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Interview with Mr Post

Real lives with Oliver Phillips

One day all this will be mine
Recently, pupils at Watford Grammar School held a caption competition after the boys came across a photograph of their headmaster, Martin Post, as a student. Martin was caught by the camera, sporting a typical 1970’s long hair, standing behind the headmaster of the time, Keith Turner.
 
The winning caption featured Martin, the future headmaster, saying as a youngster; “One day, all this will be mine.”
 
In fact, it might come as an encouragement to those about to step onto the world’s stage and do not know which part to play, that caption could not be further from the truth.
 
Student Martin Post left WGS in Rickmansworth Road without having the faintest idea what to do with his life.
 
“Obviously someone who wrote that caption thought I had some sort of career plan. You never really planned it in those days but I have been lucky enough to get into something that really suited me,” says the 46-year-old. “Mind you, the kids might not agree. Perhaps they think I should have retrained as a traffic warden”.
 
I gained the impression talking to Martin, that he is the calibre of headmaster I would have appreciated – not lofty with an air of infallibility and omnipotence of 1950’s heads you could never hope to emulate, but a more human example.
 
For instance, he admits, at the risk of sounding academically incorrect: “I am not allowed to say it was the happiest day of my life when I gave up maths but it certainly felt like that at the time.”
  
 
In fact he readily relates another anecdote about his discomfort with maths. When he returned to the school, applying for the post of deputy head, he met up with his former maths teacher who delved back into his own memory and said; “Post? Post! Oh yes! Set two. Could have done it; couldn’t be bothered.”
 
Martin felt that might be the end of his chances, particularly as four of those who taught him as a boy, were still on the teaching staff.
 
“One of whom reckons I still owe him two homeworks,” he chuckles.
 
He does not remember being a particularly outstanding pupil at school, although he admits to being very enthusiastic at his main love, sport. But then again, he did not recall being the school’s equivalent of head boy.
 
 “I was genuinely surprised when I came back here to see my name on the board as head prefect in 1976. All I remember was being a very ordinary kid.”
 
His childhood had not been ordinary, however. Born in Edgware, the son of a policeman, he and his family came to Bushey when his father was placed in charge of Bushey Police Station.
 
“I never remember being the son of a policeman posing a particular problem among my peers. I don’t think I was any worse than anyone else when growing up but now I have a little boy, I realise the worry of being a policeman and having a son, must have been a nightmare for him,” says Martin, who attended Oxhey infants and Bushey Manor schools before heading for the Grammar.
 
 
His father died when Martin was 14 and he reckons that was an experience that has “helped me hugely in doing this job”. He recalls: “It was the first real moment when the real world impinged on my childhood. I realise they are really formative experiences that shape you.”
 
He also appreciated how hard his mother worked and the sacrifices she made to ensure Martin and is twin sister, who attended Watford Girls’ Grammar, did not suffer or miss out.
 
At the age of ten he had been taken to his first Watford match and became hooked, delighting in players such as Tom Walley, Keith Eddy and Stewart Scullion, before finding an enduring idol in Luther Blissett.
 
“I even named my cat Luther. He was outstanding as was Graham Taylor who I have met several times. Had he not been a football manager, I am sure that he would have made a great headmaster.” He contends.
 
By the time young Martin reached the sixth form, he had developed a passion for reading and literature. He then moved to York University and studied English and related literature, while playing “a lot of sport” and eventually left with a good degree under his belt.
 
“I never considered becoming a teacher. I had worked in holiday jobs as a hospital porter and a barman. I enjoyed both jobs and I had no real aspirations to do anything. It is a terrible picture of apathy and lack of direction,” he concedes.
 
“I had spent three years reading books and talking about them for five hours a week. Fantastic. I enjoyed it, so I had worked.”
 
He contemplated a career and thought in terms of being trained to teach English as a foreign language. I had read my Evelyn Waugh so I knew independent schools would take unqualified people on because they were cheaper. So I became an English and support teacher at Kings School, Rochester and that was a real eye-opener I can tell you,” he says.
 
“The way it was situated…the cathedral was the school’s chapel and…”
 
I stop him in his tracks and inform him that I left that school three months before he was born.
 
We exchange a few anecdotes and I discover the man who had taught me English language and literature subsequently interviewed Martin for the job. Also Martin’s form was also mine in Satis House.
 
 
“A nice school: I really enjoyed it there and decided, after a couple of years, I could teach. For a large part, they were very normal kids. The cleverest boy was the son of a Sikh postman who worked double shifts to give his son all the advantages he never had,” Martin recalls.
 
It gave people all the benefits of that kind of education and it gave me the experience and opportunity to test myself but, even though I was never to earn that much money again until I became a head teacher, it confirmed I wanted to be in state education. Morally, that was where I wanted to put my effort.”
 
Martin is rightly proud of the fact his school can pit itself against some of the very best public schools. “I am very proud we can compete as an equal. I think the Watford area has probably the highest density of top schools that I have ever come across,” he contends.
 
 “Some schools may seem to suffer by comparison with others but they still do an exceptional job for their students.”
 
From Rochester he headed for Cambridge where he was accepted into a post-graduate college but was also able to take advantage of all the facilities and play for Darwin College at football and rugby. By then, Martin was 26.
 
During his course, he was sent to a school in Milton Keynes to knock the edge off him after his public school experience. He considered staying, when offered the job, but the early Monday morning journey from his girlfriend’s in Streatham was not conducive.
 
Instead he went to work for Mill Hill County High School and he still turns out for their old boy’s football team. He was to work there until 1989 when he left to become the head of English at Richard Hale School in Hertford for six years.
 
 
Then, in 1995, he headed back to WGS, having applied successfully for the post of deputy head, working under the “very charismatic” John Holman, a real academic.
 
Martin had been head of year at Mill Hill and had undertaken pastoral work, so he was only too happy to become involved in that side again, ensuring the boys at the school were in the best possible shape to benefit.
 
“You come back here and realise, compared with other schools, there is a fantastically able staff here who are committed, as any school I have ever worked in. You also have students from every walk of life, every different social and economic background, but the vast majority are really committed to making the most of their opportunities. It is a fantastic place to teach. This is a dream job but I still enjoy teaching. Lots of heads say they do not have time to teach and it is not important. I respect that in certain types of school but the teaching ere is such a joy I would be reluctant to give it up. It helps me to understand some of the issues my staff have to grapple with on a daily basis.”
 
The promotion to head teacher was not one he expected.
 
“I was an experienced state schoolteacher and one who would actually like the opportunity to lead a school. I decided that fairly early on. I thought I would be a head somewhere but I thought it would be somewhere else. I happened to be at the right place at the right time,” says Martin, who was the only internal candidate among several others.
 
“The great thing about this place is that I never stop learning every day: from the kids and the people I work with. I am constantly being forced to upgrade my skills. I am surrounded by such good people. I have a fantastic management team, some of whom actually taught me,”
 
Martin’s enthusiasm for the job is very obvious as is his willingness to continue learning.
 
“You learn a lot from heads at other schools. I am surrounded by people who are really talented. You get the chance to meet all these people who are great leaders,” he says.
 
But one should not under-estimate his own contribution to the cause.
 
“I think I bought an experience of being able to understand how you change an organisation, so that it evolves. That is very important here, very important because you have to assess everything that everyone outside wants you to do. You have to decide how best it fits with the schools best interests. We have a tradition of success and providing opportunities and I will not compromise it,” he asserts.
 
 
It is said a school is only as good as its teachers, but that is to sell the pupils short.
 
“I am lucky to deal with the students here. I am supremely optimistic about them. Every year you see a fantastic group go out to university and wonder whether the new ones will be good. They are often better. With the right environment and right challenges, kids these days are even more enjoyable to teach than they were 20 years ago. That has a lot to do with the fact teaching has improved hugely and schools are much more responsive organisations,” says Martin.
 
“You do look after 1,200 individuals. You can’t say so-and-so is destined for an unskilled job. Kids respond. They are normal kids, they reflect the society and the pressures in society that impacts on every other child. I think here they learn to deal with them and take advantage of their opportunities.”
 
 There is enjoyment to be had in doing as well as you possible can. The critical mass of students here wants to learn. That needs to be at the heart of every successful school.”
 
But in many aspects the school has changed from the days Martin was a pupil, not least the variety of cultures.
 
“The multi-cultural aspect of the school is a huge incredible strength. Yes, it is the single great difference from when I was here. Watford was not a multi-cultural community in those days and certainly it was not reflected in the makeup of the school. Now it reflects absolutely the makeup of the community which in turn is Watford’s and the school’s strength.”
 
 
However, he acknowledges the problems. “It seriously worries me post 9/11 there are Watford families who can’t walk down Watford High Street for fear of intimidation or abuse. I think it is really incumbent on us to work very hard to make sure it stays the successful community it is.”
 
But when it comes to changes, Martin’s personal like has undergone a transformation. Married in 1999 to Kate, the couple live in Croxley Green.
 
“The major change in my life is my wife Kate gave birth to a little boy 22 months ago. Everything is being reappraised in the light of having a little boy. In fact when Kate was looking around for a maternity hospital, the Bedfordshire options of Luton or Dunstable were her preferred options,” he says, but mindful of the fact that old football rivalries, he refused to let the baby have the word ‘Luton’ on his passport.
 
“There are limits to my multiculturalism,” he admits with a smile and he is looking forward to the day he has “the excuse to take my son down to Vicarage Road.”
 
Between the demands of the job and the family, he has not had much opportunity to watch football or indeed indulge his old love of film a theatre.
 
“I am not really that interesting. I remember interviewing a 17-year-ld who was passionate about bee-keeping. I do not have that element. I do not have a train set in the attic. When I read your profile of Norman Tyrwhitt – surely everyone wants to see that train set?”
 
The 46-year-old is plainly fulfilled by his “dream job” and his family and it is refreshing to come across teachers who readily concede they do not have all the answers but are enthusiastic about adding to their knowledge, as well as being so committed.
 
As Martin says, “I cannot think of anything else I would want to do. This is a fantastic job and I would move from here with great reluctance.”

This interview appeared in the Watford Observer's supplement in celebration of the Watford Grammar School's Tercentenary in 2004.  Reproduced with kind permissionwas first published in the Watford Observer.