It was my first day back at school and, before lessons even started, I was called into the headmaster’s office for turning up late. I tried to explain that after years of working in academia I was completely unused to the notion of authority.

So what if I’d loitered ten minutes on top of the mountain where the school bus stopped? If I wanted to take a photograph of the snowy hilltops, then that was my business, wasn’t it? Equally, if I run into to some girls from the year above me at Teesside High School, then why shouldn’t I be allowed to talk to them and their lovers?

I knew I should have shown more respect for the headmaster, especially since it was ED who had to fetch me into his quarters, but I found him ridiculous. He occupied three enormous dingy rooms crammed with multiple television sets all tuned to different stations. The rooms were in an annex to the main school building, suspended above a semi-frozen lake. The headmaster travelled to and from his base in a blue-painted London taxi converted into a cable car.

When the headmaster showed interest in my green cashmere jumper, I was worried he might ask me to take it off. I quickly changed the subject and asked about the exotic birdlife that swooped over the icy lake beneath the annex. There would be no hanky panky in the headmaster’s office.