Boris’s prep school secrets by Miss who knew him best

A‘he has great inner strength. We need him,’ Tessa Pritchard-Gordon tells me from her home in Suffolk, speaking about Boris for the first time.

‘he was always a leader. he was his own person. he could always make people do it his way.’

astonishingly, this conviction stems not from encountering Boris in adulthood — but from when he was just 11 and Tessa, 21, was personal assistant to Clive Williams, headmaster of ashdown house prep school in Sussex.

The school took only boys at the time, but Stanley Johnson, Boris’s father, called from Brussels to say that, while he wanted to send his son there, he would only do so on condition that his daughter, rachel, could go there, too.

‘It was June and he wanted them to start in September. I rang round a number of parents to see if there were any who wanted to send their daughters,’ recalls Tessa. She managed to find four who did. So the blond-haired new boy arrived with his sister a few months later. ‘he was very much in his own world, not one of the sporty chaps running around in a gang.

‘each morning he would come to me to collect his copy of The Times, delighted to get it, looking at me from underneath his fringe.

‘I still see the same person. he has the same hairstyle and the same walk as he does now — and the same little grin’ Tessa tells me.

‘I used to get their rail tickets to London. Then he and rachel got to exeter by themselves. They were very close to each other and very self-sufficient. I never remember him being ill. he was a bookworm, loved learning. he went straight into the scholarship class.

‘But he was really popular. he had a presence, right from the beginning. he shone in the debating club and whenever he had an acting role he became another person.’

The headmaster was similarly impressed. ‘Clive Williams had a first in classics from Cambridge. he was teaching him Greek and Latin, but he said that he couldn’t teach him much more by the time he was 12.’

Williams, Tessa adds, had made an even more startling remark at the beginning of his protégé’s second term. ‘he said: “he will be Prime minister.”

‘an incredible statement, he was always meant to lead,’ remembers Tessa, who concludes with a direct appeal to the boy she helped nurture. ‘We know you’re giving it your best shot to get better—– and you will and you must, because we need you.’ S The Prime minister battles coronavirus in St Thomas’ hospital, the woman who changed the course of Boris Johnson’s life has issued a heartfelt, personal plea, urging him to recover soon — for the sake of the nation.