John Rowland

On bright autumn mornings, the dew dazzling on spiders' webs in all the hedgerows along Park and Vauxhall Roads, we would break thin, pliable shoots from a bush, bring the ends together and then, by scooping the cobwebs, make 'mirrors' and hope they would last until school time.

Those pitched into the education system just before and during the Second World War could have done little better than Miss Cranmer’s class at The Manor School, Didcot.