Hereford-raised Andrew Davies is one of the most promising prospects in UK politics. Earlier this year he was made Economic Development Minister with the Welsh Assembly. But if some tip him for the top, Andrew would like to think a little of his father's spirit keeps him level. Spirit got dad started. Cider to be specific. Wallace Davies was to dedicate a 38-year teaching career to St Paul's School, Tupsley.

HAUGHTY upon her high horse 'The Lady of Tupsley' trotted past without looking at the children who dipped their heads to her - as they were expected to do. She noticed them the next time she rode by. They didn't bother dipping. Their teacher told them not to.

Nature study taught them human nature that day. The respect those children had for Wallace 'Wally' Davies was real.

A lesson not lost on Wally's son and why he pledges his future to the Welsh Assembly where he is the minister for economic development.

Westminster might appear the obvious outlet for Andrew's ambitions. But Andrew has seen Westminster up close. It is 'The Lady of Tupsley'.

From the Assembly Andrew can make her notice.

A boy measures life by his father's strides; absorbs his smile, echoes his speech, stands the way he stood.

And standing in the playground of St Paul's School, Tupsley, Andrew Davies decided 'Dad' was the man he most wanted to be.

Andrew is back in that playground whenever time tempts present with past, watching Wally amble over mobbed by the other children holding his hands and skipping by his side.

This sharply focused flashback could be framed by any one of the 38 years 'Dad' dedicated to St Paul's.

Wally left Wales in 1935. Then they told him 'you have to get out to get on'.

Idealistic

As an idealistic, if somewhat unworldly, trainee teacher arriving early for an interview in Hereford he killed time, and nerves, at The Tabard Inn, High Town - where the Cheltenham and Gloucester Building Society is now.

Drink, a lack of direction, or both, made him late for his Town Hall date, and sure that this unflattering first impression left him last in line he allowed himself to 'unwind'.

Imagine his surprise, then, when the panel promptly offered him a post at St Paul's. But it wasn't the promise of a regular, secure wage during The Depression that made the decision for him, rather the ciders he had stopped off for.

Wally knew a "no" meant paying his own fare home. The money for that had been spent at The Tabard.

That spark of eccentric individuality was to define Wally's teaching. What he brought to class was timeless. A set of simple Christian and political principles based on compassion, humanity, tolerance and comradeship.

In cynical times it is easy to sneer at those values Wally wanted to instil. There were no sneers at the St Paul's Church Andrew saw packed for his father's funeral in 1987.

Packed in tribute to a quiet, private man always happier when with family or indulging simple satisfactions - fishing and gardening, a game of crib or a pint with friends.

Yet there was steeliness - some said stubbornness - behind the easy smiles. Wally could be read too literally. How many of Hereford's great and good, for instance, knew as they sang Wally's praises that he was a committed communist. The rise of fascism and the Spanish Civil War made him see Red; he never felt the need to justify it.

When children brought up on the casual heroics of comics pressed for his Second World War stories Wally retreated into himself, holding back those horrors he had seen serving in the Far East. Sights that left him with a lifelong contempt for tawdry jingoism passed off as patriotism.

When Wally did pick a fight Hereford knew about it. By the 1960s he was Head of St Paul's and could finally go after the school he wanted. The relatively rural setting he first came to - 150 pupils served by a standard, spare, Victorian school building - had swelled to a sprawl of sub-standard 'temporary' huts into which 600 were crammed.

Wally went public with his project in 1967, bluntly telling the then Hereford Evening News that farm animals had better facilities than his charges.

Backed by progressive governors - and cross-community fundraising to boost what government might give - work on an all new St Paul's was underway within a year.

A big victory, but Wally could take as much pleasure in personal triumphs engineered every day. Never the sort to surrender over any child - and as set against selection on ability as he was to segregation by gender - he believed children learned best together.

In return, they gave 'Mr Davies' of their best. Andrew was no different. After St Paul's and Hereford Cathedral School he went into teaching too, then business. But the Thatcher years left their mark, as they did on so many of the contemporary - note not New - Labour generation.

Andrew joined the party in 1979 and went back to the Wales Wally had been urged to leave all those years earlier.

A Wales Andrew wants to help 'get on'.

Dad never wanted a grand life, says Andrew. But in his own way he got one. Now it is for Andrew to hope that what he took from his father means he can take after him. The man he always wanted to be.

Old school, like Dad.