Letters | 26 May 2012

Private passions

Sir: I was a pupil at St Paul’s School from 1952 to 1957. I remember seeing the bill for a term: £30 tuition, plus £15 ‘extras’ (lunches, books…). I was a scholar, so the £30 was deleted. It was no great distinction to be a scholar, as there were 153 scholars among the 650 pupils. My group of friends all got Oxbridge scholarships.

As a student in 1960, I had a holiday job as a milkman. I only earned £12 a week, but some milkmen earned enough commission to bring their weekly wage packet up to £20. In the 1950s, the average milkman could afford to send his son to St Paul’s. The fees now are little under £7,000 a term. Stephen Robinson’s powerful piece (‘Private Grief’, 19 May) shows us what has gone wrong.
John Crooks
London SW15

Sir: Stephen Robinson, in his engaging overview of the independent sector, is wrong to suggest that bursaries for deprived pupils have a detrimental effect on the quality of our top public schools.