Former Culford School teacher David Bosworth, part of Bury St Edmunds Parkrun and Moreton Hall Runners, dies aged 68

A well-known member of the running community in Bury St Edmunds and former teacher has been remembered as a ‘lovely’ man in tributes following his death.

David Bosworth, 68, a grandfather of three of Bury St Edmunds, died on Saturday, January 11, at the Royal Papworth Hospital, Cambridge, due to complications during heart surgery.

He was involved with Parkrun in Bury St Edmunds as a run director of both the 5k on a Saturday at Nowton Park and the junior event on a Sunday at Moreton Hall and was also a member of the Moreton Hall Runners club.

Sharing the sad news of his death, Parkrun in Bury St Edmunds said he was ‘such a valuable, generous, modest member of our community and will be greatly missed’.

Joe Sadler, of the Moreton Hall Runners club, spoke of David’s generosity with his time and his enthusiasm for the club and Parkrun, and added: “He was just a lovely guy really.”

David had worked at Culford School for 22 years, as a geography teacher and then head of geography, before becoming a guard on the trains from Bury St Edmunds to London.

Trains, planes and buses were a life-long ‘passion’ of David’s, who volunteered at the Mid-Norfolk Railway, the longest heritage railway in East Anglia, after he retired.

David’s son Richard said: “He was just so kind. He was just a very generous man. And in every message we have received [since his death] the same words come up: a lovely chap, kind. He was a lovely dad.”

Richard added: “He was quite a quiet man. He didn’t put himself forward for anything. He was almost a juxtaposition: he was incredibly quiet, but incredibly chatty. He was always happy and smiling and he was quite excitable.”

David, who was born in Harrow, in London, and grew up there, met his wife Monica while he was working as a lab technician at the University of Plymouth.

The family moved to Bury in the late 1980s, when Richard was aged one, when David became a teacher at Culford. Both Richard and his brother Matthew were taught by their dad during their time as students there.

At Culford, David ran the air cadets, which saw him involved with all the exercises and camps with the children. “He was a glider pilot as well”, added Richard. “He loved flying.”

Of his dad’s passion for planes and trains, Richard said he was a plane spotter and train spotter, and enjoyed going on train holidays and to airshows.

“He took me and my brother to all the airshows at Mildenhall and Lakenheath until they stopped doing it. He just absolutely loved them and the RAF.”

Richard described his dad, who was in the air cadets when he was young, as someone who was very outdoorsy.

Recalling a family trip to the Lake District when he was younger, Richard said: “We went up this mountain and I didn’t have a coat and he gave me an adult cycling cape and I basically kept getting taken off like a parachute, and it was next to these huge cliffs and I was terrified.”

But Richard remembers his father had plenty of words of encouragement.

He said when his dad was 14 he cycled with one of his friends from school through Suffolk to Norfolk from Harrow. “He cycled there with just a tiny bag and some money in his pocket with his friend and went travelling around Norfolk.”

When asked about his dad’s running, Richard said he had ‘always been a runner’.

David was a run director for Parkrun for about four or five years, doing his preparation just before the coronavirus pandemic hit.

His family said: “He loved Parkrun and the community aspect of it. He was either volunteering, run directing [which is voluntary] or running.

“Even when on holiday, he would find a Parkrun in different parts of the country.”

Bury Parkrun said: “David would always be the first to volunteer, enthusiastic even in driving rain and always brought the RD [run director] a coffee.”

They plan to observe a minute’s silence in memory of David at tomorrow’s event.

Joe, co-founder of Moreton Hall Runners, described David as a ‘wonderful man, well respected, much loved in the club’.

He recalled how David and his wife Monica would come along to the club’s ‘Couch to 5k’ sessions to show people all ages can get involved, and he would also explain about Parkrun.

“Just a man that gave up so much of his time and was always happy to help and offer encouragement,” said Joe. “A great guy and a huge loss.”

Moreton Hall Runners is planning a minute’s applause on Sunday at the start of its Out & Back run from the Moreton Hall Community Centre.

David, who had previously had a heart operation in 2021 after suffering a heart attack, went into Papworth just after Christmas.

Richard said the team at the hospital were ‘lovely’ and wanted to thank them.

He described how his father had enjoyed the view from his hospital room, which looked out onto a train station being built, a bus route and the Cambridge flight path.

“He was attached to the machines and wasn’t allowed to get off them – he was allowed to walk around the room – and he could just look out of the window by stretching and one day he got too excited and stretched too far and set all the alarms off and all the nurses came running in and he was sheepishly looking out of the window,” said Richard.

A funeral date has not yet been set.