The Manse was tied to Herbert's occupation, so the family was homeless; they had means, so Laura sought out the best Girl's School in Scotland free to ratepayers.

She told me one day the lecturer put a theorem on the board and let them think about it. After a while, she attracted the lecturer's attention and asked "What should I do next?" The lecturer was stunned. The theorem was previously unsolved.

She was not at Bletchley Park, of that I am quite sure. In the war she was collected and taken blindfolded in a car to a site, I think she called it Q, where I believe she taught the airforce three dimensional vectors. She broke a toe stumbling and it was reset wrongly as she could never divulge what she had been doing for it to happen. I do not have an accurate date ...

I remember Alison Falconer well from the two years 1941-1943 when we were undergraduates at Cambridge. She came from Scotland, and in the spring of 1943 she and I went together for a vigorous walking tour of the Cairngorm mountains, including a 25-mile transit of the Lairig Ghru pass over the Cairngorms from South to North. This was quite an adventure, since in wartime there were no tourists and no cars or buses on the roads. We were the only humans in that grand silence of the ancient highlands. We walked fast over the snow and ice to reach Aviemore before nightfall. Alison was a good companion but not an intimate friend. She shared my interests in literature and politics as well as mathematics, but we did not stay in touch after the Scottish holiday.

Since there was half a page left over at the end of my paper, they put a poem by my friend Alison Falconer, who was a poet as well as a mathematician. I was glad to have a bit of poetry mixed in with the mathematics. Since the magazine is hard to find nowadays I take this opportunity to rescue the poem from oblivion.

Passionate about art and design, she was skilled at screen printing, some of her designs taken by Liberty and the National Trust. Miss Falconer never married, after the man she described as the "right one" died in a motorbike accident before they could wed.

More than £1.4m of her fortune was shared out between family and friends, with the rest divided between several causes, also including Somerville College in Oxford, the Scottish Wildlife Trust, the National Trust, the Carlisle Overseas Aid Trust and the John Muir Trust.

... she was lecturing on five sites in London. At the same time she was studying externally for a second degree in economics! The exams were set centrally and she had to explain to the Registrar the need to make alternative arrangements, because "the mathematics exam for my economics course seems to be the one I have set myself!"

M Sgt John D Dillon, son of Mrs Dorothy C Dillon of 501 Pinewoods Avenue, will be a member of the 1956 graduating class connected with the University of Maryland's Overseas Program, which will be held 26 May at the University of Heidelberg, Germany.

Sgt Dillon, who is stationed at South Ruislip Air Force Education Center, South Ruislip, England, took all his University of Maryland credits at the South Ruislip Center, having transferred no other credits from any other university.

A native of East Hartford, Conn, Sgt Dillon is married to his former mathematics teacher at the South Ruislip Center, Miss Alison Falconer. She is still teaching her mathematics class while he is currently attending a class in military logistics.

His job in the Air Force is that of a disbursing supervisor at the West Drayton Air Force base, a few miles outside London. He is also currently taking graduate work at the London School of Economics.

Mrs Dillon taught for the glory and joy of the subject. I think she regarded the attainment of a good A-level result as a natural by-product of good teaching, rather than the primary goal of our endeavours. Her philosophy was that worthwhile things should be done for their own sake, and not just to meet some puny little target. There were plenty of excursions beyond the syllabus. It was wonderful preparation for university.

The lessons were hard work and stretching; nothing sloppy was tolerated - any hint of the casual would meet with the reprimand, "nothing is obvious until it has been proved." She seemed to have known personally just about every famous mathematician I had ever heard of (alive or not). All was sharp, fresh and energetic. One of our number once enquired: "Mrs Dillon, what is the use of the sine rule?" The lightening response was: "Well, I use it to design looms." - weaving being just one of her many hobbies. Mrs Dillon was interested in everything. My 35 year career in research has been underpinned by her teaching and by her approach. My only regret is that we were too young to realise how special and very talented she really was.

Like all the best mathematics teachers, Alison's impact cannot be easily summarised in words. Unlike the best mathematicians, mathematics teachers do not have outwardly impressive careers or CVs. Alison left her mark on her students through her distinctive love of the subject, through her unique teaching style, and through the unusual breadth of her interests. In recognition of this, nearly 40 years after she retired, her old school recently introduced the "Dillon Diploma" for students aged 11-14, designed to encourage them to develop an approach to learning and to life that goes way beyond the formal curriculum.

Whilst the 21st century has brought many new opportunities to pupils in education, there are an increasing number of challenges that pupils must face when they enter the wider world beyond school.

To address these challenges we launched the Dillon Diploma. This diploma is designed to enhance and develop students as individuals alongside their academic studies, giving them the ability to become more resilient to a variety of different future scenarios. The diploma is named after Alison Dillon, who was appointed by then Head Boyd Campbell as John Lyon's first female teacher, serving as a Mathematics teacher between the years 1967 and 1985. She was truly inspirational and is fondly remembered by Old Lyonians for delivering lessons that went above and beyond the core curriculum. Thus, enabling students to gain places at some of the UK's top universities as well as leading very successful careers.

The Dillon Diploma comprises six key modules, which each pupil will study over the first three years of their time in senior school. Each module contributes a new skill which will be developed between Year 7 and Year 9. At the heart of the diploma are the eight school values. Pupils are encouraged to be ambitious, innovative, creative and strive for excellence in all the modules. In reading, pupils will be challenged with studying academic articles and journals thereby improving their analytical and reviewing skills. ...

... pupils who complete the course will become more well-rounded individuals, equipped with a range of skills that will make them more resilient to challenges that they might face in the future, such as public examinations (including preparation for the Higher Project Qualification) and in their life beyond school. Moreover, pupils will become more independent and able to evaluate their own progress in future tasks.