Great Scot was the teacher who really made the grade

And my English teacher was among the worst. Mr Sewter had a thin, balding ginger thatch atop his egg-shaped head – it was the sort of hair that made Arthur Scargill look like Michael Bolton.

Beneath the armpits of his frayed, it-really-ought-to-have-been-thrown-out-a-long-time-ago-and-replaced-with-a-new-one-shirt were greenish patches of dried perspiration. His teeth looked as though they'd been stained by nicotine, though, as a non-smoker, their yellow hue was caused by an absence of toothpaste.

When he spoke, his class snored. When he exhorted us to better things, we looked into the mid-distance, bored.

It didn't take long for Mr Sewter to notice my disdain. He took swift action. "Richardson, I'm moving you to a different set." I wondered what that might be. After all, Mr Sewter took our school's top group. Was he going to create a new, elite class? "You're being demoted to Set Two. You can't cut it."

I was dispatched to the Gulag, where a pleasant Scottish teacher laboured with kids who were bright but lazy. Set Two was a classic amalgam of C+ kids, the ones whose school report habitually reads: 'Gets away with the bare minimum', or, in my case: 'Intelligent but disengaged'.

I prospered under the Scottish teacher. We liked one another and worked well. English lessons were no longer a chore. I wrote with a passion. I learned for learning's sake. I wrote for the joy of writing.

A month later, Mr Sewter called me to his office. Begrudgingly, he'd decided to move me back into the top set. The drive instilled by my Scottish teacher remained and I wrote with renewed vigour. Rather than writing two sides of A4 about what I'd done at the weekend, or what my dad did for a living, I'd write 35-side, multi-chapter novellas about being young and in love.

One story memorably featured a romantic scene that made 50 Shades of Grey seem like a drab weekend in Bilston. It had more kinetic energy than a wrecking ball. My dad read it and said, simply: "Blooming heck, son," before shaking his head ruefully and going for a long walk. Teenagers, eh?

As our year drew to a close, we handed in our best five essays and hoped they'd be enough to secure a decent mark. "Please could I have my essays back after they've been marked?" I asked Mr Sewter, keen to retain the products of my febrile mind.

Two months later, our results arrived. Richardson: Pass, Grade A. Happy days.

I'd also won some sort of national prize – I didn't pay attention to what – for being in the top five at English Language in the UK. I returned to the office of my sweat-stained English teacher to pick up my essays. "I'm afraid they were all destroyed," he said, disinterestedly. He'd thrown them in the bin weeks earlier. They were irretrievable. No matter. I walked to see my Scottish teacher to thank her.

These days, the boot's on the other paw. For a few weeks each year, I lecture students in music journalism at a local university. The time has come for their exams. In a few short weeks, they'll get their marks. Some will get firsts, others will fail.

And afterwards, they'll be left to form a view of their teacher. Maybe they'll remember me for rubbish shirts, dodgy hair and an interest in obscure Paul Weller B-sides. But I hope that's not the case. I hope I'll have inspired and energised them like my unnamed Scottish teacher.