DON'T mention 'Tom Brown's Schooldays' to me. I've heard that hoary old joke too many times to raise the flicker of a smile. Matter of fact, I don't like to be reminded of the so-called 'best years of my life'.
The full horror of my four-year sentence in Purgatory was brought back by my fellow former pupil of Kirkcaldy High School, the Rt Hon Gordon Brown. Before he started his new job as Cabinet-maker (we were always told at KHS that a trade would come in handy), he promised to live up to our school motto - 'I will try my utmost' - or, as even we pupils who flunked Latin say: 'Usque conabor'. Gordon B was entitled to quote the motto since, both at school and ever since, he has lived up to it.
Whereas I did not know the meaning of the word 'strive' and walked out of school as soon as I had turned 15, without a scrap of paper to show I had ever been near the place and with the rector assuring me that I would achieve nothing - which is how I come to occupy this space...
DON'T mention 'Tom Brown's Schooldays' to me.
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