Life and Laughing_ My Story - Michael McIntyre [60]
I wasn’t devastated at all. I needn’t have sat on the floor. In fact I wished I hadn’t, as I got quite bad pins and needles and when I moved I cried out in pain. My father misinterpreted this and thought I was taking the news very badly. The only thing that did upset me was that his paying my fees was one of the few links I had to him. I had an argument with him the previous year when he suggested that I went to a state sixth-form college. ‘You’d have to give me the money for the fees,’ I said. He was unbelievably upset by this remark, but it was not born out of greed. I didn’t want his money; I wanted to feel like he was giving me something.
I hated my school, and the prospect of taking my brown face and white neck out of there seemed quite exciting. My mum and dad had apparently been in cahoots over this for a while. This wasn’t a maybe, it was happening, now. Merchant Taylors’ were aware of the situation, and I had an interview the following day at a local state sixth-form college in Finchley. I was moving to state school. I wish it had been filmed, as it would have made for a hilarious Channel 4 fly-on-the-wall documentary.
Let me tell you a bit about the school life I was accustomed to. I wore a uniform with a tie representing my ‘house’ called Hilles. There were school ‘houses’ who played each other at sport and had meetings and such. When the teacher entered, we had to stand up and say, ‘Good morning, sir’ or ‘Good afternoon, sir.’ The teachers wore black cloaks that wafted behind them as they walked. The headmaster wore all the gear. He had several cloaks and a big hat, so his authority was in no doubt.
I had no idea what was appropriate to wear to the interview at Woodhouse College. I suggested to my mum that I wear my Merchant Taylors’ uniform without the tie. She told me to look smart, so I donned my elephant T-shirt, cords and loafers. My brother Nicholas was at nursery, but Thomas was still a baby so he had to come with us. Our appointment with the headmaster was at 11 a.m. We arrived in good time with Thomas conveniently sleeping in his pushchair.
The college was a lateral, not unpleasant Georgian building. Inside, it was much like you would expect, modern, sterile, functional, cheap. My mum and I sat on seats not designed for comfort outside the headmaster’s office. I was nervous. Waiting outside any headmaster’s office is nerve-wracking.
At five minutes to eleven, the headmaster’s door opened. My heart skipped a beat. False alarm, it was a man in a tracksuit top. It must be the gym teacher.
‘Hello? Michael, is it? If you’re early, then we might as well start,’ he said, kindly.
Good Lord, it was the headmaster. In a tracksuit top. What kind of a place was this?
My mother and I stood up to the shared relief of our bottoms. Thomas was still soundly asleep in his pushchair. I decided to break the atmosphere with a joke. ‘I hope you don’t mind,’ I said to the headmaster, ‘but I brought my wife and child along.’
This, I repeat, was a joke. I thought that was obvious. Apparently not for the headmaster of a state school that teaches sixteen- to nineteen-year-olds.
‘That’s absolutely fine, Michael,’ said the headmaster, ‘many of our students have kids here.’
Unbelievable. Where was I?
The interview went so well that at the end he said he was not just happy to accept me