Head for heights

BIG MAN: Mel Farrar

Martyn Meets... Mel Farrar, local education legend
MEL Farrar is someone I have known for a long time without ever really knowing him. And after spending two hours in his company it’s difficult to know where to start talking about this towering figure.

And I mean that literally. He’s 6ft 6in going on massive, but unlike a lot of tall men, especially one in his very early 70s, he is not stooped nor weighed down by expectation or the cares of the world.

Though if any man would have an excuse for feeling world-weary, surely it would be him, after a lifetime of work in one of the most challenging of educational spheres.

If anything he continues to grow - certainly in the eyes of his many admirers.

We enjoyed coffee, well, I did, Mel opted for healthy sparkling water as we gazed at the hills from the garden terrace of the Gallery Oldham cafe.

Mel has called Oldham his home since 1972, when he was appointed head of the (unfinished) Chadderton Day Special School.

After leaving our table he was off to attend a meeting of LAST - a group he chairs which overseess a project close to his heart, or perhaps nether regions: LAST is an acronym for Loo At St Thomas - the parish church in Lees at which his wife Ruth was once the minister.

“She was ordained after leaving the teaching profession,” he mentioned, casually but rather proudly.

St Thomas doesn’t have a toilet and the group has got together to fix that. But nothing is ever simple and money is needed. It seems to me a bother, but Mel takes it all in his considerable stride.

Earlier in our conversation he had mentioned how he had been brought up in a Methodist household; he concedes he is still influenced by the ideas and intentions of John Wesley to “make a difference in society and help make the world a better place for all the people.”

So who better than Mel to let loose on project for a loo?

With that philosophy at his core, it’s little wonder he has achieved what he has. The list is impressive, believe me.

Among his other current interests, Mel is company secretary of Coram Life Education NW which takes health and anti-drugs programmes into schools across the North-West, and somehow seems a natural extension of his caring for the community. The guy can’t help himself, I guess.

But he does find time for other pursuits: caravan holidays among them. And after giving up a promising rugby career he took up fly-fishing.

“I am still learning, trying to improve my techniques,” he says with disarming modesty.

He remains a huge supporter and worker at Saddleworth Summer Show. He was founding chairman of the North Manchester Round Table, so his charitable works are well-grounded.

Did I mention that when he first came to Oldham he learned to play the E-flat bass with George Gibson in Dobcross B Band? There’s probably much else I will forget too, for this is a voracious, gregarious man whose energy and enthusiasm seem endless.

But it was his work at what is now known as Kingfisher Community School - renamed after Mel had left what he knew as Foxdenton School - that gave him “local legend” status and brought him national prominence in his field.

Yorkies from Halifax, the Farrar clan nonetheless embraced its Red Rose surroundings. Mel and Ruth, whom he met in his first year of training college in Matlock, remain in their adopted home town.

Mel was educated at Heath Grammar School, as were his two brothers. He had always wanted to be a teacher — it was clearly a calling, though he won’t admit as much.

He loved college — “it was all sport and I could eat as much as I liked at every meal” he recalled with a smile and a glint in his eye.

His first teaching post was in Newark, but before long he answered an advertisement for a job working with “slow learners”, as they were known in the early 1960s. It was a decision that was to influence the rest of his life.

At 23 he was pitched into a class of 15 children, all with problems - some physical, others in different ways.

“Two of them were immigrants and couldn’t speak a word of English - and one lad was the son of a local scrap dealer who had a private jet!” he recalled. “My pupils were classified as ‘educationally sub normal’, a horrible term.”

He quickly became aware of his own abilities for helping and teaching these children.

“My classroom overlooked the school coke heap and was 6ft from a large red brick wall. So every day I wore a clean, freshly-pressed white shirt into class. It was a small gesture but I wanted the children to feel they were valued, were important.”

The values he adopted at Newark have shaped his life and career since. Whether he admits it or not, Mel Farrar, Methodist man of Halifax, found his true calling.

Thousands of people, including more than 1,100 pupils he had in care during his 29 years as a head teacher in Chadderton, plus their parents and extended families, have cause to celebrate his vision, understanding and innate concern for a section of society which can be left on the margins.

It is no exaggeration to say he cherished every one of his pupils.

A wonderful example involves a young boy called Jonathan Khairule. He had a gift for maths but severe physical problems - he could control only his left foot.

Mel recognised that Jonathan needed a peer group of mathematicians and advertised for gifted youngsters to give up their Saturday mornings to support him.

“The support was wonderful, we had gifted lads who went on to study maths at Cambridge and others who have become chess masters, all there in their own time. It was a wonderful expression of what society can do when we all pull together.”

Such anecdotes were plentiful during our time together and there isn’t room in this story, indeed this whole newspaper, for even a selection — but the Jonathan Khairule story embodies the selfless ability of Mel, and his team at Foxdenton, to not only give up their own time but to inspire and persuade others to do the same.