Two years ago, I wrote a piece about ten things that inspired me to become a scientist. One of those was my high school teacher.  We never kept in touch, but through the miracle of the web, that post eventually came to his attention, and we connected again.

The other day he unearthed a photo harking back to the year we overlapped at Pilgrim Upper School and emailed it to me – bringing memories flooding back:

The occasion was Mr Tranquada’s – Tim’s – last day teaching us, as he prepared to move on to another appointment.  As a class of 14 year olds we were gutted, and bought the only gift we thought suitable for such a great physics teacher – a Newton’s Cradle.

You can get a sense of how inspirational Mr Tranquada was by looking at the comments on the back of the photo – remember, this was a physics class:

Tim moved from Bedford in the UK to teach in Milton Keynes in 1981, and then on to Chelmsford in Essex.  From there he became a National Strategy Secondary Science Consultant for Essex – a job he says really enjoyed and during which he felt that he was giving something back to the system through supporting Schools and their Science Teachers.  He is currently enjoying his retirement!

It really was a blast from the past seeing the photo and the comments, and remembering what it was like being young and inspired.

But what really got the nostalgia flowing – I was the student who took that photo, thirty years ago.