I belonged to what would now be regarded as an aspiring lower middle-class family. My mother and father both had parents who were emerging from the working class in lifestyle and attitude. Both my grandfathers had been in reserved occupations in the years of the first world war but my father had served in the forces in the second world war and this had broadened his horizons. My mother too had held a clerical civil service, but war-related, post but when I came along she decided no longer to go to work. I attended the local primary school walking, I guess, at least four miles a day to do so for I returned home at lunchtime.

I was due to transfer to secondary school in 1957 and it was either early that year or late the previous year that I recall a conversation with my maternal grandfather. He was by then bedridden and nearing the end of his life I now realise. He had been a coal-miner and then a pit deputy. His skin, as with most miners, was marked by many small coal-marks. His breathing was laboured.

Speaking from below spotless bedclothes he asked "Do you want to go t’grammar school, lad?" I turned to the window of the sparse bedroom, a very small fire in the grate, embarrassed to look at him directly. I looked over the allotments behind the house and said "Yes, I think so". In truth, I wasn’t sure, but what I did know was that as a sensitive child the thought of going to the alternative schools filled me with dread. I had heard the stories which moved easily between classmates and across families. So that was that.

I can’t recall now in which order it happened but I was presented with two opportunities. I know not how, but my grandfather clearly had it in mind that he would provide the monies for me to attend the rather grand grammar school as a fee payer, if I did not obtain a place there via a scholarship (or was it by then an eleven-plus exam?). But to be a fee-payer I needed to pass an entrance exam.

I remember to this day sitting the exam one Saturday morning. Two tests – in arithmetic and writing - were involved. I remember clearly choosing to write about ‘Saturday’. I had much to say, for Saturday was usually the most exciting day of the week for me – attending the local picture house in the morning, then going to the rugby match in the afternoon and often a fish-and-chips tea. There might even be a church social in the evening. I am not sure the content would have impressed those who marked the papers (they probably had rather more refined Saturdays), but my eloquence obviously was sufficient for I learnt later I had passed.

Then there was the ‘eleven-plus’, if that is what it was. I remember little of the papers I had to complete beyond endless computation of how much carpet would be required to cover the floor of a rather odd-shaped room, or was it how many tiles were need to cover the kitchen wall. How agile and accurate was my mathematical mind? I do remember though the almost sacred atmosphere in the primary school hall as the select few sat the papers. An early encounter with the world of educational testing which still now can impact upon the minds of our young people.

I am sure my grandfather was relieved when he heard from my mother, shortly before the end of his life, that I had been awarded a free scholarship! Mother and father were delighted, but the occasion otherwise went unremarked. The rest is history..…and geography, and Latin and Scripture and English and so on.