he always took the time to speak to me, I liked him for that...

I received an email a little while ago from someone I went to school with. As regular readers will know, I don't really look back on my time at that school with any great fondness. It was a hugely formative period of my life - far more so than my time at university - and it had a crucial role in the shaping of my personality; it was here too that I made some of the most lasting friendships of my life. It was also a time of my life that I was delighted to put behind me, and since I left, I have actively avoided cultivating any ties with my old school, in spite of the plethora of reunions and dinners that they keep inviting me to. My friends aside, the thought of staying in touch with the vast majority of the people I met there fills me with horror. I know full well that not everybody fulfills the stereotype of the arrogant, floppy-haired public schoolboy, but a good many of them do. I've spent far too long running away from that stereotype and from people's preconceptions of public schoolboys to want to spend any time with living, breathing examples filled with some sepia-tinted nostalgic view of the time they spent at their alma mater. If the time I spent at that school turns out to be the best years of my life, then I want a refund.

So, I think it's fair to say that the email was not entirely welcome. Less welcome still was the dawning realisation, as I read, that my email address had been harvested from this blog. Emails sent from Friends Reunited are one thing and are easily ignored, but this one was different and altogether more unsettling. I don't blog under my real name for the very simple reason that I don't really want all of this to come up when I'm googled. I'm fully aware that it's only a figleaf of anonymity and that anyone who reads this who really wants to find out who I am can do so easily. Hell, if you ask me, I'll probably tell you. My name is not a secret, and I don't really write about anything controversial, but I don't really like the idea of people idly searching for me by name to land here.

To be fair, the guy who sent this email was very much not a typical public schoolboy - quite the opposite, in fact. I wouldn't say that we were especially close at school, and obviously we haven't kept in touch, but he was in a lot of the same classes as me, we ate and slept in the same House for five years, and he was basically okay. I don't know if he had stumbled across this blog accidentally or if he had been pointed in this direction, but he was planning his honeymoon and wanted to know about our trip to Ecuador in 2007. Did we learn any Spanish? Did we take much cash with us? That kind of thing. Harmless stuff really, but although I received the email several weeks ago, I haven't yet answered. Initially, I had no intention of answering at all: I was mildly alarmed to be contacted in this way via my blog and to have someone I knew from school rummaging around through my archives.... although, to be honest, given that most of my friends, several colleagues and now some members of my family read this already, I'm not sure why I would be too worried about that. I think what really pissed me off was that the email, although politely written, made reference to nothing except my trip to Ecuador and any advice and tips I might be able to pass on. Fair enough, I suppose. That's both a reasonable thing to ask and something that I would be more than happy to share with any passing stranger who emailed me to ask having read my blog entries on the subject. So why did I not reply to this? I think what irritated me was that many of the most recent posts I had written when he sent the mail were about my health, and yet this guy had just dived straight into asking me about Ecuador. Was he really interested in getting back in touch with me, or just interested in what I could tell him to help him plan his trip? I'm sure Ecuador was very much on his mind, and he may well have just landed here via a Google search and recognised me via a photo, but if you accidentally stumbled on five years worth of material written by someone that you used to know reasonably well, wouldn't you read around a bit? I'm pretty sure that I'd read the most recent posts, anyway.

So I didn't reply.

On reflection though, I think I'm being rude. He was always a decent enough guy and I don't really mind him reading this blog (although it's not as though I could stop him, is it?). Perhaps I'm overreacting. After all, is his directness not a good thing? He hardly comes across as disinterested in his email, and he seems friendly and polite, but would it somehow be better if he pretended to be more interested in MEMEME? What exactly would I expect him to say about the fact that an old acquaintance he hadn't spoken to in more than a decade has just been diagnosed with MS? He'd hardly be the first person who didn't really know what to say to me about that. What could he say?

Hmm.

What do you think?

Yeah, you're right. I should reply.

(and if, by any chance, he happens to be reading this.... well, that's one of the perils of rekindling an acquaintance with a blogger, innit. If it's not too late, I'll be more than happy to share my experiences of what is a beautiful, interesting country filled with lovely people. You'll have a great time.)

what chance have you got against a tie and a crest...?

I received the latest update from my old school in the post on Saturday morning. My usual instinct is to throw this rubbish straight in the bin with a flourish, but I'm usually completely unable to stop myself opening it up and marvelling at the contents and this time was no exception. On the face of it, there's nothing much to get excited about here. After all, it's just your bog-standard, common-or-garden run down of what's been happening at the old alma mater: who's retired, who's getting married, who's dead, how the cricket team has been doing this season... that kind of thing. I find that the whole thing generally makes me want to laugh / cry / rant / throw up, often all at the same time. Given it has this effect on me, I really should just trust my better instincts and throw it away, but I just can't seem to help myself.

I may not have any great nostalgia for my time there, but I got on fine at school: I survived, I got good enough exam results to go on to university and and I met some of the people who remain my very closest friends. As time goes on though, that's increasingly not enough, and my general distaste for the place is slowly morphing into anger. I look at this colourful update trumpeting how wonderful the school is and how valuable the network of former pupils is, I look at the pictures of ruddy-cheeked public schoolboys and guffawing middle-aged men in old school ties and ridiculous blazers and I despise it and I despise them. I've never been back, and for all I know the school may have changed out of sight since I left in 1992, but I look at those pictures and they seem to represent everything I have tried so hard to leave behind me. The school may have changed, but the people in the pictures look the same, with their unmistakeable air of patrician arrogance and their sense of entitlement. Going to a school like this is no kind of preparation for the real world, but it does seem to be the perfect preparation for a life spent in the city, or in the army or in any of those other places that still seem to be awash with public schoolboys. Like attracts to like, and the old boys in the newsletter, whether they be the chairman of their own public limited company or the British ambassador in Kuwait, revel in their connection to the school and seem only too happy to wear their old school ties and to turn up to every event at the school that they can.

This may well be playing up to every stereotype of a public school that you've ever heard, and I think this is partly what angers me: that's not really what my experience there was like. Yes, of course there were plenty of awful people, and yes, there was a strong streak of arrogance in a lot of the pupils there, but there were at least an equal number of relatively normal people who were very much like you or like me. Definitely like me, anyway. I was one. I left precious little mark on the school in my five years there, and I have been happy to keep it as my dirty little secret, something that I never, ever go out of my way to advertise to people. I have an old school tie somewhere, but I seriously doubt that I will ever wear it. It's not that I'm ashamed of my schooling, exactly, it's just that I dislike being associated either with people's stereotypes of a public schoolboy or with the people who actually do conform to that stereotype. God, for all that my best friends went to the same school, there are still large swathes of my fellow pupils who happily live up (down?) to that image and who I would be happier to never, ever see again.

That newsletter from my school is more than happy to perpetuate that stereotype to the world, and is more than happy to encourage others to revel in it too. Hell, to a large extent it's probably that image of public school that attracts people in as much as the quality of the education you might receive; to some people, it's a lifestyle to actually aspire to. Some people are born to it, others wish to have their kids become a part of it. I have nothing particularly against people who choose to give up some of their time and their energy to their old school, but I simply cannot understand how these people have allowed the school to become something that it has never been for me: the best years of your life. I simply do not understand the compulsion to put on the old school tie and to actively seek out the company of others in the same tie so that you can swap stories about the halcyon days of your youth. I do not understand how anyone can let their time at this school define them

...except of course, in my own way, I have allowed it to define me too.

mo money, mo problems...

I had some post from my old school today. As usual, they wanted some money. I loathe my old school. I found aspects of it distasteful when I was there, but over the years I have come to despise pretty much everything that it stands for.... mostly because I believe that it is a vast waste of money and churns out a disproportionately high number of arseholes with an overly high regard for themselves*

One of the things that constantly amazes me is how much the people who attended this school have been utterly unable to move on with their lives and constantly hark back to their schooldays as the best days of their lives. Personally, I've not looked back since the day I left, but there are many people who can't face forwards: there are numerous old boy societies, there are special Lodges so you can be a freemason only with people who attended the school, there are reunions, old boy sports fixtures... and, of course, there are people who cannot think beyond sending their own children to the school in the way that their parents sent them, and their parents before them.

The school is becoming quite skilled at milking this, of course.

The post I received today was a newsletter for the charitable foundation that supports the school. It's a nice, glossy newspaper style affair and it's filled with inspirational stories of what the school has meant to various current pupils. They're looking for donations too, only not just any kind of donation. The first clue is on the enclosed form. You know how most forms like this have a number of boxes you can tick to indicate how much you want to give? £5, £10, £20, £50 or other. Well, here the boxes are £100, £250, £500, £1,000, £5,000, £10,000 and other.

Also included are helpful instructions about how you can donate land, buildings, shares or securities. There's a special team to help you to decide how to leave a legacy to the school in your will. You can plant a tree at the school: £1000 for a tree near the heart of the school, £500 for a spot a little further out. For a bargain £250 you can name a seat in the theatre. You can even donate by using everyclick.com, where every search sends money to the school.

To encourage you further to dust off your wallet, there are lists of people who have made donations (together with the years they attended the school and the house they were in). The "Shorto Society" is a list of people who have included the school in their wills; the "James Society" is for those who have donated more than £10,000; the "Percival Society" is for those people who have given more than £50,000.

Unbelievable.

They really want your money. It's not cheap to run an institution like this, you know.

Last time I checked, the fees for this school are £27, 500 for an academic year as a boarder.... which of course does not include any money that you will have to lay out of uniforms, books and stuff like that.

They own substantial amounts of property in central London.

They don't pay tax either: the School is a registered charity.

It's a joke.

They're not getting a fucking penny out of me. They've caused enough damage already. They've had their pound of flesh from my family and I reckon that they've got enough money.

---

* yes, this probably does include me. In the interests of balance, I should also add that almost all of my very best friends date from my school days. I like to think that they're not typical public schoolboys either. Like me, they might well have been emotionally scarred by the experience though.

before I knew how much it cost to play it safe....

Remember, remember the fifth of November.

It was on Bonfire Night, exactly seventeen years ago today, that a good friend of mine asked me if I would look after her stash of vodka and some other assorted spirits. We were both not quite yet seventeen years old and such things were not only illegal in the eyes of the law of the land, but, of far more immediate concern to us both, it was also strictly forbidden in the school rules. As I stowed it away in my study, I knew that the consequences of being found with this contraband would be severe - most likely involving a letter to my parents and if not suspension, then certainly a period of confinement to the House (for obscure reasons, this was known as 'gating').

So why did I do it? I'd only actually known Catherine since the start of that term in September, so why risk punishment on her behalf? Those of you who did not attend a largely single-sex school will probably laugh at this, but this was a period of significant change in my life. Up until that point, I had gone through all of my schooling since the age of seven with classes made up almost entirely of boys. As I entered the sixth form, however, our routines and friendships were disrupted by the arrival of girls. The girls stayed in their own houses, of course, but they joined us for classes and were assigned to a boy's boarding house for their meals. This meant that when I arrived for the first lunch of the academic year, the fourteen boys in my year in my house were joined by four girls. Of course, as you might expect of some extremely emotionally retarded sixteen year old public schoolboys, the arrival of these interlopers immediately divided us into three main camps. In the first group there were those of us who treated these girls with disdain; as somehow lesser people who were only worthy of any attention if they were deemed to be attractive, otherwise they were to be at best ignored and at worst actively abused. A second group panicked completely and were like rabbits caught in the headlights; unwilling to accept that something had changed, but unable to stop looking and equally unable to open their mouths in the presence of such a thing as a girl. The third group probably liked to think that they were sensitive souls and actively repudiated the loathsome behaviour of the first group and the desperately pathetic reaction of the second group. These wiser boys would attempt to engage these girls in polite conversation and to otherwise acknowledge their existence, never letting a complete lack of any conversational experience with women get in their way. All three groups were divided in their reaction to the arrival of the girls, but all were united in the immaturity of their reactions. I was in the latter camp, incidentally, as if you wouldn't have guessed.

God knows what the girls made of all of this. Although they would only have arrived at the school a day or so before, they would probably have had ample time to experience the wonders of walking just in front of a group of thirteen year old boys who would loudly pass judgement upon you, making kissing noises if they liked you, and coughing or retching noises if they did not. Over time, they would develop survival strategies. A few lucky girls would find universal acclaim as being 'fit' and would be placed upon pedestals so high that they could only ever hope to be reached by members of the first XV rugby team - their survival would depend upon having a boyfriend who commanded respect. Others would be deemed 'alright' and generally left alone as long as they kept their heads down. The unfortunate majority would be openly and unsubtly abused for their perceived failings - their survival strategy would be to develop a thick skin. All would be judged on a daily basis by boys who outnumbered them ten to one. It was horrible.

I'd got on well with Catherine pretty much immediately. At that awful, stilted first meal, we had discovered that our parents lived about four miles apart and that we had bus routes into town in common. That had been enough to get us talking, which had been a great relief to me as my conversational gambits with girls were (and probably still are) somewhat limited. Over the course of the next few weeks, we became friends. Catherine proved to be intelligent, dignified and fiercely independent. There was no way that she was going to conform with anyone's expectations of how she should and should not behave, and she had the courage - at some cost - to try to retain her individuality in the face of a smotheringly chauvinist environment and some oppressive rules. She kept this up for the best part of two years as we studied for our A-Levels, and however vulnerable and insecure she must have been feeling, she managed to convey at all times an air of icy calm and disdain. I thought she was great and used to love meeting up with her during the school holidays, when I discovered that she had the same awkward air of non-conformism with her parents.

I think Catherine asked me to stash her booze that day because she had been seen smoking or out of bounds or something like that. Instead of taking part in sport or any of the other activities that Thomas Arnold deemed improving for the young men at his school, she would often go wandering around town with a couple of her friends, sitting in coffee shops and smoking. On this particular occasion, she had been out buying booze to drink that Saturday evening and was worried that she was going to have her room searched and be caught red-handed. Even then I was something of a loudmouth, but I had the happy talent of keeping my head below the parapet and generally avoiding trouble. I'd like to say that this was because of a brilliantly cunning survival strategy, but really it was because I was pretty square and didn't really do anything much that might land me in serious trouble... the odd drink, the odd cigarette... but nothing particularly out of line. When Catherine asked me to look after her booze, I didn't hesitate and tucked it away without a second thought. She kindly said that I could help myself to as much as I fancied, but needless to say I didn't touch it.

The town's firework display and bonfire was taking place that evening in the park quite near to our House, and for some reason we were given permission to attend. I can remember walking over and standing around in the dark watching a half-decent display of fireworks and wondering if Catherine had got into any serious trouble or if I would bump into her. At the time, it seemed to me that she was reckless and hellbent upon self-destruction, and perhaps she was. She defied the the rules so blatantly that it seemed impossible that she would be with us for long. I remember realising, perhaps for the first time, that perhaps it was cruel to put a person like Catherine into an environment like that school where she would be crushed (the school would probably prefer the term 'moulded', but crushing is what it was). Perhaps it's cruel and damaging for anybody to be into that kind of an environment, but where I had the ability to conform and to survive, I don't think that Catherine had the ability to conform or the will to survive.

She did survive though, and went on to Cambridge university and a career in publishing. The last time I saw her was six or seven years ago at a coffee shop outside Baker Street tube station. She seemed content (she was about to get married) but still happily carrying that fierce intelligence and slightly prickly air of non-conformism. We've lost touch since, but all the fireworks over the weekend have reminded me of her and that weekend half a lifetime ago, as they usually do.

Never mind Guy Fawkes: it's my friend Catherine that I choose to remember at this time of the year.

don't know much about a science book...

I was a bit of a geek at school.

Actually, I think my over-developed sense of responsibility probably peaked when I was twelve years old and Head of School. I was a shockingly upright citizen, and thankfully it's all been downhill from there.

When I was clearing out the stuff my mum and dad have been storing for me, I came across a stack of my old school reports. The earliest dates from Christmas 1985. I was 11 years old and had just completed my first term in the sixth form. I was considered a good candidate to sit a scholarship exam in the summer of 1987 and so had been pushed up through the years and was now effectively a year ahead of myself - I was now studying with people who were almost a year older than me and would be leaving that summer, whereas I would be staying on another year.

Not that I'm intellectually vain or anything...

Anyway. Here it is:

---

Name: SwissToni
Age at beginning of term: 11.6
Average age of form: 12.3

Mathematics Set B
Term's Work Position: 3rd/3
Exam Position: 3rd/3 (paper 1 - 42%, paper 2 - 34%)

I have been delighted with ST's progress this term - not only in terms of improved examination scores but also in terms of his self-confidence. Although many gaps still remain to be filled, there is definite light at the end of the tunnel.

[ST's note: God, but I was shit at Maths]

English
Term's Work Position: 7=
Exam Position: paper I - 1st/5 (71%), paper II 5/5 (30/50)

ST has not found sixth form work particularly easy and is still finding his feet but he's a naturally hard worker and I feel sure he will come through strongly next term. He wrote an excellent paper I in the examination.

French (Set B)
Term's Work Position: 5/5
Exam Position: 5th/5 (27/50), 5th/5 (51%)

After a somewhat unhurried start to the term, ST began to pick up speed and eventually rounded off his performance in top gear. Now, he is beginning to master his weakness in the subject and he has become more confident in his own abilities to succeed. Let this continue please!

[ST's note - how did I get a French girlfriend again?]

History
Term's Work Position: 5=
Exam Position: 2/5 (56%)

ST has taken trouble and worked hard for much of the term. He wrote a good essay in the exam.

Geography
Term's Work Position: 5=/9
Exam Position: 2/5 (66%)

ST still lacks confidence in himself but he is improving all the time and his exam result shows that he is well on course for next year.

Science
Term's Work Position: 4th/9
Exam Position: 4th=/5 (53%)

ST has made a good effort in the subject this term, doing well to end high up in the form. His slightly disappointing exam performance revealed several areas in which he remains weak.

Divinity
Term's Work Position: n/a
Exam Position: 1=/5 (80% - What can I say? me and God, we're close)

ST has worked thoughtfully and effectively. He wrote a very good exam.

Latin
Term's Work Position: 5/5
Exam Position: 2=/4 (57%)

Although he still thinks that Latin is too difficult, ST has made great advances and has time for even further progress.

Greek
Term's Work Position: Set B 5/5
Exam Position: Set B 4/4

Although at the bottom of the sixth form Greek sets, ST has had a much better term and he has produced some good pieces of work. He must not be deterred by his undistinguished exam performance!

Art

ST has found the exhibition projects hard work this term but has successfully completed the course. Art is a subject ST finds rather difficult due primarily to a lack of confidence. However, he should be proud of the work he has completed this term and the new techniques he has mastered. Very well done.

Trumpet
Grade achieved: approaching grade III

ST is a keen student. He has a good ear and his tone is round and firm. He needs to pay some attention to phrasing. He should be ready for Grade III early next year if he sustains his efforts.

Formteacher's Report

ST has worked steadily and conscientiously and is an asset to the form. As he matures he should find himself capable of achieving his ambition.

Housemaster's Report

Behaviour: C
Humour: C
Personal Hygiene: C
Self-Organisation: D

(A=excellent, B=good, C=satisfactory, D=Poor, E=very poor)

Overall contribution to community life: ST has had a happy term
Health report: There have been less complaints than usual from ST this term!
General Comments: ST has had a good term on the whole. He is however somewhat disorganised.

Headmaster's Report

A very encouraging set of reports. ST has come on well and has shown much promise for the future. He has been a member of the school's general knowledge team and has been helpful as a librarian, chorister and lesson reader. He is a keen scout and enjoys judo and table-tennis. A good start to his VI form career.

---

I suppose this provides an interesting window onto the life of an 11 year old boarding school pupil, but I find reading it a somewhat chastening experience. In my head, I was always a brilliant student. I got that scholarship. I did well in all my public exams. I got a decent degree. I did a masters degree. I'm bloody good at pub quizzes. My intellectual arrogance has clearly swollen in the last 20 years. I know I wasn't very good at subjects like Maths and French and I know I was competing here against people who were older than me.... but it's still quite humbling to read all these people saying that I was doing okay but had a long way to go.

Perhaps I should read them more often.

(It got worse before it got better - by Easter 1986, my Greek teacher was reporting that "ST has made little progress this term and his exam performance was again very poor. I fear that we have reached a psychological stalemate which I can only resolve by taking him off Greek next term. I do so reluctantly!" I remember it and it was a mercy killing. I just couldn't get the hang of a language that had a different alphabet.)

spineless swines, cemented minds...

Whilst I was cleaning out those boxes at my mum and dad's house, I came across a pile of old photographs from my school days. Every term we had a photographer come round to the House to take pictures of the various sporting teams and so on, and every summer he took a picture of the whole House. From time to time, and in spite of the fact that I wasn't especially sporty, some of those pictures would feature me. Sadly it looks like some of them have survived. None of these are in the least bit flattering, and so obviously I'm going to post them up here for public consumption.....

A word about my school: in case you hadn't spotted already, I attended one of the more famous Public Schools in England. I'm not in the least bit proud of this and I don't really like telling people. Why? Because people have the most terrible preconceptions about Public Schools and about Public Schoolboys. Like many preconception, some of these have absolutely no foundation. I had some great times at school, and most of my best friends today are people that I met at that school - some of them are almost normal. Having said that, there were many other people at that school who I would be delighted never to see again. Their tragedy is not so much that they were horrible, stereotypical English Public Schoolboys then, but that twenty years later, many of them have hardly changed at all.

Anyway. Here are the photos - the quality's a bit poor, especially when you blow them up, but they're good enough to get the general idea and I'm guessing no one wants to make any posters out of them....



The 1991 "First House" Rugby Team. This was the senior side picked to represent the House in the inter-House rugby tournament (the school was divided into something like 14 boys houses, each containing something like 50 or 60 kids from 13 to 18). What with the game having been invented at the school, rugby union was the signature sport. The captain of the school First XV was almost always the Head of School, and the other players in the team always seemed to end up being the Heads of Houses. Ability at rugby was always deemed more important than academic excellence. My House was always dreadful at rugby and we never won this tournament. 1991 was no different.

The silly hat on the guy in the middle means that he had been "capped" (i.e. awarded his colours) by the School first XV. Players in the full national side have very similar caps. Actually, the England rugby team have to ask the headmaster every year for permission to borrow the school colours -- black socks, white shorts and white shirts. If you look really closely you'll see that some of the other players - including me - are wearing black socks and not grey socks. Thats means that the players had been "awarded their socks" (colours) by the School 2nd, 3rd or 4th XVs.

I played for the Thirds that year.



This is the House photo from 1991, taken in the back garden after lunch one day. Statue John is standing far left in the first standing row. I was 17 years old at this point and in the "Lower Twenty" and was already a "sixth" (prefect). Girls only joined the the school in the sixth form, and although there were 4 girls houses at the school, they were all assigned to a boys house for their meals. Here they were outnumbered something like 10 to 1 by boys who had spent their whole lives in single sex schools and had no idea what a girl was, nevermind how you were supposed to talk to them or relate to them. They really were like another species to us, and they had to put up with all kinds of childish abuse, ranging from marks out of ten from the table of thirteen year olds all the way through to bullying from the 'more mature' sixth formers. I'm amazed that any of them survived it, frankly. Some girls thrived.

No daughter of mine will ever attend a school like this. No child of mine will ever attend a single-sex school.



This is the winning team from the 1988 House Under-14 8-a-side hockey tournament. I was the goalie and we won the final on a penalty shoot-out. As I recall, it was the first time that I had ever played in goal. At the risk of this becoming like a game of "Where's Wally", Statue John is in this one too.



Summer 1992. This is a picture of our two "Levée" (heads of House - here in their blazers and stripey ties) and the "Sixth" (prefects). I think this is probably taken either during or just after our A-Levels. We were the people who were supposed to help the headmaster to run the house and carried out the tasks like supervising prep, making sure that everyone went to bed on time and got up on time. In return, we got some privileges and pretty much boundless authority over everyone else in the house. I seem to recall that we spent most of the time either smoking out our study windows or trying to nip off to the pub.

Don't we look like wankers? (at least the others weren't wearing their boaters in this picture..... I refused to have one, but many others liked to swan around town in them).

Here's a game for you: tell me who you think looks the most loathsome and I'll tell you if you're right. Pick me if you want, but do try not to pick Statue John....



I have very mixed feelings about the other photos here, but this one is from a bit earlier and from a different school --- this is the first XV at my prep school and the photo was taken in 1986.

A more innocent time.

scattered pictures of the smiles we left behind...

My mum and dad are moving house in a couple of months.... nothing drastic, they're just shifting a mile or so down the road into the middle of the village.... but they have been getting ready for the big day by slowly clearing out the clutter that they have accumulated over the course of the last 29 years or so of living in the same place. Needless to say, quite a bit of that clutter actually belongs to their three sons, and the last few times I have been down here, I have had the pleasure of sorting through boxes of stuff that they have brought down from the attic.

Last time I was here, I had the distinct pleasure of reading through some of my old school reports (watch this space - I'll probably post some of the highlights up here at some point, although suffice it to say that one of the highlights is when I score a "C" for personal hygiene). This time around though I seemed to be trawling though old books and piles and piles of old letters.

Amongst the old birthday cards and things (would you believe that I stumbled across some cards from my first birthday?) I discovered a cache of letters dating from when I was around about 17 or 18 and a number from when I was a student. Judging by the volume of them, it looks like I was quite the correspondent in the pre-email era.

Funnily enough, it was one of the first ones that I read that had the biggest emotional impact on me. It was a letter enclosed in a hand made envelope constructed from the page of a local newspaper, and it dated back to the summer of 1991. It was the first letter sent to me by my friend Sarah after she had suddenly left school in the middle of term and with no explanations. I'm not sure how best to describe my relationship with Sarah. I was a 17 year old emotional cripple who had absolutely no idea how to relate to girls. Sarah was a 17 year old girl who had been thrown into the hostile environment of an (almost) all male English public school and who had struggled to cope. By chance we were in the same history class and we ate our meals together in the same boarding house. I think we got on reasonably well. I liked her, and in spite of the fact that I was unable to find a way of talking to her normally, I think she liked me too. We were friends - or at least we were becoming friends. We only really knew each other for a little less than a year and I wish we had had longer.

I distinctly remember earlier that summer when we were both on a school trip to Stratford to watch some Shakespeare. We had a really good chat in spite of the fact that I became some sort of bumbling Hugh Grant-like figure when my arm accidentally brushed against her side. I think it was a week or two before she left, and I think she tried to tell me... but she never quite did.

Shortly afterwards she was gone, and I don't think I ever saw her again (although I see that we corresponded for a few months afterwards). At the time there was quite a buzz of speculation around the school about why she left. Of course I was curious too, but it seemed largely irrelevant. I was just sad that she was gone. A few weeks later, I received that first letter and although it told me very little really, it was nice just to hear from her and know that she was okay. I treasured that letter, and although I had forgotten all about it, it was no surprise to me that it was the first thing that I saw when I opened that shoebox full old postcards, birthday cards and letters.

I read that letter again this morning and although it was written something like 16 years ago, it hit me quite hard. I found myself wondering all over again how she was and hoping that everything had worked out okay for her.

Amongst the many books I found in those boxes, I stumbled across a thin hardback called "Petra - a dog for everyone". This tells this story of the long and eventful life of the first Blue Peter dog. That bloody dog died in 1977 when I was three years old, and even though I can barely remember watching her on TV, this book has made me cry for as long as I can remember.

So what did I do? I read the book and it made me cry all over again.

I'm rather afraid that underneath this bluff exterior, I am really something of a sentimental old sod.

I've kept the book, obviously. And that letter.