EDGAR Peter Topley, who has died aged 80, was a long-standing headmaster in Birmingham, well respected for his leadership and ability to engage with pupils.

Affectionately known to family and friends as Peter, he became the youngest head teacher in the country when he took over at St Mary’s School in Aston in 1963.

Five years later he started a 29-year headship at Wheelers Lane Junior School in Kings Heath, where he would meet his future wife Dee.

That many teachers, pupils and parents were expected at his funeral at Robin Hood Crematorium today was testament to his popularity and his contribution to the school.

Son Adrian described him as an ‘‘inspiration’’ and his ‘‘best pal’’.

He added: “Dad had an ability to relate to the age group he was speaking to. He had a very loud voice but rarely ever needed to use it.

‘‘He had time for everybody he came into contact with and always made them feel important.

“He was also one of the most generous men I’ve ever come across.

“One of his great sayings was ‘go and have a drink on me but don’t tell the vicar’.”

His teaching extended well beyond the classroom, for Peter would arrange and lead summer trips abroad for groups of more than 40 kids, many of whom had never previously been overseas.

Born in Middleton, Greater Manchester, in 1931, Peter was the only child of Edgar and May.

During the Second World War, Peter had to ride a tram across Manchester every day to get to school.

One morning, as he walked the final leg of the journey, he realised he had forgotten his gas mask and moments later heard the drones of the air raid sirens.

In the skies above loomed a German fighter plane prompting Peter to dive, in his schoolboy shorts, into a row of thorn bushes and stinging nettles.

He returned home for his mask rather than face the cain at school for leaving it.

It was an intriguing anecdote by anyone’s standards, and one Peter recalled and recorded when his grandson Sam was asked to complete a school project on the war.

Yet so vivid, captivating and educational was the story under his narration, that the school retained the tape for future history projects.

“I always remember the school holidays when he would come and babysit,” said Sam. “We always went somewhere in the mornings like Olton Hall or the Black Country Museum where we could learn.

“He would always tell a story and then take us down the pub for lunch because he enjoyed a pint.”

As a buyer for the Co-operative Society, Edgar Snr was charged with distributing food across the Midlands during the war, leading the family to relocate to Birmingham.

On leaving school, Peter, an avid footballer who played for Hazlewell Rovers and Harborne Harriers, initially harnessed his passion for biology by working at a testing laboratory at Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

But it was teaching that was in his genetic make-up and before long he had completed his training and was ready to excel in the profession, latterly teaching the teachers themselves.

A huge fan of singer Jim Reeves, Peter spent much of his retirement adding to his extensive portfolio of model ships and vessels, which at last count exceeded 20,000.

Peter is survived by wife Dee, sons Adrian and Nigel, grandchildren Sam and Sarah, and first wife Shirley.