David Munday (OW 1948)

MCS was informed by OW Robin Winstone (1956) that David had passed away on 23 April 2014. The following is taken from an obituary in the Oxford Times.

Herman David Munday was born in James Street, Oxford, on October 20, 1929, to parents Herman and Ivy. His younger siblings were twins Ruth and Alfred. Mr Munday came from a family of teachers. Both his parents taught at schools in Oxford and his sister, Ruth, also became a teacher.

As a child he attended St Christopher’s Primary School in Cowley, and later Magdalen College School from 1941. At school he excelled in Latin, Maths and English and was also a keen rugby player and boxer. After the war, the family moved to Staunton Road and in 1948 Mr Munday began his national service in the Army, with the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry. He rose to the rank of Corporal, serving in Egypt, Cyprus and Macedonia. In Cyprus he served in the Intelligence Corp.

In 1949 he was demobbed to train as a teacher at Culham Teacher Training College and by 1951 he took his first job at New Marston County Primary School. In 1954 he witnessed from the finish line Sir Roger Bannister breaking the sub-four-minute mile at Iffley Road Track on May 6. He married his wife, Sheila, in 1958, and they moved together to Leckford Road.

In 1959 he left New Marston to take a job as deputy headmaster of Blackbird Leys County Primary School, which at the time had 700 pupils. He was to stay there for the next 14 years. In 1959 they had their first child, Richard, and in 1960 they moved to Ringwood Road. Richard was followed by brothers Andrew in 1962 and Philip in 1964.

He took the position of deputy head at Bayswater Middle School in 1974, which he held until retiring in 1987. On his last week at the school, July 1987, the Oxford Mail noted it was ‘the end of an era’, with Mr Munday adding that his family had completed 100 years of teaching between them.

In retirement he increased his involvement with the Collinwood Road United Reformed Church, Oxford, and also pursued his interests in writing and calligraphy. He kept detailed records of his teaching days, frequently recalling in minute detail past experiences with pupils.

David Munday died peacefully on April 23, following a long period of illness. He is survived by his three sons and six grandchildren, Greg, Joe, Kathryn, Rachel, Anna and Toby.