I’ve often puzzled over what compelled me to take that left-hand turn. I was not a bad pupil - I was middling in talent. But the result was that I ended up going to Mirfield secondary modern, which brought me under the influence of Cecil Dormand. It was in his class that for the first time I heard Shakespeare discussed. He taught us The Merchant of Venice, and his method was not to lecture us but to divide up the parts between the class and have us act out the scenes. He was a very good actor and director, and so his enthusiasm for getting us to live the roles was inherent in his life as a performer.

One of the reasons Cecil was popular was that he talked to us as though we were grown-ups rather than kids. It’s a wonderful example: if you behave as if people are smart, they will be smart. Even when things were a bit rough, he had a sense of humour - which he still possesses.

He came to see me perform at the West Yorkshire Playhouse last autumn (in J B Priestley’s Johnson Over Jordan). It was a real pleasure to have him and another of my teachers - Phil Haycock, who taught art - well and healthy and sitting in the audience.

The first formal production I remember being in, other than local pageants, was The Happiest Days of Your Life, put on by the Mirfield drama group. The core of this group were the teachers at my school. The following year Cec took the leading role in the play, Harvey, and directed it. I was cast as a New York cabbie. How I managed as a 13-year-old to play a New York cabbie, I don’t know. But I do remember Cec giving a professional performance - complex, accomplished, considered and very funny.

He was a good role model; I admired his commitment. There was something about his concentration and the way he lost himself in the character he played that was impressive.

One day, when I was 12 or 13, I was summoned to the headmaster’s office and told I had been selected to attend West Riding county council’s new residential drama course. I’ve always suspected that Cec Dormand paid for me to go on that course.

I met Brian Blessed there, and one of the teachers was Ruth Wynn Owen, who was the greatest influence on me in my middle teens. She had been a professional actress, and she was the one who truly developed my abilities with Shakespeare. For four years every weekend I travelled by three buses to get to her house in Hoyland Common, where she would conduct an informal drama class.

I left school when I was 15 - I never sat a public exam until I passed my driving test in California - and went to work on the Dewsbury and District Reporter. That kind of job was usually open only to grammar-school boys, so I think Cecil and my headmaster, Charles Besley, must have pulled strings. I was expected to write, I was expected to be articulate, I was expected to be responsible - at 15. So in getting me that job, in a sense they were seeing to it that my education was continued.

Actor Patrick Stewart was talking to John Davies

THE STORY SO FAR

1940 Born Mirfield, West Yorkshire

1955-6 Joins ‘Dewsbury and District Reporter’

1957 Leaves journalism for acting; attends Bristol Old Vic drama school. Professional debut in Lincoln in 1959

1966 Joins Royal Shakespeare Company. Television credits include roles in ‘I, Claudius’ (1976) and ‘Smiley’s People’ (1982)

1987 After a spell with the National Theatre, stars as Jean-Luc Picard in ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’. Series continues until 1994, followed by ‘Next Generation’ films

2000 Stars in Hollywood blockbuster ‘X Men’

2001 Awarded OBE; honorary degree from Leeds Metropolitan University

2002 Plays wizard in ‘The Wizard of Oz’ at West Yorkshire Playhouse (until April 13). Lead role in ‘King of Texas’, film adaptation of ‘King Lear’, due out in June. In production with ‘Star Trek X: Nemesis’