Newspaper Article

Schools: My inspiration: Jill Dawson

INTERVIEWS BY EMILY MOORE

1999

Overview

The big reason for me liking the sixth form was Mr (John) Foggin, my A- level English teacher. We thought him very eccentric. He had a limp and wild hair and used to practically foam at the mouth when he talked about the writers he liked. He made us read TS Eliot's The Waste Land out loud. I remember saying that I didn't understand it but thought it sounded like music. He nearly fell off his chair. `Yes! Yes! That's it! It's more of a musical score!' Later he told me that if anyone ever said TS Eliot was just a repressed bank clerk, I should just read them a particular bit of The Waste Land about the hyacinth garden. It stuck in my mind all through the years and is the preface of the book I'm writing now. I was argumentative and Mr Foggin never crushed debate - in fact, disagreeing with him seemed to make him glow. I was very contradictory and not many people worked me out. Mr Foggin was one of the rare few. I think he cottoned on that I wasn't happy. But he never confronted me directly with my problems: he did his helping through recommending books - this subtlety was exactly right for me. He introduced me to feminism, to Lisa Alfa's Skinflicks and Susie Orbach's Fat is a Feminist Issue.

• Publisher: Guardian News & Media Limited
• Subject: Educators / Role models