| St Edwards
College Liverpool |
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Part of Editorial in College magazine 1974-75
Mr Ley - An Appreciation
Although I attended his physics lessons
for something like three years, I knew Mr. Ley chiefly
because of the many times I and other members of
the VIth form helped him provide technical services
for various school and other functions. From our
first years at school we knew that if anything electricalor
mechanical stopped working properly, Mr. Ley
was the person called upon to mend it. Every year,
he gathered together a group of VIth formers to help
him with these and many other tasks; it was not
until I was involved in this that I began to discover
the amount of voluntary work he did for both young
and old. It never occurred to "Poddy" to refuse to
help with something just because he had already
been out every night that week or because he had
already promised to do something else. I remember
one Saturday when he spent the whole day
commuting between the three different fetes for
which we were providing public address systems!
Everyone who met him was struck by his enthusiasm
and tirelessness and his unceasing efforts
to find a new approach or a "gimmick" for a Parent's
Social.
He was also a natural storyteller and enlivened
many tea breaks whilst we were setting up equipment
with tales of the magistrates court or the school staff
room. His positively schoolboyish love of puns caused
us instantly to warm to him. It also helped us in
examinations, for his mnemonic "memory methods"
which, like all atrocious jokes, would stay in our
minds no matter what the crisis. Indeed we were
never quite sure why he suggested we read a book
called "Relativity for the Layman"!
He put up with a lot from his "team"; he let
us tell him how to build a stage set and didn't even
say "I told you so" when he was (later) proved right.
He knew when to leave us alone and when to superintend,
when to keep us at work and - most
important - when to produce a meal of fish, chips
and coke!
No-one who met this man could avoid being
impressed by and drawn to him. As old boys we
knew that he liked his students to keep in touch and
let him know how we were getting on (even those
who had renounced physics for ever). As friends
he kept U5 up to date on College affairs and the
judicial scene. As sometime members of his team,
we occasionally received panic telephone messages
based on the very familiar "couldn't you just ...?"
a request which covered any and every situation.
The fact that so many people over so many years
responded to that call is in its own way a tribute to
the sort of man Mr. Ley was and the sort of loyalty
he commanded. |