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Me

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John's hypertextual youth Why? Who? How? Really? Leave this self-indulgent tangle!
We were the first sixth form at Wisewood School. (Indeed, we were the first full fifth form, the compulsory school leaving age being raised to 16 in 1973.) I was delighted to again be a pioneer, or, as my parents saw it, a guinea pig. I also enjoyed the more relaxed relationships in class, which gave me more opportunities to make smart alec remarks. Mr Crompton had been talking about a chemical reaction and come up with a chemical formula that he wrote on the board. Then he said, "Now you should be thinking what you'd like to call this". Immediately I replied "I'd like to call it Bill". This was the kind of thing I was so proud of. I'm sure it quickly became very tedious.

In the upper sixth (or seventh form as we pedantically called it), I failed the most important examination of my life - my driving test. I remember none of the details, except that I accepted the outcome with equanimity. This was good practice for the academic exams coming up over the following years - though I didn't fail any, the results were much poorer than before.