Peter WalshThe Sheriff of Norwich today said he hoped a permanent tribute could be created in memory of the heroic Norwich teacher, who drowned while saving his wife after a storm capsized their boat during their honeymoon in Egypt.Peter Walsh

The Sheriff of Norwich said he hoped a permanent tribute could be created in memory of the heroic Norwich teacher who drowned while saving his wife after a storm capsized their boat during their honeymoon in Egypt.

As previously reported in the Evening News, Luke Day, 31, who taught French at Costessey High School, died after his sailing boat was hit by a violent storm on the Nile on Monday.

Sheriff of Norwich Tim O'Riordan, a retired professor of environmental sciences at the University of East Anglia, got to know Mr Day and his wife Sophie through their connections with the UEA.

Mr Day was a former student and his wife, a research scientist and climate change expert, who studied and worked at the university.

Mr O'Riordan said: "I've known Sophie since she was an undergraduate at the UEA in the late 1990s. She's a very dear friend, an excellent researcher and a wonderful person, and through her I met Luke."

Dr O'Riordan said Mr Day, whom he had got to know very well, was a "terrific" teacher who won the "hearts and minds" of his pupils.

He said that, as a friend, he would be happy to help raise money for a permanent memorial to Mr Day at Costessey High School, where he had taught for the past four years.

He said: "I hope that the school, and possibly the city, will find some way of getting his name recognised forever and I will put my name behind it.

"If something is done by the school, I will be very happy to help raise funds and be at the official opening event if I'm still sheriff at the same time."

Mr Day, who lived in Newmarket Street, near Unthank Road, Norwich, is reported to have pushed his wife Sophie and two other passengers to safety when the waves started swamping their felucca sailing boat.

But as Mr Day tried to save himself, he became trapped and drowned as the wooden boat capsized at its mooring in the early hours of Monday.

Hundreds of people, including family friends and staff and pupils at Costessey High, have already paid tribute to Mr Day.

Mr Day, originally from Lymington in Hampshire and a former University of East Anglia student, taught at Costessey for four years and was head of French, acting head of languages and ran the school's French exchange programme.

A board of condolence has been set up at the school, which will be collected in a book of remembrance in tribute to Mr Day, but the school is also looking at other ways of honouring his memory, including possibly naming one of the language blocks after him.

� Would you like to pay tribute to Mr Day? Email newsdesk@archant.co.uk.