Nick Harvey MP

QUEEN'S COLLEGE TAUNTON - SPEECH DAY - FRIDAY 9 JULY 1999

Mr Mayor, Mr Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: I sat through many speech days as a pupil, and if it would be fair to say that I little imagined then that I would return one day as Guest of Honour, it would be fairer still to say that the teaching staff must have imagined it even less.

In those days the Guest of Honour was somebody like a learned Professor of History, or a High Court Judge, who would deliver a lecture on something like the American Bicentenary or Crime and Punishment, which would invariably last at least an hour.

So the first time I was invited to give the prizes at a school speech day after being elected as an MP, I naturally assumed that this was what was required, and set about writing a long and suitably boring speech.

Just as I got up to speak, I leant over to the Headmistress and whispered: "is there anything you would particularly like me to say, or not to say?" She hissed back: "say what you like but if you go beyond eight minutes you'll feel a tug on your jacket tail - their seats down there are a good deal less comfortable than ours up here."

So I decided that today might be an opportunity to reminisce a little about my time at Queen's, and let the current pupils compare my account with their experiences nowadays. Then I remembered that I had kept a diary every day throughout my years at school, and managed eventually to hunt them down and blow the dust off.

Today, for the first time, I have decided to open these diaries to the world. I do hope the Headmaster doesn't live to regret his letter of invitation to me to "talk on something more or less suitable, for more or less ten minutes."

SPEECHES

I was impressed when the Chairman said that he had written his speech notes a few days ago. I confess that the ink on mine is barely dry, as they were written over breakfast this morning. Looking through my old school diaries, I'm afraid it seems that this tendency to leave things till the last minute is nothing new.

In one of the earliest entries, I was to take part in a public speaking competition in the Junior School. On 21 January 1973 the diary says "speech not yet finished," but three days later I was evidently being a little more honest: "speech not yet started." The saga ran on painfully up to the day of the speech itself.

Things didn't improve with the passage of time, as there were strikingly similar accounts of the run-up to the school mock election in 1974, and the Somerset Drama Festival in 1976, the Debating Society in 1978, and - on the eve of the school mock election in 1979: "still haven't prepared speech and the debate is tomorrow… oh God!"

But the diary did corroborate my recollection of speech days being boring, though they apparently improved over time. On 9 July 1976 "speeches awfully boring," then a year later 8 July 1977 "speeches not too bad," and by 7 July 1978 "speeches good."

Even sermons got surprisingly reasonable write-ups in the diary. On 6 October 1974, I recorded "quite good sermon by Rev Dr W.D.Stacey MA." But if the school tried to engage our interest with some trendier preachers, this seems not to have worked. My entry for 17 November 1974 reports: "some long haired bloke preaches about euthanasia. Absolutely hopeless."

FOOD AND HYGIENE

I asked a few old school friends if they had any recollections which I might use in my speech, but no one had any they thought suitable for speech day. They all mentioned the awful food, though I don't remember it really being too bad. My diary slightly backs them up though. On Shrove Tuesday 1975, we had "horrible fatty banana fritters for Pancake Day."

But even the Queen's catering was surpassed by that of the Drake's Island adventure centre in Plymouth Sound, where we were prudently packed off after our GCE exams to keep us out of trouble till the end of term. 26 June 1977: "awful meat pie tastes like seagull droppings."

The early seventies was the era when the old "short back and sides" cut was giving way to longer hair styles, and judging by my diaries visits from the school barber were not popular events. There is a proliferation of references along the lines of "scalpings very bad… worst ever scalpings… one week until scalpings due," and even on 13 March 1974 "Fairman and Goatley may have managed to escape scalpings."

Another regular entry was "socks tonight," which seems to have been quite an event. On 22 January 1974: "Do laundry. Mrs Platt ensures hygiene." I don't know quite what measures she can have taken, but they don't seem to have been very effective, because just three weeks later, 8 February 1974 "think I hear rats in the dorm." By 6 March 1974 it was clearly time for decisive action: "Mr Platt blows up the whole house for bad hygiene."

TEACHERS

In case anyone should take this to mean that he actually took the ultimate drastic action of burning the place down to kill off the germs, I should explain that there is an entire vocabulary peculiar to a schoolboy's diary. Take this example, referring to some of the teachers, on 19 February 1974: "I.Gill in a sweat. S.Lawton throwing a fit. Fuddy Faram had a right barney. Ned Wade on the warpath."

There won't be many here who remember Peter Faram, a kindly and colourful physics master who taught at Queen's for many years. He was always in his element at an occasion like speech day, where he would take charge of directing where everyone sat, or at sports day - his annual moment of glory as it was he who would fire the starting gun.

He had a very distinctive teaching style. On one occasion he posed a tricky question to the class and turned to Garfield Dean, who was the most likely to have come up with an answer. "Dean, what do you make it?" he asked. "Er, three sir," Dean replied diffidently. "Three?" Fuddy queried in an incredulous tone, "are you sure?" "Er, no sir," Dean back-pedalled furiously. "Well bad luck, because you're right!"

On 2 June 1976 "Twilly Yates and Eddie Morrell win a small fortune on the Derby." I forget why we called Mr Morrell "Eddie" but I'm sure we must have had some perfectly good reason.

In those days there was a book in the chemistry lab where one had to record accidents and breakages. I remember on one occasion, when I'd dropped a test tube or something similar and went to enter my confession in the book, I saw that some wag had written: "Name: I.E.Morrell. Item broken: One chemistry lab. What happened? Exploded!"

He was also rumoured, and this may well be apocryphal - I certainly can't vouch for it because I wasn't in Channon - to have been so annoyed one occasion when he couldn't work out who had committed some crime or other, that he had every boy in the house bend over the end of his bed and he then ran right through every dormitory and whacked every single one in turn. He was certainly fit enough to have attempted the feat.

On 4 February 1977, there was something of a crisis outside the biology lab involving the malfunctioning handbrake on the old car of Mrs Penny, the redoubtable lab technician: "Mrs Penny's car goes over the bank and onto the lower. M.Bream makes bionic chase dressed in best suit, and tries heroic rescue, but to no avail."

Mrs Penny's wasn't the only car to go wandering. There was at one time an assistant French master, but discretion being the better part of valour I shall refrain from mentioning his name, though in fairness this does date back to a time when people were less scrupulous about the drink driving laws than they are today. After a good night out one Saturday he somehow managed to drive his car down the steps of the sports hall. On the Sunday morning he made a quiet visit to the sixth form block and rounded up venture scouts and members of the first fifteen rugby. About two dozen of them went to the rescue and somehow lifted the car back up into the car park. We never did know quite what became of him in the end, but suffice it to say that he left in the middle of one term, which was unusual by any reckoning.

The diary records that the staff had their human sides. 2 July 1976: "Wonders never cease - Ned Wade buys us all ice creams." On 4 November 1974 "Dr Gill's wife has baby - Sophie." And on 4 July 1976: "Trull church service. Mr Bisson's banns of marriage read out."

ROMANCE

That entry inspired nostalgic recollections of an early romance of my own, with a girl who lived up in Trull, so I scanned for some references to that. I remember her really being rather pretty and have often wondered what became of her, so you can imagine my feelings of surprise and guilt when I found, on 23 February 1976: "see the witch for tea in town." I must have been a good deal nicer to her in person than I was in my diary, as the liaison still seems to have been going on more than a year later, though she was still referred to as the witch. In one entry: "Leave letter for the witch under the tree in Wild Oak Lane and collect reply later along with two chocolate mice."

In those days we were nearly all boys and the school would make efforts to organise joint activities with nearby girls schools. On 13 March 1977 there was a drama day at St Audries school at West Quantoxhead. All didn't go entirely to my plans evidently, as "awful battle-axe matron Mrs Dick chases me out of girls dorm." I had more fun over the next few days, however: "Fake love letters to Stevens and others from girls at St Audries."

EXTRA-CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES

As you heard in the earlier speeches, there is a wide range of activity at Queen's. Did you notice that at just the moment the head girl said, "Of course we get up to all sorts of things outside the classroom…" a police car siren sounded out on the road? I'm sure that wasn't what she meant.

Sport was never my strongest card at school, and cross-country running was worst of all. But no one seemed to notice anything odd in the winter of 1974-75, when I was in what you'd nowadays call year 9, and my times got steadily better. It wasn't that my athleticism had improved, but rather that I had discovered - well… a short cut, and I gradually became more and more impatient about waiting long enough on the footpath up in Trull before coming out the other end and rejoining the race.

By Tuesday 4 February 1975, with my time down to 22mins 12secs, a crisis was pending: "Because of the flu epidemic removing several of the usual runners, I am to be in the team for the school match on Saturday." The next day, Wednesday, I record a moral dilemma: "can I really risk cheating when the honour of the school is at stake?" The crisis worsened on Thursday: "It turns out to be an away match and I won't know the route. May have to strain a muscle early on." But by Friday, thankfully, disaster was averted: "Flu epidemic has worsened and all tomorrow's matches are off!"

Queen's did give me an early chance, however, to try my hand at a little private enterprise. One summer there was a craze for keeping mice - in cages in the biology lab under the watchful eye of Mr Bream and Mrs Penny. I procured a white male and agreed a deal on 8 May 1974 to breed it with Button's brown female so that we could sell the offspring to other boys wanting mice. But by 16 June there was "still no sign of Button's mouse being pregnant." And by 23 June "still no sign." Interest waned and our checks became less regular, but on 2 July all was revealed: "my white male has given birth. Oh dear."

BREWING

But the entrepreneurial spirit never dies and by the time we were in the upper sixth we decided to diversify into brewing. On 16 September 1978: "resolve to form brewing enterprise," and five days later "buy Geordie home brewing kit." 23 September 1978: "bottles could present a problem - will have to borrow some from the civil service social club. Can return them afterwards."

We would get up in the middle of the night and come in from our various houses to meet up and carry out the brewing in a disused photography lab located in the music department, which I had requisitioned and made secure with a new lock. On 7 October 1978 I cheerfully record "overnight operations successful," though on 15 October, regrettably "oversleep midnight operations." This was remedied 24 hours later when "midnight operation succeeds."

Unfortunately things didn't go entirely to plan. On 2 December 1978, I ask "Why oh why did we let Button take charge of putting the sugar in the bottles? He's hopeless at maths and has cocked up all the fractions of teaspoonfuls for the different sized bottles. Two exploded this evening in Halliwell's wardrobe, with him not even knowing they were there, and C.Widdows and R.Pothecary in the very next room at the time!"

On 3 December 1978: "Button and Goatley sick after drinking brew." But unabashed, on 11 January 1979 we started again, and by 20 March "consume first bottles of new brew - excellent!"

While the photo lab was fine for boiling, mixing and bottling, the conditions were not ideal for fermenting the beer, and eventually we hoisted the buckets into the loft above the music room. There had to be periodic checks of the hydrometer to check the original gravity, and at the right moment it would be brought down for bottling. On one occasion the head boy walked into the music room and said to me "Dear God old chap this place smells like a brewery," to which I replied "It is, but try proving it!"

POLITICS

That swift rejoinder was just one example of practising my political skills at Queen's. In the 1974 general election I note on 2 October: "Go to town and get some Liberal stickers. Bring them back and stick them on staff cars." But when the prime minister resigned on 16 March 1976, the diary shows I had a proper sense of perspective: "Chaplain comes round dorm. I.Gill on duty. Wilson resigns. Clean socks."

By the 1979 general election my campaigning had graduated to the level of pacing the streets in sandwich boards with a loudhailer, and hollering at the good citizens of Trull and Taunton to vote Liberal.

Returning towards school at about supper time on polling day I was shocked to find a "Labour Committee Room" sign pointing down the lane to the chaplain's cottage. The new chaplain was apparently a Labourite. So I took down the sign, which in any case was pinned to a tree so not exactly environmentally friendly, and was about to dispose of it when my eye fell upon a tiny electricity board bunker. I removed the directional arrow and stuck the notice on the bunker, which struck me as more than adequate in scale and style for the needs of the Taunton Labour Party.

I marched down the lane still equipped with my sandwich boards and loudhailer, and finding the cottage bustling with activity proceeded to harangue them noisily through the speaker. My point made, I started to walk back to school across the lower, when I noticed that I was being watched from the main building through a pair of binoculars. The master on duty, Roger Westoby, had heard the noise and decided to investigate, and as I got nearer I quite expected to find myself in hot water. But in the event I was greeted with a cheery smile and an approving "Good shot!"

DIPLOMACY

But if it should be thought that I also developed as a diplomat while at the school, then I have just one final confession to make. The spring term one year was due to end as usual with the middle school play. But the school's long serving and distinguished Director of Music had taken great exception to the young drama teacher staging one of the scenes from the choir gallery at the back of the Great Hall for dramatic effect.

This was in what he considered his private fiefdom, and let's be honest - he just didn't like the drama teacher. So he caused the most terrible commotion and crashed around in the choir gallery during the dress rehearsal. On the night of the first proper performance he locked the gallery, though a ladder and a nimble boy soon overcame that, so he again burst in noisily this time equipped with torches.

By the final night, when the boarders' parents were due, he was complaining that the hall had never been booked for the play - though it had been in the calendar for months - and grandly announced that at 7.30pm he would be giving an organ recital from the gallery. Nothing would dissuade him from this, not even the best efforts of longstanding colleagues, governors nor the Headmaster himself.

At about five to seven, just before the play was due to start and with my duties as an usher complete, I bumped into an anxious Headmaster who explained the predicament and asked if there was anything I - as secretary of the music department - could do to help. I pointed out that if he himself hadn't been able to talk him out of it then it hardly seemed likely that I would succeed, and though he agreed with that he implored me to have a go anyway.

So I trooped reluctantly up to the music director's flat just above the choir gallery itself, and was dismayed to find him already attired in bow tie and evening jacket for the performance. He was preparing for the big occasion with the help of… an aperitif. In fact, I couldn't be entirely certain it was his first. I tried every imaginable way of persuading him to change his mind: all the hard work that had gone into the play, the impression it would make on parents, the possibility of it getting into the papers and so on.

But it was all to no avail and eventually he sent me packing and went over to pour himself one final aperitif. Just as I was making my way out of his rooms I noticed a key sticking out of the outside of the door. Realising immediately that the time had come for some direct action, I instantly turned and pocketed it and fled into the night.

After the play… once my father had the car engine running and my school trunk was safely packed in the boot, I tiptoed back up the stairs and silently unlocked the door. I didn't hear a sound from inside and I've no idea what he can have told anyone, but when I returned the next term not a word was ever said about the whole business.

SCHOOL MOTTO

Ladies and Gentlemen, the school motto is: "Non scholae sed vitae discimus," which roughly translated means something like: "Not for school (or scholarship), but for life, we learn."

I hope you can see from the many and varied experiences at Queen's which I have described, how well my education here equipped me for a life in politics.

I can only express the hope that those leaving today will be able to come back after twenty years as I have today - to the very day - and reflect similarly how well their education here prepared them for their subsequent careers.

Good luck and best wishes to every one of you.