Posh past of the Sexpot Trot
Brought up in this seven-bedroom manor house on a Duke’s estate, he went to prep school — and even played polo (on a bike)
SWINGING hockey sticks at a ball while pedalling furiously around the lawn of a country house, five privileged boys were revelling in an impromptu game of bicycle polo. This was a typical summer scene at Lilleshall Hall, the family retreat completed in 1831 for the Duke of Sutherland, whose peerage was created by William IV. For the boys would gather to play the game as often as possible.
Of course, bicycle polo is nowhere like as grand as proper polo, the sport so beloved of Prince Charles and his sons William and Harry. But these games were clearly enjoyed by the group of boys in the opulent setting in the Shropshire countryside.
What a delicious irony that the noisiest lad back then in 1955 was a six-year-old Jeremy Corbyn, who now, many decades on from that bucolic childhood, has become the Hard Left class warrior who’d like Britain to become a republic and who has petitioned for the Royal Family to be moved from Buckingham Palace into a ‘more modest’ dwelling.
But then, of course, Comrade Corbyn is like so many other Left-wingers who have enjoyed a privileged background themselves only to deny it to others by pulling up the ladder to social mobility by, for example, sabotaging grammar schools. For these hypocrites, it seems it has always been a case of ‘Do what I say — don’t do what I do’.
So, what is the truth about the posh childhood of Jeremy Bernard Corbyn?
Born in Chippenham, Wiltshire, he spent his first five years in a fivebedroom detached house in half an acre of land in the picturesque village of Kington St Michael. The property was recently put on the market for £610,000.
The family moved to Shropshire when Corbyn’s father, David, a brilliant electrical engineer, changed jobs. They settled into Yew Tree Manor, a sevenbedroom house that was once part of the Duke of Sutherland’s Lilleshall estate. The house had two acres of land, outbuildings and a paddock.
Though Corbyn’s parents — his mother Norma was a scientist who retrained as a maths teacher — were long-standing members of the Labour Party, rather than send Jeremy (who had three older brothers, Edward, Andrew and Piers) to the local state school, they enrolled him in private school Castle House, where fees today cost more than £7,000 a year.
The school’s independent status was at odds with his parents’ staunch Socialist beliefs, and this might explain why Corbyn omits it from his CV.
For the Hard left Labour leadership favourite is a vehement opponent of private and selective education. Indeed, he wants to abolish the charitable status of fee-paying schools such as Castle House.
The family home, Yew Tree Manor, is now worth around £1.2 million and is near a lake where young Corbyn and his friends often went fishing.
ONE of those boys with whom he played bicycle polo was David Mann. Now 66, the former Army officer who runs a string of sports centres, says: ‘Jeremy was my best friend from the age of six until I was ten. I used to go to his house every Saturday and Sunday, and every day during the summer holidays.
‘I have fond memories of playing bicycle polo with Jeremy and his brothers. He loved the game. We used hockey sticks rather than mallets and Jeremy played to win.’
Mr Mann, who lived in a modest bungalow half a mile from Corbyn, can still recall his friend’s home. ‘It seemed huge, almost manorial, with big reception rooms and a large fireplace.
‘Jeremy’s mum was the first woman our family knew who had been to university. The house was a bit chaotic and very bohemian. There were books everywhere.’
Amusingly, Corbyn’s parents called their youngest son ‘ Jelly’ — a nickname that stayed with him throughout his schooldays.
When they were not playing bicycle polo, Mr Mann recalls that the boys used a forge in the Corbyns’ garden to make things. ‘Jeremy was very mechanical. We built wooden go-karts, which we pushed from behind, and set up a race track in the garden,’ he says.
While David Mann attended the local state school, St Nicholas’s, Jeremy and his brother Piers (now a leading independent weather forecaster) went to Castle House, which had been founded in 1944.
It was known locally as ‘Miss Pitchford’s School’ after the headmistress Zellah Pitchford. She was a formidable character who retired in 1983.
According to David Mann: ‘ Castle House pupils wore smart blue uniforms. We were too young to be aware of a class thing, but everyone knew Castle House was a cut above the rest.’
At the age of nine, David Mann took the 11-plus and got a place at Adams Grammar School in Newport, where he was joined by Jeremy Corbyn and his three brothers.
‘Jeremy never struck me as the brain of Britain, but he was doggedly determined,’ says Mr Mann today.
Just like Ed and David Miliband, Corbyn had middle-class parents who reared him on a diet of Socialism.
They had met in the Thirties in London at a committee meeting for supporters of Spain’s Republicans in the fight against Franco’s fascists. His
father, the son of a solicitor, grew up in East London, where he worked as an engineer during the war.
When his own children were growing up, there were regular political soirees and the Corbyn boys were expected to take part. Piers has said: ‘Politics was a constant topic around the family dinner table.’
Adams Grammar School, which dates back to 1656, still upholds standards of education excellence. Jeremy made a name for himself as a Left-wing firebrand taking part in mock election debates as the Labour candidate.
Meanwhile, his brothers prospered. Edward became a test engineer on Concorde; Andrew, the second brother, went on to be a geologist, but later died from high blood pressure in Papua New Guinea; and Piers constructed devices to study the solar system before setting up WeatherAction, which studies reports of weather and related solar activity.
Jeremy was the least bright academically, leaving school with two E-grade A-levels. He went on to a degree course at North London Polytechnic but left before finishing.
In a recent interview with the Shropshire Star, Corbyn admitted he was ‘not a very good student’. He said: ‘The headteacher’s parting comments to me were: “You will never make anything of yourself.” ’
Adams Grammar, which had the pretensions of a minor public school, was anxious to foster a military ethos, despite National Service ending in 1960, and had a thriving combined cadet force. However, Jeremy Corbyn, already a supporter of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, refused to take part.
‘We were all supposed to join the cadet force at 15 and prance around in uniform every Wednesday,’ he said. ‘The big thing was to visit an Army camp. I was again in a minority and refused to join this thing. I was put on gardening duties.’ Half a century on, Corbyn’s view of the military has not mellowed.
He wants to withdraw Britain from Nato, scrap the Trident nuclear weapon programme and slash the size of the Armed Forces. The Islington North MP says: ‘Why do we have to have planes, transport aircraft, aircraft carriers and everything else to get anywhere in the world. Why?’
The fact that he attended a private and a grammar school — despite his adamantine opposition to such establishments — has impinged on his personal life.
Three times married, he has been dubbed ‘The Sexpot Trot’ and, despite his dishevelled appearance — with a white vest protruding under his open-necked shirt — some women on the Mumsnet website have cooed over his ‘world-weary sea dog look’.
However, his second marriage infamously fell foul of his strong opinions about education and class.
He had met wife No 2 Claudia Bracchitta, an exiled Chilean designer, in the Eighties when they were in the audience for a speech by Ken Livingstone, then leader of Greater London Council. The pair also had links through Corbyn’s involvement in Amnesty International’s campaign against Chilean President Augusto Pinochet.
The couple had three sons, but broke up in 1999 after she wanted to send one of the boys to a top grammar school. Corbyn opposed her as he despised selective teaching and wouldn’t back down. Claudia refused to send their son to an inner- city comprehensive and the marriage couldn’t stand the strain.
She won the day, with their son going to Queen Elizabeth’s grammar school in Barnet — nine miles from their home in Islington.
AT THE time, she complained Corbyn was ‘first the politician and second the parent’. She explained: ‘My children’s education is my absolute priority. ‘The decision [to send our son to grammar school] was made by myself alone and without the consent of my husband. The difficulties of making decisions under these circumstances have played an important role in bringing about a regrettable marital break-up.
‘I could not compromise my son’s future for my husband’s career. I regret it is going to be difficult for Jeremy, but it was an impossible decision. Nobody really is a winner.’
His fixation with politics also caused the collapse of his first marriage to the academic Jane Chapman. They were councillors in North London but split in 1979 after she tired of coming second to his politics.
‘He’s a genuinely nice guy. The problem is that his politics are to the exclusion of other kinds of human activities, such as going out for a meal, to the cinema or buying clothes,’ she said.
They did not have children. ‘I guess there’s an issue of how you spend your time,’ she added.
Two years ago, Corbyn married Laura Alvarez, 46, in her native Mexico. She shares his zeal for Leftwing politics and imports Fairtrade coffee from her homeland.
If he becomes Labour leader, will the third Mrs Corbyn follow in the tradition of previous leaders’ wives and join him on the stage after his keynote speech at the annual party conference in Brighton this autumn?
A committed feminist, the signs are she will not. Similarly, it is thought that if he ever becomes prime minister, the Corbyns would eschew Downing Street and continue to live in Finsbury Park, North London.
Despite being on his third marriage, as a youngster, Corbyn showed little interest in girls. According to David Mann: ‘ Cars were more important to him.’
That’s another irony about Comrade Corbyn, now a vegetarian, eco-zealot who does not have a car, preferring trains and his trusty bicycle (but these days without a hockey stick polo mallet in tow).