Chapter 40

The application form asked which public school they would be going to. A tiny warning bell rang. I had no idea what my children would be like, so how could I answer that question? It was to be a few years before I listened properly to that bell. Did I really want these three little boys of mine to have friends scattered across the south of England? They should have friends in the houses near where we live.

I visited all the local infant schools. Their grounds did not extend as far as the eye could see and the classes were certainly larger, but all the uniformed children were purposefully engaged in one activity or another, the staff had superb control and the head teachers were clearly committed. I was impressed. This was the local community. This was what I wanted my sons to be part of, not the cocooned, rarefied environment of a small world to which I had become accustomed, inhabited by tiny women wearing alice bands, their huge and intimidating four-wheel drives disgorging Hugos to relate with identical Hugos and, in the fullness of time, to create their own Hugos.

I wanted them to feel an affinity with their town, not a company, however charitable; however limited by guarantee.

I recalled yet another lesson I had learned from Dutch parents. ‘Here,’ I was told, ‘only those who are really bad or have something wrong with them go to private schools. Everyone goes to state schools. That’s why they’re good. If there is something wrong with the school, parents act to change it; to make it better. In the UK, if you don’t like what the state school provides and if you’ve got the money, you just take your child away and go private. The effect is that intelligent and articulate parents keep the Dutch state schools on their toes. In the UK, they opt out.’

After so many years connected with private schools in one way or another, I had overlooked how divisive they could be. I was lucky to have such good state schools locally and no competing secondary private school to cream off those talented youngsters whose parents could pay the bill. I decided I would be proud to have my children in the state system and encourage them to contribute to its excellence.

I could hardly believe how having children was making me look at life in such a new way. I thought I knew all the answers. Now I understand that I had no idea what the questions were. Time will tell as to the permanence of this particular perspective.

When I had been a fully-functioning parent for a while and had more than a passing idea what it entailed, I found myself sensitive to perceived snubs.

While no one made any critical comments to my face, a friend told me what her mother had said when she told her she was going to visit us. ‘Oh, has he still got them then?’ That the statement that had precipitated the question had contained the answer within it made me wonder why it had been asked—and why it had been asked with such casual indifference.

Had she not been in her nineties, my father’s sister’s comments would have stung, too. With failing sight, widowed and childless, living on the other side of London, she had remained in telephone contact with my father. In the later years, she told me it distressed her too much to hear his voice, so I kept her informed of his well-being and told her about the children. One call coincided with a piece in the papers.

‘The neighbours told me they’ve seen you in the press again dragging the family name through the mud. But you never really were one of the family were you? Your mother saw to that, taking you off to the country.’

That had been a long time brewing.

‘I suppose you won’t want to phone me again.’

‘I’ll keep you posted about my father.’

I took him to see her, but she asked me not to bring him back. After his death, I took the boys to see her and she phoned me afterwards to say how sweet they were. When she died in 2004, there were only two relatives—a niece and a nephew—my cousin and me. My cousin inherited half a million pounds worth of house and contents. I was left a wooden door stop in the shape of a piece of cheese topped by a mouse that little Ian had enjoyed playing with.

My father would have been shaken. My mother would have considered her true-to-form.