Its history is well known, and the term “Youth Orchestra” now embraces organisations from the European Union Youth Orchestra to the humblest county or borough ensemble. Few, however, can claim adherence to the NYO principle laid out in Railton’s first programme note. Most still bolster their ranks with senior members who have gone on to music college, and some are unashamedly orchestras of young professionals. The NYO itself remains as she first envisaged it, an educational institution.In 1962 she married the newspaper publisher Cecil King, whose Daily Mirror had sponsored the orchestra since 1952, and three years later she handed over the musical directorship of the NYO to the pianist Ivey Dickson, who had been associated with the orchestra since 1950 and who continued successfully to build on the foundation Ruth Railton had established.Railton became closely involved in her husband’s business activities and moved with him to Ireland, but after his death in 1987 she returned to London and maintained her interest in the orchestra, visiting courses and attending meetings, as well as engaging in other musical activities and advising many young aspiring musicians By Colin Bradbury. Andrew Armstrong Mulligan, rugby player and businessman: born Kasauli, India 4 February 1936; married (two sons, two daughters); died Medford, Oregon 24 February 2001.

Andrew Armstrong Mulligan, rugby player and businessman: born Kasauli, India 4 February 1936; married (two sons, two daughters); died Medford, Oregon 24 February 2001.. Chris Woodhead’s reincarnation as a tub-thumping journalist reveals him to be a lesser person than his record as chief inspector of schools could have allowed him to claim. His attack on Tony Blair and David Blunkett, apart from being blatantly opportunistic, is intellectually inconsistent. Chris Woodhead’s reincarnation as a tub-thumping journalist reveals him to be a lesser person than his record as chief inspector of schools could have allowed him to claim. His attack on Tony Blair and David Blunkett, apart from being blatantly opportunistic, is intellectually inconsistent.
Not only does it diminish the achievements of his six-year tenure at Ofsted, it does so on the basis that half of that period was served under a Labour rather than a Conservative government.

That makes no sense, as it was Labour that intensified the drive for the reforms that Mr Woodhead championed. In particular, it was Mr Blunkett who brought in the literacy and numeracy hours, which are now almost universally agreed to have raised standards in primary schools.Not everything about Labour’s record is perfect, of course. There is a gap between rhetoric and reality, as Mr Woodhead so unoriginally observes. A gap between the rhetoric of “education, education, education” as the number one priority and the reality of gradual improvement in schools, which have the second call on the growth in public spending after the health service.It is a little unconvincing for Mr Woodhead to claim, however, that this gap only became evident recently. At what point, it must be asked, did the chief inspector of schools suddenly realise that Mr Blair and Mr Blunkett were politicians?Now Mr Woodhead has gone into the rhetoric business himself, he has opened up his own gap between words and reality. Knowing that his new career as a media pundit depends on caricature and a steadfast refusal to acknowledge the existence of any shades of grey, he has decided to launch himself with a bang.

Sadly, that means becoming the willing accomplice of the reactionary prejudices of a newspaper, and it means making the assault on his former employers as bitter, colourful and personal as possible.What, though, are Mr Woodhead’s criticisms of substance? Estelle Morris, the education minister, failed to laugh dismissively when someone suggested rebranding teachers as “learning professionals”. Mr Blunkett failed to cut the pay of poorly-performing teachers. He did not do enough to contract out services from bad local education authorities. And it proved “difficult to deliver the reduction in red tape that had been promised so often”.This feeble list hardly amounts to cause to resign, let alone the searing indictment of Government policy for which the Conservatives must have hoped. Mr Blunkett rightly points out that cutting the pay of bad teachers would have guaranteed counter-productive conflict, when teacher morale has been badly enough handled as it is – not least by Mr Woodhead himself.