‘Well, it started soon enough . . . the bullying. Apple-pie bed the first night. Tie cut in half. Letters from my mum stolen and read out so that everyone could have a good laugh. That was the end of the first week. Then there was the name-calling. About six weeks in, I got caught stealing a postal order. Remember those? A £2 postal order. Well, I was up in front of the housemaster for that and three strokes of the cane, but it was the other kids who were worse. After that I was Tea Leaf. Always Tea Leaf. They never let me forget it.

‘Charles le Mesurier was the ringleader. I never understood how he got the power because he wasn’t stronger or smarter than any of the others. I remember him as a scrawny little kid and there was always this gleam in his eyes as he worked out what sort of cruelty he might get up to next. You know, when you describe all these things later they sound small and petty and you wonder what all the fuss was about. But at the time . . . it hollows you out. It makes you feel worthless. I saw it when I met him again here. It was exactly the same. Flash. He loved being called that. His nickname wasn’t an insult to him. He loved it. He revelled in it.

‘Every night he’d pick on another new bug, which is what they called the first-years. He was two years ahead of us and he was part of a gang, four or five of them, that used to prowl the corridors after prep. They’d pick you up and throw you in the laundry basket with everyone’s dirty clothes and then tie down the lid. You might be there for an hour before someone let you out. Or he’d do the same thing in your study . . . tie you to a chair with parcel tape so you’d be late for chapel and get a bollocking from the housemaster. One day, I came into my study and he’d vandalised all my photographs . . . my mum, my dad, my dog. He’d drawn things with a Magic Marker. I don’t need to tell you what sort of things. He was sick, I really believe that.’

He drew a breath.

‘I went on stealing. And when I got caught the third time and was thrown out of Westland, it was the happiest day of my life. My dad never forgave me, though. He was a lieutenant commander on a frigate – Broadsword. And having a son who’d been caught pilfering, he thought it reflected on him. He never really spoke to me very much after that. I tried to explain, but he wouldn’t listen.’