My School Days – Paul Du Noyer
by Educate Magazine January 18, 2016 · Latest Features
Paul Du Noyer is a well respected music journalist who was born in Liverpool.
Paul has interviewed many famous musicians including John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Madonna, David Bowie and Amy Winehouse to name a few.
He went to the London School of Economics and joined the weekly music paper NME. After that he helped launch Q magazine and became its editor. He then created the music magazine MOJO, which became the most successful in Britain. He also helped launch other magazines, including Heat, and many websites. He has written five books including Liverpool: Wondrous Place, a history of his home town’s music scene. His latest book is Conversations With
McCartney, based on his 35 years of in-depth interviews with the former
Beatle.
My schools: All Saints in Anfield, St George’s in Maghull and Salesian College in Bootle.
My favourite teacher: I’m sorry to say that I never appreciated how good they were until many years later!
Favourite subject at school: English Literature. To form the habit of reading analytically would bring me a career and an infinite amount of pleasure.
Were you streetwise or a bit of a geek? I was quite studious but quickly grasped that a talent for mocking the authorities could buy popularity.
My favourite childhood band/singer: My school years coincided precisely with the career of The Beatles. The biggest band in the world and they came from my home town!
My favourite extra-curricular activity: Playing football and following Liverpool FC in the Bill Shankly years. Later on, music was everything.
My favourite book: A collected stories of Edgar Allan Poe.
Do you remember your first school crush? No. It was an all-boys school, and a glimpse of the convent schoolgirls at our bus-stop was the closest we came to romance.
School dinners: Chips were seen as a sinful influence, so it was mashed potato every day. That and custard remain my sworn enemies.
My ambitions at school: I had none, beyond a vague sense of getting to London and letting fate decide the rest.
