Old school

Off she went with a sack of hardbacks. She hardly recognised the place.

The old 60s folly, a gun metal sunken battleship, had quite gone – demolished by tractors, wrecking balls, venture capitalists and barking right wing tabloids. You know the narrative – lefty, liberal, failing Comprehensive is “turned round” into a rigorous, whizzo, succeeding academy. It happened to my old school, Holland Park – “so very different to the gleaming model of efficiency it is today”, observed Sarah Vine, aka Mrs Gove, in a recent column. Thus is a whole culture traduced.

Whatever, my daughter remembers her old school with much affection. She also remembers the savage underfunding of Westminster council, the Machiavellian activities of Dame Shirley Porter and the consequent absence of playing fields, the belly-up rats in the swimming pool, the scant library, the crumbling classrooms, the scuzzy toilets and yes, I’m afraid, the very dangerous drugs and some very naughty children.