Man of letters with a Hulme-an touch

Dr Paul Neeson

Martyn meets another of Oldham’s key figures, Dr Paul Neeson, principal of Hulme Grammar Schools.
Paul Neeson BSc PhD loves the fascinating and enduring challenge of steering an educational establishment steeped in history into the 21st century.

It’s appropriate, then, that he was offered the job five years ago, on Valentine’s Day.

Paul slipped seamlessly, almost effortlessly, into one of the most demanding quasi-public roles in Oldham.

The man of physics — he has a doctorate in this endlessly-fascinating subject — is at the head of a large family community known to most of us as Hulme.

He is the first principal of the combined Oldham Hulme Grammar Schools. After 400 years as a fee-paying, private independent school, Hulme is no longer two grammar schools with separate heads for the boys’ and girls’ schools.

Five years ago, the governors took the momentous decision to merge the two and seek a single principal.

The man they chose is 54, a practisng Catholic, married to a physiotherapist and has three daughters, two of whom have represented England in world lacrosse championships.

With his wife Theresa, Paul has travelled thousands of miles watching his daughters play sport — twice to those world championships, in North America and Canada.

He lives in Bramhall, Stockport, but is at his desk in Chamber Road, Werneth, each morning shortly after 7.30am and his door is open to students and staff alike until his normal working day — if there is such a thing in a school of 1,043 pupils and 250 staff — kicks in.

So that’s a potted history of the man in whom the governors of this pillar of Oldham’s educational establishment have entrusted the future.

He was head-hunted of course. Educationalists of this stature are not found in JobCentres and he attended his first meeting with an open mind.

“I didn’t even take a briefcase or notepad, just myself,” he recalled, adding: “I was immediately fascinated by the challenge and I was handed six bulky files about Hulme to acquaint myself with the history and structure.

“The problem was I was on the train back to Berkhamsted (a 450-year-old independent school in Hertfordshire) where I was working and it was packed with parents of my pupils, so I had to buy a London Evening Standard to cover the files and I didn’t dare look at them until I got home.”

He laughed out loud as he recounted those days in late 2005. He was actually offered the job on Valentine’s Day in 2006, beginning an enduring love affair with his adopted home — as subterfuge does not sit comfortably on this man of many letters.

Not that you would know it from talking, for we chatted like old mates in the comfortable leather armchchairs of his surprisingly small office.

Just as he had approached his initial interview with an open mind, I had entered Hulme with much the same mindset. I had heard much, and all of it good, about Hulme’s pioneering principal, but I was totally unprepared for the unpretentious, utterly relaxed yet consummate professional I encountered.

Paul was born in the Midlands town of Corby and has worked in Hertforshire, Shropshire and Bedfordshire in the private and public sectors before settling on a career in independent schools.

I don’t intend to bore you readers with his academic, scholastic and career achievements and qualifiications. Safe to say he is eminently well qualified for his new role at the head of a much-changed organisation absorbing the rules of the 21st century while retaining the traditions of 400 years.

In addition to overseeing the amalgamation of the senior schools and integrating the sixth form, he is currently — with a lightness of touch that is barely discernible — more fully integrating all the elements of Hulme; the kindergarten, once Werneth Prep (where your correspondent was educated rather a long time ago), the Escourt (girls’) and Court (boys’) schools for pre-senior school pupils, the old boys’ and old girls’ associations, now one organisation, the parent-teacher associations and the governors.

And it all seems so effortless.

Away from school he enjoys watching sport, though his own footballing and squash days are, sadly, distant memories. He recalls with obvious relish his last football outing, representing Berkhamsted School against the Eton Beaks (teachers) on the playing fields of what is probably the most celebrated and famous school on the planet.

These days he relaxes away from school in the Catholic community of Shaw Heath, where he lives, but this was a very much understated aspect of our interview. Though Dr Neeson is clearly a man of faith, he has pastoral and secular duties within his Hulme communion which he will not allow to conflict with his own beliefs.

The move north has been made easy, he says, by the support of his wife.

He remains — five years on — fascinated by the continuing challenge of Hulme and concedes much remains to be done, working with his colleagues in the senior management team, his teaching staff and governors to ensure that the best traditions of Hulme endure for another 400 years.

Or at least until he retires which, I suggest, is a good few years hence. After all, a man such as he, who can turn his skills to Strictly Come Dancing as part of the school’s celebrations, is clearly a man of many talents — as Hulme is discovering on an almost daily basis.