Bruce Douglas named honoury ASCL member

Bruce Douglas, association president in 1997-98, retired from Branston Community College in Lincolnshire in December. As is ASCL tradition, Council bestowed on him honorary membership in June, recognising his many years of dedicated service to the association.

Bruce has a formidable command of all aspects of education policy and did a great deal during his presidency to crystallise and promote the association's public policy agenda.

During his year as president, he toured the country engaging in public debates with local authority chief education officers - a meaningful exercise in those days, though few of them even then were his intellectual equal.

Though his public persona is of piercing intelligence and fearsome articulacy, his private persona is full of warmth and infectious humour. His job and his family have been the centre of his life.

Bruce is immensely well-respected by fellow heads for his integrity. He has always been a fervent champion of community schools, and Branston College was a model for what are now extended schools.

As the association's president, he left a legacy more enduring than most: he chaired the appointment panel which appointed John Dunford as general secretary in 1998.