Friends made at prep school – and kept for life – are worth paying for

Some years ago (well, nearly ten if you must know), I gave a dinner to mark my undistinguished half-century. Nothing grand — but a convivial gathering of ten men and ten women in the basement of a restaurant where several of us used to hang out in loon pants in the early 1970s.

Looking down the table, I realised that five out of the ten men had been at preparatory school with me. This was a good feeling but not one that struck me as unusual.

I loved Sunningdale — although when I think about those freezing lavatories, those sagging beds, those terrifyingly stern rebukes from Pauline the matron, those Search the Scriptures lessons that introduced us to the trials of eternity, there were plenty of reasons to hate the place.

Ah, yes, it’s easy to suggest that I made such good mates because friendship was the only bonus on offer in such a bleak environment.