When I was a kid I was a rebel from the first to last, so if I tell you something about my life history _ all nineteen years of it_ I hope you’ll fill in the spaces and try to imagine I was a nice kid now and then. Because most of my memories are about the times when I was a handful.

I was born in The Middlesex Hospital in London and spent my first birthday in Sweden, where we had hundreds of relatives. My brother David soon found the right name for me. I was so mean with my sweets he use to call me Diddle Mingy Adams.

Eventually, I pulled myself out of my mean stage. My parents always gave me everything I asked for, so I didn’t take advantage of them. I would ask for the five shilling when I really needed seven and six, then I would ask a friend for the half crown.

I use to live two lives when I was a kid. One was bright and happy, and that was for home. At school there were times when I was very, very unhappy. I could never actually mix with the other kids. They were all after my accent. For some reason they thought it was posh. To me it was normal. I had very bad times. One day one of my best friends __not now! __ Suddenly started bashing me, for no reason I can think of, and from that day on he never stopped beating me up.

And then I had this talent for art, and because of this they all pushed me out of their scene. They just seemed to live for playing football, and I was no good at that, I always got knocked down.

I remember distinctively that I started thinking before they did. Really thinking. When I failed the eleven – plus it was like the end of the world to me.

The thing is that I was even given the piece of paper with a crossword on it and I got involved with the crossword puzzle that I forgot about the rest of the paper. What sort of test of intelligence is it, any way?

During my childhood, I went to Sweden four times. When I was ten, the whole family went out there, planning to settle in Scandinavia. Soon after we arrived, it was Christmastime, and I remember this little Father Christmas came up to me with a sack of toys.

" And have you been a good boy? " he said searching into the sack. " NO! " I said. That was the kind of kid I was.

I had uncles all over the place in Sweden. One was a well-known film producer. Another designed all the brass work for the royal palace. The one who made the biggest impression on me was Hugo Wickman, who was a well-known artist in Sweden. He was rebellious, like me, and did mod paintings, which were very much against the general run of things in Sweden.

The first painting I did was full of crooked little men and he went berserk because he thought they were really primitive, wonderful. He had the painting framed and hung on his wall.

School in Sweden wasn’t quite so happy. I’ll always remember my first day. A nightmare. You see, all the kids there have blue eyes and of course I do not. Playtime came, and they all crowded around me. They’d never seen dark eyes.

Before I knew what was happening, I was being mobbed. Scratches, everything. Worse than any experience I’ve had at theatres. After that, they had to give me my own special little playground, where I could take a few friends I was sure of.

It put me off settling in Sweden and I didn’t mind when the family decided to come back to Britain. I’m very British in temperament. To me, most Swedes were in their shells, cold, aloof. I have some Swedish blood in me but I find the British much warmer. It was a strange feeling when I went to Greece on holiday and found they were warmer than me, and I was cold to them.

When I went to a secondary mod school I entered my wild stage. There was someone at the school who had these fantastic shoes__ brown with big black heels and a side buckle and very, very pointed toes__ I wanted them so much I dreamed about them for weeks.

I use to design thousands of pairs of shoes, but I never got down to having any of them made. I was going to be the greatest shoe designer in the world.

At school, I was pretty shrewd. I always got on with the adults because I figured out that they were the ones with the finger on the button. I got in with the headmaster, and he made me a prefect, which meant I had an easier time. Mind you, I was very lenient as a prefect. Most of the others use to bully the kids, but I let them off.

Then there was my English teacher, I liked him a lot, but I rebelled against him all the time. My essays always got low marks, because I got so involved in the messages that I forgot things like grammar and spelling. I was so caught up in the imagery. I didn’t much like the dots and commas, so I used to do the whole essay without them, then I’d put a whole lot of them in a corner afterwards and tell the teacher he could put them where he liked.

I spent two years at public school in London during my early teens… until I was expelled. This time it was my turn to laugh at the other kids because I thought they were posh. I used to get a guy to talk to me, just so I could laugh at his accent. I laughed for the whole time I was there. Right up to my last day.

You must be wondering how I got myself expelled. We had a teacher who had all sorts of complexes and always thought we were taking the mick out of him. One day I was fiddling with my pens, and he suddenly rounded me and accused me of imitating him. It was the sort of thing he used to do. Anyway, it got me a black mark.

That made me very angry, because I already had five black marks that week, and you got the cane if you had six by Friday. I went up in the air. He said I was suspended.

The next move was a meeting in the headmaster’s study between the head, the master and me. The master told his tale, and the version differed in a big way from what really happened. I got very heated. I ended up by hurling a great thick book at him and hitting him squarely in the chops. It was an algebra book__ his subject__ so it was the right way to go. All that happened is that I went, Out.

My last school was the happiest one. I even learned to play football!

Art was always very important in my life, though, and eventually, I went to art school. The school was opposite the B.B.C. Lime Grove Studios. Eventually I left to concentrate on my songs. The next time I was in that road, I was appearing at the B.B.C. myself.

I went over the road to see some old friends, but there’s no going back, you know. You find yourselves on different levels, somehow. All that you can do is say " Ta-ta", and make some new friends. I never let people get too close. Even with a girl I’m fond of. I keep something back. It’s tremendously important to me to have something of myself in reserve.

That’s why I hate digging into the past. Already I’ve given too much of myself away here, and I’ll have to stop. You see I always think into the future. I have all my life for memories.

 [FAB208/ 1967]

Musician to open new building as old pals are invited to occasion

It was a case of friends reunited as Yusuf Islam - better known as 70s chart star Cat Stevens - went back to school for the first time in 45 years.

The singer and peace activist was greeted by 86-year-old former headteacher Yuna Simpson and five former classmates as he returned to open a new extension at Hugh Myddelton Primary School, in Myddelton Street, Clerkenwell, on Tuesday

Mr Islam said: "It's great to be back in the area. [Yuna] looks incredibly young still. I remember her, its straight out of the past. She was a lovely lady."

"I was determined to speak to the kids rather than the parents because if you lost their attention it would have got rowdy. That's why I told them a story. The extension is brilliant, very light and airy and open with lots of bright colours."

Mr Islam attended Hugh Myddelton in the mid-1960s between the ages of 13 and 16 when it was a secondary school - and he went by the name Steven Georgiou.

"I wasn't really enamoured with education but I knew I had to do it," he said. "I left as soon as I could. I had an O-level in art."

"Outside of school was where it was happening for me. The Beatles came along and with that the revolution and breaking down the barriers of the establishment. Islington was kind of our back yard. I used to take a 38 bus from Bloomsbury and it dropped me right outside the school."

He added: "There were gangs and if you didn't belong to them you were in trouble. I tagged along but I wasn't on the front line. There were some heavy guys in those days. There are today but today they use knives whereas then they used hammers."

Mrs Simpson said: "After 45 years I must say I don't think he's changed all that much. Of course he was called Steven back then. He was a quiet lad and very clever and you can see he's still really clever. He was always very laid back."

Former classmate John Cooper, 61, added: "I remember him being into Dylan and being very keen on art. He used to do cartoons of everyone in class. It was a long time ago now - some of us have worn better than others!"

Earlier Mr Islam addressed pupils and parents - and several politicians - at a packed school assembly, telling the children:

"If you enjoy your todays and tomorrows and if you believe in yourself then you'll all be incredibly happy."

He was treated to a performance of Morning Has Broken by young music students and returned the favour with an intimate rendition If You Want To Sing Out, currently being used on a mobile phone advert.

Year 2 pupil Khalid Takar, six, of Lloyd Baker Street, Finsbury, said: "It's been a special day. It's been fun. The new building is great - I really like the lift."

Andy Turnock, newly-appointed head teacher of Hugh Myddelton, added: "It's been brilliant to have Yusuf here and it's great to have so many parents and carers along to celebrate with us. But mostly it's for the children - this is something wonderful and new that's going to create something for the children of the future."

Mr Islam had hits hits with Father and Son, Wild World and Remember The Days Of The Old Schoolyard as Cat Stevens before converting to Islam at the height of his fame.

[nlnews, 08.10.2009]

Fotos: rexfeatures.com

Yusuf trifft alte Schulkameraden


Eine der schönen Überraschungen von Yusufs jüngstem Besuch in seiner alten Schule war, dass Hugh Myddleton einige seiner alten Klassenkameraden traf.

Oben sind Bilder von Yusuf und John Langsworthy und Janet Dowling sowie einer seiner Ex-Lehrerinnen, Frau Simpson, zu sehen. Janet zeigte ihm ein altes Foto der Klasse.

An dem Tag, an dem Yusuf versuchte, seine vielen Namensänderungen zu erklären, erzählte er die Geschichte von Joseph für die vierhundert Kinder, die in der Schule versammelt waren.

Die ganze Schule sang für ihn "Morning Has Broken". Später sang er

"If You Want To Sing Out" und unterhielt eine kleine Gruppe von Kindern in der Bibliothek.

“Those days when I was going to that school, there was a great revolution in music, I was listening to Radio Caroline, the pirates, and the Beatles were taking over the world.

There were no music lessons in the curriculum, you created those yourself after school. I’ve got a lot of good memories of the school and certain teachers that inspired me, particularly in the art department.”