Macca: I would have been a teacher
Sir Paul Mccartney has revealed he would have been an English teacher if the Beatles had not become a success.
He hailed his old English teacher at school, Alan Durband, for inspiring his interest in literature and the arts back in the 1950s.
The superstar musician, 79, said he would not have been “too bad” at the job himself.
“The only thing I was really any good at, or had the qualifications for, was teaching,” he said. “So I could have taught. And I think I might not have been too bad at it.
“For me, it would have been English. Low-level English literature. I’d have to swat up if I was going to get the high-level stuff.”
He credited the “brilliant” Durband for introducing him to Chaucer while at the Liverpool Institute High School for Boys.
Durband had been taught by FR Leavis, the scholar and literary critic, whilst at Cambridge, and his passion for literature rubbed off on the teenage Mccartney.
Prior to being taught by Durband, the former Beatle said he was “a bit of a skiver” at school.
“Teachers were pretty brutal in those days,” he said. “They were allowed to whack you, so they did. But there was a period where I was getting near exams; those couple of years I paid attention a bit more.”