Helen Fielding modelled Bridget Jones'

Mr Wallaker on real-life teacher


Harriet Arkell | The Mail Online - October 14, 2013



The private school teacher who inspired Bridget Jones’s new romantic hero told today how he thought author Helen Fielding was joking when she asked if her hunk could be based on him.

Andrew Walliker, who teaches at the north London school attended by Fielding’s nine-year-old son, said he was surprised but ‘quite flattered’ to have been the inspiration for Mr Wallaker, the pin-up teacher in the third instalment of Bridget Jones’ diaries.

The 53-year-old father-of-three, who teaches games and history at University College School, Junior Branch (JB), told MailOnline: ‘I thought she was pulling my leg when Helen asked – I’ve got more of a face for radio.’


Move over Mark Darcy! Teacher Andrew Walliker, 53, is the inspiration for
Bridget Jones’ new love interest



Mr Walliker, who like the fictional hunk in Mad About The Boy is married, said the multi-millionaire author rang him on holiday this August to ask if she could base her new hero on him.

‘I was staying with some friends in the New Forest and when I walked in they all looked like they had a secret, as the school headmaster had been on the phone to my wife, Angela,’ he said.

‘Then Helen rang and I had her talking to me in one ear and the kids yelling at me in the other – I just thought she was pulling my leg.


 

Spot the difference: Helen Fielding says teacher Mr Walliker, left, looks ‘a bit like’
Bond actor Daniel Craig, right



‘Helen gave me a synopsis of the book and of course I said yes – I don’t think she’d have been very happy with me if I’d said no.’

He said Fielding, whose son Dashiell attends the £16,000-a-year boys’ school in Hampstead, had warned her that the Mr Wallaker in her book would have a sex scene with Bridget.


‘I don’t mind that, as long as she doesn’t give me penile dysfunction,’ he said.  ‘To be honest I think it’s just quite flattering to be asked.’



Chess-playing hero: The real Mr Walliker, pictured with his son Harry, 12, plays chess,
as does the fictional one


Mr Walliker, who lives in Bushey, Hertfordshire, with his wife and children Teddy, 17, Amy 15, and Harry, 12, said his family were amused when Fielding rang him, but had forgotten about it since.

The down-to-earth teacher said: ‘I see Helen at sporting events and parents’ evenings but that’s about the size of it.

‘The kids I teach are oblivious to it – they are more concerned with their work, and Bridget Jones isn’t on their reading list, it’s more Roald Dahl.’


Speaking at the Cheltenham Literature Festival last night, Fielding, 55, said: I just thought it was a great name.  It’s like ‘walloper’ but it’s not and I loved it’, the
Telegraph reported.


She said she had tried and failed to come up with alternatives to the teacher’s real name, so she rang her son’s headmaster, Kevin Douglas, who agreed to the plan and put her in touch with Mr Walliker.


The original hero, played in the films by Colin Firth (above with Renée Zellweger as Bridget),
is now dead



Fielding said: ‘We got hold of Mr Walliker who was in the New Forest, I told him about it and he thought it would be great fun.’

 

Giving rise to speculation about who might play the new romantic lead in any future film of the third Bridget Jones Diary, the Yorkshire-born author said the fictional Mr Wallaker looked like James Bond actor Daniel Craig, as did his real-life counterpart.

 

Headmaster Mr Douglas, 57, told MailOnline the Daniel Craig likeness had not occurred to him before.

 

He said: ‘Helen rang me while I was on holiday in the Norfolk Broads and I was more amused than surprised when she said she wanted to base her hero on Andrew Walliker.  She said she just really liked the name.

 

‘I wouldn’t say he looks much like Daniel Craig but it’s a bit of fun for all of us.  Andrew has been here for years and is an absolute star and we all love him.

 

‘But I must admit I haven’t noticed any mothers throwing themselves at him at the school gates.’

 

Fielding, who lives in both London and Los Angeles, has two children by American Kevin Curran, from whom she is now separated, Dashiell, nine, and Romy, seven.  What Dashiell thinks of the decision to pick his teacher as a male lead has not been revealed.



 

Helen Fielding, above left, rang her son’s teacher and asked if he minded her naming

the book’s hero after him



But the move to include a handsome teacher in the third instalment of the fictional diary will delight Bridget enthusiasts who have waited 14 years since the second instalment, Bridget Jones: The Edge Of Reason, was published in 1999.

 

The heroine is no longer a tragic singleton but a 51-year-old heroine who is now a mother-of-two, single since the swooned-after Mr Darcy died.  Living in north London and addicted to her smartphone, the up-to-date Jones is having an affair with a younger man and coping with school-gate politics.

 

Fielding has said she telephoned Mark Darcy actor Colin Firth to break the news to him that his character had died.

 

She said: ‘I had to ask him if he had someone with him and if he was sitting down – it was like someone had actually died. ‘I was almost saying “I’m so sorry for your loss”.’

 

Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy was published by Jonathan Cape last week.