Concordia
Merchant Taylors’ School
“HairyHands”, and thatmercurial pixie of an
English teacher, thewonderful “Jock” Steane,
who used to sit onmy desk and readRobert
Browningwith ebullience enough to turn the
head of even themost bovinemiscreant.
I had that on a detention card once: “offence
– bovinemiscreance”. I also had “stunning
recalcitrance”; “recidivism” and “sheer
impulchritude”, which I think is amade up
word but which I took tomean I was given a
detention for being ugly, which in anyone’s
book is a bit harsh. Mind you, I don’t want to
come over all “Four Yorkshiremen” (look it up
and enjoy if you’re under 40), but the current
intake doesn’t know it’s born.When I was
at Taylors’, the school swimming pool was
outside and unheated, and if you forgot your
trunks you had to go inwithout – if you see
what Imean. I remember an unseasonably
cold daywhen twenty eight boys, a third of
themnaked, broke a thin filmof icewith their
racing dives at the start of the 50yd freeze to
death. Of course, all generations think they
had it harder than the next. My sneering at the
“MickeyMouse schoolwork they get these
days” came to an abrupt halt whenmy twelve
year old daughter presentedmewith ten
quadratic equations to solve before dinner;
andwhen I asked the current Taylors’ Head
Master whether I would have been suspended
today as I was then for interrrupting the
magnificently robedBishop of Gloucester as
he raised his arms to bless the congregation
during anAscensionDay service by shouting
With David Tennant and Jim Broadbent in
The Pillowman
at the National Theatre in 2003
On set of latest film (Alan Partridge) with Steve Coogan and Colm Meaney
Photo Geraint Lewis
out “Beamme up, Scotty!”, no amount of
genial diplomacy could disguise the fact that I
would have foundmyself similarly dispatched.
And rightly so.
However a school develops over the years
– posh, new reception areawhere a scruffy
snooker table used to live, glassed-inCloisters
(is that to stop boys throwing their cigarette
butts on the grass?), heated indoor pool,
lecture theatre, no boarders and no Saturday
lessons – the key to doing your time seems to
me as evident today as it was when “googling”
somebodywould have had you arrested
for common assault: embrace the ethos of
the placewithout selling your soul and be
fortunatewith your fellow intake of prisoners.
Although it was our commonmisfortune
that our secondary education coincided
with the brief regime of a haplessmartinet, I
countmyself extremely lucky that the boys
inmy year and those above and belowwere
almost unanimouslywarm-hearted, decent
and friendly. That’s not to saywewere a
homogeneous bunch.We had the usual
quota of aesthetes and oiks, wide-boys and
mummy’s boys, but we all rubbed along pretty
well, andmy closestmates today are still those
Imade in the quad over thirty years ago.
In those days I was desperate to be liked
(wonder why I became an actor?!) and spread
