My mother, Shiela Hodges, who has died aged 94 of Covid-19, had three great loves: family, amateur dramatics and her school, first as a pupil and later a teacher.

Shiela was born in the flat over her father’s Kidderminster optician’s shop, the second child and only daughter of Leon Jacobs and his wife, Edith (nee Amey). She attended Kidderminster high school for girls from the age of six to 17. She was the first member of her family to go to university, moving to London during the second world war to take a degree in geography at Bedford College. She graduated in 1946.