Anthony Seldon cannot fairly be described as a wreck: he is too dapper and too accomplished for that. But at times during our interview, as he clutches his head, runs a small, rigid claw through his hair and contorts his neat frame on the large sofa opposite, I wonder whether the headmaster of Brighton College needs a more specialised form of attention than that offered by an education correspondent.
It is clear that Seldon, a gleefully controversial figure in the somewhat rarefied world of private schools, puts himself under intense pressure as a matter of course. When he is not managing the school, or writing and editing one of his 20 political tomes - he has been John Major's official biographer and published two acclaimed studies of Tony Blair - he can be found teaching history, religious education and politics, directing the pupils in a play of his own composition, or chairing a city regeneration forum.
This week for the last time he hosts the annual education conference that he started at the school and which have become an important fixture for academics, headmasters and politicians: "I have tried to put Brighton on the map," Seldon says.
He leaves at the end of the year to tackle a very different type of institution - Wellington College in Berkshire, the grand school founded as a memorial to the Iron Duke in 1859 but hit recently by garish tabloid stories about pupils mistreating each other.
As if these challenges were not enough even for a driven man still looking youthful and energetic for his 50 years, this term Seldon has also decided, for fun, to sit philosophy AS-level alongside the lower sixth, and has promised to compare marks afterwards.
"I am quite nervous about it," he says, asking me to believe that he did not understand the philosophy course during his PPE degree at Oxford during the 1970s (I don't). "It will be my first public academic exam since finals." Later I hear his predicament is even trickier: the teacher has predicted he will get only an E.
As sunlight streams through mullioned windows into the headmaster's study, I decide that with all this frenzied activity and achievement going on, at least one of us has to relax.
So settling back among the cushions, I begin to enjoy the spectacle as Seldon lists the many responsibilities on his narrow, twitching shoulders and works himself up into a series of passions. His main themes include: the importance of the spiritual dimension in a rounded education; the failings of the "great and good" public schools; and the errors and inconsistencies in Mr Blair's blueprint for reform of state education.
"More has not been achieved by Blair because he has had no clear idea of what he wanted to do with power," he asserts in a merciless tone, combining the analysis of a political historian with the personal insights of a teacher who finds New Labour's schools policies insufficiently radical. With a wave of the hand he dismisses "the Treasury boys" who block good ideas. And, speaking before the election, he laments that if Labour wins a third term, it won't bring in the market solutions the country needs and will - eventually and inevitably - get.
Seldon wants to see means-tested fees for all state schools, to encourage unmotivated families ("If something is given for nothing it is not valued in the the same way") and bring about a shift from high taxation to more direct forms of payment for the affluent when using public services. He plans to outline this revolutionary idea in his conference speech on Thursday.
"Those who can afford to would pay much less at unpopular schools than popular schools," he says, while the poor would have their state school fees subsidised. "That way you would have an in-built incentive for middle class parents to move into those [less popular] schools, and it would address the alienation many parents feel."
The Blair family, for example, would have had to shell out a considerable sum to send eldest son Euan to the Oratory but not to Islington Green, their local comprehensive at the time.
Radical measures are needed, Seldon believes, because good comprehensives and grammar schools are "hugely hogged by the middle classes", who move house to get into the catchment areas and hire private tutors in the run up to the 11-plus.
"It is the old lie that we have a free education system in Britain," he claims, clearly relishing the idea that he is exploding myths precious to both left and right, parents and politicians. "It is not true. It will never be true."
"The logical thrust of the Blairite policy is to go in this direction but he doesn't have the political capital to do it," Seldon says. The government has decided to introduce vouchers for childcare and nurseries at one end of the education spectrum and tuition fees at the other, he points out. "If they had the courage, this is what they would do, and within 10 years it will come."
Seldon has been turned down three times for a job in the state sector, by schools wary of someone wanting to move out of the private sector ("It was a blow. I would have loved to work in a state school"), and he admits his observations on publicly funded education are therefore the impressions of an outsider. But his worries about the lack of personal attention available in large comprehensives, where pupil to teacher ratios are more than 16:1 compared with the 10:1 enjoyed at Brighton, are clearly sincere and based on years of promoting better links between state and independent schools - partly through his annual conferences.
During this part of our chat Seldon is less theatrical, more businesslike, jumping up helpfully to refer me to his Blair biography - "a tale of vast, unfulfilled potential . . . rhetoric and good intentions". He is an excellent and engaging advocate for his controversial views but admits those in power may have greater constraints in deciding how to heal the nation's divided schools system. "My views about education are idealistic - they can be because I'm not secretary of state."
Then he goes into performance mode again: "Maybe I'm a dreamer," he says dramatically, gazing out at the blossom in the courtyard and at the peaceful groups of students clustering there (striking attitudes is a key part of the Seldon method). The surroundings, with sombre but harmonious buildings designed by Sir Gilbert Scott and plentiful greenery, would certainly encourage idealism and commitment in this vein. In fact, the moral fervour of this renaissance man, the unmodish emphasis on headmastership as spiritual guidance are oddly reminiscent of
Robert Newton playing Dr Arnold in the 1951 film of Tom Brown's Schooldays, rolling eyeballs and all.
Learning that Mrs Seldon also teaches here - English and creative writing - I am half afraid a 19th century helpmeet might swoop into the room, toasted teacakes and motherly concern for the pupils at the ready.
Pastoral care is certainly central to Seldon's approach - "learning is about relationships," he says - and he is impressively gentle with the pupils who come to give me a tour. (Unsolicited, the students praise their headmaster as they show me around and tell me they are sorry to see him going.)
"It is essential for a head to know the kids, to teach, to know all the staff and see them all teach, to try to know as many parents as possible and be right in the centre," Seldon says.
He is hard on parents as a social group, however. At one point, describing his vision for education, he rails against what he calls the hypocrisy of middle class families who have manoeuvred their offspring into grammars or good comprehensives: "I have no particular problem with parents playing the system," he claims, but continues: "Where I find it offensive is where they boast of some kind of moral superiority for using the state system." This is famously the stuff of tortured dinner party conversations, and Seldon, whose three children are all at the College, would be a stimulating guest.
But it is exhausting. Doesn't he wear himself out with all this activity, enthusiasm and rage, I wonder. What spurs him on? "Fear of failure," he says, with a candour that startles me. "Fear of emptiness."
"But it is also the boundless wish to try to use the opportunity one has to affect children's lives and the lives of the community in positive ways." Seldon says he cannot seem to stop the flow of books, which "just happen" - the portrait of Blair was written in
10 weeks - but he finds teaching the best therapy for his other pressures. "What heads do not get is the same kind of affirmation teachers get. I am really envious of teachers at lunch when they talk about the classes they've taught." He will continue this in his new job but rejects the idea of replicating the way he has modelled Brighton College when he arrives at Wellington, a more traditional school.
He wants to make it "an international beacon" by trying new things. "I think that if you have an independent sector then it should be using these freedoms, it should use that huge advantage to greater advantage," he says. "It is not enough to boast about the number of Oxbridge entrants . . . The great and the good schools don't do enough to encourage the pupils to think about their own privilege."
Is sleepy Wellington ready for this provocative dynamo? Seldon is certainly looking forward to the challenge and is unapologetic about his controversial views: "I say what I think. Tough."
Miranda Green is the FT's education correspondent
