David Adams obituary
My father, David Adams, who has died aged 80 of oesophageal cancer, was a well-known musical director, teacher and community impresario; he recently celebrated 50 years as church organist. Later in his career David played a key role in devising the musical curriculum on a national level and became an Ofsted school inspector. He also spent 20 years as the chair of Edexcel examiners for GSCE music.
Born in Kirkcaldy, Fife, to Edith (nee Winter) and William Adams, a shipbuilder at Rosyth docks, by the age of 11 David was regularly playing the organ at the local congregational church and at the Methodist church, where they had a small foot pedal instrument.
He attended Kirkcaldy high school and went on to study music at Edinburgh University in the 1960s, where he was awarded the Alfred Hollins Memorial Organ scholarship, and also gained a diploma from the Royal College of Music, London. In Edinburgh he met Patricia Stevenson and they married in 1966.
Intending to pursue postgraduate study in church music, David and Patricia moved to Cambridge. There he joined Sawston Village college, a secondary school opened in 1930, in order to gain some practical teaching experience, and became director of music and a member of the college's senior management team.
David began playing the organ at All Saints Church in Little Shelford in 1974 and was also musical director for the local community orchestra, Sawston Light Opera Group, Sawston Youth Drama and Duxford Music Workshop.
He encouraged everyone to join in. His orchestras were inclusive and it did not matter if he had six flutes and two violins. He wanted everyone to be part of the music and enjoy it. He made Sawston Village college a renowned centre of musical excellence. Young students started out hesitantly, then became confident performers, with many going on to professional careers as musicians.
He loved church music and in his spare time spent many hours in King's College Chapel and Ely Cathedral, especially in order to take part in his favourite service, Evensong.
In his retirement David was an active Freemason and served as organist for five Masonic chapters: United Grand Lodge, Supreme Grand Chapter, Mark, Royal and Select Masters and the Red Cross of Constantine.
Patricia died in 2023. David is survived by his children, Ruth, Pete and me, and his brother, Hadyn.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
16 hours ago
- Yahoo
This is how we do it: ‘We live in a tiny flat with our kids, so we have sex in the woods at night'
I'd had orgasms with previous partners, but I'd never tried to give myself one – I felt too ashamed When I met David three years ago, my marriage was breaking down and I'd just had a baby. It was a very low moment. My husband was a shut-down, cold man. Part of what finally motivated me to leave was he seemed incapable of caring for me, or even really talking to me after our daughter was born. What first struck me about David was his warmth. He is a father and had also been through a difficult separation, so could understand what I was experiencing. David is very funny and free-spirited. What I love most about him is his spontaneity. His brain is wired in a completely different way to mine. I can be quite rigid, but he encourages me to loosen up. He makes me feel interesting, which I'd never felt in my marriage. I convinced myself that sex didn't really matter in a relationship and that I could do without I was unhappy in my body after having a child – but David really built my confidence up. I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I didn't even really know much about my own anatomy before I met him. I'd had orgasms with previous partners, but I'd never tried to give myself one – I'd always felt too ashamed. In my previous relationships, after the initial excitement had worn off, I would stop being able to climax, but felt too shy to ever tell any of my partners. I convinced myself that sex didn't really matter in a relationship – and that I could do without it. When David found out I'd never used a sex toy, he gently encouraged me to buy a few. Now we have quite a collection, and use them together. We live with my young child and his two teenagers in a small flat, so sex can be tricky, logistically. But David has come up with some inventive solutions. We live in the countryside, so sometimes we drive the car down the lane to a wooded area and have sex on the back seats. Sometimes we even have sex on the ground in the actual wood. There's more space that way. David is so comfortable in his own skin and that makes sex fun and joyful. If you had told me three years ago I would feel this free, I would never have believed you. Anook had never used a vibrator before we met and now we have an enormous box of toys that we hide under our bed I remember the first time I saw Anook, in the car park at work. I was stopped dead in my tracks by the look on her face. She was beautiful, of course, but she looked so lost. I had just gone through a terrible divorce, so I recognised something of what I was feeling in her expression. We started talking and I invited her for a coffee. I immediately felt close to her. The sex has always been very loving between us, but when we first got together, Anook was really lacking in confidence. I think she felt sex was dirty or wrong. I would tell her how stunning she is and she wouldn't believe me. So I'd spend a lot of time reassuring her that sex isn't bad, it's fun and she should enjoy it. She's come out of her shell a lot. I'm a speaker in sex. I don't claim to be any kind of Adonis, but I can do a pretty good job with my words. So we set the mood that way, and then we also use sex toys. Anook had never used a vibrator before we met but now we have an enormous box of toys that we hide under our bed. I'm a speaker in sex. I don't claim to be any kind of Adonis, but I can do a pretty good job with my words Sometimes when we're hanging out with friends, and sex comes up in conversation, I see Anook's eyes completely light up and I think about how much she has changed. She used to be so shy that she'd look at the floor at any mention of the subject. She's helped my confidence a lot, too. I was broken when I met her, but now I'm loud and boisterous. She has built me up so much. We've actually transferred some of our toys to the back of my car, so we can drive out to the woods and have a bit of time away from the children now and then. We live in a tiny flat with our kids, and it's very difficult to find an opportunity to really let our hair down. Outside at night when there's no one around, we get to make a bit of noise.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
Public invited to collect shells from Mexico Beach renourishment project
BAY COUNTY, Fla. (WMBB) – Hurricane Michael destroyed miles of shoreline in Mexico Beach. City officials say there was less than 12 feet of beach left. The Bay County Tourist Development Council began a three-month beach renourishment project, extending the beach by about 145 feet. They completed the project on May 1. However, the dredging project brought up more than just sand. Panama City Police searching for missing 16-year-old 'They have these giant machines that the company brought in, and it just pumped up from the ocean, and it goes right into the conveyor belts, and they have a lot of like fingers that go through it with the machines, and it pulls out anything on a large scale. So that pulls a lot of the shells up,' Mexico Beach Public Works Director Mark Steele said. The city trucked the extra shells over to the Mexico Beach boat ramp and opened it up to the public to search for shells on Friday and Saturday, June 6-7. Shell collectors brought out their buckets and rakes in search of a unique shell. They could collect up to five gallons of shells a day. There are thousands of different types of shells that collectors could find. 'This is a Strombus Alatus. It's a sad one, but it is the Strombus Alatus. There's also the Left-Handed Lightning Whelk Sinistrofulgur Sinistrum. And then there's these pretty little olives that everybody's picking up because they're shiny. And this is Americoliva, subspecies Sarasototensis, which is the Gulf species,' Shell Researcher David Berschauer said. Many were searching for one of the rarest types of shells, only found in the deep ocean. 'We're looking for the Junonia. I think there's a lot of people that are looking for those. It's like the most elusive shell that people look for, and this is an example of one that's broken, but you can get the idea. It looks kind of like giraffe spots,' Shell Collector Bryan Cummings said. The leftover shells will be used in erosion projects throughout Mexico Beach. Overturned dump truck, possible fuel spill cause shut down on Rock Hill Road in DeFuniak Springs 'A lot of it will be used for public works to help people around the city with the parks. Some will be crushed down for parking lots. And they kind of supplement some of our stormwater systems with the drainage. So we do plan on using quite a bit for city use,' Steele said. Due to the success of the event, Mexico Beach plans to open up additional days for shell collection throughout the next few weeks. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
Ocean damage unspeakably awful, Attenborough tells prince
Sir David Attenborough has told Prince William he is "appalled" by the damage certain fishing methods are wreaking on the world's oceans. The Prince of Wales interviewed the TV naturalist ahead of a key UN Oceans conference which kicks off on Monday. The world's countries are gathering for the first time in three years to discuss how to better protect the oceans, which are facing growing threats from plastic pollution, climate change and over-exploitation. The UN's key aim is to get the High Seas Treaty - an agreement signed two years ago to put 30% of the ocean into protected areas - ratified by 60 countries to bring it into force. William to address Monaco forum in bid to help world's oceans Attenborough at 99 delivers 'greatest message he's ever told' Oceans suffer from record-breaking year of heat "What we have done to the deep ocean floor is just unspeakably awful," said Sir David. "If you did anything remotely like it on land, everybody would be up in arms," he said in the interview released on Saturday. It was conducted at the premiere of his new documentary, Ocean, last month. The documentary draws attention to the potential damage from some fishing practices, like bottom trawling, for marine life and the ability of the ocean to lock up planet-warming carbon. Governments, charities and scientists will come together at the UN Oceans Conference (UNOC) in Nice to try and agree how to accelerate action on the issues most affecting the world's seas. Sir David said he hopes the leaders gathering for the UN conference will "realise how much the oceans matter to all of us, the citizens of the world". The ocean is crucial for the survival of all organisms on the planet - it is the largest ecosystem, is estimated to contribute $2.5 trillion to world economies and provides up to 80% of the oxygen we breath. The key aim for the UN is to galvanise enough support to bring the High Seas Treaty into force - including commitment from the UK. Three years ago countries agreed to protect 30% of the world's oceans by 2030, across national and international waters. International waters - or high seas - are a common resource with no ruling country so nations signed the High Seas Treaty in 2023 agreeing to work together to put a third of them into Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). Since then only 32 countries have ratified the treaty - 60 are needed to bring it into force. But many scientists and NGOs are worried MPAs will not be effective whilst practices like bottom trawling are still allowed within them. "Our ocean is 99% of our living space on the globe, we have huge dependency on the ocean in every possible way, but bottom trawling does a lot of damage," Dr Amanda Vincent, Professor in Marine Conservation at The University of British Columbia told BBC's Inside Science. Bottom trawling or dredging is currently allowed in 90% of the UK's MPAs, according to environmental campaigners Oceana, and the Environment Audit Committee (EAC) has called for a ban on it within them. What is the UN High Seas Treaty and why is it needed? But some fishing communities have pushed back on the assertion that certain fishing practices need to be banned in these areas. "Bottom trawling is only a destructive process if it's taking place in the wrong place, otherwise, it is an efficient way to produce food from our seas," Elspeth Macdonald, CEO of Scottish Fisherman's Association told the BBC. Scientists point to evidence that restricting the practice in some areas allows fish stocks to recover and be better in the long term for the industry. The conference had been called after concern by the UN that oceans were facing irreparable damage, particularly from climate change. The oceans are a crucial buffer against the worst impacts of a warming planet, absorbing excess heat and greenhouse gases, said Callum Roberts, Professor of Marine Conservation at the University of Exeter. "If the sea had not absorbed more than 90% of the excess heat that has been added to the planet as a result of greenhouse gas emissions, then the world wouldn't just be one and a half degrees warmer it would be about 36 degrees warmer. "Those of us who were left would be struggling with Death Valley temperatures everywhere," he said. This excess heat is having significant impacts on marine life, warn scientists. "Coral reefs, for the past 20 years, have been subject to mass bleaching and mass mortality and that is due to extreme temperatures," said Dr Jean-Pierre Gattuso, senior research scientist at Laboratoire d'Océanographie de Villefranche and co-chair of the One Ocean Science Congress (OOSC). "This really is the first marine ecosystem and perhaps the first ecosystem which is potentially subject to disappearance." The OOSC is a gathering of 2,000 of the world's scientists, prior to the UN conference, where the latest data on ocean health is assessed and recommendations put forward to governments. Alongside efforts on climate change the scientists recommended an end to deep sea activities. The most controversial issue to be discussed is perhaps deep sea mining. For more than a decade countries have been trying to agree how deep sea mining in international waters could work - how resources could be shared and environmental damage could be minimised. But in April President Trump bypassed those discussions and signed an executive order saying he would permit mining within international waters. China and France called it a breach of international law, although no formal legal proceedings have yet been started. Scientists have warned that too little is understood about the ecosystems in the deep sea and therefore no commercial activities should go forward without more research. "Deep sea biology is the most threatened of global biology, and of what we know the least. We must act with precaution where we don't have the science," said Prof Peter Haugan, Co-chair of the International Science Council Expert Group on the Ocean. A simple guide to climate change Four ways climate change worsens extreme weather What you can do to reduce carbon emissions Sign up for our Future Earth newsletter to keep up with the latest climate and environment stories with the BBC's Justin Rowlatt. Outside the UK? Sign up to our international newsletter here. UNOC 'Ocean darkening' a cause for concern - scientists UK sea temperatures soar after exceptionally warm spring
