Mr Salter

When I had been thrown out of Hinchingbrooke school I went to a local community college, The Huntingdonshire College, to take my English, History and Psychology A levels. I soon realised how lucky I had been, I found my new teachers really inspiring, especially Mr Salter, my literature teacher. He was very calm and very enquiring, with a wave in his hair and a beard styled very much like Karl Marx, which I think was no coincidence. The other students were irritated by the way that he would ramble off the topic, spending the most of the lesson recalling an event from his past, or discussing some moral or political point that had no direct connection with the book which we were studying, but I found all the new ideas and new perspectives that he brought to me very exciting.

Still, I wasn't the best pupil. The class went to see King Lear at the Barbican but I didn't see the whole performance. I think my classmate Tom and myself went to the pub. But I was very pleased with the 'Pastelism' fanzine and 'Bit Of The Other' Pastels video that I bought in the record shop on Hanway Street (now closed, has a Beatles Yellow Submarine mural on its façade, half of which has been erased).

Mr Salter and I became friends and, after I left the college, I'd visit his cottage now and again. We'd talk for hours, he taught me how to make Turkish coffee and encouraged me to play the piano more (he had just, in his forties, taught himself how to play). Jane and Howard would call his name to me in a childish sing song voice and laugh.

So, only a year or two ago, I was very happy with the internet offering the opportunity to reunite us. I found him easily, he'd moved to a city further North and was working in a secondary school. I read comments referring to him on student's myspace pages ('he's weird but cool.') I contacted him, we spoke on the telephone. And you know what? Despite my recounting stories and reminiscences he didn't know who I was.