Was it a private school?
No, it was a Grammar school, as it would have been in those days. I always get confused about the differences [I’m Australian]. A grammar school is a…? At that time – there were private schools, like Eton and so on – the state schools were of two types. There were Grammar schools and Secondary Modern schools. The difference was that to get into a Grammar school you had to pass an examination and therefore it was a two-tier system, which ultimately people in this country felt was unpalatable and it was replaced by the Comprehensive system in the late-1950s and early 1960s. In my time I could have gone to either; but my mother wanted the best and so I did the examination. I passed it and got into this Grammar school, which was run by the Christian Brothers – tough they were, but very good educators, and I learnt several languages. And eventually I went to university. I knew I wanted to study English by the end of that period, 1958–59, but not particularly English language. English lite
