Dr Nader Fekri with Chairman, Phillip Reynolds
Here is the "pen picture" provided by Dr Nader Fekri:
Nader FEKRI, School House, 1970-1977
Nader was born in Iran, and presumably to escape a life of too much sunshine, relocated to the Fareham as a child, where he discovered both rain and the concept of queuing. He later migrated further north for university, where he read History and Politics.
Since then, he's had a rich and varied academic career as: researcher, teacher, university lecturer, you name it, he's lectured it. He's taught at universities all over Britain, Europe, and beyond, eventually landing at Di Tella University in Buenos Aires. In a slight change of direction, he is currently a diplomat working at the British High Commission in India.
Nader specialises in Post-War British Politics and Society, which has served him well in many a pub quiz. Turning his hand to practical politics, he ran for parliament and served as a councillor for more than a decade on Calderdale Council, eventually becoming the Mayor.
Outside of politics, he's been a school governor and a magistrate, which meant he was both legally sound and could tell when your child was pretending to be sick. A pacifist and humanist, Nader supports Amnesty International, Médecins Sans Frontières, and the National Secular Society, basically, if it's noble and underfunded, he's in.
Nader is married to Helen, who is Director of the British Council in South Asia covering a quarter of the world's population, and is the proud father of three wonderful, kind, and considerate boys, sorry young men.
In his spare time, he enjoys listening to the World Service, solving The Guardian cryptic crossword, reading Modern European Detective Fiction, and following the trials and tribulations of Tranmere Rovers FC.
Here is the email received at the end of June 2025
Dear Michael & Pip,
Hope that this e-mail finds you well. Sorry about the radio silence. It's been a bit hectic since I got back. First with the air-crash in Ahmedabad and then with the air-strikes on Iran.
It's all been a bit grim. I've still got aunts, uncles, and cousins, etc. back in Iran. Thankfully all safe but scared. Though hundreds of civilians were killed in "collateral damage".
My hometown, or rather where I was born a thousand years ago, was bombed for the first time in nigh on 40 years. That was a bit sad.
I'm a little more hopeful that now that "honour has been served", there won't be any more shenanigans for a little while.
Though there have been thousands arrested and several executed. The regime is mightily vindictive. :(
Anyway, you asked for the text of my speech so here it is below. I hope you enjoy (?) it second time round.
Once again, many thanks for the invite and hospitality it really was lovely to be back.
Take care and keep in touch.
Cheers
Nader
Good afternoon everyone,
Let me begin by thanking the organising committee especially Pip Reynolds for inviting me here today, and for Michael and Angela Peagram and their daughter Elizabeth for being such kind and generous hosts.
I am enormously flattered to address such a distinguished group of folk, some old familiar faces and some new friends.
My talk today was going to be called "An Immigrant's Journey, a Journey of Hope and Gratitude".
But then I thought, nah, sounds too much like a BBC2 documentary narrated by the venerable David Attenborough.
So let's call it what it really is:
"From the Foothills of Iran to Soothills of Fareham: An Accidental Adventure".
I was born by a river at in mountainous western Iran. Sounds very poetic, like the song by Sam Cooke, or something out of the pages of the National Geographic Magazine.
When I was but a bairn we moved to the UK. My dad, an electronics engineer was summoned to Britain to be trained on high tech operating systems. A bit like James Bond, but with more wires and fewer tuxedos.
He was posted to HMS Collingwood and before you could say "temporary relocation" my mum and dad, my younger brother and sister and myself, moved to Fareham. What was initially for a year turned into two, which turned into three, and before we knew it, I was sat doing my O'levels, and trying to figure out whether it was a scone (rhymes with gone) or scone (rhymes with stone), and which goes first jam or clotted cream.
FYI, at the risk of civil war it's the former pronunciation and the Cornish NOT Devonian method.
We lived in Crescent Road, slap bang in the heart of town, and when it was time for me to attend Big School, it was only natural that we chose Price's, barely half-a-mile up the road and a ten-minute leisurely stroll. Lazy or clever? You decide.
So one fair September morn, my father and I turned up at the school and met with Mr Hilton who interviewed me. I talked. A lot, possibly too much. Somehow, he invited me to join the school and the rest, as they say, is history... or at least a third-rate Netflix mini-series.
My time at Price's was bookended roughly by the 1970 General Election and the Queen's Silver Jubilee in 1977, meaning I arrived during political turmoil and left during nationwide street parties. Very on brand for a teenager.
I had a fantastic seven years at Price's, first at "The School" and then staying on at what had (in 1974) become "The College" to do my A' Levels before heading up North to university and life as an adult. What I thought was going to be "wine, women, and song", turned out to be "hypothermia, debt, and pilchards on toast".
Let me take a moment to praise some of the amazing teachers who inspired me.
Teachers like Mr Glynne-Howell, who stirred in my soul a love of poetry, so much so that I actually wanted to go to Swansea University where the poet Dylan Thomas hailed from, though he would have shuddered at that last sentence ending in a preposition. Sorry, sir.
Mr Johnson's production of R. C. Sheriff's play Journey's End got me into theatre and brought home the horrors of the First World War and by extension war itself. It not only gave me PTSD about the Great War but entrenched my passionate pacifism, which was further solidified by watching the World at War on ITV, and Dr Jacob Bronowski's The Ascent of Man on the Beeb. As well as, of course, witnessing the horrors of the euphemistically called "The Troubles".
Mr Tuck dragged me into the world of sport, which I grew to love.
Except cross-country. Cross-country was invented by someone who hated joy. Though to be fair it did give us Tom Courtney in The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner.
It wasn't just the taking part which I enjoyed but also reading about, watching, and listening to sport. I especially remember the 1973 Test Matches between England and the West Indies. Watching the magnificent Gary Sobers, Clive Lloyd, Rohan Kanhai, and Alvin Kallicharan but more deliciously with sound on the telly down and listening to John Arlott commentating on the radio. Pure heaven.
Incidentally, my admiration for Arlott, the Poet Laureate of cricket, grew when I learned about his vocal and principled opposition to the immoral system of apartheid in South Africa.
Mr Daysh was always ready for a more philosophical discussion beyond Pythagoras's Theorem and more Aristotle.
"Doc" Elliott who got me beyond oxbow lakes and on to seriously thinking about studying Human Geography at uni.
Mrs Head made me fall in love with the French language and France in general, and French cuisine and music in particular.
Mr Taylor taught me that art was more than "draw this fruit bowl", it was to express what you see with your mind's eye, and that visiting art galleries was for pleasure rather than simply as a school trip chore.
Ms Olding my VIth form Maths teacher, talked about opera with me, so much so that I actually became, would you believe it, the opera correspondent of Manchester University Student Union newspaper.
The Rev. Harcus who took time out to talk to me about chess and to teach me Russian in his lunch hour.
I believe that often what we take away from school and formal education depends on what our teachers impart to us at odd moments, when they aren't trying to teach us. We are formed by little scraps of wisdom, the small bits of insight that leaves a lasting mark.
It was often the discussion around the subject and beyond the classroom that had the most impact rather than what was actually taught in lesson time. Hand on heart, I can barely remember any of the contents of the lessons, but I can vividly recall how I felt after a great lesson.
That, I believe, is the greatest gift a teacher can impart, a passion for knowledge and learning for its own sake. An infectious itch. A thirst and hunger. They can encourage us to be curious, wander, meander, poke about in libraries, watch weird documentaries, listen to jazz.
Learning is a lifelong enriching journey and not merely a destination in and of itself.
My education at Price's wasn't limited to lessons and teachers, of course, it was the interaction with fellow students and learning from each other, learning of our likes and dislikes, our very own passions and predilections, be they musical, cinematic, televisual, or radiophonic.
It was through friends that my sense of comedy was developed. It was Monty Python or Fawlty Towers, Reggie Perrin or Porridge on the telly. On the radio it was I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue, Hancock's Half Hour, and Just A Minute.
My taste in music too was influenced by friends. Together we swapped LPs, David Bowie, Stevie Wonder, Van Morrison, and watched The Old Grey Whistle Test religiously.
Sundays were sacred, not for church, but for recording the Top 40 off the radio, finger poised on the pause button to dodge the DJ.
We also listened to Alistair Cooke's Letter From America. On the telly as well as comedy, we watched Corrie, Top of the Pops, Horizon, Man Alive, and Panorama.
We were nerdy, noisy, and gloriously nosy.
Film 71 and World Cinema educated me on the French nouvelle vague, Italian neorealism, and Czechoslovak nová vlna.
And if that sounds high-brow, don't worry: we also had the Eurovision Song Contest and Jeux Sans Frontières proving that Europe was one giant, joyous, fabulous extended family.
All of this expanded our intellectual and cultural horizons. Our school trips to Vannes in Brittany cemented my love for France and set the wanderlust ablaze in my heart. It was official I had caught "le bug".
Now, not everything was peaches and crème brûlée.
There were very few women teachers. Even fewer people of colour. I was often the only non-white face in the room, a bit like Where's Wally, but less fun and with more microaggressions. But thanks to my wonderful family, good friends, and supportive teachers, I weathered it, and learned to wield humour, empathy, and resilience like a ninja with a thesaurus.
Let's get one thing straight, I've never been particularly good at following rules, especially the pointless, fiddly, pettyfogging kind. Price's had no shortage of these little bureaucratic brainteasers, and I often found myself... let's say "in meaningful dialogue" with The Authorities.
But those experiences were oddly useful, they planted a seed. A rebellious, slightly mischievous seed. They taught me to speak up, not just when things were unfair to me, but more so, when I saw others getting a raw deal. I developed a lifelong habit of rooting for the underdog, hence my support for the Liberals. Which is probably the most British thing about me.
Further proof? I've supported Tranmere Rovers for more than 50 years because I saw them beat Arsenal in the League Cup in 1973. I cheer for Wales in the Rugby, and root for the West Indies in the cricket.
Another great thing about Price's? You were encouraged to try everything. Debating club? Go for it. French? Oui. Hockey? God help you. The idea was simple: chuck yourself into as many things as possible, see what sticks.
But slowly, through this freezing chaos of clubs, societies, and experiments, I discovered that I was something of a "good-ish all-rounder". Not brilliant at anything, but passably ok at many things.
Sixth Form was a revelation. Suddenly, asking questions wasn't just tolerated, it was encouraged. The old hierarchies were melting away, collaboration took over, and, shockingly, there were girls.
This worked wonders in unbending the slightly warped attitudes toward the opposite sex that a boys' school tends to cultivate.
By 1977, I knew that I had had enough of dear old Fareham and was ready to see what lay beyond the Ghillies, the Creek, and the Hants & Dorset bus timetable. Being a huge fan of Coronation Street, the Co-Operative Movement, the Suffragettes, and of course the Guardian, I decided to head up to Cottonopolis. In total, I spent quarter of a century in the Red Rose County.
I am a passionate believer in education and access to good quality education for all irrespective of the ability to pay and so access to higher education. I shall forever be grateful to the good people of Hampshire for giving me grant to study at university. A grant mind you, not a loan. No strings attached, nothing asked for in return. Mine was the first generation to be eligible for a four-figure sum of £1,010, of which (my family not being terribly well-off) I got the whole sum. And three 2nd-class return train tickets from Fareham to Manchester, a year. That kind of investment builds a compact between your community and you. It says, "we believe in you, here's a leg up, off you go. What you do with it is your affair".
That meant (means) a lot so in return you put something back in your community or society at large, not because it is expected, or you're paying off a debt, but because it is the right thing, the decent thing to do.
As Alexei Sayle said, "I am of that generation of working-class kids from the 1960s for whom, through full grants and all our fees paid, the gates of El Dorado briefly swung open and via uni or poly or art or drama school, we were allowed us to peek into worlds we had theretofore only read about".
He goes on tell a brilliant anecdote about a friend of his going back home after uni and his dad asking, "So, lad, what do you fancy for the National?"
"Well..." his friend replied, "Peter Hall's production of Troilus and Cressida..."
I spoke earlier of how the trip to Vannes had given me wanderlust and much of my adult life has been spent living and working abroad. After a decade of postgrad teaching and research in Manchester in the 1980s, I found myself lecturing at universities in Poland, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic in the 1990s as an academic for the British Council.
It sounds glamorous, and it was, if your idea of glamour includes post-Soviet hotels, meat-based breakfasts, and of course industrial levels of alcohol consumption.
I returned to the UK and settled in Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire, once described as the fourth funkiest town in the world and the Lesbian Capital of the North. I had this urge to teach in secondary schools and to put my money where my mouth was and try to encourage and enthuse children to stay on in education and if possible to go to uni.
So, I got a job in an inner city secondary school in Leeds, teaching English. One day I had to sub for the French teacher in one of the lower sets when a student asked me why they had to learn effing French as they were never going to go to France. Rather frustratedly, I replied that I wanted them to fall in love with the language to learn to fly on the wings of French poetry and learn the works of Racine, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, and Verlaine, and when she realised I wasn't joking, was rather taken aback. I didn't hear a peep out of her until after the lesson when she came up and asked me who they were and if the school library had any of their books.
One thing that I do carry with me from my time at Price's (corny though it may sound) is a notion of civic responsibility. We did Community Service, we dug old folks' gardens, we raised money for the Red Cross by doing marathon Basketball matches raising a not inconsiderable sum of over £200 over a 12-hour period, equivalent to some £3,000 today.
My urge to serve my community drove my involvement in politics. I was approached to stand for the Lib Dems for the town council, being told that there was no chance of being elected, they just wanted to have the names on the ballot papers and as our house was right in the town centre, it was a good poster site. Murphy's Law meant of course that I was elected. The following year I was elected onto the local council in Calderdale, and the year after I was selected to stand for parliament for the neighbouring constituency of Keighley.
Over my time in Hebden Bridge, I was elected Mayor of Hebden Royd, Deputy Mayor of Calderdale, and finally Mayor of Calderdale.
The first-ever Iranian-born civic head of any authority in the UK, an achievement of which I was (and am) incredibly proud.
The best part of being a councillor wasn't the title. It was the ability and privilege of helping my constituents, and as mayor to be able to witness all the incredibly amazing good work that ordinary folk do day in, day out for the good of their neighbours, their community, and society at large.
Up and down the country, there are myriad folk, young and old, black, Asian, and white, gay and straight, who have the best interests of their communities at heart.
Everyday whether as individuals, or in groups, they are doing something for the common good, they are adding to the Commonwealth of Britain.
In 2012, my wife was posted to Turkey for the British Council. Since then, our life has been living and working overseas, basking in the cultural diversity and richness of Turkey, India, and Argentina, and back in India again with wonderful, funny, and scary stories to tell.
William Wilberforce wrote that he conquered slavery by traveling the highways and byways, gathering friends and flowers as he went. Over the course of my adult life, I have had the good fortune to travel many thousands of miles along highways and byways. And my family and I have gathered so many friends and so many flowers.
My motto has always been:
As the late Pope Francis said, "Pontes non Mures", Let us build bridges, not walls.
Thank you.
***
Dr Nader FEKRI
Visiting Professor of Politics
Universidad Torcuato di Tella
Buenos Aires
ARGENTINA
Tel: +91 89290 37389 (India)