Last updated 13:37, Thursday, 17 April 2008

When Ken Boyd took over as headmaster at Cumwhinton School there were just 32 pupils on the roll. When he retired, quarter of a century later, the number had risen to 107 and was still increasing.

All-round sportsman: Ken Boyd excelled at football, cricket and javelin. As a teenager he was offered a soccer contract but his grandmother confiscated it. She wanted him to have ‘a proper job’

For Edward Kenneth Boyd, who was 77 when he died, was a popular, hands-on headteacher who thought the school should be a vital part of village life.

He promoted all sorts of events including rose queen crownings, whist drives, quiz nights, bonfire nights and school concerts and he served on various local committees. In his spare time he and a friend organised Geordie nights in aid of the Sue Ryder Homes and when he retired he joined the WRVS meals-on-wheels scheme.

He also designed and landscaped the gardens at his home in the village, close to Carlisle and indulged his other main hobby – cooking.

He had a highly successful career in education both at home and abroad but he might well have been a professional footballer, had his grandmother not intervened. He was brought up by his grandparents after his parents died and was a offered a soccer contract while still in his teens, but his grandmother kept the letter from him – she wanted him to find ‘a proper job’.

He was born at Seahouses in Northumberland into a family with a teaching background and he went to the Duke’s Grammar School, at Alnwick, where he excelled in mathematics and in sport.

National Service in the RAF saw him based at Hereford where he played football and cricket with men who became professionals, including Brian Statham, the Lancashire and England fast bowler. He played rugby, too, and was an able javelin thrower.

After leaving the air force he went to work on a farm near Alnwick, doing all sorts of labouring jobs because he was a big, strong man and it was there that he and the boss’s daughter, Avril, fell in love. They married in 1953.

His teacher training took place at Chester College and there he carried on playing football and cricket and throwing the javelin.

He joined the staff at the Christ Church School in Shieldfield, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, where he taught maths and physical education but stayed for only two years. He thought that too many of the children in this all-age school just did not want to learn and so he moved into junior education, at Shilbottle, where he became deputy head.

He taught there for four years before he and his wife went to Singapore where he taught the children of RAF personnel serving there at the time of the Malayan emergency and war against Communist guerrillas.

There were 500 pupils in the junior school and another 500 seniors and he became head of the maths department, as well as organising the youth football teams and taking one of them on a tour to Australia.

After six years in Singapore he came back to the UK to join the staff at a school near Morpeth, for children with behavioural problems, before being appointed head at Cumwhinton in 1970.

During his 25 years there he introduced the school uniform and started the after-school club, as well as promoting sporting activities and overseeing the first building extension.

Mr Boyd was found to be suffering from cancer six years ago but an operation put him right until the disease returned in 2006. Again, an operation was successful but then the cancer came back and he decided against further surgery. Yet he never lost his sense of humour. Not long before he died he said how annoyed he was that he had only been able to wear an expensive new jacket three times!

He leaves his wife, two sons, a daughter, five granddaughters, a grandson and two great-grandchildren.

There were nearly 400 people at his funeral service at Carlisle Crematorium.

The arrangements were made by Walker’s, Carlisle.