Obituary: Bertha Forrester, teacher

Born: 1 January, 1931, in Edinburgh. Died: 28 November, 2012, in Edinburgh, aged 81.

Bertha Forrester was a gifted teacher who found her true metier when she switched to a training course at Moray House after a year attending an Edinburgh secretarial college.

Outside her professional life, she had many varied interests – travel, cuisine, music (especially opera and folk), bowling, her cats and crosswords. She won the Scotsman Prize Crossword three times; she then stopped entering but regularly completed it, in addition to many others. She was instrumental in the establishment of an international children’s charity in Britain, and SOS Children’s Villages UK now has an annual income of around £5 million.

Born in Newington, Edinburgh, Bertha attended the Preston Street Primary School until she was evacuated to Kelso at the beginning of the war.

Her teaching career started at the old “tin hut” Burdiehouse school, moving into the new, larger, state-of-the-art Burdiehouse School – now, sadly demolished – when it opened. She taught there successfully for several years but moved to London with her husband Jim when he left The Scotsman to join Reuters news agency in London. Her 53 years with Jim encompassed much travelling, many concerts and operas and some exciting, possibly dangerous, encounters but her career as a teacher was paramount.

Her introduction to teaching in London was in a tough East End school where she quickly proved that inborn Scottish good sense could not be bettered by Cockney guile. A prime example of this was uncovering and ending a racket being run by some older boys, which involved stealing brewery bottles and returning them to local pubs and shops to claim the cash deposit.

She then took a job in Camden Town to be closer to home in Hampstead. At the school where she became deputy (and later acting) head she recalled two boys being sent to her for fighting. “Why were you fighting?” she asked. “He hit me,” said one. “Did you hit him?” “Yes.” “Why?” she asked. “He lost the bloody torch I nicked,” was the final reluctant answer.

Her final teaching post, as head of St Saviour’s Church of England school in Little Venice, was a rewarding but more difficult one, with pupils from many different backgrounds. At one stage the school had pupils from 29 different countries. Children of diplomats and affluent local residents sat alongside kids from homeless families housed in a run-down hotel. Bertha made sure all took part in church activities that did not affect their religious affiliations.

Bertha was held in high regard by the chairman of the board of governors, Father Gary Bradley, Vicar of Little Venice. A quarter of a century after she retired, he held a memorial Eucharist for her on the day of her funeral in Edinburgh and St Saviour’s made a donation in her name to her favourite charity.

Jim was posted to Hong Kong after 18 years as Reuters’ night editor. She continued at Saviour’s but in his five years there they were never apart for more than six weeks. At holiday time she went straight from school to the airport.

Her love of travel also resulted in extensive driving tours on the Continent. Jim had a long-standing desire to visit Czechoslovakia and on their first trip they made friends with a Czech writer. They were visiting him in Prague on the first anniversary of the Warsaw Pact invasion and Jim had to help cover the massive demonstrations that ensued.

At the peak of the disturbances, Czech authorities called out the militia and three rows of bayonet-wielding men closed off the foot of Wenceslas Square. Returning to the office Bertha, with superb aplomb – or bravado – marched up to the first rank, said very loudly: “Excuse me,” firmly brushed aside the fixed bayonets and walked through the rest to the Reuters office without a second glance.

Travel also resulted in her involvement with SOS. While they were staying in Innsbruck, Bertha renewed acquaintance with Egon Hofreiter, who as an accordionist played in a folk music locale to fund study for a second Doctorate. Egon later wrote to her as international director of SOS Kinderdorf and asked her to persuade Jim to help format a UK branch.

SOS Children’s Villages UK began with a powerful committee headed by Lord Caccia. With Jim as secretary it included Lady Brabourne (now Countess Mountbatten), Lady Sophia Schilizzi, and two MPs – one Conservative and one Labour.

A chief executive was appointed but dismissed after about three months and Jim was asked to take over on an unpaid temporary basis. Bertha helped very much during this “temporary” period, which stretched to ten years.

Translating the quarterly German language SOS Messenger magazine into English for use in Britain and other Anglophone countries was a regular task. Others were aiding the formation of local branches, organising fact-finding visits for British supporters to SOS Villages in Austria, France, Germany, Portugal, Spain and India, and finding an architect willing, without any fee, to draw up plans for an SOS Village on a site near Cheltenham offered cost-free by a wealthy donor.

When the Home Office vetoed this plan, Bertha suggested Scotland might prove more reasonable. A Scottish committee was established, with the Countess of Airlie as chairman and several notable politicians and businessmen. Glasgow City Council offered a suitable site in the city and pledges of £3m finance (including £1m from Sir Hugh Fraser) obtained but the project was vetoed yet again.

Bertha was fortunate in her love of opera and folk music as Jim became Reuters opera and music reporter on his undertaking that this would not encroach on his main role. For ten years until Jim’s transfer to Hong Kong, Bertha attended gala performances, every Royal Opera and English National Opera first night and most Welsh National Opera premieres. She treasured the memory of Placido Domingo’s debut as a conductor and being one of the few in the Covent Garden audience who saw the Duchess of Kent stand up in the Royal Box and hurl her presentation bouquet to land at his feet as he acknowledged the tumultuous applause.

She also treasured the memory of going back stage to meet her top favourite German folk singer Freddy Quinn after the start of his only stage performances in England.

On returning home to Edinburgh, Bertha was very active until struck by a rare complaint which left her housebound for the last two years of her life.

She had to forgo regular car trips around Scotland, driving and coach holidays on the continent, organised tours in America, cruises and German Christmas Market visits but she remained alert and mentally active, with a voracious appetite for reading and crosswords.

She was well on the way to completing the Saturday Times Jumbo Crossword until the day she collapsed and died.