Guest of Honour at my old school – South Hampstead High School – for a prize giving for years 7-10.

I go first to the Head’s (Ms Jenny Stephen) which is in the first classroom I was in – Upper III as I recall. That’s why I’ve never really understood which is which year these days – even for my own children – as it is different from when I was a lass!

About 400 girls, teachers and prize winners’ parents are gathered in the Hall as we, the platform party (albeit there’s no platform), walk in. The girls are all standing and sit only after we are seated. It was quite nice, actually, to be called by my surname – Ms Featherstone.

Ms Stephen gave a really excellent speech- and to my relief a balanced speech – yes exhorting academic achievement but also all the other things that make someone a proper person.

We were treated to a really lovely musical ensemble, poetry and then a presentation on issues around water. The last – extraordinarily pertinent – in terms of the real battlegrounds of future wars as water becomes scarcer and scarcer.

The speech I gave – outside of amusing anecdotes about my time at South Hampstead (of which there are many – and some I dare not tell) was really about social justice. South Hampstead is a wonderful school and the girls who go there have an advantage – and therefore a responsibility too. They must realise too that the world is hard and gritty – and that isolating and insulating yourself from the world out there is not the answer. So – I hope they enjoyed my rant. I certainly enjoyed going back.

It’s funny really – I had only gone there because my Headmistress at Highgate Primary School had told my mother that I was a clever little girl and could probably get a scholarship. My parents would never have paid for education – they didn’t really believe in it. Getting out and earning a living was important to them. However, my Head (Ms Jobson) won the day. She sat me in her office for six weeks to teach me herself the things I would need to know to take the scholarship exam. I won a scholarship – and so that is how I ended up at South Hampstead.

Memories certainly came flooding back – but they are all another story…