As usual, I was one of the first on campus at 07:30am. I heard the voices as soon a I pushed through the main door. Then I spotted a mass of teenagers chatting on the sofas in the reception area. As I moved towards them I could make out Teesside accents in the hubbub of conversation. Then I recognised a tall balding man with a few strands of stringy hair falling over his pate. What was Mr R, my A level English teacher doing here?

I walked over to the group and introduced myself to Mr R. I wasn’t surprised when he confessed that he had no recollection of me, but I hoped that he would remember some of the more “famous” sixth formers from my year. Sadly he didn’t have a single memory of any of them – not even ECM. I switched the conversation to a guessing game as to what I had done with my English A level. Mr R suggested that I had become an astrophysicist. I congratulated him on an almost correct answer.