"I belong here" - tribute to headteacher who devoted her life to the children of Oldham

Mavis Clegg, the former headteacher who steered Eustace Street and Glodwick Infants through the 1970s and 1980s, has died at 92. To generations of Oldham families she was the woman who knelt beside tiny chairs to hear them read and who refused even to apply for posts in leafier towns because, as she put it, "I belong here.

Her career began at Alt, Alexandra and Fitton Hill Infants, but it was at Eustace Street and Glodwick that colleagues noticed something lasting: several of her teachers later became heads or deputies themselves, tracing the promotion back to her example. Beyond the school gates she and husband Brian ran Christ Church Glodwick youth club, chaired governorships first at Hey with Zion and then Littlemoor, and gave Friday afternoons to the Royal Oldham Hospital.

Council children's chief Shaid Mushtaq says her belief that every local child could thrive still shapes policy conversations today. She will be remembered too on the terraces: a season-ticket holder who twice travelled to Wembley for Oldham Athletic's big days, and a regular face among the Hey Ladies' Society and her allotment plot.