The cooking demonstration was underway and there was a palpable ripple of excitement in the audience as the cook revealed her main ingredient (baby elephant) and the cooking method (fiery pizza oven). Appalled, I decided the best thing for me to do was to leave the kitchen and go on a gap year.

Only as I set off to France the next day did I realise that I had no idea how to ‘do’ a gap year. I had no plans, no maps, no money and no wanderlust.

Later, I revisited my old school to discover it was a high tech ‘learning laboratory’ bursting with enthusiastic students doing independent study. It was also a futuristic hospital with patients lying in pods outside the public lavatories.