Andrew Killick was a Yarm School institution. Head of Classics from 1986 till his retirement in 2012, Andrew brought his distinctive zest for life to the classroom, inspiring multiple generations of young people with a love of the classical world and more besides.

I was fortunate enough to work closely with Andrew in his last few years at Yarm, just as my own career was starting out. I first met Andrew before even arriving for interview – he turned up at my college door only a few days after I had submitted my application. It was a curious first meeting, and typical of Andrew: unconventional, but hugely personable and enjoyable. The reason he was even in Cambridge to begin with tells you much that you need to know about his approach as a teacher. Pupils had requested a review of marking of a GCSE Classical Civilization paper, and Andrew had looked through their scripts. He had seen what the boys had written and was confident that they deserved marks that had been denied them. They appealed the marks but were denied. Doggedly, over months and months, Andrew pursued this, even going so far as travelling all the way to Cambridge to take it up with the OCR board in person (and happening to be in the neighbourhood to knock on my door). Andrew’s profound sense of justice, and determination to see that the boys received the grades they rightly deserved, won out that day.

Andrew was a committed classicist and lover of the ancient world, a great scholar of both Greek and Latin. In the classroom he excited and inspired young learners with his irrepressible enthusiasm. He was even known to dabble in school drama, co-directing a number of productions of ancient plays, especially his beloved Aristophanes, for which he enlisted the DT department to fabricate actual flaming torches – something that would certainly never pass any sort of health and safety assessment now. He led a great many school trips over the years, both overseas to Greece and Italy, and to his beloved Hadrian’s Wall, at one point leading a walking trip across almost the entire length of it. He was a fine walker, lean and long-legged, and a typical sight on a school trip was Andrew striding off at speed to the top of the hill or down the street, while staff at the back encouraged the more sluggardly children to keep up: an impossible task.

Like so many fine minds, he had an enormously diverse range of interests. He single-handedly drove Yarm School chess, with his giant chess board that lived in his office and which often made appearances when he wished to explain to an assembled group of listeners the finer details of a particular move or stratagem. A talented viola player, he was an asset to school music, joining the orchestra for large-scale school productions. Golf, bridge and croquet were among his other loves. He once asked a colleague, who admitted to no interest in any of these things, “Well, what do you do?” To Andrew, these pursuits constituted the most fulfilling life he could imagine.

Perhaps most importantly to Andrew was his faith. He was deeply committed and involved with his church. At school for a number of years, he oversaw the spiritual life of the school, helping to lead Monday assemblies and helping to coordinate moments of religious worship, such as Christmas and Easter services, and our Act of Remembrance. His generosity of time and spirit were how he lived his faith – although his charity famously did not extend to wasps.

Most of all, Andrew will be remembered for his jokes: terrible, groan-inducing puns, children's joke book gags, and only the silliest silliness. One former pupil (and later colleague) remembers Andrew, with a couple of minutes spare at the end of a lesson, going round the room and asking, “Does anyone know any jokes?” A brave thing to do, with a group of 13 year old boys suddenly given the spotlight, but such was the respect for Andrew that they always took in the spirit it was intended. I can end this in no other way but to leave you with one of Andrew’s favourite, or at least most famous, jokes, which he repeated often, always while grinning from ear to ear.

“What do you do if you see a space man?”

“Park in it, man!”
 

Mr J Hall