My inspiration: Simon Pegg
Occupation: Comedian
Age: 28
Favourite teacher: Gareth Calway
Where they met: Brockworth Comprehensive, Gloucester
Simon Pegg: "Gareth Calway was my form tutor for my whole time at Brockworth. He was the first teacher to encourage me to be funny. He used to let me tell a joke in front of the class every Monday - probably to keep me calm. I loved it. An adult laughing at your jokes when you're a kid is a great endorsement - it also makes you tell that joke over and over again until they crack up! Afterwards we would discuss the joke. It made me feel like a grown up. But once I told a Jim Davidson joke. Gareth took me aside and explained that it was racist - I hadn't realised and I was really shocked. When I was 16 I did my English oral on racism. It was a rite of passage for me.
"The best teachers are the ones that engage you with the subject. Gareth was so good. His English lessons were always interesting. If I hadn't been taught by Gareth, I would have had less of an education. He instilled in me a desire to learn, to make something of myself and grow up. He set me on a line of flight to A levels and a degree. He was the first teacher I regarded as a human being, not a teaching machine. And he seemed interested in me as a human being too, rather than a sheep to be instructed and let go.
"He was a young idealist, a left-wing guy with principles. I always remember him reading The Guardian. I think he was misunderstood as a teacher by some of the kids. Some even called him Hitler because he had a moustache. I think it upset Gareth so much that he shaved it off - now it's rotting in some sewer. We had teachers who were pally with the kids and that meant they didn't get any teaching done. So in comparison with them, some kids thought Gareth was strict, but really he managed to strike the perfect balance between being a teacher and a person.
"I was cheeky at school. Gareth once told me I was bad, but not in a criminal way. After we'd finished our O levels, me and my friends Lee and Darius went round to Gareth's house for dinner. He told us all the things he'd known that we'd done, things we thought we'd got away with. For example once Darius and I wrote 'coitus' on the wall.
"Gareth knew everything. We had a good laugh and discussed those five years objectively for the first time. I felt so grown up, although of course I wasn't; I was 16 years old.
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Gareth Calway taught at Brockworth Comprehensive for five years. He is now assistant head of English at Smithdon High School in Hunstanton.
Calway: "Brockworth was my first real teaching job. I did feel young, but I was very aware of my responsibilities. It was an odd feeling because I've always rebelled against authority - now I was it! This happens much less in other jobs where you are still allowed to be groovy. I think I'm groovier now than I was then.
"It's 12 years since I wrote a report on Simon and he seems to be making excellent progress! My favourite memory of the precocious little so and so was the way he used to answer the register. Pupils would call out their own names in register order - half way down there would be a pause followed by one of Simon's 'character' voices, often his high camp lovee. He really was very funny. I gave him a little entertainment spot in form period which nowadays would probably be elbowed out by some worthy form of PSE.
"It's so difficult to give all the pastoral care you want to now because we've got so much to do. Half way through the five years, Simon's step dad left and he suffered badly. He lingered after one registration to tell me and I wanted to give him a big hug. I settled for the British equivalent - a manly pat on the shoulder. The family breakdown hastened his progress into a mature and well-adjusted man. But there remained something innocent and infectious about his sense of fun.
"You get a lot of stick in this job, and you get used to your daily efforts being sneered at. It's such an honour for any pupil to say they value what you've done. It's an inspiration to be an inspiration really!"
Simon Pegg stars in BBC2's comedy series Big Train, Mondays 10pm. Gareth Calway's book, Britain's Dreaming (including the poem Marked for Life, about his own horrible English teacher), is published by Frontier.