Bruce Dickinson (1958- )
What is it about public schools? Every misfit pupil they enrol leaves with a deep hatred of the alma mater and goes on to be a fantastic success in later life.
Bruce Dickinson was such a pupil. The illegitimate son of two teenagers in Worksop, he was initially brought up by his grandparents. When his father started earning a reasonable amount of cash, he was packed off to Oundle School, in Northamptonshire.
He hated it. Hated it so much that he became head of the cadet force and had a lovely time priming booby traps to disconcert his foes. But his finest moment came when he was expelled - for pissing in the headmaster's dinner. A coup de grace, and he would have got away with it if it wasn't for some oily-nosed sneak:
Somebody informed on me. It was only half a cupful slipped into the frozen beans and I knew from biology that a bit of boiled urine wouldn't do him any harm. Ill judged though, I admit.
Chucked out of Oundle, Dickinson enrolled in a Catholic comprehensive school in Sheffield. It was every ex-public-schoolboys' dream:
It was brilliant. Everybody was, like, 'normal' and there were girls there - which freaked me out at first.
Girls aside, Dickinson went on to be lead singer in the band Iron Maiden. Nothing like heavy metal to get all that schoolboy angst out of one's system.
Bruce Dickinson has recently had a haircut and learnt how to fly passenger planes.
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