'He's the coolest man on the planet and he calls me sir'
Name Steve Baker
Job English and drama teacher, formerly of Stocksbridge high school, Sheffield
Pupil, 1997-2002 Alex Turner, singer, Arctic Monkeys
I remember a parents' evening Mrs Turner came to. She sat down and said: "Oh, Mr Baker, I've had nothing but criticism all night, and everyone's told me to come and see you." And I said: "Mrs Turner, don't worry, he's going to be all right."
There are teachers who look at pupils, check their book to see how often they've handed homework in, and make judgments on that. With Alex, I knew this was someone unconventional, a little bit different, with a brightness and a cleverness that would serve him well. He had a very original sense of humour, as you'd expect, but he was always quite reserved. I remember giving a class a bollocking once, and he was sitting there like Gromit from Wallace and Gromit – mute, but with these incredibly expressive raised eyebrows, as if he was saying sarcastically: "Ooooh – we've really cocked it up now."
Alex was never particularly vocal, but you could sense when some pieces of poetry moved him. One day, I read out a John Cooper Clarke poem, I Wanna Be Yours. I thought I'd risk doing it in John Cooper Clarke's drawling style, and if the class thought I was a prat, sod it. Some years later, Alex interviewed John Cooper Clarke for Mojo, and he said he'd sat there in class that day, thinking: "Wow!" It's always nice when people remember you fondly, but to think you might have helped someone by passing on a love of language – that means a hell of a lot.
I can't point to any one piece of Alex's work and say that's where his talent was, mainly because he was incredibly laid-back, which is why poor Mrs Turner was tearing her hair out. But he was very good at drama – at projects requiring him to pretend he was in the Amazon jungle, or a shop steward in a town threatened by a bypass, daft stuff like that. I've got a video of the last day of term, with him in the role of a teacher who gets killed. He's standing there in a blue Stocksbridge polo shirt, drinking tea with poison in it. I'd make thousands from that, but it's staying firmly locked away.
I played in a staff band at an end-of-term gig. You can imagine what the kids thought: a 45-year-old geography teacher on guitar, a 35-year-oldmusic teacher on drums, and me out front on vocals. When school started back after summer, there were all these kids who had formed new bands. I reckon they thought they couldn't look as idiotic as Mr Baker.
Later, when someone told me Alex had a band, I found their website and sent a message saying: "Well done lads, I always thought you'd do something creative." I got an email back that began: "Hello sir." Six weeks later, Alex got voted Coolest Man on the Planet by the NME, so ever since, I've started all my training sessions with the words: "The coolest man on the planet calls me sir."
They sent me two tickets to a gig at the Leadmill. I'll never forget that night; my 12-year-old son bouncing off to the front on a sea of bodies and me, a man in his early 40s, standing at the back with my pint shaking, and thinking: "God, that's Alex Turner."
http://www.guardian....-music-teachers
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