major_clanger | Another formative influence passes on

I was sad to see in the latest copy of my former school's alumnus magazine that my chemistry teacher, Charles Grogan (although of course only ever 'Mr Grogan' to me) died last year. He was very much a chemistry teacher of the old school, with a firm belief that pupils learned a lot more about the subject by actually seeing it in action rather than reading about it or watching a video. I well remember demonstrations in the fume cupboard of both the thermite reaction and the direct reaction of lithium with chlorine - that last one proving fatal for some of the glassware involved.

Mr Grogan very much believed that the syllabus was the start, rather than the end, of scientific education and managed to acquire various bits of analytical equipment for his lab to take chemistry a little beyond the titration and litmus-paper level. I doubt very much whether many other schools possessed a combined gas chromatograph / mass spectrometer, let alone encouraged keen sixth formers to run assorted organic mixtures through it!