Christopher Walters
Department
Drama & Theatre Studies
Qualifications
BEd Westminster College
Contact information
Telephone: +44 (0)1280 818422
Email: cwalters@stowe.co.uk
Life before Stowe
Immediately before Stowe I fondly imagined I’d retired, but more accurately I was taking a career break – looking after my youngest, smallest child, while simultaneously gardening, shopping and writing. Before that I was Head of Drama at Lord Williams’s School in Thame, and simultaneously Artistic Director of Thame Youth Theatre, which I’d founded in 1989.
What do you enjoy most about your subject?
First, the complete buzz of performance, both personally (though I do suffer from appalling stage fright, being but a shy creature really) and vicariously through those I teach, direct and know. Second, those days when I come to work and am immensely entertained by the work put on in front of me.
What do you enjoy most about Stowe?
The landscape and the buildings, which are astonishing; and the jokes and banter with others, staff and pupil alike.
What is your favourite Lesson?
Like many who have been teaching for a few years, I suspect I repeat myself: my excuse being that even if it’s old hat to me, to the pupil it remains new and exciting (I hope). But those lessons are relatively safe, so what gives me the most pleasure are those occasions when I wander into pastures new, and it still works, and all of us have an exciting time learning something new. I’m not sure I could cope with that uncertainty on a regular basis, however!
Passions
I do spend a lot of time in my garden and I love it, without knowing very much at all. I make mosaics on a relatively large scale – you’d be surprised at the satisfaction to be derived from taking a hammer to bits of china. When the opportunity arises, I perform, I’ve been Joseph of Arimathea, Doubting Thomas and lately Pontius Pilate in some Mediaeval Mystery Plays which have been taking place in a nearby village for the past 37 years (but only about ten with me.) And I was once on The Weakest Link, but that’s another story…