I still shudder at the thought of school sport and the pleated skirts that one's mother had to iron (and my mother thought ironing a bourgois plot).

I was not a team player so that was horrendous, they wouldn't let me where my spectacles, I had a size D bust by the age of 12 (and sports bras didn't exist) and I wasn't too well (but we didn't know why).

But what I really, really remember with bitterness was the utter lack of actual teaching. Can you imagine an approach to algebra that began "there's the sum on the board, you can all do it if you just put enough effort in. *Jane*! You just aren't *trying*!!!"