Sting was a teacher before achieving rock stardom. Have any other musicians ... trends now

QUESTION Sting was a teacher before achieving rock stardom. Have any other musicians followed this route?

Before finding fame as a rock star, Sting - then known as Gordon Sumner - taught English at St Paul's School, Cramlington, Northumberland. In his autobiography Broken Music, he recalled how one pupil skipped school and put on a high-pitched voice in a phone call to explain his absence. When Mr Sumner asked who was calling, the boy replied: 'Er... it's me mam.'

Ricky Ross, Deacon Blue frontman, was an English teacher at St Columba of Iona in Maryhill, Glasgow. The title track, Raintown, from Deacon Blue's excellent debut album, was written in his head while walking to school. He talks fondly of his experience there in his biography Walking Back Home.

Ian Dury of Blockheads fame studied at the Royal College of Art under pop artist Peter Blake (famous for the Sgt Pepper album cover). Dury went on to become an art teacher at Canterbury College of Art in 1970. He recruited a number of his bandmates for his first band, Kilburn And The High Roads, from pupils there.

Barry Quick, Nottingham.

Bryan Ferry, a fine art graduate, taught art and pottery at Holland Park School in London while founding what would become Roxy Music in his free time.

Mark Knopfler's first job was as a cub reporter for the Yorkshire Evening Post but he later taught English at Loughton College in Essex. He moved to South London and focused on building up the band later known as Dire Straits.

Swansea-born Spencer Davis read German at Birmingham University. He taught at Yardley's Whittington Oval School while moonlighting as a musician in the mid-1960s.

Gillian Sharp, London SW13.

QUESTION Has a mercenary army reversed allegiance and attacked its employer?

Because

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