Phil Crookes was a Yarm School legend back before we glibly overused what should be such an honorific term. He is the longest serving Head of History in the history of Yarm School, a passionate and dedicated teacher of Politics, and a Sixth Form tutor of the highest order. For staff and students alike, to be in the presence of Phil was to witness something charged. With his conversation crackling with humour and wit, Phil was an intellectual, a fine mind, but also a brilliant mimic, a raconteur, a man whose company was a joy. Phil would effortlessly hold court, egging on the giddiness of his fellow courtiers, tossing in moments of his own, filling a room with giggles, that would soon cascade into raucous bouts of laughter. Phil was an academic, a deeply learned man, who wore his learning lightly, until a given situation elicited a brief aside from him, that made one realise that in a few words Phil understood more than had been discussed by more verbose contributors.

Phil was a maverick in the best sense of this word - and also deeply enigmatic: unorthodox yet conservative, gregarious yet private, independent-minded yet rigorous in reasoning. Immensely well read since his university days at Oriel College, Oxford, studying under the intellectual force of that most quintessential don, Jeremy Catto, these days forged in Phil a sharpness and guile, and an ability to relax in the most erudite of company. And yet Phil was also keen to understand and wrestle with the world as he found it, organising countless trips for the pupils of Yarm School. Former students and colleagues will remember with deep fondness the visits and excursions, and there were so many of these; trips to Russia and China, years of Battlefield trips in France and Belgium, History and Politics lecture trips to London. These experiences remain a perpetual gift for those who to this day reminisce over their trips with Phil.

Phil was brilliantly unpredictable, and a source of gentle mischief. Phil - all these quick years after leaving Yarm - set a tone for a History Department that carries his spirit to this day: one that imbibes his can-do approach, his iconoclasm, his steely sense of challenge, and his ambition for deep thinking and wrestling with all of the issues of the day.

To have been taught by Phil unites generations of students, whether that was in the tutor room, through debating events, or classroom discussions over the complexities of history and politics. He conducted his friendships with colleagues with dignity, grace and selflessness, and these qualities will continue to spring to mind with every future recollection of Phil. But Phil was also an unapologetic family man. In this he taught us so much more than all of those classroom moments - fiercely loyal, loving and proud of his family.

Stephen Edwards, Paul Telfer & Shaun Thompson

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