Bernard Hedges walks into 5C at Fenn Street Secondary Modern on his first day and meets the rowdiest form in the building. Please Sir! ran on ITV from 1968, written by John Esmonde and Bob Larbey before they gave us The Good Life, and it made its young teacher a star. The class was popular enough to earn a feature film in 1971 and a spin-off of its own, The Fenn Street Gang, which followed them out of school and into work.

John Alderton, who played Hedges, is 85. He left while the programme was at its height, turned up as the chauffeur in Upstairs, Downstairs, and was the voice of Fireman Sam for a generation of children. Two of his old pupils are alive too. Peter Cleall, the loud-mouthed Duffy, is 82 and has spent years running a theatrical agency. David Barry, 83, who played the would-be gangster Frankie Abbott, is a Welshman from Bangor who became a novelist.

Five have gone: Deryck Guyler, the caretaker Potter, in 1999; Joan Sanderson, the fearsome Miss Ewell, in 1992; and three of the class far too young, Liz Gebhardt at 51, Malcolm McFee at 52 and Peter Denyer at 62.

What strikes me now is how kind the programme was underneath all the noise. Hedges never gives up on a single one of them.

Which of 5C sat next to you in class?

You are hearing a computer-generated voice. Everyone's age is given as of this autumn, 2026.