Michele Hewitson Interview: Bradley Fenner

Bradley Fenner says he believes in concepts such as moral courage. He is 'a bit idealistic and a little romantic'. Photo / Paul Estcourt

If not for the deaths of three pupils of the private school, King's College, this year, its headmaster, Bradley Fenner, would have very little public profile. He sounded surprised to be asked for an interview.

He said he didn't think he had a high enough profile. This might have been wishful thinking. The public profile he does have is one he feels a duty to front up for: he is both the public face of his private school, and its protector. In response to my saying that I was in turn surprised that he'd agreed to an interview, he said, "Really?"

Well, he's had a rough year. And I was making an assumption that the media attention hasn't been entirely welcome. "No. We've tried to be accommodating, and I would say that overall the media have been quite respectful." He got a bit huffy with Metro magazine and withdrew access. He said, mildly, that he thought the article, in the end, "wasn't as bad as it might have been".

Although a suggestion "that we'd almost courted publicity" obviously rankles. "You're damned if you do and damned if you don't. And if you refuse to comment, then there will be some people who think you're trying to hide something. So our approach has been to be open."

He is also damned if he does and damned if he doesn't in an interview about his year. His job, in part, is to generate good PR for his school, or at least to make sure it doesn't attract the bad stuff.

The deaths of three boys - one died in his sleep, one fell from a motorway over-bridge, one died after drinking alcohol - are events outside his control, and he is a very controlled man, mostly.

I asked how the year had been and he said, carefully, "challenging. But I suppose I'm eternally optimistic by nature, and positive." That sounded optimistic. "Yes, and I think that that in itself does become self-fulfilling. It's one of the things that we emphasise to the students, that it's all about attitude ... Those things that you can't control and do come along and do cause you difficulty ... You can let them get on top of you or you can be positive about them."

He said, "This is my life", and he meant this in a positive way. He lives within the school gates. From his office windows he can see his pupils walking through the school. This is a good vantage point for a headmaster. You could rap on the windows. He disapproves of that notion: "That would be a bit rude." He believes in good manners, obviously. "I'd rather go out and talk with them." And tell them off? "Aah, interact directly with them."

He is strict, I bet. "I would have a bit to say about behavioural matters and conduct. I emphasise that. So I suppose in that sense, I'm reasonably strict."

There is a big, old cupboard in the centre of his office. When he arrived, in April last year, he opened this cupboard to find a cane. I assume this was some sort of headmasterly joke. He doesn't know what happened to the cane. He thinks he took it home. He has two children still at home (and a 20-year-old stepson). Of course, he didn't take the cane home to beat his children. He laughed, faintly, at my not very good headmasterly joke.

I wondered if he had difficulty not being the headmaster at home. "Ha, ha. You can ask my family." He said they - particularly his 12-year-old daughter - do "a good job of keeping me in my place. Occasionally I get told by my family, 'You're not the headmaster at home'." Might he, on occasion, at home, be a bit pompous? "Aah, perhaps occasionally they would say that."

He is a formal figure. He is possibly, naturally, a rather formal person. "On the right occasion, yes. But I think I'm also fairly relaxed and approachable. I'd like to think that that's the case. I'd hate to think that people would be reluctant to talk to me about something because they didn't feel that I was approachable."

Before he became a headmaster he taught history, classical studies and religious education. He says he was "a reasonably good teacher". I bet he was a strict teacher. "Aah, I like structure in the classroom. I like people to contribute but I also like a sense of order." A reasonable guess: he likes order in all parts of his life. "Generally. I think so." He would have, for example, a very tidy sock drawer. "Yes, I have everything in order." He does all the ironing for his household.

He will remove his jacket to wield an iron, but if he's wearing his crisp white shirt and tie when the fancy for a spot of pressing takes him, he'll iron while wearing a tie. He didn't seem to think there was anything odd about this. "Well, if that's what I'm wearing at the time."

The reason he does all the ironing, I suggested, is that he doesn't think anyone else could do it as well as he can. "That's correct. I like creating order. It's nice relaxation."

I thought living and working within the school grounds must make for a bit of a strange, or insular, life but he said, "It would be an odd life for some people. I'm not one of those people who needs to leave work and go away and have a complete separation. And I can go home and have good family time."

But he can't go out to the letterbox in the morning in his dressing gown to get the paper, surely. "No, but I don't really wear a dressing gown anyway." No, he probably goes to bed in a suit and tie. Which is a silly way of saying that he must always feel on display, have to always be seen to be the headmaster. "No, because I'm pretty comfortable in this role. I'm an institutional person. I feel comfortable in an institution. I love schools."

I mustn't make him out to be terribly old-fashioned. He is a modern headmaster who is happy to be seen about the school in his shorts and a T-shirt after his early morning stint on the rowing machine. (Although that is a good advertisement: healthy body, healthy mind.)

He uses words like "the journey" to describe the school's process of grieving. He believes that all adolescents make mistakes, and in "second chances". There are undoubtedly gay students at King's. "We wouldn't make a big fuss about it, but I believe that there are. The other students and staff would be quite accepting."

He says there are also undoubtedly atheists - "we welcome people of all backgrounds. They're still required to come to chapel and to participate in the religious education classes." His own faith "underpins a certain amount of what I do here because to me it brings with it that belief in the fundamental goodness of human nature".

His students are the children of the wealthy and influential (I got the lecture about the scholarship kids and those whose parents make "sacrifices" to send them here.) He is presumably educating them to become, in turn, the wealthy and the influential. I was thinking, in an old-fashioned way, of camels and eyes of needles ... He said, "I've no doubt that a number of our students would have as one of their goals to make a lot of money. And being great entrepreneurs is a great thing for all of us. And we would like them to have absorbed the values that we're promoting so they keep a sense of perspective throughout that."

He's not posh. He pretended not to know what I meant by this. Well, he is Australian. He says he expected some joshing over that, but other than the usual rugby banter, he's got away with it. On not being posh he said, "I certainly have a sense of quality and excellence but I like to think I'm pretty down to earth."

He says his parents weren't rich (one definition of posh); his father was an engineer and made the usual "sacrifices" to send him and his three older siblings to private schools. He has always been good; he says the youngest sibling is often an easier child. He has made "some blunders", he says, but couldn't think of one.

He got the King's job after being approached by a consultant. He'd attended a conference at the school some years ago, and liked it. Now he loves it, but there have been moments ... You have to ask whether he feels his career has been damaged in any way; it would be only human for it to have crossed his mind.

But it's a tricky one to answer because, as he's said, "I don't want to focus too much on me", and you can see why not. He answers by saying that people have asked, "Do you wish you didn't come here?" And has he? "Oh, once or twice in a bleak moment I might have thought, 'I don't want to have to deal with too much more of this'."

But he believes, and this might be old-fashioned, in concepts like moral courage. He is "a bit idealistic and a little romantic. Not in the modern sense. In that sort of 19th-century way." He likes Conrad and Trollope and the Bible and biographies, "particularly about people who have done really interesting things". He means headmasters. I may have looked less than convinced. "Some of them are really interesting!"

He is enthusiastic about things, generally, and about schools generally and, of course, his school in particular. But would he, say, jump up and down on the sidelines of a school sports game? "I don't know about jump up and down." Let's not get carried away. "I think a calm, measured response is really helpful." He is generally a calm, measured person. "Yes. I'd like to think that I'm still quite an emotional person. Oh, I'm moved emotionally by those things that affect me and obviously the tragedies ... But also moments of great joy as well."

Has he cried? "Yes." At home? "And here," he said, indicating his office, and his eyes filled. He said, valiantly, "but some of that has been through getting a thoughtful message." I had asked how he thought he'd dealt with his school's awful year and he said, "I don't want to focus on me." But, was he bruised? "Yeah. I would say I am."

Later, as he walked us to the car, he said that things were still raw. If they weren't, that would make him a sort of robot headmaster. "Yes," he said, a man who believes in good, caught in a bad year, "and that wouldn't work".