My grandfather, Douglas Garrad, who has died aged 95, was a teacher and founder of a boys’ school. He later started a successful business designing and manufacturing toys for children with special needs and disabilities.
When, in his late 40s, he was asked how he felt about spending all his time with children, he said: “I don’t see children, I just see people.” It was this generosity of spirit and belief in children’s abilities that defined his career and life.
Douglas was born in Reigate, Surrey, while his parents, Charles and Marjory (nee Rawson), were on a year’s furlough from their work as Anglican missionaries in Myanmar (then Burma). He lived until he was seven, alongside his sisters, Anne and Elizabeth, in the city of Mawlamyine (then known as Moulmein) and the hill town of Kalaw.
After attending Marlborough college, he joined the Royal Navy in 1944, becoming a sub-lieutenant and accompanying convoys of merchant ships in the Atlantic. When the war ended, he served on minesweepers in the Mediterranean until his return to England in 1947.
Douglas was offered a place to study English at Cambridge, but inspired by an official poster of a man and a dog captioned “there is peace in the forest”, instead he decided to go to Worcester College, Oxford to study forestry. He graduated in 1951.
That summer he married Mary Ann Wynne Willson, whom he had known since childhood, and took up his first teaching post at Bilton Grange preparatory school in Warwickshire. In 1955, the couple opened Hawford Lodge in Worcestershire, a day school in the countryside for boys aged seven to 13. He wanted to start a school with a relaxed and homely atmosphere, after having a miserable time as a young boy at prep school. Starting with 15 boys, it quickly flourished and was recognised by the Independent Association of Prep Schools in 1959.
A spirit of adventure was key to Douglas’s educational vision and it was very much a family enterprise; pupils were encouraged to spend time outside and enjoyed a home-cooked lunch prepared by Mary Ann every day. Douglas was formidable but kind, sometimes fierce but unfalteringly fair, generous privately and publicly, and with a steadfast belief in the importance of fun.
After 30 years at the helm, Douglas embarked on a new enterprise after visiting a school for disabled children and finding that they did not have any toys. With a friend in 1984 he co-founded what is now TFH Special Needs Toys, designing and manufacturing disability awareness toys for sensory education.
He retired in 1996 and carried on living in the grounds of Hawford Lodge, which that year merged with The King’s school, Worcester. A keen gardener, he kept a bountiful vegetable patch.
Douglas is survived by Mary Ann, their children, Charles, Andrew, Caroline and Alice, 10 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
