These days Hanmer School is tranquil and thriving, just the kind of country school people campaign to keep open because it's gentler than the bigger urban versions, and the kids get more individual attention. Astonishing, to me, to go back and eavesdrop on these well-behaved children who wear uniforms, talk trustingly with their teachers, and have even produced a booklet which tells me that the school was first built in 1676, and that the Charity Commissioners reported in 1847 that it was damp and dirty, with rotting furniture. This 1847 school is more recognisable to me than the present one: all this cleanliness is unnatural. And what are they doing being literate, for God's sake? This isn't the school I knew. Perhaps I really did grow up, as I sometimes suspect, in a time-warp, an enclave of the 19th century? Because here are the memories jostling their way in, scenes from an overpopulated rural slum.

LRB 21 October 1993 | PDF Download