Mapperley resident and retired teacher Francisco Perez Navarro has died peacefully at the age of 96. Francisco was a highly regarded teacher and philosopher who taught at The Trent Polytechnic and latterly at other colleges in Nottingham.
Francisco Perez studied philosophy, history and art in post-war Madrid. A bright ‘free thinker’ he travelled and immersed himself in the art-world, developing a network of artist friends around Europe. Whilst Francisco has never painted, his appreciation of art made him connections with artists such as Goya and Manuel Ortega in Spain, to locally renowned artists such as Paul Gidley and Maggie Campbell.
Francisco moved to England in 1955, initially to Great Malvern in Worcestershire where he met and married his wife Francoise (a Franco-Swiss teacher). They moved to Mapperley in Nottingham in the 1960s where they lived and raised their family.
In addition to his teaching, Francisco also wrote various books and articles, including a book in Spanish introducing the works of Samuel Beckett to a Spanish speaking audience: Galería de Moribundos: Introducción a las novelas y al teatro de Samuel Beckett (1976)
Former student recalls his memory of Mr Perez
Dr Tony Shaw (a former student recalls Francisco at Clarendon College).
“In the eighties Francisco Perez taught me Spanish at Clarendon College, Nottingham, and his lessons were far removed from the norm. He used to come in, take a large number of books and papers from his bag and line them on his desk. On one occasion he gave me a news item (or fait divers) in French for me to translate aloud (slowly) into English for the class (including myself) to translate back into Spanish. This was, of course, long before Ofsted was created to dumb down the level of education and manufacture robotic students through teachers’ lesson plans and exam targets”.
Francisco leaves five surviving children, Maria, Gabriel, Miguel, Rafael and Pedro.
Pedro Perez said
“My father died at home and peacefully. He waited for Miguel and I to go and see him before he passed. He was a fighter all his life, from the age of eleven when he experienced the Spanish Civil War”.