I have three wonderful memories of school in Britain in the 1950s. The first is singing in Exeter Cathedral on Christmas Eve as one of the two boy soloists who begin the service. The vast cathedral was entirely dark. From behind the high altar two boys carrying candles emerged, singing in repetition an antiphon.
As they proceeded down the aisle singing, their candles lit tapers, which in turn lit other candles, bathing the cathedral first in soft, then powerful, candle light.
Those days at Exeter Cathedral Choristers' School as a prep school boarder were the happiest schooldays I can recall or imagine.
Second, I remember waking up to the mad, crashing clangour of cathedral bells announcing Easter morning. The third was being told by my father, after hearing Easter carols, that I'd contributed to one of the most moving experiences of his life.
On the downside, I was once accidentally locked in the cathedral, which was reputed to be haunted, so I was terrified. I was told I was found curled up on a chapel altar clinging to the cross and catatonic.
Later on, I was also presented with the school rules at King's College, Taunton, where I went for secondary schooling. I didn't understand the point of such inanity or why, as inevitably, I fell foul of it. I still don't.