Saturday 14 July 2012

Who was Sacha?

No, I am not going to name names but rather respond to a question from a correspondent about who Sacha was in real life.


Sacha was the son of two parents who met at Oxford University.  Oxford was something that ran in the family as one of Sacha’s uncles was a senior academic at the University.

Sacha’s parents started their married life in Oxford. All three children (Sam, Peter and Sacha) were born in Oxford.  But when Sacha was a small boy the family moved and his mother stopped working to look after her expanding family with the aid of an au pair who looked after Sacha and Peter.

I never found out much about Sacha’s home life other than the family had a dog and that Sacha had the smallest bedroom in the house.  The one story Sacha told me about his home life was when he was left home alone one evening when his parents went out socialising.  Bored, Sacha decided to try the whisky in the drinks cabinet and then proceeded to drink himself senseless, passing out on the dining room floor.  Fortunately, this rare example of Sacha's more adventurous side was not discovered as he managed to creep back up stairs to his bedroom unnoticed.

Sacha and Peter were in constant rivalry throughout their childhood.  The stories of fights over football came from Sacha. Their rivalry came about as Sacha was the brighter of the two.  Peter was more artistic and used to paint and play the guitar and I suspect was destined to join the family business unless he escaped.  Peter left school at 16 and went to college as he was not cut out for academia.  

Post 'The Rocks' Sacha did well at his O levels with 4As amongst nine in total.  He went on to do four A levels in maths and the sciences.  Sacha told me that he was expected to go to Oxford, he probably did.  His parents were very keen for him to go to university and do well.  That was part of the reason why he was quite driven as his parents put a lot of pressure on him.

Beyond that I do not know what happened, but Sacha always struck me as a conformist so I imagine him out there, married with kids in a respectable job.  But sometimes life is not like that!