2000: Dr. Derek J Spooner

Update July 2024

Dr. Derek J Spooner was the Head of the Geography Department at the University of Hull for many years, which has a strong association with GA Presidents. When he became GA President he was a Senior Lecturer in Geography.

I have a personal connection with the University of Hull as I completed my PGCE there in 1986 under W Vincent Tidswell, so possibly met him back then in one of the sessions we had which involved departmental staff. One of Derek's colleagues was Professor Allan Patmore, who was the GA President in 1979, and other well known geographers have been linked with the University, including some featured on this blog. 

Derek's Presidential Address was entitled 'Odysseys in a Regional World'. This went along with the conference theme that year: "2001: a Spatial Odyssey"




In it, Derek discussed the changing nature of geography.

He was the editor of 'Geography' at a time when the journal changed, and included colour printing. This led to a slight change in the nature of contributions, and forms part of the regular updates that the journal has gone through as the subject's position as an academic discipline has evolved too. The journal has been an important part of the GA's 'credentials' as a professional association.

Derek contributed a chapter on Changing Geographies of Energy to another former GA President: Ashley Kent's book on 'Reflective Practice (which also featured contributions from many other GA Presidents) - I have a copy in my library which has grown substantially since the start of this project. Derek and Ashley were also involved in the celebrations of the life of Michael Bradford in 2019 at the University of Manchester. 

See the post on Michael for a link to the video of the celebration where you can see and here Derek in action.

Dr. Spooner is an Honorary Member of the GA. A distinction few have been awarded.



Derek is sat on the floor, third on the right in this image, next to the late Professor Michael Bradford. You should hopefully be able to identify the other Presidents by now. Margaret Roberts MBE is standing in the middle of the group. There are a few GA Trustees in there as well. Derek introduced Michael Bradford's Presidential lecture as well.



Derek in fact also wrote an obituary for the former GA President Michael Bradford in the Guardian, who sadly died in Summer 2019. Michael will have his own post on the blog in due course. He also sent me a significant update to the entry for Allan Patmore, his friend and colleagues for many years.

He told me that:

One thing you might like to note is that three closely-linked Presidents all went to St Catharine's College, Cambridge - Ashley Kent, Mike Bradford and me. This is something which I have developed a little more in some separate blog posts. There were links with other Presidents too, including J A Steers.

Derek kindly responded to my request for more information in a questionnaire that I sent through, and the following information was supplied by Derek.

I was born in Bournemouth in 1943. However I regard myself as coming from Southampton, which is where I grew up. I was born in Bournemouth because my family was evacuated from Southampton during the war, returning there in 1945. I regard myself as coming from Hampshire, though Bournemouth was made part of Dorset in 1974. Dorset is a lovely county (though second-class in cricketing terms) but my allegiance is to Hampshire.

I went to Taunton's School, Southampton, at that time a boys grammar school. It is now a mixed Sixth Form College. My love of Geography was fostered by a brilliant teacher, Ted Colenutt. I went up to St Catharine's College, Cambridge in 1962 and after graduation stayed another three years for my PhD, which was a study of post-war industrial development in Devon and Cornwall.

I then embarked on an academic career spent almost entirely at the Department of Geography, University of Hull, where I stayed until I retired in 2003. I was Head of Department there for eight of those years. I also spent a sabbatical term at the University of Maryland in 1976 and another at the University of West Virginia in 1985.

I was GA President in 2000-2001, and taking my cue from the world of cinema chose the theme 'A Spatial Odyssey'. I have always been interested in Geography as the study of place and space, and my presidential address focused upon three places that had captured my interest - Hull, West Virginia and The Mezzogiorno (Southern Italy). My involvement in the GA was fostered by my colleague Allan Patmore, but my involvement in the work of the Association really took off when I became Editor of 'Geography' in 1989 (until 1995). I regard this as the most important element in my service to the GA. 

It was a particularly challenging time for the journal as it struggled to maintain a flow of articles from university staff who were being increasingly pressurised to concentrate on research publications and grants. 

My main memories are of the sheer professionalism and hard work (not to mention unflagging good humour) of those doing paid or voluntary work for the GA. On a personal level, my main memory is of the stress of preparing my Presidential address, despite having done numerous talks to geography teachers over the years. I vowed never to voluntarily put myself into such a stressful situation ever again!! I'll bear that in mind :)

Derek was also involved in the lead up to the appointment of David Lambert as Chief Executive.

The Annual Conference was held at the University of Sussex in Brighton, the most southerly location for the conference that I can remember, and was I like to think a very successful event. The Coastline 2000 project also ran that year and sought to involve schools in the survey of the coast."

After he retired in 2003, Derek moved to Cornwall and had some involvement with the Plymouth branch of the GA for a few years. 

He also had time to complete 'Discovering Cities: Kingston upon Hull', published in the GA series.

Image: Jeremy Krause and Derek Spooner - image copyright Bryan Ledgard / GA - Jeremy is next up on the blog.

Derek published several articles on coal during the 1980s, ahead of the Miner's strike, and also knew John Fernie, who was one of my lecturers at Huddersfield Polytechnic at that time, who also wrote about the geography of the energy industry.  

Derek told me:

"My interest in the geography of energy was triggered in the 1970s by the development of the Selby coalfield, not far to the west of Hull. I remember writing an article about it in the Geographical Magazine in 1976. That led into a wider interest in the coal industry's changing geography, especially in Yorkshire. I well remember the miners' strike - an awful time. Sabbaticals in the Eastern USA (Maryland 1976) and West Virginia (1985) enhanced my interest in the coalfields of Appalachia."

I also have a letter that Derek sent to Chris Kington who asked him about the spark that had triggered his love for Geography in the first place.

He describes his teacher Ted Colenutt, "a great geography teacher drew a sketch map of Argentina on the blackboard. This representation of a different exotic place caught my interest. I was eleven." He gets a mention in Derek's Presidential address. There are a few of my teachers and colleagues who will similarly get a mention. Their task was to copy the diagram (I had a colleague when I first started teaching who used the same methods 30 years later). After Argentina, they did Chile, then Brazil.

This report from an Old Tauntonian's Dinner in 2010 makes the same point:

"A favourite lesson among his charges was on Volcanoes, Glaciers and Monsoons. He himself had a passion for sketch maps, drawn on a blackboard with coloured chalks. Social behaviour in and out of school were different in past days. Unlike today's College, Ted said, we had to - and could - make more effort at form room discipline. He had heard of masters throwing chalk at disruptive pupils, while one actually threw six-inch long, inch-thick blackboard dusters at trouble makers in the back row!" 

I remember my teachers doing the same in the 1970s, particularly the DT teachers.

As mentioned earlier in the post, Derek was also a great friend of Ashley Kent, and together he and Ashley were involved in the celebrations of the life of Michael Bradford, about whom much has been added to the blog over the last few weeks and which can be seen on video (see Michael Bradford's entry on the blog for the Vimeo link)

Ashley told me about Derek in an email some weeks ago when he gave me his own biography:

Re Hull...as you probably know Derek was ...for years...head of the geography department at Hull and I remember staying with him and his wife to give GA talks there. Derek was at St Catharines, Cambridge University with Mike Bradford and I and I played quite a lot of college football with him. 

He and I plus Janet Pickering, former head of Withington Girls were the ‘front’ of the farewell to Mike at the University.

Derek was a fine cricketer as well as geographer. He was captain of Hull Cricket Club for many years in the famous Yorkshire League, and edited 'Geography' the journal forever."

It seems there may be a cricketing theme for many Presidents too then, with Sheila Jones and fellow Bristolians also being big cricket fans!

Derek also remembers those times editing 'Geography' fondly, telling me:

"In many ways the time I spent as editor of 'Geography' was the time I enjoyed most with the GA. I was particularly proud of the GA centenary issue I produced in April 1993 (No 339), with mainly invited contributions. The October issue (No 341)  was also a special one, with the text of lectures given at the centenary conference, including some by well-known politicians like David Blunkett. It also included a guest editorial by the GA President Andrew Goudie which focused on the 'Great Divide' between Schools and Universities, which was something that I strove to diminish both in my time as Editor, and during my period as President.  It is perhaps worth noting that I  was the last Editor of Geography from one of the older Universities, until the new arrangement introduced as the Editorial Collective. (I was followed by Hazel Barrett (another former GA President) and Kenny Lynch from Coventry and Cheltenham respectively).

In my time as Editor I was also conscious of the declining input to 'Geography' from physical geographers, and made a conscious effort to rectify that - with some success. Although my career was spent largely as an economic geographer I considered that physical geography was most important to the integrity of the subject."

Derek also told me about his experiences on GA Study Tours:

"After I retired at Hull my wife Christine (another geographer by training) and I went on an extraordinary study tour with the GA - to South Africa. We had never been anywhere in Africa before. And what a fantastic set of fellow travellers - including several other Presidents - Chris Kington, Margaret Roberts and Tony Binns (an Africa specialist). We travelled in a large minibus enabling Tony to give us non-stop commentary, driving from Durban to Cape Town. High spots for me included Robben Island, the Addo Elephant Park and travelling up into the Drakensberg to visit Lesotho. I also remember with pleasure listening to a lecture somewhere near Cape Town which was interrupted by a penguin (they bray rather like a donkey). 

We enjoyed this busman's holiday so much that the following year we went on another equally memorable study tour to Kenya. And finally in 2008 we went on a tour of Mexico, which was overrun with GA Presidents. Chris Kington described it as the Presidents and their WAGs! (For the record Chris, Ashley Kent, Mike Bradford and myself, with partners, plus Margaret Roberts!"

Chris Kington also told me about his memories of that trip:

"I think that South Africa trip secured the ascendancy of digital photography over the reluctant to die traditional SLR cameras and the ubitquitous Kodak film. Always keen on photography Derek - now an absolutely brilliant wildlife photographer - really got very excited by the possibilities of digital and re-doubled his determination to become a photographer rather than a snap shooter. This study tour seemed to mark the tipping point. Thereafter the prolific geographers had tens of thousands of shots by the end of a study tour."

Derek also told me a little more about his cricketing experiences:

"Cricket played a big part in my life - in my youth I played several matches for the MCC, including England (the MCC) v the Isle of Wight! For the MCC v Ampleforth College I came on to bowl after Fred Trueman and Brian Statham! Unfortunately I dropped a catch of Trueman. I played for Hull in the Yorkshire League for nearly 30 years (my last season was 1996) and played several times at Headingley."

References
SPOONER, DEREK. “Odysseys in a Regional World.” Geography, vol. 86, no. 4, 2001, pp. 287–303. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40573609

North, John, and Derek Spooner. “The Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Coalfield: The Focus of the Coal Board's Investment Strategy.” The Geographical Journal, vol. 148, no. 1, 1982, pp. 22–37. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/634240.

Spooner, D. (1981). The Geography of Coal's Second Coming. Geography, 66(1), 29-41. Retrieved September 14, 2020, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/41414463
https://rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1475-4762.2000.tb00131.x - a piece on Larkin and Hull

If anyone has other memories of Derek Spooner's time as GA President please get in touch.

Updated March 2021

A memory of Derek from Jeremy Krause

1998 My good friends Wendy Garner and Elaine Jackson persuading me to stand for election as President, and the embarrassing situation, for all concerned, when it was announced at GA Council that there had been a tie in the voting for President between Derek Spooner and myself. It was resolved in the meeting by a ‘drawing of straws’ which Derek won. I then had to decide whether to continue. It was decided that I would be put forward uncontested for President the following year. 

After the meeting, Derek suggested that we should have gone down the ‘single stump in cricket’ route. I would have still have lost! 

Updated August 2022

Here's an image of Derek with Wendy Morgan.

Updated July 2024

Derek was also listed as an inspiration by Claire Birkenshaw, who has had a lecture theatre named after them.

John Pethick is also mentioned here, and he had a high profile back in the day, presenting schools geography videos.