Rare honour for a passionate teacher

Arsinoe Wainhouse, who has lived in the town for almost 60 years, has been made Commandeur de l’Ordre des Palmes Academiques in France – comparable to the CBE in Britain - for her outstanding services to Anglo-French relations.

Known to many present and former sixth formers in Warwickshire for her commitment to the annual Wainhouse Awards, which rewards high standards in French learning, this characterful teacher, who has already been made MBE and gained a knighthood in France, has done so much more.

The great-grandmother said: “It’s a very big honour. I just wanted to help young people. I am glad that it has been appreciated.”

Ironically, Mrs Wainhouse is not actually French, but Francophile Armenian and born and raised in Egypt. But she had many French friends and, until her husband Wallace died 15 years ago, she would visit the country twice a year.

When she arrived in England in 1944, Mrs Wainhouse could fluently speak an impressive seven languages. Ten years later, the couple moved to Leamington and Mrs Wainhouse set up the Anglo-French Society at an old cottage in High Street that was due for demolition.

With the help of the young people involved and their parents, the group restored the building – ‘La Maison’ – and held lessons, lectures, film-screenings and parties and arranged trips to France.

Mrs Wainhouse said: “I wanted to make it easier for the students to swallow the pill of learning.”

She went on to orchestrate the twinning of Leamington and Warwick with the French towns of Sceaux and Saumur and introduced French learning in Warwickshire primary schools during the 1960s.

Mrs Wainhouse created the Wainhouse Awards in 2000 and last year’s competition attracted a record 60 entries.

She said: “I have done all this and never asked anyone for a penny.

“I was educated in a French convent and I was a Francophile, so I wanted everyone around me to speak French. It is a pleasure for me.”

Mrs Wainhouse will be presented with her honour by the French consul, Edouard Braine, at this year’s Wainhouse Awards prizegiving ceremony in Leamington on March 24.