Michael Bailey (OW 1958)

6 June 1939 – 18 September 2023

We are grateful to Michael’s son Andrew for these words about his father:

Dad grew up in Boars Hill and his father was an architect. He went from MCS to read Zoology at Pembroke College, Oxford. While there he helped to organise a couple of expeditions. One, in 1960, was an Oxford and Cambridge Expedition to northern Norway (Finnmark), traveling 7,000 miles overland in a second-hand 1947 single decker British Leyland bus, to study pipits. The other was an expedition to Morocco, this time in a second-hand taxi cab.

He went on to receive his Diploma in Education in 1962 from Oxford University (and later in 1973 a Diploma in Advanced Education from Newcastle University) and became a biology teacher. He taught at schools in Cumbria, Lincoln and Cheshire, finishing his career at Dane Valley High School in Congleton, where he taught from 1979 until his retirement in 1995. He married my mother, Margaret (née Ayre), also a school teacher (of chemistry), in 1968. They had two sons, myself and my brother David.

Professionally, Dad was very involved in the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme (for which work he and my mother were invited to Buckingham Palace in 1972) and also in developing the curriculum for integrated sciences and A-level biology for various examination boards. He wrote a number of biology textbooks, was active as an examiner and subject expert for exam boards and OFQUAL, and after his retirement was a school inspector.

He and my mother were avid hikers and travellers, and visited some 126 of the world’s countries. They often undertook long-distance hikes including in the Andes, Himalayas, Karakorams, Alps and Pyrenees, as well as several of the UK and Europe’s long distance paths. My mother passed away in 2012, but my Dad continued to walk and travel, especially to visit his four grandchildren in Canada, Wales and the US.