Published: 26 November 2025
While British politics grapples with new allegations about Nigel Farage’s schooldays racism, another story is capturing people’s imagination: a celebration of the country’s quiet, everyday heroes – from a bus driver in West Yorkshire to a 73‑year‑old toilet cleaner in Dumfries and Galloway. [1]
Together, these two strands of today’s news say a lot about the kind of country Britain wants to be – and who it chooses to put on a pedestal.
Key points
- A Guardian feature today highlights seven “unsung heroes”, including Britain’s Bus Driver of the Year, a washroom attendant, corner‑shop owners, a lollipop man, a conker obsessive and a competitive eater. [2]
- At the same time, Nigel Farage faces intensifying scrutiny over allegations of racist and antisemitic abuse at Dulwich College in the 1970s, with multiple former pupils rejecting his claim that his past comments were just playground “banter”. [3]
- A BBC interview, reported and quoted by other outlets, features Jewish film‑maker Peter Ettedgui, who says Farage’s denials are “fundamentally dishonest” and describes repeated antisemitic taunts at school. [4]
- A new International Business Times article revisits a 1981 teacher’s letter warning about Farage’s “racist and neo‑fascist” views as a teenager, now resurfacing amid the 2025 racism row. [5]
- Farage continues to deny ever “directly” racially abusing anyone, insisting any offensive remarks were unintentional “banter” and arguing that memories from nearly 50 years ago are unreliable. [6]
Britain’s unsung heroes: the quiet work that keeps a country going
Today’s feel‑good story comes from The Guardian, which profiles seven people whose jobs are rarely glamorous but are absolutely central to everyday life. [7]
Michael Leech: Britain’s Bus Driver of the Year
Michael Leech, from Sowerby Bridge in West Yorkshire, has just been crowned UK Bus Driver of the Year after a national competition that brought around 100 top drivers to a grand final in Blackpool. [8]
Leech has been driving buses since 1999. He likes the balance of independence and constant human contact that the job brings. He sees himself as being “in charge of the atmosphere” on his bus and consciously chooses kindness over strictness – the kind of driver who will wait for someone sprinting for the stop, even if they occasionally run straight past. [9]
To win the title, he needed a spotless safety and attendance record, excellent customer feedback and strong performance in demanding theory and practical tests – including precision parking a full‑size bus just a metre from the kerb. He walked away with both the trophy and around £4,100 in prize money, which he reportedly celebrated with a very British cup of tea with his wife. [10]
Margaret Rutter: Scotland’s washroom technician of the year
At Annandale Distillery in Dumfries and Galloway, 73‑year‑old Margaret Rutter has spent decades cleaning toilets – and loving it. She has just been named Scotland’s Washroom Technician of the Year at the Loo of the Year awards. [11]
Rutter starts work at 6.30am, six days a week, and takes pride in getting down on her hands and knees to scrub every part of the bowl and pipework. She estimates she has cleaned around 150,000 toilets since taking her first washroom job in 1999. She’s very clear about the priorities: immaculate hygiene and full soap dispensers matter far more than folded paper tips or decorative tricks. [12]
Winning the award, she says, finally made people understand what her work really involves – and she has no plans to retire any time soon.
Hiten and Kinnari Patel: the corner‑shop couple keeping a city connected
In the centre of Oxford, Hiten and Kinnari Patel run Honey’s of the High, a busy convenience store that has just been named Independent Convenience Store of the Year by the Federation of Independent Retailers. [13]
The couple still live in London and commute seven days a week: leaving home at 4.30am, starting paper rounds around 5.30am and closing the shop at 7pm before making the long trip back. Their last proper family holiday was six days at Christmas 2018, and even then they were calling home every day to check on deliveries. [14]
What sets them apart is how deliberately they build community:
- greeting customers as if they were guests in their home
- reassuring anxious parents who are dropping their children at university nearby
- phoning local care‑home residents for a chat when the shop is quiet, a habit that began during the pandemic and never stopped. [15]
For them, the award is proof that the sacrifices have meant something to other people, not just to their own family.
Gerald Gleeson: the lollipop man who turns a crossing into a highlight
In County Cork, Gerald Gleeson has been named Lollipop Person of the Year by Tonstix, a children’s lozenge brand that sponsors the award. [16]
A widower and former retained firefighter of 30 years, Gleeson took the job a decade ago when he found himself adrift in retirement, missing his grandchildren during term time. Now he is up early in all weather, stopping traffic and greeting children with a high‑five or fist bump as they cross. Parents say that for some children who struggle with school, seeing him is what gets them through the gate with a smile. [17]
He insists the role is far from “easy” – it’s a huge responsibility to get children safely across a busy road – and he describes winning the award as more meaningful than most people realise.
St John Burkett: Anorak of the Year and saviour of the conker season
St John Burkett, 65, has been obsessed with conkers since childhood and helps run the World Conker Championships. That lifelong enthusiasm has earned him the title “Anorak of the Year” from the delightfully tongue‑in‑cheek Dull Men’s Club. [18]
Burkett jokes that being crowned the nation’s top “anorak” is one of the least dull things that’s ever happened to him. His wife’s reaction was reportedly a single raised eyebrow; his grown‑up children were more excited, having endured endless conker chat for years.
This year he played a practical role too. An unusually warm autumn meant conkers ripened early, threatening to leave October’s championship short of decent specimens. After he spoke publicly about the problem, help poured in – including a box of conkers sent from Windsor Castle’s PR team, which he suspects helped clinch the award. [19]
Max Stanford: Britain’s champion speed‑eater
Finally, there is Max Stanford, reigning champion of the British Eating League. Competitive eating is not his day job, but over five years he has built a significant online following and become one of the UK’s best‑known speed‑eaters. [20]
Stanford originally tried a “Man v Food”‑style challenge while bulking at the gym and discovered he had unusual capacity. Now he trains for events like an athlete: doing practice runs for each contest and stretching his stomach the night before with water and low‑calorie foods. Recent feats include:
- 18 pies in five minutes
- 25 bratwursts in five minutes
- 17 pretzels in five minutes, compared with just three for the runner‑up. [21]
Despite the extraordinary numbers, there is surprisingly little money involved; most contests offer modest prizes, and the annual title mainly brings a trophy and bragging rights.
The other big story: Farage, Dulwich and the battle over what counts as “banter”
In stark contrast to those positive profiles, the other major thread of today’s news revolves around Nigel Farage, now leader of Reform UK, and long‑running allegations about racist and antisemitic behaviour during his time at Dulwich College in the 1970s.
A week of escalating claims
The immediate backdrop is a series of reports from The Guardian and other outlets:
- On 22 November, the paper published an investigation in which more than 20 former Dulwich pupils alleged racist or antisemitic conduct by Farage as a teenager. Several said he targeted Jewish classmate Peter Ettedgui, using Nazi‑themed taunts and racist slurs. [22]
- On 24 November, Farage addressed the allegations himself at a rally in North Wales, in comments reported by ITV News. He said he had “never directly really tried to go and hurt anybody” and suggested that if he had said offensive things 50 years ago, they were “banter in a playground” rather than deliberate abuse. He insisted he was not part of any extremist organisation and repeatedly stressed how long ago events took place. [23]
- On 25 November, a further Guardian article quoted three more former Dulwich pupils – Stefan Benarroch, Cyrus Oshidar and Rickard Berg – who said Farage’s comments were not playful teasing but targeted, persistent and nasty behaviour directed at classmates from minority backgrounds, especially Ettedgui. [24]
Those former pupils describe a pattern of singling out Jewish and non‑white students, including chanting a song about “gassing” people and shouting racist slurs at children leaving Jewish assemblies. They accuse Farage of lying when he now claims he did not directly abuse anyone and imply that his attempt to portray them as politically motivated echoes familiar antisemitic tropes about coordinated conspiracies. [25]
Farage, through spokespeople and in his own words, flatly denies the most serious allegations. His camp has previously called them “wholly untrue” and suggested they are part of a smear effort tied to Reform UK’s stance on immigration. [26]
The BBC interview: ex‑classmate says denials are “dishonest”
Today the row escalated again. In a BBC News piece that cannot be directly accessed in some regions but has been widely shared and quoted on social media and in international forums, Peter Ettedgui – now an Emmy‑ and Bafta‑winning director – gave his first broadcast interview about Farage’s behaviour. [27]
According to a detailed summary published by Thailand‑based news site ASEAN Now, which adapted the BBC report, Ettedgui says: [28]
- As a Jewish teenager at Dulwich, he remembers Farage repeatedly approaching him and making comments praising Hitler and referencing gas chambers.
- These remarks were accompanied by hissing sounds meant to imitate gas, and were not one‑off jokes but a consistent pattern over the year they shared a class.
- The comments cut particularly deep because his grandparents had fled Nazi Germany and many relatives had been murdered in the Holocaust.
He describes Farage’s current framing of those incidents as harmless banter as “fundamentally dishonest” and says he came forward out of personal conviction, not for party‑political reasons. The BBC report also notes that two other former pupils corroborated his account. [29]
The 1981 teacher’s letter returns to the spotlight
Adding more fuel, International Business Times UK today revisited a 1981 letter written by Dulwich English teacher Chloë Deakin to the then headmaster, which has resurfaced as part of the current row. [30]
In the letter, Deakin urged the school not to appoint the 17‑year‑old Farage as a prefect, citing:
- staff concerns that he openly expressed racist and neo‑fascist views
- an incident in which he was reportedly so offensive to another boy that the pupil had to be removed from the lesson
- a report that Farage and others marched through a Sussex village late at night during a military camp, shouting Hitler Youth‑style chants. [31]
She argued that promoting him would send the wrong signal about extremism. The letter first became public in 2013 through a Channel 4 News report, but IBTimes notes that it is now being read in a new light given the latest testimonies from ex‑pupils. [32]
What Farage says in his defence
Farage’s core position has remained consistent in recent days, even as he has adjusted his wording:
- He denies ever deliberately racially abusing anyone at school.
- He concedes he may have said things in his youth that, in today’s terms, could be interpreted as offensive, but insists there was no intent to hurt and no involvement with extremist groups. [33]
- He argues it is unreasonable to treat memories from almost five decades ago as fully reliable and suggests that some of his critics are politically motivated opponents of Reform UK. [34]
At a rally this week he added that he would apologise to anyone who was genuinely hurt by something he said, while maintaining that he does not recall racially abusing classmates. [35]
Critics, including Labour peer Lord Mike Katz, say that trying to separate “banter” from “hurtful” racist language misses the point – that if someone on the receiving end experiences abuse as damaging, intent is not the only thing that matters. [36]
Two stories, one question: who do we reward?
On the surface, a piece about bus drivers, toilet cleaners and conker obsessives has little to do with a political storm surrounding Nigel Farage’s schooldays. Yet the stories colliding on 26 November 2025 raise the same underlying questions:
- Whose character matters?
The Farage controversy is ultimately about whether behaviour as a teenager – especially if it involved racist bullying – should shape judgments about a politician seeking high office today. By contrast, the unsung‑heroes feature shows how quiet reliability and kindness over decades can finally earn public recognition. [37] - What does “banter” excuse?
Many people remember casual slurs and tasteless jokes as a normal part of 1970s school life. But ex‑pupils quoted in recent coverage argue there is a difference between background prejudice and sustained, targeted humiliation of individuals. That distinction matters for how a society defines responsibility and apology. [38] - Who gets celebrated – and why?
Today’s bus driver of the year owes his title to years of punctual, safe driving and a habit of spreading good humour. The washroom attendant has quietly kept public toilets spotless for a quarter of a century. The lollipop man gets children into school safely and smiling. These awards highlight social glue that often goes unnoticed in political debates. [39]
As Britain digests both the accusations and denials around Nigel Farage and the heart‑warming stories of people who simply turn up and do the right thing day after day, the contrast is striking.
In different ways, both stories are about who we trust, who we listen to and who we choose to honour.
References
1. www.theguardian.com, 2. www.theguardian.com, 3. www.theguardian.com, 4. aseannow.com, 5. www.ibtimes.co.uk, 6. www.itv.com, 7. www.theguardian.com, 8. www.theguardian.com, 9. www.theguardian.com, 10. www.theguardian.com, 11. www.theguardian.com, 12. www.theguardian.com, 13. www.theguardian.com, 14. www.theguardian.com, 15. www.theguardian.com, 16. www.theguardian.com, 17. www.theguardian.com, 18. www.theguardian.com, 19. www.theguardian.com, 20. www.theguardian.com, 21. www.theguardian.com, 22. www.ibtimes.co.uk, 23. www.itv.com, 24. www.theguardian.com, 25. www.theguardian.com, 26. www.ibtimes.co.uk, 27. aseannow.com, 28. aseannow.com, 29. aseannow.com, 30. www.ibtimes.co.uk, 31. www.ibtimes.co.uk, 32. www.ibtimes.co.uk, 33. www.itv.com, 34. www.itv.com, 35. www.itv.com, 36. www.itv.com, 37. www.theguardian.com, 38. www.theguardian.com, 39. www.theguardian.com
