Neil Guthrie

Neil Guthrie is a history teacher at Waterloo Road High School.

Series 11[]

After the riot on the first day of term, Neil insists to Kim Campbell that the school needs better security. He opposes the student campaign to rename the school, saying that the issue is historical context, not cancel culture.

After befriending a grieving Donte Charles and attending a support group for bereaved husbands together after telling Donte that his own wife, Sarah, is also dead, Donte is shocked and betrayed to find out that Sarah is not dead and instead left Neil for his best friend, taking their daughters with her. Neil thought it easier and less humiliating to tell everyone she had died. He reveals this to Donte and Tonya Walters after Tonya becomes convinced Neil murdered his wife and buried her in his garden, breaking into his property to try to dig her up.

Neil also befriends Afghan student Norullah Sayyid, initially attempting to communicate with him through gestures before Norullah reveals his hidden ability to speak English. Norullah tells Neil about his missing brother, and Neil and the school offer to help locate him.

Series 12[]

At the start of Series 12, Neil volunteers to referee the football match that the school puts on for the students to play alongside the police that have been stationed at the school following the stabbing at the end of the previous series, in an attempt to make the students less apprehensive around the police officers. Neil quickly becomes a bit too 'trigger-happy' with the red card, and also gets pranked when his whistle is stolen after he puts it down on a table, resulting in him refereeing the match by shouting the word 'whistle' instead of whistling.

Also during this series, he teaches Amy Spratt to drive, though they have a minor falling-out after poor advice from Neil leads Amy to embarrass herself in front of her crush Donte. Amy and Neil soon make up, and Neil ends up letting Amy move in with him after hearing about her house-finding troubles.

Towards the end of the series, Amy and Neil commentate over a loudspeaker on the school's charity run, though he ends up boring everybody with stories of his past as a referee.

Series 13[]

In Series 13 Neil is appointed teacher governor by his colleagues, having been the only one to put his name forward.

Also in Series 13, Neil is the target of a prank by Dean Weever and Noel McManus when they create a fake profile in Coral Walker's name and use it to catfish him, making him think that he is flirting with her online. After they send Neil a picture of Dean's feet making him think they are Coral's, Neil confronts Coral, and she denies having anything to do with it. They work out that Dean and Noel are behind it, and catch them out. Following this, Neil and Coral end up giving a relationship a go for real.

Neil is stunned when his daughter Libby turns up out of the blue, having run away from her mother in New Zealand. Neil lets Libby spend a day at the school, but is adamant that he will take her to the airport to go back to New Zealand at the end of the day. Libby, however, quickly shows her manipulative side, guilt-tripping Coral and persuading Neil to let her stay, before trying to split them up by lying to Coral that Neil saw their relationship as "a bit of fun" and "nothing serious". Libby continues to try to manipulate this relationship when she lies about Neil and his lodger Amy being like an "old married couple" at home and that Amy walks around the house "in her underwear", until Amy agrees to move into the box room at the house and gives Libby her old bedroom back.

Later in the series, Libby uses Coral's laptop to steal money from Chlo's charity after watching Coral type her password in. When the staff go to St Clements Academy for teacher training sessions during inset day, Coral spends most of the day trying to find out who stole the money, almost suspecting Amy at one point, before the bank tells her that the money was sent to an account set up in New Zealand and she confronts Libby, who admits it but manages to persuade Coral not to tell Neil. However, after Neil finds a leaflet about the morning-after pill in Coral's bag and she is forced to reveal that she helped Libby get the morning-after pill after she slept with Dean, Coral tells Libby that she wants no more lies between herself and Neil and that she will tell him about the stolen money, but Libby takes drastic action by throwing herself down the stairs and lying that Coral pushed her.

Neil sides with his daughter and refuses to believe Coral until Amy shows him an essay that Libby had handed into her in English class claiming she had worked really hard on it. Amy tells Neil that the essay is completely plagiarised, and points out that if she can lie so easily about working hard on it, then what else has she lied about. Neil confronts Libby and forces her to admit everything and apologise to Coral. Neil and Coral then reconcile.

Series 14[]

In Series 14 Episode 1, Neil is among the staff who react with dismay when now-acting headteacher Joe brings them into the new "staffroom", a tiny cupboard-like space with no seating, and tells them that the large fully-furnished staffroom that they saw when they first came to the new building is being refurbished into a charging hub for the students' tablets.

When Amy lets slip to the staff that Joe offered to bump up her salary with a TLR payment, there is uproar and Joe is soon accused of cronyism. He abates the staff by telling them that all of them are being offered these payments, but later has to tell them that it is not viable as the school is already way over budget.

There is further uproar among the staff when Joe suspends Neil for restraining Dean on the floor after Dean tried to punch him. As the staff protest at Joe again, he escapes into a lift, which promptly gets stuck between floors. Neil sarcastically labels this a 'serious access issue', and he and the rest of the staff close the school 'for safety' and walk out, leaving Joe stuck in the lift. Steve Savage later chastises them all in the pub for contravening their conditions of service by allowing the children to go home without authorisation, and encourages them to find a peaceful resolution.

In Episode 2, Coral reveals she is going for the co-deputy head position that has opened up following the departure of Lindon King. She is dismayed to discover that Neil is also going for the position, and their relationship hits yet another rocky patch as they engage in some point-scoring reviewing of each other's lessons, but ultimately, after some home truths from Amy, Neil changes his stance and fully endorses Coral for deputy head, leaving her overwhelmed with emotion.

In Episode 3, when a parent threatens to complain to Ofsted about Neil insulting her son, Coral pretends to be deputy head in an attempt to portray herself as a respected authority figure. She is forced to take a hard line with Neil and suggests he takes part in restorative justice. Newly-appointed headteacher Steve is impressed by Coral's initiative, and she gets the deputy head job.

In Episode 6, local MP Mel Parkinson visits the school. Neil wastes no time in telling her he voted for her. While Mel is visiting his class, Kelly Jo comes in and ambushes her with a petition to keep the local youth centre open, and Neil and now-headteacher Steve snap at Kelly Jo to stop and get out. Later, when Neil is supposed to be showing Mel around, Kelly Jo brings her to the youth centre itself, pretending that Neil had asked her to give Mel a tour of a 'workshop'. When Neil finds them in the youth centre, he is furious, until Mel talks him down and offers Kelly Jo a scholarship at a Russell Group university. Neil is delighted and passionately encourages Kelly Jo to accept the offer, but she later turns it down, telling him that if she took the scholarship, she would be doing what he wanted, not what she herself truly wanted.

Trivia[]

Neil's actor, Neil Fitzmaurice, previously appeared in Series 6 Episode 14 as Dave Dowling, the father of Martin Dowling. Dave encouraged Kyle Stack and Martin to abuse caretaker Lukas Wisniewski due to Dave having not got the job instead.
Neil Guthrie used to be a longstanding referee in the Wigan and District Football League.

Quotes[]

"Lockdown, all is forgiven." (first line)

"First we're greeted with gang warfare, and now we've got some hobo creeping around."

Neil: "Look, the conversation should be about historical context, not cancel culture!"
Valerie: "And you won't find a 'Jimmy Savile Secondary School' on my bus route."

"What is wrong with a game of footy? Or cricket? Or, you know, just a...bloody good cross-country run? But basketball is like netball for posers!"

Kim: "Honestly, I'm shocked. I can't believe that I heard you speak to Tonya like that!"
Neil: "Oh, as if she's gonna run for school council, I mean she's no Angela Rayner, is she?"

"She left me for my best mate. It was humiliating. Then one day, right out the blue, someone comes up to me and says they were sorry to hear about my wife passing...and I didn't correct them. Cos it was easier. It was less painful. I just said it once, and then...I couldn't unsay it!"

"I'm intuitive. Sensitive, if you like, you know? I have an instinct when it comes to matters of the heart."

"Dean Weever's back in general population. Cue staff sickies."

Amy: "Come on, Neil, I need you to drop some next-level wisdom on me, yeah? I am freaking out!"
Neil: "Well...you see all this [mock scream]? Well, the whole thing is really all just a song and dance. Smoke and mirrors. It's a farce. It's a thankless, pointless, bureaucratic exercise of the highest degree. The key is...care less."

"You'd better inspect me then, because I'm teaching this class. And if you write an unfair report on Miss Spratt, well, I'll have no choice but to be truthful about what went on here today."

"Oh, god's boots, Dean Weever! How old are you, son? Get gone!"

Amy: "Mm. Well, good job it's staff karaoke night, then, innit?"
Neil: "Oh...the ancient Japanese art of making a berk outta yourself, no thank you."

"We were already here. This is our bunker from the feral blitz."

"To be fair, yes. But I care about by colleagues. Very much. Sharing of information is important, I think. So when a fellow governor disclosed something to me last night, I thought it was my duty to, um, pass on the news to my colleagues. Just when were you going to share our impending academy status with us?"

"Oh, she-she-she wasn't. This was all down to me. A naive old ma-middle aged man, who...dared to dream."

"I don't say this very often, Kelly Jo, but you are right."

"I'm sure this will come as a surprise to you, Donte, but I don't, like, exactly have a way with women. Coral hates me. My daughter hates me. I'm about to lose the two best things that's happened to me, and what am I doing? I'm hiding, in here, like a gutless pushover that I am."

"I know this is...a lot to ask...but um...if you wanna listen to me talk about how much of a fool I am, at great length, well, maybe we could uh...grab a...garden centre coffee, over the holidays?"

"Where is our staffroom? You know, the one with the...sofas, and the...the-the computers, and the windows?!"

"Well, it's me that needs support. I'm a cis white male - or as they used to call it, a man - the odds are stacked against me from the start."

"She comes in at weekends to do wall displays. Gives GCSE lessons in the holidays. Lives and breathes the job. And uh, for me...that has been an education. It goes without saying that she is unbelievably valued by pupils and by her colleagues...and by me. Look, I know that the uh...this wasn't the aim of the review, but I would like to recommend Coral for deputy head."

Kelly Jo: "Sir! Sir! Have you signed the petition yet?"
Neil: "Uh, yes, you cornered me by the staffroom yesterday morning."

"Just to clarify, are you saying that one of our pupils could be a murderer?"

"Am I having an episode, or did our illustrious leader just get carted off by the boys in blue?"