Austin Vince

Collinson 78 – 83

Austin Vince

What were you like at school?

In 1978 I was indisciplined, apathetic and irrelevant. By 1983 I was zealous, focussed and committed. The transformation was entirely due to my Mill Hill experience in general and my Collinson House experience in particular.

The funniest thing that has happened to you recently?

I helped a man out of the Grand Union Canal in Uxbridge. He had been in an altercation. I loaned him a set of my red overalls so he could dry off and get home. He was later captured by the police, running amok with a sabre whilst searching for the men that had pushed him into the canal. However, that day, I too was wearing red overalls and got caught up in the police dragnet…

What has been the most positive thing you have taken from your school days into your adult life?

You have to make things happen. Don’t sit there waiting for life to deliver you great happiness. Life owes you NOTHING. Make your own luck with effort and energy. Mill Hill taught me this

and then presented me with an infrastructure whereby I could take these ideas and make them come true for me. I left Prep school thinking I was useless and that the world was divided into the talented and the UN-talented. Naturally, I was in the latter category. Mill Hill taught me that everything is there if you want it but you do HAVE to go for it.

What’s the most interesting thing about you?

I was the tour manager for the White Stripes before they were famous.

If you were a boarder at Mill Hill, how did you find that experience, the good and the bad?

I had never boarded before Mill Hill. I had no concept of what to expect. First day, Sept 1978, sitting on my bed in the dorm at Collinson, lost, lonely, scared, crying. By July 1983, I didn’t want to leave. The boarding was so intense I owe almost everything formative in my life to those five years. In retrospect, the incredible positive effect of living cheek by jowl with so many amazing people couldn’t help but affect me. To name but a few, my heroes and role-models as a teen were: Guy Roberts, Stewart Wernham, Richard Tray, Dave Wild, Dai Ceriog-Hughes, Mike Bernard, Eddie Pratt and weirdly, Jay Rosencranz (he had already left but I met him in my fifth form at an OMRFC training session). These guys were school boys, but they were winners, and I wanted to be like THEM.

What is your proudest moment and why?

Proudest moment at Mill Hill, crikey…. There were loads but being made Head Boy was a rush, I have to say.

Do you keep in touch with any OMs?

Zillions. My non OM friends are genuinely baffled at the density of my OM friend network. Most normal people seemed to hate their school days and want to put it behind them, not me.

What’s your driving force?

Nowadays, I just want my wife to be proud of me. That’s what keeps me going.

Most inspiring teacher at school and why?

Seriously, too many to mention. I would say that in my era, about 80% of the staff were EXCELLENT with only a handful of actual duds. I speak for about 500 OMs of my age when I say that when David Woodrow, Chris Kelly and Tim Dingle turned up, the scales fell from our eyes and we were totally inspired.

With those guys in my life as a 16 year old, I felt indestructible and I just wanted to be like them, it was that simple. In the small print, I would mention Mike Peskett. He was in no way ‘cool’ but he made Pure Maths actually ‘cool’. As an adult, I spent my career as a maths teacher trying to be HIM. Finally, my housemaster David Franklin was the steady hand at the tiller that kept it all moving…

Which four famous people would you invite to a dinner party?

Sergio Leone, Christopher Hitchens, Ray Davies and Carl Sagan.

Favourite memory from your time at Mill Hill School?

Winning Newcastle and the interhouse Drama (in the same year I think). It was like the Grand Slam for us!

Worst memory from your time at Mill Hill School?

Always something to do with an older boy being nasty to me. The nightmare of being falsely accused (in the summer of ’79) of being the Collinson ‘Slasher’ when it transpired (20 years later) that it was actually someone else. Being punched in the face by Adam Piggott and the thing that Pete Omojola did to me. In other words, the bad memories are nothing to do with Mill Hill, just the inevitable fact that out of a school of 600 pupils, if 1% of them are horrible, that’s enough to make a difference.

If you won £10 million in the lottery, what would you do with the money?

Create a full scholarship scheme for a pupil or pupils to board at MHS. It changed my life. I have tried to put something back by being a school teacher but I wish everyone could have had the fantastic secondary education that I did.

Your favourite quote?

“There are two kinds of people in this world my friend: Those with spades, and those with loaded pistols. You, dig.”

A piece of advice you would pass on to those leaving Mill Hill School?

You are not yet defined and hopefully, you never will be. Life will change you year by year. Keep the best bits and discard the chaff and keep on pushin’.