Set for life

You may leave school but it never leaves you, says J.R.H. McEwen – the character formed by a fine education is instantly recognisable

 For several reasons unconnected with the merits or otherwise of the place itself, when I left school 27 years ago (crikey!), I was glad to leave and expected never to return. Unlike some of my contemporaries, already discussing whether their unborn children of unmet wives might receive the same education, I had no inkling that one day I might be a parent and, in any case, I had no idea how I might ever make any money at all, let alone enough to pay school fees. All in all, school seemed to represent an unfortunate if necessary episode in life, an appropriate theatre in which to stage those awkward years but demanding to be immediately forgotten about, and sometimes even denied.

In view of this initial bad and unappreciative attitude, I have been surprised to find that school is still not merely present in my ageing mind but seems to have become a positive and welcome presence.