"Nigel and the other schoolboy smokers on the ‘Belsen Bus’

In the 1970s and 80s, many boys passed through Dulwich College in south London fairly anonymously.

- Graham Noble

Outside their own classes and circles of close friends, only the particularly brilliant, sporty or musical were well known, but, from an early age, Nigel Farage bucked this trend.

Everyone had heard of Nigel. He was a scruffy nonacademic with a minor talent for cricket, but he had one quality that set him apart: a gift for getting into trouble, and he clearly relished the notoriety that it brought him.

His attention-seeking continued into the sixth form, between September 1980 and July 1982, which is when I got to know him well. We did exactly the same A-levels — history, geography and economics — and were in the same tutor group: our tutor was the former English Test cricketer John Dewes. By this time, Nigel had transformed himself into something of a dandy. His obsessively maintained mirror-shine shoes, rolled umbrella, smart blazer and military strut set him apart from the rest of us.