COUPLE’S LONG AND DEVOTED SERVICE

With some 65 years of teaching at Woolsery County Primary School between them, Mr. and Mrs. Cyril B. Griffiths are retiring at the end of this term.

 Mr. Griffiths has been headmaster there for 34 years, and his wife Marjorie has taught at the school for 31 years. Their contributions as teachers and to community activities in Woolsery district have been outstanding, and they will be greatly missed when they go to their new home at Brixham. 

Throughout his years at Woolsery, Mr. Griffiths has not had a day’s absence from duty due to illness, and he has been on duty every lunch hour.  “I don’t want to tempt fate by mentioning that” he told the Gazette.

A native of South Wales, he went to Leeds to qualify as a teacher and then “emigrated” to Devon in 1930.  He taught in Plympton, Kingsteignton, Paignton, Dartmouth and Bideford before being appointed headmaster at Woolsery in 1938. Making music has always given him much pleasure – and his listeners too.  When in Plymouth area he was soloist with Plymouth Orpheus Choir and broadcast on the BBC as a baritone and as a pianist.  He was musical director of the Cymrodorion Society, a leading member of Newton Abbot Operatic Society, leader of Plympton British Legion Concert Party, and arranged concerts for Princetown prison. On moving to North Devon he took leading parts in Gilbert and Sullivan productions at Barnstaple and performed at Bideford Town Band concerts.

MAN OF MANY PARTS

When war broke out he became a man of many parts in Woolsery, being billeting officer, salvage officer, air raid warden, a member of the Home Guard, and a member of the first aid post.  In 1943 the salvage song he wrote was sung with great …………streets with their salvage bags.

Mr. Griffiths was organist at Bucks Mills Church and later at Woolsery Church for many years. Woolsery Youth Club, which he founded in 1944, soon became renowned for its concerts.  Many of the sketches and musical items were written by Mr. Griffiths.  Two years later the club launched out into an educational week in London, something of a pioneering effort in those days.

It was in that same year that Mr.Griffiths first joined Woolsey Parish Council, and he has been its chairman for the past 20 years.

TWICE PRESIDENT

In 1944-46 he was secretary and treasurer of Torridge District National Union of Teachers of which he was twice President, in 1942 and 1962.  He was a founder member of the West Devon Rural Head Teachers’ Association.

“If these walls could only speak,” an illustrated history of Woolsery School written by Mr Griffiths, was published two years ago and attracted interest far beyond the parish.

Mrs. Marjorie Griffiths, a native of Sheffield, came to live in South Devon at an early age and attended Newton Abbot Grammar School.  Qualifying as a teacher at the College of St. Matthias, Bristol, she taught in Plympton, Newton Abbot and Barnstaple, prior to her 31 years at Woolsery School. Like her husband her hobbies have included music and drama, and she too was an active member of Newton Abbot Operatic Society and of the Barnstaple Gilbert and Sullivan Society.

W.I. FOUNDER

On coming to Woolsery she was instrumental in inaugurating the Women’s Institute there.  Unanimously elected its founder president, she remained so for 13 years.  She is still a committee member. During the war she was head of the Woolsery Section of the W.V.S. and chief of the first aid post, and also assisted her husband with billeting duties. 

A staunch member of the parish church, Mrs. Griffiths has long been a member of the Parochial Church Council.

She told the Gazette that throughout her years in Woolsery her first and foremost interest has been the welfare and happiness of the children, adding “and now well into a second generation – the children of the ……(line missing)  married daughter Lorna, who is also a teacher and lives in Saltash.

Gazette article 14 July 1972