THE Altrincham-born boss of the Barbican Centre and former BBC Proms chief, Sir Nicholas Kenyon, has highlighted the value of arts education in Britain’s uncertain future.

Sir Nicholas was guest of honour at the College Speech Day at his old school, St Bede’s, on Wednesday July 13.

After presenting prizes and certificates to students, he told them what a joy it was to be back in the school for the first time since 1967.

“St Bede’s gave me an enormous grounding in life for which I will always be grateful and I’m sure you, too, will have the same experience and it will set you in amazingly good stead for the future,” he said.

After watching performances of Nella Fantasia by head girl Charlotte Killingley, a violin solo of Reverie by Martha Wall and a scene form ‘The Taming of the Shrew’, Sir Nicholas reminisced about his time at St Bede’s.

“I think it was the peak of my performing career to be the leading lady in a Gilbert and Sullivan opera at St Bede’s College. It was a very, very different school to what it is now. It is so impressive now to see the range of music, drama and performing arts that goes on here,” he said.

“The cultural life now of the college is clearly fantastic and I think it needs to grow and develop because I think we all believe this is an absolutely fundamental thing we are struggling with every single day of the week in the arts.

“Embedding the arts in a humane education is absolutely essential. It is wonderfully rewarding and it is not recognised by politicians.

“I had the chance to talk to the Prime Minister about that quite recently and he just kept batting it away because the idea is that the arts is a nice-to-have add-on for those who probably aren’t going to be very good at engineering.”

Sir Nicholas continued: “The idea that what the arts actually give you is a way of thinking about the world and unleashing creativity is, I think, still a political battle to be won. This is going to affect the future of the country for a long time to come whatever the outcome of the present uncertainty, I would say.

“It’s going to be something that absolutely needs to be embedded into our thinking about what a great education is. The idea that the arts and music are the first thing to go if there are cuts because they are a luxury, is really profoundly misguided because we know they are absolutely necessary for a healthy, balanced society.”