THE HEADMASTER'S FLAME, BRITISH NOVEL BY LS EVANS, 18+ ONLY

Richard Neill

One of the youngest Headmasters in Britain at 37, but cream rises, in his words! Hailing from a private school in London, Neill’s rakish charm soon has council estate school Thornwood fast at his feet as he fires, hires and mischievously conspires in a quest to transform the school’s calibre.

He’s the great-great-great nephew of A.S. Neill, the seedy Scottish educator from the 1960s who smoked around the kids and had them call him without the ‘Mr.’ Unwoke, unexpurgated - and as our heroine discovers, rather unhinged - Neill’s long distaste for ‘sweaty schoolgirls’ is challenged the day his Merc runs into one as sardonic as he is.

Natalia Molova

The female protagonist of our story is the quietest girl in Year 11, and the most intelligent. With only an alky mum at home for company, like Dahl’s Matilda she spends most evenings reading. But ‘she isn’t the victim for sure,’ as one reader put it, and defies cliché. She’s ardent and strong of heart, like her literary heroine Jane Eyre. She’s as likely to sing Shine Jesus Shine as she is have a peep at porn.

With a wisdom beyond her years, she also wants everything most 16-year old girls want. A cat. Nice clothes. Fashionable aspirational friends, not those chavs Sam and Laura. She doesn’t quite feel she fits in anywhere. The day Neill christens Thornwood with his first fag puff, she’s going to find a kindred spirit in more ways than one.

Joan Rawley

She’s the Headmistress of Harrogate Grammar - the flash private school that’s everything Thornwood isn’t! When this glamorous puss with the looks of a ‘39-year old Olivia Newton John’ strolls in at Christmas, it won’t be long before she’s hanging off Neill’s arm in return for rising Thornwood’s ranks - if he can even remember her name.

Mrs Williams 

Anne ‘Fat Cunt’ Williams, Natalia’s form and French teacher, has her beady eye so intently on Neill from day one you’d think he was Jimmy Savile. She much preferred the conventional ways of the last Head, Mr Neary, and doesn’t like being waltzed in the corridors when she’s trying to uphold school codes to girl pupils about wearing make-up. Perhaps she’s just annoyed he speaks better French than her?

Mr Dinkey 

The benign and benevolent, Geordie ‘Dink Donk’ Deputy Head who Neill will fast be crooning the name to the lyrics of Little Donkey, much to Natalia’s delight, and Steve Dinkey’s utter oblivion. Aye, he’s been with Thornwood for years, but never seen so much change so fast with this new Head, like!

Mrs Luxton

Natalia’s most hated lesson is PE, and her most hated teacher is the old bag who delivers it. She’ll be the first problem of Thornwood that Neill will deal with, but when she refuses to be fired on grounds of ageism, Neill will have to find a way to get her for discrimination instead - and fast. Camera at the ready…

Ryan Welsh

He’s fancied Natalia since Year 7 but in that time - sniggering amongst his cronies Bernard, Luke and Tom - has probably said no more than 7 words to her. Until he notices she’s got a new confidence since the new Head started and finds his tongue at least to share a fag with her and gas on about about his ill mum. Will romance abound, and Natalia’s growing thirst for boys be quenched with the touch of one her own age?

Mary Molova 

Natalia’s mum Mary loves beer, benefits, and boyfriends - till they don’t call her back. Mary doesn’t really do much that requires any effort, other than to chastise her daughter’s. Speaking her distinctive Northern dialect at ear-piercing volume most days, Natalia can’t think of anyone she is more different from. Except that they can sit down over a cuppa and watch Coronation Street without an argument some days, and agree that chamomile tastes like piss.

Darren

Mary’s new bleached-haired, tracksuit-wearing boyfriend who she’s trying to send down the Jobcentre most days, or scream at when she sees what he drags in for her on Valentine’s Day. A fellow boozer, up to all manner of unknown deeds, our heroine Natalia’s earnest wish is that he doesn’t try to replace her dad who left when she was five.

Marcia Adams

Expelled from her last school, Marcia is shuttled to Thornwood like a rabid bulldog ready to scrap with whoever blinks the wrong way. The absolute antithesis of our heroine, it’s probably not just Natalia hoping Marcia might do enough wrong to get booted off to another school fast.

Sam Pollock

One of Natalia’s frenemies in her form class. Sam and her gaunt sidekick Laura are chavs she doesn’t want to be associated with, basically, but it’s not so much snobbery on Natalia’s part than distaste for disloyalty, tattle and a non-aspirational attitude to studies. Natalia would rather be a loner than keep their company, but ends up plonked next to them in Food Tech, English and form.

Alana Reynolds

The ringleader of Year 11 ‘lipgloss lushes’ who live in the nice parts of Leeds and have mums that drive Range Rovers and to whom, exotic annual holidays are a thing of habit. A-grade-scoring in all departments, to Natalia it’s like they’re from another world entirely than her own neighbourhood of Gipton.

Aisha Mutanga

Alana’s bestie and another of the fashionable lot who talk of their boyfriends like they’re 16 going on 26. Natalia’s convinced herself since she was 11 that she wouldn’t have much to talk about with the likes of toothy Alana and Aisha, but could that change once Natalia becomes a dab-leg at Yoga?

Miss Barnes

Miss Emma Barnes, the ripped new Yoga teacher from Bramhope is probably getting paid more than the school can afford. She’s giving her money’s worth in eye-candy as far as the Head’s concerned. Will he be able to resist giving Mrs Muscle a bit more than just a pay packet, or is she too much of an anti-smoking health freak to stomach him?

Mrs Coleman

Kate Coleman is the English teacher - ‘lovely, don’t fire her’ - Natalia appeals Neill, for she teaches her the GCSE Anthology and Brontë and the booky wooky things she loves. But Coleman, going through a divorce, is craving something new in life herself. A new man? A promotion? A makeover? Will she have her eye on Neill like every other woman with a pulse in the place?

Ed

Neill’s best friend from London who won’t hold back with making sure the dirty on his old pal is thoroughly spilled - regardless of how demure Neill’s lady company is, and ideally whilst both stoned and drunk himself. He’s also a writer, clearly with some brain cells left, and will find himself put back into place by our schoolgirl heroine more than once.

Claire

Bubbly Claire is part of Natalia’s first taste of the personalities of the capital, and that taste may well be that of Prosecco when Claire seems incapable of operating without a bottle or three. A livewire like her would commandeer a game of Truth or Dare to breathtaking consequences, but we’d hope nothing like that would happen on her equally half-cut friends’ watch.

Monica 

Sweet lilting Mediterranean Monica, another of Neill’s middle-class muckers, oozes the happiness that surely everyone wants: beauty, handsome beau and babe in the belly. She’s travelled the world and been a model in Vogue, and when she comes to Leeds she’ll be making a beeline for Harvey Nichs, of course. Well, rather that than Justin’s suggestion of sightseeing Jimmy Savile’s demolished penthouse.

Justin

Dark handsome banker Justin is the other half of Monica and a dad-to-be, always putting Ed back in his place, as well as tease the North-migrated Neill about Leeds’ dark Satanic history. He’ll have a story to tell about his first time if you give him enough Peronis to prise away his prosaicness.

Becky

Becky ‘Big Tits’ is the new receptionist at Thornwood, hired by Neill sheerly on cup size to cleanse the front desk of the sour hags that hogged it for donkey’s. Becky oversees the sick room and CCTV, and makes a cheerful sight for anyone signing in late - which Natalia won’t be doing quite as often now that school is suddenly a more exciting place than it’s been for the past four years.

Shafqat Ullah Shah / ‘Phil’

The Moroccan philanthropist, referred to as ‘Phil’ as Neill can never remember his name. He could transform Thornwood High with a major windfall, but will the ‘Arabic Kermit the Frog’ have small print terms of his own?