Last week brought many personal highlights, but a particular one was the opportunity to catch up with a very old pal of mine.

Easily my furthest-flung regular reader, he’s an expat now based in Hong Kong who a while ago told me how he uses this column as one of his touchstones for home.

Once a year he’ll make the pilgrimage back to Blighty, and despite his understandably busy schedule during a brief visit home, last Wednesday we were able to squeeze in a pint together.

He’s always been a glorious totem to beautiful childhood days, and an evening of joyous reminiscence was relished.

It wasn’t until this week, however, and a parting text as he made his way back east, that he reawakened a true pearl of a memory that I’ve been grinning warmly about ever since.

Back when we were both in primary school, an inspired cohort of our teachers spearheaded a project that would immortalise our young voices and forever preserve the hopeful, happy souls of every pupil under their charge.

The little ‘uns were going to write a book, and every single kid in the school would........

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