The Times has tracked down the anonymous choir members who once called for their teacher to “leave those kids alone” and found that, as well as pursuing a legal action for unpaid royalties from the song, they are now singing from a rather different hymn sheet.

Ian Abbott, 40, was one of 13 pupils whom their music teacher, Alun Renshaw, sneaked into the Britannia Row studios to record the chorus for the song in 1979.

“We don’t need no education does not hold, especially with children,” he said at the weekend. “Some of my nieces, for example, have been having problems at school. I say to them: ‘You must knuckle down’, and they say: ‘But why? Look at what you sang’.

“But education is so important. I really regret the fact that I did not do an awful lot at school and I would like to go to university now and get a degree. But work gets in the way when you get older.”

With Pink Floyd in tax exile, the pupils, aged 12 to 15, never met the band and were robbed of fame because Margaret Maden, their infuriated head teacher, banned any publicity when told of the controversial lyrics.

She had been brought in to turn around Islington Green School, then regarded as a sink-estate school. She had sought to increase the number of children from Islington’s new influx of middle-class families.

Now a respected educationist, Professor Maden said: “The influence of middle-class and ethnic children was quite palpable on all kids. We believed in a balanced intake and this reflected the area we were in.”

Tabitha Mellor, 38, now a teacher in Hackney, said: “There was a real mix of Cockney and the bohemian middle class. We were lucky to have that education and I was privileged to have lived in such an area.

“Maden was fantastic because I think she got the highest grades ever and saw us right through. She was an educational genius and was one of the inspirations for me to become a teacher.

“I now try to inspire my kids like that. It helps that I can tell them that I had a No 1.”

Mirabai Narayan, the granddaughter of Stephen Swingler, the former Labour minister, is now a learning mentor dealing with problem children at a primary school in Camden.

She said: “It’s strange now because I do wonder whether that song has influenced my choice of career. My job now is to help to overcome barriers to learning for kids and if I listen to the song now it makes me shiver — especially the line about ‘dark sarcasm’.

Explore UK News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• The bright side of this winter rain
• Story behind the picture: Snow Leopard, 2008
• Times Charity Appeal: The Place2Be