Michael Rosen writes: As your obituary (Nov 4) made clear, Barry Brown did indeed teach me at Harrow Weald County Grammar School in 1957-58. Suburban grammar schools of that time could be bland places, and to look back at the moment Barry arrived, it’s clear to me now that he was beckoning in the Sixties. He was, after all, outrageous enough to wear suede shoes and talk with a Manchester accent. Even his walk — when he moved down a corridor, his feet, legs and arms moved in ways you only saw outside the Granada cinema on a Saturday night. In some strange role-reversal way, he was a teacher who appeared to be insolent.

He taught English. That’s to say, he roamed around the class, or sat with his feet up on the desk, hugging the compulsory school gown around him like an old duffle coat and firing off provocative questions at us 12-year- olds. We were reading Jim Davis by John Masefield. He got us writing the “Further Adventures of . . .”. His method of setting homework looked like an imaginative act, conducted in the last seconds of a lesson as he moved between his desk and the door. On one occasion when it looked as if the setting had slipped his mind, he was on his way out when someone called out, “Sir, you’ve forgotten to set our homework.” “Oh,” says Barry, “write a . . . er . . . a Robin Hood ballad.” And he was off.

And he was clearly crazy about drama. He recruited me to join him in the Hatch End Players production of The Merchant of Venice. He was Bassanio, the geography teacher was Portia and I was to be the Prince of Morocco’s slave boy. From the standpoint of 2009, I can see that there are certain ironies about my role. Barry had me, this pudgy little Jewish boy, blacked up and armed with some plastic frond which I was to wave in front of a Hatch End gent, similarly blacked up who said the words with lascivious gusto. On one occasion, I forgot to sponge my protruding tum and did the scene two-tone. Barry was creased up.

I watched him from the wings, wooing the geography-teaching Portia. Was there a touch of naturalism seeping into his ardour? The whisper went round at school that Barry Brown wanted to go on geography field trips. He was the sort of guy who collected that kind of whisper. In other words, he was a reason to go to school.

Before leaving the school and teaching altogether, he directed us all in Under the Sycamore Tree, a piece of American satire that was risqué enough to raise Harrow eyebrows. In my only speech, I had to say the word “plenipotentiary”. (I think I was one such, and had to announce the fact.) I couldn’t say it.

He took me to one side and made me repeat it over and over again until I could. If you’re interested in the business of writing and acting — as he was, as I would become — then you find that a good deal of it is about being obsessed with getting details right. Thanks for that, Barry.

I didn’t see Barry for more than 40 years, but just as I was getting out of the Tube at London Bridge a few years ago, I caught sight of him. At least I thought I did. I shouted, “Barry!” The man turned. I was right. It was him. We talked, swapped phone numbers and e-mails. He said he would love to come and see one of my shows. We would meet properly. He got ill. We didn’t, but thanks a bundle anyway.