My terrible schooldays made me stronger
THE TV star believes that surviving his ‘horrendous’ school days gave him the strength to fight back against the banks.
His heavily regimented days at the private Brentwood School in Essex during the 1960s, where fellow pupils included Labour grandee Jack Straw and comedian Griff Rhys Jones, were characterised by bullying and savage canings, and Noel says he ‘still bears the emotional scars’.
He recalls that it felt almost like ‘having served a sentence rather than having had an education’.
But he says it gave him the drive to eventually succeed.
Noel also credits his parents, Dudley and Lydia, with bringing him up to be ‘a positive person’ with the will to succeed in the cutthroat world of broadcasting – despite their disappointment at his decision not to go to university.
‘When I said to my Dad, “I’m not going to university, I’m going to be a disc jockey,” it was quite a moment. He said, “Just go and be the best one there’s ever been.” But, deep down inside, he and Mum must have been dying.
‘They instilled positive energy in me. I know I open myself to ridicule when I say it, but the energy of my parents is entwined with my own life force.
‘I sense their presence in everything I do.’