Ol' Blue Rinse put the kibosh on my trip to Rome

Eurovision winner Paul Harrington's unbearable itch to see the Pope was scratched by a teacher with big hair

School was always something I was a little scared of. There was one thing I used to dread - going to Killester primary school in the winter time was a long laneway you had to go through in order to get from the school down to where I lived. I remember one time trying to get through that lane in a thunderstorm. The lane is only about 20 paces, but it seemed like an eternity trying to get through and I just remember it lashing rain and thunder and lightning - it seemed to compound the whole terror of going to school.

I remember the teacher spilling tea on my prayer book after I made my Holy Communion and I was a bit upset at that. She always used to have crackers and cheese and tea on her desk and the smell of hot tea - I kind of liked it. It always made me want to sit up and have a cup of tea with her. Those were the days where the lid of the desk was like a blackboard inside and you wrote on it. You were meant to use a duster of some description and one day I'd no duster and I remember getting slapped because I used tin foil that I had my lunch in. My memory of teachers is that they were not as patient as they should have been.

I was just in Killester from infants to first class. I had an interim year in Brendan's in Coolock, but my only memory of that is getting a lash of a cane for blotting my copybook, which is presumably a metaphor for life. From there I went to O'Connells in North Richmond Street which is a Christian Brothers School. Me and Pat Kenny are the famous students who went there. Of course he left considerably ahead of me, but I think we both make it into the year book every now and again.

I had a brother Joe who was there at the time. My other brothers did attend but they'd all left at this point. Joe and I would go to school together, but he was in the secondary and I was in the primary. I loved the little concessions I could get, like getting home early for lunch. The primary would get off at 12.15 and the secondary would get off at five past, but I used to be able to get off to go with my brother. The other side of that was I used to have to wait for him in the evening because the secondary went on a bit later. I used to sit in his class waiting on him, which was interesting. It was great to sit in a classroom where the teacher had no power over you. It was also interesting to see teachers and pupils interacting at a semi-adult level as opposed to a kids' level.

There was one teacher who used to take us for music classes, which involved bringing in the radio, and we used to listen to BBC Radio 4. I loved that, but I was thrown out of the choir for scratching myself under my arm. I was appalled at this because there were so many half-wits in the choir that couldn't even sing. I can't remember the choir teacher's name all I remember was this outstanding blue rinse and a huge stick. It was all very serious because we were practising to go off to Rome to see the Pope and this was the selection process. I knew I was well up there, but I had an unbearable itch and I started scratching - as you do - and the stick came crashing down on the piano and out I went.

The holy terror was that the head would find you outside. He did find me - and it was an interesting moment. He kind of looked at me and I knew he said to himself "no, not the regular bloke who's always thrown out". He asked what I'd done and I, still in shock, said "to be honest, I don't really know" and he looked at me in a knowing sort of way and walked off. But I didn't get to go to Rome.

School got a bit more interesting towards the end, though in the secondary I tended to get on with teachers better than I did with pupils. I liked economics though I was never great at it and I liked English and English poetry. Now I can also see how some of them had to deliver the stuff on an academic basis and not get passionate, because fools in the class would always laugh at them - they would never tolerate teachers being human. But I got on well with some of them and I'd still see them today and have a pint with them from time to time.

I got through it okay for all the time I spent there. There was one teacher, Tom McCarrick - he was a nice guy - but there was a lot of time I'd maybe not be there. One time he referred to me as "the occasional student". I always felt a bit out of it as if I was just observing it all. I'm the sort that I don't want anyone talking at me, but if someone speaks to me an a human level they've got my attention and I'm there.

In conversation with Olivia Kelly