A DEDICATED Kidderminster teacher with a lifelong love of history has died at the age of 99. 

Lucy Torode taught at Lax Lane School in Bewdley and Kidderminster High School in the 1950s, and at Sion Hill School in the 1960s, becoming Head of History at the new Wolverley High School from 1970.

Born in Oldham, Lancashire in 1922, her father was a Minister of the Moravian church and her mother a music teacher. 

As her father made regular moves between congregations in different parts of the country, Lucy went to the Moravian boarding school at Fulneck, near Leeds. 

She later attended the Sixth Form at Clifton High School, Bristol, where she won a scholarship to study History at St Hilda’s College, Oxford. 

Right at the end of her time there she met Roland Torode leading to their marriage in December 1945. Their children Brian, Susan and Roger were born between then and 1950.

The family came to Kidderminster in 1953, living in Greatfield Road. 
Lucy joined local societies and took on part-time and supply teaching roles. She was later appointed history teacher at Kidderminster High School, until the birth of her daughter Laura in 1960. 

In 1965 the family moved to St John’s Avenue, and she returned to part-time teaching, subsequently at Sion Hill School and then being appointed Head of History at the new Wolverley High School in 1970. 

Shortly before her retirement, she introduced a series of historical walks around Wolverley.

When Roland died in 2012 she remained in the family home until 2015 when she moved into a care home near her daughter Laura in Oxfordshire. 

She met her newest great-granddaughter, just a few weeks old, earlier in July. 

Lucy, who died on July 28, leaves her four children, eleven grandchildren and ten great-grandchildren.

A funeral for Lucy will be held at St John the Baptist Church, Wolverley, on Friday, August 19 at 2pm with a reception nearby afterwards.