Bright outlook, blustery front

Bubbly Martin King, TV3's effervescent weatherman, came in for some turbulence at school

Like most kids I can remember my first day of school in St Malachy's boys national school in Edenmore on the north side of Dublin. I remember being brought in and sitting down with a load of weeping children. I remember sitting there and thinking "maybe I should cry too". So I started weeping with them and watching my mother walking by the classroom window and disappearing. That stands out. I could see that she was getting all blubbery too.

The following day my dad brought me to school and he brought me in the back entrance of the school, which completely threw me and freaked me out. I was completely disorientated and I was upset for the second day. It improved an awful lot from there - we had a variety of teachers through the years and each of them brought their own little bit of their personality into the classroom which rubbed off on all of us.

We were very lucky in our final two years in primary: we had a teacher from Kerry called Michael Kennedy and he was brilliant, especially in our final year. Around Confirmation time he threw the classroom open to other sixth classes in the school and sixth classes in the girls' school and put on discos for everybody in the afternoons. "You've finished the curriculum: you've made your Confirmation: there's not much time left, so put on your Confirmation gear tomorrow and we'll have something special in the afternoon," he said. He did that a couple of times before the year finished. We felt a little bit hard done by, though, because the girls' school decided to return the compliment. But instead of just our class being invited, every single class from fourth class up went. We felt this was our idea and people were jumping on the bandwagon.

At that time teachers were allowed to use canes and leathers, though most of the time they just used their bare hands. I remember very brave blokes going back into the school to break the teacher's cane or hide the leather. He'd come in the next day and wouldn't have anything to hit you with, so if you did step out of line that day you'd be guaranteed you wouldn't get it till the next day by which time he might have forgotten.

I actually did very well in primary. There were 33 or 34 in my class and only six of us passed the exam to go to the De La Salle. It was when I got into secondary that I started to go downhill.

In second year I went on the hop. Most people went on the hop to go messing, but I actually went on the hop to study for an exam that was coming up that afternoon and I got arrested. I was on my way to school and I met a couple of my classmates and we were all sweating over this French exam, so we knew the role wouldn't be called 'till the afternoon, so we decided take the morning off to study. Everybody thought it was a great idea so we all sat up a lane reading our French books. At that time they sent you home for your dinner, so I decided we'd sit up on this wall and wait to see the first gang coming down from the school, join them and walk up home and get our dinners then head into the exam.

But we chose to sit on the garden wall that belonged to a family who'd gone on their holidays and had very vigilant neighbours. So we started walking home up by the back of the church in Edenmore. Anyone who went on the hop from the schools around all met there to have their cigarettes and I looked up and saw some fellas I knew. So I waved and they waved back then all of a sudden they were waving frantically. Then I saw them running, I turned and saw a few squad cars making for us. We ran too but they caught up with us and brought us to Coolock Garda station. We explained our story and as none of us were on record with them, they believed us. When I look back I can remember them laughing at us. They were bastards because they knew we had to be home and they kept us up at the police station until it was too late for us to come up with a plausible excuse for our mams. So we went back to school, sat down for the French exam and the teacher decided she was going to give it to us on Monday instead.

I was at school when I got my first radio job with a Dublin pirate called Big D. I got a summer job making tea and answering phones and eventually a man called Smiley Bolger gave me my first gig on the radio. A few months shy of the Leaving Cert, I got a pretty good job at Sunshine radio and I took that because I was afraid that if I hung on it would be gone. In truth I should have hung on and carried on with school, but I have fond memories of St Malachy's and De La Salle.

In an interview with Olivia Kelly