Boarding school left author with much to write home about

I'm afraid I was a victim of private education. In all, I went to five schools and none of them really worked for me. Two actually closed down while I was there, so I think I had a kiss-of-death effect.

There must have been aspects I enjoyed, but you are not going to hear me saying very cooing or lovely things about my education. It does worry me that I rarely meet people who say their school days were the best of their life; if I did meet them they would probably be military dictators or something, or I would look for their lobotomy scar.

When I was two-and-a-half my big brother was at school and I really wanted to follow him, so I was sent to what was called a pre-prep. Because I was taught to read too young, I found myself in a classroom of children learning to do just that and quickly got bored.

Things may have changed now [in Britain] but most of the system in my day was based on memory and we were expected to learn copious dates in history, for example. I never had the kind of brain that could do it. Predictably, therefore, I was no good at tests; I failed the Common Entrance Exam spectacularly.

But I always loved reading and being near books, which meant that I was often made librarian. Mostly this meant using Cellotape to repair books, and if there were no tears I could always add a few. In one school I even introduced an extraordinarily complicated system of withdrawing books to justify my position. I also loved writing.

At King's School in Canterbury, I was quite subversive. The house master constantly posted notices all around school, and it happened I had a typewriter with the same style keys. So I would post my own cheeky versions of his messages, but the humour was always gentle and served the purpose of showing that us boys saw things differently.