OPINION
I USED TO HAVE this history teacher who was like Julie Walters to my Billy Elliot, only instead of miners and coal we had Essex and tanning salons. Refined of taste, witty and fiercely intelligent, this teacher vastly improved my high school experience — although at the time I couldn’t acknowledge this.
The influence he had over us outsiders — the freaks, geeks, queers, fat girls and theatre queens who needed to express themselves — is impossible to overstate. He was a gay man, although this was only confirmed when ex student, Louise Wener of nineties Britpop band Sleeper, referred to him in Smash Hits as her “favourite” and “gay” teacher. But to us this was a silent matter, and one which presented itself of interest to yours truly: a curious, frightened homoin- waiting. He represented a part of myself I didn’t like, and I resented it.