Jonathan Layton, 76, a retired railway engineer who lives in London, wishes he could have told his geography teacher Bunty what he meant to him

I didn’t get on with my original tutor at all when I was at school, but I managed to swap classes and my new tutor was a man called Richard Hunter. We all knew him as Bunty and he taught us geography.

I was failing every exam at the time, and going through a difficult patch at home. Mr Hunter always had time to talk to me, he listened to what I had to say and that made me so much happier at school.

His support made me want to try again with my education, rather than letting it all go to pot.

As a geography teacher, he particularly loved maps and he passed that fascination on to me. To this day I still love poring over a map. He used to say I was fey. He called me Peter Pan and said I was the sort of boy who’d never grow up. I was very proud of that, though of course it did happen eventually.

My great sadness is that Bunty died before I could tell him what he’d meant to me. He got cancer and I didn’t have a chance to go back to the school to say thank you, and how much his kindness had meant to me.

Is there someone you’d like to say thank you to? Write to us at magazine@observer.co.uk