Martin Roberts is best known for presenting the perennially popular BBC One TV show Homes Under the Hammer as well as appearing on I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here! and numerous other TV and radio shows.

He’s also written a series of children’s books called The Villes, including one titled Sadsville (designed to help children process feelings of sadness), copies of which he sent to every primary school and public library during 2020 through his charitable foundation.

He chatted to Tes about a wonderful former teacher, a school trip to York that included a seminal rite-of-passage moment, why he almost became a teacher himself and about his work with the NSPCC to help children understand and process their emotions.

1. Who was your favourite teacher from school?

In the second year [of secondary school], we got someone as both a form teacher but also as our physics teacher, called Mr Muscutt. We didn’t realise it at the time but it was his first [job] out of teaching school so we sort of grew up together all the way to sixth form. He has said that you never forget that first class - we were his first class and I think that was as important for him as it was for us.

2. Why was he such a great teacher?

It was his way of teaching - he was very much into colour boxes and mind maps, and underlining things in lots of colour and being very visual. For me, that is how I learn - via visualisations and seeing things written down with lots of colour and arrows and big swirly boxes - and that really twigged with me.

He [also] did the school disco, so that was really cool, and he ran the school band and I played bass guitar for a bit. He was, and remains, a totally top bloke.

3. Did his teaching have an impact on your career?

I really enjoyed physics as a result of his teaching and I ended up doing electronics at university.

Even then, I recognised what a difference he had made to me and that almost inspired me to go into teaching. I went to him and asked if I should be a teacher but he said he thought my skills would be better suited elsewhere.

4. Were you able to tell him what a difference he made to you?

I have, and it was a lovely conversation to have. I think he was a well-loved teacher - he wasn’t just nice to us, he was a well-regarded member of the teaching profession at that school and further afield, so I don’t think it was the first time he’d been told how special he was.

5. Were there any other lessons you recall?

I remember, in first year at school, an English teacher who set us an assignment to report on the tragedy of the Titanic as if [we were] newspaper reporters. And I remember that assignment and how much I enjoyed it. I remember that moment and thinking “this is fun” and I really liked this idea of being a journalist, writing a story about an event.

Those little things that might just click…It’s really interesting being a teacher, I guess, in that sometimes you don’t know exactly what that trigger is but [you] have that belief that you will, without realising it, make triggers that people remember for the rest of their lives.

6. Was there any subject you wish you had studied at school?

The only thing I wish I had done more was music because I am definitely musical - I play piano and a bit of guitar - and I would have loved to have felt like I had the freedom to do music to O level; that would have been awesome.

I am sort of envious when I look at the choices my children have now got in terms of subjects. My daughter could potentially do dance - she loves dancing. Can you imagine being able to do a GCSE in dance?

7. Did you go on any memorable school trips?

School trips were always such a blast - the fun of the bus arriving at the school and the complete break in any kind of normality as you trundled off.

The school I went to was on the outskirts of Warrington and the places that we went to were in the North primarily, so we went to Warwick Castle and York Railway Museum.

I do remember the journeys there and back because I think I had my first kiss on the back of the bus coming back from a trip to York Minster. I don’t know if it was as memorable for Ann as it was for me but I have kept in touch with her because she is good friends with Roger [another friend from school], and we occasionally see each other and laugh about it. Back seat of the bus - it’s all classic stuff.

8. Did you ever get into trouble at school?

I don’t remember doing too many detentions. I was a bit of a chatterbox in school and there was a French stand-in teacher, and I definitely remember doing lines - “I will not talk in French class” - something like that.

But, interestingly, whether I bent the truth or not, I don’t know, but the result was that my dad actually helped me do my lines. I must have told some kind of story about how I’d been hard done by so I think he did my lines for me. Good old Dad!

9. Your charity does a lot of work to help children - is that driven by school experiences?

I was quite badly bullied at school - I had a bit of a rough time and I don’t think I shared it with enough people because, if I’d shared it with Mr Muscutt or my parents, perhaps things would have been done.

It gives me a drive and impetus to try to help some of the charity projects I am involved in and a real empathy with anyone who is bullied - and a real desire to make sure children don’t suffer if we can help them not to.

10. And is that why your Sadsville book project is so important to you?

[Sadsville] is the story of a place where people cry all the time and there’s this silly whimsical reason: that the man at the crisp factory is putting real onions in the crisps.

But in the process, children think about what makes people sad. I wanted it to open a discussion about emotions in a lighthearted way but, at the end of it, to say: “If you’re sad, here are steps you can take to make your life better: talk to a friend, talk to an adult, work out in your own mind what’s making you sad.”

I linked up with the NSPCC, too, so we could signpost to Childline. We were fundraising to get a copy of the book to every eight- and nine-year-old in the UK - that’s still the plan. But then lockdown happened and I decided I needed to fast-track this, so I raised enough money to give two free copies to every single primary school in the UK.

We’ve had great feedback. We did a survey and 71 per cent said they felt they would be better able to cope with sadness after reading this book. I am really proud of that.

Martin Roberts was talking to Tes senior editor Dan Worth

This article originally appeared in the 6 August 2021 issue