'If in my tales there are a few words rather freer than suits the prudes, who weigh words more than deeds and take more pains to appear than to be good, I say I should no more be reproved for having written them than other folk are daily reproved for saying 'hole'. 'peg'. 'mortar'. sausage and like things.

'No corrupt mind ever understands words healthily. And just as such people do not enjoy virtuous words, so the well-disposed cannot be harmed by words somewhat less virtuous, any more than mud can sully sunlight or earthly filth the beauty of the skies.'

Those of us fortunate enough to have studied under the wise and caring guidance of Doctor Simon White will always salute the achievements of this remarkable scholar whose main educational aim was to break the shackles that bind us to a false morality. He showed his pupils that in his learned opinion, throughout man's past, throughout all known civilisations of both East and West, there have always been conflicts between the desires of some and the imposed wills of others. Sometimes, one class has been in a minority, sometimes it has been the other; but the rule holds good and indeed, it seems but only yesterday that I was back in my favourite chair in the prefects' room at Nottsgrove Academy, listening with the other senior boys to our dear old headmaster espousing his theories of philosophy with that characteristic passion and lucidity that were hallmarks of his delivery of a lecture to us. I should say that he encouraged argument and never attempted to indoctrinate us against our wills. But I digress, so I shall take up again the Wands of memory to a day of excitement at Nottsgrove.