Tag Archives: civic education

When I was a secondary school student at a single sex council Grammar School in Newcastle in the mid-sixties some subjects crept into staff-student conversations in unlikely ways. An enlightened Anglican priest decided to include some sex education in his Religious Education efforts. The English teacher had no worries about students looking at the world hrough current party political eyes. We could do that because we were not short of youthful activists. There was Henry, an old-style Conservative, who would struggle to find a home in today’s Tory party. Julian was what some would call soft-left Labour. Robert was Labour and Co-op (he worked at the Central Co-op on Saturdays, privy to the high levels of theft amongst workers). I had never discussed my party affiliation with the English teacher. He simply noted my attitude to events and out of the blue one afternoon he simply announced during a debate “Ah, but Reid’s a Liberal.”

This was not the only reason why I enjoyed sixth form life after being somewhat bored by my previous five years in the school. Someone had the bright idea of putting me in charge of the newspapers. Day by day I read the Guardian (continuing to do so to this day) and looked at the others. There were some options in the sixth form curriculum. I opted to take an extra A-Level  in religious studies, which I thought could reinforce the beginnings of my training as a Methodist Lay Preacher – yes, I know, probably ridiculously precocious! The price of this was missing the weekly “Civics” lesson. I reckoned that as a Young Liberal I could sharpen up my political awareness elsewhere.

That, of course is ancient history. Fast forward half a century to my stint as Lord Mayor of Bradford. This I saw as a prlvileged learning experience, which came with a temporary high profile, from which the only continuing status was getting your name carved on the wall some twelve months after the event. This was heretically minimalistic for some of my predecessors who thought it guaranteed being somebody special forever. Mind you, that was not the worst heresy I committed. Nothing compares with the chagrin of the council media office when I insisted on writing my own speeches!