Young thespian Nick Clegg was kneed in the groin by a Hollywood actress

David Cameron was almost expelled from Eton in a drugs scandal

Labour leader recalls being beaten up at Haverstock School in London

When Ed Miliband went back to his old school this week he admitted having a 'faint whiff of trepidation'.

He need not have worried. Compared to the other party leaders he was, in his own words, a 'bit square'.

But which leader had to recite Kings and Queens on the toilet? Who was kneed in the groin on stage by Helena Bonham Carter?

And which party leader was once reprimanded for being unable to hold his drink, after being sick on a school bus?

Cameron was almost expelled for smoking cannabis at Eton

Much has been made of David Cameron's elite private education at Eton, but even his prep school – Heatherdown - was an exclusive institution, which also counted royals including Prince Andrew as pupils.

In a production of Toad Of Toad Hall, he played the little know part of Harold Rabbit. Prince Edward was Mole.

As a young boarder at Heatherdown, Cameron had to sit on the toilet after breakfast reciting facts parrot-fashion, like the Kings and Queens of England.

Then and now: David Cameron has argued that politicians deserve to have a private life before they enter public life, but admits he did 'lots of things before I came into politics which I shouldn't have done'

Sent away to a boarding school from the age of seven, the stories of his time there read like a male version of St Trinian's.

At night young Cameron would join friends to carry out raids on strawberries being grown in the grounds. On one occasion when he was caught, he was beaten by the headmaster with a clothes brush.

When not stealing fruit, Cameron would sneak into the school pool for an after-dark swim or meet girls from a neighbouring school for midnight 'trysts'.

The Tory leader has admitted to being a 'terrible snob' at the age of seven, mocking people who used words like 'toilet', according to the biography 'Cameron: Practically a Conservative' by Francis Elliott and James Hanning.

I did lots of things before I came into politics which I shouldn't have done Tory leader David Cameron

An accomplished cricketer, he played for the school team but apparently lacked the physique for rugby.

In 1979 he started at Eton, where he developed a reputation for being 'hard as nails' behind his now well-known affable exterior.

That's not to say he did not have an attitude. He apparently once told the mother of a friend: 'Women have the intellectual span of a gnat.'

He avoided the custom of 'fagging' for older boys, which had died out before he arrived.

He started taking drum lessons, inspired by the middle section of In The Air Tonight by Phil Collins, but never joined a band.

The Jam's Eton Rifles came out in his first year, and Cameron has described it one of his favourite songs.

But lead singer Paul Weller once hit back: 'It wasn't intended as a f***ing jolly drinking song for the cadet corps.'

It was at Eton that he developed his ability to perform under pressure, suddenly performing well when exam season loomed

This trait has been repeated in government, when his reputation for being an 'essay crisis Prime Minister' has been built on his habit of only raising his game when his back is against the wall..

David Cameron was a pupil at Eton from 1979-84, but was almost expelled after students were caught smoking marijuana

Described as an 'expert kisser' aged 13, had a poster of model Cheryl Tiegs on his wall and used to smoke and drink wine behind the cricket pavilion.

In May 1983, Cameron was nearly expelled from Eton for his involvement in a minor drugs scandal which made the papers.

Teachers discovered found some boys were travelling to nearby Slough, buying cannabis and distributing it in the school. Several confessed to being small-time dealers and were kicked out immediately.

Cameron admitted only smoking the drug, and escaped expulsion but was fined, banned from leaving the site - known as 'gated' - and made to do lines.

When he became Tory leader there was inevitable interest in his schooling and upbringing.

Cameron once said: 'I did lots of things before I came into politics which I shouldn't have done. We all did.'

But the Tory leader and his aides insist 'politicians have a right to a private life before they come into politics'.

Miliband was a geek. Sensible. His 'vice' was watching Dallas

Even Ed Miliband himself admits that as a schoolboy he was 'a bit square'. He jokes that it should come as no surprise that he almost always behaved himself.

Growing up in the North London household of Marxist Ralph Miliband, his 'greatest vice' was sneaking off from political debates around the kitchen table to watch Dallas.

In a house of middle-class left-wing intellectuals, he called his parents by name: Ralph and Marion, not Dad and Mum.

Then and now: Ed Miliband has returned to his school days to burnish his credentials as a party leader

The only main party leader to be state educated, young Miliband actually started school at Featherbank Infants in Yorkshire where his father had taken a job at Leeds University.

Before long the family moved again, to the US, to spend a year in Boston, where he fell in love with baseball and American Football. His idea of a treat was McDonalds and bowling.

I may have been hit a few times. I went to a tough school Labour leader Ed Miliband

In 1981 Miliband had started at Haverstock School, often dubbed the left's Eton, though his contemporaries argue it was a 'tough' school.

On Thursday Miliband went back to the school in one of the smartest areas of North London, close to Primrose Hill and Camden Market. Ex-pupils include former footballer John Barnes and singer Tulisa Contostavlos.

While many youngsters becoming teenagers choose to rebel, at the age of 13 Miliband helped to deliver leaflets for Labour for the 1983 election.

It didn't do much good - Michael Foot took Labour to the party's worst ever defeat.

Miliband was a geek. Sensible. Serious. He liked watching snooker on TV and playing Manic Miner on a ZX81 computer, according to 'Ed: The Milibands and the making of a Labour leader' by James Macintyre and Mehdi Hasan.

Miliband would lend his maths homework to other pupils who were struggling. He avoided trouble, or tried to but occasionally had to avoid getting beaten up. He was sometimes bullied.

'Well, I may have been hit a few times,' he revealed in 2011. 'I went to a tough school.'

Ed Miliband attended Haverstock Comprehensive School in Chalk Farm, north London from 1981-89

After his last O level exam he went to watch Geoffrey Boycott's final innings at Lords. He spent that summer working for Labour MP and family friend Tony Benn.

He says he was 'too square' to drink under-age, and did not take drugs even when he reached Oxford University. 'I was a bit square', he adds, to emphasise the point.

In fact the most rock and roll thing that could be said about Miliband's childhood is used to be good at completing a Rubik's Cube, completing it in 90 seconds.

How thespian Clegg's school career almost went up in flames

Nick Clegg was brought up not to take strict rules too seriously, and at school he certainly did not.

Prone to challenging authority figures, he experimented with rock music, smoked and drank and was nearly expelled for arson. The son of an English banker and a Dutch mother, at home he would speak both languages.

Unimaginably nicknamed 'Clog' at various points in his childhood, from the age of seven he went to Caldicott prep school near Slough, occasionally boarding.

Then and now: Nick Clegg honed his acting skills during his school days, including wearing a velvet jacket to play Charles Condomine in Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit (right)

His repeated questioning of authority led a teacher to throw his plastic cup to the floor, which bounced up and hit another boy on the head, according to 'Nick Clegg: The Biography' by Chris Bowers.

But Clegg clearly could not have been too irritating, as he was eventually made head prefect, developing a knack for including teachers in his jokes..

A young music fan – he listened to a lot of Jonny Cash during family road trips across Europe – he reached grade four on the piano, and also 'dabbled' with the drums and guitar, but gave up the latter after discovering he was 'crap'.

At prep school he played tennis and hockey, and was good at rugby – a sport not played at Westminster School which he started in 1980.

Contemporaries at Westminster included TV presenter Louise Theroux, actress Helena Bonham Carter and Bush lead singer Gavin Rossdale.

I have never been convicted of arson at any time in my life but I did commit a very bad thing when I was a teenager Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg

Those who have noted - and perhaps occasionally been irritated - by Clegg's ham-acting will not be surprised to learn he enjoyed am-dram at school. He took the lead role in The Government Inspector while at Caldicott.

At Westminster he took the lead in The Changeling, opposite Hollywood actress in-the-making Helena Bonham Carter.

In one scene she had to kick him between the legs, and one night she hit the target rather too authentically. 'She got it spot on… no acting was required,' Clegg recalls.

He also once donned a purple velvet jacket to play Charles Condomine in Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit - a man who boasts about his sexual conquests.

In life imitating art, Clegg later claimed in an interview of having slept with 'no more than 30' women.

He shunned fashion, wearing cords and Kickers. Something of a teacher's pet, he became head of house, sending other prefects into pubs to check up on students drinking.

But it was his own drinking that meant one night, on a school trip to Germany, he did a 'very bad thing'.

Nick Clegg was a pupil at Westminster School, a short walk from the Houses of Parliament, from 1980-85

In the summer of 1983, the pro-EU politician indulged in a youthful experimentation with arson while on an exchange trip to Munich which he later claimed was an example of 'rare anti-Europeanism'.

On the trip Clegg was sent to stay at with the family of a judge who was also a collector rare cacti.

One night, after getting 'very drunk' he ventured into conservatory housing dozens of specimens with schoolfriend Tom Browne.

Clegg – already an enthusiastic smoker - took out his lighter and starting to singe the 'beards' of the priceless plants. Some recall five cacti were damaged, others claim it was as many as 15.

He escaped serious punishment but was made to carry out community service as penance, digging up flowerbeds in a suburb of Munich. But fare from being a real troublemaker, teachers recall he was 'appalled' at what he had done.

How Farage escaped the cane for drinking whisky before lessons

It is probably no surprise that alcohol appears to play a big part in Nigel Farage's schooldays.

He recalls, in often graphic detail, how his first forays into drinking – behind the cricket pavilion and in a village pub – got him into trouble.

But in a foretaste of his Teflon-like political persona, the young Farage manages to avoid getting into serious trouble in a school career in which he tried his hand at almost everything, including being a Conservative.

Then and now: Ukip leader Nigel Farage describes being a 'cocky little sod' when he was at school

Farage admits to being a 'cocky little sod' at school. There was a lot of writing lines and dodging board rubbers thrown by angry teachers.

He has claimed his first years at Greenhayes School for Boys in West Wickham school were 'blighted' by his parents' divorce when he was five.

In fact he left the school before being 'removed' and started at Eden Park where the strict headmistress killed wasps with her bare hands. Farage boasts he was good at almost everything, with the exception of maths.

Having felt he'd mastered cricket he took up golf at the age of eight, later playing both sports for his school.

My arse twitched. My genitals bunched. My stomach whimpered Ukip leader Nigel Farage

Aged 10 he took the Common Entrance exam early and started at the 'terrifying' feeing-paying Dulwich College, staffed by tough veterans of World War Two.

He was 'dazzled' when Enoch Powell was a guest speaker, harangued Red Ken Livingston and was turned on to politics after reading John Stuart Mill's On Liberty in the school library.

In 1978 Keith Joseph, later a Tory Education Secretary, spoke at the school about the perils of state ownership of industry.

The next day the young Nigel joined the Conservative party, where he remained until he joined Ukip in 1993.

Unsurprisingly for someone who has built an entire political movement on posing in pubs, his biggest problems at school were linked to alcohol.

In his fourth year at Dulwich, a group of friends pooled their pocket money to buy a half-bottle of Teacher's whisky, which they drank all at once behind the cricket pavilion one morning.

All was well until during the morning assembly a fellow pupil called Winterbourne was taken ill; turning white and clutching his stomach, he collapsed.

Nigel Farage was a pupil at Dulwich College in south east London in the late 1970s

Farage later confessed to to the headteacher that he had indeed drunk the whisky, but explained that was a very cold morning, and he just had 'a couple of nips'. However, hut he refused to say who had got the liquor in the first place.

Summoned to the headmaster's office later, his friends were all caned. Farage was braced for his own punishment.

'My arse twitched. My genitals bunched. My stomach whimpered', he recalls, graphically, in his autobiography 'Flying Free'.

We vomited principally on the upholstery, our kit and our clothes. Just occasionally on other people's clothes Ukip leader Nigel Farage

But he need not have panicked. The headmaster, Mr Knight, let him off. 'You're a bloody fool like the rest of them, but you're the only one to own up.'

In search of something else to amuse himself, he joined the Combined Cadet Force.

One weekend, while his fellow pupils were yomping across the South Downs, Farage and a friend were stationed temptingly outside a pub as 'emergency support' and First Aid cover.

Needless to say, he didn't stay outside the pub for long. In fact they went as soon as it opened at 11am and by 5.30pm when the bus came to pick them up, they were both violently ill.

'We vomited principally on the upholstery, our kit and our clothes. Just occasionally and for variety, we vomited on other people's kit and clothes,' Farage recalls.

Amazingly he managed to persuade his teachers that it was wrong to have placed the temptation of a pub in front of him, although he was reprimanded for his inability to hold his drink.