FROM GERALDINE BISHOP's sweet reminiscence I learnt that I actually returned to the temporary premises occupied by my bombed-out school, if only to say goodbye to the children and staff of St Augustine’s. Without the bombing, might my parents have soldiered on in their unhappy marriage? Would pacifist Ted eventually have returned from his farm and carried off my mother to a second marriage? Presumably not: by the time my parents’ divorce went through, my brother recalls that Ted was married and I know that my mother was deeply involved in an experiment in communal living which, so far as I am aware, never involved any conflicting romantic attachment. She stayed fond of Ted; of that I am sure, because she later entrusted me with a pile of his red notebooks stuffed with fascinating press cuttings, mostly reviews by Ernest Newman of the Wagner concerts Ted had attended in London in his youth.

There is no doubt that my parents’ decision to separate meant that my education took a knock: I had been all set to move on in the autumn of 1942 to Norwich School; instead I became, virtually overnight, a boarder thirty miles away at Thetford Grammar School – arguably a less distinguished establishment than Norwich School but a respected institution where one of my father's best friends from his Fitzwilliam days, Charles Watson, was headmaster.

Thetford is an ancient market town on the borders of Norfolk and Suffolk. It was my first experience of being away from home and I have decidedly mixed memories of school life. I was keen on sport but my rheumatic fever was thought to have left me with a weak heart and I was not allowed to play games. I became an enthusiastic linesman and an expert keeper of arcane and symbol-laden cricket scorebooks, but that skill did not prevent me from being bullied for my alleged weediness night after night in the dormitory. About school lessons my mind is a total blank.