Actress Emma Thompson and Jeanne Strickland, a former deputy head at Camden School for Girls

Published: 29 September, 2015
by DAN CARRIER

OSCAR-WINNING actress Emma Thompson has led tributes to her former English teacher at Camden School for Girls, who has died aged 86.

She said Jeanne Strickland, a former deputy head at the school in Sandall Road, Camden Town, influenced generations of pupils.

“Jeanne Strickland was the incarnation of excellence in teaching. She was fascinated by her subject, funny, acute and wry,” Ms Thompson told the New Journal. “She exuded enthusiasm at all times, her eyes bright and tender and always, always kind. I owe her a great deal and will never forget her.”

The teacher was hit by a car when she was eight, and spent a year immobilised at home in plaster reaching from her toes to her chest. She spent the 12 months reading ferociously – and was instilled with a lifelong passion not only for books, but also, her family recalled, with a real understanding of how precious life is.

A teenager during the Second World War, she studied at Bristol University and then embarked on an adventure through post-war Europe, teaching English in France and Finland. She returned to England to work at a further education college on Teesside, where she met her future husband, Bob Strickland, an engineer who drove a Triumph sports car. They married in 1959 and moved to Highgate where Jeanne started work at William Ellis School. In 1963, she became pregnant with her daughter Sarah and had to leave her post. Later, she joined Camden School for Girls, where she became head of English and then deputy head.

After retiring from teaching, Ms Strickland became a schools inspector, a job she continued into her late 70s. She was also an active member of the Highgate Literary and Scientific Institution, joining the management committee in 1997 and becoming a trustee in 2006. She would also play a central role in the institute’s Lecture Committee. Drama was her passion and she would book theatre tickets months in advance to all types of shows, and was involved in the Globe Theatre and its educational programmes. 

The day after her death, the theatre dedicated a performance in her memory, and her name was greeted with a round of prolonged applause by the audience.

Jeanne – the spelling of her name came about as her father had fought in the Great War and had been taken in by a French family – continued to read widely and eclectically, from Dickens to Auden to PD James, but she also had a habit of reading recipe books in bed. Her relatives said she loved cooking.

She is survived by her husband Bob and daughter Sarah.