Peter Viney's Blog

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 Southbourne 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. At Anglo-Continental, I was eventually 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!

Leo took a sabbatical year and went to Edinburgh to do Applied Linguistics. When he returned, we had many enthusiastic discussions on syllabus design and the functional approach. This would be 1973. Everything was about to change in ELT. It was exciting in a way it’s hard to imagine for me now.

When Anglo-Continental opened a new budget school in 1973, Academia, Karen was one of the first teachers. Leo and I were teaching on the training course for the new school – we had done teacher training with foreign teachers of English but this was our first one with native speakers. Karen got moved suddenly to the business school Anglo-International one Monday. The woman who taught the secretarial course lost her husband over the weekend. 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 six months, hated the weird staff room atmosphere, and was rescued by Leo who offered her a place in the Advanced Department at Anglo Continental. 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 taught in Elementary, where we were piloting what became Streamline. Karen typed the manuscript of ‘Functions of English’ for CUP. 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 It’s now been replaced by a mighty tower block of flats.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 to the floor below for the loo. I remember Leo playing us Neil Diamond’s ‘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 and ask them to move their car. We had a few one hour waits looking out of the window until they left.

I remember going to see Steely Dan in Southampton in Leo’s Renault 4 one Sunday. We got there and found a note on the door saying there weren’t coming. We went for a pizza instead.

These photos are 1975.Nick Keeping’s wedding:

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

A memory among many. Leo taught me how to use a language laboratory, including Cineloop, a system no one will remember. He showed me the open reel tapes which were used to play authentic songs. 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.

It was taught in Leo’s department and the exams were on Saturday mornings. 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. But none of us made a mistake, and we had two or three sittings in a day.

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 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 and bought a Fiat 128 Rally at 4.30 pm, which cost £1530. I paid cash. We had it by Monday.

We were 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 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.

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

Leo did a great and 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 and Leo and I were escorting him to casualty.

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

He was one of the great ELT innovators with Functions of English and Notions in English, Let’s Talk, Cambridge Advanced English, Progress to Proficiency, International Business English. We started in publishing at the same time. We were often at the same conferences too and never in competition since we specialized at 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 early in splitting activities, so that in pair work one student looked at one page, the other at a different page. Some photos for a matching exercise (parents and children) were taken by Leo mainly at a party in the garden at our house.

There are a lot more books.

We always stayed in touch. Our kids played with his kids. We went to parties at his house regularly. Leo and Sue gave splendid parties, usually one near Christmas and one in the summer. I remember a dinner 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.

Leo did more foreign trips than me, I think. 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 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 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).

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. 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.

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. I’ll 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 so shocked at the news. Just four months ago I 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.

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