to find out the truth.But before you bare your soul, do you recognise this star of the staffroom?
Golden Graeme
Golden Graeme freewheels through the school gates on his bike, satchel slung in maverick fashion over his back, and dismounts to stretch, Adonis- like, towards the early sun.
Twelve dinner ladies - and Carlos from ICT - press their noses against the inside of the canteen windows, drooling.
Both cerebral and physical, “our Gray”, as he’s known, splits his timetable between physical education and the rigours of academia. Beta males can only look on in envy at the manly gear from The North Face, the scholarly specs that are replaced by wraparound sunglasses during those loping lunchtime runs with the sixth-form jocks, the easy banter with. well, with everybody.
Yet Graeme remains coy about his life away from the chalkface. When he isn’t leading charity ventures to places untouched by fibre-optic broadband, what does he actually do? He’s thought to be single and no one is quite sure where he lives - Year 7 are convinced he’s a secret agent.
Such a perfect specimen of modern manhood is bound to rouse the green-eyed monster. And, unsurprisingly, there is a group of colleagues from the most cynical recesses of the staffroom who scowl at Graeme and put his success down to anything other than teaching ability. They are already predicting his swift, unjust ascent to school leadership before the first hair of designer stubble on his lantern jaw turns grey.
But Graeme is undeterred by such negativity. He has set a lot of plates spinning, his working parties are getting started and mothers who have never previously been known to exist are starting to book appointments with him at parents’ evenings.
Graeme is blokey feminist, abstemious bon viveur and hardline liberal rolled into one.
The boy will go far.
