Peter Medway was an exceptionally able teacher, researcher and thinker, and his work throws light on governments, inspectors and educators. In the early 1960s, Peter met a theory which "established language as a major means of constructing our realities". Later, after teaching English in secondary schools for two decades, he reflected on why this theory had failed to make English more serious and more central. In his research, he looked into the history of English, its assumptions, practices and motivations. He also wrote about the significance of the students' experiences, looking carefully (and critically) at what they produced in talk and writing. Persuaded that English needs to be about using language rather than studying it, he helped students find the right words. Starting with their own words, Peter focused on the business of making interventions without compromising students' own agency. When he returned from Canada to take up a lectureship at King's College, London, he was dismayed by the state of English in schools. His dissatisfaction with current English teaching led to a fully funded research project as well as a major publication that tells a story of the way teacher-led change transformed English in post-war London, "English Teachers in a Postwar Democracy". Here we remember what was special about his contribution, his legacy and why we will miss him.