Jack Heery obituary

My dad, Jack Heery, who has died aged 81, was a teacher and educationist who devoted much of his life to grassroots Labour party activism and the support of various social and political causes.

Born in Liverpool, he was the youngest of 10 children. His father, James, an electrician, died when he was two, leaving his mother, Catherine (nee McGuire), to raise eight surviving children while working in pubs and as a meter reader for the electricity board. Jack excelled at Saint Francis Xavier’s school, a Liverpool Jesuit college, and won a place to study classics at Christ’s College, Cambridge. Graduating in 1956, he went into teaching in Liverpool and then Birkenhead.