A RETIRED deputy head teacher who worked at schools across the borough for more than 20 years, as well as in Switzerland and Nigeria, has died, aged 81.

Barbara Jew, of Whittington Road, Norton, Stourbridge, was much-loved by her pupils at Wollescote Primary and Rufford Primary Schools in Stourbridge and at Highgate Primary, Holly Hall, Dudley, where she was deputy head.

She had a great love of poetry and music - and led her young students on many successful expeditions to festivals for performing arts.

She was also keen on drama and took parts in several plays staged at Stourbridge Town Hall, including The Birthday Party, by Harold Pinter, and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

Born in Netherton, she attended Dudley Girls High School and qualified at a teacher training college in Leeds.

Early in her career adventurous Barbara went to work at a finishing school in Switzerland where in fluent German she taught young ladies including princesses and daughters of millionaires and aristocrats from across the world.

Back home - she met and married Bob Jew, from Halesowen, and she joined her new husband in Nigeria, where he was a cocoa bean buyer for Rowntree Fry & Cadbury.

They were living miles out in the African "bush" at a place called Ondo, when she became pregnant with their first child, Louise, who was born in the south western city of Ibadan in 1957.

Louise, now aged 57 and a journalist, said: "She was a very brave lady - it must have been so scary for a young mum-to-be miles from anywhere in the African bush.

"She told me about when she was driven from the maternity home where I was born back to Ondo and there was a terrible storm which smashed in some of the windows of the car, leaving her and the baby 'me' lashed by rain.

"She also told me about a spine-tingling incident in which she caught out our cook in Warri stealing long blonde hairs from her hair bush and selling them on the market for juju, which is a Nigerian black magic."

Bob was, at one stage, made an honorary African chief and presented with an ornate fly "swish" by local Nigerians who had taken the couple to their hearts.

Barbara returned to England to have her second child, Nigel, who was born in Sedgley in 1958 but the family moved back to Nigeria in 1962, spending a further two years in the towns of Warri and Aba.

She taught in several African schools, which were open from 8am to 1pm daily, and in the afternoons she would teach classes of European children, including Louise and Nigel, on the veranda at her home.

She also gave English lessons to Italian oil workers, while husband Bob was now managing a chain of general stores.

After returning to Stourbridge, Barbara worked first at Wollescote Primary, then at Rufford Primary and finally at Highgate Primary, before retiring in her mid 50s.

Barbara had a great sense of fun and, when she mentioned to her class at Highgate that she needed roller skates because the corridors between classrooms were so long, one of the pupils presented her with a pair.

She and Bob, aged 84, had been married for 58 years and have four grandchildren - Luke, now doing his doctorate in astrophysics at Oriel College, Oxford; Eva, studying illustration at Brighton; Joe, a hairdresser; and Danny, who is studying maths at Leeds University.

Son Nigel, a 57-year-old business coach, said: "We know that our mum had a wonderfully nurturing influence on the lives of the hundreds of young people she taught - we lost count of the number of cups she helped them to win at poetry and music competitions.

"She was equally influential on the young people in her own family - teaching my sister and I to read and write before we even started school and, when my own children came along, she helped them greatly when they needed extra assistance with their schoolwork."

Barbara died at Russells Hall Hospital, Dudley, on October 10 after a four-month stay there being treated for infections caused by a pelvic abscess.

A celebration of her life will be held at Stourbridge Crematorium on October 31 at 11.40am, when family and friends are invited to wear a flower for Barbara and dress in their Sunday best of any colour.