Memorial to dedicated educator, councillor, union organiser and community leader

Norman Pickering, who died in 2008, was known to thousands as the deputy headteacher of the John Hunt School, in Trench, where he worked for around 40 years.

Trees planted in his memory have been moved to make way for a new annex at Wrockwardine Wood Infant School and Nursery.

BiT Group, which is overseeing the work, have offered to place a new memorial and asked Wrockwardine Wood and Trench Parish Council – which shares the Church Road premises with the school – to suggest wording for a plaque.

Councillor John Thompson suggested Mr Pickering’s wife Joan, an infants’ school headteacher who died six years after him, should also be honoured in the inscription.

Councillor Charles Smith agreed, describing the pair as “a team”.

Parish clerk Carol Binnington said biT group had asked her to liaise with members and Mr and Mrs Pickering’s daughter about the memorial.

“I met his daughter, who was actually tending her dad’s grave a few weeks ago,” she said.

“She is really thrilled she is being involved in the process and loves the idea that we’re going to have a tree that’s virtually in front of the parish council rather than over on the field that nobody ever has access to.”

Councillor Smith noted that Mr Pickering was also a member of Shropshire County Council and a founder member of Wrockwardine Wood and Trench Parish Council.

He was “well-respected” and “involved in the education of many children in the area”, he added.

Councillor Thompson said he studied under Mr Pickering at “Trench Boys” – as the John Hunt School was known until 1973 – and was taught by Mrs Pickering as an infant.

“It would be nice to remember them both,” he said.

Councillor Smith said: “Mrs Pickering was the headteacher at that school for many years and the tree is going to be in the school grounds, as it were, so we ought to mention Norman and Mrs Pickering.”

Councillor Shirley Reynolds said she knew Mr Pickering well because he, like her mother, was a National Union of Teachers representative.

She added that, like Councillor Thompson, she was taught by Mrs Pickering while Mr Pickering taught her brother at John Hunt.

“He was at that school for a long time, we’re talking 40 years,” she said.

Members agreed to instruct parish clerk Carol Binnington to draft several versions of the wording for councillors to choose from.

Telford & Wrekin Council applied to build a 145-square-metre annex to the nursery on the east side of the site, where special needs assessments will be carried out.

The borough’s planning department granted permission in August, and the approval notice said the parish council had been contacted to discuss replacing the felled trees and providing a plaque.

The new memorial is expected to go near the northeast corner of the main school and parish council building, near the car park entrance.