Andrew Purkiss obituary

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2012/dec/21/andrew-purkiss-obituary

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My father, Andrew Purkiss, who has died aged 86, was always interested in politics, being in turn a member of the Communist party, the Labour party and the Lib Dems, and active in CND for many years.

He was born in Seven Kings, Essex, but his primary education began in Egypt, where his father was working as a teacher. From the German school in Cairo, Andrew won a scholarship to Winchester choir school, and then went to Wanstead high school in east London, where he met Evelyn Sarson; they married in 1947.

He began studies at St John's College, Oxford, before being called up for national service. As he spoke German, he was posted to serve in the Intelligence Corps in postwar Austria for two years, where he mingled with the locals, gleaning information. He kept the pass which said, in German, French and English, that he was allowed "to be anywhere, at any time, in uniform or in civilian clothes". He said that if he and his colleagues did not find anything of interest, they would make it up.

He returned to Oxford to study German and Italian, then taught in primary education in the London borough of Bromley for the next 40 years, retiring at the end of the 80s as head of Raglan junior school. After his retirement, he kept up his membership of the National Union of Teachers and served as a governor at a school in Orpington, Kent; and then embarked on a second career as a tutor and charity volunteer, for which work he was given the mayor of Bromley's award.

Andrew loved travelling; as a student he had guided coach tours across Europe. When he bought a caravan in 1960, our family recreated these tours: seven countries in five weeks, or touring the Eastern bloc. After my brother David and I had grown up, he sold the caravan and bought a boat, exploring the Thames and canals. With his second wife, Tricia, whom he married in 1983 after divorce from Evelyn, he bought a small Bambi motor caravan, organising touring groups across Britain and Europe as national secretary of the Bambi Club.

My father always liked to focus on a project and in his 70s he discovered computers. He was eager to learn more and impart what he knew to others; for years he was the fount of all knowledge to me, in matters from science, geography and politics to how to deal with unreasonable parking fines.

He is survived by Tricia, David and me; three stepchildren, Sharon, Simon and Sally; five grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.