A dedicated and respected teacher who spent 42 years educating the young people of Burton has died.
Robert Miles, fondly known as Bob, dedicated most of his working life to Burton Technical College in the town, which is now known as Burton and South Derbyshire College.
Here he was the head of faculty and introduced a training programme to teach teachers how to educate others.
He died just after his 85th birthday from a chest infection following a stroke. His family have told how they will be able to keep his memory alive through his old diaries, where he shared his thoughts and details of his day.
In his own words in one of his diaries, Bob said: "Life has been a privilege not to be wasted. Think of all the chances that had to be A-okay for any of us to be born at all.
"My dad was in the Battle of Somme in the 1914/18 war. He could, so easily, have been killed and I wouldn't have existed at all."
Bob was born the only child of Wilfred, a sub-manager at the local coal pit, and teacher Emily Miles.
When he was just 22 his parents died within 10 months of each other. This helped forge his attitude to live life to the full as he believed he wouldn't get much past his fifties.
His parents instilled in him a belief in education and a love of reading and language, and at the age of 18 he went to Keele University, describing it as one of the best experiences of his life, which set him on his teaching path.
The death of his parents at a young age left him without a close family until he met Sheila in 1958 and they married a year later.
In 1963, they moved from Yorkshire to Claymills Road, in Stretton, with daughter Mary after Bob got the job at Burton Technical College and Shelia gave birth to son Stephen and daughter Cathy.
The grandfather-of-nine was head of faculty at the Burton college until his retirement and during his time there he set up the '730 teaching programme' to education pupils on how to teach others.
John Tuck, who worked on the 730 training programme, was a colleague of Bob's for the last 15 years of his career.
John started in engineering but moved to training with Bob as part of the City and Guilds programme.
He said: "Bob was great, he seemed to know the answer to everything. I don't think I could ask him a question he didn't know the answer to.
"We did a lot of residential courses together where we were with each other for 24 hours so we did get to know each other. After I retired I moved back to Norfolk and I did not come up that much but we spoke on the phone and I went to see him a few times.
"It was always fun with Bob and I enjoyed working together. He always had a cheeky grin and he seemed to have a smile for everyone. You never caught him in a bad mood. Bob was a very dear friend and extremely supportive to all of his staff.
"He had this funny characteristic when you were talking to him and you got the impression he wasn't listening. I didn't think any more about it but you would start talking about it later and he would say 'you said this earlier'.
"I am sure his staff would say the same thing. Bob always seemed to be on everyone's side and if you had a problem or request you felt that he was representing you to management.
"I regarded him as a friend. Bob used to say it was not work, it was a pleasure."
Alan Boot, who also worked on the training course, said: "During this time I came to respect Bob's considerable intellect and genuine desire to 'make a difference' to his students and colleagues alike.
"When I went over to see Bob at the nursing home he was, of course, very poorly, however, his eyes still sparked when I took the pictures of the grandchildren to his bedside. What a lovely man."
After Bob retired he was able to spend more time on the things he enjoyed, particularly travel.
Bob and his wife Shelia were very civic minded and played their part in the community. They had a love of dance which stayed with Bob until the end.
Shelia died from pneumonia in 2001, leaving Bob heartbroken, but he remained passionate about education and helping the community.
He was on the governing board at Paget High School, in Branston, for 35 years and was also chairman of the Priory Centre, in Stretton.
Jane Bailey, deputy head teacher at Paget, said: "Bob was a loyal and committed member of our governing board for some 35 years. He was passionate about education, particularly for our school community and supported the school and students in a number of ways.
"He was a long serving member of the finance committee as well as the link governor for English where his attention to detail and diligence were invaluable. Throughout his time as governor his attendance at meetings was second to none and only diminished due to his recent illness.
"His commitment to the school will be greatly missed by fellow governors and staff alike."
Bob's daughter Cathy, 47, a mother-of-four, said her father was a very big part of her life, caring for her four children and sharing holidays with them. She recalled family holidays when she was young and they went out in a caravanette, which they had affectionately nicknamed the 'big beach bulldozer'.
She said: "As my parents were both teachers we got to spend lots of good quality family time together. Family is everything, that is what he would say. He was stubborn as well. When he found out he was losing his sight we found him up a tree building a tree house in the garden for the children.
"Dad was a real mixture of education, which he took really seriously, and complete silliness. Everybody I have talked to has said how generous he was, he would give you the coat off his back. With everything he gave it attention and was patient.
"My children had the best time with him.
"Dad was well informed and very interested in what was going on in the world around him. He watched news programmes from around the world and was widely read.
"He lived a full and active life right up until the last few months of his life: family holidays, dancing every week, walking his dog, swimming, going to the theatre and to music concerts.
"He was just the most incredible man."
