DEDICATED modern languages teacher and housemaster at Canford School, John Ainsworth, has died aged 72.

He spent the whole of his teaching career spanning 43 years at the Wimborne school and was highly respected by his peers and pupils.

Born in Bristol, William John Ainsworth was the youngest of three children to a father, who also taught modern languages, and a mother who did not work outside the home.

He was always known as John and carried out his own educated at Bristol Grammar School and then at Exeter College, Oxford.

Disregarding his father's advice, not only did he study modern languages, but also made a career in teaching, as did one of his sisters.

Canford School, where he started in 1967 was not only his first teaching post, but eventually became his lifetime commitment.

After his first few years there, he considered applying for posts elsewhere as the received wisdom at that time was that one should expect to move on in this way in teaching.

However, following a rather desultory look at other opportunities, John decided that Canford suited him – he had come to love the school and the area, so why should he move just for the sake of moving.

He stayed and Canford became his whole life; he finally retired fully in 2010, after several years of teaching part-time mainly to sixth form groups.

As well as his principal role of teaching modern languages, mainly French, throughout the school, John was a housemaster, of School House, for around 15 year, a role he found onerous but with a very entertaining aspect to it.

Many of the anecdotes shared at his funeral “wake”, which was held at the school, came from this period.

For some years, he organised and led the expedition component of the Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme in the school. John also regularly contributed to musical events which were held there. This included once playing the title role in a production of “The Mikado”.

As well as singing in school events, he was for some years a chorister at Wimborne Minster.

John never married but was a very popular uncle to his three nephews and his niece. For the last eleven years of his life, his boon companion was his border terrier, Sarko – named for the former French President.

During his last few years of part-time) teaching, Sarko used to accompany him into class, and was obviously a big hit with the pupils although his progress in French was not so evident.

Very sadly, John's retirement years were characterised by chronic and rather severe depression and he never fulfilled any of the plans he had once made for retirement.

He travelled less and less and became increasingly reclusive, eventually dying at home of a heart attack on August 17, just short of his 73rd birthday.

Sarko survived him and is now happily re-homed with a friend and neighbour who herself owns a border terrier. Indeed the two dogs grew up together and when they were younger, John regularly walked them together in the school grounds.

John Ainsworth's funeral was held at Poole Crematorium on September 26 and his family were overwhelmed by the large numbers of former pupils and colleagues who attended, with more than one hundred people squeezed into the chapel. The service was followed by an equally well-attended “wake” held in the Long Gallery of Canford School. John's sister Pat Golding, said: "We, his family always knew that John had been a well-liked and respected teacher but these were truly heart-warming experiences for us and we are most grateful to all the staff who contributed to making that day so memorable."