Ian Hastings obituary | Children

Publish date: 2024-05-08
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Ian Hastings obituary

My husband, Ian Hastings, who has died aged 65 of an undiagnosed heart condition, was a driver and playworker for Hackney Playbus, a small charity that provides mobile play facilities for hard-pressed families in east London.

Ian joined Hackney Playbus in 1999 and was still working there at his death. A child at heart, he loved playing the fool and making people laugh, which was perhaps why he was so suited to his work. He drove the bus to various locations and then helped the children and their parents with play activities.

Previously he had worked in the same role for the nearby Tower Hamlets Playbus, having joined when the movement was at its zenith, with outlets all over the country providing family support.

Ian was born in Serenga, West Bengal, India, where his parents, John and Joyce (nee Holman) had travelled as Methodist missionaries. At the age of seven he was sent to Mount Hermon boarding school in Darjeeling, which he loved. In 1971, at the age of 14, he was extremely upset to hear that all missionaries in India had been expelled and that he, his two sisters, Christine and Karen, and his parents had to relocate to Britain.

After they settled in Leicester he went to City of Leicester boys’ school. When the family moved to Ilford, Essex, he joined the local church youth group, of which I was also a member. We married in 1981.

Ian did three years of a four-year sociology and social work degree at North East London Polytechnic (now University of East London) from 1975 to 1978. Although he decided not to complete the degree, his studies allowed him to become a residential care worker for the London borough of Newham (1978-81) and then for Islington council (1983-88).

Having trained in his spare time as a diesel mechanic, he started work at Tower Hamlets Playbus in 1988 and stayed there until 1992, when he decided to train as an early years teacher at Goldsmiths, University of London (1992-96).

His plan was to return to India to do some teaching there, but in the end he taught in Tower Hamlets for the three years up to 1999, after which he decided to join Hackney Playbus, as he found the school environment too regimented for him.

He did later manage to spend three spells working as a teacher in India and Bangladesh, each time on sabbatical from Playbus.

Devoted to friends and family, Ian would do anything for anyone. He was the ideal father and then grandfather, and appeared to remain fit and healthy to the last; he played football a few days before he died.

Ian is survived by me, our children, Roxanna and Luke, by his grandchildren Meredith, Josiah, Benedict and Arianna, his sisters and his mother.

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