Nick Ferrari: ‘I was a bit of an arse at school'
School Days is a regular series by author Danny Danziger in which acclaimed British names and faces share the childhood stories that shaped them. This week, LBC radio presenter and broadcaster Nick Ferrari, 66, talks about learning the ropes early on at his father's press agency and playing the class joker.
My father, Lino, arrived in this country from Switzerland at the age of four. He met and fell in love with my mum, Joyce, a police officer from Barrow-in-Furness who was the original Northern Rock.
They produced three boys, Lino, Simone and Nicolo, which is what I was christened. I was the youngest, and there was quite a gap in age: my brothers were 11 and nine years older than me.
Dad ran a press agency, and at a very young age I would be answering phones to news desks, which probably toughened me up a bit. Christiaan Barnard, the pioneering heart surgeon, was taking a heart from someone who had lived in our patch, and I took control of that story. But I also remember another one: a bus driver had driven into a collection of schoolchildren, and I went down there and saw all these school caps lying about on the side of the road. A load of kids had lost their lives.
Education was always very key in my family. My middle brother, Simone, had been to Eltham College and absolutely loved it, and done very well there. I'd passed the 11-plus, so I could have gone to a grammar school, but my parents wanted to send me there. Eltham is a high-achieving school – I don't know if I'd ever get in now!
I'd been there to visit my brother, so I was prepared for it, but it was still daunting. It had very strict discipline. Eltham had been set up as a school for the sons of missionaries and its most famous old boy was Eric Liddell, who was the subject of the film Chariots of Fire. There was a strong religious streak, with chapel every morning. The nibbos (new boys) went into chapel first and there was absolute respect and deference accorded to the older boys as they filed in. The prefects would proceed in last and sit in special seats at the back wearing gowns while the rest of us were in pews.
The thing I loved about Eltham is it was a really good mix of kids. Of course, in a fee-paying school there are parents who are exceptionally wealthy, and some of my peers would arrive in the latest Volvo estate and have these amazing foreign trips during the holidays. My dad did well but he didn't have that kind of wealth: we were more middle or upper middle with our income bracket.
I started as a clear A-student. I loved history and was good at it. Mr Chambers was the teacher who made the light bulb go on and it was just a joy to sit in his class. He wore his glasses down on the end of his nose, and looked like a wise old owl. I still use things he taught me today on the radio.
Also, I led my house to win the debating society prize. The motion was: This House Believes the Monarchy Should Be Abolished, and I had to argue in favour of that, which was not my view at all because I think the monarchy is fantastic. I must have made a very cohesive argument.
Sports were important to me. Eltham was a rugby school, there were a lot of playing fields, and I really enjoyed the game and was the right build for it. I ended up a very solid second- or third-XV player.
The only reason that I started acting was because they did a production one year of a play called The Italian Straw Hat with the local girls' school, Farringtons in Chislehurst, and suddenly all these girls arrived. I realised the only way to talk to them was to join the drama club, but all the main roles had been filled, and I was made an extra with just two lines. I was desperately in love with the leading lady but I didn't get anywhere.
I was popular within the school, had a good circle of mates, and was known throughout as Enzo, after Enzo Anselmo Giuseppe Ferrari, the founder of the Ferrari marque. Fatty came in there too, sometimes.
After a couple of years, my attention in lessons began to wander: I was always looking out of the window, and was easily misled. I think my parents felt a degree of disappointment about that. The thing is I just wanted to entertain people, and entertaining people was so much more fun than studying, and I was good at it. Put me in a classroom and I'm going to try to be the entertainment, larking about, trying to impersonate the teachers, just basically being a bit of an arse.
I was hopeless at anything to do with numbers. There was a maths teacher called Mr Seddon, and every lesson, I would call out, 'Sir, sir, I don't understand this equation' – it was almost like pantomime, and the class would all laugh, 'Good old Enzo, getting it wrong again.' But I had a very good relationship with Mr Seddon, and he gave me some decent reports which I probably didn't warrant.
Any science I was also terrible at, and that was a shame because I had wanted to be a vet. We lived in a little village in Kent and had a bit of land on which my dad kept a few lambs, donkeys and chickens, and I absolutely loved being around animals. The minute I got home, I would be driving a bale of hay across the fields in a pick-up truck feeding various hungry donkeys. I've also delivered a foal, and can shear a sheep. I'm probably the only breakfast presenter who can shear a sheep now that John Humphrys has retired.
I was sad to leave school as it had been part of my life for seven years. But I was ready to leave. I toyed with the idea of university, but then I got a job on a local paper in Woolwich, and off I went. Quite honestly I loved having cash in my pocket.
A couple of years ago, I went back to Eltham to give a careers talk. I hardly recognised the place. The quad I used to walk around is all classrooms now, they have built out and back and on top and across. I couldn't believe how vast it is now, it's like the Tardis.
When I picture myself from those days, I'm walking through the quad with a collection of my mates around me, Anthony, Chris, the other Chris, Mark and Mike, and I'm eating a bag of those sherbet flying saucer sweets which I'd just bought from the tuck shop, I've managed to scrape through some exam, and we're all having a great laugh and are in a good place.
My feelings for the school while I was there were ones of enormous affection, and I realise those feelings haven't changed, all these years later.
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