The first weeks of lockdown were characterised, each Thursday evening, by people heading out to their front gardens, or standing on their doorsteps, taking part in a ‘clap for carers’. This was, you will already know, to say ‘thank you’ to, and to show solidarity with, those working tirelessly to look after and save the lives of people suffering during the pandemic. This was both a worldwide and a local statement about different communities’ feelings of gratitude towards those working in the caring professions – many of whom we have in our NCS community. These people have often been called heroes, and the use of such a term has got me thinking about what we mean by heroism, and why we look to heroes at different times of our lives, especially during times of difficulty.

Many NCS boys’ film diet is replete with superheroes. Movie studios have realised that there is a quick buck to be made from CGI-laden films with sequels and prequels featuring various different iterations of the same core superhero characters. There is clearly something very appealing about watching superheroes and their battles. There is an appetite for characters doing what we simply cannot do, whether it be flying unaided, turning lots of things rapidly to ice, or hearing the cries of the needy thousands of miles away. For the short time that we escape into these films, or the comic books on which they are based, we can feel protected by the idea that maybe somewhere in the universe there is a character who will come to our aid when needed. Or perhaps we can imagine what it would be like if we had these skills and capabilities instead. Or maybe it is just pure escapism: disappearing into a world which resembles ours so little that we can stand apart from our own cares and worries for a few hours. It is probably a mixture of all three.

But what the ‘clap for carers’ and talk of heroes in the medical profession has reminded us, is that our heroes don’t need to wear capes, nor fly, nor read people’s minds. Our heroes are, thankfully, simpler than that. When I prepare our boys for interviews to their senior schools at thirteen, I often ask them who they most admire in the world. This can be a person currently alive, or it can be someone who has died; they can be famous or every-day; they can even be fictional if the boys like. I am heartened that the majority of the boys choose a family member, and it is usually a parent. Even if the boys choose a footballer, it isn’t always the most famous one, or the one who has scored the most goals. When I think back to when I was in Year 8, my favourite football hero was someone that virtually no one will have heard of now – Gary Mabbutt. Mabbutt was the Spurs captain around the time when more famous players like Gary Lineker and Paul Gascoigne were making the back-page headlines. But what Mabbutt showed, in my mind, was tremendous loyalty to the club, and phenomenal determination in being a professional athlete while managing his diabetes. So heroism, to me, didn’t require fame and flashiness; it required low-key loyalty and stoicism instead. It involved caring and leading selflessly. If at NCS we can get the boys to look for heroes who show these qualities, a large part of our job will have been done.

Have a great weekend,

Dr J