Vanessa Feltz: ‘I was quite suggestible and basically up for it’

School Days is a regular series by author Danny Danziger in which acclaimed British names and faces share the childhood stories that shaped them. This week, TV personality Vanessa Feltz talks about impressing the boys and her desire to read English at Cambridge

Haberdashers’ Girls’ School is in Elstree, which is far away from everywhere except Elstree. And one of the most famous things about Habs is that everyone goes there by coach, no matter how near or distant from the school. We shared the coaches with boys from the neighbouring Haberdashers’ Boys’ School, and I was glad about that because I could then finally meet boys, which was the whole point of school as far as I was concerned, and I was absolutely thrilled and titillated by the very small amount of mixing that was allowed.

However, our uniform was a very ugly dark bottle-green skirt, and a pea green blouse that didn’t go at all with the bottle-green skirt, and a jumper which had a vicious red stripe in the V-neck, so three really alien and jarring colours that no one looked nice in at all. On top of that you weren’t allowed nail varnish or mascara, or any of the things you wanted to make yourself attractive to the boys on the coach. Also, there was a stentorian teacher called Miss Sarginson, who used to measure the heels of your shoes with a yardstick to make sure your heels weren’t higher than two inches – and I’m only 5 foot 2.

So, it was a game of skill to outwit the restrictions and somehow look sexy as hell, which I achieved by wearing black tights or stockings instead of the regulation beige socks, and I would coquettishly turn the cuffs of my shirt back over both the sweater and the blazer, hoick them up to show a bit of sexy forearm, and undo the buttons of my blouse so you could see some hint of bra. I really tried, although I was often sent to Miss Gover in the chemistry lab to have my nail varnish removed with acetone, which no one would dare do to a child these days.

On my 13th birthday, I fell in love with a boy on the bus. I didn’t marry him, but I was in love with him for years and years, and was still going out with him when I was 21. We were on the coach in the morning and in the afternoon, and after that I would be waiting and waiting for the phone to ring even though I’d seen him just 42 minutes earlier. And when he decided he wanted to read English at Trinity College, Cambridge, that idea crystallised in my mind too, I thought, well, that’s exactly what I want to do.  

There were some interesting teachers at Haberdashers’. There was a teacher called Dr Stevenson who was just there to be extra clever; she didn’t have a specific subject, she would posit theories, and you’d have to shoot them down or spark them up. There was a pair of bohemian-looking Latin teachers called Mr and Mrs Ridd who wore patched velvet drooping clothing and looked like they’d just come from a festival of some kind. Also, because they were married they were probably having sex, which was quite an extraordinary thing to imagine of teachers and a great topic of conversation.

Most important was the English teacher, Mrs Smith, who was quite antique but wore a leather jacket and drove into school on a motorbike from which she would creakingly dismount. But because I wanted to read English at Cambridge I took her seriously. I also did Greek O-level so I wouldn’t have to play lacrosse on a Friday afternoon as I can’t throw, catch or run, and don’t want to either, plus I knew I could get really badly injured as all the people who were good at it didn’t seem to have any front teeth. I thought Thucydides was a far better option, and I still do.

My good friend, who I looked up to, was a girl called Claire Pearson. She was very clever and also incredibly studious and swotty, always revising and practising essays, and was an excellent role model for me, because if I had looked up to someone more louche who suggested we spliff up in the outbuildings I would have done that, because I was quite suggestible and basically up for it.  

But Claire was just up for writing a practice essay on Thomas Cromwell, or whoever, and going over irregular Latin verbs for the billionth time, so I trotted after her to various study rooms and the library. I was aware she was a good influence, and it was better to be influenced by a good influence rather than a bad influence. I’d seen various people who’d been academically promising going right off the rails, and realised that was not a good idea at this point – maybe later – but if I wanted to get into Cambridge I’d better slog away at my work.  

At home. there was an atmosphere of fertile literary discussion and opinion. My father had a library with floor-to-ceiling shelves of books which weren’t props or window dressing, my parents were always reading and talking about books the whole time. When my mother was dying she got actual consolation and solace from Shelley and Keats in a way I never could or would.

But more important than anything: my parents wanted me to get married. It was all that was discussed at home. The whole getting married thing was openly, crushingly, overwhelmingly important. I’m not exaggerating. It was like Fiddler On The Roof, it felt as if I was growing up in Anatevka, even though Anatevka is a fictional village, and the play is 100 years old.

And I still feel the need to get married, and the feeling is acute and overwhelming. In my head I know it’s absolutely and utterly absurd. As a single person, I don’t think I should be demoted and have to lick food from a bowl under the table because I’m unwanted and unchosen and unclaimed, and I would violently defend anyone else who was forced to feel less so because they aren’t married. I am ebullient, full of oomph, funny and good fun, outgoing, gregarious, razzle-dazzle, entertaining…plus I am clever. But in my heart and soul, I feel positively leprous. It’s really sad, isn’t it?