Although I had never felt particularly favoured or privileged whilst doing my English lessons at school, because almost certainly suffering from dyslexia, in my last couple of years at seniors, I was in Mr Bott’s class along with some of my friends, and so it was something nice even before it started.Mr Bott was small …

 

Bob Furlong ( or Robert Furlong, or Sir to us) was, in my secondary school, my history and geography teacher for various years. Again, I’m not sure as to how old he was, because when you’re young everyone seems to be a little old, but I presume he must have been in his late twenties; …

I remember, when I was at Junior’s School I was a good footballer (soccer that is of course), and I had aspirations of one day becoming a professional player (that was in years 3-6, we start at school at 4 or 5 in the UK, so that would have made me about 9 or 10 …

At my senior school there was a varied catchment area, from quite select well off districts to the lower end ‘council estates’, but nonetheless it was all in all the more affluent part of outer London, or ‘stock-broker belt’ and so in no way comparable to the East End of London or Bronx like areas …

In the first couple of years of senior school I did history as one of the subjects, since it was mandatory, and I remember our teacher was a Mr Keik. I suppose he was a young teacher, even if at that time all teachers seemed old for us kids. I remember he wore large thick …