Obituary: Laurie Campbell, teacher and pastor

Laurie Campbell, teacher and pastor.

Born: 10 June, 1927, in Glasgow.

Died: 17 July, 2011, in Newport, aged 84.

WHEN Laurie Campbell died in July, after a long battle with cancer, his was the passing of a great man scarcely known in his homeland, because all his working life was spent furth of Scotland. After graduating from Edinburgh University, he trained as a teacher at Moray House with the intention of reading divinity at New College. Instead, he left Scotland for a four-year tour teaching at the Alliance High School at Kikuyu in Kenya. He made a brief visit to Scotland in 1954 to marry his wife Sheena.

On his regular leave in 1956, he took the first-year Divinity course at New College, returning to Kenya to teach at Tumutumu teacher training college. While there he was invited to succeed Carey Francis as headmaster of the Alliance High School.

His response was that he would need four years to prepare, not because he was slow but because he was meticulous in preparation for everything he took on. He returned to Alliance in 1962 before he became head, and when he taught a class Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar, the boys thought they saw a resemblance to Laurie.

Thereafter he was known as Caesar; a good nickname.

The Alliance High School is a national boarding facility which was founded in 1926 by the then Alliance of Protestant Missions as the first school in Kenya to provide secondary education for African boys.

Its aim was to educate pupils in body, mind and character so that they would be able to serve their country well.

Over the years it has achieved that aim and remains one of the finest schools in Africa. In Laurie Campbell's time in charge, more than half the first Kenya Cabinet were former pupils of the school.

He came to the school with two basic aims - to widen its horizons and to expand the roll. The first aim he achieved by his talks to Forms 1-4 on Friday mornings and Forms 5 and 6 on Saturday mornings, when he expounded on issues affecting the life of the Kenyan nation and the world.

His other aim was quickly fulfilled, doubling the roll to 586.

That meant raising funds for new buildings, a priority being a new chapel, then new science and maths block and a sixth form library, study cubicles and a superb new lecture theatre, new dormitories, staff houses and an industrial art workshop. It was typical of his breadth of vision, energy and leadership.

Above all, it was the Christian ethos of the school that Laurie was determined to maintain - prayers in the chapel each morning and evening and Sunday services were a natural part of school life, led by the deep faith and theological understanding of its headmaster.

He was also an official and unofficial adviser on education matters to many in the Kenyan government as well as being an elder in the Kirk Session of St Andrews Church, Nairobi, where his wise counsel was welcomed and appreciated. His legacy to education in Kenya is almost beyond measure.Last year, when a new school house with four dormitories was built, Alliance governors insisted that it should be called Campbell House. Such a decision in an African country, nearly 50 years after independence, speaks volumes of the respect for Laurie Campbell and his achievements in Kenyan education.

But that is not the end of the story. He returned to the UK to become headmaster of Kingswood School in Bath. There he is remembered as a dynamo of energy and academic achievement who knew every pupil by name and was genuinely interested in each and every one.

In fact, it is said that he loved the school with all his heart, mind and strength, just as he had done at Alliance.

Because of that love, he was enabled to do so much for both the school and every pupil within it. His boundless energy, his love of rugby and athletics - he had helped train runner Kip Keino of Kenya for the Edinburgh Commonwealth Games - exhausted both staff and pupils, but with the kind of exhaustion that carries with it a glow of achievement and satisfaction.

And when he retired from Kingswood, there was more to come. Denied entry to the Church of Scotland ministry by reason of age - a big mistake by the Kirk in his case - Laurie became the much-loved minister of Trinity Methodist Church in Bath where his vision, faith and faithful pastoral care inspired the congregation to extend their facilities for development and mission. It was, for him, simply a continuation of his lifelong ministry of pastoral care in Africa, and England.

His last painful illness did not diminish his intellect and interest in people, and he prepared for the end with the same meticulous attention to detail that was the hallmark of his life, and with his deep faith quite undiminished.

He will be missed by many, especially his wife of 57 years, Sheena, and their three children, Ian, Mary and Andrew, and their families.