Interview -Cecil Dormand: The man who helped launch Sir Patrick towards the stars

When Sir Patrick Stewart was knighted, he said he owed everything to the English teacher who first encouraged him to act. Mark Branagan meets Cecil Dormand.

HAD Sir Patrick Stewart turned up for his 11-plus he would never have met Cecil Dormand, the teacher who became his acting inspiration, and the future of Star Trek would have been very different.

As a bright lad who knew his own mind, young Patrick would almost certainly been down for a place at Mirfield Grammar School, to prepare for a white- collar job.

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The lads who failed to make the grade at 11 were shunted off to Mirfield Secondary Modern, from where they usually went on to work in factories or on the railways.

Mr Dormand recalled: "Patrick did not take his 11-plus. He just didn't turn up for it. He went into a field, took the sarnies that his mother had made for him, and contemplated nature."

So that September, Patrick Stewart appeared in Mr Dormand's class in the blue and gold blazer of Mirfield Secondary School and the story of one of England's finest acting careers began.

"He might have found work in an office somewhere if he had taken his exams. He certainly would not have had the same opportunity to take part in drama as he had at the secondary modern school," said Mr Dormand.

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Mr Dormand, who has now retired to Scarborough's South Cliff, spent his career at the school, later becoming head teacher and seeing it merge with the grammar school that Sir Patrick never attended.

Back in 1950 he was just a humble teacher, with an idea that teaching drama would help any child far more than being part of an exam factory.

Mirfield had been Cleckheaton-born Mr Dormand's first choice after just getting out of the Royal Navy, where he had been a crew member on a tank landing craft during the fighting in the Far East.

Britain was desperately short of teachers after the war, and anyone volunteering was granted early release from the armed forces.

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Mr Dormand was walking down a street in Singapore, after the Japanese surrender, when he bumped into an old colleague who said his discharge had come through.

The sailor went to his commanding officer who initially knew nothing about it. When the signal was eventually located, buried in the paperwork on his desk, it was dated a couple of months before.

He never looked back. He was head teacher at Mirfield for 27 years, and spent seven years as a staff member before that. He retired in 1983 to Scarborough, the home of his wife Mary.

We tend to forget in an age buried in statistics about academic achievement, that young boys like Patrick Stewart in the old secondary modern system were not actually expected to leave with any formal qualifications at all.

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"He just did not want to go to grammar school. I don't know why. What does a boy of 10 really think? I would have thought he would have passed the 11-plus and I have no idea what he told his mum," Mr Dormand added.

The first day of term was not the first time the teacher had clapped eyes on the young Patrick. The boy had already turned up at a drama school the teacher ran for local youths.

He was first cast as Hopcroft Minor in the play The Happiest Days of Your Life, which was later filmed with Alastair Sim. From the word go it was obvious he had talent.

By 13 he could play adult parts. He was cast as a New York taxi driver in the stage version of Harvey and was so utterly convincing Mr Dormand knew he was dealing with the sort of talent a teacher encounters only once in his career.

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However, when Patrick came of age, he did not immediately embark on a thespian career. He had a talent for English, and landed a job as a cub reporter on The Mirfield and Dewsbury Reporter. It was doomed to failure as a career move. "Patrick's passion was drama and he was far more interested in rehearsing in the evenings than going around covering fires and things like that," added Mr Dormand.

However, there another hurdle to overcome before the future Captain of the Starship Enterprise could contemplate life on the stage – his father Alfred, who had known nothing but professional soldiering all his life.

He was an NCO in the Parachute Regiment who had fought during the Second World War, rising to the rank of Regimental Sergeant Major.

A hard man, he considered acting rather a "nancy boy" profession, so Mr Dormand paid him a visit and told him his son had what it took to make it.

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Knowing he was a man Alfred Stewart would look up to, he had two long conversations with Mr Stewart Snr about his boy's future direction – and finally Patrick enrolled in drama school with his father's blessing.

The future Hollwyood star remained eternally grateful to Mr Dormand. "Patrick was always grateful for my support. He says he would not have become an actor if it was not

for me.

"But he would have become one anyway. He had the fire in his belly and the ability."

What is certain is the bond led to a life-long friendship, and to the actor appearing in more episodes of Star Trek than even the original Captain, William Shatner.

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He and the star stay in touch. Recently the teacher and pupil met up again at an exclusive London restaurant for a dinner hosted by Lord and Lady Sainsbury, who are both close to Sir Patrick.

Guests also included Barry Humphries, and Brian Blessed, another of Mr Dormand's former pupils who he had not seen for many years.

Mr Dormand admits he is not much of a Star Trek fan, only watching it because Sir Patrick was in it. Now, both in their golden years, the pair are closer together, although Mr Dormand refuses to own up to being "any older than my late 80s".

"He was a natural and you get someone like that once in a teacher's lifetime," he said.