Mr Fletcher's education started at the Bede Burn Primary School, in Jarrow, and in 1950 he got a place at the Royal Grammar School in Newcastle. When he left there, in 1958, he went to Kings College (Durham), in Newcastle where, in 1962, he gained his BSc in Mathematics and Physics (with Metallurgy as a subsidiary subject).

He then went to Leicester University for a year to gain his teaching certificate and, in 1963, went on to teach Mathematics at the South Shields Grammar-Technical School for Boys.

He left in July 1967 to take up a Senior Mathematics Master position at Tividale School, in Warley where Mr Harding (deputy head) had been Headmaster for a year.