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As an adolescent, the newsreader could be arrogant and pushy, but a passionate history teacher and a free-thinking monk taught him to challenge himself and question the world
My father was in the Royal Air Force. As we were always on the move, I boarded at St Augustine's Abbey School in Ramsgate, Kent, from the ages of 11 to 18. It was run by monks and laymen and employed teachers with varying qualities.
Mr Edwards taught history with great passion. He was a very bright young man, and a recent graduate from the University of Oxford. He would come storming into the classroom and draw a chalk map of the British Isles in seven seconds flat. History was storytelling to him. The characters were giant figures, whether it was Ethelred the Unready or Thomas Cromwell.
If I liked the teacher and the subject, I was attentive, constructive and probing. Robin (as I learned to call him later) and history ticked those boxes, so he saw the best of me. If I didn't like the teacher, I could be...