Anne Jones obituary
My mother, Anne Jones, who has died aged 86 of Alzheimer’s, was a pioneering headteacher, a leading educationist, a senior civil servant and a professor at Brunel University. She also appeared as a panellist on BBC Question Time.
Anne was born in Coventry, daughter of Hilda (nee Bird) and Sydney Pickard, a mechanical engineer. When war began, the family moved to London to escape bombardment, only to be bombed again in the blitz.
Despite a patchy early education, Anne thrived at secondary school and left Harrow Weald county school with a scholarship to Westfield College, now Queen Mary University of London, to study French. While there, she became vice-president of the University of London Union. Rather glamorously, she appeared on the panel of the popular BBC TV programme What’s My Line? in 1956, alongside Bob Monkhouse, Eamonn Andrews and Lady Isobel Barnett.
After Westfield, she did a PGCE at King’s College London, where she met Gareth Jones at a debate about the nature of love. They married in 1958.
She worked briefly as a French teacher at Malvern girls’ college (now Malvern St James girls’ school), Worcestershire, until moving to Godolphin and Latymer school, London (1958-62), then a voluntary-aided grammar school.
She was also a part-time counsellor – one of the first in the country – at Mayfield school (1965-71), and went on to write a book, School Counselling in Practice (1970).
By 1971, Anne was deputy head of Thomas Carlton school in Peckham, south-east London. Three years later she became head of Vauxhall Manor, an inner-city girls’ school. She engaged passionately with the challenges of race and gender her pupils faced and fought for them to stay on in education or go to university. The school had a counsellor, a social worker, and a writer in residence, one of whom was the Caribbean poet James Berry.
Anne Jones in 1954 appearing on the panel for the BBC’s quiz show What’s My Line?
When her marriage broke down in 1977, Anne, now a single mother with three teenage children, was determined to make the most of her career.
By the 1980s, she was head of Cranford community school in Hounslow, one of the first schools that aimed to bring in the whole community by sharing its facilities. Adults could study alongside the children in day or evening classes, or play sport after school hours. The school had a bar and social events, a pensioners’ lunchtime club and a health clinic.
Anne published books on leadership and was a frequent voice on the future of education in both print and broadcast media. She was a panellist several times on Question Time, alongside William Whitelaw, Tony Benn, Kenneth Clarke and the Labour MP, later leader, John Smith.
In 1987, she became director of education programmes for the Manpower Services Commission in Sheffield. She ended her career at Brunel University, where she was professor of continuing education (1990-2001) and director of its Centre for Lifelong Learning.
In retirement she was a governor at The Abbey School, Reading, and an enthusiastic member of the Henley choral society.
Anne had a clear sense of duty and a determination to achieve. Her commitment, energy and love of life meant that she touched many people’s lives.
The sudden death of her daughter Katy in 2015 was a profound sorrow. She is survived by her other children, Christopher and me, and her grandchildren, Huw, Sarah, Alex, Harry, Freddie, Ben and Alice.