Peter Viney's Blog

7th July 1943- 27th April 2026

Leo Jones passed away on 27th April, after a catastrophic fall down a stairway two weeks earlier. It’s so hard to believe for us, as one of the the last times we saw him he was cycling cheerfully along the promenade at the Hengistbury Head end of Southbourne (Point House) and stopped for a chat. He swam and cycled regularly.

This isn’t a biography or even a list of achievements. It’s random memories, especially of the years we worked together.

We first met at Anglo-Continental, and I can date that to my first day, 4th January 1971. He was already teaching there. This makes him one of a select group I’ve known longer than Karen (May 1971). Leo was one of our oldest friends. When I started there were six departments, labelled A to F. Leo was in A Group (Advanced), and I was in F (Beginner). There were two sets of teachers, the younger teachers and then the ones in their late 40s to 60s, often ex “colonial” civil service or education, or ex-military. The younger group socialised together.

Leo took a sabbatical year and went to Edinburgh to do Applied Linguistics. Edinburgh was considered the cutting edge Applied Linguistics department. When he returned, we had many enthusiastic discussions on syllabus design, and the functional approach to English Language Teaching. This would be 1973 onwards. Everything was about to change in ELT. It was exciting in a way it’s hard to imagine for me now. Many of the best discussions were at Leo’s flat.

The six groups were later combined into three departments, Advanced, Intermediate and Elementary. We both became Deputy Heads, then in 1975 I became Head of Elementary Studies and Leo was Head of Advanced Studies. We were on the same side in arguments with the Director of Studies too.

A memory among many. Leo taught me how to use a language laboratory, including Cineloop, a system no one will remember. I guess that’s when I met him, on my first day. He showed me the open reel tapes which were used to play authentic songs. I think he’d prepared them. I remember Nowhere Man, Paul Simon’s America and several from the Paul Simon Songbook. At the Celebration of Leo’s life, Slip Slidin’ Away by Paul Simon was played. That took me back to that drawer full of tapes. I believe music was why we started chatting at breaks. He had recorded Lonesome Suzie by Blood, Sweat & Tears for the Language Lab, and I persuaded him to replace it with the original version by The Band. He was a calm and patient teacher for the tech, though as I’d been working as a sound mixer on stage, the language lab board was really easy for me. It gave us time to chat.

Karen and I went to see Steely Dan in Southampton in Leo’s Renault 4 one Sunday. We had tickets, so did Leo it turned out, and he suggested we go in one car. We got there and found a note on the door saying there weren’t coming. We went for a pizza instead.

Fast forward a few years. The ARELS oral exam was introduced, where the students had to record their answers on a cassette tape in a language lab – a brilliant exam idea. The cassettes were sent away to be marked. It was taught in Leo’s department and the exams were on Saturdays. We had three labs. Leo said he only trusted me and Karen to do it, as any mistake screwed up the exam. So Leo and Karen had the two console lab (two twenty booth labs in the same room), I had the single console lab across the corridor. Karen reckons he thought she might need supervision, though she had taught the exam preparation. But none of us made a mistake, and we had two or three sittings in a day.

When Anglo-Continental opened a new budget school in 1973, Academia, Karen was one of the first teachers. We had met in May 1971 when she joined the weekly sketch shows, but she did not teach there.

Karen got moved suddenly to the business school Anglo-International one Monday. The woman who taught the secretarial course had lost her husband over the weekend. There was a crisis meeting at 8.50. They had no one to teach the course until I pointed out Karen had done a one year secretarial course. She came out of the 9 o’clock lesson at Academia, and was told she had to go straight to Anglo International for 10 o’clock. She was there several months, hated the very weird staff room atmosphere, and was rescued by Leo who offered her a place in the far more congenial Advanced Department at Anglo Continental. Leo was a very pleasant head of department and mentor to the teachers. He ran a happy ship. She taught on the pilot version of Functions of English – so did I for a month because I wanted to try it. So I taught in Advanced for a month and Leo switched and taught in Elementary, where we were piloting what became Streamline. Karen typed the manuscript of ‘Functions of English’ for Cambridge University Press. We’re both credited in the acknowledgments.

In the early 70s Leo was renting a flat on the top floor above a lawyer’s offices at the very top of Richmond Hill in Bournemouth. It’s now been replaced by a mighty tower block of flats. We had some great evenings there as well as a series of Sunday breakfasts for twenty people. You had to go down to the floor below for the loo. I remember one evening Leo playing us Neil Diamond’s live album ‘Hot August Night’ and me buying a copy the next day. That flat was a problem. We’d always had wine, and because it was at the top of the hill on a roundabout on the dual carriageway (it’s now been replaced by an underpass) the police used to park right in the entrance to the car park, watching for speeding motorists, having a cigarette or three, passing a thermos of coffee. To get out, you had to go out, tap on the police car window and ask them to move their car. We had a few one hour waits looking out of the window until they left.

These photos are 1975.Nick Keeping’s wedding:

Left: Peter, Leo, Nick Keeping, Sally Wellman Right: Nick, Leo, Sally, Guy Wellman

Anglo-Continental Educational Group was very large. We had a fine staff restaurant (which was the changing room for our weekly stage shows, being next to the student restaurant which could seat 400 as a theatre). Karen and I were saying it was odd that we in Elementary (Karen moved there) seemed to know the teachers in Advanced better than we knew those in the other departments of ACSE and the other schools on the Wimborne Road campus. We hit on the answer. Leo’s office was directly above my office. Our staff rooms had the same locations, one above the other. We were the two nearest departments to the staff restaurant. I reckon both lots, Elementary and Advanced, got into the staff restaurant first at break time!

A kindness I will remember. Early 1975. We had a mustard yellow Triumph Spitfire. In 1973 in the petrol crisis, coupons were issued for potential rationing. We had a large thirsty 4.5 litre Humber so the ration would barely get us to work and back for five days. Karen’s old drama teacher phoned us. Another drama teacher had bought the Spitfire new for £1400. She had injured her back soon after and couldn’t get into it. (Or quite possibly injured her back trying to get into it). She’d been advertising it but no one wanted a sports car. It was ten months old. She had just dropped the price to £750. It was an incredible bargain (and did 40 plus mpg.) We had it for two years, then one evening a friend arrived. He’d come into some money and wanted the car. He offered us £1500 in cash, double what we paid for it, but he wanted it by Saturday morning. I told Leo. I needed a new car right away to get to work, and I had enough money for a brand new one. Leo picked us up on Saturday morning and spent the entire day taking us round to dealers … Ford, Renault, Vauxhall, British Leyland, Citroen. Lots of test drives, except Ford, who thought the three of us looked too scruffy and declined to let me test an Escort. We ended up at Fiat in Winton and bought a Fiat 128 Rally at 4.30 pm, which cost £1530. I paid cash. We had it by Monday.

We were teaching on the RSA Diploma course together when Anglo-Continental took over the Bournemouth examination centre from the College. The year before the College had got one or two passes out of fifty students. Anglo-Continental reversed that to just one fail out of fifty. That was a great RSA course – Leo, me, Bernie Hartley, Roy Kingsbury, Alan Tankard, Patrick O’Shea. We had lectures, small group seminars and lesson observation. We each had a tutorial group. The college had just had lectures.

Leo was in some of our annual ELT pantomimes and performed in some English As A Funny Language shows. In others he did lights and sounds and would prepare the sound effects himself and often deliberately surprised us. We had a recording studio at Anglo-Continental, and Leo and I were the main users and amateur recording engineers with the two Revox A-77s. We both recorded the in-house versions of our books there. Leo’s became Functions of English.

We used to do a largely improvised version of Cinderella outside the pantomime season twice a year, and Leo and I did the double act as the Ugly Sisters.

Leo did a hilarious Monty Python woman in other sketches too, and we did a couple of sketches with us as ELT landladies.

This was ‘Landladies at Casualty.’ Nick had got his finger stuck in an HP sauce bottle (trying to get the last bit out for the student dinner) and Leo and I were escorting him to casualty.

In 1976 we did Robin Hood as a pantomime. The Sheriff of Nottingham had an archery tournament which Robin Hood (Karen) would win. We even asked for and got the TV cider advert arrow hitting target sound. (Robin fired in a quick blackout). It was preceded by a beauty contest (OK, I know, but this was 1976). We had students from the school as Miss Switzerland, Miss Brazil and (yes, really) Miss Iran. Leo was Miss England. The contest was decided by audience applause. Leo won every night of the three day run.

1977 we reprised it in Frankenstein: The Pantomime by bringing up students for a make-up demonstration conducted by the pantomime dame. One who was selected, of course it was Leo. He got smothered in coloured creams. Then the dame turned to the students, who fled.

He was in our 1985 week run of English As A Funny Language at the Regent Theatre in Christchurch.

We always did a “student” sketch with assorted students in a classroom in the 1970s shows, and did one at the Regent show. I was the hapless teacher who couldn’t get the beginner class to understand the word ‘girl’ and Leo in full Superman costume ran on with a tailor’s dummy as “Super Teacher” and explained it with the visual aid.

That Regent show lasted a week, and the Regent asked us to come back for six weeks the next year. We’d sold out most nights to language schools, who bussed students there and to the amazement of the Regent Centre, blocked the entire High Street with buses. The theatre wasn’t used to being full. Leo, Karen and I were writing full-time, but the rest of the cast were teaching in the day and could never have managed a longer run.

Leo was one of the great ELT innovators with Functions of English and Notions in English, Ideas, Let’s Talk, Cambridge Advanced English, Progress to Proficiency, International Business English. Functions of English was revolutionary. We started in publishing at the same time. Both of us had meetings with Cambridge University Press (CUP). Leo had introduced us to them. Bernie Hartley and I were about to sign with CUP too, and then Oxford University Press offered us colour illustration and we switched. Light blue to Dark blue. Leo became one of CUP’s most prominent and important authors.

We were often at the same conferences too and never in competition since we specialized at the opposite ends of the ELT spectrum.

We have two copies of Functions of English. Why two? Well, both are signed:

Leo pioneered taking his own photos for his books, something I later followed. Ideas was very early in splitting activities (“Information Gap”), so that in pair work one student looked at one page, the other at a different page.

Some photos in ideas for a matching exercise (parents and children) were taken by Leo mainly at a party in the garden at our house. Yes, we are in it as are Guy and Sally Wellman.

There are a lot more books.

We always stayed in touch. Our kids played with his kids. When they were pre-school, several mothers including Karen and Sue organized a weekly club. Both Leo and I were roped in to do some very early (BBC computer) stuff. Leo was always good at tech stuff. We both got the very first Apple Macs.

We went to parties at his house regularly. Leo and Sue gave splendid parties, usually one near Christmas and one in the summer … Sue created a magnificent garden. Leo was a great cook too. I remember a dinner with friends a few years ago when Leo said, ‘We were both so lucky. We saw the very best time in ELT as teachers and authors.’ That’s true, I believe. He added, ‘It’s gone.’ That’s true too.

Leo did more foreign trips than me. Early on, I shared the promotional trips with Bernie Hartley. There was an ELT Conference circuit and it was strange to see the same authors again and again in different locations. It was especially strange to walk into a book exhibition in Tokyo or Athens and bump straight into Leo.

My son, Joshua, met him in China and showed him round the Shaolin Temple where Josh was studying martial arts. Leo was not only a superb photographer, he had an eye for odd and quirky things. One I remember from Japan is he captured a close up of the rear of two cars parked closely next to each other. Cedric and Cecilia. (Nissan and Toyota names). He gave me a CDR of over 100 of his Shaolin Temple photos. Brilliant little detail observations. On trips abroad, he researched the odd or unusual places he wanted to see and would set off with his camera at conferences. He fortunately handed over the camera and let someone else take these. Josh had dyed his hair blonde so as to stand out in martial arts competitions. (He wasn’t born when the photos of offspring were taken for Ideas).

Leo used to love Shakespeare’s Globe, always as a groundling, queuing to get right up front next to the stage. In recent years we had some pleasant meals before seeing plays in London, especially Domenic Dromgoole’s Oscar Wilde season at the original Vaudeville Theatre. Karen and I used to stay in a hotel by the Globe and Leo had a flat further down the river. We had a couple of walks back from the West End discussing the plays, then he got the tube from Borough Market. Leo loved theatre, art galleries, music, literature. For my 70th birthday he gave me a year’s membership to the Victoria and Albert Museum.

We relied on Leo’s quirky TV series recommendations, like Misfits and The Great.

We only go to see the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra two or three times a year. Leo and Sue were regulars, always in the favoured extra wide row near the aisle. Sue is in the Bournemouth Symphony Choir. I’ll very much miss seeing him next time we go.

There are some people you think may live to be a hundred. Leo, with his cycling, swimming and walking was one of them. That’s why we were so shocked at the news. Just four months earlier I had tripped and fell face forward onto tarmac. I broke my glasses, fractured my nose and had cuts and bruises. I realise how lucky I was to get away with it so lightly. The sense of vulnerability to a slip here or there stays with me.

RIP, Leo.

COMMENTS ON MY FACEBOOK PAGE:

Charles Hadfield: Sad news. RIP Leo and thank you so much

Victoria Simonenko: It’s so sad when people you know pass away…. I used Let’s Talk-1,2,3 in my teaching practice.

Lindsay Ross: So unbearably sad. Will miss him greatly.

Laura Woodward: Very sad to lose another ELT legend. May he rest in peace, and condolences to his family. 

Rakesh Sharma: Heartfelt condolences. May his soul rest in peace.

Virginia Lopez Grisolia: Sad news indeed! I learnt so much from his books as a student and then as a teacher of English here in Argentina! All the big names in ELT are passing away!  The golden age of ELT

Judy Garton-Sprenger: So very sad to hear this – thank you, Peter, for letting us know. RIP Leo

Nick Love: Very sad news..

Hugh Dellar: That’s very sad. I only met him once but his CUP books had a real impact on me as a young teacher and writer.

Chuck Sandy: Such sad news. I had the chance to be with him at several conferences and promotional tours for Cambridge around the time he first published Let’s Talk. One such time was in Korea where we went to several schools together for workshops and onwards to Korea TESOL. (KOTESOL). After the first day Leo had found a bar called 0’Kims which he convinced the local CUP reps to take us. Another author was with us and remarked that we should go to the KOTESOL opener as the drinks were free. Leo gave a wave of his hand and said “They’re all free.” Those were the days. I didn’t know him well beyond conferences but he was smart, funny, and kind always at these events. An ELT legend. Rest in peace, Leo

Chuck Sandy (on ELT Writers Connected): It was such a thrill as a young person in ELT to get to have after conference drinks and dinner with Leo as we wrote for the same publisher. He was a hero of mine for books like Functions of English and more. I got to meet him after he’d written Let’s Talk and told him how much his work meant to me. He laughed and said something like enough about that, what are you drinking? Smart, funny, down to earth, he’s still a hero. Rest in peace, Leo.

Mike Thompson: Very sad Peter I remember attending a seminar he did when I was teaching in Japan on functions of English 1981 I would guess. Charming and charismatic.

Christopher Graham: Used his books years back and enjoyed them a lot. RIP Leo

Julie Norton: So sorry to hear that. Sincere condolences to Leo’s family and friends. He came to talk to us in Japan about his books in the early 1990’s and I was influenced by his work and this talk.

Bob Scott: Sorry to hear that

Jon Hird: Sad news. His books had a huge influence on me when I started out. Met him just once when we were both speaking at the same event at BC in Moscow 20+ years ago.

Tony Lloyd: So sorry to learn of Leo’s passing – a true pioneer

Marina Karapetayn: RIP

Anna Phillips: Such a shock as we often saw Leo cycling near our home in Queen’s Park or striding around the golf course, invariably in shorts even in the winter.  He was one of my tutors on the RSA Diploma as it was known then, at Anglo, in about 1978, Peter Viney, you were my other one!

Grzegorz Spiewak: My very first FCE coursebook over 39 years ago … So sad to hear of his passing

Delia Iglesias: My condolencies to his family. He will be missed

Michael McCarthy: Very sad- a major figure in the ELT world. A pioneer of the communicative movement in the 1970s.

Michael Carrier (on ELT Writers Connected): So sorry to hear that Peter. I often used his books and he was very innovative – a sad loss

Tom Kenney: Leo Jones fan here! His CUP text Great Ideas inspired me over and over again as a new ESL teacher 30 years ago