NEIL Quilter says he knew from the age of about six that he wanted to be a teacher.

He achieved his ambition at the age of 21 and continued in his dream job for a remarkable 43 years.

"I've loved every minute of it," said Mr Quilter, who retires this month from Winterbourne International Academy.

He has been at the South Gloucestershire comprehensive for 30 years and has already left once, at 60, when he stepped down as head of maths from what was then the Ridings High School.

"The head asked me to come back part-time to teach A level and my successor Mark Ward was happy to have me, so that's what I did."

Mr Quilter qualified at teacher training college in Winchester and got a job as a maths teacher in a tough secondary modern school. In the early days, he also taught English, technical drawing and music.

He moved to the Bristol area after he got married and taught at King Edward in Bath, then a direct grant school. He moved on to Wellsway in Keynsham, studying for a degree by correspondence course while in his 20s, before going to Winterbourne as head of a large department.

"It is an amazing school that has flourished in all sorts of ways. Our results are among the best in the area," he said.

Mr Quilter has seen many changes in the course of his career.

He set up computer studies courses at two of his schools and remembers the days of the Research Machine 380 and the early BBC computers.

"We used to have to send punch cards off by courier to UWE for processing. They would come back about a week later. There have been tremendous changes in all respects," he recalled.

"Change has never bothered me. It has made my career really interesting. Teaching certainly isn't a boring job."

His wife Maureen, a teacher at St John's Primary in Keynsham, is also retiring this summer. Their daughter Sarah is an infant teacher with two children, Emily and Katie, and their son, Simon, is a chef.

Mr Quilter is vice chairman of Keynsham Light Opera Group and treasurer of Keynsham Methodist Church so will not be idle in his retirement. But there will be one more thing to keep him busy – he's going back to the academy to run an evening class in A-level maths.