The focus of the paper is on the narrative accounts of two headteachers in England who, having had experience of leading schools through favourable OFSTED inspections, have recently taken new appointments in schools which had failed to meet inspection criteria and have now been placed in a category of 'special measures'. It explores school leadership as a continuing project in accomplishing an acceptable self identity, mixing hindsight with attempts to keep at least two stories going : their own professional autobiographies and the schools' development. Identity is treated as fluid and constructed through an interplay of contradictory concerns.