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St Edwards College Liverpool
Edward (Paddy) Ley

Part of Editorial in College magazine 1974-75
"Elsewhere in this magazine the sad death of Mr. Edward Ley is mentioned. His death was a great blow, both to the College itself and to the whole school community." and "...this year saw the death of Mr. Edward Ley, a quiet, friendly man, loved by pupils, parents and colleagues alike. We would like to extend our sympathy to his wife and to his son Chris."

Mr Ley - An Appreciation

Although I attended his physics lessons for something like three years, I knew Mr. Ley chiefly because of the many times I and other members of the VIth form helped him provide technical services for various school and other functions. From our first years at school we knew that if anything electricalor mechanical stopped working properly, Mr. Ley was the person called upon to mend it. Every year, he gathered together a group of VIth formers to help him with these and many other tasks; it was not until I was involved in this that I began to discover the amount of voluntary work he did for both young and old. It never occurred to "Poddy" to refuse to help with something just because he had already been out every night that week or because he had already promised to do something else. I remember one Saturday when he spent the whole day commuting between the three different fetes for which we were providing public address systems! Everyone who met him was struck by his enthusiasm and tirelessness and his unceasing efforts to find a new approach or a "gimmick" for a Parent's Social. He was also a natural storyteller and enlivened many tea breaks whilst we were setting up equipment with tales of the magistrates court or the school staff room. His positively schoolboyish love of puns caused us instantly to warm to him. It also helped us in examinations, for his mnemonic "memory methods" which, like all atrocious jokes, would stay in our minds no matter what the crisis. Indeed we were never quite sure why he suggested we read a book called "Relativity for the Layman"! He put up with a lot from his "team"; he let us tell him how to build a stage set and didn't even say "I told you so" when he was (later) proved right. He knew when to leave us alone and when to superintend, when to keep us at work and - most important - when to produce a meal of fish, chips and coke! No-one who met this man could avoid being impressed by and drawn to him. As old boys we knew that he liked his students to keep in touch and let him know how we were getting on (even those who had renounced physics for ever). As friends he kept U5 up to date on College affairs and the judicial scene. As sometime members of his team, we occasionally received panic telephone messages based on the very familiar "couldn't you just ...?" a request which covered any and every situation. The fact that so many people over so many years responded to that call is in its own way a tribute to the sort of man Mr. Ley was and the sort of loyalty he commanded.
M. D. FAULKNER, 1960 - 1971.

Many thanks to Rod Murray (OE 1948-56) for photo.