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CHAPTER 1

Hamlet Cocks Up

Blagsford School for Boys was founded in 1552 under a law set out in the Charities Act of 1545, which had been passed by Henry VIII to put to use funds from the dissolution of the monasteries. For nearly four hundred years it stood opposite the Cornmarket in a quiet, pretty Midlands market town.

Between the wars, it moved to the edge of town. There was a need for more boarding houses, and an opportunity arose when death duties forced a local gentry family to sell their eighteenth-century mansion with its landscaped grounds – readily convertible to a sports field – and its small lake (or was it a large pond?). A few Old Blaggers objected, saying School wouldn’t be School in a new location, but the move was a success.

Blagsford had twice made it to the top fifty of the Sunday Times Independent School Ratings. The Good Schools Guide described it as ‘a comfortable mix of brains, brawn, and artistic flair, but demanding and challenging too’. Less good headlines were made after twenty-six pupils were taught the wrong Shakespeare play (Hamlet instead of Much Ado about Nothing) in preparation for an A level examination.

Every English teacher’s worst nightmare, Edward had thought to himself, reading the story in the paper. As a Tudor historian with a particular interest in the cultural consequences of education policy, and a special fondness for Hamlet, he felt a real sympathy for Mr Camps, the poor man who was forced into early retirement by the governors after the Hamlet cock-up. Though he was also quietly grateful. Camps happened to be the head, who liked to lead from the front by taking one A level set himself. It was probably because he was overwhelmed by administrative duties, and didn’t have time to attend departmental meetings, that he had taught the wrong play. The resultant vacancy had been Edward’s opportunity to apply for the position of Headmaster of Blagsford.

* * *

Edward had won a scholarship to a famous public school himself, got into Oxford, and taken a first-class degree in history.

He had stayed on to complete his doctorate, which was then published as an academic monograph entitled Gilded Lilies: Grammar School Education and Social Mobility in Tudor England. He was pleased with the pun in the title, though he had to explain it whenever someone at a cocktail party asked him what his book was about.

In the early sixteenth century, a man named William Lily wrote the standard Latin grammar textbook for use in schools. In the middle of the century, the Tudor monarchs founded numerous new grammar schools in order to train up a kind of civil service for the nascent modern state. This gave lower middle-class boys ample opportunities for social mobility. By the end of the century, Lily’s grandson John had benefited from this – he had become the most famous and popular writer in Elizabethan England, thanks to his clever (but admittedly unreadable) novel Euphues, and his court comedies that Queen Elizabeth absolutely adored. And, of course, this same process of education and social mobility was the key to the life and work of William Shakespeare, whose plays he adored. So you see, Edward would conclude, in best lecturer mode, it was the educational revolution that had made Hamlet possible.

Edward had wrestled with the idea of becoming an academic, but felt that he didn’t quite have the killer touch. He knew from certain aspects of his postgraduate experience that he would never gain full institutional acceptance in the world of Oxbridge, and he saw too many fellow students exiled to junior lectureships in dreary, rainy places like Dundee and Belfast. He was more of a big fish in a small pond sort of guy, and felt that he would have more freedom (and certainly more money) as a teacher in a good public school. They were always on the lookout for bright young men who knew the tricks of the trade when it came to Oxbridge admissions, which was what the parents cared about. He soon had half a dozen offers to become a history teacher. He was relieved that the independent schools didn’t bother with all the nonsense of having to do an additional teacher training degree, where all you learned was lesson planning and crowd control.

Well, he certainly had the money, thanks to the live-in accommodation arrangements when he became a housemaster. But not quite the freedom he might have expected to continue his writing career. In time, though, he was glad of that. He discovered that he was good at organization, and liked running meetings. There was something satisfying about the art of letting everyone have their say, while still pushing the business along. Before long, he was promoted to deputy head in a minor public school just outside Guildford, in the south of England. It was a place that aspired to imitate his own famous alma mater.

Then he had a kind of epiphany. He wasn’t really sure whether it was out of idealism or ambition, but he suddenly decided to leave the private sector and venture away from the south. Was it because he looked around the staffroom one day and saw old men with thinning hair who had never left the cocoon of public-school life? Or was it that he genuinely believed that, having made his case about education and social mobility in Tudor England, he could actually put it into practice in the real world? Was it his vocation to bring black kids out of the ghetto? Or maybe he knew that it would give him a certain edge, a fast track to greater things. So he had applied for the position of head teacher at St Joseph’s Academy in Liverpool.

His friends had teased him mercilessly, saying he wouldn’t last five minutes. ‘Too posh, mate,’ said Nick, his best friend from Oxford. He knew that there was an element of truth in this; he was Oxford through and through. Of course it was a risk applying for the Academy job, but, unlike most of the people he knew, he liked taking risks. St Joseph’s was desperate for a turnaround, and in normal circumstances would not have even considered a man from the public-school sector.

At interview, the panel was impressed by Edward’s CV, but more so by the man himself. He was told that he and another candidate were to be called back for a second interview. He had a hunch, from things he had overheard on the day of the first interview, that his rival was an internal candidate. I bet they’ll go for the safe option, he said to himself. He had been impressed by the governors, and had liked the energy and grittiness of Liverpool. He really wanted the job.

He phoned Nick to talk it over.

‘Ed, that’s so weird that you called – I was about to email you. Did I ever tell you about my American cousin? Lives in Boston, filthy rich and on the board of a top school out there – I mean really top, Milton Academy. Just outside Boston, feeder for Harvard and Yale. Couple of the Kennedy boys went there. T. S. Eliot, James Taylor, you name it. They’re looking for a new head of history, and he asked me for advice. You said you wanted a change: how about the New World?’

Edward was an Englishman to his core. He had no desire to move to America, not even to Anglophile New England. But he saw his opportunity. He emailed the secretary to the governors of St Joseph’s Academy and asked about their timetable for a final decision, mentioning in passing that he was also having to make a decision about an offer from a top American private school. He stressed that he was really passionate about the St Joseph’s job, but that if it wasn’t going to work out, he’d want to take the American opportunity.

This swung the decision. One of the St Joseph’s governors was in PR. He persuaded his colleagues that this would be a great story for the school. The decision was made before the second interview, and the PR man made sure that there was a big splash: ‘Ed the Head turns down $250k to come to Liverpool’ screamed the headline in the Echo. It was the sort of story that Scousers loved, just like the rumours that long-lost son John Lennon was allegedly heading back to Liverpool – the day before he was brutally gunned down on a cold December day. No one had really believed it, but they all loved the story.

Ed was delighted, though he did wonder how the internal candidate had reacted at being brushed off before the second interview. Later, he learned that the newspaper story was the first that the internal candidate, Chuck Steadman – who, by a strange coincidence, was an American – had heard of the news. Black mark for the governors, Edward said to himself. Communication, communication, communication.