Flunking the interview

I still get a hot flush of embarrassment when I recall my first interview. It was for a summer job at Selfridges in London when I was 17. The lady from personnel asked me how my friends would describe me. Maybe it was the heat or nerves but all I could think of was the funeral oration by John Hannah’s character in Four Weddings and a Funeral where he describes his deceased partner, played by Simon Callow, as ‘so very fat and very rude’. So I did something you should never ever do in an interview: I tried to be funny. ‘Rude — my friends would describe me as rude,’ I replied. I didn’t get the job.

People from my background are meant to sail through such interviews. Supposedly, public school pupils are not only given an excellent academic education but also career guidance, and are drilled in interview technique so that they float through life on a cushion of money and privilege.