My father, Tim Hawkins, who has died aged 77, was an inspiring English teacher, a lover of the arts and in retirement a familiar, somewhat eccentric figure in the Buckinghamshire town of Stony Stratford.

Born in Wantage, Oxfordshire, Tim was the son of Mary (nee Small), a primary school teacher and Don Hawkins, a gentlemen’s outfitter. He studied English at Worcester College, Oxford, where, as JCR secretary, he specialised in surreal and scurrilous meeting minutes. He captained the tennis team and proudly rowed in the lowest ranked college boat in Eights Week in 1969.

After gaining a PGCE teaching qualification at Bath University, he married Meg Campbell in 1972. Inspired by Sir Walter Scott, they moved to Jedburgh, Scotland, where Tim began teaching at Jedburgh grammar school. He embraced Borders life, enjoying cricket and golf, playing an ugly sister in the school pantomime, and joining the bridge club in the local hotel. When the bridge master complained that the place was becoming more like a beer garden, Tim replied: “I’ll drink to that.”

Moving south in 1978, he was a maverick teacher at Denbigh school in Milton Keynes and the Royal Latin school in Buckingham, whose deep love of words and ideas inspired generations of pupils.

Tim briefly left teaching to work as a painter and decorator in the 1980s, enjoying self-employment and a paint-spattered aesthetic, before returning to the Royal Latin in the 90s and retiring for good in 1998. He and Meg separated, but remained friends, and Tim later returned to Wantage to care for his father-in-law, Bob Campbell.

In Stony Stratford, Tim was a familiar fixture at the Vaults Bar, also known as “the office”. He cut a dapper figure in a trench coat and fedora. He always completed the Guardian cryptic crossword, enjoying the wit of Araucaria, and engaged in political debate over a pint of real ale.

When my sisters, Anna and Rose, and I were young, Tim would read bedtime stories with theatrical glee, doing the voices for Winnie the Pooh and the BFG. Holidays meant driving around Europe in a Ford Transit, singing Buddy Holly. Later, as “GPT” (Grandpa Tim), he loved reading to his five grandchildren and anxiously shouted an ineffectual “CAREFUL!” whenever they approached anything breakable.

Tim’s mental health difficulties could make family life turbulent, but he gave us stories, music, a dark sense of humour and a love of debate. He was passionate about film, comic writing and authentic blues. He died listening to Test Match Special, with England’s cricketers on course for victory.

He is survived by Meg, Anna, Rose and me, and his grandchildren; and his brother, Nick.