Nick Griffin - Early Life and Education

Early Life and Education

The son of former Conservative councillor Edgar Griffin and his wife Jean, Nicholas John Griffin was born on 1 March 1959 in Barnet and moved to Southwold in Suffolk aged eight. He was educated at Woodbridge School before winning a sixth–form scholarship to the independent Saint Felix School in Southwold, one of only two boys in the all-girls school.

Griffin read Mein Kampf when he was fourteen, and "found all but one chapter extremely boring." He joined the National Front in 1974, while he was still fourteen, though he had to pretend he was fifteen, and at the age of sixteen is reported to have stayed at the home of National Front organiser Martin Webster. In a four-page leaflet written in 1999, Webster claimed to have had a homosexual relationship with Griffin, then the BNP's publicity director. Griffin has denied any such relationship.

In 1977, Griffin went to Downing College, Cambridge, where he studied history, then law. His affiliation with the National Front was revealed during a Cambridge Union debate, and his photograph was published in a student newspaper. He later founded the Young National Front Student organisation. He graduated with a second-class honours degree in law (2:2), and a boxing blue, having taken up the sport following a brawl in Lewisham with a member of an anti-fascist party. He boxed three times against Oxford in the annual Varsity match, winning twice and losing once. In an interview with The Independent, he said he gave it up because of a hand injury. He is a fan of Ricky Hatton and Joe Calzaghe, and an admirer of Amir Khan.