The school uniform was grey trousers and black and grey striped blazers for the first to fifth form boys and grey trousers with black blazers for the sixth form boys. The girls would be allowed to choose between grey skirts or trousers (obviously a very progressive school!) and the appropriate blazers.

I was a little nervous about the first day, although we had by then been fairly well briefed about it all. I approached the main gate and found a girl I recognised lurking nearby. Her name was Jane S and we had been introduced at one of the official meetings before agreeing to join the school. We had also had several unofficial meetings at the local pub with some of the others due to start.

Binghams Grammar School was housed in a very large typical 1920s style building, brick built, and not so unlike the school I’d left behind me in London. It was a little daunting for a newcomer, hence Jane waiting outside for someone she knew. I also was glad to meet up with her. We waited together for some of the others to join us but as the time for arrival drew closer we thought maybe they had already arrived and gone in, so we did too.

The first day was very much a day for finding where everything was, meeting our lower sixth form masters, getting registered, getting our time-tables sorted and so on. There were around eighty of us in the lower sixth, so we were divided into lower sixth A and lower sixth B, each with its own common room, its own master, desks and separate metal lockers for books and other kit for each of us. I and, thankfully, Jane were both in lower sixth form B. Most of my lessons would take place in groups of no more than twenty-five to the class. When not in lessons we could spend our time in the library or our common room.

We took lunch in the refectory (what they called the dining hall) where separate tables were allocated for the lower and upper sixth forms. The teachers ate at large tables raised on a platform above the level of the rest of us.