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at this unconventional school. It seemed to me more conventional than the normal grammar school. The entrance examination, on paper, would, I felt sure, be as difficult in its way as the entrance examination to any high school; and as for the school priding itself on being a classless society, I already felt like one of the great unwashed. I spoke a different language. My genuine Harris tweed outfit, real crocodile bag, William’s beautiful, pure flannel, high-class school outfit, plus his expensive, square-toed shoes, could not hide my plebeian status. My father, in his young days, had always said it was difficult, if not impossible, to crash through the invisible barrier of class, even though he always insisted it was callously visible in England. I remembered being so cross with him when I was young and was raving over the charming manners of a certain vicar and his wife. ‘They think the East End is a jungle, you know, they come here to work like missionaries,’ father said.
    Because I had not expected to feel like this now I had money to pay for fees, it was all the harder to bear, but I smiled sweetly as William returned with the master. ‘We have no vacancies at the moment,’ said the tutor, ‘but if you will pay a registration fee we will contact you next term when we have a vacancy.’ Gallant to the last, I wrote a cheque. Even though the registration fee was a nominal one, I thought having my own cheque book might impress. They had coated the pill but I was not brave enough to swallow it. I knew I would hear nothing from the school ever again and I never did. It didn’t seem to worry William and, indeed, he seemed relieved, for he was sure he would have starved there because of the impression the dreadful smell of cabbage made on him. Of course, it might have been the ‘royal’ drains. I spoilt the effect of writing the cheque with my lovely silver pen, for as I searched my handbag under the eagle eye of the master out tumbled two squashed and dirty-looking dog-ends, fit, of course, for the gutter. What person of note saves a cigarette end?
    However, Chas was right, I needn’t have worried for our son. Out of the blue I was informed by the educational authorities that it had been decided my son should be attending grammar school, and I was invited by the head of a successful grammar school not far from us to come to the school and have a chat with him. I was very nervous because I had heard from mothers of other boys who attended the school that the head, a doctor, was a man of brilliance and a strong disciplinarian. I so much wanted not to say the wrong thing for William’s sake, so anxious was I that he should be accepted at this school with its wonderful reputation.
    I don’t know why I had imagined that the head would be a physical giant but, after the initial shock of shaking hands with a petit doctor, I settled down to concentrate on answering correctly the questions put to me in a rich, baritone voice, a voice which an actor would have given a lot to possess. I must have passed muster, for at last the head said he would accept my son into his school, ‘provided he would not resent being beaten at any time, if necessary’. I was so delighted that William had a place at the school that, over the moon, I almost blurted out, ‘But he would love to be beaten,’ before I became puzzled at the question. The head explained that, when he had occasion to cane a boy, he liked the boy to take his punishment like a man. He would not have any boy who resented the head for caning him. Possibly, I told myself, I have mistaken the purpose of the question. I would have thought that anyone sensible would quite rightly resent being beaten. William had never suffered any physical punishment and I never, ever, told him that I promised a happy non-resentment on his part should he ever be chastised. Like most mothers, I could not imagine him doing anything to