Tuesday July 1st

The first “lesson” today was an A level English meeting in C12. After registering in C6 we went up to the Common room and then the people who were interested in taking A level English had to go to the meeting.

My immediate impression after Mrs Bastow had given us the blurb was that it would be a pretty hard course and also quite dull. We were given four books to read by September – two Shakespeare: “Julius Caesar,” “Anthony and Cleopatra” and V. S. Naipal’s “A House for Mr. Biswas” and also Jane Austen’s “Persuasion.” The last book especially seems extremely boring. I was given some encouragement though when Mr. Giles said that I had made the right decision.

From about 1000 to 1125 I hung around in the Common Room because Group A was having the ‘Understanding Industry’ talk on “Commerce and Industry.” I hadn’t read the first booklet (we were given seven), so I supposedly read that. I put my name on the list for the ‘Film Society’ - £3.00 (50p per film) and spent a lot of the time dossing about reading catalogues of films available and talking to Sean Laxton. He’s alright once you get talking to him.

At 11.25 Group B trooped down to the F. E. Lounge for the Industry talk. It was given by a manager or somebody involved with Barclay’s Bank in Lockley. It was absolutely devoid of interest – another six talks like this !?

That talk finished at a few minutes to one and I talked to RQ in the C. R. about the caving weekend. According to him, one of the three pots we are doing contains a 160 ft pitch!! The 100 ft one down Bar Pot was bad enough – I was totally shattered.

For the last lesson we had Games and RQ and I ‘played’ tennis. I am dismal at the game; my standards have really lowered because I’m out of practice.

I got home at three and Dad was in the garage. I watched Wimbledon until tea at four when Mum came home. Dad showed me the lean-to greenhouse he’s erected against the east-facing garage end wall. It’s small – so small in fact that I’ve got to really bend to get through the door.

At five Mum’s driving instructor came and I sat watching tennis ‘till she came back at seven. She said it hadn’t been as bad as she’d expected and she had driven about at 20 mph permanently. I’ll still have to see it to believe it.

I couldn’t write my report on “Commerce and Industry” because I’d left Book 1 at school, so I watched television all evening. At about ten I went upstairs and sorted loads of my papers for school.

Mr Farrar is coming to fit new windows in tomorrow so I’ve got to get up early to move all my bedroom furniture.