Ian Robertson obituary

My father, Ian Robertson, who has died aged 85, was a passionate educator, family man and raconteur. Eleven years after qualifying as a teacher he became principal lecturer in chemistry at Jordanhill College of Education in Glasgow and soon after that a Scottish schools inspector, becoming the national specialist for chemistry. Widely published, he worked tirelessly to improve primary and secondary education in Scotland.

Bombing, dogfights and V1 bombs marked his early years in Sheerness on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent. The son of Donald, a glass factory manager and veteran of both world wars, and Vera (nee Neame), a nurse and housewife, Ian moved with his family to Fife in 1945, where he pestered the local fishermen to teach him what they knew. In his wee boat, the MYOB (Mind Your Own Business), he caught mackerel; while at school at George Watson’s college in Edinburgh, he started fly-fishing. From the Tweed, he went on to summers as a gillie on the Oykel, earning enough to run his first car.

The passion for fishing almost derailed his academic career, though, surprising many, he gained a degree in chemistry at Edinburgh University in 1958.

University led to teaching, radical politics, and Phyl Cameron, a fellow student, whom he married in April 1959. A week later Ian began his first job, at Ross High in the mining town of Tranent, east of Edinburgh. His teaching style, white rat on shoulder, was highly successful; he absolutely refused to use corporal punishment and believed anyone could learn. They did.

Four years later he became principal teacher in chemistry at Madras college in St Andrews. There, he piloted a new approach to teaching the subject; the endless hours paid off, with his pupils coming 1st, 2nd and 4th out of 600 entrants in that year’s O-Grade chemistry.

He worked for the Scottish Examination Board, delivered in-service chemistry courses for teachers, was the Scottish representative on the council of the Association for Science Education, chair of the Education Research Committee, and sat on the British Committee in Chemical Education. In 1967 he won a year-long Shell fellowship to University College London, decamping with the family to London.

In 1970 he was appointed to Jordanhill College of Education (now part of the University of Strathclyde); then joined HM Scottish Schools Inspectorate in 1974, becoming district inspector for Glasgow in 1980 and eventually staff inspector for the Borders, Dumfries and Galloway in 1990.

Alongside his work, he built a dinghy, walked and talked with Phyl and their German shepherd dogs, bred Siamese cats, puppy-walked for Guide Dogs, laboured on refugee housing in Austria, and took his entire family camping to Russia. After a brush with cancer in 1996, he retired.

A lifetime blood donor, passionate gardener, art enthusiast and family historian, he persecuted his children with the Guardian quick crossword, doing it every day until his death, and was fiendishly good at sudoku puzzles. He tirelessly cared for Phyl until her death from dementia in 2020.

He is survived by his children, Kate, Peter and me, and by eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.