, who, as a member of the Clitheroe Social Services team, could sometimes provide us with valuable background knowledge of a family in trouble.

We enjoyed Barbara’s keen sense of humour, her genuine concern for others, and her lively interest in the subsequent careers of the girls she had known and taught.

Once her mind was made up, she was firmly decisive and did indeed, as you say, “command respect” but equally “very fair and patient.”

Popular? Perhaps the answer came one year on April 1st, when she was greeted on arrival at school by a banner which read: PRO LUDO ET PRO BINGO.

To many who had known her, she WAS the school.

Gerald Hood

Denbigh Drive, Clitheroe