Sting [Stories]

Sting’s real name is Gordon Matthew Sumner. He was born on October 2, 1951, in the port city of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, the major industrial center in Northern England. His father, Ernest Matthew Sumner, for a long time worked as a fitter in a local engineering firm and later owned a small dairy. His mother Audrey worked as a hairdresser and an auxiliary nurse.

Sting grew up in the family of devout Catholics. At 7 years old he even was an altar boy at St. Columba’s Roman Catholic Church, one of the major churches in Newcastle. As he grew older, Sting became more estranged from strict rules and traditions of the Catholicism, and in his youth his views and behavior could hardly be described as religious. But at a later age Sting in his interviews emphasized that family traditions and his Catholic upbringing influenced his worldview and work in a major way.

He went to St. Cuthbert’s Grammar School in the uptown Newcastle, in his first years earning himself the nickname Lurch, after The Addams’ Family TV character. This was reputedly because he was very tall for his age. He had another school nickname, Noddy, which evolved from spelling his name backwards.

With only mediocre A-level results this left his option of colleges that would accept him to only a handful. Two colleges based in Coventry were found that could accommodate him, the Warwick University to do English and the Lanchester Polytechnic to do Computer Science. But after a few weeks his college education ended, as Sting apparently could not make a choice between linguistics and programming.

In 1971 Sting entered the Northern Counties Teacher Training College. Without a scholarship in view, he tried a number of different professions, from bus conductor to a civil servant at the Inland Revenue. Finally graduating from the college in 1974 with a diploma in English and music, he became a teacher in a Newcastle secondary school. He took up a teaching post for two years at St. Paul’s Roman Catholic First School (primary), Cramlington, where he had to teach all subjects.

Ever since his college days Sting had been very active as a musician. True to his hobby, he went on playing in school, often strumming his guitar or tinkling on the piano during the breaks between classes. It was then when he became the weekend musician with several local bands, like the Newcastle Big Band, The Phoenix Jazzmen, Earthrise and Last Exit.

It is worth mentioning that Last Exit was hugely popular in their native North England. Some of their fusion compositions, based on jazz improvisations and rock, could have even gained popularity outside Great Britain, but for the punk wave swamping the scene in the late 1970’s.