‘It’s all very well saying we should question our motives for being involved in sex education,’ Gwern said. A newly qualified teacher in his first job, his speech was instantly recognisable as Cardiganshire Welsh. He continued, ‘I was just told that it was a part of the tutorial class-work and that I might get to go on a course if there’s some spare cash at the end of the year. I don’t have a motive for my involvement: I just feel coerced.’ Catrin, the head of RE from the largest school in the area, said that since the Assembly’s new Sex Education guidelines had come in they’d had to involve reluctant teachers who’d had no specialised training too, but at least their school policy was quite clear about what could and could not be taught; ‘Our biggest problem as a group of staff,’ she explained, ‘is dealing with personal questions and disclosures. I know that kids can play up and they often just ask things to test you, or see if they can embarrass you, but sometimes you get the sense that a question is genuine. Just recently some of the girls in Year Eleven asked if I’d had sex before I was married.’

‘What did you say?’ Ben quizzed.

‘I asked them why they wanted to know,’ Catrin said straightforwardly. ‘It’s a good tactic with personal questions, it gives you a bit of time to think and it helps you judge if they’re trying it on.’

‘And what did they say?’ asked Gwern.

‘Well, one of the girls said she was feeling pressured by her boyfriend and another, who’d thought she was ready, had carted her boyfriend off to see the Family Planning people and they’d both come away feeling a bit unsure. They were talking so sensibly, and they wanted to know how I’d dealt with my first sexual experiences.’

‘So how much of yourself do you give away, Catrin?’ Ben asked, searching her face with his grey eyes.

‘That’s a hard one,’ she said with a shrug. ‘It all depends on what sort of life you’ve led, I suppose. I’ve only ever slept with one man and we did sleep together before we were married, but I was twenty-two and engaged and we kept having to put the wedding off because Paul’s mother had cancer. I didn’t mind sharing that with the girls… but perhaps if I’d had sex with two or three boyfriends when I was in college, or if I’d had an abortion at 15, or maybe if I was a lesbian, I might not have wanted to say too much. Kids can be bloody cruel if they think they’ve got something on you.’