We’ve all got skeletons in the school cupboard

It’s amazing what a school report can reveal about you in later life.

John Lennon was a pupil at Liverpool’s Quarry Bank High School in the ’50s and a discipline book from that time is up for auction. It lists a number of detentions which John ran up for “fighting” “sabotage” and “shoving”.

Clearly he was a bit of a rebel, even in his teens.

Many people who found fame and fortune in later life have a few skeletons in their cupboard.

Tony Blair’s teacher at Fettes College described him as “the most difficult pupil I ever had to deal with.” And Winston Churchill’s teacher described him in a school report as “constant trouble to everybody. Always in some scrape or other.”

So is a bit of attitude necessary if you’re going to get on in life?

Could be.

Maybe you need to learn to push things to the limit.

Sir Richard Branson once told me that he was always in hot water for some mad scheme or other when he was at school. And he didn’t do too badly for himself, did he?

So how accurate are school reports in defining your character?

I had written an essay in secondary school saying my dream was to be a reporter on a newspaper. My teacher wrote: “Can’t see that happening. You’re much too shy to interview people.”

It was a fair comment because, shortly before, I’d been asked to welcome a visitor to our school at assembly. As I stood in front of everyone, I had an attack of stage fright and darted behind the curtain.

But sometimes the things that hold you back strangely become the very factors that spur you on.

I worked at overcoming my shyness and, in time, I found interviewing people from all walks of life became what I most loved about my job.

Good teachers are able to understand that you need to test the limits sometimes.

There was a rather bolshie pupil at Malvern College and his teacher wrote: “Stubbornness is in his nature. And his tendency to fly off the handle will only mar his efforts. He must learn tact while not losing his outspokeness.”

So, do you reckon Jeremy Paxman ever managed it?