At Nunthorpe Grammar School there were lots of very able teachers. They got first class degrees before the Second World War, but hadn’t been able to get employment, so they ended up teaching.
These very clever men knew their subject but were in most cases very bad teachers, because they had no idea about teaching technique.
They made up for lack of teaching ability by beating people into learning, a very old-fashioned approach which would be deplored these days. They had specialist rubber tubing and different kinds of canes; there were quite a few sadists among them.
In contrast, Mr Jimmy Jewell was a very good teacher [and in particular] an inspirational history teacher. He communicated clearly, simply and had the ability to communicate abstract ideas. He was the one who taught me how to write an essay; before I couldn’t get my head around it. He managed to explain how you organise your thoughts in a logical way, that you have intelligent paragraphing, [plus] a structure and logic to what you are saying. That was something that never occurred to me before, but he managed to communicate that to me.
He played quite an important part in my life when I was about 16 or 17. I was at that point a very shy and uncommunicative adolescent. [Despite this I auditioned] for the school play, which was Macbeth. Mr Jewell obviously spotted some talent that I wasn’t conscious of because I finished up getting the lead role.
I had to learn 400 lines, speak and perform. It was a very steep learning curve and my performance on the first night was a disaster. I didn’t deliver my lines well and there was an absolute catastrophe when I came on the stage a scene early. The little boys carrying branches of trees in the play saw Macbeth (me) advancing on them with a sword and they all fled, turning the great Shakespearean tragedy into a farce. Everybody in the audience laughed and I destroyed [the] production.
Mr Jewell, the producer of the play, was of course completely distraught. He said: “This is a complete disaster, a complete humiliation for us all, but you have the potential to do much better, so go back and save the day!”... He gave me enough confidence to go back and I delivered a good performance. That was the moment I overcame shyness and fear of public speaking.
Mr Jewell knew how to encourage people and get the best out of them, but he wasn’t liked; he was unpopular because he was quite a disciplinarian.
Mr Jewell had quite a beautiful wife, but he was not at all good looking. He was very tiny, about 5ft 5in or 5ft 6in, also very thin and had black hair. He was quite hunched and may have been in his late 40s or early 50s. He was highly intelligent though and I think his wife was attracted to his intelligence and ability.
History was a subject I enjoyed best and was very good at. I discovered a love of literature when I was doing Macbeth, but my father, who was quite a domineering presence, said there was no future in what he called “arty farty” subjects and insisted that I study science because it was useful and there would be jobs at the end of it. At that stage, I was not robust enough to argue back and ended up doing A levels in maths, physics and chemistry. I didn’t really enjoy these subjects, but I was sufficiently competent and got a place at Cambridge.
I was the first person in my family to go to university. My father and mother left school at 15 to work in chocolate factories in York. My mother worked at Terry’s and my father worked at Rowntree’s. They went on to be successful doing other things. My father, for example, taught building trades at York College.
My decision to go into politics came down to one short period in my life that transformed me [acting as Macbeth in the school play]. That short period gave me the confidence to speak in the Cambridge Union and after I became president of the union at Cambridge I wrote Mr Jewell a thank you note.
I owed him for what had happened; how he had helped me. I [learnt] later that this had meant an enormous amount to him, that he was moved by it. I don’t think anyone had ever acknowledged what he had done in quite the same way and he used this letter as a kind of inspiration for the next generation. I tried to pay him back and I partly did.
Sir Vince Cable was talking to Adeline Iziren
Born: 9 May 1943
Education: Nunthorpe Grammar School (1954-62), where he obtained five O levels and three A levels. Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, (1962-66) where he gained a degree in economics and the University of Glasgow, where he gained a PHD degree in economics in 1973
Career: Worked as an economic adviser to the government of Kenya between 1966 and 1968 and to the Commonwealth secretary-general in the 1970s and 1980s. He was active in the Labour Party in the 1970s becoming a Labour Councillor in Glasgow. In 1982 he defected to the newly formed Social Democratic Party, which later amalgamated with the Liberal Party to form the Liberal Democrats. He stood unsuccessfully for parliament in the elections of 1970, 1983, 1987 and 1992, before being elected as MP for Twickenham in 1997. In 2017, following the resignation of Tim Farron, Sir Vince stood in the Liberal Democrats leadership contest and was elected unopposed.
Sir Vince Cable will be speaking at the Liberal Democrats four-day annual conference which starts on 15 September 2018
