I’ve gone overboard…I was only supposed to pick one teacher, but I’ve just had so many.

I went to a place called Aylward Secondary School in Edmonton, and it was a great place to be. I was quite blessed with teachers but the two that I’m going to talk about are Mrs Jenkins and Mrs Christopher.

Mrs Jenkins was my form tutor and I was with her for the whole time I was at secondary school. She specialised in maths and she was just a very motherly teacher. The reason she’s so important to me is that she recognised I wasn’t great at mathematics - it was the one subject that I really struggled with. She offered various students in the class extra tuition so you were able to…

Ooh, wait sorry, my dad is just ringing my doorbell.

[Goes and talks to his dad.]

“Hello Dad, you all right? Yeah, I’m fine thanks, I’m just on the phone. Do you wanna come in? You sure? You look smart! Hot date yeah? That looks nice. All right, see you later.”

Sorry, my dad came to the house looking all sharp.

Where I was I…oh yeah, so after school and in my breaks, I learned as much about maths as possible. If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t have got my GCSE maths, which then allowed me to do A levels at school as well, so she was massively important.

She was one of those teachers who stayed in contact with me, throughout my, well to the level that I’m at now, the stage that I’m at with my journey. She goes to the same gym as me, and the way she talks about me, she’s proud of my progress, and where I’m at in life. The thing I loved about her was that she just really cared, like genuinely cared about all the students in her class, she always mentions how important her form were to her to this day.

With Mrs Christopher, it was a very similar thing, but a bit different because with her, I was doing a subject that I loved.

She used to teach drama and drama was like, it just felt like a safe haven for me. If I was ever down, I went to the theatre and I would chill there. All of my really, really fond memories from school were in that space doing shows like Blood Brothers and Little Shop of Horrors [starts singing “Feed me, Seymour, feed me all night long”], and although I didn’t end up an actor, drama led me to where I am now in terms of radio and presenting.

It gave me so much confidence and I really think doing drama shaped who I am now. I come from quite a traditional Ghanaian background, my mum who raised me and my sister, she is an amazing woman but I think at that time it was very difficult for her to see me doing something in a creative field. She always wanted me to do something very academic and it was Mrs Christopher who spoke to my mum at parents’ evening and was like you know, I can see something in Melvin, he has a talent that people enjoy, people enjoy his entertainment.

She spoke to my mum in such a way that persuaded her and encouraged her that you can do many other things like teaching and coaching and theatre, and gaining confidence is really, really important when you do something like drama. Thanks to her, my mum to allow me to do A-level drama.

It was important afterwards because my first job after university was that I became a teacher myself and I used to teach drama at Tower Hamlets College in East London, and I used to do youth project work and teach drama and dance classes there too. Mrs C influenced my life in so many ways that she probably wouldn’t even realise.

What’s funny is that earlier this year she got in contact with me, I mean she always messaged me on Facebook and stuff, to say hi and check up on how I’m doing, but she messaged me to come and speak to some of her kids. She’s still teaching to this day now, and I sat in her class and spoke to her students about how I’ve gone to get to the stage I’m at now, and about whether they have an interest in performing and presenting.

She’s the exactly the same woman now as she was back then, she puts her all into teaching with all of her students and has a really, really good heart. Like Mrs Jenkins, she’s someone who really cares about her students.

Melvin is currently presenting Lego Masters on Channel 4

CV

Born: 1980, Bedfordshire.

Education: Alyward Secondary School, Edmonton.

Career: Melvin is a British-Ghanaian comedian, radio DJ and television presenter. He’s best known for hosting Kiss FM’s breakfast show every weekday.