I remember

Suddenly being faced with your memories of your prep school is quite unnerving and uplifting at the same time.

Memories. I have a few.

I remember that we used to heat the classrooms with log fires and that one November around Guy Fawkes night I put a firework onto one of the fires in Sheridan's classroom. It blew out and burned my corduroys badly and Geoffrey Warner punished me by making me wear shorts for the rest of term.

I remember Halloween and how we used to bob for apples.

I remember Dancing Ledge and how we would go and swim there. A few years ago I took my children there to show them on one of the hottest days (31C) and we had a great swim.

I remember walking to the end of the drive and back again and doing twelve breathers outside Eric's room.

I remember fire escape practice on these funny things which would lower you from the upstairs windows.

I remember driving to cricket fixtures in Eric's Lagonda.

I remember Geoffrey sharpening his pencils.

I remember all the Enid Blyton books in the library.

I remember secretly fancying Henrietta Warner.

I remember playing a game of rugby and we came off the pitch to be told Eric had died.

I remember Anthony Daly, who was killed in the Hyde Park Bomb. I worked in the Hard Rock Cafe Piccadilly at the time. I was walking to work and was outside the Hyde Park Hotel at the time it went off. I jumped a mile and was so shaken that I was let off work for the day.

I remember Jan Kent being killed in a motorcycle accident.

  

I remember watching the "Rumble in the Jungle" Boxing match with Ed Benthall in the cook Marisole's room late at night.

I remember going for walks up on Nine Barrow Down and playing British Bulldog along the cliffs.