David Coverdale (Whitesnake) was at school with me. Big friends for a few years.
Do you keep in contact with any old school friends?
Or did any of your old school friends become famous?
David Coverdale (Whitesnake) was at school with me. Big friends for a few years.
A couple become professional footballers at international level but I have no interest in football so didn’t follow their careers (same for a family member)
Another became a well recognised music star who had quite a major hit 10 or so years ago and she is now a leading music producer in the US. She is good value though.
Last edited by Sinnlover; 3rd September 2022 at 21:32.
A lad i was in school with is on TV almost 7 days a week, he was nothing special as a kid.
I think his parents pushed him into it and got his foot in the door at a young age.
The comedian Alan Davies was the year above me at school - he was the joker even then, very likeable - didn’t know him that well but certainly in my circle of friends for a while
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Not during school but after college. I was in a band with Ricky Gervais for a while. I remember him as being very serious, hard working and intelligent. A talented songwriter and vocalist. Obsessed with David Bowie. It's been fascinating following his career over the years.
Are most of the names secret?
Just remembered my childhood pal Peter Slater who I knew when I was 6-10yrs old
Became a broadcaster, mostly for football.
https://www.speakers4u.co.uk/peter-slater/
Last edited by jneds; 4th September 2022 at 12:35.
One classmate left school to become guitarist of Suede (Richard Oakes).
Another didn't go on to University and instead started a money lending business that became massive (Amigo loans, Richmond Financial Group) and he became a billionaire (James Benamor).
Didn’t really keep in touch with my school friends. My two best friends: one moved to Australia and has never returned to the UK, the other was killed in a bike (motorcycle) accident 41 years ago.
Other school friends: one played for Leeds Utd and Sheffield Utd. He was a couple of years older tbf. Another moved to Manchester and I hear has become very successful and now owns race horses. Another served in the Falklands and was never the same afterwards.
I attended a “25 years since we left school - class of ‘78” event obviously quite a long time ago now. It was bizarre how all the old cliques fell straight back into line, several teachers showed up, they seemed ancient when at school but in reality weren’t that much older. Promises were made to stay in touch and we all drifted apart almost immediately.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Not at school; in my case from the army. One of my army colleagues became Minister of Social Affairs here in the Netherlands.
Im still in contact with school friends that mattered to me back in my schooldays. I’m not sure about any famous ones, the nearest would be Denise Gingell who was the dark haired girl in Tight Fit but you’d have to be my age to remember the group! There were a couple of notorious school colleagues who each served time for both rape and murder, to be honest it didn’t come as a surprise when I read about them in the papers. A few have ended up ridiculously wealthy but I’m not entirely sure what they did to amass it!
Not direct friends, but a close female friend at secondary school left after the fifth form and moved to a different school where she fell in with a group of lads setting up a band. She went to their practices, round to their houses helping with lyrics and saying what she liked and disliked and was their only fan for a while. The band was Radiohead!
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Me and my best mate have been friends since primary school we are 67 now. He was on the fringe of the Olympic Judo team Montreal, sadly never the games. That’s as near to any fame either of us achieved.
So - no-one was buddies with James Savile, Paul Gadd, Peter Sutcliffe or Freddy West?
Class of '05, though I expect we shared a few teachers! Mr Hall was still there when I left, not sure he is now.
Ah! Good old Mr 'all (my best attempt at typing a Dorset accent). He was my class master for the first 2 years, then I had Mr Powell (he is still there!) for GCSEs (just saw some pics of him leading a class trip to Machu Pichu - school trips got a lot more exciting vs when I was there when it was basically excursions to the Purbecks or wandering aimlessly in the rain around Swanage). And then for 6th form it was the Economics teacher whose name I forgot!
Last edited by ryanb741; 4th September 2022 at 15:30.
Ha, he was very Dorset, wasn't he. Legend though! Mr Powell was my history tutor throughout, as well as Mr. Morton and Farquhar. Strangely, I was a +1 at a wedding in Australia, with an ex girlfriend. Father of the bride turned out to be Tony Farquhar, we couldn't believe it when we saw each other.
Anyway, cheers! Couldn't have asked for a better school or staff.
A co worker of mine who worked at Bristol Brewery (part of the Fosters group at the time) lodged with them for 6 months before he transferred to Berkshire Brewery where I was based. He understandably kept quiet about it for years, the first we heard about it was when he sold his story to the Sun and we saw him splashed all over the centre pages as an exclusive! He got paid a shedload I understand, certainly enough to quit the brewery, we never saw hide nor hair of him again.
My recently died stepdad lived in the same street and went to school with Sean Connery in Edinburgh.
They were good pals for about ten years apparently:)
I grew up living opposite to Esther McVey - I recall frequent lifts from school in her mother's Morris Marina fastback.
More of an acquaintance than friend, my primary school English and music teacher was Mr Rattle.
We used to practice in his house on Menlove Avenue, accompanied by his teenage son Simon on the piano.
The young fella' has done well for himself.
Last edited by W124; 5th September 2022 at 21:05. Reason: punctuation.
My parents neighbours at their previous home were on one side David and Judy Lomax (the journalist and broadcaster), and on the other Diana and Nick Humble (Kate Humble's parents). At the time my parents moved there I had to move out to stay closer to work (I was still a teenager) which meant Kate and Charlie were still at secondary school, but even so we got to know them quite well, attending birthday parties, barbeques etc not forgetting the generous use of their swimming pool during the summers!. I still take dad over to Diana's for coffee every month so often so he can catch up on the gossip.
Thom from Radiohead is certainly not the brash, look-at-me celeb we're used to on social media. Have quite often seen him in the Rose and Crown in N Parade quietly sipping a pint.
My wife went to school with Pam Ayres who was evidently a very nice but cleaver girl.
She got a break on Opportunity Knocks and just spent rest of her life doing one woman shows reciting poetry everywhere. She also writes poetry books and she is a right grafter in this.
She now lives in a large house in the Cotswolds and is still working in her seventies.
I went to school with - and was close friends with for 4 or 5 years - someone who ended up being found guilty of plotting a major terror attack.
Omar Rehman: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6756619.stm
You couldn't possibly imagine he'd have become what he did. He was a huge football fan (Juventus was his team) and worshipped Andrea Corr. A third friend in our little group remained in touch with him after school and says he could see Omar becoming radicalised before his eyes. At the time he didn't realise it was anything negative. He just thought he was becoming more religious. Omar ended their friendship after one meet-up where he tried to get him to convert to Islam and he refused.
Is that the sort of thing the OP was after?
A shooting friend of mine is married to that Christine Trevanion😉
My school friend's older sister, whom I had a crush on, became mrs nabba universe for like 4 times.
If you, like me, are in to female bodybuilding, that's something.
Good god this has brought back so many memories.
I hate you now.
Sent from my ANE-LX1 using Tapatalk
I spent a month at a language and theology retreat with a chap who became known as Sami Yusuf. Arab and SE Asian country singing sensation.
Sami Yusuf is his stage name.
Not someone I actually went to school with but a boy who lived a few doors away from my Mum became one of Britains worst serial killers. I was probably about 12 and he was about 15 and if he wanted a ride on your bike you had to let him. I could have told you then he was a raving psychopath.
He is also one of Britains longest serving prisoners. Patrick Mackay was not to be messed with even at that age.
A girl called Andrea Arnold who I knew as a teen has become a very successful film and tv director
I went right through school with Michael Ball, his mum and my mum used to go to coffee mornings together and he only lived a few hundred yards away in Mannamead, Plymouth. he still lives close to Plymouth up on the moor near Meavy. Lost touch a few years ago but was in touch until then.