education

What happened when I got in touch with three of my old teachers | Adrian Chiles

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Only a few people seem to remain in touch with any of their schoolteachers. This seems a shame to me. If I had gone on to do well in life, I would want to share that with the ones who had doubted me. And if I had done badly, I might want to let them know so they could take some of the blame. And if I were a teacher, I would be beside myself with curiosity as to what became of my charges.

I am very happy, more than 30 years on, to be in touch with three of my teachers. When I got a message from Mr Corbett not so long ago, I must say that my first reaction was: “Blimey, I thought he’d be dead by now.” In fact, he was head of a fine secondary school in Pershore, Worcestershire, by this time and invited me to say a few words on speech day. It turned out that Mr Corbett was not only not dead, he wasn’t actually much older than me. Weirdly, I’d caught up with him. When he first taught me, I was in my early teens and he was in his early 20s. That was a big gap. Now, alarmingly, it has narrowed to almost nothing.

Then there is Mrs Byford, my much-loved English teacher, who I have mentioned before in this column and who is great. And finally, more awkwardly, there is my RE teacher, Mrs Quayle. It is awkward because I failed the A-level. This was mainly because the course was all about stuff such as why St John’s gospel describes things differently from St Mark’s, which doesn’t really interest me. Also, my motivation for doing it in the first place was the slight crush I had on Mrs Quayle. She got in touch after she saw a documentary I made about faith. We met for a drink by the river in the small town where she lives. Age has not withered her.

Adrian Chiles is a writer, broadcaster and Guardian columnist

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