I remember the air-raid shelters around the edge of the school field. They were mostly used for storing old chairs and desks.

I remember we (the Tiffin Musical and Dramatic Society) did a production of Oh What a Lovely War just at the time Britain went into combat with the Falklands and all of a sudden a satire on war wasn't funny any more and nobody came to watch.

I remember the massacre of the village of My Lai by American soldiers.

I remember being made to sit at the end of a table during the second, junior sitting of school dinners with my pudding, which I wouldn't, couldn't eat, in front of me. To this day I haven't been able to enjoy fruit sponge and custard.

I remember "Oi'll give it foive". It was the score out of five that Janice Nicholls, an overnight star of the 1960s, gave for records played during the section of the pop show, Thank Your Luck Stars, in which they "span" new "discs".

I remember being taught to use a pen at school. I think it was at Green Lane but it might even have been Tiffins. The desks had inkwells in them and a groove where your pen could rest and we weren't allowed to dip the pens in more than half way up the nib. Biros were thought to make your handwriting too sloppy, so it probably was Tiffins.

I remember a fashion for stealing the blotting paper out of diaries on sale in Bentalls.

I remember a little road in Kingston on the way to the Coronation Baths. There was a fantastic second-hand bookshop there, where among other things I bought Spike Milligan's Puckoon, which I read in two days, laughing out loud most of the time. When I used to go swimming at the baths, on the way I used to look in the window of a shop there which had displays of Dinky cars and Matchbox cars and so on. It was up some steps.