Tribute Email: Anthony Forbes Watson I have just seen your news of the death of Major Terence Tinsley and it brought flooding back memories of my experience as a Highfield boy half a century ago. I haven’t been back to the school since 1969 but my spontaneous feelings of gratitude to ‘Terry Tinsley’ leap into my breast unbidden and resonate across the years. In September 1966 I returned at the beginning of my penultimate year to take my place as a member of Remove B and to find a new teacher named Mr Tinsley, installed as my Maths teacher. I was apprehensive: I couldn’t do Maths for toffees, paralysed by fear of failure, and to that date the Maths Common Entrance test papers I had been obliged to sit were remarkable solely for the fact that I had achieved a consistent zero – yes, no marks whatsoever - in each and all of them. Peter Mills, who taught the top Maths class, struggled to comprehend the yawning abyss that separated me from the subject and I felt terrified at the prospect of my looming date with Common Entrance destiny. Enter Terry Tinsley, gentle and practical, and ready to play the cards he was dealt by each pupil. As if by magic, or thus it appeared to my parents, I achieved 67% in my next test paper, thanks entirely to Terry’s brilliance as a teacher. I have been a publisher for forty years and do commercial sums faster and more accurately in my head, than others and I think of Terry Tinsley, whenever that happens. He showed the rare quality in a teacher of being able to help a child over a seemingly insuperable obstacle by behaving as if it wasn’t there – and then it wasn’t!. Thank you Terry, and rest in peace. Anthony Forbes Watson Highfield 1962-1968