My mother, Dorothy (Dot) Whiston Jones, who has died aged 99, was a PE teacher in Wales who later became a sociology lecturer at a further education college.
She was born in Cardiff as the fourth child of Albert Whiston, a ship’s carpenter, and his wife, Daisy (nee Cotterrall), a seamstress. The family were lucky to survive a German bombing raid on their street in 1941, in which more than 50 people died. Dot went to Canton high school in Cardiff before being evacuated, and despite the huge disruption of the war, including a period of evacuation, was still able to pass her matriculation, demonstrating her tenacity and academic abilities.
Dedicated to the Girl Guides, in 1946, by the age of 20, she reached the highest rank of Queen’s Guide, and was presented with a gold cord by Princess Elizabeth – who was of a similar age – at a celebratory camp at Coedyhydyrglyn just outside Cardiff. The princess stayed overnight and Dot, as camp cook, was entrusted not to burn the royal porridge.
After the second world war Dot completed an intensive teacher training course at Llandrindod Wells College in 1947, and became a PE teacher at the newly established Laban Dance Studio in Manchester, where she was also able to study modern educational dance under the studio’s founder, Rudolf Laban.
She returned to Cardiff in 1953 to Splott secondary modern, where she taught PE to the teenage Shirley Bassey, recalling that on rainy days, when pupils were confined to the school hall, the girls would often chorus: “Let Shirley sing, Miss!”
Never idle, during her first three summer holidays from teaching Dot went to Austria, camp-cooking for British Army volunteers who were building postwar housing for refugees. In the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Hungary in 1956 she took in a Hungarian refugee, Mady, and her daughter, Ildi, who lived with her in Cardiff for a number of years and with whom she remained friends for the rest of her life.
In 1960 she married Peter Jones, a fellow Cardiffian, coalminer and Labour party member. I was born in 1962 and my brother, Jonathan, was adopted in 1965, but Dot still found sufficient energy to undertake a part-time education degree at Cardiff University.
In 1976 she joined a TUC delegation (including Arthur Scargill) to Cuba, a trip that inspired her masters dissertation on educational developments in the country.
Afterwards she moved to teach sociology at Crosskeys Further Education College, where she taught members of the emerging Manic Street Preachers band and formed a long-lasting friendship with their lead vocalist and guitarist, James Dean Bradfield.
Dot worked for her last 10 years full-time teaching at Crosskeys but carried on as a part-time supply teacher well into her 70s. A season ticket holder at Cardiff City into her late 80s, her final years were spent living in Monmouthshire, where she remained her curious and fun-loving self.
She is survived by Peter and her two children, by three grandchildren, Ashley, Faith and Rannie, and a great granddaughter, Amelia.
