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Meet the Head
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Interview with Chris Ramsey, Headmaster, Whitgift School
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What was your childhood or earliest ambition?
I think I wanted to be an England cricketer, but that was never going to happen!
Private school or state school?
Brighton College and Cambridge
Who was, or still is, your mentor?
I’ve been lucky enough to have several. My housemaster was and is an amazing friend, and several Heads I’ve worked for have been signi cant role models, but the one I most admired and thought (and think) a truly great man was Michael McCrum, Master of my
old College and a man of genuine integrity and wisdom.
How physically t are you?
Reasonably (I think). I run (a very short distance) most mornings and cycle at weekends. I go to the gym when I can be fairly sure no Whitgift boys are around!
Ambition or talent: which matters more to success?
Ambition every time.
How politically committed are you?
I don’t do party politics – there is too much wrong with them all. I believe in fairness and freedom, though I know there are plenty of paradoxes around that!
What would you like to own that you don’t currently possess?
Realistically? A really decent winter coat –
I have always used a succession of school tops! Unrealistically? An apartment in Venice.
What’s your biggest extravagance?
I’m not sure I have any. Books probably.
In what place are you happiest?
On a quiet beach in the summer. The hotter the better.
What ambitions do you still have?
To see Whitgift the number one boys’ school in London by every measure, and available to all the best boys regardless of their ability to pay.
What drives you on?
I just believe in great schools and the in nite potential of boys (and girls).
What is the greatest achievement of your life so far?
Victor Hugo said‘only the rst step really counts’, so probably getting my rst job or my rst Head of Department job. It took me quite a few goes to get the latter, and I was incredibly proud. I always tell people to keep going if they really want something, because it worked for me.
What do you nd most irritating in others?
I do try hard not to get irritated, but dithering for no reason in queues frustrates me!
If your 20-year-old self could see you now, what would he think?
That I’d done OK but made plenty of avoidable mistakes on the way. And that I was beginning to become my father, as we all do in the end!
Which object that you’ve lost do you wish you still had?
Golly! I’m not that attached to objects, but
I do wish I still had an antique Persian plate, which a close friend gave me before she died, and which the removal men broke within the rst thirty seconds of packing us up in Chester. It wasn’t a good moment.
What is the greatest challenge of our time?
Where do I start? Anxiety, frailty of relationships and intellect, AI... but on the other hand we live longer and better lives and have more access to information than ever before. I’m an optimist!
What advice would you give to a young person just starting out at university? Realise that independent learning is not just ‘doing the work you’ve been set’, and that you should immerse yourself in your course subject and love it; recognise that you will
be lonely and that it will not always be easy, but that that’s normal and OK; enjoy it; debate ideas and listen: that way you will nd out what you think and who you are. University
is still the most wonderful mind training there is. Don’t, whatever you do, just see it as a path to a career. If that’s what you think it is, don’t go.
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