Kenneth Faragher 1925 – 2018

(Ken Faragher is in the centre of the photo surrounded by other members of the staff of Nutfield Priory School)

Ken, who was born in 1925 at Ramsey in the Isle of Man, has died at his home in Lyme Regis, Dorset, where he was living with his wife Margaret, following his retirement in 1987 as head of Nutfield Priory School for secondary deaf pupils in Surrey where he had been the head in 1974. He had remained the head until closure.

He undertook teacher training at Loughborough College and trained as a Teacher of the Deaf at Manchester University.

His first teaching appointment was at the Mount School in Stoke-on-Trent in 1951. From there he moved on to Burwood Park School in Surrey when it opened in 1955.

He became the head at Haverstock Comprehensive school in Havering in the late 1960s – the first department for deaf pupils in a comprehensive school.  Whilst there he took lipreading classes at the City Literary Institute.

He was appointed head of West Ham School for the Deaf in Newham in 1971.

He was on the executive committee of the National College of Teachers of the Deaf and involved in the amalgamation process with the Society of Teachers of the Deaf which became BATOD.

As a founder member of BATOD he was on the conference committee which organised many national events including the first weekend conference in Brighton in 1979 – also the Blackpool, and Edinburgh weekends which followed.

Ken enjoyed a long and active retirement supporting the work of the RNLI by fundraising. He took every opportunity to travel particularly to Texas in the USA where his son John lived. His contribution to deaf education over many years was invaluable. He was a supportive, conscientious and reliable member of the NCTD and BATOD. His staff remember him as a positive and encouraging head – a gentleman.

(prepared by Sue Knowles and colleagues)