Life Stories
Richard Leeson
Richard (Dick) Leeson (1953 BA Modern Languages) died on 1 August 2024 aged 90.
He was a gifted linguist, teacher and academic leader. He, along with all the schools in Southampton, was evacuated in 1939 to the countryside. He went to King Edwards VI School, Southampton, then a grammar school founded for the poor. After the war, he was one of the first children to undertake a student exchange, first to Germany and then to France. On completing his A levels and before university, he did National Service in the RAF and was selected for the Joint Services School of Linguists (an elite squad of linguists) to study Russian, in his case, at Cambridge. As this was during the Cold War the government sought people who would be able to interrogate Russians in Russian. He never actually had the opportunity to do this. Following National service, he read French and German at Keble College, Oxford. After graduating he taught languages at schools and later at degree level. Finding the available French teaching materials woefully inadequate, he wrote a practical and immediately useful book – Voyage à Paris . His MPhil focused on improving language teaching by understanding how language is acquired resulting in a book, Fluency & Language Teaching published by Longmans in 1975. His first managerial role was as Head of the Languages School at the then Ealing College of Technology (now the University of West London). He chaired the Liberal Arts Board of the Council for National Academic Awards where he was responsible for ensuring both the quality of non-university institutions and their liberal arts programmes where he became known affectionately as Mr Liberal Arts. As Deputy Director of the College, he was responsible for ensuring the high quality of all its programmes and continued to teach, once a fortnight, a course he created: The Critique of Translation. On retirement, and for the following ten years, he became an advisor with Citizens Advice in Merton. He chose to focus particularly on helping clients in crippling debt, training other advisers in debt work as well as undertaking prison visits aimed at reducing reoffending by helping prisoners understand money. He had a phenomenal zest for life, history, travel, bridge, the Guardian crossword and Southampton Football Club. He is survived by his wife Ann Halpern, his daughter Nicola and granddaughters Rebecca and Rachel. His daughter Helena predeceased him.
Kindly provided by his wife, Ann Halpern