Every boy longs to see his school burn down and for me the dream came true twice. In February 1977, I was walking to Sunday Mass when I spotted a cluster of teachers at the school gates. The old Victorian hall had caught fire overnight and collapsed. I couldn’t believe it. This was my personal Towering Inferno and I’d missed the whole thing. In my mind’s eye I could see it all: the leaping flames, the burning joists, the black columns of ash rising over south London, and the thunderous roar as the roof crashed to the ground.

Nothing was left but a few pathetic wisps of smoke rising from a pile of charred beams. The teachers were standing around looking shocked and miserable – as if mourning the death of a pet rabbit. Why so glum? The school had to close for a few days while the governors worked out how to run the place without an assembly hall or a dining area.

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The funereal posturings of the staff convinced me that teachers were a tribe of alien control-freaks who took no delight in ordinary human pleasures. But I kept my rancour to myself. Officially, I was a model pupil. I liked........

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