My father, David Wilkins (known to his family by his middle name, Gordon), who has died aged 87, was a popular and inspirational teacher who spent his entire career at Bushloe high school in Wigston, Leicestershire, and was remembered by many of his pupils even more than 40 years after his retirement.
Son of Charles, a policeman and pit manager, and Martha, he was one of five brothers, born in Mountain Ash, a mining town in South Wales. During the second world war, he ran away to join the army and was in France on D-Day, aged 16. He moved up the ranks to become a tank commander in the Royal Tank Regiment and toured Europe and Egypt, staying on in the army at the end of the war. He served in the 2nd, 5th and 8th Royal Tank Regiment, before a rugby injury forced him to leave in 1965. He then trained as a teacher and joined Bushloe high school, where he taught religious education and humanities, remaining there until his retirement in 1989.
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