Samira Ahmed is a journalist, writer and broadcaster who is best known for hosting Channel 4 News, BBC News’ Newswatch and Front Row on BBC Radio 4. She has also made numerous documentaries, including Art of Persia, and won Celebrity Mastermind in 2010 and a champions’ special in 2019.

She chatted with us about her school days and the teachers who made an impression on her, risqué escapades on skiing trips and why she loved learning about world religions.

1. Where did you go to primary school?

I actually moved primary school about four times. When I started school we were living in Upper Norwood [in south-east London] and I went to a convent school, Virgo Fidelis, for about a year. I had a good time, although I got told off for having a metal suitcase for my school bag, which I had brought back from India, where everyone uses them.

We moved to Kingston upon Thames and I went to a state school for one term, and then I got into another convent school called Holy Cross Convent Prep School in New Malden.

Then my parents got me into a modern high school, which was Wimbledon High School GPDST [Girls’ Public Day School Trust] - it’s now called the GDST [Girls’ Day School Trust] - and I joined there at the age of 8. That’s where I really see my education kicking off and I stayed there until I was 18.

2. Do you have any strong memories from that time?

When I started it was 1976-77 so it was the Silver Jubilee year and I remember the Queen actually drove past our school on the way to give Virginia Wade her trophy at Wimbledon.

We did a big frieze celebrating British history going back to the Romans and we built these elaborate papier-mâché exhibits. I’d never experienced anything like it.

There are no photographs so maybe it was all pretty amateur but at the time I remember thinking, ‘This is incredibly sophisticated’. I don’t think I’d even heard of a frieze. And papier-mâché I thought was a very sophisticated idea, too, although the feel of it utterly disgusted me and I’ve never done it since.

3. And were there teachers in that school whom you remember well?

Yes, all my teachers were good, but one that I remember was Miss Stephenson, who was the head of the junior department - she was really knowledgeable.

She taught very well, including RE, and we had a project with her to write a diary as if you were St Paul going on your missionary journeys around south-east Europe and Asia Minor.

And I really got into it and I [wrote] this thing that Barnabas - or whoever he was touring with - had a terrible snore and I remember Miss Stephenson saying, “I will never be able to think of St Paul now without thinking of him being kept awake by that snoring!”

A lot of my teachers were the generation who came through the war; it turned out that the headmistress of the whole school, Anne Piper, was one of those women who flew up in Spitfires to test the engines, and never talked about it. Her daughter told me about it after she died.

4. Do you remember any funny moments from that time?

A lot was changing then. There was the sense that the youthquake of the 1960s was really being felt in the 1970s and sometimes you just felt these two things collide. I remember in an assembly one day Mrs Piper saying that a gentleman had complained that girls had been seen walking outside the school eating an apple.

I think by 1976 we knew that really wasn’t that big a deal [but] I can imagine the person who would have complained, in his blazer, thinking, “Well-behaved people don’t eat between meals, and they don’t wander the streets eating apples.”

5. What was the step up to secondary school like?

I couldn’t wait for it. Although we [in the junior department] were on the same site, we lived very separate lives. I used to see all the senior school girls [because] the bells rang at different times for their breaks. They didn’t have to wear a tie. I couldn’t wait.

I remember my first day of secondary school because it was like the first day in an American high school movie where it’s so thrilling. You came in, you chose your own desk, we had different subjects in different rooms.

There was a science block - we had lessons in a lab with lab coats - and we were learning Latin for the first time. And I remember my first maths lesson, which was about Venn diagrams. That’s how much I loved it!

6. Which teachers do you remember there?

Mrs Kirman was my English teacher and I know a lot of people speak fondly of her. She was just one of those super-enthusiastic, engaging teachers. She taught me for Oxbridge entrance later and we actually kept in touch for a bit.

When I was a BBC correspondent in Los Angeles, I used to write to her about the OJ Simpson case. I think she was just thrilled that I had gone on to do what I wanted.

7. You worked in Germany - presumably you had a good German teacher, too?

Frau Harris, my German teacher for A level, was brilliant and, thanks to her, I did well. I really loved German. I discovered I was good at it - I had no idea I would be - but I found it very easy and logical, so I [studied] it at A level and ended up working in Berlin on German television, thanks to her. I’m not sure if she knew that because she had retired but if she’d been on holiday somewhere and put the TV on she might have suddenly realised that A level came in handy!

8. Did you take part in any clubs or activities?

In senior school I did experiment with dance club. We had a very modern dance teacher called Mrs Squires, who was quite wild and so we did very expressive Kate Bush-style dance movements. It lasted a couple of terms then I realised there wasn’t much more to it for me.

I also got into school debating and we did that with the local boys’ school at King’s. It was really important and the friends I made through that are people I’m still in touch with.

9. Did you go on any fun trips while you were at secondary school?

Skiing. I loved skiing. I got my first snog with an Austrian called Hubert. I snogged him twice actually. Once on New Year’s Eve 1984 and then we went back the next year and bumped into them again, so two snogs - so that was memorable!

10. Do you have any other memories from your time at school?

1980 was the centenary year of the school [and] the really big thing was they hired a train - you could charter a train from British Rail then - and so this train arrived at Wimbledon Station and we got on our own train to take us to London Bridge, where we went to Southwark Cathedral and had a service of thanksgiving for the centenary of the school.

Then we came back and had a special cake with green icing - because the school logo was an apple - and hot dogs, which were considered “street food” then. It was very exciting to be allowed hot dogs.

Samira Ahmed will be presenting the Turner Prize ceremony from Coventry Cathedral on 1 December. She was talking to Dan Worth, senior editor at Tes

This article originally appeared in the 26 November 2021 issue