PASSED/FAILED: Jack Rosenthal

Jack Rosenthal CBE, 65, is one of Britain's most prolific television dramatists. Starting at Granada, he wrote 129 episodes of `Coronation Street'. His `Barmitzvah Boy', `The Evacuees' and `Spend, Spend, Spend' won Bafta awards in three consecutive years. He is working on a follow- up to his `Eskimo Day' and also on a feature film, `An Inch Over the Horizon'. He is profiled in `Jack, the Lad', a BBC1 `Omnibus' programme, next Monday.

A cold start? When I was two-and-a-half I went to Derby Street Jews School in Manchester. I can remember Mr Whipp, who had a cane called Charlie. At midday we used to go over the road to an ice factory and get a big block of ice, which we would keep in our mouths all afternoon. I had three cousins there, all of them role models and heroes; we read comics, they read literature.

The deep end? On the first day of the war, the school was evacuated to the Lido, the swimming pool in Blackpool, for eight months. My brother and I were late every day because we had to clean the house where we were staying. We returned for a short time to Derby Street; then our house was bombed and we were evacuated to Colne in Lancashire, where I passed the exam for the grammar school. This had blazers and caps, but you weren't regarded as toffs; there weren't many of those in a cotton town where people wore clogs.

Land of Hope and Glory? I loved school - I was a sports champion - and many of my friends from there are in the Omnibus programme. Terry Land became a great mentor. He was supposed to teach us English. He didn't. He taught us to love it. The more I read, the more I wanted to write. I wrote funny little things to amuse myself. I did write a sketch for Suzette Terri, a comedienne, which I sent to the BBC; they sent it back.

A Credit to the school? I got a "Credit" in English language, French and Latin and "Pass" in English literature. I got "Very Good" in history; in fact, I'm very bad at history. I got "Credit" in maths, but in fact I'm appalling - in the mock exam a few weeks before, I got 7 per cent in geometry. In the Higher School Certificate I got a "Good" in English literature, a "Pass" in history and French and Latin at "Subsidiary" level.

Playing Darts? I had a great time at Sheffield University. I was a sports reporter for Darts, the university paper, and played football and did a lot of athletics. I got a 2.1 in English. I did a not-very-good paper in Anglo-Saxon. The idea was that two or three weeks later you'd be questioned at your viva on a paper you hadn't done well, so you could improve your answers. I didn't bother to find out the right answers. That night my tutor rang up almost in tears and said, "You had a First waiting for you."

Epilogue? After that I did my National Service in the Navy, where I became a Russian translator. There were two grades: if you got over 80 per cent, you were taken from the training camps to Cambridge and became an "Interpreter". I got 52 per cent and became a "Translator", which means I knew virtually nothing. We had to sit listening to Russian broadcasts, twiddling dials and eavesdropping on Russian ship movements. All our material went to GCHQ, but I don't imagine it was of the slightest importance.