"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 'leafy suburbs', saying simply, 'I belong here.

She began as a five-year-old at Clarksfield, sat in the classrooms of Hulme Grammar for Girls, trained in Scarborough, then came home to teach first at Alt Primary, Alexandra Infants and Fitton Hill before taking the top job at two of the town's toughest schools. Colleagues recall a leader who turned newly-qualified staff into future heads and deputies by expecting high standards and showing exactly how to reach them.

After retirement she kept turning up where children gathered: running Christ Church Glodwick youth club alongside husband Brian, chairing governors at Hey with Zion and later Littlemoor, and reading to patients' children at the Royal Oldham Hospital. Match days found her on supporters' coaches to Wembley twice over, scarf held high for Oldham Athletic.

Council children's chief Shaid Mushtaq says her belief that every local child could succeed 'will be felt for years to come'. Friends from the Hey Ladies' Society, where she gardened and swapped cuttings, now plan a quiet memorial: planting her favourite roses outside Glodwick Infants so new pupils can sit beside them and read.