'I needed someone to make me believe': the teachers who inspired us

To celebrate World Teachers’ Day we asked some well-known figures to tell us about the amazing people in education they’ll always remember. If you have a memory to share – or perhaps a misdemeanour confession – contribute to our our Guardian Witness project or tweet us @GuardianTeach.

Mr Dawson’s act of human decency was my greatest lesson

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I come from a generation born just after the first great war, when the quality of one’s education was determined by their class. My dad was a miner and so my schooling was brief and perfunctory. Then the great depression arrived throwing men like my dad into unemployment, and even after that, rudimentary working-class education was in jeopardy because children had to work to keep their families from starving.

So I have few distinct memories of school, but one teacher stands out . His name was Dawson, he taught maths, took snuff and didn’t suffer fools gladly. I liked his lessons but stopped attending them when bullies mocked me because the soles of my only pair of shoes wore out.

One day Dawson found me in a park and confronted me about my truancy. I showed him my rotting shoes and said that the other children whose father’s still had work mocked my poverty.

He didn’t comfort me, but instead ordered me to see him the next day after lessons. When I arrived Dawson handed me a brown paper bag, which contained a pair of used shoes that fit me if I stuck newspaper at their tips. When I tried to thank him all he said was: “Not a word to anyone”. That simple act of human decency was the greatest lesson. It taught me that we owe it to ourselves and humanity to have the courage to fight both large and small injustices.

Harry Leslie Smith is a second world war RAF veteran and an activist for the poor and for the preservation of social democracy. He is the author of Harry’s Last Stand.

Mr Fitch reinforced my love of language

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My dad wanted me to be a scientist and when he heard I’d chosen to do arts subjects for A-level, with a view to doing English at university, he described it as “a waste of a brain”.

So my sixth form English teacher was always going to be important to me. I needed someone to make me believe that this subject, in which I’d placed my future, was worth it.

At first, Mr Fitch didn’t seem like that person. He was an eccentric, cravat-wearing and often possibly drunk during lessons. But he also had one love: literature. He wasn’t a modern teacher – if anything, there was something of the character-teacher about him, like in a Billy Bunter book. But I can still remember his voice as he read out The Waste Land to us – particularly the bit:

O O O O
That Shakespeherian rag
It’s so elegant
So intelligent
….where he burst into jazz-age singing.

Moments like that reinforced my love of language. Whether or not it was a waste of a brain – some of you may, having seen how my career panned out, agree with my dad – Fitch confirmed that English was the right choice for me.

David Baddiel is a comedian and writer. His new children’s book, The Person Controller, is out on Thursday 8 October.

My singing teacher taught me learning never stops

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There are so many teachers I could mention, but I want to give a shout out to my English teacher Sally Rowley, who let me read the part of Richard III every lesson. This taught me that if you do something well, you’ll probably get asked to do it again.

Then finally Anne-Marie Speed, while at the Royal Academy Of Music, who as well as being one of the best singing teachers out there, taught me that learning never stops.

Vikki Stone is an English stand-up comedian, actress and musician.

Mr Lebsir gave me the key to understanding general relativity

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My school was built by Mr Eiffel – he also built a tower – and it smelled of old wood and steel. I was sitting in what for most 12-year-olds is second only to the dentist’s chair – a maths lesson. Instead of concentrating, everyone would closely watch Mr Lebsir’s face, which had the extraordinary ability of turning purple every time he was upset – and his wrath was something to fear.

Even so, he is the school teacher I remember most fondly. His lectures gave me a taste of what it might be like to think about a problem in a playful way. One day, when the bell rang and the class had left, I lingered.

“What’s wrong, Galfard?” asked Mr Lebsir.

“I don’t understand what a straight line is,” I replied, shy and ashamed.

To my surprise, he did not make fun of me. Instead, he told me to picture myself on a beach, in my shorts with an urge to pee.

“What do you then do?” he asked, before answering himself: “You dash into the sea, along the shortest path. The shortest path is what a straight line is all about.”

Twelve years later, I became professor Stephen Hawking’s graduate student. And when I sat down with pen and paper to try to figure out which path an astronaut would likely take were he or she unfortunate enough to end up floating next to a black hole, I remembered Mr Lebsir and his shortest path. It made me smile, but it also gave me a key to understand what general relativity is all about.

Christophe Galfard holds a PhD in theoretical physics from Cambridge university, where he was professor Hawking’s graduate student from 2000–2006. He is the author of The Universe In Your Hand.

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