An art teacher and former deputy headteacher at Saltus Junior School prided himself on a self-made teaching style that emphasised experience.

Mark Beasley brought a humorous but no-nonsense presence to the classroom, setting out to fire the imaginations of his pupils.

He was also an accomplished runner and all-round sportsman.

As an art teacher, Mr Beasley inherited a love of pottery from his native Lichfield, Staffordshire, in the West Midlands of England — an area famed for ceramics.

Mr Beasley’s one foray into Bermuda rugby, when his friends at Teachers Rugby Football Club were short a man, resulted in a broken leg.

He went on to marry Lorraine, his nurse at the fracture clinic, in 1976.

The couple had three children: Adrian, Benjamin and Rachael.

Lieutenant-Colonel Ben Beasley, the Commanding Officer of the Royal Bermuda Regiment, described his father as a teacher who liked to break from the syllabus to reach children who struggled in the classroom.

“He was very big on what we would now call experiential learning,” Colonel Beasley said.

“He would say there was no such thing as a bad artist, just someone who had not been taught properly. He was driven to get through to every single kid.

“If a class was getting excitable, he would take them for walks on the field and do classes on the hoof. You have to go outside the books to get through to the kids on the fringe — which in his view was completely necessary with ten-year-olds.

“If you just try to follow a book, it will not work for everybody. You have to find diverse ways to get through, usually into kids’ creative side.

“He cared deeply that he was able to help a child appreciate learning. Parents liked him because he would acknowledge when a kid was having difficulty learning and would tell them it would be all right.”

Mr Beasley liked to give his pupils assignments that taught practical skills, such as counting from a phone directory or using the bus.

Colonel Beasley said: “He would try to make leaning fun and he always said you should never force kids to take on too much because they will only push back.”

Although Mr Beasley was a firm disciplinarian, he enjoyed jokes and humour and stocked “comfy chairs” in the classroom for students who had done well.

Certain days were for wearing gaudy ties — so much so that when he retired from Saltus Junior in 2004 after 29 years at the school, students showed up with the strangest ties they could find.

Growing up during the war, when the family’s finances were limited, shaped Mr Beasley’s character. His son said that while his father was unimpressed by opulence, he enjoyed “anyone with interesting information or who could tell a good joke”.

“Teaching was in the family blood,” Colonel Beasley said. “His mother was a teacher, as was his older sister.”

He recalled his father taking a phone call at a school job in Britain and calmly dealing with a bomb threat.

“He told the caller, who said there was a bomb in the school, ‘No, there’s not — I can see you in that telephone box just down the road.’ The kid hung up and ran away.”

Mr Beasley took a post in the Bahamas before coming to Saltus in 1975, aged 34.

He used the school’s kilns to further his pottery and the family were initially housed on the school property, leaving them free to use the school grounds during holidays.

His art skills could be seen in the scenery for school plays and he used his calligraphy to write the ornate lettering on academic prizes. He was also a keen supporter of the interschool arts competition.

Mr Beasley used his knack for engraving to put his pupils’ names on their watches in case they got lost.

Anyone who forgot their school tie could rent from his collection for 25 cents a day.

An environmentalist, Mr Beasley loved nature walks and “abhorred” litter.

“One of the things he liked about golf was that it protected green spaces, and mangroves and wetlands in Bermuda,” his son said.

Mr Beasley was a keen runner who took part in the New York City Marathon and the Bermuda Day Half-Marathon Derby, held a certification as a swimming coach and continued cycling well into his old age.

After retiring, he continued for another decade as a substitute teacher and enjoyed travelling with his partner, Judi Munro.

• Mark Layton Beasley, a former deputy headteacher at Saltus Junior School, was born on May 22, 1941. He died on June 7, 2023, aged 82.