THERE IS AN UNWRITTEN RULE in the Sunday Herald that we don't do obituaries. So what follows is not an obit but a personal appreciation of Robert Anthony Crampsey, teacher, writer, and broadcaster.

I apologise in advance if some of this comes across pretentiously as Bob Crampsey: My Part In His Life. It is about the part that Bob Crampsey played in other people's lives.

Like many thousands of west of Scotland schoolchildren, I was lucky enough to have Mr Crampsey as a teacher.

He arrived at Bellarmine school in Pollok in 1962 as principal of history.

Bellarmine was then a vast comprehensive, only two years old and very much a work in progress, which is a polite way of saying that the place verged on the chaotic and much of the teaching was haphazard. This was long before Bellarmine became well-known as a centre of excellence for music.

The arrival of Mr Crampsey at this undistinguished educational establishment was something of an event. Although still in his early 30s, Crampsey had become well-known through his other job as football commentator and polemicist (he was never merely a pundit) on Scotsport on the telly.

There was more than a hint of the John F Kennedy (not just the hairstyle, also the energy and something in the demeanour) in the young Crampsey. It soon became evident that it was not just image and the new history teacher was a man of some substance.

He was inspirational, imparting a love of knowledge to those pupils open to his enthusiasm for learning. He had a teaching style that was more university lecture than school lesson.

He treated his pupils like adults and expected them to behave as such.

In a school where so many of the figures of authority spent so much time as thought police, the history class was a place of serious learning.

Pupils who had Crampsey as an RE teacher reported that he was more conversational, where a discussion of St Joseph the Worker might end up with details of the cost of a sten gun during the second world war (two shillings and eight pence, apparently).

As a young Buffer, the highlight of my week was getting to write a history essay. Real people, real events, war, intrigue: so much more interesting than all that literature stuff in the English class.

I would research the subject beyond the bounds of reason, put my life and soul into the writing, and (even in those days) introduce some juvenile humour into a serious topic.

I would eagerly await Mr Crampsey's comments, penned in neat Bic fine ballpoint red ink. One treasured (but ignored) piece of advice in the margin was: "Leave the jokes to PG Wodehouse and JD Salinger."

Mr Crampsey's main educational tool was encouragement, but he could be strict. He made me write the word Catholicism 50 times after I had rendered it as Catholisism in one of my essays.

Unlike some teachers who thrust religion down the throat, he seemed to leave the faith as a matter for the individual. He did insist, however, that you knew how to spell it.

One classmate suffered a more severe punishment; two of the belt for submitting an essay on the policies of Charles II which consisted of one paragraph postulating that the restoration monarch might have done better had he not "spent all his money having parties in his castles".

Mr Crampsey may have been Brain of Britain (and a future semi-finalist on Mastermind) but he took it quite well when the young Buffer raised a hand to interrupt a lesson and point out it had been Hindenburg and not Bismarck who had been involved in some bit of German history (sadly, I do not have the Crampsey recall to furnish the exact details).

An important aspect of the Crampsey modus operandum was to advocate diversity in our young lives. Embrace cricket as well as football.

The man himself was a paradigm of range and versatility.

It was not until I met him later as a journalist that I realised the sheer spread of information and expertise contained within the Crampsey cranium.

He was biographer of Jock Stein and Sir Thomas Lipton. He also wrote travel books. Ever in pursuit of projects, he noticed that a London publisher had a series of books on islands. He offered to contribute his expertise on the Isle of Bute.

The publisher said Bute had already been allocated, but would he like to have a crack at Puerto Rico. Various tomes on Caribbean and other Hispanic locations followed.

Mr Crampsey wrote a novel and at least two plays as well as pursuing a career as a TV and radio commentator and author of countless articles in the public prints.

His work ethic was impressive. Even in his 70s, when you might reasonably think he had done his shift and might be at home playing his beloved piano, you would find him late of an evening in the Herald library researching some minute detail of a Scottish Junior football cup final for his Now You Know column in the Evening Times.

So, how did he fit in all this as well as a full-time career as teacher and headmaster? There was the aforementioned work ethic. The photographic memory and the power of concentration also helped.

But I think the answer is that there were two of him. At the moving mass of thanksgiving at Holy Cross Church on Friday, much of the talk was about a bloke called Bert.

Robert Anthony Crampsey was known to his family and friends as Bert.

He was known to generations of sports fans as Bob, the cerebral communicator with the common touch who would delight with comparisons between a footballer's speed and coastal erosion.

To all his pupils he remains Mr Crampsey. So there were really three of him.

At the Holy Cross service, Bishop Mone, a friend from childhood, revealed a trait in the Crampsey character which makes the man all the more admirable. It was his attitude to DIY. Whenever his wife or one of his four daughters asked him to perform a simple piece of household maintenance, he would say: "Do it yourself".

His son-in-law Stevie recalled being asked by Bob (or it may have been Bert) if he knew what a googly was. The Crampsey daughter defended her man's lack of cricketing knowledge by interjecting: "Dad, do you know what a Phillips screwdriver is?"

In his eulogy, Stevie described his father-in-law as "Google before there was Google, Wikipedia before there was Wikipedia".

Ask anyone who has met Mr Crampsey and they will tell you he was easy to talk to and very, very easy to listen to.

Another thing I heard about Bob was that he was offered a job with the Tonight programme many years ago. Had he accepted, he most likely would have become a UK television celebrity.

But he declined to uproot his wife and daughters. He chose family. He chose his own rich and rewarding life.

Thankfully for this wonderful wee country of ours, he chose Scotland.