My father, John White, who has died aged 104, was an English teacher in London. He became a humanist representative on the standing advisory council on religious education for the Inner London Education Authority (Ilea) in the late 1960s and early 70s, helping to ensure that humanism and non-religious views had a voice in the shaping of the syllabuses of the time.
He had become concerned about the narrowness of religious instruction in schools in the 60s and was worried about the requirement for daily worship brought in by the 1944 Education Act. From 1968 onwards he became an activist in the British Humanist Association (BHA, now Humanists UK), and was a member of its education committee, and later its chair and secretary. He was also a celebrant at humanist funerals. Continue reading...
