It is with sadness, pride and a smile that I remember Nigel de Gruchy, who served as general secretary of the NASUWT between 1990 and 2002 and who passed away on Saturday. I first met Nigel in 1998 after my appointment as a NASUWT staff member to lead on the union’s education and equalities work. Back then, Nigel’s name was synonymous with education. For more than a decade he was instrumental in reshaping the language of industrial relations and in firing the national debate on education. The politics of the soundbite was something Nigel claimed as his own. His choice of words may not always have been comfortable, but it was always memorable Above all, throughout his life, Nigel was passionate about the need for workers to stand together to “insist upon fairness”. While the fight for justice at work – for fair pay and conditions for teachers – was a driving force in Nigel’s time as NASUWT general secretary, he also believed that “partnership is preferable to the traditional and confrontational ways of the …